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Issue No. 186 | 11 July 2003 |
Beyond the Possible
Interview: As They Say In The Bible ... Industrial: Just Doing It Unions: Breaking Into the Boys Club Activists: Making the Hard Yards Bad Boss: In the Pooh Unions: National Focus Economics: Pop Will Eat Itself Technology: Dean for President International: Rangoon Rumble Education: Blackboard Jungle Review: From Weakness to Strength Poetry: Downsized
Stop Thief: Shelf Company Owes Millions Smokescreen Clouds Morris McMahon Win Ruddock Urged to Block Immigration Scam Silicon Workers Seize Their Valley Fire, Pepper Spray all in a Day�s Work
The Soapbox The Locker Room Postcard
Tom's Lessons
Labor Council of NSW |
News Smokescreen Clouds Morris McMahon Win
As Morris McMahon workers celebrate their victory, unions are questioning the timing of the release of damaging video evidence from the picket line. Johnson took strong exception to a series of Sydney Morning Herald attacks on unionists' behaviour at the Morris McMahon picket line, not least because the paper wrote nothing while workers picketed for 17 weeks to resist attempts to force them onto AWAs (Australian Workplace Agreements). In the second of an ongoing series of articles on Sydney unionists who supported the low-paid strikers, the paper fingered Johnson as having been present when Sutton spat at and rocked a company vehicle, during a picketline confrontation. "I am sure it has not escaped anyone's attention that the article was published at the time when the dispute had been resolved in favour of the workers," Johnson said. "It was no coincidence that it made no reference to the outcome of the dispute after some four months of struggle, nor to the defeat of the Howard Government's agenda to force workers into signing Australian Workplace Agreements when they were seeking a collective, union negotiated agreement." "My union does not support violence but it does support me backing the rights of low-paid workers to negotiate a collective agreement." Johnson said that after being "exposed", along with several other prominent trade unionists, he took heart from the headline - Who's Who of the Union Mob. "Actually, I was quite chuffed," he said, "I thought, at last I've made it." While Workplace Relations Minister Tony Abbott, whose office distributed picket line footage to media outlets, concentrated his fire on Sutton, other Cabinet Ministers used Herald articles to spread the attack around the movement. Education Minister Brendan Nelson singled out Johnson and called on the Labor opposition to denounce the Teachers Federation for its presence on the picketline. The Teachers Federation secretary finished with a jibe at Government-supported mercenaries who had been trained in the Middle East to scab on unionised workers. "I will tell you why we were named in that newspaper," Johnson said, "because we never tried to hide our identities. We don't wear balaclavas and we don't have Alsatian dogs."
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