E D I T O R I A L

After the Action
After a National Week of Action that has had everything from mass rallies in all capital cities to IR chat rooms opening on the Vogue Magazine website it’s fair to say that the first objective of this campaign – to raise public awareness – has been achieved.

F E A T U R E S

Interview: Battle Stations
Opposition leader Kim Beazley says he's ready to fight for workers right. But come July 1, he'll have to be fighting by different rules.

Unions: The Workers, United
It was a group of rank and filers who took centre stage when workers rallied in Sydney's Town Hall, writes Jim Marr.

Politics: The Lost Weekend
The ALP had a hot date, they had arranged to meet on the Town Hall steps, and Phil Doyle was there.

Industrial: Truth or Dare
Seventeen ivory towered academics upset those who know what is best for us last week.

History: A Class Act
After reading a new book on class in Australia, Neale Towart is left wondering if it is possible to tie the term down.

Economics: The Numbers Game
Political economist Frank Stilwell offers a beginners guide to understanding budgets

International: Blonde Ambition
Sweden can be an inspiration to labour movements the world over, as it has had community unionism for over 100 years, creating a vibrant caring society, rather than a "productive" lean economy.

Training: The Trade Off
Next time you go looking for a skilled tradesman and can’t find one, blame an economist, writes John Sutton.

Review: Bore of the Worlds
An invincible enemy has people turning against one another as they fight for survival – its not just an eerie view of John Howard’s ideal workplace, writes Nathan Brown.

Poetry: The Beaters Medley
In solidarity with the workers of Australia, Sir Paul McCartney (with inspiration from his old friend John Lennon) has joined the Workers Online resident bard David Peetz to pen some hits about the government's proposed industrial relations revolution.

N E W S

Don't Get Angry, Get Organised

Feds Threaten Hardie Battlers

Beasts of Bourbon Play Dog

Churches on Workplace Mission

Unions Are The New Black

Muster Has Bosses in Fluster

Workers Flood to Protests

Official: Libs Don’t Know Own Laws

Schools Out For Uni Bosses

IR Campaign Taxing Andrews

Air Safety at Risk

Carr Runs Over Lib Laws

Aga Khan Workers Gaoled

Activists Whats On!

C O L U M N S

The Soapbox
State of the Union
Unions NSW secretary John Robertson lifts the lid on ‘The Nine Myths of Modern Unionism’

The Locker Room
Wrist Action
Phil Doyle trawls the murky depths of tawdry sleaze, and discovers Rugby is behind it all.

Culture
To Hew The Coal That Lies Below
Phil Doyle reviews Australia's first coal mining novel, Black Diamonds and Dust.

Parliament
The Westie Wing
Our favourite State MP, Ian West, reports from Macquarie Street that the Premier is all the way with a State Commission.

L E T T E R S

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Mao and Then

Greg Platt ("China throws in Mao‚s towel", Letters) asserts that it is wrong to call the Beijing government of China "Communist" because it allows capitalism and because Howard is pals with it.

"From each according to their ability, to each according to their needs" is a definition of socialism, not communism. Communists pay lip-service to this idea but they have never put it into practice. The essence of Communism is its atheist beliefs and its determination to violently repress and kill anyone who prefers any other religion or philosophy. This is not some abberration of "true" communism, but has been its essence both in theory and practice since the writings of its founders, Marx and Lenin. Communism is the most intolerant religion the world has ever seen, even worse than Islamic fundamentalism.

The late unlamented Mao Zedong, whom Mr Platt calls a "utopian authoritarian", was the worst mass murderer in history, worse than Hitler and Stalin combined. He ordered the murders of tens of millions merely because they declined to believe in Communism, and deliberately caused tens of millions of his countrymen to starve while he exported megatonnes of food to the USSR in exchange for nuclear weapons technology.

Communism is not on the side of the workers - ask the Polish shipwrights and Russian coalminers who successfully helped to boot out their Communist rulers.

Even today, Communist China gaols, tortures, beats, bans and sends to "re-education camps", anyone who dares to believe in other religions. But communism and capitalism are quite compatible.

The irony is that Howard and Bush continue to boycott Cuba with its somewhat milder version of Communism, on the grounds of "human rights abuses", while vigorously promoting trade with the more extreme Communist governments of China and Vietnam where human rights abuses are far worse.

Peter Kennedy

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Last Modified: 15 Nov 2005