Alex Bainbridge

After 18 months of enterprise negotiations and strike action in December and February, Brisbane ferry workers have won significant improvements in pay and conditions. A new agreement was accepted in principle at a union mass meeting on February 27.

The management of the public ferry service has been in the hands of private company TransDev. For years, the company has used aggressive tactics against the workers to drive down wages and conditions.

The Socialist Alliance has a vision for a better world — and we are running in the federal election to share that vision and help make it become a reality.

Around 50 protesters gathered at short notice outside a forum addressed by Adani’s Australian CEO Lucas Dow on February 19.

The meeting was for contractors interested in working with Adani on its proposed Carmichael mega coalmine in Queensland’s Galilee Basin.

Activists highlighted the dangers of working with Adani which is facing prosecution for alleged crimes, has been involved in legal disputes with former contractors who have not been paid and has a record of attracting protesters to companies that associate with it.

Ferry workers went on strike on December 6 in a bid to secure a fair wage and job security which, until now, their employer Transdev has refused to guarantee in enterprise negotiations.

“I will only accept an average worker’s wage.” This is the promise of all Victorian Socialists’ candidates contesting the November 24 state election.

In the wake of the Wentworth byelection and the debate about its meaning a lot of commentary has focused on the desire for a return to the “sensible centre”.

Hundreds of public servants rallied outside Queensland's parliament on October 30 as part of a week-long industrial campaign. The rally was organised by Together Union (a branch of the Australian Services Union), also known as the "Purple Army".

The workers are facing enterprise bargaining negotiations in which the state government is refusing to offer any pay rise. The government argues that since workers have had a wage rise due to a rise in the award, they do not need to offer any rise in the enterprise agreement. The agreement will last for the next three years.

In a major victory for women's rights, Queensland's parliament voted to decriminalise abortion on October 16.

One thousand people braved miserable weather to take part in the largest abortion rights rally in Brisbane in decades. The rally was timed to occur in the week leading up to an historic parliamentary vote that could bring in much needed abortion law reform in Queensland.

The recent crisis at the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, with the sacking of managing director Michelle Guthrie and the resignation of board chair Justin Milne, is best understood by realising that neither were friends of the national public broadcaster, writes Alex Bainbridge.

The federal Coalition government has dropped further in the polls following the knifing of former prime minister Malcolm Turnbull. Nevertheless, both new Prime Minister Scott Morrison and the hard right Peter Dutton/Tony Abbott faction in the Liberal Party seem determined to take politics even more to the right.

Stop Adani activists are celebrating the state Labor government’s decision to prosecute the Adani-owned Abbot Point Bulkcoal for pollution violations at the time of Cyclone Debbie last year.