Workers & unions

There is a growing disconnect between the official rosy picture of the Australian economy and mounting public anxiety about job insecurity. The latest official unemployment rate (January 2012) was steady at 5.2% and Treasury secretary Martin Parkinson insists there is no reason to worry. Australians, he said, should shake off their misplaced “boom with gloom” attitude.

The Australian Nurses Federation (ANF) Victorian branch released the statement below on March 1. * * * Private conciliation resolved disputes in 1997, 2001, 2004 and 2007 and can resolve 2012. The Baillieu government has spent more taxpayer money on lawyers — this time to prevent nurses and midwives from freely using social media to discuss the dispute. Baillieu government-paid lawyers wrote to ANF solicitors last night demanding the ANF delete nurses’ and midwives’ posts from the Facebook campaign page at www.facebook.com/respectourwork

The Socialist Alliance Queensland released the statement below on March 2. * * * The three Socialist Alliance candidates in the March 24 Queensland state election, two of who are former Labor Party members disgusted at Labor's betrayals of public interests, have called for a new trade union and community campaign to reverse the privatisations of the major parties.

The Socialist Alliance NSW released the statement below on February 29. * * * The Socialist Alliance NSW condemns the latest step in the attacks on NSW public sector workers and their unions, announced by Premier Barry O’Farrell on February 23. O’Farrell used question time to announce that he intends to introduce a bill to NSW parliament on March 6, which will increase penalties for industrial action in defiance of Industrial Relation Commission orders, or “wildcat strikes”.

Will the Spanish economy benefit from Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy government’s anti-worker labour market reform?

The abridged statement below was initiated by the British Coalition of Resistance and signed by dozens of groups and individuals around the world ― including Australia's Socialist Alliance. See Coailiast of Resistancefor the list of signatories and to add your name. * * *

Fifty-seven Spanish cities and towns came to a stop on February 19. Up to 2 million people marched in protest against the new labour “reform” of Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy's Popular Party (PP) government. The marches brought together veterans of the struggle for union and worker rights under the Franco dictatorship, activists from the 1970s “transition to democracy” and today’s indignados. “Old” slogans (“If you don’t fight, you lose”) mixed with new (“They piss on us and say it’s raining”).

Len Cooper, the secretary of the Victorian Telecommunications Division of the Communications, Electrical and Plumbing Union, wrote to Victorian unions last August inviting them to take part in a discussion “aimed at leading to the formation of a campaign on the right to strike”. The Victorian Trades Hall Council (VTHC) endorsed the campaign as a sub-committee of the hall on February 10. It committed to back a motion on the right to strike at the Australian Council of Trade Unions (ACTU) national congress, which takes place in Sydney in May.

After Victorian nurses walked off the job from six Victorian hospitals, Ted Baillieu's state government was still refusing to undertake effective negotiations with the Australian Nursing Federation (ANF). The dispute has dragged on for eight months and has been in its current conciliation process under Fair Work Australia (FWA) for 105 days. On February 24, the FWA ordered the ANF to stop all industrial action as sought by the government. But the ANF has said it will go ahead with its actions as decided on by members at a mass meeting on February 25.

How will Spain’s new labour "reform" — announced on February 10 by employment and social security minister Fátima Báñez and already in force as a royal decree before adoption by parliament—affect Spain’s workers and unemployed? First, imagine the essence of 30 years of Australian anti-worker and anti-union law — from Hawke’s Accord through Keating’s enterprise bargaining and Howard’s Workplace Relations Act to Work Choices and the Fair Work Act — but all rolled into one bill.

Rolling industrial action has hit Port Kembla as part of an ongoing dispute between local coal terminal management and workers. Strike action began on February 1 as a result of management scaling back conditions during negotiations over a new enterprise agreement. At any time, up to 15 ships can be spotted sitting on the horizon off Port Kembla. Most of the ships are waiting to access the coal terminal. BHP Billiton operates the terminal on behalf of its owners, which include Xstrata, Peabody Energy, Gujarat NRE and Centennial Coal.

Hundreds of thousands protested around the Athens parliament on February 12. Tens of thousands protested in Thessaloniki, the country's second biggest city, and sizeable protests took place in other Greek cities. The rallies followed a 48-hour strike over February 10-11.