http://tramconductors.net/video.php

20th anniversary of tram lockout 1990-2010

Saturday January 30th from 6pm at pub corner of Sydney Rd and Brunswick Rd called Bridie O'Reilleys - was called Sarah Sands;

Brunswick tram depot workers commemorate the 20th anniversary of the occupation of the Brunswick Depot during the 1990 lockout by the Government.

Community radio station 3CR held a "TRAMATHON" to raise $ for the locked out trammies. 3CR also had a daily update on the dispute from the depots like Brunswick at midday. Please let anyone you know who was involved in supporting the workers in their dispute, if you are new but interested you would also be welcome.

Background, see: http://tramconductors.net/video.php

http://www.iww.org.au/node/902

Melbourne Tram Dispute and Lockout January - February 1990 Anarcho-Syndicalism in Practice A pamphlet by Jura Media Publications, Sydney 1997 Distributed by Jura Books PO Box N32, Petersham North, NSW 2049, Australia

http://www.takver.com/history/tram1990.htm

PDF www.reasoninrevolt.net.au/pdf/d0430.pdf

Here inside australia the local postal workers union has decided on "no stamps necessary on xmas mail" tactic to use direct action on the job and upset the profit seeking Bosses...

So from Monday send a card to your rellies for Xmas, or a protest letter to a Politician or Boss & see what happens - mail without stamp. see

http://www.cepuconnects.org/postal/australia-post-eba7/postage-free-days-announced/index.cfm

there are planned "community assemblies" aka pickets in Dandenong and Sunshine here in Melbourne next week too, ask your local postie and contact the union if you want to show solidarity.

UK Shock Horror - squat opens a few doors from Thatcher + Oubliette "Housing based on need, using direct action where will it all end ??? Strewth is no empty Mansion safe from these riff raff ? What next the Cathedrals of conspicuous consumption here in Oz...What about the real estate values / etc." - some Brumbyland Real Estate Developer

Squat in the act! Moment empty £12m home a few doors down from Margaret Thatcher got some new tenants By Daily Mail Reporter 19th October 2009 http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1216877/Squat-act-Moment-12m-home-doors-Margaret-Thatcher-got-new-tenants.html

This is the moment when serial squatters set up home in a £12million three-storey property doors away from the house of Margaret Thatcher. The seven squatters moved into the four-bedroom house in Chester Square, Belgravia just before midnight last night. The group, many of whom were last week evicted from the 80-room former Sudanese embassy in Kensington, said they targeted properties in west London owned by absentee foreigners. They said they entered the house legally by a broken window and claimed it had been unoccupied for more than three months.

The latest nobel economic prize winner, Elinor Ostrum, believes "that common property such as natural resources can be managed successfully without being held under a private plan or a government program." We can create "restorative commons" which contribute to social, physical, emotional and community health.

http://www.restorativecommons.org/Site/Home.html

Chinese construction workers go out on a limb to get paid By Noah Kosharek Three Chinese construction workers gave their Israeli counterparts a lesson yesterday in standing up for their rights - from 20 floors above ground.

For several hours they stood atop the arm of a giant crane, demanding the money they believe they were owed, before the contractor employing them gave in and paid them hours before they returned to China. The workers - Huang Bing, Yuang Tsung Bing and Wan Ping - are in all their 40s and have families in China. Each was paid NIS 4,000 in cash, as were two of their co-workers who did not take part in the protest.

"We wouldn't have come down," they said yesterday, their words translated by an employee of the non-profit organization Kav LaOved ("Workers' Hotline"). "We would have waited another two days on the crane and paid the 100-dollar fine." The episode started early yesterday morning at the construction site of a 20-story luxury tower on Kiryat Ono's Rabin Street. more: http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1116083.html

jlg france ‘explosion threat’: putting the squeeze on management 19 07 2009 Workers at platform-crane manufacturer JLG in south west France won a 30,000 euro pay-out for each of 53 staff made redundant after three weeks of strike action. The tactics employed by the workers – including blocking a high-speed TGV train in a station and placing gas canisters around four cranes on site, threatening to blow them up – won wide attention in the French press and, as this Sud Ouest article demonstrates, showed the value of determined collective action.

http://thecommune.wordpress.com/2009/07/19/jlg-france-explosion-threat-putting-the-squeeze-on-management/#

more-3075 http://gangbox.wordpress.com/2009/07/18/dynamite-unionism-wins-victory-in-france-american-lift-truck-maker-jlg-agrees-to-pay-decent-severance-pay-to-laid-off-autoworkers-after-they-threaten-to-blow-up-the-factory/

Legal Disclaimer: This is a satirical site intended for entertainment purposes only. If you are a poor or homeless person and were considering breaking the law to house yourself and/or your family, please immediately resume sleeping on the street, in your car (if you have paid the rego) or working three jobs just to make the rent.

Squat 2 Own Realty 22 May 2009 http://dc.indymedia.org/newswire/display/146374/index.php

Signs have been showing up on foreclosed properties around Richmond, VA recently, advertising that the houses are available for free to anyone who needs a home. Though they look like ordinary real estate signs at first glance, they're actually the work of "Squat 2 Own Realty", a group of activists who are helping people take over vacant foreclosed houses without permission from the banks.

"Real Estate Agency" Invites People To Squat In Foreclosed Houses

The Politician's Passing

As rosy dawn came peeping through the blind

A politician's soul from earth took wing.

A most amazing thing it was to find

That such a tiny, weak and shriveled thing,

A measly soul - no bigger than a louse -

Had dwelt in such a goodly seeming house.

Then swiftly whizzed the tiny, buzzing plague,

And headed for the Gate where Peter sat:

Its plans were neither nebulous nor vague,

All Heaven waited - It was sure of that.

On spheres mundane the life this insect led,

Develops what the vulgar call swelled head.

St. Peter dozing at the Pearly Gate

Aroused himself and yawned with jaded eye

He watched old Sol the Earth illuminate,

Then stretched himself, as with a weary sigh,

He looked along the straight and narrow road,

And shook himself and murmured, "Well I'm blowed."

The Saint was puzzled and a bit annoyed,

His takings at the gate were falling off;

The antics of his touts, on Earth employed,

Inclined most folk at Peter's joint to scoff.

Old King Coal was a merry old soul and a merry old soul was he... Quarry Vision Part 457. OhMyGawd Plutocrats are back or maybe they never went away ?

"What ? State Police repression ordered by Politicians who serve Coal & Corporates Lobby ...(unbelieveable ?) never happen in Oz, okay except maybe the Loy Yang coal fired power plant before November 2007 Federal Election, the Newcastle Port Coal export site, logging of old growth Forests, North-South Pipe-Line, DeSal Plant, well apart from them we are with the grassroots....I'm telling you my dear that it can't happen here. etc" - Kelvin "astroturf" Thompson Wills MP (thinking aloud at last night's Climate Change meeting at Coburg Town Hall Monday April 20th)

Police officers scuffle with climate change protesters near Kingsnorth power station in Kent. Photograph: Dominic Lipinski/PA Government officials handed confidential police intelligence about environmental activists to the energy giant E.ON before a planned peaceful demonstration, according to private emails seen by the Guardian. http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2009/apr/20/police-intelligence-e-on-berr