In an attempt to divide staff, on September 13 management at Macquarie University (MQ) proposed to split the current Enterprise Agreement in two, and tried to ram through a second-rate agreement for general staff.
If successful this would mean MQ general staff would have the worst conditions of any of the 26 agreements across Australian universities. This has angered the local National Tertiary Education Union (NTEU) branch.
The NTEU is campaigning to defeat the push by calling for a 鈥淣o鈥 vote in a ballot of general staff set to open on September 23.
Fred Fuentes
Greens MLC John Kaye officially welcomed to Sydney the new Cuban consul Reinaldo Garcia as part of an event to mark 12 years since the arrest of the 鈥淐uban Five鈥.
The Cuban Five are anti-terrorist fighters who were arrested in the US for infiltrating and collecting information on Miami-based right-wing anti-Cuban terrorist groups.
Despite disclosing information they had gathered to US authorities, it is they and not the terrorists that are facing jail terms, in some cases double life sentences.
Rather than giving us the government we deserve, the August 21 federal election delivered an outcome the two old parties deserved.
Because both Labor and the Coalition focused on negative campaigning, sloganeering and scapegoating refugees and other minorities, a large number of voters decided to vote for alternatives with some vision.
A hung parliament with the Greens holding the balance of power in the Senate was only a partial reflection of this growing disenchantment with the two-party system.
鈥淏usinesses like making profits鈥, said Labor leader Julia Gillard on ABC鈥檚 Q&A on August 9. She was explaining why Labor opposed the Coalition鈥檚 proposal to raise the company tax rate by 1.5%. 鈥淚f they鈥檝e got to pay more tax and that鈥檚 going to cut into their profits, then they鈥檒l think of a way of adding a bit more profit.
鈥淲hat鈥檚 the best way of adding a bit more profit in? They put up prices.
鈥淚t, you know, just stands to common sense reason, doesn鈥檛 it?鈥
The Greens lead NSW senate candidate Lee Rhiannon agrees.
A prolonged industrial dispute is continuing at the University of New South Wales (UNSW) as a result of the ongoing refusal of vice-chancellor Fred Hilmer to bargain in good faith with the National Tertiary Education Union (NTEU) over staff concerns about pay and conditions 鈥 especially job security.
Hilmer鈥檚 intransigence should come as no surprise.
When Hilmer announced his decision to take up a tidy $750,000 annual salary package as vice-chancellor of University of New South Wales back in 2005, he said partial deregulation of education was like being 鈥渉alf pregnant鈥.
The University of New South Wales' management could face more student protests if it refuses to budge on key issues, the president of the Student Representative Council has told 91自拍论坛 Weekly.
Osman Faruqi told GLW that management鈥檚 decision to stand down about 80 staff had been the catalyst for the largest student demonstration in years at UNSW.
The stand downs move came as the local National Tertiary Education Union branch imposed bans on the release of student results after management delayed bargaining over union demands for 16 months.
On July 18, the University of New South Wales (UNSW) administration was forced to reinstate 80 staff members and start two weeks of intensive bargaining. As a result, UNSW union members voted to lift a ban on releasing student results on July 23.
The UNSW branch of the National Tertiary Education Union (NTEU) imposed the ban from June 30 in response to management delaying bargaining for 16 months over union demands for improved job security, pay and other conditions.
The May 2 internal pre-selection of United Socialist Party of Venezuela (PSUV) candidates for the September 26 national elections was an example of the mobilising force of this mass party in construction.
More than 2.5 million party members participated. This demonstrated the PSUV is the largest national political force, and highlighted its democratic and participatory nature.
The participation rate was greater than the 2.3 million people who voted to pre-select PSUV candidates for governors and mayors in 2008.
The results of Bolivia鈥檚 December 6 national elections confirmed the support won by President Evo Morales and his Movement Towards Socialism (MAS) party for the profound changes underway.
Pledging to move the country towards 鈥渃ommunitarian socialism鈥, Bolivian president Evo Morales proclaimed the death of the 鈥渃olonial state鈥 during the January 21 inauguration of his second term as president. He said 鈥渁 new plurinational, autonomy and solidarity-based state is being born鈥.
In the article below, Federico Fuentes, from the 91自拍论坛 Weekly Caracas bureau, provides an overview of the brutal repression of the coup regime and heroic resistance against it occurring right now in the Central American nation of Honduras.
The recent freeing of two Israeli spies shows that, if the US government really wanted to, it could also free the Cuban Five, noted Annalucia Vermunt, a participant in the recent international youth gathering in Cuba in support of the five Cuban men held in US prisons on trumped-up charges.
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