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Relatively Speaking
At its heart, political debate has always been a struggle between competing views about how a society should organise itself to maximise the benefits for the majority of its citizens.
Interview: Crowded Lives
Labor frontbencher Lindsay Tanner talks us through his new book on the importance of relationships and why politics is letting the people down.
Activists: Life With Brian
Work by men like Brian Fitzpatrick is exposing new Australians to old truths. Jim Marr reports
Industrial: National Focus
A showdown looms in Cancun, Qantas gets bolshie, casual and lazy in its response to aviation challenges, and long festering disputes fester on in Victoria and Tasmania reports Noel Hester in this national wrap.
Unions: If These Walls Could Talk
Trades Hall is preparing for a major facelift but first, Jim Marr reports, it must bid farewell to the colourful bunch who have populated its dusty corridors in recent years.
Economics: Beating the Bastards
Frank Stilwell looks at some of the proposals for building a fairer finance sector.
Media: Three Corners
So its come to this. Four Corners, one of the world's longest running television programs is now under pressure from an ABC Executive that is less cultural visionary than feral abacus.
History: The Brisbane Line
Percy Spender was Menzies' foreign minister, but, Neale Towart asks, was he also prepared to serve as Prime Minister in a Japanese controlled Australia?
Trade: The Dumping Problem
Oxfam-CAA helps set the scene for this month's World Trade Organisation in Cancun.
Review: Frankie's Way
In The Night We Called It A Day Frank Sinatra learns 'sorry' Down Under is a loaded word and refusal to say it when due will lose fans in important places, writes Tara de Boehmler.
 Truckies Tip Safety on AGM Floor
Geelong Lockout Claims Family Homes
Aussie Labour Laws Fail US Test
No Accident – Insurance Dough Rises
Union Mum Wins
Rheem Runs Cold On Entitlements
Unions Take It Up for Footballers
Drug Boss Fails Workers
Ministers Urged to Take Responsibility
Museum Jobs Face Extinction
Less News And More Of It
Legal Costs Threaten Access
Learning for Life
Activists Notebook
The Soapbox
Staking Our Territory
ACTU secretary Greg Combet argued for a fairer Australia in his keynote address to last month's ACTU Congress. The Locker Room
Seasonally Agisted
Spring is a season when a person’s thoughts turn to…horse racing. Phil Doyle reports on the fate of nags and folk heroes. Housing
Beyond the Block
We are wild about the people who live in The Block but not too interested in those who are on the streets outside, writes Michael Rafferty. Politics
The Westie Wing
Workers friend Ian West MLC, reports form the Bearpit about a project to raise awareness about trade unionism amongst young people. Postcard
The Awkward Squad
Paul Smith meets one of the new generation of British union leaders who is taking the ball up to the Blair spin team.
Lyon Roars
Spicey and Tart
Tony and Pauline
PNG Bags Plastic
Fighting Words Craig Emerson
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IT Workers Alliance
Bosswatch
Unions on LaborNET
Evatt Foundation
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News
No Accident – Insurance Dough Rises
IAG bosses voted to stuff tens of thousands of extra dollars onto their pay packets in the same week that employees reaffirmed their priorities lay with children and familes.
While workers across the vast group controlled by Australia’s largest general insurer were returning an 87 percent vote to continue resistance to the company’s call for some to work an extra half hour a day, directors behind the demand were voting themselves pay increases of between 37 and 43 percent.
Workers Online understands there were no dissenting voices and, indeed, no negotiations before directors determined their remuneration would move from $70,000 to $100,000 a year, and that the base earn of their chairman, James Strong, would leap by $80,000 a year to $300,000.
They also endorsed a $637,000 golden handshake for former chairman, Nicholas Whitlam.
IAG pays people under a market rates system, loosely based on averaging out comparable incomes across the sector. Workers have long been suspicious of the methodology, given the dominance of a company that controls NRMA Insurance, CGU, SGIO, SGIC and is a joint venture partner in IMA.
Finance Sector Union (FSU) organiser, Chris Gambian said the next step in workers campaign of resistance would be a stop work meeting of representative from across the company's offices on Friday.
"IAG directors have been happy to cash in on a nice little earner. We aren't demanding 40 percent increases but our members are saying that they want their efforts recognised," Gambian said. "And that the standards of living of their families are part of this equation."
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Issue 194 contents
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