*****
The Goebbels of the Howard Government, Philip Ruddock, made a sad and shameless attempt to defend the indefensible after the ABC's Four Corners program aired allegations of understaffing and incompetent management at the Woomera detention centre.
When the Federal Government outsourced management of the concentration camps it also tried to outsource responsibility for what went on there.
Four Corners documented harrowing scenes of obviously distressed people being treated like criminals in a manner that can only be viewed as "cruel and unusual".
Despite 80% of the Woomera detainees being assessed as genuine refugees Ruddock the Impaler's first response to the program was to claim it was "inaccurate" and then set about with his own grubby little campaign of misinformation and innuendo.
"I think this has been generated with, among other things, a clear aim of obtaining a different outcome for people who have been found not to be refugees," said the Minister for Gaoling Women and Children in a statement released after the allegations were aired.
The thin lips and flinty eyes of the Detention Minister revealed his heartless attitude when he dismissed the truly shocking allegations as "nothing new". The sheer bastardry of justifying the indefensible because it was "already on the public record" shows what an intellectual sewer this grub inhabits. The allegations by former detainees were invalid because "the people interviewed for the program have had their claims assessed by one of the most thorough protection assessment processes in the world."
Yes, and nothing was done! A fact that seems to fly over the head of a man whose ability to be both dumb and cruel are reaching new extremes. He tried to defend what happened at Woomera by giving a detailed explanation of the refugee assessment process - something that is totally irrelevant to the allegations raised in the Four Corners program, but is a masterful device in utilising spin to deflect criticism. It's the old tactic of changing the subject when you're losing the argument.
He defended the lack of media access to detention centres by claiming that media had access through "tours" of detention centres, organised in advance of course. Pol Pot also offered media tours of facilities, but it was what went on outside the "organised tours" that proved to be truly alarming.
"Four Corners uncritically reported that detainees in Villawood have nothing to do, when in fact they have access to 12 televisions, ten newspaper titles including 15 copies of the Daily Telegraph," said Ruddock. Australian television and the Daily Telegraph are certainly not "something to do" if one has an IQ higher than your average house brick.
ACM knew they could cut corners and pocket the difference with the full support of the Federal Government. This became obvious after the allegations were raised when Ruddock made strenuous efforts to both deny culpability for the inhumane treatment of asylum seekers and simultaneously claim that it was the detainees themselves that were responsible, as if the detainees had come up with the policy of incarceration for those seeking freedom. He also defended ACM and painted those whistle blowers as somehow disaffected with ACM management. If they were disaffected its hard not to see why!
Many of the Asylum seekers were fleeing a regime so cruel and despotic that Ruddock's government saw it necessary for us to commit troops and join in a massive bombing campaign and military action, at the cost of thousands of lives, in order to save the population.
Our Tool of the Week is an irony free zone - proudly displaying his Amnesty International badge while driving human beings to self harm and suicide. This vermin still claims to be compassionate towards the asylum seekers and yet he has blood on his own hands when it comes to their treatment.
While its true that we live in an age where Peace is War it's taken our Tool of the Week to show us that Love is Hate and Freedom is Slavery.
The Labor Council of NSW will press for legislative change, greater activity by super fund trustees and grass-roots industrial campaigns to end the explosion in CEO pay which has jumped to 74 times the average weekly wage.
The research, conducted by a team of academics commissioned by the Labor Council, found that the often-stated link between high executive pay and company performance does not exist.
They found that executive pay levels had exploded in the past decade from 22 times average weekly earnings in 1992 to 74 times average weekly earnings today. And in the finance sector the figures are more perverse, CEOs earning 188 times the salary of customer service staff.
By analysing the performance of companies against three criteria - return on equity, share price change and change in earnings per share - the researchers actually found that high excessive pay levels actually coincide with a lower bottom line.
"If you look at the numbers, it is accurate to say the more you pay a CEO the worse the company performs and the less you pay the better it performs," researcher Dr John Shields for Sydney University's School of Business says.
Applying this analysis, the authors identified a performance-optimal range for executive remuneration of between 17 and 24 times average wage and salary earnings, beyond which the performance of a company begins to deteriorate. This means that any company paying CEO's more than $800,000 begins to be a bad bet.
Labor Council secretary John Robertson says research takes the debate about executive remuneration to a new level.
"This research shows that executive pay is not just a moral issue; it is a shareholder issue and it is a job-security issue. For workers, it shows that an excessively paid CEO is likely to preside over a weaker company, meaning their jobs are less secure.
A panel convened by the Labor Council found some common ground between Federal Opposition treasury spokesman Bob McMullan, shareholder activist Stephen Mayne and the Australian Consumers Association's Catherine Wolthuizen.
They highlighted the vital role unions can play, especially in their capacity as trustees of industry superannuation funds, which have significant holdings in the top companies.
Mayne said that industry and public super funds with union board representation account for $150 billion, or a quarter of Australia's total market share.
Robertson says the onus is now on the union movement to build on the research by campaigning with their members to raise pressure for political change to make company board's more accountable.
Time for Change
In the report, the authors identify a range of reforms to address the pay blowout and increase accountability, including:-
- Government use of purchasing policy to encourage firms with moderate executive packages..
- The Australian Stock Exchange's (ASX) regulatory functions are compromised, as the ASX is itself a privately listed company. These functions should be transferred to a fully independent entity such as the Australian Securities and Investment Commission (ASIC).
- Restricting the use and abuse of share options by means of a specified cap on the ratio of executive options to the company's total share issue and via the imposition of a minimum vesting period of three years.
- Action, including legislation, to make superannuation funds more accountable for executive pay decisions, with nominees required to report to members on executive pay decisions.
- Registration of all organizations providing commercial services in the field of executive remuneration, with annual reports required to a relevant statutory authority.
- And, introduction of more stringent disclosure requirements, requiring formal shareholder approval for all executive salary decisions.
But such activism is impossible in Australia because the Howard Government refuses to pass laws forcing companies to give shareholders a right to vote on executive remuneration.
Almost 51 per cent of shareholders in the drug manufacturer, Britain's third largest company, voted to reject the proposed 22 million pound golden parachute, which would be paid if Garnier lost his job.
Under the banner "You won't get 22 million pound for failure", The Guardian quotes unnamed institutional shareholders who suggest the Glaxo rebellion amounted to the most significant defeat of a big company's board at its annual meeting in memory.
The vote was the latest in a series of protests since the British government recently made it compulsory for companies to put their pay policies to a vote each year.
Crikey reports that investors are viewing it as a warning to other big companies that excessive boardroom pay deals would no longer be tolerated.
In Australia, such a vote is currently impossible. Labor's finance spokesman Steve Conroy introduced the Bill into Parliament in March last year requiring listed companies to have an annual non-binding resolution on executive remuneration at the AGM. The purpose is to give shareholders a voice on remuneration policy.
While the Howard Government voted this amendment down, Conroy has vowed to . will move the amendment again - when the next round of company law changes are debated.
Labor Council secretary John Robertson says the failure to get legislation through the Parliament shows how focussed unions need to be to hold CEOs to account.
"This is one of the more modest recommendations of our inquiry into Executive Pay," Robertson says. "It's a good first step for Labor but we are hoping for some even bolder movement in light of our report."
Further, the champion of individual contracts, pledged to intervene in the long-running Morris McMahon dispute after being embarrassed by rank and file process workers and their union officials.
The Workplace Relations Minister met picketers on a challenge from AMWU national secretary, Doug Cameron, delivered at the end of a heated university debate earlier in the week.
During the meeting, held in front of television cameras, the Minister revealed little understanding of what his legislation means for workers whose employer refuses to negotiate.
Morris McMahon employees have been picketing the company for 10 weeks. Their employer, city lawyer Judith Beswick, refuses to negotiate or even recongise the union. She has used Abbott's AWAs, backed by thousand dollar lures, to try and split individuals from workmates and their union.
Employers around the country have used above contract payments to try and buy people off collective agreements and onto AWAs.
Confronted with the reality Abbott appeared dumbfounded.
He tried to tell workers "under my legislation it is illegal for people on individual contracts to be treated any differently to people on collective agreements."
Cameron interjected: "That's not true Minister."
Abbott then took issue with a picketer. "No that's not right," he insisted. "You can take protected action when you have an individual contract."
Cameron: "Minister, that's not right, you can't take protected action on individual contracts. Believe me, officials of trhe AMWU know about bargaining laws."
"Thanks Doug. In future I will take my advice on industrial laws from the AMWU,"
Abbott responded to cheers and applause. "I am only a bush lawyer not an industrial lawyer," he added.
The Minister looked bemused when a single mother of two, earning $12.81 an hour, pleaded for help so her family could "live with dignity".
Cameron thanked the Minister for fronting up but urged him to go further and represent the interests of picketers. Abbott said he would intervene and conceded the workers should be entitled to a collective agreement and union representation if they wanted it.
Cameron said workers had given Abbott a lesson in real life.
"Government's mantra about choice is not supported by its laws," he said. "These workers have chosen to belong to the union, they have chosen to have a collective agreement, yet the laws mean the employer does not have to bargain in good faith.
"We hope the Minister now understands how his laws are encouraging and assisting employers to starve workers into submission."
In a 20-page submission to Cabinet colleagues, Abbott confirms public servants are turning their backs on AWAs and non-union agreements in massive numbers and, as a result, are winning higher wages than Government would like.
Abbott highlights the success of public sector unions and the failure of his policy in a front page executive summary that bemoans the ...
- "low use by agencies of Australian Workplace Agreements (AWAs)"
- "declining level of non-union collective agreements, and
- "continuing trend for agreements to provide pay increases which exceed the average level of pay increases in the private sector ..."
The leaked document concedes the take-up level for AWAs is "minimal" below senior executive level and outlines a remedial strategy that jettisons all pretence of genuine choice.
Abbott recommends a revised policy framework that will force all new Australian Government employees and successful applicants for advertised vacancies to take up AWAs.
In a bid to force down union-negotiated wage increases future certified agreements will have to "reflect the Government's commitment to wage restraint" and be signed off on by relevant ministers, rather than departmental heads.
Further, Government will continue its policy of requiring that any increases be funded from existing budget allocations.
The Minister blames public service unions, the AIRC and secret ballots for his failure to lure significant numbers onto individual contracts.
"Unions are making the form of agreement a threshold issue in negotiations," Abbott tells colleagues. "The strategy invariably involves unions conducting a ballot of employees as to their preferred form of agreement prior to negotations commencing and seeking the assistance of the Australian Industrial Relations Commission (AIRC) where the form of agreement remains an issue.
"Unions have on a number of occasions successfully asked the AIRC to recommend a secret ballot of employees on their preferred form of agreement. This culture of collective decision making does not easily co-exist with the mainenance of professional standards and responsibility."
Abbott draws attention to "several" union negotiated settlements returning members increases of more than five percent, against the September quarter average of 4.3 percent.
CPSU national secretary Adrian O'Connell says most public sector workers are facing their third round of bargaining since legislation changed in 1996.
"They know what works for them and what doesn't," O'Connell said. "People stick with collective agreement because they work and produce fair outcomes for all parties."
The 445 room Avillion Hotel has threatened the worker and his union, for wanting to take the time to appear on Monday before the Senate Inquiry hearings.
The LHMU member was to have appeared before the Senate Inquiry into Poverty in Sydney at 10.30am on Monday at the Sydney Masonic Centre.
"This shows an extraordinary contempt towards the democratic life of Australia,", LHMU Hotel Union, NSW assistant secretary, Mark Boyd says.
"There is much community disquiet and debate about excessive wages paid to top managers and executives. This hotel has effectively denied a low-waged worker the right to give an alternative view in this debate."
Boyd says the LHMU will raise this extraordinary intervention with Senators during the Inquiry hearings, and will ask the Senate whether this can be considered a contempt of parliament and our democratic processes.
LHMU national secretary, Jeff Lawrence, will speak to the union's submission at the Senate Inquiry and will be accompanied by several members who will give personal testimonies.
"Our members will challenge the Senate Inquiry to act now to help our nation return to its traditions as a fair-go society," Boyd says. " e must bring a halt to the trend of growing wage disparities."
Matthew Reynolds was a deeply loved and respected part of the CPSU family. A fact confirmed by the hundreds of heartfelt tributes the union has received over the last 48 hours.
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These kind words of support for his wife and his family, come from an astonishingly wide spectrum. Former workmates, union officials, employers, senior public servants, politicians, delegates, sporting buddies and rank and file members have all expressed the shock and sorrow we feel.
As CPSU member David Adams from AFFA puts it, "we've lost a lion."
Matthew died as a result of a massive and irreparable brain aneurism. He was only 38. He is survived by his wife Jenny and young children Tayla and Joel.
Matthew is held in great affection and esteem by public servants across Australia as well as in Canberra for his tireless work on their behalf. He always fought individual causes with the same passion that he applied to collective ones.
Though raised in the Catholic tradition, Matthew was no choirboy and he certainly knew how to celebrate his many victories. While he could be a shrewd and tough political operator when it was needed, he will mainly be remembered as a decent trustworthy person with an deep core of human kindness.
Born and raised in Hobart, he grew up in the northern suburbs and attended St Dominic's College.
Tasmanian friends remember him as a keen, if rowdy, Australian Rules football player who thought nothing of sprinting the length of the field to support his team-mates in a melee. He was also an enthusiastic indoor cricket player who became notorious for wearing a unique and ribald Garfield T-shirt whenever he played.
His association with the union began in 1983 in Hobart where he was employed first in the Department of Veterans Affairs and then the Commonwealth Employment Service.
He became an activist in the then Australian Pubic Service Association and rose to be PSU Tasmanian Branch Secretary in 1996.
He made the move to Canberra in 1998 after being elected National President of the merged Community and Public Sector Union. His big smile and slightly rumpled suits quickly became familiar hallmarks of his personal style.
In Canberra he also threw himself into community life and was very proud of his role coaching boys and girls in the Belconnen Junior Australian Rules Football Club's Auskick program on Sunday mornings at Giralang Oval.
Over the last two years, he led a successful campaign re-building the CPSU in the ACT Public Service and delivering long overdue improvements in pay and conditions. During his career he also represented CPSU members in the Professional Division and Food Inspectorial Group.
What should have been a week of election victory celebrations has turned to tragedy for a man who made friends easily and influenced many.
One moving tribute from CPSU former National Deputy President Mal Larsen said, "Mathew was a gentle man who gave space to those around him. He had a cheeky smile that made you want to know what he was thinking about and he had a unique way with words. His care for his people and love of his family were palpable. If there is a heaven, he'll be organising it. Farewell comrade."
More tributes can be found at http://www.cpsu.org
The CPSU has set up a Trust fund to provide for the benefit, advancement and education of his children Tayla and Joel. To get involved, contact the CPSU on 1300 137 636 or make a donation at any Westpac Branch.
Details:
CPSU as Trustee For Tayla and Joel Reynolds Trust Fund
BSB no: 032 000
Account: 127 155
A funeral service will be held at St Christopher Church in Manuka in the ACT at 2pm on Wednesday 28 May.
(Parts of this obituary originally appeared in an article by Verona Burgess in the 23 May edition of The
Canberra Times).
The NSW Nurses Association, buoyed by the success of its public sector test case, has made application to the NSW IRC to vary the Nursing Homes award in a bid to boost pay rates and retain staff.
The Association is gearing up to run several elements of its strategy as a special test case before the commission's full bench.
Matters to be put before the commission include pay rates, allowances, qualifications, workloads, overtime, recognition for NSWNA officers and paid parental leave.
The move follows months of discussions during which aged care representatives have repeatedly refused to move wage and conditions in line with public sector movements.
The latest pay offer from NSW nursing homes and hostel operators would leave aged care employees between 12 and 14 percent adrift of wages paid to colleagues at nearby public hospitals.
Nurses Association secretary, Brett Holmes, called the offer "unacceptable and insulting."
"People would be shocked to learn that the standard hourly rate for a fourth year nursing assistant in a NSW nursing home, who provides care for frail, elderly people, is $12.86, while the rate for an adult supermarket shelf packer is $14.20," Holmes said.
He said the situation was a direct result of employer instransigience and the policies of the Federal Government and would only worsen the sector's recruitment and retention problems.
An eighth year registered nurse in aged care earns $167 a week less than counterparts in the public system will get from July 1.
Key elements of the nurses claim include a 27 percent jump in income; new qualification clauses rewarding study and skills development; a reasonable workloads clause; changes to overtime; and the introduction of paid parental leave.
The Nurses Association this week served the application, by registered mail, on principal employer and industry organisations, along with individual employers.
The tourist were backing the porters, who have suddenly had the compulsory porterage feed denied to them by penny pinching managers.
Tour companies have to pay a compulsory porterage fee to the Menzies hotel as part of their contracts - and they often feel the need to pass on this cost, in extra charges, to the tourists.
LHMU NSW Assistant Secretary Mark Boyd says the porters had been handing out information leaflets this week to hotel guests, telling them that while they pay the compulsory fee the cash is not going to our members.
"There have been quite a few lifted eyebrows among the guests when they find out," Boyd says.
Thomas Soe, has been working as a porter at the Menzies Hotel for four years and said he wasn't surprised at the angry reaction of the guests.
" Imagine if a restaurant confiscated the waiters' tips left behind by happy customers," Thomas said.
But Thomas believes that the LHMU campaign can eventually win the money back because of the union's track record on this issue.
" It doesn't matter where you live or what you do, as long as we workers stick together we can get what we're fighting for," Thomas said.
Boyd says the other major hotels in the Sydney CBD rightfully pass the porterage onto the porters. "It's time the Menzies got back into line with these hotels."
The 4-star All Seasons Premier Menzies Hotel in Carrington St, Sydney, is part of the big multinational Accor Hotel chain.
The long-time foes have struck a ground-breaking partnership that will end demarcation rows in Australia's offshore oil and gas industries.
After months of talks the two bodies will formally join forces to promote unionism in a multi-billion industry, which employs thousands of people.
The agreement, unthinkable even 10 years ago, pledges an end to demarcation disputes and that the two organisations will combine resources to ...
- increase the coverage of collective agreements
- improve occupational health and safety, wages and working conditions
- boost the rate of union membership
Woodside, Exxon/Mobil, BHPBilliton, Newfield Exploration, Apache Energy, Chevron, Diamond Offshore and Vanguard will be among the first companies targeted by the joint organising campaign.
Enmity between the two organisations stretches back decades and was heightened as labour movement factions lined up with different international forces during the Cold War.
Older seamen still talk of DB 101, a crane ship brought to Australia by seamen who had legitimate coverage of propelled vehicles. In order to paint seamen out of the picture, the company that operated it in Bass St removed the propeller and hired members of the AWU.
That manouevre, from nearly 20 years ago, was subsequently endorsed by Australian courts.
Current leaders of the respective unions are determined to put the tensions of those days behind.
"The Alliance is giving off-shore companies notice that we will be campaigning heavily on all major sites and will not stop until we improve occupational health and safety standards and the conditions of off-shore workers," AWU national secretary Bill Shorten said.
MUA counterpart Padraig Crumlin endorsed the strategy, saying pooled resources would enable better detection or rorts and protection of for members.
About 5000 workers are employed off-shore on gas and oil rigs and in allied service industries.
This week's MUA-AWU agreement gives practical effect to thousands of words spoken over recent years about burying ideological differences for the benefit of rank and file union members.
Hearings begin in the AIRC on Monday on a case aimed at increasing the entitlements of millions to redundancy and ending discrimination.
"Pan Pharmaceuticals has acknowledged the unfairness of the current regulations by agreeing to redundancy payments for long-serving casuals who were sacked through no fault of their own. The ACTU's case would provide a similar fair go for all casuals made redundant after more than 12 months in the job," ACTU secretary Greg Combet said.
"Many redundat workers are unfairly disadvantaged by differing regulations between states, by different rules for permanent and casual employees and by special treatment of smaller businesses.
"The ACTU test case will establish a fair minimum standard for all long-serving employees regardles of where they live or work."
The ACTU's test case also seeks to:
- double entitlements from eight to 16 weeks pay for workers made redundant after more than six years
- increase severance pay for those with two-five years service in line with the NSW standard
- provide up to four weeks extra for workers aged over 45
Combet said the existing federal cap on severance pay of eight weeks was unfair when redundant workers averaged 22 weeks of unemployment.
Sources close to Gordon insist the decision had more to do with his "location" than support for the CPSU's campaign to push WIN into negotiating an agreement for staff around regional Australia.
Fact is that despite his corporate philosophy "... your community is very important to us. That's because your community is our community too," Gordon chooses to reside in the Bahamas, a notorious tax haven.
Hundreds of pledges to back the community switch-off had, however, been received from more relevant locations, including Woollongong, Hobart and Thuringowa.
CPSU officials reported the rattled company had finally started talking to the union, albeit via threats from its lawyers.
WIN staff are seeking a basic agreement with claims to recognise industry standard wages and multi-skilling and to agree to redundancy and on-call provisions.
The union highlights the example of news camera operators, also required to oversee lighting, sound, shooting and editing. These people are on call 24 hours a day, seven days a week, and are paid a gross of $585 by the company.
"When an employer who has refused to negotiate with the union starts communicating through lawyers you know they are rattled," CPSU secretary Adrian O'Connell said after last week's Boycott WIN day.
"There is a simple solution - come to the negotiating table. They have our number."
Big city unionists threw their weight behind the regional turn-off with both ACTU president, Sharan Burrow, and NSW Labor Council secretary, John Robertson, declaring public support.
Robertson said community involvement in the WIN campaign was a pointer to other unions.
"Usually the interests of workers and the general community are the same," Robertson said. "It's true of banks, schools and hospitals and its also true of regional television.
"WIN's tactics are a big turn-off so why shouldn't people return the favour."
WIN runs branches in Wollongong, Dubbo, Orange, Griffith, Canberra, Wagga Wagga, Cairns, Townsville, Sunshine Coast, Toowoomba, Rockhampton, Ballarat, Albury, Muldura, Shepparton, Gippsland, Launceston and Mt Gambier.
"My workmates are all coming to the fight," Clout said. "They're right behind me, it's going to be a good night."
The 25-year-old Port Kembla worker is known to workmates as "little slugger". He has had 24 bouts and meets Fijian contender Wahid Khan tonight. Victory put him in line for a shot at the Pan Pacific title.
"Wade has the full support of the union here," said MUA branch secretary Mark Armstrong. "We're encouraging members to turn up and give him a cheer. He's a quiet bloke but he packs a punch."
The Maritime Union boasts a long list of boxing standouts, including former Australian lightweight champion, Jack Hassen, and the country's first bantamweidht world champion, Jimmy Carruthers.
Clout's trainer Vito Gaudosi also used to work on the Port Kembla wharves.
The Experience of Middle Australia: The Dark Side of Economic Reform has earned public applause from British writer, Will Hutton, and American philosopher Naom Chomsky.
Chomsky labelled the work "instructive" and "chilling" while Hutton settled for "provocative and important." Sydney Morning Herald columnist Robert Manne chimed in with "fascinating".
The meticulously researched work is a direct challenge to orthodox economists who argue the middle class is the big beneficiary of right wing social-economic engineering.
Economist and author, Michael Pusey, will discuss his work at the Evatt Foundation Breakfast Seminar at Sydney's Quality Hotel on Monday, May 26.
The seminar, from 7.30am, will be chaired by Evatt Foundation president Bruce Childs.
What's That In Your Coffee?
-An Invitation-
Tadesse Gudeta
Oromiya Coffee Farmers' Co-operatives, Ethiopia
Latte, cappuccino or espresso, coffee farmers around the world cannot cover the costs of production with the price they receive for their coffee crop.
Tadesse Gudeta of the Oromiya Coffee Farmers' Co-operatives will speak from first hand experience about the situation of coffee growers in Ethiopia. Ethiopia is one of the poorest countries in the world and depends extensively on the export of coffee for its economy but world coffee prices are at a 30 year low. Only 3c from a $3 cup goes to the farmer. Coffee farmers cannot afford basic health care or education for their children. Yet drinking coffee is one of the most enjoyable of our daily experiences.
Why can't coffee farmers get a fair price for their coffee?
Oxfam Community Aid Abroad's MAKE TRADE FAIR campaign team invites you to either/both of the following forums to hear Tadesse speak
Oxfam Community Aid Abroad office
Level 3, 25 Cooper Street, Surry Hills
Saturday, 31 May, 2003
3.00pm to 4.30pm
Oxfam Community Aid Abroad Manly Shop
36 The Corso, Manly
Monday, 2 June, 2003
6.30pm
For more information and to RSVP, contact Margaret Di Nicola at [email protected] or T. 8204 3900
Hi there. Congratulations on a great online newspaper. Do you publish a print version? If not, don't you think this would be a good idea? How many people, who should be reading this, can actually access the internet? We desperately need a widely distributed print newspaper which challenges the status quo ... especially NOW, when Howard and co are busy dismantling the Welfare State in Oz and the world is rapidly moving to the right.
Jan
Ed's Reply: Good point, we're trying to convince unions to run more Workers Online content in their journals.
Dear Editor
I appreciate you keeping us informed of the latest news of other workers' struggles locally and around the world. But if I again have to wade through the disgustingly offensive language in your current edition, I will be forced to cancel my subscription. Your language evokes a 1950's male-only public bar. Is it any wonder we have trouble attracting women to the labor movement? Surely you have people with enough vocabulary to report the news and views without gutter profanities?
P Kennedy
Hey editor
whats your solution to all of these problems. It looks like you have the same technique that Simon Cringer I mean Crean uses. Whinging instead of doing something about it by pushing forward a positive answer isnt going to help workers of today or tomorrow.
Jenny
HR university student
The opportunities for pushing the benefits of Union membership are not as some pessimists would have us believe as rare as Hens teeth , they are manifold and all around us , it is the belief in the reality of mythology , and the ineptitude and apathy of those who are entrenched in well paid Union positions suffering from domestic blindness , or burning up with their own personal hatreds or crusades , that lead this vanguard of the blind.
Recently I was employed as a casual street sweeper through a Labour Hire Company during the period May 9 - May 16.
I believe there were 20 people hired to participate in a Cleansing Blitz, people of whom I considered, other than myself, to have no experience of working in heavy traffic conditions either pedestrian or vehicular and certainly with suspect training in the area of Occupational Health and safety, this incompetence not only creating a personal exposure of danger to them, but also members of the public and agreeing to sign any document even a Faustus pact just to obtain employment.
This is no reflection on these people , who like myself have found it necessary to work without complaint , in less than secure environments for fear of losing a position , which although pays little , supplements the rapidly decreasing social wage paid by the Commonwealth.
We were sent to work on Sydney's busy roads during the torrential rain, which created further safety hazards through poor visibility for both the workers and the motorists. We were directed to work without the protection of accredited traffic control officers or even the mandatory instruction or signage; we were required to use noisy portable hand blowers without instruction , safety instructions , or personal protection equipment including Ear Protection, the only apparent purpose in the use of these noisy machines in the hands of willing but inexperienced staff being to move the litter from one position to another , with little or no apparent concern as the damage to private property including legally parked cars which are left covered in filth and damage from loose metal , twigs and branches blown with high pressure against their body panels , or dents caused by brooms being forced under cars parked close to the kerb.
Another area of great concern, was not only the deficiency of accredited instruction on the disposing of "Sharps", that is the myriad discarded syringes that abound the streets of Sydney, or the lack of freely available provision of equipment to collect and contain these potentially deadly implements, with the necessity to utilise discarded soft drink containers in which to place these 'sharps', possibly creating a greater danger if these are not immediately removed from public access.
No instruction on environmental protection was given to these workers, such as litter is not to be swept into the Stormwater Gullies as this goes directly into Sydney Harbour...
This environmental pollution being exacerbated by the constant rain preventing a build up at the gully grates thereby providing some antiquated method for the of catchment of litter.
There can be no ignorance by either this Council or Work Cover in relation to this display of not only blatant disregard of public or employee safety but active participation at every level, as I made both aware of these dangerous work conditions.
The point of my correspondence is ; why did a Union not Approach these Casual Employees and offer them advice on their rights as to a safe working environment, or contact Work Cover as the outrageous conditions they were permitted to work under , if only to protect their current members.
Well you may ask did these workers continue to work under such conditions , perhaps they like many other Australian families have mouths to feed , feet to shod , backs to clothe and children to educate and through a sheer necessity they are now forced to tramp the Hungry Mile of the 21st century.
On a personal note, my desire to provide for mine own demands that if need be, I will work under these conditions and for less money, not through greed but necessity and I will continue to do so.
Bravo Mr. Keating, your Competition Policy has worked wonders for the Australian Battler.
Bravo, Messrs Kelty and Hawke on your accord.
Bravo Ms. Burrows on your Global Fair Trade Campaign
And finally Bravo Greg Combet on your working poor campaign, from our experience it has been an outstanding success.
A poem by Ernest Anthony
They tramp there in their legions on the morning dark and cold
to beg the right to slave for bread from Sydney's lords of gold;
they toil and sweat in slavery, 'twould make the devil smile
to see the Sydney wharfies tramping down the hungry mile
on ships from all the seas they toil, that others of their kind
may never know the pinch of want or feel the misery blind
that make the lives of men a hell in those conditions vile
that are the hopeless lot of those who tramp the hungry mile.
The slaves of men who know no thought of anything but gain
who wring their brutal profits from the blood and sweat and pain
of all the disinherited who slave and starve the while
upon the ships beside the wharves along the hungry mile
but every stroke of that grim lash that sears the souls of men
with interest due from years gone by shall be paid back again
to those who drive these wretched slaves to build the golden pile
and blood shall blot the memory out - of Sydney's hungry mile
The day will come, aye, come it must, when these same slaves shall rise
and through the revolution's smoke ascending to the skies,
the master's face shall show the fear he hides behind the smile
of these his slaves who on that day shall storm the hungry mile.
And when the world grows wiser and all men at last are free
when none shall feel the hunger nor tramp in misery
to beg the right to slave for bread, the children then may smile
at those strange tales they tell of what was once the hungry mile.
Tom Collins
Where is the proper representation?
There is a lot being written about our sub standard rail system in NSW.
Where has the union representation been during all the years that the work environment has gone down the tubes. Surely this isn't a country where workers have to fear making legitimate complaints to management about unsafe work practice. Or for that matter those complaints being processed indefinitely. Are train drivers expected to take responsibility for trains that don't meet set standards, is it possible that casual interpretation of the law has drifted down to management levels from Government? To the extent that a train is like an old bomb car with a dodgy certificate of compliance,and she will be right.
Why is it that the obvious requirements for safe working are not being meet, while our tax money that is still being paid for the standards to be kept high is increasing with each passing year. I have experienced surging while a passenger, which I thought was just the driver couldn't make up his mind, it never occurred to me that this was a fault that would contribute to the wrongful deaths of passengers. The 53 Parliament has the responsibility for what has been happening, government has had no problem in continuing to take our tax money.
Are we taxed without honest representation? I say we are, each time there's a State Election our votes are stolen by the use of false pretences, when we complain it is directed to some unelected policy adviser whose sole purpose is to shield the responsible Minister from the result of incompetent representation of the taxpayer by government.
Edward James POB 3024 UMINA
Our team of respected academics have crunched the numbers and come to the dramatic conclusion that the more you pay a CEO the worse their company performs - and vice versa.
These are not a bunch of sociologists applying some whacko economic theory, it is a sober analysis of share return, dividends and long-term viability.
You don't see academics animated too often, but when they came into Labor Council to brief us on the results a few months ago it was as if they had discovered the equivalent of accounting gold.
For those who have argued that you need to pay astronomical salaries and throw in Lotto-style options packages, we can now confidently say that their emperor has no clothes.
Once a CEO's salary exceeds the average weekly wage by a factor of 20, there is a demonstrable deterioration in company performance.
What this means for unions is that the debate about executive pay now transcends a moral argument about corporate excess and becomes a very real issue of job security.
If an executive takes home a salary that is outside the 1:20 matrix there is a real chance the company is in big trouble.
The union movement's challenge is to use this information strategically: industrially, politically and financially.
Industrially, workers should be questioning the distribution of profits armed with research showing that the money should not end up in the hands of the boss.
Politically, unions need to push governments to make decision about corporate pay more transparent and accountable. The current situation, where it is governed by the Australian Stock Exchange, itself a listed corporation, is an untenable conflict of interest
We also need to convince Labor Government to use purchasing policy to force forms to moderate executive pay; as Tony Abbott uses government funds to promote AWAs, Labor must use its financial levers to promote corporate responsibility.
And financially, we must wake the sleeping giant that is the union movement's influence in superannuation - taking the next step in protecting our members long term interest through our stewardship of industry super funds.
Unions can not sit back and allow a financial orthodoxy that is now exposed as bogus force them to raise their hands when the corporate cabal demands a pay rise.
As researcher John Shields pointed out this week, the idea that there is a market for talented CEOs, is a myth that has been perpetuated by the corporate sector. Like all else, this market is constructed.
But that's political theory; the message from this research is that when you look at the numbers the claims for high CEO pay do not add up. The message for the Top End of Town is that the game's up.
Peter Lewis
Editor
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