Rising Tide and Green Left co-hosted a forum on how to sustainably move away from coal when it’s been communities' livelihood for generations. Jim McIlroy reports.
Employment
Some unions have been rightfully criticised for sending mixed messages to members regarding the September 20 Climate Strike, writes Crimson Coconut.
RMIT University professor Rob Watts believes Australia needs a “Green Fair Go” — akin to the United States proposal of a “Green New Deal” — that would include a commitment to full employment through jobs linked to combating climate change.
Retirement was only a few years away when Genevieve became so disillusioned and angry with her current circumstances that she joined a union; a most unexpected union.
The Australian Unemployed Workers' Union (AUWU) is one of a growing few in the Western world, with a membership base of 3500. As a laid-off public servant, Genevieve joined the thousands that chronicle our neoliberal times. Not since the 1930s have so many Australians been out of work. About 2 million people fall into the job status of unemployed, underemployed or precarious.
Universal Basic Income (UBI) is not a new idea. But it is an idea whose time has come. It is one of the simplest, most obvious pieces of social policy imaginable: every member of a society, with no exceptions, is entitled to enough money to live on.
Eligibility is not conditional on age or employment status, or education or criminal record like the poorly-built social welfare programs of modern Australia that have deep, but invisible, cracks for the most vulnerable to fall into.
Le Sacre Du Travail
The Tangent
InsideOut Music
June 24, 2013
www.insideoutmusic.com