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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.
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
 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
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
Feedback on Feedback
Sid Einfield Would be Proud
Tom in the Manger
Sermon on the Mount
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News
US Actors Back Aussie Comrades
The US Screen Actors Guild has thrown its considerable support behind striking Australian counterparts, directing members not to accept work on any Australian production without a green light from the Media Entertainment and Arts Alliance (MEAA).
The news broke as Australia film and television actors gave producers a July 23 deadline to meet their demands or face escalation in a campaign that saw members walk off the sets of McLeod's Daughters, Blue Heelers, Stingers, All Saints, Home and Away, MDA and Neighbours, as well as feature film Strange Bedfellows, this week.
Tony Barry, a veteran of 48 feature films and 60 television leads, hailed the spirit and courage of younger performers who backed industrial action.
"It is not easy to find it within themselves, the courage to walk out on strike," Barry told NSW Labor Council. "It's a big ask of people who haven't had any work in months."
Barry said the vast majority of striking actors were paid well below the average Australian wage and most, whilst commited to their craft, had to find other jobs to survive.
He urged Australians to prize their artists, actors, poets and writers, arguing that if producers and networks were allowed to replace genuine culture with "product" everyone would be poorer.
"The Yanks bring product here that has already made its money in the States at the expense of our own stories," Barry said.
"Don't tell me our work can't make a difference. I understand the power of film and television."
Barry played in Scales of Justice a docu-drama that led to the fall of Queensland's Bjelke Petersen Government, and Beyond Reasonable Doubt, a New Zealand movie that preceded the release from prison of Arthur Allan Thomas, wrongly convicted of double murder.
Key claims behind this week's 24-hour stoppage include better pay for guest actors, often required for weeks but only paid $162, and improved deals on residuals and repeats.
Kevin Harrington, star of The Dish, Sea Change and Neighbours, said his Sea Change girlfriend, Georgina Naidu, was paid only $100 a week for the four weeks her part required, under the current regime.
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Issue 187 contents
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