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Thai-ed in Knots
With all the hype, hiccups, fear and loathing around the Australia/US Free Trade agreement, another agreement all but slipped under the radar this week - a preferential trade deal between Australia and Thailand.
Interview: Power and the Passion
ALP's star recruit Peter Garrett shares his views on unions, forests and being the Member for Wedding Cake Island
Unions: Tackling the Heavy Hitters
Tony Butterfield became a State of Origin gladiator at the unlikely age of 33. Even that, Jim Marr reports, couldn’t prepare him for the knock-down, drag-em-out world of modern IR.
Industrial: Seeing the Forest For The Wood
Proposals to flog off NSW’s forests have raised eyebrows and temperatures amongst some of the key players reports Phil Doyle.
Housing: Home Truths
CFMEU national secretary John Sutton argues for a radical solution to the housing affordability crisis.
International: Boycott Busters
International unions have issued a new list of corporations breaching ILO sanctions to do business in Burma.
Economics: Ideology and Free Trade
The absurdities of neoclassical economic assumptions has never stood in the way of their being trotted out to justify profiteering and attacks on the rights of citizens. The AUSFTA is the latest rort we are supposed to swallow, writes Neale Towart.
History: Long Shadow of a Forgotten Man
Interest in JC Watson's short time as Labor's first Prime Minister should not detract from his more substantial role as Party leader, writes Mark Hearn
Review: Chewing the Fat
As debate rages in Australia about Fast Food advertising, Julianne Taverner takes a look at a side of the industry that Ronald McDonald won’t tell you about in Supersize Me.
Poetry: Dear John
Workers Online reader Rob Mullen shares some personal correspondence with our glorious leader.
 Adecco in the Dock
Chubb Faces Bullying Rap
Print Company Burns Staff
Carr "Prefers" Americans
Drug Cheats’ Eye off Olympics
Unions Crack Skull
Howard Backs $7.30 Report
MCG Vet Kicks Casual Goal
Parking tickets Gonged
Safety Meets Low Expectations
Koori Building for Future
"Super Sopper" Soaks Up Funds
Kelly’s Figures go West
Activists What’s On!
Politics
The Westie Wing
As the NSW Labor Government sells its first budget deficit in nine years, the real concern for the union movement is the devil in the detail, especially when it comes to procurement agreements, writes Ian West. The Soapbox
Rubber Bullets
Labor's IR spokesman Craig Emerson launches a few characteristic salvos across the Parliamentary chamber The Locker Room
Tears After Bedtime
Phil Doyle says that it's all fun and games until someone loses an eye Postcard
Postcard from Vietnam
APHEDA's Hoang Thi Le Hang reports from the north of Vietnam on a project being fund by Australian unionists.,
History Left In The Back Of The Cab
Libs have Got To Go
A Boring Bastard
A Home Of Their Own
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IT Workers Alliance
Bosswatch
Unions on LaborNET
Evatt Foundation
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News
Drug Cheats’ Eye off Olympics
It’s not just Olympic athletes pressured into taking drugs to enhance their performances, according to a Thai clothing worker.
Seamstress, Noi Pongkhwa, says workers in Asian sweatshops making the Nike and Reebok clothes athletes will wear in Athens also get on the gear – just to finish 20 hour working days.
Factory hands and seamstresses at the Bed and Bath clothing factory in Thailand had became addicted to anphetamine laced fizzy drinks their boss used to dole out, Pongkhwa said.
The former Bed and Bath worker flew to Sydney last week to meet with the Australian Olympic Committee in a bid to ensure Australian athletes don't compete in sweatshop gear.
But the AOC has refused to meet Pongkhwa, who says she worked 18 hour days for US$1.65, during her seamstress days.
In a bid to get the message through, she and supporters protested outside AOC offices in St Leonards.
Pongkhwa said during her time at the Bed and Bath factory she worked on Nike, Levi, Umbro, Adidas and Fila branded garments that were headed for export to western countries.
National Olympic committees award licences to use their logo to sportswear companies whose practices violate basic labour standards, says
Margaret Di Nicola from Oxfam's 'Play Fair At The Olympics' campaign.
"If labour exploitation were an Olympic sport, the sportswear giants would be well represented among the medal winners," says Di Nicola.
Pongkhwa and fellow workers have set up a co-operative in Thailand producing garments under the Dignity Returns label.
For more information on the Oxfam campaign go to http://www.oxfam.org.au/campaigns/mtf/labour/
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Issue 228 contents
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