The Labor Council will ask the Premier to set up a committee of employers, trade unions and employers to agree on baseline conditions and employment practices, amidst concerns that some centres are becoming the "sweat shops of the 90s".
Australian Services Union (services branch) secretary Alison Peters says that while the union supports the government's commitment to job creation, they want to ensure the jobs created are decent ones.
The Australian Services Union covers some call centres, along with the Finance Sector Union and the Community and Public Sector Union.
"When you get reports of excessive monitoring, like timing toilet breaks, you start to worry about the types of jobs we are creating," Peters says.
"Our union has received a range of complaints from workers including: electronic monitoring of staff, high levels of stress, low morale, excessive turnover of staff and occupational health and safety concerns.
"A lot of the decent employers in the industry don't want to become sweatshops and we need to ensure these people are not undercut by the cowboys."
Because not all call centres are covered by awards, there are currently no industry-wide minimum standards. One of the task of any tripartite committee would be to develop a code of practise.
Labor Council secretary Michael Costa said it was great to see NSW being made the call centre capital of Australia, but it was incumbent on a Labor government to ensure decent conditions applied.
Details of proposals amendments to the Industrial Relations Act 1996 were circulated to members of the Industrial Relations Consultative Committee this week. The IRCC includes trade union and employer reps.
Proposals include:
- Introducing agency fees to be levied on non-union members where a trade union negotiates a pay rise. This would involve a provision in the enterprise agreement to this effect, which would need to be voted on by a majority of workers affected. The IRAct would need to be changed to explicitly allow such a provision.
- Forcing labour hire companies to pay employees the same rates and conditions as those of the host company. This would mean that labour hire companies would not be able to pay its workers at a lower rate than provided in the enterprise agreement covering the workplace they are placed in.
- Reversing the onus of proof in victimisation cases to rest on the employer or industrial organisation who is alleged to have breached the provisions.
- Strengthening protections for injured workers against dismissal to the full period they receive accident pay. This plugs a gap left by the federal award-stripping process.
- Increased responsibilities on principal contractors for the actions of sub-contractors. It is also proposed to give the IRC the power to set minimum rates for industrial contractors, to target the problem of "sham" contracting to avoid employer obligations.
- Allowing unions to be a party to non-union enterprise agreements, with the union with coverage having the right to appear at the Commission proceedings to approve the agreement.
- Giving union officials the right to enter residential premises, to assist with the policing of outworkers.
Following the IRCC consultation process, Shaw is expected to introduce the amendments into the upcoming session of Parliament.
by Phil Thornton
"I just ran and sat in the chair and shook."
- Pensioner, Mrs Beryl Annesley
Mrs Beryl Annesley, 72, was all alone on 14 April when giant hail stones came crashing through her roof in the storm that also damaged 18,000 Sydney homes.
"The noise was unbelievable. I was very scared and shaking. I thought about crawling under the bed, but I just ran and sat in the chair and shook."
Fortunately for Beryl her neighbour braved the large hailstones and rescued her. "Peter rushed in and brought me to his place and I stayed there all night."
But Beryl's troubles were just beginning. Her roof was now destroyed and rain threatened to wreck what remained of the home she had lived in for 71 years. Beryl's roof urgently needed repairing but she wasn't covered by insurance. "I had nothing here to pinch. I didn't think I needed it."
Unknown to her the NSW Department of Community Services contacted the CFMEU and asked if they could help Beryl out.
The union sent rooftilers' and cottage sector organiser, Malcolm French, to assess the damage.
"I thought he'd come to give me a quote. It was such a relief when he told me the union were going to fix my roof for free, I jumped for joy!"
Beryl worked hard to bring four kids up and says, "I was a staunch unionist. I worked in a jam factory, ham and beef processing and food shops. My husband was a wharfie and also worked for Sydney City Council."
CFMEU member and rooftiler Gary Rowe looks at Beryl's smashed roof, shakes his head and says, "It's good to be able to help out. We've done a few jobs for people who haven't been insured. It's good to see them smiling again."
Cotter had named Lennon from the floor, after Labor Council secretary Michael Costa had demanded he substantiate claims that officers had been heavying unions to back the controversial lease.
After the meeting Cotter withdrew the charge when approached by Lennon for clarification. Lennon has now demanded a public apology and retraction.
Sussex Street "bully-boy" Lennon says he was more upset by the reaction of the room after the claims were made. "They all started laughing," Lennon complained. "The least they can do is take the charges seriously."
The anticipated vote on the lease with the transcendental meditation group, World Plan Executive Council, was cancelled after it became apparent opponents of the plan had garnered sufficient votes to veto the deal.
Under Labor Council rules dating back to the Lang split of the 1930s, a lease can be vetoed by any seven affiliates. The Friends of Currawong had attracted the bear minimum of affiliates required to block the plan, including one union with fewer than 50 members.
Michael Costa said he would not allow an archaic rule to frustrate the will of more than 90 per cent of affiliates. He said he had received legal advice that the rule could be overturned in the courts, but did not want to bog this deal down in legal action.
Instead, the lease was formally withdrawn and Labor Council will now commence negotiations to restructure the deal as a management service contract arrangement. The deal would retain the key commercial components of the original deal, including:
- the construction of upgraded eco-friendly accommodation;
- continued access to TUTA for trade union training activities.
- ongoing access for trade union members;
- $200,000 per year to the Labor Council to be earmarked for organising and recruiting.
Costa said he would bring the deal back to the Council in a month, where it would need a bare majority of votes to be passed.
He said once the current Currawong controversy died down he would look at changing the seven-affiliate rule.
Labor Council secretary Michael Costa says the proposal to introduce secret ballots before strike action would prolong industrial disputation because it would make it more difficult for unions to facilitate resolutions.
"Any experienced practitioner of industrial relations knows that strikes are a last resort for trade unions," Costa says.
"Union officials often play a pivotal role in brokering a deal between management and workers when relations have broken down and workers have been so frustrated with management inactivity that they take strike action.
"The secret ballots would detrimentally interfere with union officials' ability to head off these types of disputes. Once a strike has been called, any union official would testify to the difficulty in getting people back to work, particularly when a compromise has been struck.
"The evidence from Britain where the Thatcher Government introduced similar changes backs this up."
Costa says separate proposals to limit the ability of the Australian Industrial Relations Commission to be involved in the resolution of disputes will further increase the number of disputes.
"It's interesting to see the contrast in strike activity between NSW, where there is a strong Commission, and in Victoria where there is none. In Victoria a worker is twice as likely to go on strike as one in NSW," he said..
CEPU officials point to the central role two former Rio Tinto (CRA) executives are playing in discouraging unions and promoting a direct employer-employee relationship.
They say Rob Cartwright, described by Reith as one of the 'A' team of industrial change in Australia, and Justin O'Connell have played central roles in formulating industrial policy since they moved from the mining giant.
In recent times the union has been angered by a stream of provocative acts which make its jobs harder, including:
- limiting union officials' right of entry to meal breaks
- pursuing unions through the Federal Court when they take protected industrial action
- cutting out union delegate meetings entirely, so there is no longer tripartite consultation
- trying to create a climate where people are scared to use award entitlements
- not following dispute resolution processes in the award which require consultaiton with the union.
"The climate in Telstra is very much a siege mentality when it comes to unions -- they've tried to cut off any contact and prevent contact with the union," CEPU (Postal and Telecommunications Division) organiser Eddie Husic told Workers Online.
Ironically, Husic says this attitude is emphasing the needs for unions in the workplace. "members are seeing what happens when the union is cut out of the process and they don't like it."
The Australian Services Union and APESMA have both raised concerns that senior officers will be forced onto individual contracts as part the SRA's current "functional reform process".
Then process is designed to improve the Authority's performance in its business areas in return for pay increases.
Reith-style AWAs are possible in the rail industry because it is covered by a federal, rather than a state award.
APESMA has accused the SRA of attempting to bypass the unions in the negotiations, which propose "significant reductions in conditions for our members."
The ASU, which has formed a senior officer's sub-branch to resist the attack, says the SRA tactics should be of concern to all unions.
They have asked Labor Council to raise this matter with the government. Labor Council secretary Michael Costa agreed to take up the issue and condemned the SRA for going down this path.
"The union movement believes that state government authorities or instrumentalities pursuing individual contracts is just not on," he said.
"We will not tolerate AWAs being promoted by the NSW Government or any of its off-shoots."
The ACTU is backing the claim by the Australian Manufacturing Workers Union to have the women paid at the same level as male production workers.
After a procession of Commission hearings, the Age this week again raised spurious and technical jurisdictional issues, relating to the form of the application. Commissioner Whelan has given the Age a week to make their submission and the union a week to respond.
The ACTU's Jenny Doran called on the Age to allow the case to go ahead and be heard on its merits.
"Why is The Age so afraid of conducting a genuine work value of the women's work and the men's work?" she asked Workers Online
"It's because it will show that the women's work is not being valued fairly."
The ACTU is claiming that the female clerical workers in the 'Phone Room' are performing work of equal value with male production workers who are paid at the base trade rate.
The women are currently being paid a base rate of $546.15 (excluding VDT and casual loadings). The men are currently paid $664.00. The claim therefore is for an increase in the base rate of the women of $117.85. There are 170 women employed in the classifications covered by the application.
The grounds on which the claim is based are:
1. The women are performing clerical work that under the minimum rate adjustment process undertaken in respect of minimum rates in awards has been valued as equal in value to the work of tradespersons.
2. Historically the rates payable to women at Level 4 of their existing quota classification system have been equivalent to the male rates referred to.
3. Similar work performed by women workers in other newspapers has been valued as being of equivalent value to the work of the men with whom we are asking that they be compared. (News Limited).
The union is seeking a similar skill based structure for the women. This is consistent with the equal remuneration provisions which are based on a broad definition of remuneration.
Labor Council secretary Michael Costa says the Employment Advocate's decision to run half-page advertisements in the national press as "a clear and extravagant misuse of taxpayers' money" and would be referred to the Commonwealth Auditor-General.
And the Federal Opposition says parts of the ads are misleading and should be referred to the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission to determine whether there has been a breach of the Trade Practices Act.
Opposition industrial relations spokesman Arch Bevis says the claim that '...no employee is in any way worse off with an AWA...' was clearly misleading.
"The Employment Advocate's advertisements imply that AWAs may only 'top up' Award conditions - that is not the reality of these types of agreements", Bevis says.
Employment Advocate chief Jonathan Hamburger was grilled over the ads in Senate Estimates committee this week, admitting the wording of the advertisements had been considered in-house.
The advertisements are an attempt to drum up business for the government's floundering individual contracts, the Australian Workplace Agreements. Despite vigorous promotion by the federal government, just over 50,000 workers, have agreed to sign their way out of the award system.
The Employment Advocate was set up after the 1996 election, as part of John Howard's promise that "no Australian worker would be worse off" under the Coalition.
But in two years of business, not a single a prosecution has been launched on behalf of a worker. To date, all prosecutions have been against trade unions.
Costa called on the Employment Advocate to refocus its activities, given that a recent Labor Council-Newspoll had found 48 per cent of workers would be in a union if they were "free to choose".
"This means that 20 per cent of the workforce are being prevented to join unions because of management hostility or other factors," Mr Costa says,.
"This represents a clear problem, that an apolitical Employment Advocate could deal with.
"Instead, the Advocate appears content to do the Howard Government's bidding and attempt to portray the trade union movement as the enemy. This is a view that 70 per cent of Australians disagree with." (Source Labor Council-Newspoll)
"It is outrageous that the Howard Government is allowing taxpayers' money to run a blatantly ideological agenda."
Labor Council secretary Michael Costa says he will dedicate next Thursday's weekly meeting to the issue and hoped to see a "genuine debate" on the issue.
Expert speakers will be invited to address the Council, including Dr Alex Wodak from St Vincents Hospital and Paul Moulds from the Salvation Army.
Delegates will also be encouraged to participate and vote on a resolution, which would represent the NSW labour movement's position before the Macquarie Street summit.
Costa says the forum is an important step in recasting Labor Council as the workers parliament and encouraging affiliates to take positions on important issues that affect their members.
"Drug abuse is an issue which union officials and delegates are often confronted with. We recognise it is an occupational health and safety issue in the workplace. It's time our politicians caught up with this view."
Costa, who's a delegate to the summit along with Nurses secretary Sam Moaitt, says he hopes the State Government's summit leads to meaningful reform and that MPs will be given free votes on resolutions that mean something.
"If this turns out to be a week-long talkfest, I won't be wasting my time turning up," he told Workers Online.
For further details of the Labor Council Drug Policy Forum see Naomi Steer's piece in "From Trades Hall".
Workers Online will focus on the drugs debate in next week's issue. Any contributions will be gratefully received
The foray into the Republican debate by Neville Wran typifies the Aristocratic modus operandi of the ARM. He's right, there will be "no menu of options" come November, by decree of the minimalists.
His keep it simple urgings reflect the slick marketing product on offer; Resident for President.
Well, yes all Republicans agree but the majority of Australians (Newspoll) want the inclusion of one word; elected.
What's left undefined by the ARM model renders it all tip and no iceberg.What is the role envisaged for the President? What are to be the powers of the President vis the powers of the Sovereign?
If the role is to be largely what the current GG performs or equally something above and beyond, fine. Once so established the Chicken Little thesis advanced regarding a constitutional crisis is exposed as sophistry.
Once defined the powers are codified and from there the relationship is established.For example,the commission of the Government could be withdrawn on;
(1)A vote of no confidence carried in the House,
(2)A vote as above but in a joint sitting,
(3) As per (2) above carried by a two thirds majority.
There exists a multitude of options. We could make it a requirement that the President, upon withdrawing the commission, face a fresh election for Office.
It may be that the direct electionists are divided and by definition the Republican Movement. The ARM deny Australians that debate.
We need Michael Egan to pronounce the prophetic words 'let the debate begin'.
The Reith/Mack guilt by association reference does the author nor the ARM little credit. The obvious parallel, the Costello/Wran plan, is equally glib.
Balmain boys don't cry and they also don't play the ball.
If your readers have kept Workers Online Issue 11, have another read of the ARM appointment process outlined in the contribution by Jennie George.
As a famous Republican, Michael Collins would have said " Jesus wept".
Yours faithfully
ANDREW WILLIAMSON,
AIMPE
NSW DISTRICT SECRETARY( Honorary)
I have just read your latest Piers Watch column and congratulate you on your stand against Piers Ackerman and his questionable journalism.
Mr Ackerman is showing his bigotry through his poison pen.
Justice Michael Kirby is a brave man and Piers Ackerman is persecuting Justice Michael Kirby and inciting hatred.
I wonder what Piers Ackerman's views of Justice Michael Kirby were before he was provided with fodder for his poisen pen?
I hope you get the dirt on Ackerman.
Alan Gordon
Editor's Note: this is one of several letters we recevied on Piers. Unfortunately most are defamatory and can't be printed. Give us your views, but give us a chance of printing them. He's not worth sending Labor Council broke over!
by Peter Lewis
Sally McManus has been organising for five years since she graduated in the first intake of the ACTU's Organising Works program. She's been working in information technology and call centres for the last couple of years, with one of the three unions who are active in the area. While she was at university she worked in a call centre selling house-cladding.
Tell us what you have been doing to organise call centres?
At the moment the Australian Services Union is conducting a national survey focussing on stress and other conditions of employment. We've been distributing them outside the major non-union call centres in Sydney, Newcastle and Wollongong. These surveys have the union's phone number on them and we're receiving lots of calls from people. We've received about 1,000 back, which is really encouraging and more importantly makes the findings statistically significant. The reason we are handing the surveys out the front is that we are not given access to the workplace.Under the law, you need to have members to get inside.
What are the main issues workers raise when they talk to you?
The number one issue is stress from too many calls; excessive call monitoring and inadequate breaks from the phones. People also worry about career paths, they don't want to be on phones for the rest of their lives, they want to go somewhere in the company,. Thirdly, pay - there's no award in the industry so it's purely set buy market forces. Few of the big call centres want to pay shift allowances for night work and weekend work, so there's a constant downwards pressure on wages. There's also a push towards incentive payments for taking calls quickly and getting through them faster. The problem with this is you end up with competing pressures : good service and respect to the caller at the same time as feeling pressure to get them off the phone quicker.
The industry sells itself on its flexibility, but it's not a great job for a working mother. The shifts are often at night or weekends, when you want to be with your kids. There's often rotating shifts, so there's no stability about that either. The flexibility is all the employer's way
Is there a typical call centre and what does it look like?
A typical one would have 60 seats, organised cubicles so you can't see the person you're next to. They rotate the seats so you don't have a set desk. There's a phone with a head-set, a computer in front of you. The team leader is normally in an elevated position where they can best supervise everyone. And there's a big screen recording the number of calls waiting. When Bentham invented his panopticon, he could have been thinking of the call centre!
What reaction do you get from workers when you present yourself as a union official.
Workers are quite interested, because a lot of them don't know there's a union for the industry. The issues we bring up really resonate with them and there's a feeling out there amongst people in the industry that call centres could be a better place to work. The biggest difficult is getting in to talk to them.
How have you been using the internet to help you organise?
We rely a lot on e-mail, most workers will have access at their terminals, although there's real issues with security in terms of the company monitoring email. Most are also online at home and we create our networks around mailing lists so we can discuss issues and have virtual meetings. This gets around the fact that people are working 24 hours and we can can't physically meet with them.
What's your best victory in a call centre?
There was one in Wollongong where there was an issue of pay and under-staffing. The workers contacted the ASU, because they read about it in the media, and we helped them get organised. Organising means getting workers to talk to each other and understand their bargaining power and stand up for themselves. When the workers started looking organised the bosses freaked and gave them the pay-rise they were after to avoid any "trouble".
Is the fact that many of the employers are controlled by overseas companies a problem?
A lot of the call centres are operated by American companies. They see themselves as global companies and equate that with US conditions, so when they come to Australia they expect the same conditions. Some even give them the US staff handbook! Most are viciously opposed to unions and don't want to change the system they have.
What's the difference between a good employer and a bad employer?
The good employers will involve the union -- they don't feel threatened if their workforce is organised and listen to the views of their employees. Some actually recognise the industry can benefit from a collective workforce. The good employers want to get rid of the cowboys as well; really low wage rates are a threat to them, because their work can be outsourced to a lower wage competitor.
One argument against unionising call centres is that the team structure of call centres make collective superfluous. What's your response?
I think the team structure strengthens it. Team culture can assist in building a union culture. People are already used to working together and the union is just an extension of that. The negative side of team culture is that it can be used as a tool to increase surveillance and make people feel guilty for not working themselves into the ground because they fear they are letting the team down.
Some people dismiss call centres as McJobs, what's your view?
They don't have to be. Call centres where there are career paths, recognition for working unsociable shifts and where the employer genuinely listens to their employees are much happier places, the staff turnover rates are lower and the job can be really fulfilling,. Some people try to cast the industry as a low-skill industry, I don't believe that's true. You need a high level of interpersonal skills, problem solving and conflict resolution to deal with a whole range of customers, clients and stressful situations. not everyone can do that. There's also an increasing demand for technical and language skills, so you're seeing specialised jobs within call centres developing.
How do you feel when you see government promoting call centres as a growth industry?
I find it a bit frustrating that they are completely silent on the quality of these jobs. I think it's a problem when companies chase low-wage areas, rather than being prepared to invest in a workforce. The government needs to set some minimum conditions so that the jobs they create are decent ones and the people in there are not exploited.
If someone works in a call centre and they're not happy about what's going on, what should they do?
Talk to their fellow workers to see if they share the some concerns and contact me at the Australian Services Union, or one of the other unions involved. If you're in the finance industry, that would be the Finance Sector Union; or the CPSU if you are in a government-run centre..
by Noel Hester
But increasingly unions are hearing more and more from disgruntled workers in this emerging technology industry with horror stories of conditions and pay.
Call centres in Australia have a 25% growth rate - in Europe they are growing at an astonishing 40% per year.
They have an infrastructure investment of $2 billion and they employ about 60,000 people - mainly women earning between $24,000 and $32,000 a year. They have been described as the fastest growth industry since the gold rush.
The stress of technology
As a new industry, call centres are largely unregulated and with low levels of unionisation. And in their present form call centres subject their `agents' to breathtaking levels of surveillance and stress.
The agents are constantly visible and the supervisor's power has been rendered perfect via computer monitoring.
Agents are logged onto a computer for eight hours a day, and can have the duration of their calls and their every movement monitored by the technology.
There is no control by the workers over the calls taken - the calls are often force fed without gaps.
This application of the technology and the exhausting shift patterns create difficult and stressful working environments.
Adrian Hodgson an ASU delegate at TeleTech's call centre , says the monitoring is oppressive.
`It's 1984, big brother stuff. Quality assurance in a call centre is basically stand-over bullying and pressure,' he said.
`The stress is HUGE!!! There is a 24 hour a day, 7 day working week with shift rostering at the company's discretion. It's an American working culture, with teams and team-leaders and a shape up or ship out mentality,' he said.
Such oppressive monitoring leads to low morale and bad customer relations. It also contributes to the high churn rates (staff turnover) which plague the industry.
British studies have found that eighteen months is usually about as much as a computer telephonist can cope with.
Low pay and less `churn' make regions flavour of the month
Regional areas - with their high unemployment - are the prominent growth areas for call centres. These areas are attractive as churn rates are lower than in the main centres as are wages and rent. Governments have also been quick to dole out tax breaks and land packages as incentives to attract the labour-intensive centres to depressed areas.
While the industry whinges about the public perception of call centres as modern day sweat-shops the Australian Services Union has attracted plenty of interest from employees fed up with poor pay, stressful workloads and lack of job recognition.
In Wollongong, employees at Wire Data Services - a British IT company - joined the union on mass when their jobs were technically downgraded by the company from help desks to call centres, undermining employee claims for better pay in line with their increasing IT skills.
Despite protestations to the contrary it says volumes about many employers' perceptions about their industry.
In Newcastle the union has been picking up new members with frequent stories of wild west working conditions, cowboy employers and atrocious pay and conditions.
Call centres need an award and standards
Not all employers are like this. Some, like Sitel and Sydney Water in Sydney and the Newcastle Building Society are showing commitment to improving job conditions by working with the union and the local community.
ASU organiser Sally McManus says there are three main issues that need to be confronted by the industry.
`There is no award for call centre staff. There are no standards set for the monitoring of employees. And the levels of stress are very high' she said.
`There's a lot of talk about jobs being created in the regions - but what sort of jobs are they going to be? This is something that only the union movement is talking about. The industry, academics and governments talk a lot about bums on seats but they're silent on the nature and quality of these jobs.'
Creating high skilled, high paid jobs
Another contributing factor to staff turnover is the lack of long term job satisfaction. The forced pace of the work eans there is little meaningful interaction with customers. There are also limited opportunities for career progression.
But the potential exists for call centres to provide rewarding and well paid employment. Many call centre positions are highly skilled and are at the leading edge of customer service delivery.
The Lufthansa call centre in Melbourne takes reservation calls from Australia, Japan, Hong Kong and Singapore. It also can take advantage of the time zone differences to take out of hours calls from Europe and North America.
Lufthansa's technically skilled and multilingual workforce centre can provide customers worldwide with a 24 hour airline telephone reservations service.
The industry has been its own worst enemy with its failure to resolve issues of low pay and lack of skills recognition. Staff turnover is costly with the training of staff costing up to $10,000 per agent.
Independent academic research backs the ASU's own findings that call centres with collective agreements have lower staff turnover, higher employee satisfaction and lower levels of stress.
The potential for the call centre industry is excellent. But the challenge lies before the industry to work with unions to ensure call centre jobs are well paid and rewarding if this potential is to be fulfilled.
by Dr Lucy Taksa
The need to preserve railway heritage and make it accessible to the broader community has increasingly been recognized by commercial and government enterprises, community groups and scholars throughout the industrialized world.
In the United Kingdom, the United States of America, the Netherlands, Germany and Sweden, railway heritage projects involving partnerships between public and private organisations have been developed to highlight the way railways have contributed to national destinies and the daily life of ordinary people. Extensive public and private investments have been committed to such efforts because they provide opportunities for enhancing educational and recreational activities. Sydney's Eveleigh Railway Workshops present these same sorts of opportunities.
Eveleigh's heritage value has been well documented in numerous heritage studies and conservation plans because it provides a notable example of continuous use for the same industrial purpose for over one hundred years between the 1880s and the 1980s.
It is well recognised as having been one of the largest and most advanced railway workshops in Australia. By 1900, ten per cent of railway staff were employed there. And immediately before the outbreak of World War One in 1914, when the NSW Department of Railways and Tramways had become one of the largest employers in Australia, Eveleigh represented the heart of the NSW transport system.
Yet, Eveleigh was not simply a geographic location in which specific industrial activities occurred and technologies were developed and used. It was also the center of an occupational community that revolved around extended family networks and continuous employment. It was the hub of union activity and labor politics; at least 16 Labor politicians began their working lives there.
The best known of these were J.S.T. McGowan, the first Labor Premier of NSW from 1910, William McKell and J.J. Cahill, Premiers during the 1940s and 1950s and Eddie Ward, the Federal member for the seat of East Sydney from the 1930s. Eveleigh was also arguably Australia's first multi-cultural employer because migrants from the United Kingdom, Europe and the Middle East were employed there from the 1880s, alongside Indigenous Australians.
Despite the numerous heritage studies that have investigated Eveleigh, to date only a few tentative steps have been taken to make the site's heritage available to the people of NSW. An important step in this direction was made by the Hon. Craig Knowles when he provided funds for the conservation of the machinery left in Bays 1 and 2 of the Locomotive workshops building.
Another step that has recently been taken goes further by seeking to make the history of those who actually worked there more accessible to the broader community. This project, undertaken under the auspices of the Australian Research Council's Strategic Partnerships with Industry Research and Training program and funded by the ARC, together with eleven industry partners will build a bridge between the past, the present and the future at the Eveleigh railway workshops using the latest information technologies.
Why should information technology be used for heritage purposes and how can it provide greater access to and understanding of Eveleigh's history and heritage?
First, it must be stressed that information technology cannot be used as a substitute for the preservation of factories and workshops and the machinery still contained in such industrial buildings. But on their own, these material remnants tell us little about the scale of our industrial enterprises, and even less about the skills and sweat that went into the industrial work that made Australia what it is today. We need a range of techniques to ensure that we remember such work because it was central to the development of our labour movement. And information technologies provide a useful tool for making this history interesting to our children who are becoming very skilled with computer technology.
The conservation of Eveleigh's industrial heritage has been profoundly affected by politics, money and location. Despite the value of the prime real estate occupied by the workshops, their built fabric has been protected by government ownership and subsidy. In 1995 ownership of the Locomotive Workshops was transferred from the SRA to the City West Development Corporation. This was part of a plan announced by the NSW Government in May 1991 to help the University of NSW, the University of Sydney and the University of Technology, Sydney to establish an advanced technology park at the Locomotive workshops. The Australian Technology Park, Sydney Ltd. (ATP) was subsequently formed as a registered company with a board including the Vice Chancellors of the above universities and industry representatives. Its goal is to nurture ideas that can be transformed into the latest technologies and as importantly, to ensure conservation of Eveleigh's heritage.
The Conservation Management Plan produced by the Heritage Group, State Projects Division of the NSW Department of Public Works and Services in 1995 and the Management Plan for Moveable Items and Social History produced by Godden Mackay Heritage Consultants in 1996 provided the basis for the deliberations of the Eveleigh Locomotive Workshops Heritage Working Group during 1997 and 1998. In the interim, in 1997 the NSW Government demonstrated additional commitment by making a grant of $300,000 (to be matched dollar for dollar by the ATP) to enable the conservation of Eveleigh's remaining moveable heritage collection. At the same time the SRA, which manages the largest number of the State's heritage assets, undertook an investigation to consider future redevelopment of the Eveleigh Carriage Workshops buildings and the viability of establishing a transport heritage park on this part of the site.
An important feature of the conservation strategy for the machinery in Bays 1 and 2 of the Locomotive workshops building is the proposal to create both static and operational displays. The attraction of this approach lies in its ability to provide visitors with an impression of some of the interrelated skills and processes that were once typical of the workshops. As David McBeath, the machine conservator engaged to facilitate this outcome put it:
This building has huge heritage values because of its social history, architecture ... and the machinery it houses. When you walk around this place you can feel the history. It's important we preserve not just the machinery, but also the human dimension of the place. 'A window on the past', City West News Update, Autumn 1998, p. 6.
Up till now, however, Eveleigh's social history has been submerged in the sandy floors of Bays 1 and 2. Because the Australian Research Council provided me with a grant in 1997 to investigate this history, I thought that it would be useful to seek further assistance through its industry collaboration program to provide the funds to develop a technique which could make the workers' history more accessible. In this I was assisted by a range of enterprises which have some involvement with the Eveleigh Precinct, notably the SRA, Rail Access Corporation and Rail Services Australia, the Australian Technology Park, the Power House Museum, the Heritage Branch of the Department of Public Works and Services, the City West Development Corporation ( now the Sydney Harbour Foreshores Authority), the State Library of NSW, Summer Hill Films, Otto Cserhalmi and Partners Conservation Architects, and Creative Interactive Systems Pty Ltd. Our grant application was successful mainly because of the extent of industry partner involvement. This outcome highlights the importance of collaboration between historians, heritage and museum professionals, private and public enterprises.
Travelling in History
How can information technologies enhance historical understanding and appreciation of Eveleigh's cultural significance? While the display of static and functional machinery in Bays 1 and 2 will provide visual mediums for explaining the way people worked at least in some parts of Eveleigh, it fails to give any real indication of the site's scale and scope, or of the wide range of people who worked there. By contrast, information technologies offer a way of overcoming these limitations by providing people with an opportunity of navigating around the site in virtual reality, as it was during different periods of history.
As a guide to the site and its heritage, the project will develop a data base of those who worked at Eveleigh until 1950. Not only will this provide a social profile of the workforce, but it will also be useful as a finding aid for the virtual reality architectural fly-through of the entire site. Photographs, archival and recent film footage and oral history extracts, attached to this virtual representation will then help to demonstrate a broader range of machines that were used and built there, as well as the working conditions that were experienced by employees. The final product will be located on one or a number of web sites, associated with the various industry partners.
The aim of this virtual representation is to add to our knowledge of this great monument These multi-media technologies will enable people to trace Eveleigh employees and to follow in their footsteps. In turn, the knowledge gained through this process will provide a context for the industrial artifacts and other displays in Bays 1 and 2 of the Locomotive Workshops. In short, by travelling around Eveleigh in virtual reality those who once worked there, whose family members worked there, who grew up in its vicinity, or who are interested in the industrial era, or railways, technological change or the history of Sydney will gain closer contact with the place that was at the centre of our State's transport infrastructure for over a century. In turn, this will help to introduce our children to the sorts of working conditions that gave rise to trade unions, Labor Councils and the Labor Party.
By enabling members of the community to learn about Eveleigh this project will provide an echo of the site's now stilled heartbeat.
Dr. Lucy Taksa
Senior Lecturer,
School of Industrial Relations & Organisational Behaviour, The University of NSW and Hon. Secretary of the Australian Society for the Study of Labour History
Anyone with information on the Eveleigh workshops please call Lucy on 95606270 or email at mailto:[email protected]
Welcome to This Working Life
Welcome to This Working Life, a monthly bulletin for union delegates, organisers, officials - everyone who is working for more employment security, better hours of work and a better balance between our work and home lives.
The aim of This Working Life is to show that there are many ways to improve job security and ease the increasing burden of too much work for many workers, while others remain unemployed or underemployed.
Our stories will focus on the practical changes that have been won by workers and unions through enterprise bargaining, as well as legal and political avenues. Each article will include a contact name and details so readers can go straight to the horses' mouth if they want more information about a particular story.
Finally, we encourage all our readers to provide us with your stories. The campaign for better working time arrangements and employment security is growing every day, as more and more union members find ways to make positive changes at their workplace or in their industry. We'd like to share your victories with other activists so that we learn from each other and together build a momentum for fairer and more equal working time arrangements and employment security.
Subscribe
To regularly receive This Working Life by fax or e-mail, let us know your name, your union and your fax number or e-mail address.
Contact This Working Life on:
Fax: (03) 9663 8220
E-mail: mailto:[email protected]
Work overload a crime: public prosecutors act
Union members employed by the NSW Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) are banning excessive overtime to highlight the severe staffing and financial crisis affecting the office. The campaign to work no more than 38 hours each week commenced last December.
Stephen Spencer, an industrial officer for the Public Service Association of NSW (PSA) said that the campaign was necessary to force the director and government to focus on lasting solutions to the crisis. A review last year by the Council on the Cost of Government (COCOG) supported the PSA's claims that the DPP requires a lot more lawyers and support staff.
Members were heartened when COCOG agreed to an interim increase in the DPP's budget of $900,000 for 1998/99 and an extra $2.15 million for 1999/2000. This has enabled the DPP to employ additional staff. Further analysis of the situation is being undertaken by COCOG and members are expecting to hear the results soon. In the meantime they are continuing to work no more than 38 hours each week.
"Our members are past breaking point. Their health is suffering. They are employed to do the work of one person, not two or more," Spencer said. "When they entered employment with the DPP they did not commit their whole lives to the Director. The fact is that employees of the DPP are paid to work 35 hours per week, and are not obliged to work any more than that."
Spencer said that, as well as being concerned about the effects of work overload on DPP staff, PSA members were
concerned that the quality of the work of the office was being affected. "Our members want an effective, well-managed DPP, rather than the patched-up band-aid model they have been attempting to keep going for so long."
Additional information:
Workplace contact: Andrew Dziedzic
Phone: (02) 9285 2565
Union contact: Stephen Spencer
Phone: (02) 9290 1555
E-mail: mailto:[email protected]
Website: http://www.psa.labor.net.au
ETU agreement sparks new jobs
Electrical Trades Union (ETU) members at Melbourne's new Docklands Stadium construction site have won a benchmark agreement which combines shorter working hours with an overtime cap to provide greater employment opportunities for apprentices and older workers.
The agreement, which was finalised last September, includes:
- A minimum ratio of one apprentice employed for every three tradespersons
- One worker aged 45 years or over in every six tradespersons
- A 9 day fortnight averaged at 36 normal hours per week, averaged over a 4 week cycle
- An increased hourly rate and site allowance
- An overtime limit of 10 hours per person per week.
The ETU Victorian Secretary Dean Mighell said that the agreement was truly historic. "It is the first time in the construction industry where the union's defined ratios of apprentices, older workers and overtime limits have all been won and set in an agreement," he said.
ETU members have been very concerned by the collapse of apprenticeships in the industry. The number of apprentices in training in Victoria had dropped by 34% over the last few years. Members were also aware of the difficulties faced by many older members in finding employment. This meant that the industry was missing out on the accumulated skills and experience of older workers.
The union estimates that the agreement will lead to more than 100 new apprentices working on the entire Docklands project.
Additional information:
Workplace contact: Adrian McNamara Phone: 0411 267 706
Union Contact: Dean Mighell or Kevin Harkins
Phone: (03)9347 9555
E-mail: mailto:[email protected]
We can't operate like this: nurses act on work overload
Nurses at Victoria's Royal Children's Hospital recently took industrial action to convince management to address chronic work overload issues. In an unprecedented move, nurses who are members of the Australian Nursing Federation (ANF), voted at the end of January to close operating theatres for two days to press their case for extra nursing staff in the Operating Suite.
After four days of talks, hospital management agreed to increase staff by five (full-time equivalent positions) and to implement and monitor a range of management practices to ensure the safe operation of the Operating Suite.
The nurses' industrial action followed months of negotiations between the ANF and management. A management survey last September demonstrated that there was a significant nursing staff shortage, but management's initial response was to alter rosters, rather than address the need for extra staff.
In addition to their concerns about the effects of work overload on health of nurses, ANF members were concerned that staff shortages could compromise the safety and welfare of the children attending the hospital.
Additional information:
Union Contact: Jan Brownrigg
Phone: (03) 9275 9333
E-mail: mailto:[email protected]
Casuals do hard labour in prisons
Prison Officers at Barwon Prison, Victoria's main maximum security prison containing the state's most dangerous offenders, are campaigning to convert casual jobs to permanent ones after several years of management misuse of casual staff.
Peter Keogh, assistant secretary of the CPSU-SPSF Victoria, said that the Public Correctional Enterprise (CORE), the government agency that operates Barwon Prison, were using casuals as cheap labour. "This is not fair to individual workers concerned and it's certainly not in the interests of public security," Keogh said.
Prison officers have asked their union to take legal action to convert forty-seven casual employees to permanent staff members. There are 110 full time permanents employed at the prison. The union has taken action against CORE in the Federal Court for moving its permanent workforce onto cheap casual jobs.
The casual rate is $17.80 per hour, which is the lowest Prison Officers base rate plus a 25 percent loading. The loading buys out:
- A 15% shift penalty
- Weekend rates (extra 50% for Saturdays and 100% for Sundays)
- Meal allowances (between $8 - $15 per meal)
- Overtime rates (time and a half for the first three hours and double time thereafter).
"Casuals employed at the gatehouse regularly work 12 to 16 hour shifts at their standard $17.80 per hour wage rate. They are regularly working anything from 80 to 120 hours per fortnight. This compares to permanent staff working 76 to 80 hours in the same period. Casual rosters are regular and posted six weeks in advance and they have been employed continuously for more than fourteen months," Keogh said.
"The financial disadvantage for these casuals can be tens thousands of dollars each year. In addition, they don't receive the same levels of training as permanents and they don't get access to the career path - they're left sitting on the bottom rung," Keogh added.
Additional information:
Union Contact: Peter Keogh
Phone: (03) 9639 1822
E-mail: mailto:[email protected]
Hotel workers clean up on rosters
Unionists at Sheraton hotels in Brisbane, Noosa, Sydney Airport and Melbourne will participate in designing rosters under new agreements negotiated between the hotel group and the Liquor, Hospitality and Miscellaneous Workers' Union (LHMU).
The agreements, which cover about 1400 employees, also confirm Sheraton's commitment to maximising full time and part time security of employment.
The agreements commit the hotel, "to the development of long term career opportunities for all its staff, and new entrants to the industry in particular. Consequently the Hotel's preference is to, whenever possible, offer only permanent full time or permanent part time employment opportunities."
Targets of less that 5% casual employment are being achieved through careful rostering, rather than the "just bring some casuals in" approach of many other employers in the industry.
Importantly the practice in one of the Sheraton hotels to include employees in developing rosters has been now carried through into all the hotels. The agreements specify that, "[w]herever possible employees should be encouraged to participate in the rostering process for their area, and departmental management and shift leaders should seek employees' input before posting final rosters."
Excessive casualisation and poor rostering practices are major problems in the hospitality industry. The Sheraton approach shows that the industry can deliver secure, stable and participatory hours of work.
Additional information:
Union contact: Tim Ferrari
Phone: (02) 9281 9511
Email: mailto:[email protected]
Website: http://www.lhmu.org.au
In your own words
Wannabe famous? Wannasee your story in This Working Life? We want to hear from members, delegates and union staff about any of the issues we cover: too much work versus not enough; employment insecurity; mushrooming casual and short-term jobs, and whatever you and your mates at work are doing about it.
Stories should be brief. Please provide a contact phone and fax number, so we can check the story with you prior to publication.
Contact This Working Life by:
Phone: Louise Connor (03) 9664 7321
Fax: (03) 9663 8220
E-mail: mailto:[email protected]
Seminar on contracting/labour hire/independent contractors: legal and organising issues
This half-day seminar, organised by the ACTU and Organising Works, will investigate strategies to deal with and regulate contracting, labour hire and independent contractors.
Melbourne, 1.30pm, Thursday 13 May.
Further details and registration (by 7 May):
Louise Connor, phone (03) 9664 7321
Cost: $50
(Note: We are planning a similar seminar in Sydney if there is sufficient interest.)
National Survey
Australia's unions want to know what their members think about their working time arrangements and job security issues.
We have prepared a confidential survey to help us devise a campaign to improve your working life.
If you'd like to participate, contact your union or download it from the ACTU Website: http://www.actu.asn.au
That's a fact
� The full-time working week is getting longer, not shorter
� Only 36% of employees work standard hours
� More than half of full-time workers now work more than 40 hours per week
� Over 60% of all overtime work is unpaid
� One in four employees are casual or part-time
� Contracting out/outsourcing is now a major form of employment - 25% of employment now compared to 5% in 1993
� Longer hours mean less family time and time for community activities.
Desmond Ball and David Horner, Breaking the Codes, (Allen & Unwin, 1998)
Harvey Klehr, John Earl Haynes and Kyrill M. Anderson, The Soviet World of American Communism, (Yale University Press, 1998)
Ball and Horner's book on Australian espionage is based upon the so called Venona signals intercepted by American and British intelligence and the decrypts of those material from Australian sources directed to the Soviet Union.
Assuming accuracy of analysis and context, the material presented demonstrates that a tiny number of members of the Communist Party of Australia engaged in active espionage for the Soviet Union, providing highly sensitive material against the national interests of Australia. The book also adds to the now significant refutation of the argument that the 1954 Petrov defection was a conspiracy or that the material that Petrov provided showing Soviet espionage in Australia was either worthless of concocted.
Ball and Horner make out a plausible case that there were significant sources in the Department of Foreign Affairs post World War II in Canberra which meant that the Soviet Union had access to Australian, and other non-Soviet countries' intelligence. The author's link these difficulties of leakage with the origin of the Australian Security and Intelligence Organisation (ASIO) and provide a detailed history of the early development of that and other security forces in Australia.
However, a serious question arises as to whether the most sensational theory propounded by the author is really sustainable. The book suggests that Communists or other subversive forces in Australia during the Second World War provided detailed strategic information about the Australian war effort in the Pacific and hence the military and strategic position of Australia in relation to Japan to the Soviet Union, and that this information was passed on to Japan to the detriment of the Australian defence and indeed to the jeopardy of Australian lives. Whilst It is unlikely that the Soviet Union would have wanted to see Japanese imperialism prevail in the South Pacific it is nonetheless suggested that it was in the Soviet interest to delay the Allied victory and hence that the USSR had an objective motive for passing on useful intelligent data to Japan.
It is fair to say that any Australian Communists may have provided information to the Soviet Union during the Second World War would have been horrified at the though that such material would have found its way into the hands of the Japanese. Nevertheless, it is possible that such a Machiavellian manoeuvre did occur. But it is not shown by evidence.
Certainly the letter written by General Blamey on 6 January 1945 provided prima face evidence of security leaks in late 1944 from Australia to the Japanese. There was speculation about leaks from ministerial offices during the war, but also question marks about whether the information given to the Japanese was genuine and about whether, if the information was provided from the Soviet Embassy in Canberra, how it could have got to Tokyo.
The key operatives named by the authors as sources from the Australian Department of Foreign Affairs were only in these positions after the cessation of hostilities. No one is named who is likely to have had access to secret information affecting the Australian position in the Pacific during the war. Hence, it must be said that the view propounded remains a hypothesis. The appalling prospect that Australian material was used against Australian citizens remains unproved. Perhaps it was, although obviously this would be a conclusion that one would reach with great reluctance.
The authors provide a thoroughly researched and readable book. But the most dramatic of their theses falls in the anomalous, middle category of Scottish verdicts "not proven".
Another volume in the Annals of Communism series published by Yale University Press and based upon Soviet archives demonstrates, beyond dispute, the powerful and oppressive influence of the Soviet apparatus upon the American Communist Party. The document set out in this volume show financial support by the Soviet Union, a phenomenon long reasonably suspected. More importantly they show directions from Moscow on fundamental policy matters and also questions of which individual should take leadership positions in the American Party.
The archival documents demonstrate an almost entirely subservient structure in the USA which was able to be whipped up against the fascist menace, and with very little time intervening in favour of the pact between USSR and Hitler. The Soviet controllers were able to induce in the American leadership a murderous hatred of Soviet dissidents back at Trotskyists (despite the fact that they posed no realistic threat to the revolutionary regime and often consisted of the comrades of V.I. Lenin who achieved the revolutionary overthrow of 1917).
A graphic illustration of the intrusiveness of Soviet direction to its American allies is to be found in the strategies of Communists within the labour movement in the 1930s. The dips and swerves of Soviet policy must have caused embarrassment for those American leftists working in the Union movement. In 1928 an ultra leftist, third period shift demanded that Communists move out of hte mainstream unions and form their own revolutionary organisations. But by 1935, the Soviets were insisting that the allies should not support the breakaway movement towards industrial unionism (the Congress of Industrial Organisations) and should stick with the conservative American Federation of Labour. It was not long before this tactic changed and the American Communists went all out for the CIO movement. Despite the more astute analysis that local militants were able to make about these matters, by and large the Soviet view prevailed.
The ultimate position was one where the USA Communist Party came in alliance with the CIO leadership had an extremely productive period building workers organisations and enhancing the influence of Communist operatives. However, that result was despite rather than because of the doctrinea shifts in Soviet policy, overlooking the better informed perspective's of the American party members.
Communists worldwide had, of course, taken correctly the high moral ground against fascism. But the Soviet leadership had, brutally, to pull its American troops in line to support the Nazi-Soviet pact. It had to override local resistance and bludgeon an aquiesance in the proposition that the Western battle against fascism was no longer worth fighting for.
The bleakest parts of these documents are those which show that the American Communist Party was not prepared to do anything to help American citizens in acute difficulties within the USSR. Loyal American communists who had travelled to the Soviet Union were simply left in jeopardy. One black American communist was accused of Trotskyism and died in a gulag amidst a murderous campaign of hatred towards the Trotskyist dissidents. Not a finger was lifted in the United States to support such people.
These documents do not reflect upon the idealism of those who thought that Communism represented a better world for working people and who sincerely believed that the soviet Union represented the vanguard of that era. But the documents do reflect substantially on the moral values of the leadership of that party who must have known what bizarre shifts of ideology were required, and who certainly knew that the party was the subject of detailed foreign direction.
There can be no doubt that our scholarship and our thinking about the history of communism in the twentieth century is greatly illuminated by the opening up of the archives in what was the USSR. And whatever be the motivation of the scholars who have pored through these documents and had them translated, it must be said that they have contributed to the quest for historical truth.
And where are we?
We are currently faced with the incredibly aggressive attack by the federal government and business groups on the ideology of collective organisation.
As a movement, we are supposedly irrelevant, we are dinosaurs and inflexible. This mantra goes on to say that a movement such as ours is incapable of attracting the individualistic Generation X.
These are not really new arguments - they are just coded in the lexicon of 1999!
But here I stand before you - and I am a woman, I am still under 30 and I eventually want a family and kids - I am the epitome of the type of person they would have you believe will never join a union.
But I am speaking to you and fighting an election in to become branch secretary of my union.
And what am I doing here - what attracted me?
I am attracted to belonging to a community of people.
I am attracted to a movement that seeks to empower people who the rest of the system is not interested in once they've left school
I am attracted to the notion that wealth should be shared amongst all and not just the few
I am attracted to being part of positive outcomes for those who really need it
I am attracted to a movement that does not simply accept the status quo, but asks how can we make this society better - not I but WE.
These are the things which brought me to this point and when you look around there are not many other movements that offer something to such a diverse range of people such as workers - and to young people.
And these are the things that will bring others to our movement, and it will bring a new generation of unionists.
There is no evidence that young people are more hostile to unions.
There is no evidence that young people support further market deregulation.
There is no evidence that young people believe that less job security, junior rates and longer hours are "good" for them.
There is no evidence that young people want to act individually and not collectively.
And there is not evidence that new industries such as call centres, information technology and old ones like hospitality - places where we find younger workers - cannot be organised.
In fact there is more evidence that they can be organised, because if you can organise the wharves, shearing sheds and the coal mines - workplaces which were also at one point not-unionised, casualised and generally exploited, then why not these industries.
The truth is we can and we will over time.
Most people never experience collective strength and what that can collectively achieve in terms of change. It is our challenge to give young people - the next generation - a chance to experience collectivity in a positive way, the best way, through unions.
Kirstyn Thompson is state secretary of the Australian Services Union's airline division. This speech was delivered to the May Day Toast on April 31
by Peter Moss
Flashback 1977:T he last great era in mens tennis thanks to a couple of real backhanders. American-Irish rascal Jimmy Connors and the Romanian rogue Ilie Nastase are the last of their breed, masters of the intimidatory tantrum and the villainous aside to-the-gallery. After them, there�s just a brief flare-up from Patty Cash and the recent antics of Jeff Tarrango (who has the temperament but lacks the talent, but at least he married well). Then the Ice Age - Borg, Lendl, Sampras.
Mongrel theory: Every elite sportsperson needs of good dose of the mongrel. That's what makes 'em elite instead of just gifted. When Australian cyclist Lucy Tyler-Sharman spat the dummy at Kuala Lumpa - blaming everyone from her coach to her teammates for her failure to keep her foot in the stirrup - that was the mongrel barking. The same mongrel that allows her to visualise her opponents ripped limb from limb as she pursues them on the banked track. We sportsfans worship the mongrel, but not when it strays out of church.
Voyeur the celeb: Was that you mate, leaning over the picket fence and beating the tin advertising sign like a voodoo drum. That was the best bit, when Plugger bundled up his opponent and threw him right over the fence and into your lap. Or straining against the velvet crowd control ropes as Liz Hurley catwalked down the red carpet in a razor blade dress at her only Sydney appearance. Did you see her? Can't understand why she stays with Hugh. A woman like that.
The honourable member: There's eight bars in Canberra open after midnight and he knows every one of them. Every barmaid, every barstool, every barf. And every woman of a certain physical type and colour in every one of those establishments knows the honourable member. Because after he�s had enough he goes on autopilot. Goes looking for his wife. Or someone to pretend, since his wife�s so far away. Good thing the journos understand this is a lonely, talented man under pressure and a long way from home. He's not fair game. And neither are they.
Market forces 1: Geoff Boycott was a dour one-dimensional opening batsman who blossomed into a perceptive commentator with the driest of deadpan wits. Then he thumped his girlfriend, she charged him - goodbye media career. Enigmatic British soccer star Paul Gascgione, a pint in each jewel-encrusted paw, was the lads' flawed hero. How did he get away with it, they wondered? The English selectors could forgive him anything, as long as he won games. Until he thumped his missus. Goodbye soccer career.
Market forces 2: French soccer wizard Zinedine Zidane - with two goals in the World Cup final and the mantle of FIFA Player of the Year - is as close as you get to "the best". This did not stop the owner of the Juventus club (who is also Italy�s richest tycoon and the face of Fiat) from questioning Zinedine's manhood. "Henpecked" and "His Wife Wears the Trousers" were just two of the headlines generated by a very personal attack. Zinedine�s crime? He decided to leave Juventus and Italy because his wife was unhappy.
White line fever: Stop banging your head against that locker and listen up. I want you to forget. We're going back, way back to before television, before electricity even, back to before power came out of the barrel of a gun. This afternoon, for 80 minutes, power comes punching out of the fibres of your muscle. Let your power off the leash, let it spring up snarling and tear the windpipe out of your opponent. If you can do that, we�ll win. You'll be a hero. But by god, when you cross back over that white line, you better start remembering again.
Coming as it does on the eve of the NSW government's drug summit to be held in the opening week of parliament.(May 17 -21) the forum will give not only Labor Council delegates an opportunity to hear all sides of the debate but also to enable the trade union movement to make a positive contribution to the public debate on this issue.
Speakers at the forum will represent several viewpoints in the current debate over drug policy reform. One of the prime movers behind the establishment of the controversial safe injecting room at Wayside Chapel in Kings Cross Dr Alex Wodak head of the drug and alchol unit at St Vincent's Hospital will speak as well as two parents of drug users who belong to the Family Support Group. Paul Moulds who runs the Salvation Army's youth program OASIS will put his alternative views about the way forward.
That Labor Council should be intervening in the debate is without question.The drug problem touches the trade union movement and its members in many ways.From the workers such as the police and health workers who deal with social ,legal and health consequences of the drug trade and abuse to the many families of workers who are touched indirectly to directly by drug abuse in Australia.
The attempt to eliminate both the supply and the consumption of drugs in our society has failed.The demand for drugs both legal and illegal persists despite all our educational efforts.
Despite extensive enforcement efforts, production, importation and distribution of illicit drugs continues to thrive and the associated crime and inevitable corruption cause great distress and carry great costs to other members of the community.
Many people active in the field would now argue that the current policy which attempts to combat drug dependence solely by application of criminal law and compulsion to abstinence has failed with respect to the great majority of users.
It is clear that we need to review our current approach to drug control in the interests of the overall health of the community not to mention the lives of many young Australians.
While there are many sides to the drug debate it is obvious that the policies of prohibition do not work.We need to explore policies that are based on scientific evidence and approaches that are already proving successful here and overseas.
Some measure of success has already been achieved through the adoption of policies which give priority to harm minimisation.For example needle exchange and distribution programs.Other possible measures include such things as ;
� introduction and maintenance of broad based methadone programs for all heroin users who want this type of assistance
� expansion of the range and type of rehabilitation programs currently available
� increases to national and state funding for institutions that both co-ordinate and conduct scientific research on the drug issue within Australia
� development of programs based on self reliance and sound scientific research
Some of these proposals and others such as the controversial injecting rooms will no doubt be confronting to many members of our movement.However if we are to ever address the harm caused to the community we need to start taking some bold inititives.
Labor Council's Drug forum will hopefully assist in moving the drug policy agenda forward..
Keen Akerman watchers will note that Piers this week referred to Workers Online $1000 bounty for information leading to criminal charges being laid against him.
But in what we can only interpret as "shoddy journalism", Piers focussed his attack on the Sydney morning Herald for publicising the offer, rather than crediting us with having initiated it.
Having fired off the letter to the Telegraph correcting this grievous omission of fact, we were surprised to find that it was not published in the following day's blatherings. Or the next day. or the next.
Chasing up the letter, we were referred to Ian "Cookie" Moore, the Telegraph's one-eyed editorial writer, who is filling in as Letters Editor. "If you want publicity, take out an ad," he spat, when asked if he'd print our letter.
This is what the Telegraph was too scared to print:
"Dear Sir,
Piers Akerman this week incorrectly attacked the Sydney Morning herald for publicising a $1000 bounty that has been placed on him.
What he did not disclose was that the reward was offered by the Pierswatch column Workers Online, the weekly internet newspaper published on LaborNet.
This is precisely the type of shoddy journalism which Pierswatch is dedicated to exposing.
For the record, Workers Online will pay $1000 to anyone who gives us information that leads to criminal charges being laid against Mr Akerman,
Yours Sincerely,
Peter Lewis
Editor, Workers Online"
**********************
Meanwhile, keen Piers-watchers have dug up the following extract from the NSW Legislative Council's Hansard, dated November 27, 1997.
We reproduce it here without any comment or implication:
PIERS AKERMAN DAILY TELEGRAPH ARTICLE
The Hon. R. S. L. Jones [11.51 p.m.]: I draw the attention of the House to yet another highly defamatory attack by Piers Akerman on me and my crossbench colleague the Hon. Franca Arena. In today's Daily Telegraph, referring to the Hon. Franca Arena, Piers Akerman said:
"As a member of parliament, however, she should be aware that many members of the public think that she, and those of her parliamentary colleagues who have also abused parliamentary privilege to make scurrilous personal attacks on members of the public, are also guilty of a form of blackmail."
The article continued:
"Nudist MLC Richard Jones, for example, or the Victorian Federal MP Kelvin Thomson, both supporters of the aborted ACT heroin trial, have also used their privileged positions to make false allegations about those whose views do not coincide with their own."
But he does not refer to the fact that he is the one about whom I was making the allegations, not anybody else. In an article in a Saturday edition of the Daily Telegraph he confirmed that he had indeed used several of the drugs mentioned in the allegations.
I do not know whether it was one, two, three, or four different types of drugs, but he did make that admission. He did not, of course, admit ever being addicted to those drugs, but he did admit to using them.
He attacked us in the general sense that we - I in particular - abused parliamentary privilege when in fact I did not. I drew the attention of the House to a matter of public interest: The man who was condemning the heroin trial, who writes about drugs time and again, and who writes article after article on pot, himself had been a long-time pot user. He had also used cocaine and perhaps other drugs such as LSD. According to the information that I had he did indeed use LSD and cocaine. We know he used cocaine many times both here and in the United States of America, yet he campaigns against drugs, which makes a joke of the whole thing. The article continued:
"The shameful activities of politicians such as Mrs Arena, Mr Jones and Mr Thomson, all operating under the cloak of parliamentary privilege, have done as much to discredit the reputations of our politicians ..."
Piers Akerman has done a lot to discredit the reputation of journalists. He has discredited his newspaper by making allegations about our abusing parliamentary privilege. He has abused his position as a journalist by making false allegations about us. People who live in glass houses should not throw stones. By this stage he must have a few broken windows.
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