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Issue No. 182 | 13 June 2003 |
The Dead Couple
History: Nest of Traitors Interview: A Nation of Hope Unions: National Focus Safety: The Shocking Truth Tribute: A Comrade Departed History: Working Bees Education: The Big Picture International: Static Labour Economics: Budget And Fudge It Technology: Google and Campaigning Review: Secretary With A Difference Poetry: The Minimale Satire: Howard Calls for Senate to be Replaced by Clap-O-Meter
Carr Faces Acid On Job Security Abbott Prescribes Dole for Mother of Six Cole Batting Zero from Thirty Two Dust Busters – MUA Sails into Allianz Fight Security Forces Come Out Firing Women’s Centre Faces Ideological Jihad Varsity Casuals Win Wage Increase Fortress NSW Protects BHP Workers Pharmacists Seek Jobs Medicine Iranian Textile Workers Sewn Up
Politics The Soapbox Media The Locker Room
Saharwi Struggle Vinegar Hill Tom's Toons
Labor Council of NSW |
News Women’s Centre Faces Ideological Jihad
The NSW Working Women's Centre could shut its doors at the end of the month leaving thousands of women without an avenue for advice regarding their workplace rights. With just weeks of the financial year remaining, the Department of Employment and Workplace Relations has yet to approve funding and representatives told a Senate Estimates Committee last week that a decision had yet to be made. This is not the first time the Centre has been within weeks of its funding running out, with no guarantee of money from the Federal Government. This environment makes it impossible to plan or implement strategies to improve service delivery. The bulk of the WWC's comes from the federal government, which has tied future funding to 'promot(ing) the Government's workplace relations agenda'. This is code for Tony Abbott's Australian Workplace Agreements. WWC director Nareen Young argues that, given the Centre's core services are advice to working women in unregulated sections of the workplace, the opportunities to promote such an agenda rarely arise. Young is concerned about the status of cases the WWC is currently running for clients before industrial tribunals, while closure would leave a whole class of workers without representation. "In an increasingly complex and legal industrial relations framework, and a well-documented limited union presence in particular industries and occupations, the need for the services provided by th3e WWC is critical," she says. NSW Labor Council secretary John Robertson has condemned the federal government's position as an another example of linking funding to an ideological agenda. "It is reprehensible that desperate women in tenuous employment have become the latest pawns in Tony Abbott's power plays," Robertson says.
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