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Issue No. 168 28 February 2003  
E D I T O R I A L

Abbott�s Rules
Tony Abbott is at it again, with a wicked plan to cut research funding to universities that do not put their workers onto individual contracts.

F E A T U R E S

Interview: Agenda 2003
ACTU secretary Greg Combet looks at the year ahead and how a union movement can keep the focus on the workplace at a time of global crisis.

Peace: The Colour Purple
Local communities across Australia are taking stands against war by displaying purple banners. Jim Marr visits one.

Industrial: Long, Hot Summer
As Workers Online took its annual break, the world kept turning � at an increasingly alarming velocity.

Solidarity: Workers Against War
Joann Wypijewski reports on how union locals in the USA are fighting the hounds of war at home.

Security: Howard And The Hoodlums
With all the talk of terror, the Howard Government�s Achilles heel is its tolerance of Flags of Convenience shipping , writes Rowan Cahill

International: Industrial Warfare
Scottish freight train drivers have already acted to disrupt the war effort in the UK with crews of four freight trains carrying war supplies to ports walking off the job, writes Andrew Casey

History: Unions and the Vietnam War
The Vietnam experience steered some unions towards social activism for the first time. Unions are today key players in the anti-war movement, writes Tony Duras.

Review: Eight Miles to Mowtown
Mark Hebblewhites looks at two summer movies that tap into different sounds of American culture - white boy rap and motown blues.

Poetry: Return To Sender
Resident bard Divd Peetz discovers that Elvis has become the latest shock recruit to the peace cause.

Satire: CIA Recruits New Intake of Future Enemies
CIA Director George Tenet announced today that the agency has begun recruiting future enemies for the year 2014.

N E W S

 Report Derails Freight Plans

 Journo Embarrasses Cole

 CASA a Safety Threat

 Howard Shafts Battlers

 Sparks Fly at Sydney Uni

 Unions Target March 14 For Peace

 Tongans Play Shame Game

 Palestinians Question ICFTU

 Neanderthals Roll Back Safeguards

 Keep Vultures out of Culture

 Bloody Noses for Sticky Beaks

 Warning As Barrier Council Turns 80

 Faint Praise for Labor Education Stand

 Staff Bogged Down

 Activists Notebook

C O L U M N S

The Soapbox
Getting On with The Job
Premier Bob Carr chose Trades Hall as the venue to launch Labor's IR policy for the upcoming state election.

Postcard
Justice in Bogota
Sydney lawyer Ian Latham knows how to pick them. He�s gone straight from the Cole Royal Commission to justice Colombian-style.

The Locker Room
Heart Of Darkness
There is a school of thought that there is, in fact, only one World Cup - and it doesn�t involve cricket, writes Phil Doyle.

Politics
Danger Mouse
John Howard's politics have trapped him into supporting an unpopular war. He is in political trouble, Leonie Bronstein argues.

L E T T E R S
 Johnny Goes Marching Off
 Misled Artist
 Penalty Shoot-Out
 More Talk Needed on War
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News

Sparks Fly at Sydney Uni


Industrial warfare has broken out at Sydney University between its ALP-controlled student council and staff, with strike action planned for this week.

The 13 staff, members of the National Tertiary Education Union, will stop on Tuesday over plans to cut a raft of leave entitlements, including one for menstrual stress.

The NTEU says the Labor-controlled SRC is pushing for a reduction in working conditions by offering pay rises a full four per cent lower than those achieved in the last agreement, demanding a cut in the existing sick leave entitlements and threatening to cease negotiating the agreement with the Union.

Tensions boiled over after a hearing in the AIRC last week when solicitor for the SRC, Turner and Freeman's Sian Ryan said that the existing leave entitlement for menstrual stress was discriminatory and "denigrated women".

Ryan refused to seek advice from the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission despite this being suggested to her as "common sense" by Senior Deputy President Duncan.

The NTEU has advice from HREOC that the leave entitlement was not in breach of anti-discrimination but was in fact a "special measure" aimed at eliminating indirect discrimination against women.

NTEU Industrial Officer Mark Dolahenty says that recent tactics of the Council, controlled by members of the Labor Party, are "the latest example of ALP members, purporting to be progressive and supporting rights of workers, acting quite to the contrary once they don the boss' cap".

"NTEU members at the SRC perform a vital function for the welfare of students of the university," he says.

"It is a disgrace that Joanna Haylen and her predecessor, Daniel Kyriacou, see fit to use perhaps their first occasion in the role of an employer to try and drive down conditions, and use student money to finance expensive legal tactics to attempt to do so."


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