Naarm/Melbourne

About 300 unionists rallied on January 27 outside the Melbourne Liberal Party headquarters to demand an investigation into Alcoa's actions after the American-based company forcibly replaced Australian seafarers with foreign workers. A simultaneous rally in Sydney attracted about 100 workers.

A memorial was held on January 20 for two First Nations freedom fighters, Tunnerminnerwait and Maulboyheener. They were executed in 1842, the first two people executed in Victoria. Their deaths form part of the genocide that accompanied the dispossession of the First Nations people. The gathering marched to lay flowers at the Victoria Markets north wall carpark, where their remains and those of 9000 others lie in an unmarked grave.

The Victorian government has turned its back on a major commitment to not contract out disability services to the private sector. The Health and Community Services Union (HACSU) has been left feeling “absolutely betrayed” by the Daniel Andrews’ government’s decision to break an election promise that declared, “Disability is not for sale”. News of this proposal was not so much announced, as discovered in the closing paragraph of an unrelated document.

Forest firefighters employed by the Victorian Department of Environment, Land, Water and Planning (DELWP) have been battling the Andrews government for recognition as emergency services workers. Hundreds of the firefighters, who work in state forests and national parks, are paid $12 an hour less than a first year forest firefighter employed by other fire agencies for doing the same work and are denied equal levels of death and disability insurance.

Melbourne's Oromo community rallied on January 3 as part of a world-wide action in solidarity with the Oromo student protesters currently leading the ‪#‎OromoProtests‬ movement in Oromia, Ethiopia.

The Victorian government has turned its back on a major commitment to not contract out disability services to the private sector. The Health and Community Services Union (HACSU) has been left feeling “absolutely betrayed” by the Daniel Andrews' government's decision to break an election promise that declared, “Disability is not for sale”. News of this proposal wasn't so much announced, as discovered in the closing paragraph of an unrelated document.

The Victorian Labor government's decision to privatise Melbourne Port, the last significant public asset in the state, through a 50-year lease has drawn little public opposition. One reason is that the port is out of sight to most people in Victoria. Another is that the government has tried to soften opposition by offering to remove between 50 and 100 level crossings through the proceeds of the sale.

Hundreds of disability workers rallied in Melbourne on December 14 against attempts to privatise the rollout of the National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS) in Victoria.

"What do we want? A fair deal. When do we want it? Now!" more than 1000 firefighters chanted as they marched through the streets of Melbourne on December 8.

About 8000 unionists gathered outside the Melbourne Magistrates' Court on December 8 to support Construction, Forestry, Mining and Energy Union (CFMEU) officials John Setka and Shaun Reardon, who faced blackmail charges.

The Australian Education Union (AEU) Victoria has won millions of dollars back-payment for more than 40,000 Victorian teachers and principals in a landmark case decided on November 6. The Federal Court found the Victorian government made unlawful deductions from teachers’ and principals’ salaries in contravention of the Fair Work Act, by requiring them to pay for access to the Education Department’s laptops directly out of wages.

Forty people attended a public meeting in the Melbourne suburb of Brunswick on the campaign against conscription during World War I. Michael Hamel-Green, a draft resister during the Vietnam War who is now an emeritus professor at Victoria University, gave a talk on the history of the anti-conscription campaign, with a particular emphasis on the role of local residents. Prime Minister Billy Hughes called two referenda on conscription for military service outside Australia, in 1916 and 1917. Both were defeated, the second by a greater margin than the first.