E D I T O R I A L

Vale: Rule of Law
As the US attack on Iraq continues, the Howard Government fires a $60 million shot at the CFMEU and bemused onlookers begin to wonder what the ‘Law’ means any more.

F E A T U R E S

Poetry: If I Were a Rich Man
Through a distortion in the time-space continuum, we have found a recording showing how people a few years into the future will deal with health care.

Interview: League of Nations
ICFTU general secretary Guy Ryder on the war, core labour standards and why Australia is an international pariah.

Industrial: 20/20 Hindsight
A retrospective analysis of the Accord is needed to help develop future strategies. Is it worth trying again? And if so, what would need to be different?

Organising: On The Buses
A new rank and file leadership team is standing up for the harried bus driver in the run-up to the NSW State Election

Unions: National Focus
A gaze around the country reveals some inspiring and innovative organising initiatives, a fruitful connection with young workers in South Australia and some typically robust industrial campaigns reports Noel Hester.

History: The Banner Room
On the eve of it’s refurbishment, Jim Marr ventures into one of Trades Hall’s best kept secrets; the room that houses relics of labour’s halcyon days.

International: The Slaughter Continues
Chilling new statistics from Colombia's main trade union confederation CUT: nine trade unionists assassinated in the first two months of this year.

Legal: A Legal Case For War?
Aaron Magner looks at the legal implications of the crusade of the Coalition of the Willing

Culture: Singing For The People
When there’s a struggle for social justice, when a war is brewing or rights are being eroded, the first ones to pen, paper and protest are often the folkwriters.

Review: The Hours
On the eve of International Women’s Day Tara de Boehmler follows the tale of three women who would rather choose death than a life devoid of personal choice.

Poetry: I Wanna Bomb Saddam
Scarier than Star Wars, the latest weapon to be deployed in the battle for Iraq is the Singing Dubya.

Satire: Diuretic Makes Warne's Excuses Look Thin
Australian cricketer Shane Warne today admitted that he was still feeling the after effects of the diuretic he tested positive to.

N E W S

Cole’s Bad Medicine

Unions Condemn Protest Violence

Hospitals Pick Sweatshops Over Chain Gangs

New Faces Part of Labor ‘Rejuvenation’

Cobar Draws Line in Sand

Test Case – UK 26, Australia 0

Uncle Sam and the Union Busters

Calling All Artists – May Day Poster Comp

Nipping Surveillance in the Bud

Bus Drivers Back Childcare

Forced Labour Prevails Despite Sanctions

Union Gains On Display

Activists Notebook

C O L U M N S

The Soapbox
Workers Friend
Shock jock Alan Jones snubbed his Liberal mates to bucket the Cole Royal Commission and launch Jim Marr's book

The Locker Room
Boer Bore Boring
In the face of oppression Phil Doyle falls asleep in front of the TV

Guest Report
Dead Labor
The Hawke and Keating legacy is John Howard, Leonie Bronstein argues.

Seduction
Hands Off, Tony
John Della Bosca argues the NSW Industrial Relations System gives his State a competitive advantage.

Bosswatch
Groundhog Day
Another year, another round of corporate excess. Bosswatch returns from its summer slumber to find the same old dogs up to the same tricks.

L E T T E R S

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Cole’s Bad Medicine

Nurses Union national secretary, Jill Iliffe, warned that Australians would face reduced health care or increased taxes if Commission recommendations on pattern bargaining become law.

Commissioner Terence Cole's key recommendations, released this week, read like Liberal Party IR policy and nurses will oppose any move to revisit a wish-list already rejected by the Senate.

Cole, largely acting on the evidence of shonky employers, has proposed draconian restrictions on the rights of building unions to recruit, organise, take industrial action, or defend health and safety standards. At the centre of his agenda, though, is an attack on pattern bargaining, a long-standing target of Workplace Relations Minister Tony Abbott.

"It would be a disaster for nurses and a disaster for the health system," Iliffe told Workers Online.

"The cost of negotiating separate agreements at each establishment would be prohibitive for us, and the health system as well. Our employers pattern bargain because it is practical and cost effective.

"If employers are prepared to pattern bargain then they should be allowed to. It is one of the things Government should leave to the market."

Iliffe said her union would lobby strongly to block Cole's recommendation. She predicted support from employers, the health department and community - "I am sure the general public doesn't want their taxes spent on needless negotiations rather than healthcare".

She said teachers, police and other service workers would be similarly disadvantaged by the proposal.

Unsurprisingly, given the evidence presented and the evidence withheld, Cole has recommended a string of building industry specific changes, including an Australian Building and Construction Commission empowered to investigate and prosecute breaches of the law.

Similar bodies established by this Government - the OEA and Building Industry Task Force - have both been lashed by worker representatives as politically-tainted and biased against unions.

Cole wants fines of up to $20,000 for individual workers breaking industrial laws and $100,000 for their organisations, and provision to ban individuals, found to have broken the law, from holding union office.

He has made hundreds of findings of unlawful conduct against Building Industry Unions and their members. The first three, against NSW unions, give a flavour of the level of illegality uncovered.

CFMEU organisers Dan Murphy and Lincoln Fryer are both found to have failed "to notify the occupier of the premises of his presence as soon as was reasonably practicable".

The third unlawful finding was that Phillip Smith "stopped work on the site and held discussions with employees during working hours outside of meal-time or other break times".

Cole found nothing to back claims of widespread corruption and standover tactics with which Abbott launched the $60 million exercise. The closest he came was reporting the extortion of $460,000 from a string of sub-contractors by star commission witnesses Craig Bates and Martin Warner. Their activities had been uncovered by the CFMEU who punted both men years before the Commission came into being, earning the praise of police.

Despite reporting massive tax evasion by industry employers, Cole did not make a single finding of tax evasion against any building industry employer anywhere in Australia.

He conceded the importance of health and safety in an industry claiming around 50 workers' lives a year, and recommended "attitudinal change".

Iliffe lashed the Commission for its failure to deal with health and safety, or the protection of entitlements, in its public hearings.

With the Labor Party and Greens having already rejected support for a Cole driven return to Peter Reith's second wave of industrial reforms, the Democrats are central to Abbott's hopes.

With their party in disarray they will be susceptible to pressure from Abbott that refusal to support hardline legislation could trigger an early election.

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Last Modified: 15 Nov 2005