Workers Issues in Australia & the Pacific
Workers Struggles: Asia, Australia and the Pacific
7 December 2013
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Australian government unveils tougher anti-strike laws
By Terry Cook, 22 November 2013
Two draconian industrial relations bills are only the first instalment of a further assault on workers’ wages, conditions and basic rights.
Workers Struggles: Asia, Australia and the Pacific
16 November 2013
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Australia: Unemployment rises as major companies axe jobs
By Terry Cook, 9 November 2013
The latest official figures show the workforce has shrunk over the past six months and the process of casualisation is continuing.
Workers Struggles: Asia, Australia and the Pacific
9 November 2013
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Workers Struggles: Asia, Australia and the Pacific
2 November 2013
The World Socialist Web Site invites workers and other readers to contribute to this regular feature.
Australia: Mining giant Peabody locks out workforce
By Terry Cook, 24 October 2013
The lock-out of Helensburgh miners is part of a broader offensive by employers, in collaboration with the unions, that has already led to wage-cutting deals at General Motors Holden and the Beenleigh meat works.
Workers Struggles: Asia, Australia and the Pacific
19 October 2013
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Workers Struggles: Asia, Australia and the Pacific
12 October 2013
The World Socialist Web Site invites workers and other readers to contribute to this regular feature.
Australia: A rising tide of job losses
By Terry Cook, 8 October 2013
Escalating job cuts have pushed the total unemployment and underemployment rate to 13.7 percent, or about 1.5 million people.
Workers Struggles: Asia, Australia and the Pacific
5 October 2013
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Australian government meets General Motors executives amid closure threat
By Patrick O’Connor, 3 October 2013
GMH threatens to follow Ford Australia in shutting down all production operations unless it receives further handouts.
Australia: Fair Work tribunal rubberstamps pay-cutting at Brisbane meatworks
By Mike Head, 2 October 2013
The 800 workers at the Teys/Cargill plant will be forced to work about an hour longer each day.
Workers Struggles: Asia, Australia and the Pacific
28 September 2013
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Australia: Construction workers hit with large fines for striking
By Terry Cook, 27 September 2013
The Federal Court imposed individual fines totalling more than $1 million on 117 workers over an eight-day strike in 2008.
Workers Struggles: Asia, Australia and the Pacific
14 September 2013
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Australia: Glencore Xstrata shuts coal mine to scrap working conditions
By Terry Cook, 7 September 2013
The Australian Financial Review has identified the Collinsville dispute as a “landmark workplace struggle.”
Workers Struggles: Asia, Australia and the Pacific
7 September 2013
The World Socialist Web Site invites workers and other readers to contribute to this regular feature
Workers Struggles: Asia, Australia and the Pacific
24 August 2013
The World Socialist Web Site invites workers and other readers to contribute to this regular feature
Australia: Locked-out power workers demonstrate in Melbourne
By Margaret Rees, 20 August 2013
The Construction, Forestry, Mining and Energy Union organised the rally as a deliberate diversion.
Workers Struggles: Asia, Australia and the Pacific
17 August 2013
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Australian meat workers coerced into bogus pay-cutting “ballot”
By Mike Head, 15 August 2013
Like Ford and General Motors, Cargill is restructuring its operations on a global scale, shutting “uncompetitive” plants and driving down wages.
Workers Struggles: Asia, Australia and the Pacific
3 August 2013
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Workers Struggles: Asia, Australia and the Pacific
27 July 2013
The World Socialist Web Site invites workers and other readers to contribute to this regular feature.
Workers Struggles: Asia, Australia and the Pacific
20 July 2013
The World Socialist Web Site invites workers and other readers to contribute to this regular feature.
Workers Struggles: Asia, Australia and the Pacific
13 July 2013
The World Socialist Web Site invites workers and other readers to contribute to this regular feature.
Australian meat workers defy pay-cutting ultimatum
By Mike Head, 12 July 2013
Workers at the Teys/Cargill meat plant at Beenleigh rejected the company’s “final offer” despite its threat to shut the plant.
Workers Struggles: Asia, Australia and the Pacific
6 July 2013
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Workers Struggles: Asia, Australia and the Pacific
8 June 2013
The World Socialist Web Site invites workers and other readers to contribute to this regular feature.
Australian government announces bogus “assistance” for Ford workers
By Patrick O’Connor, 4 June 2013
As with the 2011 “transition” package for sacked Bluescope steel workers, the beneficiaries will be the unions, selected local businesses and private employment network providers.
Australian meat workers fight 20 percent pay cut
By Mike Head, 3 June 2013
Teys Australia has threatened to shut down the Beenleigh plant unless workers accept drastic cuts to wages and conditions.
Workers Struggles: Asia, Australia and the Pacific
30 March 2013
Workers Struggles: Asia, Australia and the Pacific
23 March 2013
The World Socialist Web Site invites workers and other readers to contribute to this regular feature.
Workers Struggles: Asia, Australia and the Pacific
9 March 2013
The World Socialist Web Site invites workers and other readers to contribute to this regular feature.
Workers Struggles: Asia, Australia and the Pacific
2 March 2013
The World Socialist Web Site invites workers and other readers to contribute to this regular feature.
Union calls off Western Australian nurses’ strike
By Joe Lopez, 28 February 2013
Industrial action by nurses, drawing support from other workers, threatened to raise uncomfortable questions for the Liberal government, the Labor opposition and the union.
Workers Struggles: Asia, Australia and the Pacific
19 January 2013
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New Zealand mine disaster inquiry whitewashes government
By Tom Peters, 10 November 2012
The disaster was the outcome of the decades-long assault on the jobs, conditions and rights of workers aimed at boosting “international competitiveness.”
Union prepares to sell out Western Australian port dispute
By Terry Cook and Joe Lopez, 24 October 2012
The unsafe conditions on the waterfront are the legacy of decades of union betrayals.
Australia: Union/Grocon collusion against building workers
By Terry Cook and Peter Symonds, 29 September 2012
The agendas of the CFMEU and the Grocon construction company are fundamentally opposed to the interests of building workers.
Workers Struggles: Asia, Australia and the Pacific
8 September 2012
Workers Struggles: Asia, Australia and the Pacific
Australia: Construction union offers to end blockade at Grocon site
By Terry Cook and Mike Head, 5 September 2012
The union’s proposal has only encouraged Grocon to step up its legal actions against the blockade and spearhead a broader attack on workers’ conditions.
Australian police move to break building workers’ picket
By Terry Cook, 1 September 2012
About 100 police officers, some dressed in riot gear, massed at the Melbourne site from 3 a.m. Friday to “take control”.
Australia: Union shuts down warehouse strike, imposes sell out
By Patrick O’Connor, 25 July 2012
After deliberately isolating the workers, the NUW rammed through a regressive enterprise agreement that meets none of the workers’ central demands.
Coles warehouse strikers speak with Patrick O’Connor
By our reporters, 11 July 2012
At a Coles national distribution centre in Melbourne, 600 striking workers are enforcing a 24-hour picket, blocking trucks entering the facility.
Sydney rally against workers’ compensation cuts
By Zac Hambdies, 14 June 2012
The protest was a cynical attempt to divert the popular opposition to New South Wales government attacks on workers’ compensation and its austerity measures.
Australia: Victorian teachers strike over pay and conditions
By our reporters, 8 June 2012
Angered by the state government’s regressive demands, record numbers of teachers stopped work yesterday.
Workers Struggles: Asia and Australia
2 June 2012
Workers Struggles: Asia and Australia
Australia government intervenes into port workers’ dispute
By Terry Cook, 22 March 2012
The Gillard government with Maritime Union of Australia backing has stepped in to effectively shut down industrial action by Asciano workers.
Australian nurses’ union imposes real wage cut
By Patrick O’Connor, 17 March 2012
The overriding priority of the union has been to prevent the nurses’ dispute from becoming a political struggle against the state and federal governments.
Fair Work Australia imposes no-strike bans on Victorian nurses
By Richard Phillips, 25 February 2012
As soon as nurses began industrial action to defend wages, jobs and patient-nurse ratios, the Gillard government’s workplace tribunal declared their action illegal.
Australian coal miners strike over safety, wages and conditions
By Richard Phillips, 20 February 2012
The seven-day strike, the longest by BMA miners in more than a decade, is over management demands for cost-cutting trade-offs in a new enterprise agreement.
Australian coal loader workers continue industrial action
By Richard Phillips, 9 February 2012
Strikes are continuing at the Port Kembla Coal Terminal, while coal miners in central Queensland’s Bowen Basin voted last week to strike.
New Zealand port threatens to sack striking workers
By John Braddock, 21 January 2012
Ports of Auckland is seeking to shatter the conditions of its workforce in line with attacks on waterfront workers internationally.
Workers Struggles: Asia, Australia and the Pacific
21 January 2012
The World Socialist Web Site invites workers and other readers to contribute to this regular feature.
Australian mental health workers maintain bans over wages and conditions
By Susan Allan, 19 January 2012
Mental health services are in profound crisis, following decades of chronic underfunding by successive governments at state and federal levels.
Australian maritime union delivers “productivity” demands to DP World
By Will Marshall, 10 January 2012
The deal follows DP World’s 24-hour lockout of workers in South Australia and threat to do the same elsewhere.
Schweppes Australia locks out workers
By Chris Sadlier, 30 December 2011
The pre-emptive lockout of the Schweppes workers in response to limited industrial action follows similar action recently taken by Qantas management and POAG stevedoring.
Waterfront workers disgusted by Australian government’s intervention
By our correspondents, 23 December 2011
WSWS reporters spoke to port workers about the lockout by stevedoring company POAGS and the government’s intervention, backed by the union, to end all industrial action
Union prepares to sell out Australian port workers
By Terry Cook, 23 December 2011
Having ended all industrial action following last week’s lockout, the union is now in backroom talks in the Fair Work Australia tribunal to deliver the productivity demands of the company.
Australian Labor government shuts down port workers’ dispute
By Terry Cook, 15 December 2011
Under conditions of a worsening global crisis, the government is acting on the demands of finance capital for sweeping cost cutting measures to ensure Australian-based corporations remain “internationally competitive.”
Australia: Union shuts down nurses’ industrial action
By Will Morrow and Patrick O’Connor, 26 November 2011
The ANF decision is an abject capitulation to the federal Labor government’s industrial relations regime and the state government’s agenda of slashing wages and conditions.
Australia: The political issues facing Victorian nurses
By the Socialist Equality Party (Australia), 23 November 2011
Tens of thousands of public hospital nurses confront an assault on their jobs, wages, and conditions that is being coordinated between the state Liberal government of Ted Baillieu and the federal Labor government of Julia Gillard.
Australia: Nurses continue industrial action in defiance of industrial laws
By Will Morrow, 22 November 2011
In defying the tribunal’s orders, the nurses confront the threat of having their wages docked, fines totalling thousands of dollars each and jail terms of up to 12 months.
Australian nurses’ industrial action banned by Labor’s laws
By Will Morrow, 18 November 2011
What is facing nurses in Victoria is part of the austerity agenda being imposed in country after country on workers who are being compelled to bear the brunt of the deepening crisis of capitalism.
Australia: Striking process workers resist police attacks
By our reporters, 15 November 2011
The union’s aim is not to improve wages or end the appalling working conditions in the poultry plant, but to extend its coverage and entrench its position in Baiada.
Australia: Union calls off Jeld-Wen strike
By Mike Head, 10 October 2011
On its web site, the CFMEU cynically described the return to work, affecting several hundred workers in four states, as a “breakthrough.”
Australia: Jeld-Wen strike into third week
By Mike Head, 23 September 2011
The door workers’ fight against pay-cutting flows directly from the intensifying global financial crisis that began in 2007-08, when it devastated the US housing market.
Toyota Australia executives threaten shutdown after strike
By Peter Byrne and Patrick O’Connor, 20 September 2011
Toyota is demanding that workers accept a new agreement that entrenches real wage cuts over the next three years.
Australian government’s cuts opposed by public sector workers
By Terry Cook, 14 September 2011
With the aid of the union, the Labor government is seeking to cut public service pay and conditions to help meet its pledge to big business to return the budget to surplus.
Marchers discuss political issues raised by Sydney protest
By our reporters, 9 September 2011
WSWS correspondents interviewed some of the participants in yesterday’s 40,000-strong Sydney protest against the New South Wales government’s budget cuts.
Australia: Thousands rally against NSW budget cuts
By Mike Head, 9 September 2011
The large turnout reflected an emerging determination among wide layers of working people to resist the assault underway on jobs, conditions and essential services.
Australia: NSW government launches public transport carve-up
By Mike Head, 7 September 2011
Transport for NSW—a new entity that will employ no staff—will have the power to contract out all public transport services.
Australian union to pay compensation to resources giant for strike
By Terry Cook, 6 September 2011
The $2 million payment is another pledge by the trade unions to keep workers straitjacketed within the framework of the Labor government’s punitive industrial legislation.
The Australian Workers Union, steel sackings and anti-China chauvinism
By Patrick O’Connor, 25 August 2011
In the name of protecting steel jobs by boosting the competitiveness of Australian steel at the expense of China, Howes is advocating an economic war that can only have devastating consequences for workers in Australia, China and internationally.
Oppose the BlueScope sackings! Fight for a socialist strategy to defend steel and manufacturing jobs
By the Socialist Equality Party (Australia), 24 August 2011
The fight to defend jobs will only go forward through a rebellion against the trade union apparatuses, which are working might and main to subordinate workers to the dictates of the company and the Labor government.
Australian pay tribunal awards token rise to low-paid workers
By Terry Cook, 21 June 2011
On the back of the paltry increase, the trade unions will continue to work hand in glove with the Gillard government to endeavour to suppress wage demands and deliver the dictates of business.
Australia: Thousands rally against attack on NSW public sector workers
By James Cogan, 16 June 2011
Workers demonstrated outside the New South Wales parliament yesterday against new laws that will allow the state government to dictate wage outcomes for some 400,000 state sector employees.
Workers Struggles: Asia, Australia and the Pacific
11 June 2011
Workers Struggles: Asia, Australia and the Pacific
Australian union chief pledges to help drive up mining profits
By Terry Cook, 10 June 2011
Addressing top mining executives, ACTU secretary Jeff Lawrence called for “tripartite planning body” where “industry, business and unions can and should work together with government.”
Australian community sector workers demand pay increases
By Will Morrow, 9 June 2011
Frustrated social and community services workers demonstrated in major Australian cities yesterday to demand higher wages.
Australian unions hail “equal pay” ruling for community workers
By Will Morrow, 2 June 2011
The Gillard government has declared that any wage rise for female workers would be at the expense of other government-funded services.
Union betrays nine-week Australian PPG paint workers’ strike
By Margaret Rees, 1 June 2011
The union delivered all the central demands of the US-based company, including the introduction of a two-tier wage system.
Australian waterfront union capitulates, calling off industrial action
By Patrick O’Connor, 28 May 2011
The MUA’s capitulation underscores its determination to entrench itself as the enforcer of restructuring measures and productivity speed-ups on the docks.
Qantas prepares offensive on Australian workforce
By Terry Cook and James Cogan, 27 May 2011
Thousands of Qantas workers—from pilots to baggage handlers—sense that an offensive is looming that will see wholesale job losses.
Australian waterfront company steps up provocations against dock workers
By Patrick O’Connor, 26 May 2011
The dispute is regarded as a critical test case for the Labor government and its draconian industrial relations regime, Fair Work Australia.
Australia: Union enforces job cuts at Fairfax Media
By Terry Cook, 24 May 2011
Thanks to the collaboration of the union, Fairfax Media will now proceed with impunity to outsource sub-editing at its mast-head publications, the Age and Sydney Morning Herald.
Australia: Union prepares sell-out of PPG paint workers
By Margaret Rees and Patrick O’Connor, 18 May 2011
The company and the union have agreed to a new two-tier wage regime under which new hires will be paid 43 percent less than the existing workforce.
PPG workers speak to the World Socialist Web Site
By our reporters, 18 May 2011
“If we accept the two-tier wage system we’re going to start a chain reaction for other companies.”
Australia: PPG paint workers remain on strike as union pushes two-tier wage cut
By Chris Sadlier and Margaret Rees, 2 May 2011
The union involved, United Voice, is conspiring with the company to implement a two-tier wage system, involving new hires receiving a 43 percent wage cut, and other measures aimed at slashing labour costs.
Australia: PPG paint workers strike against 43-percent wage cut
By Peter Byrne, 21 April 2011
Over 120 PPG employees in Melbourne walked out last month to fight company demands that a new enterprise agreement include drastic cuts to new starters’ wages and conditions.
Qantas CEO escalates provocative campaign against workforce
By Alex Messenger and Patrick O’Connor, 21 April 2011
Qantas chief Alan Joyce denounced the resistance of pilots, engineers, and ground crew to his airline’s plans to undermine wages and conditions as “nothing short of a Kamikaze campaign.”
Australia: Maritime union calls off industrial action by port workers
By Terry Cook, 19 April 2011
The MUA, an unwavering supporter of the Gillard Labor government, is preparing to impose another betrayal of waterfront jobs and conditions.
Australia: Gillard government’s laws used to shut down strike by desalination workers
By Margaret Rees, 10 March 2011
Construction workers walked off a major water desalination plant near Melbourne and were immediately threatened with massive fines under the Labor government’s anti-strike laws.
Workers Struggles: Asia, Australia and the Pacific
5 March 2011
Workers Struggles: Asia, Australia and the Pacific
Australia: Qantas pilots vote for industrial action to defend jobs
By Terry Cook, 23 February 2011
In a bid to fight the company’s aggressive cost-cutting, Qantas pilots have authorised their union to organise industrial action to insert a job security clause in a new enterprise agreement.
Australia: Reject the New South Wales nurses agreement
By James Cogan, 15 February 2011
Nurses should reject the deal that the New South Wales Nurses Association has struck with Premier Kristina Keneally’s state Labor government.
Australia: Union enforces sweatshop conditions at Foxconn’s Sydney plant
By our reporters, 11 February 2011
Angry Foxteq workers condemned the union’s role at a recent meeting, where the deal was presented as a fait accompli, with workers given no right to read the document or vote on it.
Workers Struggles: Asia, Australia and the Pacific
22 January 2011
Taxi drivers in two central Chinese cities are on strike to protest new local government policies which they claim will damage their livelihood.
Australia: Electrical union promotes right-wing MP Bob Katter
By Patrick O’Connor, 20 January 2011
The Victorian branch of the Electrical Trades Union last month presented Katter before several dozen construction workers at Melbourne’s new children’s hospital, where the MP chauvinistically denounced “free trade” for sending Australian jobs to China.
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