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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.
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.
 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
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.
Johnny Goes Marching Off
Misled Artist
Penalty Shoot-Out
More Talk Needed on War
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News
Tongans Play Shame Game
Seafarers from Newcastle, Sydney and Port Kembla have added punch to the international call for Tonga’s Ships of Shame register to be scuttled.
NSW MUA members took their argument to the St Leornards headquarters of Intercontinental Ship Management (ISM) this week to mark the return to Australian waters of the formerly Newcastle-based Wallarah. ISM reflagged the vessel last year under the increasingly-discredited Tongan Flag of Convenience and returned it to the Australian coast with exploited guest labour.
International transport groups have called for the Tongan registry to be closed after vessels flying the flag of the island state were linked to terrorist groups, including Al Queda, and other criminal activities.
Only last week, the International Maritime Bureau reported that crime syndicates based in Lebanon, were using a Tongan registered vessel to work a multi-million dollar cargo theft scam.
MUA national shipping campaign co-ordinator, Sean Chaffer, said fully-trained Tongan seaman working the Wallarah were reported to be earning less than $200 a week.
"It's just not acceptable that companies can employ people on sub-standard pay to work our coast," he said.
Chaffer said there were also environmental and security threats posed by Transport Minister John Anderson's championing of Flag of Convencies shipping.
The vessels are only able to work the Australian coast, and evade the country's tax, commercial and labour regulations, by getting permits from the Federal Government.
Industry sources say that some qualified seamen sailing under the Tongan flag are paid as little as $93 a week.
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Issue 168 contents
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