******************
It is a sign of John Howard's political ascendency that he can afford to call at truce in his life-long battle with the union movement and refashion himself as a leader of national unity. If there is one upside to the manic politicking around Terror and Security it is that, for now, workers rights - or the diminution of the aforementioned - are off Howard's political radar.
So attuned are current affairs to the Little Master's little, little mind that he may even punt on meeting his biographer's missus public call for paid maternity leave. Don't believe the hype, there is no way Pru would have got this far without a heads up. The workers have ceased to be the PM's enemy; the unions are neither inclined nor capable of doing much heavy lifting for the ALP and their members are fast becoming a key constituent group.
Only this week, Howard called a ceasefire on Tony Abbott's union assault on the car industry. As Abbott primed the press for carnage, Howard opted for a Button-esque industry assistance package, proposed by a summit of union and industry types who recognised the zero-sum in industrial warfare. All Doug Cameron could do when the announcement was made was praise the PM and hope this enlightened policy become a blueprint for the rest of our manufacturing sector.
All of which leaves Howard's political bovver boy looking sadly out of the main game in 2002. Sure, he had his Royal Commission to play with, but despite $65 million in our collective largesse, the spooks and dicks could find little more than an on-site Viagra racket and one man's sexual fantasies to make national headlines. The Cole Commission has not exposed a corrupt union movement, nor even a corrupt union; it has found spirited organising that sometimes crosses the boundaries into illegality; but that's with Abbott's own restrictive workplace laws. There is little that can be imagined emerging from the show-trial that will overshadow the war on Terror, or Iraq or Muslims, or whoever it is this sorry agenda mutates to target next.
The only stage Abbott had to perform on in 2002 was in the little one, where he attempted to redefine work and Family by asserting that work was, well, family. But he stretched his analogy into dangerous territory, asserting that "a bad boss is like a bad father - notwithstanding all his faults you find he tends to do more good than harm. He may be a bad boss, but at least he's employing someone while he is in fact a boss." Before the howls of protests from victims of domestic violence had died down, he was redefining the work of the AIRC, no longer an umpire, now 'a neighbourhood' where the neighbours work things out together.
He ranged the countryside looking for trouble, secure in his word view that the boss and the workers are just two punters, not a mismatch in the power relationship that is global capital's ultimate victory. He bagged the MUA members who refused to give their seats up to Ukranians when their ship became a Flag of Convenience. He persevered with his Holy Jihad to make it easier for bosses to sack their workers. He led the charge when unions sought to apply free market principles to union membership. And he huffed and he puffed, but he couldn't blow a single house down.
Unions did not just hold the line in 2002. They moved forward. Cutting through decades of political blow-back to begin to assert a voice independent of the political wing that they created but which now seems hell-bent on disappearing up its own annals of history. Slimey Simey may have helped, but unions are accepting that the Party they created to improve workers rights, is now more interested in winning power than in exercising it. If Cunningham didn't show the tidal change, the Victorian election did when Tory Robert Doyle's last ditch desperation strategy to claim the ALP was in the union's pockets translated into his Party's largest loss in history.
John Howard is too rat cunning for this trick. He has survived this long because he can read a poll. And his polls are the same as our's. People feel insecure in their work; they resent the big wages the corporates pay CEOs while slashing jobs. They now see unions as par of the solution, not part of the problem. Indeed, if anything, the debate has come full circle and punters now believe that unions have too little, not too much power.
If the leadership tide may be passing Costello by, the entire political debate is bypassing the Monk and man who carried little but prejudice and bluster behind his substantial front. Even at week's end he was at it, leading the cheer squad for the right-wing 'think tank', the Institute of Public Affair's spurious assertions that enterprise bargaining were an unreasonable fetter on managers. Abbott went further than the ideological eggheads, calling for more Chris Corrigans to sign up as foot soldiers on an enemy whose reserves of weapons of mass destruction are grossly exaggerated by its political opponents. Which leaves the Mad Monk looking like one of the White House Hawks, determined for war in the face of all credible evidence. A greater Tool we've rarely seen.
Clearly disappointed by the 440-150 secret ballot result, the Workplace Relations Minister suggested voters would not necessarily get their way.
"I think that this is the opening skirmish rather than the closing battle, so to speak, in this particular campaign," Abbott told the media after the result was announced
Abbott has admitted holding meetings with Grocon boss, Daniel Grollo, as the latter plotted to use the Workplace Relations Act to sideline the CFMEU.
His plan, openly supported by Abbott, had appeared to swing on an early-morning, December 19 mass meeting at the Moonee Valley Racecourse from which CFMEU representatives were barred.
Workers, surrounded by up to 200 salaried staff not be covered by the negotiations, were asked to vote on a Section 170LK agreement to which their union would not be a party. The carrot-and-stick case put by Grollo included additional leave inducements and a warning that rejection would jeopardise employment.
The company's corporate-style presentation was chaired by former AFL star and Brownlow medalist, Robert Dipiedominico.
But, despite the urgings of the Murdoch-controlled Herald Sun and Australian newspapers, construction workers rejected Grollo's anti-union proposition.
However, the way Grocon counted its ballot has left open the possibility of Government becoming embroiled in another Patrick-style rort, where workers are transferred from one company to another without their knowledge or agreement.
Despite being listed on IBIS' World Company Profiles as a company with "no subsidiaries" Grocon divided ballot results amongst five separate entities and, just minutes after the meeting, put out a press release announcing "100 per cent" support for its proposition at one of those "companies". It was later revealed that this referred to a 2-0 vote of staff at something called Grocon PL.
Grocon, understood to be in trouble after under-estimating costs on its $425 million MCG redevelopment, has launched legal action against the CFMEU and five leading officials, including state secretary Martin Kingham. Industry sources suggest costings were underestimated because the company failed to take into account 60 down days forced by major sporting events. The CFMEU has offered to negotiate "flexibilities" for the MCG job.
Union officials were this week playing down the spectre of being caught in a Grocon-Federal Government pincer movement.
They urged the company to respect the wishes of its employees and commit to the industry agreement which all other major Victorian construction contractors and sub-contractors have signed.
Kingham said the principle area of disagreement between the Grocon proposal and the pattern agreement was hours of work. Grocon wants to be able to work their employees unlimited hours and to buy out rostered days off, annual leave and sick leave.
"They're talking about winding back the clock," Kingham said. "We are moving towards family-friendly hours that recognise the other responsibilities of construction workers, while they are pushing Abbott's agenda to eliminate leisure time.
"Grocon should respect the democratic decision of its employees and recognise they have voted overwhelmingly for union representation."
Abbott, meanwhile, claimed "union coercion" had been behind rejection of the Grocon proposal. He refused to give any evidence in support of the allegation.
Stackpoole and his nurse aide wife, Joyce, are being hailed �working class heroes� for their resistance to buy-off offers made by the company in a bid to have them take the money and run.
Labor Council secretary John Robertson delivered the accolade in urging state government to change the law so more victimised activists are able to follow in Stackpoole's footsteps.
Labor Council is promoting change in a bid to make buying off victimised workers less attractive to aggressive employers - lobbying government to sign off on a charter of delegates rights, and make reinstatement, rather than compensation, the priority remedy for unjustified dismissals.
"Under the current system an employer can discrimate and get away with it. Compensation is a cost, more often than not, anti-worker employers are prepared to pay," Robertson said.
"The meaningful remedy is to have the vindicated person back on the job."
Robertson pointed out Stackpoole had been working for the company for 10 years prior to his dismissal.
Rings of Deceit
Stackpoole returned to Villawood on December 4, six months after he and five other union activists were sacked on charges of being involved in a "major crime ring". Taubmans, run by South African-based Barlow World Coatings, refused requests to back its allegations with evidence.
The delegate had been a key player in a seven-week strike in support of enterprise bargaining claims a year earlier.
Stackpoole said his six months without income had been "tough". He said the solidarity of 130 LHMU workmates who took up collections, dropped around with the occassional carton of beer, or just turned up for a chat, had been a "huge help".
But it was the unflagging support of his nurse aide wife that took most pressure off his shoulders.
"It was never about the money. It was about being vindicated and going back to work with my head in the air," he told Workers Online.
"If I ever wavered Joyce would remind me we were fighting for our good name.
"We didn't believe it was right that a big company could just make ridiculous allegations against people and cost them their jobs."
As the case dragged on, Taubmans dangled substantial sums in front of him, on the basis that he dropped his reinstatement claim. Neither Stackpoole, nor the LHMU, would divulge exact amounts but people close to the family insist they turned their backs on more than a year's salary, understood to be in excess of $50,000.
Unfortunately, as the case dragged on, his five former workmates accepted financial inducements to drop their claims. Stackpoole bares no ill will, saying their decisions, turned on individual circumstances.
On December 4, the IRC ordered Taubmans to reinstate Stackpoole and reimburse wages lost since his June dismissal.
"It was great to go back. In all honesty, it was like I had never been away," he said.
Labor Council has applied to join three African chefs in opposing a Restaurant and Caterers Association application to have �benefits� retrospectively discounted against outstanding wages .
Ribs and Rumps representatives want a landmark IRC ruling that would allow it to subtract the costs of rent, uniforms, soap, toiletries and other alleged benefits from sums it told Immigration it would pay imported cooks.
The Manly eatery brought the South Africans workers into the country four years ago under controversial Section 457 Immigration Visas.
"The applications is a direct challenge to the principle that a worker's wages are inviolable, especially if there was no agreement," Labor Council spokesman Chris Christodoulou said. "This would take us back to the Rum Days where workers were paid in kind."
Labour Council cited "public interest" in asking to be joined to the case.
Ribs and Rumps has listed a string of deductions it says should be made from the $49,000 it agreed to pay the three black immigrants. Top of that list is rent at $10,000 a year, per man, which would have meant paying $600 a week for the 2 bedroom flat the three workers shared during their first couple of years in Sydney.
Soaps, toiletries and laundries are listed at $1200 and restaurateur David Diamond wants $4500 a year for annual flights to and from South Africa. The chefs have already told Workers Online that they had to fly home to recover money held by a Johannesburg lawyer, on their behalves, in rand.
Health insurance, uniforms and food also figure on deductions that add up to a whopping $23,000 a year for each man.
Christodoulou said it was "not uncommon" for employers to offer non-award inducement like free accommodation to entice overseas workers with specialist skills.
Meanwhile, CFMEU secretary Andrew Ferguson is alleging that the men's immigration visas were systematically.
In a letter to Immigration Minister Philip Ruddock, Ferguson says the chefs, brought to Australia on the ground that they had cooking skills unavailable here, were put to work as labourers on the construction of a second Ribs and Rumps outlet at Gordon.
Sources close to the men say one of them worked five shifts a week, up to 16 hours a day, on the building site before putting in two days over the grill at Manly. They claim the two other immigrants both did stints on the tools in Gordon.
Workers Online understands another two South African chefs were subsequently brought to Australia to cook at Ribs and Rumps, Gordon.
The CFMEU has driven the exposure of immigration visas rorts since the deaths of two construction workers at Lake Cargellico. Days later, an African labourer, suffering serious injuries, was whisked out of Wagga Wagga Base Hospital before he could be interviewed by authorities.
In other Ribs and Rumps news, one of the chefs has decided to risk his six-figure back pay claim to spend Christmas with his wife and family in Johannesburg. William Ndlovu, who didn't travel home this year on legal advice, has quit his job after several years at the Manly restaurant.
Lawyers, Ros and Reg Bartley, are trying to strike a deal with the Immigration Department that would allow Ndlovu to return to Australia to pursue his backpay claim.
Labor Council secretary John Robertson said the twin decisions set the scene for unions to organise more vigorously, particularly in areas where they already have a presence.
The Labor Council had applied for the Union Dues Clause to be inserted in industrial awards to stop the trend of employers cutting off funds to a union when in dispute.
A full bench of IRC ruled that employees should have a right to have their union dues deducted and forwarded to their union at their request.
"Union membership fees belong to workers not the boss; they should not be for the boss to use as an industrial tool," Mr Robertson said.
The decision came 24 hours after the IRC rejected a push by employer groups to have bargaining fees declared a matter outside NSW enterprise bargaining principles.
This means that NSW enterprise agreements, endorsed by a majority of employees, can require non-union members to pay a fee to a union that negotiates a pay rise on their behalf.
Mr Robertson said the decision was a slap in the face for Federal Workplace Relations Minister Tony Abbott's efforts to see bargaining fees outlawed.
"Employers have been using the legal system to reduce union rights for some years.
"These two decisions mean we can end 2002 on the front foot, ready to campaign vigorously on the ground in the year ahead."
In an effort to �name and shame� retailers yet to sign the code, Fair Wear protestors have handed out information flyers telling shoppers which companies have, and have not, agreed to monitor their supply chains.
The Grinch |
The loud and colourful demonstrations are designed to attract maximum attention.
At Fair Wear's Pitt St Mall protest in Sydney, shoppers lined up to hear the Solidarity Choir, which sang between speeches from clothing workers, activists, community and religious leaders.
The Choir sang renditions of classic Christmas carols with lyrics changed to reflect the outworkers' story behind many of the labels that could be given as gifts this year.
Present also was a real life Grinch, which had stepped out from between the pages of a children's storybook to set an example of bad yuletide sentiment gone right.
Grinch was a materialistic Dr Seuss character who wanted to stop Christmas so stole the children's presents but could not steal the spirit that made the day great anyway.
Fair Wear pinned him as the natural champion of unscrupulous corporations more concerned with maximising their profits that in ensuring exploited outworkers get a fair go by Christmas and beyond.
But by the time Workers Online caught up with the Grinch he was much reformed and had already seen the error of his ways. Having donated his profile to Fair Wear's outworker campaign, the Grinch now spends much of his time making guest appearances at shopping centres and malls around the country.
The Grinch (played by student and Fair Wear campaigner Ann Niddrie) said he could no longer stand by and watch the way outworkers were being treated, especially at Christmas.
"The exploitation of outworkers is about stripping the workers of their rights and doing anything to increase profits at the workers' expense," he said.
"Christmas is about people getting together and celebrating families and friendship but by not signing the code retailers are selfishly blocking the ability of outworkers to provide for their families and to really enjoy their lives," the Grinch said.
Fair Wear's list of retailers that have signed the new Retailers Ethical Clothing Code of Practice include Coles Myer (Grace Bros, Kmart, Target), Cue, David Jones, Sussan, Suzanne Grae, Sportsgirl, Gowings, Noni B, and Best & Less.
To access the complete list, click here.
Jennifer Acklin, a senior organiser with the Australian Services Union�s Airlines Division was awarded the prize and $2,000 to travel to extend her union experience.
Jennifer was nominated for her work in reactivating unionism within Qantas Finance, re-establishing a delegates network to increase density from 45 per cent to just under 85 per cent.
The efforts culminated in a strike of 400 mostly female finance and administration workers who defied management pressure to walk off the job during EBA negotiations.
She was also cited for her work in establishing a vibrant delegates network in Malaysia Airlines.
Labor Council secretary John Robertson said Jennifer's efforts were a v9ital part of the broader movement's drive to win back and reactivate existing union networks.
Robertson also awarded certificated to finalists Michael Hilder from the NSW Police Association and Doug Klineberg from the Rail, Tram and Bus Union.
"It's disappointing that the Workplace Relations Minister's Christmas message to Australian workers is a threat to send them to jail," ACTU President Sharan Burrow said.
"Mr Abbott's workplace system is based on conflict and biased against employees and their elected representatives; threatening to fine and jail workers will only generate more conflict and division.
"Most of the cases highlighted by Mr Abbott today involve employees trying to save their jobs or unpaid entitlements.
"Mr Abbott makes no mention of breaches of the law by employers resulting in workers' deaths or injuries and the non-payment of billions of dollars each year in wages, overtime and accrued entitlements," Ms Burrow said.
"Mr Abbott opposes the use of criminal sanctions in relation to negligence by employers occasioning the death of employees but wants criminal sanctions against people attending picket lines."
In flagging tougher fines and longer jail sentences against trade unionists Abbott highlighted car industry stoppages, most of which were aimed at protecting worker entitlements.
Earlier this month Abbott used Parliament to defend his Government's decision to pay $96,000 of taxpayers' money to two Office of the Employment Advocate witnesses found to have lied in court during a failed attempt to frame a union delegate.
Abbott said Government witnesses, such as those strong criticised by a Federal Court judge, were entitled to taxpayer support.
The IRC added six percent rise to the four percent due on January 1 as part of the five-year agreement between the Nurses Association and State Government. The special additional payment applies to nurses in public hospitals and public health care facilities.
A further five per cent pay rise is due on 1 July 2003, which means that - because the rises compound on each other - public sector nurses wages will rise by nearly 16 per cent in 2003.
From January 1 public sector nurses will get between $47 and $185 extra a week, depending on classification.
The majority of general ward nurses - Registered Nurse Year 8 - will receive a $92.00 per week pay rise. A full-time new graduate nurse - Registered Nurse Year 1 - will receive an extra $65.00 per week.
The Full Bench of the NSW IRC granted the pay rise as part of an interim decision in the NSW Nurses Association's (NSWNA) special wages case.
The final decision is expected next year, following the presentation in February and March of final submissions by the NSWNA and NSW Health Department.
Nurses Association general secretary, Brett Holmes, called the interim rise "a substantial first step" in his organisation's campaign to rebuild nursing as an attractive career option.
"The NSW IRC has sent a positive message to the nurses of NSW today and we look forward to building on that in the final decision next year," Holmes says.
"The Commission clearly understands the seriousness of the nurse shortage and has accepted that improved nurse wages are an important factor in overcoming the shortage.
"The vast majority of nurses will appreciate this pay rise and appreciate the strong support they have received from the general community in their push for a better deal," Mr Holmes said."
As part of its What's a Nurse Worth? campaign the NSWNA is seeking, through this special case, a one-off 15% pay rise, qualification allowances and retention allowances for nurses. The case began in mid-June and so far has had 35 days of hearings, involving around 40 witnesses.
The Full Bench hearing the case is NSW IRC President, Justice Lance Wright, Justice Roger Boland and Commissioner Ray Patterson.
The What's a Nurse Worth? campaign has included public-awareness events in cities, suburbs and towns throughout the State, stop work meetings and rallies at various hospitals and a statewide public-sector nurses' strike on 18 October 2001.
As part of the campaign, the NSWNA also collected more than 120,000 signatures on what is believed to be the biggest petition ever presented to the NSW Parliament.
The NSW Labor Council has accused Woolworths of 'penny-pinching' for refusing to pay the women a loading on their accrued leave when calculating redundancy payments.
The total in dispute is less than $12,000 or just $300 per worker, some of whom have been with the company more than 20 years.
"While $300 may sound like a trivial amount to a Woolworth executive, it is a further kick in the head for these women who Woolworths has thrown on the scrap heap," NSW Labor Council secretary John Robertson said.
The redundancies arose after the Tasmanian Government induced Woolworths to move its finance department from Sydney.
The 40 women, through their union, the Australian Services Union, have been arguing their redundancy payment should include loading on accrued leave, in line with the industrial award covering their employment conditions.
"This is a corporate giant turning its back on faithful employees, trying to wriggle out of its legal obligations," Robertson said.
"It would be unacceptable any time of year; at Christmas it's downright heartless."
BHP Workers Fight XMAS Hamper Censor
Meanwhile, Australian Workers' Union steelworkers walked off the job for 24 hours this week in a symbolic protest against the company's censure of steelworkers' use of the Internet.
The workers used the email system to complain that there will be no Christmas hamper gift from the company this year.
About 300 steelworkers met at 7am and voted to stop work for 24 hours, and for the union to meet with BHP to discuss its email policy.
The dispute erupted last week when a senior AWU shop steward was reprimanded for using the internal email system to criticise BHP's decision to cancel the Christmas hamper.
He said the decision to cancel the hamper was a Scrooge-like act. "While we are disappointed the company did not consult the workers about sacking the hamper we can live with that decision, what we can't live with is workplace censorship,'' he says.
"Freedom of speech should not be parked at the company gates. Modern workplaces understand the value of sharing positive and negative information in the workplace,'' he said.
ACTU Secretary Greg Combet says new legislation is needed to ensure that all employees are paid 100% of their entitlements without lengthy delays.
Another 300 employees, owed about $5 million in entitlements, are expected to lose their jobs today when Melbourne shopfitter Trollope, Silverwood and Beck closes down.
The latest in a series of collapses follows Prime Minister John Howard's promise yesterday to investigate delays in payments to thousands of former Ansett employees expecting their entitlements before Christmas.
"The Federal Government's employee entitlement scheme is short-changing thousands of sacked workers who are left waiting many months for incomplete and inadequate payments," Combet says.
"How many more workers have to lose their savings as well as their jobs before the Government introduces a fair scheme that guarantees full and prompt payment of outstanding entitlements?"
Former Ansett workers are owed around $300 million in entitlements more than a year after the airline's collapse despite the collection of $11 million each month from the Ansett air ticket levy.
Talks with the government should include legislation to guarantee 100% of employee entitlements, to give priority to employees in company insolvencies and to improve corporate governance in relation to employee liabilities.
Suncorp claims 65 percent of 1307 GIO and Suncorp staff approved the proposal; but no scrutineers were allowed to check the process and the result was held back for more than 15 hours before the outcome was announced.
"Allegations surrounding the conduct of the ballot need to be investigated," FSA national secretary Tony Beck says.
"If the law says that this has been a fair and open ballot, we will accept the result, but we owe it to our members who have complained about the process to check out these serious allegations."
Beck says there appear to be irregularities in this ballot that could amount to vote rorting with some employees being on the voter role more than once, others complaining of the non-delivery of voter packs and up to 250 non-GIO staff being given a vote.
The apparent irregularities were discovered after the union began investigating reports of a "dirty tricks campaign" by the company which included blocking union email, threatening legal action to remove the current agreement if staff voted "no" to the company's proposal and denying properly accredited officials right of entry to GIO to check suspected award breaches.
A large contingent of young unionists, headed by Labor Council organising assistants Susan Sheather and Glen Hugo, will staff a stall made unmissable by the presence of a large John Howard pi�ata out the front.
Blindfolded revellers can use the pi�ata stick to let out their frustrations against Howard's employment policies, which ensure young workers continue to get the thin edge of the wedge on the shop floor.
Sheather says the pi�ata's contents will be unhealthy but at least they will be palatable, unlike the federal government's youth employment policies.
"Unions and young people share the same concerns about the government's employments policies and this is a chance to show a large group of them what the NSW union movement is doing about it and how we offer the protection that is desperately needed.".
Hugo agrees. "Young workers are the most exploited and disadvantaged, are the most frequently rorted out of wages and conditions, are the most frequent victims of unfair dismissal, are the worst paid, have the least job security and have the most limited career prospects," he says. "Plus, there is the massive level of youth unemployment to contend with.
"Young workers need to be given access to the protection unions provide and the Big Day Out provides the perfect opportunity to do that."
NSW Labor Council has been running Big Day Out stalls since 1996 and Sheather says many people appreciate being shown how to play an active role in issues that affect them.
"It's about young workers talking to other young workers about what it means to be a unionist," she says.
"We are not some fringe group. We represent 25 percent of working Australians and offer the best protection for young workers making their way in the job market. But unless we promote this fact the union movement will not be renewed."
"We are also looking forward to having a lot of fun and listening to some great music," she says.
The stall will contain information about NSW unions, tattoos, copies of the May Day May Day CD, and an anti-war petition. Labor Council's new R U Unhappy At Work T-Shirts will also be on sale.
Thanks to the ratification by East Timor, the critical threshold of 20 signatures has been crossed, opening up better protections for migrant workers throughout the world, who are frequently subjected to intolerable abuse.
The ICFTU, which has been campaigning for several years with human and migrants' rights associations to obtain the ratification of the international conventions providing for equal treatment for migrant workers in terms of jobs, wages, social security and union rights (ILO Conventions 97 and 143), welcomes this development.
As ICFTU General Secretary Guy Ryder emphasised, "equal rights and treatment at work are a fundamental right of all".
At the UN's launching of International Migrants Day, on 18 December 2000, the ICFTU called on the governments of host countries to allow migrant workers and their families to enjoy these internationally recognised rights.
The call was reiterated the following year in the face of little improvement.
In addition to this ratification campaign, the ICFTU was closely involved in another event which helped push matters forward - the UN World Conference against Racism, Xenophobia and Related Intolerance held in Durban from 31 August to 7 September 2001.
With Xmas here, a thought for the refuge campaign.
Good points - Congrats to Labor Council for its commiitment to Labor For Refugees
- Congrats to unions promoting refugee action in their unions
-Especially mine, the NSW Teachers Fed. This year has seen many school kids from Villawoood now attend state PUBLIC schools.
One batch of Afghani refugees are butchers at Young abattoir - working on our Xmas hams?
Still to go - the indiscriminate use of the three year temporary protection visa as a purgatory
- the abuse of immigrant workers
- continuing detention
Bring on Baxter Concentration Demo Easter 2003, remember Woomera 2002!
Wishing a Peaceful New Year (hopefully)
John Morris
Re your comments Online Issue 164 - Couldn't agree more. I feel there are some incumbent ALP representatives not worth the paper they were voted in on.
I know they stuck their hands up and agreed to have a go for the job and I know we voted for them, but boy, there
must surely be some better candidates out there.
Those who do the looking should look with honesty and integrity and disregard their personal preference for a candidate at Branch level unless that candidate is truly the best person to represent the views of the majority of ALP members.
That sounds quite stupid as I write it but I believe that there are those who represent us who have scant regard
for the views of many (? most) of us.
Have a joyous festive season.
Gloria Watson
The article supporting moves to head off a program that would attract males to primary teaching has certainly allowed the author to exercise their 'right-on' credentials.
However the author has not considered that this might actually be a serious issue to educationalists.
There is a severe lack of male teachers at primary level - particularly in the state system. And it's getting worse.
Soon a male child might not even see a male teacher until they reach high school. Running side by side with this is a trend for more children to live in single parent households headed by the female sole parent.
The net result is that male children may well encounter few if any positive male role models during their early formative years.
What sort of men will they become? Will they conform to the dominant culture of their school - middle class feminism - or will they react against it in some way?
Programs such as the one you clearly don't support are really only an honest attempt to avoid a social experiment being played out with your children.
Ian Chapman
Concerning the drought, I will agree that all in the bush are suffering, and that those in employment are probably the most vulnerable.
I would like to see our "leaders" do something creative to regulate the lot of farmers and all who work in the bush. I have a submission to the House of Reps Inquiry into 'Future availability of rural water' and have suggested two innovations for better Water Management - but do fear that elected representatives will fail to rise to the present rural crisis.
It looks like the start of "Saharisation" in Australia. Drought-Breaker website is at:- http://home.pacific.net.au/~drought-breaker
Robin Gaskell
A week ago today, legendary peace activist Phil Berrigan, a war veteran and former priest, died of cancer. In this article, Johann Christoph Arnold remembers a conversation with him, and reflects on his legacy.
Would you be able to publish this in Workers Online?
http://www.bruderhof.com/articles/PhilBerrigan.htm .
Sincerely,
Sam Hine
The new climate of uncertainty has emerged by both necessity and design. We are rightly careful of terrorist attacks on our citizens; less justifiably our politicians are manoeuvring to maximise their positions, acutely aware of the benefits an incumbent faces in times of crisis.
Within this climate it has been easy to focus on the obvious symbols of terror: Muslim extremists, Saddam's alleged weapons of mass destruction, hordes of refugees banging down our doors. We sit cowed in a corner, braced for war, too scared to think beyond the next attack
This white noise has drowned out the other trend in 2003: the continuing mutations of global capital as it spirals out of control, powered by the one remaining world power that regards it as an end in itself.
The mega-corporate collapses in the US of Enron and World-com were to corporate fraud what the S11 attacks were to geo-politics. HIH is our corporate Bali; individuals playing outside all the rules of humanity causing pain and distress to thousands.
Corporations larger than nations providing wealth beyond the dreams of ordinary workers, with CEO's on options packages which actually reward them for the short-term stock price, rather than the long-term health of the enterprise.
Global capital is now acting as recklessly and destructively as the extremists whose violence has shattered our sense of security.
And if the US Hawks get their war on Iraq the dynamics of global capital and geo-politics will have finally converged on a battleground on which few can confidently predict the ultimate outcome.
There is little to celebrate from this new global dynamic and much to fear; yet the bitter irony is that the times are right for trade unions.
Against this uncertainty people are looking for security, and while institutions like unions may have been out of fashion in the decade of Hedonism, they now have the history and values to draw people back.
The union creed of working together, not against each other; embracing not fearing difference and standing up to corporate power are the sort of values that give hope and meaning to people struggling to make sense of the madness in the world.
It is a story that does not just address the excesses of capital, but also the small-mindedness of Terror.
The challenge for 2003 of course, is to tell this story and give every worker the chance to control his or her life; take a stand, be a hero.
A safe holiday to all our readers. We'll be back in mid-February for our fifth year as the soapbox for the union movement and a pain in the arse for dodgy bosses and white-bread politicians.
Peter Lewis
Editor
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