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Issue No. 130 | 05 April 2002 |
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Lights Out on The Hill
Interview: Change Agent Industrial: Balancing the Books Unions: Breaking Out Politics: Pissing on the Light on the Hill History: Of Death and Taxes International: Now That's a Strike! Satire: Mugabe Voted Miss Zimbabwe: Denies Election Rigged Poetry: Flick Go The Branches Review: Red, Red Clydeside
The Soapbox Sport Week in Review Postcard
 Puplick's SermonChikka's LegacySocialists in the UKOrganising GloballyGrape DisappointmentUnion Resignations : Crisis or Opportunity?
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News Cole Cleans Up
Figures released in Parliament today confirm Building Industry Inquiry supremo Terrence Cole as the highest paid public official in Australia. For his services, the Liberal Government is paying Cole triple the amount set aside for Justice Neville Owen who is heading up the inquiry into the HIH failure, the biggest corporate collapse in Australian history. Credibility on the Line Cole's Commission will get a chance to salvage credibility when it arrives in Sydney this month and is confronted by a dossier of genuine building industry rorts. Unlike other states, the NSW branch of the CFMEU is putting industrial action on ice to give the Commission another chance to prove it is fair dinkum about shonky industry practises. The CFMEU is giving Commissioner Cole an opportunity to hose down the perception he is running a politically-motivated sideshow by addressing safety, compo fraud, tax evasion, phoenixing and the abuse of migrant labour. Construction has an appalling safety record, accounting for 12 percent of serious workplace injuries in Australia, and the death of one building worker every week. The union estimates that 40 percent of sub-contractors are evading workers compensation cover for at least some of their employees. Some analysts argue construction tax evasion is costing the public purse as much as $1 billion annually. Phoenixing, whereby a company or operator goes bust leaving workers, subbies and the tax office out of pocket then resumes business under another name, is escalating, along with the use of illegal immigrants as cheap labour. Attack on all Workers Unless these issues are addressed, CFMEU official Tony Pappas warns, Commission hearings will turn into a witch hunt from which no worker organisation will be immune. "Abbott and Howard have an agenda against the building unions," he says. "They have allocated $80 million for this exercise and the motive behind it is their desire to smash trade unions. At the end of the day, their target is not just the CFMEU and building unions, it is all of us." Labor Council endorsed his call for a mass rally outside the Commission on May 3 and will co-ordinate the protest. It will be part of a fortnight of public activity in defence of union rights which will confront the Commission, engineered by Employment Advocate Jonathan Hamberger and Workplace Relations Minister Tony Abbott. Scheduled protests include: Monday, April 29, building union delegates; April 30, injured workers and families; May 1, retired unionists; May 2, environmental groups; May 3, Labor Council and affiliates; May 6, sub-contractors; May 7, community groups; May 8, union occupational health and safety reps. It's Stinky! Meanwhile, the CFMEU's eight metre rat has a name. Just this week it was christened, Stinky, in response to a competition run by Workers Online. Stinky will be out and about while the Commission is in Sydney, sniffing out dodgy practises that early indications suggest the Commission would prefer to ignore. Labor Council's own Mark Morey won the naming competition from more than a dozen entrants. Other suggestions that troubled the judges included: John Winston, Eco (Rat), Sue, and Nat (in honour of the real King Cole).
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