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Author: Brendan Byrne

  • AUSTRALIA

    History taints Turnbull's fight against corruption

    • Brendan Byrne
    • 01 May 2018
    10 Comments

    While it is a matter of public record the Turnbull government blocked attempts to establish a royal commission into the financial services sector on multiple occasions, the question as to why, especially when it expeditiously facilitated a similar inquiry into corruption within the union movement, is of more than academic interest.

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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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  • AUSTRALIA

    Union officials victimised by fear campaign

    • Brendan Byrne
    • 31 October 2007
    13 Comments

    The Coalition's election campaign portrays union officials as industrial thugs. But far too often, they are the only support mechanism standing between stressed Australian workers and human tragedy.

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  • CONTRIBUTORS

    Brendan Byrne

    • Brendan Byrne
    • 17 May 2007

    Brendan Byrne spent nearly two decades in the union movement in various capacities. He is undertaking a Bachelor of Theology at the United Faculty of Theology. In addition to interests in philosophy, criminology, and cosmology, he is currently writing a novel.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    The union official as pastoral carer

    • Brendan Byrne
    • 30 October 2006
    3 Comments

    Union officials and ministers of religion have much in common. No-one rings a union to tell them that they’re being treated well and paid decently. People only ring the union when they’re in trouble, and usually, by the time they get around to doing so, they’re in lots of trouble.

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