Workers’ Rights and Industrial

Albanese rushed to support the Coalition’s plan to give billions in more tax-cuts-and-subsidies for its business mates — to be funded by a historic increase in public debt to nearly $1 trillion.

There is a big lie at the heart of Frydenberg’s budget speech. The rich don’t need more public largesse; if they wanted to create more jobs they already have more than enough money to do this.

The wages share of national income has fallen to below 50% for the first time since 1959

Three unions aligned with the right faction of the ALP have called for the scrapping of the 88-day working holiday visa program. They claim this will cause farm bosses to pay better wages. But will it? Or, is it an excuse to scapegoat and play the nationalist card?

Aged care homes need to be nationalised now to help stop the spread of COVID-19 and to give residents their health, safety and dignity back.

Victim blaming helps deflect from a focus on the need for systemic changes. It is intentional on the part of the corporate media and governments that are looking for cover.

Several days before Federal Treasurer Josh Frydenberg waxed lyrical about the good old days of early neoliberalism under Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher, the Australian Council of Trade Unions launched its under-reported National Economic Reconstruction plan.

The JobMaker plan, announced by Prime Minister Scott Morrison on May 26 at the National Press Club, is an attempt to get us to accept a post-COVID-19 return to the neoliberal regime that made jobs precarious, ran down hospitals and other public services, and made housing and education unaffordable.

This year May Day, takes place in the midst of the global COVID-19 crisis, which reminds the working class across the world that the fight for a just, safer and better world for all is impossible without the solidarity, organisation and mobilisation of the working people to demand for genuine social change.  

We are calling on unions to campaign around the following 10-point plan to ensure that any lifting of restrictions protects lives and livelihoods and not just a return to business as usual

How can lives be saved? How can people’s livelihoods be protected? Here is what has to be done so that we can protect our health and livelihoods in the face of this immense challenge.

The battle remains for working and unemployed people to push for a response that puts public health first, without making them pay for the crisis.