Labor Council secretary John Robertson says its one of his great regrets that he did not take a more active stand on the issue during the federal election.
But now he's taking a leading role in Labor for Refugees an initiative driven by rank and file members appalled at the position the ALP took to the federal election.
The group is pushing for a rejection of the 'off-shore; detention program, and end to mandatory detention, and end to Temporary Protection Visas and an inquiry into the treatment of refugees in detention centres.
The cross-factional group wants ALP branches to pass formal resolutions support a policy on asylum seekers and refugees that is "compassionate and humanitarian and:
- advocates an environment in which the policy of the ALP promotes the cause of social justice
- ensures that we meet our international obligations in a manner that allows us to be proud of our commitment to the global community
-reaffirms out commitment to fundamental human rights, and to the dignity and worth of every human being and their inherent right to respect
- recognises the vast inequities in the global community and our obligations to further the correction of these inequalities."
Robertson says it is an issue for unions because unions are part of the community
"I think the whole issue of refugees in the lead up to the election was just appalling," he says.
"I think both parties ought to be ashamed of the way they, and we, all performed during that time - and I think it appropriate for us to take the debate out."
Forum on Workplace Harmony
Meanwhile, Labor Council will be holding a one day forum on Thursday 14th February to address the issues of immigration and workplace harmony.
The forum's aim will be to develop practical strategies to address cultural issues within NSW workplaces.
The Conference will provide unions with an opportunity to make links with relevant community based organisations working in similar areas.
One of the outcomes of the forum will be the establishment of working parties to ensure the implementation of the outcomes of the forum.
For more information contact either Mark Morey or Alison Peters at Labor Council on (02) 9264 1691.
The inter-relational corporate database is an international first, allowing users to track the networks of influence including directors, shareholders and subsidiary companies.
It uses information that is publicly available, but which has never before been linked through the one database.
"Bosswatch will be a campaigning tool for workers who want to know who is exerting influence on their employer," Labor Council secretary John Robertson says. "It will expose who is sleeping with who - and who else they are in bed with."
Bosswatch reseaqrcher Shannon O'Keeffe says the site allow unions and members of the public to share information about corporate influence across industry to get a better idea about the make-up of the Australian economy.
"By exposing these linkages, Bosswatch will become a potent tool in the struggle to civilize globalization," she says.
O'Keeffe says she's overwhelmed with the response to the site and is looking forward to working with individual unions in the New Year to train them to track the interests behind their industries
Bosswatch has been designed by Social Change Online.
The Finance Sector Union, who coordinated action in the NAB. Westpac and ANZ banks last week, has warned banks they face ongoing industrial action in the New Year.
Big crowds attended rallies outside the NAB AGM in Melbourne and the Westpac and ANZ talkfests in Sydney. Shareholders were greeted by rapping workers and Christmas carols and asked
While FSU representatives addressed all AGMS, a resolution calling on the bank to maximise long-term profitability by addressing community concerns was ruled out of order on a legal technicality.
At mass meetings of striking members the FSU unveiled its 'Take Back What's Yours' campaign which will involve bans on overtime, enforcing start and finish times and taking meal breaks.
And the banks face more negative publicity, after the campaign gained national headlines with revelations Westpac staff had been issued with BBQ cheat cards to justify cuts to banking services.
Joy for Worker Who Spoke Out
Meanwhile, the ANZ Bank has lifted a gag on a bank worker who had been threatened with the sack for speaking to the media about staff concerns about the bank's services.
The decision came after the ANZ was faced with legal action, consumer boycotts by the union movement and amid questioning at today's shareholder Annual General Meeting.
The worker, Joy Buckland, had taken legal action in the Federal Court under the Workplace Relations Act after being threatened with dismissal for making comment to the media. She claimed she was being victimised for her union activity.
The ANZ wrote to her last week reversing the company's position - it concedes her right to speak to the media in her capacity as National President of the Finance Sector Union.
Win for Workers Everywhere
FSU state secretary Geoff Derrick says the back down is a win for workers everywhere who have the courage to raise workplace issues in the public domain.
"Employers everywhere - but particularly in the banking industry - intimidate workers from speaking to the media," Mr Derrick said.
"Joy's courageous stand will make it easier for all workers to exercise their basic right to speak out on issues that effect their working lives. Workers have a right to get involved in their union and they should have a right raise legitimate workplace issues in public.
"It's a Catch-22 for the entire union movement: on the one hand workers are intimidated from speaking to the media. But when their union speaks on their behalf, the employers say: that's just the union - not the workers.
"The reality is that the union is the workers - and when you try to gag one worker you are attacking the entire movement."
The document came to light in a week where maintenance workers from the AMWU and AWU voted to reject Qantas' zero wage rise offer.
The leaked briefing paper from a meeting of Qantas production managers shows that Qantas is prepared to bring on a dispute to meet its long-term objectives.
The notes for one of the managers states that Qantas would "use this dispute as a catalyst for change and better work behaviours. It also pre-empts controlling access to Annual leave and Rostered Days Off to promote the airline's industrial agenda.
Australian Workers Union national secretary Bill Shorten said Qantas had dragged out negotiations for six months.
"Qantas is saying that Christmas is the time to take on its workforce," he said. "So if there are any unhappy Qantas passengers worried about flights, they should be ringing Qantas and saying, `Why are you picking a fight with your workers at Christmas?"'
Shorten told the Melbourne Age that the airline was trying to imitate a "Patrick-style" waterfront dispute "with a prearranged plan to declare war on its own workforce".
Start-Up Agreement For New Ansett
Meanwhile, a new collective agreement has been finalised for workers to be employed in the new Ansett by the Fox-Lew consortium.
ACTU Secretary Greg Combet said that the agreement was designed to kick-start the new Ansett when Lindsay Fox and Solomon Lew take over the airline on February 1, 2002.
"This is a new agreement for a new airline," Combet says. "It will save 4,000 jobs and help pave the way for all redundant Ansett employees to receive their full entitlements. From the time that Ansett collapsed, these have been the unions' key objectives.
"The new agreement contains pay rates which are broadly comparable to previous Ansett and Qantas levels. New staffing levels, working arrangements and improved productivity will give the best possible chance for the commercial success of the airline."
Combet says the agreement covered pilots and cabin crew, terminal services and other ground staff. The agreement does not cover maintenance employees, who will continue to be employed by the Ansett administrators until the maintenance operations are sold.
Key features of the three-year agreement include:
* A 5% share of profits and equity for employees;
* A $4.2 million "pool" from which wage increases will be funded;
* A commitment to guarantee employee entitlements;
* Union representation rights; and
* A provision ensuring that employees cannot be required to work unreasonable hours.
Municipal Employees Union members from South Sydney and Leichhardt Councils joined Sydney Council members in a show of solidarity to fight the job destroying regime. If boundary changes take place then many workers from Leichhardt and South Sydney will come under the Agreement currently being pushed by Sydney Council management. The rally was supported by other unions including the PSA, CFMEU, AMWU and the NSW Labor Council.
MEU General Secretary Brian Harris addressed the rally, quoting from a letter addressed to the State Government from the Secretary of the Public Services International Union.
"These tactics are nothing short of disgraceful and set a poor example for not only the City of Sydney, but the State of NSW and Australia.
The PSI is used to seeing these intimidatory tactics in undemocratically elected Governments in South America, some parts of Asia and approaches by conservative and anti union governments."
"The Sydney City Council is adopting the worst industrial tactics in the world," said Brian Harris.
Brian Harris had just come from a meeting with NSW Premier Bob Carr. The MEU has called on the Government to give additional guarantees on jobs following any boundary changes and to act immediately on the anti-union approach of the Sydney Council.
Brian Harris reiterated his commitment to oppose competitive tendering and asked members to disregard the lies coming from Council who have reverted to bully boy tactics by physically and verbally assaulting an MEU official.
Of major concern is the Council's attempt to divide and conquer union members. The Council has tried to intimidate MEU members into voting in a secret ballot for the Council Agreement. MEU Official Ben Kruse told the rally about the threat to job security and cited the experience at Mosman Council. "Workers put in a bid for their own jobs and won a 7 year contract and six months later they were sacked without redundancy because Council said they were not working to the contract. CT is simply a process of losing jobs."
MEU Organiser Mark Wheatley told of his experience at Sydney City Council when CT was first introduced in 1996. "There are no winners in this process because to 'win' the contract to keep your own job you have to downsize," he told the rally. Warning workers not to be duped he emphasised to those present that if the new agreement goes through "one third of you will be out of jobs."
The loudest cheers were for the 2 delegates Scott McNamara and Hal Assoni who addressed the rally. They urged their fellow members to help stamp out CT and anti-union behaviour.
Good news came just as the rally was drawing to a close. The Upper House had just announced it would hold an inquiry into the financial and social impacts of any boundary changes in the inner city. The MEU had been calling for a social impact study and sees this as a big win for residents, ratepayers and workers.
However the MEU fears it may come too late for the workers at the City Council who are still being intimidated into accepting an agreement that extends CT and blocks the MEU from future negotiations on behalf of its members. "Together we can do anything," Hal Assoni reminded the rally.
As Scott McNamara a street-sweeper from Sydney Council urged "End the farce - give CT the arse!"
Postscript: In great news which came just days after the rally, workers at Sydney City Council rejected the Council's proposed agreement which would have extended Competitive Tendering and excluded the MEU from future negotiations.
Following a recent secret ballot called by Sydney City Council, workers at the Council have rejected the proposal with the vote well short of the required 65%.
The MEU has now called on Council to pay the first 5% wage increase on an unconditional basis to its workforce BEFORE Christmas.
All members and delegates are to be congratulated on their efforts in very difficult circumstances. Together we can ensure that all future agreements and negotiations are conducted in a fair and open manner.
Labor Council secretary John Robertson has sent the Premier greetings of the season, while pointing out there are a large number of important worker issues remain unresolved by the Labor Government including:
- implementation of the findings of the Inquiry into Labour Hire: completed some 12 months ago by former ACTU President Jennie George, released this week, but with the recommendations still being 'considered' by Industrial Relations minister John Della Bosca.
- call centre standards: unions have called on the NSW Government to follow the leads of the Tasmanian, West Australian and Queensland governments and ensure that call centres doing government business recognise the right for workers to organise collectively.
- email privacy: a long-awaited report from the NSW Law Reform Commission into email surveillance has been released but the government will spend the summer considering whether they should implement its findings.
- public sector code of conduct: unions are awaiting a release of standard through the Department of Public Works that would hold all government contractors to core labour standards and provide an important springboard to organising work that has been outsourced from the public sector.
- measures to improve workers safety: the great undeliverable of the workers compensation 'reform' process, unions are still waiting for action on safety and compliance.
After the battle over workers compensation entitlements, unions believe there are bridges that need rebuilding and have nominated these outstanding issues as an important first step.
"The union movement wants to work constructively with the Carr Government and wants to see Labor retain power in this state," Robertson says.
"But the ALP must realise that it is expected to deal with basic issues of workers rights - not because we ask them to, but because it's the right thing a Labor Government to do.
Urgent Action Needed on Labour Hire
Meanwhile, the NSW Labor Council has called on the Carr Government to move swiftly to implement the recommendations of the Labour Hire Task Force.
Robertson says that while the release of the report this week is welcome, it comes more than 12 months after it had been handed to the Minister for Industrial Relations John Della Bosca.
"We raised the issue nearly two years ago because of concerns about the impact of the practices of some labour hire firms on both the workers they employ and the workers whose jobs they replace." Robertson says.
"We would like to see the government go further than merely considering some of the recommendations and actually move on our key concern: the lack of regulation in the industry.
"An education campaign is a good start and review of legislative definitions is welcome, but the government's response falls short of what is required: a comprehensive strategy to ensure that community employment standards are not undercut by labour hire.
"The labour hire industry is growing fast and workers whose jobs are effected by this trend are expecting decisive action.
"If the government is serious about addressing the issue, we would want to see some action early in the New Year."
Scrum was announced the winner at the NSW Labor Council annual dinner last week, taking the prize of a $2000 study grant.
He was nominated for his work in activating Energy Australia workers to take a stand against contracting out and enforce award provisions on the issue.
The campaign has been so successful that union is now beginning to organise the companies to whom the work has been contracted.
The award tops a good year for the NSW branch of the ETU which saw membership levels increase for the first time in 15 years.
Butler was awarded the title ahead of finalists Michael Aird from the Transport Workers Union and Ron Herbert from the National Union of Workers.
The Flight Attendants Association of Australia says the changed environment after the terrorist attacks had forced cabin crew to re-evaluate their work.
The FAAA have produced a campaign around the theme "Cabin Crew. Professionals from the Ground Up". They will be distributing pamphlets to members and passengers and will run an advertisement on a massive billboard outside the Qantas international terminal.
FAAA international division secretary Johanna Brem says cabin crew want to send a message to the public that they were more than service workers.
"In the air we are safety professionals and we are security professionals - when a critical safety issue occurs in the air it is cabin crew who are on the front line," Brem says.
"At 40,000 feet you can't call the police or the fire brigade or an ambulance: the buck stops with us."
The launch coincided with the expiration of the current Enterprise Bargaining Agreement for Qantas international cabin crew.
Call for Better ground Security
Meanwhile, Sydney airport screeners and security workers - more than three months after the September 11 tragedy - are still waiting for new upgraded procedures, drills and training to face the post- September 11 security climate.
Last Sunday night there was an emergency at Sydney airport but the airport screeners and security staff did not know how to help passengers because they have not been prepared for this new security environment.
Airport security workers around Australia, starting today, will all this week hand out tens of thousands of 'boarding passes' to passengers at major airports.
The security workers and screeners will be promoting their Securing Our Airports plan, a national 5 point plan which they want to see the Federal Government, airlines and security companies adopt.
The boarding passes will ask passengers to show their support for higher security standards at our airports.
The 5 point plan involves:
� Enforcement of uniform security standards on all Australian flights;
� Upgrading of screening equipment at major and regional airports;
� Developing a national training standard for security officers;
� Requiring reasonable meal and comfort breaks for officers;
� Boosting officers' pay to reflect the true value of their work.
" In the post- September 11 era the USA has ordered the upgrading and standardising of screening and security at 420 airports - from the smallest to some of the biggest in the world.
" Surely we can go through the same process in Australia for what is a little more than 40 airports," the LHMU Airport Security Union's National Secretary, Jeff Lawrence, said.
Over 85% of staff have voted to accept the latest enterprise bargaining proposal after management agreed to drop controversial plans to extend the working day and impose weekend work.
CPSU spokesperson, Malcolm Larsen, is "delighted" with the result a describing it as "a significant victory which vindicates the hard-line members took against management's earlier proposals."
"Many Medibank staff have young families and they made it crystal clear they would not accept any deal that made it harder for them to spend time with their kids. This dispute wasn't just about pay and conditions. It was about helping with school work and turning up for netball games," he said.
The new agreement delivers other 'family friendly' initiatives including two weeks Paid Paternity Leave, six weeks Adoption Leave and access to Maternity Leave at half pay.
The two-year agreement also includes a 6.5% pay increase and 3.5% backdated from January 2001.
Richard Roule narrowly defeated Shirley Smith in a rank and file vote of Musician Union members.
In a long career Roule has drummed with the Dynamic Hepnotics, the Mighty Reapers and touring Blues artists including Lucky Peterson, Bobby Radcliffe and Big Jay McNeely
Roule has been a member of the union since the early 1970s and joined the union as a claims officer in 1999 after graduating in law from the University of Wollongong.
He sees his biggest challenge has to be recruitment - the union is down to about 1,000 members - with just 800 due payers - although the union maintains coverage in orchestras, theatres, clubs, recording, TV and film.
"We'll have a website up early in 2002 - and our focus is on young musicians who haven't entered industry yet from various institutions public and private," Roule says.
by Paul Howes
Over 60,000 revelers turn out to the music festival each year to see over 60 local and international acts. This year's highlights include Prodigy, Basement Jaxx, Crystal Method, Sliverchair, Garbage, NOFX, Regurgitator, Gerling and many more (a full list is available at http://www.bigdayout.com)
The Labor Council has organised a stall at the BDO staffed by young officials from a wide range of unions. Last year over 60 people applied to join a union at the stall and several hundred signed letters to John Della Bosca asking him to act on email privacy at work.
In 2002 the stall will continue to focus on getting young people interested in unions and will also be providing information on how to get active within the union movement. A wide range of unions will be present at the Big Day Out which will be able to give out specific information regarding their industries.
For more information contact Paul Howes at the Labor Council mailto:[email protected]
One Tertiary and 2 TAFE Scholarships are available for institutions in the Hunter Region.
LABOR TRUST SCHOLARSHIP
Guidelines
Title: Labor Trust Scholarship
Course: University of Newcastle Undergraduate Degree Course
Scholarship Duration: Commences Semester 1 2002 for 1 year
Scholarship Entitlement: A one off grant of $5,000
Eligibility: The scholarship is open to those who are:
1. Australian citizens or residents.
2. Hunter residents.
3. Studying or wishing to study at the University of Newcastle. (Acceptance at University will have to be cited before payment of Scholarship):
4. Member of the ALP: and if applicable
5. Member of a Trade Union.
Selection Criteria: The following will be taken into consideration:
1. Preference will be given to those doing courses with a social justice component.
2. Financial hardship.
3. Academic potential.
4. Community Contribution.
Applications: Applicants must submit:
1. A written application on the specified application form addressing the eligibility criteria and providing evidence of:
� Social Justice Component of Degree;
� Financial Hardship.
� Academic history and potential.
� A written reflection on a specific community contribution you have made, and how this has affected your life and others.
This should be no more than one typed A4 page, or two handwritten A4 pages, and can be supported by additional information.
Please sign and date the work with the following statement: "This was written without assistance and is entirely my own work."
At least two references from a teacher or other with knowledge of your academic potential and community involvement, submitted on the specified referee's form.
Applications to be submitted to:
Anne Purcell
Executive Officer
Australian Labor Party (NSW Branch)
PO Box K408
HAYMARKET NSW 1240
Application Deadline: 25 January 2002
TAFE SCHOLARSHIP
Guidelines
Title: Labor Trust Scholarship
Course: TAFE course in the Hunter Region
Scholarship Duration: Commences Semester 1 2002 for 1 year
Scholarship Entitlement: A one off grant of $2,000 (2 available)
Eligibility: The scholarship is open to those who are:
6. Australian citizens or residents.
7. Hunter residents.
8. Studying or wishing to study at TAFE in the Hunter region.
9. Member of the ALP, NSW Branch: and if applicable
10. Member of Trade Union
Selection Criteria: The following will be taken into consideration:
5. Financial hardship.
6. Academic/career potential.
7. Community Contribution.
Applications: Applicants must submit:
2. A written application on the specified application form addressing the eligibility criteria and providing evidence of:
� Financial Hardship.
� Academic/work history and potential.
A written reflection on a specific community contribution you have made, and how this has affected your life and others should accompany the application form. This should be no more than one typed A4 page, or two handwritten A4 pages, and can be supported by additional information.
Please sign and date the work with the following statement: "This was written without assistance and is entirely my own work."
At least two reference from a teacher or other with knowledge of your academic potential and community involvement, submitted on the specified referee's form.
Applications to be submitted to:
Anne Purcell
Executive Officer
Australian Labor Party (NSW Branch)
PO Box K408
HAYMARKET NSW 1240
Application Deadline: 25 January 2002
As a member of a union(ETU)and the ALP I find it hard to reconcile the current view of the party with its own policy platform. The policy toward refugees, workers rights and the attitude toward a developing society have nothing to do with a better future for all.
A true workers party should look toward the future and develop policies not to suit the media of the day but the children of tomorrow.
The voting public are intelligent and expect more than ever of their leaders. Our policies should reflect our targets of fair treatment for all Australians. Health care should be a right, not something that you have to budget for. Education for our children should be free, not restricted to the wealthy as it is in suppressed societies.
Areas that could create jobs should be invested in by our government, not left to entrepreneurs who have no concern for community well being.
This is a time when it seems we have no reason to march in the streets, but it is the most desperate time of our lives.
I look at my young children and I am deeply concerned for their future, their jobs and their families to come.
It is not enough that we stand by and complain about specific issues. It is time that we considered the whole approach to the way we live and what we expect of our society.
Simon Crean has a long way to go before the Labor party has achieved the trust of workers around Ausralia. We need to see a return to the basic values that all reasonable Australians respect.
A fair go for all.
Matthew Kennedy
Why are they are quiting the ALP?
Leaving the grass roots far behind. Thats Why.
DO NOT FORGET THE LESSONS OF HISTORY PAID IN BLOOD
* Hitler.To businessmen he promised that he would control the Trade Unions.
* Hitler says the German Trade Unions are the core of his opponents.
* Mr Howard has recently made it clear that workplace reform is his proudest
achievement ranking even more highly in his mind than tax reform
The ALP leadership will not survive if it turns its back on the Trade Unions.
The ALP is heading for an eventual split unless it reforms its internal practices.
* It has often been remarked that the Trades Union Movement, where it does not go hand in hand with an independent political movement, democracy fails and tyrants rule.
* Wage earners are in need of the foundation afforded by a powerful Trades Union Movement. Without a sound Trade Union Movement and genuine democratic political representation then exploitation increases and democracy takes a step backwards.
* Without democracy within Trade Unions and Labour Political Parties any independent labor movement would be impossible, and the labor aristocracy organized in trades unions and Social Democratic Parties would be chained most tightly to the employers and forced on by its own interest to help the advancement of employer politics at home and abroad.
Trade Unions and political power exercised in the interests of workers for effective use for protective laws are fundamental if deterioration of working conditions are to be avoided.
Democracy should be able to rely upon a numerous army of organized trades unionists, on which rest the deepest and firmest roots of its power. Any Labour Party that ignores this will stagnate and perish.
The Trade Union Movement is the first bastion of a Democratic Society.
Mr I Ferguson
Dear Comrade,
Joseph also had a coat of many colours and:
Was thrown into the pit by his jealous Brothers!
Unfortunately it that time of the year again, a period of reflection as to not only our success, that is if any working class Australian could claim even one skerrick of this rare commodity, but also our mistakes. Sadly, some of those that claim to be the Vanguard of the downtrodden are in most circumstances the oppressors. Oppressors only intent on maintaining the status quo , because that position is -sitting comfortably in their own warm, soft and excrement filled Snugglers , and they are enmeshed in their own fears of loss, be it status or financial.
We have lost trust in our elected representatives, and with a total reversal of stance in political parties, the A.L.P., has become the equivalent of hereditary peerage, with safe seats being passed from father to son, through power play within the Unions and factions, thereby sowing these previous fallow fertile fields with the seeds of discontent and dissent. This is only possible through cronyism and nepotism in the branch structure, with recruitment energies being focussed on personal vendettas. It is possible that this structure could accomplish something, if these relatives, cronies, hangers on , drones and bludgers were of any consequence, or even if they were a little better than mediocre. Alas! With the case with the A.L.P., and the Trade Unions, only the hyena like pack animals, are permitted to thrive in an environment of rotting Offal, Filth and corruption ,with some branch meetings depicted, as with eerie accuracy in the 1757 Hogarth print "Canvassing for Votes" , where the rich bought votes in the rotten Boroughs.
Free speech is stymied within not only the Trade Unions, but the A.L.P., and members are continually disenfranchised, thereby demeaning the value of membership.
Both the A.L.P., and Trade Unions have been bereft of real leadership for many years, and as a consequence; to maintain self respect members distance themselves - firstly from the behaviour of the organisation and as this corrupt behaviour becomes entrenched, they feel the necessity to cut any ties from not only the organisation, but also some of their own, deep seated philosophies and beliefs. If only because these philosophies have been corrupted by self seeking incompetents, and to continue to adhere to these infected beliefs is a reflection on the individual.
The continued White Washing of these Socialist sepulchres , by the power brokers , is the epitome of an exercise in futility and this reluctance to leave the past behind ,has been recognised through the ages by many contemporary thinkers of their time , including :-
Jesus, who said in Luke 9:60:-
"Leave the dead to bury the dead; "
"But as for you, go and proclaim the Kingdom of God."
It was Seneca the Roman intellectual 4BC-65AD. Who said:-
"The fates lead him who will - him who won't they drag."
Is our uncorrupted secular message not worth leaving the dead behind for, or do we also wish to be dragged into this pit of predatory betrayal?
There can be no doubt that some organizations are beyond restructure, and must either be dismantled or be permitted to wither on the vine, this is validated by the continued and unabated loss of life blood , the membership, from these Unions who are incapable of contemporary relevance. The imitation of large corporations by these unions in their continued use of this worthless cosmetic surgery, is akin to treating a malignant cancer with a Bex, a nice cup of tea, and a lie down in a dark room
The Howard Government is on a roll, and the grass roots of the A.L.P. have been alienated by the political correctness of those that assume, behaviours totally alien to the Australian ethos, whereas the Liberals are now the working class heroes.
Where can one find a commonality with a political candidate, who has had absolutely no experience with the difficult challenges most Australians need to confront every day of their lives.
Is it only coincidental that Bob Hawke be once again embraced by the party , almost 10 years to the day after being ousted from the leadership by the worlds greatest Treasurer ? None the less, the appointment of Hawke and Wran, with both being yesterdays' men; to inquire into the recent election drubbing will also be a waste of resources, if this denial of the emperors' (plural) nakedness continues unabated without rebuttal.
All success is based on role models, and New Labour United Kingdom style was only a success because it once again re-adjusted it policies to reflect the views of the greater number, to the extent of excluding those belligerent Unions who were intent on the destruction of not only the country but the whole fabric of society .The A.L.P., factions must accept this, and the reality that, populism is the very quintessence of politics. For the A.L.P., to pander to special interest groups, left wing loonies, and Caf� latte socialists who are more aligned with Greens or Democrats is the foolish path of self immolation and as was shown at the last election, political irrelevance.
While these individuals may appear to be a large minority, it is usually only their high noise factor in the branch structure, and because of this and their idleness in other aspects of their parasitical lives, that creates this illusion. The reality of this truth was manifested at the last election.
Democracy is government by the greater number, and this is the system we have chosen to be governed by. The resentments shown by the electorate toward the A.L.P., with their attempts at social engineering ,also indicate the truths of alienation toward Chardonnay Socialism which has also been rejected, particularly by the working class , recent migrants ,their families, and people who have been caught in the abyss of this culture of change , and destroyed , not by diversity but division, and those who have watched their jobs being sent overseas by consecutive Labour Governments, in consensus with the Trade Unions.
But all is not lost, there are still a few Union Leaders prepared to defend their members, one being the AMWU, boss Doug Cameron, but his futile efforts, obviously indicate punishment for misdemeanours in a previous life, as he, like, Sisyphus and the Rock of Hades.....appears to be condemned to an eternity of rolling the rock up the hill, knowing full well that when it reaches the top it will roll back down again.
Perhaps in this previous life, Oor Dougie as a Cameronian , a clan who are not renowned for their mercy, behaved badly toward that Irish Mercenary Simon O Croidheain (Anglicised Crean) who fought with the remnants of Viscount Dundee's' army ,at the Battle of Dunkeld in 1689 , by impaling him on a halbert (Halberd)?
As for our own inimitable Simon and his cross of political sin, he can surely take solace in the fact, that it was another Simon who carried the cross for Jesus to his crucifixion. Let's hope that this is not the same journey on which our Simon intends to carry the Australian Labor Party.
by Peter Lewis
John Robertson |
Let's start by talking about the high points for 2001.
Obviously the highlight for me was becoming Secretary of the Labor Council. It is probably one of the greatest honours you can have in terms of achievements.
I think there were some other high points at the end of the year - which is that we had a very successful planning session moving towards next year, setting up a campaign unit and getting people committed to moving the Council on to a campaign footing.
Some of the other highlights were obviously particular campaigns we were involved in: the Finance Sector Union campaign; the launch of Bosswatch; IT Workers Alliance, call centre campaigns. These are all new and innovative things.
Do you feel the union movement is unified in NSW at the end of the year?
My view is that the union movement has a real commonality of purpose now, in NSW. If you go and talk to people I think the Workers Compensation Campaign has united the union movement in NSW to a point that I don't think anyone has ever seen. I don't take all the credit for that, but I think the campaign itself and the way the campaign was run has done a lot to unify the unions.
What do you think is the single greatest challenge for the union movement is in 2002?
I think the single greatest challenge is to become strategic in the way we campaign.
We need to move away from this idea that industrial action is the only weapon that the trade union movement has available to it. I think we have started to lay the foundations to move away but that is not ruling out industrial action as a weapon. It is just a question of it not being the only weapon we can use to influence outcomes.
I think Bosswatch is a step in the right direction. Some of the research that we commissioned through ACIRRT - particularly breaking up the heartlands, the midlands and lowlands of union density - is also going to place us in a very strong position. The research that we are going to conduct next year to build on that puts us in a very strong position to go out and campaign far more effectively.
What was your take on the Federal Election defeat?
I think we lost the Federal Election for a number of reasons. I don't think any of those necessarily relate to Kim Beazley. Beazley did a good job in extraordinarily difficult circumstances. The foundations for the loss probably occurred about twelve months ago when we didn't commence releasing policies.
There was a view that they should be a small target and I think when the Tampa issue arose and the ALP adopted particular views and then tried to focus on a more domestic agenda, some people saw that as a diversion rather than being issues of substance. Some people thought that the Labor Party was weak on the stance that they had taken on Tampa. That was the same stance that Howard had taken.
I think the reality is that Labor has got to go out and engage in the debate. It is a view that I have had for some time. That is going to be the key to winning people back. It is going out and being prepared to listen to people, engage them in the debate on a whole range of issues. If we engage people and don't talk down to them and look like we have got all the solutions that will be the key to coming back into the future.
You are on the reference committee for the Wran Review into the election in NSW. What will you be telling them?
I will be listening more than telling them initially. I see my role on the committee being more about listening to what branch members, unions and anyone else who wants to make a submission has got to say, and then trying to formulate that in conjunction with the other people on the committee, into something that is a vehicle to move the Party forward so that we can recapture what has been Labor's heartland.
Some of the preliminary material that is coming out already is about what Labor has considered to be its core constituency - there were greater swings in those areas than there were in some of the other, less strong areas of the electorate. I think there are some real challenges there.
You had the first meeting this week. Is it your impression that it is merely going to be a debate about the 60/40 rule?
No, in fact, I think it is going to be more about policy. It is going to be about Party structure and it is going to be about asking people what they see as being part of the solution for moving forward.
Neville started off the meeting by saying this is not about what happened yesterday, it is about what we do tomorrow, and I think what is going to be the crucial thing for this committee is actually looking at how we move forward.
There are issues that we have got to address, but we shouldn't dwell on them. I think what we have got to do is learn from those, and then move forward and work out what we do - and I think Neville is the right person to do that. He is certainly someone I think will be able to pull a fairly diverse group of people together for a common outcome in the end.
A lot has been said about the interests of the ALP in having a union influence. What about the other side of the coin? What do you think the benefits are to the union movement in remaining involved in the ALP?
I still believe that there are benefits for the union movement. If you are going to influence anything, you have got to be part of it - and I also say that to people who aren't in unions that complain that unions don't do this and don't do that. The fact is that you have got to be in it so that you can influence it.
The benefits for the unions are that even though we have some conflict with the Labor Party, there are issues that we do get addressed. It doesn't always give us everything that we want, and sometimes there are people that ask questions about the value of our ties, but I think the value is still there. It does strengthen your ability to influence outcomes within the Party, and my view is that most unions who are in, will continue to be affiliated with the Party.
You are this week sending out letters to ALP branches and MPs on behalf of Labor for Refugees. Why is this an issue for unions?
It is an issue for unions because unions are part of the community - they play a role in influencing attitudes within the community. It is a role that in the last 20 or so years has been let slip a bit. It is important for us if we are to re-establish ourselves as a group that can actually influence outcomes, we have to take a leadership stance on a whole range of issues.
The whole issue of refugees in the lead up to the election was just appalling. I think both parties ought to be ashamed of the way they, and we, all performed during that time - and I think it appropriate for us to take the debate out.
I am not interested in having a debate that says you can't have a contrary view to the one that I might hold. I think the issue here is - and it goes back to my point earlier - we have got to go out and engage people. And part of this is about engaging in a debate and encouraging a debate so that it is open and all the issues can be put on the table, even those who have issues with refugees coming to the country. We have got to engage those people; take the debate out to them; talk to them; and explain to them why this is an important issue.
The fact is that this is a country that is based on a fair go. The trade union movement is all about ensuring that workers get a fair go, and this is just maintaining that principle.
The other issue is that people have an expectation that we will take a leadership role on a whole range of issues that impact on the community. This is one that impacts on our community as a whole in Australia and also globally, and I think it is up to us to go out and lead and be on the front foot.
What happens though if the bulk of the membership send back a message and attitude on this issue that the union leadership doesn't like?
Well, we have got to take that on board. But I think it is more a question of how we have the debate. My view is that being strong leaders is about being prepared to listen to what people say, but again engage them in the debate. Don't tell them they are wrong, but go out and explain why we have this particular view and engage them in that discussion.
My view is that most Australians do have a level of compassion. It is one of the strengths of the Australian population - and the problem to date has been that people have been able to dehumanise the refugees. It isn't just a particular person or individual, or a child or a man or a woman. It has been Muslims, Afghans, 'illegals' - it's totally dehumanized. We have got to go back out and actually put a human face to that - and I think that is the real challenge.
How would you characterize relations between unions and the Carr Government right now?
The relations are tense, but I don't think they are beyond repair. I drew the analogy throughout the workers comp campaign that the relationship between the labour movement and the Labor Party is always a bit like a family. There are tensions. At the end of the day the water passes under the bridge and over time the tensions are removed; the relationships are re-established and you get on with it.
But this is more like a DV this time, isn't it?
Well, it probably is, but I still think that in the coming months you will see that people will get over what happened and accept that when you are in government you have got certain responsibilities. The fact is that I don't believe the workers comp issue was managed that well. But everybody is entitled to a mistake, and I think we have just got to get on with it. The fact is, that if you look at the alternatives, we are far better off with a Labor Government than we are with the conservatives, particularly if you look at the agendas that they are running federally.
What concrete steps need to take place before the next State election to rebuild those bridges though?
I think there needs to be a demonstration of goodwill on the part of government. That doesn't mean that we go up there and ask for something and we automatically get it, but I think there has got to be a preparedness to accept that some of the things we put forward are legitimate. They are reasonable positions to be put.
The Government has got to be prepared to go out and argue on the front foot on some of these issues, rather than to say if the employers jump up and down, sorry we can't accept or proceed with that. The fact is that Hawke, in his first election campaign, when the conservatives were out there attacking unions, was out there on the front foot, defending unions, he said they play a vital role, and won that election.
I don't believe that we are baggage. I actually think we are a strength to the Party, and if they are prepared to listen to us, we can actually add value to what they do and how they do it.
Finally, your Christmas wish?
My Christmas wish is: I can go away, relax and have a surf. The other wish that I have is that next year we can actually grow the movement again - at least in real numbers. I believe that we can do that. It is a real challenge.
We have seen some data that suggests that we have got to have economic growth of about four per cent before you will see real numbers grow, but I would like to see a number of unions moving forward in an organizing framework - and I don't say that as a preacher - but I certainly believe that our future is in organizing. It is being strategic and I would like to see us just move forward in that direction.
Eric Lee |
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Every magazine and newspaper in the world is going to have to rewrite their end-of- year surveys to reflect the significance of the events of September 11th -- and this is just as true for the labour movement.
Prior to September 11th, most of what was happening in the world of labour was a continuation of events from the previous year and years. The global economy was moving into recession; social democratic governments, elected with the support of unions, were often proving inadequate to the job; a grassroots rebellion against capitalist globalization seemed to be brewing, with big demonstrations in Genoa, Melbourne, Seattle, London, Prague and elsewhere.
All of that, and more, changed forever when knife-wielding terrorists hijacked four US airplanes and slammed them into the World Trade Center towers, the Pentagon, and the fields of Pennsylvania.
The recession which had been building up slowly suddenly burst forth with volanic power. Hundreds of thousands of workers were immediately layed off, with some sectors utterly devastated -- such as the airline industry, hotels and tourism. New York City suffered not only thousands of deaths but tens of thousands of layoffs as businesses fled as far away as they could from Ground Zero.
The anti-globalization movement, as it came to be known, which had gone from strength to strength, was suddenly paralyzed and speechless. In Qatar, the World Trade Organization was able to meet for the first time without having to cope with mass street demonstrations, and took a range of decisions which spell bad news for workers everywhere.
Moderate left-wing governments, such as Tony Blair's New Labour, which had previously faced the threat of trade union rebellions against their policies of privatization, suddenly found themselves popular once again, as unions rallied around nation and flag in the early days of the war against terror.
On top of all this came the anthrax attacks -- working people around the USA, particularly postal workers, were the primary victims as fears of biological attack spread throughout workplaces around the globe. Unions played a key role in spreading accurate information, demanding that employers take precautionary measures, and so on, in the first major health and safety crisis of the twenty-first century.
The September 11th events had an extraordinary effect on the unions worldwide: for the first time in living memory, trade unions around the globe united in condemning an act of terror. Unions from Cuba to Israel, including unions in Muslim countries like Palestine and Pakistan, rushed to condemn the terrorist attack in unequivocal terms. For the first time, the formerly-Stalinist World Federation of Trade Unions was in agreement with the International Confederation of Free Trade Unions. The lion, it seemed, was laying down with the lamb.
But it was not to last. The US decision to launch military operations in Afghanistan ripped the coalition asunder, with some unions rushing to condemn the attacks (the South African and Korean unions come to mind) while others offered unqualified support to Operation Enduring Freedom (with the American unions in the lead).
The year ended with a trade union movement which had briefly united now once again bitterly divided over the war. More important, unions faced new challenges, such as an erosion of civil liberties and massive layoffs, for which they were utterly unprepared.
The world that existed before September 11th is no more, and unions -- like everyone else -- have to adapt to a new world, one which is more frightening and full of uncertainty. In such a time, unions will be needed as never before to protect the interests of working people and to preserve the possibility of a better world.
by Peter Lewis
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The Battle for Workers Compo
It was an emblematic battle between the political and industrial wings of the labour movement. A state government spooked by a workers compensation deficit but unprepared to raise employer premiums attempts to cut injured workers entitlements. The reaction is swift: a major public campaign, rolling industrial action targeting government revenue and the legendary banner drop of the Harbour Bridge. After forcing the government to modify its package, the peace was shattered with the reneging of a guarantees on maintaining benefit levels. The anger explodes into a picket of state Parliament, with Labor MPs needing a police escort to break the line and vote to reduce workers rights. Reverberations from the unseemly showdown continue today, the real-world backdrop to the theoretical debate about the unions' influence within the ALP. As the WorkCover war shows: the issue should not be too much union power, but too little.
Corporates Crash - Entitlements Hot Issue
2002 was a wasteland of corporate failures as a contracting world economy and the dot-com crash took their toll. HIH, One.Tel and Ansett were just the biggest of the corporate disasters. And if there was one common theme it was how they exposed big business' failure to safeguard their employees' entitlements. IT also exposed the valuable roles unions play when things go bad - the mass sign-up of One.Tel workers to the CPSU not only ensured those workers received their entitlement but marketed unions to a new generation of workers. The issue raged right through to the federal election, where Ansett workers became the wild card, haranguing a Howard Government who just wanted to wipe its hands of the issue. Both major parties were forced to improve their policies on entitlements before the election. Meanwhile, the unions took the issue into their own hands by demanding entitlement be protected in agreements through funds like the fledgling Manusafe.
Howard Digs Deep to Win Third Term
John Howard conjured up a third term by plumbing the depths of the Australian psyche, tapping into our ingrained sense of insecurity in the region, turning a group of desperate refugees into terrorists and trashing Australia's international reputation. Then he had the temerity to claim he had been reelected on a positive agenda that included industrial relations reform. Of course, the only time IR was on the election radar was when the Ansett workers push for their entitlements shamed Howard into extending Peter Reith's paltry entitlement protection scheme. For Labor, Kim Beazley sailed into the sunset a victim of time and his inner circle's own policy timidity, of which their embarrassment of their union ties was only one example. The greens benefited from Labor's abrogation of the moral ground on Tampa, while the Democrats shrank under their new leader and One Nation dropped off the landscape altogether - their key policies pilfered by the Liberals. Howard may not have deserved to win the election, but few could argue that Labor did either.
Mad Monk Keeps on Swinging
Howard's number one head-kicker Tony Abbott turned his attention to the union movement, taking on the Workplace Relations portfolio. It was a continuation of the Tories' New Right credo - an activist minister committed to bashing unions rather than the traditional portfolio role of dispute settler. Time and time again, Abbott got his hands dirty, seeing any dispute as an opportunity to throw around some anti-union propaganda. When Grenadier workers lost their jobs and their entitlements, Abbott visited the boss - an old drinking buddy. When Tri-Star workers took action to protect what was there's he accused them of treason. And all the while, he talked up his beloved Building Industry Royal Commission, knowing it would drain millions from the coffers of one the nation's most effective unions. After the election he bowled up an improbable series of 'reforms' including stripping unfair dismissal protection from a large section of the workforce and attempting to introduce costly secret ballots before workers would be allowed to exercise their right to strike. Sit tight for more bile in 2002.
Stats Give Unions Hope
As the climate got bleaker, unions kept fighting - scores of unions moving forward with cultural change to put the power back at the shop floor level. The organising strategy championed by ACTU secretary Greg Combet gained momentum with a successful international conference in Sydney in May. It coincided with the release of Australia Bureau of Statistics figures showing that the fall in union membership numbers may have bottomed out for the first time in more than a decade: in 2000, union membership grew by 23,600 compared to a decrease of 208,000 in 1999. While it is too early to be popping the champagne, the stats sit with a heartening result in Labor Council's biannual survey of attitudes towards unions that found that 51 per cent of workers said they'd join a union if they were free to do so. And nearly two third of respondents disagreed with the proposition Australia would be a better place without unions. These findings backed our post-election claim that unions were more popular than the ALP!
ILO Turns Up Heat on Burma
The big international story of the year was the global campaign to make good International Labour Organisation sanctions against the military regime in Burma. After finding the junta guilty of the systematic use of slave labour on major state infrastructure projects, the ILO invoked its penal provisions for the first time in its 82 year history. Member nations were called up to put pressure on companies doing trade in Burma which contributed to a breach of the core global labour standards. Given the dynamics of the Burmese regime, this meant just about anyone. Australian unions did their bit targeting Triumph International, who were manufacturing bras in Burma. A flamboyant bra-burning protest in Sydney brought pressure to bear on Triumph and they stopped sourcing the undies to Australia. Next on the target list are tour companies like Lonely Planet who make money marketing holidays to a country where the tourism industry only benefits the warlords.
Temple Workers Hit Boss for Six
They were discovered building a Hindu temple at Helensburg, locked on site in third world conditions, being paid just $45 per month, with another $100 being sent home. By the time they returned victoriously to India they had won the hearts of the union movement and shone the national spotlight on the plight of guest-workers and the mismanagement of the issue by the department of Immigration. The Indian temple workers were our favourite industrial protagonists on 2001 because they showed how universal collective action could be. Adopted by the building union, they walked off the job demanding decent pay and spent several months in Sydney lending their support to other workers - such as the Grenadier Textile workers who they challenged to a game of picket cricket to coincide with the Australia-India test match series. They returned to their home province of Tamil Nadu proudly union and vowing to open a sub-continental chapter of the CFMEU.
Stellar Advances in Call Centres
Several years of hard slog in the call center industry finally paid dividends when the CPSU secured the first industrial award specifically covering workers in Telstra off-shoot Stellar. The award the culmination of constant agitation by workplace activists in the face of anti-union management tricks such bas disciplining a worker who had the temerity to advertise a union picnic - outside working hours. The Stellar deal include provisions on career, classifications, redundancy provisions, penalty payments, safety net salaries, a 38-hour week, along with recognition for the union and its delegates - an important first step in civilising the industry that carries the mantle 'the sweatshop of the Information Economy'. Promising results also from the ACTU campaign form minimum standards with the Queensland, WA and Tasmanian governments agreeing to comply with the Call Centre Code and the NSW and Victorian governments well advanced in negotiating similar standards.
Costa Gets Cops, Robbo Takes Reins
He left the Labor Council in the midst of its battle for workers comp sparking the first contested ballot for leadership in living memory and walked into one of the most critical ministries with just 17 days in State Parliament under his belt. For anyone who knew Michael Costa it was hardly surprising - surprise is his stock in trade. His move into the political arena was not unexpected, but the colour and movement it sparked surpassed even Costa's standards for action. First there was the tight ballot for secretary between John Robertson and Tony Sheldon. The new leader was then catapulted onto the national stage when he coordinated the picket of State Parliament -sending the ALP into apoplexy, but ensuring that the new boss would be regarded as more than just another bald guy. By the end of the year, the former sparkie had placed his own stamp on Sussex Street with a Council focused on coordinating industry campaigning across the affiliates.
Watching the Bosses
We ended the year with what could turn out to be the most significant initiative of all - the launch of Bosswatch, our inter-relation corporate database. Bosswatch is the first attempt anywhere the chart the linkages between our major companies using publicly available information on shareholders, directors and profits. It also details the constantly rising levels of executive remuneration. The aim is now for individual unions to gather the skills to chart their own industries to help us make sense of the increasingly complex web that is global capital. It was just the highpoint of a frenetic year of web development, which also included the net radio vehicle Wobbly, a new Labor Council site and the IT Workers Alliance, a hub for unionizing the IT industry, ensuring we stay at the forefront of online unionism. As for 2002 - stand by for a new-look LaborNet and Workers Online!
by Social Change Online
BossWatch: The website to to watch in 2002 |
The year 2001 saw some bold new plays made by unions online. If there was an emerging trend it was about narrowcasting to specific audiences based on particular issues or demographics relevant to these audiences. Online campaigning and online organising of the new economy workplaces by union organisations came of age this year.
Probably the success story of online campaigning in Australia in 2001 was the Workers Comp campaign run by the NSW Labor Council from April 2001.
With a clear objective of attaining a maximum of support within the NSW ALP caucus and committing the resources to build a campaign website to target State MP's who weren't supporting the union position on workers compensation reforms, the seeds of success for this campaign were sown.
Over a couple of weeks, each day the NSW Labor Council targeted a State MP and coordinated campaign actions against the targeted MPs using the campaign website to organise both online and offline protest actions.
The success of this campaign was starkly demonstrated when it reached the stage that when the campaign website posted a MP target for the day, the MP's under the spotlight rolled over same day rather than endure the media coverage of a bunch of angry unionists picketing their office.
Another successful strand to this online campaign was an email protest strategy, which amounted to a virtual rally of NSW Parliament. An interactive form on the campaign site automatically generated a batch of individually addressed protest emails to each State MP.
Used in combination with LaborNET's network of email subscribers, this application became a powerful protest tool, and at one stage was deluging Parliament House with over 13,000 emails an hour. The Carr administration reacted angrily and hastily to this by blocking protest email from the LaborNET server, which became a story in itself (see The Crucifixion and Resurrection of Virtual Democracy
This strategy has since been successfully adopted by other union-based organisations, such as the CEPU Electrical Division's campaign against the NECA, and the Victorian Trades Hall Council's Industrial Manslaughter campaign.
Using the web and email lists enabled the campaign to respond quickly and move fast. The lessons learnt out of this campaign were that the narrower you keep campaign focus and the more you commit to building a network of activists online, the better your campaign outcomes will be.
This is an innovative strategy attempted by the Labor Council of New South Wales and affiliated unions with an interest in IT. Rather than dictate a strategy to a targeted set of workers, the IT Workers Alliance (ITWA) provides a set of tools and resources to enable IT workers to organise themselves online via this website.
IT workers are typically individuals with no collective bargaining strength in the workplace. What is needed is an inclusive strategy that builds a network based on the common interest of all IT workers: better pay and working conditions.
The ITWA site provides this network building capacity by enabling IT Workers to share and develop collective strategies and draw upon the support of the union movement to mobilise campaigns for better working conditions.
Working within a medium that is predisposed to network building, IT workers are tailor-made for online organising. But the radical angle to this site is that the owners are letting go of the decision making and throwing it open to the IT workers themselves. The forums allow IT workers to openly and freely develop campaign strategies. A number of ITWA activists are now publishing their own stories to the web site via the content management system and the auto email subscribe function has created an online network of several hundred ITWA members, when a few months ago there was none.
Taken to it's full extent this amounts to a virtual online union for IT workers with increasing political clout.
Bosswatch is the website to watch in 2002. Developed in partnership with Social Change Online for LaborNET and launched earlier this month, this database enabled site is a free campaign resource for union activists.
Starting small with the latest financial records of the top 20 Australian companies in its database, it has the capacity to grow into a powerful online tracking tool for union activists who wish to quickly get the lowdown on employers.
This is the first online database of its kind developed for the union movement. Whilst all of the information within the database is publicly available elsewhere, nowhere else is this information aggregated, online and available for free in the one place. The real value-add to this information though is in the linkages built between employers.
Using the Bosswatch database you can easily "follow the money trail" and quickly determine what networks of influence are at work on the employer side of the fence.
The site has received wide international media coverage (CNN for example) and has already racked up over 10,000 page views and signed up over 100 subscribers who wish to receive the latest campaign news from BossWatch.
The Labor Council of NSW, with the support of affiliated unions, plan to expand coverage both in terms of breadth and depth of content. Major unions will be given training and access to add more companies, the companies their members are employed by and who they know intimately, to expand the database.
LCNSW will be holding discussions with key information stakeholders in the new year to enable the Bosswatch database with independent and objective employer ratings on their:
Given the intimate nature of the web to reach into every corner of the workplace and Bosswatch's charter to expose those employers who are not doing the right thing by it's workers, I can well imagine Bosswatch becoming the first and most trusted port of call for any corporate whistleblower wanting to tip the bucket on an unscrupulous employer.
When 2JJJ went national and the pokies invaded the pubs like a malignant cancer, killing off live music venues, there was a gap left where independent Australian musicians could get a go and have their music heard by the rest of us whose musical tastes aren't necessarily catered for in one high-rotation playlist.
So in response, the Labor Council of NSW has developed Wobbly Radio to provide a platform to young, independent Australian musicians to broadcast their work using new technology of streaming media. It's online open-house where any Australian musicians can upload their MP3 files and have them made available for playing by Wobbly Radio listeners.
While there is no politically strident message underlying the Wobbly site, it's the "sticky" sort of web play that will draw young "eyeballs" across to Workers Online and other LaborNET union sites that are closely linked to Wobbly: the same young eyeballs the union movement needs to sign-up as members if they are to remain relevant in the political debate this century.
The Labor Council of NSW in the offline world is the information hub for all its affiliated unions. It coordinates campaigns, resolves issues and distributes critical info to its affiliates. The new Labor Council Online site replicates these offline processes and migrates them online.
Its extensive content management system (Social Change Online's AIMS web publishing engine) enables all of the LCNSW staff to easily feed the site content. The web publishing engine then intelligently structures this content into various index lists and content highlights based around specific areas of interest. The result is that the LCNSW Stage 2 site becomes an online clearing house of related documents of interest to all of Labor Council's affiliates.
Circulars, meeting and event notices, minutes, policy, research and discussion papers, review articles and media releases can now all go online to the site at virtually the same time they are created offlline. The end result is that the critical information that fuels the union movement can now be distributed faster and wider than old paper driven technology.
ARM Delegates at the Constitutional Convention |
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It's now been over two years since the defeat of the proposal put to Australians in 1999. Many republicans, particularly with the re-election of John Howard, think that it's a lost cause or won't be back for years. While this is true in a sense there is much that needs to be done and is being done to bring about an Australian republic with an Australian as head of State.
The two biggest contributors to the 1999 defeat, apart from the disgraceful campaign run by the monarchists, were division among republicans (with many supporting the No camp) and the lack of support from the Prime Minister.
The next few years will be an opportunity to move beyond both of these problems. On the former, much work is already being done by the ARM to create a wider coalition of republicans. We have just released a discussion paper detailing six indicative models, ranging from a minimalist proposition to a number of direct election proposals. This will form the basis of ongoing and future discussions on the best model for the future.
The issue of prime ministerial support will be resolved one way or the other before or at the next election. The basis to move forward politically will be agreement of the Prime Minister and the Leader of the Opposition and the departure of John Howard will see that come to fruition - Tony Abbott aside! Once these two have agreed on a process to allow the Australian people to have information they need, the proper debate they haven't yet had, then the republic that most want will happen. A thorough process will ensure that regardless of whatever type of republic we eventually have - it will be constitutionally safe, politically deliverable and sufficiently inspirational to affirm our common values as Australian citizens.
The republic won't just happen. As in all campaigns in public life it requires participation and activism. While the republic is not an issue that many (if any) Australians will "storm the barricades" for it nevertheless needs to be campaigned.
All republicans should be involved even if in some small way. From simply affirming your 'republicanism' occasionally, particularly within the ALP, through to getting involved in republican organisations such as the ARM. All republicans should approach the issue in a spirit of compromise and say that "the only thing we rule out is Monarchy!"
Frank Stilwell |
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The Queen of England once used the phrase 'annus horribilis' to describe a year in which her family had been beset by a series of traumatic events. 'Queen's Bum Year' headlined Rupert Murdoch's newspaper The Sun.
The phrase (either in the Latin or the tabloid vernacular) seems thoroughly appropriate again at the end of the current year. This is a year in which we've all had to face the consequences of a series of traumatic events. By any standards it has been an awful start to the millennium.
That makes it all the more necessary to ask what can be done in the year ahead to deal with the after-shocks - political, social, economic and environmental - and to lay the foundations for a better future. For the labour movement, both worldwide and in Australia, the challenges are particularly significant.
Retreat from Kyoto
The 'sleeper' issue is environmental policy. However, the global environmental challenge is absolutely fundamental. Over the last decade the evidence about the threat posed by global warming has become increasingly clear. So to has the recognition of the need for collective action on a global scale to develop and implement policies to reduce per capita energy-use, and the use of fossil-fuels in particular. Hence the importance of the Kyoto 'summit' of 1997 to engineer the political conditions for that response.
The Australian government's stance at Kyoto put the interests of the coal and oil lobby ahead of any ecological responsibility. In the three years since then, more back-sliding is evident, as Clive Hamilton ably documents in his new book Running From the Storm: the Development of Climate Change Policy in Australia (UNSW Press, Sydney, 2001). This year has seen the government unresponsive to pressures to adopt a more principled position.
More globally significant than the Australian stance, of course, is that of the US government. After all, the USA is responsible, in broad terms, for about a quarter of global resource depletion. That is why President Bush's announcement in March of this year, that he considered the Kyoto agreement 'fatally flawed' and that he would not ratify it, was such a major set-back. Bush's decision, as the Japanese Prime Minister said, was 'truly deplorable'.
The struggle for more sound environmental and energy policies will continue nevertheless - locally, nationally and globally. Indeed, as the ecological crisis deepens, this will surely become an ever more important issue. It is an issue on which the labour movement needs to position itself with the progressives, rather than align with those resisting change.
Jobs will be lost in any restructuring towards ecological sustainability (and the Kyoto targets would be only a minor first step), but other jobs will open up in industries with more ecologically sustainable characteristics. Indeed, Australia could be a significant world leader in the development, production and export of appropriate technologies, drawing on our established expertise in areas like solar energy. Getting this issue the political attention it warrants must be a high priority for the future, notwithstanding the recent setbacks.
War and Terrorism
Understandably, the events of September 11 in the USA and the subsequent war on Afghanistan have overshadowed all other concerns this year. It has become a clich� to say that after September 11 the world would never be the same again. Terrorist attacks and suicide bombing are not novel, of course; it is just that the sheer scale of the carnage on September 11 was so horrendous - and, of course, the USA was the target.
The most significant political consequence of September 11, to my mind, is the emergence of the so-called 'Bush doctrine'. This is what now makes the world a very different place. It is the policy of wreaking vengeance, not just against suspected terrorists but also against states suspected of harbouring them. That, in the absence of conclusive evidence against individual suspects, and in the absence of due process for investigation and enforcement through the United Nations and international courts, is the basis on which the US government claims legitimacy for its warlike response to September 11.
The 'Bush doctrine' has contributed to a new world disorder. The recent escalation of state-backed violence in Israel/Palestine is its most striking manifestation.
Herein lies a terrible irony. To see its significance consider the following chain of events and interpretations. 1. Because of the American government's support for Israel and the corresponding denial of Palestinian rights, the Israel/Palestine situation lies at the root of the antagonism to the USA among Muslim fundamentalists. 2. Such resentment takes its most grotesque form in the terrible attacks launched against the World Trade Centre and the Pentagon in September. 3. Feeling the need to make a quick, decisive response, and lacking the ability to directly penalise the perpetrators, the US President develops 'the Bush Doctrine' to justify declaring war. 4. Leaders of Allied nations as Britain and Australia immediately embrace 'the Bush doctrine'. 5. The Israeli leadership, generally predisposed towards the principle 'an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth', embraces it particularly enthusiastically. 6. So we get the demonisation of Yassser Arafat, the Palestinian Authority more generally, and the escalation of violence on both sides in the Israel/Palestine conflict. In effect, this is a process of circular and cumulative causation in which the root problem is accentuated by the posited 'solution'.
The challenge for us all in the year ahead is to find ways to redirect these profound conflicts out of the hands of self-appointed global policemen into the properly constituted international institutions, emphasising the pursuit of justice rather than vengeance, and seeking a resolution through negotiation rather than ever-escalating violence. Otherwise there will not be a world worth living in. The labour movement, in conjunction with all concerned citizens, needs to consider how it can best contribute to those processes. The Australian labour movement has been a consistently strong supporter of peace movements in the past, so there is a proud history on which to build.
Economic Recession
On the economic plane, one of the most obvious consequences of September 11 is to accentuate the slide into recession. Indeed, the slide looks like becoming an irreversibly slippery slope over the year ahead. Economic conditions always rest on social, political and legal foundations. In this case the foundations have been badly shaken, leading to investor and consumer confidence taking a nose-dive. In an economically interdependent world economy, it is very difficult for any one country to insulate itself from the consequences. That is one of the downsides of 'globalisation'.
To their credit, the official monetary authorities have responded - in the United States, Australia and elsewhere - by lowering interest rates. This reduces the cost of capital and is therefore conducive to keeping investment and consumer expenditure levels up. As such, a looser monetary policy can be an effective 'shock-absorber'. However, lowering the cost of capital does not boost investment substantially where business investors are pessimistic about the growth in demand for their products.
Such pessimism had already set in before the events of September 11. Indeed, a recession had been in the making for nearly a year. Corporate collapses had become commonplace - HIH, One Tel and others. Productive investment is down, although speculative activities continue to proliferate. Unemployment rates are rising, despite official attempts to camouflage this through adjustments to the basis on which unemployment is calculated.
Evidently the 'economic bubble' which had seemed to be so impressive in the 1990's has now well and truly burst. Its first portent was the financial crisis of the south East Asian countries 1998-9. The prolonged stagnation of the Japanese economy and the on-going chaos in Russia have further add to the economic crisis on a global scale. The decline of stock values, particularly for the so-called 'new economy' sector, sheeted the reversal of economic fortunes back into the US heartland. The economy there is now in deepening recession.
September 11 cannot be blamed for triggering the economic downturn. It was already setting in. As political economists have always emphasised, periodic recessions are endemic to capitalism.
How deep will be the recession we face in Australia during 2002 is difficult to predict, but I would think a return to the 10% unemployment levels experienced in the previous recessions of 1982 and 1991 quite a possible scenario. It is, of course, a socially unacceptable scenario. So the task for the labour movement is to come up with an alternative economic strategy which points to a better way forward. I tried to suggest some appropriate fiscal, industrial and regional policies in my recent book, Changing Track: Towards a New Political Economic Strategy for Australia (Pluto Press, Sydney, 2000), but there are many other possibilities too. It is not enough to defend jobs, wages and working conditions: a more long-term strategic response to the failures of capitalism is warranted. Here too is a big challenge for the labour movement.
Australian Politics
The difficulty of making any such political economic alternative operational, at the policy level, is obvious enough. Following the November general election results, we have another three years of a Liberal-National Party government led by Howard (or Costello). This is a government which has no sympathies with the labour movement and no idea about how to lay sound economic foundations for a good society. What it does know about is exploiting racism and xenophobia for electoral advantage. It also knows quite a lot about confronting the trade union movement: making Tony Abbott the Employment minister is a clear signal that there will be more of that to come in the year ahead.
These developments mean that the labour movement, in both its political and industrial wings, has been put on the defensive. Its main political institution, the ALP, was defeated at the polls after pursuing a 'soft' campaign. Its campaign was presumably intended not to scare off any voters but in practice it evidently did not enthuse many of them either. In opposition for a further three years, Labor needs some radical re-thinking of its position, not just its electoral posture, but its political philosophy and the basic principles for which it stands.
The growing support for the Greens, led by Bob Brown, is indicative that a principled position is not necessarily an electoral handicap. The Progressive Labor Party did reasonably well too, especially in Newcastle where it got about 5% of the vote. A lot of people are looking for alternatives to an uninspiring ALP.
Conclusion
Coping with these multiple challenges is a tall order. It requires each of us to recognise our multiple roles - as citizens, as workers, as consumers and as custodians of the environment, for example. It requires us to consider what forms of collective organisation and action are conducive to the most progressive outcomes.
Karl Marx said that people make history but not in circumstances of their own choosing. Certainly no one in the labour movement would have chosen the current circumstances. But threats usually come hand-in-hand with opportunities.
The immediate political economic challenge for the labour movement is to work out how best to cope with the deepening recession and the further assaults forthcoming from the Liberals, while continuing to work to reverse the long-term decline in its coverage of the employed workforce. The relationship of the unions to the ALP has to be under scrutiny too. The partnership is evidently not working well - and for good reason, in circumstances where the ALP seems to have policies not fundamentally different from the Liberals in some fields.
The move to change the '60: 40' rule is indicative of the momentum for 'reform' coming from within the ALP. But this misses the main issue. In practice, the ALP depends crucially on its members who are active in both their unions and in the party. The debate over the 60:40 rule is only about the numbers and internal procedures for voting at party conferences. What is more fundamentally at issue are the principles and policies which bind - or should bind - the common interests of the labour movement.
The catastrophic events of the year 2001 highlight some of these principles and policy issues which need to be out in the open for discussion in the year ahead. Antonio Gramsci's famous call for 'pessimism of the intellect but optimism of the will' seems ever more appropriate.
If 2001 was an 'annus horribilis' our theme for 2002 should be 'nil carborundum bastardus' (don't let the bastards grind you down).
Frank Stilwell is Professor of Political Economy at the University of Sydney
by Strewth
Does Australia Deserve Better? |
*****************
"The Working Class can kiss my arse, I've got the foreman's job at last".
Thus goes the unofficial anthem and possible epitaph of the ALP. Thanks to the wide boys, spivs, spin doctors and hereditary idiots who have hijacked a once great Australian institution. Strewth! thinks the Liberal party is fucked and this is how it always has been. But if the ALP is up shit creek as well, then we're all knee deep in it.
Labor has lost both its heartland and its headland. The weirdest part is that a so-called Labor Party hasn't got a clue about the working class. Like the media, the average ALP pollie or aparatchik only meets a blue collar worker when a tradesman fronts up at the back door or they bump into the office cleaner. Labor leaders go on about 'battlers' and 'true believers' but this is outdated nostalgia for the manual workers of their dad's day, a concept as outdated as Howard's mainstream. The only blokes wearing singlets and blundstones these days are slumming it actors or tap dogs. Your average working class lad from Bankstown wears synthetic tacky daks, is into Hip Hop and speaks Lebanese or Vietnamese. Less Henry Lawson and more Ali G. They're more likely to be down the mosque, the mall or the multiplex than spending time at a trade union meeting or the pub. These people deserve a fair dinkum worker's party, but Labor's leaders barely know they exist.
The ALP knows a fair bit about job creation. Pity they're mostly jobs for the boys. The hacks who've knackered Labor are a particularly unimaginative lot who will do anythingSI repeat anythingSfor a tedious job in a ministers office or in a union or in the public service. They will vote as they are told to and block all manner of great ideas just to ensure they are rewarded with the next job up the greasy pole. The greed of these lacklustre lackeys for the next 'job' is comparable to that of the dumb, spoilt sons of the rich lusting over the next board position or OneTel scam. Except that coming from humbler pens, the ALP piglets squeal with excitement into very meager troughs. The loyalty of ALP apparatchiks can be bought for pathetically small prizes - a 'researcher', or 'adviser' or 'organiser'. The hope is that one day they will be pre-selected for a seat, or get appointed to a glamorous job on, say, The Water Board. This is the scummy gene pool from which Mal Colston slid.
Worst of all are the Labor Lords, whose daddys leave them a union, a seat, a ministry or often all three. Born with a silver spanner in their gobs , these working class heroes have no claim to leadership other than the accident of birth. It's time we had a national Labor leader whose mummy didn't force them to the front of Gough's choir in the It's Time commercial.
The tragedy is that the politically numerate have triumphed over the politically literate. The genuine firebrands, characters and thinkers are being frustrated by Labor's hereditary peers and backroom boys, who are shoe-horned into electorates and ministries. But Beazley's loss has upset their future career plans, and the once unassailable NSW Right is looking like a clapped out hooker in a boarded up brothel. The ALP says its wants generational change and new ideas. Yet the leadership is firmly under the control of museum relics from the eighties. Forget the evil John Howard and awful Peter Costello. Australia deserves better than Simon Crean.
by Rowan Cahill
Rowan Cahill |
Civil liberties are in the line of fire. Aiming the gun is an increasingly repressive state.
The increasing militarisation of Australian law enforcement, and proposals announced by the Howard government to give the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation (ASIO) powers to detain people without charge, and to interrogate them without the presence of legal representation, are part of the process.
In the case of ASIO, this is especially alarming given its fifty-year history of suspecting and intimidating many hundreds of thousands of trade unionists, political workers, dissidents, and concerned citizens to the left of the Liberal Party, as being un-Australian.
Indeed I am one of these. I am the subject of ASIO File C/58/63, which started in 1967 and grew at the rate of about 50 file pages per year. Because of legislation limiting access to secret documents until after the passage of thirty years, this file is available for public scrutiny in the Australian Archives only to the end of 1970 (Series A6119/90, Item 2749).
I won't be able to check current ASIO interest in myself until 2031, by which time I'll possibly be gaga or chatting in another dimension with Jack London, Upton Sinclair, and Rupert Lockwood.
According to Dr. Jude McCulloch in the latest issue of the respected journal OVERLAND (Summer 2001), there has been a trend since the mid-1970s in English-speaking democracies to militarise law enforcement at the expense of civil liberties. McCulloch lectures in Police Studies at Deakin University, and is author of BLUE ARMY: PARAMILITARY POLICING IN AUSTRALIA (Melbourne University Press, 2001).
During the post-Cold War period, intensive campaigns by democratic governments against drugs, organised crime, and terrorism have seen the military increasingly integrated with internal security, policing militarised, and more resources allocated to agencies involved in intelligence gathering on citizens. These are the sorts of measures traditionally associated with repressive political regimes.
Australia has been part of this trend since the raft of counter-terrorist arrangements announced in the wake of the 1978 Sydney Hilton bombing.
As Dr. McCulloch points out, many of the Fraser government's counter-terrorist measures in 1978 had been secretly planned well before the Hilton bombing, giving rise to informed speculation that the bombing was in fact perpetrated by elements in Australia's security community to enhance their power and prestige.
Since then Australia has developed counter-terrorist paramilitary police who train with the military; confrontation and high levels of violence have become part of policing; fatal shootings by police have increased dramatically.
Protesters are increasingly portrayed as an enemy to be confronted, an 'enemy within', and not as citizens who may be breaking the law and subject to arrest and charge.
In 1997 it was revealed that Victorian police had spied on and infiltrated civil libertarian and left-leaning community organisations. The Chief Commissioner of the time argued that experience showed that "apparently innocuous groups are (sometimes) fronts for terrorist activities overseas".
Amendments to the Australian Defence Act put in place for the Sydney 2000 Olympics pave the way for the Federal government to call out troops to combat industrial disputes and political demonstrations.
As Dr. McCulloch explains, the definition of "terrorism" is slippery and very political. For example during the South African Apartheid era, Nelson Mandela was regarded as head of a terrorist organisation, and similarly regarded by a succession of Australian governments; so too was Xanana Gusmao for much of Indonesia's occupation of East Timor. Now both men are regarded internationally, and in Australia, as political figures of considerable stature and authority.
There are serious implications in this for the trade union movement, since a number of Australian unions prominently, and against great pressures to the contrary, financially and morally supported Mandela and Gusmao during their alleged terrorist days.
In the current anti-terrorist climate such support woulf be classified as aiding 'terrorism' and incur the full wrath of the police state.
Dr McCulloch issues a timely warning: "In the same way that social justice aspirations and anti-war sentiment were associated with communism (during the Cold War), such sentiments will be equated with terrorism during the new war: anti-terrorism is set to be the new McCarthyism".
Mark Morey |
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In a year packed full of great TV ranging from ABC's the Blue Planet to great angst ridden drama of the Secret Life of Us (Mmmmm????), it was the trashy reality TV the mind numbing gibberish that rated the best. Boobs, bottoms, dead pigs and bunny ears mixed in with the Australian outback made sure our viewing year had it all.
Shipwrecked should have been entitled, what happens when a trailer park sinks and the white trash make it to an island. This show is and was total crap. Even I had to turn it off, and that required getting out of the lounge. This show was definitely the weakest link, goodbye.
Chains of Love, what a show what a concept. Who said there are people in TV without an imagination and talent????? Four slappers of either gender, chained to a prospective suitor who evicts them one at a time until they are left with their chosen date. They also get to divvy up $10,000 depending on how much they liked each person they evicted. And can you believe it, they won't be renewing Chains of Love next year, shit no. The only thing any good was the locksmith who would enter the show at "random" points signalling the exit of another contestant, scary!!! The only episoded I caught, well one of only a handful anyway, that was any good was where one person got the money, the final contestant, and subjected themselves to the ignominy of then having sex with them on TV, and then gave a bullshit phone number despite pretending they wanted to continue with the new found relationship. Irony, irony, irony. You are not the weakest link, you are just crap, piss off.
Well then there was Boot Camp. Yet another attempt to cash in on the Survivor phenomenon, Ha! Despite the initial episode with "real life" Boot Camp instructors screaming at people there was not much to hold the viewer. It was like Stripes was no longer a movie but a documentary. Too much heartache for little return. This was definitely the next weakest link, goodbye.
Temptation Island is definitely sick puppy territory. Would loved to have been in the meeting to devise this:
"No, no no, wait, wait I've got it. Fuck the ethics, I reckon we can get a bunch of not so bright slappers who have been living with each other to root madly with people they have never met. We just bus in a whole lot of goers right, get them to try to root anything and everything that moves. Their relationships disintegrate and we clean up because the general public love to look at the suffering of dumb people. And don't worry, it will be tasteful cause the bubbly we get in will be that smooth stuff...moat isn't it?"
Well, it did work for a while, like the first episode and the last and the 15 or so in between we could have done without. At least the Villa was only one show where it all happened at once. Pommy slappers on islands, please no more. Goodbye. And just think, the Australian version is starting next week aaaaaaaaah.
Survivor III, hoping for so much and it has almost made it. Would anyone have ever though a team would have lost an immunity challenge on purpose in order to vote one of their own off? Unbelievable. And lets face it, Motley Crew have a lot to answer for in creating Lex. He should be Tool of the Week. This series although almost getting there just seems to lack a bit of the heart that Survivor II had. Don't get me wrong I wouldn't miss an episode for quids, but Mark "the only true TV god" Burnett needs to do a little bit of tinkering otherwise the formula we currently have will drive us into the ground. What about instead of voting people off you could kill them????? Goodbye, you are getting tired.
Well here we are at this years championship round Survivor II verse the housemates of Big Brother. What do we have, the pig being hunted and killed, people burnt in fires, beautiful people who finally crack when their parents and family speak to them via email and the all American boy and girl Lizbeth and Cody. And didn't we love to have a show with its own live bunny/bitch Jerry. So much synergy, so much of what we love about reality TV without being too schmaltzy. And lets face it can anyone really believe that Amber actually lives in a town called Beaver?????
But then, what about Big Brother. We were lost when we could no longer drop in on the housemates from 7 - 7:30 weeknights, Saturday Sunday and then late Thursday night. What about the bum dance and the bunny ears, Gemma's lip gloss, boy she was only two dimensional, did anyone catch Search for a Supermodel???? And lets face it good guys do win, even if they are a bit on the boxheaded side. And then Blair, our Neighbours heartthrob? And lets face it who will forget the greyhound racing and the endless talk of stabbing the rabbit without getting caught. We what did we get to know about people and TV? What we always thought, if you scratch the surface you get more surface. (I don't know about the rest of you but certainly I think it was interesting to note the charities people wanted to donate their piece of memorabilia too from the house. I thought that was more revealing about each of their personalities than what we learnt from the weeks of having them on air).
So which one wins??? I'm quite honestly torn. The ending of both shows was unexpected. Both shows had the people we loved to hate, ones we loved to love and those who we kind of remember but can't seem to put a face to any more.
For me, in the end I think I will have to go with Survivor II simply because it was the show I was prepared to set the video for. And that my friends is the year as I saw it. So much TV and so little time. Obviously there are plenty of other great non-reality shows but that is column width I was not permitted.
And for that special little friend who keeps harassing me because I refuse to accept her show is reality TV...That Hot Auctions, what a show, so well produced, researched and presented.
Anyways, have a good reality Christmas and hopefully 2002 will be a year with heaps more of what we like - mindless, reality.
Talking of reality, is it just me or is there an eerie similarity between the hunt for Osama and Wag the Dog... think about it.
by Strewth
Janet Gives Steve a Wave |
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It was a warm November night when I shared a room at the Wentworth Hotel with Melanie Howard. Not that things got real intimate, or that Melanie had much say in the matter. Like her father, Mel's big on security, and while she didn't at any stage call in the Navy, we were surrounded by federal cops, hotel security, and the robust frame of News Limited octopus Piers Ackerman.
The night was election night, the room was the Grand Ballroom, and Melanie and I shared the space and the moment with five hundred Liberal Party bluebloods. It was a packed house of grey heads, blue polo shirts, white pearls and dark suits. Howard's battlers had gathered to celebrate the dual achievements of keeping the towel-heads out of the country and the ALP out of office.
Lucky for me, I got past border patrol. I had the right papers and an Anglo-Celtic look about me. A media pass got me past hotel security and the Liberal Party door-bitches. When I arrived at 5.30pm, the polls were still open and Melanie was nowhere to be seen. She was obviously behind closed doors, fretting about the result. Melanie had a lot to lose from a Labor victory. Free rent at Kirribilli House and a free car parking spot in the CBD, paid for by ordinary Australians and mum and dad shareholders, is not handed out to every corporate lawyer from Gilbert and Tobin.
The media were the first to arrive, a horde of TV crews, photographers, print journos, radio reporters and columnists. Piers Ackerman shuffled the floor like an insecure schoolboy looking for friends, and when he couldn't find friends he found sandwiches. It looked like Piers was treating the cocktail party food and drink trays as a form of payback, scoffing and slurping back years worth of one-sided columns. Maybe I was witnessing the first throes of a catering for comment scandal. I didn't see any other journos tucking into the Liberal party freebies, just Piers who was up to his sirloin ears in Thai fish cakes and white wine. Channel 9 brought their own open baguettes of salmon and cream cheese. Other hacks ordered out or starved. But Piers kept going all night, continuing his one-man crusade against the elites by eating all their canap�s and drinking all their charddy.
I didn't expect to see porno at the Wentworth Hotel that night, but around 7.30pm, I copped an eyeful. Around four large TV screens were scattered across the room so the guests could watch the seats fall and wait for Cheryl to cry. One journo, sick of HG & Roy's coverage, tried to switch over to Red Kerry. Somehow he stumbled on two separate porn channels, piped through to The Grand Ballroom via the in-house movie channel. Unfortunately there were no Liberal party matrons around at the time. Janette, despite the vanilla positions on display, would not have been amused.
As the porn disappeared, the guests started to arrive. Those highly manicured monarchists Donald McDonald and David Flint turned up. Malcolm Turnbull found himself a little too close to Kerry Jones. Kerry Chikarovski tried to find out what winners do on nights such as these. Michael Yabsley, impersonating a real estate spiv on a mobile, looked even happier than the day he took away prisoner's rights to wear thongs.
Then another guest turned up, unannounced and uninvited. Craig Reucassel from The Election Chaser breached border security and made it through into The Grand Ballroom. Clad in red lycra and adorned with a playing card with an Arab's head crossed out on it, Craig had dressed up as The Race Card. "We've won, we've won." he cried "And it's all down to me." He had a drink thrown over him and was told to "Go home" in a way that only toffy people can muster. Of course this unseemly security breach might've been avoided if John Howard had taken out full page ads in the nation's newspapers exclaiming "We decide who comes to our party and the circumstances in which they come." Hotel security did decide the circumstances in which he exited, taking him outside and towing him into international waters. The poor fella wasn't even granted a temporary protection visa.
With the crowd purified of any uninvited queuejumpers, it was time for the guest of honour to arrive. The Prime Minister, kept them waiting like a high maintenance bride on a stinking hot wedding day. Mike Munro, allowed out from behind the autocue, twitched nervously as he waited near the lifts. He'd been dining that evening with Richard Howard, another one of John and Janette's bludging offspring, and must've expected an exclusive. But there'd be none of that. The PM's media flunkies and security heavies cleared a regal path for the Howards.
Then they arrived. It seemed so ridiculous to be waiting for such an uninspiring lot. It was like queueing up on a Saturday night to get into the Masonic Club, or waiting on hold for an hour to buy Barry Manilow tickets. Was I really here? Was this really happening? Was I really waiting for John, Janette, Melanie and Richard? Could someone please flick that porn channel back on? Could someone challenge Piers to a hors d'oeuvre eating contest? Could anyone vote for these people? There amongst all the suits, the pearls, and hairspray were three people in t-shirts. Two "Vote-1 Pat Farmer" t-shirts and one "Vote 1 - Ross Cameron" t-shirt. What kind of election party was this? If the people of Western Sydney could see this pack of wankers now they'd never vote for them.
Then our Prime Minister spoke. He was as excited as I've ever seen him, and that includes the time he met Shane Warne. But he didn't seem like a Prime Minister. He talked about figures, not feelings. He spoke of victory, not vision. He sung the national anthem in chorus with the crowd. If I blocked out all the wealthy nobs around me I could see only one thing. An ordinary Australian on a podium, giving an ordinary speech. I was in a bowls club somewhere, and the local President was giving a speech about what a great year it had been, how they'd won the A grade pennant and kept the slopes out of the club. He'd been the Club President forever, played the local politics like a master and survived. This is who we'd been waiting for.
Events at home and abroad conspired to ask us to respond to crises in new ways - from the dot-com crash to the battle for compo, from the S11 attacks to the Khaki election .
The great tragedy of 2001 was that all too often it seemed we were working from a blank slate rather than making use of our greatest asset, our collective history.
It was as if we had ruled a line through the experience of the past 100 years; that the sense of solid ground that had characterized the post-war era had been junked with the old calendar.
Our enlightened engagement with our Asian neighbors was cast adrift somewhere in the Indian Ocean, our aspirations to be an open and tolerant society marooned with it.
In its place sits a new isolationism that seeks to quarantine our affluence from the rest of the world and a leader prepared to push any race button to hold onto power.
When the election was called it was if we were in 1950 when a White Australia feared the yellow peril, rather than the year after we had celebrated the diversity of the global village.
There was a similar time-warp to the political and industrial struggles that consumed the union movement, as if a century of labour movement solidarity counted for nought.
Labor MPs crossing a picket of State Parliament opting for the interest of the employer over the worker, then turning around and accusing the unions of demeaning their precious Democracy.
Thousands of workers thrown on the scrap heap, told that entitlements they had lawfully accrued were no longer there's as the architects of corporate failure skipped town with their massive 'performance' bonuses.
And most bizarrely of all, the Labor Party, licking its wounds from losing an election that appeared 'unloseable' dealing with its hurt by turning on its only true ally - the union movement.
If there is a common theme in all these sad occurrences it is that events do not occur in a vacuum; they are part of the sweep of history that can only ever be defined in hindsight.
When we look back on 2001 what will we see? A society that got so caught up in the issues of the day that it forgot where it had come from; that in rejecting its building blocks of egalitarianism and decency now seems more fragile than ever before.
It's an adage that is sometimes sadly dismissed as a clich�: those who choose to ignore their history are doomed to repeat it.
Let's make sure that in 2002 we reassert our heritage -starting with the fundamental benefit of working together for our collective good.
|
John Robertson, Labor Council secretary
- workers will be worse off under Carr Government workers comp changes; Della recognises error of his ways and support Labor Council test case to double compo payouts in the IRC.
- five-year review of IR Act leads to improvements in laws to regulate labour hire and provide for agency fees.
- Unions work with ALP rank and file to force a change in refugee policy.
- Parramatta wins NRL grand final.
Sharan Burrow, ACTU President
- Ansett will fly again, despite deputy PM John Anderson's dismissing it as a "carcass"
- Tony Abbott will severely embarrass John Howard as his bovver boy modus operandi is exposed.
- More women will achieve paid maternity leave rights.
- The ACTU's Reasonable Hours Test Case will be successful, setting a new standard to prevent workers being forced to perform excessive hours.
Mark Lennon , Labor Council assistant secretary
- Wobbly Radio to produce John Denver tribute show
- Piers goes a whole year without mentioning Currawong
- John Eales to be canonised
Michael Gadiel, Labor Council
ALP reverses its stance on refugees
Chris Christodoulou, Mr Wollongong
- Costa is driving home after a rough night. He stops at McDonalds, pulls into the express lane and says : I'll have a McRyan to go".
- Unions 2000 is drafted to assist in the organization of the Athens Games. I reluctantly agree to assist.
- ALP secretary Eric Roozendaal shows just how far he's matured in the job by supporting candidates on merit rather than their factional alliance.
Peter Lewis, Workers Online
- John Robertson takes on an image consultant and turns up to Labor Council AGM sporting a perm.
- Falling delegate numbers forces weekly Labor Council meetings to be transformed into a karaoke night - from now on all correspondence must be sung. Broadcast live on Wobbly Radio.
- As the war for law and order escalates, Michael Costa implements mandatory cavity searches on all street corners. Alan Jones says he's not going far enough.
Nat Davison, AAP
- Michael Costa changes his name to The Force.
- The CFMEU construction division orders a boycott of King Gees new version of the stubbie shorts, claiming it's a breach of a builders' right to have a brickie crack.
- The TCFUA supports the boycott, claiming the extra bit of material to be sewn into the shorts is more labour intensive for sweatshop workers. The TWU joins the boycott -- because it can.
- The media contingent at Labor Council demands the media table is condemned and a WorkCover investigation carried out into the fine black dust particles that falls on the table every Thursday night. Reporters and the CFMEU picket trades hall and demand an asbestos investigation into the building.
- The NSW Labor Council sets up a steering committee to report back by the Year 3000 with a new union chant for protests.
- Maurie O'Sullivan writes a letter to Labor Council without a single swear word.
Phil Davey, CFMEU spin-miester
- The Royal Commission into the Building Industry will continue to take no interest in the real problems in the building industry, such as corporate tax evasion and deliberate exploitation of illegal migrant workers
- Bob Carr will make a serious of clumsy and obvious attempts to win back organised labour who he betrayed over workers comp. These attempts will be seen for the charade they are and (in 2003) the Greens will triple their vote in the State election as a direct result of the workers comp debacle.
David Vincent, Workplace Express
- New police minister Kojak Costa develops a serious addiction to chupa chups.
Puts a sniffer puppy in every home. And pays Alan Jones for advertorials on his radio show.
- John Howard puts a big white picket fence right across the north and west of Australia, to ensure WE CHOOSE WHO COMES TO THIS COUNTRY
- Peter Lewis combs his hair AND irons his shirt on the same day.
Susan Sheather: Geek Girl
Portugal to win 2002 FIFA World Cup
Paul Howes: Buck-Toothed Good Time Boy
Robbo we be converted to Maoism and form a Shining-Path like Revolutionary Militia in the hills of Kurrajong and Penrith to make a stunning come back in 2002 to take the premiership.
The NSW Department of Industrial Relations and the NSW Industrial Relations Commission to discover the internet and decide to use it.
Ian West becomes the Minister for Industrial Relations.
Peter Ross - Web Guru
- Peter Lewis will need technical support on a Friday afternoon urgently.
- Computers will get faster and more expensive.
- Microsoft will release a bug-fix release for XP.
- The IT Workers Alliance will offer much needed protection to workers privacy with their emails.
- Peter Ross will get a Roosters 2002 premiership ring
Mark McGrath - Union Website Developer, Social Change Online
- Bosswatch the website to watch in 2002.
- South Sydney to win 50% of the games and become the leading crowd-puller in the NRL.
- The penny to drop for the union movement on standardising metadata and syndicating online content.
- Peter Lewis to be bowled yet again throwing the head up attempting to hoik a six to "cow-corner" for his much maligned Newtown Browns park cricket side.
Phil Doyle
Has produced a comprehensive list of predictions which can be viewed at:
http://www.froggy.com.au/phildoyle/2002.html
by Noel Hester, Peter Moss and Steve Mullins
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The Zeitgeist Award - Anthony Mundine
The much-maligned Anthony Mundine gets a gong for giving it a go. While he's no Kostya Tzu, what Choc has done in the ring over the last 12 months is nothing short of amazing. By sporting standards he is middle-aged. Yet he not only managed to swap completely different disciplines but within a year come within a hair's breadth of picking up a world title against a fighter in Sven Ottke who is no slug. The brutal image of Mundine spreadeagled and comatose on the canvas and the glee that went with his defeat shouldn't cloud a reality. The bravery, daring, and athleticism that got him so far, so fast was awesome.
The Good Immigrant Award - Kostya Tsuzu
Boxing gets two awards and not only because one of the judges has been spending too much time in Crown Casino's Sports Bar (the gaudy palace has great screens!). A sport which seemed to be irreversibly degenerating threw up some great moments this year. Bernard Hopkins' slaughter of Felix Trinidad was one of the most compelling sports events I saw all year. Lennox Lewis has put some class and glamour back into the heavyweight division. Then there is the great ocker hero Kostya Tsuzu. His demolition of homeboy Zab Judah to reunify the WBA, WBC and WBO titles was brilliant. Interestingly Hopkins, Lewis and Tsuzu are all into their thirties and taught their younger rivals the primacy of experience, ring cunning, technical excellence and power over fancy footwork and ego. Tsuzu in particular showed Judah the value of a concrete jaw and power punching - all in all a lesson in respect.
The Boathorse Award - Ethereal
With a flattening of the handicap and the annual invasion of the Europeans the typical modern Melbourne Cup winner needs to be of more quality then previously. When Sheila Laxon's Ethereal ran away with this year's Melbourne Cup it seemed like a return to the old days when dour Kiwi stayers with folksy trainers used to have a mortgage on Australia's iconic horserace. Then, a downpour before the race would see a farmyard hack like Van Der Hum grow another leg and some canny Kiwi farmer walk off with a saddlebag of Aussie dollars. The truth is the Ethereal team fits the bill of a class act. A brilliant mare, an astute trainer and an underrated jockey who rode the perfect race. The Brit nags again put in the runs of the race without much luck. Persian Punch, like Vintage Crop, should have its name on two cups. Sooner, rather than later, they'll get it right and win them in a row.
The Titanic Award - the Socceroos
A few harsh realities about Australian soccer post- Montivideo: Harry Kewell and Mark Viduka alone do not make a world class soccer team. Lots of other countries have players just as good as Harry and Mark plus more. A team packed with journeymen from the English First Division is going to struggle at the top level. You can't win a footy game without a decent midfield. Iran was our best chance to get to the World Cup. There are too many Liberals running the game. Jeff Kennett. Soccer Australia is shit.
The Sir Robert Menzies Award - Netball Australia
Netball Australia, traditionally known as a sports administrator, surprised everyone this year by trying its hand at gynaecology. Confronted by the prospect of pregnant Adelaide netballer, Trudy Gardner taking the court, Netball Australia placed a blanket ban on all pregnant women from playing netball. Despite medical advice encouraging pregnant women to pursue an active and fit lifestyle and despite Trudy believing it was her decision, not some paternalistic sports administrator, she took her place on the sidelines. For its commitment to the values of the 1950's, Netball Australia is awarded the Sir Robert Menzies Award.
The King Canute Award - George Piggins
Rugby league's civil war had two faces. John Ribot comes as close as any to the face of mammon. And the inspirational George Piggins is the face of passion. Until South Sydney's court victory earlier this year, George was in danger of going down as the stubborn martyr. So pure he may as well bury himself along with the club colours he swore to retire rather than trade away. But, as a winner, George has proved something and not just about sport. The inevitable is not inevitable. The Super League forces set out to kill Souths - now Souths are poised to bring the game back from the dead.
The Champ and Chump Award - Lleyton Hewitt
Australian tennis has a new champion, but just how proud should we be? Little Lleyton seems to have so filled his head with the game that there's no room left for much else that makes sense. Hewitt's extraordinary focus and mental toughness sees him fall over the line in gruelling five-setters when he is not playing well. When it all comes together on court, he makes the dominant 1990s player Sampras look like a tired old dog. But when his super-competitiveness and aggression spill over into childish abuse Lleyton looks a loser. The first move Hewitt's new coach should make is to insist the little fella gets out more.
The Greg Norman Yipps Award - Essendon
From the AFL penthouse to the pavement and we find self-delusion at both ends. Essendon's performance in real life is poles away from the smug arrogance of the club and supporters. Bombers President McMahon this year stupidly declared the aim of becoming the AFL's Manchester United - rich, elite, dominant and locking out opposition fans from home games. The reality is one flag last year from five years of supreme playing talent. We saw the Bombers lose two preliminary finals and one grand final since 1996. This year Brisbane looked as good in winning as the Bombers ever have. Face it Essendon, you're a bunch of chokers.
The Compulsory Euthanasia Award - St Kilda/Fremantle
At the bottom end of the ladder we find two clubs which really should be taken out the back and shot. St Kilda's slapstick routine of offering supercoach Blight the world to save them, then sacking him mid-season, then letting their key forward escape to Sydney, then selecting an untried mate as 2002 coach - turn off the life support someone. Then there's Fremantle, now revealed to have paid players more than any other club while winning the least, ie two, games. You have to feel for Fabian Francis, forced out of the league for 12 months due to Freo's incompetence.
Neale Towart |
The right to Collective Bargaining remains the key for unions and the cornerstone for the rights of workers. Otherwise we finish up back at the laws of Ancient Rome, as Tony Abbott seems to want. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights is clear on this, and David Peetz discussed these issues well in
"Individual Contracts, Collective Bargaining, Wages and Power"
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 contracts 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 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://www.econrsss.anu.edu.au/pdf/DP437.pdf
Works Councils became a bit of a hot topic for a little while (mainly when it looked though the ALP was a lay down misere for a federal election win). Various commentators had a go at the idea, including Ron McCallum. The Industrial Democracy conference at the University of Sydney in June (see http://www.labor.net.au/worksite/index.html for discussion). A way of re-establishing collective rights or a way of getting around unions? This paper from the Uni. of Newcastle was the most detailed discussion.
"Works Councils needed because HR has failed" by Professor Mark Bray, Dr St�phane Le Queux, Dr Peter Waring and Dr Duncan Macdonald
Mandatory worker participation mechanisms such as European-style works councils need to be adopted because HR management has failed to deliver on its promise to empower and give autonomy to workers, according to a discussion paper released at the ACTU's executive meeting today.
The Representation Gap in Australia, from the Uni. Of Newcastle Employment Studies Centre, says that seismic changes in union membership and IR regulation in the mid-1990s opened up a "representation gap" that left workers with no systematic mechanism to participate in workplace decision-making. Management, according to
the paper, has been left with virtually unfettered prerogative in many cases
http://www.ecruiting.com.au/express/repgap080301.htm.
http://www.workplaceexpress.com.au
Bargaining fees got up Tony Abbott's nose and the initial decision was a favourable one for unions. Later cases weren't so helpful. These two papers provide good discussion on the issue.
"Bargaining Agents Fees -a fee for service or an invitation to join?" by Susan Zeitz
The decision by Vice President McIntyre on fee for service moves by the ETU has sparked outrage from Tony Abbott and concern amongst lawyers. Zeitz discusses the reasoning behind the decision. The government is to attempt to change the Workplace relations Act to outlaw such actions by unions, but Andrew Murray, Democrat spokesperson on IR seems favourably disposed to the idea of fee for service. A test case in the NSW jurisdiction isn't far off.
(CCH Australian Employment Law Update; newsletter 2/2001, February 2001)
"Agency Shops in Australia? Compulsory Bargaining Fees, Union (In)Security and the Rights of Free-Riders" by Graeme Orr
Assesses the merits of 'agency shop' or 'fair share fee' common in the North American collective agreements and their potential application in Australia.. It describes and draws lessons from US legal practice. Enforceability and legality under Australian certification and freedom of association law is discussed. Concludes that agency shop fees would be a welcome and justifiable addition to the Australian enterprise bargaining scene, but they would be no panacea. They would probably benefit unions who least need security, and could lead to increased regulation of internal union affairs.
(Australian Journal of Labour Law; vol. 14, no. 1, May 2001)
Casualisation and new forms of the employment relationship are perhaps the biggest concern for workers as the employers continue to have legislation that tips the scales even more in their favour. Meg Smith's paper was a terrific summing up of the issues involved, particularly for women workers, who comprise the great majority of casual employees. The access of casuals to unfair dismissal laws was confirmed federally and in NSW this year too.
"Casualisation: What is the Debate We Should Be Having?" by Meg Smith
The federal Minister and the Productivity Commission have been quick to dispute statistics about the level of casualisation and the level of insecurity in the workforce.
These arguments avoid the issues of the gendered nature of casualisation and the ability of the Industrial Tribunals to deal with it.
While casualisation is prevalent for both men and women it is women who are disproportionately represented in casual employment, particularly part-time casual employment:
� 32% of employed women are employed on a casual basis--the comparable figure for men is 22%;
� 70% of casuals are employed on a part-time basis. Men comprise 74% of all full-time casuals while women comprise 66% of all part-time casuals; and
� 85% of women and 52% of men employed casually are engaged on a part-time basis.
Conservatives use these figures to argue that women choose part-time casual work for lifestyle reasons. Smith would beg to differ.
http://www.workplaceinfo.com.au/questions/casuals_smith.htm
Background Briefing on ABC radio also had a excellent program on these issues, and some comments on the rather strange view of the employment relationship held by the Mad Monk.
"Employment 2001: Permatemps and Other New Lifeforms"; Stan Correy , producer
The AMWU casuals decision, "flexible workplaces", workplace partnerships, psychological contracts, spirited workplaces. All issues coming up in industrial relations and ones the Minister, Tony Abbott, will be talking about in his weird way.
Breen Creighton, author of many labour law texts, and a lawyer with Corrs Chambers Westgarth, is curious about Abbotts' return to the language of pre-industrial times, more or less equating industrial law with oldfashioned family law. Industrial law did develop from family law and the master-servant relationship. Roman law was the basis of it, "when the pater familias had control over the members of the family and the extended family in the form of servants." The ideal for Abbott?
This program discussed the work and family situation and flexibility, contingent workers in the US (the big example is Microsoft), the Fairmont Hotel attempt to outsource its cleaning staff and labour hire firms in general. The flexible, family-friendly workforce doesn't exactly match Abbott's family workplace.
http://www.abc.net.au/rn/talks/bbing/stories/s245979.htm
Workers entitlements also were a rallying point. A sign of the times when the big issue is the payout for the loss of jobs and the security of employee funds when corporates go belly-up. The IT industry led the redundancy rush but the Manusafe fund developed by the AMWU and others was the big innovation from employees, independent of any ALP government.
"New Fund to Secure Workers' Entitlements" by Tania Clarke
A number of manufacturing unions have established an industry trust fund to secure employee entitlements.
Manusafe aims to protect entitlements and to ensure their portability in the industry. The scheme operates in a different way to the federal-State government "employee entitlements scheme". That scheme caps payouts at $20,000.00. Each separate entitlement is also capped. For example, an employee may only be entitled to 4 weeks annual leave even though they may be owed 8 or 12 weeks.
In contrast, employers participating in Manusafe agree to pay monthly contributions into the fund on behalf of each employee. The amount is negotiated and included in a certified enterprise agreement.
The Manusafe Board comprises union representatives and there are vacant seats for employers. All funds deposited are secure and returns earned on money in the fund will go towards the establishment of an industry-wide long service leave and/or severance fund.
On a week to week basis, casuals and contractors who are mobile and regularly change jobs will be able to secure their entitlements into Manusafe and take them with them from job to job.
The AMWU is currently campaigning to persuade employers in the manufacturing industry to both participate in the scheme and join the Board.
(ACOSS Impact; February 2001)
The Working Hours campaign and test case continue. The French experience is taken by many as a good or bad example.
"Productivity and the 35 Hour Week"
Despite forecasts of doom, the legislation of a maximum of 35 hours work per week in France has not been disastrous, and has boosted productivity for the who have embraced the laws. The French Labour Ministry claims 150,000 new jobs have been created so far because of the laws. The laws have had a one year trial and are being fully enforced. Employers who are using the laws find it allows them to extend operating times when they employ extra staff. Disneyland, for example, has increased its workforce by 10% and stays open for an extra 2 hours per day.
Another outcome has been that at Wanadoo, France's largest Internet portal. Wanadoo has seen a dramatic increase in productivity from individual workers since it started to comply with the law last year. Wanadoo's salaried employees are now getting an extra 10 to 18 days off a year. But they're still getting their work done. And despite the intent of the law, Wanadoo has not hired any new employees.
http://www.thestandard.com/article/display/0,1151,22531,00.html
Meanwhile in Australia, the number of employees working longer hours continues to rise. The ABS survey of employment arrangements and superannuation shows that over 14% of employees with leave entitlements worked more than 50 hours per week.
41.1% worked more than 40 hours per week. 21% did unpaid overtime. 75% of casual employees expected to be working at the same employers in 12 months time.
ABS. Employment Arrangements and Superannuation, Australia, 6361.0
(http://www.workplaceexpress.com.au)
The Work and Family balance is at the heart of many of the hours issue. In the UK some the government has been considering the issue.
"Work & Parents: Competitiveness and Choice- a summary: Parental Leave in the UK"
Some of the problems it addresses include:
� Should the period of unpaid maternity leave be extended so that a woman can stay at home for a year in total?
� Should any extension to unpaid maternity leave be shared equally between the mother and the father?
� Should the flat rate of maternity pay be increased? Or the period over which a woman receives maternity pay lengthened to 26 weeks?
� Should one parent have a right to leave paid at the equivalent flat rate and for the same length of time as maternity pay when adopting a child?
An increasing number of men want to play a more active role in supporting their partner following the arrival of a new child.
� Should working fathers be given paternity leave, for example for two weeks, paid at the same flat rate as maternity pay?
� What mechanism should be used if paid paternity leave is introduced and why?
Paying for parental leave would be very costly for employers and the State. However, the Government is seeking views on whether, despite this, it is a priority. Other options on parental leave are:
� Should the amount of parental leave available to parents of disabled children be increased?
� Should there be funding to help employers develop flexible parental leave schemes?
People are now able to take unpaid time off to deal with a family emergency, for example, when children are sick.
� Should this entitlement to time off work include routine hospital appointments for children and other dependants?
The main problem faced by employers, especially small ones, is finding cover when someone is absent.
� How could the Employment Service and private recruitment agencies work with employers from an earlier stage with managing absences?
Statutory Maternity Pay (SMP) is paid by employers and then refunded by Government. This creates an administrative cost for employers. What can we do to reduce the costs for employers?
� Should more small and medium-sized employers qualify for complete repayment of the money they pay out on SMP and the additional compensation?
� Should small employers be encouraged to make use of the existing provision to seek SMP payments in advance from the Inland Revenue?
http://www2.dti.gov.uk/er/review.htm
John Buchanan and Louise Thornthwaite reported on new approaches in Australia
"Paid work and parenting: charting a new course for Australian families"
To date, work and family policies and praise have focused on a few adhoc initiatives based on a 'best practice' model of workplace reform. These have been larger workplaces and others are urged to follow suit. The authors argue that a more systematic approach is needed as more and more people are expressing their dissatisfaction with the work family cycle, and for many the situation is deteriorating (note the increase in working hours in Australia). Key findings of the report include:
� a comprehensive system of maternity and paternity leave paid for by government, but funded, at least in part, by employers
� a comprehensive, quality child care system with quality and access the keys, not the profit motive
� employee choice rostering arrangements, buttressed by awards, and,
� if necessary, legislative specifications and obligations enabling individuals greater capacity to fit work around family lives
� a new deal for part time workers to improve quality of jobs and to ensure access to part time work for parents who need it
� experimenting with new support structures at neighbourhood level
� developing new support arrangements for employers
(Report for the Chifley Research Foundation; published by ACIRRT as Working Paper no 70, August 2001)
http://www.econ.usyd.edu.au/acirrt/
*****************
The contrast with 2000 could not have been starker. A year after we embraced the world in a group hug and an orgy of golden moments, we stand as international outcasts - a morally rogue state who has allowed itself to be manipulated by a calculating leader who put his own lust for power ahead of the national interest. Whether we joined the Tampa cheer squad or were reluctantly cowed into silence in the misplaced hope that our acquiescence would deliver power to Labor, we all stand condemned for our part in the sad farce.
While nations around the world grappled with the crisis of people smuggling and refugees, we alone chose to slam our door on the problem, mobilizing our navy to cast desperate people adrift. After the planes slammed into the World Trade Centre on September 11 we alone allowed the fiction that terrorists were on the boats to take hold. And when it emerged the Howard Government had spread false allegations about asylum seekers throwing their babies overboard, we turned this into an electoral advantage to the perpetrators of the lies.
The events of 2001 betrayed a deep immaturity in the Australian psyche, a strong residue of the historic fear of the Asian hordes and a deep lack of appreciation of our place in the world. The way we were sucked into this fear of the Other exposed the fake smiles and childish excitement of the Olympics as the sham it was. We were not celebrating the world in Sydney 2000, we were just getting off on being the center of its attention. The minute the hard questions were put, we turned in on ourselves.
For Labor the shame is two-fold. Not only did we lack the will to take the principled stand, we allowed Howard to outmanouvre us into a most ignomious of losses. And in the wash-up, what do the remaining representatives do? Gather together to reinvent a party that sits as the moral voice of the ordinary Australian? No, it seeks to trash its historical roots with the union movement to protect its new leader from the Tory gibes of being an ACTU hack. The courage so clearly lacking in the election campaign would have taken a stand for organized labour as a social good; instead Labor has reverted to regard its key asset as a social embarrassment.
The only positive from the year was the demolition of One Nation. The tragedy was that its demise was the result of the appropriation of the Hanson-ite policies by the major parties.
The Khaki election may have passed, but we all carry its legacy. Our challenge in 2002 is to confront issues of our place in the world with more enlightenment, more courage and more heart. For those of us in the union movement, the first step will be to reassert our influence over Labor policy and force a change to the Party's unconscionable policy on refugees. Once we wipe out this sad post-script to the Beazley era, perhaps we will be able to move forward and recreate an Australia that we can be truly proud of, that is comfortable with its place in the world and does not need to refer to medal tallies to gain a sense of itself.
It will be a tough job, but a just penance for a nation that has carried on like a mob of Tools for the past 12 months.
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