By Zac Wright

Frenzied activity and panicked investors greeted Wall Street during the beginning of last month when the Nasdaq, the index which measures the prices of the key Information Technology (IT) and other high-tech stocks, continued the nose dive it began in mid-March (33% between mid-March and April with a giant 13.6% fall on April 4th).

A normally fluctuating market is usually ignored as the cycle of capitalism but in the new world of worker share holders (the Telstra float saw for the first time major share purchasing by the working class) workers who realise that their pension is threatened gamble on the share market as a way of trying to gain money for their retirement. So the recent fluctuating of the market has sent a shiver down the spine of the working class. But the rich haven't been left out by the recent events, to them it's a sign that the game may be up. The 90's boom may be over, though this is a premature notion with a recovery on the way, the smart market of paper money and high spending is crumbling and they see a recession could be on the horizon.

Previously the IT shares had been the most profitable, exciting and sought after items on the market because of their seemingly endless ability to produce profit through speculation.

The apparent 'boom' of the Nasdaq over the past year has been attributed to the formation of a 'new economy' brought on by the growth of the internet and telecommunications. Market commentary stated that technologies like those connected to IT shares could bring 'boundless productivity' and an end to business downturns.

This helped see the Nasdaq reach an amazing 5000 P/E (price/earnings ratio, which compares a stocks price with it's earnings) compared to other 'blue chip' stocks which listed only around 24 P/E. This translates to a market value of $10 trillion for IT P/E.

But during those weeks of stock market 'jitters' over $4 trillion was lost in IT share values world wide. This showed that the bubble of the world share 'boom' was beginning to burst. Rich investors and market reporters may shrug off a $4 trillion loss as 'jitters' but with their capitalist system already keeping half the world's population close to starvation such monetary loss may be a little more alarming.

In Australia, on April 15th, the affects of the Nasdaqs crumble in New York were felt as the bottom fell out of our stock market with the 5.7 million shareholders losing almost $100 million a minute.

The biggest fall since the start of the Asian crisis in October '97 was centralised mainly in the technology sector with Australian internet companies Sausage software, Securenet and Ecorp, etc stocks losing 56% or $70.9 million.

Media giant News.corp, BHP and other 'blue chip' companies also fell dramatically with Australia's richest man Kerry Packer losing almost $500 million in 'paper' money.

On the other end of the spectrum everyday workers also felt the affects with the Collins St exchange filled with ordinary working people watching their investments shrink on the illuminated screen. Talk of 'bankruptcy' claims were not rare.

So what does this turn of events say about the state of the world economy and the role of IT in the real world? At first glance the IT excitement may seem to have positive potential in boosting labour and human welfare but as with all technological advancements since the industrial revolution the primary function is profit potentials, not human benefit.

Rich corporations find the idea of financial speculation attractive because of the quick profit produced when a gamble pays off, and this is the main fault-line behind the IT phenomenon. The dot.com is pure speculation,' if you can't see it, is it real?', and the price of such gambles is the inevitable input into production.

Capitalist companies aim to keep outlays to a minimum including cuts in wages and conditions and the introduction of new technology which will supposedly increase labour productivity - rate of exploitation.

However technology being inherently short in life span inevitably increases capital outlay which in turn increases the need for new technology and an increase in production for IT companies will increase their profits and company shares. This is the cycle of profit expenditure.

Such advancements in the hands of large companies only serve to increase the crisis of over-production, especially in areas such as the car industry. (Mitsubishi Australia- April 2000) Larger numbers of products are now made with fewer people able to afford them. This hold over the fate of their workers keeps the company's control over the means of production.

Being profit driven and not people driven causes the rift between living standards and profit margins ie. the kind and amount of products produced and the role they serve for human welfare causes the 'boom' and 'bust' trends of the capitalist economy.

The IT share phenomenon and the apparent uncertainty of it is another sign of the destructive nature of the capitalist economy and the need for a controlled socialist economy.

By Stephen Jolly

It's back to a war footing in the battle for safe injecting facilities (SIFs) in Victoria. The coalition parties and two of the three independents have come out against this much needed reform, thus blocking Labor's push to get a bill through parliament allowing the establishment of five-odd SIFs on a trial basis.

This right-wing move flies in the face of public opinion, especially in the cities, as seen in polls and the massive support for Community Campaign for Heroin Reform (CCHR) stalls and petitions over the past year.

More and more people are opening their eyes to reality and seeing that heroin is a fact of life and zero tolerance just doesn't work. There were 1,000 deaths last year nationally and 100-odd so far in Victoria this year. Most of these deaths would have been prevented if SIFs existed.

Society doesn't like alcohol abuse, so we isolate drinking to pubs, hotels etc. We don't try and ban it or pretend it doesn't exist. It should be the same for heroin. The campaigning work of CCHR and the Socialist Party in collecting 25,000 names on petitions, calling rallies, vigils, public meetings etc was key in shifting public opinion and ALP policy on this issue.

The opposition to SIFs comes from tiny but vocal, well-funded, right-wing resident groups. They are backed by the more backward elements of the ruling class as seen in the Herald Sun, the National Party, and sections of the Liberals. The more far sighted sections of the capitalist class have a more ruthless and pragmatic approach, weighing up the cost of policing, prison population, shifting community attitudes etc and deciding that SIFs would be a cheaper way of dealing with the crisis. It is the same lines of division as seen in the mandatory sentencing debate.

On the side of humanity are the socialists, and the majority of ordinary people. CCHR has decided to step up its push for SIFs. Up until recently we thought SIFs were more likely than not to be established some time this year and were preparing to move onto campaigning for heroin trials. Now the situation has radically changed for the worse.

CCHR has called an emergency rally for Friday May 5th at 5pm outside Melbourne Town Hall to show support for SIFs. If SIFs are blocked by the politicians in the face of community desires and need, then CCHR will be forced to consider direct action of its own!

The State government-initiated Drug Policy Expert Committee headed by Prof. David Pennington has released part of its report. It recommends Safe Injecting Facilities. It also notes that:

• Between 1995-98 heroin use rose 500%

• Only 10% of heroin entering Australia is interrupted, showing the failure of zero tolerance

• There has been no evidence that needle exchanges "encourage the use of illicit drugs" as some people suggested they would. This is the same argument used against SIFs

• The market is being flooded with cheap heroin. Between 1998-99, production of heroin in Afghanistan doubled

By Telstra worker, name withheld due to Telstra policy of victimisation

The recent hysterical reaction on the part of Telstra in taking 'disciplinary action' against workers at the Global Operations Centre at Clayton, for allegedly downloading and distributing pornography off the internet warrants close scrutiny.

The Telstra action occured late on the day before Good Friday. None of those who have been caught up in these events had any prior warning. They were 'summonsed' to meetings with no knowledge of what was to come. Approximately 30 workers were given 'Final Written Warnings' for having family photographs as computer screen savers. Others had sporting scenes, landscapes etc; similarly set as screen savers. The most serious allegations concern another twenty-five workers who are accused of either downloading, or distributing pornography via e-mail or otherwise stored in their individual 'electronic lockers on shared hardrives.

The Telstra action against these workers came less than twenty four hours after Telstra were forced to concede the third defeat in less than a year of a 'workplace agreement' negotiated without union involvement.

The first of the agreements, the Call Centre Workforce Agreement went to a vote last November and the result was a resounding NO to the company's attempts to downgrade wages and conditions.

The result delivered another bloody nose for Telstra and the Rio Tinto/CRA/Reith strategy of achieving separate workforce agreements across the different business units of Telstra. The agreements would have had different end dates, precluding Telstra workers from mounting a massive industrial campaign at the end of 2000 when the main agreement ends. As the Telstra workers have voted down successive agreements across all business units, Cartwright and his acolytes have grown more vindictive and decidedly desperate.

The Telstra unions are presently awaiting a decision from the Federal Court arising out of an e-mail sent by Cartwright to 200+ Telstra managers instructing them to treat favourably employees on individual contracts in the recently announced job losses of approx. 16,000 .

It's not suprising to anyone in who works in Telstra, that the company would attempt to target what can only be described as the most strategic telecommmunications centre in Australia. The Global Operations Centre simply is Telstra. The centre is staffed by almost 1,000 highly qualified technicians who keep the national telecommunications network up and running; think ATM's, ASX, exchanges, data lines you name it they do it. The centre is obviously also key in any industrial dispute, theoretically this is the only Telstra site that would need to walk in order to bring the company to its knees. The company has tried consistently to get the workforce at the GOC onto AWA's and has bypassed the normal internal recruitment processes to employ young graduates directly on AWA's in an attempt to 'dilute' the 98% unionised workforce. The workers have also been subjected to a draconian management style borrowed from one hundred years ago. One CEPU organiser commented wryly just recentlyŠ'they shouldn't be surprised by the recent ballot outcome, their entire workforce hates them. This recent action against a large number of workers at the GOC is nothing more than a farce, and another crude, desperate, and failed attempt to weaken the resolve of a key group of workers in the lead-up to the December EBA Campaign, which many have coined 'PAYBACK 2000'.

The Globalisation bandwagon reaches Melbourne on September 11th-13th. For three days the World Economic Forum will hold the Asia-Pacific Economic Summit, "Asia/Pacific in the 21st Century: Leveraging the new drivers of growth."

The summit is jointly sponsored by the Business Council of Australia and the Australian Davos Connection (the Australian arm of the World Economic Forum) and will take place at the Crown Casino.

The capitalist talkshop comes in the wake of the fantastic protests outside similar events in Seattle, Davos and Washington DC over the past months. In Melbourne two separate groups, S11 (which mainly consists of younger people organised in left parties and individual activists) and Public First (an anti-privatisation group of older activists with links to the communist tradition and trade unions), are preparing to organise protests at the event. The Socialist Party is calling a school student strike for the first day, Monday September 11th and is building support for the rally in the trade union movement. Unfortunately there is a building industry rostered day off on the day which will make it difficult to get this key section of workers along. More importantly, unlike the US, the job cuts that have occurred in Australia are seen by workers to be the result of tariff cuts or privatisation, rather than directly the result of trade treaties like NAFTA. The protests won't be as big as in the US, but will nevertheless see a significant layer of radical youth and militant workers present.

The IMF and World Bank have continued on as an instrument for defending capitalism, maximizing the profits of the big multinationals and maintaining the domination of the US over the world economy.

The World Bank makes long-term loans to governments to finance development projects such as roads, power plants, schools, dams, bridges, ports and other "infrastructure". The IMF decides which countries are eligible for international loans. Currently, the IMF has been focusing on bailing out countries facing economic emergencies, like the "Asian Tigers" that were hammered by an economic meltdown in 1997-98.

The IMF and World Bank will only extend loans if countries agree to accept "structural adjustment programs" (SAPs). SAPs are not democratically decided upon by the people of the debtor countries. They are forced down the throats of the people of the former colonial world.

To pay off the loans, the IMF and World Bank demand governments raise money by selling off public assets and companies (privatization) and cutting state expenditure on social services like healthcare, education, childcare, and pensions. SAPs require countries deregulate and open up their economy to "free trade" by cutting subsidies to local industries and slashing trade barriers and tariffs. Countries must open up their economies to foreign business (usually multinationals from Western countries), remove restrictions on foreign investments, and allow corporations access to the workers and natural resources of the country at bargain basement prices.

The vast majority of the profits made by the multinationals is taken out of the country and brought home (repatriated) to the West. SAPs encourage export-oriented growth (selling cheap raw materials or commodities on the world market, like cash crops, garments, or computer chips) to generate hard currency. All in all, the IMF and World Bank SAPs turn countries into loan repayment machines, generating easy profits for the world's richest corporations and banks.

By Gary Duffy

The NSW teachers union has been hauled into the NSW Industrial Relations Commission by the Carr Labor government over their planning to continue their ten month industrial campaign for a pay rise.

NSW government teachers used to get 60% above the average weeklyearnings-now its marginally below. It's not surprising that a union who wants to fight would find itself in conflict with a Labor government.

The NSW state school teachers have engaged in a magnificent 10 month campaign of strikes and bans to try and get a pay rise that did not include trade-offs to their conditions.

During this time other NSW unions have also had campaigns for pay rises, including the Health and Research Employees Association (HREA) and the Public Service Association (PSA). Unfortunately the leadership of these unions, instead of acting in solidarity with the teachers and thereby achieving a better deal for all workers, traded off conditions for their 16% pay rise, effectively leaving the teachers to fend for themselves. Now the Carr Labor government has threatened that some of the special conditions agreed to over the past period of time including back pay of $700 to $1,200 could be lost if an agreement is not reached.

In a similar vein in Victoria the Labor government of Steve Bracks threatened earlier in the year to fine workers at Yallourn. They have also failed to fully overturn the previous Kennett government's legislation on workers compensation. They only partially reversed the compensation laws of Kennett meaning that although workers could now sue employers for compensation they still had to use the much tougher definitions of injury that Kennett had introduced.

It is obvious that Labor governments offer no alternative to workers-they still will do whatever is necessary to prevent workers from getting decent pay and conditions and thereby eating into the profits of the bosses. The presence of a Labor government merely makes it easier for trade union bosses to do deals with the employers. It undermines the fundamental solidarity that needs to exist between workers by giving trade union officials the excuse that they cannot go against a Labor government.

In order for unions to be able to protect workers they need to break away from the restraining influence of the Labor party. What is needed is a new political party. A political party that will defend workers in struggle. It's about time the more progressive unions started pulling together the forces to establish such a party.