Sydney Social Forum

Dear Friends,

It's just under three weeks to go until the fourth Sydney Social Forum.

Unlike any other conference, the Sydney Social Forum is a do-it-yourself event. The SSF is not a series of "workshops" where panels of "experts" lecture to you. The SSF is an open space where maximum participation is encouraged. It's the participants who decide the content of the sessions, how they are run, and the issues that are discussed.

So what do you want to talk about? What are the issues that concern you?

Already, there have been a number of sessions registered covering a variety of topics, but there's still time for you to get involved and have a say.

You can register your session prior to the weekend, but you can also simply turn up on the day and be able to host one.

Below you can find out the hows and whys of getting you or your organisation involved and sharing your experiences and ideas in what will be a fantastic weekend for the social movements in our city.

Another Sydney is Possible!

SSF Organising Team
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4th SYDNEY SOCIAL FORUM
27-29 August 2005
Petersham West TAFE
Petersham Town Hall
The Sydney Mint

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WANT TO HOLD A SESSION AT THE SYDNEY SOCIAL FORUM?

ISSUES AND OUTCOMES Generally speaking, the weekend two days of the SSF are to discuss "where we're at" and "we're we want to be" in terms of community and workplace activism - to educate ourselves, share experiences, and try to arrive as possible outcomes, solutions, and strategies to make it happen.

WORKSHOP STYLE The SSF organising team is encouraging participants to think about the type of workshop you wish to hold, and how you might maximise the time-slot. For instance, you are encouraged to work out if you're going to hold an educational style workshop, or an activist style workshop. An "educational" workshop may be held lecture style, and is designed to allow those who may be new to an issue or new to activism to get a broader understanding. An "activist" workshop should be more dynamic, aimed at a particular constituency who may be more or less up to date with the area of concern. The aim should be maximum participation from those present. You might consider having a 5-10 minute intro followed by 20 minutes of discussion, 5 minutes from the front and further discussion etc. Try to think of how you can make the workshop "dynamic" and give yourself and participants the best chance of arriving at "outcomes".

THINK NETWORKING You are also encouraged to think beyond your particular issue or campaign area and consider how you could share the platform with other groups or speakers who may be able to contribute more broadly to a common area of interest. Remember, the SSF is not simply a "talk-fest", but an opportunity to network and broaden links among our social movements.

YOUR 4-STEP GUIDE TO HOLDING A WORKSHOP SESSION

1) GET REGISTERED You will need to be registered as an individual or an organisation to be able to hold a workshop.

2) WORK OUT YOUR TOPIC Think about the style of session you might hold in light of the suggestions above. Get in touch with other groups and maybe arrange a working group to identify the main issues in a particular area. For example, a number of environmental activists from different areas and organisations have formed a working group to discuss the most important issues regarding the environment and the best way to present and discuss them.

3) GET IN TOUCH WITH THE SSF ORGANISING TEAM We will take your workshop details and publicise them at the SSF website. Details required are: * workshop title * brief description about the aim of the workshop * who's speaking * proposed day/time * your contact details. We may also be able to put you in touch with others who may be considering a similar workshop, as well at let you know about any broad issue-based working groups which may be up and running. If there are particular time constraints (such as speaker availability), please indicate a possible time for your workshop.

4) PUBLICISE YOUR SESSION The SSF Organising Team does general publicity for the overall forum, but it's up to you to make sure that people know about your session. It's not safe to assume a "readymade audience" Get your friends and contacts to register for the weekend. Call and email all your contacts and anyone else who you want to attend your workshop and the SSF in general. Give them a leaflet or direct them to check out the SSF website. Following the final workshop deadline, a full publicity kit with PDF leaflets, posters, and rego forms will be available from the website. Just download, photocopy and start dishing them out!

ANY QUESTIONS?

If you have any questions or if you want to get hold of leaflets and posters etc, please contact the organising team.

Email: info@sydneysocialforum.org
Phone: Melanie 0403 051 606 or Vince 0438 800 244

Sydney Social Forum

By SSF posted 22 August 05

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Illegal and Degrading War

Teachers accused of anti-US bias
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State Terror

The Terrorism of ASIO Laws
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Social Services

Australian Greens Senator Responds To: Social Services Cuts
I am writing to you because I am concerned about people living in poverty in Australia. In Parliament, legislation will be introduced to put many people with disabilities and single parents on unemployment payments. If this law goes ahead unchanged, more people will live on less money after July 2006.

Corporate Welfare

Corporate welfare or how to steal social services?
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Unemployment

Work for the dole is legal slavery
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Military Spending

Howard: We as a nation have got to invest heavily in defence?
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Hill primed for war!
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Climate Change

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INDIGENOUS EMPLOYMENT: ISJA

If we want to survive we must work at it Indigenous unemployment reaching crisis: welfare group Action to lower Indigenous unemployment rate Govt underspends on indigenous employment: dept Economic development: The outback malaise Call for end to Indigenous welfare cycle.

Djadi - Dugarang - (T a l k S t r o n g T a l k L o u d)

INDIGENOUS EMPLOYMENT. Part 1

Another unemployable Federal Government job offer.

Editorial

Welcome to Newsletter #4 and to 2004. We can only hope that this is the year that, finally, a true advance can be made in all areas, including Sovereignty, Treaty and Social Justice, for all the Aborigines and Torres Strait Islanders of the Traditional Lands that make up Australia today.

Very much like Education, Employment, is a similar plank in the Practical Reconciliation example of wishful thinking that is spun to us by Howard as the only true way forward, a way that will lead Indigenous Australia to the Middle Class World of the white picket fence (and white history) view of Howard's Way. And, like Education the problems, and any positive results to those problems, is very much a mixed bag, a curate's egg.

Our job begins with news of yet another National Conference, albeit this one would treat the victims simply as that, victims. The Politics of Unemployment lie at the feet of the struggle between the ongoing push to lower wages versus the push to maintain a liveable wage. Profits over real job satisfaction.

Peter Botsman then challenges the King of the Verbal Vomit, John Laws, to stop "black bashing" and instead train an Aborigine to take his place. Sounds good to me and at least we would then get a more balanced view of the "Battlers of Struggle Street" so beloved of that other Paragon of Virtue, Alan Jones. Which bank?

Emeritus Professor Douglas, a medical epidemiologist, asks us to seriously look at the argument that "work" and what is seen to be "work" needs to be not only re-identified but also revalued as a Social norm.

The Federal Government's continuing underspending on Indigenous Employment Programmes is raised. Other National attempts to answer Indigenous unemployment are also looked at. Our review of the States and Territories will occur and, as usual, it is very much a parochial approach except for the CDEP Programmes that we will look at the completion of our working tour.

We begin in New South Wales, go to the Australian Capital Territory, on to Victoria, thence West Australia, the Northern Territory, and lastly a Report from Queensland . There are no Reports from Tasmania, South Australia or the Torres Strait Islands

Our way of teaching for employment is indicated in the Reports on the Tribal Warrior. Then comes the Final Word, a wrap-up from me and news of the next Newsletter.

So lets be at it. Unemployment has always been an important issue for Australians but especially so for Aborigines. When the 1968 Equal Wage Decision was handed down, Top End Aborigines and their Families quickly found themselves unemployed. This was a lash-back to those 'employed' on the Stations expecting to be paid the same wages as white employees. No job, no Land, their problem was the general view.

Aborigines in the larger country towns and the cities also virtually became unemployable, a situation that continues to this day. The Social 'Whammies' combined to totally work against Aborigines and led to them being always at the bottom of the pile for the positive outcomes but always the leaders in the adverse outcomes such as early deaths, high infant mortality, other health issues, gaols, etc. etc.

When I left school in 1956 there was what was considered to be full employment. One could virtually choose from a wide range of jobs, even 15 year olds such as I. Levels of 2% were seen as being far too high and all sorts of economic buttons were pushed, levers manipulated and wheels turned in an attempt to bring the numbers down. It was the age of working two or three jobs and being on the dole was a definite shame job. Except for a good chunk of us.

Now anything between 5 to 7 percent is considered to be 'full employment. Of course this is the grossly manipulated figure used by Governments. You are considered to be employed if you work 1 hour per week or are on a CDEP Programme. As we all know, the real unemployment level is at least 150% above the Government rate.

From about 1975 on, the unemployed level has been rising and becoming more and more entrenched. In answer to this problem there has been the seemingly endless Conferences on Unemployment and the search for the Fountain of Employment. A Conference at Newcastle University was part of that ongoing exercise. But the focus was different. It did not seek to cut wages, it did not seek to increase work hours, it did not blame the victims. What it also did not do was to applaud the fact that some 85%+ of the employable were employed.

Long ago, whilst working at the Shell Refinery we learnt that the structure of work was changing. More productivity with less workers. One Plant with a workforce of 15 per shift was reduced to 6 per shift whilst output more than doubled. We lost half of our Refinery workers. This happened in tens of thousands of workplaces and offices. We need to accept that our workforces will continue to be reduced by technology. There are answers but they are not conducive to the needs of Profit over People.

Enough! We move on.

Uni to host unemployment conference
THE University of Newcastle is hosting a national conference on unemployment this week, with delegates coming from countries around the world to discuss Australia's employment policy.

The director of Newcastle University's Centre of Full Employment and Equity, Bill Mitchell, says the conference will look at theoretical and applied approaches to reducing unemployment.

By Ray Jackson posted 14 January 04

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Retrospective Laws: Mesmerised like a chook syndrome
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Sydney Social Forum Oct 24-26

The Sydney Social Forum is to take place om October 24-26. Some of you may see this an opportunity to hold a workshop on your area of concern. I encourage everyone to participate. This is a great opportunity to learn about, share, and discuss a broad spectrum of issues that directly or indirectly affect us.

As a contact for your local Peace Group, we hope that you are in a position to help publicise and contribute to the second Sydney Social Forum (SSF), which is being held on October 24-26 at the University of Technology, Sydney.

Taking its inspiration from the World Social Forum which took place this year in Porto Alegre, Brazil, the Sydney Social Forum is an open series of meetings, workshops and discussions promoting peace, social justice and environmental sustainability.

In September 2002 the first Sydney Social Forum (SSF) was held, attracting over 400 people, the support of 35 organisations and over 70 workshops covering a broad range of topics and issues. Since that time, a number of events have made the need for collaboration and discussion even more urgent.

The war on Iraq has signalled an intensifying permanent war on the world's poor, adding more open unilateral military aggression to existing neo-liberal offensives conducted through organisations like the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank and World Trade Organisation.

In Australia, the Howard government's enthusiastic support for US foreign policy has been accompanied by increasing attacks on public health care and higher education, the continuation of a deplorable refugee policy, and a push for wider deregulation and privatisation as part of a Free Trade Agreement with the US.

On the other side, the worldwide movement against the war in Iraq and Sydney's largest ever political demonstration in February was also a spectacular expression of opposition to corporate greed and lack of democracy.

Within this context, the SSF aims generally to promote discussion of analyses of the state of the world, visions of an alternative world and strategies to get from one to the other.

We are hoping that you can publicise the forum through your networks and, even better, that you may decide to participate in discussion and perhaps even hold a workshop at the SSF it is an open forum accessible to all who wish to contribute.

If you would like further information about the SSF, please check some of the details below, contact me directly or visit the SSF website: Sydney Social Forum

We hope that you can participate in this year's event and assist in promoting activity for peace and social justice in our community. Yours in the belief that another world is possible,

Vince Caughley for the Sydney Social Forum Oganising Groupe vince@sydneysocialforum.org
p 0438 800 244

PROGRAM

SYDNEY SOCIAL FORUM
24-26 October 2003
University of Technology, Sydney (UTS) Tower

Opening Session:

IS THE AMERICAN EMPIRE UNSTOPPABLE?

Globalise Peace and Global Justice
Friday 24th October 7:00pm @ Guthrie Theatre, UTS (Enter off Harris Street) Entry $8/$5 (free for SSF registrants) The faltering operation in Iraq, the collapse of the Cancun WTO negotiations, increasing international resistance is the Empire beginning to crack? With international speakers:

DAVID BARSAMIAN
Award-winning director of Alternative Radio in the US. David has co-authored a number of books with eminent scholars such as Noam Chomsky, Edward Said and Arundhati Roy.

NICOLA BULLARD
Deputy-director of Focus on the Global South. Nicola is co- author along with Walden Bello of "Global Finance: New Thinking on Regulating Speculative Capital Markets".

ARIEL GUIDES
Representative from BMP (Solidarity of Filipino Workers), the largest trade union congress in the Philippines, and head of the Freedom from Hunger Coalition in Negros, covering 22,000 sugarworkers across 12 cities and towns.

For registration and programme information, visit

Sydney Social Forum

By Marlene Obeid posted 21 Oct 03

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