Workers’ Rights and Industrial

The wealthy and corporations got a visit from Santa Claus, but the rest of us got Scrooged again on Budget night.

Is action by unions just an attempt to stir up class conflict — the politics of envy — as conservative politicians would have us believe?

Ford's announcement that it will close its last vehicle manufacturing plants in Australia - in Geelong and Broadmeadows - destroying the jobs of 1,200, is "totally despicable", said Sue Bull, the Socialist Alliance candidate for Corio.

Indian feminist and socialist Kavita Krishnan was the keynote speaker at the People's Power in the “Asian Century” seminar in Sydney on June 7. The seminar was held as part of the Socialist Alliance’s 10th national conference over the weekend of June 7-9.

When the Cole Royal Commission was first announced in 2001, Victorian unions resolved to not cooperate with it. In the light of these revelations, and the ACTU's call for it to be shut down, unions should consider motions of non-cooperation again.

Malcolm Turnbull and his ilk need to be kicked out, but workers cannot be satisfied with an end game of simply re-electing a Labor government.

The federal Coalition government has launched a broadside in favour of its plan to cut company tax for big corporations from 30% to 25%, while slashing spending on social welfare and the public sector, using the pretext of 'controversy' over an ABC journalist's article on the topic.

The following message will be sent to all NSW prisoners before the March state elections. Thanks to Justice Action, the Sydney-based group that represents people locked in prisons and hospitals, defending human rights in the hardest places. For more information on Socialist Alliance's election campaign platform click here.

Jobs for all at a living wage

• Legislate the minimum wage at around 60 per cent of average weekly earnings ($560 at the end of 2003).
• Shorten the working week (without loss of pay) to spread around available work.
• Stop privatisation and rebuild a modern, democratically managed public sector.

Repeal all anti-union laws, defend and extend the right to organise

• Enact a workplace Bill of Rights that guarantees workers and unions the right to organise and protest. Full recognition of unions and union representatives.

One of the international guests at the coming 10th national conference of the Socialist Alliance, to be held in Sydney June 7-9, 2014, will be Farooq Tariq, the general secretary of the Awami Workers Party in Pakistan.

"NSW Liberal Premier Mike Baird is in danger of going the way of his Queensland counterpart Campbell Newman, if he continues down the path of selling essential public assets," Howard Byrnes, Socialist Alliance candidate for the NSW Legislative Council, said on February 11.

Socialist Alliance declares our solidarity with the ETU, the AMWU and the 55 workers at CUB, and pledges to support the boycott of CUB products and other solidarity efforts until the workers are reinstated at their previous pay and conditions.