Peter Hicks in Sydney

Saturday, 20th November, 8pm
Crown on McCredie's Velvet Bar
Cnr of McCredie & Fairfield Roads
Guildford

Peter Hicks a former Sydney based acoustic and folk singer-songwriter now based in Tasmania is returning to sing in Western Sydney. Peter was a regular on the ABC radio in Sydney in the first half of the 90’s and performs frequently on ABC Hobart and has been played on Radio National. He travels around the country and internationally performing at folk festivals.
His songs have been described as chronicling our times in the best tradition of folk music. Peter sings about the environment, population issues, refugee rights with some traditional Australian themes such as Ned Kelly and convict ballads from Tasmania. He uses humour and satire and his serious songs sit alongside those which play havoc with the powers that be in a cheeky mood.

Enquiries: Colin 9043 5850 - 0412 924 251 Ingrid 0437 206 012
Admission donation: $15, $10 concession, $20 Keen Green

Hong Kong: Café de Coral victory

IUF News 09-11-2010

A vigorous union mobilization against the abolition of paid meal breaks at Café de Coral has forced the company to retreat within days after the new pay policy was imposed.

On November 6, Café de Coral, "the largest publicly listed Chinese Fast Food restaurant group in the world" with over 500 outlets in Asia/Pacific and North America and substantial food processing and catering operations, announced that it was restoring paid meal breaks for restaurant and fast food workers. By abolishing the paid meal break while offering a token hourly increase, Café de Coral had actually imposed a pay cut on already low paid employees.

Workers have not only won back their paid meal time, but secured an overall wage increase averaging 8-10%!

The Hong Kong Confederation of Trade Unions (HKCTU) and its member Catering & Hotels Industries Employees responded to the company’s initial announcement with a vigorous campaign of public actions; the call for a planned boycott generated widespread support.

1960: Paul Robeson at Opera House

Mahir Ali: The Australian November 09, 2010

Fifty years ago today, more than a decade before it was officially inaugurated, the Sydney Opera House hosted its first performance by an internationally renowned entertainer when Paul Robeson, in the midst of what turned out to be his final concert tour, sang to the construction workers during their lunch break.

Alfred Rankin, who was at the construction site on November 9, 1960, recalls this "giant of a man" enthralling the workers with his a cappella renditions of two of his signature songs, Ol' Man River and Joe Hill.

"After he finished singing, the men climbed down from the scaffolding, gathered around him and presented him with a hard hat bearing his name," Paul Robeson Jr writes in his biography of his father, The Undiscovered Robeson. "One of the men took off a work glove and asked Paul to sign it. The idea caught on and the men lined up. Paul stayed until he had signed a glove for each one of them."

The visit, Rankin tells The Australian, was organised by the Building Workers Industrial Union of Australia and the Australian Peace Council's Bill Morrow, a former Labor senator from Tasmania.

In a chapter on Robeson's visit in the book Passionate Histories: Myth, Memory and Indigenous Australia, which will be launched in Sydney tomorrow, Ann Curthoys quotes the performer as saying on the day after his visit to the Opera House site: "I could see, you know, we had some differences here and there. But we hummed some songs together, and they all came up afterwards and just wanted to shake my hand and they had me sign gloves. These were tough guys and it was a very moving experience."

10 November: Nurses rally

Safe Patient Care!
The State Government is not responding to the call from nurses & midwives
for mandated nurse-to-patient ratios. Without ratios the crisis in our health
system will continue –

• Staffed to budget not safe patient care;
• Poor skill-mix; nurses replaced with unlicensed workers, if at all;
• Recruitment slow or non-existent;
• Medication errors, near misses, low morale, burn-out.

South Korea: Anti-G20 protesters

Tens of thousands of activists rallied for labour rights and secure jobs in Seoul yesterday before this week's G20 summit.

Trade unionists and their allies - numbered by organisers at 40,000 - chanted slogans and sang songs at Seoul Plaza outside the city hall, surrounded by thousands of riot police.

Activists wore vests with slogans reading: "Against the G20 that hampers labour rights and creates unstable jobs" and "Against the G20 that cuts social welfare and destroys public services."

Others held up mock traffic signs saying Stop G20, while campaigners distributed leaflets urging people to "rise up against neoliberalism and globalisation."

A representative of the Korea Confederation of Trade Unions, which helped organise the protest, vowed to "continue the struggle to raise the minimum wage and solve the youth unemployment issue."

Hundreds of protesters tried to march towards the city centre in defiance of police warnings, pushing and shoving against police riot shields. Police used pepper spray to disperse the demonstrators.

Thousands of others staged a candlelit rally at Seoul Plaza, surrounded by buildings draped with huge banners heralding the November 11-12 summit.

Union activist Lee Chang Geun accused the G20 of failing to formulate meaningful measures to curb speculative financial capital and of pushing cuts in public spending on social welfare.