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Downer and his PM have been leading the charge to soften public opinion ahead of war with Iraq, making the hawks in the Bush Administration appear positively restrained. With international opinion turning against invasion without the backing of the United Nations, Australia now stands alone in advocating such unilateral conflict. The fighting words are now hitting back with Iraq this week canceling $800 million in wheat sales. In a region where we are already infamous for allowing Mid-East refugees drown at sea and locking up children in desert jails, we are also wearing the unenviable tag of yankie cheermaster.
When Simon Crean pointed out the link between Downer's Rambo words and the loss of wheat sales, he was accused of being unpatriotic. This personal attack left Downer in the position where he had politicised the most basic of national issues - whether we should go to war with a another nation. Then again, this comes as no surprise from a government that has shown its preparedness to politicize immigration, race and the plight of asylum seekers.
Unlike the Gulf war, Australia is backing a US offensive that appears likely to take place without the approval of the United Nations. Under the situation during the Hawke era, Australia is no longer regarded as a good international citizen. Our government belittles UN reports into our detention centers; it refused to join the international effort to combat global warning, it won't even sign up to a convention against torture. Under Downer we have become a global pariah thanks to a government that has seemed desperate to erase Paul Keatings Big Picture ever since it stole power.
The whole episode reminds us one of the more bizarre moments in the days immediately following September 11. Remember the Taliban spokesman in Pakistan who held daily press briefings as the Americans prepared to come in and run over the top of them. Desperate for a local angle, one ABC reporter was determined to get a local angle. "What was the Taliban's reaction to news that Australia would be backing the Amercians?" The po-faced emissary breaks into giggles, then outright laughter. The Amercians are coming to crush us and you ask us what we think about Australia?
It sums up the arrogance of Australia's international position. As we turn our backs on our international obligations, dodge around new global initiatives and basically behave like the Trailer Trash of the international community, we posture as if our pronouncements hold any weight at all. Downer's excesses this week were just a symptom of a government that has turned reaction into an art form, with no coherent visions for Australia's place in the world. After all, when you spend your time in the parts of George W Bush where the sun don't shine, its hard to see anything clearly.
Awarding its uniforms supply tender to Victoria�s Dowd Group, it is understood the company won the tender on the basis that clothing products would be imported from overseas.
In an earlier letter sent to all suppliers, the airline blamed the Sept 11 tragedy for "contracting international activity" to a degree that it has been forced to focus on "global efficiencies" when considering applications to supply its uniforms.
Qantas stated that as a result of the "turmoil" it would be assessing both the domestic and international markets during its review of clothing product supply services.
The about-face comes just two years after signing an agreement with the TWU and the TCFUA that committed the airline to ending the exploitation of outworkers involved in the manufacture of its uniforms.
At the time unions were heartened by QANTAS' apparent commitment to fighting against the exploitation of the nation's clothing workers.
The mood has now changed to disgust at the airline's continued insistence for marketing purposes that it "still calls Australia home" while it is busy siphoning away Aussie jobs.
"It seems that QANTAS is reportedly willing to spend six million dollars on advertising to 'Still Call Australia Home' - but somehow this same massive corporation cannot find the money to support Australian clothing workers whose families fly on QANTAS and promote its image," according to TCFUA state secretary Barry Tubner.
Even worse, the airline has tried to distract attention from its "venal corporate self-interest, which motivates this new clothing supply policy, by wrapping its policy in the mantle of the Sept 11 tragedy", he says.
More Strike Action
Meanwhile, nearly 6,000 Qantas staff will stage a nationwide strike for 24 hours on Monday 19 August 2002 to support their claim for job security at the airline, according to the Australian Services Union.
The strike will involve staff in check-in and telephone sales, freight, information technology, load control, catering, operations, administration and finance, engineering and maintenance, Qantas Holidays and Business Travel.
ASU Assistant National Secretary Linda White says job security has emerged as a key sticking point in negotiations with Qantas for a new Enterprise Bargaining Agreement.
"Qantas is posting record profits, but won't guarantee job security," Ms White says. "In fact, Qantas want their employees to compete for their own jobs every five years in a bizarre process of competitive tendering.
"No job will be safe as workers race to the bottom to keep their jobs."
White says Qantas workers had proven their commitment to the airline last year by freezing wages to maintain profitability in the wake of the September 11 induced downturn. She said it was galling that Qantas now refused to reciprocate this commitment by providing job security to staff.
Qantas posted a $597 million profit in 2000/01, and is expected to post a profit next week of around $630 million for the financial year 2001/02.
Australian Services Union delegate Paul Morris was hauled before management for 'misguided behaviour� including accusations he provided inaccurate information to his staff about their Australian Workplace Agreement.
The comparison by the Australian Services Union between the Clerical and Administrative Award and the Australian Workplace Agreement covering Virgin Mobile's call centre reveals a discrepancy of up to $4000 per annum.
Morris addressed the NSW Labor Council in July over the issue, raising other issues including that in order to have AWA's signed at Virgin employees believed they were harassed to sign the pattern Australian Workplace Agreements. The matter is currently with the Employment Advocate to determine this claim.
ASU state secretary Michael Want says that since that time Morris has been officially warned for:
- 'misusing the Internet'
- 'distributing misleading information'
- sending an email to management suggesting a consultative committee be set up
The ASU has launched action in the NSW Industrial Relations Commission to have the threatened dismissal withdrawn.
"Paul is a good, active delegate and it's outrageous that Virgin put his job on the line," Want says.
Send Paul a message of support at mailto: [email protected]
Call Centre Managers Do Best
Meanwhile, its been revealed that call centre bosses' median base salaries had risen by 23.2% during a year which saw staff at call centres only 3.82% better off. The workers' increase was down 68% on last year's rise.
The bosses have now been accused of funding their own rises by syphoning away at the wages and conditions of workers via unfair AWAs.
The ASU clerical and administrative branch says greed has steadily crept into executive salaries over the past two years, with many of them setting their own pay rises.
It says examples like Virgin Mobile, where workers are being paid under award levels, should be investigated by the Employment Advocate.
Meanwhile, it is calling for salary increases to be distributed more evenly across the call centre sector to all staff.
Attorney General Bob Debus has told Workers Online he's received advice from the Crown Solicitor that the Constitution precludes the states making legislation with respect to email.
"The framers of the Constitution did not consider the issue of emails, and, frankly, I envy them," Debus said.
But he's seeking a second legal opinion and says if the state laws are invalid he will put a proposition to the Commonwealth through the Standing Committee of Attorneys General (SCAG) the have the matter addressed nationally.
If that opinion rejects the initial advice, Debus says he'll include the email provisions in legislation to go to state Parliament before the end of the year.
The NSW Law Reform report into Privacy recommended the government legislate a code covering email surveillance modeled on the existing Video Surveillance Act. It outlaws covert surveillance unless an employer can show reasonable grounds to suspect wrongdoing before snooping on workers.
Email protection has been one of the key commitments made to the union movement by Premier Bob Carr at this year's Labor Council Annual General Meeting.
New Workplace Rights Package
Regardless of the outcome of the email legal advice, Debus has vowed to conasolidate all existing laws on workplace privacy into a single piece of legislation.
Debus says the legislation would incorporate the "best bits" of the Listening Devices Act, and the Workplace Video Surveillance Act, while addressing some the areas that currently don't work so well.
"That new legislation, which I hope to bring forward in the next session of Parliament, will cover areas like tracking devices, the idea of participant monitoring, complaint handling procedures," Debus says.
"We could also say some more about strengthening the requirements concerning hidden cameras that are already otherwise covered."
Now known as the Stadacona, the vessel was at the centre of a dispute with maritime unions in May when the ship�s Australian registration was transferred to the Bahamas and its Australian crew replaced by Ukrainian seafarers.
Evidence to the Federal Court in April stated that the Ukrainian seafarers' wages were $19,600 a year compared to $52,100 a year for Australians.
The Stadacona is carrying cement materials for Queensland Cement Limited (QCL), a wholly-owned subsidiary of Swiss-based multinational Holcim Ltd. Protesters are expected to greet the ship after it docks at Melbourne's Fisherman's Bend wharf.
ACTU President Sharan Burrow says unions want Australian companies to stand up for Australian jobs by supporting shipping companies that employ Australian seafarers and comply with Australian wage, tax, safety, environment and immigration laws.
"QCL says it is committed to being a good neighbour and caring about the communities in which it operates, but it is using a flag-of-convenience ship that has replaced Australian seafarers with a foreign crew on lower wages."
Burrow says Australia's merchant shipping industry is being wiped out by the Federal Government's policy of allowing more flag-of-convenience ships like the Stadacona onto domestic trading routes.
"Countries like Britain and the US act to limit the use of flag-of-convenience ships, but the Howard Government is issuing more and more permits for these vessels to work in Australia with low-wage foreign labour," Burrow says.
"Federal Transport Minister John Anderson could solve the problem by refusing to issue voyage permits to flag-of-convenience ships like the Stadacona, which do not have to pay Australian wages or taxes while working in Australia.
Furious, at being invalided out of an industry he had served for 20 years without any compensation, Gillespie decided to spill the beans on �systematic and widespread corruption� amongst steel fixing companies.
He presented at the Royal Commission, in Goulburn St, Sydney, on Friday, July 12, armed with names, addresses and dates.
Gillespie told Workers Online he was interviewed, on site, by commission investigator, Andrew Russell.
"I had information about tax evasion, workers compensation fraud and other corruption I had experienced, first hand," Gillespie said. "But it goes right across the industry and costs taxpayers millions of dollars every year.
"I went to the commission to tell them how they could wipe it out and clean up the industry. It's something I've thought about a lot since I was put on the scrap heap by employers who didn't pay workers comp levies.
"But they weren't interested at all. They told me they were only really interested in corrupt union officials."
Gillespie says steel fixing could be cleaned up in a matter of months.
On every major site, he says, principal contractors keep meticulous records to cover themselves. Workers from all sub-contractors go through site inductions and, most times, have to sign-in every day they are on site.
The fix the commission didn't want to know about would see authorities:
- gather up the induction forms to identify the steel fixers
- cross check the daily numbers against the head counts done by the builder
- inspect the steel fixer's books and, Gillespie says, you will find "without fail" that the figures don't tally
- cross reference your findings against the sub contractor's records and "you still won't find any records most of these blokes".
- finally, check the steel fixer's claimed employees against how much steel he has placed, according to the contract.
In an unprecedented move, the AIRC this week called on the Federal and State Parliaments to correct the discrimination of the Howard Governments industrial laws as they applied to Victorian workers.
In its decision on the 2002 Victorian State Wages Case the Full Bench of the AIRC acknowledged that Victorian workers without a federal award were disadvantaged when compared to Federal Award workers in the State and all other workers in Australia.
The AIRC also found that its hands are tied in seeking to adequately correct this disadvantage by the current Federal industrial relations laws and encouraged the bringing forward of legislation to address this disadvantage.
The Bracks Government has recently announced that it will bring forward legislation in the spring session of Parliament to allow comprehensive federal award conditions and allowances to apply to all non-federal award workers in Victoria.
Liberals Must Help
Secretary of the Victorian Trades Hall Council, Leigh Hubbard called on the Liberal Party at both federal and state levels to also acknowledge this discrimination and agree to implement the sensible proposals of the Bracks Government.
Victorian workers without the refuge of a federal award are regulated under Schedule 1A and Part XV of the Commonwealth Workplace Relations Act 1995 and are guaranteed only a minimum rate of pay and four other minimal conditions: four weeks annual leave, five days sick leave, unpaid parental leave, notice upon termination.
Latest figures show that 1.1 million Victorians are subject to at least the twenty allowable matters of federal awards, while approximately 560,000 Victorians are entitled to the inferior conditions of Schedule 1A. Around 230,000 of them receive only the minimum hourly rate of pay and the four other conditions.
'Most Schedule 1A workers do not have access to overtime rates, public holiday penalties, shift allowances, paid parental leave, carers leave, jury service leave, bereavement leave or many of the other conditions of employment all other workers in Australia take as a given," Hubbard says.
The AIRC decision today granted the flow-on of the recent $18 per week Living Wage Case increase in federal awards to Victorian workers with an operative date of 9 August 2002, one week earlier than the operative date last year.
For a number of technical reasons the AIRC rejected a VTHC claim for $25 per week (compared to the $18) to partially compensate for the disadvantage suffered by these Victorian workers.
The workers, part of the Miggins Group were told this week the company had gone into liquidation. But they have already received $12,000 in entitlements protected by NEST.
NEST executive director Andrew Whilley says the speedy payout is testimony to the value of a workers' trust.
"NEST has delivered 100 per cent of the members entitlements within 24 hours of their company going bust," Whilley says.
"Those workers who are not covered by the scheme have a much longer wait before Tony Abbott dips into the public purse to give them something back from their bodgey scheme."
The beneficiaries of the scheme are holding a raffle to raise money for their colleagues not covered by the Trust. NEST is provided the prizes.
Queensland Council of Unions Assistant General Secretary Chris Barrett says the government has come out saying that wage claims on behalf of union members will inevitably lead to increases in tax to fund the increases. "This is a simplistic equation that masks some major issues," Barrett says. "The debate about tax in Queensland is about more than just the government paying fair wages to its employees, it's all about how the government funds public services in Queensland into the future." He says the public sector union campaigns have highlighted:
The action coincides with the expiry date of the NSW Government's emergency funding bandaid for the sector. Those most in need will then be left to their own devices.
After September 30 more than 50 vital community organisations will be forced to close their doors or will only be able to operate with dramatically stripped back services.
Included in the casualties is Redfern's neighbourhood centre at The Block, which has had to close down because it is unable to meet its public liability insurance costs.
The highly successful William Booth drug treatment centre will no longer be able to offer counselling to people in need, Tempsey Women's Refuge can no longer meet its running costs, and the Armidale Legal Centre is now unable to offer outreach services.
In the week leading up to the event SACS workers will leave messages on their workplace and mobile answering machines telling callers their service will be closed for strike action due to threats of closure.
The decision, by Liftronics, will put further heat into the Electrical Trade Union members' bid to secure an industry standard of four weeks for each year of service.
The 72 hour stoppage left residential, public sector and commercial buildings across Sydney facing long delays.
Liftronic is responsible for repairing lifts in Meriton apartments, Westfield shopping centres and Nepean Hospital.
Electrical Trades Union organiser Matt McCann says the decision to lock the workers out reeks of payback.
"Management are upping the stakes while refusing to recognise they are the unreasonable party," McCann says. "All we are asking for is the same level of protection Liftronics is paying its Victorian workforce."
McCann says that the recent spate of company collapses has left workers more determined than ever to have decent retrenchment protections.
A new Award clause has been inserted into the Local Government (State) Award 2001 which means that Union Picnic Day will now only be a holiday for financial members of the Union.
According to MEU General Secretary Brian Harris it is an issue that has been a concern to many members for some time. "This is a great victory for the Union and our members. Union Picnic Day is more than just a day off or the chance to spend some time with your family. It is a day when we can celebrate with other union members the achievements that your union membership has delivered in the past and will continue to deliver for a better future," said Brian Harris.
The new Award variation was approved by Justice Schmidt in the Industrial Relations Commission on August 13th 2002. The new variation meets the requirements of the Anti-Discrimination Act and the Freedom of Association provisions of the legislation.
"Now, rather then being a day off for all, Union Picnic Day can be celebrated for the right reasons - giving employees with a common interest and goal the opportunity to gather together socially to promote a spirit of unity," said Brian
This is a national campaign run by the Community & Public Sector Union and its eight affiliated branches - PSA in NSW, CPSUV in Victoria, QPSU in Queensland, SAPSA in South Australia, CPSU/CSA in Western Australia, CPSU/SPSFT in Tasmania, CPSU/PSU in ACT and Northern Territory.
Posters, brochures and stickers are being sent to members in all schools and members are being urged to stage local events to get the message across to the school and wider communities.
The first recognition week was last year. The idea arose from a national conference of school delegates held in Brisbane in 2000. That conference was also a first.
Last year's recognition week was a major success - the members were delighted that they and their work were valued.
Here are a few short extracts from the many letters that members sent to PSA President Sue Walsh.
Batemans Bay: " ... We put an item in our school newsletter and sent the same article to the local newspaper which was published (their typos, not ours!)
" ... I even rang Macca (Australia All Over on Sunday Morning) but because I hadn't sent him anything beforehand (which I didn't think to do but will know next time) ... he couldn't give us time on his programme.
" ... At first I was a bit reluctant to do anything. SASS [School Administrative & Support Staff] are far too modest - then I thought about our work review and how our jobs are changing so quickly and I thought we should get out there and insist on being recognised as an important part of the school environment".
North Curl Curl: "Our school staff have been wonderful - chocolates all round and a special lunch. And have not stopped thanking us
Woodberry: "What a blast. It has been the best week you could imagine. Not only has it been good for our morale (which was a little low) it has also bought [our] team together and we have had lots of laughs.
" ... We also arrived to school to find portraits of all the support staff which had been done the previous week by a year 4 class. Fantastic.
"Each staff member was given a fabulous 'huge' card which each school staff member had written something 'good' about each of us as well as what we can do well. Great for the self-esteem.
"Two competitions were run and prizes given.... A huge lunch ... of course we didn't have to pay .... We all feel $1 million. A fantastic week".
Goulburn: "This morning we had an entire school assembly and the P&C attended and presented all ladies with flowers and the males with fruit baskets.
"We have had a great week. As one of the teachers aides commented 'I have been here for 15 years and it is the first time my work has been recognised'."
Belmont North: "The SASS staff ... received recognition -
� in the weekly School Newsletter ...
� Teachers provided us with a fabulous morning tea ...
� the Principal also presented each of us with a certificate in recognition of our contribution at the weekly staff meeting".
Bankstown: "I would like to congratulate you on instigating this Recognition Week that has been successfully undertaken and received by the executive and teaching staff of the school. It would ... be advantageous to celebrate this [school support] Recognition Week on an annual basis".
Beauty Point: [We] ... "were invited into both infants and primary assembly. The children were asked if they knew what we did and to tell us the different jobs they knew about. They then thanked us ... "
Beacon Hill: "Our SASS all felt very special ... we were personally thanked at a staff meeting ... followed by a gourmet luncheon ... we arrived at our desks to be greeted by a long stemmed red rose ... I have to say that I have been the Senior School Assistant here for five years and in that time have always been shown appreciation by teaching staff and executive. They use a warmth and friendliness at the school which I feel you could go a long way to find in an workplace.'
Holroyd: "We produced a quiz "How well do you know us?" and distributed it to teachers. It contained 30 general and trivia questions about SAS in the school. The winner received a prize which was donated by the Principal."
Keiraville: "I made badges with our new badge maker and we have been wearing the proudly for the whole week."
Kirrawee: "Our spirits are high - when is the next SASS recognition week?"
Cooma: "I wrote an article and placed it in the local paper along with a photograph. The teachers put on a beautiful morning tea for the SASS staff. I placed a display in our front foyer of photographs and posters."
Each of the state unions have organised industrial activities in comjunction with the celebration. For instance PSA NSW has written to every member asking them to partake in a recruitment competition.
We are looking forward to another successful week.
The CPSU and the state public services union have also had recognition campaigns for Police Support Staff - the Strength Behind the Force -- and University General Staff -- Can't Work Without Us. These campaigns were also much appreciated by members.
The three campaigns have occurred in sectors where the public focus is on others - the teachers, police officers, academics and students. These co-workers gave our members great support. The campaigns have lifted the morale and profile of the support staff.
The event, which is being organised in association with Bungabura productions, will feature Leah Purcell's debut movie Black Chicks Talking.
Black Chicks Talking gathers together the stories of five prominent Indigenous women, including Secret Life of Us star Deborah Mailman and Katherine Hay, the first Aboriginal Miss Australia.
South Sydney Leagues Club will host the event, which will also feature a performance by Indigenous girl band the Stiff Gins.
Time: 7pm to 10pm
Date: Wed 21 August
Venue: South Sydney Leagues Club - Showbiz Room
Details: Phone Cara at the Refuge Resource Centre (02) 9698 9777
Gustavo Montealegre Almario, an independent MP representing a region of Southern Colombia, is in Australia as a guest of the CFMEU, on a speaking tour informing Australians about the situation in his homeland.
Incredibly, death threats addressed to Mr. Montealegre have rolled off the CFMEU fax machine from Colombia even after Mr. Montealegre's arrival in Australia.
Mr. Montealegre opposes the US funded war on the rebel group FARC and supports trade unionism and workers rights. This is enough in Colombia to get you killed.
Colombia has the dubious distinction of being the country with the highest murder rate of trade unionists in the world.
Bin Ladin in the Suburbs Presented by the NSW Fabians
====================
The New Moral Panic Against Muslims and Arabs
When : Wednesday 21st August, 6pm for 6.30pm sharp start
Where: Berkelouw Books, 70 Norton Street, Leichhardt
Cost : $10/$5 for Fabians
The topic to be discussed is the recent backlash against Australian of Muslim background in the wake of September 11th, the Federal Government's Border Protection and Refugee detention policy, and the longstanding debate about "Lebanese Youth gangs' in Sydney's West, lately fanned by the trial of a number of young men found guilty of rape.
with
Paula Abood
Refugee and Arabic Community Activist, Writer and Academic
Scott Poynting
Co-author of Kebabs, Kids, Cops and Crime and Associate Professor, Centre for Cultural Research, University of Western Sydney.
Omeima Sukkarieh
Arabic Community Worker, Western Sydney
For further information: [email protected]
*****************
THE PRICE OF PROSPERITY: HOW UNEMPLOYMENT COSTS US DEARLY
A seminar presented by the Don Dunstan Foundation and the Academy of Social Sciences
Tuesday 3 September, 5.30-7.30 pm,
NSW Parliament House Theatrette, Macquarie Street
While our leaders celebrate Australia's 'economic miracle', unemployment, particularly long-term unemployment, has become a permanent feature of Australia's economic landscape and needs to be put back on the policy agenda. A must for all those working with the unemployed or interested in policy.
Speakers:
PROFESSOR PETER SAUNDERS, Fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences, Director of the Social Policy Research Centre, University of New South Wales. Overview
PROFESSOR BRUCE CHAPMAN, Professor of Economics and Director, Centre for Economic Policy Research, Australian National University. Youth Unemployment
DR BOYD HUNTER, Fellow of the Centre for Aboriginal Economic Policy Research at the Australian National University. Costs of indigenous unemployment
DR DON WEATHERBURN, Director, NSW Bureau of Crime Statistics and Research. Impact on crime
Venue: The Theatrette NSW Parliament House, Macquarie Street
(on-site parking not available as Parliament is sitting.
Domain Parking open until 10pm)
Bookings essential: phone 1300 131 501 (Gabrielle Simpson at Simpson's
Management Services) or email [email protected]
***************************
Sept 11
Does listening to the news overwhelm you?
In the face of world events, how do we maintain optimism and hope?
Community services workers
celebrating stories of hope and change
An interactive forum
where community workers can discuss their role in the promotion of peace, social justice and anti -racism.
Date: 11 Sept 2002
Venue: Great Hall, Tower Building- UTS, near Central Railway Station
Time: 9.30am - 3.00pm
Cost: $25 (includes lunch)
Contributors include:
Dorothy McRae McMahon
Retired minister of the Uniting Church
activist, writer & 1988 Australian Human Rights Medallist
Stuart Rees
Emeritus Professor & Director of the Centre for Peace and Conflict Studies
Contact Beate, Gabi or Paula on 9281 8822 for more info Email : [email protected]
For more information go to: www.acwa.asn.au/changeforum.html
Jointly convened by the Centre for Community Welfare Training (CCWT) and the Centre for Popular Education, UTS
Who's Lying about the Clothing Industry?
The Big Lie is that all outworkers in the clothing industry receive $13 per hour. Is there more truth from the mouth of one Vietnamese boss who is benefiting from the exploitation of outworkers, as Miranda Devine claims in her opinion piece today, than in years of formal research and
public inquiries?
The Fair Wear campaign was launched after the Federal Senate Inquiry into Outwork in the clothing industry and an extensive two month multi-lingual outworker phone-in revealed extensive exploitation of outworkers in the clothing industry.
In the subsequent NSW Pay Equity Inquiry the commissioner went into outworkers' homes and heard directly about rates of pay between $2 and $5 per hour. This is supported in subsequent research by Mayhew and
Quinlan into outworkers' occupational health and safety; and the Federal Clothing Award simplification case. Just to name a few.
Fair Wear does not deny that some outworkers receive rates of pay closer to their award entitlements, but this is the exception to the rule.
Fair Wear is an active and committed member of the NSW Ethical Clothing Trades Council, where we are working with industry players to develop a workable system for addressing the exploitation. Positive developments are occurring in this process and Fair Wear is pleased to be part of it.
The Institute of Public Affairs report appears to be a desperate attempt to stop regulation which the clothing industry itself acknowledges is necessary. It is the IPA report that is being produced over and over again to justify a lie which in reality cannot stand up to the huge body of evidence that contradicts it.
Debbie Carstens
Chairperson, NSW Fair Wear
****************
Miranda Devine should have examined the evidence better before she wrote her article attacking Fairwear.
Ms Devine does not consider the evidence that is available to support the TCFU and Fairwear claims. In 1999, when the Australian Industrial Relations Commission heard a case about whether certain clauses should be kept in the award, the evidence of the TCFU was conceded and there was no cross examination. Part of that evidence was about wages and conditions. Part was about the violence and intimidation that outworkers experience in the industry. None of the evidence was contested, even when one shocked Commissioner questioned whether the reported intimidation really goes on in Australia. All parties, including the government and the suppliers conceded the evidence as true. Evidence about outworkers has also been tested and accepted by a senate committee inquiry.
The Uniting Church in Australia is one of the organizations that funds Fairwear. This is public knowledge through our website and reports. We see Fairwear as an important campaign about a fundamental issue of justice. It advocates a system to ensure the payment of award wages, the fulfilment of a legal requirement. Instead of silly, slanderous and dishonest claims that we are motivated by "hatred of capitalism", the IPA and Miranda Devine should contemplate the many business writers who recognise that business flourishes best where the rule of law is respected. They might remember that a system that guarantees that everyone pays award wages actually creates a level playing field and eliminates unfair competition within the Australian industry.
My impression from several of Miranda Devine's articles is that she takes the Catholic faith seriously. Perhaps she might spend some time reading the Catholic Social Teaching, which insists that workers must be paid adequate wages and need protection by the state against unscrupulous employers. When she has done this, and read the legal cases and Hansard testimony about outworkers, she might salvage her professional reputation as a journalist by writing an adequately informed article about the garment industry, outworkers, and Fairwear.
(Rev. Dr.) Ann Wansbrough
Our fearless leader of the Labour Party should look back past the last election before the Tampa came to be and look at the opinion pools he would find that the Labour Party had a winning lead.
Now that he has set up the new Labour he should check the polls again.
He may just realize before it's too late that people could not give a stuff about the new Labour they just want someone to bring back the health system. Good wages and conditions. Education, workers entilements plus jobs and to stop selling off the farm.
If he continues to on his merry way the Green's or the Democrats will look a much better bet than a Party that just wants to be another Capitalist Party
Peter White
Dear Sir
While it is gratifying and reassuring to read the various stories in Workers Online in which unions have gained improved working conditions and/or wages for people in certain industries, there is a story that I don't think has ever been promoted, and which used to make me swell up with rage.
In the decade or two prior to the Hawke/Keating administration, unionists in certain industries which put them in a position to do so, regularly held the country to ransom in order to obtain ever increasing wages and improved working conditions.
One group which stood out for employing this tactic were the petrol tanker drivers. Waterside workers were another group which, while in earlier times had legitimate claims to improve their wages and conditions, also soon learnt their unique power to blackmail the country ... at a cost of millions of dollars lost in potential exports.
In fact I am sure most of you will remember the days when some countries became reluctant to engage in trade with Australia because of the continual disruption on the waterfront.
There was a time ... so long, long ago ... that trade unions were essential to achieve even basic rights for exploited workers. But there came a time, especially during the period I have earlier referred to, when union officials (paid administrators as distinct from the hard working labourers whom they represented) apparently felt obliged to legitimise the much higher salaries which they earned above the people they represented, to take regular industrial action as a matter of inevitability.
And perhaps the media was a party to this as, from a particular point in time, wage gains by unionists were published only as a percentage increase, with NO mention of the actual money involved.
During my lifetime I have seen the standard of living enjoyed by many blue collar workers achieve a (material) level to which my father, a high school teacher, who used to have to moonlight to provide the basic essentials for his family, would never have dreamed of aspiring.
The never ending upwards wage push brought with it things like one-man buses; the disappearance of driveway service at most service stations; and of course supermarkets.
Wages paid to Australian workers made it necessary for much of our manufacturing industry to be moved offshore. Compared to other countries, both industrialised and developing, Australia started to price itself out of the international market.
The only union to which I have belonged was the Australian Journalists' Association ... a piss-weak union that hardly deserved the title. The union called a strike from time to time, but only over wages, never over improved working conditions which were in fact archaic in the sixties and seventies. But during strikes, non-union staff managed to keep publishing a passable newspaper, so that the journalists never really had any serious bargaining power.
I now "work" as an unpaid freelance journalist and, if I chose, I could ... for what seems to me an exhorbitant sum ... join the Media, Entertainment and Arts Alliance. But I certainly wouldn't get my money's worth of protection and support.
And so, because of the quite high standard of living enjoyed by many labourers and tradesmen ... especially in two-income families ... what originated as a desperate cry for a fair go, has lost its meaning as more and more union members are identifying with the callous, self-interested greedy aspirations represented by the ideology of the worst Federal Government this country has ever known ... that led by Howard and his hooligans.
How, indeed, is Labor to develop a readily identifiable alternative to the conservatives when such a large proportion of its members and traditional supporters have, through material well-being, completely lost sight of (and interest in) the basic Labor ideal of a fair go for everyone?
Julian Hancock
Please can you leave the photos out of Workers Online. In parts of the country where the connections aren't all they are in more favoured areas it takes ages to download the wretched things. What anyone looks like is irrelevant to what is written. And why we needed two identical photos of Greg Combet is beyond me.
Carol Quinn
Ed's Reply: Good point - us on broadband often forget what life was like. Unless we hear mountains of contrary feedback we'll start cutting back on the happy snaps.
Dear Workers Online editorial
I am a Labor party member (inactive), and a union member. I remain deeply disappointed with the approach of the NSW Labor Council and this journal, towards the position of women in power-making decisions in the Labor Party. I note that this journal does not even bother to discuss the fact that the NSW Labor Council hostility to the Wran/Hawke proposals is to maintain the power of the NSW (overwhelmingly male) right wing unions, and that there is no desire in NSW to improve rank and file and women's involvement in the ALP.
The NSW Labor Council continues to limit the role of women in the party. The role of unions in the Labor Party, while historically important, cannot overcome the fact that many private sector workers do not have the option to join a union, and many existing union members may question the usefulness of deduction of dues from their pay packet when they receive little help from their union with day-to-day problems at work. In my working life I receive many calls from government employees who are experiencing harassment and bullying at work, and, when asked if they have contacted their union, say that they tried, but received no help.
In particular, the role of key right wing unions in NSW maintains the gendered role of the NSW Labor Party, and the limited role of women in it. Other States have adopted a more generous approach to women. NSW Labor appears to live in another age, when the role of women was to support their men. In fact, it seems that the only way women can advance in the NSW Labor is to be married or related to a member of the Right.
Unless the role of the NSW right-wing and male dominated unions is limited, Labor will not broaden it's appeal. The voice of women in your journal is also notable for it's absence. Does any woman actually write or contribute to it, or it's editorial content? Why is there no debate in it about the role of women in the party, or the role of affirmative action? Does Workers Onlinesimply have to reflect the views of the ruling right-wing male-dominated unions who hold power?
I look forward to your response.
Elizabeth Fletcher
Ed's Reply: News that I am a right wing lackey would certainly surprise those backroom boys who are constantly braying for my sacking. as for content - we publish contributions - if you have a perspective, contribute.
by Peter Lewis
You have responsibility for environment, emergency services and Attorney General, is there a common Labor thread that runs through the way you run your three portfolio areas?
So far as we look ultimately to improving the quality of life of working people, we look to securing social justice and we look to achieving equity in whatever way we can, I think there is a common thread. Of course, that doesn't mean that you can easily compare saving trees and changing the Occupational Health and Safety Act, but certainly at the back of my mind all the time there's an idea of making things better in the area of justice, and the area of the environment for working people.
There's a perception that State Government's is basically about standard managerialism. You have now been in power for two terms, is it hard to get on top of all the detail everyday and keep driving, particularly the bureaucracy, to promote Labor agendas?
Well, its true that a lot of what state government does is just making sure that all the nuts and bolts are in their proper place. But if the nuts and bolts aren't in their proper place that has a big effect on the lives of ordinary people. The truth is that most government is about making sure that the arrangements you have in place actually work properly. But we have also got to make sure that those arrangements are fair. You have got to make sure that, if you are running the court system, then you've got the kind of provisions in place that will, as far as possible ensure that people who are less well off have some decent access to justice. In the case of the environment, I suppose you're not dealing with such an obviously class based situation. The fact is that everybody needs a good environment, but it also remains the case, that working people are likely to be more exposed to hazardous substances, for instance, and air quality.
I guess the area where people will be seeing most of you in the coming months is as the judiciary's advocate within the government. There are expectations that law and order will be a central election issue. What steps are you taking to prevent that debate being run in a destructive way?
The government has already taken an especially strong stand against the idea of mandatory sentencing. The easiest way the Opposition has found to run a law and order auction is to demand ever more harsh sentences for any crime at all, and to demand now that there be minimum sentences for a whole range of crimes. Now we know from the real experience of the United States that mandatory sentencing is most of the time counterproductive. We know that it means that for instance, a lot of people who might have pleaded guilty no longer will, and therefore you often end up with fewer convictions out of mandatory sentencing.
On the other hand, you find, in the United States that a lot of people who are the most serious offenders, in say a drug bust, will plea bargain, will actually find ways in which they can avoid the most serious charges. The prosecutor not the judge will decide that they can give up information for instance, and get a lesser charge. But more minor players in the same drug bust, or drug crime, will get the full minimum sentence.
All of this does begin to have relevance in several ways for working people. On the one hand, nobody is served by an injustice, but on the other, we've got to make the law work at its most effective for the protection of everybody. At the present time there are some sorts of street crimes, that are effecting working class suburbs, more than they are effecting better off suburbs. So, it's really important that we ensure that the law is administered fairly and effectively and that we are not carried away by a kind of mad, mad attempt to give the impression of imposing harsh justice, on the one hand, but actually causing the law to be less efficient.
One area of law reform that unions have been pushing is in the field of emails surveillance in the workplace. Can you let us know where that's up to?
You'll be aware that the Law Reform Commission handed down a very detailed report on surveillance generally, covering police surveillance and surveillance by the media and by employers. Although that has been in some sense useful to us to try and sort out some general principals of the law in surveillance, in practice it has given us some difficulties. In particular, the police and law enforcements have got a lot of particular issues that they've got to sort through with us; the media's also got some particular concerns about proposals in that particular report. So I want to sort out the question of workplace surveillance and move to make some more legislation there, while we deal with those separate areas, as is appropriate.
So what we're doing is proposing to bring froward to a Workplace Surveillance Act, which provides for the opportunity to have a clear statement about the rights of the employees, privacy in the workplace, while employers have the right to protect their, financial interests. We'd be relying in that new legislation on the best bits of the Listening Devices Act, and the Workplace Video Surveillance Act, while addressing some the areas that we don't think work so well. That new legislation, which I hope to bring forward in the next session of Parliament, will cover areas like tracking devices, the idea of participant monitoring, complaint handling procedures. We could say some more about strengthening the requirements concerning hidden cameras that are already otherwise covered.
All that's clear, but the question of email surveillance, is not so clear, we've got advice that indicates that the State might not be able to legislate at all about email surveillance because it would be characterised as tampering with the Commonwealth constitutional rights, to deal with telephones and their interceptions. This would be an accidental consequence of a constitution written a hundred years ago, when people obviously never heard of email. So what we've got to do is get some more clarification, some legal advice, I'm seeking some more on this very difficult matter. If I get legal advice that the State can after all deal with email surveillance, then of course we will include that in the Bill that I mentioned. If I get confirming advice, a second opinion that we're not allowed to, then we shall be begin a very heavy agitation with the Commonwealth to make provision under its legislation, for the kind of surveillance regime that I just described with respect to those other kinds of communication.
So it's a bit up in the air at the moment. On the general principal, you accept the proposition that employers shouldn't be free just to snoop on emails, employees are getting at work?
I accept absolutely the proposition that surveillance of emails ought to be in fact, dealt with in principal, in the same way we've begun to deal with surveillance by video camera. That is to it should not be done without a warning, and there should be really clear statements about on the one hand, the employees right to privacy, and on the other, the employer's right to protect their intellectual property. But there's no doubt that we ought to have arrangements for email that are like those others that I've described. It's just an extra legal constitutional hitch, which we have to get over. I hope we can get over it following the receipt of more legal advice, and therefore putting it in our own Act. But if that can't be done we shall have to lobby the Commonwealth to do it, and I would certainly ask for my colleagues around the other states to join with me to ask the Commonwealth to do it.
You also control the industrial relations tribunals in NSW. One of the trends, which are largely being driven by change in the federal law, but seem to be leaking into NSW, is the legalisation of industrial relations. Whereas once disputes were heard in the context of conciliation/arbitration, now they tend to be litigated through the court system. Do you have a view on the cost of that change to the community?
John Della Bosca and I share responsibilities with the court and the commission. He has the direct responsibility for appointing the commissioners, whereas I have the responsibility of appointing the judges. I think the short way to put it would be to say that I am thoroughly in favour of the maintenance of the significant degree of informality in the way the court goes about its work. Its important that the courts should from time to time lay down clear principles and should make clear cut black letter decisions of law, but certainly at the same time I would hope that it can continue to a most significant degree to deal with individual cases in the spirit of constructive informality.
The court has made really important decisions in recent times, with respect of awards, principles that should be applied, that no one would want it to do otherwise. Its just that in its day to day work, I think that its overwhelmingly desirable that it should remain, as I say approachable, that people should feel that its somewhere you'd go to solve problems, not somewhere you go to have a legal battle.
Just moving on to your portfolio of emergency services. You have been involved in a long running death and disability dispute with the Fire Brigade Union. By all accounts that's now nearing settlement. What has been the hardest part about that process as a Labor minister?
Well, I suppose the hardest of the process has been to find ways in which we could ensure fairness all round. You have the fire brigade union concerned that some of its members have quite different entitlements to others, but that's true across the workforce. On the other hand those who work in the emergency services have quite special entitlements that should be guaranteed so that they will be properly treated in the case of an injury or worse. It's been a question of balancing where the legitimate claims within the emergency service against the claims of equity across the entire workforce. But I think we've done it, we've done it because there's been a principle established for those who work in especially dangerous circumstances and we have found a way in which there can be some sharing of the responsibilities of financing the scheme between the employer and employee.
The other issue that comes up from time to time with the FBEU is their call for a single fire service to bring volunteers under the control or direction of the professional force. Are there merits to this proposal?
Well, it is a regular call, but as my friends in the FBEU would know as regularly as they call for it, I say it can't be done. You've got to remember that the volunteer bush fire brigade contain huge numbers of union members. It's not as if the problem is some kind of anti-union agenda. Their function is significantly different to that of the permanent urban fire fighters and will always remain so. I'd also note that under this government we've increased the numbers of professional fire fighters and that's led to another 2,000 members for the NSW Fire Brigade Employees Union.
Finally Bob, its over 12 months now, since you and your Cabinet colleagues were compelled to cross a union picket line at State Parliament. I'm just wondering what your reflections are on the relationship between the political and industrial wings of the labour movement, particularly with reference to debates going on Federally at the moment
I accept that the Labor Party has come out of the union movement and that releationship has served both sides well. That said, if you're in Government you've some time got to make hard decisions. There's never been one more difficult than the one about Workers' Compensation. But I would never the less hope that it could be acknowledge that the way I administered my portfolio constantly pays attention to those matters we spoke about at the beginning and the way that I administer my portfolio never loses sight of the need to provide both fairness and justice from Government to working people. It is inevitable that Government will have difficult decisions to make which may some time or other affect a range of its natural supporters. How you actually get through it all is the absolute test is. Do you maintain the essential commitment to fairness? Do you remember where your roots are? Do you continue to worry that working people receive justice at an economic level, at the social level, and in terms of their general quality of life? I don't think our Government has lost those values at all and that's what I keep at the front of my mind all the time.
*********
Thirty eight-year-old Chris Gillespie is a construction industry veteran. He feels more like a football being mauled over by a heavyweight scrum of lawyers, doctors and shonky employers.
Storm Gloria, at 11 months, is a veteran of emergency helicopter rides and life-saving surgery. She is also, her father says, the principal reason he hasn't toured Sydney construction sites looking to take the law into his own hands.
The pair have a bond but, at 10kg, she has just hit the maximum weight doctors say her father can lift.
It's been that way since Gillespie wrecked his back, bulging two discs, dessicating another and getting a "convex" spine while working for employers who didn't pay workers comp levies or top-up insurance.
The upshot has been no compo and no treatment as steel fixing companies deny liability; insurance companies shove him from pillar to post and compensation lawyers PK Simpson - motto: Homer doesn't work here but PK does - leave him reaching for another Duff.
He doesn't drive any more because the car's out of rego. Basically, he's living off his girlfriend, Storm's mother, has been since he had to give up the lease on his own flat a year ago.
"I'm fucked up," he admits. "I went through a divorce a few years back but this is worse. My moods are all over the place, it's a constant battle to stay on an even keel.
"Honestly, if it wasn't for my daughter I don't know what would happen.
"It's just so depressing to go from being a working man to somebody who sponges off his girlfriend."
And a working man he certainly was.
After cutting his teeth as a builder's labourer in Sydney on projects such as the Commonwealth Bank in Martin Place, and a stint with the BWIU, he headed for Queensland.
He's been a formworker, concreter, paver, labourer, patcher and ganger, driven forklifts and all-terrain vehicles on construction sites across the northern state. Most memorably, he lasted nearly six months reclaiming mangroves for an extension to the Cairns International Airport runway.
"We were knee-deep in mud and mangroves being bitten by fire ants, leeches and bugs," he recalls. "Me and another bloke who had been there a while used to take bets on how long newcomers would last, sometimes it was 20 minutes, sometimes until smoko, if they were real fit we would give them a couple of days.
"We were usually on the money."
He worked a few years for the Engine Drivers Union, organising in south west Queensland.
Cunamulla has become famous/infamous since his day.
"It was a good town, mate," he says. "When it got a bit quiet there you could always drive 80km down the highway for a beer at the Eulo Queen."
Gillespie would travel the west with his old cattle dog for company. One of his proudest achievements was selling the benefits of union membership to a whole group of wheat farmers, moonlighting as council workers, in the heart of the conservative Darling Downs.
Between construction jobs he kept food on the table with stints in tourism and hospitality, including tours of duty as a kitchen hand, beverage manager and restaurant supervisor on Hamilton Island, and running an abseiling enterprise in the spectacular Kuranda Rain Forest.
But that's all ancient history.
In 1997, one exam short of his safety officer's ticket, Gillespie returned to NSW to spend a few days with his seriously ill father at Narrabri. He got work, as a leading hand rebuilding the town's main street, and stayed a few months.
Back in Sydney, he was talked into trying his hand at steel fixing by mates at the Kingswood Hotel, near Penrith. It was a decision that would change his life.
Steel fixers, by and large, are a law unto themselves. Work comes and goes and workers often move from one employer to another, and back again, sometimes in the same week.
For their part, the employers, by and large, are what CFMEU secretary Andrew Ferguson calls shonks.
Typically, they understate employees to rip off the public on tax, payroll tax, workers comp, top-up insurance and other liabilities. If anyone puts their weights up they usually change the company's name and carry on.
From late 1997, Gillespie found himself plying the trade for C and H, Foxy's Reinforcing, Rum Steelfixing, Multifix and Ronnie's Reo.
C and H, he thinks, were legit.
There were small jobs and some substantial ones too, including redevelopments at the Rosehill and Randwick racecourses and plenty of residential work.
With hindsight, Gillespie concedes, most were cutting corners.
"They rip the system off blind and it's not just one or two of them, it would be 90 percent of the companies steel fixing in NSW," he says.
On one site he worked alongside illegal immigrants. Wage slips were a rarity.
He came to grief on a Saturday, laying steel in a creek at the National Rail Centre development at Challora.
"It was just one of those things," he says. "I had an armful of big steel rods and was laying them into position.. I ran out of room with my feet and moved one foot backwards, and I heard - pop, pop, pop - and my back was gone."
The next work day he reported to the first aid shed and told the boss he wanted to see a doctor.
"He just said - fuck off, you're not putting a back claim on my compo. You don't need to see a doctor, take it easy for a couple of days and you'll be alright.
"He talked me out of it because, I guess, I didn't want to have a bad back. When you've spent your life in the building industry you don't want to have anything that will stop you getting work when it comes along."
He did a couple of weeks with another of his regular employers and the back got neither worse nor better.
On that job, workers didn't get paid one week because the employer had gone to Melbourne for the races and done his dough.Most of his workmates, it transpired, were being paid cash in hand and when the Westfield union delegate found out he had the company kicked off the site.
"When the boss gets back he calls a meeting with the boys in the Strathfield Hotel. He knows its me who told the union delegate about the wage records and he calls me a useless #@$$ #^$#.
"He was furious and I didn't know the other blokes on that job very well. I could see myself walking around the edge of the building and wondering if I was going over the side.
"It wasn't something I needed at the time, so I quit."
Gillespie went back to the Randwick Racecourse job, got transferred to a big residential development in North Parramatta where constant stair work aggravated his back.
Back at Randwick, the pain became unbearable. He went to the first aid shed and filled in the forms. The employer got another worker to drop him at Central Station in the company ute.
On the express to Penrith, the employer rang on his mobile. The message was similar to that he had received from the boss when the injury first occurred - don't, under any circumstances, go claiming workers comp.
It was June, 2000, the final day of his working life.
His doctor sent him for a CAT scan and identified three bulging discs. It was here that the real frustration sent in.
"I rang Foxy and told him they said I had a lifetime injury and I would have to make a claim. He just swore at me and hung up," Gillespie recalls.
None of the three employers would accept any responsibility. The middle one, the one without wage slips, went so far as to deny he every employed him, something backed up by the lack of documentation.
The companies' respective insurers, QBE, GIO and Employers Mutual got in on the act. Between them they have sent him to at least 15 different doctors, orthapaedic specialists included, in an apparent bid to quibble with the diagnosis, since confirmed by MRI.
At one point, QBE appeared to have accepted the claim. It backpaid him and started paying weekly entitlements. Then, in March this year, they declined responsibility, cutting off support.
"They'd sent me to a Doctor Bornstein in Balmain. Apparently, his report said my injuries were more applicable to one of the other employers than the one they represented.
"They cut off the money and the treatment."
He hadn't been financial with the union so put his hope in "compensation
specialists" PK Simpson. After months they got him to court but arrived without the necessary paperwork and the compensation court has put him back to the bottom of its list.
Since March, Gillespie has been getting Centrelink payments as a single disability pensioner and no treatment for his back.
He tried to visit an orthapaedic surgeon in Penrith but he wouldn't bulk bill and the $150 consultation fee was out of the question.
"I have been in super since year dot, since we started marching down George St, demanding it," he says, "but none of these guys made contributions.
"There's no insurance, no compo, no nothing."
"I can't believe it, there are days when I make a wrong move and I can't do a thing, not even walk and you know what I do? Usually, I take it out on my girlfriend."
Eventually, he swallowed his pride and, out of desperation, rang the CFMEU. They've agreed to take up his case so there is some light on the horizon.
Has the experience left him with any advice for others in the steel fixing game around NSW?
Sure, but it's not worth wasting breath on - fill in the forms, make sure you get wage slips and that you're entitlements are being paid.
"Everyone knows that," he says but, in steel fixing, "you try to enforce it and you don't work"
Okay, more personally, what do you want?
That's easier.
First and foremost, he would like to see the three employers he has had since doing his back locked up in jail. Then, when they are released, the two from New Zealand deported.
He would like some money, preferably the workers compensation he is entitled to.
Mostly, though, he wants treatment for his back.
"I want this whole bloody merry-go-round of lawyers, doctors, shonky bosses and insurance companies to stop and let me off," he said.
"Then, I want to get fixed up so I can work again. I want my life back, I want to be able to look after my girlfriend and our daughter.
"I want to be a man again."
Australian Workers Union industrial officer, Robert Flannagan, coined the phrase on the first day of a State Industrial Relations Commission hearing which workers hope will bring the WA-based contractor back into line.
Around 250 Tasmanians, employed at tin, copper, zinc and gold mines on the state's west coast, have been disadvantaged by a string of Barminco assaults on their wages and conditions.
Flannagan estimates that the unilateral company actions could cost individuals as much as $600 a week.
Company stunts include:
- regularly paying workers late, one employee having to wait three weeks for access to his wages.
- slashing around $200 from the fortnightly wage by removing a negotiated shift bonus without any discussion or consultation.
- introducing a new sick leave policy that can sting employees as much as $330 for a single day off. What? Well, in mining, much income comes from bonuses. At Barminco sites, workers earn a $30 a day attendance bonus which workers on sick leave have traditionally forfeited. The company, however, now slugs them for each of the 10 or 11 shifts in the pay period, if they are absent for a single day.
- making workers pay for damage to machinery. According to the company, they have a choice - pay up or find another job.
Flannagan relates the story of one mine worker who had accepted a company bill of $10,000 for damage to a loader, even though he hadn't been responsible.
"He had agreed to pay $10,000 rather than lose his job," Flannagan explained.
After the union became involved, and put his case, it was agreed that the worker had not been responsible for the incident in the first place.
The AWU has been trying to have Barminco pull its head in over these issues since January.
True to form, Barminco didn't show up for its day before the Tasmanian Commission, sending along an Australian Mines and Metals Association legal consultant who couldn't deal with the issues, instead.
The case has been rescheduled for August 27 and 28 in Queenstown.
In a separate claim, the AWU is arguing that a worker was sacked unfairly after he was denied a rest break and, suffering fatigue, crashed a company truck.
It highlights the way Barminco operates that, having signed an enterprise agreement at one of its Tasmanian mines, it then insisted on new employees being hired under the terms of indiviual agreements.
"Really, they don't want any union or collective activity on their sites," Flannagain says.
"This company is the employer from hell, with its unyielding pursuit of profits showing a complete disregard for the needs of employees and their families."
The company, owned by Perth-based Peter Bartlett, is this week's nominee for the Tony Award which Labor Council will present to workers employed by the worst boss notified to Workers Online.
The state seeks to survive by making sure that "its primary enemy - its own people - remain "quiescent and obedient and passive". (Noam Chomsky)
Those that object to the "keep the rabble in line" principle (Chomksy again) can expect to be hounded by the various apparatus of the state. In Australia two historians have looked closely into the means by which the state achieves its hold. Bob James takes the long- term historical view, and is probably more of a mind to agree with Chomsky than Frank Cain, the other observer of state survelliance systems.
James in his study the active anarchism of the late 19th century looks at the "surveillance and civil control by the military, police, and the newspapers". The way in which the state acted to keep oppositional or "anti-systemic" voices in line was a method that developed from the changing character of societies in Europe and the Antipodes in the 19th century. The industrial revolution and the new ways of organizing by the working people required a different response from the state. That intelligence gathering and spying long pre dated this is not in doubt, but this era brought with it a revamping of military and para-military forces and the state consolidated itself with increasing centralization, thus more bureaucracy and a need to gather and control information.
Nowadays we see much of this information gathering passed of as necessary for the social security and welfare systems, but as the furor over the Australia Card proposed under the Hawke government showed, people are rightly suspicious of the states information collection role. As James says, monitoring the movements and activities of people was so important it had to be disguised. In Britain this went so far as to deny the existence of spying agencies.
British research shows the extent of surveillance by police and military authorities of meetings of Irish republicans, socialists and anarchists. E.P Thompson's "The Making of the English Working Class" and many of his other writings draw on police and court records that show how the evidence is presented by agents placed in these "threatening organisations." The part of the detective developed in police forces (who themselves evolved from the military as the arm to control the local populace) as a symbol of the crucial role information gathering came to have in monitoring and ultimately destabilising oppositions. Some pro-state forces applauded the role Charles Dickens gave to detectives in his novels. This helped turn the populations suspicions of such activities to admiration. As James writes, "Detectives in sixty years or so had become a major exemplar of the archetypal British (white, male) hero. Their success in preventing Fenians, anarchists and labour agitators shooting royalty, burning down the Bank of England or blowing up the Houses of Parliament, that is, all that was ever best, was largely responsible for their exalted image. The fact that no attempt was ever made by anarchists to do these things was considered irrelevant when denunciations were being handed out." Interestingly, this also occurred at a time when Queen Victoria was rescuing the British Royal Family from obscurity and tradition was being "reinvented" to exalt "all that was good."
In Australia Governor Phillip arrived with military and domestic surveillance as the chief point of the whole white settlement. Army officers who acted as his controlling agents (members of the Rum Corp initially) were given extraordinary powers from the outset. In 1839 the police force was separated from the colonial magistrates and were then organised along the lines of the London Metropolitan force. James noted that there was a distinct detective section of the Victorian police force by 1865 and there is reference in the records to "secret agents".
The failure of this domestic spying and the need by the state to beef it up was brought to notice by the attempt on the Duke of Edinburgh's life on his visit to Sydney in 1869. The Fenian conspiracy was used by Henry Parkes to boost his political career, however. Parkes claimed at the time that he knew beforehand of the plot and his newspaper coverage ad fanning of the outcry lead to the passing of the Treason Felony Act. The Truth newspaper, 23 years later, pointed out the lack of evidence of any plot and concluded that Parkes was either an accessory or a liar. What it did show was the need for the state to believe, or at least the need for the state to have people believe, that such acts were always imminent, and the need for the state to convince the public that they were imminent, so that they could justify repressive legislation.
The state also could rely on newspaper reporters to ferret out plans, factions and other internal difficulties that oppositional forces faced. The state around the world responded in punitive fashion to the Haymarket events in Chicago, and standard media dutifully followed the line on what was acceptable behaviour. Getting the alternative point of view out required anti-systemic forces to print their own media with smaller print runs and the associated distribution problems.
The mainstream press in Australia contrasted Happy Australia to the disturbances caused by those terrible anarchists in the US and Europe. The impact this had on oppositional forces could be summed up by a letter published under the heading "Land for the People" James quotes from the Shearers Record of April 1888:
Sir: In reference to the above heading I hurry up to state that I am not an Anarchist, Communist or Nihilist, as some of your readers may imagine to be the case."
As we still see today this struggle over definitions was a life draining force from the active opposition and one that the state forces used to the full to ensure obedience, along with the more overt tactics of prosecuting, gaoling and spying on the people.
During the First World War in Australia the forces of the state used the circumstances of international crisis to crush internal dissent. The best-known example was the gaoling of the IWW 12 in Sydney for supposedly plotting to burn down Sydney. Ian Turner goes into marvelous detail of this in "Sydney's Burning"
Frank Cain also looks at the IWW in detail in his history of the movement during WWI. This book followed on from Cain's earlier doctoral work on the origins of political surveillance. Billy Hughes was the Prime Minister in 1916 who banned the IWW for its treasonable activities and he was also responsible for the banning of the CPA in 1940. The IWW was so successful that its leaders were deported in 1917. These bans tell us a lot about the changing fortunes of radical groups too. The IWW and the general anarcho-syndicalist currents were leading radical forces until the first war with the CPA becoming the leading bogey group after that. The IWW was also perhaps a threat to the established, "acceptable" face of unions and labour, as it didn't have much time for Parliamentary socialists and reformers. That established labour didn't do much for the plight of the persecuted IWW figures is in no doubt, but despite all the propaganda and war hysteria, many "ordinary" people did. The difference in the philosophy of the radical movements was great, but forces of the state tended to be pretty broad brush in their approach to "threats". The access recently provided to special branch files developed by the NSW Police force shows how this sort of stuff could develop a life of its own, and how parts of the security apparatus could act with impunity against anyone it designated as a "threat." Hughes acted against the IWW, anti-conscriptionists and again against the Irish, whipping up public animosity with the help of the enforcers in the military, the police and the press. ASIO developed from the sorts of security systems that expanded under Hughes.
The lineage of the IWW to later peace and environmental movements can be seen in the concerns the Wobblies had with the internationalisation of capital and in the sort of direct action tactics that are used today by the disparate groups labeled the "anti-globalisation" movement. Again the argument over definitions is used to derail the debate. As George Monbiot says, "Globalisation means whatever you want it to, so "social justice" or "internationalist" movement" are a tighter fit" and make it more difficulty for the establishment to divide using words. It won't of course, stop them using other tactics of surveillance and observation, which will be more of the spying noted above, and other more technologically based tactics, using cameras and other electronic gadgetry. Workers face these increasingly with cameras in the workplace, often justified as looking after the security of staff whereas they are really used because management likes to harass staff, or keyboard monitoring and monitoring of work don in call centers where management claim to monitor to ensure the development of training and assistance to staff, but are actually aiming to increase the amount of work done. The Wobblies creed of working slower shines like a beacon in the electronic monitoring age and in the 24/7 society being foisted upon us.
That the state uses notions of external threat (such as "terrorism") to justify the increased bureaucratisation and authoritarianism at all levels comes as no surprise to those who always look at the forces of the state with a jaundiced eye.
Much of Bob James' important work is at http://www.takver.com/history/indexbj.htm
Here you can purchase the book I refer to "Anarchism and State Violence in Sydney and Melbourne 1886-1896: an argument about Australian labour history. (1986)
For the anarchist tradition living long in Australia make sure you go to http://www.takver.com/index.htm because Takver's site exemplifies the oppositional stance so disliked by those who survey.
For a first hand account of the actions of the state against the IWW see the interview with one of the leaders, Tom Barker at www.iww.org.au/history/tombarker
This site is the site of the current IWW and has good links to the international organization that is the basis of the ethos of the Wobblies.
For more on the Wobblies see Verity Burgmann Revolutionary Industrial Unionism - The Industrial Workers of the World in Australia (Cambridge UP, 1995);
Frank Cain.The Wobblies at War: a history of the IWW and the Great War in Australia (Melbourne: Spectrum, 1993)
For the trial of the 12 see Ian Turner. Sydney's Burning. (Melbourne: Heinemann, 1967).
See also Cain's The Origins of Political Surveillance in Australia (Sydney: Angus and Robertson, 1983)
The Noam Chomsky Archive is on ZNET at http://www.zmag.org/ZNET.htm
George Monbiot articles are at http://www.monbiot.com. This quote is from "Black Shirts Green Trousers"
*************
Carl Scully seems set to impose compulsory random drug and alcohol checks on NSW rail workers. This follows two separate incidents in the past three years. It seems as though we have heard it all before, in very similar circumstances. Noel Cox from the Australian Federated Union of Locomotive Enginemen (AFULE) spoke about alcohol and drug abuse among NSW enginemen in 1988 at a conference on "Screening for Drug Abuse - a community challenge" in Canberra. The paper noted that there had been two serious train accidents in NSW over a three-year period.
John Mathews in his health and safety manual for union officials noted that the nineties would be a testing time for unionists as the pressure came on from employers to introduce more testing. Random testing had become a craze in the US when he was writing his book (first edition 1988, second in 1993) and was rare in Australia. The US zeal was driven in part by the general US Administration's "war on drugs" which overlooked a multitude of sins such as CIA support for Central American and Afghani drug lords. He also noted that it gave the government and the employers the chance to reposition OHS issues as an employee rather than an employer responsibility. It fitted in nicely to the individualism and pro market ethic that had come to dominate.
Unions in Australia recognise the core concerns and are willing to co-operate and develop rehabilitation programs, but seek to avoid blaming the victim. They have consistently opposed random testing and have been willing to allow its introduction only under exceptional circumstances, such as where public safety is involved.
Here is where Scully can claim that the introduction of random tests in NSW rail are necessary as many people are involved as passengers and crew. Where the issue becomes complicated is in the efficacy of the testing and what they are testing for. Traces of marijuana or the THCs in the substance, for example, can remain in the urine for weeks or months after the substance has been used. It would be hard to argue that this has the potential to impair the performance of workers after an extended period without taking the drug.
There are other things that drug tests cannot detect. They include whether intoxication was in fact due to exposure to the drug tested for; the extent of the effect of the drug on the person's behaviour; and the difference between a casual user and a regular abuser.
It also fails to address the issues raised by Noel Cox back in 1988. He pointed to factors contributing to alcohol and drug abuse with the way shiftwork was operated being a major concern. "Train operators generally have been assessed as above average consumers of alcohol. Irregular shift work and the social disabilities shift work creates is the reason given for this trend. ... Sleep patterns are irregular and, in most cases, of a short duration. Leisure time is often not at times when families and friends are free. The time lapse after social entertainment and the commencement of work is often short and therefore recovery time after consuming alcohol is not enough for effects of the alcohol to have worn off."
Given that the new railway timetable that was supposed to be introduced in April this year had to be abandoned (or should I say postponed) because there were not enough train drivers, I would think that the situation regarded poor breaks between shifts and a mixed up rostering arrangement has not improved since 1988, especially as no government since that time has been especially generous in funding our public transport system, choosing instead to support private sector road builders.
There is no doubt that drug and alcohol abuse and train driving are a very dangerous combination and that there is a need for early detection of any problems drivers have with drugs and alcohol.
Cox points out that the specific skills in train driving require training, knowledge of track gradients, the location of signals the weight and size of the rolling stock being shifted and recall of details of the track. There is a terrific description of the care and skill involved in Barbara Kingsolver's novel Animal Dreams that illustrates that its not simply a matter of sitting and adjusting a throttle and applying a brake when you have hundreds of tonnes of train and freight behind you for a kilometre or so and a hill to climb and come down, when half the train is going up and the front is on the way down.
Cox points out that most train accidents are not drug related. There have been some and the penalties have been harsh. This has not prevented workers from abusing alcohol and drugs so less punitive ways of ways of dealing with these issues must be found.
The state government at the time Cox was writing was introducing random breath and urine testing and the AFULE did not believe this would properly address the issues. The testing would not result in drug free train operations and they instead sought an investigation into the nature of the enginemen's work and the stress levels experienced. The drug issue needed to be addressed as a social problem.
The recent reasonable hours case and the many recent reports and studies on rising stress levels all would back up the case the union made in 1988. Working hours have been rising, insecurity amongst employees has increased and the deregulation of the labour market with pressure for employees to be more flexible all contribute to a more stressed work situation and more pressure to seek ways to relax or deal with anxieties.
The ACTU developed policies on these issues some time ago and sought to point out that alcohol and drug abuse and use may be symptoms of larger problems in terms of workplace organisation, as pointed out by Cox (above).
The ACTU said that if alcohol and drug abuse is identified as a serious problem, then unions and employers should work towards a program that should (1) be solely related to safety at work; (2) have full participation in and joint control by workers and their representatives; (3) be applicable to workers AND management; (4)address the workplace causes of alcohol and drug misuse; (5) be consultative, educative and rehabilitative, not punitive;(6) maintain confidentiality at all levels.
The union that has developed the most comprehensive approach is the CFMEU Building Trades Group and they provide an excellent example of the constructive approach that unions have taken, without management support.
Mathews suggest that safety representatives should argue with employers who wish to implement random drug testing along the following lines:
� What is the purpose of the testing? If it is to detect workers under the influence through impaired work performance, then that is the job of supervisors and fellow workers. Random testing complicates the issue for them.
� If it is to identify candidates for treatment and rehabilitation then a normal 'employee assistance program' is all that is needed. Otherwise the assumption must be that the real reason for the testing is punitive.
� Are other aspects of the drug and alcohol testing problem being addressed? If they are, then random testing may simply fade away as an issue.
� As a last resort, OHS representatives should point out that random testing is predicated on a view that the workforce cannot be trusted; its basic assumption is that all workers are closet drug addicts and constitute a threat to themselves and others. If an employer is calling on workers to co-operate with the firm to raise efficiency, increase productivity and make suggestions for improved working procedures, then a program that flies in the face of these calls, and indeed contradicts them all, is hardly appropriate.
If random testing is called for because of public safety concerns, as seems to be the case with train operators, then it should be agreed to under only the most stringent conditions, providing workers with full information as to procedures to be used, the reasons for their use, and the rights of access workers have to their records at any time.
The recent examples of employers denying workers access to OHS materials and accident reports because they claim changes to privacy legislation make it illegal to provide such access does not provide much confidence in employers being willing to allow full participation in improving OHS situations, and the lack of regard they have for their employees well-being will only potentially contribute to rising stress levels and potential problems with drugs and alcohol.
The Privacy Committee of NSW reported on drug testing in the workplace in 1992 and recommended that workplace drug testing, except when authorised specifically by legislation, should only take place when:
(i) a person's impairment by drugs would pose a substantial and demonstrable safety risk to that person or to other people; and
(ii) there is reasonable cause to believe that the person to be tested may be impaired by drugs; and
(iii) the form of drug testing to be used is capable of identifying the presence of a drug at concentrations which may be capable of causing impairment.
This last matter is crucial with the concern noted above with THC that stay detectable for long periods, without them being able to be seen as a cause of impairment at work. A punitive regime that seems to be favoured would bypass this standard.
The testing should also be permitted subject to procedural standards, set out in legislation, to protect the privacy interests of those tested.
See:
Noel Cox (1988). Alcohol and Drug Abuse Among NSW Enginemen. in Journal of Occupational Health and Safety Australia and New Zealand; vol. 4 no 5, pp 437-440
John Mathews (1993). Health and Safety at Work: a trade union safety representatives handbook. 2nd edition (Leichhardt, NSW Pluto Press). Chapter 16 Drugs and alcohol at work pp399-408.
The Privacy Committee of NSW (1992). Drug Testing in the Workplace. no. 64 October.
Office of the Federal Privacy Commissioner National Privacy Principles. http://www.privacy.gov.au/publications/npps01.html
Privacy Laws Threat to OHS Representatives. in CCH Compensation Week, issue 40, 30 July 2002, p3
Barbara Kingsolver (1990). Animal Dreams. (New York: HarperCollins)
Occupational Health and Safety Commentary and Cases 48-412 (CCH Australia)
Profits are down for the top 500 companies but executive salaries are still on the rise. The total net profit of the top 500 listed companies in Australia fell 32 per cent for the latest half-year (which, for most companies, was the six months to December 31, 2001) yet executive salaries did not fall to match the poor performance ... in fact they rose about 7 per cent across the board.
Some senior executives did take cuts after their poor performance however these examples are limited and were far from proportionate with the drop in overall company profit.
National Australia Bank suffered a 52.5 per cent fall in net profit for the last 6 months, however Frank Cicutto still earned 2,927,291--a 7 per cent rise from the previous year. Woodside fell 37.9 per cent while CEO, J. Ankehurst's, salary rose 15.2 per cent to $2,081,110. Rio Tinto's profits fell 77.8 per cent and Leigh Clifford took a whopping 2.67 per cent pay cut to $2,355,404--how does he get by? AMP's net profit fell 54.2 per cent so Paul Batchelor felt it only fair he receive a 20 per cent pay cut to a measly $3,342,000.
Australian CEOs are the third-highest paid in the world after America's and Britain's. Chief executives now earn an average of $1.4 million - up 7 per cent on the previous year. The average wage is just under $40,000. A pensioner earns $200 a week, or $10,000 a year. In 1976, according to one estimate, CEOs earned three times the average wage. Today the average CEO, taking executive share options and bonuses into account, is paid 30 times the average wage. (source: The Australian)
Executives continue to expect full remuneration despite poor performances and increasingly, executives are walking away from bad situations with their bonuses. For instance, News Corporation went from a profit to a loss, the CFO still got a substantial bonus. Australian Gas Light Company with dwindling profits still made a large payment to the CEO. Pacific Dunlop has performed badly for some time, but again the departing CEO still got a bonus payment. Shareholders, through their boards, must enforce executive pay cuts in cases of poor performance--too few executives will take it upon themselves to do so. As one punter plainly put it "ANYONE could go in and lose a company $500 million...it takes a senior executive to expect to get paid for it."
Company | Profit | CEO | Salary change | Current $ |
BHP Billiton |
down c. 6% |
Paul Anderson |
up 9.72% |
$ 7,823,070 |
Telstra |
down 20.0% |
Ziggy Switkowski |
down 1.43% |
$ 1,645,909 |
Comm Bank |
up 6.1% |
David Murray |
up 12.95% |
$ 2,310,173 |
Westpac |
up 9.1% |
David Morgan |
up 2.95% |
$ 2,508,084 |
ANZ |
up 4.8% |
John McFarlane |
down 8.1% |
$ 1,500,000 |
National Bank |
down 52.5% |
Frank Cicutto |
up 24.7% |
$ 1,921,408 |
Woodside |
down 37.9% |
J. Akehurst |
up 15.2% |
$ 2,081,110 |
Fosters |
up 20.6% |
E. Kunkle |
up 27.95% |
$ 2,912,583 |
Woolworths |
up 19.8% |
Roger Corbett |
up 2.87% |
$ 1,636,202 |
Rio Tinto |
down 77.8% |
Leigh Clifford |
down 2.6% |
$ 2,355,404 |
OVERALL |
down 13.38% |
|
up 6.75% |
$26,154,329 |
Rio Tinto
Profits down 77.8% and although CEO, Leigh Clifford's remuneration took a slight fall from the previous year--down 2.6 per cent--there was an overall 30 per cent rise in senior executive wages. The six highest paid executives pocketed $9,353,000 up from $7,255,139 the previous year.
R L Clifford: $2,355,404
Sir Robert Wilson: $2,637,000
R Adams: $1,462,000
C R H Bull: $1,448,000
O L Groeneveld: $1,648,000
J C A Leslie: $1,072,000
National Australia Bank
Prior to its 52.5 per cent drop in profits, NAB spoke of a plan to cut $20 million from its senior executive salary pool and to halve bonuses paid to chief executive Frank Cicutto and other senior executives. However, Frank Cicutto's remuneration rose 24.7% to $ 1,921,408 and the top 5 executive salaries rose 31.7% to $7,493,373 from the 2000 total of $5,686,638.
Frank J Cicutto: $1,921,408
Glenn LL Barnes: $1,531,391
Stephen C Targett: $1,433,040
Robert MC Prowse: $1,347,535
Peter B Scott: $1,259,999
AMP
The economic downturn saw a 54.2per cent drop in this offshore investment giant. At the same time executive salaries took a battering. CEO, Paul Batchelor, took home $3,342,000 down from $4,192,000 the year previously and R. Yates took a massive decrease to $3,993,000, down from $5,734,000 the year before. One of very few, AMP's board stripped over 30 per cent off the wages of the top five executives from $15,839,000 to $10,451,000.
R. Yates: $3,993,000
T. Fraser: $2,552,000
A. Mohl: $1,354,000
M. de Cure: $1,177,000
W. Foster: $1,375,000
QBE Insurance
QBE went from a profit to a loss as its executives imbibed huge salary increases. Frank O'Halloran had a 61 per cent salary increase to put him over the million mark. The top six executive salaries rose 30 per cent to $7,292,000 from $5,611,000...a huge increase when you consider $3 million of last years total was spent paying out retiring executive R. Grant.
FM O'Halloran: $1,139,000
MD ten Hove: $1,758,000
SP Burns: $1,251,000
AT Lothian: $1,076,000
PE Grove: $1,075,000
TM Kenny: $ 993,000
Woodside Petroleum
Profits fell 37.9 per cent while Akehurst enjoyed a up 15.2 per cent pay increase. In all, the top five senior execs helped themselves to an 18.8 per cent increase from $5,267,167 the previous year to $6,260,469 this year.
JH Akehurst: $2,081,110
Chris Haynes: $1,269,230
Cyril Huijsmans: $ 861,915
Agu Kantsler: $ 688,864
Jeff Schneider: $ 680,165
Chris Cronin: $ 679,365
Ten Network Profits fell a whopping 80 per cent on the same time last year and remarkably John McAlpine celebrated with a 19.3 per cent pay rise. Overall, the top five executive salaries rose 6.1 per cent to $3,610,894.
J McAlpine: $1,163,333
G Thorley: $ 780,976
P Myers: $ 719,692
G Blackley: $ 520,395
D Mott: $ 426,498
News Corporation
This is an amazing story... just look at the numbers. The single biggest contributor to the fall in overall Australian earnings was News Corporation, which reported a loss of $1.04 billion for the December half--its second consecutive loss.
2001/2002
K R Murdoch: $14,406,844
C Carey: $10,741,440
P Chernin: $38,254,750
D F DeVoe: $ 8,939,160
J R Murdoch: $ 5,823,190
L K Murdoch: $ 4,933,460
A M Siskind: $ 7,011,410
2000/2001
K R Murdoch: $ 67,030,420
C Carey: $ 18,093,160
P Chernin: $100,277,570
D F DeVoe: $ 17,773,760
L K Murdoch: $ 17,243,350
A M Siskind: $ 17,773,760
AGL profits down 60.2%... G. Martin $821,447
Amcor profits up 19.6%... Russell Jones $4,545,001
Amrad Corporation Consecutive Loss ...Dr Sandra Webb $819,284
Brambles Industries profits down 10.3%...Sir C. K. Chow $2,225,000
Brickworks profits down 39.9%...Lindsay Partridge $385,000
Caltex Loss to loss... Tony Blevins $675,528
Coles Myer up 8.2% from loss...John Fletcher $4,585,000
David Jones profits down 10.8%...Peter Wilkinson $1,305,001
Hutchinson Telecomm loss to loss...Barry Roberts-Thomson $710,023
Jupiters profits down 14.7%...Rob Hines $2,865,000
Magellan Petroleum consecutive loss...J. Kelly $365,000
Newcrest Mining profits down 38%...Tony Palmer $1,030,500
Novogen loss to loss... Christopher Naughton $375,000
Nufarm Profit to loss...Doug Rathbone $2,634,995
Orica profit to loss...Malcolm Broomhead $2,985,000
Publishing & Broadcasting profits up 17%...Peter Yates $5,275,000
Timbercorp profits down 90.8%...Robert Hance $275,000
Sources: Bosswatch database, BRW, Miriam Cirsic, The Australian, Business Sunday, Company Reports and http://www.asx.com.au
by Andrew Casey
" We're hoping there rallies send a very strong message to the Bush administration to keep its nose out of our negotiations," Jack Heyman from the International Longshore and Warehouse Union in San Fransisco told local media.
Along with the military threats, a Bush administration task force is reported to be considering declaring a national economic emergency, which would delay any possible strike by 80 days or introducing federal legislation stripping the ILWU dockworkers of their collective bargaining rights.
At the heart of this dispute are issues very similar to the ones fought over in Australia by the MUA in their War on the Wharves a few years back.
Pacific port bosses' want to slash workers' health benefits and introduce new technology aimed at outsourcing union jobs rather than train union workers to operate the new technology as has been the practice in previous contracts.
Big Business Eggs on George Bush
The big retail chains and auto importers - like Wal-Mart, Gap, Mattel, Target Stores, Toyota and Yamaha - who are all highly dependent on the Pacific ports to import into the USA their cheap globalised products have set up a lobby group - the West Coast Waterfront Coalition - to pressure the White House to act against the ILWU - and to bring in the troops if necessary.
In the USA - as in Australia - the ILWU is seen as a key militant union hated by these global corporations.
Backed by capital the Bush Administration would dearly like to break this union, just as John Howard wanted to break the MUA.
And ordinary unionists throughout America know that if they can break the ILWU - then they can break any other workers' organisation.
The Aussie Unionist who set up the ILWU
Relations between Australian port workers and the US dockworkers are traditionally very close - not least because the traditional militancy and power of the ILWU was established by an Australian unionist - Harry Bridges - who today is considered an icon of the American union movement.
Contract negotiations between the ILWU and the employers resumed this week after nearly three weeks of refusal to talk and public slanging matches. The ILWU contract for some 16000 members expired July 1.
During the month of media slanging matches news reports started leaking Bush Administration plans to use troops to keep West Coast ports open in the event of a strike or lockout by management..
Steve Stallone, ILWU communications director, confirmed the media reports when he said that in a meeting with union negotiators, a US Labor Department lawyer "threatened to bring in the National Guard to militarily take over the ports."
******************
Just went to view the new "summer blockbuster movie" "Signs". To me, M. Night Shyamalan, the director who brought us the excellent film "Sixth Sense" has created, in all candor, a replica of the standard 1950s sci-fi B movie.
Film critiques aside, "Signs" does offer a parody to what's presently threatening the majority of U.S. families: "Elites". Since these super rich are so far removed from the other 99 percent, they are truly "alien" to us. The aliens in the film, sneaking around using crop signs to signal their ships, reminds one of how the "1 percent" top dogs in our economy operate. As in the film, our "aliens" also have to reveal their "signs" to us--if we dare open our eyes to look.
During the 2001 California "energy Crisis" Vice President Cheney was placed in charge of the committee to "save California's consumer" (for whom?). Their premier recommendation: "build some Nuclear plants" - strange advice for an earthquake prone state, no? Not really, when you hear the name Brown and Root Co. (based in Texas) as the biggest builder of nuclear plants. Guess who they're a subsidiary of? Halliburton Corp. (presently under dark dark clouds of fiscal impropriety). Guess who was the former CFO of good ole (boy) Halliburton? I give you Claude Rains from Casablanca to exclaim: "I'm shocked to find out it was Dick Cheney!"
Lets move to suggestion #2 from this "humanitarian" energy committee. They stated we needed to drill for oil in the Arctic Wildlife Reserve--yet California does not burn oil in its power plants! Guess what committee member gave his okay for this Alaskan drilling scenario? None other than good ole Don Evans, Bush's Secretary of Commerce. What was Don's private sector job before he "volunteered" to serve America? Claude: "I'm shocked to find out he was CEO of Tom Brown, Inc., a billion dollar oil and gas corporation!"
In 1998 Bush Sr. lobbied on behalf of Mirage Casino Corp. (great name hah?) to have Argentina's President Carlos Menem grant them a gambling license. Soon after his efforts, Mirage Corp. "donated" $449,000 to the Republican Party (just in time to help with Jr's "run for the oval"). Poppa Bush also wrote to the Kuwait oil minister, lobbying on behalf of Chevron Oil Corp.-- they in turn donated $657,000 to the Repubs. Senior Strub was retained to speak to the Global Crossing Corp. board (now under dark clouds of impropriety) and earned himself $13 million in stock - the company soon after kicked in approximately one million to the "party of Lincoln". Boy, those "crop signs" are all over the place.
Finally, the Income Study Project has found that from 1983-97, 1 percent of Americans owned 85.5 percent of our wealth. During that period, U.S. personal income zoomed-- yet 4 out of 5 families received a 0percent increase! As far as the stock market: that same 1 percent of our population owns $2.9 trillion of the $3.5 trillion invested in U.S. stocks and bonds. Is this because our working folk are not productive? Well, since 1983 U.S. workers produce more per hour (up 17 percent) while earning less in real wages (down 3.1 percent).
Near the end of "Signs" the family under alien siege are huddled together, securing themselves in the basement. Outside the locked and bolted door we can hear the aliens scampering about, banging and thinking of ways to get at the frightened family.
The film does have a happy ending. Can we say the same for the 99 percent of us?
Philip Farruggio, son of a longshoreman, is "Blue Collar Brooklyn" born, raised and educated (Brooklyn College, Class of '74). A former progressive talk show host, Philip runs a mfg. rep. business and writes for many publications. He lives in Port Orange, FL. You can contact Mr. Farruggio at e-mail: [email protected].
Tony don't preach
Mr Abbot I know you're going to be upset
I always seemed so servile
But you should know by now
I'm not a slave
You always said that unions are wrong
But without them, bosses are too strong
I may be underpaid
But I know what I'm saying
The job you told me all about
The boss you said I couldn't do without
I'm in an awful mess
And I don't mean maybe please
Tony don't preach
I'm in trouble deep
Tony don't preach
I've been losing sleep
But I've made up my mind
I'm joining the union ooh, ooh
I'm gonna join the union, ooooh,
My boss says he's going to fire me
Cause I'm a casual employee
He says he has the right
To make such a sacrifice
But my friends keep telling to fight on
Join a union and stand up strong
What I need right now is none of your advice, please
Tony don't preach
I'm in trouble deep
Tony don't preach
I've been losing sleep
But I've made up my mind
I'm joining the union ooh, ooh
I'm gonna join the union, ooooh,
Tony, Tony if you could only see
Just how badly he�s been treating me
You'd stop suggesting he's just like a dad, so please
Tony don't preach
I'm in trouble deep
Tony don't preach
by The Chaser
Latham who admitted that in future he would be more prudent in choosing who writes his speeches, also said that he'd go as far as to read what he was going to say.
"Obviously I won't read everything I'm going to be quoted on", said Latham, "but I will have to employ someone to check for swear words and sexual lingo". Whilst the Liberal Party has made no formal comment on Latham's words, it is understood that the entire party has been scrutinizing their own writers.
"We've had a good look at our own stock", commented Foreign Affairs minister, Alexander Downer, "and truth be known we'll probably make changes". When probed Downer refused to comment further but hinted that the likes of Kevin "Bloody" Wilson would be under closer attention.
Not since Pauline Hanson was accused of and found to have plagarised material from Mein Kampf has there been such a stir around political writers. However the writers remained adamant that they have job security.
As unions switch their focus from servicing individual members to organizing workplaces, the question is how do peak bodies change their activities to match this change in focus?
Peak councils have traditionally played the role of industrial deal-maker - the link between individual unions and government where the issues are crunched and a compromise forged.
The high point of this model was undoubtedly the Accord years where the ACTU struck wage and social agreements for the entire workforce. Individual officials had never been as powerful - nor had they ever been as removed from rank and file workers.
But the world has moved on from the Accord and the new challenge for peak bodies is how to remain an effective contact with government while shifting focus, along with affiliates, closer to the workplace.
Some clues may come from the USA where the sort of labour market deregulation that is challenging Australian unionism has become entrenched.
There, peak bodies play a role far broader than just industrial gate-keeper. The best labor councils research and develop their own social policy and use their grassroots networks to see them implemented.
They also develop extensive community ties, with some peak councils having databases of more than 10,000 supporters who commit to supporting union campaigns.
In return unions get involved in broader community issues such as development - not dissimilar to the ground-breaking Green Bans implemented by the BLF 1970s.
They also realize that for the movement to grow, individuals Locals must grow. On one level this is up to the Local but peak bodies can help by training organizers, generating broader campaigns across industry and creating the community context for unions to grow.
Politically, the peak council choose candidates who commit to a union agenda and commit resources to see these champions elected to public office.
Of course there are differences; politicians have free votes rather than binding caucuses and voluntary voting means the value of mobilising an electorate is greater.
But that said the notion of unions committing resources to developing their own broad agenda and then hand-picking candidates to implement it has appeal - particularly as the ALP moves to break the institutional bonds that have delivered it broad union support.
If ACTU research showing that workers feel ignored by all political parties and are crying out for an advocate for them is anything to go by it's a shift the general public - and not just union members - will embrace.
Peter Lewis
Editor
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There is no doubt that the Labor Party needs to modernise. The political wing of the labour movement has been captured by a generation of careerists more interested in attaining power than developing good policy. Branches have become playthings for factional warlords who work in unholy alliance to prop each other up. And the rank and file are consistently disappointed by policies that seem more focused on meeting the whims of the focus groups, financial markets and conservative media, rather than articulating a Labor vision in which they can take pride.
None of these problems are addressed by reducing the trade union vote on the floor of State Conference. Yet at the end of the day it is trade union influence that is portrayed as the thing holding back the Party; not insipid policies, not clumsy politics, not drab candidates.
To put the whole debate in some sort of context, these facts need to be considered:
- unions are not declining - in the past two years the number of members have actually increased.
- unions are not 'on the nose' - Labor Council polling shows that 86 per cent of the Australian public support unions - way above the standing of any political party.
- unions are not out of touch with their constituency - surviving in the modern workplace environment means establishing a real connection with working people; and four years into our modernisation agenda the results are starting to show.
- unions are not an interest group - they are a movement with nearly two million members, far more than any other political party, social or community group.
Ignorance of these basic truths drives the Howard Government's anti-union rhetoric. But as Hawke and Wran state in their report, the union movement had nothing to do with Kim Beazley's loss at the last election; it was the result of Labor's own policy timidity and Howard's use of wedge politics.
Given the union movement's enduring support of its political wing, it's unsurprising that some union leaders are again prepared to play the fall guy and accept the reduction in union voting rights. Others remain to be convinced that their stake in the Labor Party should be so diluted.
Some in the media are portraying this as a 'Left/Right' agenda. This betrays their misunderstanding of the changes within the industrial wing of the movement. In NSW the Labor Council operates in a cross-factional, and increasingly a non-factional, manner. For us it is not about the relative strength of either of these outmoded tribes, but our ability to influence policy and candidates to ensure the Party implements a program that benefits all Australians: decent jobs, fair workplaces, and an increasing standard of living for the many, not just the few.
Likewise, my calls for trade union input into the pre-selection of candidates is not designed to gain a factional advantage for the Left or the Right, but to break the factional hold on local branches with interests that are wider than the fortunes of any individual candidate. At a minimum, Labor candidates should have an appreciation of the union movement, its objectives and the pressures it faces in a modern context. With many Labor candidates this is sadly not a given.
I am confident unions would exercise this type of power similarly to the way they have used the NSW Party Conference in recent times: that is, to respect the mandate of elected members of Parliament and the Labor leader while retaining a check on the excesses of both.
When necessary, union votes have combined with rank and file members to head off policy misadventures - such as the attempt to privatise the NSW power industry and, more recently, in demanding a more humane policy on asylum seekers (as endorsed by the Hawke-Wran review) regardless of the short-term political pain.
It should be no surprise that in both these instances, it was the rank and file and organised labour that combined to influence the direction of the Party. In fact, I can not think of an occasion when these two groups have been at odds on policy. That is because, despite the smears from the Tories, unions are in touch with the workforce; they have to be when they are fighting in such a hostile environment. In an era where the major parties are converging on many issues, the institutional strength of the modern union movement, speaking for two million workers and their families, is one of Labor's great advantages.
The best parts of the Hawke-Wran report recognise this simple truth; the 60-40 debate ignores it.
***********
Australia has a mixed-market economy, just like every other country in the developed world.
Cooperation and partnership between the public and private sectors helps the mixed-market economy along, and makes it work better.
In mixed-market economies both the public and private sectors account for a share of employment and output. There is no sharp and immutable dividing line separating black from white, rather a thick and smudgy grey region where the two sectors overlap and interact.
The private sector accounts for the greater share of output and employment in our economy, and much more than in most other OECD countries.
The public sector is a more significant player in planning and delivery of infrastructure - long-lived physical assets and systemic social services - than in simple production of goods and services for market.
The role of the public sector in provision of public infrastructure has changed markedly over the years, and this will continue, but there will always be some partnership with the private sector involved.
What matters for the community is the quality of the physical and social infrastructure available to it, and its cost.
Infrastructure requires a special business case.
Its provision involves long lead times. Planning and sequencing means lengthy gestation periods.
Physical infrastructure typically has a long economic life, delivering economic benefits across generations of citizens and taxpayers.
There is significant judgement and some degree of risk and uncertainty involved in infrastructure projects.
And infrastructure is expensive. Substantial financial resources must be marshalled and drawn down during planning and construction, and the ensuing debt serviced over long pay-back periods.
All this is as true of private infrastructure (such as shopping centres and high-rise office towers) as it is of public infrastructure (such as freeways and bridges)
Traditionally in this country, the private sector has played a major role in the construction phase of public infrastructure provision, even in those distant times when substantial 'Public Works' departments of the state existed.
So what is new today?
Essentially, the claim is that PFIs and PPPs provide governments with a new way to skin the infrastructure cat.
Cut through the eco-babble, through the thicket of jargon, and at the quick we find that 'Public Private Partnerships' is another name for 'Private Funded Infrastructure' and what is entailed is simply a scheme for having the private sector deliver something on behalf of the state for a fee, but financed in a different way.
Traditionally, governments or semi-government authorities have raised finance directly from private capital markets to fund infrastructure development.
The resultant financial instruments are government and semi-government bonds. This mechanism allows the community to enjoy the infrastructure provided, with their taxes servicing the resultant public debt.
Under the PFI/PPP model the private sector (often a consortium of firms) raises the finance from private capital markets to plan, build, own and operate infrastructure commissioned by government. [Under some versions of this model, ownership is transferred back to the state after a period of time].
This model allows the community to enjoy the infrastructure provided, and to service the private debt indirectly through a contractual arrangement between the state and the private provider.
� One variant gives the private infrastructure provider rights to collect tolls or charges on users of the facility (road or bridge or power), indefinitely or for a set period.
� Other variants involve a series of contractual payments from the government to the private infrastructure provider (prison or detention centre or public transport), for the services provided.
With historically accepted accounting conventions, the PPP/PFI model also keeps the infrastructure project and its financing off the public accounts, giving the appearance of smaller government and lower public debt.
In a modern mixed-market economy where innovation rules and diversity is king, there is a place for partnerships of this sort, alongside and supplementing more traditional arrangements. The case is even stronger when such infrastructure developments have regard to public equity returns for taxpayers' money invested or public land provided. These might incorporate clear requirements for development of education or health or childcare or aged care facilities for public management. Equally, residential development might mandate a percentage of low-cost housing.
But, whatever they are called, PPPs or PFIs are no panacea for society's fiscal problems, and no magic bullet for provision of public infrastructure in today's Australia.
Indeed, care and caution is required if the community is truly to benefit from these arrangements and not be left shortchanged.
Perhaps the most enduring legacy of the PPP/PFI phenomenon is what a colleague of mine has dubbed "the 5% Club".
What is this 5% Club?
It's the collection of institutional investors, lawyers, accountants, merchant bankers and other private sector service providers who take what could be a public sector infrastructure project and turn it into a private sector commercial venture to provide the infrastructure and make a quid.
This private venture bids for a contract being let by the state. If successful, the venture raises the necessary finance from the nation's capital markets to fund the project.
When private infrastructure providers go to private capital markets for finance, the bulk of the funds raised comes from institutional investors, and not directly from mums and dads.
Institutional investors seek a minimum risk adjusted return.
For private equity in private companies that minimum return is what is achieved for listed equities plus 5%.
For private equity in infrastructure projects that return is the long term bond rate plus 5%.
Add to that the margin on debt financing and a list of fees as long as the list of wines on offer at Dan Murphy's and one begins to get a feel for what the 5% Club does when the private sector gets involved in public infrastructure.
Public-private infrastructure projects are ``win-win'' situations for government and the 5% Club.
Government keeps the spending off budget, even though they can do the projects themselves at close to the long term bond rate (being the cost to Government of borrowing funds). This is a curious thing in an age of alleged economic rationality. The virtue of appearing to deliver "small government" is seen to exceed that of obtaining the facility for the community at the best price, and with the highest standards of corporate governance and public accountability.
The 5% Club pockets the 5% premium, plus all the management/advisory fees and executive style salaries so its members can live in the life-styles to which they have become accustomed since privatisations and private funding of public infrastructure created the 5% Club in the 1980's.
And the fees that support such life styles from private sector infrastructure provision are substantial. There are legal fees, due diligence fees, a wide range of technical, financial and other advisory fees, success fees for winning a project, underwriting fees for fund raising, performance fees for exceeding the expected returns of 5% Club members, and ongoing management fees for a variety of services provided through the life of the project.
This is all before we get into the list of fees and penalty payments that arise should a dispute occur between the public and private sector, such as that at Seal Rocks, over the terms and conditions of contract performance. It is also before the fees and public sector top up subsidies funded by taxpayers when commercial or political realities require it. For example:
� the $118 million paid by the Victorian Government to cover electricity price increases with the move to full competition;
� the $105 million paid to public transport operators Connex, National Express and Yarra Trams;
� the $65 million paid to ticket machine operator Onelink.
The inevitable consequence of paying an excessive risk premium and this legacy of a cascading series of fees, penalty payments, litigation costs and public subsidies (almost all of which were not included in the cost-benefit equation in past studies purporting to show PPP's as the lowest cost option) will be a substantial increase in the future cost of regulating PPP's.
This raises a further issue. If the public sector is to regulate PPPs, it will be essential that the public sector retain key personel with the technical competence to conduct the appropriate assessments on tenders and proposals. Someone responsible to government must be able to distinguish the wheat from the chaff and to advise accordingly.
In earlier times these same public sector people were responsible for planning public infrastructure projects, and organising finance and letting construction contracts to private firms. No government relying on PPPs to deliver infrastructure can responsibly divest its public sector of the capacity to make the necessary project and contract assessments.
In my judgement, given the current debate on corporate governance, the additional regulatory costs are likely to dwarf the post September 11 surge in insurance premiums. As ever, it will be the taxpayer that foots the bill for all of this.
Though risk transfer is often said to be at the heart of PPPs, the fact is that the Club gets its risk premium and its elaborate set of fees whether it's a relativity risk free project like a toll road or a higher risk investment like public transport where the private provider is likely to be bailed out by Government if worst comes to worst.
Whatever the PPP contractual provisions stipulate, at the end of the political day the risk stops with the public purse because governments simply cannot or will not abdicate their obligations to their constituents.
There are of course other ways, and I am encouraged by the wide ranging public and private discussions now occurring over some of these alternatives.
For example, a number of people are now arguing that to fund nation building over the next two decades and increase the long term savings of workers through ownership of assets, and to circumvent the 5% Club, the Government should issue national developments bonds.
Where appropriate it should also take a role in project management and other management/advisory services or at least foster greater competition to cut such fees by a substantial margin.
Australia's public debt-GDP ratio is artificially low (6% compared to the OECD average of 40%). The off budget funding of infrastructure through public private partnerships disguises huge corporate governance issues and has excessive hidden costs.
In the U.K. this is plainly evident since the government funding of collapses as contingent liabilities, as in the case of the $800 million bailout of Railtrack.
National and State development bonds should be issued to fund essential infrastructure projects. This approach would facilitate the pull forward of some projects as well as creating room for more infrastructure investment.
Such bonds (priced at say 0.25% above the long term bond rate) could be sold to both institutions and the mums and dads, and could be targetted at working families.
A welcome by-product of this approach would be the restoration of a Government bond market, providing the nation's super funds with a sound-finance alternative to buying even more offshore debt to balance their fixed interest asset portfolios.
The selling of such bonds, coupled with initiatives to ensure more competition on management fees/advisory services, would slash the returns of the 5% Club and return the surplus to taxpayers through their elected Governments.
In addition, and in accordance with best practice corporate governance it would return the responsibility to Government for riskier projects rather than pretending Government won't bail out large scale corporate collapses.
As the Economist Magazine ("Enron-on-Thames'' March 30th 2002) put it in relation to the fiasco with the privatised Railtrack company:
"If risk cannot genuinely be transferred (from the public to the private sector) then the Treasury should own up to the actual cost of the borrowing that the private sector is undertaking on it's behalf. Keeping risky investments off the books is the sort of thing that Enron did to its shareholders. It is not the sort of thing that Governments should do to tax payers".
For less risky large scale investments the current risk premium and fees appropriated by the 5% Club would be slashed by Government financing the project on budget, and encouraging a wider range of public and private service providers.
Mums, dads and institutions would have long term government guaranteed returns with an asset that funds the building of the nation and complements their assets purchased through their superannuation funds (some 40% of which are Australian shares). This would help provide the asset base required to borrow for a home.
The long term increase in public debt interest from the sale of such bonds, would be minimal relative to the long term surplus otherwise appropriated by the 5% Club and the real contingent liabilities that Governments seek to keep off budget through PPP schemes.
Superannuation trustees with a large exposure to infrastructure are paid up members of the 5% Club.
But by moving a small part of their lower yielding cash asset allocation to national development bonds, and a small shift of fixed interest investments to listed or private equity, returns can be sustained, the 5% Club retired, the nation's infrastructure renewed and an Enron or Railtrack crisis of confidence avoided when some of the pit falls of public-private partnerships come home to roost.
In a modern mixed market economy, transparent cooperation between the public and private sectors is wholly laudable.
However, as a device to shift public expenditure off-budget, 'public-private partnerships' are not only an expensive option, but also an approach that many are now questioning for other reasons I have not dealt with today. In particular there are a number of alarming claims coming out of the UK and elsewhere about the pursuit of commercial returns by sacrificing safety standards, excessive price increases, diminution of the wages, working conditions and job security of the workers and short circuiting the normal processes of public audit and scrutiny such projects warrant.
There is also a fundamental public policy issue about increasing private control over a country's social and economic infrastructure. What are the long-term implications of this for public choice about the future options for nation building?
The bottom line of all this is that while there are some who want to turn the 5% Club into the 10% Club, there are many more of us questioning the very existence of the Club and its future role in infrastructure provision.
Ultimately it is in the interests of a vibrant private sector that these issues of transparency, governance, taxpayers' interests, and public benchmarks, be resolved openly through public scrutiny and debate. Where major infrastructure works are undertaken, much of the economic action will be delivered by private concerns and the finance will largely be drawn from private capital markets, one way or another.
It is not PPPs or PFIs as such that are the issue. It is the objective basis on which they do or do not proceed in preference to other delivery mechanisms, that is the issue at the heart of the public policy debate.
The esteem in which private financial and commercial enterprises are held by the Australian public will rise with openness and transparency, but the merest hint of sharp practices or subterfuge attaching to PPPs can only be corrosive to the long-term standing in Australian public life of both government and the private sector.
After doing one's hard earned on the gallops during the daylight hours one is often left pondering the meaning and essence of punting at night.
During the evening, thanks to the modern miracle that is the Totaliser Agency Board, two types of punting are available: Trots and Dogs.
The trots aren't called the 'red hots' for nothing. It's a bit like watching a shopping queue moving along a dusty track, with the whole affair being about as straight as a coathanger. As with that other sporting non-event, basketball, the only real action of substance comes in the last ten seconds.
The dogs are a different kettle of schnapper entirely. Given that most of my selections on the gee-gees rather deservedly end up in a yellow tin marked 'Pal', it is only fitting that this column takes a passing interest in the noble sport of Greyhound racing.
I have often been disturbed by the exclusivity of Greyhound racing. Why, for instance, are other breeds not available for competition? Watching a blue-heeler, a couple of German Shepherds, a schnauzer and a few bitzas along with the odd furball careering around the track would be a most entertaining proposition. The electronic rabbit would obviously have to be substituted with a tennis ball, but otherwise I can't think of any modification that would be necessary, unless the race was simply run indefinitely until it was left to the last dog still running, like at the beach.
In regarding the existing sporting opportunities available to the fan of the canine punt, the general system has two undeniably effective features.
Firstly, boxes four and five are always good for as quinella against the field. Secondly, back the dog on the basis of its name.
Greyhound racing being the blue collar equivalent of the Waterhouse caper there are many opportunities for those with a social conscience to place a few quid on the basis of their convictions, or what they perceive to be a bit of a giggle.
Peter Lalor, the leader of the Eureka Uprising, was celebrated with having a dog named after him. This dog paid handsome dividends on regional courses in Victoria for a few years. Similarly I have found that hounds with a nomenclature that has a Fenian tendency are consistent performers.
There is a consensus that the dishlickers are a vaguely corrupt scion of the racing world, but nothing could be further from the truth. As my Grandfather was want to say, if you could bribe fleas there'd be some truth in it, but invariably the suggestions amount to little more than someone trying to help the pooch over a head cold with a swift dose of Sudafed.
And this column will countenance no debate on the efficacy of a swipe of turps across the growlers' sit down apparatus.
From The Locker Room salutes the magical world of dog racing, and wishes the reader many happy returns in the vicinity of $87.40 on the New South Wales TAB.
Phil Doyle - has a bounce and then handballs infield.
PS - Those familiar with the work of Stephen Roach, late of the SRWU and now in the Brick Tile and Pottery Division of the CFMEU, should keep an eye out for the nag, Red Roach running around on midweek Victorian tracks. Like its namesake it has had a few unlikely wins, but unlike its namesake it pays handsomely.
Williams' Generosity Knew No Bounds
Documents submitted to the HIH Royal Commission give an indication of the largesse of its CEO Ray Williams. Among a few of Ray's more notable snacks were: $2018 at Forty One ($600 tip), Nautilus Restaurant at Port Douglas $2462.50 ($700 tip) and $2197.50 at Pier Restaurant (tip $700). He was also a well-known benefactor, including Woollahra travel agents Traveltoo Pty Ltd received who a $6160 donation from HIH, according to the donor recipient lists for 2000. Ray's wife Rita was treated to six trips - the cost of $38,165 was paid with Ray's Amex card - between January and September 2000. But though the royal commission has uncovered the "Internal Audit Review of Executive Expenses" which details what living in Rayland was like, there were probably a few documents which it will never set eyes upon. Five shredding bins were ordered in November 2000.
(Various Sources)
WMC's Morgan Steps Aside
WMC has confirmed the early departure of chief executive Hugh Morgan, amid a disappointing first-half profit result, as pressure continues to mount on the company to call off its planned demerger. The driving force behind the HR Nicholls Society was forced to reassure investors after revealing that WMC also would make a large writedown on the value of its fertiliser business as part of the process of splitting its alumina and minerals divisions. The announcement of Moprgan's departure came as the company yesterday announced that its first-half profit before significant items fell to just $64 million from revenue of $1.19 billion for the six months to June 30, compared with $304 million for the same period a year ago.
(Source: SMH)
Qantas Rebuffed on Foreign Buyers
The Federal Government has rejected Qantas's bid to ease restrictions on foreign ownership, in a move the airline says has more to do with the attempt to flog Telstra. With fears the rebuff puts in doubt $11 billion worth of possible capital expenditure by the airline, Qantas shares closed 12c weaker at $4.63 after the news. Transport Minister John Anderson, speaking after a Cabinet meeting in Cairns, said the arguments put forward by Qantas were neither "deep enough or strong enough" to warrant change "in the national interest". Under the Qantas Sale Act, foreign investors are limited to owning a total 49 per cent of the airline. Qantas chairman Margaret Jackson said the company was "extremely disappointed" with the decision, which she suggested was unfairly influenced by the political debate about the Government selling the remainder of its stake in Telstra.
(Source SMH)
WorldCom Uncovers a Further $6.2bn
WorldCom, which sought bankruptcy protection last month after disclosing that it had improperly accounted for $7.1 billion in expenses, has uncovered $6.2 billion in additional accounting irregularities stretching back to 1999. WorldCom said that the new irregularities would force revisions in its accounting for 2000, 2001 and the first quarter of this year. WorldCom also said that when the earnings were restated, it would most likely take a write-off of as much as $US50.6 billion related to the reduced value of past acquisitions. WorldCom said it had disclosed its new findings to the Securities and Exchange Commission, which is conducting its own investigation of the company's accounting.
Source: New York Times
No Cash Shortage For Call Centre Bosses
Call centre managers' pay has jumped more than 20 per cent in the past year, the latest Hallis contact centre salary survey says. They receive salaries of up to $200,000, and multi-site managers get packages of up to $300,000. The managers appear better off than their counterparts in other industries who have been feeling the economic slowdown Call centre staff had considerably lower pay rises. The average salary increase for them was just 3.82 per cent. According to the latest survey, basic agent salaries were anywhere between $25,000 and $50,000.
(Source: SMH)
?Abbey Says No To Control By NAB
National Australia Bank's merger talks with British bank Abbey National have reportedly broken down, leaving NAB considering whether to make a hostile $30 billion takeover bid. NAB's demands that the merged entity be based in Australia and that NAB senior executives occupy all major management positions led to Abbey National's withdrawal from negotiations, according to a UK report.
However, Abbey chairman Terence Burns and finance director Stephen Hester were open to reopening talks if NAB changed its aggressive stance .
(Source: SMH)
Corporations Take Economic Cake: UN
Twenty-nine of the world's 100 biggest economic entities are trans national corporations, with the largest - ExxonMobil - coming in just ahead of the economy of Pakistan, according to a new United Nations ranking. The energy giant comes 45th on the list, two places ahead of General Motors, said the UN Conference on Trade and Development. Countries are ranked according to gross domestic product, while the corporations are ranked based on "value added" - the sum of pre-tax profits, salaries, amortisation and depreciation for the year 2000. Other corporations in the list include carmakers Ford, Toyota and Volkswagen, tobacco company Philip Morris, pharmaceutical manufacturer GlaxoSmithKline and retailer Wal-Mart.
(Source: NineMSN)
We must never forget the treacherous series of events that saw the manipulation of refugees and the politics of racism divide our community and elect the Howard Government.
Yet although the so called Tampa Crisis symbolised a dark time for Australia's history, the campaign for refugee rights has grown.
The refugee rights campaign is large, diverse and growing. Across the country there are new organisations beginning every day. I am involved in one such organisation - Labor for Refugees.
We began in the branches of the ALP where rank and file anger with the ALP's support for mandatory detention and the "Pacific Solution" translated into a campaign for a more compassionate refugee policy.
Since the federal election, with the support of the Labor Council, this group has grown in strength and numbers.
Over 200 ALP branches in NSW have signalled their support for Labor for Refugees, which includes calling for a refugee policy that ensures those who escape from persecution are treated with dignity and respect in our community.
This is a campaign against the politics of division as well as fighting for compassion. As unionists, it is essential that we fight the Government's use of racism to divide us, because when we are divided we are less able to fight for workers rights and a decent society.
Labor for Refugees had its greatest success at the ALP State Conference this year when a motion calling for an end to mandatory detention was carried. Such motions have since been carried around the country reflecting the desire to immediately end Labor's support for mandatory detention.
However the campaign does not stop here. We must build support for change within the ALP while also building the community movement against mandatory detention. This movement has already been successful - over 50% of people now oppose mandatory detention. But it must grow if we are to end the racism and the persecution of refugees in this country.
You can get involved in this campaign by joining us at the Tampa Day Vigil at Town Hall on 26th August at 5pm, you can also join Labor for Refugees by emailing [email protected]. There will be a mass rally for refugees on 26th October, email [email protected] for more information.
By working together we can defeat the politics of fear, and eventually this divisive Howard Government.
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