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Great news! Kevin Andrews is here to save us all from the dead hand of socialism!
Our Tool Of The Week is the new Workplace Relations Minister and, if his track record is anything to go by, it looks like we're all in for a wild ride.
The news must have come as a shock to the man whose previous claim to fame was letting us all know what was good for us. In a breathtaking display of empathy and humanity he introduced a private members bill to block the Northern Territory Euthanasia Legislation.
This sort of paternalism is not entirely consistent with his professed liberal individualism; but then again the good reverend hasn't always been up with the latest trends.
It's quite appropriate that he represents the seat of Menzies as he sits well with the notion of a nineteen fifties conservative paternalism. He is a Howard man. In fact this living museum piece is probably the nearest thing we have to the DLP alive today.
Will one of the Federal Parliament's great under performers make a mark on industrial relations? Probably not, if his past form is anything to go by.
"Rampant unionism hinders the vaunted but little recognised and little realised micro-economic reform in this nation and continues to keep our economy uncompetitive with its wasteful work practices." He said in his maiden speech.
Oh, how novel. It's all the union's fault.
Our Tool Of The Week was once a deputy speaker in the house of representatives, but no one paid any attention to him so he stopped that.
Then he became the minister for making old people's lives a misery. He took the wilderness approach to aged care: take nothing but photographs and leave nothing but footprints.
Now he's been snatched from the greatest crisis to face aged care in this country to bring his own brand of muscular Christianity to stamp out Satanism in the workplace.
No doubt he can now carry out the great work he alluded to in his maiden speech where he brought to light the blight of women in the workforce (quoting from that respected and august journal, Family Circle).
Anyone who describes themselves as "a barrister by trade" is going to spend a lot of time on their own at barbeques.
Our Tool Of The Week is one out of the box. He is as mad as Tony Abbott; as compassionate as Bronwyn Bishop; as paternalistic as John Howard; as dumb as Wilson Tuckey; as liberal as Fred Nile; and he's coming to a workplace near you!
The extraordinary proposition is Boral�s response to small shareholder demands for improved workplace safety, and shareholder control over executive remuneration.
TWU secretary, Tony Sheldon, is in no doubt that the directors' proposal, mailed to stockholders in the lead-up to this month's annual general meeting, is retaliation for the campaign mounted by truck drivers agitating under the Boral Ethical Shareholders umbrella.
Sheldon labeled the proposal, listed as Resolution 3 on the AGM notice of meeting, an "outrageous attack" on corporate democracy and accountability.
"In effect, it would transfer all meaningful decision making powers at Boral to the board of directors," Sheldon said. "All shareholders would be disenfranchised and small shareholder groups would have absolutely no say in the direction of their company."
Currently, items going to Boral's constitution can be forced onto the AGM agenda by the combined weight of 100 stockholders, large or small.
Directors, however, are proposing that the company's constitution be changed to restrict that right to the board of directors or shareholders controlling at least five percent of the company's stock.
This week there were 343, 848, 587 ordinary Boral shares and they traded at $5.30.
If directors get their way, shareholders wanting significant policy changes would need to control around 17 million shares, valued at more than $91 million, to have their issues discussed.
Sheldon said this would "completely disenfranchise" every one of the 5300 Mum and Dad investors in the concrete company. Between them they hold just 4.15 percent of Boral stock.
Two of the resolutions forced onto this month's AGM by Boral Ethical Investors and supporters, including church groups, seek the formation of a board sub-committee to monitor health and safety, and that director remuneration be subject to AGM control.
Both, technically, go to the company's constitution and could in future be denied a hearing by a board that has written to shareholders recommending that they be rejected.
Meanwhile, the Boral Ethical Shareholders campaign has been boosted by public support from Uniting Care, a church-based charity holding more than 200,000 company shares.
TWU members will take a Uniting Care letter to institutional investors it is meeting in the lead-up to the AGM.
"We have been advised of a number of incidents of safety, which are of concern to us," Uniting Care executive director, Rev Harry Herbert, writes to Boral bosses.
"We understand that Boral was fined $130,000 in the Australian Industrial Relations Commission following the death of a Boral employee who died after being crushed between pallets of bricks. Again, in the Queensland Commission in another case, the fitting of an unsuitable turntable led to the overturning of a truck and tanker. Finally, we have been advised that your company was fined $60,000 following an accident in your timber mill at Tumbarumba (NSW).
"Of particular concern to us are comments that your company is not conscientiously seeking to put training and procedures in place in order to minimise or, if possible, eliminate accidents of this type.
"You will appreciate that it would be a matter of serious concern to us should there not be a concerted attempt by your company to address these matters."
Meatworkers Union Tasmanian secretary, Grant Courtney, said picketers were "over the moon" with this week�s Industrial Commission ruling that they be re-employed by Blue Ribbon Products and its labour-hire firm, Newemploy, and be back-paid for six months.
"This scam has been going on in Australia since 1990. It has probably denied 20,000 people, mainly in the rural sector, their entitlements," Courtney said.
"The commission has looked at this scam and ruled that, legally, it is a scam. It puts employers on notice that when these contracting agencies come to them with schemes to deny workers their entitlements they are on dangerous ground.
"These people stuck it out through the wettest winter in Tasmania for the last 10 years, in one of the coldest parts of the state. They are very brave but they wouldn't have survived without the generous support of the Launceston community and unions, nationally, that understood the issues."
Tasmanian Industrial Relations Commissioner, Pauline Shelley, ruled arrangements between Blue Ribbon and Newemploy had been a "contrivance to a avoid award obligations and industrial consequences".
Commissioner Shelley ordered that picketers, some of whom had worked at Blue Ribbon for more than 30 years, be reinstated by October 22.
One worker, Brian Wood, told local media he would believe the six month back pay order when he saw the money.
"It means I can start paying my mortgage again," he said.
Employers, especially in the rural sector, have been transferring wage workers to independent contractor status since the BWIU lost its Odco decision in 1990.
Tens of thousands of Australians are denied entitlements such as overtime, public holidays, annual leave, and sick leave by arrangements similar to that entered into by Blue Ribbon.
"For our state this decision is a breakthrough," Courtney said, "but it follows at least three similar rulings in South Australia.
"This type of bodgey contracting is on the back foot and it's not before time."
Mudgee Shire councillors have joined the United Services Union (USU) in calling for an investigation into the disappearance of worker�s entitlements at the local government controlled slaughterhouse.
Cudgegong County Council, whose board was made up from representatives of a number of local councils including Mudgee, Rylston and Gunnedah, managed the Mudgee Abattoir.
At least one board member, Chris Connor, accepts his council has a moral obligation to pay the worker's entitlements. Connor, an ALP representative on Mudgee Shire Council, would support a proposition that would see the bill for worker's entitlements met on a dollar for dollar basis with the NSW government.
Graham Kelly of the USU, who has described the plight of former abattoir employees as the most distressing thing he has seen in 13 years as a union organiser, will be speaking to a motion from the USU at the ALP State Conference over the October long weekend.
The motion seeks to protect the entitlements of employees of independent statutory corporations like the Cudgegong County Council and calls on the State Government to meet the outstanding balance between the GEERS payments and the total amount owed to the Mudgee Abattoir workers. It also calls for the premier to refer the financial and managerial affairs of the Cudgegong County Council prior to its collapse to ICAC.
"We have briefed a lawyer to ascertain if criminal charges can be laid against any group of people of individuals for utilising employee entitlements,' says Kelly
Cr Connor admits that management asked the board if they could dip into employee entitlements "if we need to".
"It was a situation I was extremely unhappy with,' says Connor. "I registered my concern."
Connor, who says that the incident has deeply upset him, believes that the Minister for Local Government, Tony Kelly carries responsibility for the Cudgegong County Council.
Mudgee Councillor Jeff Moore, who blamed a "National Party Clique' within the council for the abattoir's woes, believes that Mudgee council is morally responsible for the money owed to the Abattoir employees.
"Blind Freddy could see there was a problem," says Moore, who has been maintaining that there is a problem for some years at the abattoir. "It's a study in incompetence at least, if not worse."
"We mainly want to get these people's entitlements rather than see someone locked up, but it'd be nice to have both."
In 2001 an international company blamed the intransigence of deputy PM and local National Party member John Anderson for the failure of a plan that would have seen the abattoir given investment under a new owner.
Currently the USU is seeking to have the workers moved up to number one position on the list of secured creditors.
The trick, according to CPSU spokesman Steven Jones, is to sack ongoing permanent workers and pick-up labour hire casuals who are denied entitlements including sick, service, holiday pay, maternity leave and penal rates.
Jones says the deliberate strategy by Australia's largest company has led to a security "crisis" that is destabilising communities.
He highlights maternity leave, increasingly being recognised as a right by politicians, commentators and the law. The 54 Wollongong sales centre staff being sent down the road are entitled to maternity leave while the labour hire temps at the faults centre to open on the same site, will not be.
"Our people get maternity leave, labour hire people don't. It's as simple as that," Jones says. "They contract these jobs out to avoid obligations that have been negotiated in good faith, at least on our part.
"Telstra's attitude to security and entitlements is driving a crisis. It hasn't been good enough for them to axe 30,000 Australian jobs, new workers are increasingly being hired on terms that deny them wages, entitlements and security.
"I would estimate that one third of their surviving workforce is now employed on labour hire contracts."
News of the Wollongong sackings came in the same week that Telstra confirmed it had paid chief executive, Ziggy Switkowski, $2.413 million for his efforts in the 2002-03 year.
Community leaders, including Labor and Green MPs. attended a protest rally against Telstra job cuts in Wollongong on Friday.
Academic and non teaching staff will strike at Sydney University on October 7 in the lead up to a national NTEU stoppage at all 38 of Australia�s public universities on October 16.
"This is bullying by the Federal Government to withhold funding while they get the university sector to do their dirty work," says Mark Dolahenty of the National Tertiary Education Union (NTEU). "Parents shouldn't have to take out a second mortgage to give their kids a first degree.
Dolahenty said the reforms would lead to an "explosion in casual teaching, a decline in standards and research, and an increase in the number of people getting into uni based on how much money they've got".
Staff at the University of Sydney will strike on October 7 over Sydney University's last minute decision to renege on signing a new workplace agreement.
"Staff are angry about the University's decision to renege on signing the agreement, and today's stop work will be calling on management to sign it immediately," said Michael Thomson, Acting NTEU Branch President at Sydney University.
Members of the Community and Public Sector Union, the main union covering non-teaching university staff, will also strike at Sydney University on October 7.
"We expect Sydney University to reject the Government's attempt to bludgeon their industrial agenda into universities, if they don't then we will have no choice but to strike on October 7." Says David Carey, CPSU Federal Secretary
"Our members at the University of Sydney are frustrated at the University's willingness to comply with the government's requirements for the extra money," says Carey. "In recent years this Government has brought Universities to its knees by slashing government funding for badly needed programs"
CPSU Members at Sydney University are not alone.
"Our members across the country will strike on October 16, 2003 if
Universities don't reject this Government's attempt at industrial blackmail," says Carey.
"While the NTEU does not welcome industrial strife, the Sydney University stop work is only the opening round unless the Government abandons its interventionist plans for universities." said Grahame McCulloch NTEU General Secretary.
"University staff have done the hard yards in maintaining the quality of our public higher education system amid a sharp decline in government funding. This has come at a cost - sky rocketing student to staff ratios, increasing casualisation, job insecurity, increasing hours of work and mounting stress levels for staff."
"While today's decision is not taken lightly, the strike signals our determination to maintain not only the pay and working conditions of staff, but to preserve the quality of education our members provide to students," said McCulloch.
"The depth of feeling against these proposed changes among our members is overwhelming and the Union expects that our university system will effectively shut down for the duration of this nationwide action."
The Federal Government's Higher Education Workplace Relations Requirements link $404 million worth of funding to the implementation of extreme anti worker industrial reforms.
University staff have called on incoming Workplace Relations Minister, Kevin Andrews, to abandon the divisive policy.
Giving evidence before a Senate enquiry the deputy vice-chancellor of the University of Western Australia, Alan Robson, said there would be a net fall of 8000 places as a result of the so-called reforms.
The prospect was raised by last week�s Federal IRC ruling which granted unjustified dismissal rights to short-term casuals, previously expressly denied access to such remedies.
"The parties cannot create something which has every feature of a rooster, but call it a duck and insist that everybody recognise it as a duck," the bench led by senior vice-president Ross said.
"... regular and systematic engagements with a reasonable expectation of continuing employment are usually not characteristic of casual employment."
The woman at the centre of the case had been employed by a restaurant on a regular four night a week basis. If she couldn't turn up she was expected to give notice.
The bench ruled her employment, while technically casual, could not be reasonably seen as "informal, uncertain or irregular". It referred her application for arbitration.
The decision will bring thousands of Australians within reach of federal unfair dismissal laws, until now denied by regulation and the authority of a 1999 AIRC decision known as Bluesuits.
The bench held that the reasoning underpinning Bluesuits was no longer appropriate.
In the most recent instance, Timor Aviation Services which provides freight handling and charter services to the Australian Defence Force, Zantas and Harvey World Travel, refused a September 30 directive from East Timor's Department of Labour to reinstate Sabino Adornio and Clementihno Pereira.
The pair were workplace delegate who had represented Timor Aviation Services in negotiations on a collective agreement.
The East Timorese Transport Workers Union and the country's Trade Union Confederation have accused the company, run by Australian nationals, of showing "little respect" for Timorese or Australian law.
The issue began when employees set out to negotiate a new contract after a three-year wage freeze.
"The Union and Confederation have exhausted all available options to reinstate the two and have now issued TAS a final opportunity to avoid industrial action," the Transport Union said in a formal statement.
"This declaration follows four weeks of combined efforts by the union, the confederation and the East Timor Government's Department of Labour to return the two employees to work.
"The company has so far ignored its obligations and refused to reinstate the workers, despite receiving a Government directive to do so on three separate occassions."
The East Timorese Union has formally filed the following claims on the Australian company ...
- reinstatement of the two delegates
- that it sign the collective agreement, as negotiated
- that it pay outstanding salary increases due to employees.
As workers around the nation held birthday parties for the public health system, the PM was hinting that a massive revenue windfall of $3 billion would go to tax breaks for the well-heeled rather then to repairing the haemorrhaging health system.
Unionists rallying outside the Prime Minister's Gladesville electorate office cut a Medicare cake in the hope the scheme would enjoy another 20 years of good health.
Meanwhile, shadow health minister Julie Gillard shared cake with building workers at the massive breakfast Point development, reminding them that Medicare was not the government's to takeaway.
"Medicare is not John Howard's, Medicare is your's, paid through by the wage rises you gave up under the Accord and the Medicare levy you pay today," she said.
She made the comments on the day Tony Abbott took over the health portfolio as part of a major front bench reshuffle that sees former Aged Care Minister Kevin Andrews move to workplace relations.
No Tears for Abbott
Few in the union movement were sorry to see Abbott moved the Health portfolio.
"It's hard to imagine anything worse than Tony Abbott's human-incendiary-device approach to workplace relations which has turned the construction industry into a battleground," CFMEU Construction National Secretary John Sutton said.
"His aggressive and expensive ventures like the $60 million dollar Cole Royal Commission and his over-top-Building Industry watchdog-legislation, launched a couple of weeks ago, have done nothing to build on the successes of the industry.
"So we can only say 'Good riddance' to Tony Abbott as Workplace Relations Minister."
Australian Workers' Union National Secretary Bill Shorten expressed his sympathy for the sick people of Australia.
Who's Next? Asks CFMEU
Meanwhile, the ACTU launched a print and radio advertising campaign that will run in every state over the next month warning all workers about the impact of the federal government's proposed building industry legislation.
Launching the ads, ACTU Secretary Greg Combet said that the union movement was committed to alerting all workers about the government's agenda.
"This government started with workers on the waterfront, then they targeted construction workers," he said.
"We now see them threatening university staff, and it is very clear that the agenda of the new industrial legislation is not about making the building industry more productive, it is about setting new low standards for workers' rights in Australia."
The advertisements will run over the next month coinciding with the consultation stage for the legislation and will continue when the legislation is debated in federal parliament.
The Business Council moved to block the shareholder legislation as the Westfield Group confirmed that chairman Frank Lowy had pocketed $13.4 million during the 2002-03 financial year.
The company also served up $2.2 million and $2.4 million to Lowy's sons, Peter and Steven.
Rival property group Lend Lease paid chief executive Greg Clarke $1.8 million for seven months work.
Elsewhere, BHP Billiton paid new chief executive Chip Goodyear $US3.5 million, while the Commonwealth Bank confirmed it had paid $2.5 million to CEO David Murray who has just announced that company's intention to chop another 3700 jobs.
The Business Council of Australia says even non-binding shareholder involvement in executive pay deals should be discouraged.
The BCA's chairmen's panel says shareholders already get a say on director remuneration and requiring a vote is an unnecessary step that raises potential legal pitfalls.
Violent incidents, including assaults, have led to calls from NSW public transport workers for management to provide self defence classes for employees.
The call came from a Labor Council of NSW forum on the issue. The forum released a five-point plan as the basis of a campaign to tackle the escalating problem of "commuter rage".
The workers' five-point plan calls on the Government to:
1. Review NSW Police (Transit) and Transit Officer numbers across the State to identify appropriate staffing numbers, resources and key locations for them to be stationed;
2. Increase penalties for any person who assaults transport employees;
3. Ensure no staff member works alone between the hours of 6pm and 6am or in identified high-risk situations;
4. Launch a public awareness campaign to ensure commuters do not blame front line staff for system problems; and
5. Ensure the Department of Transport complies with OHS requirements, including that it:
* Conducts risk assessments and implements systems to address the risks;
* Appropriately trains all staff;
* Provides self-defence training for staff who request it;
* Provides conflict resolution training for all staff dealing with the public; and
* Provides personal alarms for all staff and stations deemed at risk.
A number of other suggestions were made to the forum, including the provision of self-defence lessons for public transport workers.
Workers in the industry face being spat on, assaulted and pulled from moving trains and even being urinated on in the course of their jobs.
"We want the public to be able to enjoy their trip," said State Rail train guard John Henry. "We're just normal people going about our jobs."
Forum Delegates called for the establishment of a Campaign Committee made up delegates from Transit Police and Officers, Train Guards and Station Staff, the private and public sector bus industry and ferries.
"We plan to have this legislation passed by November," says ACT Industrial Relations Minister Katy Gallagher. "We take this very seriously."
The move, which provides for fines of up to $5million for companies, will see industrial manslaughter placed in the Crimes Act, making it a criminal offence. Company directors or boards could be jailed if an employee was killed at work or if the employer was found to have been negligent in contributing to their death.
"We're sending a clear message to employers," says Gallagher. "Where there is gross negligence they deserve to be charged."
"For good employers, for people doing the right thing, they have nothing to fear from this law at all."
The legislation is a groundbreaking move after similar legislation was rejected in Victoria, NSW and Queensland and comes as part of a reform package to ACT Occupational Health and Safety laws.
The Crimes (Industrial Manslaughter) Amendment Bill 2003 was developed to address gaps in ACT criminal legislation regarding the prosecution of companies for manslaughter.
Currently, general manslaughter applies to anyone who negligently or recklessly causes the death of another person. if an employer negligently or recklessly causes the death of one of their workers, they can already be charged.
However with many people employed by companies it is very difficult to prosecute a company for manslaughter due to antiquated legal principles that make it difficult to attribute criminal liability to a company.
The news comes as the Australian Manufacturing Workers Union will seek to have the issue of Industrial Manslaughter Legislation addressed at the NSW ALP State Conference over the October long weekend.
Specifically, Commissioner Walton has ruled that provisions binding head contractors to write wages and entitlements into contractual arragements with sub-contractors, are legal under the Workplace Relations Act.
Walton released his findings in a written decision after asking the Labor Council of NSW and construction companies, Barclay Mowlem and Bovis Lend Lease, to make submissions on the issue.
He found the project awards, which run counter to former Workplace Relations Minister Tony Abbott's insistence on independent bargaining with each sub-contractor, were designed to produce "an optimal climate for the undertaking of the project which involves the maximisation of efficiency and productivity combined with fair and safe working conditions".
Evidence from employer and employee representatives suggested that project awards, binding sub-contractors, limited industrial disputation.
The decisions related to project awards for construction work at Camperdown and the inner-city.
Labor Council spokesman Chris Christodoulou hailed the IRC decision as vindication of the approach taken by NSW unions.
"It makes it clear that there is a legal basis for ensuring minimum standards for all workers in NSW," Christodoulou said.
Redbank-based Rico Engineering ceased operations on Friday, September 26, with administrators conceding it owed more than 100 employees about $350,000 in accrued leave entitlements and reducancy payments.
When it closed, Rico was part way through a contract to supply structural steel to the new Qantas maintenance facility. Around 300 tonnes of steel are still in the company's warehouse earmarked for Brisbane Airport Project.
But the AMWU, which had 90 members at the company, and other unions have placed bans on any work involving Rico materials for the Qantas project until sacked workers receive all their entitlements.
AMWU Queensland secretary, David Harrison, said that meant none of the finished steel would leave Rico and no structural steel work would proceed at the airport.
"The AMWU is appalled that another company has gone broke owing working people thousands of dollars.
"The corporate sector and Federal Government should hang their heads in shame. They have opposed the AMWU's efforts to protect workers entitlements at every turn," Harrison said.
The warning was delivered as United Services Union members flagged an industrial campaign to prod state-owned NSW power corporations into improving capacity and retaining core skills.
USU acting general secretary, Paul Marzato, said 1800 jobs had been carved out of generation companies looking for cutbacks, leaving the system endangered and consumer vulnerable.
"Generators are trying to outsource as much work as possible. They have lost key skills that the system needs," he warned.
"Between 1996 and 2002 there was a 50 percent reduction in staff, from 3500 to just 1700.
"Our plants are getting older and the simple fact is that you can't rely on private contractors to keep patching them up. The system needs a core of skilled workers who understand these plants and how they operate.
"We have already had problems with outages, the first sign that we should be taking stock and planning for the future."
The electricity systems in Melbourne and Adelaide have been privatised but a major internal Labor campaign forced Bob Carr to backtrack on similar plans for NSW.
Marzato warns that corporatisation is exposing NSW to similar dangers.
"We are not going to sit around while the generation industry is dismantled behind the public's back," he said.
The USU is calling for Government intervention to ensure improved staffing levels and adequate, planned capacity for NSW power generation.
"Cleaning needs a proper amount of time to complete," says school cleaner Sylvia Cullen of Goulburn. "There is not enough time to do a proper job. The cleaners are dedicated and are pushing themselves to complete the job."
"Workers comp claims are up in schools because of people pushing themselves. They're stressed because they can't do their job. [the cleaning] is less of a standard than what it should be."
Cullen, who spoke to Workers Online prior to addressing the NSW ALP State Conference over the October long weekend, believes that the contractors are taking short cuts and pocketing the difference.
She has also called for the proper equipment to be supplied to "do the job properly".
Cullen, a single mother, works shifts from 2am to 6am at the Goulburn Police Academy and backs up for a shift from 1.30pm to 6.30pm at Mulwaree High School in Goulburn.
With the Government Cleaning Contract up for renewal before next year's
Budget the Liquor, Hospitality and Miscellaneous Employees Union (LHMU) is pressing the government over purchasing policy, especially in relation to the allocation of government contracts.
The cleaners are demanding no more cuts to hours, security in the job if a different contractor comes in, the ability to transfer of entitlements where the contractor changes, retention of the sick leave safety net for former government employed cleaners and ufficient equipment and supplies to do the job properly.
A motion in support of the government cleaners to be debated at the NSW ALP Conference has already drawn support from ALPfigures.
"The least we as a Labor government can do is to take on board the
representations of the LHMU and agree to the cleaners' modest requests," says ALP MLC Ian West.
The candidates contesting the ALP National President elections have received a questionnaire from one of Australia's biggest unions, the 130,000 member LHMU.
" We've asked them to outline their plans to improve and strengthen the relationship between the industrial and political wings of the labour movement," Jeff Lawrence, the LHMU National Secretary, says.
" We are keen to tell our union activists, who have a vote in the Labor Party ballot as rank-and-filers, what the union values and attitudes are of each candidate.
The ballot for the election has already opened and closes on November 1 The new President will chair the next National Conference of the ALP in January.
The answers to the six-part questionnaire will be published on the union website in a few weeks.
The Questions
1. Do you currently belong to a union? If so which one
2. Can you provide one or more examples of your history of activism within the union movement - or support for working people in their day-to-day workplace struggles?
3. Please outline your views about what should be the role of the union movement in a modern Australian Labor Party?
4. What do you think your contribution could be, as ALP President, to helping the union movement grow in this country?
5. What do you think your contribution could be, as ALP President, to finding new and innovative ways for union members to participate in local ALP activity and the broader ALP processes?
6. The union movement at the last ACTU Congress adopted five common priority objectives for the next three years (outlined below). As ALP President what proposals could you put forward to help unions to implement this agenda?
- The right for employees to collectively bargain and to be represented by a union;
- Improved rights and portability of entitlements for casual and labour hire workers, including the right to permanent employment for long term casuals, and a code to regulate contracting and labour hire;
- Improved minimum wages through the national and state wage cases;
- Win better work and family rights, including paid maternity leave;
- Improved right of entry and empowering union delegates with specific rights at work and through education and training
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 caf� 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 [email protected] 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, [email protected]
http//:www.nswpeace.org.
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
SPREADING THE MESSAGE OF WORKERS RIGHTS
Bankstown City Radio is seeking to establish a weekly program to be produced and presented by NSW workers and unionists that addresses issues and concerns surrounding workers rights.
Such a program would provide an opportunity to examine work and industrial issues from the perspective of those who know this area best - working people and our unions.
It will allow workers to have a say about current disputes, government proposals and industry attacks and most importantly educate the wider community about workers rights.
We are looking for volunteer producers and presenters with a solid background in workers rights who could spearhead this exciting new broadcasting project.
ESSENTIAL:
DESIRABLE:
For more information contact
Mary Ellen Hall, Station Manager, on 9771 2846 during office hours
or email: [email protected]
Dear Sir/Madam,
I have finally decided i would like to be Prime Minister of Australia.A hard act to follow i realise but why not give it a go.
To achieve my new desired goal i think i will offer to introduce a new tax of some type because to rebuild this once great nation "we need to build on our revenue base".
A broad based consumption tax Mk11 would be a very good idea.Or maybe we should raise the one we've already got from 10% to 15%.Then i shall introduce a tax on consumers of all industries stuggling to compete.Sugar,Airlines could be the go or perhaps other non competitive industries such as Power,Water,Oil,Gas,Ethanol etc could be the targer for corporate welfare.(It would be silly and a waste of MY hard earned surplus to put the new revenue into Schools,Hospitals or Roads.In fact I shall raise the medicare levy for the workers to pay for the sick,elderly bludgers of society whilst I can belt the workers at any given opportunity .)
When all the people almost dont have enough in their kitty to get by i shall come in at the last minute (Just before an election) and offer a tax cut of up to $4.00 per week for the battlers and an even larger cut for all those on over $75,000 per year.
Who wants to vote for me?
Steven Presley
Subject: David Murray CEO Commonwealth Bank---Creator of UnEmployment
I think you've done this bloke...but anyway I think he should be fined for being a Creator of UnEmployment. The fine should counter balance any pay rise he expects ( 7% in his case or $175000) + costs of finding employment for each of the 3000 Commonwealth Bank employees he is to sack
Effectively he has failed in his responsibility to those 3000 employees and has dumped the problem on to the dole queue where the Taxpayer can pick up the Tab.. As for him , he has awarded himself(itself) a 7% pay rise ... ITS NOT ON
Perhaps you should have a new award "Unemployer of the week" award -this weeks star
performer David Murray etc etc
Yours sincerely
Dan O'Brien
This week's revelations that Cole Commission investigators vigorously led witnesses to incriminate the union, follow last week's leaking of the secret report volume exposing the very shaky foundations upon which the report's recommendations were based.
This left the government with next to no chance of getting Abbott's building industry legislation through the Senate, meaning the Monk's 'reform agenda' of turning building workers into criminals would fall into a very expensive hole.
Like his predecessor Peter Reith, Abbott will be remembered as a minister who bought ideological warfare to a portfolio that should really be about compromise and cooperation.
Like Reith and the waterfront, Abbott put much vigour into 'breaking' an effective trade union only to find himself caught out by his fundamental blind spot - that not everyone views the world as he does.
It is a failing that has afflicted many a preacher man, for that was what the Mad Monk ultimately was, a deluded zealot bashing away at the pulpit.
While Abbott preached choice, he practiced his own breed of compulsion, refusing government funding to universities who would not push individual contracts at academics.
While he preached family values, he sat back as workers were screwed harder and harder, with less time for their families and communities thanks to the flexibility he championed.
And while he preached the 'rule of law' he contrived to turn workers into outlaws, forcing them into long and heated lock-outs by stripping the industrial umpire of the power to resolve disputes.
Abbott's period in industrial relations must ultimately be viewed as a failure because he has left a system that exists to manage labour relations fundamentally weaker.
The fact that the Mad Monk has been given a promotion to the health portfolio rather than a spell on the sidelines should not only send shivers through the spine of any sick person, it also says much about the mindset of the Prime Minister.
If Abbott takes his approach to the workplace into the health portfolio, one can only wonder at the conflict he will create - between rich and poor, public and private patients, and the sick and the healthy.
If ever there was a man to drive a wedge through the health system, here he is.
Peter Lewis
Editor
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