On the campaign trail with the Victorian Socialists
“Jeez, you’re up early!” Perhaps he could tell I’ve never been much of a morning person, despite two decades of early starts in construction. Or perhaps candidates for parliament rarely get to Craigieburn station to leaflet passengers scrambling onto the 5:43am to the city. This train land...CONTINUE READING
Will Labor change the rules?
Workers’ wages in Australia have stagnated or gone backwards for half a decade, while the super rich have been helping themselves – with both hands. According to the Australian Financial Review’s annual survey, the richest 200 people in the country increased their total wealth from $176.8...CONTINUE READING
Taking it to the next level against Kennett: a chat with Stephen Jolly
“We were just stumbling across struggles everywhere. You’d be walking through the city centre and there’d be some minor rally, then there’d be some big rally and then there were occupations taking place. The Age on the day after the big rally quoted Lenin and said this was like Petrograd i...CONTINUE READING
Vicious anti-union law on hold – for now
It was predictable that a renewed attack on our unions would be high on the agenda for incoming prime minister Scott Morrison. For a party that can’t agree on how to supply electricity to the country – or on their own leadership – an attack on workers’ organisations can be an important uni...CONTINUE READING
Worker killed on Melbourne construction site
On the afternoon of Thursday 6 September, a construction site crane in the Melbourne suburb of Box Hill suffered a catastrophic mechanical failure. A giant steel kibble full of concrete plummeted down without warning on three workers. One is dead. Another is in hospital, while the third re...CONTINUE READING
Workers shut down money factory
Workers at Note Printing Australia shovel out more than $3 million in currency every hour, but they can’t get a decent pay rise. So on Friday 10 August, workers at the company’s Craigieburn factory, in the northern suburbs of Melbourne, walked off the job to support their wage claim of 3.5...CONTINUE READING
A win at Laverton Cold Storage
Workers at Laverton Cold Storage in Melbourne’s west are celebrating a win after a 12-day strike backed by a solid picket. Their new enterprise agreement includes union representation, induction rights and an immediate wage rise of more than $1 an hour (part of an 18 percent increase over...CONTINUE READING
Marching to change the rules, and walking a little taller
I’m near the back of the march when we moved off from Trades Hall. Turning from Russell Street into La Trobe, I can see the colossal crowd stretching to the top of the hill on William St. “Look at us all! Look up the street!”, I start shouting at my fellow marchers, waving at the crowd in...CONTINUE READING
Lessons from the Your Rights at Work campaign
As unions launch a round of protests under the Change the Rules banner, it’s worth recalling the history of the Your Rights at Work campaign, which concluded in 2007. Directed against the Howard government’s anti-worker WorkChoices legislation, Your Rights at Work protests were the biggest...CONTINUE READING