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Issue No. 262 | 06 May 2005 |
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Rights and Wrongs
Interview: Fortress NSW Unions: Fashions Afield Industrial: Pay Dirt Politics: Infrastructure Blues History: Big Day Out International: Making History Economics: The Fear Factor Review: The Robots Revolt Poetry: The Corporation's Power
The Soapbox The Locker Room Parliament
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News Carr Race to Bottom
AMWU secretary, Paul Bastian, said the most glaring example involved the overhaul of Manly ferry, Freshwater, by a Queensland outfit, bankrupted three years ago, that had to import skilled NSW workers to complete the contract. Bastian said Brisbane Slipway won the Freshwater contract on price alone using temporary, casual labour; not having an EBA with any union, or any commitment to training. It beat three established NSW operations that provide fulltime, ongoing work to hundreds of skilled people. "Our companies might not be the best employers in the world but they have a commitment to fulltime, permanent employment and skills training," Bastian said. "Brisbane Slipway contracted for this job without a single permanent employee on its books. It hires casuals, from interstate if necessary, and lets them go at the end of a project. "This tendering process, based entirely on cost, costs us jobs, skills, wage and conditions and will result in a race to the bottom that is unacceptable from a Labor Government." Bastian said the same mentality was evident in rolling stock tendering that favoured overseas firms at the expense of Hunter Valley-based companies that directly employ more than 600 skilled Australians. He questioned the sincerity of the Carr Government's public commitment to beating the skills shortage and called on it to "put its money where its press release is". Unions NSW will push the state government to develop a procurement policy that would enhance the state's skills base.
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