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Issue No. 146 26 July 2002  
E D I T O R I A L

Crean-ite Is Not A Dirty Word
Amongst the economic fundamentalists within Paul Keating's office, to be a Crean-ite was the ultimate insult. Today as their vision of an unregulated economic paradise gets the death wobbles, it should be worn as a badge of honour.

F E A T U R E S

Interview: Trans Tasman
The head of the New Zealand trade union movement, Paul Goulter, outlines the importance of this weekend's Kiwi elections

Cole-Watch: The Full Story
In 20 years mainstream journalism around New Zealand, the UK and Australia, Jim Marr has never witnessed anything like the Cole Royal Commission into the Building and Construction Industry.

Unions: The Right To A Life
In the wake of this week's Reasonable Hours decision, it�s time to once again civilise working time, writes Noel Hester.

Bad Boss: Phoenix Rising
Eddie Lombardo just noses out fellow Royal Commission star Ferdinando Sanna for this week�s Bad Boss nomination.

Politics: The Virtuous State
Following Tasmania's first position in The State of the States 2002, the ALP stormed home in the State poll, reports Christopher Sheil.

International: The Champions
They may be top of the world's football pile, but Brazil also has the dubious honour of 50 million living in poverty, writes Mark Weisbrot

History: Mandatory Mums
Women had been in revolt against �compulsory motherhood� for many years prior to the introduction of The Pill in the 1960s, Neale Towart discovers.

Corporate: Network Governance
A new way to govern public or private sector organisations is becoming urgent as society becomes more complex and dynamic, writes Shann Turnbull.

Review: Navigating The Doublespeak
How can you show a workforce the truth behind managerial doublespeak when the promise of big bucks is wooing them from their collective ideals? Offer them free tickets to Ken Loach's The Navigators and watch the penny drop.

Satire: Hector The Galah Found Hiding
Hector the Galah who was thought to have been stolen from West Ryde has been found hiding on the roof of a building in Surry Hills. He has resisted all attempts to capture him but when interviewed told the following story.

Poetry: Eight Days a Week
This week the Industrial Relations Commission came down with a decision in the reasonable hours case which, while a long way from what the ACTU wanted, could give a bit of steel to workers who want to take back what's theirs.

N E W S

 League to Blow Whistle on Sweat Shops

 Rados Shames Ruddock Into Action

 Virgin Contracts Spark Wage Rage

 Jobs, Cargo Sail Over Horizon

 Reasonable Hours Call to Arms

 Big Tobacco Turns to Union-Busting

 Athens Workers Pay Ultimate Price

 Cranes At Risk in �August Winds�

 Abbott�s Savings To Cost Workers

 Trades Hall Revamp On Track

 Top Nurse Bows Out

 Name Caller Back to Work

 Congo Unionists Need Help

 Activists Notebook

C O L U M N S

The Soapbox
Crossing the Divide
Former Liberal PM Malcolm Fraser made history addressing the AMWU national conference on an issue of mutual concern - the treatment of asylum seekers

The Locker Room
Lounge Named Best On Ground
The latest casualty of corporate sport is the loyal spectator on the hill, writes Phil Doyle

Postcard
Appeasing Morocco Is Dangerous
Kamel Fadel updates on the latest developments in West Sahara's battle for independence.

Week in Review
Save the Last Dance ...
Labor and the Democrats swap places for the next dance at the political tango, while across the ditch, those darned Kiwis show big brother how it�s done � again!

Bosswatch
Walls Come Tumbling Down
It was a week of carnage on the markets � and for a few former corporate high-fliers it was even uglier. Justice? Or just a system in decay?

L E T T E R S
 No Need To Import IT Workers
 Kangaroo Court Horrifies Reader
 Site Reunites Redundant Workers
 Carr Off Course
 The Banners of Greed
 Join The Party
 Shocks and Stares
WHAT YOU CAN DO
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Tool Shed

Chunder Buckets


Queensland Labor ministers Gordon Nuttal and Wendy Edmond have converted the Tool Shed into an emergency ward after spewing all over the state's nursing fraternity.

**********

It's a bit cosy in the Tool Shed this week. So outstanding has been the performance of a couple of Ministers in the Queensland Government during that State's recent nurses dispute that we thought they might like to spend a bit of time together in the shed comparing notes on how best to bucket workers.

And bucket is just the word in this case. Because when Queensland's Health Minister, Wendy Edmond, tried to play a bit of wedge politics by tipping a bucket - a chunder bucket, in fact - on university educated nurses the contents ended up all over her and in turn the State Government.

As for the efforts of the Queensland Industrial Relations Minister, and former TUTA tutor, Gordon Nuttall - well we'll come back to them.

The nurses' dispute was already running away from the Government, after Edmond left the State for a Labor ministers' pow pow in Darwin on the same day that the largest strike by nurses in Queensland history got under way.

Not content with this faux pax Edmond caused further embarrassment to the government when she accused many university-educated nurses of being too uppity to "wipe the brow" or "hold the chunder bucket". With his Health Minister spewing all over a popular group of workers in this way Premier Peter Beattie was forced to mop up the mess through a very public apology to the nurses of Queensland. Thankfully, as he was putting the mop back in the cupboard, he locked Edmond in with it for the remainder of the dispute.

That brought the Minister for Industrial Relations into the spotlight for the remaining weeks of the dispute - and things went from bad to worse, with one hapless attempt after another to avoid arbitration in the Australian Industrial Relations Commission.

Firstly, the former TUTA tutor regularly tried to insinuate that the QNU leadership was not representative of its members and even proposed sending a wages and conditions offer to a secret ballot without finalising negotiations with the QNU negotiating team.

When it was brought to his attention that this was a tactic that not even Joh Bjielke Peterson would have tried and that Queensland nurses were set to overwhelmingly reject the government's offer, he backed down and rushed into the AIRC for conciliation.

He then seemed to have trouble understanding the different between conciliation and arbitration (those courses he ran at TUTA must have blockbusters) and when the QNU exercised its legal and industrial right to reject the AIRC recommendations arising from the conciliation he again started frothing at the mouth.

Finally, in the ultimate victory of political spin over reality, when the QNU finally exhausted the Government's attempts to avoid arbitration this week he jumped in front of the cameras and lambasted the QNU for having to be dragged "kicking and screaming" into arbitration. What do you say? After a week in the Tool Shed, perhaps he will get a grip.



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