First Contestant - a Dudette |
The campaign was launched in Wollongong yesterday - one of the growth areas for call centres - to coincide with the release of a survey into the attitudes of call centre works and the push for minimum standards in the industry.
Unions have taken up the dude motif, after One.Tel workers turned to the CPSU for help after the Telco went bust last month. After union intervention, the workers secured redundancy pay.
They are now looking for a Dude look-alike to use in campaigns and promotions and are inviting potential Dudes to send a photo to [email protected] The first nominee, Elizabeth, shows there is no gender barrier to being a Dude.
Unions NSW has also launched a poster and postcard campaign, which will be distributed across call centres and campuses - a rich source of call centre workers.
Under the Hammer
The launch came one day after Labor Council took on the top end of town in bidding for One.Tel paraphernalia at the official liquidation auction.
We went head to head with the final buyer of the life-size Dude, who himself ran a liquidation business called the Repo Depo.
We pulled out at $1500, leaving the asset-stripper to take away the curio. He later offered us rental of the Dude, but we decided to find a live one instead.
Watch this space for more details of the competition.
The Labor Government's use of regional development funds was placed under the microscope at the launch of the South Coast call centre campaign in Wollongong this week.
In Stellar's case, more than ... was provided by the Department of State and Regional Development. The centre which is half-owned by Telstra, contracts for public and private sector work - but workers receive $12,000 less under individual contracts that workers within Telstra performing similar work.
The South Coast Labor Council's Arthur Rorris said the funding for Stellar exposed problems in the way public moneys were dispensed.
"While we welcome employment to our region, we believe the jobs have to be decent and dignified," Rorris says.
Unions have also renewed their calls for Premier Bob Carr to sign on to the ACTU Call Centre Code of Conduct and Minimum Standards Code.
Under this agreement, all public sector agencies would be required top ensure centres met minimum pay, OHS and freedom of association standards before being awarded state government work.
Labor Council secretary john Robertson says he has raised the issue directly with the Premier, who has accepted the merits of a Code of Conduct in principle.
by Mark Brownlow
While directing Video Coordinators to work their meal breaks Optus paid them for working the meal breaks but would not provide meal breaks for the staff on a regular basis.
Most of the workers accepted this arrangement due to the flexibility of having short breaks at other times during their shift including being able to get to the canteen to get some refreshments.
Recently Optus decided that the Coordinators should not get those flexible breaks. Unfortunately when Optus took the flexibility of the short breaks away they refused to grant the workers meal breaks to which they were entitled under the enterprise agreement.
In a wonderful display of collective action, in a previously unorganised area, workers and their union (NSW T&S Branch of the CEPU) at the VOC organised a campaign including a petition demanding their entitlements and used the dispute settling procedures of the enterprise agreement to pursue their rights.
Optus management were mystified at why there was such an uproar about meal breaks when the staff were being paid for working them and that the arrangements had been working for 5 years or so. Many of the workers when fronted by the bosses individually felt intimidated about expressing their concerns and some didn't.
The union wrote to Optus outlining the breach of the enterprise agreement in not granting meal breaks and followed up with further correspondence detailing specific evidence of the breach and implying that court action would proceed.
And then all of a sudden; guess what? - Hey Presto, meal breaks are now being granted, rosters implemented to ensure meal breaks and new positions being created to ensure adequate staffing levels to enable meal breaks to be granted consistently. Optus certainly didn't want to go to the Australian Industrial Relations Commission (AIRC) on this one.
And of course Optus will deny that the union had any role in ensuring that members entitlements were provided to them. Individuals had repeatedly tried to have meal breaks given in accordance with the enterprise agreement but management refused to provide them on a regular basis. What is important is that the members know who helped them and who achieved the end result. If there was no union involvement then there would still be no meal breaks.
All in all a magnificent result for the VOC members and their union in ensuring that employees entitlements and rights are protected.
ACI Penrith appeared in Penrith Local Court this week charged with the offences under Workplace Video Surveillance legislation, one of the first cases brought under the laws.
Workers at ACI found a hidden video surveillance camera in their First Aid room before Christmas last year and confronted management with their discovery.
More than 300 workers then downed tools and refused to return to work until the camera was removed and there was an assurance that there were no other similar cameras at the site. Management did finally admit to installing the camera and agreed to write employees with an apology.
Workers at ACI were horrified to discover that the camera had been in place and monitored by male observers during times when female employees had been trying on uniforms, or being treated for injuries or illnesses that required them to undress.
The Australian Manufacturing Workers' Union, which represents many of the ACI workers, is demanding that heavier penalties be imposed.
"It seems that if you are a sporting personality or celebrity caught on celluloid, then the penalty is hundreds of thousands of dollars" AMWU State Secretary Paul Bastian says.
"But if you're an ordinary worker, filmed without your knowledge while you're at your most vulnerable, then that's different."
Bastian says that workers at ACI had told the Union that they felt violated after the hidden camera was exposed.
"These women don't know who saw the tapes or what was on them. They don't know if copies were made, or where the tapes are now"
"They are embarrassed to even walk into the manager's office now much less use the First Aid room ever again" said Mr Bastian
"If management seriously thought that they needed to install video surveillance of their First Aid room they could have sought permission from a magistrate"
"The fact that they did not seek permission can only be because they knew they had no grounds for the application."
The AMWU has written to the Attorney General and Minister for Industrial Relations asking for a meeting to discuss the entire ACI affair and the immediate introduction of tougher penalties for employers who breached the current legislation.
"If employers think that they can get away with this sort of obscenity with nothing more than a $500 fine, then no worker can ever feel safe at work again," Bastian says.
"The Government must get tough and it must do it now
The recommendation, to the Sheahan Inquiry into workers compensation common law, is one of a series of initiatives that trade unions argue would bring scheme costs under control.
The joint trade union submission argues that Common Law rights should be maintained to ensure workers can sue negligent employers. But it says that a special levy would act as an incentive to improve safety and ensure that employers with good safety records do not have to pay for others' negligence.
Currently, the WorkCover Authority pays all common law claims - even when these amount to millions of dollars.
While employers who are liable face increased premiums, a $150,000 cap applies - meaning the balance must be absorbed by other employers. The Submission argues this 'Large Claims Cap' should be increased to $240,000 - the average common law settlement.
Labor Council secretary John Robertson said today the increased cap, along with the safety levy, would act as a real incentive to make workplaces safer.
"Until the costs of providing an unsafe workplace exceed the costs of making it safer, there is no real incentive to improve workplace safety," Mr Robertson said.
The union submission suggests WorkCover could impose a points system for safety breaches such as applies with motor vehicle drivers. Points would be deducted for:
- failing to meet minimum standards under the Occupational Health and Safety Act
- failing to comply with WorkCover notices
- failing to implement standard Risk Management procedures.
Other recommendations include:
- greater action by WorkCover to clearly identify and provide evidence of any inappropriate legal practices.
- Statutory benefits to be increased to decrease the incentive to take common law action
by Andrew Casey
The UK's biggest union, the 700,000 member GMB, will be using the LHMU's agreement with Australian company Cleanevent as the model for negotiations.
"Our argument is that four pounds an hour is poverty pay in Wimbledon, which is one of the riches areas in the UK, and where a one bedroom apartment costs around 200,000 pound," Geoff Martin, the cleaners' spokesman told Workers Online.
" The rates of pay Australian cleaners equates to between seven pounds and eight pounds an hour UK. We will be pressing for parity."
Cleanevent, an Australian multinational operating in the UK and the USA, has just won the tender to clean up Wimbledon after the champers and strawberry set move on.
But according to the Wimbledon union activists Cleanevent cut their members' wages by a third, from six pounds an hour to four pounds an hour.
The LHMU, in a small act of solidarity, sent a hero-gram to Pat Rafter's managers just before he started playing Goran Ivanisevic.
" Australia's cleaning union hopes Pat Rafter comes up trumps at Wimbledon tonight," the message said.
" We're hoping he'll come up trumps not just for himself but also the Wimbledon cleaners who have just had their pay cut by a third by an Australian company," Jo-anne Schofield, the LHMU Cleaning Union Assistant National Secretary said.
" While Wimbeldon evokes strawberries, champagne and money the cleaners have had their wages drastically cut by Australian contract cleaning company, Cleanevent, who won the tender this year for this prestigious event.
" Pat Rafter has a marvelous reputation for decency and believing in the Aussie fair-go. As he receives the $1 million-plus prize money for the men's single event tonight we hope Pat will stand up for the cleaners, the battlers, who had their pay cut by a third .
" We would love to see Pat Rafter tell Cleanevent not to sully Australia's reputation for decency and a fair-go,"Jo-anne Schofield said.
In the end Rafter didn't get a chance to make the winner's speech but the GMB e-mailed the LHMU to thank them for the support - and get as much information as possible about Cleanevent who, they said, was refusing to sign a union recognition agreement.
The GMB's members had stood outside the gates of Wimbeldon handing out flyers protesting that while the prize money for the women's crown has gone up by 7%, the price of strawberries, Pimms, official towels and posters have all gone up - the wages of the cleaners has been cut from six pounds an hour to four pounds an hour.
A cleaner at a Wimbledon-style event in Australia could expect to earn between $18.50 an hour and $21 an hour.
"Cleanevent does have a tendency to adopt aggressive tendering practices for high profile events, but this is tempered by an Enterprise Bargaining Agreement the company has with unions covering events in NSW and Victoria.
" At the Sydney Olympics the union movement was able to stop price-cutting tenderers by successfully putting in a floor under wages with a safety-net Award.
" Cleaners should not be expected to pay for the company's profits by having their wages cut."
What the BBC said
Read the BBC story on Wimbeldon and the dispute with the Cleaners' Union in London just click here.
by Paddy Gorman
In a test case that has taken over two years to decide, the Australian Industrial Relations Commission this week found Rio Tinto guilty of unfairly dismissing 11 coal mineworkers on 20 October 1998 and ordered their reinstatement along with full backpay.
The Hunter Valley decision comes just three months after Rio Tinto was found guilty of victimising coal mineworkers at its Blair Athol mine in Central Queensland in June 1998. In that case, the Commission also ordered Rio Tinto to reinstate the sacked coal mineworkers and pay them for lost wages back to the day of their unfair dismissals.
The decision was welcomed by CFMEU Mining and Energy General President Tony Maher and Northern District President Mick Watson who called on Rio Tinto to immediately settle the outstanding 183 cases involving coal mineworkers sacked by the company using the same unfair dismissal system at its Hunter Valley No.1 and Mt Thorley mines.
"Rio Tinto has been found guilty of victimising coal mineworkers in NSW and Queensland. It is time the company brought this sordid episode to an end. This was a test case. The 10 found to be unfairly dismissed were subjected to the same system by which another 97 mineworkers at Hunter Valley No.1 and a further 86 at Mt Thorley were victims of.
"These mineworkers and their families have suffered enough hardship and stress in the past two-and-a-half years. It is time that Rio Tinto put an end to the agony endured by these 183 victims whose cases are still outstanding. We call on the company to show some decency and settle the issue now", Watson says.
The 110 Hunter Valley No.1 mineworkers were suddenly dismissed on 20 Oct 1998 and escorted off the lease like criminals by security guards. The unfair dismissal claims were immediately lodged by the Union and hearings began in March 1999. The Commission sat for 57 hearing days before finishing on 30 June last year.
The 86 Mt Thorley mineworkers were similarly dismissed in December1999 and also escorted like criminals off the lease. They were subjected to the same discredited system that has been exposed at Hunter Valley and Blair Athol. Their case is still before the Commission.
by Jan Primrose
Over the past two years unions have been warning the Federal Government that workers have very little protection of their entitlements when companies fail.
Recent months have seen a series of high profile company collapses including National Textiles, STP, One Tel, HIH, Harris Scarf and others, with millions of dollars in workers' entitlements being lost.
The Australian Manufacturing Workers' Union has responded to the crisis by establishing an Industry Trust Fund called Manusafe, which allows employees' entitlements to be safely deposited on a regular basis, so that in the event of company collapse the entitlements are safe.
The scheme has the additional advantage of allowing workers to change jobs but have full portability of their entitlements. The money deposited in the Fund is invested and profits can then be used for training schemes and job creation projects. A similar scheme to protect long service leave works very successfully in the construction industry.
Members of the AMWU are so committed to Manusafe that it is now a key part of their current campaign on wages and conditions.
Workers at Maintrain, who build and maintain a large part of the State's passenger rail fleet are not prepared to take a risk on their future security. While they are still negotiating on a number of issues in their Enterprise Agreement, they are not prepared to back down on the issue of Manusafe.
AMWU State Secretary, Paul Bastian said that the Federal Government had failed to take responsibility for introducing legislation to protect workers facing the loss of their entitlements.
"When workers at National Textiles lost all their entitlements the Prime Minister promised to take action to protect other workers"
"All we have seen is the introduction of the Federal Government's mean and degrading Employee Entitlement Scheme"
"Under this Scheme, workers have to wait months for any payment, and then all they get is less than one third of what they are actually owed."
"Workers have a right to 100% of what they are owed by their employer - not one cent less!" said Mr Bastian
The request for a case before the NSW Industrial Relations Commission follows official confirmation in recent days that the nurse shortage in New South Wales is now so serious it is forcing bed closures and service cuts.
NSW Nurses General Secretary Sandra Moait says the nurse shortage has been caused by a number of things, but relatively poor wages are a major cause.
"Compared with other health professionals, nurse wages have started to fall behind in recent years," Moait says.
She says wages for experienced general ward nurses - Registered Nurses Year 8 - are now more than $70.00 per week or nearly $4000.00 per year behind those for allied health workers, such as occupational therapists, speech therapists or physiotherapists at a similar stage of their career.
"This definitely makes nursing a lot less attractive to school leavers and is undermining the morale of many working nurses," Moait says.
Nurses argue the special Industrial Commission case should deals specifically with nursing, so that these anomalies can be removed.
The current round of public sector pay rises, which nurses share with all other government employees, is no longer enough. Nursing needs special attention or our health services will be in worse trouble before long.
"The NSWNA is currently running an Industrial Commission case to improve working conditions for nurses. This is also vital to overcoming the nurse shortage, as are a number of other NSWNA initiatives such as lobbying the Federal Government for HECS relief for student nurses.
The current public-sector pay agreement with the State Government prevents the union initiating a pay case at this time.
But under Section 167 of the Industrial Relations Act Minister Della Bosca has the power to initiate proceedings, and the Nurses are in no doubt the time has come for this to be done.
"A similar nurse-wages case in 1985 helped overcome a serious nurse shortage at that time," Moait says.
by Andrew Casey
" It means I don't have to beg to get the time to work to represent our members ," says Pam, who works as a Tip Top merchandiser. ( They're the people who pack the fresh bread onto our supermarket shelves every day).
" It is in black-and-white. I've got rights to take the time to do work for my people. It's going to make an important difference for all of us."
ACTU Congress last year declared that achieving delegates rights was a top priority issue for the union movement. The Congress adopted a Charter of Workplace Union Delegate Rights and urged all unions to negotiate these rights into enterprise agreements.
The Tip Top agreement will be the fourth major enterprise agreement negotiated this year by the LHMU which includes union rights' clauses.
Giving delegates' access
The LHMU members Pam Ray represents, as the Tip Top merchandiser delegate, are spread out across most of NSW from Tweed Heads in the North, out west to Narrabri and down to the Central Coast.
This new recognition of union delegates' rights is part of an enterprise agreement being negotiated between the LHMU and Tip Top.
It will give Pam access to company telephones, faxes and photo-copying to keep in touch with her widely spread out members.
As well Pam and other union delegates will be given important representation rights when workers face warning and counselling sessions from management.
Final stages in talks
All LHMU Tip Top members will vote on the Tip Top delegates' rights charter as part of a completed enterprise agreement, which is now in the final stages of negotiation between the Company and a Union team of negotiators.
The next set of meetings with the company are scheduled for July 26 and 27, with the current Tip Top agreement running out on August 1, 2001.
Mark Boyd LHMU NSW Assistant Secretary explains: " If we are truly going to turn the LHMU into an organising union we need to empower our workplace delegates.
" The best way to do this is to get union rights clauses written into all our agreements to enhance the role of delegates in the workplace.
"The union believes the company acknowledges the importance of an effective role for the LHMU in representing workers' interests," Mark Boyd said.
"There are benefits to everyone from a collective voice dealing not just with industrial matters but general issues which arise on a day-to-day basis."
Winning delegates' rights
The LHMU is committed to winning union delegates rights at all our workplaces.
The Tip Top breakthrough is the fourth such agreement this year where new and extensive Union Rights clauses have been written into enterprise agreements.
LHMU union delegates at Wattyl Paints, Hotel IBIS and the Starwood Hotels group have won similar rights this year.
" Certain basic delegates' rights are essential to the ability to organise and will be pursued in all our bargaining of new agreements," Mark Boyd said.
"Our attitude is that the new Tip Top union rights' clauses are just the first step and, incrementally, we will seek to improve the rights of our workplace delegates in future enterprise agreement bargaining rounds."
The Tip Top enterprise agreement allows the LHMU to organise workers on the premises with delegates given paid leave to speak to all new employees as part of the induction program to explain the role of the union and benefits of union membership.
As part of this agreement the company will allow union delegates to attend, without loss of pay, approved training courses.
More info about the LHMU's campaigns for delegates rights
Click here to find out more about what it means to be an LHMU Delegate.
Or if you want to know something about the LHMU's Delegates Rights campaigns click here to read the South Australian Charter of Delegates Rights.
You can also read the ACTU Delegates Rights Charter here. What's your view on delegate rights
Have you heard of web-cams being used in the workplace?.
Write a note in the LHMU Guest Book by clicking here.
by Dale Keeling
They have also called on Telstra and the Government to ensure that the company is retained intact to work on network modernisation.
The President of the Communications Division of the Communications, Electrical and Plumbing Union, Colin Cooper, said that the union welcomed the decision.
"We have been campaigning against an NDC sell-off for months", Mr. Cooper said." The company represents a core skill base for Telstra and for the whole nation. It should always have been retained within the company."
"There was also no doubt that a lot of those skills would have been stripped out of the company if it had been sold off. The short-term commercial pressures operating on the construction industry would have seen to that.'
"The losses would have been felt particularly keenly in regional areas, where many of the NDC staff are based."
"The challenge now is to see that the skill base represented by NDC is kept intact. There is of course a downturn in the industry - that's one of the reasons the sale fell through. But there's still plenty of work to the done on the national network - especially if we want to be a Knowledge Nation - and these are the people best able to do it."
CEO resigns
An announcement to the stock exchange is expected today confirming that the proposed deal between Telstra and Leightons for the purchase of NDC Ltd. has fallen through. At the same time NDC Ltd. CEO Bob Pentecost has announced his resignation from NDC Ltd. His place has been taken by Senior Telstra Manager, Phil Hastings.
The CEPU is seeking urgent talks with senior Telstra management in a bid to secure ongoing employment for all NDC Ltd. CEPU members.
It is the view of the CEPU that there is more than enough work available through E71s, deferred applicants and the upgrading of the deteriorating Telstra network to ensure ongoing employment of all NDC CEPU members.
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The colourful event is part of the rolling industrial campaign against the banks by members of the Finance Sector Union.
The Grim Reaper and a Vampire were on hand for a funeral procession through the suburban streets, with the Grim Reaper eulogising the lost staff. before union members join in for a wake lunch.
The Finance Sector Union's Mel Gatfield says members at the Epping centre were protesting increased workloads and lack of staff.
"Some members have recently had their work targets increased by 300 per cent - this impacts on their work and the level of service to the public."
by Zoe Reynolds
Surfing legend Australian longboard champion Wayne Deane will be competing at the Whalebone Classic surf riding competition at Cottesloe, WA, alongside other top talent including four times state champion Chris Fullston.
Greenpeace, the MUA and the International Transport Workers� Federation are sponsoring the competition under the banner safer ships, cleaner seas.
The event will kick off at 10am with MUA seafarer and surfer Cai Wernblom covering himself in �oil� to show the world how a shipping disaster would impact on our beaches.
'It�s great to see the union backing this event,' said champion surf rider Wayne Deane. 'One of the reasons I'm here is because I'm an environmentalist. It's shocking the way they let some of these foreign ships run down. You know they are going to go down at any time. It' s almost as if you have to shock people into realising what�s happening.�
Chris Fullston, state champion and Margaret River Classic winner still remembers when the Kirki broke up: 'I was a professional fishermen at the time and it threatened my livelihood. I�ve surfed overseas in oceans polluted by crude oil spills. You get black goo all over your board like tar. The union campaign is really a good thing for the environment.'
The Kirki broke up in 1991 and almost wiped out every beach and cray fishing area for hundreds of miles. This year alone there�s been around a dozen major shipping disasters including the Jessica in Galapagos island reserve in January,the Kristal off Spain in February and the Xana off the Greek coast in May. And let�s not forget the near miss with the Bunga Teratai Satu on our Great Barrier Reef last November.
'Yet the Federal Government is opening up our coast to more and more of these substandard ships and inviting just such a disaster, here,' said MUA spokesperson Wally Pritchard.
The Communications Electrical Plumbing Union has placed Australia Post on for removing three postmen from the Stockton Delivery Centre by contracting out their jobs.
This action taken by Australia Post Management follows two years of disputes between Australia Post and Postal Workers by replacing permanent full-time jobs with part-time, fixed-term and casual employment.
The CEPU is about to commence negotiations with Australia Post for a new wage deal that will cover some 13,000 Postal Workers throughout New South Wales.
CEPU state secretary Jim Metcher says members have listed Job Security as their top priority in a recent survey conducted by the Union with its Postal membership.
"Over the past two years, 2,000 permanent full-time Postal Workers' jobs have disappeared in New South Wales alone," Methcer says.
"Australia Post Management are reported describing Postal Workers as 'BLUDGERS' and 'WILD ANIMALS THAT HAD TO BE KEPT AT BAY' despite productivity gains twice the national average." Metcher says this is not the general public view of their local Postie
" People in regional Western Australia are incensed about the way this government is mishandling Aged Care issues," LHMU Aged Care Union organiser Alison Bunting said.
" Dollars for Aged Care has been cut so much that now employers are using it as an excuse to not pay our members properly."
A newly built 48-bed aged care $7 mill facility has stood empty for three months because the employer won't open the doors of the centre while he demands a cut to the wages of aged care workers.
Meanwhile elderly people are being forced to stay at the 30-year-old Forrest Lodge facility.
" Bronwyn Bishop has become the symbol of all that has gone wrong in Aged Care," Alison said, after yet another rural town meeting on this issue.
Bronwyn a Target
" She is making herself into the target because she so obviously does not understand why people are angry."
Alison said she was disappointed with the 25-minute meeting at Bunbury Airport the Minister set aside to meet aged care workers and their union.
The Minister waved to a group of 50 protesters standing behind a wall of placards outlining their anger about the on-going dispute at the new aged care home.
" Mrs Bishop appeared to have a closed mind when it came to listening to our members' and their grievances," Alison Bunting said after she talked to the Minister.
Aged Care LHMU activists and community members organised the rally in Bunbury to greet the Minister, who was on a flying visit to the state.
Bunbury is in the Federal electorate of Forrest, held by the Coalition's Geoff Prosser, with a five per cent margin.
Aged Care an Election Issue
The LHMU is working hard to make Aged Care an election issue this year.
Alison Bunting is working with local community groups to organise meetings around this issue.
In Albany this week more than 80 people turned up to a community hall meeting to discuss how they can help in an Aged Care campaign.
The State Government and Moran Health Care Group are to go to arbitration over pay and conditions for the workers.
" The Moran Health Group has yet to open the facility because they want to reduce the wages of the Aged Care workers by between $50 to $150 a fortnight.," Alison Bunting said.
Mrs Bishop met union officials, workers and a daughter of a Forrest Lodge resident about the dispute but refused to make a commitment or take a stance saying the question of pay and conditions was an issue between Moran and its staff.
by Andrew Casey
Slavica Noveska is a cleaner employed by the cleaning contractor LIMRO at the Calvary Hospital where she has worked for six years.
Slavica's workmates and other unionists staged a demonstration outside Calvary Hospital to support her. This demo was widely reported on the local TV news and in the Canberra Times. Hospital staff including nurses, doctors and scientists signed a petition in support of Slavica .
Last January Slavica applied to take her annual leave in July /August so she could go on a trip to Macedonia for a family reunion which was taking place at the time of her niece's wedding.
She was very excited about the trip and one of the people she was looking forward to seeing (for the first time ) was her 4 year old nephew.
Her employer LIMRO refused to give her leave at the time she wanted insisting that she take it when it suited the company.
Slavica's workmates said they would have no problem doing her work while she went on leave and LIMRO should let her go.
The LHMU took her case to the Industrial Relations Commission where there were two conciliation conferences.
LIMRO continued to refuse to give Slavica leave saying she couldn't go in July because of "operational reasons". The IRC ordered LIMRO to give Slavica her leave.
The Commissioner hearing the dispute was critical of LIMRO and one of the things the Commissioner said in her Decision was that LIMRO was unwilling to explain the operational reasons (even to the Commission) behind the refusal to give Slavica her leave when she wanted it.
"Could it be that there were no operational reasons? Could it be that it was simply a case of managerial prerogative gone feral?," Yvette Berry, ACT LHMU Cleaning Union organiser, asked today.
" Well our members showed them that they were wrong and the Commission told them they were wrong. Now all cleaners in the ACT have at least some protection against unreasonable bosses.
" On the union's application the Commission has put in the Award that The employer must not unreasonably refuse a request for accrued annual leave".
Australian Bureau of Statistics figures released yesterday show business expenditure on R&D fell by another 3% in the 1999/2000 year to $4.05 billion - 15.6% lower than its peak in 1995/96 when the Howard Government was first elected.
The figures come after this week's ANZ job ads survey recorded its lowest level for four years, sparking fears that unemployment will exceed 7% in today's official Labour Force statistics.
"Australia under John Howard has slipped down the OECD table of investment in future industries to become one of the worst performing nations in the developed world," ACTU President Sharan Burrow said today.
"Smart countries like Finland, Japan and the United States are spending more than three times as much on business R&D than Australia. In the OECD, only Hungary, Poland, Spain and Italy invest less than us as a proportion of GDP.
"This makes a mockery of the so-called Knowledge Society announcement by the Federal Government yesterday. Not one extra cent in new investment is being provided," Ms Burrow said.
The R&D figures confirmed the Federal Labor Party's Knowledge Nation report finding that Australia was underspending on education and innovation by between 1.2% and 2% of GDP compared to the OECD average.
"This proves that under the five years of the Howard Government, Australia has spent between $40 billion and $60 billion less than the OECD average on education and innovation," Ms Burrow said.
The failure of the Howard Government to develop industry policy had resulted in rising unemployment, a fall-off in key export growth and downward pressure on the Australian dollar.
Indonesian-media have carried stories this week - instigated by the Shangri-La hotel management - claiming the whole campaign was created and funded by the Sydney-based Asia-Pacific regional office of the hotel workers' union international, the IUF.
The long-time leader of the Shangri-La union Halilintar Nurdin
surprised his former comrades by holding a joint media conference with the hotel management blaming the dispute on the Geneva-based IUF .
The Jakarta Post this week reported that Halilintar regretted the industrial action and said that he and his colleagues had been exploited by a foreign party.
He singled out the IUF who he said donated US$10,000 between March and April as an expression of solidarity with his union.
Leader changes sides
Halintar announced he had changed sides and accepted three months severance pay money and waived any further claims against the company.
Halintar has obviously come under a lot of duress in the eight months since the dispute first started.
His decision to swap sides must be understood in this context - especially in an industrial and political climate where thugs roam around bashing and killing union activists.
But these statements by Halintar have the potential to reverberate throughout the country.
Especially now as Indonesia lurches towards a final coup d'etat against President Wahid who has in his short term in power created a democratic space under which independant unions have thrived.
It must be kept in mind that in Indonesia nationalism ( and anti-communism) has, in the not too distant past, taken murderous forms.
In the current heated atmosphere, with the country poised on the brink , naming individuals and an organization (the Shangri-La union) as agents of a foreign power clearly exposes union members to the risk of violence.
Burning left literature
Ultra-nationalists and Islamic fundamentalists have in recent months trashed bookstores and carried away for burnings books and newspapers which they deem to be communist and left-wing or promoting foreign-values hostile to the interests of Indonesia.
The Asia-Pacific regional secretary for the IUF, Ma Wei Pin, has vigorously contested Halintar Nurdin's reported comments :
" These statements have claimed that the IUF is an illegitimate party to the dispute, that the Shangri-La dispute is effectively over and that negotiation for compensation for the remaining dismissed workers continues.
" Such statements are incorrect and vigorously contested by the IUF.
" The IUF, as an international labour federation of unions, which the SPMS is affiliated to through its membership to the Indonesian Independent Hotel Workers Federation (FSPM), was responsible and duty bound to come to the aid of the SPMS when it was brutally attacked. This aid will remain constant for so long as the attack continues.
Int'l solidarity
" The IUF is not a "third party" as alleged, but very much a part of the SPMS and vice versa. Moreover, any support the IUF renders for the SPMS, either financial or otherwise, is an expression of solidarity by one section of the organisation to another.
" It is mischievous and misleading to suggest that the IUF has no right to assist or no responsibility to the SPMS, whose members and families are in need of food.
" As a result of Management's persistent actions to maintain the protracted lock-out of workers and deny them their capacity to earn a living, the IUF took the view that it could not stand by while the members and families of its affiliate were starved into submission, simply because the Shangri-La workers sought to be represented by a union of their choice, a right guaranteed under Indonesian law.
" The IUF questions the assertion that the Shangri-La Management is still negotiating with the remaining locked-out workers.
" There is no genuine negotiation taking place. The union is totally ignored by the Shangri-La Management, whose actions on industrial relations issues are led by the Lyman group, a major shareholder of the hotel.
" Instead, workers are being approached, one by one or in small groups, to accept offers of compensation to give up the struggle for their jobs and their rights."
New leadership
Meanwhile the Shangri-La workers who are still in dispute have elected a new leadership and have decided to continue their struggle - with the full support of the IUF.
In the eight months of this dispute there has been attrition over time, with many workers accepting the money, but their is still a commitment to continue the struggle by Shangri-La hotel workers.
Valentino Wagiyo, the new leader of the union, said they were consulting with lawyers to explore the possibility of suing the hotel in their campaign to be rehired under better contracts.
Valentino said management had refused a number of requests to meet with his organization, now renamed the Shangri-La Labor Union, to negotiate.
The union also denied Halilintar's claim that the IUF was behind the industrial action.
"Halilintar does not represent all of the members of the union, and his statement was misleading," said Oddie Hudiyanto a member of the union.
History of the dispute
To get more details of this on-going industrial dispute in Indonesia visit the LabourStart Shangri-La Solidarity page
Applicants are invited to submit an outline or summary or treatment of about 2000 words of the proposed play. Entries close 31 August 2001.
The prize is a joint initaitve of the Mick Young Scholarship Trust and NIDA.
For full details contact Tonya Grelis at NIDA on 9697 7604 or mailto:[email protected]
******************
Mick Young, whom this Scholarship commemorates, was a remarkable Australian political figure. Much of his boyhood was spent helping his mother to care for her family of seven boys. He was therefore deprived of a full education himself, leaving school in the early 1950s at what was then intermediate level. Mick, however, never lost respect for education, nor his appreciation of its importance for young people of all backgrounds.
Having completed his own enforcedly brief education, Mick worked briefly in Sydney and then headed for western New South Wales where he became a shearer. With this, he began a career unique in Australian Labor Party history. From an ordinary beginning, Mick went on to fill every position from lowest to highest in the Australian Labor movement.
As a shearer, he was a rank and file member of the Australian Workers' Union. In 1956, he became an organiser with that Union. Later, his talent was recognised and he was recruited as an organiser for the Labor Party in Adelaide, became Assistant State Secretary and later State Secretary in that State. In 1969, he became Labor's Federal Secretary, possibly the most successful the Party has known.
Mick's elevation came at a critical time for the Party. For the first time in a generation, there were signs that Labor, having lost office in 1949, might once again become the Government. With the new Labor leader, Gough Whitlam, he guided Labor to victory in the 1972 Federal election - its first in 23 years. Whitlam paid tribute to Mick's role in this success at his funeral in 1996 when he described Mick as "the good luck which Labor had to have".
Mick entered Federal Parliament as an ALP member in 1974 for the seat of Port Adelaide, became a Minister in Government regained in 1983 and was also Leader of the House during this successful period. In 1987, he realised his final ambition, becoming President of the ALP.
Mick began work helping needy people in the field of education while he was still the Member for Port Adelaide. His family, friends and supporters decided it would be fitting to carry on the work in his name after his premature death in April 1996. Mick at the time was 59.
Another Galbraith Comes to Town
Perhaps the foremost US thinker on wage inequality, James K. Galbraith is visiting Sydney thanks to South Australia's Hawke Institute and the newly formed Whitlam Institute run by Peter Botsman.
Galbraith will be speaking on "Inequality" at Parramatta's Riverside Theatres at 6.30pm on Wednesday, July 25.
This is a not to be missed event for anyone involved in wage bargaining and general trade union and community issues. Professor Galbraith is the son of the illustrious J.K. Galbraith.
************************
Politics in the Pub
THIS SUNDAY at 2pm
CHIPPO POLITICS AT THE GLENGARRY HOTEL
Lawson street redfern
BILL LEAK CARTOONIST FOR THE AUSTRALIAN NEWSPAPER AND ARCHIBALD ENRANT WILL SPEAK ABOUT "THE IMPORTANCE OF THE ARTS IN A SPORTS MAD CPOUNTRY AS OURS' as well as some of the best fosters and company in Sydney.
any more info 0416 347 501
********************
PEOPLES PROTEST CO-ORDINATION ALLIANCE
(A coalition of concerned citizens)
COME AND RALLY AGAINST OUR "MEAN AND TRICKY" PRIME MINISTER
12 NOON - THURSDAY 19TH JULY 2001
PRIME MINISTER'S ELECTORAL OFFICE, 230 VICTORIA ROAD (CNR JORDAN STREET), GLADESVILLE
SPEAKERS INCLUDE: DR CON COSTA (DOCTORS REFORM) CHRIS OSBORNE (S.M.A.R.T.S.) HARVEY VOLKE (SHELTER) and ROGER JOWETT (NATIONAL SECRETARY R.T.B.U.)
For Further Information: Morrie Mifsud 02 9281 3588
********************
EMILY's List Supports Record Number of Labor Women Candidates
On Saturday, July 14, EMILY's List Australia will begin the NSW stage of its Federal election campaign to elect a record number of Labor women to Parliament.
Cheryl Davenport, co-convenor of EMILY's List Australia, announced the EMILY's List endorsement of 19 candidates in New South Wales and financial support for six contesting marginal seats and seven in hard to win seats. All new candidates will be offered training, mentoring and campaign assistance.
Joan Kirner, Former Premier of Victoria, said: "EMILY's List is delighted that, in partnership with the Australian Labor Party in this election, we will have hit an all time record for Labor women candidates and, with a swing to the Labor Party of just two per cent, Labor will both win government and have a record number of women in Federal Parliament (up from 35 to at least 45).
"In total, EMILY's List is proud to be able to support 52 progressive Labor women candidates (as at 23 June, a total of 65 women had been pre-selected by the ALP). We are particularly pleased that 18 of these EMILY's List supported Labor women are in safe seats, 18 are in winnable marginals and only 16 are in hard-to-win seats. This tally really reverses the previous trend in all parties to mainly select women in marginal or hard to win seats. And as many of the women in or going in to safe seats are young - the improved percentage of Labor women MPs will be there for some time."
EMILY's List funding to the candidates in marginal and have-to-win seats will commence with Early Money cheques totalling, in NSW, $17,400. EMILY's List plans to more than double that amount when its 2000+ individual members donate to the candidates they choose to support.
EMILY's List is proud of its record since it was established in November 1996 as a political, financial and personal support network for progressive Labor women candidates.
In less than five years, EMILY's List has:
- contributed over $350,000 to Labor women's campaigns;
- helped to elect 55 new progressive Labor women to Parliaments across Australia;
- effectively lobbied to ensure that at the Federal level a minimum of 35 per cent of Labor candidates are women, and at the state level, in the Queensland, South Australian and Victorian Parliament, over 35 per cent of the Members of Parliament are women.
Ms Kirner concluded: "These achievements of EMILY's List in partnership with the ALP give a firm basis for the Labor Party to agree at the next Annual Conference to a target of Labor women making up half of the Labor MPs in every Australian Parliament by 2010, as well as half of the Labor candidates in safe and winnable seats.
EMILY's List congratulates all the women candidates and members of the Labor Party and EMILY's List on this stunning achievement."
For more information, contact: Cheryl Davenport 03 9254 1970. Emily Lee-Ack 0401 282 522 or Diane Minnis 0411 213 019
Moving Forward: Reparations for the Stolen Generations Conference - 15 and 16 August 2001
A national conference to facilitate public debate about reparations for the stolen generations will be held on 15-16 August 2001 at the University of New South Wales in Sydney.
The conference will be hosted by the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission (HREOC), the Aboriginal and Torres
Strait Islander Commission (ATSIC) and the Public Interest Advocacy Centre (PIAC).
During 1995-96, HREOC conducted the National Inquiry into the Separation of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Children from Their Families. The report of the inquiry, Bringing them Home, was tabled in the Federal Parliament in 1997, and illustrated the considerable harm and abuse suffered by many Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children and communities as a consequence of their removal.
Four years later, despite litigation and calls to address the trauma and harm caused, there remains a pressing need for reparations for the stolen generations. Moving Forward Achieving reparations for the stolen generations, will bring together Indigenous and non-indigenous Australians to explore a model for providing reparations to members of the stolen generations.
The conference will address topics including
q the inadequacy of government measures to meet the needs of those affected by forcible removal;
q international law and models for dealing with reparations for violations of human rights;
q the findings of a national consultation project on a reparations tribunal proposal, conducted by PIAC, ATSIC and the National Sorry Day Committee
q government and church responses to the history and effects of forcible removal;
q the importance of reparations in advancing the process of reconciliation.
The conference hosts are committed to ensuring that members of the stolen generations play a central role in shaping the conference outcomes. Members of the stolen generations are encouraged to attend the conference and should contact the conference organisers with any queries or requests
for assistance.
The conference will feature international and Australian speakers including:
� Audrey Ningali Kinnear, Co-chair National Sorry Day Committee
� Carol Kendall, Link Up and the NSW Stolen Generations Memorial Foundation
� Shelley Reys, Co-chair, Reconciliation Australia
� Brian Butler, ATSIC Commissioner
� Dr William Jonas AM, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Social Justice Commissioner (HREOC)
� Elizabeth Evatt AC, Chairperson PIAC, formerly member of the UN Human Rights Committee
� Mike Degagne, Executive Officer, Canadian Aboriginal Healing Foundation
� Dumisa Ntzebeza, former commissioner on the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission
� Justice Joe Williams, Chief Judge of the New Zealand Waitangi Tribunal
� Nathalie Des Rosiers, President, Law Commission of Canada
� Professor Taunya Banks, University of Maryland, USA
� Rev David Gill, Secretary-General, National Council of Churches in Australia
� The Hon Philip Ruddock MP, Minister for Reconciliation and Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Affairs
� Senator Aden Ridgeway, Deputy Leader, Australian Democrats
� Bob McMullan MP, Federal Shadow Minister for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Affairs
If you would like for us to post a brochure to you, please send an email message to mailto:[email protected] with details including your name and postal address and the text: "please post brochure"
For further information about the conference, programme, speakers, facilities and registration contact the Moving Forward Conference Secretariat at mailto:[email protected] or on 02 9284 9830 or go to the website at http://www.humanrights.gov.au/movingforward/
Dear Comrades,
I have been suprised that union delegates have been given so much short shrift for making criticism of the Labor Party and advancing other minor parties such as The Greens.
There is no arguing that the workers movement has a history entwined with that of the Labor Party, but how entwined are the two now?
Sure, compared to the coalition the Labor Party is enlightened on industrial relations and those efforts should be supported.
But then again there is the Labor Right that blurs the distinction between the conservatives and the Labor Party.
It could explain why young unionists, such as myself, see the Greens as the alternative.
As compensation demonstrations in Sydney suggest- it is wrong to think of the union movement and the Labor Party as part and parcel.
David Grant
Dear Sir,
Poverty is inherent in the structure of present society. This has been known for over a century. Unemployment, casual work, long hours which reduce the amount of work available serve a purpose to employers. They reduce the price of labour and conditions at the point of production and employment.
Crocodile tears, blaming wage earners with limited social facilities, poor students and the inability to obtain work is a canard that has been practiced since the nineteenth century.
If the employers and those that represent them politically could not have unemployment, they would invent it. Adding insult to injury they demand that people work where they are required so to do at low wages and have their freedom of choice revoked.
A fundamental human right. My wartime generation fought to remove these injustices over half a century ago. They did not come down with the last shower of rain and are well aware what Mr Abbott and his false statement are all about. All this is a rehash of an old chestnut.
Yours sincerely.
Mr I Ferguson
Dear Sir,
I have read you publication on a regular basis for some months now and have until recently been very impressed with the open and un basised manner in which you discuss Labor Issues.
Unfortunately, over the past few weeks, your publication while not actually advocating violence, it appears to favor the more militant aspects of Unionism.
There is no room in Australia in the 21st century for trade union thugs.
I also notice that your correspondence column is entirely composed of Dorothy Dix comments or letters , is this of a consequence of a change in leadership with the new Secretary of the Labor Council , being of the Trotskyite ilk?
While I still intend to read your publication, its lack of fair reporting and quite blatant propaganda in the form of Editorials and Activists columns , I will be my selective in that which I give credibility to , and pass on to those with who I associate in both my social and professional life.
You may regard my comments as exposing sensitivities , this may be due to - my being a political refugee from Eastern Europe , and having first hand experience of the extremes of both Fascism and Communism.
Your Sincerely
Rudii Zarsoff
(ED: I like the letter - but I don't accept this is your name ...you are betraying your age and the amount of time you spent in pubs in the early eighties)
by Peter Lewis
|
What do you see as the biggest single issue for the Green Movement in this election year?
Our aim as a political party is to win more seats, particularly Senate seats which are within reach, so that we can then influence the range of social justice and environment and democratic issues that we are so strong on in the Senate.
In terms of immediate issues, the funding of education, the closing of the gap between rich and poor in the country - which has been accelerated by the GST, which we took the strongest stand against in the parliament - and environmental issues including global warming and the record destruction of old growth forests in the country, are high up there on our agenda.
How will the Greens decide which major party it will preference upcoming Federal Election?
The first thing for us is to get people to Vote 1 Green. Then it is up to voters themselves to make a determination in the House of Reps, but we influence that where voters want assistance, by directing preferences if one of the parties is better than the others and deserves it. We will decide this on a range of issues, including funding of education, industrial relations, wood chipping of native forests and response to the huge need for Australia to take a lead on global warming instead of just lining up with the coal industry and logging industry and so on, and ending up being in the same camp as Saudi Arabia and President Bush.
So do you basically have the view that the major parties are pretty much as bad as each other?
No they are not on all issues, but there is an art form developed by the press gallery and by many people in the community in distinguishing the difference. Acres of news pages are given over to discussing the differences, when in fact they are becoming smaller and smaller.
Both the big parties are captives of the corporate sector. They both depend on the $30 million in donations that come from corporations into their coffers between elections, and they are both subject to lobbyists.
For example, they know that if they don't have either Mr Packer or Mr Murdoch on side they are not going to win an election. If they can get 'em both on side they are almost certain. And so the policy platforms are confined by the need not to be too upsetting to the major media magnates, or the corporate sector, and the public comes second when it comes to that particular alignment of interests.
In recent times the Greens have become almost synonomous with the anti-globalisation movement. Do you have any concerns that it ends up making the Greens look like a new form of conservative?
Well, that is one of the impressions that will be given by opponents to the Greens. The other is that we are some new form of anarchists or radicals. If those epithets are flying around, at least it means that notice is being taken.
Globalisation has not been the problem. It is the globalisation of the economy, but social justice and the environment and democracy being left off the agenda altogether. They are sectionalised while the economy is being globalised and we have a de facto world government, by the multi national corporations, and people feel disempowered. And that is why we are seeing such a strong reaction, particularly by young people around the world to various forums of unelected people, most of them businessmen, making determinations about what goes on in our lives, with people having very little say.
That is where the Greens - way before One Nation was even heard of - were fighting to ensure that in this global arena the issues of social justice, including workers' justice, and the environment, were on the agenda. And Dee Margetts in the Senate fought every clause of the Bill whereby Labor and Liberal together in early 1996 handed a great deal of domestic power - the right of the parliament - across to the World Trade Organisation.
If there is one thing that distinguishes the Greens from the old parties, it is this disapproval we have of Parliament serially handing its powers away to the stock exchange. We are in favour of reversing that process and keeping the democratically elected parliament as the arbiter of what happens on everything from tariffs through to work conditions, and the impact on the environment, of trade.
Do you place the Greens somewhere on a left/right axis, and if so where?
It is somewhat outdated, the left/right axis, but we are on the left of the spectrum in parliamentary politics and One Nation is out to the right, and the others are in the middle.
What about someone like WA Liberals for Forests?
They are environmentally for it, but they support Liberal Party policy, so in that sense they are somewhere between the Democrats and the Liberals.
Where do you see a point of connection between the Greens and the trade union movement? Often there has been conflict over specific issues such as logging, and greenhouse, but where are the points of connection?
They are in workers' rights, and in particular the right of the poorer people, who through poverty are disempowered. It becomes startlingly obvious when you are in Canberra, that the richer people are, the easier it is to lobby. The place is full of lobbyists for well heeled interest groups, and that leaves the rest of the community somewhat disempowered.
I think there is a very clear connection between historic union objectives and those of the Greens, but I think where we clash is where unions tend to line up closer to industry, and wood chipping is a very good example there. We have got in Tasmania the greatest rate of destruction of forest in history for the smallest return to the State for the fewest jobs, and since John Howard signed the Regional Forest Agreement, which is backed to the hilt by the Labor Party and the unions, a thousand people have lost their jobs and the only people who have been fighting against that have been the Greens.
What is your evaluation of the current state of the leadership of the Australian trade union movement?
I can't comment on that, because it is somewhat inscrutable. You can see people like Sharon Burrow, with whom I have got along well in her previous capacity as head of the Education Union and a promoter of education, which, by the way, is another important crossover if you like with unions, because the Greens have the fiercest defence of public education in the political spectrum.
I think that is going to be a growing matter for definition for the unions in the years ahead. Are they going to stick with support for the Labor Party or have the courage to support the Greens who are much stronger when it comes to parliamentary performance on workers' rights and industrial relations and the closing of that gap between rich and poor.
Taxation for example. The GST, which does affect disproportionately, poor people - we remain a party who would abolish the GST if we were in a position to do so.
In Europe most social democratic parties now rely on Green or Left groups to form coalition government. Is that something that you would realistically see happening in Australia at some point?
It happened in Tasmania between 1989 and 1992, and that was the most progressive period of government in Tasmania since the Second World War at least. But Labor hated it because the Greens were pushing them more towards community interests, whereas the Labor Party was pushing very strongly towards the corporate interests in Tasmania.
A simple example of that conflict was Labor moving to close 22 public schools and the Greens put through legislation, although we were in coalition, effectively with the Labor Party, supported by the Liberals to keep those schools open. So, in that it is crunch time when you get the balance of power, but we have shown that we can handle it responsibly.
If the Greens were to hold power, do you think the policies would be different? Does the exercise of power necessitate a more conservative agenda?
Well, in the balance of power you are not in government. I think the exercise of government doesn't, but balance of power forces it, because you can't dictate policy, you have to get what you can, and that is certainly what we did in balance of power in Tasmania, and that is what the Greens in New Zealand are currently doing, and in Europe. But it comes under ferocious criticism because people don't understand that unless you are a single party government, you can't dictate policy, you just have to green up - that means in social terms move to the left - in environmental terms, make sure you have social and environmental accounting in everything that is done, and move it away from the right to which a Labour or modern Democratic Socialist party will take the direction of the policy.
Can you understand that pressure on the party in power though?
To move to the conservative side?
To run a more conservative agenda, yes.
Yes, because it goes right back to my first comment. Because the corporate sector, through the media, runs an agenda which is by and large in the interests of the already powerful and rich, and that circumscribes how the big parties work these days. The Labor Party has certainly lost a lot of the founding principles for which it stood 100 years ago, simply by this need to stay in power, or to stay in the race for government.
Now, the interesting thing is whether the Greens, who are far more radical, and have much stronger social policies for social justice, how they will handle the pressures of being in the balance of power. But I think people like Lee Rhiannon and Ian Cohen have shown in the NSW Upper House, that you can do that very effectively. That you can haul a very conservative Labor Government across to a more socially responsive position, simply by leaving balance of power, even once removed, by being in the balance of power in the Upper House, and I'd hopefully do the same in the Senate.
Finally, what do you think the Greens can teach trade unions about connecting with younger people?
I think to be involved in protests is very important. You can't do everything from the office, you have to be out organising on the streets, and you also have to take it up to both the political parties when they are doing things that are destructive of your members' interests. Delegations are extremely important for clearing the air and people knowing where they stand, but the art of street protest and protest in the workplace and protest on the industrial side, I think has been somewhat lost and needs to return.
********************
Four terminal lights began flashing red. The operators slid their chairs back nervously, glanced around the floor and then headed for the stairwell. There was no time for talk.
In 600 seconds they would be late back from break and their supervisors would be electronically alerted to their absence. The stairwell was made completely of concrete, except for the cameras on every level. Sarah pushed the heavy exit door that opened into a concrete undercover car park.
The only evidence of outside life was a metre gap between the top of the carpark wall and roof where you could see the sky reflected off the building next door. The group of four lit their cigarettes. Linda barely inhaled. She'd given them up months ago but then, she wasn't down there for the nicotine fix.
* * * * *
Michelle put her feet up on the desk. She'd had a shitty weekend that had culminated in her twisting her ankle during a netball game. She stared at her phone, willing it to ring but not sure what she would say if it did. Maybe a call to her mum might help.
Her door moved and she looked up to see Pam. A pathetic, middle aged woman, who was lucky to have this job, Michelle thought.
"Excuse me Michelle, I have been told to see you"
"Yes" said Michelle as she tapped a few keys on her computer.
"Don't mind my feet, I have a sprained ankle".
"Oh that's awful, you should have ice on it or something, shouldn't you?" said Pam, not relaxing for a second, she had been here before.
"OK, here it is." Michelle located Pam's employment file.
"Do you think customer service is important Pam?'
"Well, yes, of course"
"And is it your job to provide that customer service?"
"Yes it is"
" So when you are late logging on who is providing that customer service?"
"The other two hundred operators?" said Pam knowing she shouldn't have said it.
"And if each of those two hundred operators where to be late by 15 seconds, 35 seconds, 45 seconds, or a minute 22 seconds say last Thursday, are we still providing excellent customer service Pam?"
"I suppose not"
"So do you agree that your punctuality is vital to us providing excellent customer service Pam?"
Michelle slid the sheet of paper over to Pam. She knew Pam would sign. Pam had three kids under the age of 15 and wasn't about to throw in her job.
"Please sign here" Pam signed.
" Now Pam, you are a very good customer service consultant so I hope we shall see some marked improvement in the future."
"Yes certainly"
The door closed behind Pam.
Michelle sighed and picked up the phone. Pam returned to her desk and promptly tore the warning letter in half. It was the first time she had smiled all morning.
* * *
Linda logged in to take a call.
"Welcome to the Customer Service Centre. My name is Linda. How may I help you"
"YOU PEOPLE make me sick. UTTER incompetence, have you read your CUSTOMER SERVICE CHARTER lately?--DO YOU call waiting seven and a half minutes- YES I've been timing you! - as Good Customer Service!"
It occurred to Linda that this customer might have a heart attack. She began preparing her best soothing voice.
"How may I help you sir?" Linda glanced around the call centre.
The screen above her head was flashing red, 89 calls in queue with a now 9 minute wait. They would all be cranky. Several team leaders were frantically stopping anyone who dared to step away from their desk. One TL was going quite red trying to explain to Tony why he couldn't go to the toilet. Linda was willing Tony to stand up to her and for a few seconds he did.
"YOU'RE NOT EVEN LISTENING TO ME ARE YOU?"
"Yes sir, you used your card on Saturday and have been charged $20 for the service. I'm very sorry that you were not made aware of the charge but if you read the charter it is the customers responsibility to read the Terms & Conditions. Was the service useful sir?"
She might have to call an ambulance for this customer. Her Internal Mail message icon began flashing on the screen in front of her. More management crap. Personal use of the mail system could result in instant dismissal unless of course you were a team leader or above. Something was going on. The team leaders were all filling into the Call Centre Manager's 'Glassroom' The CC Manager looked livid, waving a piece of paper at them all. Linda then realised that the mail was addressed only to her.
"Please present yourself at 12.15 in my office. Ken Barko, Call Centre Manager."
"Shit"
"I BEG YOUR PARDON"
"Excuse me sir, I just stubbed my toe".
11 minutes until 12.15. Three more calls.
* * *
"Hi Jenny, come on in" Jenny entered the HR manager's office. Michelle moved her chair around beside her desk so that there was no barrier between them.
"So, Jenny, how is the rostering going?"
"Well, actually, people are not very happy about it"
"And why is that?"
"Well, we are not really taking their preferences into account"
"Did everyone complete the survey?"
"Well, yes they did but we aren't actually going by it are we?"
"Look, the important thing is that we asked them. If the roster doesn't suit them they can always find another job."
"But wouldn't it make sense, to go by their preferences- I've had to make 58 changes to it since I put it out."
"Yes, I have been thinking about that. I've produced something that might help you next time. Here are the new guidelines for roster changes".
Jenny ran her eyes down the page. 'So basically you can't change your roster?"
"Jenny, remember what we discussed last time. We have over three hundred staff. We have to maintain control. What would happen if we let them all have their say?"
Michelle sighed and lent forward. "Jenny, I think you have demonstrated real promise. It is not easy standing up to them out there. I have spoken to Ken about you and he is very supportive of creating an assistant HR role. Are you interested?"
Michelle knew Jenny would be interested. Anything to get out of the chicken coop was an improvement. Jenny blushed
"Well, really?-.I would be interested, Yes. How soon will the position be advertised?"
Michelle smiled, "The position won't really be advertised-just keep up the good work and in a few weeks we could be working very closely together"
"Well, thank you, that's great" Jenny walked out of the office slightly elated.
* * * * *
12.14 Linda logged her phone into unavailable and typed time, date and reason for absence into the computer.
She stood waiting outside the 'Glassroom' as the team leaders filed out.
Several looked quite worried, one nearly spat at her but her own team leader just gave a wink.
"Please come in Linda" Linda put her hands behind her back so that Ken couldn't see her shaking.
Could he know what was planned? It was distinctly possible considering the number of management lackeys in this place. Could he legally sack her for it?- Probably.
Show no fear show no fear Linda looked up at the CC Manager. His hands were shaking. Linda's hands suddenly steadied and she brought them out in front of her and placed them on the desk.
"So, Ken, is there a problem with my performance?"
She feigned some concern staring at what was obviously her employee file in Ken's hands. Linda had always made sure her performance was exemplary. No point giving them a valid reason to sack you.
"No, as a customer service consultant we are very pleased with your progress, however there is a matter I would like to discuss with you--.do you attend team meetings Linda?"
"Yes I do"
"And are you given opportunity to discuss any concerns you have about the call centre"
"Within the limited time given, yes I am"
"Consultation with staff is very important to me, you know my door is always open and I am happy to listen to any concerns you have" Linda looked at him quizzically.
"So, I was extremely disappointed to find this in the lunch room". Ken pulled a leaflet out of Linda's employee file. She didn't need to read it.
"Why are you disappointed?" said Linda trying not to sound factitious.
Ken's face flushed slightly. "Well it is my opinion that if staff feel the need to put UNION propaganda on the lunch room wall that I must have failed to demonstrate the openness of my management system"
Linda didn't bother denying she had placed the union leaflet on the wall, everyone knew there was a camera watching them eat their lunch- for their own security of course.
"I have a legal right to join a union and put notices up on the board"
"Yes, yes but that is not the point. If we are running this place properly we do not need third party involvement."
"The union is not a third party. It is a way for staff to have some representation. I am a union member and so are most of the others, we are not a third party".
"There are others in the union?" Ken was visibly sweating and took a deep breath before continuing. "I am aware of a certain amount of discontent amongst the staff due to the current negotiations of the employment agreement, however we have gone to great lengths to ensure staffs concerns are able to be voiced".
"Yes, but you don't actually take account of those concerns" Ken sat back in his chair and scratched his head.
He had been CC Manager for over five years and had managed to keep any mention of the union out of his Call Centre. He lent forward with a smile.
"Linda, our staff are our most important asset. What I really need is someone who can communicate our needs to staff. There may be an assistant HR position coming up which I think may be a perfect opportunity for you to demonstrate your ability to listen to the staffs concerns. The Staff obviously have a great deal of respect for you."
Linda looked out through the glass room to the Call Centre where over two hundred people sat, plugged into phones, on bad pay, bad conditions and getting abused by customers. There would be no sell-out today.
"Thank you Ken, I'll certainly give it some thought" Linda stood up to leave.
"Now Linda don't forget, my door is always open" Ken said as he shut the door behind her. Karla glanced at Linda as she sat back in her seat.
"Don't worry, we're still on" The whisper ran throughout the Call Centre. George sat staring at his computer. 203 operators were logged on, yet the call waiting time was threatening to break the 10-minute barrier.
21 Customer Service Consultants were on lunch, which unfortunately was unavoidable. However there were 8 people on toilet break at the same time. George furiously e-mailed the team leaders to locate and return their staff.
There was a quick response. Four team leaders headed to the toilets and another two headed to the lunchroom. Several CSC's scurried back to their desks. George smirked and then returned to his call stats, smiling to himself as the call waiting time dipped below 8 minutes. Simone had been on a call for over ten minutes so he tapped a message to her TL to end the call. Down to 7 minutes and still dropping--
Then there was silence. Silence in a call centre is disturbing. Calls waiting began to blow out. Computer failure perhaps but that would usually increase the chatter. George stood up to see what was going on.
Ken opened his glassroom door and stared in disbelief at his Call Centre. Michelle's ankle suddenly seemed not to hurt so much as she strode into the middle of the Call Centre.
"What on earth is going on" she screeched.
Linda stood up from her computer, cleared her throat and announced: "We would like to call a Stop Work Meeting".
Theresa Davison is a Call Centre Organiser
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The story of human history could be read as the story of evolutionary forces driving people to learn how to live together peacefully in larger and larger communities. In this age of individualism it is sometimes worth reminding ourselves that humans are instinctively collective. The Darwinian process of natural selection left us no choice. We pooled our resources and grouped together to form tribes or communities. By being a member of a group each individual was able to increase their chances of survival, as well as that of the group. Alone we would surely perish; but working together made sense in a hostile and unforgiving world.
Early communities consisted of small groups of people within a confined geographic area, a village and surrounding farmland perhaps. They were small enough that everybody knew everyone else, so information flowed freely because everyone spoke to everybody else. Decisions were made through discussion between certain members of the community - typically the male 'elders'. Information on what food to eat, where to get it, how to prepare it, were passed through the group. Myths and legends, which helped define the world and set moral rules that would keep the group functioning were also shared. Although very small these were the first networked communities.
Values and culture were communicated verbally and face to face. Because conversation is a two way exchange, every person who participated in the community would have a small part in shaping the culture - there was dialogue. A person dispensing a rule had to front the person expected to comply with it, often requiring an immediate explanation of the principles and reasoning. This process imposed a degree of accountability on the leadership and allowed each person to understand the basis for the decision, bringing about some degree of internal consensus. If decision makers were accessible - then a law that was unduly harsh would result in immediate feedback. This was possible because the distance between the leadership and the led was smaller.
Communities that became more secure continued to thrive and grow - from wandering tribes, to the farming communities, to larger centres of trade and commerce, to the large cities that controlled empires that fought for cultural domination over smaller groups, size was equated with strength. Like dinosaurs, size was the principle survival quality for a community at this time.
As the size of communities grew, so did the complexity of the decisions that needed to be made. It was no longer possible to underpin each decision with a person-to-person exchange. Structures evolved to deal with members of the community as abstractions, as 'subjects' or 'citizens'. These third party institutions such as the law, the state, the church and in more recent times, the media, came to be the dominant forces in the Industrial Age.
The take-up of writing allowed for the development of structured laws and government. By writing rules or laws, governmental units could become larger, and more complex. Adherence to and enforcement of a common rule-book that was maintained and distributed from the centre of government kept everyone in line, often over vast distances. At its best, the law operated to mimic the process of consensus that would naturally occur in a smaller networked community. Governments made laws, magistrates had cases brought before them with special circumstances, exceptions are granted, provided that the fundamental principles of the law can be upheld. As times and values changed, principles were modified. The problem is that this process is cumbersome, impersonal and often beyond the reach of the ordinary person. It also fails to deal with the specific facts of the individual case and must instead base itself on abstractions.
The use of writing to codify community values or laws signalled the genesis of the broadcast era: a single set of standards, broadcast from a central seat of government, to a large area. The benefit was that a community could share a set of values over a much larger geographic area and involving a much greater number of people and resources. The costly trade-off was the loss of the capacity for an individual member of a community to input in the growth of their society. That role was necessarily taken-up by a leadership elite that presided, with or (more often) without a mandate from the subjects. To the extent that societies maintained their cohesion - and sometimes, even, a sense of community, it because they have developed a set of structures to ensure that some degree of consensus is maintained.
At the time when the modern states emerged, community fault lines principally occurred along class and geographic lines. This lead to a model of parliamentary democracy based on geographic constituencies - a major step forward in ensuring proper communication within government decision making. This system allowed a society to grow larger and remain stable because it established a structured mechanism by which constituent communities could have a voice within a larger society. Although each member of the community did not get a say in the formulation of the law - they did have a representative from their area involved in the processes of government - a structured way of mimicking a network. But under this system the dialog was confined to elected representatives in the Parliament, a principle that has defined our approach to community management throughout the Industrial Age.
In a modern state, communities of interest are not just defined along geographic lines - they can form around workplace, family, educational institution, profession, social class, ethnic origin, hobbies, religion in addition to geography - thousands of unique subcultures. As communications technology improves, and the cost of communicating over distance declines, geography becomes an increasingly less important factor in defining culture.
Historically a single community of interest might cover every aspect of an individual's persona, nowadays a person would identify with many groups each from different spheres of their life. Each of these communities of interest or subcultures has its own distinct perspective. These groups have developed around various areas of human activity, work, leisure, ethnicity, education. As society became more complex they have multiplied.
Although it is tempting to romanticise simple communities of the past because everybody knew everyone else, the trade-off for this was the enforcement of conformity. Closed systems tend to turn in on themselves and the chance of finding a kindred spirit - out of all the people on earth - in your own village has to be a long shot. Today's society allows a much wider range of associations, allowing an individual to pursue a broader range of interests and activities - greater diversity.
As communities became larger and more complex a proxy for the structured geographic representative model for the parliament was extended to cover the sub-cultures within society. In this way the central government was surrounded by a set of institutional structures representing the various communities of interest. Governments would use institutions to build a network to facilitate the flow of information to and from communities of interest. Key institutions were the gatekeepers controlling the flow of information to and from that sector - making them enormously powerful. They are analogous to the broadcast "backbone" connecting up the smaller subcultures, once the only mechanism by which information could flow between groups and across the society .
While the institutions have served their functions adequately, the constant process of abstracting individuals has taken its toll. At some point along this abstract line, the community has become too big. With the rise of the mass media, the very processes of cultural activity and conversation has been turned into commodity: current affairs, elite sport, soap operas, infotainment. People exist only to the extent that they consume this fare. People sit in their homes at night, glued to the TV, where a homogenised product, usually of US-origins, is broadcast to fill the gaps where community once existed. All different receivers in different rooms, only connected by the great transmitter, the mass media. At a time of rising prosperity, the weight of isolation and lonelineneess has never been greater.
But, as the authors of the excellent anti-marketing treatise the 'Cluetrain Maifesto' point out, it's time to come out of hiding and rediscover the world - the Internet turns us all into transmitters AND receivers. And the two equal a conversation. And conversation allow people to share knowledge and work together and build and be better than the sum of their constituent parts. Conversation allows us to rebuild community - which is what we decided we needed to survive in the first place. Meanwhile, the power of those that formerly controlled the flow of nearly all information diminishes. And so we can see a way that our society can start recovering some of the positive characteristics of the original networked community - without the disadvantages of being small.
With the onset of the Information Age we just may be able to maintain a diverse, large society with internal cohesion. We will have the communications infrastructure and a cultural commitment to support it. Indeed, attempts to control this flow will inevitably be futile. The problem we now have is one of cultural change. Those who control the structures and institutions are so immersed in the structures and ways of the past that can't see the paradigm shift that has occurred around them. Many are maintaining the fantasy that the world is the same as the one they grew up in. But at the end of the day, they are defying gravity.
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There are an estimated 100 million child labourers in India - children under the age of 15 working full-time in work that interferes with their education and damages their development. This project grew out of the need of village communities to confront the root causes of long-term impoverishment and related exploitation of their children as labourers. Brick kiln workers involved in the project recognised that education would be a keystone for the future benefit of their children.
The project involves building schools for the teaching of children currently engaged in child labour and employing teachers to work in these schools. It also enables parents to develop their own capacities to organise and maintain a community project, and develops the skills of teachers for use with future groups of child labourers and in other education and training. Through the project, parents can develop awareness and negotiating skills to confront the root causes of economic hardship and poverty in their communities.
The child labour schools are now becoming an accepted part of the community and are seen as a major step towards recognition among workers and the community that child labour is a form of exploitation and therefore a problem. It is clear that if these schools did not exist, the children would be working as part of their family unit and would have no access to any education.
For a child labour project to be successful in breaking the cycle of child labour, activities such as these need to be combined with strengthening local trade unions and lobbying government to increase spending on education. The India Schools Project has already become a focus for mobilising workers in the local brick-kiln industry into trade unions, and union membership has increased. The intention in the project is not for unions to permanently run the schools, but that the schools can serve as an indicator of the demand for education and that they would be taken over by the government in the long term.
Union Aid Abroad-APHEDA has conducted educational campaigns on the child labour issue for a number of years now. This alliance gives us a new avenue for directly supporting child labour projects in a country where child labour remains a serious problem.
by Neale Towart
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One of Michaels' initiatives has been the revival of union radio via the Net and its Wobbly Radio. Tom Barker, one of the most well known of the Wobblies, affirmed to Eric Fry the importance of the Wobbly songbook in their agitation and organising.
Verity Burgmann's Revolutionary Industrial Unionism is a fine history of the Industrial Workers of the World in Australia. They predated the Communist Party, and the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917 was probably the beginning of the end of the IWW as a major force on the left in Australia. The Communist movement developed rapidly in and out of the ALP and the trade unions from that time. Burgmann makes the connections between the IWW of the early part of this century with more recent radical initiatives in Australian working life. The Draft Resisters Union's anti-conscription pamphlet, produced to oppose the Vietnam War, used the Wobbly poster 'To Arms!!" which earned Tom Barker a stretch in gaol in 1915 (for more on Tom Barker see Eric Fry's interview with him from the 1960s.) Michael Matteson was inspired by this interview having found it at Bob Gould's bookshop in 1965 (you can still get the printed copy from Bob). He also bought copies of the US IWW paper Industrial Worker in the Domain in 1964 from speakers like Col Pollard and Bert Armstrong.
Matteson was inspired by the Wobblies' example to think about the impact of mass resistance, which could turn the ethical stand of many individuals into practical politics. He claimed that IWW tactics were more effective than those inspired by Leninist principles. Those who claim unions need to wrestle with the more individualist ethic these days with the collapse of collectivism could do well to take note of Matteson's point here as we struggle for renewal.
Frank Hardy's famous novel, Power Without Glory also highlighted the differences between the communists and the IWW. Hardy was a member of the CPA when he wrote the novel (and the CPA was instrumental in making sure it got published) and he subsumed the Wobbly legacy into the CPA view in the book. Later he acknoweledged that the book was a "Wobbly novel", "a book that the Wobblies would have appreciated". The ex-wobblies such as Roly Farrall were the most enthusiastic in getting it printed and bound while CPA leaders were pretty hostile.
Pat Mackie was Chairman of the Mt Isa Section of the AWU during the famous 1964-65 lockout. He became the whipping boy of the media during that national divisive episode. "The hard-headed left wing old-timers wanted me, knowing of my industrially militant non-political "Wobbly" inclinations."
Mackie was popular with the miners, but not so with the AWU, who expelled him from the union. During the dispute Mackie toured Broken Hill, and an old miner came up to him and took his hand. He held it to his heart and said "I'm an old miner, by God! I fought through the 1916 anti-conscription thing with the Wobblies, and it's the happiest day in my life that I meet a real honest-to-God Union fighter like we had then!"
Burgmann sees the NSW BLF during the Green Bans era as displaying a Wobbly temper. The very notion of delaying development for environmental reasons rather than just on worker conditions and wages was an example. The way of running the union exemplified a wobbly notion of authority too, with the idea of limited tenure for union officials (Labor Council's departing Wobbly, Michael Costa, pushed this notion for ALP parliamentarians a couple of years ago). Jack Mundey explained "the driving force that made me suggest limited tenure was my own experience of seeing modern, contemporary unionism and seeing the need for some inbuilt guarantee for limiting power and having inbuilt renewal." Mundey was a member of the CPA at the time, and found the idea was unpopular with CPA leaders and CPA union officials such as Laurie Carmichael.
The wobbly temper of the BLF was displayed by its preference for direct action at the point of production, and its distrust of the pretensions of vanguard parties to lead workers in struggle, its belief that trade unions themselves could educate workers to a class-conscious viewpoint, in its dislike of dogma and doctrinal hair-splitting, in its imaginative and inventive tactics, and in its larrikinism and goo-humoured anti-intellectualism. For example when one of its organisers was asked about Lenin's view that revolutionary consciousness had to be brought to the workers by a separate party, he replied simply 'bollocks'. When a student Maoist was addressing one of their meetings, they nailed his briefcase to the floor. The Wobblies might have done the same.
One reason for the continuing inspiration provided by Wobbly deeds and legends to the generation '68 in particular, was the recoil from the horrors of Stalinist communism and the disappointment of Laborism.
From a moderate Labor perspective, the IWW was seen as unnecessary and a messy part of labour tradition in Australia, because of the rapid rise of the ALP and its early successes in getting a worker based party into office and then getting arbitration as a part of the national political framework. Bill Hayden maintains that the IWW were "impossibly idealistic". His father, a merchant seaman, and a wobbly in the US said "direct action appeared justified" in the brutal conditions there. This exemplifies the contrasting histories of the US and Australian labour movements.
Vere Gordon Childe, whose How labour Governs remains a classic view of the disappointments of the ALP in power, saw the IWW as "the first body to offer effectively to the Australian workers an ideal of emancipation alternative to the somewhat threadbare Fabianism of the Labour Party".
The right saw the IWW as standing for I Won't Work, which was a significant part of IWW ideology and agitation, as many of their songs, pamphlets and slogans showed:
Slow Down
The hours are long
the pay is small
So take your time
And buck them all
A pamphlet advocating a six hour was written by A E Brown which argued for the increase in the workers proportion of surplus value, undermining the capitalists.
The songs and slogans were directly addressed to the 'boneheads' who too readily accepted bourgeois values. 'Mr Block' showed this approach:
Please give me your attention, I'll introduce to you,
A man who is a credit to our red, white and blue;
His head is made of lumber and is solid as a rock,
He is a common worker, and his name is M r Block.
And Block, he thinks he may
Be premier some day.
Oh Mr Block, you were born by mistake,
You take the cake,
You make me ache.
Tie a rock on your block, and then jump in the lake;
Kindly do this for liberty's sake.
The distrust of the ALP and labourist ideology was a strong part of the IWW, as the example of Pat Mackie in Mt Isa showed. Michael Costa should remember his Wobbly heritage as he enters the Legislative Council, as there most well known song was Bump Me Into Parliament, written by Bill Casey in Melbourne, and sung to the tune of Yankee Doodle. It expresses the anti-labourist , anti-arbitration views of the IWW
Come listen, all kind friends of mine,
I want to move a motion,
To build an El Dorado here,
I've got a bonzer notion.
Chorus
Bump me into Parliament,
Bounce me any way,
Bang me into Parliament,
On next election day.
Some very wealthy friends I know
declare I am most clever,
While some may talk for an hour or so
Why, I can talk for ever.
I know the Arbitration Act
As a sailor knows his 'riggins',
So if you want a small advance,
I'll talk to Justice Higgins.
Oh yes I am a Labor man,
And believe in revolution;
The quickest way to bring it on
Is talking constitution.
I've read my Bible ten times through,
And Jesus justifies me,
The man who does not vote for me,
By Christ he crucifies me.
So bump them into Parliament,
Bounce them any way,
Bung them into Parliament,
Don't let the Court decay.
This article is largely extracted from Verity Burgmann Revolutionary Industrial Unionism: the Industrial Workers of the World in Australia. Cambridge Uni Press 1995. A great read.
Other histories of aspects of the IWW include Frank Cain's The Wobblies at War and Ian Turner's Sydney's Burning.
The history of anarchism in Australia before the development of the IWW has been most usefully analysed by Bob James in a number of self-published books including Anarchism and State Violence in Sydney and Melbourne 1886-1896 (1986) and brief biographies of Chummy Fleming and J A Andrews. Quite a number of Bob James essays and arguments with Australian labour history are on the web. He has been the labour historian most concerned with uncovering forgotten histories, including the histories of mutuals and friendly societies. See the articles at Takver's site for historical and current material on anarchism, direct actions and labour history generally.
James and other IWW people would probably take issue with much of what Burgmann says and you can see via the web lots of other histories of anarchism and syndicalism in Australia.
The IWW in Australia continues and via their website you can keep up to date with their activities in Direct Action and links to international branches.
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There would have been more than 200 journalists in the ballroom at the Mahkota. UN staff, observers�foreign and Indonesian�diplomats and a number of East Timorese made up the rest of the crowd. Banks of television cameras and lights and photographers crowded the front of the room. Ian Martin took his place at the table and quickly began to read the announcement.
'The Secretary-General is currently making the following statement to the Security Council on the result of the vote in East Timor,' he said, and then, after praising the courage and determination of the East Timorese people who had participated in the ballot under difficult circumstances, he read the result: 94,388 in favour and 344,580 against the proposed special autonomy. The people of East Timor have thus rejected the proposed special autonomy and expressed their wish to be in their wish to be in the process of transition towards independence.'
Martin went on to tell the crowd that 'the coming days will require patience and calm from the people of East Timor' to prepare for a period of peace and prosperity. He called on the government of Indonesia to ensure a successful culmination towards the process by carrying out its responsibility to maintain law and order in the territory, and then promised the East Timorese that the United Nations would not fail them in 'guiding East Timor in its transition to independence'.
That was it, the East Timorese had voted 78 per cent in favour of independence. We had all expected an independence win, and there it was. Indonesian television cameras were pointed directly at the crowd of journalists who were standing and watching the announcement. Everyone was at pains to register no emotion at the announcement, although many of us, especially those of us who had been in East Timor for a long time and seen the consequences of Indonesian rule, had hoped for this outcome. Everywhere, people had blank expressions of impartiality�looking at the floor, at their notebooks, but not at each other. The East Timorese who were present mostly worked for the UN and did the same. There was no outpouring of emotion, just a businesslike efficiency as everybody remained in place until Martin had finished his address.
Karen Polgaze was there filing for AAP and suddenly I had nothing to do. Outside, people were milling around. Those reporters who had to file were on their phones, and the few Timorese there didn't seem comfortable about showing their joy at the announcement with so many Indonesian officials and police present. Across the road at the harbour, people were already queuing to board Indonesians ships that had arrived to take people to Kupang.
I got a ride down to Bishop Belo's house. In the garden there were already about 1,000 people taking shelter behind the wire fence. A young girl came over to talk to us by the fence. 'The Bishop doesn't want us to show how happy we are because of our safety, but I am so happy, but we cannot go anywhere, we cannot show our happiness too much,' she said, and then moved quickly away.
Behind her I could see the Bishop waving at some other people to move away from the fence. He didn't want any problems and refused to speak to us.
We went across town to the house of Leandro Isaac in Lahane on the other side of town at the base of the hills to where people were fleeing. The streets were deserted; there was only the occasional fast-moving vehicle. There was nobody on foot. Leandro's door was open and I walked in to be greeted by his wife, in tears. She hugged me and told me he was out the back of the house, all the while telling me she was so happy with the result. But she whispered it, as though afraid to say out loud that the independence vote had won.
Joao Alves and Leandro Isaac were loading their car, preparing to leave. Leandro was going to the Mahkota to make one last comment to the journalists. Alves was hurrying us along. They knew that at any moment the backlash would begin�and as the two public CNRT leaders in Dili, they were prime targets for the militia.
'East Timor is already a winner,' said Leandro grandly, barely able to contain himself. 'They have decided for themselves. Today is the end. Today the East Timorese people stand equal with the other countries of the world.'
Alves was hurrying Leandro along and turned to me. 'What are you doing, anyway? We are going to the mountains, and we are advising all our people to go to Dare,' he said.
I hadn't even thought about leaving. I asked him how he felt about the result.
'Of course, it is a victory for us,' he said, still loading the car, 'but we have to get through the day alive.'
We followed Leandro back to the Mahkota. Something strange was happening there, and the police were urging people to stay indoors. Barricades were being put up near the port and now the TNI as well as the police were around. I left on my motor scooter with English journalist Joanna Jolly and headed to the Resende as usual, for something to eat. But as I sat down to eat at the table by the window, I could see the militia, now armed, moving up and down the street outside. The waiter asked us nervously what was happening. We told him: independence 78 per cent. He crossed himself, brought our food, and told us to eat quickly.
There was no-one else in the dining room. All life in Dili seemed to have stopped. The reception area was empty, as was the street outside except for the occasional militia member on a motorbike. It was the same waiter I had talked to months earlier when the militia first made the death threats against Australians. He had laughed then, but now he said we had to go and we had to be careful.
Outside, there were two people waiting with bags. One was the waiter from the Hotel Dili, who was from Kupang and worked for Gino Favarro. Gino had just left, boarding one of the Indonesian boats in the harbour bound for Kupang. Gino was married to the niece of Yunus Yosfiah, the Information Minister. He had told me that he would know when to go�when he got the word from Yunus, he would pull the plus and be out of there. The hotel wasn't worth his life, he had said. Now he had gone and the West Timorese waiter had no idea what to do.
Similarly, the sole Australian tourist who had been staying at the Hotel Dili had no real idea of what was going on. He had told me he had come to Dili for the diving. I told him to leave at the first opportunity.
Joanna and I rode extremely fast back to the Tourismo. Now I was scared. The militia were gathering in the street outside their headquarters and they were wandering all through the now deserted Hotel Dili. It was too nerve-racking on the bike; I kept feeling like a bullet was about to hit us at any moment. The militia were just watching us go past and I started going way too fast out of fear that they would just start shooting.
Karen was back at the hotel and we took the car to the airport. All along the road to Comoro, which was also the main road west out of East Timor, people were packing vehicles, queuing for fuel and driving west. Occasional shots sounded out but nobody even looked up from what they were doing. It was not their problem anymore, they just had to get out.
At the airport, Indonesian military personnel were loading a C-130 Hercules. The families of soldiers, laden with possessions, were being walked up the ramp. I stood there watching with Helio, who was also flying out; there was still one regular commercial flight to Bali, and he was on it. So too, it turned out, was Eurico Guterres�he sauntered into the waiting lounge and we journalists crowded around. He ended up conducting interviews using the previous CNRT spokesman, Helio, as a translator. He said he was just going to Bali and would be back the following day. We joked that he was just going to personally get his orders for the destruction of Dili from his commander, General Adam Damiri (whom he had once told me was the only authority he recognised). Eurico heard us and glared.
A Dirty Little War is published by Random House
by The Chaser
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"Now that all the city based mums and dads that we conned into buying shares have lost their money they are in the same position as those in the rural areas," said Alston.
The National Party leader John Anderson said he was thrilled that they had finally delivered on a promise made to his constituents.
"If only I could call them and tell them this would be brilliant," said Anderson.
Meanwhile the government has denied that the freefall in Telstra shares has ended any chance that they would be able to successfully float the rest of Telstra if reelected for a third term.
"That would be true if there weren't people out there who are very rich and willing to buy overpriced shares in telecommunications companies," said Treasurer Peter Costello.
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The 94-page large print book with cartoon illustrations is part of the highly profitable American secret-of-life literary genre that includes Dale Carnegie's 'How To Win Friends And Influence People' (1936) and Richard Bach's 'Jonathan Livingston Seagull' (1970). It is a genre associated with transient, cultish, books and simplistic messages.
Author Spencer Johnson is an American psychologist, doctor and medical consultant, turned Harvard Business School management guru. 'Who Moved My Cheese?' was published in 1998; by April 2000 it was topping American best-seller lists with more than a million sales.
The success of the book owes much to savvy marketing. Johnson knows how to make a buck, having authored eight other multi-million selling self-help books. An industry was built around the Cheese book, including coffee mugs, pens, a training kit retailing at $US995, and pitched at the corporate world.
Corporations embraced the book. The Bank of Hawaii, for example, distributed 4000 copies to staff members. Locally the American boss of BHP, Paul Anderson, has handed 30 copies to his senior managers, told them to read it three times and then take the message to all BHP workers. It is understood Mobil management is also using the book.
AMWU assistant national secretary Dave Oliver recently blew the whistle on Australian corporate interest in the Cheese book. According to him the book is "patronising and insulting (American) psychobabble".
'Who Moved My Cheese?' is a parable about change. The story takes place in a maze and involves a hunk of life-sustaining cheese, two mice, Sniff and Scurry, and two mouse-sized 'littlepeople' named Hem and Haw.
When the cheese is inexplicably relocated in the maze, the characters have to find it or perish. Those able to accept the challenge, prosper. Change is not to be feared. Change should be embraced. Hemmed in by fear and tradition, however, poor bastard Hem is left behind. Stiff shit loser, as Tony Abbott might say.
Corporations love the book because of its kindergarten-style imagery and simplistic message. Corporations want employees to accept change, because change is on the corporate agenda. In the free-market world, corporate change all too often involves downsizing, retrenchment, asset-selling, outsourcing, individual contracts, increased workloads, job insecurity, even loss of entitlements. For many corporate bottom-liners the ideal workforce is a compliant workforce.
But life is not a maze, cheese does not unaccountably move, and human beings are not on a par with mice. Change occurs because people make it happen. Currently corporations, and unelected international bodies like the International Monetary Fund and the World Trade Organisation that represent business, call many of the shots on the world stage. But this does not have to be; it is not inevitable.
In reality Hem and Haw are trapped in a maze because their creator did not endow them with the ability to think and act collectively, to question and challenge, to organise and contest. To have done so would have been to tell another story, one not associated with blinkering workers and adding to corporate bottom lines.
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The ALP no longer contains a real divergence of views. The Left and Right have merged, but on the Right's terms. The vast majority of the Parliamentary Left has capitulated to capital.
Instead of a coalition of competing ideologies there is nothing but consensus that the market is the solution to all society's problems.
As the majority of the Left have bowed before the altar of free enterprise, the atmosphere has become unbearable for the principled left wingers. These are the
remaining remnants in the Party who still believe in social justice and equity rather than just mouthing platitudes.
These committed people are the most likely to defend the interests of workers. However, as the WorkCover disaster in New South Wales shows, they almost always fail against the power of the Right.
There is a real conflict between the industrial and political wings of the labour movement.
One problem for the unions is that significant elements of the Parliamentary ALP no longer see themselves as being in the labour movement let alone the ALP being its political wing.
This presents a dilemma for the union bureaucracy. The better elements of the leadership of the industrial Left are torn between fighting for the interests of their members and not upsetting the ALP's election prospects.
However, the symbolism of Labor Premier Bob Carr giving the "up yours" salute to picketing workers outside parliament House has not been lost on the more political sections of the industrial movement. Carr's gesture epitomises the contempt he and a large number of other Labor Party MPs feel for their own electoral base, the working class.
What is different is that Carr felt confident enough to display his anti-working class disdain openly. The Right is on the move. Carr no longer needs a Left cover.
Just as importantly Carr's WorkCover changes show once again that the ALP rules for the rich, not workers. The Left of the ALP can no longer deny this.
However that realisation does not mean that the Left will break out of its political prison in the Party immediately. For the opportunists in the Left the power and position they have at the moment is threatened by something as drastic as leaving the party. Serious left-wingers can dismiss these people as parasites on the working class.
And of course there is the perennial argument about staying in the Party to move it to the Left. But in the light of the experience of the Hawke and Keating Governments, and now Carr in NSW, it is clear that the ALP is unreformable. It is a creature of capital.
The reality is that the ALP is not and has never been a workers' party. It was once a party of the trade union bureaucracy. That bureaucracy has a special place in class society - it comes out of the working class but its role is to bargain with the bosses over how much workers are exploited. The bureaucracy's material interest is in the continuation of capitalism, not its overthrow.
Since its inception this bureaucratic and class collaborationist approach has found expression in the politics of the ALP. While the Party in power manages capitalism it attempts to provide crumbs from the table of the rich for workers.
But sometimes, given the crisis-ridden nature of capitalism, the feast finishes and there are no leftovers. The need to manage capitalism becomes paramount and the Party responds by attacking its working class base. It was ever thus.
The difference is that today the ALP is moving away from any working class pretence. There is talk of a "third way" which is code for Thatcherism with a Labor face. If this approach wins out, it will make the Hawke and Keating Governments seem paragons of left-wing virtue. The "reformers" want a neo-liberal party without any trace of working class politics.
This degeneration is highlighted by the changing nature of Labor representation in Parliament. The ALP's representatives are now more likely to be professionals than workers. Their position in society - middle class marketeers - determines their politics - middle class marketeering.
Of course this analysis is a generalisation. There is still a Parliamentary Left within the ALP. But at least at the higher echelons of power this group is not committed to or even interested in radical change.
But the question to the principled section of that Left has to be - why stay in such a thoroughly reactionary political organisation?
Other developments outside the ALP Left may provide an alternative. The radical and revolutionary Left has united to form Socialist Alliance. It is putting forward Old Labor policies. Abolish the GST. Tax the rich. Spend much more on public schools and public hospitals.
The radical left probably won't have much impact in the forthcoming elections. This is because workers' anger will be focused on John Howard. A small socialist group to the left of the ALP will be swept aside in the rush to get rid of the Coalition.
But paradoxically the election of a Beazley Government will provide a boost for the radical Left.
The next Labor Government will be "a warmed over version" of the Howard Government, to quote from a recent article in the Financial Review.
Economic rationalism infects Beazley and Crean. Just like Bob Carr they will attack workers to ensure the bosses' profits are safe. This reality will see the principled Left having to make a choice - abandon their principles or leave the ALP and join with other leftists to build a new organisation fighting for justice and equity.
Why wait?
John Passant is a member of Socialist Alliance
by Strewth
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You might be surprised to find out that over 90 per cent of the players who played Davis Cup for Australia in the last few years live in other countries. They either don't think Australia's the best little country in the world, or they're a pack of tax dodging, public fund rorting, no good cheating bastards. Take your pick.
"Our" Pat Rafter lives in Bermuda. Australia's own Mark Woodforde spent much of his tennis career living in Monte Carlo, before setting up a ranch in California. The Poo, and his comrades Tood Woodbridge and Sandon Stolle live in the tennis and golf star ghetto that is Florida. Even Wayne Arthurs, that chronic first round loser, lives overseas. Only that little Ausssie battler Leyton Hewitt still calls Australia home, in Adelaide, presumably with his mum.
So what's up with these blokes? Greed got the better of them? Don't want to lend a hand to their future competitors at the Institute of Sport? Perhaps they're conducting a mass protest about tax payer dollars being used to prop up private schools and the private health care system. Whatever it is, tax dollars have got something to do with it.
n Pat Rafter's home town of Pembroke, Bermuda you don't pay income tax. None at all. So while Our Pat gives generously to children's charities, he doesn't give much to Queensland schools, roads and hospitals. He only pays the Australian Tax Office a cut on the money he earns through Australian tournaments and Australian sponsors.
Like Bermuda, Mark Woodforde's old home town of Monte Carlo is also a tax haven where personal income tax rates are zero. In the other Woody's home state of Florida, the tax regime also suits Australian tennis players. In the U.S. the top marginal tax rate is 39 cents in the dollar, compared to 48 cents in the Australian dollar. And in Florida there just happens to be no state taxes.
The player's managers and financial advisers will tell you that they have to leave Australia to play on the international circuit. But this doesn't explain why Leyton Hewitt can manage to live in Adelaide and Pat Rafter has to live in a tax haven in Bermuda. Or why golfers like Greg Norman, Craig Parry and Stuart Appleby live in Florida, while Wayne Grady and Mike Harwood live in Australia. Or why legends of tennis like Ross Case, Geoff Masters and Phil Dent could stay put and live and pay taxes in their own country.
For athletes playing team sports it makes sense when they move overseas. They have to live where their team is based. It's less important for golfers and tennis players as they end up living out of hotel rooms when they play the circuit.
The Australian Sports Commission gives out $14 million worth of scholarships a year and gives out $28 million in grants. Most of that money goes to elite athletes. But many elite athletes are not contributing to these government funded sports institutes because they're paying their taxes, if any at all, overseas.
Mark Phillipousis and Todd Woodbridge are two of the athletes who benefited from government funded scholarships at the Australian Institute of Sport, and now pay taxes to the U.S. government. They've both made millions from tennis, but aren't required to put money back into the Institute of Sport. There's no HECS style scheme for athletes who received sporting scholarships from the AIS.
So should we try and recoup the scholarship money of highly paid sports stars who move overseas? If we can't do that we should at least make them play Davis Cup for their adopted nations. Imagine seeing Pat Rafter lead Bermuda in a Davis Cup Tie against Australia. At least he'd be made to pay one way or the other.
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There is no doubt that Pru is close to the Prime Minister. It would, however, be very hypocritical of me to judge her according to her choice of friends (and besides its already been done) rather than her merit to do the job. So lets look at that.
Pru has held several senior Government positions under the Howard Coalition Government including head of the Office of the Status of Women (OSW). It was while in this role that she earned the ire of women's groups around the country for defunding a number of peak women's organizations (notably the Womens Electoral Lobby who had publicly pointed to the Government's shortcomings on women's issues) and cutting back the number of women's organizations represented at the Government's women's round table consultation. These actions were defended by Pru as being necessary to "professionalise the women's movement" and further, that "we have the opportunity now with the more intimate format, we also think we'll get much more back from women, in terms of those women's organizations".
These comments sound alarm bells for me given Pru's new role. The Sex Discrimination Commissioner needs to be open to more than the "usual suspects" or worse - the favoured few (i.e. those who say what the Government wants to hear).
Pru was also quoted as saying that her successor at the OSW "has to be committed to looking after women in the community, appreciates she's not an advocate, she's a member of the Government's administration". This also is a concern. While clearly the head of the OSW is part of Government the role is to advance the interests of women within the Government's operations at a policy and a practical level. Sounds like an advocate for women to me and lets face it within Government circles women need an advocate cause there aren't too many people who will push the issues for women. It is true that this advocacy may be done out of the public eye but the position is not, nor should it be, just about being an apologist for whatever position the Government takes.
The role of Sex Discrimination Commissioner is, of course, different in its relationship to Government. Susan Halliday (who Pru is taking over from) won the respect of many for her independence and willingness to speak out where she felt there were problems. She also achieved a great deal by taking on issues and working with all stakeholders to improve the situation for women.
I must admit though, that when Susan was first appointed I was a bit nervous given her employer background. She well and truly proved these concerns to be unjustified by the way she carried out her role.
Maybe on the basis of this I should reserve my opinion on Pru Goward and see what happens. However, Pru needs to be aware that Susan has set high standards and that she will be judged in the same way. So there is a number of things Pru needs to do as a priority :-
� Be open to and seek out all points of view
� Not be an apologist for this (or any other) Federal Government
� Not accept that its difficult as a reason for not changing our attitudes and behaviour
� Complete the unfinished business arising from the Pregnant and Productive Report especially the holding of an inquiry into maternity leave and return to work (following parental leave).
Pru Goward takes on this very important role at a time when there is still so much inequality between women and men in all facets of society. She comes to the role with a fair bit of baggage and a few presumptions about how she'll go. Its up to her how she will be judged and she should be under no illusions that women will be watching.
Alison Peters is a deputy assitant secretary at the Labor Council
Anyone who follows the Monk's work would know he has a propensity for the clanger - normally motivated by an imperative to deny the complexity of the world and fit it into a narrow ideological box. Take the 'job snobs', remember the attack on ambit claims as 'unrealistic' (really??) and, at every turn, hear the cry of the 'evil unions'.
Fresh from his ham-fisted attempt to position himself as the next Deputy Leader of the Opposition (some ambition, huh?), Abbott stepped into the Shed with an extraordinary attempt at historical revisionism on the Four Corners program on the working poor.
The program made some salient points. The Working Poor exist as a direct consequence of labour market deregulation. The down-grading of the award system and long-term reduction to the minimum wage has created conditions where the possession of a job is no longer a passport to financial security. Despite attempts by the ACTU to resurrect the Living Wage principle (that a worker should be paid a minimum to sustain a basic quality of life), the Howard Government has continued to argue that wage rises are bad for the economy - ignoring that the economy is consisted of the wage-earners who don't have enough money to spend to make the economy grow.
It's a complex issue, which Four Corners attempted to delve into. But when they turned to the good Minister for analysis, it became a cartoon. Abbott's responses are so boof-headed that they are worth reproducing in full. And remember, this is not a piece of satire.
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Four Corners The statistics don't show that people are being left behind. The statistics show -- Some people.
Mad Monk: Well, you can always find individuals who are being left behind. But if we look at cohorts of the population, it's just not true. People are not being left behind on a statistical basis, whatever might be happening to some individuals.
Now, it's the responsibility of government to try to put policies in place which over time will allow people to improve their situation, policies in place that will allow people to earn more and keep more of what they earn. And that's what the Government is trying to do.
But we can't abolish poverty because poverty in part is a function of individual behaviour. We can't stop people drinking. We can't stop people gambling. We can't stop people having substance problems. We can't stop people from making mistakes that cause them to be less well-off than they might otherwise be.
We cannot remove risk from society without also removing freedom and that's the last thing that any government should do.
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In light of these comments its worth noting Abbott's own background. Educated at one of Sydney's most exclusive private schools, into the seminary before parachuting into a management job, shoe-horned into the Murdoch press before snaring a blue riband Liberal seat.
The Monk's problem is that he takes his privileged world to be the whole world. And from this perspective you can understand what he is saying - amongst the young lords of Riverview, it would be likely that those who don't reach the heights of affluence indeed have themselves to blame. They've had every chance to get ahead and frittered it away.
But the world is bigger than Riverview College; and most people don't have these opportunities. They are not born to rule and have a range of social and economic barriers in their place. Some claw their way out of poverty, others are consumed by it. Each story is unique, each a story of the failings of a society that lets privilege replicate itself.
Like so many of his class, Abbott merges his personal privilege with a belief that the promotion of individual liberty will allow the talented to flourish. The fact that those born to wealth have the best education and can, thanks to the Howard government, buy their way into degrees, does not seem to sully the ideological purity of their convictions. The State is to be mistrusted to the extent that it does anything to redistribute wealth or opportunity. They would call this a meritocracy, others would see it merely entrenching the moneyed aristocracy.
Beazley is right, by blaming the poor the Monk has become the modern day Marie Antionette, wondering why, if the peasants were so hungry, they weren't eating their cake. She lost her head soon after. The Monk should take that as a warning.
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