News

Wool combers overwhelmed by support

GEELONG — Workers at Geelong Wool Combing (GWC) are maintaining their 24-hour picket outside the gates of their employer. The 110 workers have been overwhelmed by the level of support they have received from the community.

Adrian Van Doren, workplace delegate for the Textile Clothing and Footwear Union (TCFUA), told Green Left Weekly that the workers were locked out on April 28. "We've been here all this time and if it hadn't been for the support from our union and all the other great unions, who knows what would have happened?"

Huge March for Science in Brisbane

1000 people marched through Brisbane to hear speakers talk about the importance of funding science research organisations and basing public policy on evidence.

"Our research organisations, both our universities and industry driven organisations like the CSIRO are critical for our future as a society," spokesperson Joel Gilmore told Green Left Weekly.

"We are going to have to move on from fossil fues as being one of our key economic drivers," he said echoing a strong sentiment in the crowd for recognising climate science and rejecting "alternative facts".

Perth action to Free the Cuban Five

The Cuban Five are five Cuban men serving four life sentences and 75 years collectively in US prisons, after being wrongly convicted in the US federal court in Miami, on June 8, 2001.

Love Trumps Hate in Brisbane

Hundreds defied rainy weather to take part in a vibrant "Love Trumps Hate" rally in Brisbane on June 11.

Thousands of workers protest the ABCC

Around Australia, thousands of unionists, led by the Construction, Forestry, Mining and Energy Union (CFMEU), took to the streets on June 20 as part of a national day of action against the Australian Building and Construction Commission (ABCC), attacks on penalty rates, wage theft by employers and exploitation of migrant workers.

The CFMEU was joined by hundreds of other workers in contingents including nurses, teachers, firefighters, financial sector workers, public sector workers, university staff, manufacturing workers, electrical trades and maritime workers.

Photos: Save SCA activists crash VC's Christmas party

Sydney College of the Arts (SCA) students and supporters crashed the University of Sydney’s Vice Chancellor Michael Spence's Christmas party on December 13.

Singing carols and stripping down, they held up a banner — “USYD stripping us of our art school” — as people entered before going inside and jumping on the main stage.

Treesitter Steffi Leedham takes on WestConnex

Activist Steffie Leedham is sitting on a platform high on a tree in Sydney Park. The platform is connected to two other big trees in the area of the park that has been fenced off for clearing to start building of the #WestConnex tollway and tunnel project's St Peters interchange.

Geelong Trades Hall raises rainbow flag

On June 27, Geelong Trades Hall Secretary Colin Vernon along with other union and community activists raised the rainbow flag at Trades Hall in support of marriage equality.

The council is supporting the LGBTI community and Surf Coast Shire residents who have been campaigning to keep the flag flying at their local council building since council backtracked on a position it took in April.

Thousands in Australia join global anti-Trump women's marches

Several thousand people joined Women's Marches in Sydney and Melbourne on January 21, a part of a global mobilisation to coincide with the inauguration of the misogynist far-right US President Donald Trump.

Half a million people took part in the main protest in Washington DC, more than 3 million marched throughout the US and hundreds of thousands more marched globally.

Thousands rally against ABCC and to defend penalty rates in Brisbane