News

On April 9, some 700 workers employed at the Port Melbourne-based Boeing subsidiary Hawker de Havilland went on strike. They were protesting against the company’s April 7 sacking of an Australian Manufacturing Workers Union (AMWU) member without going through the agreed dispute-settlement procedure. The HDH plant makes parts for Boeing’s new 787 airliner.

“The intervention is an apartheid system. It’s an abuse of our human rights — but we blackfellas are used to that”, Mutitjulu elder Vince Forrester told a meeting of 130 people in Redfern on April 12.

Teachers around the country are in protracted disputes over wages and conditions with their ALP government bosses. Federal education minister Julia Gillard has come out in opposition to teachers’ unions’ proposal to place bans on administrating national literacy and numeracy testing in pursuit of claims for real wage increases and to demand an improvement of working conditions.

Last month, four injured workers had their light duties suspended by Campbellfield car parts manufacturer Autoliv and were told that they should consider taking “voluntary” redundancy packages.

For Mel Barnes of the Tasmania-based group Students Against the Pulp Mill (SAPM) and Resistance, “young people have the authority to decide our future”, and they can inspire others to take action. Barnes was speaking at the Climate Change — Social Change Conference in Sydney, April 11-13, on a panel with other young environment activists.

Approximately 20,000 votes were submitted across NSW by teachers who attended stop-work Sky Channel meetings on April 8. Teachers went on strike over the state Labor government’s refusal to negotiate a new staffing scheme that would ensure transfer rights for all teachers and guarantee qualified and trained teachers for all students in NSW public schools.

On April 15, 200 people attended a public meeting entitled “Putting the terror laws on trial” at the Kaleide Theatre, RMIT. The meeting was jointly sponsored by the Civil Rights Defence campaign group and Amnesty International.

Following the first Fossil Fools’ Day actions, it’s a good time to look at how the day came together nationally and how we can make the next Fossil Fools’ Day — and all future actions of the environment movement — even more successful.

At least 100 people attended the Palestine: Global Perspective conference, held at the Victorian State Library on March 29.

Aboriginal legal aid services are to have their funding cut for the 13th year in a row, despite an election promise by the ALP that a federal Labor government would increase their funding, Trevor Christian, the director of the NSW/ACT Aboriginal Legal Aid Service, told the March 31 Sydney Morning Herald.

On April 1, the Sydney May Day Committee voted unanimously to accept a Unions NSW proposal to shift the traditional May Day march and rally from the first Sunday in May to Saturday May 3.

The Construction, Forestry, Mining and Energy Union (CFMEU) campaign to secure wage rises for construction workers across the country has attracted fierce criticism from the federal government, which is demanding the union apply “restraint” in order to keep a lid on inflation.