Weekend Wrap 12th December 2021: Qld to reopen, Omicron brings boosters forward, tornado exposes the brutality of US workplaces, inequality gets worse

"The Week on Wednesday" with Van Badham & Ben Davison

Ben Davison looks at Queensland reopening to other states in Australia with up to 50,000 cars predicted to make the journey into the sunshine state tomorrow. The Omicron variant of COVID has inspired regulators to bring forward booster shots from six months to five.

A tornado has devastated Kentucky and in the process exposed some major fault-lines in US workplaces. With 70 killed in a candle factory, six killed in an Amazon facility and many more still to be located the callous indifference of Jeff Bezos, who owns much of Amazon, has enraged many observers.

This has happened as Kellogg has attempted to replace its 1,400 striking workers in what US President Joe Biden has called an attack on workers and said he would support laws to make replacement workers illegal. Redditors, from social media platform Reddit, effectively overwhelmed the Kellogg online application system stopping the companies attack, for now.

Ben contrasts the US political leadership on worker conditions with Australian reactions to workers asking for decent wages, secure jobs and safe conditions.

Back home print workers at the West Australian took a four hour stoppage action and the billion dollar company responded by locking the workers out of their jobs. The NSW government has attacked teachers and transport workers looking for fairer pay and more secure work and Scott Morrison has attempted to blame dock workers for the failure of globalisation to provide during the pandemic and his own government's lack of domestic industry policy.

Unsurprisingly this is all culminating in higher inequality, lower wages and richer billionaires in Australia.