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After the Action
After a National Week of Action that has had everything from mass rallies in all capital cities to IR chat rooms opening on the Vogue Magazine website it’s fair to say that the first objective of this campaign – to raise public awareness – has been achieved.
Interview: Battle Stations
Opposition leader Kim Beazley says he's ready to fight for workers right. But come July 1, he'll have to be fighting by different rules.
Unions: The Workers, United
It was a group of rank and filers who took centre stage when workers rallied in Sydney's Town Hall, writes Jim Marr.
Politics: The Lost Weekend
The ALP had a hot date, they had arranged to meet on the Town Hall steps, and Phil Doyle was there.
Industrial: Truth or Dare
Seventeen ivory towered academics upset those who know what is best for us last week.
History: A Class Act
After reading a new book on class in Australia, Neale Towart is left wondering if it is possible to tie the term down.
Economics: The Numbers Game
Political economist Frank Stilwell offers a beginners guide to understanding budgets
International: Blonde Ambition
Sweden can be an inspiration to labour movements the world over, as it has had community unionism for over 100 years, creating a vibrant caring society, rather than a "productive" lean economy.
Training: The Trade Off
Next time you go looking for a skilled tradesman and can’t find one, blame an economist, writes John Sutton.
Review: Bore of the Worlds
An invincible enemy has people turning against one another as they fight for survival – its not just an eerie view of John Howard’s ideal workplace, writes Nathan Brown.
Poetry: The Beaters Medley
In solidarity with the workers of Australia, Sir Paul McCartney (with inspiration from his old friend John Lennon) has joined the Workers Online resident bard David Peetz to pen some hits about the government's proposed industrial relations revolution.
 Don't Get Angry, Get Organised
Feds Threaten Hardie Battlers
Beasts of Bourbon Play Dog
Churches on Workplace Mission
Unions Are The New Black
Muster Has Bosses in Fluster
Workers Flood to Protests
Official: Libs Don’t Know Own Laws
Schools Out For Uni Bosses
IR Campaign Taxing Andrews
Air Safety at Risk
Carr Runs Over Lib Laws
Aga Khan Workers Gaoled
Activists Whats On!
The Soapbox
State of the Union
Unions NSW secretary John Robertson lifts the lid on ‘The Nine Myths of Modern Unionism’ The Locker Room
Wrist Action
Phil Doyle trawls the murky depths of tawdry sleaze, and discovers Rugby is behind it all. Culture
To Hew The Coal That Lies Below
Phil Doyle reviews Australia's first coal mining novel, Black Diamonds and Dust. Parliament
The Westie Wing
Our favourite State MP, Ian West, reports from Macquarie Street that the Premier is all the way with a State Commission.
Workers Give In FNQ
Power and the Passion
Mao and Then
The Third Way Hits A Dead End
Unfair For All
What Is To Be Done?
Black Hawk Up
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Evatt Foundation
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News
Official: Libs Don’t Know Own Laws
Federal MP for Paterson Bob Baldwin has told locked out Boeing workers that their problems should be solved by the industrial umpire, despite his own government outlawing that solution.
The workers say they'd be more than happy to go to arbitration, but under the laws introduced by Baldwin's government it remains up to Boeing rather than the workers or the industrial umpire.
The Boeing employees have already been to the Australian Industrial Relations Commission (AIRC) three times but under the Workplace Relations Act AIRC hands are tied until the employer applies to terminate the bargaining period.
Facing a 43-hour working week, no overtime and no leave loading on individual contracts, Boeing employees at Williamstown RAAF base remain outside the gates in pursuit of a collective agreement.
Gonzalo Sanjuan, a 23 year-old immigrant from Chile, walked out the gate to join the picketers after reaching his three-month probationary period with Boeing, saying the issue was a "matter of principle".
More disturbing for the forty-two workers has been the arrival of seventeen Boeing scabs from RAAF Amberley in Queensland.
"Boeing are slowly exposing the reality of individual contracts," says John Boyd from the picket line. "They are pitting mate against mate.
"This is one State of Origin we didn't want to see."
NSW Minister for Industrial Relations, John Della Bosca, said the Boeing dispute was a perfect example of the unproductive conflict ahead should the Howard Government proceed with its industrial relations takeover.
"It underlines the problem in the industrial relations debate, when even a member of Mr Howard's own Government doesn't understand how bad his policy really is."
"Ninety-one per cent of the employer lockouts in Australia now occur under the Federal system. It's characterised by conflict, lasting disputes and a complete absence of a fair go."
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Issue 270 contents
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