Workers & unions

  • Regional TAFEs front fight against Victoria's cuts

    A prime opportunity for the TAFE campaign to give voice to community opposition to the TAFE cuts came on September 6. Victoria's Upper House of parliament was sitting in Bendigo and its Lower House was at the University of Ballarat.

  • Joe Owens: a fallen comrade remembered

    The NSW Construction Forestry Mining Energy Union (CFMEU) construction and general branch released the statement below on September 7. * * * CFMEU State Secretary Brian Parker today expressed his deep sorrow of the loss of one of the building trade union’s most significant leaders — Joe Owens. Owens, who died earlier this week, was secretary of the Builders Labourers Federation (BLF) NSW branch between 1973 and 1975.

  • Hundreds join surprise party for community hero Fred Moore

    More than 300 people surprised unionist and community legend Fred Moore on September 1, throwing him a huge 90th birthday party. Moore said it was the biggest surprise of his life when he walked into his local community centre hall in Dapto to find hundreds of people cheering his name. It took him several minutes to reach the front of the hall as he hugged nearly everyone on the way.

  • PHOTOS: Victorian teachers hold largest strike in state's history

    About 15,000 Victorian teachers packed in to Melbourne's Rod Laver Arena on September 5 in the biggest teachers strike in the state's history. The Australian Education Union organised the rally to protest the Ted Baillieu state government's attacks on public education and its low offer of a 2.5% wage rise. After the rally, the teachers marched on state parliament.

  • Support the CFMEU’s struggle against anti-union thuggery

    The Socialist Alliance released the statement below on September 4. * * * The Socialist Alliance stands in solidarity with members of the Construction, Forestry, Mining Energy Union (CFMEU) who are fighting for basic rights on Grocon building sites such as: • The right to be represented by union nominated and elected shop stewards and health and safety representatives, • The right to talk to a union organiser without interference, • The right to work without being stood over for being a union activist, and

  • Resist Baillieu’s attacks on teachers and TAFEs

    The Socialist Alliance released the statement below on September 4. * * * Over the past 12 months, the Ted Baillieu state government has stepped up attacks on Victorian workers. Nurses were forced to take nine months of unprecedented levels of industrial action, with threats of jail hanging over their heads, to win their claim. Public servants were forced into compulsory arbitration and are now feeling the loss of thousands of jobs and the cutting of public services.

  • PHOTOS: Protests target Hungry Jack’s for low wages, union-busting

    Young workers and activists staged pickets outside Hungry Jack's restuarants around Australia on August 31, in solidarity with workers in New Zealand facing a “vicious anti-union rampage”. Actions were held in Adelaide, Brisbane, Perth, Hobart, Melbourne and Sydney. Its counterpart Burger King in New Zealand pays staff the lowest wages of the big fast food companies and workers who join a union to push for better pay and conditions are emotionally and financially intimidated.

  • Grocon dispute: Workers stand up to police aggression

    As thousands of construction workers took over the streets of Melbourne for the fourth day in a row on August 31 they were confronted by at least 500 police. The workers were protesting for fundamental union rights outside the Grocon Myer Emporium site in Melbourne’s CBD. Three days earlier, Construction Forestry Mining Energy Union (CFMEU) shop stewards and organisers were violently confronted by police on horseback. The police tried to clear the way for the scabs to enter the site and used batons and capsicum spray against the unionists.

  • O'Farrell to cut conditions for 80,000 workers

    More than 80,000 NSW public sector workers will lose basic entitlements such as annual leave loading, penalty rates and remote living allowances under new plans from Barry O'Farrell's Coalition government. Some sick leave and parental leave also face the axe. The latest attack comes after 15,000 jobs were cut, public-sector pay rises were capped below the inflation rate, and workers' compensation rights for sick and injured workers were stripped.