In the Financial Review yesterday, DPM Gillard remains tough in Labor’s crack-down on pattern bargaining. Pattern bargaining – industry-wide industrial action in pursuit of an industry agreement or identical enterprise agreements – is like workChoices specifically prohibited by her Bill (sections 412 and 422). Her “Fair” Work Bill retains all of the WorkChoices repressive regime [...]
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Not New York education
No, Julia! New York is Not Working New York City Schools Chancellor and prospective US Secretary of Education, Joel Klein, is in Australia next week to spruik his school reforms. The Federal Education Minister, Julia Gillard, claims that reforms such as reporting individual school results are “working†and have produced “remarkable outcomesâ€. She says that [...]
Financial Crisis and Democratic Public Finance
The Financial Crisis and Democratic Public Finance by Leo Panitch. First let’s be clear about capitalism — and with it the character of the state under capitalism. There is a conventional assumption, a leftover of the cold war perhaps, that somehow capitalism is essentially about the market and socialism is essentially about the state. In [...]
Labor’s Education Counter-Revolution
LABOR’S EDUCATION COUNTER-REVOLUTION by Rob Durbridge, AEU Federal Industrial Officer State and Territory Labor governments are “pattern bargaining†against the AEU and its associated state unions to remove education quality guarantees from industrial agreements. Howard’s Workchoices proscribed staffing guarantees as unlawful; Minister Gillard recently announced that the new IR laws will proscribe matters which don’t [...]
Paid Maternity Leave – Put it in 2009′s Federal Budget
Right now the Rudd Government is looking to drop paid maternity leave from 2009′s federal budget. Opinion polls, talk back radio and letters to editor clearly show time after time that Australians support government-funded paid maternity leave. From the YRAW campaign. The DPM’s own experts, the Productivity Commission, has said that government-funded paid maternity leave [...]
Education campaign for our future
From the Australian Education Union. In Australia the federal government shares responsibility with state and territory governments for funding schools. Money is provided for both the ongoing operations of schools and for the capital works (new buildings and equipment) that schools need. Unfortunately at a federal government level there has been a dramatic decrease in [...]
A pensioner replies
The ALP’s ditching of social equality has come back to bite it on the stimulus package. On 8 December, single pensioners will find $1400 in our bank accounts. A survey has shown that 40% of recipients are planning not to spend the grant. Instead, we will protect ourselves against the crisis in capital accumulation turning [...]
Australia destroys its own Stonehenge
Australia destroys its own Stonehenge: First images showing full impact of Woodside’s new LNG plant in the heart of the Burrup Peninsula, Western Australia. http://www.standupfortheburrup.com/1.jpg Friends of Australian Rock Art is today releasing recent aerial photographs which show for the first time the full extent of Woodside’s destruction of a globally significant rock art area [...]
Safe Work Australia?
Safe Work Australia – Joint Greens, Coalition & Xenophon statement The Deputy Prime Minister is walking away from safety consultation at the highest level by refusing to incorporate the Senate amendments in the Safe Work Australia Bill. An unlikely alliance of the Greens, the Independents and the Coalition says that Julia Gillard is turning her [...]
News from LabourStart
- Australia: BHP's aim is to break the power of unions
- Turkey: Support for Arrested KESK Women
- Ireland: IMPACT calls on Government to deliver reforms on collective bargaining and employees' rights
- Australia: Unions wrap up ACTU Congress with renewed vigour to campaign for rights at work and fairer Australia
- Colombia: Urgent Action: Colombian union leaders in danger
- Europe: IndustriALL-European Trade Union Born Today with Merger of Three Federations
- Bangladesh: Workers suffering from low wages end days of strikes and riots sparked by disappearance of trade union leader
- Switzerland: Unions hold protest at International Olympic Committee to support Canadian Rio Tinto workers
- Global: Full coverage of IUF congress in Geneva
- Turkey: Turkish Government ’s anti-democratic attack on the right to strike
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