E D I T O R I A L

The Lotto Economy
The failure of George W Bush's much-hyped pitch for corporate responsibility underlines the current crisis facing unregulated global capitalism: the system is corrupting all before it.

F E A T U R E S

Interview: Capital in Crisis
ACTU president Sharan Burrow outlines the global union response to the corporate carnage gripping an increasingly shaky system.

Industrial: No Sweat
Neale Towart surveys the international debate around sweatshops and what can be done to regulate them

Bad Boss: Super Spam
Several late scratchings have seen Workplace Relations Department secretary Peter Boxall win this week’s heat of the Workers’ Online Bad Boss handicap.

History: Living Treasures
Labour History is 40 this year. Greg Patmore looks back at what it took to get a regular journal of the labour movement in Australia up and away.

International: Axis of Evil
George W Bush’s scarecrow trio of Iran, Iraq and North Korea is not an original invention, argues Stephen Holt

Solidarity: Pride of Place
NSW Labor Council and CFMEU flags sit alongside the mounted jersey of former Kiwi Rugby League hooker Syd Eru in a modest home at Manurewa, south Auckland.

Technology: The Art of Cyber-Unionism
More Unionism? Transformed Unionism? Peter Waterman looks at a new handbook for unions and the internet

Poetry: The Masochism Tango
Tony Abbott's comment we should accept a bad boss like a bad husband or bad father has made us all realise that instead of fighting bad bosses, we should love them. Anyone for a tango?

Satire: Foxtel-Optus Merger 'Anti-Repetitive'
The ACCC has ruled today that the proposed content sharing arrangement between Foxtel and Optus Vision would constitute anti-repetitive conduct

Review: Bob Carr's Thoughtlines
Stephen Holt reviews one man's journey from collectivism to the centre

N E W S

Sweat Shops – Coming To A Street Near You

Glassworkers Walk for the Umpire

Family Friendly For A Buck

Abbott in Slow GEER

Royal Commission Bugs Workers

Drivers Frozen Out by Corporate Spin

Coca-Cola Brews Storm In A Tea Cup

Bush Prepares for War on the Wharves

Safety Summit A Hit With Unions

Beattie Faces Bargaining Face-Off

Casual Work Exploits – Catholic Church Agency

More Effort Required On Disabled Workers

Protecting Security Officers From Disease

Activists Notebook

C O L U M N S

The Soapbox
Why Modernisation Matters
Labor frontbencher Mark Latham argues that the ALP's reform agenda must go way beyond the 60-40 debate.

The Locker Room
Playing To The Whistle
Phil Doyle takes a look at the man in the middle, and he doesn’t like what he sees.

Bosswatch
Inquiry Into Executive Pay
The ACTU Executive this week called for a public debate on spiralling executive pay packets, seeking feedback from workers, community representatives and unions.

Postcard
Up In Smoke
Wobbly Radio's Nick Luccinelli reports from England where drug law reform is on the political agenda.

Week in Review
Bulldust and Boofheads
Jim Marr casts his eye over a week in which bullshit and bad bosses fought for headlines…

L E T T E R S

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Bush Prepares for War on the Wharves

The Maritime Union of Australia says Bush is lending strong support to shipowners' efforts to dismantle effective international trade unionism, targeting the International Longshoremen and Warehouse Union as part of an intense bid to further downgrade conditions of employment for dockworkers.

The ILWU is now facing an "enormous potential threat", according to the Maritime Union of Australia, which is urging NSW unions to show solidarity during the coming struggle.

MUA central NSW branch secretary Robert Coombs says the ILWU gave "tremendous support to Australian maritime workers during the Patrick dispute, including their action against the 'Columbus Canada' where the scab-loaded vessel was sent back to New Zealand during the dispute to be discharged and loaded again by union labour".

Unionists are invited to send emails of support to the ILWU at: [email protected]

Not Immigration Officials

Transport workers should not be expected to be immigration officers when confronted with asylum seekers attempting to cross borders, a meeting of European transport trade unionists heard this week.

At a meeting convened by the International Transport Workers' Federation

(ITF), trade union delegates from France, Belgium and the UK met to discuss

the particular problem of asylum seekers attempting to cross the English

Channel by rail link, but delegates from maritime, railway and airline

unions also contributed their experiences.

Delegates expressed concern that states, like the UK, imposed fines on

transport companies if asylum seekers managed to cross borders using their

transport. To avoid fines, companies have asked their employees to prevent

asylum seekers boarding, effectively making them immigration officers. In

road transport, sometimes fines have been passed onto workers themselves.

Delegates also said the safety and well being of transport workers was being

put at risk. Some had had to witness horrific accidents involving asylum

seekers attempting to board transport. Others had been threatened by

desperate asylum seekers fearing their attempt to cross a border would be

prevented.

The meeting heard that it was a failure of governments to deal effectively

and humanely with asylum seekers that was contributing to problems for

transport workers.

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Last Modified: 15 Nov 2005