The Retail and Fast Food Workers Union (RAFFWU) was launched on November 21 to challenge the Shop, Distributive and Allied Employees’ Association (SDA) in the wake of several wage scandals.
RAFFWU secretary Josh Cullinan said enterprise agreements struck between major retailers and the SDA mean “every day retail and fast food workers have over one million dollars taken from their pay packets”.
Cullinan said the RAFFWU is determined to help these underpaid workers.
About 40 members of Unions ACT, CPSU, United Voice, retired workers' organisation Vintage Reds, Socialist Alliance and the AMWU and ETU from Melbourne, representing the unions covering the 55 sacked workers from Carlton United Breweries, along with their inflatable anti-mascot, "Scabby the Rat", protested on November 22 on the front lawns of Parliament House.
More than 50,000 donations have been made to Planned Parenthood, a US non-profit group promoting reproductive health, in the name of anti-choice Vice President-elect Mike Pence in a show of creative resistance and organising against the incoming Donald Trump administration.
About 100 members of the Maritime Union of Australia (MUA) and other unions rallied outside the Indonesian consulate in the Sydney suburb of Maroubra on November 16 in support of 1000 Indonesian truck drivers and port workers who have been on indefinite strike since November 1.
Come December, North Dakota Access Pipeline (DAPL) protesters will likely be receiving support from hundreds of US veterans who have committed to their cause.
Organiser Wes Clark Jr, a former US army officer best known as co-host of the Young Turks show, called the Standing Rock resistance to DAPL “the most important event up to this time in human history”.
The Young Workers Centre at Victorian Trades Hall released a new petition on Facebook on November 17 calling on burger restaurant chain Grill’d to “Stop the scam”.
A Grill’d employee has come forward, accusing the chain of using traineeships as an excuse to pay lower wages. Employees are being signed up to hospitality certificates, but the business refuses to schedule regular training sessions.
Since being elected in November last year, Argentina’s right-wing President Mauricio Macri has pushed harsh neoliberal measures, including mass lay-offs. This provoked big protests and strikes, and the growing influence of the radical Left and Workers Front (FIT) reflects the push back by popular sectors against the right-wing offensive.
On November 19, more than 20,000 people filled a football stadium in Buenos Aires for a mass rally called by the FIT.
Hundreds of people protesting in front of Turkey’s parliament building in Ankara burst into celebrations on November 22 after the government announced the withdrawal of its proposal to exonerate child rapists.
Proposed legislation would have allowed men accused of sexually abusing underage girls to go free if they were married to their victims.
Usually, when people mention dying in a ditch, they are discussing something they would much rather avoid. But for the South Australian state Labor government of Premier Jay Weatherill, dying in a ditch seems a positive ambition.
For Weatherill and his cabinet, the “ditch” is the government’s plan to host up to a third of the world’s high-level nuclear waste in a giant dump in the state’s remote north. The dump scheme was rejected decisively on November 6 by a government-organised “Citizens’ Jury”.
Leichhardt residents and other opponents of the controversial $17 billion WestConnex motorway project picketed a test drilling rig site near Pioneer Park on November 21, preventing the site’s establishment for 24 hours.
Protests continued at the site for several days after that, with information pickets planned every morning over the next week.
Due to route changes announced by Sydney Motorway Corporation (SMC) in early November, the M4–M5 link tunnel is now slated to go underneath a larger part of Leichhardt than previously proposed.
Despite facing one of the most oppressive atmospheres in its history, thousands of Turkish protesters took to the streets of Istanbul on November 20 against a crackdown on Turkey’s main pro-Kurdish party, its lawmakers and mayors in the country’s south-east, as well as on opposition media outlets following the July coup.
Iranian refugee Mojgan Shamsalipoor finally received her high school certificate on November 16 after missing her graduation last year because she was in immigration detention.
Shamsalipoor arrived in Australia by boat in 2012 and attended Yeronga State High School.
She lived in the Brisbane Immigration Transit Accommodation Centre (BITAC) but was suddenly removed to the Darwin detention centre last August.