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Issue No. 143 05 July 2002  
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
 Lessons from Air Disaster
 Buggering the Bush
 The Great Giveaway
 Down and Out
 Why I hate Telstra
WHAT YOU CAN DO
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News

Shangri-La Workers Still Fighting


Several hundred Shangri-La Jakarta Indonesian hotel workers, locked out since December 2000, have received an important boost from the International Labour Organisation.

The ILO has called on the Indonesian Government "to take the necessary steps to ensure that the allegations of union-busting tactics on the part of the employer, particularly as concerns the condition of re-employment upon resignation from the union, are thoroughly investigated and if they prove to be true, to take the appropriate measures to remedy an effects of the anti-union discrimination for the workers and the union concerned."

Unions here in Australia have given active support to the hotel workers in Jakarta during this long campaign.

Unions have hosted delegations of workers from the Jakarta Shangri-la hotel visiting union members in Melbourne and Sydney; the ACTU leadership have sent strongly worded protest notes to the Indonesian government and to the hotel owners; protest rallies have been organised outside the Indonesian embassy and consulates; an LHMU Hotel Union organiser has visited the strikers in Jakarta to show support and we have provided financial support for the workers involved in this long dispute.

The Shangri-La Jakarta Hotel is part of an Asia-Pacific hotel chain owned by one of the richest men in Asia, Mr Robert Kuok, who is regularly listed in the business magazine Forbes as one of the world's top 100 billionaires.

The fundamental issue at the heart of the conflict is clear: Indonesia's sham industrial relations tribunal authorized the firing of 600 union members in May 2001 following the closure of the hotel and the lockout of the entire unionised workforce.

On March 26 this year the State Administrative High Court in Jakarta ruled, in an appeal case brought by the hotel workers' union that the mass sackings were illegal, thereby overturning the industrial tribunal decision authorizing the hotel to fire union members.

But in June 2002 this court decision has still not been acted upon - as the employer twists and turns with excuses about why they will not act.

The Indonesian hotel workers continue to hold regular rallies and demonstrations at the hotel and other venues.

They are determined to fight for their rights, for the reinstatement of the dismissed workers, and for recognition of their union. They continue to be attacked by scurrilous, at times violent methods.

As the ILO was meeting in Geneva, union members received anonymous letters implying that the union was seeking to destroy Indonesia's economy and sabotage the tourism sector.

The union immediately called a press conference to deny the coordinated smear campaign, emphasizing the peaceful and democratic nature of their principled struggle for democratic rights.

The tenacious fight for union rights at the Jakarta Shangri-La has won widespread international respect and admiration for the workers, who continue to fight against powerful opponents.

The conflict has become the most visible and best-publicized industrial dispute in Indonesia, with important implications for the country and the region.

>

Australian union activists can act now, and again show their support of the Shangri-La hotel workers.

Demand the re-instatement of these workers by clicking here. and filling out this protest form to Mr Robert Kuok, the owner of the Shangri-La hotel chain.

Read more about the Shangri-La hotel dispute

You can read more articles about this dispute and get a sense of the history of this dispute by clicking here.


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