The National Right to Strike Campaign 2012 is underway. Unions and community groups resolve to have the Fair Work Australia Act become ILO compliant to protect the right to strike. First is a broad based education campaign to highlight the necessity of Australians to have the right to strike. PM Gillard retained the restrictions and [...]
About chriswhite
Chris White now lives in Darwin, Northern Territory. He is secretary of APHEDA NT. He is a Honorary Senior Research Fellow at The Northern Institute Charles Darwin University +61889467169 chris.white2@cdu.edu.au He lived in Canberra from 2005 researching labour law and industrial relations and worked for the union ASMOF and then the NTEU ACT. He tutored in Politics for two years at the ANU Politics and International Relations. He has been criticising WorkChoices, specifically the labour law supressing the right to strike, the repression of building and construction workers, and reporting on the new China labour laws . He writes on social justice challenges. He links into international solidarity for workers and the disadvantaged. He worked for the SA unions for 27 years. First as an Industrial Officer for the Australian Workers Union SA branch. Then he was for 10 years Research Officer/Industrial Advocate for the LHMU, then the Miscellaneous Workers Union SA branch. In 1985 he was elected Assistant Secretary of the United Trades and Labor Council of SA and then in 1998 elected Secretary until 2001. He was on the ACTU executive for 15 years. He represented unions on SA Industrial Relations and Occupational Health and Safety and Workers' Compensation and Rehabilitation Commisions and social justice and employment committees. From 1998 to 2002 he was a Director and Trustee of SA Statewide Superannuation Trust and United Superannuation Pty Ltd. He was active in Socially Responsible Investment decisions. For 10 years he was on the board of the SA Working Womens Centre. For 15 years he was Chair of the Junction Theatre Company. For 6 years he was Ministerial Arts Board member on the State Theatre Company. He was awarded a Centenary Medal Commonwealth Honour for contributions to unions and the community. From 2003-2005 he was a Board member SA Housing Trust Board In 2002 he was on the Offenders Aid and Rehabilitation Services (OARS): prison rehabilitation and restorative justice. For 30 years he was active in the SA East Timor Association and now Patron. Since 1974 he has been a member of the ALP and with SA unions organising in state and federal election campaigns. He has been active in the ACTU Your Rights at Work Worth Fighting For campaign. He was a Post Graduate Research PhD scholar 2003-2006 School of Law, Flinders University researching 'The right to strike', but for personal reasons did not complete his thesis. He was a radical student activist, editor of ON DIT and Secretary of the Student's Union. He completed a Law degree LLB and Arts (Honours Politics) in 1972. He then worked for a year as a law tutor at the University of Adelaide Law School before his career with the unions. He is an advocate and consultant on workforce and social justice issues. contact chrisdwhite@bigpond.com
National Right to Strike Campaign

Rinehart’s control
Mining magnate Gina Rinehart has just bought a major stake in Fairfax media — in a bid that could turn The Age and The Sydney Morning Herald into mouthpieces for climate denial to protect her mining interests. But together we can foil her plan. Rinehart has already bought Channel Ten’s agenda — and Australia’s ownership [...]

Andy Alcock: campaign on OHS
ARK TRIBE, THE ABCC & THE AUSTRALIAN CRISIS IN OHS&W by Andy Alcock Introduction I was asked by the members of the Eco Socialist Convergence in South Australia to prepare a pamphlet about the struggles by the union movement to have the most effective OHS&W laws in Australia to protect workers from death, disease and [...]

Decent work
Vision video: 2 million unionists. Should this promotion of unionism be on TV? Discuss. http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=zpwA0lI_nZU

Apple in China
In China, Human Costs Are Built Into an iPad By CHARLES DUHIGG and DAVID BARBOZA January 25, 2012 http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/26/business/ieconomy-apples-ipad-and-the-human-costs-for-workers-in-china.html?ref=global-home

Tent embassy protest justified
TV beat-up on justified protest. What is losing a shoe compared to losing a continent. http://wgwau.com/blog/2012/01/26/the-tent-embassy-debacle-from-a-protesters-pov/

Insecure work
Independent Inquiry into Insecure Work in Australia http://securejobs.org.au/ I recommend two changes for more secure work. 1. Amend the Fair Work Act to have an effective right to strike. 2. Amend the Fair Work Act to restrict casual and other forms of precarious work to a limited period and apply more secure contracts of employment. [...]

Canadian labour
Canadian Labour At The Crossroads? Doug Nesbitt A wage cut of fifty per cent. An elimination of pensions. Cuts to benefits. These demands have inevitably led to a major showdown at a locomotive factory in London, Ontario between the 700 unionized workers of Electro-Motive Diesel (EMD) and Caterpillar, a massive U.S.-based corporation. The workers, members [...]

Review: We Built this Country
We Built This Country – Builders’ Labourers and their Unions, by Humphrey McQueen, Ginninderra Press, Port Adelaide, 2011, 364pp, $30.00 Review by Howard Guille This is the second book of Humphrey McQueen’s research into builders’ labourers and their unions. Read it, as the author says, with the earlier volume ‘Framework of Flesh: Builders’ labourers battle [...]
IMPORTANT NOTE
About The Author
Chris has worked in the trade union movement for 30 years and researches on left politics, union issues and China labour law. He lives in Darwin.
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