The number of workers in Australia who work overtime on a regular basis increased to 37%, or almost 3 million, in November 2003
Three years earlier, 33% of employees worked regular overtime
Only 38% of employees working overtime were paid for it
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Tax No wonder the government can give back family payments of $600 per child. For struggling separated parents who are trying to do the best for their kids, the government takes 50 cents in every dollar of the family assistance paid by the
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Peter Boyle Bernie Banton, 57-year-old acting president of the Asbestos Diseases Foundation of Australia (ADFA), worked for Bradford Insulation, a subsidiary of James Hardie in Camelia between 1968 and 1974. He was diagnosed with asbestosis in 1999
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Kerryn Williams On August 3, the Labor parliamentary caucus formally decided to endorse the US-Australia Free Trade Agreement, despite sustained opposition from unions, community groups and the ALP's own left faction. The same day, US President
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Riki Lane Most of the left argues that our prime task is to "support the Iraqi national resistance". Socialist Alliance (SA) and its two largest affiliates, the Democratic Socialist Perspective (DSP) and the International Socialist Organisation
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Pip Hinman The Socialist Alliance candidate for Reid, Lisa Macdonald, called on August 6 for abortion to be removed from all state's criminal codes and health acts. She was responding to the comments by federal health minister Tony Abbott which
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"I never imagined that I would stand in an election, but given the Iraq war of lies, and the torture and massacres committed in our name I feel that we all must take a stand." Annolies was a co-founder of the Hills No War Alliance at the beginning
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Stuart Munckton Staff and students at Sydney's Davidson High School have come under attack for their performance in this year's Rock Eisteddfod, which criticises the war on Iraq. On August 6, Socialist Alliance NSW Senate candidate Kylie Moon
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Marcus Strom Josh Heuchan died tragically on July 30 in a skiing accident while holidaying in New Zealand. He was only 33. Josh was a special human being, a dear friend and comrade: he was committed to the ideals of trade unionism, of communism and
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Claudia Jardim and Jonah Gindin spoke to veteran political activist and author Tariq Ali, during his recent trip to Caracas, about Venezuela and Latin American resistance to US neoliberalism. How do you explain the explosion in social movements
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One of the most famous writings in the history of socialism is the Junius Pamphlet, written by German socialist Rosa Luxemburg in 1915 while she was in prison for opposing the first world war. Obviously, many things have changed in the world and in
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Green Left Weekly's Kerryn Williams spoke to David Henry, clinical pharmacology professor at Newcastle University and former Pharmaceutical Benefits Advisory Committee member, about how the proposed US-Australia Free Trade Agreement will undermine
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John Tognolini On May 10, 1989 the Cockatoo Island Dockyard shop committee, representing 13 unions, announced the occupation of the island in response to a decision by the Hawke Labor government to sell off the site. The dispute would last for 14
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Rohan Pearce Most commentators in the Australian corporate media, whether the unashamedly hard-right terriers of the Murdoch empire or the "liberal" chihuahuas of the Fairfax press, have subjected Michael Moore's film Fahrenheit 9/11 to relentless
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Doug Cameron, Australian Manufacturing Workers Union national secretary: "It is quite clear we will not be in a position to put substantial financial or physical resources behind the [Labor] Party as a whole, because the parliamentary caucus has
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Sarah Stephen Virginia Leong was subjected to horrifying punishment for her protest on July 14 against the prospect of forced removal from Sydney's Villawood detention centre to the Baxter detention centre in the South Australian desert. Leong,
News
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Chris Slee, Melbourne The August 3 meeting of Australia-Asia Worker Links discussed how unions should respond to "offshoring" — the transfer of work from Australia to other countries. The feature speaker was Steve Cilia, a former IBM worker now
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3 Central Queensland protests US base Over 10% of the population of Yepoon, central Queensland, rallied on August 1 against plans for a joint US-Australia military "training centre" in nearby Shoalwater Bay. Hundreds of people took to the town
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Amanda Zivcic, Wollongong Wollongong Resistance and Illawarra Socialist Alliance have embarked on a joint campaign to lower the voting age to 16. Raffaele Fantasia, a year-11 student at Edmund Rice College, told Green Left Weekly: "Young people
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Kiraz Janicke, Perth Two-hundred people heard Ali Kazak, head of the Palestinian delegation to Australia, speak at public forums in Perth, Fremantle, Darlington, Curtin University and the University of Western Australia (UWA) during the first week
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Kathy Newnam Over 10% of the population of Yepoon, in central Queensland, rallied on August 1 against plans for a joint US-Australia military "training centre" in nearby Shoalwater Bay. Hundreds of people took to the town centre to demand that
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Sue Bolton The Australian Manufacturing Workers Union (AMWU) held its biennial conference in Sydney on July 26-30. Delegates to the conference report that it was quite different to the previous conference with a lot of guest speakers and not a lot
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Susan Austin, Hobart "The issue of old-growth forests has been dominating the political debate in Tasmania", the Wilderness Society's Geoff Law told 500 people who turned up to the University of Tasmania on August 3 to hear him debate Forestry
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Sue Bull, Geelong On July 31, militant unionists from Melbourne and Ballarat converged on Geelong for a day of discussions with local unionists about how to build unions that are fighting instruments in defence of their members' economic and
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Rachel Evans At a National Marriage Coalition forum held in Canberra on August 4, federal Labor shadow attorney-general Nicola Roxon said the ALP would pass the Howard government's gay marriage ban during the current sitting of parliament. The
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2 Rally marks Hiroshima Day BRISBANE — Two-hundred people gathered in King George Square on August 6 to mark the anniversary of the US nuclear bombing of Hiroshima in 1945. The rally was followed by a candlelight procession on the theme
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Michael McDonald, Brisbane On August 3, a public meeting at City Hall on the theme "Australia at the Crossroads" was attended by 800 people. The meeting called for "Howard out", but also for any new government to govern in the interests of all
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Monopoly capitalism at work "California Attorney General Bill Lockyer today announced the distribution of [US]$407,454 in refund checks to 701 California cancer patients who overpaid for the Bristol-Myers Squibb (Bristol) drug Taxol... The Taxol
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SYDNEY — On August 3, University of Western Sydney students protested against the increasing course and subject cuts at the university's Bankstown campus. The cuts will affect at least 80% of Bankstown students, and are being implemented to
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James Crafti, Melbourne Zoe Kenny, Socialist Alliance candidate for the federal Seat of Melbourne, has welcomed the call by Richard Frankland, founder of the new pro-Indigenous Your Voice party, for a bill of rights. "We hope to be able to work
World
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Norm Dixon For at least 18 months now, Western governments have quietly stood by as the non-Arabic-speaking black farmers of the Darfur region in western Sudan have borne the brunt of a vicious ethnic-cleansing campaign carried out by
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David Bacon, Los Angeles On June 22, the national convention of the Service Employees International Union — with 1.7 million members, the largest union in the US — voted unanimously to oppose the occupation of Iraq. A few days later, a
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Eva Cheng If you believe the corporate media's spin, on July 31 the World Trade Organisation's 147 members agreed democratically on a "framework" that will help revive negotiations on world trade rules that were scuttled last September. Poor
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Doug Lorimer "I advise all countries that want to help Iraq not to send forces here. If such forces come to Iraq, they will be seen as collaborators of the occupation", Iraqi Shiite leader Sayed Moqtada al Sadr declared in a sermon in Kufa on July
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Doug Lorimer In the wake of rebel Iraqi Shiite leader Sayed Moqtada al Sadr's refusal to collaborate with Washington's puppet Interim Government of Iraq (IGI), US occupation forces have violated their ceasefire agreement with Sadr's Madhi Army
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Alison Dellit Cuban President Fidel Castro Ruz used his July 26 speech commemorating the 1953 attack on the Moncada Barracks to refute US State Department allegations about prostitution in Cuba. On July 16, US President George Bush described Cuba
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ZIMBABWE: Trade unionists arrested On August 5, five union leaders were arrested under the Public Order and Security Act for "conducting a riot, disorder or intolerance". The four leaders were attending a Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions workshop
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Independent US presidential candidate Ralph Nader recently spoke with Joshua Frank, author of the forthcoming book Left Out! How Liberals Did Bush's Work for Him. Given how worried the Democrats appear to be about your presidential run taking votes
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Norman Brewer, Berlin There is talk of an upcoming heisser herbst (hot autumn) in Germany at the moment. Already, Montagsdemonstrationen (Monday demonstrations) have resumed in East Germany. The tradition goes back to 1989, when mass protests
Culture
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Indonesia: Art, Activism and Rock 'N' Roll — The members of Taring Padi use art as a medium for education and liberation to empower the working classes of Indonesia. SBS, Friday, August 13, 3.30pm. Message Stick: Bob Maza — Profiles Bob Maza,
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The Rio Rancho Public School District in New Mexico has settled the federal lawsuit brought against it on behalf of Bill Nevins, the Green Left Weekly writer and poetry teacher fired by the district in 2003. A settlement in
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Bushwhacked: Life in George. W. Bush's AmericaBy Molly Ivins & Lou DuboseAllison and Busby & Wakefield Press, 2004$22.95(pb) REVIEW BY ALEX MILLER In a well-known passage of the Communist Manifesto, Karl Marx and Frederick Engels comment on how
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WarWritten by Lars NorenDirected by Frank McNamaraNew Theatre, Newtown, SydneyUntil August 21Bookings (02) 9519 8958$25/$20 REVIEW BY RACHEL EVANS War, written by one of Europe's most prolific playwrights, is a confronting, incisive portrayal of
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The History WarsBy Stuart Macintyre and Anna ClarkMelbourne University Publishing 2003288 pages, $29.95 REVIEW BY BRONWYN POWELL & IGGY KIM History, and the lessons that we derive from it, is a weapon in social struggle; all sides wield it as a