Is there a fast-food chain ripping off young workers near you? Want to help organise a picket? Want to help distribute information about the campaign for young workers' rights at your school/workplace/campus? Get in touch with Resistance — see
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Eva Cheng Even though the Vietnam War ended 30 years ago, the US's saturation chemical bombing is still wreaking havoc on millions, including the newly born — making them third-generation victims. Nobody knows when the congenital deformities, one
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Combatting depression Iggy Kim (Write On, GLW #641) offers up Cuba's continued use of anti-depressants and electro-shock therapy (ECT) to bolster his argument that drugs, used in combination with community-based psychiatric methods, are the best
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On September 28, 1864, the International Working Men's Association, better known as the First International, was founded at a meeting in St. Martin's Hall, London. One of the leaders of the International was Karl Marx, who drew up the General Rules
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Lonely Planet Six Degrees: Havana — Travel show explores Havana, Cuba from the viewpoint of the people living there. SBS, Friday, September 30, 7.30pm. Sex 'n' Pop: It Ain't Necessarily So — Hits the gay dance floor and traces the history of
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James Caulfield The federal Coalition government has announced plans to allow employers to further exploit young workers and apprentices, just as SA Unions released a report showing many young workers on individual contracts already receive shoddy
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Alison Dellit, Sydney "I responded to my experience at Pizza Hut by becoming more radical. But many workers don't, they simply give up", Andrea told me. A former union delegate at the chain restaurant/takeaway store, she had become enraged at the
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On October 2-3, the socialist youth organisation Resistance is holding its 34th national conference in Melbourne. Green Left Weekly spoke to three Resistance activists about some of the campaigns they are currently involved in. Solidarity with
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Bronwen Beechey, Auckland In New Zealand, the minimum wage for workers aged 18 and over is NZ$9.50 per hour, and the rate for workers under 18 is even lower. The wages for Australian workers are 20% to 50% higher than those for equivalent jobs in
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South Australia The sometimes out-of-control private security industry is being reined in a little in South Australia, with fingerprint and drug tests to be introduced for security personnel. There are about 150,000 private security guards in
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Zane Alcorn and Simon Butler, Newcastle Ask almost any resident here what they think about the rail line running along the harbour foreshore and prepare yourself for a lengthy, fervent conversation. Since the NSW Labor government first proposed the
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The following is an abridged version of the address given to the 60th UN General Assembly on September 15 by Hugo Chavez, Venezuela's revolutionary socialist president. This UN does not work. We have to say it. It is the truth... [T]he dream of an
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Dale Mills The leader of the Victorian Liberal opposition has proposed legislation that could land young people in prison for five years for the "crime" of hanging out at the local shopping mall. According to the September 20 Australian,
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Pip Hinman Cameron Ayliffe, a third-year apprentice from North Lambton in Newcastle, was crushed by a scissor-lift on September 20. Rather than take him to the nearby John Hunter Hospital, he was told by John Holland management to rest in a site
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Christine Howes From 1900 until as late as the 1980s, governments around Australia controlled wages, savings and benefits belonging to Aboriginal people who were under their care and protection. In almost every state and territory, money
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Doug Lorimer In an interview broadcast on ABC TV's Lateline program on September 12, London-based Australian journalist and filmmaker John Pilger criticised PM John Howard's plans to introduce new, "tougher" anti-terrorism laws. "There are two
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Sarah Stephen Iraqi refugees on temporary and permanent protection visas are being asked to go to the immigration department (DIMIA) to discuss their visas, a refugee advocate, who asked not to be named, told Green Left Weekly. "It's all very
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Tim Gooden, Geelong Following the success of the ACTU's first propaganda battle for the hearts and minds of workers with TV ads and an education campaign explaining the injustice of the new workplace laws, the Howard government has hit back with
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Tim Gooden The Howard government's Building Industry Task Force is using the "freedom of association" provisions in the Workplace Relations Act (WRA) to take legal action against the Victorian Labor government. It is trying to prove that the latter
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Alex Miller The Australian Socialist Alliance expresses it deepest, most heartfelt sympathy to all those who lost loved ones in the death, destruction and chaos wrought by Hurricane Katrina in Louisiana, Mississippi and other southern states of the
News
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Susan Austin, Hobart On September 22, 600 health professionals attended stop-work meetings in Hobart, Launceston and Burnie to discuss their current campaign for a new industrial agreement. Tasmania has about 1100 health professionals, including
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Kim Bullimore and Ben Courtice, Melbourne A motion by councillor Stephen Jolly for all City of Yarra council contract workers to have enterprise bargaining agreements (EBAs) rather than individual contracts (AWAs) failed to get up at the council's
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Dale Mills After US peace activist Scott Parkin was deported from Australia on September 15 for being a "threat to national security" many students he worked with at Sydney University are being put under surveillance. On September 15, Sydney
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Nick Everett, Canberra Community and Public Sector Union (CPSU) members in the Department of Employment and Workplace Relations (DEWR) have voted overwhelmingly in favour of an offer by DEWR management for a new union certified agreement. This
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SYDNEY — NSW planning minister Frank Sartor's racist remarks on Koori Radio on September 19 have generated widespread calls for him to resign. Sartor, in charge of driving through a land grab in the Redfern-Waterloo area under the former Premier
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Jim McIlroy Members of the Community and Public Sector Union (CPSU) employed by Centrelink, the federal government's main social security agency, have voted at workplace meetings around the country to reject management's offer on a new industrial
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Pip Hinman, Sydney "Labor has broken its first election promise, with [NSW] transport minister John Watkins admitting on September 20 that no train stations in the Marrickville electorate would be upgraded to include disability access", said Greens
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GEELONG — Some 200 people attended a public meeting on September 20 to discuss the impact of PM John Howard's industrial relations laws. ACTU president Sharan Burrow explained the federal government's agenda and its likely effect on unions and
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Viv Miley, Sydney Farouk Ismaal, international relations officer for Iraq's General Union of Oil Employees (GUOE), has begun a speaking tour of Australia, sponsored by a broad range of trade unions and anti-war and social justice organisations.
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Peter Boyle $111, 045 in just 10 weeks — that is awesome! Thank you to all our readers and supporters who have helped make this happen. You have ensured that the dissident voice of Green Left Weekly will not be silenced. We received 350
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Nick Fredman, Lismore In recent weeks, a bright orange bus emblazoned with the slogan "your rights at work" has been touring regional NSW, carrying a message of opposition to the federal government's industrial relations reforms and helping to
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BRISBANE — More than 100 people joined in an enthusiastic celebration of the Venezuelan revolution at the St Francis Church Hall in West End on September 24, as a culmination to the Green Left Weekly emergency appeal. Around $2500 was raised.From
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Green Left Weekly is temporarily altering our production schedule for the next two issues. GLW staff members are involved in a number of important conferences and meetings during the coming month, so our next issue will be dated October 12 and the
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MELBOURNE — On September 17, the National Coalition of Palestine Solidarity Groups met in Melbourne to discuss joint campaigns for the upcoming year. The coalition agreed to support the campaign to boycott Israeli products and the "Disinvest from
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Academic, solidarity activist and Green Left Weekly contributor Max Lane and radical Indonesian publisher Joesoef Isak, who was imprisoned under the Suharto dictatorship, were featured in the September 20 Good Weekend. They have been friends for
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James Vassilopoulos, Melbourne Sixty workers employed at Australian Envelopes in the south-eastern Melbourne suburb of Notting Hill — all members of the printing division of the Australian Manufacturing Workers Union (AMWU) — have been on
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Paul Oboohov, Canberra The rank-and-file group Members First has announced it will contest the national governing council and agency-based section council positions of the Community and Public Sector Union (CPSU) in elections due later this year.
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SYDNEY — A community forum organised by ALP MP Tanya Plibersek on September 22 drew 40 people to hear the former Leichhardt mayor, councillor Alice Murphy, professor Russell Landsbury from the University of Sydney and labour lawyer Daniel
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Jac Taylor, Melbourne On September 21, Dr Elspeth McInnes, convenor of the National Council of Single Mothers and their Children, criticised the Howard government's changes to its proposed "welfare-to-work" package as still failing for protect
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Hurricane Dubya "Congressional Republicans, backed by the White House, say they are using relief measures for the hurricane-ravaged Gulf coast to achieve a broad range of conservative economic and social policies, both in the storm zone and beyond
World
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On September 24, huge crowds attended anti-war protests in a number of US cities. In Washington DC, the White House was surrounded by a sea of protesters demanding the return of US troops from Iraq. The ANSWER anti-war coalition estimated that more
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Doug Lorimer In a September 19 statement accompanying his latest report to a meeting of the 35-country board of governors of the UN's nuclear watchdog, International Atomic Energy Agency director-general Mohammed ElBaradei declared that "Iran
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Federico Fuentes, Valencia Speaking of the nine-month-long struggle against the Aseven (KR) soft-drink company, one of the company's workers Luis Flugo told Green Left Weekly, "we have been on the streets, we have been the victims of so many acts
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Benjamin Dangl Controversy is raging in Paraguay, where the US military is conducting secretive operations. Five hundred US troops arrived in the country on July 1 with planes, weapons and ammunition. Eyewitness reports prove that an airbase exists
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Silke Stockle, Freiburg& Norman Brewer, Bremen The results of the September 18 federal election in Germany have opened up heated talks over which parties will form a coalition government. Neither the centre-left government of Chancellor Gerhard
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Louay Alzaher& Doug Lorimer Tension ran high in southern Iraq on September 20 after British troops attacked the central police station in Basra, Iraq's second largest city, the previous day. The incident was sparked when British soldiers used
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Kim Bullimore The Israeli justice ministry announced on September 18 that it would close a police investigation into the murder of 13 Palestinians with Israeli citizenship at the beginning of the second intifada. The 13 were killed in northern
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Provisional results from New Zealand's September 17 parliamentary election suggest that the Labour government of Prime Minister Helen Clark has narrowly won a third term in office.
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Camilo Mejia was the first US soldier to serve in Iraq who went public with his refusal to re-deploy. He spent nine months in military confinement for deciding to follow his conscience. Since his release, he has been a tireless anti-war campaigner
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Green Left Weekly's Lara Pullin, participant in the first Australia-Venezuela Solidarity Brigade, interviewed Nelson Davila, Venezuelan revolutionary and charge d'affaires at the Venezuelan embassy in Canberra. When we were in Venezuela, we heard a
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The September 19 English online edition of the Baghdad Azzaman daily reported that the Iraqi Red Crescent Society has asked aid groups to provide urgent assistance to former residents of Tal Afar following the massive US military assault on the city,
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Lourdes Garcia Larque is a solidarity activist and graduate of Latin American studies from the National Autonomous University of Mexico, which has 300,000 students. She will be speaking at the Third National Conference in Solidarity with Latin
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Rohan Pearce On March 1, 1991, after the defeat of Iraq in the first Gulf War, US President George Bush senior told the American Legislative Exchange Council: "By God, we've kicked the Vietnam syndrome once and for all!" Since George Bush junior
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Alex Miller The Scottish Socialist Party is contesting two parliamentary by-elections to be held on September 29. Its candidates — long-time local activist Ronnie Stevenson, standing in the Scottish Parliament seat of Glasgow Cathcart, and trade
Culture
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The Body SnatchersBy Cyndi TebbelFinch Publishing, Sydney$25 REVIEW BY TAMARA PEARSON Don't you think the concept of "diet" Coke is really bizarre? This is the rationale of a junk-dominated food industry trying to profit at the same time as a
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John Tognolini Green Left Weekly, the Democratic Socialist Perspective and the Socialist Alliance send our sincere condolences to Denis Kevans' daughter Sophia, his long-time partner Sonia Bennet and his many comrades and friends over his sudden
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Barking MadWritten and produced by Maree RobertsonMelbourne, October 11-13; Castlemaine, October 13; Hamilton, October 14; Camperdown, October 15Email <barkingmadproject@yahoo.com.au> or phone 0427 122 608 for more information. REVIEW BY
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An exhibition critical of the "war on terrorism" has been withdrawn — the second time that a work funded by the Melbourne City Council has been banned in the last 18 months. The work's title, Canberra's 18, refers to the 18 groups