Nurses in Victoria are being threatened with an Alan Joyce-style lockout because they have campaigned for a modest 3.5% pay rise (just to keep up with the rising cost of living), superannuation and overtime improvements, and keeping patient-to-nurse ratios.
Australia’s four big banks, meanwhile, have announced a combined annual profit of $24.4 billion, up 12% from $21.7 billion a year ago.
This speaks volumes about the grossly distorted priorities in our society.
Nurses deserve a pay rise far more than the banksters, which have brought on a global economic crisis through their profit-driven greed. Their greed also shapes our common future by channelling wealth away from the investments needed to save the world from runaway climate change, injustice and misery for the entire planet.
If you want to predict the future, just look at where society is investing its collective savings today. It is as simple as that.
The bizarre thing is that our collective savings are far greater than ever before. One of the twisted reasons for the global economic crisis today is that the banksters who control this wealth have diverted it away from what is needed — hospitals, housing, public transport and renewable energy — into more fossil fuels, military arms and poisons. These are things we need like a hole in the head, like a zillion other “products” that no sane person needs.
But if we want to redirect our collective investments away from the destruction of our common future, we need to make serious investments in the institutions that will help us liberate ourselves from the profit-at-any-cost greedy system of capitalism.
We are fast coming to the end of the year and we still need to raise $82,763 to meet Green Left Weekly’s $250,000 Fighting Fund target for the year. Our supporters raised nearly $30,000 in October but we need an even bigger effort in November and December to make the target.
Any Green Left Weekly supporter who can make a bigger investment in our common future through a donation to the Fighting Fund is urgently requested to contact us. Of course, we are always happy to accept smaller contributions.
Please donate online today to the Green Left fighting fund. Direct deposits can be made to Greenleft, Commonwealth Bank, BSB 062-006, Account No. 00901992. Otherwise, you can send a cheque or money order to PO Box 515, Broadway NSW 2007 or donate on the toll-free line at 1800 634 206 (within Australia).