With Prejudice
For anyone doubting the ability of an incumbent government to control the political agenda, this week's sitting of the Cole Royal Commission into the Building Industry made fascinating viewing.
Interview: Class Action
NSW Teachers Federation general secretary Barry Johnson on Bob Carr's election budget and what he needs to do to win back the profession.
Safety: A Mother's Tale
Robin McGoldrick relives the tragedy that prompted her to confront Royal Commissioner Terence Cole over workplace story.
Unions: The Hottest Seat in Town
Nostalgia buffs should make a point of catching at least one session of Tony Abbott�s controversial, Royal Commission, playing to increasingly thin houses in Sydney. Jim Marr sat through the opening scenes.
International: Defensive Enterprise
How can men and women working in the unprotected "informal economy" be helped to better defend their rights? The ICTU grapples with the issue in The Congo.
Economics: A Super Deal?
Neale Towart looks at the debate raging within Labor circles around savings and investment.
History: A Radical Life
Stephen Holt gives an insight into one of the Australian Labor Party�s original true believers through his examination of papers held in the Manuscript Collection
Media: Cross Purposes
Stuart Mackenzie looks at the lines spun at the recent Senate committee hearing into media ownership laws.
Review: When the Force Is Unconscious
Cultural Theoritician Mark Morey reports on how a trip to the Sydney Writers Festival became a battle for intergalactic supremacy.
Poetry: Wouldn't It Be Loverly
For seven decades, Queensland aboriginal workers working under government control were 'paid' below-award wages which were placed into 'trust' accounts which were pilfered, levied, diverted and bled dry.
Grieving Mum Turns Cole Around
Hamberger Grilled Over AWA Scam
Government Shrugs Off Death Sentence Charge
Action To Pay Foreign Crew Aussie Wages
Jockeys Face Insurance Crisis
Birds Get More Protection Than Workers
Budget Delivers - But Not For DOCS
Statewide Ban On Grain Loading
Howard Soft On Organised Crime?
UN Honours Building Union Drugs Program
Award-Winning Poet Wins Right To Write
Workers Out For Gay Games
Mahathir Told to Release Labour Activisits
Horta Backs Western Sahara Independence
Activists Notebook
The Soapbox
It�s The Members, Stupid.
Those officials obsessed with union voting power in the ALP are missing the point, writes Luke Foley. The Locker Room
Too Good To Be True
Phil Doyle castes his withering gaze over a week in sport that featured origin square-ups, the World Game in all its glory and a few drunken jockeys. Bosswatch
In The Cauldron
It was another week of pull-outs, profits de-mergers and takeovers in the corporate world; but some bright news with a plan to make executive pay more accountable. Week in Review
The Black Letter
Legal mechanisms, national and international, are throwing up challenges to all sectors of our community but the law is a beast of many shapes and sizes as Jim Marr discovers.
Romeo and Juliet?
Robbo's Rave
Latham Ad Nauseum
Our Home Is Girt By Wire
Hands Off Hooligans!
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Birds Get More Protection Than Workers
The NSW Government is being urged to offer the state�s human population the same protections afforded to birds.
Labor Council secretary John Robertson questioned the priorities of �bureaucrats� ushering in a licensing regime for persons who care for native birds while continuing to procrastinate over calls to regulate the labour hire industry.
"They can license people to protect birds but when we insist on licensing to protect the most vulnerable people in the workplace these same people look the other way," Robertson says.
"Labor Council has argued licensing is required to ensure core standards, to make sure the tone isn't set by the lowest common denominator.
"Every time this issue is raised the bureaucrats run the argument that regulation would breach competition principles. Frankly, if competition policy means ensuring the right to continue exploiting people, then we should be looking at changing competition principles."
Sources close to the state Government have suggested that National Competition Policy will be used to deflect Labor Council's latest insistence on a labour hire licensing regime.
Labour Council is seeking a common rule labour hire award for the state and Robertson said it would continue to press Government for an effective licensing regime.
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Issue 139 contents
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