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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
Minister on Threats, Coercion
Tony Abbott is using hospitals, schools and roads as bargaining chips in his high-stakes war against building workers.
Abbott told states last week he would deny them $4 billion a year in federal funding for roads, schools and hospitals if they refused to sign up to his campaign against construction unions.
The Workplace Relations Minister said the money would be denied to states who resisted special legislation for building and construction, recommended by Royal Commissioner Terence Cole, in their jurisdictions.
States would be expected to crack down on the rights of union officials to visit workplaces, limit union involvement in workplace satety, and endorse six-figure fines for worker representatives if they want federal funding for education, health and infrastructure.
CFMEU Construction Division national secretary, John Sutton, called Abbott's ultimatum "typical bullyboy tactics".
"I don't think state Governments will react very well to this type of interference," Sutton said, pointing out that Abbott's $4 billion stick was dwarfed by their own construction budgets.
NSW premier Bob Carr said his state was proud of an IR record, based on co-operation rather than confrontation.
Citorian Industrial Relations Minister Rob Hulls said the threat was another example of an "Abbott temper tantrum".
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Issue 173 contents
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