Australia

WorkChoices: Workers must fight Rudd's push to the Right

Without reference to the upcoming Labor Party Conference Opposition Leader, Kevin Rudd, publicly announced the industrial relations policy he will bring to the federal elections at the National Press Club on 17 April. This new policy if implemented will continue the direction of John Howards’ year old WorkChoices legislation. The new Labor policy will continue to: • massively restrict the right to strike, • retain restrictions on ‘unfair dismissal’, • maintain prohibitions on industry wide pattern bargaining A key passage in Rudd’s speech included the following. It could have been said by any...

Is disaffiliation left-wing?

By Rhodri Evans Australia’s Community and Public Sector Union (CPSU) has announced its intention to affiliate to the Australian Labor Party. The leadership of the union — which organises federal and state government workers — asserts that they are affiliating in order to use the union’s vote within the ALP to make sure that Labor scraps the current conservative government’s anti-union WorkChoices legislation. That is good. To make it reality, the union leadership will have to persuade the different sections of the union — which is, for most purposes, a loose federation — to affiliate to the...

Labor wins NSW, and CPSU affiliates to ALP

The question before the NSW labour movement having just reluctantly re-elected the Australian Labor Party to govern New South Wales is how to impose its own interests on that government. It's an old question. The way the labour movement and all its parts interact with the ALP is the critical issue. Independent working class representation has for over 100 years been filtered by careerist politicians of the ALP backed in equal part by a similar cohort of trade union leaders. In spite of appearances of a comfortable majority the NSW Labor government by any honest account just limped over the...

"Treat trade unionists like drug traffickers", says ABCC

Lawyers for the Australian Building and Construction Commission have argued in the Federal Court that "trade unionists and striking construction workers should be viewed in the same light as highly organised drug traffickers". They further declared that the purpose of the BCII Act is to "prohibit any industrial activity of a collective kind". The ABCC is the special "police force" set up for the industry by the Howard government's Building and Construction Industry Improvement (BCII) Act. Its lawyers were arguing in the Federal Court in October 2006 - successfully - that the ABCC has the right...

Union democracy key to IR fightback

The bottom-line problem in fighting to restore workers' rights is not any unbeatability of the ruling class, or any hopeless strategic weakness of the working class, but the top-heavy bureaucracies of the labour movement. That was the main conclusion from the discussion at the Brisbane Workers' Liberty meeting on 17 February, "Workers Fighting Anti-Worker Laws". We had no illusions about workers all being eager for industrial struggle, and all held back only by conservative leaders. Nor did we think that a few bouts of industrial action breaching the Howard Work Choices and BCII laws will be...

Is Rudd trying to "do a Blair"?

"How long", asked Paul Kelly in The Australian, "can Rudd go on moving the ALP to the centre, not only on Iraq but on other issues, without the ALP progressive Left speaking out?" Kelly speaks not for the left, but for the worry-warts in the ruling class concerned that Rudd may be pushed back towards the left by rank and file pressure. But it's a good question. In the last couple of weeks, Rudd and Gillard have added backtracks on unfair dismissal and on Iraq. Rudd's commitment on Iraq amounts only to withdrawing a minority of the Australian troops there some time in the indefinite future...

A win for Aboriginal rights. But where were the unions?

By Bryan Sketchley On February 5 2007 Senior-Sergeant Chris Hurley was charged in relation to the death in custody of a young Aboriginal man on Palm Island. Hurley is the first police officer in more than 20 years to be charged in connection to a death in custody. Since the Royal Commission into Aboriginal deaths in custody handed a report down in 1991 there have been a further 220 Aboriginal deaths in custody. Not a single prison or police officer has been charged with a criminal offence. Clearly the campaign to have the original decision by the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP)...

"Revolution by stages" in Venezuela?

Jim McIlroy and Coral Wynter, two very well-respected and experienced socialists from Brisbane, members of the DSP, have just returned home after spending a year in Venezuela. On Saturday 3 February they reported back at a public meeting in Brisbane, with a slide show of over 100 photos accompanied by their comments. Three of us attended from Workers' Liberty, with a leaflet advocating a more critical attitude to Venezuela's president Chavez . What struck me most was the huge gap between the general claims that Jim and Coral made for Chavez, and the specifics they reported. In general, their...

From "rip up" to "amend"

"Rudd softens IR message to woo business", headlined the Australian Financial Review on 2 February. Kim Beazley had promised to "rip up" Howard's new anti-worker laws. Beazley was vague about exactly what he would replace those laws with, and how much of the content of the laws would remain in force, but he used the words "rip up". Ah, declared Rudd to Southern Cross radio on 1 February: "That may have been Kim's sort of form of making a point". Metaphorical, you see. Young Kevin doesn't go for that sort of vigorous language. "All I'm saying is, we're not going to support these laws in office...

Brisbane Workers' Liberty meeting: Workers fighting anti-worker laws

A meeting to learn about some past experiences which can help us better understand how to fight Work Choices and the Building and Construction Industry Improvement Act today Saturday 17 February, 3pm at Ahimsa House, 26 Horan Street, West End Bernie Nevill will speak on the 1985 Seqeb strike Martin Thomas will speak on the victories and defeats in the battles against anti-union laws in Britain from 1969 through to the present day Chair: Bob Carnegie Sponsored by: Workers' Liberty More info: 0416 238840, or brisbane@workersliberty.org .

This website uses cookies, you can find out more and set your preferences here.
By continuing to use this website, you agree to our Privacy Policy and Terms & Conditions.