Mary Merkenich

  • Good showing for militants in Victorian AEU election

    In elections held last month for officers and councillors in the Victorian branch of the Australian Education Union (AEU), all state councillors who are members of the opposition grouping Teachers Alliance (TA) were returned. The group’s candidates won an average overall vote of 25%.

  • Defending public values

    As nearly 70% of Australian students pack their school bags and return to school, they may feel bemused by not having Prime Minister John Howard's support, nor that of most of his cabinet. In an interview with the

  • Teachers stop work

    In the week preceding the September 17 Australia- wide day of industrial action by teachers' unions, including 24-hour strikes by teachers in three states and a half day stop-work in the ACT, the Victorian branch of the Australian

  • Teachers' historic stop work

    For the first time, education unions across Australia are planning to take co-ordinated action to protest against the pay offers to teachers and education funding policies of state governments. NSW, Victorian and WA teachers and

  • Victorian teachers to stop work

    MELBOURNE — On July 19, the annual conference of the Victorian branch of the Australian Education Union unanimously endorsed a resolution to support nationally coordinated action over the refusal of state governments to

  • Teachers and freedom of speech in the classroom

    As thousands of high school students walked out of class to oppose the war on Iraq, radio "shock jocks" condemned left-wing teachers and their unions for "imposing" their opposition to the war in Iraq on young students. So do

  • Baxter protests planned for Easter

    MELBOURNE — Opponents of the Howard government's policy of mandatory detention of "illegal" refugees are planning to converge on the Baxter detention centre outside Port augusta over the Easter weekend, April 18-21. Baxter is

  • Jews for Refugees protest

    MELBOURNE — On March 31, Jews for Refugees held its first public event — a 700-strong rally during the Festival of Passover, Pesach — outside Maribyrnong detention centre. A car pool and cavalcade led by Yids on Wheels — a

  • A rude schooling in the struggle for better education

    BY MARY MERKENICH & NORRIAN RUNDLE Victorian teachers have been sold out again by their union, following its decision to abandon a campaign for increased schools funding in the state budget. The Australian Education Union had called a stopwork

  • Abortion doctors reinstated

    Abortion doctors reinstatedMELBOURNE — The Royal Women's Hospital announced on July 10 that it would reinstate three medical workers suspended for performing a late-term abortion on a 40-year-old woman who discovered that her

  • Late-term abortion fans anti-choice flames

    The Victorian state coroner has been asked to investigate the case of a Melbourne woman whose pregnancy was terminated at 32 weeks after she learned that her child was likely to be a dwarf. The Royal Women's Hospital has suspended