*****
Rupert Murdoch - the Australian who's apparently an American but, in fact, runs the world - has been enjoying life recently as American Legislators queue up to kiss him where he likes it.
Also known as 'The Sun King', this corporate leader can be considered a tool's tool. He is fresh from prodding the sociopathic Dr Strangeloves from the Bush Administration into the latest war-to-end-all-wars.
While he knows that death sells, he needed an excuse and the guys from marketing came up with a beauty when they managed to get that deranged specimen, Paul Wolfowitz, to come up with the "bureaucratic" enigma, weapons of mass destruction.
Unfortunately the weapons of mass destruction have failed to eventuate and a fair few thousand members of the human race are no longer with us but that is the price to pay if we want to sell papers or boost the ratings on pay TV.
The rather appropriately named News Limited had been having a bit of a roller coaster ride of late; and with Lachlan the younger dropping daddy's inheritance on the One Tel fiasco Rupey, being the old veteran that he is, needed a good war to cheer him up.
Murdoch's relationship with brutal, repressive regimes is singularly enigmatic. It's a pity he couldn't work closely with Saddam as he appeared to have no problem with dealing with the Chinese administration - despite the litany of abuses of anyone who has tried to provide an independent voice, especially for the Chinese worker.
Then again, we can't be too surprised. This is, after all, the man who vigorously helped Margaret Thatcher to turn Lancashire into a third world country.
Mind you, lying about events is a piece of cake if you control as much of the information market as Rupert does. In this country he was recently portrayed in the movie 'Black and White' as being the crusading owner of the Adelaide News defending the rights of Max Stuart, a young aboriginal man falsely accused of rape and murder.
The truth is all the crusading was done by the Adelaide News' Managing Editor at the time Rohann Rivett. Murdoch was the first to hose down the story after pressure from his mates in the Adelaide Establishment.
The US and, as with all things these days, Australia to follow suit, is now going to throw open its media ownership laws to allow the expansion and ultimate dominance of the bizarre jingoistic fiction that passes as news at the Sun Kings empire.
The cross media ownership laws in the US wouldn't appear so bad when racked up against the model that everyone's favourite Thunderbird, Senator Richard Alston, has put together. Alston's proposals would entrench the ownership of Australian media into the hands of this narrow American.
The dumbing down of an entire nation would then commence in earnest as the adventures of Russell Crowe, weapons of mass destruction or discovering Elvis working in a convenience store will be passed off as news.
There is no such thing as paranoia; it's all true.
Of course our Tool Of The Week will insist that all his editors and producers have total editorial liberty. No doubt in much the same way that his papers shrilly insisted that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction. As Max Stuart put it at the end of the film Black and White: "Some people think Elvis is still alive, but most of us think he's dead and gone."
One, ticketing agent Carolyn Dean, is so determined to work hours that allow her to look after 14 month-old, Jesse, she will see the company in the federal Industrial Relations Commission on Monday.
The 31-year-old Maroubra mother claims Air New Zealand have discriminated against her by denying part-time work until Jesse is two by rejecting reasonable attempts to broker a compromise.
Dean's union, the ASU, says she was initially refused family-friendly hours on the grounds that no part-time work was available. Then the company advertised a part-time position but told her she couldn't have it for "business reasons".
Since then a part-time male workmate, who has put himself through a TAFE ticketing course, has offered to swap shifts to cover Dean's fulltime position on the company's 4.30am - 8.30pm roster, and 35 fellow employees have signed a petition supporting her claim. But Air New Zealand has dug its heels in.
Dean, who returned from a year's maternity leave in March, said she had requested part-time hours before leaving but the manager she dealt with has since left the company.
"The crunch of it is I want more time with my little boy," she said. "And I don't think I should be penalised long-term.
"They have offered me a permanent part-time position but I don't think that is good enough. After eight years loyal service I would have thought they would have been a little more reasonable.
"Three others went on maternity leave within six months of me going off and none of them have returned because the place is not family friendly."
Dean said one of those three had offered to job-share with her but Air New Zealand turned the request down and that woman is still at home.
ASU official, Leonie Sharp, said returning mothers were entitled to part-time hours under their certified agreement but the relevant clause was qualified by requiring the employer's agreement.
"They are acting in accordance with the letter of the agreement but morally and ethically they are being unreasonable," Sharp said.
Workers Online understands Air New Zealand is being taken before the anti-discrimination board by another mother, whilst a manager is seeking legal advice after being made redundant, last week, just before she was due to return from maternity leave.
Legal triggers for casuals to win permanency, a new Work Family Test case and tax incentives for the low-paid are key planks in the platform ACTU secretary Greg Combet will take to this year�s ACTU Congress.
Combet outlined the agenda while releasing 'The Future of Work' at conference in Sydney this week, a study by the University of Sydney's acirrt charting the 'fragmentation' of the Australian workforce.
"The key message from this research is that the benefits of economic growth have not been shared fairly," Combet said.
"The fact is that Australia's economic prosperity in recent years has been built on the back of inequality and the intensification of work. Economic risk has been shifted directly onto employees through casualisation, contracting and agency employment arrangements."
Combet committed the ACTU to articulating a core set of values based on fairness to counter the Howard Government's deferral to competition and market forces.
These values would underpin four policy initiatives:
- a new minimum award standard giving casual workers the right to become permanent after six months services. Such as standard would include protections against employers shedding casuals approaching the threshold.
- a Work and Family Test Case, to be lodged in the AIRC in the next fortnight, extending unpaid maternity leave from one to two years and enshrine a right to negotiate for flexible working hours.
- improving living standards for low income households through the use of tax credits
- And enshrining collective bargaining rights in legislation, consistent with Australia's international obligations under the ILO Conventions.
"These reforms are not about unions turning back the clock," Combet says. "What we want are better standards that get better outcomes for working people who have seen their secure disappear in recent years."
Fragmented Lives
Lead researcher John Buchanan told the conference a striking statistic was that one seven per cent of workers now worked the standard Monday to Friday, nine to five working week.
Buchanan's research paints a bleak portrait of job security - and the attitudes of workers towards those changes.
Key trends highlighted in the report include:
- increasing wage inequality - with most income earners experiencing a real decrease in wages in the 1990s.
- increases in work intensification, with workers across a range of industries reporting they no longer have the time to do their jobs properly
- and a massive shift to casual employment, more than half of whom have been in the same job more than one year.
Buchanan advocated broader initiatives than the ACTU is currently suggesting including providing leave entitlements to all workers, regardless of their formal employment status.
After sitting on recommendations to regulate casuals and labour hire for more than two years, the government will now have to respond to the same claims, as an employer.
As such the government will have to make the call whether to back the Labor Council claim in NSW Industrial Relations Commission to establish three core principles:
- a mechanism for regulating casual work that would give casuals the opportunity to become permanent after six months
- a set of procedures employers would have to go through before contracting out, including consultation and not using the process to merely evade existing wages and conditions, or de-unionise the workplace
- a requirement that labour hire employees attract the wages and conditions paid by the host employer
If successful the standards would flow across the entire public sector, a section of the workforce where casualisation and labour hire is growing dramatically as departments attempt to meet workloads without breaking a Treasury-enforced freeze on new jobs.
The NSW IRC would be asked to look at awards covered by three unions - the Public Service Association, the National Union of Workers and the CFMEU. Under NSW industrial laws all employers covered by an award are 'roped in', meaning rogue employers can't undercut the ruling.
Labor Council deputy assistant secretary, Chris Christodoulou said its public service component would be the 'acid test' of where the NSW Labor Government actually stood on workers rights.
"We are looking for basic safeguards in the event of contracting or labour hire," Christodoulou said. "We don't accept these things should be a back door way of cutting wage rates or conditions, particularly where they have been hard won over years.
"It is a reasonable response to growing casualisation and the increasing use of labour hire and contracting."
Christodoulou said Labor Council's hand had been forced by the "laissez faire" attitude of the Government which had turned it down on any regulation of labour hire, and proposal for host employer conditions.
"They say they are sympathetic but argue such matters are best dealt with by the IRC. Well, that's where we are going," Chrisotdoulou says.
Cunningham says that Abbott�s Termination of Employment Bill, which seeks to bring unjustified dismissal under restrictive federal provisions, would have cost her her job at Lipa Management Services. Instead, when she was unfairly sacked, her union, the NUW, won reinstatement by taking a dispute through the NSW IRC.
"I don't understand the law very much and I don't understand this Government either," Cunningham told Labor Council delegates.
"I am the bread winner in my family and if I don't work we don't eat. If families like mine don't have some recourse when we are unfairly sacked we would be left on the dole.
"If this law gets passed life will be a lot harder for people like us. Where I work people work six or 12 months as casuals and nobody is told that they don't have permanent rights."
Cunningham had worked at Lipa for four and a half months when she was dismissed, after joining the NUW. The first three months, however, were spent on the books of a labor hire company.
Abbott's Bill would deny unfair dismissal procedures to employees with less than three months service, amongst others.
NUW spokesman Andrew Joseph said the Federal system was costly, complex and difficult to access by comparison with a state regime that was less legalistic. Academics have described Government's move as a key step in eliminating state jurisdictions and establishing a unitary, federal system of workplace laws.
Key Democrat senators, including IR spokesman Andrew Bartlett, have indicated they will support Abbott's move.
ACTU president, Sharan Burrow, will join Queensland and NSW Labor Council secretaries, Grace Grace and John Robertson, in a face-to-face meeting with Bartlett next week.
Task Force director, Nigel Hadgkiss, confirmed that after investigations by his officers not one of the cases referred by Building Industry Commissioner Terence Cole had been forwarded to prosecuting authorities.
"It's true to say the majority will not be proceeding," Hadgkiss told Workers Online. "We have been unable to get the necessary evidence to proceed and that's for a number of reasons."
When pressed on how many referrals from Cole's interim report might survive the evidentiary cull, Hadgkiss responded "very few".
The establishment of the Building Industry Task Force, employing 41 people including 21 former police officers and at least five lawyers, has been controversial from day one.
The CFMEU based a "bias" claim against Royal Commissioner Terence Cole on the fact that he called for its establishment before he had completed hearing evidence.
The significance of the 32 referred cases was underlined at a Senate Estimates hearing in Canberra, earlier this month.
Department of Employment and Workplace Relations official, Barbara Bennett, appearing alongside Hadgkiss, told senators the Cole referrals were behind the Task Force's existence.
"The matters referred to Nigel just after the establishment of the task force are referred to in the royal commission's first report," she said. "They were part of the reasons why he (the Royal Commissioner) asked that the interim task force be established - to maintain some law and order in the industry pending the establishment of a permanent body and to investigate matters that, at the time, he felt he could not progress."
Bias allegations have now been levelled against the Task Force.
ETU officials in Brisbane have alleged their telephones have been bugged since Hadgkiss' organisation set up shop in the city. They also claimed his staff offered advice and support to hardline employers after enterprise bargaining talks broke down.
Hadgkiss said that, independent of Royal Commission leads, four actions have been instigated since the Task Force opened for business more than six months ago. The target of each, he confirmed, was a trade union. None of these case has yet come before a court.
CFMEU national secretary, John Sutton, said the failure to proceed with any of Cole's 30 original cases was unsurprising.
"We have stated all along that this was a witch hunt," Sutton said. "They are finding what most of us know, that witches are thin on the ground."
Westfield shopping mall cleaners across the globe are angry that Mark Ryan�s Labor credentials are not helping them win more job security and better working conditions, now that he plays right-hand man to shopping mall king Frank Lowy.
Lowy - who controls shopping malls in the USA, Australia, New Zealand, Canada and the UK - is the target of International Justice for Janitors Day.
The US cleaner's' union - the SEIU - and the Australian cleaners' union - the LHMU - are working together in an unprecedented campaign to get thousands of e-mails sent to Mark Ryan calling on him to deliver decent working conditions to this largely immigrant and invisible workforce.
The e-mails are pointing out that while Frank Lowy, the Westfield boss, is celebrating 50 years of his success as an immigrant his workplace policies are doing little or nothing to help the latest wave of immigrants to make a go of it in Australia or the USA.
On Friday SEIU Cleaners Union members at more than a dozen US Westfield malls leafletted customers explaining the crisis in the lives of low-paid janitors caused by the tendering out policies of Westfield management.
And On Monday LHMU Cleaners Union members in several Australian states and territories will hand out information about how one of the richest men in Australia allows low-paid cleaners to be treated at his shopping malls.
Lowy has been keen to be seen handing out largesse over the last twelve months, as he celebrates his immigrant success story. He has just announced that he is pumping $ 30 million of his own money into a think tank on international policy. And in September last year he announced he was giving away his $ 11 million annual salary - all to mark his arrival in Australia as an immigrant ' with a small suitcase' 50 years ago.
The army of immigrant workers in the USA, Australia, Canada, New Zealand and the UK, who are the invisible battalions cleaning the ever expanding Westfield empire may wonder when some of this largesse will be shown to them.
These hard-working shopping mall cleaners, many of whom have left their homelands seeking a better life for themselves and their families, want the same opportunities to fulfil their dreams that Frank Lowy had when he started out in the 1950s.
To add your voice to the campaign go to: http://www.labourstart.org/cgi-bin/solidarityforever/show_campaign.cgi?c=16
MUA official Barry Robson described any departmental official working to accommodate insurance giant Allianz, as "lower than a Patrick's scab" in an emotional response to company efforts to lure him into its campaign to brush the Dust Diseases Tribunal.
"If they (state government) think Patrick was a bit of a go they haven't seen anything yet of the waterside workers, I can tell you," Robson promised.
Robson said he was literally sick to death of burying friends killed by asbestosis and mesothelioma. He has attended three such funerals this year and had attempts to win compensation for dying former workmates, and the wives who nursed them, constantly frustrated by insurance companies.
Robson was furious at Allianz spin, following last week's unmasking of its lobbying by the CFMEU and AMWU. The company put out a press release saying far from wanting to abolish the dust board, it sought changes that would speed up compensation and ensure peace of mind for victims and their families.
Robson said the author of the press release had been pressing him for a month for a one-on-one meeting.
"This guy keeps ringing me, saying we can do it faster, we can do it better. I've told him - don't go there mate, don't bloody go there.
"I have done cases for 46 members being killed by these diseases and won every one in court but only 16 have got a pension off the Dust Diseases Board. I have waited 18 months to get a response to our appeal for a review and, guess what, they are not going to review any of these blokes.
"Who holds it up? They bloody do.
"They say we shouldn't worry too much because 90 percent of these people are retired, they don't really need the money because they are going to die any bloody way.
"Usually, in our industry, the wife is the carer who goes through the last months. They don't want to compensate the carer. Many a time I have had to stand up there in Goulburn St and defend why the wife should get some compensation for looking after her bloke while he dies. Why? Because they hold it up, they increase the legal costs.
"Then we find out this government is considering getting rid of the Dust Tribunal. I thought there were some low lives in this world and they were called Patrick scabs but if there is anything lower it would be some state government official doing the leg work for this lot."
The CFMEU and AMWU have both attacked Allianz for taking insurance premiums off companies like Hardys for decades, knowing the risk involved, and then trying to shift the payout to the public purse through the Accident Compensation Commission.
AMWU secretary, Paul Bastian, said the company was seeking state government support to transform a poor business decision into a windfall profit.
Regular casuals in pubs, hotels and casinos will be able to convert to permanency after 12 months, while power workers whose jobs were contracted have been re-employed by Integral Energy.
The new award clause negotiated between the LHMU and the Australian Hotels Association, will apply initially to many thousands of casual employees in pubs, accommodation hotels and casinos in Queensland, New South Wales, Victoria and Tasmania.
The LHMU's Assistant National Secretary, Tim Ferrari, welcomed the breakthrough and praised the AHA for its constructive approach in negotiations in the past three months.
" The agreement does not make it compulsory for long term casuals to convert to full-time or part-time status, nor does it permit employers to compel casuals to convert their status", Ferrari says
" But it provides a process for those who want more secure employment, including those who need evidence of secure employment to get access to personal or housing loans".
In dealing with a request for conversion, an employer will be obliged to act reasonably. The employer can refuse a request on a number of grounds - such as the size and needs of the enterprise, the nature of the work, the trading patterns of the enterprise, and the qualifications, skills and training of the employee.
But where an employer rejects a request and the employee thinks the rejection is unreasonable, the employee will be able to refer the refusal to the AIRC for decision.
Integral Turns Back Contracts Tide
Meanwhile, the push towards outsourcing in the power industry has stalled, with Integral Energy agreeing to bring workers whose jobs had been contracted out back to full-time employment.
Under the deal, more than 120 permanent full time jobs will be created inside Integral Energy, a recognition that permanent employees are a better bet when it comes to the provision of vital public services.
It also includes a major commitment to apprenticeships, with more than 100 young workers to get an opportunity in the trade over the coming years.
Electrical Trades Union state secretary Bernie Riordan says the deal is a sign that your union's war on outsourcing is beginning to yield results, delivering real benefits to workers.
"Our experience is that jobs that are outsourced cease to be part of the workplace culture," Integral delegate Dino Oppio says. "That means you feel less of a team."
The Integral Energy agreement provides for:
. The immediate employment of 50 new workers to work on capital infrastructure expenditure with a guarantee of ongoing reviews of workloads.
. Immediate employment of 30 apprentices (15-4th year and 15-3rd year) to overcome the acknowledged shortfall of qualified personnel.
. An increased apprenticed intake of 40 first year apprentices per year for the next four years.
Riordan says the win sets a new standard for the industry and will provide the platform for campaigns around the state.
"This is a sign that contracting out has failed to deliver for the power industry," Riordan says.
"I think more employers are recognising that the costs of contracting outweigh the short-term benefits, particularly in terms of training up staff and quality control.
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.
The use of casuals by universities in Australia has more than doubled since 1990 as a percentage of all staff, said CPSU Joint Federal Secretary David Carey.
"While many casuals are students earning some much-needed extra income to supplement the pittance they get from the Government, there is also evidence that casuals are used to fill ongoing jobs or jobs that should be offered on fixed-term contracts," Carey says.
After more than three months of intensive negotiation between the unions and the university employers, a settlement was reached for awards to include the following:
* increase the casual loading to 23 per cent for both general and academic staff; and
* provide that general staff will be eligible to apply to convert permanent or fixed-term employment after working 50 per cent or more of the full-time hours for their classification over the previous 12 months or working less than those hours but on a regular and systematic basis over the previous two years.
The university would be able to refuse conversion on "reasonable grounds", such as that the employee is a student doing work that is customarily offered to students, or the employee is a retiree coming back to fill in, or the employee already has a full-time job or primary occupation elsewhere.
However, in every other case the university would have to offer them permanent or, if the work fitted into the allowed categories, fixed-term employment, Carey says.
Thee union will use the award safety net increase to pursue wage increases in the current round of enterprise bargaining negotiations.
The workers this week voted to shift their wage and conditions to comply with a state registered award, to secure better conditions and entitlements
AWU Technical Administrative Professional Staff (TAPS) organiser James Day says a state-registered award would give workers greater guarantees of employment provisions including redundancy, termination of employment, union input to workplace changes and severence pay.
The AWU has been fighting for BHP workers to have the right to vote on the agreement for several months, including putting its case at multiple hearings at the NSW Industrial Relations Commission including the full bench.
Day says BHP is restructuring its workforce and if the award is voted up workers facing redundancy will be eligible for more generous payouts than currently exist.
He commended workers for getting involved in the state award debate: "TAPS members have endured loss of pay through stop work meetings, but have rallied behind the cause in the face of job losses from the current restructure to ensure their future is more secure."
The NSW Pharmacy Act 1964 is currently under review following a national review of pharmacy legislation. The new NSW Act is likely to set the standards that other states will follow.
APESMA is supporting a recommendation from the NSW Health Department that the Pharmacy Registration Board become a more representative body. APESMA are advocating union and community representatives be appointed to the new board.
APESMA is also supporting COAG. recommendations for the removal of restrictions on the number of pharmacies that a pharmacist or friendly society can own.
Chas Collison, Senior Industrial Officer, APESMA says under the present system much of the work available to employee pharmacists who work in community practice in NSW is part time and casual".
"Lifting the restrictions will allow groups like the friendly societies to expand and offer full time jobs and career paths to our members as happens in other states now," he says
The Pharmacy Guild of Australia, who represent pharmacy proprietors, are opposing these changes.
"The Guild oppose any relaxation of the ownership rules they won from the Hawke Government in 1989. The current ownership restrictions have been a financial windfall for pharmacy owners with the cost of a decent suburban pharmacy now in the 1m to 2m dollar range," Collison says.
The CFMEU spearheaded the campaign with a message of solidarity to striking textile workers and protests to both the Tehran Government, and its Australian embassy, after being urged to take action by Iranians living in Sydney.
CFMEU secretary Andrew Ferguson urged Labor Council support for 2000 strikers who he said were protesting the non-payment of wages for more than two years.
"Their campaign has spread to other industries and has wide public support in Iran," Ferguson said. "On April 16 more than 25,000 people joined a march and rally in support of these workers. The regime's police and security forces used truncheons and tear gas to attack these peaceful protesters and declared a state of martial law in the city."
Behshahr workers are demanding unpaid wages, unemployment benefits, increases in the minimum wage, freedom of assembly and rights to strike and organise.
Labor Council will send a message of solidarity and has urged affiliates to contact either The Union of Textile Workers: [email protected] or the Iranian Government at [email protected]
This unusual promo advertised a unique partnership between the CFMEU (Qld - Coal Mining Division) and Griffith University.
The union has provided funding to provide four courses of the School of Industrial Relations by distance education - to give a Certificate in IR, which is available for study by any student.
The Certificate which successful students will receive complements more "hands on" delegate and official training provided by the Union.
"The next generation of Union officials don't have the luxury of 20 years in the job, as I did, to gain their knowledge and skills," CFMEU (Qld - Coal) president Andrew Vickers argues. "There's an urgency to fully educate our activists, and ensure they're prepared to meet the challenges that face them".
Vickers pronounced himself a touch uncomfortable that the was dubbed "a corporate sponsor". "We'll have to find a different phrase," he said.
A focus of the course has been supporting students via weekly on-line contact, rather than leaving students to sink or swim. Australian Labour Relations tutor Robin Price has contacted each student (as far distant as Perth and Emerald) every Monday, and talked them through difficulties they're having.
The school's academic staff include labour economist Peter Brosnan (with a long history researching equity issues), David Peetz (with a claim to fame as Workers Online's "resident bard", but also author of "Unions in a Contrary World" and a well-known researcher on individualism/collectivism and union renewal strategies), and a number of others.
With staff member Cameron Allan, Peetz devised the course Workplace Industrial Relations.
Head of School Janis Bailey says the partnership is a unique one. "Nowhere else in Australia has a union provided funding in this way," she said. "It has enabled us to reach out to regional areas of Queensland, and hopefully to the rest of Australia as the Certificate becomes better known. The CFMEU's funding stands to benefit other students - hopefully many more".
The Certificate contains courses such as Labour Law and Negotiation, which both operate in the coming semester, starting in late July.
The Certificate is open to everyone, and is suitable for front-line and middle management staff as well as unionists.
You can find out more about Griffith's Certificate of Industrial Relations by visiting the website: www.gu.edu.au/school/irl/ (and follow link to Courses and Programs).
WORLD REFUGEE DAY
World Refugee day is next Friday and will be commemorated this year with National Demonstrations on Sunday 22nd June.
WHEN: Sunday 22nd June
TIME: 12 noon
WHERE: Hyde Park North, Next to Archibald Fountain
Labor movement activists will meet at Archibald Fountain at 12 noon on the South Side of the Fountain near the row of trees. From there we will march as a group to Belmore Park for a festival with musical performances the by Urban Guerrillas, food stalls and children's activities. To get leaflets to distribute, come to the Labor Council of NSW Lvl 10/377 Sussex St Sydney, or email [email protected].
JUSTICE FOR CLEANERS GOES GLOBAL
International Justice for Janitors Day ( or Justice for Cleaners as we know the campaign in Australia) is only 3 days away, on 15 June.
As part of an effort to commemorate this important event, LabourStart has teamed up with trade unionists in Australia, the USA and elsewhere and launching an online campaign to demand that janitors employed by the Westfield shopping mall chain (which has with outlets in the USA, Australia, New Zealand, the UK and Canada) be treated decently.
Please do your bit --
1. Visit the campaign page and send off your message to the company:
http://www.labourstart.org/cgi-bin/solidarityforever/show_campaign.cgi?c=16
2. Forward this message to your fellow union members, family and friends.
NOTE: In the first twelve hours of this campaign more than 200 e-mails have been sent to Westfield - from the USA, Canada, the UK and Australia.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Please forward on to people who might be interested. To join the union activist register go to http://www.labor.net.au/activist.
For more information email [email protected] or call the Labor Council on (02) 9264 1691.
Surely Michael Costa can't be serious when he claims 20% of train drivers have got a Roo loose in the top paddock (labor.net 120603)
The train drivers here do a sensational job considering the breath taking incompetence of the politicians and senior bureaucrats.
*$80 million for a super computer that can't get the trains running.
*Rail bridges that can't carry trains.
*Millennium Trains running three years late and then too heavy for the tracks.
How many hundreds of millions of dollars are these lunatics going to pump down the drain before we get some sanity testing going on in Macquarie Street?
I say get 'em out of the subsidized silver service dining room and the Chesterfield benches of the Parliamentary Mosh Pit and down onto The Domain for a Psychometric Show Down.
I would be more than happy to have the leadership of my trade union put up against Comrade Carr and his crew in a new Olympics of Lunacy.
We would have to set some ground rules like no workers comp for anyone with less than a 15% total body injury. Perhaps pre-existing injuries could be assessed by a medical panel comprised of former bank tellers suffering post traumatic stress and chaired by say a flamboyant stock broker with a recent appreciation of justice.
Why is it that politicians are promoted in cabinet and bureaucrats paid massive bonuses when they do what they're paid for but workers are vilified and abused when we do what we are paid for.
Enough of this Parliamentary Lunacy I say random drug, alcohol and sanity tests for all members of State Parliament.
Simon Flynn
FBEU
Thanks for your article on Western Sahara and the struggle for independence.
I salute Australian unions for supporting this cause. But why has the union movement and the ALP failed to support the long suffering West Papuans, just north of Australia? Appalling human rights abuses are occurring there as the Indonesia military continues it immoral occupation.
The union movement did a great deal to bring justice to East Timor. It's time it took up the challenge of supporting the underdog, closer to home.
Shamin Fernando
Dear Editor,
Next year is the bicentennary of Vinegar Hill and I am seeking to find others with an interest in this.
A little information on Vinegar Hill is below (for more see http://1798.blogeasy.com).
John Byrnes
BYRNES & IRISH STUDY GROUP
PO Box 264
Summer Hill NSW 2135
Email: [email protected]
VINEGAR HILL
------------
In the year 1798 uprisings occurred in Ireland and Scotland with the aim of uniting the Protestant, Catholic and Dissenter populations and to expell the English to regain native ownership of the celtic lands. Such attempted revolution was based on the same republican ideals as was the American Revolution. Both in turn had adopted the ideals of the European "Englightenment" philosophy of reason, freedom, egality and fraternity. Unlike the American Revolution, however, the uprisings in Ireland and Scotland were squashed with comparative ease by the vastly superior musket and cannon power possessed by the English controlled forces. In Ireland one of the last great battles was at Vinegar Hill in the Country of Wexford. Nowadays at Vinegar Hill in Ireland there stands a National Centre of remembrance to 1798 and a "Tree of Liberty". Some of the prisoners from 1798 were exiled to Australia, arriving in Sydney on the Friendship II and the Minerva in 1800.
Under the very class conscious system of the English, the "generals" of the revolution were treated entirely differently to the common or perceived lower class Irish. The rebellion leader Joseph Holt, was allowed to live here free in exile. Brave Dwyer, who after Vinegar Hill had lead his men into the Wicklow Mountains for a short period of further resistance, later became the Chief Constable of Liverpool.
The lower class of political prisoner was far less fortunate. Some went to the government farm at Castle Hill (now a Heritage Park, gazetted 2000). In 1804 the Napoleonic war was continuing. A rumour apparently began to circulate that Napoleon's forces had invaded Ireland and beaten the English, and that Ireland at last was free. Inspired no doubt by this, clandesine planning of rebellion began. On the night of the 4th March 1804 the two hundred or so Irish prisoners at Castle Hill farm overcame their overseers and set off on the road to Windsor, no doubt hoping to rouse and liberate the Irish of the Hawkesbury district and there renew the 'Republic of Wexford' ideals which had very briefly reigned in 1798. The slogan was 'Liberty or Death'. The small poorly armed "army", or mob, was overtaken by a detachment of the NSW Corps at a hill in the present day suburb of Rouse Hill. There some of the convicts were killed and most fled. The military swiftly hanged the leade!
r Phillip Cunningham (foreman stonemason at Castle Hill) from the parapet of the Windsor Store. Eight other captured men were hanged, some in prominent places where the bodies were left hanging lest any others might have similar ideas. Others received floggings of up to 500 lashes, and others were sent to the iron gangs as labour for road-making. According to folklore (memoirs of J.T. Ryan) some 60-70 bodies may have been left around Vinegar Hill and 10 years later the government had the bones collected and buried. In 1820 the government tried to suppress the name "Vinegar Hill" (1820 Apr 15 - Finger-board with name Belle Vue to be placed on top of hill called Vinegar Hill; Colonial Secretary Records, Reel 6049; 4/1744, pp.257-60) but the name has lived on regardless.
The support by many ALP yesterdays men, for Kim Beazley , a nepotistical trough feeder who could now be a candidate , as the greatest of all has been , and a potential three time loser, and the ongoing destabilisation of the ALP, by the arrogance or inability of this spoiler to accept his limited abilities being used by others as a rudder in an attempt to direct and present their own ambitions in a more acceptable light, can only indicate that the ALP is still not only unprepared to accept the reins of government but is displaying manifest incompetence and therefore is also incapable of government .
Even if there were not a hidden agenda by those tutored in the deceit of public servants and Kim Beasley were a genuine alternative to Simon Crean ,not just a ring in to create the chaos , then surely the electorate should not be permitted to forget , that his perverse form of socialism is nothing more than an imitation of the Hawke and Keating kind , and every battler should still be witnessing the economic scars inflicted on them by these pseudo Australian Socialists , who not unlike a corrupted and resistant to change Janissary Corps , should through a repeated Auspicious Incident , be put to the sword to ensure the survival of the whole.
No! Not the Greg Sword, who is currently creating more chaos that he is worth..
A perfect example of Beasley Philosophy would be the 1999 Monash APEC Lecture delivered by Kim Beasley on June the 18, 1999.
Was not , Kim Beazley also pied for speaking in favour of privatisation at an Global Trade meeting sponsored by Shell?
By his own admission and in validation of his new claim to the ALP throne he is nothing more than a traitorous chameleon , constantly changing his colours to suit the perceived circumstance , behaviours obviously not attributes cultivating loyalty or those displayed by comrades prone to display loyalty .
This address in favour of privatisation leaves no doubt as to the Beasley plan to remove all remaining industry protection ; that is any protections that Hawke and Keating were unable to dismantle prior to the Australian electorate waking up to this great deception. This deception is the Albatross now around the neck of Simon Crean , it is the remembrance of this great betrayal which has alienated the Federal Labor Party from the people , and unfortunately Simon Crean is paying off some of the last instalments on this debt to the Australian people who are now not only cultural aliens but dispossessed tenants in their own land , with the right wing of the ALP , already making alliances with past enemies to ensure their continued dynastical position in the new ascendancy , one need only look at the recent recruits to the Republican Movement , people who draw great comfort from the weakness of the ALP a once strong defender of the oppressed and vulnerable , but now honeycombed !
by political correct sycophants who control nothing more that special interest groups composed of nothing more that three or four cronies and in some cases the same people using different names. This is why many in the Labor heartland now refer to the ALP as the Alternative Liberal Party.
And some would have the audacity to condemn Peter Costello, who after all is just an amateur 'Paul Keating"!
Beasley makes his support of the World Trade Organisation crystal clear in this address, and I quote:
Firstly, throwing our weight into the initiation and implementation of a Millennium Trade Round through the WTO;
Secondly, restoring confidence in - and building momentum back into - the APEC process, by showing its relevance to regional players large and small, and to the structure of global trade in a new century; and
Thirdly, re-invigorating the links between industry and trade policy
"Australia's goals for the Millennium Round must be ambitious, including significant reductions in agricultural and manufacturing protection, as well as extensive liberalisation of trade in services."
Now in my view, this does not mean government stepping in with long-term subsidies to uncompetitive industries or other such policy prescriptions. In any case, WTO rules limit the extent to which governments can intervene directly in support of exports
In an attempt to validate his support for policies which have until now created much unemployment and poverty in Australia he quotes Lindsay Tanner:
"Throughout human history, nations which have closed themselves to outside ideas and influences have declined, while those which have embraced change have prospered. The more we engage with the peoples, products and ideas of other nations, the stronger we will grow. A closed Australia is a blueprint for rapid economic and social decline."
How could any ordinary Australian reliant on production rural or industrial , manufacturing , for export or domestic , support views such as this?
Have we not suffered enough at the hands of Hawke and Keating, and are we now only reaping the seeds of discontent as sown by anarchists posing as statesmen in the Whitlam years?
Or perhaps it is because this tenure was prematurely cut short in its term by Frazer and his lackey Kerr and did not come to fruition; if this is the case then an explanation from Whitlam prior to his fall from the mortal coil might be in appropriate?
He may attempt to emulate his nemesis Frazer, who now in his autumn years is attempting to make amends for his bastardry, but, as a Calvinist he surely he must be aware that it is not through good works that you enter the Kingdom, although unlike that other political bastard Sartor, he is too smart to convert to Buddhisism as it only offers reciprocation. Or in the vernacular, getting your own back eg: faire pipi - contre le vent?
Votes may tumble and mates disappear
Resignations soar in a climate of fear
But somehow they thrive, those who know how to rig it
Fiddling the levers and stirring the shit.
In good times or bad times
the games never stop
Beazley sinks to the bottom
Crean stays at the top.
When times they are fat, amid great acclamation
The politicians Elect take a huge extra ration
When times get much leaner they whine and they snivel
Their egos get bruised but their perks never shrivel.
In good times or bad times
The games never stop
Beazley sinks to the bottom
Crean stays at the top.
Many who are pushed out the local branch door
Fear their extra benefits will fall through the floor
But severance pay for those in a parliamentary role
Make these members who are severed most wonderfully whole.
In good times or bad times
The games never stop
Beazley sinks to the bottom
Crean stays at the top.
It's a load of old bull that we share the same boat
That we all work together to all stay afloat
In truth this great vessel's a multiple decker
And being the leaders a great hurt protector.
In good times or bad times
The games never stop
Beazley sinks to the bottom
Crean stays at the top.
I may on occasions offend as I ocassionally give a spray to all , and sundry, including myself, but Simon Crean is all there is at the moment except Loony Latham who needs much manicure to be acceptable in any company other than bohemia
Perhaps Simon was not being an irreligious wag, when at the last caucus meeting attended by Beazley he threw four six inch nails in front of Kim, and asked him:-)
"Can you put me up for the night?"
Lets Give Beazly something better than Cabbage Soup
Tom Collins
Harvester Man and his stay at home wife was the model for most of the last century's labour relations: the idea that every worker had the right to an income that would satisfy his and his family's basic needs.
It was based on the Harvester Judgement that established the Living Wage that would be the battleground for National Wage Cases for 80 years. The Commission would impose across the board wage increases based on the cost of living, ensuring Australia truly was an egalitarian nation.
That was until the mid-80s when TINA seduced the world. Margaret Thatcher's infamous dictum 'There Is No Alternative' elevated economic fetishes like 'productivity' and 'efficiency' above the needs of workers.
TINA flashed her eyelids and the Harvester Man keeled over in the face of financial deregulation, privatisation of public assets, contracting out of core services and the growth of global corporation.
There's no doubt TINA delivered on her promises to corporate world, providing a momentum for hyper-profits that made their captains incredibly rich, but left normal workers wallowing in the Three I's of inequality, insecurity and work intensification.
But, as acirrt's research confirms, for Austraian workers the seduction was nothing more than a come-on.
The vast majority of jobs that TINA has created have been casual, jobs with no security and no entitlements to leave. Meanwhile the shrinking pool of full-time workers work longer hours, the overtime predominantly unpaid.
TINA's pressure is not just being felt at work; its spilling over into the family where working mums and dads juggle their responsibilities with increasing panic as their work and home lives collide.
TINA is killing the community too; membership of all organisations is down - which is hardly surprising when workers finish their days too tired to get up from in front of the telly.
The call to arms from this week's conference is to recognise TINA for the brazen hussey she is, show her the door and start rebuilding our working lives.
In the minds of Australian workers TINA has already gone; and the research presented from surveys and focus groups confirms Australian workers are seeking a leader to bury her.
The agenda for ACTU Congress that Greg Combet unveiled this week to address labour market fragmentation is an important circuit-breaker and places the union movement at the centre of this shift to start again.
Indeed, many unions are already addressing the issue - through industrial agreements that recognise the rights of long-term casuals and contractors; and in test cases to defend secure employment.
But where there is a real void is at a political level. While the Howard Government may be able to sail into office by defending our borders through the symbolic issue of boat people; it still sleeps with TINA.
Last election Howard tapped the sentiment of Australian workers to his own devices; but his free market economic ideology will never address their underlying issues.
It will take more than tinkering around the edges and will require serious political will; from the graveyard of workplace models we need to build a vision of work that strengthens communities, rather than divides them.
But if any political party could articulate this vision into a coherent workforce policy, it wouldn't matter who was leading them; they'd be a shoe-in to win the next election.
Peter Lewis
Editor
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