The call from the Australian Service Union's Michael Want follows news that his members in Ansett call centres had been the first victims of compulsory redundancy since the airline's collapse.
Want directly blamed the price wars, where carriers were offering unsustainable prices to attract market share, as a major contributor to the current crisis in the industry.
"We need a central body setting a minimum level under which prices should not be allowed to fall," Want says. "It would at least bring back some sanity to the industry."
"This would protect both workers and the public from market-driven collapses of essential services like airlines."
Qantas Unions Face Pay Freeze
Meanwhile, Qantas has released one million bargain basement domestic fares the same week it has told staff times are so tough that the will have to cop a wages freeze.
Qantas CEO Geoff Dixon briefed more than a dozen unions with members in Qantas this week, placing up front the airline offer of a wages freeze, with bonus across the airline if profit targets are met.
The offer is the opening gambit in enterprise negotiations that will heat up immediately after the federal election, with the protected bargaining period already commenced.
Apart form the wages freeze, key areas of union concerns include Qantas' plan for establishing a low cost carrier with inferior wages and conditions and an expansion of their foreign bases in Auckland and Bangkok.
While some institutions such as Westpac have placed mortgages, credit card repayments and personal loans of all Ansett workers on hold, others like St George and Aussie Home Loans have told workers they must continue to make their repayments.
Ansett workers and Transport Workers Union delegate Graham Mitchell is one of those who could lose his home after St George Bank told him his status as a "preferred customer" was not enough to receive any help in his hour of need.
"They shut the door in my face and told me 'you're not in front (on your repaymenets) so we can't help you'," Mitchell told Labor Council delegates.
Ansett workers rallied this week outside the St George's Haymarket branch to put pressure on the bank to show some compassion. Similar pressure has led to promises from Aussie Loans that they will look after any Ansett workers havinfg difficulty meeting their repayments.
Taking on Kelly
Meanwhile, the whole affair has got Mitchell so angry he's decided to stand as an independent in the upcoming federal election.
Mitchell, aged 30, has worked as an Ansett baggage handler for the past eight years. He is married and the proud father of two.
He says he's running as an independent against Tourism Minister Jackie Kelly in he marginal seat of Lindsay in response to her provocative comments that the Ansett collapse was just a "BLIMP" on the National landscape.
"I hope this will help force the Federal Government to do more to save Ansett jobs and protect 100% of all workers entitlements," Mitchell says.
Announcing the claim in Melbourne this week, ACTU Secretary Greg Combet said the $25 increase was needed by many workers struggling to keep up with price rises on essential household expenses following the introduction of the Government's GST.
"Hikes in the cost of fresh food, petrol, child care and other household items have far exceeded even the Government's upper-band GST forecasts and are making it virtually impossible for many working families to keep up," Combet says.
"The most recent prices survey by the ACCC show that despite predictions fresh food prices would fall by 1.1%, fresh and unprocessed food had gone up by massive 10.3% since the GST was introduced. Bread is up by 5.1%, and car running costs and alcohol and tobacco products up by 5.1% and 11.2% respectively.
"Half of the 1.7 million employees who depend on award wages for their livelihoods are earning less than $13 per hour, or $500 a week. Many of them are women struggling to support families through work in the hospitality, retail, cleaning, childcare and clothing trades," Combet says.
A NEWSPOLL survey published in this week's Australian confirmed that the burden of the government's GST has fallen hardest on low-income earners. Fifty-one per cent of poll respondents said they are worse off as a result of the GST. Households earning less than $30,000 a year, 65% reported feeling worse of as a result of the GST.
Combet says the ACTU's $25 claim was economically affordable, representing an average annual pay rise of 3.8%, compared to the latest 5.3% rise in Average Weekly Ordinary Time Earnings (AWOTE) reported by the Australian Bureau of Statistics.
Under the claim, award rates would rise by $25 to bring the Federal Minimum Wage to $438.40 per week ($11.54 per hour). The ACTU has calculated that the claim would add less than 0.1% to the Consumer Price Index and contribute less than 0.2% to economy-wide earnings over 12 months.
"Despite John Howard's promise that no-one would be worse off under his Government, low-paid workers have been hard hit by the GST. If the Federal Government is concerned about a fair go for working families, then it should support the unions' Living Wage claim."
Real wage and salary income for the lowest-paid 40% of Australian households fell by between $13 and $85 a week during the 1990s, according to a report last month by the National Centre for Social and Economic Modelling (NATSEM). Over the same period, the highest-paid households received real increases ranging above $100 a week.
Reporting to the Labor Council this week, secretary john Robertson said he'd been informed by the Minister that he would not be prepared to negotiate on key areas of union concern.
These include:
- the imposition of a 20 per cent whole of body threshold for access to the courts to sue negligent employers.
- the removal of the 'second gateway' for access to the courts
- the introduction of a scientifically untested formula for gauging the seriousness of psychiatric and psychological injuries.
But Robertson says, the Minister has left open the offer to negotiate on the introduction date for proposed increased to the statutory benefit scheme and the cap of 65 years on the calculation of non-economic loss.
With the Government still determined to have new laws operational by January 1, 2002, the pre-Christmas sitting of Parliament will provide the next battleground, with unions planning to lobby Opposition and cross-bench members to amend the Della Bosca package.
Rats, Mice and Guinea Pigs
Anger is growing over the government's handling of the issues of psychological damage, with Della Bosca rejecting the Labor Council's proposal that a proper assessment system by developed by medical experts.
This is independent despite advice from the Medical Review Tribunal that the Government's proposed PIRS scale is not scientifically tested.
Public Service Association general secretary Maurie O'Sullivan says the idea of putting in untested guidelines and 'waiting and see how things pan out' is an insult to injured workers.
"It is really to close one's eyes to the injuries being sustained and to treat those who are injured and make this sort of claim as rats, mice and experimental guinea pigs," O'Sullivan says.
Spread the Pain
Robertson has renewed his call for the Carr Government to lift its cap on employer premiums and 'spread the pain' in dealing with the current WorkCover scheme difficulties/
"This government has capped employer premiums at 2.8 per cent which is not meeting the costs of the scheme," he says.
"It's not acceptable to simply take away benefits, the government has to make the hard decision and actually raise premiums to an accurate level."
by Phil Davey
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The CFMEU notified the ATO. The company signed and breached two Section 222 ALA agreements with the ATO where they agreed to pay the unpaid tax off over time. The company involved owes $400,000+ to the ATO.
It is believed that this company has strong connections with an individual, Mario Sanna, who has been behind phoenix companies who have failed to remit over $4 million in Group Tax. The Union is aware of these other companies from documents obtained and a Mareva injunction filed with the Federal Court.
The company has broken two agreements with the ATO but is allowed to continue to trade (ie. accrue further debts to the ATO).
Tony Abbott is determined to prevent the Royal Commission into the Building and Construction industry from examining tax fraud. A recent report of the National Crime Authority makes mention of a $1 billion of tax fraud in the industry. Abbott denies this and refuses to accept that this issue should be dealt with by a Royal Commission that will cost Australians $60-80 million.
The CFMEU wants to also know why the ATO Phoenix Squad has had a staff reduction from 13 to three over the last four years whilst building industry tax evasion has exploded.
Rally Outside Royal Commission
Last Monday, 22 October 2001, about 200 CFMEU delegates gathered at Trades Hall and marched to 55 Market Street where the Cole Royal Commission into the Building Industry is being held, to protest against the Howard Government's union-bashing tactics and to call on the Government to broaden the scope of the inquiry to look at OH&S and workers compensation avoidance by employers.
A large group of people from many diverse communities gathered at the rally to show their support for the CFMEU including Ansett workers, George Piggins, President of the South Sydney Rabbitohs, Actors Lex Marinos and Bryan Marshall, artists, unions, including the Teachers Federation, ETU, MUA, LHMU, AMWU, TWU, PSA and politicians including the Hon Michael Costa MLC and the Hon Ian West MLC.
The rally was a enormous success with many speakers congratulating the CFMEU on their constant willingness to be involved with a wide range of community organisations and the commitment of all building workers to improving society on many levels by assisting in raising money for many different community groups like NISAD - the Neuroscience Institute of Schizophrenia and Allied Disorders - for which the CFMEU raised over $80,000 has been raised from the campaign this year.
The claim lodged by the Public Service Association is for improved pay and better career paths for all Librarians, Library Technicians and Archivists employed by NSW Government bodies.
The PSA claims these jobs, which are predominantly done by women, are undervalued, and under the Equal Remuneration Principle there is a strong case for their upward revaluation.
The PSA is claiming pay rates which are consistent with pay rates in professions of similar training and education and in which men are predominant.
The PSA also claims the positions are inadequately defined and consequently are inconsistently graded across the public sector. The claim contains job descriptions for each level which will contribute to consistency across the state.
The PSA wants one award to replace the variety of awards and agreements currently covering the three classifications.
The Public Sector Management Office has lodged a service-wide counter claim for two awards, one for librarians and information workers, and the other for archivists.
The NSW TAFE Commission has also lodged a claim to cover its staff.
The case is now proceeding before a Full Bench consisting of the President, Justice Lance Wright, Commissioner Donna McKenna, Justice Trish Kavanagh and Justice Roger Boland in the NSW Industrial Relations Commission. The President has allocated the hearing of evidence to Justice Boland.
Inspections at State Library, Attorney Generals Library, State Records and other places were conducted this week. Hearing of evidence will happen over 6 days in November. Final submissions will be made early in December. The decision is expected shortly thereafter.
The PSA's claim can be found on the PSA website - go to http://psa.labor.net.au/news/bulletin/20010321_lidawardmarch.html
The librarians were one of the seven occupations featured in Justice Leonie Glynn's Pay Equity Inquiry in 1998.
The Public Service Association has raised these concerns as it signalled its intention to join the NSW Teachers Federation in launching a public sector secure employment test case next year.
PSA general secretary Maurie O'Sullivan says the lack of government accountability for its employment practices as it pushes for further deregulation and decentralisation of public sector agencies.
The PSA says an accountability framework is the first step in getting the NSW Government to commit to secure employment practices.
These would include:
- provision of whole-of-government and agency by agency details on the employment breakdown of full-time, part-time, casual and other forms of employment. These are even denies under Freedom of Information requests.
- lack of detailed statistics on the use of consultants, contractors and labour hire.
- No employment impact assessments of proposals to outsource or privatise
"These matters are crucial to secure employment in the public sector," O'Sullivan says. "Indeed the original watchdog body - the Council of the Costs of Government, has now bunkered down 'out of sight' with very little information published about its activities."
by Andrew Casey
"This week's announcement by the ACTU of a new Living Wage campaign is a central issue to many hospitality industry workers who rely on the Australian Industrial Relations Commission to deliver them a fair outcome," Mark Boyd, LHMU Hotel Union Assistant Secretary said.
The LHMU Hotel Union stop work meeting starts at 9.30 am on November 6 at the Kings Cross Fountain.
" We have already heard the Australian Hotels Association representatives - the bosses' union - start beating the drum for the AIRC not to deliver a wage increase for our members. We need to start organizing to defeat this campaign.
" In the Kings Cross area a number of big hotels have announced they are shutting down but have not had the decency to consult with their workers and the union about the shutdown process.
" The Gazebo Hotel has planned to shut down just before Christmas Day, leaving many hospitality workers without an income during the peak job season which delivers the best wages for our members - especially casual and part-time workers.
" The huge Landmark Parkroyal Hotel in Macleay St is also shutting down and has refused to negotiate over redundancy pay for its workforce.
" That's why this years paid stop work meeting - which is guaranteed in our Award - is being held in the Kings Cross area so hotel workers' can demonstrate their solidarity with these workers
" Our members believe that only by sticking together can we deliver some sense of job security for the thousans of hospitality workers in this city, in these tough times," Mark Boyd said.
The ballot will take place at this year's Telstra AGM, on Friday 16th November 2001
Mr. Daniel Simard the General Co-ordinator of the pension fund Batirente, which is sponsored by the Confederation of National Trade Unions, has applied the 646 200 Telstra shares held by the funds international equity division to the CEPU campaign to have Len Cooper, the Victorian Branch Secretary of the CEPU (Communications Division), elected as a director to the board of Telstra.
Last year Mr. Cooper was the fifth highest polling candidate for the five vacant board of directors positions. However, the fifth position was withdrawn by the Howard government, ensuring that Mr. Cooper could not be elected. So much for Mr. Howard's shareholder democracy.
Mr. Cooper and another Telstra board nominee, Telstra employee Mr. Mervyn Vogt, have announced that they will use the Corporations Act to bring about a 'No Confidence Vote' in the current board and senior management.
The CEPU campaign seeks to preserve jobs and restore service levels for the Australian community. As well as retaining Telstra in majority government ownership.
To appoint Mr. Len Cooper as your nominee and have him vote on your behalf at the Telstra AGM, place his name in the blank box on the 'Appointment of Nominee' form that you should have received. Fax the form to 03 9615 9911 (Country Code 61 if faxing from overseas) by 12th November 2001.
by Andrew Casey
" We are taking action in the Queensland Industrial Relations Commission, and we expect to take similar action in the NSW jurisdiction, on behalf of security union members who were not paid under the relevant awards and legislation," Jeff Lawrence, LHMU Security Union National Secretary said.
" Australian workers should not be expected to accept discount wages and conditions just because the Australian Government decides, as a public policy decision, to shift refugee detention centres off-shore.
" We believe that both the Australian Government and the Australian employer have an obligation to maintain Australian standards for Australian workers.
" We are disappointed that Tony Abbott, as the responsible minister, has refused to intervene to protect the rights of Australian workers.
Delegate Discrimination
" The union is also concerned by allegations that one of our members was discriminated against because he had the guts to organise the Australian security guards to act collectively to defend their workplace rights.
" This member - who was the union delegate - commenced work in Nauru on Saturday October 6 but was sent home on Monday October 8, it seems because the company was unhappy that he was recruiting security guards to form a union to protect their workplace rights.
" Again we ask of the Australian Government, is it their policy to deny basic rights to organise a union - just because they have chosen to shift the workplace to Nauru, rather than keep it in Australia?," Jeff Lawrence asked.
While Triumph International's Australian arm has ceased placing orders there, we've been informed that the multinational is still dealing with the discredited military regime.
That means the international campaign against Triumph continues, in line with last year's ground-breaking resolution of the International Labour Organisation.
Australian consumers will welcome the fact that bras made in burma will no longer be on sale here, but will continue to question whether they should support a company that deals with the Rangoon regime.
Burma Solidarity Meeting
Meanwhile, Sydney activists have the opportunity to hear an update on the situation in Burma first hand from workers' perspectives.
A National Council of the Union of Burma is currently in Australia and is holding a briefing on Monday, October 29 at 6.00pm at the PSU NSW Branch offices, Level 7, 191-199 Thomas Street, Haymarket.
For further details call Marj O'Callaghan or Alison Tate at APHEDA on 9264 9343.
by Andrew Casey
LHMU Aged Care Union National President, Helen Creed, says Mr Howard told ABC Perth's Liam Bartlett: " I don't believe there's a nursing home crisis."
" If that is the case why are nursing home residents in Western Australia organising voluble protests to back their carers - our union's members - angry about the poor funding for this sector," Helen Creed asked.
LHMU members and supporters around Australia have been haunting Mr Howard and his Aged Care Minister, Bronwyn Bishop, by handing out Scary Bronny masks to highlight the silliness of the Coalition's Aged Care policies.
" Only John Howard and Bronwyn Bishop would believe their own propaganda and go onto Perth radio trying to claim that black is white.
Protest at Howard Office
The protests were taken right up to John Howard in Sydney this week with the LHMU and the HREA protesting in front of John Howard's campaign office in the electorate of Bennelong.
" LHMU members were particularly upset by Mr Howard's demand that aged care workers should be more flexible if they want better pay," Ms Creed said.
" No one could be more flexible than our members. They are skilled and committed people who are at the beck and call not just of their residents but also the all too often tyrannical employer.
" Mr Howard avoided answering the question of whether he thought $11.44 per hour was a fair wage.
" The essential question the Prime Minister must answer is: Could John Howard imagine himself, or any of his children, working in this industry for such measly pay?"
They have awarded a cleaning contract which covers twenty stores in NSW and the ACT to a contractor at a price that means cleaners could be working for as little as six dollars an hour.
The cleaners work for Woolworths stores, in the Campbelltown area, Illawarra, the South Coast, the Hunter and the ACT.
" They are all about to lose their jobs because the supermarket chain has decided to change their contract cleaner - and the new contractor is refusing to guarantee continuing employment," Sonia Minutillo, NSW LHMU Cleaners' Union Executive Vice-President said.
" The decision of the new contract cleaner, Noxan, not to offer jobs to our members breaks a long- standing tradition in this industry - the contract may change but the workers' get to keep their job.
17 years' experience
" The refusal of the incoming contractor to re-employ long term staff, some with up to 17 years' experience, does not bode well for the type of working conditions the new contractor plans to put into place," Gil Anderson, the ACT LHMU Cleaners' Union Secretary said.
" We believe that a big company like Woolworths should consult with the union before handing out a tender to ensure that contract changes do not create a jobs crisis for their workforce."
Sonia Minutillo said:" Many low paid workers are facing an even bleaker Christmas than many of us are expecting in these harsh times - thanks to this Big Australian.
" To protest the way that this Big Australian's decision to make more bucks is hurting lots and lots of other ( smaller) Australians our union's members in Wollongong and Canberra are holding protest rallies at store sites."
The one legged star of the New York Marathon had made an international name for himself competing in marathons around the world in a customised hand cycle.
He had decided to miss New York this year in favour of competing in his home town in the Sydney Marathon. After he had cancelled his appearance in New York, Athletics Australia did a back flip and decided Todd couldn't compete in Sydney after all, citing "inadequate infrastructure".
Todd brought his plight to thousands of Sydneysiders earlier this week with a number of interviews on 2BL explaining his situation.
But when he contacted his Union for help, his problem was sorted out in 24 hours.
The CFMEU made strong representation to NSW Sports Minister John Watkins. Watkins in turn convinced Athletics Australia to allow Todd to compete.
A delighted Philpott will now line up with other disabled athletes for the marathon at 7am Sunday.
by Andy Wright
New South Wales Labor Council Assistant Secretary Mark Lennon and activists from a number of unions, together with NGO workers and human rights activists handed out leaflets in support of ISA detainees to hundreds of city workers at the lunch-time protest.
"Most people were really shocked when they realised the draconian nature of the ISA law", said Alison Tate, who works for the Australian Trade Unions' foreign aid organisation APHEDA.
The action was held to coincide with the picket in Malaysia at Kamunting Detention Centre on the 27th October. Some of the participants know detainee Tian Chua from his early days as an activist at university in Sydney in the 1980's.
There message to Malaysia: keep up your struggle, supporters of democracy and human rights around the world are with you!
Picnic for Peace
Sunday 28th October from Midday
Overflow Park at Sydney Olympic Park, Homebush
What's On: Live music and entertainment, food stalls, speakers and activities for all the family
You will hear speakers talk about the next step for diversity, peace, refugee rights and reconciliation.
Let's send the political parties a powerful message that Australian's do support the international Human Rights system and want to end punitive and discriminatory immigration and social policies.
As a gesture of peace bring or wear something white as a sign of solidarity for refugee and indigenous rights. BYO chair, hat, picnic and friends.
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CONCERT AGAINST RACISM
Addison Road Centre for Arts Culture Community + Environment presents - CONCERT AGAINST RACISM
All proceeds go to the Refugee Council of Australia
Fri 2 Nov, 7:30 pm, Addison Road Centre, 142 Addison Rd Marrickville
nfo: 9569 7633
Geng Gong /Vangelis Papageorgiou & Annette Tesoriero/ Ustad Sarshar/ Voices From The Vacant Lot/
Shohrat Tursun/ Entehkni/ George Doukas & Friends/ And Others..
Bar/Food Raffles/ Art Auction $15 / $10
Proudly sponsered by: Sidetrack Performance Group, Marrickville Council, Greek Orthodox Community of NSW,
Construction Forestry Mining Energy Union (CFMEU), & Addison Road Centre
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REVERSE GARBAGE: 25 YEARS OF FUNKY JUNK AND RE-USE
Australia's first re-use centre, Reverse Garbage, has been saving junk and industrial discards from going to the tip for 25 years. Reverse Garbage trucks are a regular sight Sydney wide, picking up industry offcuts, and bits and pieces of all shapes, sizes, colours, and molecular make-up.
Over 8000 cubic meters of waste per year has been saved from landfill, and been used instead by Reverse Garbage customers to make and create art, craft, props, furniture, clothing and house & office renovations.
Reverse Garbage Co-operative Ltd. was started in 1976 by a group of primary teachers who were concerned by the amount of waste going to landfill and the need for a centralised supply of cheap, useful art and craft materials.
From an initial seeding grant from the Department of Urban Affairs and Planning Area Assistance Scheme Reverse Garbage has developed into a community business with independent and sustainable trading operations, generating all it's own income through resource reuse trading, education and consulting activities.
Over the years Reverse Garbage has undertaken a variety of waste minimisation, cultural and educational projects in collaboration with organisations such as the Australia Council, NSW Department of Community Services, NSW Environment Protection Authority and the Environmental Education Trust and regional Waste Boards.
They also conduct an Environmental Education Program for schools, Creative Recycling Workshops at major community events, Waste Education campaigns for Local Councils, and Waste Reduction Projects for local Councils, the Environmental Protection Authority and the former regional Waste Boards(now Resource NSW).
Current initiatives include the Office Re-use Scheme which is being trialled with the co-operation of Australia Square management in the Sydney CBD. Old office equipment, disused stationary and other items from over 50 floors of offices will be collected and sold at the Reverse Garbage warehouses.
Reverse Garbage has two warehouses in Sydney; in the Addison Road Centre at Marrickville and in the Casula Powerhouse Arts Centre.
As the largest and oldest creative re-use centre in Australia, with a proven commitment to community and environmental benefit, Reverse Garbage has been instrumental in the creation of other re-use centres Australia wide, such as R& R Recycling in the Hunter region, & Illawarra Revolve.
Staff member Belinda Masi says 'The diversity of customers we have is truly amazing; from the handyman building special tap handles for his disabled wife, to partygoers making Sleaze costumes, to artists, designers and mad inventors. Everyone gets so excited with all the weird and useful stuff we get in here, and it ALL gets sold.'
Reverse Garbage is holding two special birthday events to celebrate their 25 years of operation.
Junk Love-The Exhibition, displaying re-use art and sustainable design, opens on Tuesday 13th November at 6pm and runs through until Thursday 22nd (Entries for the Junk Love competition are open until Nov 5th); & Love Trash-The Party, on Sunday 25th of November from 11am to 5pm, hosting a day of music, activities, art, and a giant birthday cake. Both events will take place at the Addison Road Centre, 142 Addison Road Marrickville.
Reverse Garbage is open from 9am to 5pm Monday to Saturday, and from 11am to 3pm on Sundays. Members receive special discounts but the warehouse is open to all. For further information call Reverse Garbage on 02 9569 3132.
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Political Economy Courses at Sydney University
Union members and activists wanting to come to grips with the economic orthodoxies that bombard us daily will find excellent alternatives supplied by the courses presented at Sydney University by the Political Economy Group. They are an ideal antidote to the nostrums of the Economically Correct.
The course modules of study on political economy subjects are on in the evenings. These modules are the components of degree programs, but they are available on a stand-alone basis. It is possible for people to enrol on a one-off basis in units that are of interest to them and could help them in their work activities.
The Political Economy group have been teaching economics from a progressive perspective for over 25 years. This is especially important at a time when economic ideas have been adopted uncritically, with detrimental effects on people's livelihoods.
The units available in 2002 are:
First Semester (week beginning 4 March to week ending 14 June)
� Core Concepts in Political Economy [ECOP 6101]; Mondays 6-9pm
� Environmental and Ecological Economic Management [ECOP 6108]; Tuesdays 6-9pm
Second Semester (week beginning 29 July to week ending 8 November)
� Policy Documents and their Analysis [ECOP 6102]; Mondays 6-9pm
� Developments in Infrastructure Provision [ECOP 6109]; Tuesday 6-9pm
Core Concepts in Political Economy [ECOP 6101]
This core unit introduces a basic analytical framework for a 'political economy' perspective on current economic and social issues. Core concepts introduced include the accumulation process and economic crisis, the labour process, the role of the state, and the duality of nation state and global economy. The unit is concerned with the relationship between economy and society - the general character of the capitalist economy and how 'markets', state, class and ideology interact in shaping its social order. The perspective is enhanced through case studies of key current economic 'problems'.
Policy Documents and their Analysis [ECOP 6102]
The unit examines economic policy-making by a novel route. It provides a vehicle to understand the context in which economic issues are confronted by policy-makers and advisers, and the context of the development of economic policy itself. The unit examines the policy-making process by examining representative policy documents for what they expose about the policy process - the economic dilemmas that the documents confront; the underlying philosophical principles and conceptual apparatus; the language of persuasion; the mediums for influence; the role of 'committees of inquiry'; and so on. The unit will also address economic issues raised by participants, issues that arise within the arena in which they are employed and embodied in particular documents on which their particular professional expertise is relevant.
Environmental and Ecological Economic Management [ECOP 6108]
The objectives are to understand the parameters that define the management of material interactions within ecological systems; to focus on the formulation of policy and management strategies for sustainable development in particular sectors; and to develop a critical appreciation of the systemic nature of the pressures imposed on environmental/ecological systems. The unit will provide an overview of revisions within the general field of environmental economic theory, as a prelude to the consideration of ecological economic perspectives. The different tendencies that inform environmental economic management will be broached through an examination of particular problem areas. Drawing on environmental assessments and management processes at various levels of government, there will be a scrutiny of the relative merits and weaknesses of management techniques and strategies advanced by traditional environmental economic theory and by ecological economists.
Developments in Infrastructure Provision [ECOP 6109]
The 1970s witnessed dramatic changes in policy rationales for state involvement in economic affairs. This unit explores the theoretical rationales for these policy changes, their origins and the results. Issues to be explored include: the role accorded to state assets in the Australian colonies prior to federation and the extension of this tradition into twentieth century Australia; features of Australian state asset management peculiar to Australia; the rise of the 'new' theories behind the breakdown of the consensus on state-owned infrastructure in the 1970s; the 'revolution' in Australian public infrastructure management during the 1980s and '90s; and the difference between privatisation and corporatisation. Case studies from the last 20 years of Australian economic and public policy history will provide detail on the impact of changes in economic and policy fashion. The unit will discuss strategies to deal with issues arising from corporatisation and privatisation.
Administrative Details
� The fee for each unit of study is $900
� Semester 1 runs from week beginning 4 March to week ending 14 June
� Semester 2 runs from week beginning 29 July to week ending 8 November
More Information
Contact Evan Jones
Tel: 9351 6617
Email: [email protected]
Web: http://www.econ.usyd.edu.au/pe/postgrad/MecSS.htm
Workers everywhere, especially the baby boomers aged from 40 to 55 years are in for a big shock when they eventually retire. The Superannuation Taxes, levies and surcharges are eating away at your savings and no-one seems to give a damn.
This issue has the greatest potential to bring down the government on November 10.
Check out your latest Superannuation statements and see how much tax the bastards take. Don't worry about the Taliban or One Nation or who wants to immigrate to Australia.
Just get a financial advisor to show you the truth about your Super. You will get a horrible surprise. And worst of all it affects every Australian worker. Its not only the marginal seats we can win. Make this an issue in every seat and we will knock the mongrel Libs off like flies.
Mike Gard
Dear Comrades,
While, strictly speaking, Stephen Holt is correct in saying that George Orwell was not an anarchist, his statement is probably misleading to most people. Orwell was, in fact, a maverick on the Left and his ideas were a curious mixture of anarchism and Labour Party reformism. What he lacked in analytical ability, he more than made up with his commitment to intellectual honesty and his lacerating criticism of the moral hypocrisy of the mainstream Left (i.e. the "Communist" Party & its friends).
Orwell fought against Franco in Spain and, while officially affiliated to the POUM militia, said later that, had he known the political situation on the Left more accurately when he arrived, he would have joined up with the anarchists. After returning from Spain, he was virtually a lone voice telling the truth that the "Communists" were allied with the capitalists in crushing a workers' revolution in Spain and lost friends because of it. He worked closely with the anarchists in Britain against the coming war, only changing his mind when the Hitler-Stalin pact was signed in August 1939.
When World War II started, and particularly in the dark days after the fall of France & during the Battle of Britain, Orwell campaigned for the war to be run as a revolutionary war. He said, quite correctly, that the Tory Party was infested with Nazi sympathisers who would rather lose the war to Hitler than give up the Empire or equalise the distribution of wealth.
Finally, even after his anti-CP stand became newly fashionable as the Cold War started in the last years of his life, Orwell refused to line up with the Right. He said repeatedly that he was of the Left & the crimes of the Soviet Union would not make him give up on socialism. His experience in Spain, where he saw that the "Communist" Party was against socialism, not for it, seemed to have stood him in good stead.
In Solidarity,
Greg Platt
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Stephen's Holt's reply to my letter asserts that Eric Blair wasn't an anarchist.
Perhaps I should have said that Blair was never a capitalist. Holt makes no mention of his original assertion i.e. that as Blair opposed Communism he therefore by default supported capitalism.
The line that "if you're not on their side you must be on ours" is the same tired old rhetoric that supporters of market capitalism have been dragging out for years. I suppose I just can't cope with Workers Online actually publishing it.
David Martin
Poor Ralph Nader and Bob Brown. To be attacked by that committed Greenie, Nick Bolkus. The ALP, as do the US Democrats, offer themsleves as the only option for Greens because the other bastards are worse. The people who supported and still support Nader are only too aware that Gore and the Clintonites were the best reason to support Nader, not a reason to support the Democrats instead. Clintons policies wound back Nixon era protections, destroyed lots of national park, allowed mining, logging and agribusiness companies huge scope to rape, pillage and pollute. The advantage of Bush and co for the greenies in the US is at least they have clear focus on their enemies now and their donations and membership rolls are going up as the organisations stop selling out to the supposedly friendly Dems.
If the ALP had cred on the environment, Bob Brown wouldn't need to run. He knows they haven't so he is absolutely essential to ensuring some watchdogging of the environment in this country. He also, by the way, has a much stronger commitment to workers rights and enhancing decent job prospcts in Australia than the ALP showed in its time as govenrment (Mr Bolkus was there too).
Nader's supporters, and the Australian Greens, are trying to build an alternative, as the heavies maintain the status quo and refuse to put environmental (human and 'natural")issues at the centre of public policy.
Neale Towart
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What is it about the NSW Labor Council that intrigues motivated you to do a PhD and indeed a book on the subject?
It's one of the oldest institutions in the State. It's the founder of the NSW Branch of the Australian Labor Party. It's older than many institutions. It's older than the Employers Federation and it's certainly older than any political party.
Having looked at the evolution of the Labor Council, what are the themes that emerge?
In the period beginning in the forties you have very large union membership strength. The Labor Council itself is a small institution but it has a great deal of power because once McKell got in it was the partner of the Labor Government. And of course Labor stayed in power in NSW until 1965 when Robin Askin won from Jack Renshaw. It has always been one of the power brokers in the Labor movement in this state.
Your book focusses on the actual leaders of the Labor Council. How important is the personality of the secretaries?
I think it's very important because they brought their own methods of dealing with things. There is an evolution in the book so you see, from the early leaders of Kenny and Marsh and Ducker who were blue collar workers. Kenny was in the glassworkers, Marsh was a boilermaker and Ducker was an ironworker. This was the way that working class people went into politics, through the trade union movement. They weren't politicians to begin with but they all became politicians.
After Ducker when you had the two electricians Barry Unsworth and John MacBean. And then you from that to complete a quantum leap to Michael Easson who was - as I call him - an honours graduate. He had been in the workforce but he was certainly not on the shop floor as a tradesman. From Michael Easson you go to Peter Sams who was an industrial advocate and from Peter Sams you go to Michael Costa who had been in the workforce. He in fact had been in the workforce for the ironworkers at Garden Island and he later trained as an engineman. So he almost encapsulated both sides. He was a tradesman but he was also a highly educated person having done a tertiary degree.
But it is an evolution just as there has been an evolution in education for the majority of Australians from what they could have expected if they were working class in the 30s, 40s and 50s to what working class people can now expect if they're lucky.
How's the relationship between the unions and the ALP changed over the period that you studied?
I don't think it's changed much at all. It is still a family relationship and it's still subject to tension. You cannot say, like some conservative people say, that the unions run the Labor Party. That's not so. The unions contribute to the Labor Party on various levels mainly, of course, in NSW because we have 60 per cent of the state conference delegates are delegates from unions. But we must differentiate between unions that are affiliated with the Labor Party and unions who are affiliated with the Labor Council - because you have major unions like the Teachers and the Nurses who are affiliated with the Council and not affiliated with the Labor Party. Those people and those unions may well go to the state conference as delegates from their local branches or FECs or SECs. But the Labor Council itself is still with the leadership, in a very close relationship with the Labor Party because it is in the interests of workers to have a Labor Government.
In the course of your research you've come up with some very interesting revelations about a number of secretaries, but I guess the most controversial has been the links with ASIO. Can you expand on that?
It's very odd. I must first explain that the major source of my research was done in the two institutions - the Labor Party and the Labor Council - records which are held at the Mitchell Library. It wasn't until almost the last six months of my research that I actually went into two files which I hadn't looked at before. One was called 'Peace' and the other one deals with another matter concerning John Ducker was called 'Rank & File Life Committee'.
In the 'Peace' file there were almost half an inch of documents and I list in the book what they were. There were an explanation of the Communist Party and the Peace movement and there were lists of people that were involved in the peace movement or were alleged to have been involved, up to 23 lines on one person about their activities. They met at private homes, went to peace rallies, they bought Tribune, some highly innocuous things in some ways. I mean a lot of people might have bought Tribune to see what kind of rubbish they were perpetuating. It was obvious that this was a report which only one organization could have prepared and that was ASIO. It's well known that ASIO had people working at all levels report on the peace movement that they considered to be a communist front.
Jim Kenny had been a fervent right winger all throughout his life as well as being a Catholic. Kenny was the architect who formed the industrial group in NSW. He was the one who moved the resolution at the 1945 state conference. He worked with all of the other great right wing unionists like Laurie Short and made the industrial group in the 40s and the 50s big enough to wrest back control from the communist unions like the ironworkers. After we had Evatt denounce the Group, Kenny himself was attacked by Doherty of the AWU as being a stooge for Santamaria and he, who had formed the group and was definitely a member of the catholic social action movement, went on to cut all his ties with them.
That happened in 1965 after the Hobart conference. From then on there's this distinct sea change in Kenny's public attitude. The first was accepting an ACTU sponsored invitation to go to Peking in December 1957. And there he attended a trade union conference and he made a major speech, almost an appeasement speech, saying that all ideology within the trade union movement should coalesce in the fight for peace. That it was the politicians who were the warmongerers, but that the trade union movement right across the world including the trade union movement in China could cooperate in the carse of peace.
Now before that he's never mentioned peace. So at this stage in writing the book I said that this is very, very strange. Why did he go? And then when I found these documents in this file, it all started to make sense because the documents were dated July 1956. Someone had given them to Kenny. It listed all sorts of people. Some were trade unionists but there were many eminent men and women. For instance, people in the CSIRO, people in medical institutions and major hospitals. Someone had sent Kenny this information in '56 so why in '57 does he go to China and start speaking about peace. My thought then was to see what ASIO documents were on Kenny because 1957 followed in 1959 to go to the Melbourne Peace Congress and he continues to go to peace events after that. I thought well, if he's going and speaking about peace there's got to be files on him at ASIO.
So I went through the normal process, sent in my forms and I got back something from the Australian Archives which said that ASIO says there are four folios in the 'open' period - that means the period at that time when I applied that could be released under the 30 year rule. And so I managed to gain photocopies of only two of them and most of them were severely obliterated. But it seems to relate to his visit to China in 1957. Someone had obviously reported to ASIO that he was going to China and that he could be contacted there. But they refused to release the other two folios and the strange thing was they asked archives to tell me that there were no other documents on Kenny in the open or the closed period.
And my argument is: here's a man, a fervent right-winger who goes to Peking at a time in 1957 when no right wingers are going to be seen there, meets Mao, comes back and starts going to peace councils and becoming a leading figure in the peace movement. Why aren't there any other ASIO files on Mr Kenny? Everybody else in the peace movement was investigated. They couldn't move without ASIO knowing what they could do. And why, especially in 1956 is he speaking out against foreign involvement in Vietnam? Why aren't there any other files on him?
My only conclusion, once I found this document, which was curiously on the front page had a notation - K49 in ink. My thesis was that he was given those documents - but who was he given the documents by? K49 was his code number to the ASIO operative who was supplying him. The answer to that was found in the book, 'Australian Spies and their Secrets' by David McKnight, which listed ASIO connections in the trade union movement and pointed the finger at one Jack Clowes who was alleged to have been an ASIO officer and who was later employed at the Labor Council during John Ducker's reign, as a research officer in the Library after he had retired from ASIO.
What do you think this says about the Labor Council at the time?
What you've got to understand is that the Labor Council, once Kenny gained control of it, was in good safe right wing hands. Before that we had enormous conflict, communist inspired disputes and there could have been - after the war - a takeover in the Labor Council so that they became as far left as they were in Victoria. But that didn't happen because Kenny and the industrial group in NSW managed to stave off that challenge by getting sufficient unions into right wing control so they never had the numbers at Labor Council elections.
And my point is that Kenny was always an anti-Communist. Why suddenly does he go the other. It could only be because there was some reason for it. And my view of this matter is, yes, Kenny exchanged information with ASIO. It's quite clear that he received information from them because of what is in the files. As well as the files there are about four issues of Communist Review with articles in them about the peace movement given him the tools - the jargon to express himself.
He was not a left winger. The only benefit he got from this, personally, was that he rehabilitated himself within the broader spectrum of the trade union movement, not the far right who were actually dead against him going to China and who refuse still today to believe that he could be an ASIO agent.
But the reality was there was a sea change in his attitude. I believe it was caused because he was asked by ASIO to go to China. In fact he should have gone in the May but he went to the extreme step of getting his doctor to write a letter to the Labor Council Executive saying that he had been treated for a heart condition, he had a sinus problem and he shouldn't go. Which meant that instead of going in the May when he would have been well chaperoned with the rest of the ACTU delegation that went for the May Day Parade, he went in the December, only accompanied by his wife.
Yes, while he was in China he was obviously guided around by the Chinese. But when you go into Kenny's own personal record in the Mitchell Library, he wrote a complete handwritten report on his visit to China which he presented to the ACTU on his return. Now if he did that, he could have equally written another more detailed report for ASIO. Because otherwise, why would a man who is in one year - in 1956, accepting information from ASIO suddenly in 1957 going the other way. It also enables him to get a wide range of votes at the ACTU and to become Senior Vice President.
A running joke in recent years was that the Labor Council was always a CIA front. Is there any evidence that you've come up with linking Labor Council to the CIA?
Well I know that Michael Easson has always rumoured to be CIA-minded. I don't think so. There was always, in Sydney, a Labor Attach� attached to the US Consul. And it was their job, especially during the 40s and 50s when communist influence was great in unions, to make duchess union leaders and send them to the States for three months. And yes, Kenny did go to the States in 1951 for three months, as did Doherty, as did Laurie Short as did many other people over the years. And during that time he was obviously friendly with the Americans and there is a letter which another author found d which was to Weiner, who was the Labor Attach� at the time who wrote to the State Department to say look after Jim, he is a very good friend of mine.
When Richard Nixon, who was Eisenhower's Vice President, came to Sydney in 1953, he actually came down to Trades Hall to see Jim Kenny in his office. Now Nixon was being taken all over the place but he made a special effort to see Kenny because he was a friend of the Americans. So, if that was the case, why suddenly in 1957 is he cosying up to the communist by giving this spiel that all of the troubles of the world and the nuclear arms race was because of the political leaders and that the trade union movement should be beyond that and be working together in the cause of peace?
So what lessons do you think we can learn today from these stories from decades ago?
We've got a case in point at the moment. I don't want to use the word 'cosying up' to the Americans, we have an alliance since the early 50s - the ANZUS alliance with America and New Zealand, although New Zealand is more or less a silent partner becasue of its ban on nuclear powered vessels.
We are, in fact, under the protection of America. If they hadn't come here during WWII we probably would have been invaded by the Japanese. But I think the lessons we have to learn here is that nothing is ever as it seems to be. In the fight against communists at that time, all weapons were used to win - if it meant exchanging information with security organizations so be it. I mean why would ASIO be cosying up to the Labor Party - ASIO worked to keep Labor out of power; Evatt lost the 1955 eection because of the Petrov Royal Commission. So, what we have to learn from all of this is you have leaders who sometimes have to gain information through various sources. They may or may not give information back if there is a common purpose.
At that time there was a common purpose. The right wing Labor Council wanted to make sure the Labor Council was secure that left wing policies were not pursued and disruption of industry during the war was not going to happen. That is why they fought so hard to get leadership in 1946. That's why they formed the industrial groups.
You can't judge those men by today's standards. I doubt if any Labor Council Secretary in the last 10, 15, 20 years would have had any knowing relationship with ASIO. Although we must remeber that Jack Clowes was still employed in Labor Council through to the early seventies until he died.
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The eight brothers are, in sequential order:
- Jim Kenny, Ralph Marsh, John Ducker, Barrie Unsworth, John MacBean, Michael Easson, Peter Sams and Michael Costa.
I didn't Jim but I know Nancy and I knew Alan and I pay my respects to Nancy tonight and honour the memory of Jim Kenny.
I did know Ralph who is no longer with us, of course, and in a spirit of remembering our departed comrade, I pay tribute to Ralph Marsh who was a great human being, a very generous and very straightforward human being, and I honour his memory tonight. He recruited me as Education and Publicity Officer of the Labor Council. He really was a terrific fellow.
Dr Dodkin's book is interesting on several scores. It's a critical study of the notion of leadership and leadership of the Labor movement in a democratic society, the Labor movement in a society shaped by a social democratic party.
So it's a study of a particular kind of leadership and it would rank with other studies, including the famous study by Max Weber of leadership in the German Social Democrats concluded in the early years of the last century.
It is a study of leadership.
It's a study of the Right faction, so it also provides insight into the grouping that Paul Keating called "the moderate ballast" of the Australian Labor Party and of the trade union movement.
So it's more than a series of political biographies, it's a generous slice of the history of NSW Labor and it sets the background and rise to power of these men against major events of the period from the 1930s to 2001 - the Great Depression, World War II, the Cold War, the wars in Korea and Vietnam, the Split, Labor's regeneration, Whitlamism and all it represented, right up to the relations between the Government I head and the Labor Council, including the dispute over WorkCover and Michael Costa's retirement. It examines the relationship between the Labor Council and the ALP.
Kenny, Marsh, Ducker, Unsworth, were all both MLCs and Labor Council Secretaries; John Ducker was President of the NSW Branch of the Labor Party; Unsworth, Premier of NSW after the resignation of Neville Wran in 1986. Now we have Michael Costa extending this tradition, moving from Labor Council leadership into politics. All gave allegiance to a particular organised strand within NSW Labor, what's referred to as the Right or Centre Unity.
Their efforts are integral to the electoral success of NSW Labor from 1941. Fascinating is the account of the genesis of these relationships, this political style, these associations going right back to Jim Kenny winning the presidency in 1946 and becoming Assistant Secretary within six months of that.
His role in forming the Industrial Groups, as a member of the so-called Movement as a fervent anti-communist is all charted there. He was a leader in the fight against the Communist Party in the trade union movement. I acknowledge the presence of Laurie Short here tonight.
Kenny visited the United States in May and June 1951 on a grant from the US State Department. He was well thought of, I'm advised, by the American administration as any anti-communist trade union leader would have been, turning up in Washington in the middle of the Cold War. Vice President Richard Nixon visited the Sydney Trades Hall in 1953. I think Laurie Short was associated with that as well.
Now there's something I want to say - this is pure Bob Carr here:
- I don't think you can understand any of this history without reminding yourself of what communism was at that time.
We're not talking about a benign debating society getting together in one of the rooms in the Trades Hall. You're talking about a Communist Party in Australia that was linked with the Communist Party of the Soviet Union and looked to it as the leading party. Democratic centralism prevailed in the relations between communist parties, the Community Party in Australia looked to that of the Soviet Union as being its leader.
And while the anti- communism of people then in the Right may by our standards look rhetorical, even strident, panicky, you've got to understand what the climate was then. It was a different climate and people who were Labor or Social Democrat were in prison or labour camps in nations around the world that were ruled by Communist parties.
I would passionately defend in any forum exploring Labor history the legitimacy and the honour of the anti-communist tradition within the Labor Party. I exclude from this the Santamaria movement. It's what I refer to as Labor anti-communism, which is a very defensible tradition.
Now Dr Dodkin found a series of documents dated July 1956 in the Labor Council archives headed "Communism and the Peace Movement" reporting on the activities of 79 people allegedly linked to the peace movement. She suggests the documents came from ASIO as the notation on the first page "K49" leads to the conclusion that that was Kenny's code name.
Now I haven't combed through this chapter in the sort of detail and attention to footnotes that would enable me to comment on that, but as Nancy Kenny and I agreed a moment ago, it wouldn't matter if it were true and wouldn't affect the legitimacy of Jim Kenny's political position. I never knew him but I respect his position. The legitimacy of his political position is eminently defensible in the climate of the 1950s.
Dodkin argues that Kenny's involvement in the peace movement and as a critic of foreign policy in Vietnam was interesting in this light. Of course, reflecting on this and speaking as someone who shaves with Occam's razor, the best explanation is the most obvious explanation and I think it's quite legitimate that someone who is an instinctive anti-communist could in the 1960s have emerged as someone who wanted an opening towards China and wanted to criticise the Vietnam War.
So these are things to think about as you read the book.
Another theme that emerges is the Catholicism of Kenny, Easson, Sams, brought up as Catholics, and Marsh, Ducker, Unsworth and MacBean, converts. Occasionally you'd find someone in the Labor movement who had a conspiratorial view. This is the kind of thing that would appeal to some people, a conspiratorial view of this, especially John Ducker's conversion - you had theories from time to time.
But frankly, as a non-Catholic employed by these people, I found the whole atmosphere pretty benign and relaxed and there wasn't a trace of Catholic passion or prejudice in the whole thing. Their anti-communism was based on quite other grounds as I saw it. Michael Costa was brought up in the Greek Orthodox Church as it happens.
These things are just worth noticing in passing because I think one of the very, very attractive things about our democracy is that religion doesn't count here as it does in American politics.
At the first Young Labor Council meeting I attended as a school boy from Matraville High, brought along by Tom Gleason, my maths teacher, I was fifteen or sixteen. Someone called John Forrester got up and moved for the reintroduction of the Industrial Groups in NSW. Bob Gould opposed it. This is not surprising. So did John Ducker who argued that the time wasn't right and, in a famous diplomatic position from John, who argued there was value in part of the case raised by John Forrester. The time wasn't right and this would have a divisive effect on the Australian Labor Party.
But the book charts Ralph Marsh's and John Ducker's involvement in the Industrial Groups and Rank and File Rights Committee.
It shows how the Labor Council went from a small organisation servicing a large membership to a large organisation servicing a declining union membership base. One of the challenges that began to emerge for the union movement, I think especially in Michael Easson's period as Secretary, was the impact of societal change and change in the structure of the Australian economy and union membership and the role of the Labor Council.
The great historical and fundamental contribution of the Labor Council of NSW is really captured by Bede Nairn in his writings and acknowledged implicitly by Marilyn and that is the civilising of capitalism. It's been an amelioration of the excesses of our economic system that has been the contribution of the Labor Council of NSW in association with the Labor Party that it established in early 1891.
The long hold on power by one of the factions of the Labor Council is due to a very interesting succession system based on a tradition of apprenticeship and seniority but this in itself, the more you think about it, is a reflection of the pattern of succession that exists in individual trade unions on the Left and on the Right. And it creates a strength and a continuity I think of Left unions to which this principle would hold.
It produces experienced leaders, it produces a logical line of succession, it minimises or eliminates disputes within that line of succession, it underpins a cohesion in leadership that I think, on reflection, has been a great source of strength.
We live in a plural society. It's a robust plural society. This is a knock down, drag out democracy in NSW. It is the New York of Australia. It has cosmopolitanism and a capacity to debate - everyone on the street corner has got an opinion, every taxi driver is resolved to run the affairs of the State better.
But in the middle of this very vigorous democracy sits the Labor movement, the Labor Council of NSW. If you're a Labor council employee - education officer, publicity officer - and if you're ever walking along the streets of Sydney with one of these men at their side, as their assistant, you saw the judges and the company directors walking past tipping their hats and saying, "good morning Mr Marsh", "good morning Mr Ducker", "Mr Unsworth". In a sense it's because this is a Labor town and it counts in this city to be Secretary of the Labor Council of NSW.
If you can get a job there on the staff as an Education Officer that can lead to good things too!
by 'Brothers - Eight Leaders of the Labor Council of NSW' (UNSW Press)
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It was a dangerous time to be involved in the Labor Party, as politics and religion proved again to be an explosive mixture. Ducker was a young man without the experience of Kenny and Marsh, both of whom had greater understanding of the party and the church, and of the ramifications that would flow from the battle between the Right and the Left. Ducker was an impressionable novice in both areas. Short believed that, because of his youth: 'John was susceptible to many different persuasions. He was looking at the various strands and threads in the Labor Party and that could have led him to go to meetings ... of groups, with whom his name has been associated forever and ever.'
There was dissent within the FIA as the leadership was split between those who opted for the 'stay in and fight' strategy, those who supported the strategy of the Victorians who had left the party, and those who supported Dr Evatt and his anti-Grouper policy. At first Ducker publicly supported Evatt. Tom Uren, then a young left-wing activist, remembers Ducker on the platform behind Dr Evatt at a public meeting in Wollongong in March 1955. The meeting, organised by the Waterside Workers' Federation, was attended by approximately 800 supporters - including three state and three federal politicians, one of whom was Gough Whitlam. Also present, from the Australian Workers' Union (AWU), who had turned against the Industrial Groups in 1954, were state secretary Charlie Oliver and the South Coast organiser, V. Kearney. The AWU and the FIA were often rivals for award coverage at the steel works and Kearney noted with glee that, despite Short calling for a boycott, there were many ironworkers at the meeting.
Although Ducker was not the only ironworker there, his attendance was to almost cost him his job. Short recalled the events:
[S]ome people in the Ironworkers' Union were extremely critical [of], if not angry with, John Ducker [for] going to the meeting and publicly allying himself with Evatt. Some of these officials ... made comments to Ducker which hurt him very much and embarrassed him, to the point where he ... offered me a handwritten resignation. I looked at it, tore it up and put it in the wastepaper basket. I said: 'Don't be a fool ... You are a young man, you have a big career before you, this crisis will blow over.'
After that, Ducker had learned a salutary political lesson: if you want support from a faction, you give support in return. By June '55 he had returned to the right-wing fold and justified Short's faith in him. Uren, a stringent critic of Ducker, judged his earlier support of Evatt as 'political opportunism' when he saw him scrutineering for Group candidates at the 1955 ALP NSW Conference.
As discussed in Chapter 4, in 1956, the Right was fending off further federal intervention. Ducker was in the thick of the fight on two fronts - within the Youth Council and as a member of the Rank and File Rights Committee. As Youth Council president, he chaired a riotous meeting of the council on 3 May 1956 where he moved for a resolution of confidence in the 1955 central executive and called on the federal executive to give members their democratic right to elect the executive at the June NSW Labor conference. Leonard Lambourne and other left-wing youth councillors opposed the Ducker resolution. Shouting to make himself heard, and sometimes thumping the table, Ducker told delegates: 'If we lose the right to govern ourselves then the tradition of the Labor Party is lost': the meeting ended in uproar with an opponent of the Industrial Groups shouting: 'You dirty Fascists!' In reporting the meeting, the Sydney Morning Herald described Ducker as an organiser of the FIA and supporter of the Industrial Groups.
Ducker's activities in the ALP Youth Council were not in breach of the ALP rules since the council was a legitimate organization within the party and subject to party rules. His activities in the Rank and File Rights Committee, however, were to put Ducker's ALP membership in jeopardy when that committee was proscribed by the central executive on 21 September 1956. Ducker was attacked, in a letter to ALP general secretary Bill Colbourne, by his Youth Council opponents, Leonard Lambourne of the Surry Hills branch and G. Neate of the North Sydney branch. They questioned Ducker's involvement in the Rank and File Rights Committee and laid 37 charges against him, under ALP rules, by paying the necessary deposit of �1. The charges, which appear to relate to matters prior to September 1956, included allegations that Ducker:
As a member of the Rank and File Rights Committee knowingly allowed his name to be used in anti-Labor propaganda ... supported the decision of the Victorian Branch of Federated Ironworkers' Association ... to remain affiliated with the Anti-Communist Labor party ... contrary to the decision of the Federal Conference ... has actively participated in the formation of an Industrial Group within the Federated Ironworkers' ... in an attempt to circumvent the decision of the Federal Conference ...refused to accept the decision of the Federal Conference relating to continental China ... supported a motion opposing the seating of continental China in the United Nations ... attempted to undermine and destroy the leadership of the Rt Hon Dr HV Evatt supported the statement of Mr Laurie Short that Dr Evatt is a millstone around Labor's neck ... assisted in sabotaging Labor's campaign in the Barton electorate ... as President of the Council delivered an illegal minute wherein he attacked the Federal Executive of the Australian Labor party.
By this time some party branches in New South Wales were in disarray, with members leaving to join the Democratic Labor party (DLP), founded by the former ALP NSW assistant secretary, Jack Kane.
Lambourne made his most serious allegation against Ducker on 18 December in a letter to general secretary Colbourne, stating that he had learned 'from an associate of Mr Ducker that he has declared himself for the DLP'. Lambourne wrote that if it was true that Ducker had left the ALP, he would withdraw the charges. Acting general secretary Tony Mulvihill replied on 10 January 1957 that as branches had not held their initial meeting (when membership tickets were taken out for the current year), it was impossible to know whether Ducker had renewed his membership of the ALP. Mulvihill also told Lambourne that if and when a disputes committee hearing was necessary, he would be advised. It does not appear that a hearing took place, and on 19 June 1957 Lambourne withdrew the charges and requested a refund of his deposit, which was refunded to him on the same day.
Lambourne has confirmed to the author that the charges were never heard. He explained:
1956 was, of course, the time when the DLP was in the process of formation. The strategy by those supporting the Steering Committee was to force those extreme right-wing elements out of the ALP into the DLP ... I can't recall why the charges were withdrawn ... by this time, those who were leaving the ALP to join the DLP would have done so and there was probably no need to pursue the charge ... I don't recall who told me that John Ducker had declared himself for the DLP nor did I ever see any proof of his DLP membership.
Lambourne has pointed out that he and Ducker hold no grudges towards one another: '[There are] no permanent enemies in politics ... I hold him in very high personal regard and am privileged to call him a friend.'
In 1956, however, Lambourne was not a friend when he singled out Ducker over his involvement in the Rank and File Rights Committee. There were many party members who had supported the committee until it became a proscribed organization in September 1956, an example of this being a large public meeting on 7 May at the lower Sydney Town Hall which denounced any federal intervention in the NSW Branch.
Among the Labor Council records are documents concerning the Rank and File Right Committee. One document is a typed compilation of extracts of correspondence, extracts of minutes of meetings, from August to December 956, and the following list members: WJ Beasley, W. Slowgrove, JM Riordan, J. Ducker, J. O'Halloran, N. Mayell, Miss C. Nyhan, Miss V. Roach, G. Anderson, L. Short, J. Kenna, W. Allport, W. Crane, K. Collins, Mrs J. Johnston, HA Manning, P. Carter, P. O'Leary, J. O'Grady, J. Cunningham and S. Fennell. It should be noted that at the time, photocopying was not generally available and, unless there were carbon copies available, to copy a document it was necessary to retype it. It is not known who compiled the extracts but the compiler must have had access to the original minutes. ASIO may have had an informant who compiled the extracts and handed them on to Kenny in 1956.
On 13 August 1956 the committee co-opted the dismissed NSW assistant secretary Jack Kane and former country organiser Frank Rooney. Both men had been dismissed by the newly appointed central executive without any charges having been laid against them. In a further act of bravado, on 20 August the committee challenged the new central executive, in a letter from secretary Slowgrove to ALP general secretary Colbourne, with a demand that the conference that should have been held on 2 June 1956 be held on or before the weekend of 27-28 October, with the illegally appointed state executive submitting itself to the rank and file. The committee threatened to call a state-wide rank and file meeting if this was not done, and proclaimed the need for revitalisation of the party and new leadership in the federal sphere of the ALP, with a revision of federal rules. On 29 August a fighting fund was launched and a pamphlet organised for publicity to include the names of consenting committee members. Ducker does not appear to have attended that meeting and his name was not included on the pamphlet.
When the committee met on 6 September, it discussed the distribution of the pamphlet and received a general report from Kane. Ducker reported on the Youth Council and the Sutherland branch, which was not his own branch; other committee members gave reports on the Coogee, Wetherill South and Balmain branches of the party. This would indicate that Ducker and others were seeking support for their opposition to the new central executive, after intervention had occurred.
This final provocation let the central executive to proscribe the committee on 21 September 1956. Slowgrove and Beasley were called before ALP officers on 25 September and warned that anyone associated with their committee would be 'severely dealt with', and a written warning followed the next day. As a result, on 27 September, Slowgrove advised that it was no longer possible to organise opposition within the party and it was determined that the Rank and File Rights executive would meet and recommend a course of action in a full meeting on 29 September. The executive met on 28 September and recommended the formation of a new party, which 'to distinguish it from the totalitarian junta now in control of the ALP' would be called the Democratic Labor Party (DLP).
On this intriguing document there is a handwritten inscription which purports to be the attendance list of people at the Rank and File Rights Committee meetings from 29 August to 6 December 1956. The critical meeting on 29 September records the following people in attendance at room 34A in the Trades Hall: Beasley, Kane, Manning, Rooney, Collins, Carter, Roach, Kenna, Ducker, Cunningham, Fennell, McOrrie, O'Connor,Fitzpatrick, Harrison, Mooney and Gray. The secretary, W. Slowgrove, was not present at the meeting; Kane presented the executive resolution, which was accepted by the meeting. Kane was made secretary pro tem and Alan Manning pro tem president. The ALP was informed of the formation of the DLP by Slowgrove in a letter of 12 October.
"I wish to inform you that the Rank and File Rights Committee at a meeting held on 29th September, having considered your letter of 26th September, and being of the view that no democratic opposition to the present Executive or to the Federal Executive is to be allowed by the group which is unconstitutionally claiming to be the Executive of the NSW Branch of the ALP, decided to request those members of the previously constitutionally elected State Executive who are sympathetic to the aims and objects of the Rank and File Rights Committee, to act as a provisional Executive, and to proceed under the Rules of the ALP (NSW Branch) and be known as the DLP. The Rank and File Rights Committee was then disbanded, and no longer exists."
The extracts from the minutes of the Rank and File Rights Committee found in the Labor Council file can now be verified with the recent discovery of a monograph written by Denis Strangman in September 1962. Strangman was the secretary of the Sydney University Democratic Labor Party Society and the monograph was to be the first of series 'until the student body is sufficiently informed about DLP aims'. Strangman had access to the records of the Rank and File Rights Committee and used the minutes and extracts from the minutes as his references. The president of the society was a PC Manning, possibly related to Alan Manning, appointed as pro tem president at the DLP's formation meeting. Strangman's monograph mirrors the information in the extracts found in the Labor Council files.
This does not prove that the attendance list, which names John Ducker as being present at the crucial meeting on 29 September, is accurate, but it does give the document more veracity. If Ducker did attend the Rank an File Rights Committee meeting on 29 September, he was placing himself in danger as the committee had been proclaimed a proscribed organization by the central executive on 21 September. If this had been known to the ALP central executive, Ducker could have been expelled from the party.
The author questioned two associates of John Ducker about the allegation that Ducker had 'declared himself for the DLP', both of whom denied giving the information to Leonard Lambourne. One associate had heard an allegation by Jack Kane, the founder of the DLP, that Ducker had held a DLP ticket and that Kane had sound recorded a conversation with him about the ticket. The associate understood that the ticket had been held for a very short period but had not seen or heard any evidence to prove Kane's allegation. As the associate put it, 'the DLP didn't handle former friends well.' This may also explain Santamaria's antipathy towards John Ducker.
Kane was very bitter about former friends. Charles Anderson, the ALP general secretary who resigned from the Movement and the party in late 1954, met Kane accidentally in Sydney some years later. Kane told Anderson: 'All I want to do is to live for the day when I see Joe Cahill beaten.'
The Catholic Church responded quickly to the news of the new party. On 30 September 1956, the day after the Rank and File Rights Committee formed the DLP, the church hierarchy held a meeting at the Sacred Heart monastery in Kensington, attended by approximately 800 Movement members. Mick Carroll, a Sydney businessman who became a DLP activist, was at the meeting and later told Santamaria that Bishop Carroll had urged members to stay in the ALP and that Father Paddy Ryan had argued against the DLP, saying breakaway parties were 'not worth two bob'. For Catholics, the call to obey the bishop or follow their political conscience was a difficult choice. The allegation that John Ducker ever held a ticket in the DLP remains unproved; the fact is that Ducker stayed in the ALP, as did his boss Laurie Short and other Ironworker officials, Harry Hurrell and Darcy Ahearn.
The political turmoil also left a legacy within the Catholic Church. In Vanished Kingdoms: The Irish in Australia and New Zealand, Professor Patrick O'Farrell argues that Bishop Carroll, at the Kensington meeting, was imposing the will of the church on the laity in the Irish historical tradition:
The Labor Split put the clerical-lay alignment to the test. This was crucially the case in New South Wales, because the State's Episcopal leaders were committed to a political position of support for existing Labor forces, from which a significant section of the laity, association with The Movement, diverged, on the ground that Labor was compromised by association with communism ... Bishop Carroll engineered lay support for the Episcopal position, but not by argument or normal political authority and the reiterated demand for 'loyalty to the bishop'. This was accepted by many reluctantly, by others against their wishes, and better judgement, and by a very few, not at all ... The Kinsington meeting of 30 September 1956 marked the last, anachronistic but powerful, throw of the Irish clerical church in Australia. It went with a highly destructive, profoundly damaging, bang.
The damage within the Catholic Church paled in comparison to the damage caused to the Labor Party by the formation of the Democratic Labor Party. The DLP attracted former right-wing Labor members, many of them Catholics hurt by the sectarian attacks levelled by the left wing. Electorally the DLP vote and direction of preferences away from the Labor Party contributed to Labor's failure to win federal office until 1972. The DLP was to disappear from federal politics when it failed to retain its Senate seats at the 1974 double dissolution federal election.
In 1972, Ducker did not mention his fight against federal intervention when he told Gavin Souter that he had supported Dr Evatt and had only supported the Industrial Groups while they were recognised by the party. Ducker said he had been to one meeting of the Labor forward committee - a NSW arm of the Movement - where he had spoken against secret groups within the party and urged people to speak out.
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Anthrax-laced letters aimed at political leaders and media outlets in the U.S. have victimized members of the American Postal Workers Union (APWU), the National Association of Letter Carriers (NALC) and the National Postal Mail Handlers Union (NPMHU). The three unions have joined a task force organized by the U.S. Postal Service, the Centers for Disease Control and other public health agencies to contain the threat posed by anthrax in the U.S. mail. The task force meets each morning and conducts a teleconference each afternoon to share information and plan actions to respond to the crisis.
Two APWU members employed by the Washington, D.C. Post Office have died due to anthrax inhalation while two others are hospitalized for the same illness in nearby Virginia. Public health officials are monitoring at least 14 other D.C. postal workers who were also exposed to anthrax - two have reportedly been hospitalized in suburban Maryland pending tests for anthrax infection. All the affected employees in the Washington area work in the same Capitol Hill mail processing facility, a plant that handles the mail for members of the U.S. Congress and much of the executive branch of the U.S. government, including the White House. A letter directed to Senator Tom Daschle is thought to be the source of the anthrax, but authorities have not ruled out the possibility that other tainted letters are involved.
Meanwhile, a mail handler in Trenton, New Jersey - where all the known anthrax-laced letters were posted - has taken ill as a result of inhaled anthrax. And two letter carriers, one in New Jersey and one in Florida, have contracted the less serious skin form of anthrax infection. All infected workers are being treated with antibiotics.
After a regrettable weeklong delay, the USPS closed the contaminated facilities in Washington, D.C. and New Jersey and arranged to have all workers tested for anthrax exposure and treated with antibiotics as a preventative measure. All 6,000 workers in Washington, D.C., including the workers in all 36 branch post offices in the city, are being tested and given drugs to prevent infection. Some 10,000 workers in New Jersey and New York are being similarly treated.
The union-management-government task force has taken a number of steps to protect postal employees. Protective gloves and masks as well as barrier creams have been made available to postal workers who desire them. Instructions on how to handle suspicious mail have been distributed. New methods for cleaning automated mail sorting machines have been implemented to prevent the inadvertent spread of anthrax spores - officials fear that air hoses used to clean dust and residue from OCR sorters mail have played a role in the inhalation of the anthrax in Washington.
Although mail-sorting activities in Trenton and Washington D.C. have had to be shifted to surrounding facilities, normal postal operations and delivery are continuing throughout the country. And while there is no evidence that the nation's mail poses a general health risk to the public, there is growing fear among Americans about the safety of the 670 million letters and packages they receive each day from the Postal Service. In response, the USPS is mailing a postcard on the issue to every American household this week. It has also launched a crash investigation of various options for sanitizing the mail using irradiation technologies. President George W. Bush pledged on 23 October to provide $175 million to the USPS toward the latter effort.
The anthrax crisis adds to the difficulties facing the U.S. postal affiliates following the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. The negative economic impact of the attacks on the U.S. economy has hit the USPS particularly hard. Mail volumes dropped by more than 10 percent in the weeks after 11 September, resulting in a loss of $300 - $400 million in revenues, while transport expenses soared after new security rules limited the use of commercial airlines to haul mail. All three postal unions were in various stages of collective bargaining with the Postal Service at the time of the first attacks. The anthrax crisis only complicates matters further.
UNI affiliates interested in obtaining information on how the unions are responding to the anthrax crisis are directed to the unions' websites: http://www.apwu.org, http://www.nalc.org, and http://www.npmhu.org. The website of the U.S. Postal Service also provides up-to-date information on the crisis (http://www.usps.com/news/2001/press/serviceupdates.htm).
Information on the U.S. anthrax attack and on how to deal with anthrax is available from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control (http://www.bt.cdc.gov) and from the World Health Organization (http://www.who.int/emc-documents/zoonoses/whoemczdi986c.html). For more information contact mailto:[email protected]
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As part of it's 2002 living wage campaign the ACTU will be seeking a $25 a week pay rise for Australia's 1.7 million low-paid award wage workers.
While there are many important issues to be considered in this election campaign, the needs of low-paid workers should not be forgotten.
The St Vincent de Paul Society recently described the burgeoning gap between the wealthy and the poor and disadvantaged as 'the single most important problem facing Australia.' The Smith Family has warned that "In Australia today, having a job no longer guarantees that you and your family will not be in poverty."
Sixteen months after the introduction of the GST, low and middle-income Australians are struggling under an avalanche of GST related price rises. The most recent ACCC prices survey estimates that despite promises fresh and unprocessed food prices alone have increased by more than 10.3% since the GST was introduced.
Despite the Federal Government's claims to be champions of the low-paid, for four of the past five years John Howard and Peter Costello have argued that any pay rise for the lowest-paid in our community should be capped at just $8 a week. Had the Industrial Relations Commission taken the Government's advice Australia's lowest-paid employees would have received a real-wage pay cut of around 4% since 1998.
No one believes the Federal Government when they claim to have the interest of the low-paid at heart. Welfare agencies like ACOSS, Anglicare Victoria, The Society of St Vincent de Paul and the National Coalition Against Poverty who have all expressed concerns about the growth of income inequality and the working poor in Australia. Low-paid Australians and their families are doing it tougher than ever as the real impact of the GST on prices starts to hit home.
Low-paid workers need a decent pay rise to maintain their living standards.
Its time that John Howard and Peter Costello admitted that their GST has hurt low-income working families and supported a decent pay rise for low-paid workers."
Claim Summary
a)The claim
The ACTU Living Wage 2002 claim is for $25 a week increase in all award rates of pay.
If the claim is successful the Federal Minimum Wage will increase:
� from the current $413 a week, $10.88 an hour or $21,550 a year,
� to $438 a week, $11.54 an hour or $22,860 per annum.
Under the claim the key Metal Industry fully qualified trades-person's rate will increase from:
� from the current $507 a week, $13.35 an hour or $26,450 a year,
� to $532 a week, $14 an hour or $27,750 per annum.
b)Who will benefit from the claim?
Around 1.7 million mostly low paid, award wage, workers rely exclusively on ACTU Living Wage pay increases to maintain and improve their standard of living. These workers and their families will benefit most from the ACTU claim.
By claiming a flat $25 a week increase rather than a percentage, the ACTU claim also ensures that the biggest benefits of the pay rise are delivered to the lowest paid in the community.
c)What about part time & casual employees?
No other group of workers relies more on ACTU Living Wage pay increase to maintain their living standards than part time and casual workers.
Almost 60% of all private sector award wage workers are part time workers. Nearly half of the award wage workforce are engaged as casuals.
If the ACTU's claim is successful, casual and part time workers will receive an increase in their hourly rate of pay. For example, under the claim the base hourly rate of pay for a part-time adult worker on the Federal Minimum Wage would increase from $10:88 an hour to $11:54 per hour.
d)Why $25?
Increasing wage inequality and the growing number of working poor in Australia makes a significant increase for the low paid imperative.
Having a job in Australia is no longer guarantee against poverty.
According to the welfare agency The Smith Family, one in five Australians living in poverty now live in households where wages and salaries are the main source of income (Smith Family, Financial Disadvantage in Australia).
As income inequality in Australia grows wider, low-paid workers and their families are falling further behind.
For the bottom 20% of Australian households where the main source of income is wages and salaries, average weekly expenditure exceeds average weekly income by $50 per week (ABS Cat No. 6535.0, Household Expenditure Survey).
The National Centre for Economic and Social Modelling recently concluded that income inequality in Australia has increased since 1990. The wage and salary income for the bottom 40% of households has fallen between $13 and $85 per week. Meanwhile, high-income households continued to increase their share of national income. (NATSEM, Inequality in the 1980s and 1990s).
Income inequality and the growing number of working poor in our community is an increasingly important social and economic issue. It must be addressed.
The $25 a week increase being claimed by the ACTU is economically responsible and sustainable has been targeted at the lowest paid in our community. The pay rise will provide a significant and much needed increase to low-paid workers and their families.
More details on the working poor and growing inequality are detailed on pages 8 to 13.
e)GST hits low-paid hard
Sixteen months after the Federal Government introduced its GST the real impact of the tax on prices is clearer.
Immediately following the GST's introduction a vigilant and aggressive Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) spooked many businesses into holding back on GST price rises.
But in recent months shoppers have been hit by a wave of GST induced price hikes as businesses have sought to relieve themselves of built-up GST cost pressures and pass the real costs of the tax on to consumers.
A recent survey by the ACCC confirms what every low and middle-income Australian knows - John Howard's GST has forced prices up far beyond the estimates provided by the Government prior to the tax's introduction.
According to the most recent ACCC prices survey the cost of fresh food has increased by more than 10.3% since John Howard and Peter Costello introduced the GST.
The price of bread, which the ACCC predicted would fall as a result of the GST, is up 5.1% since the tax was introduced. Car running costs and alcohol and tobacco products have gone up by 5.1% and 11.2% respectively. The cost of childcare, which was supposed to fall under the GST, has gone up by more than 4.6% according to the ACCC.
Other promised GST price reductions simply haven't eventuated.
Breakfast cereal up 1.4%, tea up 4.4%, chicken up 1.4%, salt up 3.8% and apples up 23.4% were all supposed to get cheaper as a result of the GST.
Consumers have also been hit by a rash of sneaky packaging changes by food manufacturers seeking to disguise GST price rises by offering smaller portions of standard grocery items.
A recent 'pricewatch' survey by Melbourne radio station 3AW found that 8 of the 56 or 15% of the regular grocery items monitored had been repacked into smaller portions since the introduction of the GST.
And there are more price rises in the pipeline. Two Victorian electricity retailers have recently announced their intention to increase electricity charges to Melbourne households by 17.3 and 16% respectively from January next year.
These type of price rises impact particularly on the low-paid who spend a higher proportion of their household budgets on everyday living expenses.
The result is that low-paid workers and their families are slipping further and further behind.
The tax cuts associated with the Government's GST were also outrageously skewed toward the better off in the community.
Someone earning $100,000 a year received a tax cut of $62.80 a week from Peter Costello, a worker on the federal minimum wage of just over $400 got a tax cut of just $9.15.
In fact, though almost 70% of Australian taxpayers earn less than $40,000 a year, only 30% of tax cuts went to this group. It was the richest 30% of Australian taxpayers who received 70% of every tax cut dollar Mr Costello handed out.
Low-paid workers need a decent pay rise to maintain their living standards.
Its time that John Howard and Peter Costello admitted that their GST has hurt middle and low income working families and supported a decent pay rise for Australia's 1.7 million low-paid award wage workers.
f)Why the claim economically responsible?
While the ACTU claim will deliver significant benefit to low-paid workers and their families, its affect on the overall rate of inflation will be negligible.
A $25 increase in award rates of pay will have a net impact on total wages of just 0.2%. Th impact of the claim on CPI would be less than 0.1%.
g)What is the percentage increase?
The average increase for full-time non-managerial employees under the ACTU's $25 a week claim is 3.8%. (calculated using ABS Cat.6306.0 Employee Earnings and Hours, May 2000). The increase at the Federal Minium Wage is 6%.
h)Why the claim won't cost jobs?
There is little doubt that conservative politicians and some in the business community will claim that any increase for the lowest-paid in our community will cost jobs.
There is no evidence to support this claim.
The Australian Industrial Relations Commission has consistently held that moderate wage increases do not cost jobs.
Despite this, at every Living Wage Case since 1996 the Federal Government has unsuccessfully tried to argue that the ACTU's claim will cost jobs and has produced economic modelling to support this claim.
This modelling has been thoroughly discredited in Living Wage Case proceedings.
In fact the modelling used by the Federal Government in recent Living Wage Cases is the same economic model which predicted that the GST would be good for the economy. We now know that the GST gave Australia its first quarter of negative growth for 9 � years.
i)How does the claim compare with other pay rises?
The ACTU's $25 a week wage claim for low paid employees is moderate compared with wage rises received by others in the community.
Average Weekly Ordinary Time Earnings increased by 5.3% to May 2001. The Wage Cost Index rose by 3.7% to June 2001.
According to the Australian Centre for Industrial Relations Research and Training, average wage rises for employees covered by collective agreements were 4.3% to June 2001. (ACIRRT, ADAM Report 2001)
These increases are well behind those achieved by the award wage employees targeted by the ACTU's $25 a week claim. Based on ABS data, full time non-managerial award wage workers received an average pay rise of only 2.6% this year.
In response to last year's ACTU Living Wage Claim the Australian Industrial Relations Commission granted award wage workers increases ranging between just $13 and $17 a week.
The ACTU's $25 a week claim is also moderate when compared with pay increases accepted by community leaders.
When politicians and business leaders lecture the low-paid about wage restraint it is important to remember:
� the Prime Minister accepted a $179.50 per week increase earlier this year, more than 7 times the ACTU claim.
� Peter Costello, the Treasurer received a $129.50 per week increase, more than 5 times the ACTU claim.
� Sydney's Daily Telegraph reported that senior executives at Australia's worst performing companies awarded themselves pay rises of 265% last year. (Daily Telegraph 15/10/01, Bosses' pay goes up while profits plunge).
j) Award workers are low paid workers
The most recent ABS Employee Earnings and Hours survey in May 2000 showed that amongst adult private sector employees on award rates 31% earned less than $12 per hour. This is just $456 per week or $23,780 a year.
The same survey confirmed that almost three in four or 73% of adult award wage employees earn less than $15 per hour, $570 a week, or $29,720 a year.
k) Timetable and key dates
Mid November 2001 ACTU lodges Living Wage 2002 application with Australian Industrial Relations Commission (AIRC)
Early December 2001 Full bench of AIRC conducts Directions Hearings
February 2001 ACTU to file and serve written submissions and witness evidence with AIRC
March 2002 AIRC hears oral submissions from ACTU and others
May 2001 AIRC hands down Living Wage Case 2002 decision
The Working Poor in Australia
i) the Smith Family Report
In November last year the Smith Family released its report Financial Disadvantage in Australia 1999: The Unlucky Australians?
Key findings of the report included:
a) Nearly 10% of all poor Australians live in a household where the head is a full-time wage and salary earner. [page 8]
b) For 19% of Australians living in poverty the main source of family income is wages and salaries. [page 9]
c) Using the author's preferred poverty measure, 154,000 children and 297,000 adults live in poverty in households whose principal source of income is wages and salaries. [page 42]
The report concluded that:
� "for one in every five poor Australians, the wages and salaries are large enough to be the main income source but still not sufficient to pull their families out of poverty." [page 9] and that,
� "In Australia today, having a job no longer guarantees that you and your family will not be in poverty." [page 22]
ii) ABS Household Expenditure Survey data
The ABS Household Expenditure Survey data released late last year measures the financial health of Australian households. The survey found that Australia's poorest working households are doing it tough and their situation is getting worse.
Amongst the poorest 20% of Australian households where the principle source of income is wages and salaries the survey found that:
� Almost 70% said their standard of living was worse or the same as two years ago.
� Average weekly expenditure of $562 exceeds average weekly income of $510 by more than $50 a week.
� Almost 35% or 284,854* households said that they haven't had a holiday away from home for just one week a year because they couldn't afford it.
� 26% or 212,212* households said they couldn't raise $2,000 in an emergency.
� 22% or 179,564* households said they could not afford to have a night out once a fortnight.
� More than 20% or 166,505* households reported having not paid utilities bills due to a shortage of money.
� Almost 15% or 119,165* households said they could not afford a special meal once a week.
� More than 14% or 115,900* households said they had purchased second hand clothes because they couldn't afford new ones.
� Almost 6% or 48,156* households said they could not afford to have friends or family over for a meal once a month.
� More than 5% or 41,626* households sold or pawned something due to shortage of money.
� Almost 4% or 30,199* households went without meals due to shortage of money.
� Nearly 4% or 31,016* households were unable to heat their home due to shortage of money.
� Almost 3% or 22,037* households had sought assistance from welfare or community organisations due to a shortage of money.
*estimated number of households based on ABS population data.
iii) St. Vincent de Paul Society
Two Australias - addressing inequality & poverty
The St. Vincent de Paul Society report Two Australias - Addressing Inequality and Poverty published in May 2001 contains wide ranging recommendations aimed at addressing what it describes as "the single most important problem facing Australia ... the burgeoning gap between the wealthy and the poor and disadvantaged".
Key findings of the report include:
� That in the five-year period between 1993/4 and 1998/9 the bottom 20% of Australian households received an average weekly increase in income of $9 or 5%. Meanwhile the average increase for the top 20% of households over the same period was $343 a week or 23.4%. [pp. 2 & 4]
� "A disturbing more recent development has been the growth of working poor.." [p. 10]
� The majority of low-income earners spend more than their income. [p.12]
� The wages system has a role to play in securing a more equal society. [pp. 14, 19 & 25]
� The impact of the GST and other price rises on low-income households is more than the "headline" CPI rate. [p. 23-4]
Releasing the report on 14 May 2001, St. Vincent de Paul Queensland President Tim O'Connor said, "the GST has been the biggest curse that's been inflicted on the poor in the last hundred years in Australian history."
iv) The Trend Towards Inequality
a) Profit share up, wages share down
The profit share of national income is at historically high levels. In September 2000 it was at its highest level ever. The wages share, on the other hand, is close to historic low levels.
The chart below shows wage and profit shares of national income for the period 1959 to 2000. The long-term trend for profit share has been upward since 1974. Healthy profit levels are absolutely essential for the well being of Australia's economy but the figures do show a long-term redistribution from wage and salary earners to company profits.
b)Rising income inequality
Within this diminishing share, the distribution of wages has also become more inequitable. Data, published by HSBC in its May 2001 Economics and Investment Strategy newsletter, shows that earnings inequality has increased sharply in the last four years.
In a recent paper on Trends in Income and Expenditure Inequality in the 1980s and 1990s, the National Centre for Social and Economic Modelling concluded that:
� Income inequality in Australia has increased since 1990.
� In the last 5 years expenditure inequality has also increased.
� There has been a growing gap between incomes at the top and the middle as well as the top and the bottom.
� Between 1989 and 1999 the ratio of the very top incomes (top 5%) to the bottom 10%, worsened by 14.1%.
� The top 10% of households receive 22.5% of income while the bottom 10% of households received just 2.7% of national income.
� The number of working poor in the bottom 10% of households has increased.
v)Welfare agency contacts for 'working poor' comment
A number of welfare agencies have recently made public comment about the growing income inequality and the 'working poor' in Australia.
The ACTU has briefed these agencies on its 2002 $25 living wage claim.
- Australian Council of Social Service
- St Vincent de Paul Society
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Weekend: The Man in the Funny Suit
John Howard dominates the weekend news with his attendance at the international gathering of leaders in silly shirts. He may not have cut much of a figure in the blue silken Chinese number, but the photos of George Bush engaged in a bit of simian clowning around again proved Howard is one of the world's great autograph hounds. His ability to pop up in the vicinity of newsworthy individuals was the defining moment of his performance at the Sydney 2000 Olympics, now he'd s turned it into an electoral strategy. Forget that neither Bush nor Megawati would meet with the Australian leader, that we are now so bereft of friends that we have to view isolationism as a virtue, this was killer photo-op.
Meanwhile Beazley was left in Sydney trying to run a traditional campaign, unveiling a health package that puts some of the money back into the public system through channeling GST money. Like the GST rollback, Beazley's problem is that the scope of reform has been seriously eroded by the disappearing Costello surplus and the party's commitment to balanced budgets. One wonders if the Labor brains are now ruing their decisions to politically manage the Howard government's funding of private health care - and private schools - in order to close down issues earlier in the electoral cycles. If they'd taken some pain back then, how much more money would they have to play with now: quite a bit, one suspects.
The fickle hand of national politics is again on show with weekend voting in the ACT showing another Labor regional administration regaining power. IN the space of just 18 months we've seen Victoria, Tasmania, Queensland, West Australian, Northern Territory and now the ACT vote Labor until the only Liberal government left standing is in South Australia - where the Premier's just been forced to resign. Yet for external reasons both manufactured and pure chance, the Tories are still flying high on the national stage. The desire for a balance in our flavours of government can only go part of the way towards explaining this shift.
Monday: Wave Them Goodbye
The first of what promises to be a series of set-piece farewells occur as the two leaders try to out-patriot each other as the first Australian troops head off for the War Against Terror. The Telegraph's front page says it all "Go With Pride" - the boys and girls are sailing off to war. The federal election is consigned to the editorial wasteland that is page six. Despite their earnest words, Howard and Beazley are nothing more than bit players in this story. This is war, all the images of our cultural memory are coming back to flood us, and they cut way deeper than another cheesy election campaign.
Howard has still barely released a policy - he has no money and a national crisis to keep in the swinging voters' faces. The only peep from the Coalition came from Amanda Vanstone, whose quip about the GST rollback on funerals - "you only die once" was seized on as a campaign blunder. Rollback has been released three days now and consigned to the funny pages - the constraints of an ever-shrinking budget surplus. Noone cares to say what everyone knows - the budget is really in deficit and will be found to be so at the next budget review. Howard needs the cred and Labor needs the dough.
For Beazley, the polls are beginning to bounce, as momentum from last weekend's debate feed into the polls. It's a good sign that shows that slick campaigning and no mistake politics do reap rewards. There are still the vital 20 per cent of voters still to decide. The great unkown is what they will be thinking when they enter the booth. As the Chaser crew, in the promising first edition of Election Chaser, pointed out - there are some really dumb people voting.
Tuesday: Hope Falls as Boats Sink
A national tragedy unfolds off our coastline, a tragedy that we could have prevented. Four hundred and thirty souls. Fleeing the regime the world has gone to war with, who noone - least of all Australia - will accept. Drowned because of our inability to rebuild relations with Indonesia post-East Timor. Not a phone call between our leaders, Megawati wouldn't even meet with Howard when they were in the same room. Our nearest neighbour and we are in a dysfunctional relationship with them.
Beazley states the obvious and is shot down in flames by a media that views it as a technical foul. Politicisng tragedy. As if Howard hasn't spent the past month and a bit doing the same. Beazley backs away when he should have stood firm - this will continue happening until we can negotiate a solution with Indonesia. No amount of naval ships or coastguards or draconian laws will stop it happening. But we are getting good at absorbing tragedy and we turn it into a campaign blunder.
It could have been played so differently if Kim had only taken the principled decision on Tampa all those months ago. As Howard put up the shutters, Beazley could have called for the humanitarian response - processing the boatpeople at Christmas Island and flying to Indonesia for urgent talks with the leadership. Then the Twin Tours would have exploded and Labor would have been on the side of those fleeing the Taliban. The political dynamics would now be fundamentally different and this current disaster could well have provided the circuit breaker we've been crying out for. But short-term politics triumphed and we are now experience the blowback.
Wednesday: Recovering Lost Ground
The papers hammer Beazley over "politicising" boatpeople. It is the most outrageous of claims by Howard, the man who helped manouvre us into this khaki election. He's at it again this morning, droning on about how Beazley has committed a crime against humanity; that's actually Ruddock he should be pointing at who weighed in with the sort of premeditated attack his leader was hammering Labor for. But bouncing polls, including the notoriously unreliable Morgan Gallup that had Howard 20 points ahead some four weeks ago, now have Labor in the lead. Either it shows that Labor's positive message is getting some serious purchase or that polling is now totally discredited.
The heirs apparent debate economic policy at the press Club. The Costello smirk in hopelessly suppressed overdrive as he crows about inflation figures which confirm that the economy has ground to a halt but are hailed as proof of good economic management. I'm not economist but I always thought inflation fell when things got too hot - and right now they're stone cold. The problem with all economic debate is that there are so many statistics you can construct a debate for anything - and you only had to look at Crean and Costello to accept that there is no science here, only rhetoric.
Meanwhile Bob Brown offered everyone a free solar shower if the Greens win, which they won't. The prospect seems even more remote after the Democrats swapped Senate preferences with Labor, undermining the Greens hard-line preferences strategy. The battle between the minor parties is hotting up, the Greens attracting the young Left vote and the Democrats the fewer older lefties who still believe in revolution. Both are characterising the major parties as the conservative parties and - with clear issues like immigration - there is a lot of material to work with. Natasha's scored a few laughs with her 'Two Ronnies' line and the two dogs barking ad rocks along until Nat gives us her sanctimonious smile. But the laugh of the week has been on Nat with Chaser's mock security tape of the media stalker's attempt to break into the studio. Very close to the bone.
Thursday: Three Dead Babies
The pictures of three dead children and images of their grieving father put a human phase on the humanitarian crisis that Australia is worsening for perhaps the first time. I've been running my theory around that this would have been gold for Labor if they'd taken the principled stand up front. Imagine, Howard and Ruddock having to justify their bald politics in the face of human suffering. But no, most people I bounce this off are adamant that Labor had to neutralise the issue up front to have any chance of getting into the campaign. But I still refuse to be convinced that the public, with an invitation for displaying compassion could keep their hearts closed. Regardless, the damage is done and we are all implicated.
In the evening, Beazley speaks at one of the interminable corporate fundraisers produced by PR guru Max Markson. The pretence is the 25th anniversary of Neville Wran victory in NSW, but the real game is raising funds for the run to the post. Beazley is surrounded by Labor winners: Hawke, Wran and Carr, leaders who know how to campaign. Wran's comments on refugees shows what a class act he remains - he manages to castigate Howard without implicating labor. For his part, Beazley appears more confident and assured of himself as the polls signal a real contest. Meanwhile, Howard has his one trick and he plays it again, and again: the War on Terror - tonight it's a public address outlining Australia's reasons for involvement. The images of the Rodent droning to a room full of gray-haired people are beamed in by the late-night news services, the words dissected by the boffins and, hey presto, Howard again has election profile without substance.
Out in the marginals the feedback is promising, while campaign teams are notoriously self-delusion the door-knockers say that people are warming to Beazley. It underlines the fact the Labor is, at worst holding its own on the grassroots campaign - targeted issues like Telstra, bank profits and the ABC - have all been given oxygen by Liberal gaffs. Ministers refuse to rule out privatizing Telstra, another bank announced billions in profits and Shier can't even televise a full netball game. There's a common thread: all are issues about the administration of basic institutions are the degree of responsibility the government should take. Howard is susceptible but the question remains, how significantly will these issues track in the minds of the swingers when the world is at war?
Friday: Cooking the Books
Revelations that the government have doctored the books to maintain a surplus by calling in all unspent money from government departments further underline the damage the Liberals' spending spree did to the budget before the world went pear-shaped. Remember the world post-S11, Howard was on the nose and he doled out millions on GST 'simplification' and suppressing the impact of global increases in petrol prices. Obviously feeling the heat, Howard puts out his own line, that Labor has got its budget costings wrong. There are echoes here to the Rodent's disastrous 1987 campaign when his mis-costings of health promises that sent that bid for office into terminal decline. But this time it gets lost in the white noise of war. Sometimes, it works for us.
Labor announces another policy that again gets caught in the slipstream of international turmoil. Today's its indigenous Australians, war veterans and older Australians and housing. It's as if Labor's got so much policy to get out, it can't find sufficient days to showcase them all. And that's a downside to the hit 'em late tactics - so many well-thought, well-targeted and well-intentioned policy, so little space to get them heard. Anyone who goes to the Labor website will be overwhelmed by the amount of policy up there; the problem is most people who go there will have already decided who they're voting for.
By week's end the polls are siding with our hearts, though not necessarily, our heads. Labor is in the game, they're doing well in the field, no major gaffes and heaps of fresh initiatives. But this is such a strange election at such a perilous point in history. Today we're being told bin Laden has nuclear capability; Taliban spokesmen laugh when they're asked about Australian involvement in the war, but we're over there and it will be no surprise to see casualties before we go to the ballot box. In these circumstances, Beazley has the most difficult of tasks. There will be many excuses of failure, but for a man whose career is on the line that counts for naught. He faces two weeks to stay alive and the tough stuff is still to come.
by Ian West MLC
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They are routinely targeted by paramilitary death squads, with over 3,500 killed in the last 15 years. Many more have "disappeared." And it's getting worse. But despite the situation, a message of hope was brought by representatives of the Colombian Trade Union movement who visited Sydney this week to draw attention to the situation, still the most dangerous country in the world for trade unionists.
The Colombian delegation including Mr Jesus Gonzalez, Director of Human Rights Department Colombian Union Congress, and Mr Pedro Mahecha, Non Government Organisation Human Rights and Labour Lawyer visited Parliament to collect a statement signed by the majority of NSW Parliamentarians, including the Premier, Bob Carr MP, which read as follows:
"We the undersigned New South Wales ALP Parliamentarians express our deep concern at the deteriorating human rights situation in Colombia. We express our outrage at the fact that trade unionists are targeted by death squads in Colombia, with over 300 murdered so far this year.
We support the Colombian Union Congress, Human Rights supporters and the Colombian people in their struggle for social justice. We urge the Federal Government to pressure the Colombian Government to crack down on private militias and death squads which routinely target, kidnap, bash, torture and kill elected labour representatives, human rights defenders, journalists and community leaders."
Colombian workers and their communities have been involved in a 50 year popular struggle against a Government deeply implicated in the cocaine trade. The great majority of assassinations have been attributed to the paramilitaries (76% according to the United Nations High Commission on Human Rights). Reports by the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights have shown that despite numerous complaints, there is blatant collusion between paramilitary groups and the authorities. Amnesty international is also among those organisations who condemn the human rights situation in colombia.
The Colombian people's struggle is for better living standards and working conditions, and for political, civil, and economic rights. Currently, any right to strike is purely academic, with such actions resulting in the loss of human life. No legislative mechanism to improve wages or conditions in Colombia currently exists. The current situation aims to reduce already non-existent standards. In January 1991, Law Number 50, The Labour Reform Law, was passed. It nullified all laws pertaining to industrial relations, thereby wiping out the gains of the previous 40 years.
Meanwhile, some national and multinational companies enjoy the support of death squads to enforce miserable wages and conditions on their workers. But in a statement of defiance, Mr Jesus Gonzales told a NSW State Parliament House press conference that, "We are an example of a country in Latin America that has not yet been defeated."
Last Friday, 20 unionists and their families including women and children were beheaded by paramilitary death squads. In the last 20 days, 120 people have been assassinated by paramilitary groups. Selective assassinations and massacres are being used to create a "Reign of Terror" in Colombia.
The forced movement of Colombians has left 3.5 million with no official recognition. They have been forced from their land, possessions, family members, their cultural environment. Colombia has a population of approximately 42 million, 25 million of whom exist below the poverty line with 9 million absolutely impoverished.
According to the United Nations Economic Commission 62% of Colombians live below the poverty line.
The minimum wage equivalent in Colombia is below $300 per month, or around US$5 per day - to cover essentials such as housing, food, health and transport.
Unemployment is running at 21% according to Official Colombian Government figures, but that figure is a gross underestimate of the real level of unemployment, as Colombians are classed as being employed even for working just one hour per day.
The United States initiative to fight the "war on drugs," known as Plan Colombia, is having a diiferent effect than intended. Paramilitary groups have grown by 500% since last year's approval by the US Congress of US$2.5 billion to the Colombian military.
Disappointingly, last year the United States agreed to waive conditions pinning the money to a raft of human rights conditions. Human Rights defenders across the globe have pleaded with the Bush administration to reinstate human rights provisions in Plan Colombia, to no avail. A further $1.4 billion was approved on 7th August 2001, to continue the "war on drugs."
The Colombian delegation brought a message that the struggle will continue, in attempting to stop the violence which exists as a consequence of a political and economic system that has excluded the majority of people from the decision making process and which relies on dispossession and terror to impose its will.
Mr Jesus Gonzales stated at a press conference at Parliament House that, "We are not members of a political armed group. The Colombian Government's attempt to characterise the Colombian Unions' struggle as a terrorist struggle, is a political act aimed at destroying any possibility of social and economic liberation. This is not new. Until one year ago, 'disappearing' someone was not a crime, but since then the phenomenon has risen. There is a political genocide occurring in Colombia."
The Colombian delegation is now in Melbourne, and will shortly travel to Canberra to meet with UNHCR representatives in their attempts to gain political asylum for 10 Colombian Trade Unionists facing imminent assassination. Later they will be travelling to London to continue raising awareness and gathering support to help end the plight of the Colombian people.
by Rowan Cahill
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I asked him what Red Rag is about. Across a beer he explained.
Red Rag aims to publish important political and historical books that don't get a look in elsewhere because of the structural bias of mainstream and corporate publishing.
"They will be polemical books from the Left. They will engage with crucial issues of our time and those of recent history which have a bearing on contemporary Australian politics and culture".
Dr. Syson is passionate about Australian working class literature. That is what his Phd was about. He also edits OVERLAND, the Left cultural and literary journal founded in 1954 by the dissident intellectual, the late Stephen Murray-Smith.
Syson was not always an academic. A working class lad with a Dad in the mines, Ian trained as an electrician; he followed that career as a unionist in the Mt. Isa mines, and around Queensland and New Zealand. Academic qualifications and teaching came later.
There is a lightness of touch and a sense of humour in Syson. Also steely resolve. He can go head to head and throw intellectual punches with the raw leather clouting power of a Jimmy Sharman brawler, or deliver rapier wit with ironic finesse.
Rightist skirmishers and ideologues, from the COURIER-MAIL to conservative
think-tankers funded by big business, have felt the weight of his words.
Witness his recent description of Minister for Immigration, Philip Ruddock: "The man who has expanded the notion of moral vacuity to new extremes of emptiness".
So what is in the Red Rag pipeline? Two books, twenty bucks each, on the politics and history of the Cold War in Australia; they will be launched during November at a Melbourne Trades Hall function.
MENZIES' COLD WAR is by Les Louis. For those who came in late, Les is the veteran historical polemicist whose patient detective work over the years has documented the secret Cold War agenda of the Menzies' government, including plans to intern Australian Leftists and their families.
Louis also uncovered detailed plans by the Menzies' government to provoke trade union militancy in key industries, so as to provide the excuse to use the military iron heel.
According to Louis, the Cold War in Australia was all about Menzies and his attempt to usher in a new capitalist era at the expense of labour, through the creation of a national security state.
The second Red Rag book is ARGUING THE COLD WAR, edited by Peter Love and
Paul Strangio. The editors explore some of the significant Cold War events and issues that scarred a generation of Australians and degraded the national political culture with simplistic certitudes.
In the process the passions, visions, and intense personal engagement of the period are brought to life, a salutary reminder in our current era of simplistic certitudes that politics can be about principles that matter.
For those who think the Cold War ended symbolically when the Berlin Wall came down, and later as the USSR fragmented and criminals took control with neo-liberal blessings, think again.
If you hadn't noticed, the War Against Terror has been served up by US propagandists as the New Cold War. And has been since September 11 when the Cold War nuclear term Ground Zero was attached to the World Trade Centre.
What is Syson's take on the Cold War?
"The Cold War is important because it has never really gone away. While the Cold War might refer specifically to the historic antagonism between the US and the USSR, it is a manifestation of a deeper underlying class conflict."
"The rhetoric and reality of armament and battle has been used by the ruling class to squash working class ideas and movements for a long time now. You only have to look at the insanity coming out of America at the moment to see what I mean. The first thing the ruling class did was declare war on an abstraction."
For more information about Red Rag publications, and ordering the Cold War books, write to Red Rag Publications, PO Box 68, North Carlton, 3054 Australia, or surf to
by The Chaser
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Mr Mackerras, who has never predicted an election result correctly, believes the Liberal Party will sweep into power with an increased majority.
"It's great news for us," said an elated Mr Beazley. "This is the morale boost the Labor Party's been waiting for. With Mackerras' vote of unconfidence, we now believe we've got a real chance of winning government on November 10."
Liberal leader John Howard was clearly upset by the Mackerras forecast, but has vowed to keep on fighting against the odds.
Another prediction by Mr Mackerras that the media will stop soliciting his wildly erratic guesses has unfortunately also proven wrong
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******************
Labor Day is a tribute to the social and economic achievements of working men and women.
It is a tribute to the Labor Movement.
Neville Wran said at his tribute dinner last night that for him the labor movement was like a religion.
For many of us, it is a religion. It is a way of life. We are motivated by the desire to improve our community and to ensure that working people receive a fairer distribution of the wealth that is generated.
This desire to act in a selfless way for the betterment of working people is what distinguishes True Believers from those motivated by self-interests and a mere grab for power.
Frank Belan was a true believer. A person who always conducted himself with the interest of his members, first, second and third.
Frank's passing two weeks ago was a great loss for the labor movement.
At Labor Day dinners speakers regularly talk of the need for the industrial and political wings to work closely together. Never has this been more important.
In the lead up to the Federal Election, with John Howard focused on world issues and a campaign slogan "A Better War For Our Children",
Kim Beazley is focused on the issues that effect working people:
health
education
security of entitlements,
a balanced and strengthened Industrial Relations Commission
and the abolition of AWA's.
While Howard looks after the elite and big business,
Beazley is focused on the interests of all Australians.
Beazley offers leadership and vision for the future through harmony and cohesion, while Howard looks to divide and conquer.
That's always been the difference between Labor and its conservative components.
But it should never be forgotten that the political and industrial wings working closely together s a two way street.
The strength of the labor movement will only be maintained if there is mutual respect and a recognition that there will be tension on particular issues.
From time to time the political and industrial wings of the movement will have different priorities. The test is not whether there are tensions, but how they are managed.
Those tensions have surfaced in recent times over workers compensation and culminated in the picket outside parliament on Tuesday 19 June.
What ever your views of that day they highlighted a breakdown of the mutual respect required for a strong labor movement.
These types of breakdowns are a negative both for the industrial and political wings and we should collectively work to avoid them.
There is no easy solution to dealing with these tensions, although I would suggest a few things we can do:
First, we can recognize the benefit of getting people with an understanding of the union movement into Parliament.
The modern union official has a complex skills set:
- on the ground campaigning
- dealing with complex technological change issues
- and managing significant service-based businesses
Some within the ALP's fears of union ties is misguided - what they should be fearing is the lack of union ties.
Secondly, the political wing must recognize that when they talk to unions, they are - perhaps more than ever before - talking to their core constituents.
The union movement has been reforming itself and part of that process has been to devolve power back to the shop floor.
This shift in emphasis to an organiser and activist base means that unions are focused more on activitating their members.
But there are benefits for the political wing in this shift as well
In an active and activated union membership, the Party has at its disposal a focus of group of some two million Australians who can really tell them what is going on out there in the real world.
They are not just blue-collar workers - more white-collar professionals and service workers - a very under demographic.
An active union movement gives Labor a great indication of the priorities of the Australian electorate.
But, as I mentioned before, the key to navigating our sometimes difficult relationship, lies in mutual respect:
For government that means consulting with union because we have something to contribute, not viewing it as an irritating process that frustrates some bureaucrat's reform agenda.
Just on workers compensation, it would be remiss of me not to speak briefly on the issue.
The Governments next round of reforms are currently be discussed and at some point will be introduced with or without alteration depending on the success of our negotiations and lobbying.
The next real challenge in workers compensation is for the government to demonstrate it is serious about dealing with the issues effecting the actuarial deficit of the scheme.
Our judgment on their seriousness will be reserved until we see:
� if they improve compliance with the payment of workers compensation premiums,
� do more to improve workplace safety, and
� most importantly increase premiums to a level that will reduce the actuarial deficit.
Reforms that reduce access to Common Law reduce the role of Lawyers and Doctors may make some difference but, it is adequate premiums that will reduce the deficit.
A Labor Government should not place all the burden of the reforms on working men and women.
Now, the workers compensation legislation will be revisited within these walls sometime before Christmas and I think it is incumbent on all of us involved in the process to work our issues through with a focus on the people we are here to represent.
And that is not the lawyers, the doctors, the insurance companies or even the employers - it is the injured workers.
That said, the book "Brothers" authored by Marilyn Dodkin, was launched on Wednesday night and parts of its conclusions are worth quoting:
"History shows that the relationship is not a guarantee against industrial disputes when Labor is in Government. Conflicts have always arisen from time to time and it is a measure of the relationship that disputes are eventually resolved. And when dust settles following a period of industrial action and election time nears both the left and right factions at the Council support the ALP at election by giving organisation and monetary support".
The text is something that we would all agree with. Except I'm not sure about the reference to left and right factions.
*********************
We all know the effects of a conservative Government and many in the room have directly suffered the consequences of the Howard Government.
The stripping back of awards to 20 allowable matters,
The MUA with the government's collusion with Patricks,
The corporate collapses and the lost of entitlements.
The most recent of these has been Ansett.
The Howard Government has done nothing to see Ansett fly again. In fact, they have gone out of their way to ensure that it does not fly in its previous form.
My view on this, which many of you have heard me state previously, is that John Howard is using Ansett as a means of breaking the unions strength in the Airline industry.
This is an industry that has historically been well organised and well paid. The Government sees the collapse of Ansett as an opportunity to drive wages and conditions down and commence the spiral downward for those conditions.
It is their view that if they succeed with this they will also succeed in de-unionising an industry where workers are not only members of unions but also, strong supporters of those unions.
We must ensure that the public is made aware of this strategy and the Government is stopped from using the Ansett workers to continue its ideological attack on unions.
It is only a Beazley Government that will address this issue and the other issues important to working people, like employee entitlements,
a balanced and strengthen industrial relations commission,
health
education
and the abolition of AWA's.
**********************
This year has been a year of many low points. Not only with the events of September 11th on a global scale but, also in relation to the number of corporate collapses that have occurred causing workers to suffer, HIH, One Tel and Ansett just to name a few.
It would be nice to finish the year on a positive note with Kim Beazely as Prime Minister, and John Howard treated by the Australian community in the manner he and his Government have treated refugees. Put on a slow boat to nowhere and told to find somewhere else to reside.
Thank you.
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******************
That's the raging argument among Swans' fans. But it's a question that can only be answered on the playing field in 2002.
The club's record since drafting began in 1986 shows often disappointing results from traded and drafted players - but the outcomes have improved since the mid-1990s.
There are plenty of failures from top draft picks and big names. And some great players who were picked up by the club with low draft picks.
The five seasons 1986-1990 were years of reasonable success for the red and white and included two finals campaigns.
But the input from players drafted and traded in those years was minimal. Of 54 players traded or drafted, only two went on to play 50 or more games for the Swans.
Only Dale Lewis - picked up from North Ballarat with a number 2 pick in the now defunct mid-season draft - became a significant player for the club. He retired this year having played over 180 games.
Twenty players recruited from 1986-1991 failed to take the field with the senior team. Some never came to Sydney.
The impact of players recruited in the four seasons 1991-1995 was much greater. Often not immediately - the club struggled to compete until 1995 - but several recruits from this period remain today as part of the core team.
In fact, the club's very poor performances though this period - at one stage failing to win a game for 18 months - delivered very strong advantages to the Swans in priority and additional draft picks.
Andrew Dunkley, now vice-captain with nearly 200 games played by 2001, came from North Launceston as pick 56 in the 1991 national draft.
Daryn Creswell, from North Hobart, was pick 39 in the 1992 mid-season draft. He played game 200 this year.
Brad Seymour was the standout recruit in 1993 - as a zone selection from the Wagga Tigers. The Swans used their number 1 draft pick that year on Darren Gaspar, who left the club when his contract expired and is now an All-Australian fullback for Richmond.
1994 was a red letter year for the club. All the highs and lows of player recruitment were on display but, despite mistakes and disappointments, the platform for on-field success was laid.
The number 1 selection in the preseason draft was wasted on Dermot Brereton - a champion with Hawthorn in his day who should have retired in glory rather than eking out seven forgettable games in Sydney.
The club used their number 6 and 21 preseason picks to secure Peter Filandia and Derek Kickett, both from Essendon. They played 133 games between them and were important contributors in the Swans' 1995-1996 resurgence.
The Gaspar syndrome - where talented young prospects from interstate are recruited in the draft, only to leave Sydney at the first opportunity - struck Anthony Rocca and Shannon Grant, taken with the club's top two picks in the 1994 national draft.
But at the same draft, immediately after the 1994 season, Sydney used picks 21 and 40 to win the services of Matthew Nicks and Michael O'Loughlin, both now among the club's very best.
Post-season trading in 1994 delivered Tony Lockett, while Leo Barry came through a zone selection. Throw in Paul Roos, number 1 selection in the 1995 preseason draft, and the Swans completed one of the best recruiting drives ever.
The club rose to 11th on the AFL ladder in 1995, and was further strengthened prior to the 1996 season with the addition of Stuart Maxfield, traded from Richmond, and Ben Mathews, a zone selection from Murray Bushrangers Under 18.
However the trend of many top draft picks failing to deliver for the Swans continued. Kent Butcher, from Collingwood, the club's first preseason selection in 1996, never played in the senior side.
Sydney's 'surprise' appearance in the 1996 grand final clearly owes much to the infusion of talent from advantageous draft picks and trades through 1993-1995.
The club's top pick at the 1996 post-season national draft, Mark Kinnear, played just six senior games. But Rowan Warfe, selected with the Swan's third pick at the same draft, has become a stalwart tall defender.
In the national draft at the end of 1997, two of the club's class acts - Saddington and Goodes - were selected with picks 11 and 40 respectively. Throw in Wayne Schwass - swapped in a trade for Shannon Grant - and the basis for a top four finish in 1998 was established.
The national draft after the 1998 season saw the Swans holding three picks in the top 10. The club went for youth, and scored well with the selections of Fosdike and Bolton. Ryan Fitzgerald, the other youngster from that draft, was traded to Adelaide this month after a chain of injuries was judged to outweigh his height and potential.
Scott Russell and Brett Allison - both older players unwanted by their original clubs - were recruited in 1999. Both should have taken the hint and retired rather than accept Sydney's offer to move north.
But two other established players traded in at the end of 1999 have delivered in spades. Andrew Schauble, from Collingwood, won the Swan's Best and Fairest in 2000, while Jason Ball, from West Coast, was close to the best in 2001.
And of course Paul Williams, who left Collingwood at the end of 2000 while at the peak of his career, took out the Swan's top award this year in his first season with the club.
Three trends emerge from Sydney's drafting and trading history.
Firstly, the high degree of unpredictability about young players drafted in from interstate. The pattern here has improved in recent years. It's possible the club did not push so hard in the 1980s and early 1990s to insist these players make the move once drafted. But today Sydney is a model for the integration of young players from interstate and this is paying dividends with no significant young player leaving against the club's wishes since Brett O'Farrell shifted to Hawthorn a few years back.
Secondly, players judged by their original clubs to be finished rarely resurrect their careers in Sydney. Brereton, Russell, Allison, Tingay for instance. The question mark over Daffy may be whether Richmond believed he was past it, or whether the Tigers simply could not afford to keep him at the salary in his contract.
Thirdly, the Swans have done pretty well from the recruitment of players who, while established elsewhere, transfer to Sydney while still in their prime. A number of lesser lights from this category have contributed; but Lockett, Roos, Maxfield, Schwass, Schauble, Ball and Williams stand out. This history bodes well for Barry Hall's prospects.
Peter Moss is a Director of Lodestar Communications
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Individual Contracts, Collective Bargaining, Wages and Power by David Peetz
Over the past decade or more, employer use of individual contracts to determine pay and conditions for employees increased in Australia and elsewhere, in no small part due to encouragement by governments, including through legislation promoting Australian workplace Agreements (AWAs). This paper considers the evidence on the impact of individual contacts and collective bargaining on outcomes such as pay and conditions for employees and the implications for the distribution of power. Employees on AWAs receive higher pay on average than other employees, due to the overrepresentation of managerial and senior specialised skilled staff amongst AWA employees. For other employees, however, individual contracts appear to be more likely to be associated with lower wage increases and/or a reductions in other conditions of employment. This in turn reflects the impact that individual contracting, compared to collective bargaining, has on the power of employees. Collective bargaining increases the bargaining power of employees, is the mechanism by which unions achieve most gains for their members, and is strengthened when union density is high. However, not all employees receive lower wages if they shift from collective bargaining to AWAs: some receive a non-union premium, by which employers in effect purchase a transfer of power from employees. While the impact of individual contracting, by comparison with collective bargaining, on pay and conditions may vary, it is unambiguously associated with a transfer of power from employees to employers.
http://econrsss.anu.edu.au/pdf/DP437.pdf
(Centre for Economic Policy Research; Discussion Paper no. 437, September 2001)
NSW in the Vanguard of Industrial Relations Law
Our Industrial Relations Act of 1996 is widely seen as leading the way for Labor governments to set up a balanced structure for employee rights.
But Industrial Relations Minister Jeff Shaw QC and Labor Council secretaries Sams and Costa got some further runs on the board that have largely gone unnoticed.
These are highlighted by some articles in the latest issue of the Australian Journal of Labour Law (September 2001).
Julian Semphill looks at electronic workplace surveillance legislation concluding that "the NSW Act provides greater protection for employees than equivalent legislation in other Australian jurisdictions."
Suzanne Jamieson and Mark Westcott write about the 2000 Occupational Health and Safety Act, concluding that it "should provide for a more cohesive and integrated regulatory approach to health and safety in NSW than the 1983 Act.... it arguably alters the framework to encourage more thorough and meaningful consultation between employees, employers and trade unions over health and safety than had previously been the case in NSW, if not other States."
In addition, NSW has led the way in relation to pay equity principles, employer deduction of union fees, parental leave for casual employees, anti-discrimination principles as part of the industrial relations system, absolute right of entry for union officials on OHS issues, long service leave rights for union employees.
(Australian Journal of Labour Law, September 2001)
Contractors: What's the future?
Self-employed Contractors: incidence and characteristics is a report from the Productivity Commission attempting to provide a clearer picture of the extent and incidence of contracting. Two predominant forms of individual contractor are identified. The first operate as self-employed independent contractors and the relationship between contractor and firm is similar to commercial contracts between firms.
The more problematic area is the more dependent contractor who earns all or the vast majority of their income from one organisation. The report profiles contractors and discusses possible policy responses to this changing area of the employment market.
(CPD/ACIRRT Workplace Intelligence; October 2001)
A New "Post Salaried Class? Self-employed workers in Quebec, 1990-2000 by Jean-S�bastien Marsan
Ten years ago, Quebec was plunged into the severe recession. At this time self-employed workers became common. it was predicted to become a dominant form of employment but has not become so. If the rate of growth in this form had continued at the rate it was running in 1990, self-employed workers would represent 25% of Quebec's labour force. It stands at 8% today. The OECD average is 11.2%. Marsan discusses social protection and union rights in Quebec.
(World of Work; no. 40 August 2001)
Downsizing - good or bad, it's here to stay
Downsizing has been a corporate strategy in the USA since the 1970s. Boris Kabanoff from the School of Management, Qld University of Technology, has been studying its effects on US firms and employees. Downsizing got a bad name from the 1980s when it was primarily associated with massive job cuts during the recession.
The major findings of Kabanoff's research were:
� most companies that downsized had been financially under-performing prior to doing so
� downsizing did not improve the performance
� there was only a short term gain in productivity
Australian studies by Peter Dawkins and Craig Littler (published by the Melbourne Institute of Applied Economic and Social Research) are also discussed. They look at good and bad downsizers, why they do it and the future employment prospects of downsized employees.
(CPD/ACIRRT Workplace Intelligence; October 2001)
Regulation vs Deregulation: the debate rages on
A summary of the recent Industrial Relations Society of Australia convention. Discussed are AIRC President Guidice's contribution on ther role and relevance of the AIRC, papers by Gary Black and Louise Tarrant on union responses to federal deregulation, Grace grace provided the Qld perspective. Ron Callus gave a overview of what enterprise bargaining had achieved and what he saw as the problems, including a call for new institutions such as a minimum wage fixing body, possibly based on the Reserve Bank model. Bruce Highfield from Virgin Blue outlined the approach his company had taken to IR and how this might become a model for others.
(CCH Australian Industrial Law Update; newsletter 9, September 2001)
Bargaining for Cultural Recognition
Cultural diversity recognises the great variation in background of many workers and the wide range of different skills, needs and experiences of these workers. Enterprise agreements are increasingly being used to recognise this diversity and how it might benefit workplaces. Sample clauses are discussed and the HR department role is outlined.
(CCH Australian Industrial Law Update; newsletter 9, September 2001)
Indigenous and Tribal Peoples and the ILO
ILO Convention no. 169 came into force in 1991. A series of articles look at how selected groups of indigenous and tribal peoples on four continents have fared over the past ten years. The articles look at ILO activities in implementing the convention, how new technologies are helping ancient cultures communicate and how the Maasai people are faring.
(World of Work; no. 40, August 2001)
Shearing: Tom Roberts and OHS standards
Tom Roberts painting Shearing the Rams has been critiqued from an OHS viewpoint by AWU members. The question the way the rams are carried out, the lack of decent facilities for working in the obvious heat, and the romantic view of shearing Roberts conveyed. The previous issue questioned the Bullshit in the painting. Also the article points out huge agitation in the industry that was occurring at the time Roberts did his work.
Also the Victorian Workcover Authority has just released a comprehensive Health and Safety in Shearing booklet.
(Say Safety; September 2001)
Compo Costs Still Rising as Injury Claims Fall
The third Comparative Performance Monitoring Report reveals a 20% fall in the incidence of injuries between 1995-96 and 1999-2000, but workers' compensation premiums have not shown a corresponding fall.
The standard premium rate increased from 2.39% of payroll to 2.42%, up 6.6% since 1997-98.
(Occupational Health & Safety Bulletin; vol. 10, no. 227, 10 October 2001)
Globalisation and OHS by Robin Stewart-Crompton
Dr Gro Harlem Brundtland, Director of the World Health Organisation has argued that globalisation does not have to lead to human insecurity nor to increased inequality. For this to be achieved requires joint work by governments, civil society and the private sector to develop a long term program focused on social outcomes. For OHS attention needs to be given to international standards, for example the SafeWork program of the ILO. Also the UN Economic and Social Council is promoting a Globally Harmonised System of Classification of Labelling of Chemicals.
(CCH's OHS magazine; October/November 2001)
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Natasha's claims to being a genuine political leader of a "major party" has taken a battering in recent days after she was exposed as having no idea how her campaign is being run. While the Democrat hierarchy was devising a complex tapestry of preference deals with the major parties - proving that the self-styled clean-skins of politics will deal with either side for short-term political advantage - Nat was sticking to her sanctimonious line that the Democrats were above all this. Ouch.
In recent weeks Stott-Despoja has made a lot about the Democrat's 'major party' status, ignoring the fact that her party has no House of Representative seat to demand a position with Howard and Beazley in the Great Debate, while refusing to go head to head with the Greens because they are beneath her. This attempt to position the Dems as a major force has been tried before - remember Janine Haines' failed bid for a lower house seat? - but never with degree of dogged self-delusion currently on display.
The Democrats have gone from attempting to 'Keep the Bastards Honest' - a recognition that their role was one of broker between the big players - to 'Change Politics'. The problem with this strategy is that, while it might have superficial appeal the grab-bag policy agenda of soft-left issues backed by a ruthless political strategy is all so very mainstream. At least the Greens retain a principled irrelevance, the Democrats want to be part of the main game.
Which would all be fine, if the public persona of the young leader wasn't such an adherent to the personality politics she claims to be fighting against. What is it about this young, blonde woman chasing the limelight that is so hard to stomach? The pious words? The ruthless power plays? The manic pursuit of positive media coverage? It's not that Natasha's young and blonde - it's that she uses these attributes to claim to be different - and then just behaves like any other politician attempting to climb the greasy pole. Like Reese Witherspoon's cringingly ambititious Tracy Flick in the political masterpiece 'Election', she is defined by her own unstinting conviction that she is the best candidate. This is not the sort of person who should be in politics.
According to that most unreliable source - Crikey - the Nat tactics are backfiring. "The slogan "Change Politics", all dressed up in black, pink and NSD's very beautiful face, has inspired precisely nobody. The question has been asked on the Adult Democrats Email Network (ADEN to the acronymically inclined - no reference to the other Dream-Teamer) is if Stott Despoja is so keen to change politics, how is that she used standard political knife-up techniques on her former leader? The preoccupation Stott Despoja's head on posters and other paraphernalia is also causing distress to those members who think that there is more to political strategy than their Dear Leader's face on a power pole."
Natasha is a politician and she should stop masquerading as something else - a glamorous celebrity who spontaneously appeared on the national stage through some innate charm or brilliance. From the day she laced on her Doc Martins as proof of her 'voice of youth' status, she has played the popular culture for all its worth. The mock footage of her being overpowered by security guards attempting to enter the Election Chaser studio this week were spot on - in the public interest she should be kept out of the limelight. A week in the Shed is a good start.
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