Paradigm Shift 4zzz (fm 102.1) Fridays at Noon August 24, 2018

This week we talk about casual work. We interview Josh Cullinan from the Retail and Fast Food Workers Union and Shane Millsom from the Brisbane Rideshare Drivers Co-operative about the challenges of being a casual worker and of organising casual workers towards better conditions.

Listen at http://4zzz.org.au/program/paradigm-shift/2018-08-24

As part of a call-out for radical radio, Andy and crew delve into casual work in retail, fast food, university and transport sectors.

Transnational mining company Rio Tinto has been trying to re-define the nature of mining work to being casual to escape paying workers entitlements under Australia’s Fairwork Act.

Andy interviews Joshua Cullinan from the Retail and Fast Food Workers Union formerly of the NTEU (National Tertiary Education Union, CFMEU, & Young Christian Workers’ Movement.

The Retail and Fast Food Workers Union is a counter to right-wing SDA union that has conspired with employers to reduce wages and conditions. This ‘accord’ with Coles & Woolworths gives the SDA more power in the ALP. For example, last week five SDA Labor senators crossed the floor and defeated a euthanasia bill.

In contrast, the Retail and Fast Food Workers Union has been trying to campaign on the Coles unpaid time issue where people are required to do some work each week for free. One union member had to do unpaid work for two and a half years by Newcastle Coles but the union fought for his full entitlements and won in the court.

Joshua comments on an important ruling in the full federal court this week that a truck driver on a mining mining site is entitled to annual leave:

“The full Federal Court of Australia on Thursday found a truck driver employed at a Rio Tinto mine under a labour hire arrangement as a casual, was not a casual under employment law, because of his regular and continuous pattern of work.” – SMH 23 Aug 2018 ‘Kick in the guts‘: Employers cry foul over casual truck driver’s win.

Taxi & Rideshare Drivers
Andy spoke to Shane Millsom about trying to organise in the Brisbane ride share drivers co-operative. The Rideshare Driver Co-op is a nonprofit organization in Brisbane, Queensland, Australia.  The Rideshare Co-op has the vision to unite taxi and rideshare drivers who want to build a democratically and driver owned rideshare cooperative.

Their way of organising is different from unions covering permanent workers. For example, they offer a community space called Turnstyle in Laura Street, Highgate Hill as a drop-in place for drivers to have a coffee and chat during their breaks.

Hiroshima Day is remembered each year on the 6th of August the bombing of Nagasaki occurred 3 days later on the 9th of August 1945.

Here is the testimony of one of the survivors of nuclear bombing of Hiroshima from the four triple z archive of 1985. This is the recollection of a woman who was a school child in Hiroshima in 1945.

“On 6 August 1945 planes flew over at 7: 30 a.m. However this did not interrupt our usual daily life because we were used to bombers passing over. the population of Hiroshima was 400,000 people there was a big naval base about 20 miles away and the primary school children had be sent out to the country while the high school students were said to constructor Road to make a fire break. There was one bomber from the United States which dropped the nuclear bomb. Just before 8 am I got to the railway station. There was a flash and a tremendous explosion. I was blown away. I must have been unconscious. When I woke up it was very dark. There were painful screams for help. I couldn’t move my legs. So I tried to call for help. There was a lot of smoke and I nearly choked. I screamed and a fire broke out near me. Two strong hands pulled me to open air. The railway station had collapsed. A soldier helped me. Not knowing where I was going I just simply ran and ran. I saw people with their skin peeling off. People with no hair and no emotion on their faces. I heard a familiar voice and there I saw a friend caught under the debris. I tried to pull her out but the fire got too great and I had to leave her as the fire came over me. I doused my body with the muddy water and ran till I could go no further and collapsed. I couldn’t believe that I had survived.

The plane that dropped the nuclear bomb was called the Enola Gay which was the name of the mother of one of the pilots. The bomb was called ‘little boy’.

Here is Gem Romuld’s account of how the international campaign against nuclear weapons won the Nobel Peace Prize last year.

Nuclear weapons are now in the same category as weapons of mass destruction. 122 nations approved it at the UN and 14 have gone through the ratification process which is long and involved. ICAN was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in2017. Australian government refuses to sign the treaty ban. ICAN is hoping a labor government will sign (no evidence for this given past experience).

Nine (9)  Nuclear bomb states – USA, UK, Russia, China, India, Pakistan, Nth Korea, Israel, France.

ICAN is conducting a bike ride from Melbourne to Canberra  to carry the Nobel Peace Prize medal. Will arrive on 20 September 2018.

Andy interviews Alexander Brown about nuclear power.

Listen at http://4zzz.org.au/program/paradigm-shift

Playlist
Orchestral Manoeuvres In The Dark – Enola Gay
Paul Kelly – Maralinga
Rankin and Dub Ainu Band  – You can’t see it, and you can’t smell it either
Sons of the Pioneers – Old man atom

Reference
Hiroshima

A show on indigenous art and resistance – writer Melissa Lucashenko, artists Jason Wing and Blak Douglas from the “Defying Empire” exhibition and curator Stephen Mam from The MYX gallery.

This week we talk about aboriginal art and its cultural power. We speak to novelist Melissa Lucashenko about her new novel Too Much Lip; Blak Douglas and Jason Wing from the Defying Empire exhibition at the UQ Art Museum; and Stephen Mam, curator of the Black History Month exhibition at MYX gallery in West End.

Playlist
Kev Carmody Attack attack

Baker Boy Black magic feat Dallas Woods

Ancestress Bring buildings down

Getano Bann I am black

The Ancient Bloods Boogieman

Podcasts
http://4zzz.org.au/program/paradigm-shift

Fridays at 12-1pm, 102.1fm or 4zzzfm.org.au (where it is also podcasted later).

Students of Sustainability
Tune into the Paradigm Shift for an “on the road” special at Students of Sustainability in Melbourne. Chats with people blockading universities, saving cassowaries, setting up indigenous sovereign governments and more!

Andy interviews people at Students of Sustainability about direct action. Students at Melbourne Uni trying to stop the Uni contracting with weapons manufacturer Lockheed Martin. He looks at state surveillance. Anti-coal blockades, dumpster diving, cassowary protection and heaps more … http://ondemand.4zzzfm.org.au/paradigm-shift

http://www.studentsofsustainability.org/

We challenge the assumptions of our current society, to resist oppression and investigate alternative ways of living for a world based on justice, solidarity and sustainability. Follow the Paradigm Shift on facebook at facebook.com/PShiftonZed or listen to past shows at pshift4zzz.wordpress.com or soundcloud.com/ian-curr

Playlist
The Lurkers  Who’s got a padlock and chain
Slynshot Hitchhike to dumpster
Racerage  Diamonds and Sapphires
Combat Wombat  Miraculous Activist

Paradigm Shift is on Fridays 12-1pm, 102.1fm or 4zzz.org.au.

This week we talk to people across the country standing up for trees.

We start with Tarneen Onus-Williams of the Djarp Wurrung people in Western Victoria, who are fighting to preserve culturally significant trees under threat from the construction of the Western Highway.

We also speak to Jenny Weber about the campaign to save the Tarkine Forest in North-Western Tasmania and Bernadette Le Goullon about the removal of trees from Mowbray Park in East Brisbane.

And play some great tree themed songs!

Photos: Giant Crayfish from the Rapid River in the Tarkine forest in Tassie, Sacred trees in Ararat and Mowbray Park.

Photos: Giant Crayfish from the Rapid River in the Tarkine forest in Tassie, Sacred trees in Ararat and Mowbray Park.

Listen to Paradigm Shift 4zzz fm 102.1 podcast … its about saving “Trees” and forest blockades … the Franklin, the Tarkine, and logging of rainforests in Tasmania … saving sacred scar trees at Ararat in Vic and saving Mowbray Park in Brisbane.

 

Podcast @ http://4zzz.org.au/program/paradigm-shift/2018-06-29

Playlist

Listen @ http://4zzz.org.au/program/paradigm-shift/2018-06-01

Andy explores the summer of revolutions that occured 50 years ago in 1968 with historian Andrew Bonnell. We especially focus on the Paris Uprising and the Prague Spring, with some classic songs from the struggles of the time too.

Andy speaks with Associated Professor Andrew Bonnell from UQ about 1968.

Four factors led to revolt – generational conflict and high growth rate, expansion in higher education, old structures not working well, movements for de-colonisation from the East and South Algeria and Vietnam.

May 1968 in Paris
Started at Nanterre Uni in France – students, communists, situationists, anarchists, left libertarians, etc. Authoritarian response led to escalation. Became a broader struggle with working class involved … led to a general strike. Gneral De Gaulle had been in power for 10 years … Algeria disengagement had occurred. Mainstream Communist led trade unions were not keen but rank and file activists led to a strike in the Renault factory and then that spread.

Came close to the first post-industrial revolution. De Gaulle faced a General’s revolt after the Algerian crisis and flew to Baden Baden to seek support of the army against striking workers. Socialist Party offers to mediate. De Gaulle hands over the Pompidou. The Socialist Party under Francoise Mitterrand does not come to power until 1981. Revolutionary movement passes. The Left splinters. De Gaulle’s party wins the election.

Prague Spring 1968
Socialism with a human face put down in Czechoslovakia. Shock to the world communist movement. Australian Communist party (CPA) breaks with Moscow. Split within the Australian CPA.

Also discussed – Chicago and Brazil

Playlist
Rolling Stones Street fighting man
Léo Ferré    L’Été 68
Plastic People Of The Universe   Toxica
Jefferson Airplane   VolunteersCaetano Veloso   Tropicalia

Comment

From 1922 to 1927 George Orwell was a policeman in Burma. He wrote an essay called ‘Shooting an elephant’ about his experiences there.  The essay was allegorical, he wrote: “I had already made up my mind that imperialism was an evil thing … I was all for the Burmese and all against their oppressors, the British.”

But now the Buddhist Burmese have become the oppressors of the Arakanese (Rohingya people).

“It is not power that corrupts but fear. Fear of losing power corrupts those who wield it and fear of the scourge of power corrupts those who are subject to it.

The only real prison is fear, and the only real freedom is freedom from fear.
Peace as a goal is an ideal which will not be contested by any government or nation, not even the most belligerent.” – 1991 Nobel peace prize winner Aung San Suu Kyi, and current Myanmar Foreign Minister.

Ian and Andy speak with the Qld President of the Rohingya Association, Nor Zaman. Ian interviews Ian Rintoul from Refugee Action Collective about the refugee crisis in Burma.

Playlist
Femi Kuti One people one world
Xefer Rahman Rohingya’s Cry 

New Shonar Bangla Circus Rohingya Gaan

“Look up, my people, The dawn is breaking, The world is waking, To a new bright day, When none defame us, Nor colour shame us, Nor sneer dismay.”— from Song of Hope by Oodgeroo Noonuccal

April 13, 2018
Andy and Ian present a show about the stolen wealth of Australia with interviews by activists from Camp Freedom on Yugambeh Land.

Welcome to the Paradigm Shift on FM 102.1 4ZZZ Fridays at noon. We challenge the assumptions of our current society, to resist oppression and investigate alternative ways of living for a world based on justice, solidarity and sustainability. Follow the Paradigm Shift on facebook at facebook.com/PShiftonZed or listen to past shows at pshift4zzz.wordpress.com or soundcloud.com/ian-curr

Playlist
Chris Phillips My people my people LOCAL
A.B. Original Blaccout AUS
The Last Kinection Worth marching for feat Brothablack AUS
Dubmarine Spearchukka LOCAL
No Fixed Address Black man’s rights AUS