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Hawke, to be fair, is not constructed of the normal tool shed materials. He led the ACTU for a decade before leading Labor to a record four-straight general election victories over the likes of Malcolm Fraser, John Howard and Andrew Peacock.
You might well think Hawke is being inducted for failing to see the obnoxious Howard off for good, but you would be wrong. So why? Well it's been 22 long years since Hawke led the union movement and, frankly, it shows. The man has just delivered a review of Queensland's public sector bargaining system that puts a boot up the jacksey of every public servant in the state.
Basically, the Silver Bodgey has had a shocker. How else could you describe endorsement for the key third term policy plank put forward by Liberal head kicker and would-be union buster, Tony Abbott. Hawke has come out in favour of drastically reducing the opportunity of Queensland public servants to win reasonable wage increases by advocating that their right to take industrial action, already restricted to the expiry of employment instruments, be further proscribed by the imposition of a time limit.
Such a reform, mirroring Abbott's federal stance, would be unprecedented in Australia. The ink was barely dry on Hawke's report before Abbott was waving it about as proof-positive that he was on the money. Abbott was particularly heartened, unsurprisingly, by Hawke's core contention that "militant" unionism needed to be curbed.
Labor parties around the nation are clearly enamoured of Hawke. He got the gig reworking rules in partnership with Neville Wran before picking up Beattie's Brisbane brief. But he has been out of Parliamentary contact with working people for almost as long as he has been out of industrial contact. - during which time he has become a very wealthy man.
Hawke's Government was responsible for maintaining a lot of core service that Australians hold dear but it also started the drive to privatisation by flicking off Qantas and the Commonwealth Bank. Nobody expected socialism from Bob Hawke but, by and large, they reckoned they would get a fair go, something state servants in the north look like being denied.
The problem with his prognosis is how if sits in terms of time and place. Workers can no longer rely on a comprehensive social security system if they lose their jobs, they can't even bank on getting the money they are owed. They watch businessmen award themselves million-dollar bonuses and six-figure increases on a nearly daily basis, whilst their chances of adding an extra three or four per cent to the family kitty are further constrained by Messrs Abbott, Howard and their acolytes. Finally, they get to bargain, once every two or three years, in a market economy where the deck is stacked firmly in favour of their employers.
If the boss won't see sense and it is rare that he does they get one chance to legally apply some pressure. The last thing they need is some ex-polly, rolling in lolly, telling them it's not on.
In an international first, the Australian Retailers Association has signed a Deed with the Textile Union committing its members to meeting legal wages and identifying where all production is carried out.
The deed, witnessed by NSW Industrial Relations Minister John Della Bosca, commits retailers to providing the union with information on suppliers - including contract prices and locations.
The TCFUA will use the data to check on sub-contracting operations, including outworkers. A key part of the agreement provides for out-clauses to be written into future supply contracts that will see them negated on the union supplying proof of worker exploitation.
Under the deed, signatories will refuse to contract with breaching suppliers until the problems are fixed.
Della Bosca urged other states to pick up on the NSW agreement, shepherded through by the Ethical Clothing Trades Council, established by his department.
Key members of the Retailers Association include big clothing outlets K-Mart, Big W, Grace Bros and David Jones.
TCFUA NSW secretary Barry Tubner said one the disclosure element of the deed gave it international significance.
"For the first time retailers will be committed to knowing the location of sub-contractors and the charge for each unit supplied," he explained.
"We won't be asking suppliers for the info, retailers will supply it on 14 days notice. This puts the onus on retailers, as the final beneficiaries, to take responsibility down the chain.
"It's better than us having to take suppliers to court. It will shortcut the system and make compliance more likely."
The deed heads off a strong campaign waged by right-wing pressure group, IPA, and its Daily Telegraph apologist, Miranda Devine. They mounted a "hands-off" argument, based on a contention that sweatshops didn't actually exist.
Key pillars of the deed oblige retailers to:
- supply the union with a list of suppliers on 14 days notice
- ensure the registration of suppliers who will be obliged, in turn, to list subcontractors to the union
- provide details of contracts with registered entities
- those details to include numbers of units, turnaround time, and prices
- signatories will write out-clauses into future contracts
- the supply of misleading information and/or underpayment of outworkers will trigger the out-clauses
Big League Campaign
Meanwhile, Workers Online understands the Labor Council and TCFUA are on the brink of delivering sweatshops another blow.
Months of negotiations with the NRL and suppliers, including international sportswear giants Nike, Puma, Fila and Classic are expected to be concluded in the near future.
Industry insiders suggest an agreement could be announced within days.
CFMEU assistant secretary, Brian Parker, will make the request of Industrial Relations Minster John Della Bosca when the parties meet later this month.
"We don't have comparative figures but there has been a spate of serious injuries since the Cole Commission arrived," Parker told Workers Online.
"It seems dodgey employers are taking comfort from the Commission's anti-union stance and trying to resist efforts to have them comply with health and safety requirements."
Parker was commenting less than 24 hours after a 33-year-old Newcastle man lost his life in the third serious accident at the former BHP steelworks.
Greg Rees died in the accident and two workmates were taken to hospital.
Just days earlier, on the strength of a CFMEU tip-off, Della Bosca had ordered a WorkCover inquiry into a previous demolition incident at the old steelworks.
In the wake of yesterday's incident BHP tried to stop CFMEU officials entering the site. They went onto the job this morning, after WorkCover intervention.
Worker Online understands that the state safety authority has suspended work and imposed fines, prohibition and improvement notices against a contractor and sub-contractor.
Parker said he believed the contractor had hived the work off to a sub-contractor who didn't have a demolition license.
Commissioner Cole has publicly questioned any union involvement in the enforcement of workplace safety.
Even a temporary surge in building industry figures would contrast with steady across the board improvement in NSW since Della Bosca instituted a regime based on co-operation between unions, employers and state authorities.
Latest figures, for the year to June 12, reveal that 139 NSW workers lost their lives, down 42 on the previous 12 months.
The Newcastle incident occurred as the CFMEU turned its back on a "sham" safety conference staged by the Commission in Melbourne.
National secretary John Sutton said the CFMEU, ACTU and all other building unions were boycotting the summit because of the "gross bias" displayed by Cole in public hearings.
More than 300 CFMEU occupational health and safety representative joined medical practitioners, employers and others in an alternative conference which called on Workplace Relations Minister Tony Abbott to restore funding to the national tripartite industry OHS forum.
CBUS, the Construction and Building Industry Super Fund which holds $1.5 billion in Australian equities, has announced it will vote against the packages in the coming round of company Annual General Meetings.
Chairman and former federal treasurer, Ralph Willis, confirmed he had written to Australia's 200 biggest companies informing them CBUS votes would be cast against the practice.
Willis said the issuing of stock options "encouraged executive to focus on short-term share price rather than long-term growth.
"Furthermore, the combination of the generosity of these options and the failure to expense them in company accounts has meant that profits have been overstated - in some instances quite considerably."
CBUS has flagged its intention to oppose all existing options packages and to "closely examining" other forms of bonuses.
Willis said the policy was unanimously endorsed by industry and worker representatives on his board.
Some companies, including the Commonwealth Bank and Qantas, have already suspended future options programs but leading market players such as News Corp have thumbed their noses at investor concerns.
Labor Council secretary John Robertson welcomed the CBUS stand and called on other industry super funds to adopt similar policies.
The Coalition agenda was exposed by Shadow Treasurer George Souris who this week attacked the government� displaced person list, saying he would sack the 162 public servants awaiting deployment.
The Carr Government came to power on a no forced redundancy promise after the previous Geriner and Fahey Governments cit a swathe through the public sector, sacking thousands of full-time workers.
Public Service Association general secretary Maurie O'Sullivan, representing 43,000 public servants has formally asked Souris to clarify his policy on forced redundancies.
Labor Council secretary John Robertson says he'll be asking Premier Bob Carr to renew his commitment to no forced redundancies.
Maurie Finds a DOCS Hazzard
Meanwhile, O'Sullivan has fired a broadside at Opposition community services spokesman Brad Hazzard after he attacked the Department of Community Services' handling of a 13-year-old ward of the state.
Hazzard used the unsuccessful placement in Question Time to attack the government over fund for the Department of Community Services. But O'Sullivan accused Hazzard of using one boy's misfortune to score cheap political points.
"I can't believe that somebody, yourself, who a short few months ago was championing the troop, the frontline troops and their support staff in DOCS, could have changed so much," O'Sullivan says in a letter to Hazzard.
"Your attack on the integrity and the decency and the endurance of those splendid people, yesterday in the Chamber, is nothing short of disgraceful and my disappointment at your change of heart and your change of mind over a short period of time is immense."
While the conference has been called to debate Rule Changes recommended in the Hawke-Wran Review, backers of a refugee debate say it too is a key part of the federal election review.
NSW Labor Council secretary John Robertson says he'll move to have the issue debated if a petition of rank and file members being circulated by Labor For Refugees is widely supported.
The Construction, Forestry, Mining and Energy Union is one of many trade unions backing the resolutions, in an intriguing twist on the 60-40 debate.
While the structural debate is about the relative influence of trade unions and rank and file members, the refugee debate cuts across this divide by providing a united front for change to the Parliamentary wing of the party.
"Senator Robert Ray in the Australian this week referred to Labor for Refugees as 'dissenter'," CFMEU NSW secretary Andrew Ferguson says.
We need to make it clear to the Federal Leadership that the so called dissenters are not Labor for Refugees supporters but are the members of the ALP who resisting the democratic voice of the ALP membership around the country"
The petition can be accessed at: http://www.labor4refugees.org/petition/
Labor Council secretary, John Robertson, said that one statement summed up a �highly principled� man who this week lost his long battle with mesothelioma, contracted as a young building worker.
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Ferguson was likely the last of the old labor school - a dedicated, unapologetic left-winger, who left school at 13 and saw wartime service in Borneo and New Guinea, before cutting his political teeth as a brickie and an official of the Building Workers Industrial Union.
Ferguson served as Minister for Ports, Housing and Public Works and is remembered for creating, and preserving, many of the open spaces on Sydney's foreshores.
He was acting NSW Premier for three months when Wran stood aside in 1983, during hearings of the Street Royal Commission.
Current premier, Bob Carr, recalled Ferguson being driven by "classic" Labor concerns.
"He had the stubborness and a sense of principle - the idea that workers always came first; that a Labor government was judged on how it looked after the poor; that a Labor MP never forgot who put him there and why."
Ferguson and his wife, Mary, lived out their 51-year marriage in a house he built with his own hands at working class Guildford. He began the project after Mary accepted his 1947 proposal but wouldn't marry until the job was completed nearly four years later.
While he is a beacon from Labor's past he and Mary will have a significant impact on the movement's future.
Sons Laurie and Martin are federal party front benchers, while their younger brother, Andrew, is the NSW secretary of the CFMEU Construction Division, a union that grew out of his father's BWIU. Daugthers Deborah and Jennifer are active party members.
Thanking Labor Council delegates for their sentiments and support, Andrew Ferguson, said it was his father's wish that supporters donate to Royal Prince Alfred Hospital in lieu of flowers.
"Dad was very impressed with the standard of the public health system," he said.
"He had inhaled asbestos as a young man and it has been hard watching him struggle to breathe for the last nine months. It's a terrible way to die and has only increased our determination to fight for workplace health and safety."
Below, former Cabinet colleague Rodney Cavalier, presents a personal memory of the man whose funeral will be held at St Patrick's Catholic Church, Guildford, at 10am next Monday.. .
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RODNEY CAVALIER REMEMBERS JACK FERGUSON, BUILDING WORKER
When Jack Ferguson started work as an Organiser for the Building Workers' Industrial Union, it was the first time he had ever worn a tie to work. Pat Clancy, NSW Secretary of the Union, expected his men to look the part; a clothing allowance came with the job. Somewhat delighted at this turn of events, Jack's wife Mary took him to the Reuben F.Scarf store at Auburn and kitted him out in a green sports coat, a green-and-white glo-weave shirt and pants with green material. (When it comes to Mary and recall, the detail is microscopic.)
Jack's first day visiting work sites was 15 November, 1957, a day which would be typical of all his days until his election to the NSW Parliament in 1959. He was going from building site to building site as cottages were under construction in the St. Elmo Estate at Campbelltown. Each site had a different builder. The number of workers was rarely more than six. On his report sheet, Jack would enter the numbers, breaking them into carpenters, bricklayers and apprentices.
His activity involved the basic work of a union organiser. He checked whether the employer was complying with the provisions of the Award. He was exercising the full reach of the law to protect the most basic rights of working men: whatever strength the BWIU possessed depended on mobile union officials getting out and about, armed with the legal power to check conditions and demand enforcement of legal entitlements. On his first day he forced one employer to pay a 17-year-old apprentice an additional ₤39/1/- (a veritable fortune for the time) for underpayment of wages.
There was more enforcement later that day. Jack recorded: "I got the builder to go to the bank & make the payments in my presence. Then signed up both boys in the union."
The sums were ₤11/8/9 and ₤22/12/-. Employers were responsible as well for fares to work. On that day, after checking the wages books, he forced another employer to write while he was present cheques for sums of ₤72/11/- and ₤61/12/6 for underpayment of fares. Employers, left to themselves, had little concern for other than the completion of the job at hand. One apprentice had no apprenticeship papers, he was not enrolled at a technical college. Having signed the boy as a member of the Union, Ferguson arranged his "Tech" enrollment.
Ferguson was checking the union membership of all workers on the jobs. He was checking whether they were members of the BWIU and whether they were fully financial. If they were not financial, he made arrangements for them to pay off the dues owed at a fixed sum per week, an arrangement which necessitated his visit to the site for weeks on end. (No payroll deductions then.) If they were not members of the BWIU or any other union, he would offer whatever persuasion he considered appropriate to get the worker to see the error of his ways. If the worker remained unconvinced, Ferguson would speak to the union members about the presence of such a person. He had no hesitation about demanding that an employer shed the services of a worker who refused to join the Union.
The battle was not only with the bosses. The BWIU had been deregistered, a breakaway union of carpenters (the Australasian Society of Carpenters and Joiners or ASC&J) had gained registration to fill the legal void - though void it was solely at law - while another breakaway was trying to organise a union of bricklayers. The BWIU organisers were expected to take members back from the carpenters' union. Relations between the two unions were bitter. Jack devoted a lot of his time to guerilla warfare against the ASC&J whenever he encountered its members on building sites. Wherever he encountered ASC&J members, he recorded them. Wherever he confronted them, he did what he could to transfer their membership to the BWIU. Individually and in small groups he was causing a steady defection from the rival union. When inspecting three cottages at Condell Park, for example, he reported: "Both carpenters are members of the ASC&J. Had a long talk with them, will go back & see them again as I feel sure that we can win them over to the BWIU."
In the three years he served as an Organiser, Jack visited building sites as diverse as large-scale factories and shopping complexes where there might be scores of carpenters down to cottages where there might be just the one bricklayer or carpenter accompanied by a single apprentice. Apart from building sites, the other locations for members were the many joinery shops which prefabricated doors and frames. That was in-door work, locations where the employer had no excuse for not providing all facilities.
The Australia of the 1950s was what he encountered every day. It was a world where the presence of any immigrant, referred to as "a New Australian", rated mention each time. Women had no place in that world. The one occasion that a woman entered a building site was short, her presence ended very suddenly. In February 1958, in response to a report at the Cabramatta Branch of the ALP that a woman had been seen at a local building site, Ferguson visited the site, found that a woman was working as a labourer, confronted the foreman and, as he reported, she was "put off straightaway".
The daily report sheets of Jack Ferguson are a rich source for the social history of working Australians in the late 1950s. Every site warranted its own report, one which contained the basic details of date and address, the size of the workforce and its occupational breakdown, spaces for entries on awards compliance and conditions, tool lock ups and first aid. Most valuably there is a large space for any additional comments by the Organiser.
Never confident of his handwriting, awry in his spelling, Jack nonetheless forced himself to write a few lines, sometimes many. Occasionally he had Mary type his comments. Some of those entries were as follows (original spelling and grammar preserved).
� Visited the job one day. Went back the next morning and held a meet at 9 o'clock and a rep elected. The matter of safety in fixing Purlins on the roof was raised. Back into the union office for advice, held a meeting next day and explained the position to the members, took the matter up with the foreman, the meeting decided to ask the Department of Lift & Scaffolds to inspect the job. On this job there are two old hands of the Firm who raised the question of working one hour extra a day so they could have a extra day at Xmas. Told the meeting the union attitude and there was a good response from the membership. There is one ASC&J on the job.
� Asked the employer for time to address men in working hours, he agreed, I read the amounts owing to each man & roasted them for working under the award & told them they were liable for doing it.
� The partners took a very bad stand about the rights of the union to come on the job during working hours.
� Had a lunch time meeting on this job, the nationalitys of the five carpenters are one Dutchman, one Dane, one Pole, two Italians. They were very interested in the unemployment position, and finance for home building also Immigration, the two Italians also keen on the question Peace & armament.
� Had quite a lot of trouble & I became very heated, had to go away & hold a lunch time meeting, when I came back we had all cooled down. The carpenter joined the union, the other two agreed to pay off their arrears.
� Another small builder feeling the pinch, finding it hard to get work, says he was beaten by �100 on a �800 job. Tells me he quotes on anything he can.
� Had a rep elected who is a Maltese & a very good chap, prepared to speak up & say his peace, as I have found so many of the Maltese.
"The reports were the worry of my life," Jack told me. Pat Clancy read them carefully to get a feel for the industry. On Thursday afternoons, the Organisers had a meeting with the other officials by which time Clancy had read all the reports. The collective discussed tactics and strategies, the officials went over the status of the multiple overlapping public campaigns the BWIU was always pursuing. They criticised each other and received criticism. "They were the greatest political experience of my life," Jack recalled.
They were communists for the most part, a cause of zero concern for Jack Ferguson. "I never saw them do anything that was not in the interests of the workers." Clancy was one of Jack's most important mentors. Here were two men steeped in struggle, both self-educated, immensely wise, brilliant strategists capable of thinking decades ahead. The young man had so much to learn from this giant in an era when unions were led by giants who had, one and all, come from the ranks.
Jack could recall a big mass meeting at Leichhardt Stadium which the bosses tried to take over - the companies shipped their workers in by their vehicles. The President of the Union made a tactical error. "I forget the issue," Jack told me, "it was about working conditions, wages and that. Leichhardt Stadium is packed to the gunwhales. [The President] is trying to raise the issue of peace as the big issue, the workers are only concerned about the wages. It near cost us the meeting. I remember Clancy used to stand in the ring and Clancy took the meeting back. At that time I got up and spoke and I spoke in support of the line the Union were adopting, evidently I must have made an impression."
The organisers were the front-line of the Union office. They had to perform or the Union would languish. Clancy did not leave his organisers in the one area for too long. "Clancy changed you around often, otherwise you became too settled and you avoided the small jobs. You went in cold-deck. You had to find the jobs yourself."
Basic organising did not, however, mean the abandonment of the wider political imperative, an imperative for Ferguson as for Clancy that amounted to nothing less than achieving the Kingdom of Heaven on Earth. "There were campaigns all the time - housing, peace, unemployment. You had to do your organising work and the campaigns. That meant you arrived at the jobs for breakfast, you had lunch with the blokes. The sheds often had dust from cement and other materials."
Whenever possible, Jack tried to have lunch with the blokes. "I made it a point if possible. When I was working on the job I always took cut-lunches. You worked on jobs where there was not a sandwich shop next door. You had your boiled billy. The blokes would give you a cup of tea." Mary, of course, cut him that lunch each day.
The workers were entitled to a smoko break in the morning of 10 minutes. Lunch was supposed to be 42 minutes. "You always resisted breaking it down to half-an-hour. We said you needed 42 minutes to recover and get your breath back. Now the bastards are working 20, they want to get home early to the pub or somewhere. Fools. You need to have a rest. We used to fight against the workers cutting their time."
Jack's work took him everywhere. One day he was stopping work on the Chemistry Building at the University of Sydney (for which he copped a serve in the Commission), another day he was at Lithgow High School before work starts having left his Guildford home in the darkness. Most days he was in and around the western suburbs of Sydney as the paddocks of a once-rural economy disappeared under building sites for cottages to house working people and their families.
And every night virtually, including weekends, Jack Ferguson was not idle. By now his five children had come into the world, a cluster of babies and the very young. He was an Alderman of Parramatta Council, the ALP was requiring his attendance at Guildford Branch and the other branches in his ward, plus Granville SEC and Reid FEC. There were all the night meetings of the Union.
Holding union office was not a sinecure nor was it much of an advantage in positioning oneself for ALP preselection. With the Cold War raging, being proud to be an official of a Communist-controlled union made you a target of those who controlled the ALP in the State. But win a preselection Jack did: instead of waiting for the Left's citadel of Granville to fall vacant in 1962, Jack chanced his arm on Merrylands three years early, condemning himself to the probability of preselection challenges from ambitious Right-wing operatives who could always play the anti-communist card against him and rely on the support of ALP Head Office. Not until Jack became Deputy Leader could he be certain of his selection next time around.
Jack did not leave his Union nor his mates behind when he was elected to the NSW Parliament. He became a member of the BWIU State Executive after he became an MP and remained there until he became a Minister. His involvement was not nominal, especially when it came to the internal affairs of the Labor Party. At the 1973 ALP Conference the Left was formally split - as the Left usually is. The split of the early 1970s mirrored the split in the Communist Party between pro-Soviet and non-Soviet forces.
All of Jack's friends inside the ALP Left were decidedly non-Soviet (if only because they admired the Aarons' line of Australian independence) whereas the BWIU leadership subscribed to whatever line came out of Moscow. It did not please Jack to disagree with Clancy but disagree he did. At the ALP Conference the Right had done a deal with the pro-Soviet elements in order to remove Senator Arthur Gietzelt from the ALP Federal Executive. Arthur was gone for all money, gone long before the weekend, gone the night before, gone until just before the ballot opened. In the meantime, Jack had seen Clancy, Jack had pleaded with Clancy, Jack cashed in a lot of chips with Clancy. If necessary, Jack would resign from the BWIU Executive. He left that resignation with Pat to consider.
So it was that Clancy let it be known to the BWIU's ALP delegation they should stick with Arthur. So it was the BWIU delegates voted. So it was that Arthur was re-elected - by an overall margin far, far less than the votes the BWIU cast.
Jack only ever attended Annual Conference as a BWIU delegate though he could so easily have gained passage through his local electorate councils or the parliamentary party. Jack stayed with the BWIU because he thought it an honour without peer to be considered worthy of representing building workers. Much of the genius of his subsequent counsel in the NSW Cabinet was relating the impact of lofty decisions on a building worker and his family.
When, finally in the late 1990s, Jack was absent from every day of the Annual Conference, we knew that his body was letting him down. Some of the most beautiful memories of a cavalcade of memories are Jack in the Sydney Town Hall, sitting in the BWIU delegation, surrounded by old mates who could remember him as a brickie and surrounded by very young blokes not born when he left the tools. He was with them in 1983 when he was Acting Premier of New South Wales - when he was entitled to 24-hour police protection, when (certainly) he was entitled to be lorded. People came to Jack at ALP Conferences, delighted to see that he was still well, bringing up the old fights, the great moments, those times when the Left had its victories and its defeats in defence of honour. You knew where you could find Jack. He was always with the BWIU. He might move around but he never sat down anywhere else.
It was the same each year. It was the same when he was Deputy Leader, or Deputy Premier, Acting Premier, it was the same when public office was behind him and he was a grand patriarch. Jack passed the three days and two nights the same way each year: sitting with the BWIU, paying close attention to the proceedings, right arm straddled the length of two chairs, in one of the rear blocks where the delegations persona non grata are placed. This was the ALP in conference, he was acting Leader and he was a delegates like any other. What was said should matter.
The best part of any of those days was when the Chair gave the call to Jack. He would come forward acclaimed by the delegates, welcomed by name by the Chair. It did not matter. His beginning was always the same: "Delegate Ferguson, Building Workers' Industrial Union". And we would applaud all over again.
His passing is the passing of so much of what is fine about the Labour Movement.
In Sydney the Hilton Hotel has been inundated with more than 2,500 emails after it sacked its workforce, while in Thailand, a cyber-picket has been instrumental in the victory of a group of female suitcase-makers.
Sydney's Hilton Hotel top brass are feeling both the community pressure, and the pressure from their bosses in London who do not like the negative attention being focused on their brand name.
The Hilton Hotel's top man in Australia has received more than 2,500 e-mails condemning him for the way he has treated the workforce - and the e-mails are still coming in.
The e-mails have come from across Australia and the world, they have come from academics, politicians and religious leaders.
The Sydney Hilton on-ling campaign is just one of many international trade union campaigns using traditional labour solidarity values - via the new technology.
This week news from Thailand has shown that big companies are worried by these e-mail campaigns spreading across the world.
Women workers employed at a Thai company called Lighthouse, making luggage for the US-giant Samsonite, were sacked for trying to form a union.
Last week, the company gave in to the union, and those women who wanted to, returned to work.
The local union and the ICFTU said it was clear that without the solidarity action created by the web based e-mail campaign the Thai union could not have won such a clear victory.
Back the LHMU Hotel Union Hilton workers
You can support the LHMU Hotel Union campaign by sending a protest e-mail to the Sydney management at LabourStart's Sydney Hilton Hotel protest webpage - http://www.labourstart.org/actnow/20020912.shtml
Wine Workers Strike
Over 30 members of the LHMU in South Australia walked off the job this morning in reaction to their employer, Yaldara Wines, seeking to reduce their wages by between $100 and $140 per week.
The strike action is the first in Yaldara's 53 years of operating at Lyndoch in the Barossa Valley.
" This week, Yaldara ambushed us with a decision to seek to rescind the Enterprise Agreement that governs our members' wages and conditions" Mark Butler, SA LHMU State Secretary said
"If successful, this decision would result in a reduction of between $100 and $140 per week in wages for our members. "
Unionists have called on the company to withdraw its wage reduction application.
Hilton workers, many with more than 20 years service, will be tipped out work in November with a maximum of eight weeks compensation. If they had been employed under NSW law they would have been entitled to a maximum of 16 weeks and hundreds of casuals would have secured pro-rata pay-outs.
But ACTU efforts to move those provisions into federal agreements are being stone-walled by the usual AIG, Chamber of Commerce and Industry, Howard Government alliance.
Although the first two parties represent business people used to six and seven figure golden handshakes, they have said they will fight the ACTU proposal in the AIRC.
Federal Workplace Relations Minister Tony Abbott confirmed his Government would also oppose the spread of NSW conditions to workers who lose their jobs.
ACTU president Sharan Burrow pointed out that corporate failures and cutbacks had cost more than half a million Australians their jobs in recent years.
"One quarter of them, 150,000 employees, received less than one day's notice," she said.
Statistics reveal that displaced workers aged over 45 spend more than twice as long looking for new starts, 96 weeks on average, as their younger counterparts.
AIG and the Chambers of Commerce want the rights of redundant workers watered down rather than improved. The latter organisation wants to deny rights to pre-redundancy consultation and to deny payments to staff who find alternative employment.
"Airport security screeners angry that only 15 % of the workforce are employed full-time at one of Australia's most sensitive airports have been running a long campaign to create more permanent positions," Jo-anne Schofield, LHMU Airport Security Union Assistant Secretary, said.
"The union believes that at airports - in the current environment - it is just not good enough to have 85 % of the workforce employed either as casuals or part-time workers.
" The LHMU Security Union had a media blitz, just before September 11, about the security implications of employing casuals for nearly half the airport screeners positions during peak periods."
As a result of the media spotlight the security company, SNP, was embarrassed and has now taken urgent steps to offer permanent positions to casual workers.
This, however, does not address the broader dispute between SNP and the Union about rostering and SNP's failure to convert part-time workers - doing in excess of 38 hours per week - to full-time employees.
The LHMU Security Union has notified a dispute in the Australian Industrial Relations Commission which is being opposed by the company.
The PSA application that the award be varied to guarantee a day's pay while recovering from fatigue after three days fire fighting was accepted by Justice McKenna. It applies to every three-day period.
NPWS staff have to do quite a lot of fire fighting, not just the against huge fires we have from time to time. There are numerous smaller fires around the state which local parks officers and reinforcements have to control and put out.
The change arose after NPWS head office introduced the new policy just before the Christmas bushfires. The existing provision for a day off on pay after three days fire fighting was open to misinterpretation an practices varied from region to region.
The policy had been developed as part of the overall firefighting policy following the tragedy in Ku-ring-gai National Park.
The LHMU negotiating team were told yesterday that their campaign for a state-wide agreement with the Moran Health Group would not succeed.
Union delegates were told that Doug Moran, who regularly rates as one of Australia's richest men, could not afford to increase the nursing home workers pay by one buck an hour.
LHMU members in eight Moran nursing homes will next Thursday stop work for a long, relaxed, state-wide morning tea under the theme : "Chaos or Calm - your choice Mr Moran"
And one week later the members will bring an empty shoe to work and dump it in front of the manager's office asking - who will fill our shoes if we walk away?
The Moran Nursing Home campaign in WA has taken off, with the enthusiastic support of members eager to highlight the nursing home workers pay crisis.
Delegates are having regular phone link-ups as a way of sharing strategies and information, as well as encouraging each other by keeping their spirits high.
Union members who work for the Moran Health Group are spread far and wide - from Perth, to Geraldton in the north, Narrogin in the east and Bunbury in the south.
Union members at Armadale Nursing Home and Greenmount Gardens Nursing Centre had to hold a four-hour stop meeting in a desperate attempt to get their employer to the bargaining table.
"We didn't want to resort to this, but how else were we supposed to show Moran that we were serious about wage justice?" asks union delegate Rosalie Weekes.
Toni Williamson, delegate at Armadale Nursing Home, has been regularly going on local community radio programs talking about the campaign.
Speaking at an international conference in Newcastle, Greg Combet said negotiating global union recognition clauses was one way developed workers could assist colleagues in developing countries.
Last week the world's largest gold company, Anglogold, and the 20-million strong International Chemical, Energy and Mineworkers federation (ICEM) signed provided for union recognition and a commitment to industrial rights in the company's operations worldwide.
"Through global agreements with companies like AngloGold, unions are developing opportunities for working people who are directly affected by globalisation," Combet says.
"Coordinated international campaigning by union networks in companies like Rio Tinto has also been successful in improving industrial relations practices at company operations."
The CFMEU and the Maritime Union of Australia hosted the three-day conference. Delegates from international unions including ICEM and the International Transport Workers Federation (ITF) are attending from the United States, South Africa, Japan, Germany, France, Britain, Belgium and Canada.
Premier's two largest shareholders, Petronas and Amerada Hess, will strip the company of its Burmese and Indonesian assets respectively.
Premier's name has become synonymous with corporate irresponsibility. In the 1990s the company went into partnership with Burma's military dictatorship to build a gas pipeline across Burmese territory for the sale of gas to Thailand. BCUK's campaign highlighted the financial lifeline the project provided to the junta, the human rights abuses committed by pipeline security forces, and calls by Burma's pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi that the company should pull out. As the campaign gained momentum the UK government took the unprecedented action of calling directly for Premier to withdraw from Burma.
It seems however that the major blow was dealt when the Burma Campaign UK provided US investment funds with information that Amerada Hess had possibly contravened US sanctions and UK company law through its investment in Premier. With investors concerned that Amerada had broken the law, as well as mounting pressure from US Burma activists against Amerada, the company was left no option but to withdraw from Premier. The company's withdrawal was a catalyst for Petronas to similarly leave Premier. Both companies combined had a 50% holding in Premier.
John Jackson, Director of BCUK says: "The demise and fall of Premier is a warning to any company thinking about investing in Burma - it's more trouble than it's worth. And if you won't listen to us, then give the Directors of Amerada Hess or Premier Oil a call." He added: "We won't stop here, we've won a battle but not the war. The pressure needs to be turned up on TotalFinaElf and Unocal, who are as guilty as Premier of propping up one of the most brutal regimes in the world."
LA based writer and actor Ian Ruskin will perform 'Brining Harry Home - From Wharf Rat to Lord of the Docks in a one-off performance in conjunction with the centenary of the waterfront waters union.
It tells the story of Harry bridges, an Australian seafarer who jumped ship in the roaring twenties; worked the wharves, fought the bosses and founded one of the strongest and most progressive unions in the world - the International Longshoremen's Union (ILU)
The ILU is currently in a bitter dispute with the Bush Administration in a strike that has echoes on the Patrick's Waterfront Dispute in Australia.
The performance will be held at the New Theatre, 542 King Street Newtown. Tickets $10 - bar opens 7.30pm. Doors open at 8pm.
The September event of YUM will be Pub Trivia at Trades Hall on Thursday 26 September 2002 at 7.00pm. Trivia will be co-MC'd by Labor Council Secretary John Robertson and FSU Organiser Gabby Wynhausen with great union prizes and giveaways.
There will also be a gold coin donation to the picket line of the day.
Young Unionists are also encouraged to attend the Labor Council meeting beforehand at Trades Hall Auditorium.
For more details call Karen Iles (CFMEU) on 0412-462-646 or Susan Sheather (Labor Council) on 0402 422 383
I watched the story on whether Australia should go to war if called upon by the United States. (Sunday on 9)
I ask this question : If the real issue is to stop terrorism and weapons of mass destruction, then is the United Nations also going to have weapons inspectors in the USA?
USA is developing nuclear weapons of low yield (5km square), and posses one of the comprehensive biological and chemical weapons arsenal on the globe. And will they use it??? Ask Japan , Korea, Vietnam and the 200 odd conflicts USA has been involved in since 1945.
I am not for any side in the looming dispute, but as an ordinary citizen, I want truth and openness. The ordinary citizen is a lot more educated and sophisticated than every before. Who really benefits form the conflict? How will it impact on us in the long term, in terms of trade and what real threat to us?? What real political and economic threat is IRAQ against the world order?
All we have so far heard is heavily biased rhetoric. If we are going to be asked to send our sons to war, at least be honest with us.
Kurt Neuleuf
********************
Dear Editor,
Regarding the editorial and the terrorism.
There is more we are not told than what we are.
May I refer you to a page of information I have collected at http://www.nex.net.au/users/reidgck/BUSHAD.HTM
I emailed the above page to some 144 lower house politicians in light of the debate coming up on the issue very soon.
Also there is the the home page which is www.nex.net.au/users/reidgck regarding the U.S. global economic collapse and the reasons
Thanks for the Workers Online editions by email, they are very informative.
Best wishes,
Graeme Reid
Thank you Peter Lewis for pointing out how the response to the events of September 11, 2001, has demonstrated what a fragile and hypocritial facade had concealed the reality of Western so-called democracy.
The self-appointed leader of the Free World, the USA, has been built upon layer after layer of exploitation and deceit. Firstly the early colonists and those who followed not only stole the land from its indigenous inhabitants, by signing treaties which were never honoured, but with the use of firearms against bows and arrows succeeded in reducing a proud and environmentally aware race of people into a pathetic remnant relying on Government handouts, and living in reservations far from their original homelands.
These "lovers of freedom" then built up their new empire using slave labour transported from Africa under the most horrendous and inhmane conditions, and continued to treat their unpaid workers with contempt and sadism.
When America became involved in World War II (and this is one thing for which we are indebted to that country) they built up such a large armaments industry that, following the war, the nation's economy depended upon its continutation.
And so they sold arms to anyone who was willing to pay, regardless of what use to which they would be put. It is a popular theory, and one which I find no trouble in believing, that the USA clandestinely created wars around the world in order to profit from its arms sales.
And of course the only interest America really has in keeping the Arab nations under control is to maintain its primary source of oil.
What self-righteous Westerners, and especially Christians have overlooked is that, with the exception of a fanatical minority, Muslims take their religion very seriously. They actually practise their religion rather than just paying lip service as is the case with a large proportion of Christians.
By driving ahead with his simplistic, ill-informed hawkish lust for vengeance, Bush, followed by his lap dog Howard, is in danger of initiating the real Armageddon. The most likely result of his planned illegitimate attack on Iraq is that honest, God-fearing Muslim people throughout the world will unite to resist the neo-tyrant, George Bush.
Mark Latham euphamistically described Howard's relationship with Bush as "arse-licking." "Suppository" would have been a more accurate term.
And why does Australia have to get involved at all? We have had no terrorist attacks on our soil. But by blindly following President Bush into a battle that can never be won, our dick-head Prime Minister is making Australia a potential target for serious terrorism.
Julian Hancock
ABC Radio National's Hindsight Program presents a 1hour documentary on the 1973 Ford Broadmeadows (Victoria) Strike.
Hear the story of the predominantly migrant auto workers fighting for better pay and conditions who revolted against their bosses and their union.
"A match lit on wages that set off a conflagration on work environment." - Laurie Carmichael (ex AMWU)
"The bosses couldn't believe that migrants who barely spoke English could be so militant, more militant than their union." - Giovanni Sgro' (Filef - Italian Migrant Workers' Federation and their Families.)
The 1973 dispute became infamous for the riot that took place at the Ford Broadmeadows plant when striking workers refused to accept a compromise pay rise offer from Ford management and return to work after only three and a half weeks. The militancy of a section of the rank and file - most of them migrants - outflanked that of union leadership and ended up forcing a continuation of the strike which was successful in obtaining an increase in Ford's offer. The dispute was an explosion of anger against the rigidity of Taylorist work organisation in a pre-computerised auto industry and highlighted the communication problems that existed between management, unions and migrant workers at the time. It is also remembered for the inter-ethnic solidarity of the predominantly migrant workforce that became an inspiration for those involved in the struggle for a progressive multicultural Australia.
Interviews with Italian, Greek, Egyptian and Turkish migrant workers, migrant activists and former unionists.
On air date: September 22 at 2pm, repeat September 26 at 1pm.
Frequencies in capital cities...
Adelaide 729AM | Brisbane 792AM | Canberra 846AM
Darwin 657AM | Gold Coast 90.1FM | Hobart 585AM
Melbourne 621AM | Newcastle 1512AM | Perth 810AM | Sydney 576AM
For more information, log on at:
http://www.abc.net.au/rn/history/history.htm
For frequencies in regional Australia, log on at:
http://www.abc.net.au/rn/freq/map.htm
Dear Sir,
No matter how large we perceive our World, or how small we perceive our careless actions, the immutable law that demands; for every action, there is an equal reactor, is inevitably invoked.
Our environment, which is probably an already mortally wounded and fragile ecosystem, every assistance or respite, that we can offer it, gives humanity, as we know it a few more years of comfortable existence.
Should we then take note of reports from the Observatory of European SMEs, an organisation funded by the European Commission, which has been reporting on Europe's SME's for nine years recently released evidence of these gases from refrigerators as seriously affecting our environment The depletion of the ozone layer high up in the stratosphere has received widespread publicity because of the link between exposure to UV-B radiation and human skin cancers. UV-B radiation is also detrimental to aquatic ecosystems, limiting the production of phytoplankton (the basis of oceanic food chain) and affecting the early developmental stages of fish and crustaceans.
There is now no doubt that the cause of the depletion is CFCs and Halon gases released into the atmosphere from refrigerators, aerosols and fire extinguishers.
International policy has reduced the global annual production of such substances by up to 90% and also significantly reduced emissions. The problem is that the recovery of the ozone layer is expected to lag significantly behind the introduction of remedial policies. In fact, the depleting effects of the gases now in the atmosphere have yet to peak; this is expected to occur between 2000 and 2010 if no further substantial emissions are made
With the recent expos�' of possible environmental damage by Parramatta Council , through their exposure of Parramatta River to damaging pollutants, and the transfer of massive amounts of Asphalt Chippings from the North Shore , into Rydalmere, one must also question their unusual and apparently unchecked policy of "White Goods" collection , including Air Conditioners. This is a potential environmental time bomb that all Councils who collect these types of goods and dispose of them irresponsibly are sitting on.
What happens to the gases contained in these appliances- is it possible that rather than safely extracting the toxic gases and disposing of them in a responsible manner, these appliances are crushed and mangled with the gases being released into the atmosphere.
The mind boggles at the amount of toxins have been released into the atmosphere over the years from dumped refrigerators, air conditioners, televisions and computer monitors, because of this outrageous incompetence.
Tom Collins
The challenge for Workers Online over the past four years has been to signpost every week by reporting the battles, the debates and the sideshows from the world of trade unionism.
Over that time our readership has increased to the now respectable figure of 10,000 - strong by web standards; although in the context of the broader movement, still less than one per cent of total membership.
We think we've done a reasonable job and managed to portray the dynamism of the union movement week in week out. If at times we've had to flick the switch to vaudeville to fill our journal, we've been happy to oblige.
But there is a point where the continuous reporting of issues becomes the sole purpose of the exercise - and it is at that point that a re-evaluation of our mission is required.
That's why this week's email edition may look a little skinny. We've decided to change the way we publish Workers Online, with weekly news, editorial and Tool Shed updates, but features and columns updated monthly.
You'll still get a weekly email of these news updates, but the comprehensive Workers Online packages will only be sent out on a monthly basis. If there is a big issue breaking we'll still have the facility to publish a special full issue, but only if the content demands it.
We have done this for a number of reasons. Principally, we feel that the features are coming and going too quickly, with our stats showing they are not being widely as read as they could. We hope by keeping these excellent pieces of union writing on our home page longer, more people will have the chance to digest them.
Secondly, we've got to admit that the weekly production invariably forces a rush job. Our feature writers can't spend the time they'd like to getting behind stories and working with unions to develop themes that could be the basis of broader campaigns.
Finally, to be candid, we have been facing a constant battle to get individual unions to share their stories with us, meaning we need to spend more time and energy actually going and digging up content.
So we are really employing the adage less is more - we hope that the new format will give our subscribers more time to check out better-researched articles; and maybe recognise that we need your help in keeping this site going over the longer term.
Peter Lewis
Editor
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