Issue No 116 | 19 October 2001 | |
NewsAnsett's Redundancy Edict: Hand in Uniforms
Ansett workers are being made to return their uniforms as a precondition for accepting redundancy, in a move believed to have been a Howard Government requirement to neutralise their political campaign. The workers have been dogging the Prime Minister and his minister during the campaign, with flying squads of uniformed workers gatecrashing media events. Workers Online understands the precondition to hand in the uniforms was pushed by the government, who are offering public funds to underwrite the redundancy program. Letters offering redundancy went out to all Ansett staff this week, while the administrators have announced the first forced redundancies - with 340 call centre workers in Sydney and Brisbane losing their job. The letters of forced redundancy offer workers four weeks pay - with an extra week for employees over the age of 45 with more than five years service. Workers will also have access to entitlements from the federal government's funds covering: unpaid wages, annual leave, pro-rata long service leave, unpaid redundancy up to eight weeks. But the administrator says workers will not receive travel benefits that had previously been offered to employees made redundant or outplacement services. Three in Ansett Race The job cuts are unlikely to be the last, with prospective buyers Lindsay Fox and Solomon Lew signalling he would only be looking at retaining some 4,000 of the 13,000 Ansett staff. ACTU secretary Greg Combet says unions have been in talks with the consortium for two weeks and are still negotiating the wages and conditions. Combet says unions recognise the need to get Ansett back in the air, but do not believe that wages and conditions were the reasons for the airline's collapse. The consortium - which is yet to make a formal bid - joins Singapore Airlines and Anfleet - a consortium of Ansett pilots - as serious players in Ansett MkII. Combet told journalists today that there is no preferred buyer at this stage: "We will treat all of them equally and take of them seriously." He also warned Qantas that it's push to introduce one million cut-price fares between Sydney and Melbourne in the lead-up to Christmas was "predatory" and could draw the attention of the ACCC. Qantas begins talks with its workforce on Monday when it will seek to impose a wages freeze over the entire company for the coming enterprise bargaining round.
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Interview: The Green Machine Nick Bolkus outlines Labor's environmental stance and lays down the gauntlet to Bob Brown's Greens. Industrial: Regaining Control France�s 35 hour week stems from the program of the Left coalition government which went to the polls in June 1997 with the policy of �worksharing�. Unions: Home Of The Longest Day Australia has a dubious new prize to put in its cluttered national trophy cabinet. We are increasingly the most over-worked nation in the world. Campaign Diary: Week Two: Fightback Labor's doing everything to win a normal campaign - but this is no normal campaign. Economics: Who Will Notice When You Die? Johann Christoph Arnold asks whether the anti-globalisation movement is the answer to an epidemic of loneliness. History: American Terror Incredible revelations about the work of the US National Security Agency through the Cold War years help put the current War of Terror into perspective. International: Global Day of Action In the aftermath of the terrorist attacks in the US last week, the ICFTU has announced that preparations for the Global Unions Day of Action on November 9 will go ahead. Satire: World Gripped by Fear as Howard Third Term Looms The global community has uniformly condemned the recent terrorist attacks, which horrifically helped revive the re-election prospects of John Howard. Review: Flashbacks Cultural theortician Neale Towart consults his record collection in a bid to understand the chaos gripping the earth.
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