Category Archives: Unions

Driven by competition with China, US escalates military presence in Australia

by Alison Thorne U.S. President Obama and Australian Prime Minister Gillard shake hands and cement an alliance to boost the U.S. military presence in Asia. Plans include a new military base in Darwin, and joint military exercises in Australian waters. … Continue reading

What’s the plan, comrades?

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I got a call from a friend this week asking if I had seen the front page of Wednesday’s Australian. It was covering the 2012 Federal Budget. His wife had rung him from work saying have a look at the … Continue reading

Proposal to start a Brisbane University Staff & Students Assembly

To our friends We are writing to you to announce the formation of, and invite you to participate in, the Brisbane University Staff & Students Assembly. BUSSA plans to be a city-wide organisation where workers and students from all universities … Continue reading

Launch of Brisbane Workers Assembly

Meeting – Launch of Brisbane Workers Assembly Dear friends and comrades Recently a small group of us looked around and realised that we need to do something about the lack of self-organisation in the working class. Our decision has been … Continue reading

Socialist Alternative Meeting: The Civil Rights Movement in America

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Today, despite America’s first Black president, there has been little change and there is now little hope for African Americans. They are bearing the brunt of the economic crisis, with unemployment among Blacks at almost 16 per cent, and with … Continue reading

17 Group — problems of global capital and labour and their social impacts

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The May meeting of the 17 Group, a mere handful of days before the May Day March, on Wednesday the 2nd of May at 7 pm in unit 6 at 20 Drury St West End will very seasonably deal with … Continue reading

Important meeting re National Museum of Labour – Thursday 3rd May

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Dear Comrades and Friends, The Brisbane Labour History Association and the Queensland Council of Unions are holding a meeting with Kim Sattler, Unions ACT Secretary, to promote the National Museum of Labour. Kim has been involved in the setting up … Continue reading

May Day in Brisbane 2012

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The organisation of the May Day 2012 celebrations in Brisbane is in disarray and needs to be fixed. It has become a mates day at the beer tent for union organisers and a few rank and file – a pub … Continue reading

9 Theses on the Party

‘The history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggles’ — Marx and Engels, Manifesto of the Communist Party

The organisation of the May Day celebrations in Brisbane is in disarray and needs to be fixed. 
 
Both the venue and the day are wrong. Musgrave Park and 1st May are better than the RNA showgrounds and 7th May.
 
There is pressure from employers and public service managers for Labour Day in Qld to be moved to later in the year.  They are happy to commemorate needless carnage on a beach in Turkey a hundred years ago and a day that is not the Queen’s birthday — anything but the international day of the workers and their unions. 
 
Other states in Australia have already made this concession.
 
The bosses argue that because Anzac Day (Wednesday, 25 April), Labour Day (Monday, 7 May) and the Queen’s birthday (Monday, 11 June) are close together, Labour Day should be moved.
 
Unions need involvement from community grps, but the ALP is wary because no community grp has reason to go to Labor in QLD anymore. The only stronghold left to the ALP is the unions and they are going to protect that to the detriment of rank and file workers.
 
Needless to say, community groups are victims of our own lack of organisation.
 
It is important that we bind together to improve the organisation of May Day.

in solidarity,
Ian Curr
0407 687 016

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Book Launch – We built this Country

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BOOK LAUNCH WE BUILT THIS COUNTRY BUILDERS’ LABOURERS AND THEIR UNIONS 1787 TO THE FUTURE by Humphrey McQueen The book should be compulsory reading for new and old union officers and organisers; it will certainly challenge them to decide whether … Continue reading