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The Fog of War
As the War Without a Mandate proceeds apace, any notion of a domestic political agenda has become surplus to requirements.
Interview: Picking Up The Peaces
Walk Against the War Coalition convenor Bruce Childs outlines the challenge for the peace movement in the lead up to Palm Sunday.
Unions: The Royal Con
Jim Marr argues the Cole Commission can only be taken seriously by people kept ignorant of the way it actually operated.
National Focus: Around the Grounds
Unions maintain the pressure for peace as the upcoming organising conference takes on added significance, reports Noel Hester.
Economics: The Secret War on Trade
Overseas-based multi-nationals are coming after our film industry, electricity, water, pharmaceutical benefits and even childcare. Or are they? Nobody knows, as Jim Marr reports.
International: United Front
Workers and their unions around the world have possibly never been as united in their commitment to campaign together against the War in Iraq, writes Andrew Casey
History: Confessions of a Badge Collector
Bill Pirie has one of the largest collections of trade union badges in the world. After 20 years the collection now numbers some 6,000 badges.
Politics: Stalin’s Legacy
Fifty years ago last month Josef Stalin died. How could it be that a democratic and socialist revolution produced one of the monsters of the twentieth century, asks Leonie Bronstein.
Review: Such Was Not Ned’s Life
The life of Ned Kelly is what we in the world of journalism term a “ball tearing yarn” so why have writers of the movie adaptation felt so impelled to dress it up with fiction, asks Tara de Boehmler.
Poetry: Osama's Top Recruiter
Through our extensive intelligence networks, we have managed to track down the top recruiter for the global terror network of Osama bin Laden.
Satire: Woolworths CEO Denied Bonus After Company Posts Profit
Woolworths chief executive Roger Corbett was devastated today to report an 18.3% rise in profit under his management over the last year.
 Cole Launches Civil Rights Assault
Protests Target Arncliffe “Shocker”
Commerce Swallows DIR
Abbott, Bosses Turn Guns on Low Paid
Fat Cats Should Justify Salaries - LHMU
Black Humour for a Dark Issue
Minister on Threats, Coercion
Bosses Stonewall Union Dues Ruling
Private Hospitals Pay Out on 15 Percent
Councils on Hotel Workers’ Agenda
Sharon Hammers Israeli Workers
Shangri-La Blue Ends
Inaugural Orwell Awards
Activist Notebook
The Soapbox
Factional Free-For-All
Chris Christodoulou looks at the fallout from the selection of the new Carr Ministry and what it means to the factional warlords. The Locker Room
The Best Season Since Last Year
Phil Doyle goes trudging through the mud in search of the heart of the matter beneath the corporate biffo Culture
Books on Bombs
In times like these, reading inevitably turns to America and war. Chris White wades through Pilger, Chomsky, Eco, Moore and Vidal. Postcard
Postcard from Harvard
Labor Council's Michael Gadiel was elected to give the valedictory speech to this year's Harvard Trade Union Program.
The Rule of Law
Trots Bomb Back
Tom's Turn
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News
Commerce Swallows DIR
Unions have been shocked by the Carr Government’s decision to disband the NSW Department of Industrial Relations and absorb it into a super-ministry of Commerce to be run by John Della Bosca.
The decision has raised concerns that industrial relations will be downgraded by a third term Carr Government, with vital issues like labour hire and job security still to be addressed.
Public Service Association general secretary Maurie O'Sullivan says the decision is a 'dastardly' breach of faith by the Labor Government, less than a week after being returned with the support of the trade union movement.
"There are many things in government that can be stuffed around and put into a melting pot, but it would appear to me that Industrial Relations is a department that should be sanctified between a Labor Government and the trade union movement," O'Sullivan says.
"Nothing, I repeat nothing should be done to diminish the importance and responsibility of such a department and such a relationship."
Labor Council secretary John Robertson says the onus is now on the Carr Government to show that industrial relations will not be sidelined in the new super-ministry.
"Minister Della Bosca has assured unions the decision will enhance the role of industrial relations," Robertson says. "I can assure the Minister that unions will be watching these new arrangements very, very closely."
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Issue 173 contents
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