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 International Human Rights Day Rally Melbourne Friday 10 December at 4:30 pm State Library, Swanston Street Melbourne Winning our Rights Union & Community Summer School 2010 Melbourne Friday 10 & Saturday 11 December Trades Hall, Lygon Street Carlton Click here to download program and registration leaflet Registration: $25 / $15 […]

After 15 years of struggle, Somboon Sikhamdokkae and 37 fellow workers were awarded compensation for the respiratory disease  byssinosis they contracted through inhaling cotton dust while working at the Bangkok Weaving Factory. Somboon is Coordinator of the Work and Environment Related Patient’s Network of Thailand (WEPT), which has  continued supporting […]

A new Australian asbestos website bringing together health experts, journalists and historians was launched last week for Asbestos awareness week. The website tells the history of asbestos mining and manufacture in Australia and provides asbestos safety information. Results from a survey of Victorian Trades Hall Council (VTHC) OHS Reps conference […]

Over one hundred organisations, including trade unions, adopted a manifesto to end the sandblasting of jeans at the ‘Clean Clothes’ international forum in November. Jeans sandblasting causes silicosis, and 46 former sandblasting workers in Turkey alone have contracted an acute form of silicosis, prompting the Turkish government to ban the […]

The Northern Territory intervention is being met with increasing resistance. Enacted by the previous Conservative Federal Government and maintained by the current Labor Government, the intervention was supposedly enacted to "resolve" Indigenous Australians’ social issues. The reality is that these policies are further dispossessing indigenous communities through the use of […]

After a strike that had lasted over five years, 10 sacked women workers, all members of the Korean Metal Workers Union, finally won their fight to become permanent workers. The workers were originally sacked by Kiryung Electronics as the company claimed they were not direct employees but sub contractors. The […]

Ship-breaking workers in the Gadani ship-breaking yard are demanding better working conditions, health and safety standards, proper equipment and better wages. In June 2010, approximately 15,000 ship-breakers went on strike in the town of Gadani, Balochistan province, and since then have taken various forms of industrial action.  Gadani ship-breakers work […]

A recent decision by the Filipino Labour Secretary, Ms Rosalinda Dimapilis-Baldoz, will allow Philippine Airlines (PAL) to outsource its airport services, in-flight catering and call centre reservations. It will also mean the laying off of more than half of its workforce, possibly up to 3,000 workers. PAL is owned by […]

The class conflict in Tamil Nadu, India, has sharpened recently with the mass dismissals of workers at the Foxconn factory in October, now followed by an even greater number of workers dismissed from BYD Electronics, a Nokia supplier. On the first of November, BYD Electonics terminated the services of 2,500 […]

Rally and March 2pm, Sunday, 7 November 2010 State Library, corner Swanston and Latrobe Streets, Melbourne The Refugee Advocacy Network, the coalition that organised the World Refugee Day march in Melbourne on 20 June, has called another mass rally and march for Sunday, 7 November. The focus of the rally […]