Yearly Archives: 2018

The last week has once again seen the Muslim minority in Sri Lanka attacked by armed mobs. While a traffic accident of a few days ago was seen by some as the spark for these new pogroms, the reality is that these latest riots have been well organised. The main […]

After an 8 week strike, around 90 workers were able to retain their rostered days off and increase their wages. The workers are employed by Australian Paper in the northern Melbourne suburb of Preston and is the country’s biggest envelope manufacturing plant. The workers were ably supported by their union, […]

In late February, workers employed at the Tamil Nadu Electricity Board (TNEB) signed a new four year agreement that gave them a 17% wage increase as well as a higher minimum wage – set at US $276 per month. This agreement came only after thousands of workers took strike action […]

A recently released paper has confirmed that the Australian government will continue to fund and train members of the Myanmar military. While the paper recognises that other countries have different positions, Australia needs to protect its own interests in the region. The Myanmar military has been perpetrating a campaign of […]

In late February, a number of garment unions in Bangladesh formed the IndustriAll Bangladesh Council (IBC) to issue a series of demands that included a call for the minimum wage to be raised from the current US $68/month to US $192/month. The garments sector worldwide is renowned for its vicious […]

It has been over four years since Reza Barati was murdered during a riot at the Manus concentration camp in Papua New Guinea. The fact that in all these years no-one has been brought to justice shows the Australian government contempt for refugees. In the other off shore concentration camp […]

In mid-February, General Motors (GM) announced that they would close their Gusan assembly plant in South Korea. Around 2,000 workers will lose their jobs. The GM representative, Barry Engle, then proceeded to state that they would also evaluate the remaining three Korean manufacturing plants over the next few weeks. These […]

On February 18, fourteen labour organisations held a one day meeting in New Delhi to discuss the state of the workers movement in India and possible ways forward. While in the last few years there have been incredible struggles like the Maruti, the Pricol and the Anganwadi workers, these either […]

The dispute against the global giant Esso/Exxon in the small South Eastern Australian town of Longford has now been going on for over 250 days. The company is attempting to use subcontracting and sham employment contracts to slash the wages and conditions of hundreds of workers. There has been support […]

This week, two human rights activists, Issa al-Nukheifi and Essam Koshak, were sentenced to 6 years and 4 years of jail respectively. Their crime was to publicly criticise the Saudi Arabia government policies in Yemen and internal policies. These latest sentences are just part of an ongoing campaign by the […]