E D I T O R I A L

Not So Happy Campers
It's a crude political truism: it's better to be inside the tent pissing out than outside the tent pissing in. At least for those on the inside.

F E A T U R E S

Interview: Pulling the Pin
Victorian union leader Dean Mighell outlines the thinking behind his decision to quit the ALP and join the Greens.

International: At the Crossroads
From Germany, to Britain, to South Africa, Canada and the USA it seems union members are turning on their political partners � and talking about divorce.

Unions: A Case Of Lost Identity
Victorian Trades Hall secretary Leigh Hubbard warns that more unions could leave the ALP if the current policy review hits the wrong note.

History: Rocking the Foundations
There was not just one model of what a political wing of the labour movement should be, Don Rawson writes.

Industrial: Rocky Road
Thirteen hundred Rockhampton workers are putting cars and houses on the line in an effort to beat off bully-boy tactics from Kerry Packer-owned Consolidated Meat Group.

Economics: Cracking a Coldie
As Australian icons fall around him, Neale Towart charts the rise and fall of the Great Aussie Esky.

Poetry: The Right Was Wrong
A glimpse of history shows that waterfront workers deserve the high moral ground.

Satire: Heffernan�s Evidence Conclusive: Proves He's An Idiot
The evidence released by Senator Bill Heffernan to substantiate his allegations against Justice Kirby have proved conclusively that the senator is an idiot.

Review: Upstairs, Downstairs
Robert Altman's latest movie Gosford Park is hard yakka no matter what side of the class system you sit on.

N E W S

Giant Rat Fights Cole Commission

Dodgy Bosses To Get Life

Unions Back Rugby World Cup

Queue Jumper Abbott In Cash Grab

Refugees Face Bank Imbalance

Guards Act to Plug Leaks

Rabbit Fence Leads Reconciliation to Classroom

Spy Bill Under Fire

Council Takes Up Discrimination Challenge

Power Workers To Decide Own Fate

Thumbs Up for Super Deal

G-G Warned Off State Schools

Fee Pressure Builds on Beattie

Nobel Committee 'Subordinates' Union Rights

Columbians Level Death Charges

Call To Blockade Burmese Junta

Indonesian Threat To Unions

Activist Notebook

C O L U M N S

The Soapbox
Dealing with Prejudice
Former Liberal senator Chris Puplick did not pull any punches launching a new guide for union reps dealing with discrimination issues.

The Locker Room
The Bigger They Are, The Harder They Fall
Phil Doyle tries to get sport off the front pages and back where it belongs ...

Postcard
Greetings From Lao
In the first in a new series, Union Aid Abroad's Phillip Hazelton, reports from Lao, where he is establishing a vocational training centre.

Cole-Watch
Go West
The Building Industry Royal Commission caravan has rolled into Perth.

Week in Review
Top of the Pops
Johnny Howard and his Masters of Deception kept the beat during a week in which secrecy took over from blatant fibbing as the dark art or choice, leaving the national Hit Parade looking something like this �

L E T T E R S

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Go West

RC investigators to remain in WA "for as long as is necessary"

The Cole Royal Commission into the Building and Construction Industry opened its four weeks of hearings in Perth this week. But Counsel Assisting Mr Agius said the Commission envisaged visiting WA on at least two more occasions and its investigators would remain in the State, conducting their activities "overtly and covertly .... for as long as is necessary".

Same messages with some new spin

The range of issues to be examined in the Perth hearings is not dissimilar from those already heard in other States. But there are a number of new points of interest.

For example, the Commission is looking at the practice of fixed Rostered Days Off (RDOs) to see if there is "room for modification of this practice so as to permit an efficient rotation or splitting of rostered days off". Workers might be wondering if the Commission will consider that RDOs have to be fixed in the construction industry to ensure that they are allowed to take the day off.

The Commission will not only investigate whether the use of 'No Ticket No Start' banners on CBD construction sites in Perth, is "a code for compulsory unionism"; but also "does it stem from a desire to advance the interests of union members, or is it more a weapon in a struggle for power within the union movement?"

Safety being used as a "bargaining chip or weapon on construction sites" will come up again, according to Mr Agius. But the Perth hearings are also investigating the role of the shop steward on construction sites.

That led to the following exchange:

Mr Agius: Can you think of what it is that gives you the authority to ask somebody, when they come on a site, whether they are a member of the union?

Fox: Well, I believe it's part of my job as a shop steward.

Agius: But where is the authority that permits you to do it?

Fox: No-one has ever told me that it is illegal to ask someone whether they are in the union or not.

Agius: Do you ask somebody what their politics are when you are doing this process?

Fox: Sometimes.

Agius: As a matter of course?

Fox: As a matter of a conversation. The majority of people who come on to these sites, I've been around for a while and I know most of them.

Agius: Do you ask them what their religion is?

Fox: No. [Tr p4183]

EBAs and anti-competitive behaviour

Counsel Assisting Agius has indicated that the Perth hearings will continue the line of argument put in Queensland and Tasmania, that major builders have been complicit with unions to compel subcontractors to sign Enterprise Bargaining Agreements. But the Perth hearings are taking the anti-competitive arguments further:

Mr Commissioner, you will hear evidence that major builders in Perth have enforced a policy of no EBA with the union, no tender, the practical effect of which is not just to drive up the cost of construction, with the flow-on effects for the community at large, such as higher rents, inflation and the presentation of Perth as a less attractive place for investment involving the building and construction industry, but to drive out competitors and create a closed shop for some builders.

Cole RC pitches for women?

The Perth hearings will also investigate whether women are being prevented from joining the industry because "the lack of appropriate part-time employment provisions in awards and restrictive casual employment clauses in awards".

The Commission is not asking why builders are not employing more women workers. The target of this exercise, according to Mr Agius' opening, is purely the CFMEU: "does the CFMEU oppose the expansion of part-time employment in the industry and, if so, is this discriminatory against women and inconsistent with the union movement's stated commitment to principles of equal opportunity ....".

This approach fits neatly with the Federal Government-backed push by construction employers to get part-time and extended casual provisions into the ACT and National Building and Construction Awards.

Construction has always been a casual industry and workers have been more concerned to gain protection from abuses of the daily hire system than with creating opportunities for more job insecurity.

When virtually all of the 950,000 new jobs created over the past 10 years have been either part-time or casual, few could doubt that this push for part-time work in construction is more about reducing minimum working hours and cost cutting than anything else.

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