Economy

Occupy Melbourne released the statement below on November 22. * * * Today's victory of striking chicken workers is a massive boost in confidence to the most exploited workers of the 99% in Australia. Occupy Melbourne's Community and Union Outreach group has been a community supporter of the Baiada chicken workers since before the strike, with participants on the picket line during police attacks, as well as performing prominent stunts targeted against major Baiada purchaser Coles.

A Corporate Greed Tour, organised by Occupy Sydney, took place in Sydney on November 19. The tour targeted several greedy corporations, including the Coles supermarket chain in solidarity with striking Baiada Poultry workers in Victoria. Baiada is a major supplier of chickens to Coles.

Occupy Sydney Protest - Activists, union members and community groups marched from Sydney's Town Hall to Martin Place to protest against corporate greed, world poverty and economic slavery.

City of Sydney Greens councillor Irene Doutney gave the speech below to Occupy Sydney’s Corporate Tour protest on November 19. * * * I’d like to acknowledge that we are meeting on Aboriginal land, Gadigal land, land that was never sold, ceded or given away. I pay my respects to elders past, present and future. This is Aboriginal land — always was and always will be.

World financial markets are increasingly staking billions on a bet that the eurozone is on its last legs. This bet on a euro break-up is looking more and more realistic, particularly because it becomes increasingly self-fulfilling as austerity programs bite and economic growth slows across Europe. A very vicious circle is at work. Because of the rising wariness of financial institutions, in recent weeks the price of Italian and Spanish 10-year bonds has fallen. Their yield rose above 7% (bond prices and yields move in opposite directions).

Anti-tar sands activists in the United States and Canada have been seeking to stop the Keystone XL pipeline, built to transport oil from the Athabasca tar sands in north-east Alberta, Canada, to refineries in the United States. Mining the Athabasca tar sands is one of the most environmentally destructive practices on the planet. Bill McKibben posted the message below on November 10. It is abridged from www.tarsandsaction.org. * * * Um, we won.

Late on October 23, the culminating vote of the program congress of the German Left Party (Die Linke) came in Erfurt’s cavernous Congress Centre: 503 delegates raised their voting cards to support the document as finally amended by the congress, with only four against and 12 abstentions. Die Linke has operated since 2007 on the basis of the “programmatic key points” that created Die Linke from the fusion of the Party of Democratic Socialism (PDS) and the Electoral Alternative for Labour and Social Justice (WASG).

Two people were hospitalised with breathing difficulties in the Newcastle suburb of Mayfield East on November 9. NSW Fire and Rescue crews identified the cause as ammonia gas blown from the Orica chemical plant five kilometres away on Kooragang Island. The Environment Protection Authority ordered the entire Orica site to be closed. A Fire and Rescue spokesperson said an estimated 900 kilograms of the gas had escaped over about an hour.

A spirited mass meeting in Manhattan’s Zuccotti Park after a police crackdown and a major student strike in Berkeley, California on November 15 showed the determination of the Occupy movement in the face of police repression and lies from politicians and the corporate media. In New York, about 1500 people turned out for a general assembly (GA) less than 24 hours after police in riot gear rousted those camping out in Zuccotti Park, arresting up to 200 while trashing tents, supplies and even books.

Community and Public Sector Union Tasmania general secretary Tom Lynch gave the speech below to a 4500-strong rally in Hobart on November 12. The rally was held in protest at the Labor-Greens state government’s budget cutbacks. * * * While external forces often determine the overall direction a government takes, the path it chooses to get there is for it to determine based on its values and beliefs and the will of the people it represents.

Since the Occupy movement in Melbourne began in City Square in October it has been met with resistance from the Melbourne City Council and the Victorian Police force. Last month, the Melbourne occupiers were violently evicted and thrown out of City Square by more than 500 police. Close to 100 activists and bystanders were arrested. The police stole people’s belongings. Of the 17 truckloads of property that were taken 14 were driven to a local tip and dumped in landfill.

The report below was posted by Occupy Wall Street on the evening of November 17. * * * On the November 17 Day of Action in New York, to mark two months since the Occupy Wall Street camp began and coming just two days after violent eviction of campers from Liberty Park in Manhattan, there was: * More than 30,000 People Rally in New York City (NYPD estimated 32,500), including organised contingents of workers, students, and other members of “the 99%”. * Actions in at least 30 cities across the country and around the world