Tim Gooden

More than 100 maritime workers and trade unionists protested outside Svitzer Australia tug boat operators to demand it reinstate sacked tug boat crews. Tim Gooden reports.

Most workers cannot wait to get rid of this dreadful federal Coalition government. But fewer believe that a Bill Shorten-led Labor government will actually change the rules, writes Sue Bull.

Twelve months ago socialists from several different groups and backgrounds came together to see if they could get the first socialist elected to an Australian parliament in more 70 years.

Victorian Socialists are running candidates across every Legislative Council region in Victoria and in more than a dozen Legislative Assembly seats. Below are the lead Victorian Socialists candidates for the upper house regions. To see the full list of candidates visit victoriansocialists.org.au

Victorian Socialists lead candidate for the Northern Metropolitan Region Stephen Jolly is rushing off to a Yarra council meeting after a long day at a pre-polling booth. It’s the beginning of two weeks of pre-polling before state election day — November 24.

Australia has not had a socialist parliamentarian, at the state or federal level, since the 1940s. But this may change at the November 24 Victorian state election, writes Jack Stickney.

“If climate change is the great moral issue of our time, as one former prime minister famously said, then governments have failed miserably”, Victorian Socialists candidate Tim Gooden told Green Left Weekly.

Former Geelong Trades Hall Council (GTHC) secretary Tim Gooden reflects on his experiences as a socialist trade union leader and discusses what he could bring to parliament if elected as the Victorian Socialists candidate for the Western Region in the November 24 state elections.

There are very few workers in Australia today who feel confident that they have a job for life, are well paid or have the safest working conditions possible.

That’s why we all welcomed the Australian Council of Trade Union’s (ACTU) Change the Rules campaign. 

It is definitely time to stop the attacks on workers and build a fight back that can win. We need to get rid of legislation that stops unions from organising effectively for their members.

More than 70 people packed Geelong Trades Hall (GTH) on September 13 to launch the Victorian Socialists campaign for the Western Victoria Region Legislative Council electorate.

New Prime Minister Scott Morrison unsurprisingly revealed on September 4 that he is considering deregistering the Construction Forestry Maritime Mining and Energy Union (CFMMEU).

The reason he gave was not that the union had committed any industrial “crime”. Instead it was a Father’s Day tweet by Victorian CFMMEU state secretary John Setka.

Sources have informed Green Left Weekly that the new CEO of Barwon Health in Victoria is on the warpath and the target appears to be patient services.

Barwon Health incorporates University Hospital Geelong, Geelong’s only public hospital and the only tertiary-level hospital outside of Metropolitan Melbourne. The hospital’s catchment area extends from Werribee to the South Australian border, encompassing more than 350,000 Victorians and up to 500,000 for certain specialised treatments.