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
Author Archive | chriswhite

Keeping union members

Retaining members in public sector unions by Alex White on DECEMBER 3, 2011 University of Warrick academic Jeremy Waddington and UNISON national officer Allan Kerr authored a fascinating article for the Industrial Relations Journal, Membership retention in the public sector. The article examines membership retention in one of the United Kingdom’s largest public sector unions, [...]

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US unions, immigrants occupy

Unions and Immigrants Join Occupy Movements by David Bacon, Truthout. Oakland, California – When Occupy Seattle called its tent camp “Planton Seattle,” camp organizers were laying a local claim to a set of tactics used for decades by social movements in Mexico, Central America and the Philippines. And when immigrant janitors marched down to the [...]

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Rev Dr Djiniyini Gondarra against the ‘Second Intervention

Rev Dr Djiniyini Gondarra criticises Gillard’s ‘Second Intervention’ otherwise known as ‘Stronger Futures in the NT’, a new Commonwealth Government initiative from Minister Macklin that maintains key racists powers introduced through Howard’s NT Intervention. Dr Gondarra is a Senior Elder from Elcho Island. This message was screened in Sydney on Saturday December 3, at a [...]

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Rich schools to get more?

Outlandish Funding Bonanza for Private Schools ‘A report published today by the public education advocacy group, Save Our Schools, finds that two voucher models of school funding proposed to the Gonski Review would deliver billions of dollars in additional funding for private schools and no increases for government schools. Trevor Cobbold, author of the report [...]

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To strike or not to…

My book review of ‘Reviving the Strike’ now also posted at Left Focus here http://leftfocus.blogspot.com/2011/12/important-book-review-reviving-strike.html Also posted on the new Evatt website http://evatt.org.au/news/reviving-strike.html

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Troops out of Afghanistan

Send letter to delegates at ALP conference http://stopwarcoalition.org/sign-on-letter-to-pm-julia-gillard-troops-out-of-afghanistan/

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Doctors against uranium sales to India

The Medical Association for Prevention of War (MAPW) has called on the Government and the ALP to lead the world towards the abolition of nuclear weapons, rather than risking nuclear weapons proliferation by selling Australian uranium to nuclear-armed India. MAPW Vice-President Dr Margaret Beavis said in a 15 November media release: “We cannot guarantee the [...]

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Cooperation not intervention

Cooperation not intervention: a call for a new direction in the Northern Territory From ACOSS 23 November 2011 Aboriginal peak bodies, community welfare and public health groups from around the country are calling for a new direction in policies affecting Aboriginal Australians based on cooperation, not ‘intervention’. The groups support new investment in secure jobs [...]

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Occupy: union lessons

What Can Labor Learn? It won’t be easy for union leaders to accept the Occupy movement’s most important lesson. BY Mike Elk Unions’ ability to take full advantage of the Occupy movement will hinge on their ability to embrace social movements, and their willingness to take bold actions in smart strategic campaigns and to stick [...]

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