
Issue No 24		30 July 1999

Labour Review

What's New at the Information Centre

Read the latest issue of Labour Review, Labor Council's resource for unionists.

- Manufacturing: Why it Matters Accident Investigation

- Ill and Injured Employees Rights

- Always the Pay is No Good

- Reith's Rules: Send Women back to the 50s

- Competency Levels and Retirement

- Jobs Of Our Own

Manufacturing: Why it Matters

When Harley Davidson management announced plans in 1995 to relocate its engine assembly plant in Milwaukee to a so-called "right to work" state, unionists devised innovative ways to increase productivity and maintain family supportive jobs in the area. The union got the opportunity to bid for the work and came up with ways to do things differently. The company accepted the ideas and today the plant has increased productivity 20% and Harley Davidson have added a new production line, employing another 700 workers. By contrast, workers at the Huffy Bicycle plant in Ohio accepted a 33% pay cut, increased productivity to record levels for the company, only to find that the owners closed the plant anyway and moved production to Mexico and imported bikes from China.

James B. Parks outlines these stark realities for the future of manufacturing in the USA. Manufacturing has been a relatively highly paid sector, and this decade has shown great productivity improvements. However the Asian currency crisis lead to many corporations leaping at the chance to move abroad for the even lower level of wages forced onto workers in many Asian countries. Strategies must be developed to stop the race for the bottom (Robert Brenner in New Left Review no. 229 gives a brilliant analysis of the trends in manufacturing and the world economy since 1950 which Parks' article illustrates).

Accident Investigation

Ray Thomas presents the industry and union perspective on why accident rates remain high in Australian workplaces. Yossi Berger from the AWU and Gary Wall from the Australian Industry Group agree that "the reason deaths and injuries happen in workplaces is because we don't pay attention to the daily signals warning that the injury is about to happen". Training and a revolution in attitudes towards accidents and incidents are a large part of the answer.

(OHS: CCH's Australian Occupational Health and Safety magazine; July 1999)

Ill and Injured Employees Rights

Samantha Kennedy outlines how the industrial relations system deals with ill or injured employee. The article is written from the employers point of view and gives 10 tips for basic compliance with industrial law, outlines the provisions of the Workplace Relations Act which impact on this issue, in particular the harsh unjust and reasonable dismissal sections. Also she looks at temporary absence as defined under s30C of the WRA and at when the AIRC would order an employee back to work.

State legislation is considered. The NSW Industrial Relations Act 1996 provides employees with the statutory right to seek reinstatement within two years of a termination, irrespective of whether the termination was in breach of the unfair dismissal provisions.

Kennedy also examines how the WRA seeks to protect "disabled" workers, and how this relates to the Anti Discrimination Act and the Disability Discrimination Act

(Recruitment and Termination Update, 8 July 1999, newsletter 20a)

Always the Pay is No Good

Since the 1960s waves of migrant women - Italians, Greeks, Chinese, Vietnamese and Laotians - have been welcomed to Australia with an offer to work in the clothing and textiles industry. The homeworkers world is a hidden world of work, whose subversive influence is spreading in an age of deregulated and globalised industrial relations. Fair Wear - a network of churches, unions and community groups - is campaigning for a living wage for homeworkers.

(WorkSite; Winter 1999; http://labor.org.au/worksite/"

Reith's Rules: Send Women back to the 50s

Paid maternity leave was removed recently from Employment National's new "safety net" award and there was no compensation or trade offs. It suggests that Australia is regressing to a time when women were financially penalised for bearing children.. Marian Baird examines the award stripping process that is sending women back to the 1950s.

Competency Levels and Retirement

Loss of competence in organisations when retirements occur and the effect this has on competitiveness, productivity and effectiveness is being studied at the Division of Industrial Organisation, Lule� University of Technology, Sweden. The research has been initiated because a large percentage of employees in processing industries will be retiring in the next 10-15 years and there is concern about the knock on effect on company effectiveness. Models will be developed to suggest how the issue should be handled and to develop good replacement stategies.

(Swedish Council for Work Life Research Newsletter; 2/1999;

Jobs Of Our Own

Race Mathews continues his championing of the co-operative approach to decent work and a strong economy with this well researched and fascinating account of the notion of distributionism. This is the belief that a just social order can only be achieved through a much more widespread distribution of property. Mathews looks at the historical background to existing mutualistic communities, ranging through Christian Socialism, the Fabians, social Catholicism, credit unions, building societies and mutual assurance societies. A major focus is on the Mondragon Co-operative in Spain, begun in a very poor region after World War II, and on the Antigonish Movement in Nova Scotia. Mathews spent quite some effort during his time in the Cain Government in Victoria urging an examination of Mondragon's achievements on the ALP, to no avail. We can be glad of his persistence.

He is not uncritical but strives to at least present a new focus for social democrats and the ALP hierarchy, as the Third Way boosters generally ignore any real alternatives and accept the individualism espoused by their supposed opposite numbers. Mathews points out that the vestiges of this mutuality in the form of mutual groups (much as the AMP Society, NRMA) have been or are being sold without a peep from those who supposedly support a Third Way.

The rather muted endorsement from Kim Beazley on the back cover does not point to much enthusiasm from the ALP but Mathews has stated his case and that provides a strong basis for discussion if there are any progressive people and thinkers left in the ALP. A big step up in thoughtfulness and ideas from the scribbling of Latham and Tanner

(Race Mathews. Jobs Of Our Own: Building a Stakeholder Society: alternatives to the market and the state. Annandale, NSW and West Wickham, Kent: Pluto Press and Comerford and Miller, 1999)

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Issue 24 contents

Interview: The Man in the Hot Seat
WorkCover general manger John Grayson cut his teeth in the trade union movement. Now he�s trying to save the state�s workers compensation scheme.

Unions: Turning Up The Heat: Bush Fire Officers Seek Award Justice
"We want an award for the job that we do, not the job other people want us to do". Donald Bushby, and his fellow Fire Control Officers, know what they want. It's simple: an award for FCO's and deputy FCO's, an award that recognises who they are, the job they do, the pressures they have to live with.

International: The Virtual Labour Congress
International trade unions are launching an online debate on Labour in the 21th century.

Legal: The Source of the Issue
Recent legal developments place the spotlight on the outsourcing of government activities.

Review: The Split that Changed a Nation
A new book looks at the Cold War ALP split that redefined politics in this country.

Labour Review: What's New at the Information Centre
Read the latest issue of Labour Review, Labor Council's resource for unionists.

Satire: Man Takes Home Pay - More Pokies Needed
The NSW government has expressed concern following the release of a second report by the Productivity Commission which shows that a majority of employed people still spend their pay on luxury items such as food and clothing for their family.

» Sixty Cents A Week to Protect Entitlements

» Workers Comp � The Rorts Have to Stop

» Steggles Roasted Over Family-Busting Policies

» Youth Worker Death Prompts Safety Fears

» Rail Security Guards Miss Danger Spots

» New South Coast Labor Body Seeks Recognition

» Howard Ministers, Employment Advocate in the Dock

» Management Vandals Take to Sydney Water

» Boston Fiddles While Teachers Burn

» Lundy to Star in Workers Online Net Night

» STOP PRESS - Firefighters Seek End To Safety Apartheid