Workers & unions

The national and state elections results for the Rail Tram and Bus union (RTBU) have been partially counted. In New South Wales, the incumbent right-wing Labor leadership team, called Unity, was challenged by Members Voice, a broad united front of those who advocate increased funding and staffing, and a clear strategy to reverse privatisation. This was the first challenge to the incumbents since the 1980s.

A huge battle of the right of public sector workers to organise has broken out in the state of Wisconsin. In response to a law pushed by Republican Governor Scott Walker, protesters have held a sit-in at the state legislature in Madison, Wisconsin’s capital, since February 14.

Elections in the Rail Tram and Bus Union (RTBU) are being held throughout Australia in the National and State branches in February. There are two main tickets contesting the national and NSW elections. In NSW, the incumbent right-wing Labor leadership team is called Unity. It has failed to defend conditions and jobs against the unpopular Labor government's cuts and privatisations. The Members Voice (MV) ticket is a broad united front of those who oppose the current leadership and advocate increased funding and staffing, and a clear strategy to reverse privatisation.

For communities affected by Cyclone Yasi and the recent floods across Queensland, Western Australia, NSW, Victoria and Tasmania, it will be no comfort to hear that the Fair Work Act provides little protection for workers from unscrupulous employers. Many bosses will choose to stand workers down without pay if their business is affected by these natural disasters. At the height of the Queensland floods, state Workplace Rights Ombudsman Don Brown told ABC Online on January 21 that employers have the right to not pay workers for time off caused by the floods.

Members of the National Tertiary Education Union (NTEU) at the University of New South Wales (UNSW) voted on January 13 to lift their ban on the transmission of student results. More than 40 staff members who took part in the lawful industrial action had been stood down without pay for nearly eight weeks. The decision to lift the ban followed concerns over attempts by university management to release unauthorised student results.

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez expressed his support for workers in a dispute at a Venezuelan Coca-Cola plant conflict in a televised address on February 4. “If Coca-Cola doesn’t want to comply with the constitution and the law, well, we can live without Coca-Cola,” he said to cheers from the crowd. Chavez was speaking in Valencia, the capital of Carabobo state, where 1230 workers are striking in a bottling and distribution plant of Coca-Cola Femsa.

Two articles are posted below on the historic toppling of United States-backed dictator Hosni Mubarak in Egypt — and on the continuing struggle of the Egyptian people for economic, social and political change.

According to multiple reports tens of thousands of workers across Egypt have gone on strike and joined the anti-Mubarak protests.

Wharfies employed by stevedoring company Patrick at four different ports across Australia took strike action in the last week of January in pursuit of a new enterprise bargaining agreement (EBA). It was the most significant industrial action on the wharves since the 1998 Patrick lockout. In recent ballots organised by Fairwork Australia, workers at the strike-affected ports voted (by margins of 94% to 100%) to take a range of different forms of industrial action to press their claim.

Who says the corporate media do not care about the opinions of ordinary people? There have been lots of articles lately about what workers think, written by the people who study them the most — bosses. As a vice president of Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp and a Wall Street Journal columnist, William McGurn naturally has his finger on the pulse of the American working class.

They are calling it Obama’s PATCO. US President Barack Obama is proposing a two-year wage freeze for 2 million federal workers. When then-president Ronald Reagan fired 13,000 striking Professional Air Traffic Controllers Organization (PATCO) members in August 1981, he sent a signal to other employers that it was open season on unions. Now, local and state governments will use the president’s position to justify their own layoffs and wage freezes. Private industry will do the same.

On January 3, 170 cleaners and security guards at Hongik University in Seoul were sacked for forming a union and demanding better conditions. The workers formed a union on December 1 and demanded decent working conditions. Since their sacking, the workers have held a sit-in protest at the university campus — eating and sleeping on the cold, hard floors of the Munheon Building. Hongik University is South Korea’s most famous university for visual arts. Many graduates are showing their support for the workers through their art work.