Economy

About 250 people attended a rally on August 4 in solidarity with 55 sacked maintenance workers who had been employed at the Carlton & United Breweries (CUB) plant in Abbotsford. The workers, members of the Electrical Trades Union (ETU) and Australian Manufacturing Workers Union, were sacked on June 10. They were told they could re-apply for their jobs with a new contracting company, but that their pay would be cut by 65%. The rally, held outside the CUB brewery, was attended by members and officials from a wide range of unions.

Grandmothers Against Removals NSW released this statement for Aboriginal Children's Day on August 4. In Sydney, GAMAR has organised a protest at 12pm at the Family Law Courts, 99 Goulburn Street which will then march to NSW Parliament House. Grandmothers Against Removals is a network of families and supporters directly affected by forced child removal.

The union at the SABMiller Sonepat brewery in the state of Haryana, India has been organising mass protest actions in response to the harassment and intimidation of trade union leaders and members. It comes amid management's refusal to respect collective bargaining rights.

High-profile African-American academic, activist and socialist Cornel West, who strongly backed Bernie Sanders in the Democratic primary race, talks to Democracy Now!'s Amy Goodman on why he is backing the Green Party's Jill Stein for president.

Santiago, July 24. Photo: EFE. Pressured by the recent large protests rejecting the private system of pensions inherited from the Pinochet dictatorship, Chile's President Michelle Bachelet announced on July 26 that her administration would reform the system.

It is hard to imagine a sharper contrast than that between the 10th National Convention of Portugal's Left Bloc, held in Lisbon from June 24 to 26, and its predecessor, held in the same city 18 months ago. In 2014, the 9th National Convention of the radical left force — formed in 1999 to unite several left currents — had brought the organisation to the brink of a 50–50 split.

At the Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia this week, it seems a sticker is all it takes to keep you out of a room—at least the rooms brought to you by the fossil fuel industry.

Privatisation continues to be touted as a quick fix, so the mantra goes “public sector bad, private sector good”. That is, using community funds and resources to build up a vital service or piece of infrastructure, usually over a period of many years, then when there is a “budget crisis” selling it off to yield a quick cash injection and the removal of an expense from the ledger — regardless of whether it is generating income or not — while giving sweetheart deals to the new owners to ensure monopoly-like conditions to maximise their profits.

“It is a war between the majority of [Labour] MPs and the overwhelming majority of Labour Party members — hundreds and thousands of them,” says Kate Hudson, the national secretary of English party Left Unity, on the struggle over Jeremy Corbyn's leadership of the Labour Party. Hudson, who is also general secretary for the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament, was speaking to Melbourne community radio station 3CR's Solidarity Breakfast show on July 23.

Back in February, former US Secretary of State Madeleine Albright told a rally in the lead up to the first Democratic Party presidential primary in New Hampshire, there is a “special place in hell” for women who don't support Hillary Clinton. That same weekend, US feminist icon Gloria Steinem told a talk show that young women supporting presidential nominee Bernie Sanders over Clinton were chasing boys.

The latest Household, Income and Labour Dynamics in Australia Survey: Selected Findings (HILDA) report shows that the proportion of home ownership has declined in all parts of Australia, with the greatest declines in NSW and Victoria. Thereport, released on July 20, reveals that owning a house is no longer the norm and it is likely that renters will outnumber home-owners in the next few years.

Australian Competition and Consumer Commission chairperson Rod Sims said selling public assets has created unregulated monopolies that hurt productivity and damaged the economy. Speaking at the Melbourne Economic Forum on July 26, Sims said the sale of ports and electricity infrastructure and the opening of vocational education to private companies had caused the public to lose faith in privatisation and deregulation. Sims said: "I've been a very strong advocate of privatisation for probably 30 years; I believe it enhances economic efficiency.