Archive for March, 2009

Falling rate of profit

Posted 31 March 2009 | By chriswhite | Categories: Capitalist Financial Crisis | No Comments

Accessing two articles analysis by Michael Lebowitz of capitalism , a founding member of the Socialist Studies Society and a Professor Emeritus of Economics at Simon Fraser University.
Marx’s Falling Rate of Profit: A Dialectical View – Michael Lebowitz
Capital and the Production of Needs – Michael Lebowitz
Access these articles at
http://www.surplusvalue.org.au/Pages/Michael_Lebowitz.html

How the G-20 Can Pay for a Global Climate Deal

Posted 31 March 2009 | By chriswhite | Categories: Environmental crisis | No Comments

The G-20 summit convening in London on April 2 is preparing to create a quarter trillion dollars of brand new stimulus money to help poor countries battle the global recession.
World leaders plan to use a little-known form of global currency to pay the freight, a currency known technically as “Special Drawing Rights” (SDRs) but often [...]

New unionism network

Posted 30 March 2009 | By chriswhite | Categories: Collective Bargaining, Workers Rights | No Comments

This New Unionism Network is worth following.
http://www.newunionism.net” promotes the principles of organizing, workplace democracy, internationalism and creative thinking in the union movement. It includes:
State of the unions
A ‘one stop shop’ for quick information on national union
membership numbers, union density, membership trends and labor rights.
Among other things, the [...]

Wild cat strikes should not be unlawful

Posted 30 March 2009 | By chriswhite | Categories: Collective Bargaining, Right to Strike, Workers Rights | No Comments

In today’s press are reports of a so-called ‘wild-cat strike’ at Australian airports after hundreds of baggage handlers and other staff walked off the job yesterday morning in response to concerns about outsourcing and security issues. The term ‘wildcat’ is used derogatively against the workforce. Yet from the workers view they are not [...]

The Free Market and the Social Divide in Education

Posted 30 March 2009 | By chriswhite | Categories: Capitalist Financial Crisis, Public Policy, Social justice | No Comments

The Free Market and the Social Divide in Education
by Trevor Cobbold,
at the National Public Education Forum Old Parliament House Canberra, 27-28 March 2009
As Geoffrey Robertson has just said, education is a human right. Education for all without discrimination is an essential feature of a democracy. It is
also a guarantee of democracy.
However, the right [...]

DPM fails to support minimum wage

Posted 29 March 2009 | By chriswhite | Categories: Social justice, Workers Rights | No Comments

On the ABC’s Insiders this morning, the prattle about our Defence Minister should not have occured after DPM Gillard put it all to rest! The journalists can’t seem to analyse and ask questions about the capitalist crisis and debate the coming G20 conference, where those against corporate globalisation and financial disaster can oly protest in [...]

Protest on environment

Posted 29 March 2009 | By chriswhite | Categories: Environmental crisis | No Comments

Leading climate scientist: ‘democratic process isn’t working’
Protest and direct action could be the only way to tackle soaring carbon emissions, James Hansen, NASA’s Chief Climate Scientist has said.
He says that corporate lobbying has undermined democratic attempts to curb carbon pollution. “The democratic process doesn’t quite seem to be working.”
Speaking on the eve of joining [...]

International union claims

Posted 26 March 2009 | By chriswhite | Categories: Capitalist Financial Crisis | No Comments

Brussels, 23 March 2009 (ITUC President Sharan Burrow: In a worldwide push for action by G20 governments to pull the global economy out of recession and chart a new course for job creation, financial regulation and global governance, trade unions across the world are today delivering a common set of demands to their national governments. [...]

Crunch Time Conference

Posted 26 March 2009 | By chriswhite | Categories: Public Policy, Social justice | No Comments

Crunch Time A Sydney conference with speakers from Australia’s leading progressive think tanks. At the halfway mark of the Rudd Government’s first term, and a year on from the 2020 Summit, this conference considers the principles and values that should guide progressive policy making into the 21 st [...]