Striking workers and supportive students at the University of Sydney shut down the campus with a 48-hour strike, called by the National Tertiary Education Union (NTEU), on 11 and 12 May.
A 350-strong members’ meeting of the National Tertiary Education Union (NTEU) at the University of Sydney has voted to take strike action twice in the next month, kicking off our industrial campaign with a 48-hour strike on 11 and 12 May. This follows two years of savage attacks on university workers.
Moreland Council librarians, home care workers, gardeners and waste collection workers—members of the Australian Services Union and the Municipal and Utilities Workers Union—are taking industrial action.
Just as the last federal election campaign was getting started, a massive explosion ripped through a toxic waste facility in Campbellfield in Melbourne’s northern suburbs. Two workers—both Tamil refugees—were hospitalised. Surrounding suburbs were blanketed with highly toxic smoke.
The phrase “under workers’ control” is, unfortunately, not one we are accustomed to hearing. But twenty years ago, ceramics produced in the Zanon factory in Neuquén, Argentina, began to have these words proudly printed on them. The story of the workers behind the factory’s takeover is full of important lessons for revolutionaries.
In January 1973 the New South Wales town of Wee Waa was shaken by a strike of more than 1,000 cotton chippers. Most of the workers were Aboriginal, and the strike challenged the racism and exploitation that were deeply entrenched in what was the central industry of the region.