Workers at Australian Envelopes in Melbourne’s south east are entering their ninth day on strike over the sacking of their shop steward and safety rep, Matt Stephens.
By Anthony Main AMWU member and SP National Organiser

John Howard is planning to unleash some of the biggest attacks on workers and youth this country has seen for many years. Further attacks on workers rights, student unions and welfare will all be on the cards in the next few months.

A massive defeat for the right and a big victory for the left, was the result of the early German election
Rober Bechert, CWI, Berlin

By Louisa Stewart in Auckland and Stephen Jolly in Melbourne.
The 80% turnout in Saturday?s New Zealand election was the second lowest ever, slightly up on the 77% in 2002. After 20 years of the most vicious assault on their living standards by the neo-liberal policies of Labour in the 1980s and the Nationals in the [...]

Recently many union members, especially in the manufacturing sector, have raised concerns about employers engaging in dodgy apprenticeship schemes. The schemes allow bosses to employ new or existing employees as apprentices or trainees, and receive thousands of dollars in both federal and state government funding.
By Anthony Main, AMWU member and SP National Organiser

Socialist analysis of today’s New Zealand election will be out very soon on this web site. Early results are very close, but it seems that Labour may be re-elected but will have to reach agreement with the Greens (again), the Progressives (ex-Alliance), the Maori Party, and United.
It seems the swing to the Nationals (the traditional [...]

Labor won all three by-elections in Sydney today. All three seats were already ALP. The new hard-right Liberal leader in NSW has clearly not impressed voters in non-Liberal areas and the anti-government/anti-Labor vote was not strong enough for the opposition.

The massive turn-out by Nigerians in their hundreds of thousands to a rally called by Labour and Civil Society Coalition (LASCO) against the incessant increase in the fuel price and other neo-liberal, anti-poor polices of the Obasanjo led PDP government on Wednesday, 14 September, 2005 is another testimony to the fact that Nigerian poor working [...]

History was made in Kuala Lumpur last weekend, when over 700 people poured into the opening rally of ?Socialism 2005?. The event, with more than two days of political discussion, music, film and food was the first ever openly socialist public gathering in Malaysia.
Clare Doyle, CWI, Malaysia

The Japanese Prime Minister Koizumi has gained an unexpected overwhelming victory in the elections on Sunday 11 September.
By Elizabeth Bakker (just returned from Japan) and Michiko Kameyama