Anti-union laws

Support Ark Tribe!

Ark Tribe, a building worker in South Australia, faces six months' jail for refusing to meet a special police force set up for the construction industry and give investigators names of other union members involved in getting up a petition on his site about health and safety concerns. Hundreds of trade unionists demonstrated when Tribe was last brought to court on 9 June. The hearing was then adjourned to 11 August, and there are likely to be further legal stages after that. Under a special industrial relations law passed by the conservative coalition government of John Howard (1996-2007)...

This Re-Ballot - And No More

We have still seen no sign of RMT's re-ballot, but can only assume that the ballot papers will be coming soon and every effort is being made to get the notification legally watertight.

But when a union is balloting members in hundreds of workplaces, in a company where people move grade and location...

When Our Strike Was Banned But We Walked Out Anyway

In 2001, at the height of our fight against the introduction of PPP, London Underground scuttled to its lawyers to get an RMT strike declared illegal. RMT members went ahead and walked out anyway.

It seems relevant in the current situation to tell the story. Here is how Workers' Liberty reported it...

The Yes Vote and the Anti-Union Laws

83% of us have voted ‘Yes’ to going on strike. But we will have to do the ballot again. What’s happened?

Management’s pay offer has not changed one bit. They are still offering 1% this year and RPI only for the next four years until after the Olympics. The days are counting down for people who...

Tubeworker 9/4/09: Huge Yes Vote - But Anti-Union Laws Stop Strikes

The new issue of Tubeworker reports on the massive vote by RMT members for industrial action over jobs, pay and bullying, but also the fact that the union is re-balloting because of legal threats from LUL. It argues that the union should have consulted members before the decision to re-ballot, and that workers must now prepare to take unofficial action in the event of further legal moves. Tubeworker also reports on the forthcoming Victoria line drivers' strike, plus various workplace issues. Click on the file name to download it. Click here to read Tubeworker's blog.

Big Yes Vote - But Anti-Union Laws Stop the Action

London Underground staff have voted by a huge majority to fight back over job cuts, pay and management bullying.

For strikes, there were 3,165 Yes votes and just 619 No. For action short of strikes, 3,495 voted Yes and only 266 No.

This is nearly 84% for strikes, and with more than half of those...

Brown fights the EU to block workers' rights

A bit of Keynesian economics means that New Labour is no longer "New" Labour? Not so. On 12 December Gordon Brown was in Brussels... fighting to make sure that the European Union can't increase workers' rights in Britain. In Brown's view, agreements on common standards made by the EU - that is, right now, by right-wing governments such as those of Sarkozy in France, Merkel in Germany, and Berlusconi in Italy - might threaten New Labour's "pro-business" course by giving workers too many legal rights. The occasion for the row was negotiations over "add-ons" to the Lisbon Treaty - the document...

Workers' Liberty Australia, no.40, September 2009

By Riki Lane Noel Washington, Senior Vice-President in Victoria of the Construction, Forestry, Mining, and Energy Union (CFMEU) faces six months prison for refusing to talk to industrial police about what happened at a union meeting outside work hours. For the rest, download the pdf: see "attachment" below.

Workers plan walk-outs against anti-union law

Noel Washington, Senior Vice-President in Victoria of Australia’s big Construction, Forestry, Mining, and Energy Union (CFMEU) faces six months prison for refusing to talk to industrial police about what happened at a union meeting outside work hours. His court date will be announced in a preliminary hearing on 12 September 2008. Under legislation passed by the conservative coalition government of John Howard which was in office in Australia until last year, the ABCC, a special police force for the construction industry, has powers in industrial matters exceeding what the ordinary police have...

Fighting anti union laws in Australia. Defend Noel Washington. Abolish the ABCC

Defend Noel Washington. Abolish the ABCC
30 July 2008
Riki Lane

“Here in Victoria, we are at the pointy end of the struggle against the ABCC” said VTHC secretary Bryan Boyd at a meeting of several thousand union delegates to defend the right to organise and demand an end to the extreme anti union...

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