Workers Issues in Australia & the Pacific
Australia: New South Wales rail workers to strike for 24 hours
By Oscar Grenfell, 18 January 2018
The rail union is seeking to prevent the stoppage, which reflects explosive anger among workers over the gutting of wages and conditions.
Sri Lankan nurses strike over fingerprint attendance system; Australian power workers vote for industrial action
Workers Struggles: Asia, Australia and the Pacific
13 January 2018
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Australia: Port Kembla Coal Terminal locks out workers
By Oscar Grenfell, 10 January 2018
The move is part of a stepped-up offensive against mining, haulage and ports workers.
Australian aged care workers confront worsening conditions
By Michelle Stevens, 9 January 2018
Decades of government funding cuts, combined with the rise of corporate profit-making operators, have led to severe under-staffing.
Australian rail union collaborating with Pacific National to impose sell-out agreement
By Terry Cook, 8 January 2018
The RTBU deal further erodes working conditions, real wages and opens the way for increased casualisation.
South Australian Labor government slashes public sector jobs
By Oscar Grenfell, 8 January 2018
The sackings indicate that the state election this March will be dominated by further austerity commitments from the main parties.
Thousands of private health care doctors strike in India
Workers Struggles: Asia, Australia and the Pacific
6 January 2018
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Australian Council of Trade Unions launches cynical campaign against casual employment
By Oscar Grenfell, 4 January 2018
The unions, working with successive Labor and conservative governments, have played the central role in the destruction of full-time jobs.
Amazon begins operations in Australia
By Patrick Kelly, 28 December 2017
Amazon is notorious internationally for its appalling treatment of warehouse workers.
Australian retail union reportedly signs another wage-cutting deal with Woolworths
By Oscar Grenfell, 27 December 2017
The Shop, Distributive and Allied Employees Association is acting as an arm of Woolworths management in its drive to slash wages in response to Amazon’s Australian opening.
Australia high court ruling imposes greater restrictions on industrial action
By Terry Cook, 16 December 2017
The court decision is another means for banning industrial action and imposing heavy fines and penalties on workers seeking to defend their wages and conditions.
Construction worker killed in horrific incident at Australian gas project
By John Harris, 15 December 2017
The tragic death at the INPEX gas project was not an aberration but the result of increasing company productivity demands ratified by the unions.
Australian union imposes cost-cutting deal on Hunter Valley miners
By Terry Cook, 13 December 2017
Construction Forestry Mining and Energy Union agreements with Glencore in New South Wales will allow the international mining giant to further boost its profits.
Australian maritime union maintains picket at Victorian port
By Will Morrow, 9 December 2017
The MUA’s real concern is to advance itself as an industrial police force for the company against the workers.
Australia: Union negotiates cost-cutting deal at Streets ice-cream
By Richard Phillips, 25 November 2017
Streets workers must reject the latest union-company deal which opens the way for increased productivity and even higher profits for the giant Unilever-owned corporation.
Australian unions push another sell-out agreement at Western Sydney University
By our correspondents, 17 November 2017
The NTEU is attempting to impose another retrograde enterprise deal that will assist management to deepen cuts to jobs and conditions.
National Australia Bank to eliminate 6,000 jobs
By John Harris, 13 November 2017
The gutting of bank jobs and services has accelerated since the Keating Labor government began the privatisation of the Commonwealth Bank in 1991.
Indian government bans ambulance workers’ walkout, South Korean teachers vote on strike action
Workers Struggles: Asia, Australia and the Pacific
11 November 2017
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Australian contract company continues assault on maintenance workers
By Terry Cook, 9 November 2017
The unions are isolating 200 workers confronting UGL’s attempts to tear up existing wages and conditions.
Pakistan: Punjab government field health workers protest
Workers Struggles: Asia, Australia and the Pacific
4 November 2017
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Australian rail union suspends industrial action in Pacific National dispute
By Terry Cook, 2 November 2017
The Rail, Tram and Bus Union called off all industrial action as it moved to broker another sell-out agreement.
Australia: Possible Woolworths strikes spark warnings of a broader wages movement
By Oscar Grenfell, 31 October 2017
As many as 2,000 workers at four major warehouses are set to take industrial action over wages and conditions in the next two months.
Apple iPhone workers protest in China
Workers Struggles: Asia, Australia and the Pacific
28 October 2017
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Australian statistics show collapse in manufacturing, mounting jobs crisis
By Oscar Grenfell, 27 October 2017
Part-time and precarious employment accounts for an ever-greater proportion of the workforce.
Free, high quality public education is a social right! Join the Committee For Public Education!
By the Socialist Equality Party (Australia), 27 October 2017
Australia has one of the most unequal and privatised school systems in the world.
Australian government orders police raids on union offices
By Mike Head, 26 October 2017
Australia increasingly resembles a police state, with well-publicized raids carried out in pursuit of unstated political aims.
New Zealand: Official silence over Taylor Preston meatworks death
By John Braddock, 23 October 2017
The ongoing silence serves to protect the legal and financial position of the company at the expense of workers.
South Korean media workers continue strike
Workers Struggles: Asia, Australia and the Pacific
21 October 2017
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Australia: Glencore steps up provocations against locked-out miners
By Terry Cook, 20 October 2017
The giant company is seeking to force through an enterprise agreement that slashes pay and working conditions.
Political lessons of the Australian car industry closure
By Oscar Grenfell, 20 October 2017
The shutdowns are the end product of a decades-long restructuring of car manufacturing, spearheaded by Labor and the trade unions.
Australian university unions divide opposition to sell-out deals
By our correspondents, 18 October 2017
Far from opposing the combined government-university administration offensive, the two trade unions covering university staff are facilitating it.
Australia: Ipswich workers condemn hundreds of job losses
By our correspondents, 17 October 2017
“We vote the governments in to look after the people, but they are looking after the multinationals.”
Workers Struggles: Asia, Australia and the Pacific
7 October 2017
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Australia: Ipswich workers denounce elimination of hundreds of jobs
By our correspondents, 4 October 2017
The Queensland Labor government and the trade union are enforcing the closures, insisting that workers can find jobs elsewhere, despite the city’s high jobless rate.
Australian job figures cloak reality
By Terry Cook, 2 October 2017
High levels of unemployment, under-employment and casualisation are putting downward pressure on wages.
Australian university union pushes sellout deals across the country
By our correspondents, 30 September 2017
The National Tertiary Education Union used a national briefing to block debate and insist that members accept new enterprise agreements that further undermine jobs and conditions.
NTEU betrays staff at University of Sydney
By our correspondent, 30 September 2017
Despite considerable anger and bewilderment among the 450 staff members at a union branch meeting on September 21, the National Tertiary Education Union (NTEU) pushed through an initial vote for a major sellout of its members at the University of Sydney. The final vote was 301 for and 139 against, reflecting developing concern about the union’s role.
Workers Struggles: Asia, Australia and the Pacific
23 September 2017
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Australia: Two Ipswich meatworks to close, destroying hundreds of jobs
By Gary Alvernia, 21 September 2017
The state Labor government and the meatworkers' union are working to ensure there is no organised opposition to the devastating closures.
University of Sydney union conceals political issues in one-day strike
By our reporters, 21 September 2017
Just days after the 24-hour stoppage, the NTEU struck a retrograde deal with management that will help it impose the government’s cuts.
Oppose the NTEU sellout at University of Sydney! For a unified struggle of all university workers across Australia!
By the Socialist Equality Party (Australia), 20 September 2017
The union is organising retrograde agreements across the university sector.
Australia: New “learning precinct” ties public schools to business
By David Cohen, 18 September 2017
The project has little to do with the quality of education; its priority is the Victorian state government’s relationship with the financial and corporate elites.
Workers Struggles: Asia, Australia and the Pacific
9 September 2017
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Australian state government and health union shut down pathology strike
By Jason Quill and Oscar Grenfell, 7 September 2017
The Health Services Union welcomed the Victorian Labor government’s application for the federal Fair Work Commission to ban the stoppage.
Australia: National Tertiary Education Union attempts to suppress struggle against job cuts at Western Sydney University
By our correspondent, 4 September 2017
The jobs of around 150 professional staff will be destroyed and all security employees retrenched, while other devastating cuts are being prepared.
Workers Struggles: Asia, Australia and the Pacific
2 September 2017
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1917: The Great Strike—an engrossing exhibition about mass walkouts in wartime Australia
By Elle Chapman and Richard Phillips, 24 August 2017
The exhibition is a useful antidote to the government’s glorification of Australian involvement in World War I and shows that the home-front was dominated by intense class battles.
Australian unions, pseudo-left sign up to Labor’s re-election campaign
By Oscar Grenfell, 5 August 2017
Underlying the unions campaign is fear in ruling circles that widespread disaffection over social inequality threatens the stability of the parliamentary set-up.
Australia: Official figures continue to cloak jobs crisis
By Terry Cook, 1 August 2017
The official employment report for June shows there is little to celebrate for the tens of thousands of people engaged in a daily search for work.
The Australian Education Union’s 2017 campaign of misinformation and censorship
By Susan Allan and Linda Tenenbaum, 26 July 2017
Union officials concealed that the EBA contains the adoption of measures proposed in the “Bracks Review,” which escalate the pro-market agenda now underpinning public education.
Australian unions isolate miners facing attacks on pay and conditions
By Terry Cook, 15 July 2017
The Construction Forestry Mining and Energy Union has restricted the Glencore workers to token stoppages.
Australian cricket pay dispute escalates
By Oscar Grenfell, 15 July 2017
Cricketing administrators are seeking to boost their control over billions of dollars of broadcasting and online streaming revenue.
India: Kerala nurses on state-wide strike
Workers Struggles: Asia, Australia and the Pacific
15 July 2017
The nurses rejected a pay offer of 17,500 rupees, including allowances, from the government and the Private Hospitals Association.
Australian building experts discuss the Grenfell Tower fire
By our reporters, 12 July 2017
“Fire safety is more important than the façade of a building,” building inspector says.
More Australian workers killed in preventable workplace incidents
By Terry Cook, 11 July 2017
The number of industry-related fatalities this year is on track to match or exceed the grim toll in 2016 when 178 workers were killed.
Australian Labor and union leaders seek to head off workers’ discontent
By Mike Head, 7 July 2017
Speeches at last week’s ACTU 90th anniversary dinner signal desperate efforts to promote the return of another pro-business Labor government.
Australian unions help impose cuts to federal pay and conditions
By Terry Cook, 1 July 2017
The unions’ aim was to wear down workers’ resistance and retain their own position at the negotiating table.
Australian Education Union pushes through pro-market workplace agreement in Victoria
By Susan Allan and Linda Tenenbaum, 1 July 2017
Endorsement of the agreement opens the way for an acceleration of the destructive pro-market agenda that has created a systemic crisis in public education.
Electrician falls 75 feet to his death at Detroit construction site
By Kathleen Martin, 29 June 2017
Michael Morrison, 46, died after falling from a catwalk at the Little Caesars sports arena currently under construction in Detroit.
Australian university staff face cuts to pay, jobs and basic rights
By Mike Head, 28 June 2017
Government funding cuts are accelerating the pro-business restructuring of higher education that began three decades ago.
Australian construction union’s bogus campaign against industrial laws
By Oscar Grenfell, 27 June 2017
The CFMEU’s chief aim is to maintain its own privileged seat at the negotiating table and divert mounting anger among construction workers into electoral support for the Labor Party.
The way forward for New Zealand meat workers
By the Socialist Equality Group (New Zealand), 27 June 2017
A struggle to defend jobs and conditions is only possible through a break with the Meat Workers Union and the Labour Party, the formation of independent workplace committees and a political fight based on a socialist and internationalist program.
Australia: Telstra announces 1,400 job cuts
By Oscar Grenfell, 21 June 2017
The sackings are the latest in a series of pro-market restructures that have destroyed up to 6,000 jobs since 2013.
Australian miners strike against Glencore cost-cutting
By Terry Cook, 20 June 2017
Some 1,400 coal miners took industrial action against the transnational mining and resources conglomerate’s attempts to slash working conditions.
Australian state Labor government agrees to subsidise giant coal mine
By Declan O’Malley and Mike Head, 13 June 2017
After weeks of posturing, the Queensland cabinet provided a lucrative royalties handout to Adani.
Australia: Aurizon announces Queensland rail closures
By Oscar Grenfell, 10 June 2017
Up to 300 jobs are set to be eliminated, following hundreds of sackings over the past two years.
Reject unacceptable workloads and standardised testing! Take a stand for public education!
Vote No to the AEU-Labor government sell-out deal in Victoria!
By the Socialist Equality Party (Australia), 9 June 2017
The chronic underfunding, under-resourcing and under-staffing of public schools is driving many parents to send their children to private schools.
New Zealand: Wellington transport workers face attacks on jobs and conditions
By our correspondents, 6 June 2017
The Labour Party-dominated Wellington Council has awarded bus and rail contracts to private operators to cut costs at the expense of workers.
“Catastrophic failure” of regulators led to black lung among Australian miners
By Oscar Grenfell, 5 June 2017
Queensland authorities failed to look for, or properly identify, coal miners’ pneumoconiosis for more than 30 years.
Socialist Equality Party forum discusses agenda behind Australian Education Union sell-out deal
By our reporter, 5 June 2017
A clear relationship exists between the anti-democratic, bureaucratic tactics employed by the AEU to obtain a majority “yes” vote and the regressive, pro-market content of its 2017 agreement.
Australian city council locks out electricians for imposing work bans
By Ellen Blake, 3 June 2017
The Brisbane City Council’s aggressive action underscores the determination of governments and employers across the country to dismantle workers’ conditions.
Class struggle developing on Indian sub-continent
Workers Struggles: Asia, Australia and the Pacific
3 June 2017
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Australian timber mill slated to close
By Will Morrow, 1 June 2017
The closure, in the state of Victoria, is part of a restructuring by Carter Holt Harvey and other producers across the timber industry.
Workers Struggles: Asia, Australia and the Pacific
27 May 2017
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Australian building workers hit by construction company collapse
By Declan O’Malley, 23 May 2017
The Brisbane shut-down is another indicator of the danger of a wider collapse in the residential construction boom, threatening tens of thousands of jobs.
Australia: Teachers explain why the AEU-government deal should be rejected
By our reporters, 22 May 2017
“The union has become the policeman to enforce agreements that sell our conditions down the drain.”
Australia: Contract teacher voices opposition to the AEU-government agreement
By our reporters, 20 May 2017
“I feel as though we’re teaching to a test, and not spending enough time on building our relationship with our students, and building on their strengths.”
SEP and Victorian Teachers and ES Staff Forum
The political issues in the fight against the AEU-Labor government EBA
20 May 2017
The forum on May 28 will present a detailed critique of the Australian Education Union’s sell-out deal with the Andrews Labor government, and clarify why teachers and ES staff should reject it.
Miners walkout in Indonesia and Australia
Workers Struggles: Asia, Australia and the Pacific
20 May 2017
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Sydney bus drivers strike against privatisation
By Oscar Grenfell, 19 May 2017
The transport union has appealed to the government for “consultation,” underscoring its willingness to collaborate with privatisation.
Australian teachers support campaign against AEU-government deal
By our reporters, 18 May 2017
Teachers who attended recent delegates meetings on the new enterprise agreement voiced support for a “No” vote.
Australia:
Teachers criticise anti-democratic character of AEU delegates’ meetings
By our reporters, 17 May 2017
“I think people voted without understanding the nitty-gritty of the agreement.”
Vote “NO” to the EBA!
Australian Education Union pushes through industrial agreement at delegates’ meetings
By our reporters, 16 May 2017
SEP members and supporters who work in public education are campaigning for a “No” vote among rank-and-file teachers and ES staff.
Australia: Tribunal to hear challenge to union-company wage-cutting deal
By Oscar Grenfell, 16 May 2017
The unions and the major corporations are fearful that the case against the deal threatens the entire pro-business framework of enterprise bargaining.
After Australian journalists’ strike
The political issues facing Fairfax workers
By the Socialist Equality Party (Australia), 11 May 2017
The end of the week-long strike and the commitment of the media union to resume back-room negotiations for the destruction of jobs, poses major political issues before Fairfax workers.
Australian media union shuts down week-long Fairfax journalists’ strike
By Oscar Grenfell, 10 May 2017
The Media Entertainment and Arts Alliance, having done everything to contain and weaken the strike, made clear that it will do nothing to oppose the axing of 125 jobs at Fairfax.
Australian rail union responds to Pacific National lockout by resuming talks
By Oscar Grenfell, 9 May 2017
The union will use the negotiating period to try and dissipate anger among freight drivers to the proposed cuts to their wages and conditions.
Australia: Fairfax journalists strike, but union appeals to corporate investors
By our correspondents, 6 May 2017
The sackings, which follow almost a decade of cost-cutting, will eviscerate Fairfax Media newspapers and lead to further job destruction.
Australian Fairfax journalists strike for a week over job destruction
By Mike Head, 4 May 2017
By launching the longest strike by editorial staff in recent history, the Fairfax workers are taking a stand against the ongoing demolition of jobs by the financial elite.
Teachers oppose Australian Education Union sell-out deal at Victorian delegates meeting
By our reporters, 3 May 2017
The Melbourne meeting revealed mounting hostility among teachers to the union’s bureaucratic methods and to the agreement itself.
Australia: Growing opposition to sell-out agreement among Victorian teachers and support staff
By our reporters, 29 April 2017
Teachers from at least five schools have convened meetings to reject the agreement between the Australian Education Union and the Victorian state Labor government.
Workers Struggles: Asia, Australia and the Pacific
29 April 2017
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Workers Struggles: Asia, Australia and the Pacific
22 April 2017
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Australian worker challenges union-company wage-cutting deal
By Oscar Grenfell, 15 April 2017
The agreement struck between the SDA and Coles saved the supermarket giant tens of millions of dollars.
Workers Struggles: Asia, Australia and the Pacific
15 April 2017
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Australia: Victorian teachers denounce union-backed agreement
By our reporters, 13 April 2017
The AEU has sought to suppress discussion of its latest sell-out, while falsely claiming it is a “victory” for teachers.
Workers Struggles: Asia, Australia and the Pacific
8 April 2017
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Australian teachers’ agreement: The reality behind union “victory” claims
By Susan Allan, 6 April 2017
On every key issue the teachers’ union and the Victorian Labor government have worked together to entrench and deepen the assault on the public education system.
Australia: Labor and unions facilitate Hazelwood power station closure
By Frank Gaglioti, 5 April 2017
The shutdown will exacerbate the social crisis in Victoria’s Latrobe Valley, which has already been hit by decades of job cuts in the energy sector.
Australian government withholds report on death of unemployed teenager
By John Harris and Oscar Grenfell, 1 April 2017
The Liberal-National government is covering-up the dangerous conditions facing unemployed workers and young people forced onto Work for Dole programs.
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