E D I T O R I A L

Bad Bosses
It could only come from Tony Abbott: an impassioned defence of bad bosses that manages to dismisses the experience of every worker who has ever been done over at work.

F E A T U R E S

Interview: Media Magnet
Labor's communications spokesman Lindsay Tanner on Telstra, pay TV, Murdoch and Packer and other media dilemmas.

Bad Boss: Abbott's Heroes
The first nominee in our Bad Boss quest is a man who runs his call centre as though it were a primary school classroom.

Technology: All in the Family
LaborNET's tentacles continue to spread with this week's launch of the New Zealand Council of Trade Union's site.

International: New Labour's Cracks
The British labour movement has plunged itself into another round of tit-for-tat insults flying between the Blair Government and the trade unions, reports Andrew Casey.

Economics: Virtuality Check
Is the Internet Bill Gates' guide to wealth and power or the key to liberation from alienation and corporate power? A new book weighs the arguments.

History: Necessary Utopias
Neale Towart looks at the impact of the Robens Report to argue that worker control of industry is where OHS should be heading.

Poetry: Let Me Bring Love
The Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations, the Honourable Tony Abbott, has made an offer that the Australian worker will find hard to resist: 'where there is hatred, let me bring love'.

Review: How Not To Get It Together
Together is a belated reminder that it takes more than high ideals and the right intentions to turn a commune into a community.

Satire: NZ, UK Added to Australia�s Migration Zone
In an effort to increase support for its plan to remove 30,000 islands from the Australian migration exclusion zone, the federal government has added New Zealand and England to the list of excluded islands.

N E W S

Revealed: The Evidence Cole Won�t Touch

Search for Bad Bosses Begins

WorkCover to Set Up Crimes Unit

Electricians Oppose Family-Busting Conditions

Blue-Collar Blokes Back Mat Leave

Murdoch Telegraphs Contracts Push

Abbot Changes Rules for �Employer Advocate�

Gucci's Label Tarnished

Funding Cuts Drives Academics Mad

Star City Casino Strike On The Cards

Chifley Planners Lose Benefits

Qantas Staff Sick of Shivering

Regional Councils Call Jobs Summit

Kiwi Ex-Pats Targeted for Poll Push

Shangri-La Workers Still Fighting

Korean Unionist Freed

Activists Notebook

C O L U M N S

The Soapbox
The Bush Telegraph
Telstra�s poor performance in the bush is not just about reception, argues the CEPU's Ian McCarthy

The Locker Room
The Tennis Racket
You would think that child labour would have gone the way of bus conductors and public telephones that work, but this is not necessarily the case, writes Phil Doyle.

Bosswatch
Capitalism in Crisis
The collapse of a US telco has sent shockwaves around the globe and undermined trust in a system that rewards hype and dishonesty.

Week in Review
Between the Sheets
This column is heartily sick of being called solid, reliable and old-fashioned so Jim Marr gets with the program and discovers this is, in fact, an up-and-down, in-and-out sort of world�

L E T T E R S

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The Tennis Racket

**************

The professional (I use the term loosely) football codes in this country are continually trying to source their talent pool from younger and younger potentates.

The end result is footballers washed up in their mid twenties.

This seemingly admirable youth development policy is incredibly short sited and is hardly fair on the kids concerned. What they ask of 18 year olds is verging on the ridiculous, and watching player agents circle like sharks at junior sporting carnivals is rather sad.

I think it is a bit rich to expect the nastiest of men, motivated by the nastiest of reasons, to work for the benefit of the most vulnerable of sports people.

Country football is littered with the cast-offs from the elite leagues. By and large most of these players have been treated appallingly, especially by the AFL, where the draft is little more than a glorified slave auction.

Mark Philippoussis turned out to be dud at the Wimbledon fiasco, which is a shame, the golden Greek had the Dutchman by the balls and let him off the hook. Failing to convert 11 break points didn't help.

Mark pulled a sickie during the Davis Cup a few years back and was roundly canned by the Australian Media. In the meantime Pat Rafter played while he was crook and put in a shocker. Rafter comes from Mount Isa, so you would think he has an understanding about the efficacy of stumping up to the boss with a medical certificate. Then again, when it comes to Australian tennis, Rafter always has been something of a company man, unlike Lleyton Hewitt, who - like so many other middle class brats - is only really in it for himself.

Lleyton's dummy spit brought back memories of that great commentator on the gentleman's game, John McEnroe.

Music industry sources in Adelaide informed this column of Johnny the M's big comeback at Memorial Drive a few years back.

The night before his semi final appearance he appeared at the source's nightclub with a blonde partner who was not Tatum O'Neil. Pissed on scotch, he joined the source in the nightclub office for 'a doobie of hydroponically grown purple light skunk'. McEnroe walked straight out onto the techno-pumping dance floor. He emerged from the dance floor later appearing 'dazed, confused, bewildered and lost'. He staggered blindly 20 feet to the bar where he took off his baseball cap and threw up in it.

According to club policy he was then kicked out

The following day he lost the semi-final in straight sets.

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Last Modified: 15 Nov 2005