News

PERTH — The Maritime Union of Australia (MUA) has won a dispute with Adsteam Marine at a gas pipe-laying project off the north-west coast of Western Australia. The workers walked off the job because of serious safety concerns.

BRISBANE — ALP state backbencher Jim Pearce, MP for the seat of Fitzroy in the central Queensland coal-mining district, has threatened to resign from the Labor Party if longstanding concerns over mining safety issues are not

SYDNEY — The buzz of 60 talkative union activists was an auspicious precursor to the formal speaking platform at the Socialist Alliance's July 30 forum at the Gaelic Club on union struggles. Shane Bentley, who received 44% of

MELBOURNE — The case against 16 of the unionists charged over protests at the Johnson Tiles factory and the Skilled Engineering offices on June 15, 2001, was finalised at the county court on July 30. The 16 unionists, members of

PERTH — Ali Kazak, the head of the Palestinian delegation to Australia, spoke to over 200 people during his recent visit to Western Australia. Organised by the NoWar Alliance, the tour enabled Kazak to explain firsthand the

SYDNEY — "Afghanistan has become a forgotten story once again", said Tahmeena Faryal, a representative of the Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan (RAWA), during her recent speaking tour of Australia. "A lot was promised by the

ADELAIDE — More than 200 people protested outside federal community services minister Amanda Vanstone's office on July 28, demanding that funding for translating services for the deaf be restored. The South Australian Deaf

SYDNEY &#151 On July 29, NSW public school teachers voted overwhelmingly at state-wide stop-work meetings in support of a proposal by the NSW Teachers Federation to hold a one-day strike.Teachers are demanding that Premier Bob

PERTH — On July 30, 70 people crowded into the Fremantle Hotel for a quiz night fundraiser organised by the Fremantle Anti-Nuclear Group (FANG). FANG is committed to stopping the Seaswap program, under which US Navy vessels

SYDNEY — The Committees in Solidarity with Latin America and the Caribbean (CISLAC) held a successful national conference on August 2, with more than 150 activists attending. The conference, Latin America, New Movements of

CPSU activists to hold training day CANBERRA — The Members First caucus in the Community and Public Sector Union is organising a training day on August 16 for all CPSU members in the ACT who want to build an alternative type of unionism to the

Neither God nor evolution "The truly humanitarian system is not the Marxism espoused by Western intellectuals but the only system that can establish, as it historically has, the furtherance of life on Earth: capitalism." — From a commentary by