Category Archives: Unions

Anti-Racism, Unions

Win Freedom for Refugees! Defend 457 Visa Workers’ Rights!

Racist Scapegoating of Refugees and 457 Visa Workers Is Aimed at Attacking Workers’ Rights

Trade Unions:

Win Freedom for Refugees!

Defend 457 Visa Workers’ Rights!

Perth, July 2012: A setback for workers’ unity and the struggle against racism. Demonstration called by union tops demands Australian workers be put ahead of 457 Visa workers. Although rally leaders stressed they were not against immigration, pitting Australian workers against their overseas counterparts can only fuel hostility to migrants and refugees as well. Yet many left groups, like Socialist Alternative, hailed this divisive July 2012 rally.

Perth, July 2012: A setback for workers’ unity and the struggle against racism. Demonstration called by union tops demands Australian workers be put ahead of 457 Visa workers. Although rally leaders stressed they were not against immigration, pitting Australian workers against their overseas counterparts can only fuel hostility to migrants and refugees as well. Yet many left groups, like Socialist Alternative, hailed this divisive July 2012 rally.
Asylum seekers in Nauru protest against their cruel detention.
Asylum seekers in Nauru protest against their cruel detention.
March 2012: Police attack and arrest protesters at the Nyoongar Aboriginal Tent Embassy in WA. As refugees, guest workers and non-white migrant communities are attacked by the racist establishment spewing hysterical claims that these immigrants are “flooding the country,” this same ruling class establishment conducts vicious racist oppression of this country’s first peoples. Unlike refugees and other migrants who come to this country merely to seek a better life, the British colonialists that established capitalist Australia came with the purpose of conquering the Aboriginal people and plundering their land. The Australian capitalist rulers’ continued racist assaults on Aboriginal people are, just like their attacks on refugees, aimed at scapegoating vulnerable communities for the poor social services and other hardships caused by their system and additionally at justifying their ongoing conquest of Aboriginal people’s land.
March 2012: Police attack and arrest protesters at the Nyoongar Aboriginal Tent Embassy in WA. As refugees, guest workers and non-white migrant communities are attacked by the racist establishment spewing hysterical claims that these immigrants are “flooding the country,” this same ruling class establishment conducts vicious racist oppression of this country’s first peoples. Unlike refugees and other migrants who come to this country merely to seek a better life, the British colonialists that established capitalist Australia came with the purpose of conquering the Aboriginal people and plundering their land. The Australian capitalist rulers’ continued racist assaults on Aboriginal people are, just like their attacks on refugees, aimed at scapegoating vulnerable communities for the poor social services and other hardships caused by their system and additionally at justifying their ongoing conquest of Aboriginal people’s land.
Trotskyist Platform banner at Sydney May Day 2013 rally opposes competition for jobs between local and 457 Visa workers and calls for local and 457 Visa workers to unite to take industrial action to force bosses to increase hiring.
Trotskyist Platform banner at Sydney May Day 2013 rally opposes competition for jobs between local and 457 Visa workers and calls for local and 457 Visa workers to unite to take industrial action to force bosses to increase hiring.

July 10: “Nauru Same as Guantanamo!” Referring to the notorious U.S. jail and torture site at Guantanamo Bay, that was the chant of asylum seekers locked up in Nauru during desperate protests earlier this year. Whether imprisoned in Nauru or in the malaria-infested Manus Island camp or on mainland hellholes like Villawood Detention Centre, asylum seekers fleeing to Australia are today being treated every bit as inhumanely by this ALP government as they were by the former Howard government … and then some! Continue reading Win Freedom for Refugees! Defend 457 Visa Workers’ Rights! →

Anti-Capitalism, Unions, Women

Unleash Militant Class Struggle. Fight for a Huge Increase in the Newstart Allowance and Smash the ALP Government’s Attack on Low-Income Single Mothers!

Don’t Let Our Fellow Workers Who Lose Their Jobs Become Destitute!
Unleash Militant Class Struggle

Fight for a Huge Increase in the Newstart Allowance and Smash the ALP Government’s Attackon Low-Income Single Mothers!

ALP’s Slashing of Payments to Poor Single Parents Proves Once Again that None of The Current Parliamentary Parties Should Be Supported at The Upcoming Elections

March 8, 2013: At the turn of the year, Australian billionaire James Packer and his family were enjoying first uses of their latest family toy:  a 52-metre super yacht costing over $50 million! However, for tens of thousands of low-income, single parents the reality could not be more different. They are now going to struggle, even more than before, to buy their children medicine let alone merely a $2 toy. The ALP federal government has thrown over 84,000 low-income single parents off the Parenting Payment and on to the much lower Newstart Allowance. If this isn’t bad enough, those single parents who have part-time jobs face even more savage cuts to their income as the Newstart Allowance is more ruthless than the Parenting Payment in cutting payments to those who do manage to find any part-time work. Continue reading Unleash Militant Class Struggle. Fight for a Huge Increase in the Newstart Allowance and Smash the ALP Government’s Attack on Low-Income Single Mothers! →

Anti-Capitalism, Unions

Crush the QLD Government’s Attacks On Public Sector Workers!

LET’S NOT GET DIVERTED INTO CAMPAIGNING FOR AN ALP/GREENS GOVERNMENT!

THE ONLY THING THAT CAN SAVE JOBS IS ALL OUT STRIKE ACTION!

An unlucky participant at the September 12 rally in Brisbane - one of thousands being laid off from the public sector in an austerity drive resembling those occurring across Europe.
An unlucky participant at the September 12 rally in Brisbane – one of thousands being laid off from the public sector in an austerity drive resembling those occurring across Europe.

Queensland is in shock. Far from being a death by a thousand cuts, the unprecedented slashing of the public sector in Queensland enacted by the recently elected Liberal National Party (LNP) government headed by Premier Campbell Newman almost amounts to instant decapitation. For a long time a job in the public service meant greater job security than in the private sector. This has been demolished as the Liberal National Party moves to make the public service operate along lines identical to the private sector ie “perform” or you are out. Legislation has been passed by the LNP which overrides job security provisions in collective agreements. Continue reading Crush the QLD Government’s Attacks On Public Sector Workers! →

Aboriginal Struggle, Anti-Racism, Unions

Oppose Police Terror against Aboriginal People, “Ethnic” Youth And All The Poor!

Horrific Racist Savagery: After shooting Aboriginal youth Troy Taylor in Sydney’s Kings Cross, police drag and bash the teenager as he bleeds to within an inch of death. -Sunday Telegraph

Oppose Police Terror against Aboriginal People, “Ethnic” Youth And All The Poor!

Don’t Allow Business as Usual – Build Mass Actions Backed by Trade Union Power!

May 11 – Enough is enough! How many more mothers and fathers must grieve over a child killed by Australian police? How many more close friends must agonise over a dear one whose life hangs in the balance because they were attacked by cops? Police are getting ever more vicious. They must be opposed! Recent events have made this all too clear.

On March 21, six Sydney cops viciously killed Brazilian student Roberto Laudisio. After having identified Roberto as having allegedly stolen, of all things, a packet of biscuits, the cops hounded him as if he was the target of a hunting expedition. They smashed him against a shop window, capsicum sprayed him and then, in what resembled an horrific game of cat and mouse, repeatedly tasered him to death. Continue reading Oppose Police Terror against Aboriginal People, “Ethnic” Youth And All The Poor! →

Unions

Crush The NSW Government’s Attacks on Public Sector Workers! Use The Only Means That Work – All Out Strike Action!

 

Sydney, 15 June 2011: Massive stop work rally opposes O’Farrell state government’s attacks on public sector workers.

Crush The NSW Government’s Attacks on Public Sector Workers!
Use The Only Means That Work – All Out Strike Action!

June 15 – Twelve thousand trade unionists demonstrated today outside NSW Parliament House against the O’Farrell state government’s attack on public sector workers. The stop work rally was the biggest workers rally in Sydney in five years. Particularly large contingents were brought out by the NSW Nurses Association, the Health Services Union, the Rail, Bus and Tram Union and the Fire Brigade Employees Union. Continue reading Crush The NSW Government’s Attacks on Public Sector Workers! Use The Only Means That Work – All Out Strike Action! →

Unions, Women

Equal Pay for Equal Work! Don’t Let Governments Tell You They Can’t Afford It – Ripping Wealth from The Greedy Tycoons Will Easily Fund Equal Pay!

Turn the widespread support for the campaign
into the strike action that can bring victory

Equal Pay for Equal Work!

Don’t Let Governments Tell You They Can’t Afford It –
Ripping Wealth from The Greedy Tycoons Will Easily Fund Equal Pay!

June 8 – Over 5,000 community sector workers and their supporters marched through Sydney City today to demand Equal Pay for Equal Work. The Sydney rally was part of nationwide stop works and rallies by community sector workers angry at how badly they are being paid. Community sector workers are truly getting a raw deal. These workers – who include childcare workers and disability and aged carers – are doing the same work as other workers (like public sector workers) and often have equivalent qualifications. But they are getting paid much less. This discrimination has much to do with the fact that 85% of community-sector workers are women. Continue reading Equal Pay for Equal Work! Don’t Let Governments Tell You They Can’t Afford It – Ripping Wealth from The Greedy Tycoons Will Easily Fund Equal Pay! →

Anti-Capitalism, Unions

Gillard/Swan Budget Punishes the Poor, Seeks to Undermine Workers Conditions. Unite the Working Class and Poor to Smash Capitalist Austerity Attacks!

Basics Card pic
The hated Basics Card. As a result of the racist Northern Territory intervention, 50% of the income of an Aboriginal person receiving welfare payments is quarantined so that it can only be accessed with the Basics Card and cannot be used for purchasing “non-essential” items. The federal ALP government has extended this “welfare quarantining” scheme to other parts of the country including to non-Aboriginal communities like Sydney’s Bankstown. Now, the latest federal budget introduces additional humiliations against the poor.

September 30 – She was almost in tears. She was being tormented. It started from around the time of the start of the financial year. Government agencies started calling her up … and calling her up. They were intimidating. They demanded she go through further medical checks to prove that she really was too ill to work. Her illness was bad enough. Now she was being punished for it. Rude bureaucrats would call at strange hours – to check that she was really at home … and presumably not playing sports like a fit person? It was “like the Gestapo” she said. Continue reading Gillard/Swan Budget Punishes the Poor, Seeks to Undermine Workers Conditions. Unite the Working Class and Poor to Smash Capitalist Austerity Attacks! →