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The Power of One
The power has now shifted. John Howard has control of the Senate by a solitary vote and no matter where your politics lie, the earth has definitely moved.
Interview: On Holiday
Historian Richard White looks back on the Aussie vacation - and finds a way of life is under threat.,
Unions: One Day Longer
Nathan Brown travels to the Boeing picket line and find a group of workers with a steely determination to stick together.
Industrial: Never Mind the Bollocks
Jim Marr plays the Howard Government's industrial relations spin job on its merits.
Politics: Spun Out
Canberra’s latest campaign underlines the need for controls over government advertising, according to Graeme Orr and Joo-Cheong Tham
Economics: If the Grog Don't Get You ....
Evan Jones explains how the way we purchase alcolohol reflects the type of economy we live in.
History: Taking a Stand
Neale Towart looks at two books that chronicle how to build community support against social injustice.
International: The Split
Amanda Tattersal outsider's account of an insider's shake-out at the AFL-CIO Convention 2005
Legal: Pushing the Friendship
George Williams argues that the federal government’s constitutional powers are not sufficient to enact a comprehensive national industrial relations scheme
Poetry: Simple Subtractions
The latest blitz of taxpayer-funded advertising has revealed a crisis of arithmetic in government ranks has moved resident bard David Peetz to prose.
Review: Sydney Trashed
Sydney band SC Trash are on a mission to give new life to folk and country music – and the politics of common sense. Nathan Brown had a beer with them
 “Disgusting” AWAs Court Out
Andrews Agenda Rolled in DEWR
Sick Days Get Hadgkiss Sniffing
Fun Guy Skips Work, Docks Staff
Nurse Launches Neighbourhood Alert
Security Staff Bush Whacked
Commo Bank Staff Force Smiles
Cameron Gets ‘Fair Dinkum’
Feds: Inconsistency “Not Inconsistent”
Telstra Dials Up Cash Grab
Howard Votes Family Last
PacNat Troops Won't Be Railroaded
All Aboard Vic Safety Train
Activist's What's On!
Parliament
The Westie Wing
Our favourite MP, Ian West, goes away for a couple of weeks and look what happens… The Soapbox
The Last Weekend
Unions NSW secretary John Robertson's speech to the Last Weekend - how the Howard government laws will undermine the Ausrtalian way of life. The Locker Room
A Concept Is Born
In which Phil Doyle helps the proponents of the vision thing across the road. International
Workers Blood For Oil
A new book by Abdullah Muhsin and Alan Johnson lifts the lid on the bloody reality of US backed democracy for Iraq's trade unions Postcard
London Post
During his recent stay in London IEU industrial officer John Shapiro was living only a few hundred metres from the site of one of the bomb blasts.
Farmers’ Best Friend
Govt Has No Case
Logon to IR
Ears and Minds
Howard on the Couch
Which Bank?
Kevin the Tool Man
Tom On Safety
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Labor Council of NSW
Vic Trades Hall Council
IT Workers Alliance
Bosswatch
Unions on LaborNET
Evatt Foundation
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Bad Boss
“Disgusting” AWAs Court Out
A national bakery chain used AWAs to rip up to $3 an hour out of the wage packets of young Australians.
Judge Peter McCusker found Bakers Delight paid teenagers “grossly less” than award rates and said he was “troubled” that federal government's Office of the Employment Advocate had okayed the rip-off.
The South Australian Industrial Relations Commission found at least 50 OEA-approved contracts had undercut the relevant award.
The finding was made after the court heard the case of a 15-year-old Deanna Renella who was paid 25 per cent less than the award minimum.
Under current legislation, AWAs must not put employees at a disadvantage compared to their "overall' award entitlements. But unions have argued that the OEA has a "cavalier" approach to that safeguard.
Changes flagged by the federal government, will do away with that requirement and see secret individual contracts judged against five minimum conditions.
They will also see responsibility for judging the acceptability of AWAs and agreements, shifted from the independent AIRC to the Howard Government's OEA.
The South Australian Court heard that not only was the Renella underpaid, but she also had also been denied annual leave and sick leave entitlements.
The court rejected a Baker's Delight's appeal and upheld an original ruling that it must back pay Renella.
Judge McCusker said young people were at a "manifest disadvantage" negotiating with experienced business people over awards.
ACTU Secretary Greg Combet said the case proved the Government should scrap AWAs, especially for young workers.
"This is one of the most disgusting and graphic examples of how the Government's AWAs are already used to exploit workers, particularly young people," Combet said.
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Issue 276 contents
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