So far the world economic crisis has not had the same impact in Australia as in the US or Europe. A few months ago some pundits were confidently predicting Australia could weather the storm. But now the discussion is about how bad the economic problems will get.

As Solidarity goes to print, the fate of up to 386 ABC Learning child care centres is in doubt. That represents one-tenth of the national child care resources. The centres look after 30,000 children and employ over 4000 people.

The final piece of Labor’s new industrial relations regime has been unveiled by Workplace Relations Minister Julia Gillard. The new legislation was hailed by Gillard and most of the media as bringing the end of WorkChoices.

The shocking announcement a few weeks ago of the largest ever mass sackings in Australia’s higher education sector at Victoria University (VU) prompted a well attended protest rally in a quiet time of the academic year.

In the context of the global financial crisis, governments across the world have abandoned financial conservatism, proposing significant expenditure programs, often funded through debt.

Twenty thousand teachers at meetings around NSW have voted to take 48 hours of industrial action at the start of the 2009 school year, in the event of the NSW government not abandoning its attacks on wages, conditions and the staffing of public schools.

The union campaign against WorkChoices succeeded in getting Howard voted out, but has not put unions in a stronger position to organise and fight. Solidarity examines why

In 1969 over one million workers took part in a general stoppage and won the freedom of jailed union official Clarrie O’Shea and an end to the penal powers. With the ABCC and most of the WorkChoices laws intact, Amy Thomas looks at the lessons for today.

20,000 teachers at meetings around the state have voted to take 48 hours of industrial action from the start of the 2009 school year, in the event of the NSW government not abandoning its attacks on wages, conditions and the staffing of public schools.

Last issue Solidarity reported that Telstra workers in the Wholesale and Service Advantage area had voted down a non-union collective agreement. It was a serious blow to Telstra's divide and rule strategy of pushing such agreements onto poorly-unionised sections of the company.

TRAIN DRIVERS in the Pilbara region of Western Australia have taken strike action as part of a struggle to establish a collective union agreement with mining giant Rio Tinto.

In the midst of global panic last month, the University of Sydney's Vice-Chancellor announced shock budget cuts of up to 9 per cent because of a shortfall of $100 million in investment income.

NSW teachers will continue their campaign for salary and staffing justice with statewide stopwork meetings on November 19.

The economic devastation that gripped Australia during the 1930s dealt an almost fatal blow to the organised labour movement. In the face of mass sackings and wage cuts, there was little political clarity about how to respond to the attacks on the working class and even less confidence that resistance was possible.

In the 1970s the Builders Labourers’ Federation led inspiring struggles in defence of the natural environment. Emma Torzillo looks at the history of an inspiring struggle when workers took industrial action and declared the social responsibility of labour

THOUSANDS OF building workers across the country are set to strike on December 2, when Noel Washington, senior vice president of the Victorian branch of the CFMEU, goes on trial for two days in Geelong.

What does it do for the union movement’s credibility when its elected leader joins the government?

OVER 3000 Brisbane construction workers walked off the job for a mass stopwork meeting in central Brisbane on September 12.

NSW TEACHERS are still seeking a salary raise of 5 per cent or more and an end to restrictions on transfers. The October state council meeting of the New South Wales Teachers Federation (NSWTF) is to consider renewed state-wide industrial action over both issues.

PUBLIC SECTOR workers rallied in Brisbane on September 30 to protest over the state government’s paltry 3.25 per cent wage offer. Over 3000 workers participated in the rally.

A COLD, wind-swept day did not stop over 120 Melbourne Uni staff and students joining a protest against university management’s plan to sack 20 academics in the arts faculty. The protest was called by the National Tertiary Education Union (NTEU), the union representing most staff at the university.

WORKERS AT Telstra have voted to reject the collective non-union agreement the company was trying to force on them. This is a major defeat for Telstra’s efforts to cut unions out of the workplace.

FURTHER DETAILS about Labor’s new IR laws confirm that the new government will retain the bulk of WorkChoices. Legislation will be introduced into parliament before the end of the year.

Join the campaign to abolish the Australian Building and Construction Commission.

Solidarity speaks to Marcus Strom, a member of the Fairfax union house committee, about the ongoing dispute at Fairfax.

A mass meeting of 6000 Victorian building workers, members of the CFMEU, in late August, voted to accept the latest EBA put to them by the union officials.

THE BELIEF that the Rudd government will bring change is still strong. But many people wish the government was moving more quickly to undo Howard’s legacy.

VICTORIAN BUILDING unions are set to hold a mass stopwork rally in defence of Noel Washington, the construction union official facing six months jail for defying Howard’s industrial laws.

IN THE wake of the federal election victory for Labor, the CPSU is holding a series of Agenda For Change discussions around the country.

2000 union delegates attended a mass meeting to defend Noel Washington, CFMEU official facing 6 months jail for refusing to be interrogated by the Howard era Australian Building & Construction Commission (ABCC). The ABCC wanted to question him about what was said at a union meeting that took place outside of work hours.

THE LATEST humiliating back-flip by the NSW government over its planned power sell-off indicates two things.

Firstly, NSW Labor is facing a serious crisis. According to the polls, the Liberals are in a position to win the 2011 election. Secondly, the campaign against the sell-off has reached a turning point that requires urgent re-evaluation.

NSW public sector unions including public servants, firefighters and train drivers are planning a united day of action on July 30 against the state government's 2.5 per cent pay rise limit.

The Your Rights at Work campaign mobilised thousands of unionists to campaign against the Howard government and its vicious Workchoices laws. Yet over six months into the Rudd government’s term, unions are still constrained by Howard’s laws.

On Saturday morning June 21 two construction workers were killed when their swing stage scaffolding fell from the side of a Gold Coast high-rise building site. The next day building sites across Brisbane and South-east Queensland were shut down by a spontaneous walk off by workers sick of falling safety standards.

Unions in Victoria are set to escalate their campaign against the anti-union Australian Building and Construction Commission (ABCC), a WorkChoices-era relic. For the first time since Howard introduced the ABCC a unionist, Noel Washington, will face court for refusing to attend an interrogation by the commission.

NURSES IN NSW have accepted a pay deal in exchange for a raft of “trade offs” that strip back work conditions. The nurses’ is the latest in a string of public sector disputes where unions are battling state Labor governments’ below-inflation pay caps.

IN MAY, around 1500 Qantas aircraft engineers took strike action in Sydney, Brisbane and Melbourne over a pay claim. They took this action despite rumours of 100 strike breakers being offered $100,000 for six months work in their place.

NSW TEACHERS will continue rolling industrial action unless the New South Wales government sits down and negotiates on proposed changes to the school staffing and transfer system.

Mark Gillespie looks at the Queensland rail strike of 1948, when the Communist Party led workers in a vicious battle with a state Labor government determined to keep down wages.

IS RUDD'S honeymoon coming to an end? Recent weeks have seen him blunder over fuel prices, his Howardesque moralism over Bill Henson and brewing battles with unions over pay disputes and the rollback of Workchoices.

THE CAMPAIGN against electricity privatisation has reached a critical stage in NSW.

In the middle of the night on April 7th 1998, security guards, some in balaclavas, emerged from rubber dinghies and buses with dogs and barbed wire, entered Patrick Stevedoring terminals across the country and escorted the night shift from the wharves.

When the Fair Pay Commission holds its annual National Minimum Wage Case hearing in mid-2008, the major employers will propose cuts to real wages. As food, petrol and housing prices go up (along with CEO salaries) bosses want to keep workers' wages down.

THOUSANDS OF union members marched last month against the NSW government's plans to privatise electricity. Despite industry claims otherwise, two-thirds of the state is opposed to the policy.

On Saturday March 8, 300 delegates at the NSW Teachers Federation (NSWTF) state council voted unanimously to strike in opposition to the Iemma government's plan to deregulate the supply of teachers to schools.

MAY DAY in the US this year was marked by dockworkers along the West Coast taking industrial action against the US-led wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Some 25,000 members of the International Longshore and Warehouse Union (ILWU), representing 29 ports from Seattle to San Diego, took part in the 8-hour day stoppage during their busy day shift.

Six months after Labor's election, unionists are still fighting Howard's laws. Dave Kerin of Union Solidarity has been summonsed by the workplace ombudsman to "produce documents" over the Boeing dispute, under a clause of the Howard government's Workplace Relations Act (predecessor of WorkChoices).

WORKERS AT Boeing subsidiary Hawker de Havilland in Port Melbourne have successfully defied anti-strike laws to take action in defence of a sacked workmate.

NEW FIGURES showing a dramatic drop in union membership in 2007 highlight the challenges facing the labour movement as it attempts to rebuild after the Howard years.

Noel Washington, an official with Construction Division of the Victorian CFMEU, will be called before a court after refusing to be interrogated by the Australian Building and Construction Commission (ABCC), a Howard-era anti union body, funded by taxpayers.

After three state-wide strikes and five weeks of rolling stoppages, some Victorian teachers have won large pay increases of 10 and 15 per cent over the next year in an "in-principle" agreement between the Australian Education Union (AEU) and the Brumby government.

ON MARCH 4, the Australian Council of Trade Unions (ACTU) announced its support for a new proposal to transfer this year's planned $31 billion tax cuts directly into superannuation funds. The decision by the ACTU to back the proposal is a turning point for a body that has historically, and quite rightly, opposed tax cuts in general, in favour of social spending on services like health and education. The "reasoning" behind the proposal is that it will help to curb rising inflation by delivering neither the planned tax cuts, nor increased government spending. Despite increases in the cost of living, the message is clear: the new government has to prove that it can match Howard's legacy of "fiscal responsibility"-a Liberal Party catch-cry that over eleven years further accentuated the gap between rich and poor.