Workers' Liberty

Workers' Liberty 38, spring 2005.

The following letters, abridged for space reasons, represent part of an ongoing debate. James Sinnamon makes a case and Martin Thomas replies.

The article comes from our sister publication in Britain, Solidarity.

A Sydney group of unionists and supporters has been formed to raise money for and build links with Iraqi unions.

Yanar Mohammed, president of the Organisation of Women’s Freedom in Iraq (OWFI), spoke to Martin Thomas when she visited Britain at the end of June. The following interview is heavily edited for space. For the full interview click here.

According to the various polls in Germany they [the new Left Party [formed by former SPD left leader Oskar Lafontaine getting together with the PDS, the old CP] stood at around 12% for a while, over the last two weeks or so they dropped to 8%.

New Zealand goes to the polls on 17 September to elect a new government.

I spent three interesting months in the U.S between April and the end of June.

By a TAFE unionist

The Labor states had been unified in opposing a Federal government requirement that TAFEs offer individual contracts to employees.

Since May Boeing maintenance workers at the RAAF base at Williamtown, NSW have been trying to negotiate a collective agreement through their union.

In August Gate Gourmet, a US-owned firm, sacked workers at Heathrow Airport, London, who provide airline food for British Airways and replaced them by scab labour.

The right to have legal solidarity industrial action was lost in Australia years ago with the introduction of Sections 45 D & E of the Trade Practices Act.

By Bob Carnegie and Martin Thomas

This year, John Howard plans to bring in anti-union legislation more drastic than former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher ever attempted in one instalment, and arguably more drastic than the sum total of the whole long series of laws introduced by Thatcher's government through the 1980s.

Dita Sari spoke to Melissa White when Dita visited Brisbane in July 2005.