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Keywords: Industrial

  • AUSTRALIA

    Truth beyond written records of the Wave Hill walk off

    • Moira Rayner
    • 23 August 2016
    9 Comments

    I had been in WA for exactly a year when the local newspaper reported that a white guy had led about 200 people off Wave Rock station. Coming out of the comfortable myth that my home country of New Zealand was not racist, I was amazed to learn that Australia's Indigenous people were obliged to work without industrial protections. In 1966 it was the British Vesteys Group that had been exploiting Aboriginal people: today it is the State in the guise of 'community development', aka work for the dole.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    'War on business' rhetoric echoes '07 union bashing

    • Brendan Byrne
    • 27 June 2016
    15 Comments

    Whether or not the person in the now notorious 'fake tradie' ad is or isn't a 'real' tradie is irrelevant. What is relevant is that it is a primary example of the co-option of the language of class struggle and economic justice that has so thoroughly poisoned economic debate in the industrialised West. Implicit within it is a patronising view of the working class that dismisses them as gullible dupes who can be made to entrench the privilege of the few in return for the paltry crumbs of consumer hedonism.

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  • ENVIRONMENT

    Laudato Si and the Australian election

    • Neil Ormerod
    • 22 June 2016
    23 Comments

    It is now 12 months since Pope Francis issued his environmental encyclical Laudato Si'. He opined, 'Although the post-industrial period may well be remembered as one of the most irresponsible in history, nonetheless there is reason to hope that humanity at the dawn of the 21st century will be remembered for having generously shouldered its grave responsibilities.' Where are the Australian politicians who can give hope to the coming generation by focusing our attention on this most urgent issue?

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  • ECONOMICS

    How financial markets are stymying climate action

    • David James
    • 15 June 2016
    7 Comments

    There is little doubt that the means to dramatically reduce the amount of pollution produced by developed economies is already theoretically available. It is perfectly possible to redesign industrial systems so that they do not pollute and do not consume finite resources at a rate that is unsustainable. But it requires a radical shift - and the biggest barrier to that shift occurring, the financial markets, is barely even mentioned in discussions of the challenge.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    My personal climate change bind

    • Fatima Measham
    • 26 May 2015
    16 Comments

    Most people think that the effects of climate change as dire but far off. I don't have that comfort. My seafarer father plays a role in generating wealth for miners who then use it as a means to influence politicians - coal, industrial salt, iron ore. I am deeply aware that my government is committed to doing as little as possible to address climate change and its lack of a coherent, internationalist policy in Australia costs countries that are climate change-vulnerable, including where my family lives back in the Philippines.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    The tyranny of career

    • Ellena Savage
    • 22 May 2015
    3 Comments

    The expectation to enjoy the labouring part of your life, or find it 'rewarding', is a relatively new one. Australia's boon in tertiary education in the latter half of the twentieth century, and the post-industrial nature of postmodern work means that for many, labour is immaterial, and jobs are not necessarily protected or stable. 'Career management' is therefore a key concept that rules life decisions.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    'Single person household' slight on working poor

    • Brian Lawrence
    • 14 April 2015
    6 Comments

    A fair minimum wage has to be fair to workers with family responsibilities, many of whom are currently working poor and living in poverty. But in its 2014 Annual Wage Review decision, the Fair Work Commission  decided that the 'appropriate reference household for the purposes of setting minimum wages is the single person household'. This was the first time in more than a century of minimum wage setting that an industrial tribunal has decided that minimum wages should exclude the needs of the low paid with families.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Australians are not doing it tough

    • Greg Foyster
    • 02 September 2013
    19 Comments

    Throughout the election campaign, both major parties have pledged to address 'cost of living' pressures. But a quick comparison with the economies of other industrialised nations confirms that Australians have nothing to complain about. If prices rise by 5 per cent but incomes rise by 10 per cent, households are better off, even if the cost of a petrol reaches a new pinnacle.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Resurrecting Work Choices

    • Brian Lawrence
    • 28 September 2012
    10 Comments

    While Tony Abbott maintains that Work Choices is dead, Senator Nick Xenophon is advocating a position that adopts one of its central features. It is immoral to hold back wage increases or drive wages down on account of economic circumstances when there are other ways to promote job protection and create employment opportunities.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Workers' just war on construction bullies

    • Dustin Halse
    • 11 September 2012
    10 Comments

    The Federal Opposition blamed the battle between Grocon and the Construction, Forestry, Mining and Energy Union that brought parts of Melbourne to a standstill on union 'thugs' and 'goons'. But the safety concerns of construction workers are not trivial. Australia's safety record compared with other developed nations is embarrassing.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Catholic social solutions to workplace fairness

    • Race Matthews
    • 01 February 2012
    5 Comments

    The worker-owned cooperatives based at Mondragon in Spain have demonstrated great resilience during harsh economic times. Their model based in Catholic social values provides a contrast to the bruising industrial confrontations we've seen in Qantas and Victorian hospitals.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    What matters in Qantas confrontation

    • Brian Lawrence
    • 01 November 2011
    9 Comments

    The Qantas industrial dispute is likely to make a major contribution to the history of Australian industrial relations. The important issue is whether Qantas should have been required to threaten substantial damage to itself and to the national economy before it could gain access to arbitration.

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