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Issue No. 142 28 June 2002  
E D I T O R I A L

Safety First
This week's Safety Summit, called by the Carr Government, is a timely opportunity for the union movement to put occupational health and safety into a contemporary perspective.

F E A T U R E S

Interview: Safe as Houses
Labor Council secretary John Robertson outlines the union movement's priorities in the lead-up to this week's Safety Summit.

Safety: Ten Steps to Safety
On the eve of the NSW Safety Summit, Workers Online went looking for the ten biggest workplace health issues and what needs to be done to address them.

History: Staying Alive
Neale Towart winds the clock back to discover that contemporary arguments that regulators should stay out of workplace safety and let the market do its business are nothing new.

Unions: Choose Life
While Commissioner Cole struggles with the concept of unions trying to improve workers� wages, out in the real world, bosses daily thumb their noses at safety authorities, as Jim Marr discovers.

International: Seoul Destroyers
The rise and rise of the Korean national football team in the World Cup competition was more than matched by the rise and rise of the number of imprisoned Korean trade unionists.

Corporate: Crash Landing
Did Ansett workers� productivity really crash Ansett? Jim McDonald weighs up the evidence.

Activists: The Refusenik
At 20, Rotem Mor has spent more time analysing how he will live his life than most people twice his age. A month in prison and another 18 serving in the Israeli army saw to that.

Review: Dumb Nation
Michael Moore's new book, 'Stupid White Men' exposes the rorts behind the Bush presidency with bitter humour, writes Mark Hebblewhite.

Poetry: Helping Out The Rich
From proposals to 'deregulate' (ie raise) university fees, to attempts to restrict workers' right to strike in the name of 'genuine' bargaining the Government's rhetoric about helping out the battlers is wearing just a bit thin.

N E W S

 Redundancy Bonus for Members Only

 Tax Office Backs CFMEU Case

 Lib MP Named in Cole Commission

 Sentencing Guidelines for Safety Breaches

 Revealed: Costello�s Hit List

 Virtual Cold War Over

 Safety Lock-Out Enters Second Week

 Unions Seek Talks With New Airport Owners

 Journos Attacked by NRMA

 Strip Bosses Face Dressing Down

 Beattie Called Into Bargaining Impasse

 Nurses Deliver Largest Ever Petition

 US Braces for its Own Waterfront War

 Activists Notebook

C O L U M N S

The Soapbox
Back to the Future
McKenzie Wark argues that the future of the book relies on the future of a sphere of public debate.

Bosswatch
Chain Reaction
The Big Australian discovers a uranium mine it never knew it had, a corporate fraud sparks a worldwide market plunge and the price of investing ethically.

The Locker Room
Three Colours Blue
After a World Cup that saw post-colonial cultural theorists chanting 'we beat the scum one-nil' on the Terraces of Inchon, it was the natural order of things that prevailed, writes Phil Doyle

Postcard
Poll Positioning
Unions Tasmania secretary Lynne Fitzgerald gives an overview of the State Election called earlier this week.

Week in Review
The Weight of Office
Apart from the Teflon John, power walking at his own pace, would-be leaders everywhere turned in shockers as Jim Marr discovered.

L E T T E R S
 Link Wages to CEO Pay
 Voodoo Unionism
 Good News from the Pilbara
 Go Mark, Go
 Double-Standards
WHAT YOU CAN DO
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Letters to the Editor

Double-Standards


Maybe I missed something last week but I really did think I heard Tony Abbott saying Mark Latham should curb his tongue when he speaks in the Australian Parliament and conduct himself in the same way the Liberal/National Party do!

Perhaps this means Abbott wants all employers exempted from 'unfair dismissal' laws. Perhaps it means Abbott and his 'Ultra Conservative' boys club should get bipartisan support in slandering High Court judges In conspiring to send mercenaries into factories to bust unions, bugging union phone lines to run election campaigns or just plain framing unionists for opposing the theft of jobs and replacement with labour hire companies.

Six Victorian unionists were this week indicted on charges of 'creating afray' and 'threatening murder' after an incident at the Victorian office of Skilled Engineering an organisation the sets itself up as an employment broker selling workers to employers on a day to day basis.

Following some very forthright negotiation between the two parties the police were called and the altercation settled. Now over eighteen months latter Tony Abbott has succeeded in having these unionist charged and threatened with long spells in jail. No doubt this particular matter will be raised in Tony Coles 'Spanish Inquisition' into the CFMEU.

How much more lunacy will the Australian population put up with before John First Strike Howard and Lou Abbott will be seen for the charlatans they are.

Stanley Howard


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