Issue No 21 | 09 July 1999 | |
NewsHoward 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.
The NSW Labor Council says it will convene an emergency meeting of its Executive to formulate a statewide campaign to draw attention to the federal government's failure to protect the fundamental rights of working people. And the Council will call on the ACTU to take any campaign onto a national footing to fight for workers like those who lost their jobs at Oakdale mine being owed $6.3 million in unpaid leave entitlements. Labor Council secretary Michael Costa says the action could include public demonstrations aimed at shaming the federal government, disrupting services to government ministers and industry-wide protest action. Already the transport and manufacturing unions have flagged they will stop work over the issue, with the Transport Workers Union delegates meeting this week to decide on its response to unpaid entitlements. The TWU has also launched a nationwide petition calling for immediate legislative reform, with state Secretary Tony Sheldon saying his union is not prepared to tolerate an Oakdale in their industry. Flashpoint The union's ultimatum comes as the issue of unpaid entitlements reaches flashpoint, with a string of business collapses leaving retrenched workers out of pocket. "Australia is the only country in the OECD which does not protect the entitlements of its workers. Even Britain retained protection at the depths of Thatcherism," Costa says And he says its a disgrace that a meeting of Federal Ministers to discuss the issue and been delayed to facilitate international travel by the Ministers. "The Prime Minister should immediately cancel these trips and direct his Ministers to return home to deal with this pressing national issue." Wage Earner Protection Fund Meanwhile, the CFMEU has backed a "wage earner protection fund" to deal with the issue, with employers' payrolls being levied a small percentage to protect all workers. CFMEU state secretary Andrew Ferguson says such a scheme was recommended as far back as 1988 by the Commonwealth Law Reform Commission's General Insolvency Inquiry. While the union has approached Peter Reith to look at the proposal through the Labour Ministers Council, Ferguson believes the Howard Government "will never deliver meaningful reform in this area". He's proposed the NSW Premier Bob Carr bypass Howard and enter into talks with the Queensland and Victorian governments to investigate a state based protection fund that doesn't put any one state at a competitive disadvantage for taking a moral lead on the issue.
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