GLW issue 631, published 2005-06-29.

Anti-union laws will hurt millions - If you don't fight, you lose!

Sam Wainwright There's a change in the air. In the first few months after PM John Howard was re-elected and he revealed the full scope of his government's anti-worker agenda, depression and despair were everywhere to be found. The message coming

Seeing Red: Fight-back kit against Howard's IR plans

Dick Nichols The fourth issue of Socialist Alliance's quarterly magazine Seeing Red, now out, focuses on the federal Coalition government's plans to break the back of the Australian trade union movement through its "reforms" to industrial relations

'Touch one - touch all!'

Ron Perkins, Perth Perth's Unions-WA organised June 30 protest rally against the federal government's proposed anti-worker industrial laws looks set to be the largest since unions mobilised against the state Coalition government's infamous "second"

SHOCKFACTS: Australia's work force

Half of Australia's workers (around 3.8 million) earn less than $678 a week ($35,351 per year). The work force grew by just over 400,000 new jobs from 2000-2003, but 64.8% of these pay less than $600 a week. More than 2 million people earn less

Further

Australian News

Building a fighting spirit in Geelong

Sue Bull, Geelong Long-time political activist and socialist Tim Gooden was declared elected unopposed to the Geelong Trades Hall Council's secretary position on June 21. His tenure will be for five years. This is a significant victory for union

Make the IR laws 'inoperable'

NEWCASTLE — "The trade union movement is at a crossroads — we can stick or heads in the sand, we can throw up our hands and promise to be good or we can lead the fight against Howard and make these laws inoperable." This is what Steve Murphy

Further Australian News

International News

IRAQ: Bush, Blair, Howard and the Downing Street memo

Rohan Pearce US troops shot Farqad Mohammed Khinaisar at 8am on May 29. She was 15 minutes away from the Baghdad high school she taught at when a convoy of soldiers from the 3rd Infantry Division opened fire on her car. Her death was the end result

VENEZUELA: Plot to kill Chavez discovered

Stuart Munckton & Roberto Jorquera On June 21, Venezuelan interior minister Jesse Chacon announced that Venezuelan security had uncovered a plot to assassinate President Hugo Chavez. He said the plot was linked to those who organised an

Further International News

Editorial

A workers' paper

PM John Howard's new industrial relations laws will be disastrous for working people. The changes are not simply an attack on the wages and conditions of today's workers, they are an attempt to render workers powerless and allow bosses free reign in

Cultural Dissent

On the box

Australian Biography: Jack Mundey — As secretary of the NSW branch of the Builders Labourers Federation, Jack Mundey led the union's famous "green bans", a conservation campaign that redefined the development of Australia's major cities. SBS,

Poet of the poor

Pablo Neruda: A Passion for LifeBy Adam FeinsteinBloomsbury, 2004497 pages, $65 (hb) REVIEW BY PHIL SHANNON Pablo Neruda was a poet who won the Nobel prize for literature. He was also a lifelong, if increasingly troubled, Stalinist. As Adam

Further Cultural Dissent

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