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Letters to the Editor

Gaza I The flooding into Egypt of hundreds of thousands of Gazans that followed the breaching of the barrier between those territories is testimony to the desperation and misery of the population of that small enclave. The events have underlined

Stories of Aboriginal survival

Speaking from the Heart: Stories of Life, Family and Country
Edited by Sally Morgan, Tjalaminu Mia and Blaze Kwaymullina
Fremantle Arts Centre Press, 2007
$27.95 (pb)

AWA case ends at University of Ballarat

The National Tertiary Education Union’s class action around AWAs against the University of Ballarat has ended with an out-of-court settlement. The action commenced early in 2006 out of a long-running dispute over enterprise bargaining. As Green Left Weekly reported at the time, the university offered AWAs (individual contracts) to break the NTEU’s bargaining position. A strong campaign by the union resulted in a collective agreement in August 2006.

Support the Triton 11: MUA – Here to Stay!

When the armed customs boat, the Triton, docked at Darwin’s Fort Hill Wharf on January 27, nine of the ship’s crew refused to disembark.

Join the May Day brigade to revolutionary Venezuela!

The Australia-Venezuela Solidarity Network (AVSN) is organising a 2008 May Day solidarity brigade to Venezuela for trade unionists and all other people interested in seeing first-hand the unfolding revolution in that country.

Protests to cancel debt, support development

Hundreds of people took protest action in North Sumatra, East Kalimantan, Central Sulewesi, East and West Java and Jogjakarta on January 15-17 to demand cancellation of Indonesia’s foreign debt, nationalisation of the mining industries and for strengthening the economy through a nationwide industrialisation.

Peru: Free trade deal an Andean tragedy

On December 4, US President George Bush was delighted to announce that the US-Peru Trade Promotion Agreement (dubbed “PeruFTA”) had finally cleared the Congress. Since late 2005, when PeruFTA was approved by Peru, the Bush administration has campaigned relentlessly to secure the free trade deal’s endorsement by the Democrat-controlled House of Representatives.

Bosses push AWAs, unions debate Labor government

As employers continue to push individual Australian Workplace Agreements (AWAs), some union leaders have urged the labour movement to press the new Labor government of PM Kevin Rudd to move more quickly and decisively against the former government’s Work Choices policy.

No black-out, no whitewash: Reopen the TJ inquiry!

Four years ago, 17-year-old Aboriginal teenage Thomas “TJ” Hickey was impaled on a metal-spiked fence in Sydney’s inner-city Waterloo suburb after his bicycle was rammed by a police vehicle. Proper medical practices were not followed by the police and TJ died in hospital the next day, February 15. If proper practices had been followed, TJ would probably be alive today.