A great peice from one of our comrades over at Melbourne Antifascist Info. Worth a read if you've ever wondered why people cover up at rallies.
"Masks aren’t a license to fuck shit up, they’re a license to go home at night and crawl into bed without checking under it first. You don’t have to wear one, but if you see somebody who has decided to, respect their decision. Don’t insist that they take it off, lest everybody look bad. Don’t ask them, why?, and don’t shove cameras in their faces."
The next Dole Action Group organising meeting is on this Wednesday the 9th! It'll be at 6:30 in Room 13, Level 3, RMIT Building 80 (445 Swanston Street).
Come along to find out how we can fight back against the government's exploitative Work for the Dole scheme and fight for the rights of unemployed people more generally. All welcome!
This is a really important article that tracks the history of racism and labour organising in Australia.
"More than ever, the only protection against exploitation is international solidarity between workers. We can’t afford the failure of imagination that sees foreign workers as competition. If that’s the competition, we’ve already lost.
We can’t afford to see any workers as foreign. We can’t rely on borders, and we shouldn’t entertain the fantasy that they will ever help to protect anyone’s rights. We need a labour movement that has no outside."
MELBOURNE NOW - Treasury Gardens: Refugees Welcome! No one is Illegal!
Photo by Nick Haines - Digital Campaigns Coordinator at The Asylum Seeker Resource Centre. https://twitter.com/nickhainez/status/640798930368749568
In August, we held a discussion meeting on gendered labour and how 'women's work' fits into capitalism.Some folks who came along were interested in being involved in some sort of ongoing organising/activism around gendered labour and challenging this within activist groups and broader society. So we'll be holding a follow up meeting this THURSDAY to deepen our understanding and think about how we can put some of our practical ideas into action! If you couldn't make the first ...event, feel free to come along to this one.
https://www.facebook.com/events/869757476441953/885499208201113/
We'll be meeting in Meeting Room 3, Kathleen Syme Library & Community Centre, 251 Faraday Street, Carlton.
As a reminder, here are some of the ideas we came up with at the last discussion meeting:
Women's assemblies
Men as allies groups
Strengthening 'women's work' labour unions
Unionise childcare workers better
Or outside of unions, collectively set minimum wages/conditions
Popularise and make accessible dialogue on reproductive labour everywhere!
Explicitly identify gendered tasks, require everyone to do them
Spread the 'be nice' to people emotional labour to men
Conflict resolution, grievance, some facilitation of groups - men do more of this
Women do more of the public speaking, public action
More communal living, collectivising responsibilities. In activism cleaning, cooking, setting up meetings all important
More blending of activism with household life = more sharing around
Alternatives to individualised work, nuclear family
Housework strike! Dishes, cooking rolling action week to week
#giveyourmoneytowomen hashtag set up by women of colour feminists: monitising women's labour, ,beneficiaries such as men paying
1975 example of Iceland women's strike! Groundwork, door knocking, to then going on strike
Leaving children with men
Look up interesting examples of women's activism, inspire and do it in present context
Decolonising from patriarchy: individuals to unions to state
Examples of Rojava revolution's structure to translate here
More public / spreading of different ways of living / great ideas around relationships etc.
Thinking unpaid / paid together to organise child care workers
Warriors of the Aboriginal Resistance have released an important document listing seven ways people can support their movement.
Please take some time to read the Solidarity Seven!
http://issuu.com/…/…/war-solidarity_seven__ae43ba92358b91/2…
A great summary by one of the transport workers on strike today of what their industrial action is about and why it's such an important fight for them to win - for the sake of the workers in that industry, and for everyone else's sake too.
"Currently we start and finish work at the same location. I live in the eastern suburbs and work at an outstation near where I live. With the new system they want to change it around completely. Firstly they don't want you to start and fini...
Continue Reading" Last month anti-fascists in Liverpool completely humiliated the neo-Nazi youth group National Action (who have been banned from attending Dover by the NF). Until Liverpool they were regarded as one of the most dangerous groups on the extreme right. After getting locked in a lost luggage office they have become a national joke, being mocked on national TV and losing a huge amount of support on the far-right. If they had marched and anti-fascists hadn’t opposed them this wouldn’t be the case. We need to apply the main lesson we took from Liverpool to Dover: that mass collective action by people prepared to confront nationalism and racism in different ways can stop the far-right from marching, making themselves heard, and building popular support for their ideas."
This is on tomorrow night!
Upcoming book launch hosted by our friends at NIBS!
"Rather than asking how individual consumers can guarantee the basic sustenance of millions of people, we should be questioning an economic system that only halts misery and starvation if it is profitable. Rather than solely creating an individualized “culture of giving,” we should be challenging capitalism’s institutionalized taking."
Anarchist Affinity members in solidarity with the Kurdish community's call for the recommencement of the peace process in Kurdistan.
At the Australian's for Kurdistan rally at Fed Square now. I'll be speaking before the rally shortly.
The Dole Action Group's community forum on Work for the Dole and unemployment is on today at 2pm!
Creation of a Racist State? My VISA Is My Skin Colour #MyVisaIsMySkinColour - 28/08/2015
We request that all RISE members and refugees to stay safe during t...his weekend.
We refugees, asylum seekers and ex-detainees at RISE condemn the Federal government’s disturbing announcement that “Australian Border Force” (ABF) officers will check people’s visas on the streets and public transport in various parts of Australia this weekend. This is a complete slap in the face not only for refugee and asylum seeker community groups but also for people of colour.
The ABF spokesperson says that they do not “target on the basis of race, religion, or ethnicity.” This is a disingenuous claim when the Department of immigration and border protection’s (DIBP) own data reveals that more than 90% of those held in immigration detention are from non-European countries while a much larger number of those living without visas in the community are from Europe and North America. We have also not forgotten the recent incident of an Aboriginal Australian detained in Yongah Hill immigration detention centre and reports that it was not his first experience of being detained.
Further, we question how this militaristic operation will be carried out as these forces invade our streets and our community and on what basis? What methods will they use to verify whether a man, woman or child in our community has a valid VISA? Who will save our members from arbitrary and indefinite detention outside the law?
Many of our members who are still in the process claiming refugee status have expired visas that have not been renewed by the Department of Immigration and are unable to contact immigration case managers to seek proper assistance regarding this. Already, our members who don’t speak English have reported to us their traumatic experiences of being booked by ticketing inspectors due to communication barriers as well as being subjected to frequent interrogation through ‘Stop and Search’ operations by Victoria Police and “random checks” by Protective Services Officers (PSO). It brings back disturbing memories of being rounded up, taken into custody and tortured in our countries before we sought refuge in Australia.
This is a dirty war conducted by Australia’s white supremacist government against asylum seekers and refugees with no accountability whatsoever in and outside detention centres.
Link : http://riserefugee.org/creation-of-a-racist-state-my-visa-…/
