Stick Together

In today's program we continue our focus on how workers win against the odds we look at the Living Wage Movement Aotearoa NZ where a coalition of faith groups, community organizations and unions worked in partnership starting in 2012 on the Living Wage Campaign. We speak with former Union Organizer turned author Lyndy McIntyre about the campaign which she writes about in her document of the struggle Power to Win available at John Reed Books.

In today's program we ask the question how do people get positive change at work and in their communities when the powers that be seem to be against them?  First we hear from two industrial campaigns that gained positive outcomes for the workers involved.

We’ve been covering the recent Victorian Government’s announcement in relation to the slashing of 3000 jobs across the Victorian public service. And we’ve been covering a rank n file caucus of workers in the Victorian Public Service, that is fighting to take back their union. A Voice For Members organised against the job cuts, and in defence of their own jobs.The rally was held on the steps of Parliament House on Tuesday 4 March, which was a parliamentary sitting day.Today’s show will broadcast three of the speeches delivered at that rally, starting with Zoya, a public servant working in the Department of Education.

Today we have two reports. The first puts the experiences of meat processing workers in Australia under the PALM (Pacific Australian Labour Mobility) scheme under the microscope. Pyria Kunjan speaks with Ema Moolachand about a recent RMIT report here (exhibition here report here petition here) We follow with a word from people who gathered for the Pride March down Fitzroy St, St Kilda on the 2 of February here. Song: Tongan Singer/Songwriter Tyra Lewis - Innocent.

On this weeks episode of Stick Together host James Brennan speaks with author Santilla Chingaipe about her book 'Black Covcits: How slavery shaped Australia.'The discussion talk about how this legacy of convicts of African descent were aboard the first fleet shapes modern Australian racism. The impact of Peter Dutton and the Murdoch media's frenzy of racist hysteria around African gangs on African Australian's today.

Today’s show is about international solidarity, and especially the kind that you build up when you travel to other countries and meet workers involved in struggle. My guest today is Clive Tillman, who attended the International Solidarity Affairs in Manila in the Philippines, that was organised by the militant labour group, the Kilusang Mayo Uno. Plus, some union news!

Last week saw a momentous occasion at the North Fitzroy Library, Melbourne – the launch of A Voice For Members a new rank-and-file caucus covering Victorian state public servants. A Voice For Members is a group of CPSU SPSF members the Community and Public Sector Union and State Public Service Federation committed to revitalising the union by strengthening grassroots  democracy. donations

January 26. Australia Day. Invasion It marks the anniversary of the 1788 arrival of the First Fleet of British Ships at Port Jackson, in New South Wales, the raising of the Flag of Great Britain at that site by Governor Arthur Phillip, the invasion of Australia and the start of genocide against the original owners of this land. January 26 is a day of mourning and a day of struggle, marked by big, loud, powerful Invasion Day rallies right across the country. But the struggle for Aboriginal justice also extends to justice at work, and one of the industries where these issues come to the fore, is in higher education. Universities have amongst the highest rates of Aboriginal employment, but it’s also a sector that is so exploitative of workers’ intellectual property. Arrende woman, Celeste Liddle, is the National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Organiser for the NTEU and we had a long chat about the sector and Aboriginal worker rights.

In this program we hear from Nurses and Midwives for Palestine speaking up at the Sydney Rally for Palestine on Jan 11. The speaker is Mark and there was a line up of about 20 people in scrubs with a big banner. Mark tells us how they are disappointed that their actual union does not endorse this but that they are a group which has come to every rally. This speech gives a background to the recent so called peace deal which the US has apparently brokered with the Israeli State – the shattered lives of the Gazans, the targeting of health workers for death, imprisonment and torture despite the international protection which is supposed to have been conferred on health workers as non-combatants.

Stick Together is a half-hour weekly show about workers rights and current affairs. Stick Together features interviews with workers, unionists, community campaigners and academics from right across Australia. This episode of Stick together features an interview with Alex Ettling and Iain McIntyre authors and editors of the book 'Knocking the top off' a people's history of alcohol in Australia. Alex and Iain explore the history of workers behind the bottle as we raise a glass together at a local bar.