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Issue No. 197 | 26 September 2003 |
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Issue No. 197 | 26 September 2003 |
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Once held up as the new wonderkid of the Liberal party, former Labor party member and man of incredible self-importance, Brendan Nelson, is enjoying his new life as a spineless Education Minister whose efforts have proved to be as intellectual as beer coaster.
This week Brendan decided to stand aside wringing his hands while the worker's friend Tony Abbott held an industrial gun to the head of Australia's universities.
It's probably just as well he hasn't been left in charge, as he appears to have very little in the way of what a reasonable person may call a clue.
No wonder Nelson had a love affair with Labor. Gough Whitlam made it possible for him to get a free degree at Flinders University. That was in an age where there was space to sit in the library and universities could afford to pay lecturers.
These days of course the Federal Government's plan for the dumbing down of society so that Liberal party members can understand it is continuing apace.
Since pocketing his degree this upper class twit has discarded his earing and passion for independent thought and found himself representing those hard working people of Sydney's Upper North Shore.
Left in charge of the country's universities Brendan has set up a magnificent system whereby any brain dead idiot can get a degree, as long as they can pay for it.
This saves Australia from the challenging task of having to maintain an internationally recognised tertiary education system. Unfortunately the net result is that the next professional you see will more than likely possess the institutional equivalent of getting a degree off the back of a cornflake packet.
That Nelson is a schmuck is no secret. That he thinks he has something to offer Australia is also no secret. We are talking of a man whose ambition has its own gravitational pull.
Sadly his talent lags considerably behind his ambition. He has managed to unite university students, staff and Vice Chancellors - against him.
His Liberal buddies must be wrapped that Nelson is working assiduously on ensuring that the riff raff gets weeded out of the tertiary education sector, or at least anyone who comes from a household with an income below five hundred thousand. This will make those institutions far more palatable for the offspring of Lord Downer of Baghdad or the Mad Monk from Manly.
His last minute attempt to avoid the Tool Shed by praising the NSW Teachers Federation's successful campaign to reverse TAFE fees didn't fool anyone.
Despite his best efforts this man for all parties is still a tool - a tool who should go back to school.
Train guard, Isabelle Mills, said she had seen other workers spat on and repeatedly witnessed masturbation during her time as a City Rail employee.
"We shouldn't have to threaten industrial action," she told Workers Online.
Train guards - who have been pulled from moving trains, spat on, abused, had objects thrown at them and had to deal with violent and unruly passengers on a day to day basis - are calling for security on train services to be beefed up.
"I had a man come up with his hand in his pocket in the shape of a gun and he went 'bang'," says Mills, who has found the abuse to be a regular part of her job. "It affects people very much. It affects your family life."
Incidents are not confined to late night services with one rail worker describing how a passenger broke a beer bottle over his own head on a mid-morning service in the Hunter Valley. In that incident a rail guard was forced to deal with two potentially violent men who abused and intimidated other passengers on the service.
Train guards receive no training in how to deal with violent passengers or those affected by drugs and alcohol.
Rail workers are calling on management and the NSW state government to address the issue in the in the interests of staff and the comfort of other passengers.
"The railways have something to gain from improving the situation,' says Mills, who has described overcrowding on state rail services as a "recipe to be abused."
Mills says that rail workers want passengers to enjoy their train travelling experience, but that violence is hindering efforts to maintain safety.
"The feeling is that management would take the side of the person who is assaulting you," says John Henry who has 21 years of experience as a train guard. "If you get abused by someone it can be traumatic."
Henry says that the situation facing rail workers is deteriorating with violent incidents on the increase. His experience is backed up by statistics that show a marked increase in violence on state rail services since the Olympics.
"We're filling in security incident reports day after day,' says Henry. "Just about every train has an incident on it."
Workers Online understands City Rail employees are set to refuse to operate services during the Rugby World Cup unless management addresses their safety concerns.
Rail Tram and Bus Union Newcastle organiser Mick Schmitzer has attacked State Government hypocrisy over underfunding for rail services, leaving frontline rail staff as the "meat in the sandwich" and bearing the brunt of management decisions.
Newcastle based rail staff want to see a greater profile for the new Transit Officers, with a full time 'depot' for the officers based in Newcastle.
"Transit Officers have made a big impact," says Henry. "They do a good job."
Rail workers believed an increased presence by Transit Officers would lead to a decrease in anti-social behaviour on trains.
The NSW Labor Council will be convening a forum to address the problem of violence against rail workers on Tuesday September 30.
AWU national secretary, Bill Shorten, is working on a redraft that will go before ALP policymakers if the Supreme Court rules chemists - owed barely $70 a head and with a dubious relationship to Pan - had the right to vote down a rescue package at a fiery creditors meeting in Sydney.
"These workers haven't broken any law. If it turns out the Pharmacy Guild and KPMG haven't broken any law either, then the law is broken," Shorten said.
"If that is the case we will push to ensure corporate law is radically reformed so the interests of ordinary Australians - workers and small business people - are not trampled over again."
Under existing law, two votes would have been required to get the Pan rescue package up. The first, by numbers of creditors, the second by value of money owed.
The administrator had stated publicly that if the two results conflicted, he would have cast his deciding vote for the rescue package.
Big corporate creditors like Mayne Health, Sigma and Horny Goat, all incidentally involved in manufacturing operations in some opposition to Pan, were always expected to vote against the operation continuing.
But workers, 90 of whom attended the meeting, would have carried the numbers vote in alliance with small creditors, if the administrator hadn't treated the Pharmacy Guild proxies, controlled by one individual, as 370 separate votes.
Shorten called the nine-hour meeting a "real farce".
"It is a matter for the Supreme Court to decide whether these votes should have been allowed or not," Shorten said. "Either way, what we saw was a farce. The proxy holders representing the Pharmacy Guild wouldn't even allow an adjournment for the court to decide the validity of the process.
"It was a classic case of corporate branch stacking that would have made any ALP operator blush," Shorten said.
He questioned whether the Pharmacy Guild should have had any vote given that its members did not deal directly with Pan but with pharmaceutical retailers.
The chances of Pan workers retaining employment would have swung on the result of a Therapeutical Goods Administration audit expected next Tuesday.
The AWU is one of several parties that have asked the Supreme Court to rule on the validity of the creditor's meeting. The case has been set down for hearing on October 13 and 14 but, by then, the administrator is expected to have used last week's vote to terminate remaining employees.
The resolution to end support for a Commonwealth solution, is one of a raft of reforms to improve job security that will carry cross-factional union support at next weekend’s State ALP Conference.
NSW Labor Council secretary John Robertson says workers entitlements is an issue that has been allowed to drift for too long.
"I think it is true that it has been convenient for the NSW Government to shift the responsibility to Canberra," Robertson says.
"But as long as the Liberal Party holds power, working people know that this is only rehtoric and that the only governments that will come to their aid are State Labor Governments."
Under the joint union proposal the Carr Government would pick up the issue and work with other state Labor Government to develop a national model of state-based protection.
Such a scheme would provide full protection for redundancy, accrued leave and time in leiu, ensuring when a company collapses, workers are at the head of the queue.
Transport Workers Union state secretary Tony Sheldon is backing the motion, which he says will provide relief for the 19,000 Australian workers and their families lose $500 million every year.
"The NSW Labor Government and State Labor Governments around the country have to end this theft," Sheldon says. "It is our expectation that the NSAW Government will lead the way."
Working Together
The common agenda for NSW unions introduces a new dynamic into the ALP Conference, which has been traditionally split along factional lines.
Robertson says its just an other step in building the political strength of a trade union movement that is becoming increasingly frustrated by its Parliamentary wing.
"These resolutions are all about core Labor values and will provide an interesting yardstick about how much we still have in common," he says.
Among the other agreed resolutions:
- purchasing policy: a commitment from the NSW Government to only give government contracts or funding to companies that treat their workers decently
- industrial manslaughter: criminal sanctions against employers and directors whose negligence leads to the death of a worker.
- job security: government support for the Labor Council's Secure Employment Test Case to increase the rights of casuals and stem the growth in labour hire and contracting out.
- family friendly policies: including support for paid maternity leave for all Australian families
- and support for the manufacturing sector, struggling under the neglect of the Howard Government.
Electrical Trades Union state secretary Bernie Roirdan says he wants to see ALP politicians take the Conference and the resolutions seriously.
"The company has notified it will be painting a bright fluorescent green substance on top of all areas of asbestos contamination it has identified," Transport Workers Union secretary, Tony Sheldon, revealed this week.
Sheldon's union is the driving force behind six Boral Ethical Shareholders resolutions included in the official notice of meeting for the concrete company's October 21 AGM. One, calling for 30 percent of directors' income to be pegged to Boral's health and safety record, is the first OH&S resolution to go before an AGM of Australian shareholders.
All relate to health and safety, or corporate governance, and company directors have urged shareholders to reject every one of them.
Sheldon said Boral had won safety awards for its pamphlets and presentations but on the job actions didn't match its words.
He said a number of inspections of Boral sites, over 12 months, had turned up a string of OH&S concerns that directors should concern themselves with - in the interests of the workforce and shareholders.
"We have seen the death of a kiln worker and the blasting of three workers by hot cement," Sheldon said.
"Imagine standing there, the kilns open up and three of you are blasted by 700 degrees worth of hot cement. In some cases it welds onto your bones where the flesh has been burned away."
Boral Ethical Shareholders was established when 115 owner drivers, facing Supreme Court action over industrial measures in support of contract negotiations, bought shares in the company and formed their own ginger group.
With the TWU handling industrial strategy, Boral Ethical Shareholders took on corporate adviser, Michael Walsh, the publisher of Ethical Investor magazine, in a bid to force its issues onto the AGM agenda.
The drivers presented a comprehensive health and safety audit to back their call for the Boral board to establish a OH&S sub-committee to review procedures and report back to next year's AGM.
They are also calling for limits on executive remuneration and for directors' payments to be taken out of their hands and made the responsibility of shareholders, by vote at AGMs.
Instead, the Boral board will urge shareholders to give it the right to boost directors fees from a maximum of $650,000 to $1 million a year.
Undeterred by the director's recommendation, posted out with last week's meeting notice, the TWU has arranged meetings with institutional investors to lobby support for the Ethical Shareholders' resolutions.
NSW Labor Council will organise a meeting of all Boral unions to build industrial support for the campaign.
CFMEU assistant secretary, Brian Parker, leveled the charge, saying the head contractor had "stood over" more than a dozen sub-contractors, insisting they didn’t pay hundreds of workers stood down after Workcover halted the Hilton Hotel redevelopment.
About one quarter of the workforce voted to return to cleaned-up areas of the Hilton, last Thursday, but general prohibition orders, including one forbidding work from progressing on floors 27 to 43, mean most employees are still off-site pending remedial action.
The presence of asbestos, synthetic mineral fibres, carcinogenic timber, silicone dust and questions over structural integrity, formwork and scaffolding have seen the NSW safety authority write out seven notices, including four prohibition orders.
Parker says when workers are forced off site by health and safety concerns they should be paid.
The CFMEU has made an application to the IRC for lost time payments and says Tony Abbott's much-hyped Building Industry Taskforce hasn't been seen at the Hilton.
Leightons says last week's shut down was an illegal stoppage by the CFMEU but conceded, before the IRC, the union had followed the safety disputes settlement procedure outlined in the project award.
"They admit, on transcript, we followed the procedure from A to G," Parker said. "And there is no F.
"But still the workers are not being paid and that is a big problem. Leightons have warned sub-contractors they could be prosecuted for paying employees for lost time and, we are told, have said it could be held against them on future Government jobs.
"It is not a fair go. Our people are willing, they are available to work, but not in unsafe conditions."
Around 400 building workers are employed by Leightons and a range of contractors at the Hilton. Parker estimates it could take another fortnight before remedial work means it is safe for full work to resume.
Meanwhile, the CFMEU will put eight boxes of evidence, ignored by the controversial Cole Royal Commission, before a Senate inquiry into the construction industry.
The union says the evidence points to employer wrongdoing, including incidents of corruption.
All the country’s assets and services, with the exception of oil, will be put up for grabs with no limits on foreign holdings, or the ability to take profits out of the country.
The delegation told the IMF the sell-off of state assets had been authorised by the country's Washinton-installed ruling Council. The move has not been put before the Iraqi people.
The Governing Council's package of free-market policies will allow foreign companies to buy Iraqi firms outright, forge joint ventures or open branches operations.
It also provides for foreign banks to buy Iraqi financial institutions.
Governing Council Finance Minister, Kamel al-Kilani says the program will advance efforts to build a free and open market economy.
He said maximum taxes on individuals and companies would be set at 15 percent. Press Agencies said the chairman of the Dubai-based Iraqi Business Council, Mouayed Hassan, had welcomed the moves.
For thirty years Australian meatworkers have been picketing ships and wharves in an effort to protect their livelihoods from the live sheep export trade.
Two recent abattoir closures in NSW have been directly attributed to the trade.
"Live sheep exports have had their day," says Australian Meat Industry Employees Union (AMIEU) Federal secretary Tom Hannan. "There's no sensible reason for them to continue."
"They're exporting Aussie jobs," says Hannan. "This is only going to benefit a few greedy Ship owners. The torment, cruelty and inhuman practices are just not worth it. They're giving Australia a bad name."
Hannan told Workers Online that Australia possessed fully trained abattoir staff accredited by the Islamic Council of Australia that fulfilled the Halal requirements of the Middle Eastern market.
4000 abattoir jobs have disappeared through live sheep exports. The trade has had a big impact on the meat industry, especially in the top end where only two abattoirs remain open north of the tropic of Capricorn.
In a bizarre twist media reports have suggested that Canberra is set to give the sheep adrift in the Persian Gulf to Iraq under a secret deal worth $10 million.
The foreign flagged Cormo Express is yet to unload its cargo of 53 000 Australian sheep.
The RSPCA vowed to stop the trade of live animals and animal rights protesters barricaded a Portland feedlot stalling the loading of 28,000 sheep bound for Kuwait.
Govt Abandons Mudgee Meatworkers
Meanwhile Craig Emerson - Shadow Minister for Workplace Relations has called upon the Minister for Workplace Relations, Tony Abbott, to guarantee that unpaid employee entitlements resulting from the closure of the Mudgee Regional Abattoir will be covered by his General Employee Entitlements and Redundancy Scheme (GEERS).
"Maybe the only hope for the workers of the Mudgee Regional Abattoir is if one of them turns out to be the brother or close relative of their local member and Deputy Prime Minister, John Anderson," says Emerson. "Perhaps then the Howard Government will pay them the money they are owed."
The United Services Union is providing its members who have lost their jobs at the Mudgee Abattoir with food parcels and other assistance following the local government owned abattoir's collapse.
It followed a community campaign to oppose the introduction of fees for Access courses and fee increases of up to 300 per cent for other courses announced in the State Budget.
Fee-free TAFE courses in give some of the communities most underprivileged people an opportunity to learn to read and write so they can improve their life opportunities.
The announcement affects 38 courses. NSW Education Minister Andrew Refshauge states exemptions will remain for courses including reading and writing, numeracy, volunteer training, employment skills, work readiness, community training, school mentoring, career opportunities and signed language.
According to Dr Refshauge the decision means 150,000 people would continue to study at TAFE for free.
Meanwhile the Carr Government's is to proceed with 1,000 job cuts from the Department of Education and Training.
TAFE Teahers remain angry that many NSW TAFE students still face up-front fee increases of up to 300%.
From next year, the cost of a certificate IV qualification will increase by 230% from $260 to $850 per annum, while the cost of a graduate diploma will increase from $710 to $1,650. The increases will affect at least 40% of NSW TAFE students - over 170,000 people, many from poor families.
If NSW moves on a mandatory code, endorsed by five of the six stakeholders represented on its ethical clothing council, the law is expected to be picked up by Labor administrations across all states and territories.
Retailers have made it clear they need one compliance regime, and TCFUA secretary, Barry Tubner, says informal discussions suggest other jurisdictions will follow NSW's lead.
However, Tubner is concerned that the key council recommendation to turn its voluntary code into a mandatory one, is being undermined.
Under the state's Ethical Clothing Trades Act the Industrial Relations Minister has the power to make proclaim a mandatory code for the supply of clothing but not until he receives the inaugural report of his Ethical Clothing Trades Council.
"We are seriously concerned about the delay in providing the 12-month report," Tubner said. "After all, the 12-month period formally expired on February 1.
He said industry and worker representatives had built a consensus on the need to halt outworker exploitation which pays home-based women workers as little as $2 an hour.
"The overwhelming majority of stakeholders has come out in favour of mandatory legal obligations upon irresponsible retailers who try to profit from exploitation," he said.
"It is generally agreed that the time has come for the disinfecting power of sunlight to be shone on the murky, fetid dealings of irresponsible profiteers put pressure on every other industry operator."
Tubner said he was confident Industrial Relations Minister, John Della Bosca, would act when he received the Council report.
He pointed out that in establishing the Council it had been Della Bosca who said tackling the scandal of outworker exploitation was not only morally right but had the added benefit of being politically advantageous.
Meanwhile, Workers Online understands Rugby Union World Cup organisers have been pressured into negotiations on a clothing suppliers code of conduct.
The code is expected to mirror that signed off on by the NRL last year, giving the TCFUA access to the names, addresses and records of suppliers so their compliance with the Clothing Industry Award can be monitored.
The negotiations represent a backflip for Rah Rah authorities who initially resisted signing off on a similar undertaking.
Workplace Relations Minister Tony Abbott has threatened to deprive universities of $404 million in additional funding unless they sign up to thirteen hardline industrial conditions.
Abbott announced the move as Sydney University Vice-Chancellor Gavin Brown was set to sign off on an Enterprise Bargaining Agreement negotiated with the National Tertiary Education Union (NTEU).
Sydney University management reneged on the new pay deal after initially agreeing to sign off on the EBA, with a formal signing ceremony between Sydney University management and the National Tertiary Education Union already scheduled.
A meeting of over 300 University of Sydney staff condemned the decision, unanimously endorsing a two-week campaign of industrial action unless the decision is reversed.
The attempt to interfere in the universities affairs has been rejected by the Australian Vice Chancellor's Committee and a number of Senate Independents.
"Staff at the University of Sydney are understandably very angry with management's reversal on the proposed agreement, the product of year-long cooperative negotiations, because it does not conform with the Government's interventionist industrial requirements, particularly the inclusion of individual contracts," says National Tertiary Education Union General Secretary Grahame McCulloch.
"These requirements are nothing more than an ideological vendetta on the part of the Government, and will do nothing to improve the quality of the teaching and research carried out at the institution."
The two week campaign of industrial action will culminate in a 24-hour strike on October 7 at which staff will effectively close down the university."
Abbott's proposals are expected to result in industrial turmoil in the wake of the Sydney University decision.
Negotiations have been under way at Sydney University since October 2002, part of a sector wide enterprise bargaining round presently under way at all 38 of Australia's public universities.
"The NTEU is concerned that the turmoil at Sydney University is just a taste of what we can expect to see occur at other campuses as a result of the Government's proposals," said McCulloch.
A Consolidated Broken Hill move to rip millions of dollars out of rural Cobar has been thwarted by a landmark ruling that stops companies jumping jurisdictions to evade decisions they don't like.
The NSW IRC full bench decision has forced Consolidated Broken Hill to abandon plans to hire Endeavour Mine workers on AWAs, and back into negotiations with the AWU.
Its orders prevent CBH and its contractors by-passing the NSW Industrial Relations Commission by transferring future employees into the Federal industrial relations system.
AWU national secretary, Bill Shorten, hailed the decision as a "breakthrough" and called on CBH to sit down and negotiate a fair settlement.
The lead and zinc mine is the biggest single employer in outback Cobar. It's problems began when original owner, Pasminco, went into administration more than two years ago.
CBH subsequently bought the operation, changed its name from Elura to Endeavour, and planned to operate it through a series of sub-contractors who would pay wages averaging around $30,000 short of those provided for in the mine's consent award.
When the AWU objected it lost its original case in the IRC. But the full bench, last week, upheld its appeal, ruling the award still applied and instructing CBH, its contractors, and the AWU to negotiate a new industrial agreement.
It gave the AWA an injunction preventing mine employers from evading the agreement by hiring new employees under Federal AWAs.
The campaign to save jobs and condition in NSW's far west has been supported by mine workers and the Cobar community.
Shorten said Cobar miners could now hold out "greater hope" that their conditions would not be undermined by employers shopping between jurisdictions for the "worst deal".
Temporary Aides Seek Access to Home Loans
School support staff on temporary contracts who care for disabled children are seeking a change in their employment status so they can qualify for home loans and other financial services.
Under a groundbreaking proposal being pursued by the NSW/ACT Independent Education Union a number of Aides in the Maitland-Newcastle Diocese could finally win permanent status.
The IEU says hundreds of the Integrative Aides Australia-wide have been robbed of the "basic dignity" of job security because their positions rely on government funding being maintained for the special needs children they care for from year to year.
One example of many is the plight of Debbie Micallef who is now struggling to get from work and back after her car blew up. After more than nine years on the job Micallef can't get a bank loan to buy a new one because she lacks security of employment.
"Living year by year has meant many are unable to qualify for home loans and other services from financial institutions that require proof of stable employment," IEU state secretary Dick Shearman says.
Shearman said this could all change if the Independent Education Union is successful in its bid to have the Maitland-Newcastle Diocese introduce a marginal percentage of permanency to the Aides' positions.
The Independent Education Union is requesting the Diocese make the Aides' positions 60% permanent in cases where the support staff work regular numbers of hours in long-term positions.
Shearman said the figure is enough to make a difference to the Aides' loan prospects but not so much that the Diocese will be left to foot the bill if the funding is reduced.
"Even if funding is reduced it would be unlikely to be cut by more than 60% over the course of any year," he says.
"There is no good reason why Integrative Aides that have been on temporary contracts for three years or more could not have their employment status changed to more accurately reflect the ongoing nature of their work."
"Some of these Aides have been on temporary contracts in excess of 10 years, yet they have no access to the basic dignity of job security that so many of us take for granted."
"These loyal workers should no longer be denied access to home loans, personal loans, and other vital financial services because of a technicality with their employment classification."
The IEU has previously been successful in a bid to have formally recognised the ongoing employment of a group of teachers of English as a Second Language, enabling many to access previously unavailable financial services.
The IEU has become the first union to sign a Memorandum of Understanding with ATSIC, which is aimed at improving the educational outcomes for Indigenous children in independent schools, increasing the numbers and support for Indigenous staff, and promoting reconciliation.
Callope says the MoU also serves to "support an elected organisation that has been elected by the people to work for equality and social justice". "Why not take a hand in ensuring they can get on with their work?"
According to Callope, when it comes to moving things along on the path towards reconciliation, trade unions are the ones to see the job done.
"The union movement has been involved with Aboriginal people for many years and this is another way to commit to being active. It formalises the partnership," she says.
Callope is urging other education unions to follow suite so they can "swap notes" and work together to make the education system a fairer place for Indigenous people. But she says all unions should come on board.
"Indigenous workers are represented in all kinds of industries and where they're not, why not?" she asks.
"The unions hold the key to many other jobs that our people would like a share in."
Callope says all unions could make a positive difference by formalising their support of Indigenous people. "But if we do want to become involved let's be committed properly," she says.
And Callope has a warning. "Just don't sign anything if you are not prepared to take action and forget about it if it's just talk ... because talk is cheap."
Under a groundbreaking proposal being pursued by the NSW/ACT Independent Education Union a number of Aides in the Maitland-Newcastle Diocese could finally win permanent status.
The IEU says hundreds of the Integrative Aides Australia-wide have been robbed of the "basic dignity" of job security because their positions rely on government funding being maintained for the special needs children they care for from year to year.
One example of many is the plight of Debbie Micallef who is now struggling to get from work and back after her car blew up. After more than nine years on the job Micallef can't get a bank loan to buy a new one because she lacks security of employment.
"Living year by year has meant many are unable to qualify for home loans and other services from financial institutions that require proof of stable employment," IEU state secretary Dick Shearman says.
Shearman said this could all change if the Independent Education Union is successful in its bid to have the Maitland-Newcastle Diocese introduce a marginal percentage of permanency to the Aides' positions.
The Independent Education Union is requesting the Diocese make the Aides' positions 60% permanent in cases where the support staff work regular numbers of hours in long-term positions.
Shearman said the figure is enough to make a difference to the Aides' loan prospects but not so much that the Diocese will be left to foot the bill if the funding is reduced.
"Even if funding is reduced it would be unlikely to be cut by more than 60% over the course of any year," he says.
"There is no good reason why Integrative Aides that have been on temporary contracts for three years or more could not have their employment status changed to more accurately reflect the ongoing nature of their work."
"Some of these Aides have been on temporary contracts in excess of 10 years, yet they have no access to the basic dignity of job security that so many of us take for granted."
"These loyal workers should no longer be denied access to home loans, personal loans, and other vital financial services because of a technicality with their employment classification."
The IEU has previously been successful in a bid to have formally recognised the ongoing employment of a group of teachers of English as a Second Language, enabling many to access previously unavailable financial services.
ABS figures show that a quarter of Australian employees had no leave entitlements even though nearly two thirds of them had been with their employer for over a year.
The figures reflect the impact casualisation that shows over 200 000 Australians employed as casuals had been with their current employer for more than ten years - without sick or holiday leave.
"Tony Abbott's statement today that there is nothing 'inherently wrong with casual employment compared to permanent employment' further demonstrates that the Howard Government has forgotten about protecting Australian casual workers," says ALP deputy leader Jenny Macklin. "Instead the government has spent the last seven years stripping away the rights of workers."
Statistics released by the ABS also showed that over a million women worked without leave entitlements. One in five of these women were employed on a full time basis.
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
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)
Humphrey McQueen (Author, historian)
* Paul True (Special Projects Officer, CFMEU. Speaking on the NSW Builders' Labourers Federation and the Green Bans. Author of "Tales of the BLF - Rolling the Right!")
* 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.
the next meeting of Labor for Refugees is schedulled as follows:-
Date: Thursday 2 October 2003
Time: 5pm (it is at this time because Labor Council is at 6pm)
Venue: NSW Labor Council Building
Ground Floor Training Room
377 Sussex St Sydney
2003 Public Policy Lectures
The Hon Dr Carmen Lawrence MP, Federal Member for Fremantle, will deliver the next CofFEE Public Policy Lecture. Dr Lawrence's presentation is entitled Inequality: are we losing our identity?. The presentation, including question-time, will be held on Friday 17 October from 6 - 7.30pm at The Conservatorium, Cnr Auckland and Gibson Streets, Newcastle. All are welcome and there is no charge for entry.
Participants are asked to register for organisational purposes either by email to coffee@newcastle.edu.au, by phone
(02) 4921 7283 or on-line at http://e1.newcastle.edu.au/coffee/diary/coffee_calendar.cfm
2003 National Conference on Unemployment - early-bird registration until 30 September
The 10th National Conference on Unemployment, in conjunction with CofFEE's 5th Path to Full Employment Conference, will be held from the 10th - 12th December 2003 at the University of Newcastle.
Keynote speakers :
Professor Barry Bluestone, the Stearns Trustee Professor of Political Economy and director of the Center for Urban and Regional Policy at Northeastern University in Boston, Massachusetts; and
The Rev Tim Costello, a leading voice on issues such as urban poverty, homelessness, problem gambling, unemployment and reconciliation, Minister at Collins St Baptist Church Melbourne and the Director of Urban Seed.
Other key speakers at special workshop sessions addressing employment policy, regional development and macroeconomic issues will shortly be announced at the conference homepage: http://e1.newcastle.edu.au/coffee/conferences/2003
Reminder that conference registration is possible through the Conference homepage and that early bird registration is available until 30 September.
ME NAM : Rivers photo exhibition
2003 international Year of Fresh Water
ME NAM : Rivers is an exciting photography exhibition to celebrate waterways and communities activism to protect them, in Australia and in the Asia Pacific Region.
Through the immediacy and realism of some of Australasia's most renowned artists and the fresh photography of environmental and human rights activists, ME NAM : Rivers provides an intimate glimpse of life evolving around rivers, while leading the viewer into a journey that explores political and corporate efforts to commodify and control our water resources.
ME NAM : Rivers, to be held at NSW Parliament House in October, will be opened by former lead singer of Midnight Oil and renowned environmental activist Peter Garrett.
Artists include: Paul Blackmore, Gordon Undy, Peter Solness, Ruby Davies, Vince Lovecchio, Maylei Hunt Guerra, Japan's Yoshiaki Murayama and Taiwan's Hong Tien-Jun.
Inspirational and at times confronting, ME NAM : Rivers will leave you with a desire for action, environmental righteousness, and understanding of the politics and controversy behind the world's fresh water crisis.
PUBLIC LAUNCH: host speaker Peter Garrett, President of the Australian Conservation Foundation
WHERE: NSW Parliament House, Jubilee Room, Macquarie St, Sydney
WHEN: Tuesday, October 14 - 2003
TIME: 7.00 pm
ENTRANCE: free
Exhibition will run October 7 - 17, 2003. Weekdays 9.00 am - 4.30 pm
CELEBRATE LABOR DAY 2003!
LABOR DAY TOAST
CFMEU BUILDING
12 RAILWAY ST LIDCOMBE
6pm Wednesday
1ST October 2003
Main speakers: John Robertson, Sec NSW Trades Labor Council
Karen Iles: Convenor, Young Unionists Movement
Refreshments, entertainment provided, bar available
To RSVP contact: Jodie 9749 0400 or John 9955 0065
Perhaps Mr. Carr needs to employ a magician who can pull nurses out of his hat, as this is the only way he can keep his election promise. At the last state election Mr. Carr promised 2 500 new nurses to be employed by the public health care system. My colleagues and I would like to know if he has found them yet. There is a shortage of 5 000 nurses nationwide, so why does Mr. Carr feel he can suddenly find 2 500 of them in New South Wales ? I see more and more of my colleagues leaving, dissatisfied, angry, burnt-out, and injured. Apart from empty election promises, the government is not concerned with the current nursing situation being at crises point. The work conditions need to be improved to increase the number of nurses. Better pay, more staff safety measures, increased numbers of support staff, and greater opportunity for professional development. Mr. Carr, your apathy and lack of support for this issue is causing an unsatisfactory situation to deteriorate further. I ve!
ry strongly suggest you re-visit your policies on nurses and the public health care system, before the situation becomes critical.
-Maria Christensen, Westmead
It should not be forgotten that telstra has already been privatised, at least 49% of the company. And has cost a lot of jobs to profits.
Services that were once free to the general public ie: operator phone numbers now cost to talk to a robot, not that I'm against change or moderninity of employment and conditions. Why don't the sacked workers have a shorter working week of say 10 hours for 40 hours pay.
I once read, when I was 12, by the time I'm 50 this would be about how long workers would have to work. Instead workers are working longer now than ever before. I am 51.
The other thing workers will have to suffer is the governments plans to not allow workers to access their superannuation untill aged 60 to 65 and one extremist view was put to 70 years old.
We will be dying at work. Either from it or because we haven't had time to go home.
Roger Taylor
Victoria
I raise the following issue with a growing sense of dread.
Citing the US military Central Command as its source, the Washington Post reported on September 2 that „more than 6,000 service members‰ had been medically evacuated from Iraq since the launch of the war.
At the time, the number of combat wounded stood at 1,124. A further 301 personnel had been injured in non-combat incidents such as vehicle accidents. The figure of „more than 6,000‰ supplied to the Post therefore implies that over 4,500 US troops have required evacuation from Iraq for medical reasons other than combat or non-combat injuries.
At no point in the last six months have we been told that for every soldier who has been killed in Iraq, at least another 15 have fallen so ill that they had to be flown back to the United States. The Post described the unexplained evacuations simply as the „thousands who became physically or mentally ill‰.
On July 31, the US Army Surgeon General announced an investigation into the deaths of two soldiers, Michael Tosta and Josh Neusche, and the hospitalisation of another 100, diagnosed with severe pneumonia. It has been established that inhaling large concentrations of DU-contaminated particles damages the lungs and kidneys and can cause respiratory illness. There are also recorded medical suspicions that the US military‚s anthrax vaccine can trigger pneumonia.
How many Australian service men and women have been exposed to the same combat pollution and vaccines?
And, are we to be told if the same proportion of our forces are suffering similar health problems?
Remember the sailors who refused to obey what they thought was an unlawful order to submit to an Anthrax injection?
John Ward
Dear fellow workers,
I would like to raise the plight of the continuing struggle of Qld Taxi drivers to be reconised by a Qld Labor Government who three years ago promise to change the necessary acts of parliament to give Qld cabbies basic conditions & working rights with QRIC protection as the independent empire in contractual disputes.
Alas after continuing lobbying by the Qld Taxi driver's Association inc. we are still waiting.
We are talking about a cabbie who bearly takes home $6.50 per hour in the hand and has to work 65-70 hours per work to take home $45.00 less the the lowest award paid worker gets for a 38 hour week.
Qld Cabbies recieve no Super,No Sick Pay, no Holiay Pay No Long Service Leave No Qld Work Cover, and have to pay half the daily fuel and up to $8.80 per shift insurance levy.
The Taxi Investor/Owners & Taxi networks have lobbied the Qld Labor Government, after Government reconmendations came down in favour of the Cabbies to have all the reconmendations refered to yet another committee that they have successful stacked in the their favour.
I am asking every Australian Worker,Union and the Australian Public to email,write or Fax their local member in Qld or outside Queensland, the State Transport Minister Mr.Steve Bredhaurer & Industrial Relations Minister Mr.Gordon Nutall & The Premier Mr.Peter Beattie to pass all reconmendations of the Taxi drivers Workplace Health & safety & wages & Conditions Review.
THE QTDA INC. WOULD LIKE YOU TO SHAME THE BASTARDS INTO SUBMISSION, fancy a Labor Government siding with the right wing Torries of starving Cabbies & their Families, it should be a day of national shame, I am ashamed to say that I am a paid-up member of the ALP and Local Branch President. I didn't ever dream I would see the day when every day Aussies struggling to feed their families and keep a roof over their heads would ever have the door shut on the face by a Labor Government.Ben Chiffely must be turning in his grave.
Thankyou Comrades for all support.
Kind regards,
Michael Powell
State President,QTDA Inc.
State President ALP Branch Oxley/Corinda,QLD
Vice presid
Between the set piece speeches the ritualised debates on branching stacking, there will be a new dimension - a union movement with a common desire to see an electorally successful Labor Government do more for the people who elect them.
Unions have crossed the factional divide at a number of past conferences - who can forget the decision to block the privatisation of the power industry in 1998? Who can forget the political mileage the Carr Government extracted from that conference 'defeat' at the 1999 election?
But never before has the movement been as united: with the AMWU now back in the Labor Council, there is unified voice behind these resolutions that make them difficult to ignore and impossible to defeat.
And, as the 2002 Conference debate on refugees showed, when unions are united, the rank and file tends to back them in.
The union agenda for Conference 2003 speaks to the issues unions confront every day.
Some resolutions speak of desperation - the need to address the entitlements issue is more acute every day a company collapses. To simply blame Canberra is no longer enough. State Labor Governments must show leadership.
Some speak of impatience with the Carr Government - the call for industrial manslaughter laws follows solemn reassurances by Minister Della Bosca that the existing law was sufficient: yet still no employer has tasted justice despite the ongoing deaths in the workplace.
Other resolutions speak of frustration: the call for the Carr Government to back the Labor Council's Secure Employment Test Case follows three years of waiting for the government to address the issue of labour hire through legislation.
And others speak of a yearning for a Labor Government with the courage to end the 'business as usual approach to politics'. The call for a comprehensive government procurement policy is an invitation for visionary leadership.
It argues that Labor Governments should use their purchasing power - through government tenders and funding - to encourage employers to be better corporate citizens and treat their workers with respect.
The bottom line: if you want to run an anti-union agenda in your workplace, don't expect a government contract. It's no more than Tony Abbott is trying to achieve a t a federal level - only this time geared at the interests of the worker, not the boss.
But all speak a common language that politicians are not responding to problems arising in the workplace, problems that are placing stress on families and communities.
The political managers of the Party will have no option but to accept these resolutions, or risk being rolled over by union delegates with the support of the rank and file.
The big question is whether the resolutions will be implemented at Macquarie Street or whether Conference is ignored.
It may not make the headlines, but these debates on bread and butter work issues could well herald a shift in power from the stage to the body of the hall.
Peter Lewis
Editor
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