“When our unions are under attack, what do we do? Stand up, fight back!” This was the chant from nearly a hundred activists greeting attendees at the Freedom Foundation’s swanky fundraising banquet Sept. 23 in Bellevue, Wash. Organized Workers for Labor Solidarity (OWLS) called the boisterous picket and sidewalk rally, which included a healthy Freedom… Read more »
Unions
Worker Worms Are Turning: Watch Out Reith!
“The public system needs to be preserved so that good education is available to everyone in the community.” Teachers are fighting, using their unions, to defend the rights that are being taken from them.
Research proves what workers always knew: capitalist work practices are a Health Hazard
Poverty makes you sick. There’s nothing surprising about that idea. But two recently reported studies take this much further. They came to the same conclusion: that class is the major determinant of health.
Organising Against Intimidation at Northern TAFE: Support Swells for Union/Community Campaign
Former union leaders from the Australian Education Union (AEU) sub-branch at Northern Melbourne Institute of TAFE (NMIT) are prepared to campaign for as long as it takes to bring the union busting management at the Institute to heel. The No More Intimidation of Teacher (NMIT) Unionists Campaign Committee, established at an AEU sub-branch stopwork meeting… Read more »
New South Wales TAFE: Casual Teachers Fire Up
The activist Special Interest Group model within the structure of the union has resulted in significant gains for casual workers in the NSW TAFE system. It is a model TAFE workers in other states must consider.
Organising the Unorganised
Australia has one of the highest rates of part-time and casual work in the world, and three-quarters of part-time and casual workers are women. Casualisation is growing sharply. Two years ago, one in five workers was part-time or casual. Now it is one in four.
Teamster reform movement sabotaged by reliance on Big Brother and ties to Democratic Party
The Carey affair again exposes the Achilles heel of the U.S. labour movement – its class-collaborationists, co-dependent relationship with the Democratic Party.
TAFE Workers Fight Breaks in Contracts
Western Melbourne Institute of TAFE (WMIT) has an appalling track record in the way it treats workers employed on fixed-term contracts. A favoured management tactic to prevent workers from being eligible to certain entitlements is to place breaks between the end of one contract and the start of the next. Members of both the Australian… Read more »
Nation Feminist Conference Backs TAFE Union Struggle
The 6th Women and Labour Conference (held at Deakin University in Geelong, 28 – 30 November) featured a workshop, “Resist Casualisation and Union Busting in TAFE: Frontline Fighters Speak Out!,” which was jointly sponsored by Radical Women and the NMIT Unionists Campaign Committee. Strong women unionists from the Australian Education Union (AEU) and National Tertiary… Read more »
The Co-option Game: Enterprise Bargaining to Extend Bosses’ Plunder
The Federal ALP introduced enterprise bargaining in 1991 to replace the pre-existing centralised “wage fixing” system. No longer do workers get regular wage adjustments. Instead, the only way of getting so-called wage “increases” is by “bargaining” with the boss. With the deck stacked against us.