Victorian Trades Hall Council. The voice of Victorian workers since 1856.

• Inside Trades Hall
•  > Secretary's Report
•  > 2010 Archives

Global Financial Crisis (2008-09) Still Vibrating Internationally - What About Australia?

Brian Boyd VTHC Secretary
Friday 1^st October 2010

During the recent federal election (August) much was made of the stimulus packages that saw Australia survive the GFC. No one will deny that many thousands of jobs were created or saved by these initiatives.

However, a growing number of reports from other parts of the world are indicating we are not out of the bush yet.
In Europe an austerity drive, post GFC is impacting on ordinary working people, not the corporate world, as governments try to off-set their stimulus policies by cutting hard won social entitlements.

France has already been hit by two national strikes of over a million strong each. This Thursday (30/9) over 100,000 protestors from the European Union countries are arriving by bus convoy in Brussels as an “international mobilisation” against the proposed cuts to wages, conditions and retirement rights.

Simultaneous strikes are to occur in Spain, Portugal, Italy, Czech Republic, Cyprus, Poland and Britain.

Trade Unions in Britain have not mobilised in such a way “not seen in decades”.

European governments have flagged up to €500 billion spending cuts to slowly reverse the GFC aftermath.

Simply the budget cuts will affect employment and incomes in Europe. It is also clear hard won health, welfare and retirement entitlements are facing whole or partial dismantling. The freezing of weekly pays, pensions and upping retirement ages have been proposed. The proposed recession strategy will be borne by workers not capital.

Last year the ‘euro zone’ countries were committed to expenditure strategies to ensure the ongoing recovery. But when Greece suddenly faced ‘technical’ bankruptcy a few months ago, there was a big move to a government budget reduction policy. The union movement is galvanizing across Europe.

But back to Australia. What will happen here? With a hung parliament and a minority federal government, what will the next national budget look like? From an organised labour point of view we need answers to these and related questions sooner rather than later.