Chris is a labour law researcher, specialising in China and the right to strike. He spent 27 years in the SA union movement. Chris now lives in Canberra. More →
Freelance left labour historian Humphrey McQueen as guest comments on the capitalist crisis: exploitation the basis, it’s not socialism and all capitalists are parasites. Exploitation leads to over-consumption Even if $US700bn cauterises the collapse of the sub-prime mortgage market, it will not touch the core of the crisis. The root cause is the exploitation of [...]
Financial crisis: working families need protection IR and labour law policy issues in other posts commenting on the Labor governmen cannot but be connected to the capitalist crisis dramatically unfolding with bank and business crashes daily. It is on-going and impacting on working families. This is clear reading the weekend’s press, following Stephen Long daily [...]
Critical comments on DPM and Minister for Workplace Relations Julia Gillard’s Forward with Fairness policy speech are widespread. Union activists in Your Rights at Work campaign, acknowledged as pivotal in defeating Howard because of his workplace regime, are bitterly disappointed in DPM Julia Gillard’s address to the National Press Club on Labor’s proposed IR system [...]
The ACTU’s TV ads and campaign argues there is no fair play with Australian building and construction workers having less rights at work than other workers. Unions and voters want the repeal of the Building and Construction Act 2005 and the ABCC before 2010. The back-ground. On average, 50 construction workers are killed each year [...]
October 7th is the world day of decent work which is a joint campaign supported by UNI Global Union and led by the International Trade Union Confederation, the Global Progressive Forum, Social Alert and Solidar which aims to: * Build awareness of Decent Work amongst citizens, decision makers and key institutions; * Show that Decent [...]
With Australian workers under the Howard regime not having any legal ability for workplace democracy rights, you would have thought Minister julia Gillard would be ensuring these basic rights at work. But not so. This is a book review I wrote in 2002 on the then Works Councils debate. Workplace democracy is worth reviving. WORKS [...]
I was in that great city San Francisco in March 2007 and looked at the union question. Australian unions are dependent on US unions’ surviving, whether we like it or not. I talked with union activists and report on union debates: ∑ social unionism lives; ∑ organising for growth, the SEIU; ∑ militant left unionism [...]
Workers enjoying strike action at the ABC in South Australia.
The Howard government suppressed the freedom of workers to associate by severely limiting the means workers have to collectively bargain, in particular prohibiting the withdrawing of their labour power. ‘Law and order’ was the political ‘spin’ used against unions, with zero tolerance allowed for so-called ‘unlawful’ strikes. In a collective bargaining system, the strike is [...]
