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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
Neanderthals Roll Back Safeguards
The NSW IRC has registered a back-to-the-future agreement, vastly expanding ordinary working hours for clerical and admin workers given no say in its contents.
Labor Council secretary John Robertson said in the current climate of family values, provisions in the Illawarra Mutual Building Society document could only be regarded as "neanderthal".
The IRC over-ruled ASU objections that the agreement failed to meet the No Net Detriment Test that must be overcome to allow registration, provoking union secretary Michael Want to demand a clear definition of the term.
Want said the agreement deleted a shift work clause, expanded ordinary hours from Monday to Saturday, and only provided for overtime after workers completed 150 hours in a four-week period.
The decision reinforces fears that employers are assaulting the clerical and admin sector in a bid to knock over long-established safety net provisions.
It comes hard on the heels of an Employers First bid to vary the NSW Clerical and Administrative state award to expand ordinary hours to between 6am and 10pm, Monday to Sunday.
Currently, clerical workers get penal rates for work performed outside 6am - 6pm, or 6am - midday on Sundays.
Want said employer arguments that the Illawarra Mutual agreement provided workers with "flexibility" were dishonest.
"The only flexibility available in this document comes at the whim of line managers," he said. "It is not available to the worker as a right."
Want pointed out that the new, inferior conditions would apply only to new workers who hadn't had any opportunity to endorse them. He said they would create a "two-tier" system of wages and conditions in the workplace.
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Issue 168 contents
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