People seem to know about May Day everywhere except where it began, here in the United States of America. That’s because those in power have done everything they can to erase its real meaning. For example, Ronald Reagan designated what he called, “Law Day” — a day of jingoist fanaticism, like an extra twist of the knife in the labour movement. Today, there is a renewed awareness, energised by the Occupy movement’s organising, around May Day, and its relevance for reform and perhaps eventual revolution.
Australia
The Lock the Gate Alliance released the statement below on April 29.
* * *
The Lock the Gate Alliance has warned the New South Wales Coalition that it risks losing the support of much of the rural vote it received at the last election if it continued to pursue its current policies on mining and coal seam gas.
Students and staff at the University of Sydney ramped up the campaign against management's proposed staff cuts last week, after management ignored a deadline set by the rally and occupation on April 4 to withdraw the cuts by the end of the Easter break.
Four hundred students rallied on the university's front lawns on April 24. Students from more than eight classes walked out to join the rally. In one case, a lecturer emailed her students in advance to tell them to walk out of their class and join the protest.
Queensland public service union Together has called a stopwork rally on May 1 over the new Liberal National Party (LNP) government's threat of forced retrenchments.
ABC Online said on April 25, Together had launched a new campaign to give workers a voice in the government's “restructure of departments”.
The ABC reported that Together secretary Alex Scott said the LNP had said before the election there would be no forced retrenchments.
Geelong Trades Hall secretary Tim Gooden released the statement below on April 27 about the move by the federal government to put the Health Services Union (HSU) East into administration.
* * *
I am very concerned by the announcement of minister Bill Shorten that the federal government will seek to have the HSU East put under the control of an appointed administrator.
More than 1000 building unionists rallied in Emma Miller Place on April 27 to mark International Workers' Memorial Day. Protests and commemorations also took place on the same day in Canberra, Melbourne and Perth, and on April 28 in Sydney and Adelaide.
Organised by the building unions and the Queensland Council of Unions, the Brisbane action was billed as a time to “remember those who have been injured or killed at or through their work and to renew our commitment to fight for the living”.
The Victorian government said last year it would introduce its own version of the Australian Building and Construction Commission if the ABCC was weakened.
Now, on April 3 Premier Ted Baillieu and finance minister Robert Clark announced the Implementation Guidelines to the Victorian Code of Practice for the Building and Construction Industry.
The guidelines focus on ensuring workers aren’t “forced” to join unions, and that employers are forbidden from agreeing to union demands for over-award or site payments.
A protest organised by the Refugee Advocacy Group (RAG) brought about 100 students, teachers, politicians and activists to rally in opposition to mandatory detention on April 21.
Marking 20 years since the introduction of a dehumanising system of discriminatory detention for asylum seekers who arrive by boat, the student group led a march through Geelong to raise public awareness of their ongoing campaign.
Nineteen Palestine solidarity protesters face court on May 1 for their involvement in a protest on July 1 last year in support of Palestine.
At the July 1 protest outside a Max Brenner chocolate store, the police ran wild, viciously attacking peaceful protesters.
Max Brenner is owned by Israeli conglomerate the Strauss Group, a company that provides “care rations” for the Israeli military forces in occupied Palestine, including the Golani and Givati brigades.
Independent filmmaker and anti-fracking activist Zeb Parkes has been fined $500 by the City of Perth for taking part in a rally against gas fracking on April 21. Parkes intends to defend the matter in court rather than pay the fines.
After the riveting TV that was Nick Minchin assembling his crew of climate deni... ah, sceptics to take on the stifling orthodoxy that is the mere theory of human-caused global warming, the ABC is going to continue its dedication to balance with a new show called “I can change your mind on the Holocaust”.
A Holocaust believer will travel the world with a Holocaust sceptic, assembling arguments for and against, in a bid to change the other one's mind on the theory that millions of people perished in a Nazi-organised genocide.
Australia’s shadow treasurer, Joe Hockey, has declared to the world his crusade against entitlements. He argues the “age of entitlement” in the West must be brought to an end by governments winding back the role of the state. Absent this measure, the West will not stay economically competitive in the Asian century.
By entitlements, Hockey means welfare spending — the system of income transfers designed to distribute income to achieve such things as social security.
- Previous page
- Page 745
- Next page