Workers & unions

Hundreds of childcare workers rallied on the steps of the Victorian state parliament on November 17. The rally was organised by United Voice as part of its Big Steps campaign, a national push to improve wages and conditions in the childcare industry. After speeches from union delegates and the Australian Council of Trade Unions, the crowd marched to the Victorian Treasury gardens.

Chavs: The Demonization of the Working Class By Owen Jones Verso updated 2012 300 pages, $15:00 “It's not the existence of classes that threatens the unity of the nation, but the existence of class feeling,” an official British Conservative Party document stated in 1976. Indeed, abolishing classes was the last thing on the mind of the Tories' new leader at the time, Margaret Thatcher. She merely wanted people to forget which class they belonged to, says Owen Jones in Chavs.

The European Day of Action and Solidarity involved a 24-hour general strike in Portugal and Spain, partial strikes in Italy, Greece, Belgium, Cyprus and Malta, and protests in 16 other European countries on November 14. Despite the main action being confined to the Iberian peninsula, the day was a big success, with 40 union confederations and individual unions involved.

A community protest and picket has been set up for a second time outside the Little Creatures Brewing factory under construction in Geelong. The picket began on October 22 but was lifted after 7 days so that negotiations could take place. The talks broke down and the picket has been reimposed since November 14. Up to 50 Geelong workers have protested every weekday about the use of “sham contracting”.

Abdel Jabbar Madouri has been a militant in Tunisia from his early secondary school days. He was jailed three times (in 1987, 1993 and 2002) because of his political activism. After every arrest, he was tortured, then sentenced to more than 12 years in jail. Madouri spent four years living underground during the Ben Ali regime, which was overthrown in January last year -- sparking the “Arab Spring”. He was also deprived of the right to work or to obtain a passport.

Features interviews with Sue Bolton, the newly elected Socialist Alliance councillor for Moreland in Melbourne and Lindsay Hawkins, one of the Progressive PSA team that have won control of the union representing NSW public servants.

Germany is usually presented in the mainstream media as having successfully weathered Europe’s vast economic crisis. German Chancellor Angel Merkel from the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) has gained enormous influence on the European political and financial scene. By contrast, in protests across Greece, Spain and other countries hit hardest by the crisis, references about Germany as the “Fourth Reich” are increasingly being voiced.

A group of progressive union activists organised in the Progressive PSA group won control of the NSW Public Service Association (PSA) in union elections that closed on October 30. They won all positions on the 45-member central council and the top position of general secretary. Lindsay Hawkins is a disability support worker in Wollongong and is one of the newly elected members of the central council. He spoke to Green Left Weekly about why the group decided to run and what changes they are planning to make.

Inside Sydney Town Hall on October 31, guarded by suited security, the bankers and biggest property owners were meeting in the elite Property Congress.

A Brooklyn teacher on an email list said on November 2: “As I begin writing this, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano is speaking in Staten Island. She is rattling off statistics on how much water the federal government is delivering and reminding residents of the island borough of FEMA’s phone number and URL. “CNN only seemed to discover the massive death toll, flooding, and destruction in Staten Island 3-4 days after Hurricane Sandy hit the east coast.

After Barack Obama was re-elected United States president for a second four-year term, US Socialist Worker published the editorial that is abridged below. * * * Barack Obama has won re-election, thanks to a strong turnout by the Democratic Party's core supporters in every place the president needed to win.

Michael Lebowitz is a professor emeritus of economics at Simon Fraser University in Vancouver and an award-winning author. His most recent book is The Contradictions of “Real” Socialism. He was director of the Program in Transformative Practice and Human Development, Centro Internacional Miranda, in Caracas from 2006-2011.