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Solidarity Forever
Another May Day, another year gone, another year to look back on our history and celebrate the past and talk about how we can make our movement strong again.
Interview: Staying Alive
CPSU national secretary Adrian O'Connell talks about the fight to keep the public service - and the union movement - alive.
Bad Boss: The Ultimate Piss Off
Wollongong workers on poverty-level wages are losing up to $5000 for taking toilet breaks, according to the union representing staff at a Stellar call centre.
Industrial: Last Drinks
Jim Marr looks at the human cost of the decision to close Sydney�s Carlton United Brewery
National Focus: Around the States
If Tampa told us that John Howard circa 2003 is the same spotted rabid dog from 1987, this week�s assault on Medicare confirms it reports Noel Hester in this national round up.
Politics: Radical Surgery
Workers are vitally interested in Medicare, not least because they traded away wage rises to get it. Now, Jim Marr writes, the Coalition Government is tearing apart the 20-year-old social contract on which it was founded.
Education: The Price of Missing Out
University students and their families will pay more for their education following the May Budget, writes Tony Brown.
Legal: If At First You Don't Succeed
Love is wonderful the second time around, goes the famous torch song. But is the same true for legislation? Asks Ashley Crossland
History: Massive Attack
Labour historian Dr Lucy Taksa remembers the general strike of 1917 to put the recent anti-war marches into perspective
Culture: What's Right
Neale Towart looks at a new book that looks at the failings of the Left, while reasserting the liberal project
Review: If He Should Fall
Jim Marr caught Irish folk-rock-punk legend Shane MacGowan at Sydney�s Metro Theatre. He was surprised but not disappointed.
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.
Satire: IMF Ensures Iraq Institutes Market Based Looting
The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has agreed to monitor the Iraqi economy to ensure that the reintroduction of looting into the economy conforms with free-market theory.
 Mystery Men Behind Pan Bungle
Charities Brace for Medicare Backlash
Court Throws Out Cole Prosecutions
Child Actor Dodges Broken Voice
Rio Tinto: $40 Million for Boss, Eviction for Workers
Child Care for Oldies Too
Winning Poster Shouts at Freeloaders
May Day Tragedy Claims Union Lives
Westfield Cleaners to Down Mops
Question Marks Over Nursing Home
Burn Payout Highlights Compo Fears
Costa Blows Whistle on Canberra Raid
Hoops Bet on National Body
Tear Us Down, Buttercup
Activist Notebook
The Soapbox
What May Day Means to Me
Reader Marlene McAlear penned this tribue to May Day and worker solidarity.
Solidarity
The Toast
Labor Council secretary John Robertson's toast to the annual May Day dinner in Sydney. The Locker Room
The Numbers Game
In life there is lies, damned lies and sporting statistics, says Phil Doyle - but who�s counting. Postcard
Brukman Evicted
ZNet's Marie Trigona reports from the streets of Argentina in the rundown to last week's presidential election. Bosswatch
The Costs of Excess
Some tall business poppies had their heads lopped this week as the laws of economic gravity applied their always chaotic theory.
Is Labor History?
Bob Gould Sprays Gerard Henderson
War and Peace
A Strange Light
A Little History
Does It Have To Be?
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News
Question Marks Over Nursing Home
The Health Services Union of Australia has questioned the accreditation for a further two years of a nursing home where patient care was found to be substandard and no-one worked at night.
HSUA national secretary Craig Thomson said the Elouera Aged Care facility at Torquay had no staff members awake at night caring for residents despite more than a third being on a behaviour management program due to psychiatric behaviours and dementia.
''Because there are no minimimum staffing levels required under law in all aged care facilities you too often have the unacceptable situation where residents are not cared for at night,'' Mr Thomson.
The official Aged Care Standards and Accreditation Agency report said: ''The Agency is more concerned that despite the service identifying that residents' needs were increasing and that there was a recommendation to engage a staff member on duty overnight, again no action was taken. As a result of the lack of monitoring of residents' overnight, residents' health and safety was potentially being compromised.''
Mr Thomson questioned why with the serious problems found at the facility it was still given a further two years accreditation and tough sanctions that would force management to improve their care were not imposed.
''Aged Care Minister Kevin Andrews needs to explain why there have been repeated cases in recent months where Victorian nursing homes have been allowed to continue operations without sanction despite being found in breach of health and safety accreditation standards,'' he said.
''He also needs to explain why despite so much evidence the government refuses to introduce minimum staffing levels into aged care facilities to make sure residents get a decent standard of care.''
HSUA Victorian branch president Jeff Jackson said a union official would visit the facility on Friday to inspect records, and check on the staffing levels and resident care.
''What we want is to get staffing levels to a point where residents care is the best it can be 24 hours a day,'' he said.
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Issue 176 contents
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