Workers & unions

The Media, Entertainment and Arts Alliance released the statement below on June 12. * * *

The Injured Workers Support Network released the statement below on June 12. * * * Injured Workers Support Network members will tomorrow take to the streets and join unions and community supporters at a rally at NSW Parliament House in protest of the O’Farrell government’s proposed slashing of workers compensation benefits to injured and ill workers.

On June 7, Australian Education Union (AEU) members — primary and secondary teachers in Victorian government schools — held their first stop-work meeting since 2008. About 25,000 teachers took part in Melbourne and marched to the steps of Victoria’s parliament house. In 2008, teachers were campaigning for their Enterprise Bargaining Agreement (EBA), which expired at the end of last year. Since then the AEU officials have been unsuccessfully negotiating with Victoria’s Ted Baillieu state government for a new EBA.

Carlo Sands comes out strongly in favour of the Queen's Jubilee celebrations, lauding everyone from Tom Jones to Julia Gillard, even putting up his own hand to make a similar sacrifice.

QR National announced on June 5 it would cut 500 rail jobs, to add to the 600 lost last year through voluntary redundancies. QR National is now Australia's largest rail freight company. It was was privatised in 2011 as part of the previous Labor state government's controversial public asset sales program. Rail Tram and Bus Union (RBTU) Queensland state secretary Owen Doogan told the June 6 Courier Mail that the redundancies were damaging: “We believe they will be outsourcing some of their work which means QR National workers will have been sold down the road.”

About 300 members of the NSW Teachers Federation (NSWTF) Council voted unanimously on June 2 to call upon the Barry O’Farrell government to provide guarantees for public school student learning conditions. If the O’Farrell government refuses to provide these guarantees the NSWTF will consider industrial action in the final week of June.

A group of unemployed people slept on the streets last weekend before being coerced into working for free — at the queen’s jubilee. It is the latest shocking story of life under the Tories’ Work Programme. Up to 30 jobless people were bussed into London from Bristol, Bath and Plymouth to work as stewards. Workers from Bristol say they were dumped in London at 3am on Sunday. Some said they had originally been told they would be paid for the work. But when they got onto coaches they were told they’d be doing the work for free—or lose out on a chance of paid work at the Olympics.

Workers in the United States know they are losing ground in the current Depression, as they are watching the rich going in the opposite direction. A decline in real wages comes on top of stagnation of wages in the three previous decades. A new report issued by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) says: “The recent recovery in the United States appears unusual from a historical perspective … with a much stronger rebound in profits relative to labor income.

Passersby were handed leaflets supporting striking Central Queensland coal mineworkers at a picket of the BHP-Billiton Brisbane office on June 1. The leaflet said the picket was being held “to show our solidarity with the striking coalminers in Central Queensland over their dispute with BMA company [BHP-Mitsubishi Alliance] concerning mine safety. This is a crucial fight for working rights and conditions, important for all Australian unionists right now.”

Politics in this country can sometimes seem like a magic trick aimed at young children. “Look over there! Do you see? Those Boat People are taking all your taxes and your homes and your bread! Look! What an outrage!” And then Gina Rinehart jumps up behind our backs and nicks all our resources. And that stuff is non-renewable. Once the mining bosses have flogged it off to China to fill their bloated bank account balances, it’s gone for good. We’ll just be left with a bunch of holes in the ground.

NSW unions are gearing up for “the biggest battle since Work Choices” to defend the rights of the state's sick and injured workers to receive just compensation. The Barry O'Farrell government has outlined cuts to WorkCover that mean workers would no longer be covered on their way to and from work. Payments to injured workers would fall after 13 weeks (rather than 26 weeks). All medical costs and payments for workers who are still sick or injured after two-and-a-half years would be cut. The government says that cutting benefits would “encourage” injured workers back to work.

What would Australia look like if Tony Abbott became the next prime minister? The Liberal leader is an outspoken climate denier, a hardliner on locking out refugees, determined to crack down on union and workers’ rights and wants to extend racist and draconian attacks on Aboriginal rights. Yet polls have consistently shown Abbott and the Coalition far ahead of the Julia Gillard Labor government, whose pro-business policies and internal scandals have made it deeply unpopular.