 |
||
 |
 |
 |
 |
|
|
|
||
|
Issue No. 196 | 19 September 2003 |
|
||
|
||
|
||
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
||
|
Issue No. 196 | 19 September 2003 |
|
||
|
||
*****
How do we know the universe is infinite? Because it has to contain the ignorance of the board of the New York Stock Exchange and the greed of its chairman, Richard A. Grasso.
This week union and state pension funds in the United States decided to pull the plug on Grasso, who had set levels for corporate excess that even made Dick Cheney blush.
In the wake of the collapse of Arthur Anderson and Worldcom - events that threw millions in the richest country in the world into poverty - a bold new era of corporate governance was forecast, with the New York Stock Exchange set to lead the way in accountability, transparency and restraint.
This sort of crazy talk often emanates from the business media whenever the latest gorging is discovered. Of course their sociopathic ramblings mean jack. They are about as useful as Worldcom scrip, but not as much as the paper it is written on, when it comes to unravelling the tangled web that is the machinations of the modern market.
The truly amusing aspect to the Grasso fiasco (That is, unless your life savings were invested in WorldCom) is that the oracles of Wall Street act with such dignified horror when one of their pin up boys gets caught with the snout in the trough.
Grasso was into the New York Stock Exchange to the tune of US$140 million. Luckily it was not a performance-based remuneration as news of Mr. Grasso's compensation package came on the heels of several recent high-profile acts of common and large-scale theft, which in stock market parlance is known as a scandal.
In a mild understatement some industry leaders and politicians have said revelations of his exorbitant pay package eroded investor confidence in how the stock market is run. It has also demolished belief in god, human dignity and any other view of the US Business Community than that they are anything but a self-serving bunch of power-mad plutocrats.
This is in keeping with the stock market's belief that the scandal is not so much a crime, as a foolishness in getting caught.
To put it in perspective it would take an army of 1000 junkies over a year working day and night to steal the equivalent sum through housebreaking. If a thousand households a night were being broken into we might call it a crime wave. But when someone as unproductive and leechlike as Grasso pockets his pay we call it poor corporate governance. Maybe it's related to where the protagonist went to school.
Of course it is important in a democracy to know how the world's most powerful stock market is run, as it will help the punter to understand why the stock market is more important than democracy. In fact an understanding of the stock market will help explain why it is more important than the environment, labour standards or three fifths of the world's population being able to access clean drinking water.
Perhaps it is only fair that Mr Grasso is considered to be 4666.67 times more valuable to the US economy than a high school teacher, paramedic or police officer. After all, these people haven't showed any of the initiative shown by our Tool Of The Week. They, instead, devote their labour to helping their fellow human beings and creating a better world.
They must be deluded.
Grasso finally resigned last Wednesday, about five years too late.
As Sean Harrigan, Chairman of the Californian Public Employees Retirement Fund, says: "Today we're trying to pull the pig away from the trough and the next step is to figure out who filled up the trough."
The Workplace Relations Minister has used the "sealed" 23rd volume to accuse building industry unions of thuggery and standover tactics but the Australian Financial Review, which has seen the material, suggests the hush-hush volume merely reiterates already-published claims.
Abbott has rejected calls from both the Federal Opposition and the CFMEU to make public confidential findings being used to justify his new workplace laws.
If Abbott's Bill is passed into law, building workers would be prevented from pattern bargaining; severely restricted in their right to use industrial action; and subjected to $110,000 fines for breaching these restrictions.
It also provides for individual unionists, found to be in breach Coalition industrial laws, to be barred from attending sites where their members are employed.
The legislation would be enforced by a specially-created Australian Building and Construction Commission with support from a division of the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission and other enforcement agencies.
The Building and Construction Commission would have the power to coerce witnesses into giving evidence. Its inspectors, supported by lawyers, financial analysts and "industry experts" would be sent onto building sites to provide taxpayer-funded advice to contractors in conflict with their employees.
The new legislation would push public funding of Abbott's crusade against building workers to well over $100 million.
Last week's AFR revelations breathed new life into claims that Abbott's $60 million Cole Royal Commission was a politically-motivated stitch-up.
The business newspaper quotes Cole as saying findings in his 23rd volume "might" constitute breaches of civil or criminal law, and suggesting that Abbott's terms of reference had required a speculative approach to fact.
"If I did not make any findings in relation to such matters, then the number of findings that would have been open to the commission would have been very small," Cole says.
"That would not have been satisfactory, because it would have unduly limited the evidential material to which I could make references in explaining the need for reforms that I have recommended."
This approach led Cole to make more than 400 findings, the vast majority against unions and their members. By contrast, the Royal Commission into Australia's largest corporate collapse, running at the same time, came up with 61 findings.
A key element underpinning Cole's recommendations is a call for "good faith bargaining", something the Minister has specifically rejected in relation to other industries.
Union officials also queried provisions in the Abbott bill that would force striking building workers back to their jobs after a fortnight, pointing out the Minister's public support for the rights of employers at Morris McMahon (NSW) and Geelong Wool Combing (Victoria) to lock workers out for months on end.
CFMEU officials reiterated claims that the Cole Commission and resulting legislation was a rorter's charter, giving a free pass to contractors who rip-off workers and the public on safety, wages, entitlements, taxes and compensation premiums.
"This legislation is really designed to protect dodgy contractors," CFMEU national secretary, John Sutton, said.
"To outlaw workers' right to insist on basic safety and respect for tax laws is a total perversion of the rule of law."
Democrat and independent senators are central to Abbott's ambition of having the bill passed into law by Christmas. The ALP and the Greens have already committed themselves to opposing the changes.
ALP Workplace Relations Shadow, Craig Emmerson, said the Abbott Bill was a recipe for workplace deaths.
"The draft legislation would weaken the capacity of unions to enforce occupational health and safety for construction workers," Emmerson said.
"Minister Abbott must be the only Australian who prefers the Athens model to the spectacular success of the Sydney Olympics that made all other Australians proud and showcased our construction industry to the world.
"Under current laws the Sydney facilities were built by construction unions on time, within budget and with one fatality. By contrast, 20 construction workers have already lost their lives in the construction of Athens Olympic facilities under the (non-union) model favoured in the draft legislation."
Australian Nurses Federation secretary, Jill Iliffe, said Abbott’s idea that country nurses be paid less than city colleagues was an insult to both her members and rural Australians.
At present, public hospital nurses negotiate pattern state-wide agreements but Abbott floated a plan for pay differentials at a recent industrial relations conference in Melbourne.
"Why not pay the nurses in a city hospital significantly more than a nurse in the country?" Abbott asked delegates at the Workforce conference.
"The point I am trying to make is one-size-fits-all rules don't work very well, even in the public sector," he said later.
Abbott reiterated his desire to spread key elements of his controversial building industry legislation, last week.
If the legislation proved successful, he told reporters on the day of its introduction to Federal Parliament, "only an idiot" wouldn't consider extending it to other workers.
Outlawing pattern bargaining is a the centre of a package which includes drastic restrictions on the right to take industrial action, and six-figure fines for unions, and individual members, found to be in breach of restrictive Coalition workplace laws.
ACTU secretary, Greg Combet, said Abbott's building industry proposals were a threat to all Australian workers.
"Tony Abbott is trying to force building workers into a legal straightjacket," he said. "The legislation would allow employees and unions to be sued into bankruptcy for being involved in normal collective bargaining to improve wages, conditions and safety.
"Mr Abbott said today he is considering similar legislation for other industries, but refused to say which ones. If the Government succeeds in removing the rights of employees in the building industry, then who will be next."
The ACTU rejected Abbott's claim that his Bill was a response to a building industry wracked by an industrial relations crisis. It said the following statistics painted a very different picture ...
- In May, 2003, the building industry employed 730,000 Australians, up 160,000 since 1997.
- Australian construction was ranked second, or better, for productivity, cost per square metre and time taken to complete projects, across 16 international studies.
- According to the Productivity Commission, Construction is the country's fourth most labour-efficient industry
- More time is lost to the industry due to injury and death than industrial action
- Over three years,industry unions have recovered more than $30 million in unpaid wages and lost entitlement
It also questioned the merit of controversial Cole Commission recommendations on which Abbott has based his legislation, pointing out that more than 90 percent of its hearing time was taken by anti-union witnesses.
The ACTU asked why the Commission hadn't found a single case of employer tax evasion, despite an ATO submission that the industry hid up to 40 percent of its annual income, and why it had called 633 employer witnesses against only 36 workers.
Psychologist Meddwyn Coleman told a forum organised by the Bendigo Trades Hall Council on September 17 that workplace bullying lay behind the suicide deaths of three Victorian workers.
Victims of bullying in NSW have also said that they too would have taken their lives had they not found support and assistance.
The recent Public Service Association of New South Wales Women's Conference also addressed the issue, with the PSA now conducting training sessions on bullying, which is increasingly recognised as a big OHS problem.
"These training sessions are booked out within days of getting up,' says Jo Tilly, Women's Industrial Officer with the PSA. "Bullying has become one of the biggest OHS issues in the workplace."
A survey of PSA members in 2000 revealed that bullying had a substantial impact on people's lives.
Psychologist Meddwyn Coleman told a forum organised by the Bendigo Trades Hall Council on September 17 that bullying was the deliberate psychological, emotional or physical harassment of an individual.
Coleman, with 25 years experience in counselling victims, outlined the tragic consequences of bullying.
For the first time in 25 years she is starting to see suicides that are related to workplace bullying.
In one instance an apprentice became seriously depressed following repeated 'hazing' or initiation rituals that made him look like an idiot and set him up to fail. Eventually he took his own life. The tragedy was compounded when his sister also took her life because of his death.
On top of suicides related to bullying lives have also been shattered.
Joy, a Victorian nurse, was bullied to the point that she suffered from depression. Bullying eventually stopped her from leaving her home, filing a legitimate WorkCover claim for an injured back and even saw her forced to do personal work such as sewing for her antagonist. Joy was isolated from other workers who were "turned against her" by the bully - a supervisor in a health related field. Even after five years she cannot visit the town where she worked and experienced bullying.
Joy is now recovering from her ordeal but still finds the experience difficult.
"I was used and abused,' says Joy. "It's unbelievable what people are like."
Peggy Johnson from the Lidcombe Workers' Health Centre told Workers Online that seven years ago the centre received about one call a month on this issue, now they were receiving one or two calls a week.
The Lidcombe Workers' Health Centre has started an eight-week pilot Bullying Support Group program to help people deal with this dangerous workplace hazard.
"All the people I have seen are invariably relieved that they have found a person who believes or listens to them." Says Johnson.
"It's not as clear cut as other issues,' says Jo Tilly from the PSA, who pointed out that bullying wasn't always an 'obvious' problem.
Coleman said that while bullying was not always just a "top-down" phenomenon it had increased with the embracing of "economic rationalism as the dominant ideology".
Bullying can have terrible consequences for the victims, who may blame themselves, when the real problem lies with the Bully.
"The root of bullying behaviour is often insecurity and personal envy of the targeted victim," Coleman told the Bendigo Trades Hall Forum. Coleman advised bullying victims to not try to cope with the situation alone.
The NSW Labour Council is working towards developing a campaign to address the issue of bullying in the workplace.
A number of people working to address bullying stated that lack of job security, competition for dwindling positions and unrealistic workloads that accompanied job cutbacks appeared to exacerbate bullying in the workplace.
If you or someone you know is considering or affected by suicide please call Lifeline on 13 11 14
The Finance Sector Union has called on Murray to "move on" claiming the decision to sack 10 per cent of the workforce shows he has run out of ideas for staff, customers and shareholders.
"The People's Bank' has reverted to the decade old process of slashing and burning staff for short -term gains in share price as Murray tries to spin the announcement as being the result of consultation with staff that will bring about better customer service," FSU national secretary Tony Beck says.
But Beck says no staff asked Murray to sack 3,700 of their colleagues and customers know that sacking staff won't lead to better service.
"The reality is that the visionless CEO has brought in the 'consult by formula' group McKinsey's, for some good old fashion staff cuts," Beck says.
"It's an affront to the intelligence of CBA staff and the broader community for David Murray to try and suggest that this is an exercise in creating better customer service.
"This is a demonstration that the CEO of the Commonwealth Bank has no vision for the bank and knows no other process than to throw-back to poor management processes of slash and burn cost cutting'
"It is time that David Murray moved on and that someone with a vision and an understanding of the value that people bring to the CBA be brought on" said Mr. Beck
FSU will be meeting with members across the country to determine their response to the banks announcement.
Members of the CFMEU and AWU, traditionally at loggerheads, are celebrating big wage increases after joining forces in a 10-day strike against the AbiLeightons joint venture building Sydney’s western orbital motorway.
Representatives of both unions conceded the breakthrough which will deliver extra wages, allowances and conditions equating to an extra $300 a week for around 500 construction workers, wouldn't have been possible if they hadn't buried traditional rivalries.
CFMEU organiser, Steve Dixon, said Abi Group had proved itself "one of the shittiest, most anti-union "operations in NSW.
"They are into severe intimidation and not just over wages," Dixon said. "They point-blank refused, across a 40km road project to provide any female toilets. That's the sort of company we were dealing with.
"To bring the workforce together and not fight between the CFMEU and AWU really made the difference. This company is used to getting its way, but when that happened it didn't know what to do."
AWU organiser, Lawrie Doherty, agreed. He said the joint venture company had made it perfectly clear that unless the two unions could get their "houses in order" employees would suffer.
"It doesn't take a brain surgeon to work out that if we don't work this way in the future we won't get the results," Dougherty said.
He said that while $300 a week increases sounded "fantastic" the joint venture had tried to screw employees down that far on allowances, conditions and wages that the negotiated movement of about 15 percent only brought employees up to industry standard rates.
Both unions said the influence Roads Minister, Carl Scully, had brought to bear on the employer had helped shorten the dispute, and publicly thanked NSW Labor Council officials, John Robertson and Chris Christodoulou, for helping steer them around their historical differences.
When union member Wally Norman becomes part of a mass lockout by employer National Meats and is then denied his entitlements he decides to do something about the system that allows workers to be shafted on a daily basis.
|
|
|
|
Never one to take things lying down, Wally runs for Federal Parliament to get his former boss back while shaking up the State.
The Honourable Wally Norman follows his journey from worker to pollie-with-a-difference and promises to throw in plenty of laughs along the way.
Directed by Ted Emery and starring Kevin Harrington (Sea Change, The Dish), Shaun Micallef (Bad Eggs, Micallef Tonight) and HG Nelson (This Sporting Life, The Monday Dump), this topical flick will screen nationally at full-price from November 13.
Becker Entertainment is exclusively offering union members a special advance screening of The Honourable Wally Norman at Hoyts Fox Studios at 6.30pm on Thursday, 16 October.
To secure your tix for nix email Peter Lewis at peterlew@labor.net.au.
Meanwhile, congratulations to Sean Chaffer who won our "Beer with Billy" competition and enjoyed a soothing ale with British singer-songwriter, Billy Bragg, last Friday.
Chaffer was able to give the workers' troubadour the drum on the Australian scene, as well as a personal account of the highs and lows of trade union activism.
When teachers in three states walked off the job, Refshauge earned himself a formal censure from the trade union movement for formally thanking scab teachers in State Parliament.
The NSW Labor Council supported the NSW Teachers Federation's condemnation of Refshauge's comments, describing them as "inflammatory".
"It is unacceptable that Labor members of parliament are making these sorts of provocative statements,' says NSW Labor Council secretary John Robertson. "I find it hard to understand how a Labor member could even contemplate saying something like this."
The minister's statements followed a National Day of Action on September 16 when teachers in three states went on strike over outstanding wage justice claims.
In NSW 20,000 NSW public school and TAFE teachers converged on parliament house, describing the state government's pay offer as "despicable".
Their country counterparts engaged in a range of activities from Canowindra teachers writing to parents, to others across the state visiting local Members of Parliament and attending rallies in major regional centres.
Many schools and TAFE colleges closed with support for the stoppage considered by the NSW Teachers Federation to be the highest ever with many schools reporting 100% out. The high level of support from teachers for the action reflecting the concern amongst teachers that their cause is not being adequately addressed.
NSW Teachers' Federation president Maree O'Halloran said if they failed to win their case, or if a significant payrise was funded by making cuts elsewhere in the education budget, teachers were ready and willing to stage further strikes next year.
"If there's not the outcome that public education needs, then action is more than likely from the beginning of the 2004 school year," says Ms O'Halloran.
NSW Labor Council secretary John Robertson told protesters the state's entire union movement was behind them. "Bob Carr has called himself the education premier, well if he is the education premier I will run naked down Macquarie Street," Mr Robertson said.
National Day Of Action
The national day of action on September 16 saw teachers in NSW joined by thousands of their colleagues in Western Australia and Victoria who are also battling state government stonewalling on the issue of adequate pay rates for public teachers.
In Albury and Moana, hundreds of New South Wales teachers met their Victoria colleagues on the bridges across the Murray and united to demand salary justice from their respective government. In the far southwest, New South Wales teachers met with colleagues from Mildura.
Thousands of Victorian teachers vowed to continue their campaign for wage justice with over 10,000 teachers filling Melbourne's Vodafone Arena, voting unanimously in support of a resolution demanding that state and territory Labor Governments honour their electoral commitments to make public education a 'number one priority'.
West Australian public school teachers took a half-day stoppage, vowing to escalate industrial action in their pursuit of a 30 per cent pay claim. 7,000 teachers attended a stop-work meeting at Subiaco Oval.
Keeping the UNI in CommUNIty
Meanwhile the National Tertiary Education Union (NTEU), in conjunction with student groups, has planned a series of rallies in western Sydney to campaign against cuts to the funding for the University of Western Sydney.
On Monday the 22nd of September the NTEU, along with the CPSU, local student associations, local P&Cs, the Western Sydney Region of Councils and the community of western Sydney will rally outside a public hearing by the Senate Enquiry into Higher Education scheduled for the Parramatta campus of the UWS. The rally is scheduled for 12pm.
On Tuesday the 23rd a rally will be held outside the office of the Federal MP for Parramatta, Ross Cameron at12.30pm. On Wednesday the 24th supporters of higher education will rally outside the office of Federal MP Pat Farmer in Campbelltown. On Thursday the focus moves to Lindsay MP Jackie Kelly's office in Penrith where a rally will be held at 12.30pm.
The NSW Labor Council has endorsed the peaceful rallies and interested members of the public are encouraged to attend.
The Free 2B Australian campaign, run by the Media, Entertainment and Arts Alliance (MEAA), fears that the breakdown in WTO talks will give added impetus to the US-Australia bilateral treaty.
Under the proposed Free Trade Agreement government support and subsidy for the Australian media, entertainment and arts industry is under threat.
This means local content provisions on television for drama, comedy, documentaries, children's programs and commercials could become illegal.
Local content provisions for radio which provide airplay for Australian acts and cross media ownership rules which stop the monopolisation of our media would also be open to challenge, as would direct government subsidy for theatre, dance, film and the ABC and SBS.
MEAA state secretary Jonathon Mill says it's crunchtime for the Free to be Australian campaign. "The disturbing word on the street is that the government is going to cave in on previous commitments and consider a proposal on standstill," Mill says.
The Alliance is organising a rally at the Sydney Opera House in the Studio on Monday 6 October at 11am - days before a government decision is expected.
Cancun An opportunity Lost
Meanwhile, the ACTU says the failure of the World Trade Organisation's talks in Cancun, Mexico, represents a lost opportunity for a fairer international trading system.
ACTU President Sharan Burrow, who attended non-government talks at the WTO Ministerial meeting in Cancun, says the intransigence of European and United States negotiators on the issue of agricultural subsidies made a new agreement impossible.
"The failure to agree on a framework for agricultural reform has also cost any agreement on other important issues including labour and environment standards and the social impact of globalisation," Burrow says.
"When confronted with a strong negotiating block of developing nations in the G21, the US and Europe were not prepared to compromise.
"Farm industries and employees in Australia and in poor and developing nations again will miss out on the benefits of greater access to overseas markets."
International unions are now calling on world governments to try to revive the WTO and global multilateralism by dealing with the needs of the developing world.
Jobs ranging from the Anti-Discrimination Board to the Zoo face the axe under savage cuts that are expected to have a big impact on the community, especially in regional NSW. "We've let the government know that public servants deserve a pay rise just as much as teachers do," says NSW Public Service Association (PSA) acting general secretary John Cahill. The news comes amidst allegations from public sector sources that TAFE alone has spent in excess of $40 million on labour hire style casual employment. in the last 12 months "We're looking for the government to convert these positions to proper permanent public sector jobs,' says Cahill of the explosion in the use of temps and labour hire workers in public sector agencies and government departments. Rally Against Service Cuts And Job Losses The PSA will be rallying at 12.30pm on Wednesday September 24 at farrer place in Sydney, outside the head office of the Education Department and Governor Macquarie Tower that houses most NSW Government ministers. Workers at The Department of Education and Training and TAFE proposed the rally following the announcement that over 1000 jobs were on the line amidst sharp increases in TAFE fees. Other cutbacks include:
The universal health insurance system turns twenty on Wednesday October 1, and the Save Medicare Alliance is inviting Australia's workers to celebrate.
Workers are being encouraged to 'bake a cake for Medicare' and have it as part of their morning tea on Medicare's birthday at their workplace.
A feature of the day will be a demonstration outside Prime Minister John Howard's electorate office in Gladesville.
"We are encouraging all unions to send people to the demonstration,' says John Cahill of the Public Service Association (PSA) who are members of the Save Medicare Alliance. "Should Unionised workers not be able to attend we are encouraging workplaces to have a Medicare morning tea."
The NSW Labor Council has endorsed the celebrations for Medicare, pointing out that the universal health insurance scheme was delivered in part through discounted wage rises.
The move comes after an150 000 signature petition in support of Medicare was tabled in Federal parliament this week.
"This should no be seen as the Labor Council being anti-American,' says John Robertson, secretary of the NSW Labor Council. "Instead we are clearly targeting the policies of the Bush administration."
Robertson said that opposition to the Bush administration was not confined to the Iraq War, but also extended to opposition to the Bush-Howard Free trade agenda. A US-Australia free Trade agreement could see Australian content disappear from Australian TV screens, forced privatisation, as well as affecting government procurement and the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme.
"This is an appropriate time to highlight free trade," says Robertson, who pointed out that the last time a member of the Bush family visited Australia as US resident he was greeted by Australian farmers.
The event, organised by the Sydney Peace and Justice Coalition, is being billed as a 'national day of ridicule'. Comics, music, the world's first protest line dance, a Creative Ridicule competition, rewards for best placard and best display and a costume competition - where you can come as the best red-necked Texan! - will all be a part of the big day.
The rally will muster at Prince Alfred Park (south from Central down Chalmers St) at 2pm an Sunday 19th October,
Leaflets and posters are available from the Labor Council of NSW Offices.
For more info call Hannah on 0418 668 098, or email info@nswpeace.org
Its accounts, listed with the Australian Stock Exchange, showed Kirby was awarded a total package of $1.67 million, including the bonus and more than $130,000 in non-cash benefits.
His brother, John, the company's alternative chairman, took $1.7 million out of the loss-making operation.
The brothers both took drops on last year's income but the managing director, Graham Burke, received a 19 percent increase, up to $1.77 million, for a year in which Village Roadshow slashed cinema assets and suspended payments to shareholders.
The Seven Network confirmed it had made a $1.29 million severance payment to former head of broadcasting, Maureen Plavsic, on to of her $798,000 base salary.
Meanwhile, in the US Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation paid chief operating officer Peter Chernin more than $25 million (US17.3m).
Shareholders in News will vote at the company's October AGM on a proposal to issue another million options to Chernin.
Murdoch, himself, relieved the company of more than $20 million, including an $11m bonus.
His company will ask shareholders to approve a massive jump in directors' fees at next months AGM. The recommended 300 percent increase would take News directors fees to $1.85m a year.
Anderson last week tried to duck responsibility, calling on the NSW State Government to pick up the bill.
"The Howard Government set up GEERS following the payment of 100 percent of entitlements to the employees of National Textiles, a company run by the Prime Minister's brother, Stan Howard," Labor Workplace Relations Shadow Craig Emerson said.
"Since then, other workers have have got only a limited part of the entitlements paid under GEERS in the case of corporate failure.
"Maybe the best hope for Mudgee Regional Abattoir workers is if one of them turns out to be the brother or close relative of their local member, John Anderson."
The Meatworkers Union confirmed that more than 240 jobs were lost with the closure of the Mudgee works.
Stephen Hallinan, president of the Deafblind Association, painted a picture for the NSW Labour Council last week of what it was like to be missing the senses of sight and hearing.
Stephen, who is deaf and blind himself, was joined by Carol Ireland, Director of Operations at the Royal Blind Society. Carol spoke of the work of the Deafblind Society, which has created 8 positions for Deafblind students through the assistance of government funding and the Construction Forestry Mining and Energy Union.
The Deafblind Service is seeking support from other unions and the community to continue its valuable work.
15 year old Amanda, who is also deaf and blind, addressed the meeting and told of her dream to "have lots of friends and to help others like me."
To support the work of the Deafblind Service contact Carol Ireland at the Royal blind society on 1300 134 560, Monday to Friday 9am to 5pm.
Australian-based Filipinos can register with the Philippines embassy in Canberra or the country's consulates in the various states and territories.
LHMU secretary Annie Owens urged all unions to help members register for the ballot, saying democracy was a hard won right for Filipinos and everything should be done to ensure its survival.
"The LHMU certainly has many members, in a number of industries, who are from the Philippines and our union is promoting this issue to ensure working people have their voices heard in the upcoming elections," she said.
She said Australian unions should support all members eligible to vote.
Filipinos resident in Australia have to register by the end of the month to cast an Overseas Absentee Voter ballot.
The deadline for registration is September 30 and eligible voters in NSW or the ACT should contact either: The Embassy, 1 Moonah Pl, Yarralumla, Canberra, tel 6273 2535, or The Sydney Consulate, Level 1, 27-33 Wnetworth Ave, Sydney, tel 9262 7377.
Everybody's getting ready for the Union Aid Abroad
APHEDA Spring Feast
Wednesday October 1
6.30 for 7pm
Marigold Restaurant 5th Floor , 683 George Street Sydney
$50 each or $450 per table of ten
For bookings please contact Sally on 02 9264 9343 scastle@apheda.org.au
Debbie Spillane is MC and there will be live music, raffles with fabulous prizes, a seven-course banquet, an auction, wine, lucky door prizes, games & free parking!
The night will be a testimonial dinner for Tas Bull with proceeds to the Cuban Children's Fund and Union Aid Abroad APHEDA
Fairwear - North Sails Action in on at Manly!
Date: Saturday the 20th September.
Place: Manly Beach - meet at 12 noon on the corso at the beach end at
the tables near royal copenhagen ice cream.
Time:12-3pm
Objective: distribute North Sails leaflets to people on the corso.
Build a sand construction on the beach saying "North Sails Wipes out
Workers Rights!" take photos and have heaps of fun.
Contact: Dez Karlsson at Fair Wear 0403 128 013
Cross Media Laws
Is a Free Press under threat? Packer and Murdoch a threat to democracy? Does The ABC have a future?
All these questions will be discussed on Sunday the 21st of September at 2pm at the Tudor Hotel Redfern St. Redfern
The panel will be Margo Kingston Sydney Morning Herald, Peter Manning former head of ABC news and current affairs and channel 7 witness program now an adjunct professor of media studies at UTS. A spokesperson from friends of the ABC has been approached.
South Sydney speaks - A series of community forum on issues of importance
Sunday the 19th of October
Tudor Hotel Redfern St Redfern at 2pm
Ethics values and integrity and principals 3 areas in public life that some say have very little are Politics, Business community and the Church community
3 guest speakers
Bill Moss - Macquarie Bank
President of the nsw upper house Meridith Burgman
And the Rev Bill Crews Uniting Church
Chair Alex Mitchell Sun Herald Journalist
WEEK OF ACTION TO SAVE HIGHER EDUCATION AND UWS, THE UNIVERSITY for WORKING CLASS STUDENTS
Join the next stage of the campaign to defeat the Howard Government's proposed changes to higher education.
Week of Action Mon 22nd - Thu 25th September
The proposed changes arising from the Nelson review would attempt to use $468 million in funding to bribe universities to force staff onto AWAs and reduce staff and student representation on University governing bodies, double the number of full fee paying places, introduce VSU, and allow Universities to charge students up to 30% per cent extra in student fees in a manner cynically designed to shift the blame for the increases from the Howard government and onto cash starved universities.
The proposed funding model would adversely affect the University of Western Sydney, with UWS standing to be up to $33 million worse off as a result of the changes.
Next Monday the Senate Inquiry into Higher Education funding is holding a public hearing at the Parramatta Campus of UWS. The NTEU and the Tertiary Education Alliance invite supporters to a rally outside the hearing.
Assemble 12 noon Monday 22nd September near the chimney stack on UWS Parramatta Campus (entry Victoria Road Rydalmere).
Speakers: Carolyn Allport, NTEU National President; Daniel Kyriacou, NUS National President
Further to this, the UWS Branch of the NTEU has voted to stop work for one hour at the different campuses next week and hold demonstrations along with students, other unionists and members of the community outside the offices of the local Liberal MPs to remind them of the effect their Government's higher education package will have on their constituents.
Details of Protest Rallies:
Tuesday 23 September
Ross Cameron MP's office, 110 George Street, Parramatta, starting at 12.30pm
Wednesday 24 September
Pat Farmer MP's office, 300 Queen Street, Campbelltown, starting 12.30pm
Thursday 25 September
Jackie Kelly MP's office, Cnr Woodriff and Tindale Streets, Penrith, starting 12.30pm
Please come along and forward this message to people you know in the area.
Enquiries: Feargus Manning, NTEU, 0411 022 886, nteu@uws.edu.au .
"The Hawke Government: A Critical Retrospective"
Edited by Susan Ryan & Troy Bramston
With Special Guest Speaker:
The Hon. NEVILLE WRAN AC QC
Former Premier of NSW and ALP National President
To be followed by a panel discussion
"Lessons for a Future Labor Government"
With;
Susan Ryan, AO, former Hawke Government Minister, with
Neal Blewett, AC, former Hawke Government Minister, and
Bob Hogg, AO, former ALP National Secretary and Adviser to Bob Hawke
When: Thursday 25th September, 6:00 for 6:30pm
Where: Gleebooks: 49 Glebe Point Rd, Glebe 2037
Cost:$8/$5 conc.
To book: ph: 9660 2333 or email: books@gleebooks.com.au
The Hawke Government - A Critical Retrospective is the definitive account of one of Australia's most important reformist governments. For the first time it puts on record the candid views of cabinet ministers, political insiders and commentators to provide a unique insight into the nature of leadership and the struggles of government. The Hawke Government is not only a compelling account of the far-reaching legacy of Labor's longest serving government, it sheds new and important light on the man who led it.
COMMUNITY FORUM ON TAFE FEES AND RESTRUCTURE
Come to the NSW Teachers Federation and NSW Labor Council's
Community Education Forum
Petersham Town Hall
10am - 12 Tuesday September 23
(light refreshments provided)
TAFE Fees still going ahead: The facts are:
· Not all disadvantaged people receive social security and won't get a fee exemption
· Most Outreach / literacy students are low income earners or in casualised work
· More than half of TAFE access students will still have to pay course fees because they are not on Centrelink payments
· Access courses in TAFE NSW are not about individuals on social security; they are about improving access to education for all disadvantaged people and strengthening communities.
· Low enrolments will mean courses won't run due to low numbers
· Students with disabilities and basic education students will pay for extra support
· Volunteer literacy tutors will have to pay to volunteer
· Some TAFE courses will cost up to 300% more in 2004
For more information go to the website: http://www.tertiaryeducationalliance.com.
Meet the candidates
for ALP National
President!
On Sunday 28 September
4-6pm at GLEBE TOWN HALL 160 St John's Rd, Glebe
All candidates for the ALP National Presidency are invited to speak to the rank and file. Confirmed so far are:
Duncan Kerr
Carmen Lawrence
Michael Samaras
Warren Mundine
The forum will be chaired by
Former Senator Bruce Childs
RSVP to 9357 6366 (Please leave a message AFTER 5PM) or email: alpcandidatesforum@hotmail.com
Proudly organised by the FECs of Sydney, Grayndler,
Wentworth & Kingsford Smith.
NB. LABOR PARTY MEMBERS ONLY
Please note: 470 Lilyfield bus departs Railway Square (George St Stand D) every 20 mins on Sundays & stops outside Glebe Town Hall. Departure Times: 3:13pm, 3:33pm & 3:53pm.
Australia's Pacific Solution
In conjunction with ChilOut, the NSW Nurses' Association is proud to host a free screening of this important documentary.
What drove well-known Melbourne artist, Kate Durham, to Nauru in June 2002 in the company of an English journalist and an illicit video camera? Find out on Wednesday 1st October, when the NSW Nurses' Association hosts a free screening of the end product, the (never screened on Australian TV) BBC documentary, "Australia's Pacific Solution." At 43 Australia Street, Camperdown
Kate, the founder of Spare Rooms for Refugees, will give an address on the conditions in which she found asylum seekers detained on Nauru. 1,228 asylum seekers were originally ensconced there, many transferred after the infamous Tampa episode 2 years ago. Now their numbers are down to 400. They include 5 unaccompanied minors, and 9 women and 14 children whose husbands or fathers are living in Australia on Temporary Protection Visas. These women and children have to prove their own case for asylum. They are not automatically allowed to be reunited with their menfolk. Instead, they are languishing at a cost of millions of our taxpayers dollars in camps on Nauru where conditions are hard and mental health problems rife.
Kate, together with her well-known barrister and human rights advocate, Julian Burnside, will field questions before the 45-minute film is screened.
This event is being hosted in conjunction with ChilOut, Children Out of Detention, a mums and dads and caring citizens' group which has been campaigning for the release of Children -and their families - from immigration detention. ChilOut came into being in August two years ago after the screening of a 4 Corners Program on the psychological breakdown of 6-year-old, Shayan Badrai, then detained in Villawood. They are aghast that two years later children, including ones with mental and physical disabilities, are still treated in this way.
breakfast briefing - fixed term contracts or ongoing employment? Choices and pitfalls
Presented by ACIRRT, University of Sydney and law firm Cutler Hughes & Harris
These briefings aim to give participants a focussed and detailed analysis of latest trends combined with an assessment of the current legal issues relating to topics.
Date: Thursday 2 October 2003
Time: 8.30 - 11.00am
Venue: Quality Hotel SC Sydney (formerly the Southern Cross Hotel), cnr Castlereagh & Goulburn Streets, Sydney
Cost: $155 inc gst, continental breakfast and notes
Alternatives to the traditional model of the permanent or ongoing employee have become increasingly popular over recent years. Casual employment has been growing, but so has the use of fixed-term contracts. However, the number of fixed-term employees in Australia remains relatively low by some international standards. This situation may change dramatically if proposed limitations on casual employment proceed. This briefing is designed to explore issues including:
What will happen if restrictions on casual employment are introduced?
What are the pros and cons of various forms of employment, permanent, casual and fixed term?
What are the key legal issues with fixed term contracts?
What do workers think?
Why is the fixed term contract model of employment most popular and why?
What are the legal remedies for employees dismissed during the course of a fixed term contract?
Free to be Australian meeting - 6 October 2003
It is crunchtime for the Free to be Australian campaign. The disturbing word on the street is that the government is going to cave in on previous commitments and consider a proposal on standstill. So we need to make a bit of noise before they do, rumoured to be either 7 or 13 October.
We will be holding a rally at the Studio at Sydney Opera House on Monday 6 October at 11am - make room on your dance cards this one's important! This is the Monday of a long weekend in Sydney. Confirmed speakers so far include Geoff Morell, Simon Burke, Margo Kingston and Quentin Dempster.
Please come along and bring everyone you can think of, it is a serious issue - but we can promise that the rally will be a bit of fun as well.
Workers' Control Conference
University of Technology, Sydney
10th-12th October
Register for the "Workers' Control Conference", which will be held from the 10th to 12th October, 2003.
The conference will be a dynamic weekend of talks, discussion and workshops on past experiences of workers control and the current strategies of militant unionism.
http://www.jura.org.au/workerscontrol/
KEYNOTE SPEAKERS
Keynote speakers confirmed to date include:
* Michael Crosby (Co-director, ACTU Organising Centre)
* Joan Doyle (newly elected Secretary, Victorian Postal Union)
* Martin Kingham (Victorian State Secretary, Construction Division of the CFMEU)
* Hall Greenland (Author of 'Red Hot: The Life and Times of Nick Origlass').
Topics to be covered by plenaries and workshops include:
* Reforming the Union Movement Today
* The Organising Model: Successes and Limitations
* The NSW Builders Labourers Federation and the Green Bans
* The Ability of Militants within Unions to Achieve Change.
* The Possibilities and Limitations of Direct Action Today
* The Harco Work-in
* The Experience of the Melbourne Tram Workers
* Unorthodox Leninism: Gramsci and Workers' Control
* The Student-Worker Uprising in France in May 1968.
* The Workers' Revolt Against Stalinism in Hungary in 1956
* The Australian Experience of Workers' Self-Management
* The Social Responsibility of Trade Unions: the 1938 Port Kembla Pig-iron dispute and the NSW Builders Labourers Federation Green Bans.
* The Opera House Work-In
* Revolutionary Reforms and Andre Gorz.
* Creating a Workplace Newsletter
* Workers' Self-Management and the Upsurge of the 1960s and 70s
* Workers' Control in Australia in the 1960s and 70s: successes and failures
* The idea of self-management in Marxist revolutionary theory.
* Workers' Self-Management and the Allende Government in Chile 1970-3
AGENDA AND MORE INFO
To view a complete agenda for the conference visit the conference website:
http://www.jura.org.au/workerscontrol/
Education Activism & Organising
Friday 10 October between 9am and 11am in the old Fairfax Building at 235 Jones St Broadway. The meeting will be in Room 5.455 on the 5th floor.
the Centre for Popular Education's proposed 2004 - 2005 program Education, Activism and Organising. We have invited a select number of people from unions and academic centres to participate in the meeting to discuss the project and its strands.
The meeting will be held on Friday 10 October between 9am and 11am in the old Fairfax Building at 235 Jones St Broadway. The meeting will be in Room 5.455 on the 5th floor. If you arrive early there is a good café on the 7th floor.
I hope you will be able to attend, or if not to encourage one of your colleagues to attend in your place. Your input would be an important contribution to shaping the project over the next two years.
It will help with our planning if you could let me know if you will be able to come. My email address is tony.brown@uts.edu.au and my phone number is 02 9514 3866.
Tony Brown
Research Fellow
Centre for Popular Education, UTS
02 9514 3866
www.cpe.uts.edu.au
WE'RE BEING BUSHWACKED: Give George the Welcome he Deserves - Sun Oct 19, national day of ridicule.
Muster at Prince Alfred Park (walk south from Central down Chalmers St)
Sunday 19th October, 2-4pm
Comics, music, world's first protest "line dance. Creative Ridicule competition - rewards for best placard and best display. Costume competition, come as the best red-necked Texan!
Organised by the Sydney Peace and Justice Coalition, more info call Hannah 0418 668 098, info@nswpeace.org
http//:www.nswpeace.org.
Pick up leaflets and posters from Labor Council of NSW Offices from next Wednesday 23rd September.
A position for a legal manager at the Office of the Employment Advocate (OEA) was advertised in the Sydney Morning Herald on 13 September 2003 and on their website.
The list of duties is to provide:
"advice and assistance particularly in relation to AWAs, freedom of association, right of entry, coercion to enter certified agreements and strike pay."
However on looking at the requirements one notices that:
"All offers of engagement (ie employment) are conditional on the successful applicant signing an AWA."
Funny how the OEA has no problem with coercing their own prospective employees into signing AWA's. Perhaps the duties of the legal manager could be expanded to include an examination of the coercion of workers to enter AWA's.
Karen Iles
Dear Workers Online,
I am writing in the hope that you may be able to help me. A couple of years ago, I put together a social justice art display, but I haven't been able to use it very much.
At present, it is in storage and taking up space.
I want to get rid of it, but I'd rather not just throw it away down the tip. Hopefully, I can sell some of the pieces or give it to someone who can make use of it.
Having just done a websearch for the topic of Social Justice Art, I found that you were the first on a list of three, and the organization most likely to be able to help me.
What I am hoping is that you can put me in touch with someone who might have an interest in material such as this. I can send you an email attachment showing what the artworks look like if that would help.
Anyhow, if you can help, please get back to me as soon as you are able. I'm under pressure to free up the storage space where I have been keeping the paintings, and it would be a shame to see it dumped.
Yours sincerely,
Nick Costello
email: nickcostello@ozemail.com.au
Revelations this week that this secret volume contains more escape clauses than an AWA should seriously undermine the Minister's case for 'reform', given it is based on allegations of union criminality which Abbott, himself, now admits he has not even seen.
Those who have seen the report assure us there is 'nothing new' in the findings against unionists, meaning they amount to little more than a series of unsubstantiated allegations of technical illegality - ie breaches of workplace laws designed to outlaw legitimate union activity.
And what does his $60 million dirt-digging exercise come up with - a series of recommendations based on evidence that 'might' lead to criminal charges; a washing of the hands if ever there was one.
Yet under the authority of this secret report the man who sees nothing wrong in running secret electoral slush funds to attack his political enemies, now grandstands about the need to stamp out union thuggery.
This legislation is destined to be blocked in the Senate, it is so outrageous and one-sided that any fair-minded democrat would simply reject it out of hand.
But from where Workers Online sits, this is exactly what Abbott has in mind, a secret agenda to add this legislation to the growing pile of bills that will trigger a double dissolution election early in 2004.
Alongside Telstra, Medicare, higher education and the king-hit of cross-media ownership laws, the Coalition will attempt to sneak through their CFMEU demolition job as just one of a lucky dip of nasties.
And as they can't get their neo-conservative agenda up through the established legislative processes, they will do so under the cover of security fears - both hyped and real.
We've seen the Fog of War in practice over the past week, secret intelligence reports leaked to friendly right-wing commentators, police investigations of whistleblowers inside the Transport Department and an ongoing refusal to come clean on the basis for committing Australian troops to a war with Iraq.
Meanwhile, our government will continue secret trade talks with the US which could well see the end of local cultural content laws and the pharmaceutical benefits scheme, and give US firms unfettered access to our public services.
The problem with secrecy is that the truth becomes a battle of spin - it's why we have representative government, so that we can scrutinise the actions of our decision-makers.
In the Secret Country that is Howard's Australia, this principle has been absolutely perverted.
Peter Lewis
Editor
| Search All Issues | Latest Issue | Previous Issues | Print Latest Issue |
|
© 1999-2002 Workers Online Workers Online is proudly designed, engineered |
|
