Economy

  • Postal workers say CEO must go

    About 100 people rallied outside Australia Post in the CBD on September 9 to protest against job cuts at Australia Post. Australia Post CEO Ahmed Fahour’s plans to “halve the service and double the price for letters” is before the parliament now. This could see the price of stamps increased to $1. Fahour announced that he had put aside $190 million for redundancies — an indication of how many jobs will go. Australia Post’s revenue has increased by more than $1.5 billion since 2010.

  • Residents condemn Baird’s sham M4 East ‘consultation’

    Community groups from across Sydney have condemned the NSW government's announcement that the community consultation period for the Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) for the M4 East section of the huge WestConnex tollway will be limited to 45 days. NSW Planning Minister Rob Stokes released the Environmental Impact Statement on September 9. NSW Greens spokesperson for WestConnex and MP for Newtown Jenny Leong said: “This is the largest, most complex road building project in Australia’s history.

  • Ireland: Huge anti-water charge march says 'We're not going away, you know'

    Thousands of people gathered in Dublin, August 29. Tens of thousands of people took part in a huge anti-water charge rally in Dublin on August 29 under the banner: “We’re not going away, you know!” This is the fifth demonstration Right2Water has organised in opposition to deeply unpopular water charges. About 500,000 people have attended Right2Water protests to date.

  • India: 150 million workers strike against Narendra Modi

    About 150 million workers across India went on strike on September 2 to protest the "pro-business" policies of the Narendra Modi-led BJP government. Trade unions are opposing government plans to sell off stakes in state-run companies and change labour laws, which will put jobs at risk and worsen working conditions.

  • Ecuador: Behind the 'Indigenous Uprising' against Correa — divided left weakens struggle for change

    Indigenous anti-Correa protesters. Ecuador’s President Rafael Correa is facing the most important challenge yet to his self-styled “Citizens' Revolution”. A range of indigenous groups, trade unions and leftist parties mobilised across the country on August 13. Their long list of demands included calls for land reform, opposition to mining, support for bilingual education and the shelving of the government’s proposed water and labour laws.

  • Acland mine faces growing opposition

    Queensland’s environment department has given conditional approval for the controversial expansion of the Acland coalmine. But questions about the link between political donations to the former LNP government and their support for the project remain unanswered. In December last year the Queensland coordinator-general approved Stage 3 of New Hope Coal’s Acland coalmine, despite the project requiring the “clearing of eight endangered and of-concern regional ecosystems” including koala habitat, issues regarded as “matters of state environmental significance”.

  • Is the ‘Lucky Country’ heading for recession?

    From 1954 to 1972, Australia’s official unemployment rate was under 2% as the economy grew at the most rapid rate in the country’s history. There was one exception, the credit squeeze year of 1961, in which unemployment rose to 2.4%.

  • Trouble coming? If China sneezes, the world gets Asian flu

    The one thing neoliberal touts want us to forget is that the effects of the Global Financial Crisis of 2008 have never been overcome – and are still felt today. There is no such thing as everlasting “natural growth” in the world economy. As John Maynard Keynes long ago pointed out, capitalism “seems capable of remaining in a chronic condition of sub-normal activity for a considerable period without any marked tendency towards recovery or complete collapse”.