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Issue No. 158 25 October 2002  
E D I T O R I A L

The Sirens' Song
There is nothing for trade unionists to celebrate from Labor’s loss in the Cunningham by-election.

F E A T U R E S

Interview: The Wet One
NSW Opposition industrial relations spokesman Michael Gallacher stakes out his relationship with the union movement.

Bad Boss: Like A Bastard
Virgin Mobile is sexy and funky, right? Well, only if those terms have become synonyms for dictatorial or downright mean.

Unions: Demolition Derby
Tony Abbott likens industrial relations to warfare and, like a good general should, he is about to shift his point of attack – from building sites to car plants, reports Jim Marr.

Corporate: The Bush Doctrine
For the powerful, consumerism equals freedom, and is all the freedom we need, writes James Goodman

Politics: American Jihad
Let’s get real. The origins of modern Islamic terrorist groups are in Saudi Arabia, Pakistan and Langley, Virginia not Baghdad, argues Noel Hester.

Health: Secret Country
Oral history recordings are an inadequate tool in trying to find out what happened to Aboriginal stockmen and their communities on cattle stations in Northern Australia, writes Neale Towart

Review: Walking On Water
On the 20th anniversary of the first AIDS-related death, Tara de Boehmler witnesses the aftermath of losing a loved one to the illness in Walking On Water.

Culture: TCF
Novelist Anthony Macris captures life on the shop floor in this extract from his upcoming novel, Capital Volume II

Poetry: The UQ Stonewall
The University of Queensland has sought to join the ranks of union-busting companies like Rio Tinto in trying to sack the president of the local union - and made the mistake of thinking they were dealing with an array of acquiescent academics.

N E W S

 Email Use Sparks Pay Claim

 Melbourne Cup Strike Threat

 10,000 Rally in Support of Kingham

 Negligent Bosses Labelled ‘Serial Killers’

 Ambulance Officers Win $6 Million Back-Pay

 Strike Pay to Bali Appeal

 Boral Bosses Bag Bulk Bucks

 Bid to Block New ACCC Chief

 Cuts Equals Profits for ANZ

 First Takers for 36-Hour Week

 IT Outsourcing Agencies Called To Account

 Pay to Work Spreads to Hornsby

 Howard Opens Waters to Rogue Ship

 Work a Suicide Factor

 Unis Drop RDO Assault

 Boxes of Books for Good Causes

 Activist Notebook

C O L U M N S

The Soapbox
I Walk The Line
American civil rights leader Jesse Jackson has weighed into the Hilton Hotel dispute with this special message to the workforce.

Postcard
Mekong Daze
Union Aid Abroad's Phil Hazelton fires off a missive from Laos where he is spending a year working with the community.

Month In Review
Bush Whackers
It was a month where the world teetered on the brink of peace, no thanks to the leader of the free world, writes Jim Marr

The Locker Room
The Laws Of Gravity
Phil Doyle goes looking for the fine line that separates sport from an exercise in time-wasting

Bosswatch
Snouts in the Trough
It’s AGM season in the corporate world, and deal after shady deal is being exposed as highfliers treat company accounts like the proverbial honey-pot.

Wobbly
Songs of Solidarity
There has been a proud history of pro-worker tunes dating back to the early days of the 20th century, which will be continued in a new CD, writes Dan Buhagiar.

L E T T E R S
 Heaps of Bali Feedback
 Brooklyn Phil Says ...
 Here Comes the WTO
 From Little Finks ...
 The Mouth From the South!
 Ushering the Rusted Shield
 Echoes of DLP
WHAT YOU CAN DO
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News

Negligent Bosses Labelled ‘Serial Killers’


The push for a national database of workplace deaths is gathering pace, with one union leader equating repeat employer offenders as the equivalent to ‘serial killers’.

Australian Workers Union national secretary Bill Shorten is writing to each Federal and State Government seeking contributions for a $1.5 million fund for the national coronial database.

Victorian Coroner Graeme Johnstone this week told AWU delegates a national database would help the Coroners' office identify trends that may prevent workplace deaths and other fatalities.

The Coroner, who returned from the Bali tragedy on Tuesday, said: "The power of a national database is enormous. It will affect each one of us in our daily lives. It could save your life, your children's lives or my children's lives.''

He says 7,500 Australians die of unnatural causes, which need to be investigated each year. "A national database could give us early warnings about emerging patterns that may help us prevent deaths.''

AWU National Secretary Bill Shorten said the union would campaign on behalf of workers for government funding to permanently establish the national database. He said a database set up under the management by the Monash University National Centre for Coronial Information (MUNCCI) was in its infancy, and risked losing its funding.

"If a serial killer was on the lose, everyone would be working on the case and identifying patterns to catch them. When a worker is killed in the workplace again and again that is equivalent to a serial killer,'' Mr Shorten said. "The crazy thing is we don't have a resourced-system to track down the serial killers."

He said a national database could be used in a tragedy like the Bali bombings: "Part of the problem in Bali, is that it has been hard for families to get a national response. Australia is facing its single biggest atrocity since the war, and yet we have no national coronial system."

Shorten says obvious areas for national investigation in the workplace included cancer rates, deaths by falls, forklift fatalities and suicides.

"You all know it is possible to die at work. Badly designed machinery, stress or exposure to chemicals can kill workers. Unfortunately we have eight separate lists instead of one. That means it takes that much longer to identify trends,'' Shorten says.

"About 100 years ago we become a Federation. But when it comes to trying to set up a national database we still act like a bunch of colonies,'' he says.


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