Deeply angered by moves by the resources and mining industry to replace union labour with super-exploited workers from overseas and the employers’ blatant disregard for necessary skills training among unemployed youth, thousands marched in Perth on July 4 to demand that the industry giants negotiate with their employees about who is to share in the massive profits they have generat

Two important conferences were held in March for waterside workers in Australia and their comrades internationally.

Heat is building on the waterfront as the stevedoring industry and a number of port authorities are digging in their heels against attempts by the Maritime Union to address safety concerns and improve wages and conditions on the wharves.

With hundreds of members rolling in for the opening of its third biennial state conference in Fremantle February 21-25, the Western Australian branch of the Maritime Union has declared, to the enthusiastic and unanimous endorsement of its members, that 2011 is the “Year of the Wharfie”.

In his 11th appearance before the courts on a charge of refusing to cooperate with the Australian Building and Construction Commission, Adelaide rigger Ark Tribe has had his trial adjourned yet again until November 3. The adjournment was made on September 13 to allow both prosecution and defence counsels to present arguments on the legalities of the charge against Tribe.

Spending well over $2 million on election advertising, the ACTU and many affiliates again raised the spectre of an Abbott-run industrial relations agenda in the event of a Coalition victory. And despite all the denials, there is every reason to believe that a Liberal federal government would seek harsher penalties for unions and their members.

Thousands of waterside workers across Australia mourned the death of yet another workmate and comrade on July 23, walking off the job to attend memorial services and shutting all ports for nearly 24 hours.

The increasing isolation of the Israeli state as a result of its assault on Palestinians in Gaza in late 2008 and the slaying of nine solidarity activists on the MV Mavi Marmara aid ship in June has given rise to a qualitative change in support to the rights of Palestinians within the Australian union movement.

The continuing trial of construction union (CFMEU) member Ark Tribe before Adelaide’s Magistrate Court has again led to big rallies across Australia, with about 10,000 unionists marching on July 20 in all capital cities and in a number of regional centres.

As news filtered through within minutes of the latest death on the waterfront that Thursday morning, every wharfie froze. Who? Where? And more pertinently, why ... yet again?

Barely a ripple of interest surfaced with the announcement by the Australian Council of Trade Unions on April 20 of a new president-elect for Australia’s peak union body.

Amid howls of protests by employers, their representatives, the media and politicians, Maritime Union of Australia (MUA) members employed in the offshore gas and oil industry are concluding protracted negotiations for an enterprise agreement that will substantially improve wages and conditions.

The November issue of the Maritime Workers Journal (MWJ), published by the Maritime Union of Australia, records a 25% growth in the union’s membership over the past six years. Nationally there are just under 12,000 MUA members. Most of the growth has been provided by the WA branch of the union, which is now the largest MUA branch in the country with 3000 members.

Forty years ago, on May 19, 1969, Victorian tramway workers union secretary Clarrie O’Shea was jailed for refusing to obey a court order that his union pay $8100 in fines under the penal sections of the Conciliation and Arbitration Act.

“Organising Nationally is Organising Internationally” was the theme as some 300 delegates and more than 100 international guests met in quadrennial conference of the Maritime Union of Australia in Sydney in April. Delegates began to chart a course for the union industrially and politically in the climate of a newly elected neo-conservative Labor government.

Caracas – A sea of red stretching for miles through the streets of the Venezuelan capital. Vibrant, exciting, determined and powerful. A sea of red, the colour of President Hugo Chavez and socialism.