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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.
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.
 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
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�
Lessons from Air Disaster
Buggering the Bush
The Great Giveaway
Down and Out
Why I hate Telstra
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Labor Council of NSW
Vic Trades Hall Council
IT Workers Alliance
Bosswatch
Unions on LaborNET
Evatt Foundation
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News
Gucci's Label Tarnished
Gucci fashion outlets have been targeted for their down-market labour practices with a colourful protest outside a Sydney CBD outlet.
Fifty union activists hit the centre of Sydney's elite shopping district to picket the Gucci store in Martin Place as part of the world-wide community campaign to support workers employed by Gucci's parent company Pinault-Printemps-Redoute (PPR).
The ACTU's Michael Crosby led the crowd in a round of chants and highlighted the need for international support for the PPR workers.
NSW Labor Council head John Robertson address the picket, highlighting that PPR's sales for 2001 were over $US 27 billion.
He told the story of a an employee of PPR in the US Northern Marina Islands who had her arm caught in a heat-sealing machine which had a faulty emergency stop button. By the time her co-workers were able to free her arm the machine had melted plastic at 350 C onto her right hand. However after the accident occurred the company didn't repair the machine nor did they stop using it.
Robertson went on to describe a pattern of denial of the rights of PPR workers globally. "This company are thugs, they refuse to accept their responsibilities to their employees and consumers of their products should be aware of these facts" Robertson said, "inside this store handbags, jewellery and clothing is sold for thousands of dollars, some items for tens of thousands of dollars yet they pay the people who produce these items as little as fifty cents a piece".
The action was part of a worldwide action against PPR over practices in India, Romania, Indonesia, Spain and the USA including low pay, poor safety, the use of child labour and preventing workers joining a union.
NSW Labor Council secretary John Robertson says it's important that Australian consumers are aware of the human stories behind fashion labels.
"While unionists may not be synonymous with Gucci fashion, we are encouraging the public to think about Gucci's labour practices before making a purchase," Robertson says.
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Issue 143 contents
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