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Issue No. 187 18 July 2003  
E D I T O R I A L

Hearts, Minds and Other Body Parts
Thanks to advances in technology, workers are being asked to expose more and more of themselves to their employer: their emails, their genes, even their urine.

F E A T U R E S

Interview: As They Say In The Bible ...
One the movement�s great characters, Public Service Association general secretary Maurie O�Sullivan, is calling it a day. He looks back on his career with Workers Online.

Industrial: Just Doing It
Sportswear giant, Nike, is the first company to sign off on an agreement that purports to protect Australian clothing workers, wherever they labour, writes Jim Marr.

Unions: Breaking Into the Boys Club
For a 23-year-old woman who has never worked in the trade, recruiting young construction apprentices into the union has its challenges, reports Carly Knowles.

Activists: Making the Hard Yards
Mal Cochrane came to the smoke as part of an Aboriginal avalanche that redefined the face of Rugby League. Today, he serves his community through the trade union movement.

Bad Boss: In the Pooh
What do you give a boss who makes his workers labour in raw sewage? A nomination for the Tonys.

Unions: National Focus
In the national wrap Noel Hester finds a Victorian Misso delo who is redistributing lucre from Eddie McGuire into workers� theatre, South Australian unions taking that Let�s Get Real stuff seriously, an American unionist fronts up at a distinguished �meeting of the brains� in Adelaide and a look at the line up for ACTU Congress.

Economics: Pop Will Eat Itself
Dick Bryan wonders if we can be insured against pop economists promising financial nirvana as well as financial market instability.

Technology: Dean for President
Paul Smith looks at how the internet is helping one Democrat candidate to the front of the primary pack

International: Rangoon Rumble
Union Aid Abroad's Marj O'Callaghan looks at Australia's weak response to developments in Burma.

Education: Blackboard Jungle
Lifelong learning shouldn�t mean cutting jobs, but that's exactly what the Carr Government is proposing, argues Tony Brown

Review: From Weakness to Strength
Labor Council crime-fighter Chris Christodoulou catches up with his boyhood hero, the Incredible Hulk

Poetry: Downsized
Resident bard David Peetz pens the song the Industrial Relations Commission needed to hear

N E W S

 Authority Shafts Excessive Mine Hours

 Insurance Quiz: Money or the Baby?

 Monk Lined up with Jihad Masters

 Rat in Ranks, Tubner Warns

 Hard Drug Stance Stoned

 Vote Snooping Bosses Out of House

 Termination Battle Hots Up

 US Actors Back Aussie Comrades

 TAFE Students Called to Arms

 Teachers Caught in Family Feud

 Longer Strikes Spark Picket Code

 Max Sets Athens as Airport Standard

 Indigenous First for Construction

 Call Centre Jobs Diverted From Delhi

 Activist Notebook

C O L U M N S

The Soapbox
Cleaning Up
Rabbi Laurie Coskey from San Diego adds her voice to the global campaign for just for cleaners in Westfield malls.

The Locker Room
The Name In The Game
In an age of the sportsperson as celebrity it seems that names are overtaking the games, writes Phil Doyle.

Postcard
The Beach
Southern Thailand�s terrorist activities: facts or fiction asks HT Lee

L E T T E R S
 Feedback on Feedback
 Sid Einfield Would be Proud
 Tom in the Manger
 Sermon on the Mount
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Letters to the Editor

Sermon on the Mount


Dear Sir,

The latest contribution or as some would a say another convoluted 'Sermon on the Mount' "Toms Lesson" Workers Online Issue 186, must be the height of hypocrisy.

It is only one year ago in Workers Online, issues 137 and 142 (I did checked your archive) that Tom Collins was unashamedly ramming it up Mark Latham, yet in his latest (mind-numbingly tedious) sermon he obviously has embraced Latham's beliefs as exposed in the 'The Enabling State" published by Pluto press where he (Latham) even advocates support for Kim Beazley and the now discredited Knowledge Nation.

Having stated the obvious, and while I cannot agree with many of the examples, particularly the empowerment of the perverse there is much to be said for a total and complete reformation of the education system.

Both Latham and Botsman impute an intent to reform, and while acknowledge the obstacles caused by precedent and in particular a 900 old tradition of Universities they stop short of an actual implementation of what is required, that is a complete destruction of all educational artefacts, and an acceptance that all that has been was an illusion of learning and was/is in fact an exercise of training monkeys to mimic each other.

There is a commonalty among all these diverse opinions and one that is percussive to all revolutionary change; that is an altruistic desire to actualise ones purpose in life through the progress of humanity, and this is articulated in "The Enabling State", through the statement "People are longing to belong - to rediscover the shared values and trust of a good society."

In Short: Latham and Botsman in contradiction to their political professions clearly display the tendency to public - private partnerships an ideology planted by Thatcher, cultivated by Blair with the harvest of tears yet to be reaped by their people and they both could be batmen for either Howard or Costello.

Unequivocally yours,

Simon Hulbert

Oxford St, Darlinghurst


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