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

WHAT YOU CAN DO

	About Workers Online
	Latest Issue
	Print Latest Issue
	Previous Issues
	Advanced Search

other LaborNET sites

Labor Council of NSW
Vic Trades Hall Council
IT Workers Alliance
Bosswatch
Unions on LaborNET
Evatt Foundation

Bad Bosses

It's this mentality that unions have always fought - the notion that you should be thankful to have a job and you should stop complaining if the conditions put on you are unreasonable.

Abbott's ham-fisted rhetoric is consistent with his party's labour market deregulation project: you don't need rules against bad bosses because then you might not have as many bosses.

For workers it's the ultimate Catch-22; yes, we all need to work - but is there a point when we are compelled to draw the line for our own sense of dignity?

Should call centre workers at Morrisey Malcom continue to tolerate bullying from their boss in a class-room environment because a bad boss is better than none at all?

Should electricians accept an edict from contractors that they can no longer take RDOs and spend time with their families because a bad boss is better than none at all?

Should workers at Non-Ferral continue driving fork-lifts carrying molten metal over potholes because a bad boss is better than none at all?

The answer is simple - there is a point where bosses go too far; there has always been a point. It is the point where workers get organised and act collectively.

The irony of the Cole Royal Commission is that many of the bosses lining up to condemn the perceived 'stand-over' tactics of union organisers are themselves bad bosses.

Overwhelmingly those making the accusations are cheating workers and the taxpayers, operating businesses that go in and out of liquidation to maximise returns and are not prepared to cooperate with workers on safety.

Like Tony Abbott, Commissioner Cole only wants to tell half the story, the story about the reaction of workers to the bad things bosses do. Without details of the initial provocation, his inquiry will never be anything but one-sided.

To balance the ledger, Workers Online reckons there should be a parallel inquiry into Bad Bosses, the excesses, the injustices, the rorts, the scams; all of which contribute to the indignity of working people.

The terms of reference would be "to gather evidence to determine whether bad bosses are making life misery for Australian workers and determine whether their practices are so outrageous that laws are required to control their excessive behaviour".

Because we haven't got a $60 million budget, the scope of our inquiry will be a little smaller, but we offer these humble web pages to any union with a story to tell about a Bad Boss.

Peter Lewis

Editor

  View entire issue - print all of the articles!

  Issue 143 contents

© 1999-2002 Workers Online
Workers Online is a resource for the Labour movement
provided by the Labor Council of NSW
URL: http://workers.labor.net.au/143/editorial_editorial.html
Last Modified: 15 Nov 2005