Industrial action taken by tram workers has already had an impact on Yarra Trams. The company has withdrawn some of its proposals for stripping the working conditions of tram workers.
Workers have struck for four hours twice, including the most recent stoppage on September 10....
Taxi drivers and operators stopped work in major cities across Australia on September 10 in protest against Uber, which taxi drivers say is running an illegal, unregulated service.
In Sydney, hundreds of taxi drivers protested against Uber outside NSW Parliament. NSW Taxi Operators and...
About 100 people rallied outside Australia Post in the CBD on September 9 to protest against job cuts at Australia Post.
Australia Post CEO Ahmed Fahour’s plans to “halve the service and double the price for letters” is before the parliament now. This could see the price of stamps...
A community assembly is holding firm outside the Hutchison terminal at Port Botany, with 24-hour attendance and regular gatherings of maritime workers from Hutchison and the other operators, Patricks and DP World. There is a similar assembly at the Port of Brisbane.
The assemblies were...
More than 200 people rallied to support of maintaining penalty rates at Capalaba Sports Club on September 5.
The protest was called by United Voice to protest against the club’s decision to scrap penalty rates for workers and sack those who would not sign an agreement to trade away...
The 11th Annual Edward Said Memorial Lecture, presented by the Australian Friends of Palestine Association, was held on September 5 at the University of Adelaide.
Dr Salam Fayyad was the guest speaker. He was the inaugural President of the State of Palestine (2007-2013) and one of ...
Community groups from across Sydney have condemned the NSW government's announcement that the community consultation period for the Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) for the M4 East section of the huge WestConnex tollway will be limited to 45 days.
NSW Planning Minister Rob Stokes...
The Freedom Movement, which was born at the Freedom Summit at the Old Telegraph outside of Mparntwe (Alice Springs) last November, will gather once more from September 11 to 13.
Members of tribal nations, including Arrente leader Rosalie Kunoth-Monks, will be present.
Narungga...
If it wasn't painfully obvious before it should now be crystal clear now that there is no such thing as company loyalty. Loyalty from companies that is.
ABC’s 4 Corners revealed last week that convenience store chain 7-Eleven was engaged in a wide-scale rip off of its...
The Labor-dominated Newcastle council has defied pressure from unions and senior ALP figures to rescind moves to investigate moving a $270 million investment portfolio away from banks that fund ‘‘socially and environmentally’’ harmful projects and industry.
Labor’s Cr Declan Clausen, who...
ADELAIDE
Join us at Nuclear Politics in the Pub on Wednesday September 16 at 6.30pm. While submissions are closed for the Royal Commission into the Nuclear Fuel Chain, the discussion is just getting started! Speakers and a special screening of short film Homelands...
The Community and Public Sector Union (CPSU) has launched another round of industrial action, starting with half-day strikes in many Canberra-based public service agencies on September 15.
This is an escalation of its long-running bargaining campaign against the Abbott government. Staff...
Unite, a group that seeks to organise casual workers in Victoria, has called on the federal government to give an amnesty to any past or present 7-Eleven workers who may have breached their international student visa conditions.
After ABC’s 4 Corners revealed the 7-Eleven half-...
Senate rejects bid to make unemployed wait for welfare
An attack on young people has been defeated. A measure to force jobseekers under the age of 25 to wait an additional four weeks before accessing unemployment benefits has been defeated in the Senate, 30 votes to 35...
"Boat turn backs, mandatory detention, offshore processing and indefinite limbo do not save lives."
This was the comment made by Refugee Rights Action Network activist Michelle Bui before the 1000-strong #LightTheDark vigil for refugees in Perth on September 7.
"You have...
PM Tony Abbott's desire to sign Australia up to the “coalition of the killing”, currently dropping bombs over northern Syria, is a gamble that current levels of fear and Islamophobia will indemnify his government.
But there is significant opposition to war and racism to challenge...
An unusually grave political crisis rocking the power-sharing agreement in Northern Ireland was worsened by the arrest of three top republicans on September 9, Irish Republican News said that day. Those arrested included Bobby Storey, the chairperson of Sinn Fein in the six counties in Ireland's...
Land reforms are essential to achieving a long-standing peace after half a century of conflict, said Colombian academic Alejandro Reyes on September 10 during a forum on agrarian issues in Bogota.
A peace agreement is being discussed between the Revolutionary Armed Forces of...
It is the single image that has crystallised the horror of the refugee crisis in Europe: On September 2, a photographer took a picture of the lifeless body of 3-year-old Aylan Kurdi, a Kurdish refugee from Syria, lying face-down on a Turkish beach.
The toddler was one of at least 12...
Recent statements by Bolivian Vice-President Alvaro Garcia Linera regarding non-government organisations (NGOs) in Bolivia have triggered a heated debate on the left.
On August 11, Garcia Linera accused NGOs of acting like political parties seeking to interfere in Bolivia’s domestic...
HDP rally ahead of the June 7 election.
The following statement was issued by the foreign affairs commission of the Peoples Democratic Party (HDP) on September 10.
The left-wing, Kurdish-led HDP won 80 seats in Turkey's June 7 parliamentary elections, depriving the ruling...
India witnessed a powerful general strike on September 2, across most sectors of the economy and civil administration. The strike was called jointly by central trade unions and supported actively by various sections of the Indian left.
Initially, the Bhartiya Mazdoor Sangh (BMS...
Sometimes the fate of a child is written 100 years before they are born. Some will view this as a reductionist approach or fatalistic, but here we are not talking of a divine fate, we are talking of historical forces, politics, power, hegemony, economic exploitation and colonialism.
The...
The Bolivian government is organising a World People's Conference on Climate Change and Defence of Life to be held in Cochabamba on October 10-12.
The conference was announced in August by Bolivian President Evo Morales, as well as leaders of the Bolivian Workers Central (COB)...
Not even Brahma, the Brazilian multinational beer company, stood a chance. Brahma’s plant in the northern Venezuelan city of Barquisimeto was left to be occupied by its workers, who did not accept being fired when the factory closed, after its shares were sold to billionaire Gustavo Cisneros....
No one with an ounce of intelligence would have expected Thailand's junta, and its herd of “academics for hire”, to come up with a democratic constitution - or anything other than a host of counter-reforms to set the authoritarian political agenda for years to come.
Overall, the current...
#jezwecan supporters in full cry outside QEII centre https://t.co/VjkJMT6sqG
— Paul Waugh (@paulwaugh) September 12, 2015
Supporters of the Labour party's new leader Jeremy Corbyn celebrated across Britain on September 12, as the socialist and...
The tasteless joking between immigration minister Peter Dutton and Prime Minister Tony Abbott about the threat of rising sea levels to Pacific Islands — caught on a microphone after the Pacific Island Forum (PIF) meeting — sums up the Australian government's attitude to the victims of its...
Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott announced on September 9 a novel approach to stemming the flow of refugees from Syria: bombing the country.
He also announced plans to accept a further 12,000 Syrian refugees on top of his government's miserly quota, but was quick to dispel any hopes...
The federal government relisted the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) as a terrorist organisation on August 11.
This means it is illegal for Australian citizens to belong to it, actively support it or raise funds for it.
The PKK was first placed on Australia’s list of terrorist...
Students of the Australian National University have launched a campaign to raise awareness about the current situation in Rojava, in northern Syria. The campaign, “Stand With Kobane” aims to raise money to help rebuild the Kurdish city of Kobane.
Kobane made headlines this year when it...
Resistance: Young Socialist Alliance’s “World to Win” series aims to give voice to the ideas and demands of radical young people who are involved in the struggle to make the world a fairer and more just place.
This week, Resistance National Co-Convener, Mia Sanders discusses the...
Newcastle is a major centre for coal exports. When Newcastle City Council flirts with any hint of fossil fuel divestment, expect controversy.
On August 25, the council approved a policy giving preference to “environmentally and socially responsible investments”. This was supported by...
Reading Rupert Murdoch's Australian is always educational. For instance, Maurice Newman's September 11 op-ed exposed a media gang that represent “by far the major media presence in Australia and, from their bully pulpits, they present a common position on most social, economic and...
Labor and the Coalition will vote for new laws this week that will strip dual nationals of their citizenship at the discretion of the immigration minister.
Both major parties agree that the laws should also apply retrospectively to those sentenced to at least ten years’ jail.
A...
Carol Hucker worked on Manus Island as a counsellor for International Health and Medical Services (IHMS) and as a case worker for the Salvation Army from June 2013 to July last year.
She has allowed Green Left Weekly to publish her account so that people...
The cycle path known as the Iron Curtain Trail follows the boundary that separated east from west during the cold war period from 1947 to 1989. The 7650 kilometre route that stretches from north of Turkey to the Barents Sea, 400 kilometres inside the Arctic Circle, is not for the faint-hearted...
More than 100 asylum seekers in detention on Manus Island have signed an appeal to Europeans for help. They say that just like the asylum seekers in Europe, they have fled war and persecution and like them they need safety and resettlement. They request European countries “to urge the Australia...
The announcement on September 9 that Australia will accept only 12,000 refugees from Syria and that the government will seek to discriminate on the basis of ethnicity and religion is further proof that the government is lying about leading the world in welcoming refugees.
Immigration...
As part of The Festival of Dangerous Ideas, journalist Helen Joyce presented a talk titled, “The Right to Die”.
Joyce is the international editor of The Economist, which, despite sounding like something millionaire bankers read on the way to work, has a long history of...
Vienna, September 1.
“Tony Abbott's bizarre proclamation that Australia is leading the world on a per capita basis in welcoming refugees is a lie,” says Sue Bolton, Socialist Alliance Councillor.
“As Paul Power from the Refugee Council of Australia has...
A World to Build: New Paths Toward Twenty-First Century Socialism
Marta Harnecker
Monthly Review Press, 2015
US$19, paperback
The emergence of diverse, complex and popular social projects in Latin America — several of which have involved winning governmental power —- is...
Fans of Glasgow's Celtic FC.
All 80 clubs competing in Europe's two most prestigious football competitions — the UEFA Champions League and Europa League — will donate €1 from tickets sold for their opening game towards refugees.
The “Let's play for the migrants!” initiative...
Matildas players earn only $21,000 a year — below the minimum wage.
The simmering industrial dispute between the nation's football (soccer) players and the Football Federation Australia (FFA) over pay and the right to collectively bargain has now boiled over with the national women...
The focus of discussion about women in sport — specifically the discrimination they face, the lack of support and promotion, the disinterest from the media and the huge pay differences between female and male athletes — has overwhelmingly been on the elite or national level.
Recently the...