Workers Online : Issue No. 21, 09 July 1999


Issue No 21		09 July 1999

Features
Interview: The Future Is Now
Steve Klaasen is just 22. He works for a union. He explains why he is not an endangered species.

Unions: Showdown at the Hyde Park Plaza
The ACTU's Organising guru looks at the lessons to be learned from the recent dispute.

History: A Rich Vein in the Rock
Every mine, like a human being, has its life. Mount Morgan and Queenstown between 1880 and 1930.

International: Jailed Unionist Freed
Global union voices delight at the release of Indonesian labour activist.

Review: Ten (More) Steps to Revolution
Cultural theoritician Snag Cleaver puts the schooner glass to the Eighties.

Labour Review: What's New at the Information Centre
Check out the latest issue of Labour Review, a resource for unions on industrial developments

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News

Organiser with Attitude - Steve Klaason

Aussies To Go For Gold in Foreign Uniforms?
Australian athletes may compete in the 2000 Olympics in uniforms made overseas in countries like Fiji and Philippines, according to rumours sweeping the clothing industry.
[ Full Story » ]

Howard Warned: Time Ticking On Entitlements
NSW trade unions have given the Howard Government two weeks to make meaningful progress towards protecting workers� entitlements or face statewide action.
[ Full Story » ]

Hotels Charge Triple Time - Now for the Workers
Big city hotels are planning to charge clients more than three times the normal room rate over the New Years Eve period, adding fuel to a union push to increase pay rates over the same period.
[ Full Story » ]

Air Attack - Qantas Telesales Under Fire
Qantas is moving on another area of unionised workforce planning to ditch its customer service staff for body hire before relocating them to Hobart.
[ Full Story » ]

The Hills Are Alive - With the Sound of Pay Cuts
Performers on the The Sound of Music are threatening to walk out of the upcoming musical after promoters presented a penny-pinching pay deal which would leave them without wages when the show takes to the road.
[ Full Story » ]

National Trust Places Green(back) Bans on Unions
The National Trust has repaid decades of trade union support for heritage causes by threatening to introduce Peter Reith�s non-union individual contracts for its workforce.
[ Full Story » ]

Body Hire Campaign Hots Up
The CFMEU Construction Division has commenced a national campaign against the misuse of body hire labour targeting major contractors who have been the worst offenders on this issue.
[ Full Story » ]

Attack of the Killer Skips Rocks City
Giant disposal bins have emerged as the latest safety threat to Sydneysiders as pre-Olympic construction reaches its peak.
[ Full Story » ]

A Holiday With a Social Consience
The trade union aid agency, APHEDA, is offering unionists the chance to go on international study tours to Vietnam, the Middle East and the Thai-Burma Border in 2000
[ Full Story » ]

East Timor: Emergency Public Meeting Called
Supporters of a free East Timor have called an emergency public meeting in Sydney on Friday, July 16.
[ Full Story » ]

Conference to Heal Rifts in the Labour Movement

Fabians Scour Poll Ashes

Holiday Confusion

The Key to the Door

Do you remember turning 21? The big party, the speeches from family and friends about how you'd grown from that awkward dweeb into a reasonable human being, you're own drunken ramblings in reply.

Workers Online achieves the milestone this week, so I hope it's, not too indulgent to look back at what we've achieved in the past five months.

When we started we had a few objectives: to give the union movement its own voice in the media, to encourage the growth of the Web as a way of coordinating union activities and to develop an attractive vehicle for the younger workers who the union movement needs to win over if it is to survive.

So how have we gone? We've definitely established a media presence: from Pierswatch to Carr-watch we've been generating issues that the mainstream media has picked up; running the union line and promoting our publication.

That a backroom, one-person operation can make these sort of waves says a lot about the changing nature of the media - from the power of one authoritative voice to a medium that facilitates the views of the many.

In terms of helping unions work together more, I think Workers Online is becoming a useful meeting place. Take the New Years Eve campaign - each union can track what others are achieving. They no longer need to operate in a vacuum.

As for the younger generation, it's been really exciting to get feedback from students and young workers who see the union movement is reinventing itself and want to be part of it. The workforce is changing and Workers Online is determined to be part of it.

To help us grow, keep telling like-minded unionists about us and encouraging them to subscribe. The more readers we get the better our chances of surviving for the long haul. After all, in the information age the network is everything..

Finally, a big thanks to all those who have put their time and energy into the first 21 issues, without you Workers Online would have fallen over in its mid-teens. With your help, we will now push on into adulthood, a bit more mature but still prepared to rattle the cage!

Peter Lewis
Editor