Workers & unions

Under pressure from an industrial campaign by the Community and Public Sector Union (CPSU), the Turnbull government has announced it will lift its cap on wage rises for federal public sector workers from 1.5% to 2%. The government is maintaining its hard line on stripping existing workplace rights and conditions. Only a handful of government agencies have so far this year reached EBA settlements with their workers.

Faction Man: Bill Shorten's Path to Power David Marr Quarterly Essay No. 59 Black Inc., 2015 Even the usually perceptive journalist David Marr, in his latest political profile for Quarterly Essay, is defeated by the indistinct and bland Shorten who, in public opinion polls, trails behind “Someone Else” as preferred leader of the Labor Opposition.

Members of the Teachers and Education Support Staff Alliance (TESA) have been re-elected to the state-wide council of the Victorian branch of the Australian Education Union (AEU) in elections that took place in October. TESA also contested the four senior officer positions: branch president, branch deputy president, branch secretary and branch deputy secretary.

Wits students protest in Johannesburg against a proposed tuition fee hike tuition fees on October 15. A historic victory over neoliberalism in South Africa was won on October 23, after the most intense three-week burst of mobilisation in the country since liberation from apartheid in 1994.

The long-running dispute between the Maritime Union of Australia (MUA) and Hutchison Ports is edging closer to settlement. An MUA member at the Port Botany community assembly told Green Left Weekly on October 30 that letters offering voluntary redundancies were being issued by the company that day. MUA members have a week to reply. They said that substantially improved redundancy entitlements, “roughly equivalent to 26 weeks' pay,” are being offered — a big gain on the previous offer of nine weeks' pay for three years of service.

The National Union of Workers released this statement on October 23. *** Recently the Victorian Trades Hall Council passed a resolution that included this statement: "That VTHC celebrates the contribution to our community from Victorians of many cultures and many faiths. There is no place in Victoria or discrimination or racism and we deplore those who would demonise any group by reason of their faith, race or culture.

Podemos activists The December 20 elections in the Spanish state will attract the usual large field of runners. Challengers will represent every imaginable position along the Spanish state's two main political dimensions — the left-to-right social axis and the axis of national rights. This second dimension reaches from the centralism of the ruling People's Party (PP) to the pro-independence stance of various Catalan, Basque and Galician parties.

Workers have told Green Left Weekly that Hutchison Ports is seemingly in the process of calling for voluntary redundancies at its Port Botany and Brisbane terminals. This is the latest development in a long-running dispute that erupted following the sudden sacking of 97 workers at Hutchison's two ports on August 6. Since then, members of the Maritime Union of Australia (MUA), along with other unions and supporters, have maintained community assemblies at the two ports.

Radical Ideas is a 3-day conference of discussion, debate and ideas for radical change, from December 4-6 in Sydney. We are lucky to have a number of guest speakers confirmed so far, including well-known campaigners involved in various movements and Socialist Alliance and Resistance: Young Socialist Alliance activists.

Staff of Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull's department have overwhelmingly rejected an enterprise bargaining agreement offer in a ballot which finished on October 18. Public servants at the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet (PM&C) voted no to a management offer which attacked their rights, conditions and real wages. About 76% of staff participated in the ballot. The result is a further nail in the coffin of the federal Coalition government's industrial relations policy towards its own workforce.

Around 100 members of the Maritime Union of Australia (MUA) rallied at the Sydney Overseas Passenger Terminal at Circular Quay on October 9 to oppose harsh exploitation of crews aboard Royal Caribbean cruise ships, and demand the right of employees and linesmen on the dock to be union members. Sydney MUA secretary Paul McAleer told the rally: "This cruise company imposes a huge level of exploitation on its crews, including underpayment and poor conditions on board. Up to now, the company and the shipping agents, Port Jackson Holdings, have refused to allow port workers to join the union.

Will Portugal finally see the end of the austerity imposed over four years by the right-wing coalition of the Social-Democratic Party (PSD) and Democratic and Social Centre—People's Party (CDS-PP)?