
Issue No 113		28 September 2001

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News

'The General' Makes Ansett Stand

By Andrew Casey

Marilyn Patton is known as 'The General' by her workmates. It is partly because of the surname - but it's also because she has been an active LHMU union delegate for most of the fourteen years she has worked supplying catering for Ansett Airlines.

Now she is owed nearly 60 weeks in entitlements - with the collapse of the airline - but she reckons she'll be lucky if she sees a quarter of what she is owed.

" That is a big loss. I've turned 60. I'm in limbo. Not old enough to get a pension. But I'm not really at an age to go looking for a new job.

" People shouldn't have to go through what we have been going through," Marilyn Patton said.

As ' The General', the union activist, Marilyn Patton has been attending all the community rallies at the airport and in the city to save the more than 16,000 Ansett workers jobs - and the estimated 60,000 other jobs lost because of the airline's collapse.

Marilyn worked as a direct employee in Ansett catering until the airline sold the catering unit to Gate Gourmet in 1999.

The catering company Gate Gourmet relied on the business from Ansett to survive. When Ansett shutdown Gate Gourmet shut down.

" Ansett sold off the business to Gate Gourmet with all the entitlements owing to us - so someone had the entitlements money which I earnt and which my workmates earnt," Marilyn said.

" Someone has to take the responsibility for our hard-earned entitlements - the redundancy, the long service leave, the holiday leave.

" The Howard Government scheme isn't covering all my redundancy entitlements.

" I'm owed over 50 weeks in redundancy and they only want to give me 8 weeks redundancy money. There has got to be some law; some way to safeguard all our entitlements."

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  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 Nauruďż˝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