Sue Bolton

On May 30, Labor’s industrial relations spokesperson Julia Gillard shocked many unionists when she announced at the National Press Club that a Rudd Labor government would retain the Australian Building and Construction Commission (ABCC) until January 31, 2010. This back flip comes a month after Labor decided, at its national conference, to abolish the hated body. ACTU president Sharan Burrow said she did not support the delay.

At its May 15 meeting, Geelong Trades Hall Council passed a motion declaring that “GTHC is opposed to any laws that fetter and/or criminalise union activity and workers’ rights under International Labour Organisation conventions to organise and take action to advance or defend our economic and social conditions. To this end we call on the Victorian Trades Hall Council to organise a mass delegates’ meeting to discuss how we can best help the ACTU [Australian Council of Trade Unions] defend its own industrial relations policy and thus the rights of all workers.”

The Workplace has Become a Warzone: Reflecting on the Waterfront Dispute of 1998
The Stick Together Show, 3CR
May 4, 11 & 18, 8.30am (repeated May 6, 13 & 20, 10am)
<http://www.3cr.org.au>

A community protest organised by Union Solidarity shut down the construction site at Woodside’s Otways gas plant near Port Campbell on April 17.

Organisers from the Philippines’ biggest left trade union centre, Bukluran ng Manggagawang Pilipino (BMP — Solidarity of Filipino Workers) spoke to Green Left Weekly’s Sue Bolton about the repression that they encounter from the state and their efforts to unify left-wing trade unions.

Many workers and unions in Australia and other imperialist countries have been involved in campaigns to stop jobs from being sent offshore to Third World countries. Unions in the rich countries usually think that this is an issue that only affects them, but the off-shoring of jobs to other countries, or to “free trade zones”, heavily impacts on workers in Third World countries, as capitalists try to drive workers’ wages and conditions ever lower.

Workers from across Melbourne have thrown their support behind National Union of Workers (NUW) members who are on strike at Preston Motors in Campbellfield.

The federal Coalition, some state Labor governments and the corporate media have been justifying racist policies by claiming they are defending women’s rights. This argument has been one of several “justifications” for the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, and for why we should all be worried about refugee arrivals.

The Community and Public Sector Union (CPSU) voted to affiliate to the ALP at the union’s March 2-4 national governing council meeting. The enabling motion, heavily amended during the course of the meeting, passed by 42 votes to 12.

The revolutionary left in the Philippines has deep roots in the mass movement but its influence has been weakened by disunity. The left began overcoming these divisions through a May 2005 Democratic Left Conference.

Despite having won formal equality, the lack of an organised women’s movement means that the Howard government has been able to take back a lot of the reforms won as a result of the struggles of the 1970s and 1980s. No reform is permanent under capitalism, and without a strong movement that mobilises to defend and expand reforms to improve women’s lives, the capitalist class can easily remove, or knobble, the gains that have been won.

In her 1993 book, The End of Equality?, Anne Summers admits to being puzzled by the Howard government’s concern about Australia’s low birth rate and its call for women to reproduce more while, at the same time, it refuses to provide inexpensive and quality childcare to help this happen.