This is a round-up of recent union disputes from the local press and other sources.
| ” While the prospect for worker organisation is limited, however, out of the contradiction of master and servant (boss/worker) comes conflict.
When workers take action to advance their own interests, there is an opportunity to link with other workers engaged in similar industrial disputes. We argue that as the political nature of workers’ struggle emerges there is a need for new structures or organisation to take workers out of the bureaucratic framework that confines unions today. A new possibility may be realised — workers’ political organisation.” From After the Waterfront – the workers are quiet , |
Teachers Alliance
“New Pay Deal Great or Very Bad?! On Friday, May 2, Teachers Alliance
Councillors voted against calling off the stopwork action and agreeing
to the pay deal …”
VIDEO
VOTE NO to the Proposed EBA
“19 May 2008 …
http://www.teachers-alliance.org/proposednewagreemen... 1.
http://teachers-alliance.org/proposednewagreement/vo. …”
BLOG
13% over 4 years not 3
“Teachers Alliance http://www.teachers-alliance.org. No change to conditions –not good enough. Two key campaign demands were encapsulated in our
campaign slogans …”
http://www.victeachers.files.wordpress.com/2008/05/teachers-alliance-leaflet.doc
Qantas managers step in for striking engineers
Sydney Morning Herald – Sydney, New South Wales, Australia
“I don’t call anyone a strike-breaker … the union has every right to call a strike. “We have every right to resist it and every right to use everything …
Qantas won’t bow to striking engineers
Sydney Morning Herald – Sydney,New South Wales,Australia
Previous reports that Qantas would bring overseas workers back to Australia in a strike-breaking arrangement would be a “provocation to fair dinkum working …
Qantas pleased engineers’ industrial action cancelled
ABC Online – Australia
Both the union and the company appeared deadlocked this morning, with Mr Dixon saying a 5 per cent rise sought by engineers would be too costly. …
Boeing strike flies into its third week
The Age – Melbourne,Victoria,Australia
But union officials said that while Australians voted against WorkChoices at last year’s federal election, the legal framework was largely intact. …
Qantas baggage staff may continue strike
The Age – Melbourne,Victoria,Australia
The action is linked to workers’ concerns about staffing levels, rosters and old and badly maintained equipment, Transport Workers Union (TWU) federal …
Labor maintains spirit of AWAs
The Canberra Times – Canberra,Australian Capital Territory,Australia
Labor also proposes limiting union access to workplaces, limiting the right to strike, the introduction of flexibility arrangements in awards, and allowing …
Australian PM marks first 100 days as Murdoch demands “stiff dose …
World Socialist Web Site – Oak Park,MI,USA
But the “sacrifices” were extracted from the working class by force, with the trade union bureaucrats acting as industrial policemen, suppressing and …
Thinking about Haiti
Couple of nice quotes:
Martin Luther King
“A riot is the language of the unheard.” (“Other America” Speech, 1968 )
Here’s what they call “looting”
“People who have not been eating or drinking for almost 50 hours and are already in a very poor situation,” U.N. humanitarian spokeswoman Elisabeth Byrs said in Geneva. “If they see a truck with something, or if they see a supermarket which has collapsed, they just rush to get something to eat.” (Michael Shaw, Huffington )
PARENTS AND TEACHERS UNITED
Help build a Campaign for the equitable provision of resources to students in the public education system.
BOYCOTT NAPLAN TESTING & OPPOSE THE GOVERNMENT MISINFORMATION CAMPAIGN
http://www.forourfuture.org.au/
Teachers, parents and citizens who care about education are opposing standardised testing and the Federal and State Government’s support of school league tables.
Go to: http://www.soscanberra.com/
Peter Curtis is teacher and a member of the Australian Education Union.
His blog spot can be found at: Criticalconsciousness’s Blog
criticalconsciousness.wordpress.com
pedrocurtis@bigpond.com
Mobile: 0448307485
Qld Teachers Union Media Release
Outside Parliament House
At-convention-centre:
Saw this on line what’s happening in Brizvegas, are unionists critical of Another Liberal Party ?
Mutiny in bounty-full Qld shipmates defiant of the Authoritry of Cap’n/ Premier Bligh …. strewth is Grace not even sacred 🙂
About Time !
http://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/news/queensland/striking-electricity-workers-in-noisy-protest/2008/06/13/1213283212222.html
Striking electricity workers in noisy protest
June 13, 2008 – 10:08AM
Electricity workers are staging protests outside the Brisbane electorate offices of key Labor figures following a breakdown in negotiations over pay and conditions.
Electrical Trades Union (ETU) state organiser Garry Rogers said busloads of workers from state-owned electricity distributor Energex demonstrated outside the office of Treasurer Andrew Fraser in Bardon this morning.
“All these people here are Energex workers who have walked off the job today in relation to safety conditions and pay increases,” Mr Rogers said.
From there, they will travel to the Spring Hill electorate officers of Grace Grace (Grace Grace), former Queensland Council of Unions secretary and now state MP, before moving on to protest outside the West End office of Premier Anna Bligh.
Ms Bligh is overseas until the middle of next week.
Mr Rogers said the Energex workers walked off the job at 6am (AEST) today for 24 hours and workers from other state-owned electricity companies, Ergon Energy and Powerlink, were expected to hold four-hour stoppages from 10am to 2pm (AEST) today.
ETU spokesman Peter Simpson said the state government was only guaranteeing an annual pay rise of 2.76 per cent, with any additional rise funded by trade-offs, some of which could compromise safety and effective service delivery.
Mr Simpson said ETU has apologised to Queensland customers for delays to servicing and maintenance work caused by today’s industrial action.
The strike follows 10 weeks of rolling stoppages and work bans, including a statewide 24-hour strike on May 14.
AAP
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Martin ‘yellow cake’ Ferguson has warned us citizenry in Melboring about these usual suspects “fringe” protesters expected to whinge about selling uranium to despots and burying waste on aboriginal land…well whatabout Hummer limousine drivers ‘freedom’ to flaunt their wealth and hostility to the environment via new tunnels, new bridges and new freeways ? The bicycle riding vegetarians are coming out from the bed and want to take over the cities – more power to ’em I say.
Graffiti covers part of the wall surrounding the site of the Hale Street Bridge Project. INSET: Drew Hutton (back to camera) and Brian Laver at today’s protest at South Brisbane.
Graffiti covers part of the wall surrounding the site of the Hale Street Bridge Project. INSET: Drew Hutton (back to camera) and Brian Laver at today’s protest at South Brisbane.
Two arrested in Hale St protest
Tony Moore | June 1, 2008 – 2:57PM
COMMENT:
Forty years ago in 1968 the Rolling Stones answered their own question in their street anthem, “Street Fighting Man”, when they asked the question, “What can a poor boy do, but sing for a rock and roll band.”
Today veteran green community activists Brian Laver and Drew Hutton both from West End felt the same vintage frustration and were arrested for protesting the Hale Street Bridge.
That is all they felt they could do.
Actually they were each arrested politely for wilful damage, for allegedly writing graffiti on the wall surrounding the project site at South Brisbane, 100 metres along Montague Road.
Mr Laver and Mr Hutton both want their State MP, Anna Bligh – in her capacity as Premier – to think long and hard before she gives the formal go ahead to tolling power for the Hale Street Bridge.
“Captain Bligh, It’s Mutiny”, Mr Laver allegedly wrote in graffiti.
Drew Hutton and Brian Laver’s “crime”, is community disappointment that despite formal objections, despite no business case, despite the fact the Hale Street Bridge started off as a underground tunnel project and became a bridge, and despite State Government doubts about the lingering traffic impacts on South Brisbane and Coronation Drive, the $300 million plus project will go ahead.
Stop the Hale Street Bridge co-ordinator David Bratchford says: “There has been a lot of lies peddled about this project but one of the biggest is the one being peddled by the Lord Mayor that it is all over.
“We are talking about a project where there is no viable business case, there is no final cost, there is no traffic impact study and no state government approvals.”
The State Government has still to approve the tolling powers for the Hale Street Bridge for it to approve, a fact repeatedly acknowledged by Lord Mayor Campbell Newman.
“We have been told that if it is not a financially viable project, or in other ways it creates too many adverse impacts, then they won’t support it.”
He said the information already available showed the newer version of the project put forward by Campbell Newman since Christmas would add nine minutes to peak hour traffic on Coronation Drive, while traffic waited at extra traffic lights.
The project is designed to free up congestion of traffic coming from the Inner City Bypass (ICB) and provide an inner city cross-city link.
But Mr Bratchford said the project still failed the basic tests.
“It’s been shown time and time again that it is a bad project that is actually going to make congestion worse, not better. Its costs are blowing out daily and it is very, very bad use of scarce ratepayers’ money.”