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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WorkCover to Set Up Crimes Unit

Adressing the NSW Safety Summit this week, NSW Industrial Relations Minister John Della Bosca announced WorkCover would establish a unit to consider criminal prosecutions under existing criminal law.

Earlier, Labor Council secretary John Robertson had called for a specialist manslughter unit to spark the cultural change required to reduce workplace injuries.

"If we are serious about changing the culture of the workplace, we need to start using the big stick," Robertson said in his speech.

On news of the Della Bosca announcement, Robertson said it was a welcome development that would settle the issue of the need for a spearate crime of industrial manslaughter once and for all.

Broad Dialoguie on Safety

The summit - comprising union representatives, employers and OHS experts - agreed to a 40%-over-ten-years reduction target for workplace deaths.

Eleven industries were represented at the summit, breaking into working groups to discuss industry specific OHS issues, draft resolutions, recommendations and set improvement targets.

The forestry industry set a no-deaths-by-2007 target and made a preliminary resolution to establish a forest industry safety council by 1 October 2002.

That council would develop a framework for collecting workplace injury data, establish OHS performance benchmarks, and would investigate linking government investment to OHS outcomes.

Manufacturing industry proposals included a focus on supply chain issues. The workgroup proposed that the adequacy of current legislative provisions to protect outworkers and itinerant workers be reviewed. They said the review should also examine the employer's responsibility to know what work is occurring where, who is carrying it out and under what conditions.

The construction industry working group said the role and value of safety representatives, officers and committees should be reviewed and expanded to improve OHS outcomes.

They said the Victorian model should be considered in the review process. Other construction industry recommendations included the government examining whether it should include OHS requirements in the issuing of building licenses and include OHS performance as a condition of continued licence.

Many working groups also agreed on the importance of effective promotion of industry specific OHS responsibilities; rewarding good performance through reduced premiums; establishing industry tailored standards and/or guidelines for building and equipment design; and suggested using the school system to teach children from an early age how to work safely.

Della Bosca said that he and WorkCover would produce a comprehensive response within three months to the working groups' recommendations.

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Last Modified: 15 Nov 2005