En Passant

The blame for unemployment lies with the 1 percent–and certainly not with environmentalists opposing pipelines that will carry tar sands oil, any more than with immigrants or al-Qaeda, or any other scapegoat the media or the right wing offer as a distraction.

Faced with twin economic and environmental crises, both caused by the free market, working people have to stand together to confront both. Instead, union leaders are siding with those who have spread the misery of unemployment, and who view the health and well-being of living things as an obstacle to higher returns on their investments.

Most politics, ‘debate’ and commentary today is about discerning the difference between the shit sandwiches on offer. It doesn’t deal with the obvious. It’s still a shit sandwich, whether it is Gillard or Abbott selling it.

The “No job cuts” campaign at the University of Sydney has seen the biggest mobilisation of staff in years writes Alma Torlakovic, the chair of the campaign committee and one of the general staff of the university. The experience we’ve had at Sydney University shows how quickly the mood among workers can shift. From a place that’s often been respectable and quiet, we’ve seen a serious and defiant campaign emerge within a few short weeks. Union membership grew as the campaign spread and new layers of members were involved in activity. In a period where workers across the world are facing austerity and attacks on their living standards, strong unions will need to be rebuilt everywhere to face the coming challenges. The campaign at Sydney University has been a step in the right direction.

The time to fight back against the cutters and destroyers of quality education is now. For students that means mass meetings and rallies and whatever may come out of that. For staff it means strikes. Stop work to save jobs. Stop work for quality education. Stop work to stop Vice- Chancellor Young.

My blog is a small contribution to the wider attempt to keep alive the ideas of genuine socialism, of democracy and revolution. Even though it is more or less unrewarded labour in the monetary sense, it is rewarded in another sense. It is my own, my free labour in a world of alienated labour. I will never stop writing.

Industrial action will be the only way we can win. We cannot rely on legal challenges or Fair Work Australia, and we must unite to fight this collectively. At the most recent rally, even the mention of the phrase “industrial action” was received with cheers from the crowd. It is clear there is support among workers and the wider community for a serious campaign to stop these cuts. We have what it takes to do it – now it’s a matter of mobilising this sentiment.

Katy Gallagher, the ‘leftwing’ ACT Treasurer, has offered public servants pay increases of 4.75% over two years, 2.25% in the first year and 2.5% in the following one. The Reserve Bank predicts inflation (both core and headline) this year will be 2.5% and a little more in 2011. In other words the Government’s revised pay [...]

Employment in the mining industry will double over the next decade. Scaremongering about job losses is so the bosses can get even more money out of us.

The ABCC; the ‘bikie gang’ laws; anti-terrorism laws; the loss of habeas corpus – the ruling class jackboots are stirring.

Commonwealth Bank management salary cuts are tokenistic posturing aimed at convincing staff to accept a real wage cut.