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The Young Unionist Network (YUN) and the Rock for Your Rights at Work coalition are bringing together artists and cultural workers to stage five huge gigs here in the lead-up to the November 30 national day of action against the Howard government’s anti-worker laws. Ranging from hip-hop to heavy metal, the gigs aim to maximise support for the campaign against Work Choices.
Three Filipino workers sacked for speaking out about their and 37 other Filipino workers’ treatment by Ipswich welding firm Dartbridge Engineering have been found alternative employment by their union, the Australian Manufacturing Workers Union (AMWU).
Thousands across Canada took to the streets on October 28 against the country’s military intervention in Afghanistan. In wind, rain and in some cases snow, people turned out in more than 30 communities to stand against the mission. Forty-three Canadians have died in Afghanistan since 2002. The country has around 2300 troops serving there.
On October 21, 80 people attended a public forum in Footscray organised by the Maribyrnong Action Group. Speakers discussed the health risks of diesel emissions and the ever increasing quantity of trucks passing through residential streets in Maribyrnong. A range of solutions were presented, from immediate curfew observance and extensions to shifting more freight onto trains.
Bono is at a U2 concert in Glasgow when he asks the audience for some quiet. In the silence, he starts to slowly clap his hands.
Staff at the University of NSW mail room are the latest victims of the university’s cost-cutting and corporatisation. Mail services at UNSW including internal mail and courier services were put out to tender via an advertisement in the November 1 Sydney Morning Herald.
Many of the 2.6 million US soldiers who served in the Vietnam War have contracted cancer and a cocktail of serious health problems that they believe to be directly linked to their exposure to the dioxin-contaminated defoliant Agent Orange. The US military sprayed Agent Orange heavily in some parts of Vietnam for 10 years during the war.
NSW Greens MP Lee Rhiannon has called on the NSW Labor government to drop a current trial of taser stun guns after one of the weapons caused the death of a teenager in the United States on November 1. It is expected that the NSW government will announce before next March’s state election that stun guns will be given to 7000 NSW police on general duties.
Fadi Rahman from the Independent Centre for Research’s youth centre in Lidcombe, Sydney, spoke to Green Left Weekly’s Emma Clancy about the impact on young Muslim Australians of the media attack on the entire Islamic community in the wake of Sheikh Taj el-Din Al Hilaly’s comments about women and sexual assault.
How hard is it to raise $76,500 before the end of this year? Not hard at all for some organisations. As the November 1 Sydney Morning Herald reported: “Opposition Leader, Peter Debnam, took to the harbour last night for a fund-raising cruise with the property industry aboard a luxury cruiser owned by a developer, Greg Gav.
On October 30 primary and preschool teachers went back to the classrooms, ending seven weeks of strikes and actions, with their key demand of a 40% wage increase unmet. They will continue their campaign for wage justice with 24-hour strikes and education rallies on November 3 and 9.
Seventy people packed into the Resistance Centre on October 26 to hear author Antony Loewenstein and Green Left Weekly journalist Rupen Savoulian speak about Israel’s role in the Middle East. Loewenstein described the wide range of responses to his new book, My Israel Question, including much positive feedback from Jews who expressed their support for his critique of the Israeli state’s repressive policies in the region.