Vintage Reds Guest Speaker for the November 2014 meeting was Dr Anita Chan.
Dr Chan is a Research Professor at the China Research Centre, University of Technology, Sydney; and a Visiting Fellow at the Political & Social Change Department, ANU. She spoke on Chinese trade union and labour rights history, from the early days of the PRC up to the present.
Our fellow Vintage Reds member Pauline Westwood spoke to the October meeting about the TPP. Pauline was formerly a senior policy officer in the public service and a senior research librarian.
For updates and more information on the TPP, see the Australian Fair Trade & Investment Network Ltd, AFTINET.
The Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP)
The TPP is a controversial and highly secretive “free trade” agreement currently being pushed by big corporations and negotiated behind closed doors by officials from the United States and 11 other countries – Australia, Brunei, Canada, Chile, Japan, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Peru, Singapore, and Vietnam, with a couple of other countries about to join.
Jane has written a new article for the Australian Unions’ Working Life blog. (Originally at http://workinglife.org.au/2014/10/08/maintaining-the-rage-long-into-retirement/)
“I QUICKLY learned that after retirement there is a whole new world for a committed trade unionist and there is much for us to do.
It is not hard to feel concern for our old work colleagues or for the next generation of workers confronted everyday by the outrageous excesses of the Abbott Government.
Retirement has also made me look at all the other hard earned rights and privileges that the union movement has won for our society.
I am thinking of superannuation, the aged pension, Medicare: all of which provide me and other retirees with a comfortable retirement.”
Vintage Reds website: Up and running!September’s guest speaker was Tom Greenwell, in his role as the Digital Media Project Officer of the Australian Education Union’s federal office in Canberra.
Vintage Reds are grateful for Tom’s patient guidance as we grapple with the complexities of our new website. Thank you Tom!
Kim Sattler, UnionsACT Secretary, was the Vintage Reds’ guest speaker on Tuesday 19 August2014 at the Dickson Tradies’ Club. Kim spoke on the topic “Bust the Budget & Fair Go for Canberra“.
Marie Coleman was our guest speaker on 17 June 2014 at the Dickson Tradies Club.
Marie is a well-known activist and former public servant, and was the ACT’s Senior Australian of the year in 2011. She spoke on the May budget brought down by Messrs Abbott and Hockey.
The National Foundation for Australian Women, of which Marie was a founding member in 1989, has issued a press release,”Budget 2014: Women are the biggest losers!”, which notes that an unemployed single mother with one eight-year-old child would lose $54 per week or 12 per cent of their disposable income.
For the NFAW document, see http://www.nfaw.org/budget-2014-women-biggest-losers/
We welcomed Jo Root, National Policy Manager of the Council of the Ageing (COTA), and Paul Flint, Executive Director, ACT, COTA, to our April meeting at the Dickson Tra
dies Club.
Jo spoke to the meeting on the topic “Where to from here on the Age Pension?”. She noted that 70% of retirees rely on the Age Pension as a significant component of their income, and 60% are on the full Age Pension.
Photo of Jo, from her Twitter page, https://twitter.com/positiveage
[Source: Chris Bourke, chrisbourke.com.au/2014/02/18/vintage-reds/, Feb 18, 2014]
Vintage Reds, a new network of retired progressive unionists in the Canberra region was officially launched by ACTU President Ged Kearney at the Unions ACT offices in Mitchell on 15-2-14. In the photo at the launch I am with Jane Timbrell, one of the founders of Vintage Reds, Ged Kearney and Kim Sattler, Unions ACT Secretary.
Vintage Reds gives older unionists a chance to socialise, support each other and continue to be involved in campaigning using the skills acquired over a lifetime.
Ged Kearney praised Vintage Reds and said they can play an important role in supporting the struggles for workers’ rights especially when the union movement and retirees are under sustained pressure from the new federal government.
To contact the Vintage Reds email vintagereds.canberra@gmail.com
[Source: Noel Towell, canberratimes.com.au/act-news/unionisms-retired-ranks-dust-off-their-cards-20140214-32rog.html, February 15, 2014]
Their days as union firebrands might be long behind them, but a group of Canberra’s retired workplace activists reckons the flames never really go out.
Hundreds of retired union members from around the capital are answering the call to arms from Vintage Reds, a new group set up to try to unleash the untapped grey potential of the Australian union movement. Continue reading