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Issue No. 189 | 01 August 2003 |
The Secret Life of Us
Interview: The New Deal Unions: In the Line of Hire Culture: Too Cool for the Collective? International: The Domino Effect Industrial: A Spanner in the Works National Focus: Gathering of the Tribes History: The Welcome Nazi Tourist Bad Boss: Domm, Domm Turn Around Poetry: Just Move On. Review: Reality Bites
Tough Women Draw Line at Sacking Witness Protection Urged on IRC Howard Enlists Russians for Military Vic Workcover Invests in Worker Misery Whistleblower Sacking Sparks Zoo Walkout Truckie With Conscience Wins Back Job Indigenous Labour honours Tobler Asbestos Blocks Liverpool Road Works
The Soapbox Education The Locker Room Postcard
It Is Still About The Members Isn't It Tom's Purpose
Labor Council of NSW |
Letters to the Editor It Is Still About The Members Isn't It
Like lots of other unionists I have been scratching my head trying to figure out why it is that people arent joining unions any more when real wages have gone backwards compared to inflation, the average working week has risen from 38 to 44 hours and Australia has the highest rate of casualisation in the western world. A quick scan through Greg Mclean's letter to Workers OnLine 18/7/03 made it all pretty clear to me. Gregs letter is a cracker in singing the praises of the ALP for establishing consumer protection legislation 20 years ago the letter neglects the fact that it is the workers in Ombudsmans offices not the politicians that have to confront the insatiable appetite for profit from these newly privatised and corporatised water, electricity and gas suppliers. The reality is that private companies and corporatised government agencies either continue to make bigger and bigger profits or they go bust. Every single state and national government in Australia over the last twenty years has been complicite in allowing these cowboy capititalist to squeeze profit out of tax breaks for industry, workplace productivity at the workers expense and now finally through cost shifting onto consumers. Indeed it was the Hawke/Keating government that let the genie out of the bottle by trashing what little control the government had over capital markets and throwing open the doors to foreign investment and American corporate culture. Magazines like Workers Online are one of the very few places that people with jobs can establish a sense of identity as unionists outside an individual work place. It is selling us all short to praise the very same political party responsible for allowing the corporate excess that has seen workers go backwards while the bosses and politicians have never been doing better. Simon Flynn FBEU
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