Workers & unions

Union bodies, leaders and rank-and-file Construction Forestry Maritime Employees Union members are pushing back against Labor’s unprecedented draconian anti-CFMEU law. Pip Hinman reports.

Jill Stein meme

Support for Green Party Presidential candidate Jill Stein and Vice Presidential candidate Butch Ware is the highest since the party’s candidate Ralph Nader ran for president of the United States in 2000, report Barry Sheppard and Malik Miah.

The COVID-19 pandemic was an accelerant for money-pinching administrative bureaucrats to experiment with eliminating student-teacher classes. Binoy Kampmark reports.

Independent Peter Chen edged out Rank-and-File Action candidate David Brophy by six votes for president of the National Tertiary Education Union University of Sydney Branch. Valerie Chidiac and Sandra Kallarakkal report.

Monash University management has raised the price of parking, arguing it will encourage staff and students to travel more “sustainably”. Brenna Dempsey argues it will affect those less well off, who have to drive.

In one of the biggest protests in 50 years, nurses and midwives across NSW walked off the job for a 15% pay rise and safer working conditions. Kerry Smith reports.

Building workers’ unions from around the world are speaking out in solidarity with the Construction Forestry and Maritime Employees Union after Labor placed the construction division into administration and sacked elected officials. Fred Fuentes reports.

 

Boeing workers on picket line

Workers at Boeing’s commercial division in the United States overwhelmingly voted on September 12 to reject a tentative collective agreement and take strike action, reports Malik Miah.

Construction union leader Michael Ravbar gave a speech at an August 27 rally in defence of the Construction Forestry and Maritime Employees Union.

A group of Pakistani workers and inset photo of Ammar Ali Jan

Progressive International’s Tanya Singh spoke to Haqooq-e-Khalq Party (People’s Rights Party, HKP) co-founder Ammar Ali Jan about the challenges of building a new workers’ party in Pakistan — and the HKP’s recent victories for Lahore’s most vulnerable workers.

Tens of thousands of construction unionists marched in Magan-djin/Brisbane on September 17 and in Naarm/Melbourne and Gadigal Country/Sydney the next day, to demand their elected officials be reinstated and Labor’s new anti-union law be withdrawn.

Defending the right of a union to conduct its own investigations into alleged wrong-doing is beyond the pale for the political and media establishment. Jonathan Strauss looks at their attempts to take down the Greens, along with the CFMEU.