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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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News
Howard Votes Family Last
Prime Minister John Howard has turned his back on Australian families, refusing to commit to parental leave won this week at the Australian Industrial Relations Commission.
In what could be the last AIRC family test case ruling, women now have the right to ask for part-time work until their child reaches school age.
It has also granted workers the right to request an extension of unpaid parental leave from 12 to 24 months.
But the gains could be lost within months, with Howard refusing to commit to the rights when it overhauls industrial relations laws.
ACTU President Sharan Burrow said not only was the future of the newly won rights uncertain, but the Government had its sites set on disarming the Commission which won them.
"The Federal Government's workplace reforms will lead to reduced rights for more than 1.5 million award workers and mean this is the last award test case of its kind."
In the Coalition's planned workplace reforms, it plans to replace the AIRC with a "Fair Pay Commission" of Government-appointees.
Meanwhile, Family First Senator Steven Fielding has distanced himself from the Government's reform agenda.
Fielding said demolishing traditional social structures had enslaved people to the forces of the market.
"Where once the labour market respected the fact that workers had family responsibilities, today workers struggle to balance their paid work and family life," he said.
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Issue 276 contents
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