The business lobby today launched its election propaganda campaign. The president of the Business Council of Australia, Michael Chaney, made the laughable claim that the ads are non-political, but Australians saw through the last “information” campaign and they’ll see through this one, too. The leader of the Liberal Party tells business they had better spend [...]
Alexander Downer has suggested Australian Labor should look to the Tony Blair’s industrial regime for inspiration. Downer says the British ex-PM …saw the modernisation of his national economy as the key to job creation, fairness and equality for all workers… [and] set a strong example for future Labour leaders, both in Britain and around the [...]
The ACTU has started showing more television advertisements, like this one (warning: rude words): Wait, that’s not the right one — but it is great! Anyway, here’s one of the real ads: There’s another, more recent ad called Boys in the Boardroom, but I can’t find a clip online yet. It looks like there’s a [...]
Although this blog is usually quite strictly focussed on Australian issues, I have been asked by the LHMU to mention something that happened in the United States last week, and which is one of LabourStart’s Act NOW! campaigns. As you know, this blog supports the LHMU’s Clean Start for Cleaners campaign. A similar campaign — [...]
The US National Labor Relations Board is considering whether to classify certain employees as “supervisors”. This is ostensibly on the basis that they sometimes direct the work of other employees — such as new staff, who need guidance while they learn the ropes. You might think this sounds like a good thing, as these workers [...]
In the most recent issue of Overland, Katherine Wilson writes about a man called Ross Irvine, who toured Australia recently to teach big business “how to create bogus community groups, false statistics, and links with ‘far-right-wing nutso activists’.” She went along to his seminar, along with some very important people: Filing in to see him [...]
As part of its Clean Start campaign, the LHMU has launched a Golden Toilet Brush Award for cleaning companies that cut corners and mistreat staff: We want to hear from cleaners and office workers about examples of poor health and environmental standards created by property owners who cut corners when it comes to cleaning their [...]
Young victorians in the retail and fast food industries are being asked to support a new, militant union, Unite. Unite has been campaigning in Melbourne since August 2003, with the backing of the Victorian Trades Hall Council. Its previous activities mainly involved naming bad employers and raising community awareness of the problems facing casual workers. [...]
With the Socceroos about to kick off in the World Cup, it’s important to remind people that the excitement and glamour of professional soccer is made possible by the massive exploitation of workers around the world. Oxfam has published an important report, Offside! Labour Rights and Sportswear Production in Asia, which exposes the brutal conditions [...]
It’s a terrible pity that on Workers Memorial Day we are faced with the news that the two remaining trapped miners were almost certainly killed in the earthquake. The body of one man was brought up last night, and the coroner said the machine the three men had been seen working on had been directly [...]
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