Maurie Mahoney, Textiles Clothing and Footwear Union (TCFUA) delegate at WangarattaÂ’s Bruck Textiles, is being targeted at work with disciplinary action that could result in dismissal, after speaking out against Work Choices laws allowing the company to pay some workers less then the federal governmentÂ’s Fair Pay standards. Bruck management informed Mahoney that he had breached his terms and conditions of employment. He was directed that he must not speak about the matter with anyone other than his wife, who is one of the Bruck workers currently being paid under the Fair Pay standard.
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Launching his new film War on Democracy at the Dendy Theatre on September 24, well-known progressive journalist, author and film-maker John Pilger described it as perhaps “my most optimistic film”.
Two public education institutions in Sydney’s west — the University of Western Sydney’s (UWS) Blacktown campus and Macquarie Boys High in Parramatta — are set for the chopping block. The UWS board of trustees is trying to close the Nirimba campus at Blacktown in 2009. Additionally, on August 23, NSW education minister John Della Bosca announced the state Labor government’s intention to close Macquarie Boys’ Technology High School in Parramatta by 2009.
“The Venezuelan economy in the Chavez years”, a study released in July by the Centre for Economic and Policy Research, reveals massive social gains for the poor and working people in Venezuela as a result of the pro-people polices promoted by the government of socialist President Hugo Chavez. The study, by Mark Weisbrot and Luis Sandoval, also provides a detailed look at the state of the Venezuelan economy, which has experienced significant economic growth. The authors argue that, contrary to suggestions widely made in the corporate media (which the authors refer to as “conventional wisdom”), this growth is unlikely to end any time soon.
The Socialist Alliance supports the struggle for democracy in Burma, and stands in solidarity with the democracy movement activists, political prisoners and exiles bravely defying its military dictatorship.
On September 23, federal environment minister Malcolm Turnbull and industry and resources minister Ian Macfarlane announced a new national “clean energy target”.
What began on August 15 as protests against escalating fuel and transport prices and deteriorating economic conditions has developed into a mass uprising in Burma. From September 17, mobilisations by Buddhist monks and nuns emboldened thousands of Burmese to take to the streets in the largest protests since the pro-democracy uprising in 1988 that was brutally crushed, with over 3000 people killed, by the military regime that has ruled Burma since 1962.
Socialist Alliance members and supporters will be very busy over the next few months as the federal election draws near. We will be organising election launches, meetings, fundraisers, letterboxing and leafleting drives.
Farooq Tariq, the general secretary of Labour Party Pakistan — along with 10 other LPP members — was arrested for the third time in three months on September 27.
The federal government announced on September 23 that it has — for the first time — adopted an actual target for energy generation from “clean” sources. Under the plan, 15% of Australia’s electricity would be generated from such sources by 2020, including renewable energy like wind and solar, as well as “clean, green” nuclear power and “clean coal”. Prime Minister John Howard heralded the plan as “a major cost saving and regulatory breakthrough”.
If lawyers are coming to the street, then something is very wrong, Ambiga Sreenevasan, the Malaysian Bar CouncilÂ’s president, said on September 26 when she addressed bar members gathered at the Palace of Justice.
It isn’t hard to see why Che Guevara retains his relevance today. The need for the victory of ideas that Che fought for, his vision of a better world, the struggle for human liberation, has never been so great. Following the legacy of Che, revolution is once again back on the agenda in Latin America, led by Venezuela, showing that you can kill the revolutionary, but never the revolution.
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