On February 12, Foster’s Australia announced its decision to axe 115 maintenance jobs from its Abbotsford plant in Melbourne, where it makes a large proportion of its beer products, including Victoria Bitter and Carlton Draught.
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On January 29 this year, NSW health minister John Della Bosca admitted his department owed $117 million in unpaid bills, but argued this was only a "small proportion" of the budget.
At my hotel in Phnom Penh, the women and children sat on one side of the room, palais-style, the men on the other. It was a disco night and a lot of fun; then suddenly people walked to the windows and wept.
Ani DiFranco, one of the most inspirational singer-songwriters in the US, toured Australia in January and February.
As the NSW Legislative Council inquiry into the privatisation of NSW prisons began on February 23, more than 200 prison officers went on strike at Goulburn Correctional Centre on February 25, in protest at the plan to privatise Parklea and Cessnock jails.
The right to equal pay for work of equal value was won for women in Australia in 1972, but this has not meant that womens wages today equal those of men. The 2008 federal parliamentary inquiry into womens wages revealed that, on average, Australian women earn 12-18% less than their male counterparts.
As the global economic crisis worsens, a February 17 Counterpunch.org opinion piece by Mike Whitney argued that as much as 40% of global wealth has been destroyed by the current global economic crisis. Governments in Eastern Europe have faced mass riots and demonstrations in the face of their attempts to foist the costs of the crisis onto the poor.
The Media Entertainment and Arts Alliance (MEAA) has accused the Australian Building and Construction Commission (ABCC) of bullying tactics and using its coercive powers to attack press freedom, in a statement released on February 27.
The militant actions of the South African dock workers who refused to offload goods from Israeli ships during the Gaza massacre was an important boost for the international solidarity movement.
Q&As two-party balance
The ABCs Q&As format has predictably resulted in a deliberate search for Coalition supporters to achieve audience balance. The cause of this problem is the format of Q&A, which is built around politicians of the major parties. This is quite different from the predecessor program Difference of Opinion, which was productive of a much greater panel variety than the sterile two-party context.
Eight Nigerian indigenous communities announced on February 19 that they are suing Shell, Chevron, Exxon Mobil, Agip and Nigeria National Petroleum for failing to cease gas flaring, which, they describe as gross injustice and unfairness to host communities.
The Electrical Trades Union (ETU) is locked in dispute with rogue electrical contractor company John Goss, which is pushing a non-union agreement that locks in a four-year wage freeze for apprentices, offers only an 8% pay rise over four years to tradespeople, and tears up the 36-hour working week calendar.
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