Australia

Hands off Bob Carnegie — protest at Queensland House, London

Date: 
22 March, 2013 - 13:00 - 14:30
Location: 

Queensland House, The Strand, London WC2R 0LT

Description: 

Hands off Bob Carnegie – Protest at Queensland House, London

Friday 22 March, 1pm

Bob Carnegie, an Australian trade unionist, is being victimised for his role in a successful protest by construction workers on the Queensland Children’s Hospital site in August-October 2012. Bob was instrumental to helping the workers organise and building the solidarity that helped win their dispute against an anti-union construction contractor. As a result, the contractor Abigroup (part of the multinational construction/property giant Lend Lease) and the right-wing government of the state of Queensland are trying to make an example of Bob to discourage others from taking similar action in future. If he is found guilty, he could face huge damages and a lengthy jail spell. Bob is due to hear his verdict on Tuesday 2 April.

During his trial in February, thousands of construction workers and dock workers across Australia walked off the job in solidarity to demand the charges against Bob be dropped. In London, Bob’s supporters have held protests outside Lend Lease’s headquarters and leafleted the public outside their flagship London development, the Broadgate Tower.

On Friday 22 March, we’ll protest outside the London offices of the Queensland government to let Campbell Newman, the Queensland Premier, know that trade unionists around the world are still watching Bob’s case. We won’t let Newman’s government and the bosses of Lend Lease intimidate working-class activists into silence.

Meet at Queensland House, 392-393 Strand, London WC2R 0LT at 1pm.

For more info, ring 07961 040618.

Facebook event here.

Antonio Gramsci: Marxist ideas for difficult times

Date: 
23 March, 2013 - 14:30
Location: 

State Library of Queensland, Stanley Place, L4: Meeting Room 4.A

Description: 

Antonio Gramsci: Marxist ideas for difficult times

Meeting with Martin Thomas, editor of the book "Antonio Gramsci: working-class revolutionary"

2.30pm, Saturday 23 March, at the State Library of Queensland, Stanley Place, L4: Meeting Room 4.A

Antonio Gramsci's Prison Notebooks have been quarried to justify many varieties of reformist or liberal politics. But in fact Gramsci was a revolutionary Marxist who thought long and hard about what socialists can and must do in times of working-class retreat.

Comments on the book:
• Adam David Morton (Nottingham University): "fantastically concise... straight onto the reading list of my third-year 'Gramsci & Global Politics' module".
• Murray Kane (University of Queensland): "Although only 70 pages long... containing more insights than many a full length book on Gramsci".
• Richard Price (Labour Briefing): "This pamphlet can stimulate discussion upon the philosophical aspects of Gramsci’s thought, and force socialists to think more deeply about their relationship to the rest of society, and how to transform it".
• Toby Abse (Goldsmiths College): "performs an extremely valuable role in reasserting Antonio Gramsci's historic significance as a revolutionary anti-Stalinist Marxist".

Organised by Workers' Liberty, australia.workersliberty.org, 0459 620 047. More: www.workersliberty.org/gramsci