A preliminary feasibility study by consultants Benfield Greig reckons that Australia could establish a national insurance scheme covering all entitlements for a minimal cost to employers.
The report, presented to a meeting of state and federal Labor industrial relations ministers in Sydney in this week, as between 0.47 per cent and 1.2 per cent of annual national wages.
This would insure all Australia's workers entitlements including annual leave, long service leave, pay in lieu of notice, unpaid wages and redundancy payments in the event of an insolvency. The consultants recommend any such scheme should be compulsory.
The ministers and shadows issued a joint statement calling on the Howard Government to move on the issue immediately.
"The impost of a national wage scheme on business is minor, however the impact of insolvency on workers is disastrous," they said.
The Minister also called on the Howard Government to bring on for debate two Private Member Bills protecting workers entitlements that are currently lying dormant.
One of these would make it illegal to set up artificial structures to avoid paying entitlements and allow workers to recoup funds from related companies. The other involves a national insurance scheme.
by HT Lee
Workers in the CBD, North Sydney and surrounding areas stopped work to hold a rally at Sydney Town Hall Square before marching to Parliament House.
With banners, flags and chanting 'Hands off workers comp' the workers brought city traffic to a stand still. The protest one of the biggest seen in Sydney in recent times stretched from Parliament House to Town Hall.
The workers compensation crisis is a direct result of bosses rorting the system and not paying their proper workers compensation premiums--there is over 40% non-compliance in the industry.
Employers, bureaucrats and politicians response to the crisis is to further cut back workers comp benefits.
The Construction Forestry Mining & Energy Union (CFMEU), the Australian Workers Union (AMWU), the Electrical Trade Union (ETU), the Plumbers (CEPU Plumbing Division) and the Australian Manufacturing Workers Union (AMWU) reply is clear: 'We will not cop any reduction in workers' benefits.'
The NSW Labor Government was also sent a blunt message: 'Fix up the crisis. Make employers comply with no cut back to benefits.'
Addressing the rally outside Parliament House, NSW Labor Council Secretary Michael Costa said: 'Workers comp is got to be put back on track. It's got to be put back into a form which does what it was originally set up for. And that is to protect workers rights, to protect workers interests and to ensure they get fair compensation if they are injured.'
The CFMEU has proposed a solution to solve the crisis--a separate building industry scheme where developers pay 30% of the workers comp levy up front and the remaining 70% is paid monthly by employers.
'We want the rich, powerful and developers to pay 30% of all compo costs in our industry,' CFMEU Secretary Andrew Ferguson told the rally.
'They won't get a permit to build until they pay the levy. If they don't pay they don't build,' Ferguson said.
According to Ferguson there are widespread rorting of the present honour system.
'Our solution is simple, the bosses pay workers comp every month. If they doesn't pay they doesn't work,' Ferguson said.
The NSW Labor Council has also endorsed the separate building industry workers comp scheme Costa said.
'We have to form our own structure and look at a system that takes responsibility for compliance.
'And I guarantee if the unions take responsibility for compliance we will get compliance,' Costa told the rally.
The Master Builders Association (MBA) and legitimate employers have also backed the unions' proposals.
A spokesperson from Industrial Relations Minister, Jeff Shaw said, 'the government will consider the unions' proposals in due course.'
A letter was read out at last night's Labor Council meeting. Shaw's letter claims the WorkCover new restructure will ensure compliance: 'The General Manager of the WorkCover Authority, Mr John Grayson, advises me that WorkCover has commenced a program of compliance improvement within its Insurance Division. Compliance with workers compensation insurance and injury management obligations are an essential part of a well managed scheme and its compliance program will assist in ensuring that full premiums are paid by employers.'
Since 1995 the unions have brought to the government's attention the problems of compliance. But the only way compliance will work is by setting up a separate building industry scheme as proposed by the CFMEU.
If the unions' proposals are not taken seriously there could be more stop work protest.
It's now up to the Carr Labor Government--the ball is in their court.
NSW unions are considering a statewide campaign against the chook giant after it changed starting times for its telemarketers from 7.30 to 6.30am.
In an effort to meet the new starting times, Kym Wood tried numerous childcare centres near her home, but none opened before 7.00am.
When fellow workers agreed to cover her first hour, management refused to allow her to work an hour longer in the afternoon and began docking her pay.
Now they've issued her a stark edict - turn up at 6.30am from this Monday or face the company's disciplinary policy which may lead to the termination of employment.
Backed by her union, the clerical and administrative branch of the Australian Services Union, Kym's gone public on the issue. Addressing this week's Labor Council, she said the company and refused to show any flexibility in imposing the new working hours, which it says have been imposed to better meet customer demands.
NSW Labor Council secretary Michael Costa says it's a "dispicable act" - especially as there would be no financial loss to the company acceding to Kym's request.
Costa has agreed to take the matter up with the Steggles' parent company Goodman Fielder CEO David Hearn, as well as the NSW Employers Federation. The ASU has also approached the NSW Industrial Relations Commission to intervene.
TAFE assistant teacher Scott Bremner, 33, was stabbed last week during a cooking class at the Yasmar Detention Centre at Haberfield.
Workers at centres around the state this week refused to accept transfers of new inmates in an effort to push the government into accepting the need to revisit funding cuts announced in the recent state budget.
Six million dollars was cut from the department of Juvenile Justice in this year's budget - with funding pruned from training, capital works and recurrent spending. While there were no explicit staff cuts, the Public Service Association believes funding is so tight, that this will inevitably flow.
At press time PSA president Maurie O'Sullivan was locked in talks with Juvenile Justice Director General Ken Buttram after a late night sitting of the NSW Industrial Relations Commission before president Lance Wright secured a lifting of the work bans.
O'Sullivan says the death has fed into concerns that have been rising for some time. "There is genuine fear and distrust from our people within juvenile justice," he says.
"The ball's in their court, we have done everything to exercise our duty of care - if they can't improve then situation you can ask people to put their lives at risk.
"I don't want to hear about budget problems, lives are at stake. Every government department is paying the price for Olympics being at Homebush, but they shouldn't be paying with workers' lives".
Cuts Mean Russian Roulette for Gamblers
Meanwhile, PSA members of the Department of Gaming and Racing have placed ban on work within the Star City Casino and Clubs and Hotels around the state.
With an explosion in gambling, the Carr Government has slashed spending to the Department that polices the industry by 15.9 per cent, with 173 jobs from the Department's compliance area earmarked to go.
While the notion of cutting scrutiny of gambling, a major source of state revenue, may appeal to the bean-counters, the PSA believes it is essential to maintain proper controls to regulate the industry.
The bans, which the PSA says are necessary given the decreasing capacity to match a rising workload include: no probity checks on new Star City staff, no processing of applications for liquor licences and no work on the Sydney 2000 Olympics special projects designed to minimise social disorder at Olympic venues and events.
The guards, who only have jurisdiction to patrol the trains, are being introduced at a cost of $36 million while the Government slashes 432 station staff positions.
This is despite the release this week of a report by the Independent Pricing Regulatory Tribunal (IPART) showing huge differences in assault and robbery rates in 1998.
On trains there were 148 assaults, 154 robberies and one sexual assault, compared to station crime of 1017 assaults, 418 robberies and nine sexual assaults.
And with fare evasion estimated to cost the government more than $100 million, they also lack power to check passengers are carrying tickets.
Rail Bus and Tram Union state secretary Nick Lewocki says the decision to transfer security from stations are trains is a waste of public money.
"A state Labor Government should provide a properly staffed rail system that maximises the number of employees on railway stations to provide both security and revenue protection," Lewocki says.
The union is fuming that Transport Minister Carl Scully last week decided to announce an extension of private security guards, midway through a consultation period with the unions about better utilising station staff.
"You have to ask the question where this government is coming from," Lewocki says.
The Illawarra (and South Coast) Council of Trade Unions comprises 13 unions that have disaffiliated from the SCLC since disputed elections in March.
Those unions are: AWU, CPSU, PSA, CFMEU (Construction), AMWU, NTEU, ISU, ETU, APESMA, Plumbers and Gasfitters, NSW Nurses and the TWU.
They have elected Naomi Arrowsmith (AWU) president, Terry Picket (NTEU) vice president and Arthur Rorris (CPSU) secretary.
Recognising this is a difficult issue for the peak union bodies, the NSW Labor Council this week noted the request for affiliation and resolved to attempt to bring about a reunification of the South Coast labour movement.
Union stalwarts Tas Bull and Tom McDonald, who have already tried to conciliate the matter will meet with Labor Council secretary Michael Costa and president John Whelan and report back within four weeks.
The country's largest construction union, the CFMEU, has launched the major legal challenge to the Federal Government's industrial relations agenda for the construction industry.
The CFMEU has named two Federal Ministers, Mr. Reith and Mr. Fahey, as well as the Employment Advocate Mr. Hamberger, as respondents to Federal Court proceedings claiming breaches of the Workplace Relations Act and the Trade Practices Act.
The CFMEU alleges that the Government's Code of Practice for the Construction Industry amounts to unlawful interference in the process of reaching and maintaining agreements with employers.
Since the Code came into effect, the Government has made it a condition for working on federally funded projects that all aspects of the Code, including it's prescriptive, anti-union industrial relations measures, be complied with.
The union also alleges that the Employment Advocate's role of enforcing the Code is beyond it's statutory power.
John Sutton, National Secretary of the CFMEU's powerful Construction Division says contractors that are employing our members are being told they must tow the Government's line on industrial relations or miss out on government work.
"We have thousands of perfectly legal collective bargaining agreements which have been certified by the Commission," Sutton says.
"If they happen to have clauses the Government doesn't like, the company party to the agreement can be banned from government contracts. Our members miss out on work as a result."
Sutton says workers are sick to death of hearing the tired old libertarian rhetoric about the evils of so-called "third party interference" coming from precisely the same people who are using the Government's commercial clout to tell the industry what is and isn't acceptable in agreement making.
"Mr Reith's attempts to provoke employers in the industry has failed," he says. "Now we see the use of the government's purchasing power as a lever. "This is public money the government is spending. It's not a slush fund for union busters.
The union claims that the Commonwealth has breached of the Workplace Relations Act and that the Code amounts to a secondary boycott, misuse of market power and unconscionable conduct. It seeks injunctions restraining the Commonwealth, the two Ministers and the Employment Advocate together with damages and penalties.
"We are confident we can put some rotten legislation to good use," Sutton says.
In an organisation unhappy after years of wilful downsizing and mismanagement many are likely to jump at an offer which actually pays them to escape.
This will leave the organisation - already at the bone after years of staff cutting - as a virtual shell.
Sydney Water announced it's own self-destruction with impeccable timing - on the first anniversary of the outbreak of last year's water contamination scare.
Alison Peters, Secretary of the ASU, which covers Sydney Water, says the announcement is evidence of a clueless management obsessed with a phoney bottom line at the expense of its wider obligations.
'It's clear from Sydney Water's memos that they're not interested in the real needs of the business or in who stays,' she said.
'It's a knee jerk reaction we've come to expect from management who have no real interest in staff or an essential public service.'
Labor Government sits on its hands
The ASU is disappointed with the inaction of the state government which could intervene, not only to save jobs but to prevent the further deterioration of an essential service already on the brink.
'The Government has the ability to overrule this decision - especially now Sydney Water has reverted back to being a statutory authority. But they are sitting on their hands,' said Alison Peters.
The ASU say they will now campaign to ensure the remaining workers will have sufficient resources to do their job without the threat of contracting out.
NSW Teachers Federation president Sue Simpson says staff at Westport Technology High School in Port Macquarie have been forced to hold two stopwork meetings because of the Department's failure to meet its obligations under the Occupational Health and Safety Act and provide a safe working environment for staff and students at the school.
"While the Director General is busy attacking a prominent supporter of public education, Ms Bev Baker, President of the P&C Federation his department and officers are refusing to assist teachers who are being assaulted in schools," Simpson says.
Teachers and students at the school have suffered a series of violent incidents over the past three years which have resulted in a number of staff members seeking medical attention.
One staff member is currently in the process of a medical retirement because of post-traumatic stress as a result of assaults and another is on extended sick leave.
The District Superintendent has declined a request to meet with the staff to discuss these issues and in a memo to Principals 96/132 the Director General Ken Boston said:
"The Department as employer and the Police Service as the Law Enforcement Agency will provide legal support and representation to take out apprehended violence orders against any individuals, including students, who threaten our staff or students in the work place".
But Simpson says a teacher who sought advice from the Department about an AVO against a student was given no support.
The Federation has notified the Industrial Relations Commission of a dispute which was being heard at press time.
The chat, on "Politics in a Wired World" will take place between 7pm and 8pm in the Yap chat room at http://www.yap.com.au
While you chat you can listen to a live stream of the new independent music station FBI which is streaming through YAP.
Lee Down Under
Meanwhile, international trade union Internet guru Eric Lee will visit Australia in early September sponsored by Adult Learning Australia.
The trip will include a public forum, co-hosted by Workers Online, to be held in Trades Hall on Wednesday September 8.
Eric will chart the rise of the Internet, outline how some trade unions and other community groups have harnessed it and set out some signposts for the future.
This will be an interactive forum, with the audience encouraged to participate in the discussions.
Stick that one in your diary/palm pilot and watch Workers Online for further details..
The action by firefighters, the first in more than a decade, follows the Carr Government refusal to close an anomaly which sees those employed since 1985 on vastly inferior benefits enjoyed by those who were employed before that date.
The Fire Brigade Employees Union says members in the former category will not answer any calls that place them at risk until the differences are addressed and all fire fighters receive decent death and disability protection. So while they will continue to turn up for work, they will refuse to respond to emergency calls.
The NSW Fire Brigade has been opposing the action in the NSW Industrial Relations Commission, where Commissioner Ian Cambridge has branded the actions as "plainly unreasonable, unnecessarily pedantic and against the interests of industrial harmony,".
The IRC went on to observe that the Government's stance in this dispute "represents a significant and disturbing departure from responsible and appropriate conduct on the part of a major employer in this State".
(A full copy of the Commission's Statement can be found at - http://fbeu.labor.net.au)
In media interviews the Fire Brigade Commissioner Ian MacDougall has been quick to put his boot into his firefighters by warning the public that the workers were seeking "lifetime pensions" for "fishing trips" and "water skiing accidents".
But the FBEU and their members maintain they have the high moral ground in a dispute that has its genesis in the years of the Wran Government which slashed benefits for new workers under the State Superannuation Fund (SSF).
FBEU state secretary Chris Read says the union remains shocked and amazed by the Carr Government's continued refusal to restore equitable entitlements for firefighters who are killed or injured.
"Our claim is a simple one of equity," Read says. "The only way our members will ever access these benefits is through death or permanent injury, so we'll hardly be queuing up to claim them. Perhaps if we were asking for the same outrageous benefits that politicians themselves receive it would be different, but we're not."
Kapital K
Dear Komrade,
Mr Kleaver is being uneccesarily obskure in his khoice of union, or union bustin' fliks by not choosing titles with the word 'union' in them. What about 'Union Sity Blues', 'Part of the Union' and simply 'Union'? In one of the strangest koincidenses around, 'Salt of the Earth' was on the telly last Saturday, at the same time as 'Kommonwealth Bank Kup', 'Total Sport', 'Volleyball' and 'The Netball Show'. I wonder if anyone saw it?
Yrs,
Jusso
p.s has there ever been any amount of selluloid given over to movies about student unions? I'm thinking of something along the lines of a real time dokumentary on the 1992 Sydney Uni Union Band Kompetition. That would be worth watshing...again!
Chicks Wear Blue Too!
Come on Snag - Women look good in blue singlets too... Since I don't get to go to Swans games, how about:
NORMA RAE - Sally Field's fiesty blue collar union organiser still brings a lump to the throat just thinking about how she beat apathy and fear (on the part of the workers) and hostility and harrassment from management to declare her factory a unionised one. Martin Ritt directed.
SILKWOOD - OK it's Meryl, but it is a great story, well told. Based on the story of Karen Silkwood, American nuclear reactor process worker, who took her safety concerns so far she "died in a mysterious accident" ie was run off the road, conspiracy theories abounding. I have a feeling Nora Ephron was involved in the script. Directed by Mike Nichols.
LA SALMANDRE - A more obscure film (1971?) by Swiss director Alain Tanner, starring French actress Bulle Ogier as a young woman being investigated by two journalists after she shot her uncle and guardian. As they get to know her, the journalists apply some Marxist theory to her life as a tool of capitalism - some amusing moments as she processes sausages in a factory and complies with the seductive sycophancy expected of her when selling shoes. Tanner never lets theory get in the way of the workers' reality. An extension of Bulle's character appears in another of his films, Jonah who will be 25 in the year 2000: a supermarket check out operator played by Miou Miou, also French.
Obviously I enjoy Workers' Online! Keep up the great work,
Elizabeth
Labourstart Lists 'Em
Have a look at the list at http://www.labourstart.org/videos.shtml
Linda Gale
Amnesty International Australia, will be presenting the first seminar in the series: Human Rights in a Changing World: Rights, Rhetoric and Reality titled East Timor: Truth, Justice and Redress
Featuring: Sister Susan Conelly (Mary MacKillop Institute for East Timorese Studies, Jon Land (ASIET National Steering Commitee) and Stanislav De Silva (Australian Fretlin Representative)
To be held at 6.30pm on Wednesday 4th August at, The Grand Ballroom, Queen Victoria Building(Level 4, northern end-cnr Market and George Streets)
Light Refreshments will be served, ALL WELCOME.
For inquiries please contact the NSW Branch of Amnesty International
Ph. 9217 7670
mailto:[email protected]
Dear Sir/Madam,
Just a quick note to let you know and more importantly any of your readers who work in the cash in transit industry. I currently work for Armaguard in Brisbane and we were on strike last week and again this week over the issue of a pay rise and the company's plans to reduce our crews from three to two.
We have been negotiating with the company via Hughie Williams and the TWU for some time now and seem to be getting nowhere. just wondering if any of my interstate collegues feel the same way about two man crews, and that is that they are far to dangerous, and that someones life isn't worth a ten percent pay increase.
We have not had a pay rise for almost three years and all the company wants to do is take away all of our award conditions and bring in two man crews. I along with a few other members of my yard marched with the TWU during the MUA dispute earlier in the year as a show of support, and after seeing all the blokes there, the feeling of "never give up" has stayed with me and inspired me to feel you can achieve something if you are willing to fight for it.
Just in a final note i have put a alias in the your name box for fear of recrimination from the company should they read this, however the email is mine.
Thankyou for your time
regards.......
To Whom it may concern
The Victorian Northern District Committee of the Australian Manufacturing Workers Union as part of it's 1999 campaign is sponsoring a public meeting to be held on the 17th August . On the issue of the Industrial Relation Laws and the Rights of Workers.
Full details at: http://www.vmore.org.au/~vicnorth/publicmeeting.html
If you have any quires E-mail us on : [email protected]
yours In Unity
Glenn Thompson
Secretary Northern District Committee
Sir or Madam,
In responce to your article HANDS OFF WORKERS COMPENSATION By H.T. LEE CFMEU CONSTRUCTION.
I found the article to be very informative,and gave an insight in to the Workers Compensation Arena that as a Private Investigator I have never given any thought to.
As an X Private Investigator primaraly involved in the investigation of Workers Compensation claims, I would like to give the following advice and information, to any worker who may find them selves in the unfortunate position of making a claim against an employer (Insurence Company) for a work related injury.
Any worker who finds themselves in the position of making a claim against there employer due to a work related accident and consequent injury,BE WARNED you will be watched.Of course if you die on the job,it will be up to your widow if applicable to prove you were not at fault,or for example if it is your legs or arms you lose or an eye, this will be down to you.
Nearly every insurence claim that is made due to an injured worker,is processed on the premis that 1.you were at fault,2.your injuries are over stated and not consistent with the claim.
The moment your claim hits the desk of an insurence company office,they will be out to negate your claim to the lowest cost possible.When you think about it this makes commom sence, insurence company's are about profits like any other business concern.
As stated before unless you are dieing or indeed seriously injured it will be down to you to prove your injury is consistent with your claim.
Before I give any one the following advise be warned,if you are not genuine in your claim I hope you get caught and suffer to the full extent of the law.
If you are injured at work take note of the following.
- Do not tell your G.P. you can't do some thing when it can be proved at a later date you can.
-.Don,t tell your neighbors about your claim,the best information about your claim can be extracted from your neighbors.If you decide to mow the lawn it will be your neighbor that informs the insurence company.
-.Do not beleive the myth that privacy laws are impregnable,employees of government departments and private company's are all to willing to supply information for a price.To give you a quik example,the Police in any State only have basic information about you,and this is mainly out of date.
- Some of the best information obtained in a Workers Compensation claim comes from Re-Habilitation providers,only tell them what you believe to be relevant to your claim.
- If your Union becomes involved in your claim,again only tell them information relevant to your claim.
- Do not speak to private investigators with out the exspress knowledge of your legal representation.
- If you decide to go over seas whilst on Workers Compensation be vigilent, Private Investigators have contacts overseas.And if you think you are safe think again.
The above is only a short review of the problems associated with Workers Compensation claims,any other questions you may have or problems you may encounter can be answered via Labor Council of N.S.W.
by Peter Lewis
WorkCover's been in a mess for some time now, what's the fundamental problem?
The fundamental problem I think - and there's little doubt about this -- is that workers on weekly payments are staying off work longer, in fact twice as long now as they were five years ago. If you had to describe one single cost driver as the most important, that's it. That's the simple answer. The reasons for it are much more obscure. The doctors tell us that they're just as good as treating people as they used to be. We know that the type and severity of the injuries are no different than five years ago. But for some reason which is very difficult to discern, workers are staying off work longer.
This problem came to public notice soon after Carr took power in 1995, can you talk us through what has been done to address that issue since then?
There have been three packages of scheme reform since the Carr Government came to office. The first package was more to do with attacking those perceived excesses and anomalies in the benefit structure. For example, it became known that workers who had received injuries under the old 1986 Act and, as a result of those injuries suffered permanent disability of one form or another, those workers would be compensated twice, double-dipping in the 1987 Act. It was a difficult time for a new government and a new Minister to come to terms with a problem, the dimensions of which had been cleverly masked by the previous Fahey Government. We introduced the somewhat controversial deductible proportions legislation which meant you couldn't recover compensation twice for the same portion of loss.
Moving forward then, there was an attempt to limit the level of litigation in the system. The NSW system is the last of its kind in that it's a court-based dispute resolution system. So there was an attempt to simplify that and de-legalise it by the creation of a conciliation system. Sir Laurence Street was retained to report on and make recommendations about this system and as a result we now have a very effective conciliation system, standing independent of both the court system and the WorkCover Authority in the Department of Industrial Relations. That scheme is now fully operational, having come through a successful pilot scheme where it was subject to scrutiny by actuaries and the scheme's architects.
At this point, the union movement also took the difficult decision of agreeing to a 25 per cent reduction in the level of lump sum benefits. To the movement's credit, it recognised the need for some form of cost containment - I might say that 25 per cent reduction restored the status quo after the most ill-conceived and one might say philanthropic gesture by the Fahey Government who increased benefits by 25 per cent at a time when scheme costs were rising and at a time when they were charging artificially suppressed premiums. As Barrie Unsworth has observed on more than one occasion, the Fahey Government squandered the inheritance of the Unsworth Government's 1987 Scheme. The 1987 was set to be a good scheme which paid its way. as we know, and it's history now, all the reserves that were built up were expended in political gestures of keeping premiums artificially low,. That's a problem which we have been grappling with ever since.
Looking back on the 1987 scheme, in the early days the premiums were well above three per cent. Today that would be regarded as politically unacceptable. What has changed in the last decade to change the ground-rules of workers compensation?
Probably the performance of schemes in other states and territories, most notably our nearest competitor Victoria. By and large those schemes are operating at a lower level than NSW . There's also been an element of acceptance of lower premiums created by those years when premiums were kept at an artificially low level by the Fahey Government. We're talking in those terms of a drop from a range of 3.2 down to 1.8 per cent for four consecutive years. Industry geared itself around those low on-costs. When the Carr Government came to power and was confronted with this increasingly underfunded scheme, the difficulty in raising premiums to the current level of 2.8 percent was largely linked to that. It was, in the eyes of the employer community, an increase which they didn't welcome. There really wasn't any judgment about the equity and affordibility argument the question of whether a community should, as others do in America for example, accept that 3.2 to 3.4 per cent is a reasonable cost to pay for adequate benefits for injured workers. In a nutshell, there' s no rocket science in it, that's what the difficulty has been, People are used to paying an artificially low rate and when a government says they're going to be charged more, there is a natural reticence.
The indicators that guide government in these decisions are devised by actuaries. They take a lot of economic data and make predictions about what will happen in the future. Two questions: one, is the best way to set percentage premiums? and two, where are the social aspects like the quality of care for injured workers built into that equation?
If you start with the proposition that a so-called fully funded scheme is a conventionally wise thing to do, then the actuaries are the only one's who can create a fully funded scheme,.. To have a fully funded scheme you need to be able to project what future liability will be. If you don't gather sufficient premiums from present employers, you tend to leave the debt to the future. That is called a pay as you go scheme and that is not conventionally acceptable. Coming at it in a clinical way as opposed to a philosophical way, I fully believe the fully funded scheme is a sound concept. You can't have a fully funded scheme without actuarial estimates of liabilities and assets built into the premium rating. You can't gather in any scientifically precise way, premiums from today's employers for the claims they incur by way of injuries to their workers. Your other alternative is to have a pay as you go system and just levy sufficient premiums for the claims of the day. Equitably that is flawed,.
The government recently made a decision to defer the private underwriting of the scheme. What was the rationale behind that?
The Advisory Council - and perhaps we should talk about that for a moment - one of the major achievement s for recent times has been the creation of this employer-union body made up of so-called stakeholders. The Advisory Council has been charged with the responsibility of recommending scheme reforms -- if you like, to design the product that the insurance industry in a privately underwritten environment would price. It became apparent in April this year that there were grave reservations in then minds of the Advisory Council about the readiness of the insurance industry to move to a privately underwritten environment doing all of those things in terms of injury management protocols and so on that they were required to do under the 1998 legislation.
It further became apparent that the price the insurance industry was going to charge was excessive. I don't make that judgement personally, but that was the opinion of the Advisory Council. In the middle of April the Advisory Council recommended to government that private underwriting be deferred until there could be more certainty of outcome in terms of pricing and until there could be more demonstrable evidence on the part of the insurance industry's readiness to take on the private underwriting model.
What is the dimension of the problem in terms of the deficit and how much will that grow over another 12 months?
We've got a deferral which is not more than 12 months. The Government has made its position extremely clear that the full 12 months is off the radar screen. Private underwriting will start before then. As to the dimension of the problem, we're talking about a scheme deficit in the order of $2 billion and a scheme underlying cost in the range of 3.1 per cent and we're talking about a scheme cost of around 2.8 per cent. So we're probably underfunded to the tune of $200 million per year. That's a lot of money when you say it quickly. I suppose the only good thing about it is that it's growing at a far slower rate than it would have had it not been for the three reform packages that the Carr Government brought in. But no prizes for guessing we have a bit further to go in terms of reducing that underlying scheme cost.
Finally, as a former union official and lifelong Labor man, what priorities would you be taking if you were representing the workers in this next round of negotiations? What would you say should be the guiding principles for unions during this process?
Unions have to do what unions are there to do and that is to defend to the end the rights of injured workers. There's a fundamental difference, and from my many years in the union movement it's not always easy to recognise, but it's a difference that I've come to understand between the needs and the wants of workers. If we could get to the stage where the scheme delivered benefits to those who were in need and didn't waste those valuable benefits on those who weren't necessarily in need, then that would be the optimal position. Now I'm not one who says there are lot of rorts going on, but I think we need to understand that there are people in receipt of weekly payments who might have a capacity to work that's unexplored. The trade union movement has to emphasise the benefits of getting back to early, durable and timely return to work concepts. I have to say, to their credit, the trade union members of the Advisory Council have done just that properly and in the interests of injured workers. They've put the question squarely to the bosses, when are you going to create those alternate work opportunities that our members can take on? There's been no sympathy for those who are offered alternative suitable employment and don't take it. A scheme can't be accepted to tolerate and prop up those people.
Apart from that there has to be a recognition that little over 50 cents in the premium dollar is going into the pockets of injured workers. I'm talking about service providers: the doctors, the physiotherapists, the rehabilitation counsellors, the lawyers and so on. And I think the trade union movement needs to ask clearly and loudly: where is the rest of it going? And should it go there to that extent?
So those two clear principles need to underpin the approach taken by the trade union movement. Make sure that we are only paying benefits to those who are in need of them. And make sure that we are paying sufficient in terms of premium dollar to injured workers and not squandering it elsewhere
by Mark Hearn
Recognition of their role in protecting lives and property from the bush fire threat, and other emergencies. Recognition of managerial responsibilities, long hours, disrupted holidays, interrupted weekends. Driving around in a 4WD with the work radio network on - all the time, and the kids complaining. On-call 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. A high level of commitment to a job vital to community safety.
Currently, the state's 220 FCO's are covered by the Local Government Award, which, as Brian Harris, the General Secretary of the Municipal Employees Union says, "just doesn't recognise their special needs". FCO's work for their relevant local council or shire. But when the heat's on, so to speak, in a major bush fire, the NSW Rural Fire Service (RFS), under the command of Commissioner Phil Koperberg, steps in. FCO's are answerable to him while single-handedly, they run the local situation, managing an army of as many as 400 bush fire volunteers, dispatching a fleet of fire trucks to the hot spots.
This command confusion - between the local councils and the RFS - leaves the FCO's in limbo. As FCO Angelo Baldo complains, "we've got two bosses". One is more than enough. While up to 80% of their wages are paid by the RFS, they are technically local council or shire employees. Each individual council or shire can construct the FCO's pay rates and authority structures as it sees fit.
This results in FCO pay rates that fluctuate from $23,000 to $60,000 pa, depending on which council or shire they work for. Under the Rural Fires Act of 1997, the FCO's are supposed to be directly responsible to the General Manager. In fact, the GM's can delegate this responsibility. As Angelo observes, "some FCO's report to the dog catcher".
Yet FCO's manage annual budgets of $600,000, organise the training of hundreds of bush fire volunteers, and plan hazard reduction programs. Each Council only employs one or perhaps two FCO's. They cannot take leave between October and March - the bush fire season, which may be extended, depending on weather conditions.
And then there's the pressure. If things go wrong during a bush fire, everyone expects the FCO to provide an answer. "We're the ones who have to front up to the coroner's court", Donald says. Everyone remembers the horror of bush fire volunteers caught in a truck, unable to escape a wave of roaring flame. No-one likes to talk about it. But someone has to explain what happened, and why.
After the ferocious 1994 bush fires around Sydney, the NSW Coroner's Court recommended that the industrial framework governing FCO's be reorganised to clarify their chain of command, and recognise their special situation. Nothing's happened since, despite the NSW Cabinet issuing a directive in support of the Coroner's recommendation.
There are some powerful obstacles in the way of the FCO's need for a new award. Local councils that want to keep their hands on the reigns of power. Bureaucratic rivalries between local government and the RFS. Employers who just don't want the fuss of new awards, new complications.
The MEU believes its time to get serious. Brian Harris emphasises that "it's very important to resolve this. It's time for Local Government Minister Harry Woods to tap some shoulders about that cabinet directive. It's irresponsible to approach another bush fire season with this issue unresolved."
The MEU has a draft award ready. Organiser Sonja Terpstra says the new award for FCO's will, for the first time, provide clear pay structures for FCO's and deputy FCO's, and clarify the chain of command. The award will include new training modules, and a range of entitlements - bush fire incident pay, parental leave, relocation and rent assistance. It's all some recognition, she says, for the enormous dedication of FCO's to the communities they serve. "Who would do their job, if it wasn't out of commitment and loyalty?"
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Juan Somavia, Director General of the International Labour Organisation (ILO) and Bill Jordan, General Secretary of the International Confederation of Free Trade Unions (ICFTU) are launching an online debate on "Organised Labour in the 21st Century" on September 15.
The online debate or 'Conference' is aimed at trade unionists and labour researchers and is expected to run for about twelve months. Each month new guest speakers will be invited to act as "panellists", to take questions on the month's hot topic. All questions will be gathered and selected by a moderator, so that anything posted to the conference is monitored before it goes out over the list.
Discussion will focus on the future of trade unions around the world. The Conference will be run by the ILO's International Institute for Labour Studies, in cooperation with the ICFTU.
Those interested in participating in the Conference are encouraged to sign up in time for the opening, so that they will have a chance to react and put questions to the keynote speakers by e-mail or over the web.
All those interested, can sign up from July 29 on the associated link. Source: ICFTU OnLine
For full details visit: http://www.ilo.org/public/english/130inst/research/network/index.htm
HOW WILL THE CONFERENCE BE RUN?
"Registration/warm-up" Period (July 26 - September 15): During this period, you are invited to check and make any necessary adjustments to the information about you which is in the conference database. To access and change this information, please use the "member control panel":
http://listserver.ilo.org:81/unity/ctrlpanel/0/2/8
You are also invited, if you wish, to send a message to the mailing list, introducing yourself, and giving some background on your professional interest in participating in this debate.
Keynote and opening discussion
Once the "registration/warm-up" period is over, the "keynote speaker", Juan Somavia, Director General of the ILO, will make the first contribution, which will be followed by a response from Bill Jordan, the General Secretary of the ICFTU.
Based on the reactions and any discussion which takes place in the days which follow, a set of questions will be gathered by the moderator and put to the speaker, who would then be given a chance to respond.
Each month, a new topic (with new "speakers") will be launched. The topics will be announced around a week in advance, so that all participants can prepare their own submissions, if they wish.
The topics are likely to be related to the following topics:
- Employment and development,
- The law and trade unions,
- Responses to globalization (trade, investment, labour standards)
- Unions and structural adjustment,
- Transnational industrial relations,
- Collective bargaining and social dialogue,
- Informal sector and marginalised workers,
- Social protection,
- Recruitment and organizing,
- Political strategy (party politics, alliances with NGOs, etc.),
- Women in unions,
- Youth in unions,
- Union structures and services (membership participation, mergers, finances, etc.)
HOW DOES THE CONFERENCE WORK?
The conference uses a system allowing you to take part by e-mail or via the World Wide Web. By default, once you have signed up for the conference, you will receive all contributions to the conference by e-mail.
If you want to send in your contribution / reaction to the conference mailing list, use the following: mailto:[email protected]
The conference is "moderated". This means that anything posted to the conference is monitored by the moderator before it goes out over the list.
If you want to participate over the internet using a web browser (such as Netscape Navigator or Internet Explorer), you should use the "member control panel": http://listserver.ilo.org:81/unity/ctrlpanel/0/2/8
For more information, contact mailto:[email protected]
by Jim Nolan
A considerable amount of publicity has been generated by a decision of the Full Court of the Federal Court which decided that certain public sector health workers in Victoria could rely on the prevailing public sector award despite the fact that their health service had been �mainstreamed� or privatised.
This decision - North Western Health Care Network v Health Services Union of Australia was handed down on 2nd July 1999. It upheld an earlier decision of Marshall J which affirmed the rights of the health care workers to their public sector award rights. The principle determined in the case has general application to all federal awards.
The 'outsourcing' or 'mainstreaming' of the mental health services in Victoria was a substantial undertaking. The evidence in the case showed that all or most of the activities normally associated with mental health services were the subject of the government decision. Doctors, nurses and ancillary staff and facilities such as acute in-patient wards, outpatient services and 'crisis' teams were all transferred to the outsourced service.
Section 149 of the Workplace Relations Act provides that when a business or part of a business is transferred to another employer, that � subject to some exceptions - the award regulation will follow the workers concerned. As long ago as 1932 the High Court upheld the validity of such 'transmission' provisions. Such a law was clearly warranted to prevent an award respondent simply avoiding the award by 'transferring' the employees to another legal entity which was not bound by the industrial dispute which led to the making of the award.
The circumstances in which an employer's business when transferred attracted continued award coverage were considered in relatively few cases. Only in 1988 was the law changed to cover a 'part' of en employer�s business to cover a situation where an employer contracted out only a part of its activities to avoid the award.
The Full Court emphasised the fact that it would take a non technical approach to the question of transmission of award respondency The Court emphasised that that there is no reason to construe the relevant provisions of s.149 of the Workplace Relations Act narrowly. This means that the expression a part of a business can be applied to a governmental activity. This is particularly important in the context of privatisation outsourcing or other contracting out activities.
The Court stated that the phrase �the business or part of the business� takes its colour from the activity in which the employer was. There is no reason why 'outsourcing' or 'mainstreaming' from government to private enterprise should attract a different application under the section that that which applies to private sector.
In relation to the question of whether there was a transmission of the business or not the Court analysed the particular circumstances of the arrangements put in place by the Victorian Government to outsource the psychiatric services. It concluded that once it is accepted that the reference to the 'business' in s.149(1)(d) is to be widely construed it is not necessary to search for some technical legal form of succession, assign or transfer corporate acquisition or takeover. What is necessary to determine is a question of fact whether the 'business' understood in the wide sense has been transmitted to other hands.
The findings established that the same patients become the responsibility of the Networks; the medical records and stock were transferred; leased assets were assigned; staff were transferred while the State retained control over funding and audit. That was the consequence of the governments decision having transferred the responsibility for the provision of mental health services. What was involved was a transmission of the core of the relevant services not a peripheral activity. The court also held that it was not relevant that some pre-existing governmental functions remained with the government.
While the requirement of 'substantial identity' of the activities pre and post "outsourcing, is the test, it should be borne in mind that this test will not necessarily extend award coverage to a 'true' contractor which takes over activities of the award respondent. For example, should the award respondent decide to contract out say, electrical maintenance activities or in the case of an office or factory, cleaning and/or catering activities, it will be far from certain that the award obligations will be transmitted. Much will depend on the character of the contract and the contracting company.
In the South Australian case Crosilla v Challenge Property Services [1982] 2 IR 448 the Industrial Court of South Australia (Russell J) held that where the cleaning services in a hotel had been contracted out to a cleaning contractor, the relevant transmission provisions of the Long Service Leave Act 1967 (SA) would not have the effect of transferring the accrued long service leave entitlement of cleaners whose employment had been transferred from the hotel to the cleaning contractor. The transmission provisions of the Long Service Leave Act 1967 (SA) provided for transmission of �part of a business�. A recent decision which applied Crosilla and rejected a union application that an employer be treated as a successor in business to another employer was the decision of Justice Matthews in FSU v P.P. Consultants Pty. Limited [1999] FCA 631 (12 May 1999.
In P.P. Consultants the St. George Bank had set up an agency in a local pharmacy when it closed its Byron Bay Branch on 12 September 1997. Some employees who had been employed as bank officers at the Byron Bay Branch were employed by the Respondent, Byron Bay Plaza Pharmacy, under an arrangement with the Bank. The agency agreement obliged the pharmacy to conduct an agency of the St. George Bank from its premises under certain conditions of stipulation. The agency agreement was terminable by a month's notice and there were certain limitations placed on the extent of banking activities offered even though for practical purposes employees performed the same work they had performed with the Bank and were paid the same hourly rate. The employees were required to assist in the pharmacy during quiet banking times.
The evidence showed that a negligible amount of time was spent on pharmacy activities. For all practical purposes the two employees, who had been transferred over from the Bank, performed bank duties, they wore the same Bank uniform and used the same Bank equipment and so on.
On the basis of the evidence her Honour Justice Matthews found that there was no transmission of respondency and in this connection she placed great reliance upon the decision of the South Australian Industrial Commission in the long service leave case of Crosilla Matthews J made her decision on a number of bases including the terms of the Agency Agreement, the fact that the Agency Agreement was terminable on a month's notice, that there was no payment for goodwill and that there had been no assignment of premises or stock in trade or outstanding contracts as a result of the transfer of the banking activities by the Agency Agreement.
The decision in PP Consultants has been appealed and that the appeal will be heard by the Full Court in mid August.
Whether PP Consultants is correct or not, considerations such as the scope of activities of the contractor, the utilisation of staff on other activities etc will be relevant to a determination regarding transmission. For example, a computer services company which performed �outsourced� computer services for the respondent company and for many other companies would arguably not be a transmittee. One which was �industry specific� might be. The application of the �substantial identity of activities� test any specific case read against the background of the limiting factors suggested immediately above, may yield different conclusions in each.
Unions should not lose sight of the fact that the AIRC can make a fresh award covering the 'privatised or outsourced' activity. The most notable example of this was in the recent decision of the Full Bench of the AIRC in the Employment National case. Employment National was created by the Howard government to undertake a myriad of functions formerly undertaken by the Department of Employment Education and Youth Affairs [DEETYA].
The CPSU applied to the Federal Court for a declaration that the public sector awards which applied to the workers when they were DEETYA employees followed the employees to Employment National. That case was heard by the Federal Court and a decision is reserved. Any decision will be academic in the light of the AIRC decision and new award.
The Full Bench of the Commission rejected the CPSU's argument that the EN application should be adjourned to await the Federal Court decision. It said that the public interest would be best served by providing ENA with the opportunity to have the Commission consider on the merits, the terms and conditions of employment that should apply to ENA and its employees:
The Bench said that it was obvious that the Commission would at some point be required to examine whether the contents of the APS awards were unsuitable for ENA and its employees. ENA argued that notwithstanding the Federal Court decision, it would renew its application to the AIRC.
The sequel to that decision was a decision handed down by the same Full Bench on 26 February 1999 where, after having heard the application by ENA, the Commission agreed to make an award which would cover ENA. The Commission made that award by reference to the award simplification principles and the Paid Rates Review Decision.
Despite the significance of this decision there is still a considerable amount of doubt about the circumstances where transmission of award respondency arises. The following general observations may be made
First, the courts will take a broad and liberal view of questions of transfer of activities and will not be hidebound by technicalities. The substance of the arrangements will be considered and not the technical legal form. Where there is a "substantial identity" of the activities before and after the transfer of the activity concerned the award respondency will probably �follow� the employment. An activity will probably be considered to be a "part of the business" it is a part of the "core business" or "core activities" of the organisation concerned. Where the activity outsourced or contracted out is a peripheral activity, award respondency will probably not be transmitted. It should not be forgotten that the AIRC may make an award which applies to the activity (or more generally the organisation) which has been transferred and, if done, this will resolve any doubt about transmission questions.
by Rowan Cahill
The Split is a term synonymous with the Australian Labor Party (ALP) and the Cold War. The term does not refer to a single event. Rather it encompasses a long, complex, intense, political and sectarian struggle within the party.
The roots of the Split were in the late 1930s with concern over increasing communist influence in the Australian trade union movement. During the 1940s ALP activists variously organised unofficially and officially to combat this influence; their actions increasingly generated tensions and schisms within the ALP. The soul of this anti-communism was a puritanical Catholicism, and the Catholic Social Studies Movement organised by B. A. Santamaria.
The culmination of The Split was the division after 1954 when a significant number of activists, mainly Catholic anti-communists, left the ALP by expulsion or choice, and formed the Democratic Labor Party (DLP), first in New South Wales and later nationally.
By damaging the party's electoral base and single minded opposition, the DLP kept the ALP off the Federal government benches until 1972. At a personal level The Split had all the elements of tragedy, complete with family divisions, and bitter irreconcilable animosities between former friends. In many respects it was a civil war without guns.
The Great Labour Movement Split in New South Wales: Inside Stories is a welcome contribution to a sizeable body of scholarly comment and analysis. Published by the Sydney Branch of the Australian Society for the Study of Labour History, the title pretty well says it all. The book centres on the recollections of eight NSW Split participants; Ed Campion, Kevin Davis, Arthur Geitzelt, Bob Gould, Jack Heffernan, Jim Macken, Jack McPhillips, and Laurie Short.
Originating as a 1994 Labour History conference, the book retains a conferency aura: there's a question and answer section which reveals ongoing ideological and interpretational differences, highlighting the complexity of The Split; and an interesting paper on ALP factional conflict by former practitioner, historian Rod Cavalier.
For me there are two outstanding contributions. The Catholic priest and author Ed Campion examines the appeal of organised anti-communism to youthful Catholic idealists, 1951-1954. He portrays a heady mix of clandestine excitement, great purpose, and intellectual adventure. It is a similar mix that drew other people into the Communist Party during the same period.
The other notable contribution is by Sydney bookseller and long time left activist Bob Gould. In a delightful autobiographical sketch Gould details his youthful development, shaped by the politics of Jack Lang, Catholicism, Marxism, and the fight against the forces that split the ALP.
Overall, the book is a well designed, readable, moderately price contribution to our understanding of The Split. On these counts it warrants support. I am biased towards the book because it is not published by a professional publisher. Increasingly, it seems to me, this do-it -yourself option is the way to go for small run, worthy, niche publications seeking to make scholarly contributions.
A Review of Great Labour Movement Split in New South Wales: Inside Stories. Bradon Ellem (ed), Australian Society for the Study Of Labour History Sydney Branch, Sydney, 1998, pb. rrp: $15. (Copies may be purchased from the Sydney Branch or the author at HO3, Department of Industrial Relations, University of Sydney, NSW 2006)
Rowan Cahill is a labour historian based in the Southern Highlands of New South Wales.
- 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)
by The Chaser
Today the Treasurer announced a policy to get tough on "gambling evasion" schemes. Those who fail to gamble their fair share will be prosecuted by the taxation office.
The government is considering new legislation which will require a certain percentage of employee's wages to be paid directly into the pokie machine of their choice.
The scheme will be strictly means tested - employees who earn up to $20,000 will have 40% of their income automatically deducted, with the deduction reduced on a sliding scale. Families who earn more than $75,000 per year will not be subject to deductions.
The Premier has come out in strong support for the scheme. "New South Wales is proud to lead the world in pokie concentration, but if people selfishly refuse to pay their gambling dues, then we will not be able to maintain our current level of services."
Community groups have described the Premier's policy plan as "a pile of craps
Mr ALBANESE (Grayndler)(4.32 p.m.)--My grievance today is not so much that the Prime Minister is stuck in the past; my grievance is that he wants the whole nation to stay back and keep him company.
This is the man who, having been rejected by his own generation, has taken refuge in a previous generation. For John Howard, the prime ministership is not about the nation's future but about his own past. In getting the prime ministership, [start page 6864] his only aim was to pay back all those who had tried to stop him along the way. This is a man whose well-developed reflex is to punish like they did in the good old days. All the so-called reforms in the areas of tax, industrial relations and social security are only punitive efforts at revenge--half-hearted attempts to turn Australia into The Land That Time Forgot .
John Howard has steadfastly resisted any opportunities to allow the country to move forward. The glaring example of this is the way he has sabotaged the process of reconciliation with indigenous Australians. As Prime Minister, the one vital role he could play was to apologise on behalf of the Australian people for all the hurt and destruction caused by past government policies, including to the stolen generation. Only the Prime Minister can make this symbolically important gesture. Not this Prime Minister, though--no Redfern Park speech from him because he is just not up to it.
The politics of social inclusion and progression are anathema to him. We see it in his opposition to the republic--a historic inevitability. The fear of change is quite remarkable. It was also embodied in the Prime Minister's proposed preamble. It got a laugh, but it was one of embarrassment--the straight refusal to acknowledge indigenous custodianship of our land, the talk of mateship, the talk of being free to be proud of our country. The Prime Minister did acknowledge that there were people here prior to 1788. Big deal! He does not go further than that because he is not capable of making that step forward.
He wants us to take a giant leap backwards by entrenching his own distorted view of the past in the Constitution--once more, a list of his petty grievances, a failure to lead. It is worthy of a South Park script with John Howard as Mr Garrison always getting his facts wrong and Tim Fischer as Mr Hat chiming in with, `You can say that again, Mr Garrison.' John Howard is the living embodiment of zero tolerance, zero tolerance for social and cultural progress. He is anti-reconciliation, anti-republic, anti-multiculturalism, anti-union, anti-worker, anti-public education, anti-public health--the list goes on and on.
John Howard is a mean spirited man leading a mean spirited government. He has raised mean spiritedness to an art form. Even the surviving matriarch of the Menzies era has little time for John Howard's anachronistic vision for Australia. Anachronisms belong in museums and historical texts, certainly not in parliament or in leadership positions. Dame Rachel Cleland, aged 93, is the widow of Sir Donald Cleland who, with Sir Robert Menzies, was one of the co-founders of the Liberal Party. She is the woman Richard Court's deputy leader has described as `a conscience of the party and, when she speaks out, she can do so with an authority that virtually no-one else in Australia has'. When interviewed for a recent Australian Story, Dame Rachel Cleland said of John Howard:
" I think he is governing an Australia that no longer exists. He's governing in his mind an Australia that existed 30 years ago.
He lives by the maxim: out with the new and in with the old. Just look at the major changes he has made to the prime ministerial suite since taking office. He got rid of the tastefully understated modern lounge suite that was expected to last for 200 years and replaced it with a good old fashioned $10,000 green leather chesterfield lounge. To paraphrase Ross Peake, he has turned his office into something resembling an old-style gentleman's club but with less style.
It is just the sort of furniture that Menzies would have approved of, so why not go the whole hog and match it with Menzies' desk as well? It has actually happened. He has taken it out of its museum setting in Old Parliament House and put it into the museum setting of this backward Prime Minister's office. It has not stopped there. Kirribilli House now has an $82,000 dining suite circa 1835, complete with black horse hair fabric covers.
We must not forget the Prime Minister's plan to bring the Speaker's chair up from Old Parliament House. The feasibility study alone cost $12,000 to tell the Prime Minister that it was a really stupid idea. Eighteen million Australians could have told him that for free [start page 6865] had he been in touch with the feelings of the Australian people in 1999 rather than 1950. No wonder the Secretary to the Joint House Department, Mike Bolton, has said that the original furniture in the Prime Minister's office would return the day John Howard left office. `A midnight arrangement--I hope it will happen,' he has said on the record. This is indeed a tragicomic government.
Under John Howard's leadership, the government hangs delicately in the twilight zone between black comedy and farce. The afternoon tea with Baroness Thatcher of Kesteven, the refusal to live in the Lodge--all scenes worthy of a Monty Python sketch. We have here a man who prides himself on being the drip tray for all the passive-aggressive tendencies that can accumulate in a society at any one point in time.
While Labor is the voice of the dispossessed, John Howard is the voice of the impotent. In generations to come, cultural historians will recall with an ironic smile that the Howard era was the period in Australian history which will be known as `The Great Stagnation'. In keeping with this inability to move forward, the name John Howard has become synonymous with the political backflip, with reneging on promises. Think of the promises made during the 1996 federal election campaign, promises that were set in concrete. The concrete obviously had too much sand or too much water in the mix, because it did not hold for too long. Once the coalition came to office, those promises became non-core promises, ones that could be broken.
Speaking of concrete makes me think of the ministerial code of conduct, another fine example of the John Howard political backflip. Hailed with such fanfare when the coalition took office, the code of conduct promised a new era in disclosure and accountability and an unprecedented standard of ministerial conduct. Unprecedented is right--seven ministers resigned in 18 months. What is the Prime Minister's response to this disgraceful showing? Did he make the
code tighter? Did he insist that the remaining members of his ministry should meet the standards in the code of conduct? No. John Howard's ministry seemed to have difficulty clearing the bar, so he lowered it. The code of conduct turned into a set of guidelines.
The latest outrage surrounding the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Industry, Science and Resources has shown that even these guidelines are not worth the paper they are written on. The member for Leichhardt is clearly in breach of the guidelines, but the Prime Minister, stuck as he is in reverse gear, is incapable of keeping his commitment to the Australian people when it comes to keeping his own ministry in line. In fact, given the number of times the Prime Minister practises the political backflip, you would think he was in training for the Sydney Olympics. I can just see it as an exhibition event in the year 2000. So John Howard should take heart:
He will never play cricket for Australia, but he would break world records representing Australia in the backflip.
In fact, John Howard deserves recognition for his unswerving commitment. We should immortalise this achievement with a new entry in the dictionary. After all, `Thatcher' has made it into the vernacular and inspired her own `ism'. What an honour for John Howard to follow in the footsteps of his muse. So it would go something like this:
Howard: noun, a political backflip; the act of breaking a commitment.
Howard: verb, to break a commitment; to renege on a promise; to regress.
Howardly: to behave in a Howard-like manner.
Howardice: lack of commitment; inability to keep a promise.
The only occasion the Prime Minister has flaunted tradition is his decision to open the Olympics, which would normally be the reserve of our head of state, the Queen. For a man who joined the criticism when Paul Keating dared to place his hand on the Queen's back, it has been a rush worthy of Mark Yeats on Dermott Brereton in the opening seconds of the 1989 grand final in the way the current Prime Minister has pushed the Queen off that podium. The monarchists should perhaps consider suspending their leader but, then again, it is hard to suspend someone who is suspended in a time warp of the 1950s.
In last Saturday's Sydney Morning Herald, Kookaburra gave us another fine example of Howardice by the Prime Minister. When Australia made it into the World Cup final, Kookaburra reported Howard as saying: "I don't think everybody will be at work first thing on Monday morning and I think everyone will understand that," said the sportive Prime Miniature . . .
And later: A follow-up question, "Are you asking employers to be lenient?" made Howard get all tetchy. "No, look, I don't get into that trivia," he said.
This is a man who aspires to be yesterday's hero, but what else could we expect from a man who has never escaped from what Barry Humphries refers to as the `Age of Laminex'?
Thus spoke C. J. Dennis's Sentimental Bloke paraphrasing some scribe called Shakespeare. So, what is in a name? Everything, it seems, to the advertising gurus. It's the estate agents equivalent of "Location, location, location." It all reached absurd heights when Geelong captain Gary Hocking took Juliet's advice to heart and changed his name to Whiskas by deed poll. For a week.
It was a stunt that made the ha ha funny sections of the press around the globe. OK, his motives were honourable. Money for the club, something here, something there, and presumably Hocking's court costs paid at either end.
Even though this is at the absurd end of the Richter Scale of name changes there are other somewhat disturbing aspects of this crazy rush to grab a share of the market. For example Footscray decided to call themselves the Western Bulldogs. North Melbourne "evolved" into the Northern Kangaroos. All in the interests of survival, apparently. Grabbing at more supporters in an already saturated market place in the case of Footscray and trying to develop a national following by North Melbourne. Along the way they seem to be denying their traditional supporters a part of their identity. Even in a national competition footy is a tribal animal, and a sense of place is integral to a supporter's identification with their team. The generic Bulldogs or Kangaroos may end up as a minus for these clubs in the long run.
This may sound strange coming from an avowed Sydney Swans supporter. But when the Swans came to Sydney they brought everything with them. The heritage of the club was retained. Obviously the name had to change, South Melbourne in the Harbour City wasn't an option, but the history was retained. This was not easily recognised by the old South supporters, and nor would you expect it to be. But the continued survival, and some success, perhaps, seems to have brought a lot of doubters back to the flock. Even though many of the old South Melbourne supporters think of the club as South or, more realistically Sydney/South, the continuity is largely recognised and respected. The Swans also have that sense of place - the whole of Sydney. The difference, as I see it, with the Footscray and North Melbourne is that they want the best of both worlds.
Nowhere is this lack of identity more evident than in Union's Super Twelves. The Highlanders, the Sharks, Stormers, Waratahs, or the Brumbies. I know the Australian sides but I have no idea where the other teams come from. My inbuilt prejudices have no focus. Consequently, whatever interest I might have in a Super Twelves match is lost. Perhaps time will cure my ignorance, but in the mean time the game passes me by.
On the subject of Union, I was listening to an ABC talkback segment on Stadium Australia recently. People were asked to describe their experiences at the new venue. One caller rang in and her complaint was not about the facilities or services. Her big beef was that the ground announcer, at every opportunity, called the Australian side the Vodaphone Wallabies. "We don't live in Vodaphone, we live in Australia" was the reasoning behind her argument. 'Nuff said.
This Name Game is going on in most sports. In League there was a mad rush to include Sydney in their names. Only Eastern Suburbs have kept the changed name. But for most the Sydney City Roosters are still Easts. Cronulla now want to be known simply as the Sharks. What the Union variety of Sharks think of this I don't know. In cricket Queensland became the Bulls, Victoria the Bush Rangers, and South Australia the Red Backs. Only NSW has retained their traditional name, the Blues.
This is not restricted to teams. Grounds are not immune to the name changing game. In Victoria Princes Park became Optus Oval and Geelong's Kardinia Park Shell Stadium. In Queensland Lang Park is now Suncorp Stadium and QEII Stadium is now the ANZ Stadium. Now the change from QEII is not something I can argue with, but perhaps a sports person could have been honoured. Commentators in the commercial media are required to use these ugly tags but many people stick to the original names, except, interestingly QEII Stadium. I suspect noone will care if Melbourne's Docklands becomes Colonial Stadium or Sydney's Stadium Australia gets a commercial for a name. These are not traditional grounds as yet. However the evolution of sport needn't, and to my mind shouldn't, totally discard tradition.
Two of my favourite team names are the Pepsi Rollers and Ten Past Eleven. The former is a wheel chair basketball side and Ten Past Eleven play in the Balmain cricket competition. Apparently the lads were sitting around the local trying to think of a name for the club and the bar staff told the it was ten past eleven and time to go. The logo on their caps is a clock with the hand in the appropriate positions.
Given time, people may call Footscray and North Melbourne the Western Bulldogs and the Northern Kangaroos respectively. Or they may just become a memory. New sponsors will come along and Princes and Kardina Parks will get another name change. If it goes on for long enough there won't be anybody who knows the original names. But Gary Hocking will for ever be remembered not for his deeds on the footy field, but the man who changed his name to Whiskas.
This means workers, across most industries, have awards which contain comprehensive minimum wages and conditions of employment.
At least a third of the workforce rely solely on their award, receiving no additional payment whatsoever. This system has been central to our nation's efforts to create and maintain a fair and equitable society.
Just as our social welfare system has ensured at least a basic standard of living for those unable, for whatever reason, to participate in the paid workforce, our award system has protected those workers without significant bargaining power from the impact of pure market forces.
The "second wave" of industrial legislation now before the Parliament is designed to reduce the award safety net for the most vulnerable workers, and to weaken the ability of trade unions to represent their members in workplace bargaining.
The "second wave" proposes to:
- Strip awards back even further to basic minimum conditions, and remove important entitlements such as wage maintenance for workers injured at work, tallies and bonuses, job transfer protections and some public holidays.
- Make workers who are dependent on annual safety net wage increases wait until their award has gone through the lengthy stripping process, possibly many months, perhaps even years, before they can get their next wage increase.
- Make it easier for employers to force workers into secret, individual contracts with sub-standard wages and conditions.
- Reduce the power of the Industrial Relations Commission, the "independent umpire", to decide the issues in industrial disputes.
- Make legal industrial action virtually impossible, and increase the penalties for any other action.
This legislation is unfair, and is also inconsistent with Australia's obligations under international law. The International Labour Organisation has already found that our legislation breaches international standards in relation to collective bargaining and the right to strike.
But this is only the beginning.
Peter Reith made it clear in a letter to the Prime Minister, leaked earlier this year, that he intends to link labour market de-regulation with major reductions in the social welfare safety net.
To his way of thinking this is because if workers (particularly the low paid and those with the least bargaining power with employers) are to be coerced into accepting reduced wages and conditions, it is necessary for them to have no alternative. In other words, they would have no source of even minimal income such as social welfare benefits.
This is already the case in the United States where many workers are forced to accept wages which do not enable them to put a roof over their heads or have access to basic health care.
For Australia, Mr Reith proposed a special system of below-award "discounted" wages which would apply to the unemployed, as well as a work-for-the dole scheme to apply to anyone who has relied on benefits for six months.
The Government's obsessive pursuit of de-regulation of the economy has already resulted in private profit at the expense of public services and community benefit. Just take the Longford gas explosion as an example of how self regulation of safety standards can result in a major disaster that costs lives. Labour market de-regulation is no different.
Peter Reith's de-regulation is about treating human beings as commodities, inevitably leading to even greater divisions between the poor and the more well-off.
That's not the Australia we have known, and it's not what we want for our children's future.
NSW unions will rally against the Reith Second Wave on August 24 outside the PM's office in Phillip Street
Piers, you see, is a mate of Sartor's opponent Kathryne Greiner, wife of the former Premier and prominent tobacco company board member and appears set to stop at nothing to stop her getting elected.
As in all campaigns, the first step was to get everyone enrolled to vote. Six weeks ago, Piers started his drive - "As things stand, Sydney's mayoral election will be won by Frank Sartor again," Piers wrote on June 17. "That could change but only if some of the eligible but unregistered voters sign up and then cast their ballots for Mrs Greiner."
Then Piers encourages readers to enrol by visiting Greiner's home-page, giving the address to the link of her and her running mate, perpetual private school prefect Nick Farr-Jones.
With that out of the way Piers has now launched into the campaign proper, deciding the time has come to talk about policies. No bugger that, he'll just play the man!
His target this week was the widening of the pavements - an obvious target, albeit a diminishing one as work is completed and the broader streets of the CBD win public approval. Shifting his focus to the advertising deal which helped fund the project.
Piers cast all sorts of aspersions Frank's way - just falling short of accusing him of corruption in his dealings with supporters John Singleton, Robert Whyte and the Packers. The conspiracy widens with Telstra implicated for providing too many public phones.
Then the pre-election endorsement: "Whatever happens at the September 11 election," Piers roars, "Frank Sartor will be remembered as the mayor who sold out the heart of Sydney to advertisers and turned the historic central district into an obscenely garish running billboard." These thoughts from an employee of News Ltd!
The animosity towards Sartor has a long history. Indeed it was in Workers Online's first issue back in February that we recounted Pier's botched attempt to attribute a list of Council debtors to be Frank's personal creditors.
That one ended up with a defamation writ. The rumour around town is that Piers and Frank have reached an out-of-court settlement over these allegations that involves a couple of pairs of togs and a swimming challenge at one of the Council pools.
Piers this week referred to Sartor's "uncompleted and hugely expensive swimming puddle". We understand this was to be the site of the unsightly strip-down. So Workers Online readers who want to be spared semi-nude shots of Piers should hope it stays unfinished.
The point of all this is not that Piers shouldn't criticise Frank - who didn't get the shits with the pavement work? It's just that there's no light and shade in his treatment of the issue. Just as everything the unions do is bad, so everything Frank does is evil. Can the world really be this simple?
Of course the only other conclusion to draw is that Piers doesn't really believe what he writes at all; that he's just playing the role of right-wing bovver boy for which he is so amply rewarded.
Riddle of the week: Why would the city's "workers'" paper dedicate three measly paragraphs to the largest rally the ctiy has seen in several years? Could it be because no violence erupted to allow them to serve up another negative portrayal of the trade union movement? Or is it just that the question of what happens to you if you get injured at work is deemed of no relevance to Telegraph readers?
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