Stick Together Annie McLoughlin, James Brennan, Jiselle Hanna

Today we go down to one of the Stop the Ports Rallies held across the country by Unionists for Palestine to highlight the need for Australia to cease aiding and abetting the war on Palestine. In Melbourne thousands covered first at Station Pier then Sandridge Beach in a community gathering emphasising that Unions are not just institutions but made up of the sum total of the individuals that are members. Running underneath the surface of this show of solidarity was the awareness that in NSW members of unions and peace activists are facing criminal proceedings under new draconian anti-protest laws in that state for protesting at Port Botany earlier in the year. 

On this week’s episode of Stick Together, we finally have an outcome at that ongoing struggle at DP World in a couple of states across the country, so we’ll have a chat to Aarin Moon, the Victorian State Assistant Secretary of the MUA. Also, a number of progressive trade unions moved a slate of pro-Palestine motions at the Victorian State Labor Conference over the weekend of 18 & 19 May. I spoke with one of the movers of that motion, Tony Picolo, the Victorian State Assistant Secretary of the AMWU.

Stick Together is a half-hour weekly show about workers rights and current affairs. On this week's episode host James Brennan brings us some union news from across the country. We hear about the reformation of the United Auto Workers union in the United States. As two organisers speak about how the union turned around the corrupt and conservative union into one fighting for workers rights and leading the largest strike in the industry in over 25 years.

Special May Day broadcast with featured speeches from the Sydney and Melbourne May Day rallies, as well as union news from Turkiye, Indonesia and Thailand.

This week's Stick Together is a feature on International Workers Memorial Day the 28th of April. First we go to the memorial held in Melbourne. A large crowd gathered on Monday 29th of April at 10.30am to remember the 55 workers who died in the last 12 months of work related injuries in Victoria. Then we go to the Melbourne Rally for Palestine held on the Sunday 28th where Jiselle Hanna from Australia Asia Worker Links (AAWL)  gave an international perspective to the memorial of workers who have lost their lives doing thier jobs. 

Today we go into the murky side of the just transition economy where Powering the Future can sometimes mean unsafe conditions, and dodgy pay. We talk to Michael Wright, National Secretary of the ETU, about a better future.