E D I T O R I A L

Power Plays
Depending on where you sit, the decision by a State Labor Government to sell off the division of the power industry responsible for its long-term planning is either bold or reckless.

F E A T U R E S

Interview: Still Flying
ACTU Secretary Greg Combet looks beyond the bid to save Ansett to a broader union agenda for 2002.

Women: Suffrage or Suffering
Alison Peters marks International Women's Day by surveying the achievements - and shortcomings - of a century of female suffrage.

Industrial: No Coco Pops For Brenda
The working poor get short shrift from the hypocritical Minister For Workplace Relations says Noel Hester.

Unions: Back to the Heartland
Lidcombe, western Sydney. A boring cultural desert, right? Wrong, wrong and wrong again according to CFMEU officials who talked to Jim Marr about relocating their headquarters to a working class base.

Activists: Getting to the Point
Rowan Cahill reports on a development battle that has fractured a South Coast community and the role the union movement has played to drive a just outcome.

International: Push Polling
On the eve of elections in Zimbabwe, trade unionists are paying the price for their commitment to democracy.

Economics: Debt Defaulters
Amidst the colour and movement of CHOGM little was said about the pressing issue of debt relief, writes Thea Ormond.

Poetry: Those Were the Days
The Golden Wing lounges have closed. The last of the commiserating Ansett workers have long since departed those makeshift taverns.

Review: Black Hawk Dud
If you want to find out exactly what went wrong during the US Marines' 1993 peacekeeping operation in Mogadishu in Somalia, do not see Black Hawk Down.

Satire: Fox-Lew Launch Rescue Bid for Beta Video
Businessmen Solomon Lew and Lindsay Fox have shocked the financial sector with a daring bid to rescue the communications giant Beta Video.

N E W S

Egan Sells His Brains

Spying Bill Targets Strikers

Dunny Wars: Will Workers Carry the Can?

Drivers Appeal To Commuters

New Tack on Asylum Seekers

Go Forth and Multiply � Unions on Women

Howard Shuts Workers Out Of Steel Talks

Questions Remain As Rio Rings Changes

Labor Hire Swifty Exposed

Unions Fight 'Industrial Blackmail'

AIRC in Contracting Debacle

Mayne Chance For A Wage Deal

IT Workers Get Their Own Geek Scopes

PNG Women Visit Australia

Brazilian Unions Study Aussie Experience

No Shangri-la in Jakarta

Activists Notebook

C O L U M N S

The Soapbox
Love Thy Neighbour
Bruce Childs explains why he's reactivated the Palm Sunday committee to take a stand for refugees.

The Locker Room
Debt Before Dishonour
In a week that featured allegations of drugs in footy, fast horses and faster cars, Phil Doyle struggled to keep up.

Week in Review
Bullies Rule, OK?
Jim Marr considers a week which highlighted the absolute joy of being big, rich and powerful in a lassez faire world.

Tool Shed
Leader of the Free World
George W Bush barricades himself in this week's Tool Shed with the sort of double standards that gives world domination a bad name.

L E T T E R S

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Push Polling

By Andrew Casey

**************

A senior Zimbabwean trade union leader has been missing for nearly a fortnight having been abducted by so-called 'war veterans' after a key meeting of the national trade union centre - the ZCTU.

The 'war veterans' have been harassing activists during the current presidential election campaign in an attempt to undermine the Opposition Movement for Democracy (MDC) candidate, Morgan Tsvangirai, and deliver this weekend's election result to Robert Mugabe.

If Robert Mugabe 'wins' the election this weekend there are strong rumours he will quickly move to shut down the ZCTU as punishment for its support of the MDC.

The South African union movement, led by COSATU, has begun to prepare plans just in case the ZCTU is shut down. COSATU released a statement of support for the abducted trade union comrade, Ephraim Tapa, and attacked President Mugabe for threatening to deregister the ZCTU.

Ephraim Tapa, is the head of the Zimbabwe public sector union and a member of the ZCTU general council, along with his wife, Faith, were taken from their car after the thugs stopped them as they were leaving the capital Harare. Mr Tapa's two brothers, who were also in the car, escaped although one of them was shot in the arm.

While the abduction was reported immediately to the police no serious investigation has been carried out as police are wary of upsetting the 'war veterans' in their campaign of terror and brutality.

The trade union movement of Zimbabwe has played a central reform role in the lead up to this weekend's presidential election and issued a call this week for a halt to the 'state-sponsored terrorism' in the run up to the presidential elections.

Lovemore Matombo, the president of the ZCTU, says the terror activities of the war veterans is rife and widespread.

" Under the circumstances it would be very difficult in this country to have what could generally be considered free and fair elections, " Mr Matombo told a media conference this week.

Morgan Tsvangirai, the MDC candidate running against Robert Mugabe, was the former, very popular, secretary general of the Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions until he left two years ago to establish his political movement.

Ironically the ZCTU was created by the Mugabe administration which in the early years of independence cajoled a fragmented trade union movement into uniting under the one ZCTU umbrella.

However the ZCTU gradually fell out with the government after they complained about misrule and corruption which eventually resulted in a mass stayaway organized by the national union center in 1998 to protest corruption, mismanagement and the rising cost of living.

The 1998 ZCTU protests almost brought down the Mugabe regime and were the precursor to the creation of the MDC by Morgan Tsvangirai.

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Last Modified: 15 Nov 2005