United Firefighters Union (UFU) members handed out leaflets at polling booths in Victorian marginal seats on election day, in an attempt to counter a Liberal scare campaign against a new enterprise agreement for UFU members employed by the Country Fire Authority (CFA).
The Liberals falsely claim that the agreement gives the UFU the power of veto over CFA management decisions, and that it would prevent volunteer firefighters from fighting fires unless seven professional firefighters were present. They claim that the agreement endangers public safety.
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About 100 people protested in Melbourne on July 3, International Al Quds Day, as part of a global weekend of action for Palestine.
The date marked 50 years since the Six Day War and half a century of Israeli occupation of the West Bank.
Nasser from Palestine Advocacy Network said: “We have entered 50 years of occupation of the West Bank and it's been 68 years since Palestine's Nakba.
"It represents such a disregard for human rights it is hard to wrap your mind around.
Protesters march against the education reform in Mexico City.
Public school teachers in Mexico City launched an indefinite strike on July 5, called by leaders of the dissident National Coordinator of Education Workers (CNTE) teachers union to protest the education reforms imposed by President Enrique Peña Nieto.
There was some good news in the federal election. Ten Coalition members lost their seats in the July 2 federal election.
Jamie Briggs lost the seat of Mayo with a swing of 16%. Sophie Mirabella lost in Indi again with a further vote decline of 17.5%.
Andrew Nikolic lost in Bass with a decline of 10.8% and Wyatt Roy lost with a swing of 8.4%. Overall the Coalition vote was down 3.5%.
Other Liberal figures who lost support but not their seats included Christopher Pyne, down 9.53%; Tony Abbott, down 9.01%; Peter Dutton, down 5.6%; and Kevin Andrews, down 7.6%.
Jesse Williams used his award acceptance speech to denounce institutional racism and police brutality.
Grey’s Anatomy star Jesse Williams has been attacked for speaking out against racism with an online petition that garnered a paltry 1600 signatures in two days, demanding television network ABC fire the actor.
By contrast a counter-petition in support of the star had received 11,000 signatures by July 4.
Maintenance workers at Griffin Coal and their supporters held a protest outside the Fair Work Commission (FWC) in Perth's CBD on July 5.
They called for a stay on the commission's decision to terminate the recent enterprise bargaining agreement between the Australian Manufacturing Workers Union (AMWU) and the company, citing the latter's alleged unprofitability.
Griffin Coal claims to be surviving only due to financial support from its parent company, Lanco Infratech.
The 70 workers, who work at Collie in WA's south-west, face a 43% pay cut if the FWC's decision were to stand.
"We call on the Baird state government to re-block the Waterloo towers, not knock them down," Richard Weeks, spokesperson for the Waterloo Public Housing Action Group (WPHAG), told Green Left Weekly on July 6. He was referring to the NSW Coalition government's plans to demolish the public housing towers in the inner suburb of Waterloo, and replace them with high-rise, private apartments.
American singer Alicia Keyes has produced a short feature that reimagines the current refugee crisis as if it were taking place in California. The refugee crisis in the wake of conflicts in the Middle East and North Africa has triggered many militant xenophobic responses.
Up to 150 residents of inner western Sydney crammed into the chambers of the now-sacked Ashfield Council to oppose the state government's dismissal of three suburban councils and their merger into an "Inner West Council" and to protest the controversial WestConnex tollway project.
They demanded that undemocratically installed one-person administrator Richard Pearson take action on his stated intention to oppose WestConnex, in line with the unanimous positions of the three sacked councils, Ashfield, Leichhardt and Marrickville.
Tomas Young's War
Mark Wilkerson
Haymarket Books, 2006
225 pages, US$17.95
Tomas Young never even fired his weapon. He was gravely wounded on his fifth day in Iraq in 2004. What followed was a story of unimaginable grit, courage, love, inspiration — and tragedy.
Now that the University of Tasmania (UTas) is implementing a carbon neutral policy, it is time to focus efforts on full divestment from fossil fuels. Resistance: Young Socialist Alliance activist Emma Field asked Carly Rusden from Fossil Free UTas about their latest action.
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I put a few banners up to represent our group Fossil Free UTas today. This is mainly to raise awareness of the fact that the university has some investments, directly and indirectly, in coal, oil and other fossil fuel industries.
While international media floods to cover the killing of police officers in the United States, the deaths of Latinos often go unnoticed. The police killings of Black men Philando Castile and Alton Sterling, which have sparked angry protests, have also justly occupied the news waves, but the death of four Latinos this week slipped by.
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