The magazine Australian Options no 66 Spring 2011 has good articles on: why we have to get out of Afghanistan and the costs of war; critiques of Gillard’s Clean Energy policies – a capital agenda, ecological modernisation, and limits and alternatives on climate change; unions greens and markets;education in the aboriginal world;national competition policy; the [...]

We Built This Country
‘We Built This Country – Builders’ Labourers and their Unions’ by Humphrey McQueen Order copies from bookshops or Ginninderra Press, Port Adelaide, 2011. The following are the timelines. 1780s to 1850 Unions 1788 The first BLs are convicts. Some run away from floggings to range the bush. 1829 ‘Free’ workers are controlled by Masters and [...]

Marx and ecology
The Ecology of Marxian Political Economy by John Bellamy Foster This article from Monthly Review is an extended version of a talk delivered at the Marxism 2011 Conference, University College of London, July 3, 2011. I recommend reading John Bellamy Foster’s book ‘The Ecological Rift Capitalism’s War on the Earth’ with Brett Clark and Richard [...]

Lessons for Australian unions
The Civil Wars in U.S. Labor Birth of a New Workers’ Movement or Death Throes of the Old? By Steve Early Early’s book is essential reading for Australian unionists, particularly those , like myself, who pushed for union restructuring and organising works and follow the SEIU.This is keenly debated by US unions. ‘Between 2008 and [...]

Reviving the Strike
Reviving the Strike: How Working People Can Regain Power and Transform America by Joe Burns 2011 I urge reading this book on ‘Reviving the Strike How Working People can Regain Power and Transform America’ (2011), and despite different historical and institutional restrictions on the effective strike, the lessons for Australian unions today are important. here [...]

Handbook for workplace struggle
I recommend for every union library and union training from the USA ‘A Troublemaker’s Handbook 2′ A Labor Notes Book 2005. How fight back, to struggle at work and win. http://www.troublemakershandbook.org/TEXT/Strikes/La%20Botz%20Days%20of%20Action.htm

Corporates in schools
This little kiddy went to market by Sharon Beder Visiting professor, School of Social Sciences, Media and Communication, University of Wollongong. In 2007 Joel Klein, chancellor of New York City schools outlined to an overflow meeting of parents his plans to restructure New York schools in the form of businesses. Nation magazine reported: “In the [...]

XANANA
XANANA – Leader of the Struggle for Independent Timor-Leste by Sara Niner (Australian Scholarly Publishing) Reviewer: Andy Alcock Australia East Timor Friendship Association SA Inc As a person who has been involved in the solidarity movement for East Timor since the middle of 1975, I was very excited to learn that Sara Niner had written [...]

Unions must move left
mobilizing model produces unions that are directed by fulltime paid staff, in which workers play a subordinate role. At worst, workers become almost irrelevant in a numbers game in which the size of the union is what counts, rather than creating an organization they can learn to use to challenge the employer at work to win better wages and conditions.
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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