The union movement can fight back and grow overall in the next period, Tim Gooden, secretary of the Geelong Trades Hall Council, told Green Left Weekly on April 18. He was responding to reports in the mainstream press highlighting figures indicating a further fall in national union membership last year.
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Clothing and sexism
Anne Horan (Write On, GLW #746) writes that in feminist circles it's a no-no to discuss what women wear and that feminists do not criticise women themselves for wearing skimpy clothing. She states that the argument that
This year marks the 60th anniversary of the Palestinian al Nakba (the Catastrophe) — the razing of up to 418 Palestinian villages and the driving of 700,000 Palestinians from their homes by Zionist forces to create the State of Israel.
“Clashes with Shiite militiamen flared in two cities Wednesday as a US drone fired two missiles in Basra and US-backed Iraqi troops battled in Baghdad’s sprawling Sadr City slum”, Associated Press reported on April 16.
The government of Argentinean President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner had the first of a series of meetings on April 15 with the leaders of the agricultural sector.
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.
NASAs chief climate scientist, Dr James Hansen, wrote an open letter to Kevin Rudd on March 27 urging him to halt the construction of new coal-fired power stations. He also demanded that Rudd implement the Garnaut reports recommendations.
ACT police have been given enhanced stop-and-search powers for dealing with protests planned for the Canberra leg of the global Olympic torch relay on April 24. This comes as protests by the Tibetan diaspora and their supporters have turned the torchs world tour into a public relations disaster for the Beijing Olympics.
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.
As the British parliament is discussing proposals to extend its anti-terrorism laws even further, existing anti-terrorism laws have been used to conduct surveillance on a family wrongly suspected of lying on a school application form.
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