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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.
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.
 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
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.
How to Beat the Banks
Collins Goes Cahill
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News
New Tack on Asylum Seekers
The union movement has called for a fundamental rethink of the way asylum seekers are processed, scrapping the Temporary Protection Visa system and ending the punitive language of 'mandatory detention'.
The ACTU executive this week endorsed a detailed report prepared for the Independent Education Union by the Edmund Rice Centre for Justice and Community Education as a basis for a comprehensive policy position.
Key recommendations of the report include:
- ending the Temporary Protection Visa system and giving all refugees immediate access to Permanent Protection Visas.
- ending mandatory detention and replacing it with a compulsory processing system.
- all asylum seekers to be released into the community after initial processing for health and security checks unless a court order is obtained
- ending the system of tendering for the management of detention facilities and returning them to direct government control
- establishing a fast-track processing facility on Christmas Island.
- ending the Pacific Solution and entering negotiations with Indonesia and other source countries
IEU NSW secretary Dick Shearman said the union commissioned the report in response to concerns about the divisive debate by its members, who work in independent schools of all denominations.
"Before we can hope to shift community attitudes to a more humane postion, we need to deliver workable policies that meet legitimate community concerns about the integrity of our borders.
"I think the report we have put forward is both responsible and compassionate.
"We need to stop fighting on John Howard's terms - the first step is to change the language around terms like 'mandatory detention' while recognising legitimate concerns about the need to process new arrivals."
View the full report: http://www.nswactieu.labor.net.au/whatsnew/research.pdf
 View entire issue - print all of the articles!
Issue 127 contents
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