With the advent of the industrial revolution society underwent significant changes. The age of steam had arrived and a huge new source of energy was unleashed upon society. The immediate effect of this new source of energy was to bring about a qualitative change in the productive forces. The method of production became social in character.
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On December 11 the Textile Clothing and Footwear Union said that the Australian Industrial Relations CommissionÂ’²õ (AIRC) second consecutive rejection of carpet manufacturer Godfrey HirstÂ’²õ sub-standard AWA (individual contract) is a clear message for the company to scrap it plans to strip existing rights and conditions from more than 300 Feltex workers.
While turmoil in the southern Mexican state of Oaxaca has been in the headlines for weeks, little media coverage has noted that at its centre is a crusading newspaper, Noticias (The News). The dailyÂ’²õ sportswriter is now a leading spokesperson for the teachers, doctors, nurses, newspaper workers and others who have joined together to call for greater democracy, and a new direction for the stateÂ’²õ economy. David Bacon interviewed NoticiasÂ’²õ Jaime Medina in northern Mexico, where the writer was seeking support from the Coalition for Justice in the Maquiladoras.
“Reports from refugee advocates indicate that six people at the Baxter detention centre have attempted to end their lives in separate incidents over the last four days by hanging”, WA group Project SafeCom announced on December 12. “Some of them have also slashed themselves with broken glass and mirrors.”
Comments by Peter Garret, Labor's federal environment spokesperson, that AustraliaÂ’²õ coal is a “blessing” to be utilised, were condemned by climate action group Rising Tide Newcastle on December 12. “Apparently”, said Rising TideÂ’²õ Steve Phillips, “[Garret] regards the cause of the present global climate crisis as a blessing”.
Workers at the Braeside bolt-making factory of Ajax Fasteners are waging a struggle to protect their redundancy entitlements. The company has gone into liquidation. The workers have been stood down and fear they will soon be sacked.
Trent Hawkins is a leader of Resistance, an Australian socialist youth organisation, who participated in the December solidarity brigade to Venezuela organised by the Australia-Venezuela Solidarity Network. Below is his account of the December 3 presidential election and its aftermath.
The federal governmentÂ’²õ Uranium Mining, Processing and Nuclear Energy Review, released on November 21, had only one real purpose — to provide John Howard with “evidence” for championing the nuclear power cycle.
What other conclusion can we come to, when the review made its assessments while ignoring AustraliaÂ’²õ most spectacular renewable energy resource — the “hot dry rock” geothermal energy of the Cooper Basin and other regions.
In the January 16 New Yorker magazine, investigative journalist Seymour Hersh reported that the Pentagon has begun updating its plans for an invasion of Iran. Hersh reported that, "Strategists at the headquarters of the US Central Command, in Tampa, Florida, have been asked to revise the military's war plan, providing for a maximum ground and air invasion of Iran."
The Latin American left had its fifth electoral victory of the year on November 26, when Rafael Correa, a supporter of Venezuelan socialist President Hugo Chavez, won Ecuador’s presidential run-off election with the largest margin in almost 30 years.
Sixty-three Women Of Zimbabwe Arise (WOZA) members were arrested on November 29 during a peaceful launch of its PeopleÂ’²õ Charter. They were taken to Bulawayo Central Police Station. WOZA leaders Jenni Williams and Magodonga Mahlangu were among those arrested.
In their article “No to carbon trading: make the polluters pay” (GLW #691), Tim Stewart and Pip Hinman argue against the use of carbon pricing in general, and emissions trading in particular, as an important tool for reducing AustraliaÂ’²õ greenhouse gas emissions.
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