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Kill the Lawyers
What’s left of the HR Nichols Society must be popping the champagne this week, with a NSW court ruling that sees the triumph of their 20-year battle to kill industrial relations and replace it with a ‘rule of law’.
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.
 Vandals Hit Sweat Shoppers
Blow For Union Busters
Poll Rocks Election Boat
It’s Official: Eggs Come Second
Tetra Packs Private Dick
Workers Demand Act of Contrition
Wollongong’s $4000 Hamberger
Company Pays for Casual Affair
Shame Ships Hide Sausage
First Test for Death Law
Convenience Store Detains Student
Bashed Youth Workers Walk
Un-Fairfax Leads Paper Chase
Nile On The Death Law
ACCC Lays Down Council Code
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.,
End Poverty
The Agony Of The Refugee
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News
First Test for Death Law
The tragic death of an ETU member will test Australia’s first industrial manslaughter laws.
Dimitrios 'Jimmy' Theodorelos, a 60-year-old electrical assistant, suffered massive head injuries after falling from a shipping container at Canberra Airport.
Federal Police and WorkCover are investigating the death of the popular worker, the first workplace fatality since the introduction of industrial manslaughter law in the ACT.
That legislation allows courts to gaol employers if they are responsible for negligent practices which kill workers.
Previously courts could only fine employers.
The ACT is the first state or territory to legislate for industrial manslaughter.
The close-knit Canberra building community was saddened to lose Theodorelos, a veteran of the Snowy Mountains Scheme, and has banded together to help his family.
"The community spirit shown by contractors in conjunction with the Electrical Trades Union has been fantastic," says Matt McCann, local ETU organiser.
McCann said "tens of thousands" had been raised for Mr Theodorelos' family through the building community.
In the harsh Canberra winters, workmates remembered, Theodorelos would come onto site at five AM to start heaters and get a fire burning in a 44 gallon drum, ready for his workmates.
Theodorelos had planned to semi-retire to his son's new fish and chip shop when the airport job finished.
Following his death, the ETU banned the storage of material and equipment on top of containers or sheds.
The collapse of a hangar on the same site last year led to six individuals and four firms facing fines of several hundred thousand dollars, under pre-industrial manslaughter laws.
Most workers were at lunch when the hangar collapsed.
ACT WorkCover issued three prohibition notices for serious safety breaches at the site and seven improvement notices.
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Issue 230 contents
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