Workers & unions

In a week that saw a huge mass meeting and a rally of 12,000 people, Fair Work Australia (FWA) has ordered Victorian nurses— for the third time — by to lift their industrial action.

After 13 days of an around-the-clock picket line, the workers at poultry company Baiada in Laverton North have won a tremendous victory. Baiada was well known as having the worst pay and conditions of all poultry processing companies.

A voluntary system of certifying whether goods are free from forced labour is about as far as things go in Australia when it comes to abolishing the slave trade throughout the world. Though it is illegal to import slave made goods, there has never been a single prosecution for the crime in Australia. STOP THE TRAFFIK Australia believes it should not be left to the ethics of consumers to decide whether to purchase products made by slaves. Rather, they simply shouldn’t be available in Australia.

The Health and Community Services Union (HACSU) has begun a series of rolling stoppages for better wages and conditions at mental health services across Victoria. HACSU covers mental health and allied health workers. Stoppages and rallies have been held in Bendigo and Shepparton, and at Eastern Mental Health, St Vincents and Melbourne Health. A two-hour stopwork rally will be held at Latrobe Valley Mental Health on November 29, from noon at the Latrobe Valley Hospital in Traralgon.

Trade unionists from the Transport Workers Union, the National Tertiary Education Union and the Maritime Union of Australia joined Occupy Sydney activists in a protest on November 22 outside Angel Place Recital Hall, where the union-bashing CEO of Qantas Alan Joyce was addressing a forum.

Occupy Melbourne released the statement below on November 22. * * * Today's victory of striking chicken workers is a massive boost in confidence to the most exploited workers of the 99% in Australia. Occupy Melbourne's Community and Union Outreach group has been a community supporter of the Baiada chicken workers since before the strike, with participants on the picket line during police attacks, as well as performing prominent stunts targeted against major Baiada purchaser Coles.

Occupy Sydney Protest - Activists, union members and community groups marched from Sydney's Town Hall to Martin Place to protest against corporate greed, world poverty and economic slavery.

World financial markets are increasingly staking billions on a bet that the eurozone is on its last legs. This bet on a euro break-up is looking more and more realistic, particularly because it becomes increasingly self-fulfilling as austerity programs bite and economic growth slows across Europe. A very vicious circle is at work. Because of the rising wariness of financial institutions, in recent weeks the price of Italian and Spanish 10-year bonds has fallen. Their yield rose above 7% (bond prices and yields move in opposite directions).

UPDATE, Nov 22: The striking Baiada poultry workers have won their campaign and the company has backed down. The workers won a 4% a year pay rise over 2 years. They also won increased union and delegate rights and increased redundancy payments to 42 week maximum (up from 20 weeks). Workers employed at the Baiada-owned GKK Enterprises poultry factory who were suspended after taking industrial action to support their Victorian colleagues have been reinstated.

In a November 9-15 ballot, Austalian Taxation Office (ATO) staff voted 57% to 43% to accept management’s proposed enterprise agreement. This was the second all-staff vote. The previous version of the enterprise agreement was rejected by 59% to 41%. The two drafts did not differ much. Both provided for a pay rise of 9% over three years. The final version includes two once-off bonuses, but these are dependent on meeting certain targets which may not be achieved.

Community and Public Sector Union Tasmania general secretary Tom Lynch gave the speech below to a 4500-strong rally in Hobart on November 12. The rally was held in protest at the Labor-Greens state government’s budget cutbacks. * * * While external forces often determine the overall direction a government takes, the path it chooses to get there is for it to determine based on its values and beliefs and the will of the people it represents.

The Victorian Baillieu government is using Fair Work Australia to step up its attacks on two unions, the Australian Nursing Federation (ANF) and the Community and Public Sector Union (CPSU). By November 20, it had managed to get Fair Work Australia to order nurses to lift their work bans and reopen beds. It is also seeking an order to end the industrial campaign by the entire state public service, because of bans imposed by 1500 child protection workers.