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Issue No. 175 | 24 April 2003 |
Domestic Relations
Interview: Picking Up The Peaces Unions: The Royal Con National Focus: Around the Grounds Economics: The Secret War on Trade International: United Front History: Confessions of a Badge Collector Politics: Stalin�s Legacy Review: Such Was Not Ned�s Life Poetry: Osama's Top Recruiter Satire: Woolworths CEO Denied Bonus After Company Posts Profit
Medicare Bombshell � Bosses To Pay Another Cole Man Bites The Dust Legal Tussle Looms Over Email Laws Recycled Training Stitch-Up Exposed Contractors Code Fires a Blank Sweet Talk � Big Business Style Bosses, Workers Unite on Grey Threat ANZ Workers Want Cut of Billion Dollar Profit Union Exhibition for Wollongong Howard Attacks Education - Again
The Soapbox The Locker Room Culture Postcard
Robert's Conquest? Success Breeds Contempt Join the Dots Still Walking
Labor Council of NSW |
News Contractors Code Fires a Blank
Department of Public Works officials have refused to disclose to unions where textiles used in NSW hospitals are being sourced from, in breach of the Department�s procurement code. That information is vital to understand how the Health Department decided to take the contract to produce hospitals gowns and linen away from NSW prisoners and replace them with (even) cheaper foreign imports. That decision will not only leave maximum security prisoners without work, but cost the jobs of local textile workers who have previously provided the raw material. Unions remain amazed at how prison labour could be undercut by contractors if the Procurement Code were being met. The Procurement Code was struck with then Public Works Minister Maurice Iemma, promising to make available to unions information about all government tenders, including sub-contractors. Responsibility for the code now falls under Della Bosca's new super-ministry of Commerce. Labor Council secretary John Robertson has written to Della Bosca outlining Labor Council's concerns, notably: - that the Department of Public Works seem unsure of who will be manufacturing the textiles. - without this information there is no way of knowing whether the goods are being produced in sweatshop conditions - and that the information is vital in ensuring that the contract complies with basic ILO Conventions on child labour and forced prison labour. "We question how the community can be assured that proper monitoring procedures are in place if such a veil of secrecy hangs over where the goods are being manufactured," Robertson says in the letter.
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