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Issue No. 142 | 28 June 2002 |
Safety First
Interview: Safe as Houses Safety: Ten Steps to Safety History: Staying Alive Unions: Choose Life International: Seoul Destroyers Corporate: Crash Landing Activists: The Refusenik Review: Dumb Nation Poetry: Helping Out The Rich
Redundancy Bonus for Members Only Lib MP Named in Cole Commission Sentencing Guidelines for Safety Breaches Revealed: Costello�s Hit List Safety Lock-Out Enters Second Week Unions Seek Talks With New Airport Owners Strip Bosses Face Dressing Down Beattie Called Into Bargaining Impasse Nurses Deliver Largest Ever Petition US Braces for its Own Waterfront War
The Soapbox Bosswatch The Locker Room Postcard Week in Review
Voodoo Unionism Good News from the Pilbara Go Mark, Go Double-Standards
Labor Council of NSW |
News Lib MP Named in Cole Commission
The Cole Royal Commission this week heard evidence that Joanna Gash was a central player in an anti-union crusade which South Coast Labor Council secretary Arthur Rorris said had built a �climate of fear� in the Shoalhaven region. Wollongong-based CFMEU organiser Peter Primmer told the Royal Commission that Gash made it her business to ring contractors; promote preferred subcontractors and interfere in contractual arrangements. Speaking outside the commission, Primmer and fellow Wollongong organiser Mick Kane, said Gash had orchestrated an attempt to keep unions out of the Shoalhaven building industry. Central to her strategy, they claimed, had been the willing involvement of the controversial Office of the Employment Advocate. "She put the OEA onto me and had them follow me around for more than a month," Primmer said. "We have no doubt she has used her position to organise Nowra builders against the CFMEU. She has encouraged AWAs and non-union agreements that disadvantage workers in her own electorate." Kane said Nowra-based Ganderton Earthmoving, who gave evidence before the Commission, had just transferred AWA employees onto a non-union agreement without essentially changing the terms. Features of the Ganderton non-union deal include... - 50 hours a week at normal rates - no accrual of sick leave - no rostered days off In earlier evidence, Primmer said there had been an attempt to run him down with a motorcycle and a "boss" had struck him with a steel girder as he went about promoting trade unionism. Rorris told Workers Online that workers had been intimidated out of making health and safety complaints against employers. Meanwhile, two men were taken away from the Royal Commission for Federal Police questioning after allegedly threatening another CFMEU organiser, David Kelly. Mr Kelly said the threat had been made while he was sitting in the Royal Commission public gallery. The comments - "you'd better watch out for yourself, you'd better be careful" - were directed at him after he gave evidence. They were witnessed by a third party, understood to be a lawyer, who also spoke to Federal Police.
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