Djilang/Geelong

  • VIT 'little benefit for teachers'

    Teachers in Victoria have been dealt another blow, with greater powers being handed to the Victorian Institute of Teaching as part of a review of the VIT launched mid-2007.

  • Deakin students protest at Rudd visit

    A May 1 visit to Deakin University by PM Kevin Rudd was met with a small but very vocal demonstration by students campaigning for an end to Israel’s oppression of the Palestinian people.

  • Building industry attack dog targets union militants

    The Australian Building and Construction Commission (ABCC) is spreading its net further throughout the building industry in an attempt to intimidate unions from standing up for the interests of their members.

  • Teachers demand pay rise, permanent jobs

    On March 3, 400 teachers rallied as part of the Australian Education Union’s campaign for improved wages and conditions. The AEU is calling for a 10% pay rise each year for three years to bring Victorian teachers’ wages in line with those of New South Wales teachers.

  • Anti-dredging protest

    At 6am on January 29, environmental activists from the Bellarine Seastar — an arm of the Blue Wedges Coalition — crammed onto the Point Lonsdale pier, on the western side of the entrance to Port Phillip Bay, to protest the arrival in the bay of the giant Dutch dredging ship, the Queen of the Netherlands.

  • Geelong nurses speak out

    Twenty-one years ago Jackie Kriz, an Australian Nurses Federation job representative, took part in Victoria’s landmark nurses’ dispute of 1986. As a young Geelong nurse she remembers the long campaign where nurses went from being professionals who would never strike to industrial campaigners.

  • More manufacturing jobs threatened in Geelong

    With the city of Geelong still reeling from Ford’s announcement that by 2010 it will shut down its V6 engine assembly plant and dismiss 600 workers of the company’s 2600 Geelong employees, another manufacturer has announced that it is reviewing its operations.

  • 'Ford has no right to destroy lives'

    Ford’s decision to close down its Geelong engine plant will have a catastrophic effect on the town. It’s not just the 600 jobs at Ford that will be lost; hundreds of jobs will probably also be lost in the car components factories and various supply companies. This flow-on could mean up to 2400 more unemployed workers in Geelong.

  • Caldicott: Rudd, Howard can't be trusted

    Nuclear power is a solution to nothing but will create endless problems, Helen Caldicott told a meeting of 60 people on June 4. The revival of the nuclear debate by PM John Howard and Labor leader Kevin Rudd was a false one, she said.

  • Workers owed $1.8 million stood down

    Forty-nine workers at Coghlan and Russell, a car components factory in Geelong, have been stood down after the company called in receivers. On April 5, the workers discovered that their superannuation had not been paid for more than eight months. When the Australian Manufacturing Workers Union (AMWU) confronted management, it was told that the company had a plan and would talk to the union in a couple of days.

  • David Hicks — political prisoner

    Activists gathered on March 22 to discuss the campaign to free David Hicks. The meeting, called by the Geelong Anti-War Coalition, was chaired by Socialist Alliance member Bronwyn Jennings and heard from Amnesty International, the Greens and Civil Rights Defence (CRD).

  • Geelong women win union prize

    The vice-president of Geelong Trades Hall, Christine Couzens, has been awarded the Jenny George Award for the advancement of women in unions. Couzens was presented with the award by Australian Council of Trade Unions president Sharan Burrow on March 7.