Under the slogan 鈥淎ustralia needs a pay rise鈥, an estimated 170,000 trade union members and their supporters filled Melbourne鈥檚 CBD on October 23 for the Australian Council of Trade Unions-initiated Change the Rules rally.
Australian Council of Trade Unions (ACTU)
Thousands of trade union members rallied in Perth's Solidarity Park on October 18 to kick off the nationwide series of Change the Rules protests organised by the Australian Council of Trade Unions (ACTU).
Workers from five Alcoa sites throughout Western Australia voted at a mass meeting in Pinjarra on September 28聽to end their seven-week strike. The vote occurred after the Australian Workers鈥 Union (AWU), which covers the 1600 Alcoa workers, secured an agreement guaranteeing job security and ensuring that no workers would be replaced through casualisation, contracting or labour-hire companies.
More than 1700 delegates from 40 unions attended a mass meeting at the Melbourne Convention Centre on September 25, where they voted to hold an all-unions march and rally next month. Present at the mass delegates meeting were unions covering workers in the health, construction, education, public, transport and manufacturing sectors, among others.
Up to 5000 unionists marched through Sydney鈥檚 CBD on September 6 to demand the right to strike and the abolition of the Australian Building and Construction Commission (ABCC).
A study by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) on labour relations in 26 developed economies, including Australia, has confirmed that workers鈥 real wages have fallen because labour market deregulation has 鈥済one too far鈥.
The IMF researchers noted the 鈥渟tatistically significant, economically large and robust negative effect of deregulation鈥 on labour鈥檚 share of national income, with workers鈥 share of national income falling drastically from 1975 to 2015.
Australia Workers' Union (AWU) members at Alcoa refinery plants and bauxite mines in Western Australia have been on strike since August 8. At stake in the dispute is the job security of 1600 workers. To mark the strike鈥檚 20th day, site meetings were held on August 27 at the ongoing picket lines set up outside Alcoa workplaces in Pinjarra, Kwinana, Wagerup, Huntley and Willowdale.
Former national secretary of the Textile, Clothing and Footwear Union of Australia (TCFUA) Michele O鈥橬eil was elected president of the Australian Council of Trade Unions (ACTU) at its congress in Brisbane over July 17 and 18. She replaces Ged Kearney, who won the seat of Batman, now renamed Cooper, in Melbourne in March. Sally McManus remains secretary. The following is聽her President鈥檚 Address to the congress.
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The latest round of penalty rate cuts, which reduce weekend and public holiday penalty rates for staff in the retail, hospitality and pharmacy sectors by 10鈥15% from July 1, is estimated by the ACTU to affect 700,000 workers.
Shop, Distributive and Allied Employees鈥 Association national secretary Gerard Dwyer said the penalty rate cuts would cost many retail and fast food workers between $2000 and $6000 a year.
A new round has been launched in the ongoing struggle over the protection of workers' rights to their lifetime savings in Australia's $2.6 trillion superannuation industry.
The Productivity Commission's latest report into Australia's $2.6 trillion, scandal plagued, superannuation industry has called for a number of reforms. While noting a number of serious problems with the current system, its proposals to tackle them are just as flawed and still put workers' earnings at the mercy of the market.
The Sydney University branch of the National Tertiary Education Union (NTEU) held a forum on campus on June 13 to discuss how to organise to rewin the right to strike.
Professor John Buchanan, from the University of Sydney Business School, told the forum: "The current Fair Work Act (FWA), introduced by the previous Labor government, is the second worst industrial relations legislation in Australian history, after John Howard's Work Choices.
As the government鈥檚 criminal case against Construction, Forestry, Mining and Energy Union (CFMEU) officials John Setka and Shaun Reardon ended in embarrassing collapse, unions called for the repeal of draconian secondary boycott laws.
Sympathy strikes are one of the most common forms of secondary boycott. They involve a union taking industrial action to force a company to cease trading with another company until the targeted company agrees to industrial demands. The law against secondary boycotts thus interferes with the right of workers to campaign collectively.
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