Issue 547

News

• Rio Tinto workers reinstated after five years

  1, Pacific Coal, Blair Athol, Errol Hodder, Hail Creek, Tony Maher "> Rio Tinto workers reinstated after five yearsFive years and four days after their unfair dismissal, 16 Queensland miners have finally been granted the
• Loose cannons

  Flashback "Sending in Australian troops to occupy the Solomon Islands would be folly in the extreme... The fundamental problem is that foreigners do not have answers for the deep-seated problems afflicting the Solomon Islands." — Foreign minister
• Unionist singled out in Skilled Six court case

  MELBOURNE — Fifteen Australian Manufacturing Workers Union (AMWU) members and one Electrical Trades Union member appeared in the county court on July 21 and 22 over an industrial dispute involving Johnson Tiles and Skilled
• News briefs

  Medicare public forum ADELAIDE — A July 16 public meeting on defending Medicare organised by the Socialist Alliance was attended by 40 people. The meeting was addressed by Fran Baum, professor of public health at Flinders University; Dr David
• Green Left Weekly celebrates July 26

  MELBOURNE — Blindfolded, giggling children trying to hit a pi¤ata is not unusual. But when the pi¤ata looks like "Uncle Sam" with a skull for a face, you know this is no ordinary fiesta. Fifty years after Fidel Castro led an
• National stoppage against ACI's corporate thuggery

  MELBOURNE — On July 22, hundreds of workers at ACI workplaces across the country stopped work in response to the lockout of 77 ACI Mould Manufacturing workers in Box Hill. The purpose of the stoppage was to support the
• Teachers propose strike action over salaries dispute

  BY NOREEN NAVIN& OWEN RICHARDS SYDNEY — Thousands of NSW teachers will stop work for two hours on July 29 to discuss the NSW Teacher Federation's negotiations with Premier Bob Carr's Labor government over teachers' salaries. NSW teachers have
• 'Save Medicare'

  SYDNEY — A rally to save Medicare was held outside NSW Parliament House on July 22, where a Senate committee was commencing its hearings on the federal government's changes to Medicare. Around 150 people attended. Organised by
• Victorian teachers to stop work

  MELBOURNE — On July 19, the annual conference of the Victorian branch of the Australian Education Union unanimously endorsed a resolution to support nationally coordinated action over the refusal of state governments to
• Bradken workers locked out

  BRISBANE — Workers employed at the Bradken company's Karrabin railway carriage making plant near Ipswich have set up a picket line after being locked out on July 16. As part of the Australian Manufacturing Workers Union's
• 'Frankenfood' approval condemned

  The July 25 decision by the federal Office of the Gene Technology Regulator (OGTR) to allow the unconditional release of Australia's first genetically engineered food crop into the Australian environment has been condemned by
• Meeting calls for solidarity with people of Aceh

  MELBOURNE — On July 18, 60 people attended a public meeting on Indonesia's war on Aceh, organised by Action in Solidarity with Asia and the Pacific (ASAP). The speakers were John Martinkus, a journalist recently returned from
• Port Hedland protest a success

  PERTH — Dozens of Perth activists travelled to the Port Hedland detention centre in northern WA from July 17-20, to protest in solidarity with the asylum seekers imprisoned inside. The trip was organised in coordination with the
• Union activists call for campaign against Carr job cuts

  SYDNEY — NSW Premier Bob Carr's Labor government calls its plan to cut 1000 jobs in the Department of Education and Training (DET) "lifelong and learning". However, public education needs more, not less, jobs. Students need
• Martin Bright strike enters fourth week

  MELBOURNE — Workers from OneSteel subsidiary Martin Bright Steels have been on strike since July 4. The Martin Bright dispute is part of the Australian Manufacturing Workers Union's Campaign 2003. There are 80 workers on the site,