News briefs

Jobs lost as glass factory closes

HOBART — The ACI Moonah Glass Packaging plant will close on March 17, at the cost of 140 jobs. Henceforth ACI glass products will be manufactured in Korea.

ACI blamed the closure on cheap imports from Indonesia. The February 6 Hobart Mercury quoted John Glisson from the Australian Workers Union as blaming cheap Indonesian imports and calling for tariffs.

The Hobart secretary of the Democratic Socialist Party, Iggy Kim, rejected tariffs as a solution and called for solidarity with workers in low wage economies, pointing to the Korean general strike and the PPBI's campaigns for living wages in Indonesia.

CD launched

MELBOURNE — Some 100 people attended a CD launch of Union is Strength in the Lord Newry Hotel on February 7. The CD was compiled by Peter Hicks and others to salute the heroes of the Weipa dispute. Over $1000 was raised for the Mark Allen Trust, named after a union organiser killed while trying to organise an unsafe work site protest in Perth last year.

Judy Small gave rousing renditions of some of her well-known songs, including "You don't speak for me" — a song she aimed at Pauline Hanson.

New activist centre

WOLLONGONG — A new Resistance Centre opened here on February 8, with twice as much space and an extended bookshop. The office will be home to Resistance, the Democratic Socialist Party, Action in Solidarity with Indonesia and East Timor and Green Left Weekly.

From GLW issue 263