News

A February 12-14 “national bargaining forum” of lead negotiators for the National Tertiary Education Union (NTEU) set a determined course for industrial and political campaigning over the next three years. Key outcomes include an aggressive bargaining strategy and a linked public policy campaign that will be both national and grassroots.

Campaign group Your Water Your Say (YWYS) has warned that Victorian state government policy will see the state “swimming in water but drowning in water bills” by 2014 if the proposed $3.1 billion desalination plant goes ahead at Wonthaggi.

Laws that curtailed civil liberties during the “extraordinary” and “temporary” conditions of the APEC protests last year in Sydney are likely to be made permanent, according to the March 12 Sydney Morning Herald.

Fifty people attended the first public meeting of Cairns Action for Sustainable Transport (CAST), on March 11 at the Serbian Centre in Edge Hill. Attendees engaged in a lively discussion about improving Cairns’s public transport and bikeways.

Three hundred delegates voted unanimously to take industrial action in response to NSW government changes to staffing procedures in public schools at a March 8 NSW Teachers Federation (NSWTF) state council meeting.

Following the age-old premise of struggling locally to effect change globally, activists fighting for justice for the Palestinian people are taking big steps forward in a Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) campaign targeted against the criminal Israeli state.

The demands reflect important struggles facing workers and the community, including the planned sell-off of NSW power and the ongoing campaign to abolish the worst aspects of former prime minister John Howard’s Work Choices legislation. In addition to the May 3 march and rally, the committee is organising a photo display in honour of past May Day struggles. It will be launched on May 1 in a local theatre and feature hundreds of photos, leaflets, posters, even an old “May Day queen” sash, ranging in dates from 1930s to recent years.

On March 12, 100 people joined a community assembly at the Sydney desalination plant site to protest against the sacking of a Maritime Union of Australia divers’ delegate for raising health and safety issues. It was also to protest the failure of Construction Diving Services (a subsidiary of Dempsey Industries) to negotiate a collective agreement with 14 divers on the site. Apart from MUA members, delegations from the Fire Brigades Employees Union and the Rail Tram and Bus Union attended.

Fourteen divers at the Sydney desalination plant being built at Port Botany went on strike this week over safety concerns and demanding a union collective agreement walking off the job on Monday March 3. They are employed by Construction Diving Services (whose parent company is Dempsey Industries).

SYDNEY — The Construction, Forestry, Mining and Energy Union (CFMEU) organised a community rally outside the Sombreros Mexican restaurant in the beachside suburb of Cronulla on March 7. The rally was to protest the sacking of chef Basilo Reyes for taking time off to have a cancer removed.

Poverty is a dominant feature of life for many university students. Statistics from Melbourne University show that living expenses (excluding course fees) for a student in share accommodation amount annually to around $25,000. Most students must work at least one job to supplement the meagre government-provided youth allowance, which, if paid at the maximum rate of $425 per fortnight, amounts to just $11,050 per annum.

On March 6, a rally was held to commemorate the International Day of Tribute for the Victims of Human Rights Abuses. This international day of action was called by the Colombian National Movement for Victims of the State. Around 40 people gathered on the steps of Parliament House in support of the victims of paramilitarism, demanding a just, fair and free Colombia and an end to state terrorism.