
Issue No 113		28 September 2001

LaborNET	Ask Neale	Tool of the Week

Trades Hall

Neale Towart's Labour Review

Our resident Mountain Man likes many things, but nothing more so than mounting a speculative gaze over the crazy world of IR.


	Neale Towart

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Cointreau: A Bitter Orange Liqueur by Laurent Labrique

The brand Cointreau has world-wide cache. Remy-Cointreau procures the oranges for the liqueur from countries where labour is cheap. Haiti is one of those places.

Workers there have been picking and cutting the oranges for years in near slavery conditions. In 1958, farmers agreed to give their land to factory owners, in return for promised improvements in living conditions and social and physical infrastructure. Guess what? nothing was done. The land was supposed to be handed back if the promises were not kept but has not been.

Workers have organised unions to force management to negotiate. Authorities have sided with management and security guards have banned union workers from cultivating any land. Management has also started questioning previously accepted minimal standards and used the police to attack union members.

Remy-Cointreau has turned a blind eye to these practices of their contractors, on the pretext that it is not a majority shareholder in the Guacimal company who export their entire crop to France. A company representative visited Haiti and failed to speak with the workers.

The union published an open letter about the conditions and repression, and Remy-Cointreau then voiced concern about the situation. (but has not yet acted)

(Trade Union World; no. 9, September 2001)

Working Conditions in Europe

One out of every three workers complains of backache at work. Roughly half of all workers claim that they work in painful or uncomfortable positions. Over half the workforce state that at least a quarter of their time is spent working at high speed or to tight deadlines. The "Third European Survey of Working Conditions" conducted by the European Foundation for the Improvement of Living and Working Conditions is not reassuring. Comparison with the 1991 and 1996 surveys shows deterioration for many workers. Over 15 million male and female workers report that they have been subjected to violence, intimidation or sexual harassment inside the workplace.

(Trade Union World; no. 9, September 2001)

Nissan: Discriminatory Credit rates

Nissan car dealers in the USA have the habit of granting more unfavourable credit terms to black customers. On average, black people pay up to $800 more for Nissan cars than whites. This was the conclusion of a study of 300,000 loans over 33 IUS states between March 1993 and September 2000.

(Trade Union World; no. 9, September 2001)

Income Inequality was on the rise throughout the 1990s by Anne Harding and Harry Greenwell

The share of all income received by the top fifth of the population has increased, with the shares of the middle and bottom declining, according to studies by the National Centre for Social and Economic Modelling (NATSEM).

Most households had an increase in income after inflation in the period 1990-99 but those at the bottom increased by just 1.5%, whilst those at the top had an increase of 14%

Some argue that measuring expenditure inequality is a better guide to the economic well-being of households. Analysis of expenditure shows that inequality in this area has increased in the past 5 years after apparently remaining constant or declining from 1984 to 1994.

The composition of the bottom 10% of households by income changed in the period. Social security dependent families with children generally moved up and out of the lowest bracket, being replaced by the aged and the working poor singles and couples.

(paper presented to the 30th Annual Conference of Economists, 24 September 2001;

NATSEM Conference Paper no. 7, 2001) http://www.natsem.canberra.edu.au/pubs/cp01/2001_007/cp2001_007.html

Greed Is Better: Corporate Excess produced by Gerald Tooth

In the last week of August, the Commonwealth Bank spent millions of dollars flying 400 people to Paris on what it called a study tour. The travelling party was made up of 200 of what the bank calls its 'independent third party advisors' and their spouses.

These are people who sell bank products, such as insurance schemes from the Commonwealth Bank owned Colonial, but who don't actually work for the bank.

A bank insider told Radio National's Background Briefing the total cost of the tour was around $5-million. The bank however, disputes that figure.

Commonwealth Bank spokesman, John Mulcahy, said the $5-million figure was an exaggeration but refused to say just what the Paris trip had actually cost.

Gerald Tooth: I understand that part of the expense was around about $860,000 to fly John Farnham over to entertain the people for two nights. Is that correct?

John Mulcahy: No, I wouldn't quote that number either, certainly Johnny Farnham was in Paris and used as part of the entertainment of the program, yes.

Gerald Tooth: Well I understand from his management that that figure is pretty close to what they were charging to be there.

John Mulcahy: Well I won't comment on financial components of the program, but we definitely paid for him to be there with his support.

Gerald Tooth: Before leaving for Europe John Farnham's manager, Glen Wheatley, had confirmed to Background Briefing that he was charging 'in the vicinity of $800,000' for the two Paris shows for the Commonwealth Bank.

Glen Wheatley said John Farnham also 'does a lot of shows for the top 50 companies around Australia' for a range of fees.

The death of Christopher Skase bought many comments on the excesses of the 1980s. The only problem with these comments was the assumption that excess came to an end. Its actually more gross than ever now. Gerald Tooth examines the excesses of corporate Australia, how they justify the inflated salaries and how they spend them. The Miss Fliess Escort agency has rates from around $3000 per hour, and their market is exclusively the corporate sector. There services were not around in the 1980s.

Background Briefing. First Broadcast 16 September 2001 on Radio National

http://www.abc.net.au/rn/talks/bbing/stories/s369337.htm

Politicians Need to Rehumanise IR: Riordan

The latest federal IR system had failed its authors, according to a former presidential member of the federal Industrial Relations Commission, who also told a national IR conference they should remember that shortfalls in a jurisdiction were caused by the parliaments who passed the legislation.

Joe Riordan, a self-confessed 'unqualified supporter' of the process of conciliation, told delegates to the National IR Society's conference on the Gold Coast last weekend the Workplace Relations Act was inequitable, cost-burdensome, and had led to unnecessary strikes and lockouts.

He said while people had a right to engage in those industrial practices, 'we're in a very difficult state at this time'. 'All our industries are very vulnerable, all our jobs are very vulnerable - those who don't understand that don't understand economics,' he said.

He also had a serve for the terms used to describe the modern workforce, saying talk of deregulation of the labour market 'fails to recognise that the workforce consists of human persons who are entitled to be treated with dignity and proper respect'.

http://www.workplaceinfo.com.au

ILO Launches HIV Guidelines

The ILO Code of practice on HIV/AIDS has been launched. Data shows that 23 million workers are infected with HIV/AIDS.

The code provides workers, employers and governments with guidelines based on international labour standards for addressing HIV/AIDS and its impact. It is also designed to help prevent infection rates spreading to relatively unaffected countries.

http://www.ilo.org (CCH Workalert, September 2001)

View entire issue - print all of the articles!

Issue 113 contents

Interview: The Custodian
Labor's arts spokesman Bob McMullan on the role government can play in nurturing national culture.

Media: Chucking a Wobbly
Veronica Apap meets Dan Buhagiar, the programmer of Labor Council's new online initiative, Wobbly Radio.

E-Change: 3.3 Unleashing a Networked Culture
Politics does not occur in a vacuum - it's is as much a product of its culture as it is an influence on it. In the post-Industrial Age how will this relationship change?

Unions: Are You a Terrorist?
Away from the talkback noise, Mark Hearn reports on how a Sydney workforce is taking up the cause of racial understanding and tolerance.

Organising: STAA Performers
Film industry workers are acting collectively to ensure they don't become Mexicans with Mobiles.

Workplace: Making Art Work
The Workers Cultural Action Committee is a community cultural development provider. What is this? And what does it mean for the union movement?

History: Creative Alliances
Neale Towart wanders through the archives to look at how unions' have worked with artists to promote progressive casuses.

Performance: Tales from the Shop Floor
Peter Murphy profiles Sydney's New Theatre and the role it has played in fostering working culture.

Review: Homegroan
In an extract from her new book, The Money Shot, Jane Mills argues that the local film industry needs more than patriotism to get bums on seats.

Satire: PM Pleads To Nauru: Take Our Aborigines Too
In the wake of Nauru�s acceptance of the Tampa refugees, Australian Prime Minister John Howard has struck a new deal with the small island nation to take our Aborigines as well.

» Abbott Stacks Commission on Election Eve

» Trades Hall to Be Fit for the Arts

» Olympic Builders Honoured in Oil

» Terror Shockwaves Hit Security Workers

» The Ansett Phoenix Rises

» 'The General' Makes Ansett Stand

» One Dollar Workforce Highlights Workcover Concerns

» Email Workers Saved

» Union Power Gets Tilers Paid In Full

» NSW Nurses (Pro)Claim Their Worth

» AOL Sheds Non-Union Staff

» Building Inquiry Faces First Test of Integrity

» Telstra Guilty Over Union Discrimination

» Paint Workers Finish the Job

» New Project Agreement A Template

» The Workers United, Need a New Slogan!

» Activists Notebook