From November 21-22, Nelson Davila, VenezuelaÂ’s chief diplomatic representative in Australia, visited Perth. He held meetings with the officials and organisers of the Maritime Union of Australia (MUA) and the Construction, Forestry, Mining and Energy Union; addressed the Unions WA council; and was the guest at receptions organised by the Australian Islamic College and the Curtin Centre for Human Rights Education. Davila concluded his visit by speaking to a public meeting of 70 people at the MUA hall in North Fremantle, where he explained the development of the peopleÂ’s power movement in his country and welcomed the launch of a Perth group of the Australia-Venezuela Solidarity Network. Pictured: Davila and MUA WA secretary Chris Cain.
692
The following are comments by Socialist Alliance trade union activists on some of the key questions facing the union movement.
Workplace Relations Act (1996)
This law stripped allowable matters in industrial awards back to 20, restricted the right of union officials to enter workplaces and introduced individual contracts (AWAs).
Trade Practices Act (1974)
Sections
Debate continues over how guest workers and those on 457 visas should be treated. The WA branch of the Maritime Union of Australia (MUA) passed a resolution at its July state conference that recommends avoiding falling into the federal government and bosses’ divide-and-rule trap.
A closely guarded review of the US war in Iraq being conducted by a Pentagon commission has outlined three basic options: send in more US troops, shrink the US occupation force but stay longer, or pull out, the November 20 Washington Post reported.
The November 21 assassination of industry minister Pierre Gemayel has provided a focus for US-backed Lebanese politicians to rally their supporters for a possible confrontation with the Hezbollah-led opposition bloc.
Gemayel served as the representative of the Christian-based far-right Phalangist party in Prime Minister Fuad SinioraÂ’s government.
In an article for the November 27 New Yorker magazine released in advance on November 19, veteran investigative journalist Seymour Hersh reported that a highly classified assessment by the CIA had “found no conclusive evidence, as yet, of a secret Iranian nuclear-weapons program running parallel to the civilian operations that Iran has declared to the International Atomic Energy Agency” (IAEA).
Open warfare erupted between Baloch nationalists and the Pakistani military in December 2005 following decades of what the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP) described as a “simmering insurgency”. An HRCP investigation conducted in December 2005 and January 2006 detailed ongoing summary executions, disappearances, torture and indiscriminate bombing and artillery attacks against the people of Pakistan’s south-western province of Balochistan. Baloch nationalist fighters, mainly from the Bugti and Marri tribes, continue to attack Pakistani military and paramilitary forces and sabotage gas pipelines and other infrastructure on a daily basis.
Tonga’s pro-democracy movement has attacked the Australian and New Zealand governments for sending more than 150 soldiers and police to the Pacific nation, demanding the intervention end. The foreign forces have ostensibly been sent to help “restore law and order” in the aftermath of rioting sparked by Tonga’s monarch, King Siaosi Tupou V, announcing the closure of parliament for the year without implementing widely demanded democratic reforms.
Eva Golinger is a Venezuelan-American lawyer and author of The Chavez Code, which exposed US government involvement in a 2002 military coup that briefly overthrew Hugo Chavez, VenezuelaÂ’s left-wing president, before he was reinstated by a popular uprising. She spoke to Â鶹´«Ã½ Weekly in late October. GolingerÂ’s latest book is Bush vs Chavez: WashingtonÂ’s War on Venezuela. (The first part of this interview appeared in GLW #691.)
On November 18, the UN General Assembly voted 156 to seven, with six abstentions, to support sending a UN fact-finding team to Gaza to investigate the November 8 massacre of 19 sleeping Palestinians in Beit Hanoun by an Israeli artillery barrage. Israel, the US and Australia voted against the resolution, along with four Pacific Island states.
On November 17, President Hugo Chavez unveiled Mission Energy Revolution, a social project aimed at reducing energy usage in Venezuela. The program was launched in the state of Nuevo Esparta by Chavez, energy minister Rafael Ramirez, other ministers, and representatives of the Cuban government. Ramirez said the mission was aimed not only at rationalising residential electricity consumption, but more fundamentally usage by the industrial and commercial sectors, the November 18 Ultimas Noticias reported.
- Previous page
- Page 4
- Next page