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In the sixties John Howard opposed Vietnam War protesters and the protesters were right and Howard was wrong.
In the seventies John Howard opposed the African National Congress and the ANC was right and Howard was wrong.
In the eighties John Howard opposed Asian immigration and immigration was right and Howard was wrong
In the nineties John Howard opposed Eddie Mabo, but Mabo was right and Howard was wrong.
In the early years of the twenty-first century John Howard opposed the UN over Iraq and the UN was right and Howard was wrong.
Now John Howard is opposed to your rights at work; is there a pattern developing here?
If John Howard thinks he has scored a victory this year gaining control of the Senate he should look up the word Pyrrhic in a dictionary.
That it will fly obliviously over the head of this third rate suburban solicitor that his Thatcherite dream for us all may not be in the best interests of society should come as no surprise.
He is cunning, that is a given, but so is a shithouse rat.
Our Tool Of The Year knows that a quick bribe and a nod towards some popular bigotry will see him over the line every time. It helps if you can whip the populace into a panic like some snake oil salesman, then sell them the quack cure.
This will win you elections, but it ain't clever.
The problem is, no matter how many times you fudge, spin, distort, obfuscate, dodge, attack as a form of defence, cheat, steal or bastardise, there is always reality down the track.
Menzies hung onto power for years, invoking the red menace and pinching Labor Party policy, but it's hardly seen as a high point in Australian political life. In the end time caught up with Menzies, as it will with Howard, and all the bullshit that mendacious old fool from Toorak banged on about was writ large. In the end Menzies created more problems for the future than he ever solved.
And thus it is with his acolyte Howard.
This government is the most spineless, intellectually dishonest, corrupt, incompetent and callous administration this Federation has ever known. The people do not love Howard. Even those that vote for him do so grudgingly, motivated by fear. He has had more luck than a dancing drunk, with none of the charm.
This week the Salvos revealed that there has been a 17% increase in people seeking help this Christmas. This, at a time, when the economy is allegedly booming. But booming for whom? Booming for those who back John Howard, that's who.
And WorkChoices is supposed to make life easier for that extra 17% of people trying to put food on the tables for their families this Christmas? Yeah, right.
Howard's response? To complain there's not enough nativity scenes at shopping centres. A neat piece of dog whistling; with Howard hinting that we're all being overrun by Mohammedans and godless atheists hell bent on destroying “our” way of life.
It's the sort of mindless pap that lets people indulge their hatred. A special brand of "our" hatred, which, according to Dear Leader Howard, isn’t racist. Oh no. Not one bit. It’s just based on the way people look.
John Howard has made us smaller and darker as a nation. He is hell bent on turning this country into a grasping, money-obsessed leviathan; reduced to a battle of all against all. In Howard’s Hobbesian nightmare life will be truly be nasty, brutish and short.
He may invoke mateship, but he is its antithesis. A man who would stab his fellow countrymen in the back if it meant his own personal advancement. Machiavelli is alive and well and resides in Kirribilli.
The reality is more and more Australians are being driven to their wits end by this government's malfeasance. Things are crook in Tallarook. Yet our self proclaimed deputy sheriff continues apace, oblivious to the society unravelling beneath him.
He never talks about weapons of mass destruction anymore. Remember how the GST would wipe out the black economy? The map of Australia with all the bits the darkies were going to get painted red? Counting John Howard's lies is like counting the stars. This alone does not a tool make.
Remember his defence of Pauline Hanson? The "fact" that “we decide who comes here”? His waring of the "danger"� of Asian immigration? His support for Apartheid? Haranguing people at a "reconciliation"� conference? Saying that John Howard is racist is like saying the sun rises in the east. This alone does not a tool make.
Remember his debt truck back when debt was a fraction of what it is now? His opposition to ten consecutive pay rises for Australia's lowest paid workers? How the GST would end tax avoidance and make the young feel old and the old feel young? The fact that John Howard is the most irresponsible financial manager we've had since, well, when John Howard was treasurer under Fraser speaks volumes, but that alone does not a tool make.
Remember how he bailed out his brother's company? How he defended Geoff Prosser? How he appointed the incompetent head of immigration as the Indonesian Ambassador? How he tried to buy the 1983 election? The news that Howard is corrupt is not new, but this alone does not a tool make.
Remember how he stared down shooters, with a bulletproof vest? How he said East Timor was Indonesia's business? His tantrum after the rugby world cup? Sure, he's a coward, like all bullies, but that alone does not a tool make.
Remember that cricket ball in Pakistan?
That, along with all of the above, and more, is what makes John Winston Howard well deserving of the epithet, Tool Of The Year.
On Monday, December 19, their employer, Colrain, wrote to the Office of the Employment Advocate, asking that their AWAs be scrubbed.
After a short but bitter stand-off the operators of the truck parts distribution centre, a division of Maxitrans, agreed to meet the AMWU about a collective agreement, and the 18 workers returned to the job.
Their two-week picket at Swan Drive, in Melbourne's west, had been marred by the use of scabs and violence.
Union organiser, Fergal Eliffe, was threatened by baseball bat wielding thugs, and, last week, a picketer was struck by a car.
"It's a matter of putting the relationship back together," Eliffe told Workers Online. "There are more civilised and efficient ways of sorting out wages and conditions and that's the road we've agreed to take.
"With goodwill, we are confident we can get a decent agreement for these people, and their families, in the next few weeks."
The landmark rolling of AWAs, at the heart of "Workchoices", began when Colrain employees rang the AMWU to say they had didn't like the individual contracts they had been forced to sign.
A check with the OEA, revealed the documents were still waiting for its rubber stamp. The AMWU moved, serving notice of a bargaining period.
"Colrain refused to sit down and talk. They said they would deal with each employee individually. We told them we could save them the bother, and free up their time to run the business, but they wouldn't listen," Eliffe said.
Workers then gave notice of protected action but when one of them refused to do data entry, he was stood down, provoking workmates to leave in solidarity.
The company called in replacement labour but, last Monday, agreed to contact the OEA and terminate its application to have the individual contracts registered.
The dispute blows apart Howard Government claims that AWAs are about "choice", and calls into question the motivation for its scrapping of the 14-day cooling off period before Australians can have their working lives regulated, for up to five years, by non-negotiated contracts.
The Australian used Freedom of Information searches to blow apart Costello's insistence that he had not received Treasury advice that undermined key Government claims for its radical IR rewrite.
Costello assured Parliament no 'secret' Treasury advice existed.
He was being question about evidence given by Treasury official, David Tune, who said Costello had been provided with advice on the economic ramifications of Workchoices but declined to be specific.
"It was so secret that this report had not been written," Costello smirked. "Not only was it so secret that it had not even been written, it was so secret that it had neither been written nor released which, I have to say, was one of those top-secret things."
But the Australian revealed a Treasury executive minute on workplace policy had been sent to Costello on October 6. It warned proposed changes would deliver smaller wage increases for low-income earners than the present system, and that productivity would fall in the short-term.
Further, Costello was advised, effects on employment growth would not be "huge" and the impact on productivity growth would be "slow" and "difficult to quantify".
The information, delivered a month before Workchoices was forced through Parliament, undermined government assurances it would lead to higher wages, increased productivity, and more jobs.
Those claims had been forced down Australians throats in a wall-to-wall advertising campaign funded by $55 million taxpayer dollars.
Opposition leader, Kim Beazley, and ACTU secretary, Greg Combet, have both accused the Treasurer of lying.
Combet said the revelations left any remaining Workchoices credibility in tatters.
But Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry boss, Peter Hendy, has ridden to Costello's defence.
Hendy represents big business interests and has been an outspoken advocate for workplace changes that green-light unjustified dismissals, sideline collective bargaining, hamstring trade unions and give the Workplace Relations Minister the ability to declare any negotiated clause "unlawful".
"I don't think, on the face of it that he (misled Parliament) because they appear to be ministerial briefing papers for cabinet discussions," Hendy rationalised.
Despite Hendy's support, Costello, a founder of the extreme Right Wing HR Nicholls Society, goes into the Parliamentary recess with a credibility problem.
Revelations about his "top secret" IR advice came hard on the heels of being outed for the appointment of a tax dodger and large Liberal Party donor to the board of the Reserve Bank.
Costello backed the appointment of Adelaide multi-millionaire, Peter Gerard to the bank, despite Australian Tax Office concerns that his companies had dudded the public purse over a number of years.
It was revealed that, prior to the appointment, Gerard had poured seven-figure sums into Liberal Party coffers and had been canvassed as a possible national treasurer for the organisation.
In resigning from the bank, last month, Gerard admitted his settlement with the ATO, which came after his appointment, had been for more than $75 million.
He thanked the Howard Government for its support.
The extraordinary admission came from David Hawker, federal member for Wannon, when he was confronted by constituents, including a Catholic Nun, about Building Industry Commission standover tactics in rural Victoria.
Hawker was non-plussed by suggestions agents of the state able to demand personal notes and records, from his constituents, on pain of gaol.
Since he discovered they could, more than a month ago, he has ducked invitations to explain himself to 350 workers at Iluka Iron Sands operations in Hamilton and Balmoral.
Former federal policemen, with the Building and Construction Commission, swooped on the towns, near the South Australian border, with demands for people to produce personal diaries, notes and records.
Using retrospective provisions introduced by Hawker's Government they demanded all "relevant" documents to disputes that occurred before draconian building industry laws were even enacted.
Hamilton workers have been ordered to "produce" everything in their possession that dates from September 1 to October 10.
Failure to produce anything demanded by the Commission, headed by anti-worker activists John Lloyd and Nigel Hadgkiss, renders people liable to six months in prison.
The scope of the anti-building worker legislation, which denies people the right to silence and forces them to attend secret interrogation sessions, catches employees in the iron sands industry.
Notices have been served on about 20 people, members of the AMWU, CFMEU, FEDFA, the AWU and the Plumbers Union.
They relate to a series of disputes AMWU organiser, Mark Solly, suspects were engineered by Iluka's owner, WA mining company Roche JR.
"There have been a number of issues, including health and safety concerns. The company has been quite provocative," he said.
Initially, Commission officers gave people two or three days to produce the paperwork. However, when the law was pointed out they extended that time to 14 days.
"All the alleged events occurred before the laws were even passed but the Commission is flexing its muscles, seeing how far it can push people around," Solly said.
"They've singled out union officials, shop stewards and health and safety representatives. It's about intimidating the activists.
"We're attempting to work our way through it but, to be honest, we are in uncharted waters. Australians aren't used to dealing with threats and standover tactics in their workplaces."
Solly said when Hawker met the community group, including himself, a representative of the Trades and Labor Council, the nun, and three retired men and women he appeared "dumbfounded" by what was happening .
But, he checked the claims and admitted they were all possible under building industry legislation, passed while he was presiding over the legislature.
But the Speaker refuses to speak to the people involved. Since being invited to attend site meetings at Hamilton and Balmoral, on November 23, Hawker has gone to ground.
The CBA has been ordered by the Federal Court to pay a record $750,000 in fines for inducing hundreds of Premium Financial Services employees, who look after some of the Bank's wealthiest clients, to resign from jobs protected by CBA agreements and sign individual contracts with subsidiary CommSec.
These individual contracts gave the Bank the option of paying those employees up to 30 per cent less for doing exactly the same job.
The penalty was also for discriminating against CBA employees who did not wish to be forced onto contracts by closing off career opportunities and for CBA's deliberate failure to consult with FSU.
The fine follows the scheme being declared illegal in early September. The judge hearing the case described the CBA's plan to force hundreds of its employees onto individual contracts as "reminiscent of the tax avoidance schemes of the 1970s."
"We believe the severity of last week's fine, combined with the order to offer employees the opportunity to be reinstated as CBA employees shows management that our members will not tolerate unfair treatment," says FSU assistant national secretary Sharron Caddie.
When handing down the punishment, Justice Merkel said that the bank had been "flagrant and deliberate" in its breach of the law and that the bank had operated "solely in pursuit of its self interest and profit ... without proper regard for the legality of its conduct."
"We hope this experience will prompt the Bank to finally do the right thing and enter into good faith negotiations with the FSU for a proper award to cover all CommSec employees and new collective agreements for EBA staff," says Caddie, adding the fine is 10 times bigger than any penalty handed down by a court for similar offences.
The three groups will work towards a manufacturing plan in response to the loss of 1178 jobs a week since the Howard Government came to office.
AMWU National President Julius Roe said manufacturing groups were forced to take the initiative because the Howard Government had ignored the decline of Australian industry.
"For the first time in more than 10 years we have a national tripartite partnership of employers, government and unions to deal with promotion of the manufacturing industry and to produce a plan to defend jobs," Roe said.
The plan, made at the National Manufacturing Summit in December, will seek to capitalise on Australia's strengths in the industry, as well as encourage the development of Australia's skills base.
The Strategic Action Plan is due to be completed by September 2006.
Other summit also agreed to:
o the commitment of the three groups to continue discussion in an ongoing national forum;
o a commitment that state manufacturing ministers will meet at least once a year to oversee the implementation of strategies and to identify areas that need to be addressed; and
o the encouragement of the involvement of the Commonwealth Government in developing the plan.
The summit was optimistic about Australia's ability to compete globally, noting the nation's capacity to manufacture specialist, short-run or niche products.
Although the summit brought together key players from around the country, the Commonwealth Government was a notable absence.
Roe said that while the non-attendance of the Federal Government had let down workers and the Australian economy, it would eventually be forced to respond.
"We want the Federal Government to join the national manufacturing forum; we want them to join in the development of an action plan, and to adopt the outcomes of deliberations."
Roe said the AMWU would continue to work on three levels to ensure jobs in manufacturing were protected. These were negotiating with employers, campaigning to improve policy and to work co-operatively with other interested groups, of which the summit was an example.
Ian Harper was a director of Australian Derivatives Exchange which had its trading licence revoked in March 2001. At the same time, Professor Harper was preparing a paper for investment bankers that argued Australia would have a healthier economy if sweatshops had been legal, last century.
He established his "Fair Pay" credentials with a stinging attack on the thinking behind the 1907 Harvester decision that established the principle of a basic, or living, wage.
"Employers in the sweatshops of lower Manhattan were not obliged to raise wages to 'fair and reasonable' levels," Harper wrote. He said while this meant a greater gap between rich and poor in the US, it gave that country a leaner manufacturing industry and a stronger economy.
It is a line of thought run by the extreme Right HR Nicholls Society and the Business Council of Australia which, this year, argued "fairness" should not be a factor in wage setting.
Harper ripped into the Harvester Judgment, which defined a fair wage as being sufficient to keep a family in a civilised condition, as a direct cause of Australia's comparatively weak manufacturing industry. He blamed it for the eventual sell-out of Harvester to Canadian multi-national Massey-Ferguson.
"Australia may have lost more than a homegrown harvester - we may have passed up the chance of owning a multinational agricultural equipment manufacturer!" he wrote.
Fifteen years after the judgement, the owner of the Harvester company, Victor Mackay, was still railing against the living wage decision.
"God did not make men equal - it is no use trying to pretend He did, or to make laws as though He did, or to pay people according to their requirements instead of according to their services," he wrote in a letter dated March 10, 1922.
Eighty nine years later, Harper endorsed that philosophy.
At the same time, he was a non-executive director of Australia Derivatives Exchange, which went into administration after just a few months of trading. The Australian Securities and Investment Commission revoked the company's license to operate an exchange.
The Federal Government said it was aware of Harper's history when Workplace Relations Minister Kevin Andrews appointed him head of the Fair Pay Commission in October.
"What this shows is that Professor Harper has a real understanding of business and the operations of a company," a spokesman for the Minister said.
Australian Business Limited's Chief Executive Mark Bethwaite said the NSW Government's policy that companies tendering for contracts treat employees fairly would effectively 'blackban' businesses using WorkChoices.
"It is revealing that ABL considers that companies using the WorkChoices legislation are, by definition, not being fair to their workers," NSW Industrial Relations Minister, John Della Bosca, said.
The stand-off came as NSW formally challenged Canberra's hostile takeover of industrial relations.
The State Government filed a writ this week at the High Court Registry in Sydney.
The Federal Government is claiming use of its corporations power to take over industrial relations, which under the constitution, is a matter for state governments.
"The case we will put before the High Court will demonstrate that the Howard Government has misused its authority in conducting a hostile takeover of powers that are constitutionally vested in the states," Della Bosca said.
Other State governments are expected to submit similar writs shortly.
About 50 workers stopped work at BlueScope's Springhill operation after finding out they had been singled out; being sent letters saying the company was "extremely disappointed" with attendance at the protests against the Government's workplace changes.
The letter warned any further "unauthorised absences" would result in disciplinary action.
BlueScope went to the NSW Industrial Relations Commission, where Commissioner McKenner directed the company to take back the letters and remove references to them in employees' files.
"They were just trying to say we will decide what you can do and what you can't do," says AMWU Wollongong organiser Brad Hattenfels. "The workers thought the letter was an attack on them and the thing is they didn't take the whole day off, not all workers stopped, production didn't stop and they didn't lose any money."
"The 50 employees that took the action saved the 500 strong workforce at Springhill from receiving these letters."
Meanwhile workers from John Danks and Son in Sydney welcomed a recommendation by the NSW IRC that they should not receive written warnings for attending the November 15 rallies.
They were given the warnings two weeks after attending the National Protest that saw over 500,000 people across Australia protest against the Howard government's WorkChoices legislation.
National Union of Workers secretary Derrick Belan said he was proud that the workers at Danks and Son decided to walk with tens of thousands of other workers in Sydney on November 15.
"In a time where the Federal Government is determined to take away the rights of ordinary citizens, workers like those at Danks and Son exercised their democratic right to protest on November 15.
"The recommendation also illustrates just how well the NSW Industrial Relations Commission works.
"I just hope that the now-removed warnings issued to our members at Danks and Son is not a sign of things to come under John Howard's new workplace landscape."
Geelong football identity, Mick Atkins, turned catty when Dharnae Kern insisted on being paid for 12 hours work in his greasy parlour.
Atkins withheld half her earnings in tax, leaving Kern with less than $60 - at $4.98 an hour - for her work.
"I thought it was ridiculous - just really petty," Kern said.
The dux of her year at Sacred Heart College took the job for extra money during school holidays, but quit when Atkins demanded she worked weekends because it clashed with another job.
"He [Atkins] knew I worked Sundays there [at the other job]," Kern said.
Kern said when she asked for payment for the hours she had worked, Atkins told her he didn't have to pay because she "mucked him around".
When her father, Walter, called to ask for payment - on the advice of Government service WageLine - Atkins responded with small change.
After Kern's father approached the local Trades Hall, more than 80 people protested outside Gilligan's Fish and Chips to demand an apology.
"[The Trades Hall] were my only avenue [available]," Walter Kern said.
Geelong Trades Hall Secretary Tim Gooden said light needed to be thrown on cases where bosses were being difficult.
"There's a lot of good employers around, but bad bosses will force them to drive their conditions down," Gooden said.
Walter Kern, an AMWU member, said he was proud of his daughter.
"She's good at that - she doesn't stand for injustice," he said.
He said all he wanted was for his daughter to get paid, but the five cent coins and the high tax rate had got him "really cheesed off".
"It's really terrible this attitude of adults, throwing their weight around against young people."
The law, which green lights third part interference in collective agreements, decrees that negotiated clauses providing for weekly, fortnightly or even monthly pay days are "not allowable".
Any clause can be rendered "not allowable" by the Workplace Relations Minister and anyone who subsequently asks for such a provision is liable to imprisonment.
Under Workchoices, it will be "not allowable" for any award to require how and when employees must be paid.
"The guarantee for every employee under the award safety net to be paid regularly and on time has been taken away," ACTU secretary, Greg Combet, confirmed.
"Under John Howard's system it will be legal to pay staff once every three months, or even once a year.
"This is one more example of how these IR laws strip away the most basic workplace rights of Australian employees.'
It is also an example of how far the federal government is prepared to go to limit the ability of negotiators to strike collective agreements that suit their circumstances.
Workchoices specifies a number of common, agreed clauses that will be unlawful in future. Most go to trade union recognition but others strike at basic protections negotiated by workers.
Clauses that seek to protect job security and negotiated minimum rates by limiting, or requiring negotiation, on the use of labour hire, casuals or contractors are "not allowable".
Some state laws protects pay days, and pay periods, but a cornerstone of Workchoices is a federal takeover of all state systems.
The state's railworkers joined community protests in September, lobbying politicians after Pacific National threatened to shut down Tasmania's north-south rail corridor unless governments stumped up over $100 million to bail out the system it bought in 2004.
The ultimatum would have unleashed another 300 trucks a day on the state's ageing roads, and cost of over 270 jobs.
"This is a big plus for road safety," says Rail Tram and Bus Union National President Bob Hayden. "Keeping freight trains running on the Hobart-Launceston-Burnie line means that hundreds of trucks a day will be kept off the state's roads."
Tasmanians feared a steep increase in heavy truck traffic would lead to deaths and injuries. A spokesperson from the Tasmanian trucking industry said members could not cope with the increased demand, while a federal study showed transport costs would jump 17%.
Tasmanian RTBU activist, Rex Neil, put together a rail recovery plan that drew on AuslLink funding to Tasmania, a plan that formed the basis of the federal government's $78 million dollar offer.
With the Tasmanian Government agreeing to the package, Hayden called on Pacific National to take up their part of the three-way rescue package to ensure it is delivered. With no current CEO Pacific National is stalling on a decision until next February, but transport economist Bob Cotgrove says he would be surprised if the offer was rejected.
Under the plan Pacific National, which owns the Tasmanian track, would hand it over to the Tasmanian Government at no cost and the State Government will be required to fund estimated maintenance costs of $4 million a year.
Pacific National would be asked to contribute $38 million, for rolling stock replacements and improvements, something Neil says should be a priority to ensure that rail operations in Tasmania remain viable.
Rail workers have also welcomed a planned upgrade of the terminal at Bell Bay.
"This is a bit of an early Christmas present for Tasmanian road users as well as the state's rail workers," said Neil. "Some of them have been retrenched two or three times, and were looking at that happening again.
"The state government shouldn't sneeze at this solution, especially three months out from a state election.
"All parties have to get fair dinkum about fixing the rail track in Tasmania and ensuring it is maintained and managed well into the future."
Following the release of a poll by Auspoll, which found that around 75 per cent of APESMA members surveyed were concerned or very concerned about major parts of the Government's new IR laws, APESMA head John Vines says that despite the respondents' high incomes, they were worried about how the changes will affect their kids once they entered the workforce.
"People believe the new system is inherently unfair," says Vines, adding the belief that young people will be worse off, despite whatever tertiary qualifications they may have, is widespread.
Besides the view that individual contracts and the demolition of awards will mean worse working conditions for low skilled jobs many students hold while completing their studies, Vines says his members fear such problems will also apply to when their children begin their careers.
"Things might be OK for those working in large firms where there are appropriate HR practices, but young graduates in small to medium enterprises are much more likely to be subject to the law of the jungle," says Vines, adding that small and medium firms make up the lion's share of employment for APESMA members.
The poll, which was commissioned by APESMA, found the overwhelming majority of those surveyed were deeply disturbed by the reduction of influence of awards and enterprise agreements, the reduction of the powers of the Australian Industrial Relations Commission and the removal of the no-disadvantage test for Australian Workplace Agreements as compared to awards or enterprise agreements under the new laws.
Just under 30 percent said they were likely or very likely to change their vote at the next federal election based on the IR issue. This was despite the fact that over 35 per cent of those surveyed voted Liberal at the last election, that over half of them earn between $60,000 and $100,000 a year and 26 per cent earn over $100,000 a year. APESMA has around 42,000 members, including architects, IT, pharmacists and veterinarians.
Civil contractors representative, Doug Huett, has added his voice to community and union concerns that Workplace Relations Minister, Kevin Andrews, has devised a rorters' charter.
"Make no mistake, after 20 years as a senior industrial advocate representing employers, I can tell you categorically a lot of unscrupulous employers will take advantage of this new legislation," Huett warns in the latest issue of Construction magazine.
"That's the job - if you don't like it, off you go," he predicts will be the attitude.
Huett, who tangled regularly with unions, including the CFMEU, AMWU and AWU, as national executive director of the Civil Contractors Federation, took issue with key arguments underpinning Workchoices.
He said unfair dismissal protections had gone from "the sublime to the ridiculous".
He criticised the old regime as "ridiculously stringent" but characterised its replacement as a simple case of "you're sacked".
Huett also contested federal government's contention that minimum wages had been set by members of an "industrial relations club" who didn't pay enough attention to hard economic evidence.
He described the volume of economic evidence at National Wage Case proceedings, before the AIRC, as "mind boggling".
"I seem to recall Howard saying that the new Commission (Fair Pay Commission) will be made up of highly qualified people more able to determine what is fair pay.
"Conversely, the AIRC which broadly comprises appointments from both the employer and employee sides of the 'industrial relations club' - solicitors, senior advocates, union officials, ACTU officers, all with vast industrial relations experience - and, therefore, not deemed to be able to set a minimum wage," he wrote.
Huett pointed out the Howard Government had tried to reward outgoing CFMEU forestry division secretary, Trevor Smith, with a seat on the Fair Pay Commission in return for forestry votes that delivered the unexpected Senate majority it used to ram Workchoices into law.
"The more things change, the more they stay the same," he said. "Had Smith been appointed to the AIRC I would have thought the IR Club is alive and well."
Huett was national executive director of the Civil Contractors Federation from 1988-2002 and now works as a consultant to employers in the civil construction industry.
The growing trend of unions voicing workers' concerns as shareholders in big companies will take an increasing important role.
However, despite the IR laws' central aim of making life harder for unions, a lack of options is not the reason for record levels of shareholder activism, which are set to increase.
'They would have anyway, but the new IR laws will simply push more unions towards shareholder activism more quickly," says Unions NSW secretary John Robertson.
His comments come as unions and the business community wait for a landmark decision on shareholder activism between the Commonwealth Bank of Australia and the Finance Sector Union to be handed down by the Federal Court.
In that case the CBA argued the FSU, which is a CBA shareholder, tried to "coerce" it into signing a new enterprise agreement by writing to members of the board and trying to get a resolution passed at the 2004 AGM for the bank to regularly review its "Which New Bank" restructure, which has resulted in around 3700 job losses to date.
Robertson's comments follow the release of a report from the University of Melbourne's Centre for Corporate Law and Securities Regulation earlier this month.
A key question posed by the report is whether Australian whether unions will link with superannuation funds to bring even more resolutions to shareholder meetings, as has occurred in the US.
"Absolutely," says Robertson, adding unions will also seek to join other groups, such as shareholder associations, in an effort to increase the effectiveness of such campaigns.
Over the last five years the CFMEU, the TWU, the AWU, the ASU and the ACTU have engaged in shareholder activism against major employers such as Rio Tinto, Boral, ANZ, BlueScope Steel, Qantas, NRMA and James Hardie,
While no resolution put forward by a union to date has been passed at a company's AGM, the publicity surrounding such action had huge ramifications, for example the ACTU's campaign for adequate compensation for asbestos victims from James Hardie and the ASU's campaign comparing the 66 per cent pay rise Qantas wanted to grant its non-executive directors compared to the 3 per cent pay rise offered to other staff in 2004.
Appearing with her husband Pat, Mrs Huxley told the room of delegates that their daughter, who was viciously bashed last month, is recovering slowly from her attack and is now able to squeeze her hand.
"We're still waiting for her to say I love you," Mrs Huxley said.
Both Lauren's parents came to the council meeting to thank the union movement for its fund raising efforts. The Huxley family has been living in a one bedroom flat since the attack, which saw their home set alight, so the extra help was most welcome.
Pat Huxley is a carpenter and member of the Construction Forestry Mining and Energy Union and his wife Christine is a member of the Finance Sector Union.
Lauren Huxley, who regained consciousness after lying in a coma for three weeks on life support at Westmead Hospital, was attacked when she returned home from an exam at Baulkham Hills TAFE, where she was studying a marketing and journalism course.
Australian Workers Union Newcastle Secretary Kevin Maher said three Boeing managers were caught off guard in an Industrial Relations Commission hearing when pushed on why collective agreements would be detrimental to the company's interests.
"It was crystal clear that it's not for any other reason than a philosophical one," Maher said.
The dispute has seen workers spend more than 200 days camped outside Boeing's site at Williamtown, just outside Newcastle.
"We didn't expect to be here at Christmas, but we didn't expect to be here 203 days either," striking worker Adam Burgoyne said.
"It's just plain arrogance."
He said the onus was on John Howard or Kevin Andrews to end the dispute by "making a phone call" to put the matter to arbitration.
Burgoyne said the workers were in "high spirits" and would stay on the line for another 200 days if they had to.
"Our motto has always been one day longer than Boeing and it will continue to be," Burgoyne said.
AWU National Secretary Bill Shorten said Boeing's workers at Newcastle were paid about $20,000 less than people with the same skills in other parts of Australia.
"Through our current enterprise bargaining negotiations with Qantas, we know that Qantas aircraft maintenance engineers are paid $20,000 more than our members at Boeing Williamtown, and equivalent employees at Hawker De Havilland are earning roughly the same as at Qantas," Shorten said.
To make a donation to the Boeing boys contact the AWU's Newcastle office on (02) 4967 1155.
The job cuts at the Manildra Flour Mill have been sheeted home to a slow uptake of ethanol, a "biofuel" petrol substitute, under existing government policy, which targets only 1% of fuel consumption.
"All the blurbs encouraging us to use 10% ethanol have a footnote 'where available'," says Andren. "Outlets in city and country are too few and far between."
Andren asked Howard in Parliament, given the job cuts and very slow market uptake of ethanol, would the government reconsider mandating a 10% ethanol level in petrol rather than the current policy.
"Other countries do it, and with the Government's own climate report this week showing our greenhouse gas output continuing to rise steeply, there is a golden opportunity for the government to get serious about our environmental responsibilities by mandating, not just setting voluntary targets, for biofuels," says Andren.
Andren's call has been echoed by Cabonne Shire Mayor, John Farr, who is also seeking Federal Government assistance to save the jobs of one quarter of the Mill's 200-strong workforce.
"The National Union of Workers supports the Mayor's request," says NUW secretary Derrick Belan. "The job cuts at the Manildra Flour Mill can be attributed to the downturn of the ethanol market.
"The loss of these jobs is devastating for the workers involved and their families.
"Unfortunately, the Howard government has done little to promote the use of ethanol fuel blends.
"The redundancies at the Manildra Mill reach much further than the direct impact they will have on the workers. There is a broader issue of support for the use of environmentally friendly fuels sources, as well as Federal Government support for rural communities, given that the Manildra Mill sustains a rural community that has few other job opportunities.
"John Howard said he was 'sorry' about the job losses. Well 'sorry' does not put food on the table of these workers. The Prime Minister must act to help this plant and this community instead of simply expressing regret for the situation in Parliament."
Belan suggested the Federal Government look towards requiring all Commonwealth vehicles to utilise ethanol fuel mix.
The Great Debate: Who represents us?
ALP (Nathan Murphy, ALP State Organiser) vs Greens (Ken McAlpine, Greens IR spokesperson) vs Socialist Alliance (Tim Gooden, Secretary Geelong Trades Hall) vs Socialist Party (Anthony Main, arguing for a new workers' party).
Equal time for speakers, followed by questions/discussion.
Melbourne's Trades Hall Bar, 1.30pm Saturday Feb 4th
Australia's 3.5 million pensioners stand to have increases to their allowances cut as a result of the Coalition Government's controversial new industrial relations reforms.
Not only does the Australian Government want to abolish basic working conditions, they also intend removing the power of the Industrial Relations Commission to set the minimum wage. This is not only bad for paid workers; it is also detrimental to pensioners.
The pension in Australia is calculated according to the Social Security Act, 1991.
The Base Pension (ie. not the pension supplement) is indexed twice yearly based on the Consumer Price Index (CPI) but is also benchmarked against Male Total Average Weekly Earnings (MTAWE) at 25%.
March, 2005 this year was the last time the pension went up.
The Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) publishes the CPI quarterly. The Base Pension is then increased by the percentage change in the CPI over a six month period.
The new CPI indexed amount was then compared with the latest MTAWE figure.
As in previous years, if the new CPI indexed amount was less than 25 percent of MTAWE, an extra amount is added to the base single pension so that it is at least 25% of MTAWE.
The MTAWE figure includes the earnings of men on the minimum or junior wages as well as higher paid workers.
The Australian Government wants to take the minimum wage setting powers away from the Industrial Relations Commission and give them to it�s handpicked Fair Pay Commission. We can only wait to see how much of an oxymoron this name becomes. The American equivalent hasn't increased their minimum wage since 1998.
The Fair Pay Commission will make it�s first minimum wage decision in late 2006, and the implementation of this pay rise adjustment� could be delayed even longer.
The incumbent Australian Government, considers the minimum wage too high: it wants to take penalty rates out of awards. This will mean a catastrophic drop in wages for shift workers.
Naturally prices will continue to go up including the basic necessities of life (because of petrol prices of which more than 33% goes to the Government in tax).
When the MTAWE goes down so will pensions. This will mean pensioners will have difficulty paying skyrocketing bills for essentials such as food, housing transport and health services. One must ask how are people going to save up enough in superannuation to afford a decent retirement?
The proposed industrial relations changes are unjust, regressive and will guarantee greater inequality. The pension will be eroded in real terms relative to prices.
The IR changes must be opposed to prevent looming impoverishment of wage earners (the working poor will be a reality) and people on fixed incomes (pensions).
After 14 years of prosperity this is what we get offered. These changes must be opposed. If you are not happy with these IR changes, lobby your local Federal member.
Mike Hudson, NSW
The Editorial in the latest Workers Online (#292) came up with the suggestion that political life in Australia could be improved by giving pollies the right to vote according to their consciences rather than being bound by caucus solidarity. While it's quite common to see this sort of idea come up in the bosses' press, it's the first time I've seen a labour movement publication in Australia advocate it.
When the ALP was formed, it adopted quite definite rules about its Parliamentary representatives, because workers were sick & tired of being betrayed by jokers who represented themselves as "the workers' friend" at election time, then kicked them in the teeth afterwards. Therefore, the ALP rules provided that:
(a) The Party members would control the Party;
(b) The Party's Parliamentary representatives would be bound to support Party policy; and
(c) The Party's Parliamentary representatives would vote together to maximise their leverage in Parliament (i.e. they would act as a caucus).
There was (& is) only one excuse under the rules for breaking caucus. This is when you vote against the majority caucus position in order to vote in favour of Party policy (i.e. if the majority rats on the Party, the Party organisation will support the minority who don't rat).
This seems to me like a very sensible situation, especially when one looks at the history of when ALP pollies have broken caucus. I remember Billy Hughes, for example. He broke caucus on conscription in 1917, took two dozen other rats with him, and turned himself into a Tory PM. In the 30s, Joe Lyons ratted on the ALP & turned himself into a Tory PM. And in the 50s, the DLP ratted on the ALP and kept Pig Iron Bob in power till well after his use-by date.
Whenever a Labor pollie wants to break caucus, they can only have leverage if they'll be voting with the Tories. Given the nature of the Tories, if the Labor polly is breaking caucus to do the right thing, this will happen only once in a blue moon. Most of the time, it will merely be a gesture of principle, with no practical effect, or they'll be voting with the Tories in order to rat on the people who voted for them.
The reason this idea can even seem half credible is that, due to changes during the Hawke years, ALP members no longer have meaningful control over the Party. Number crunchers & spin doctors have such tight control over the organisation that workers no longer see the point in joining and membership is a fraction of what it used to be. So the idea of the ALP being the voice of the workers just doesn't seem to occur to most people these days.
Some people might say that this is fair enough for the ALP, but we have to encourage dissidents in the Federal Coalition. Frankly, this is clutching at straws. Instead putting our energy into appealing to some eccentric or wavering Tory to show some backbone & vote according to principle, we'd be better off building our own movement and changing the facts on the ground. Recruiting an extra 80,000 union members would do us far more good in fighting Howard's anti-worker legislation than sending 80,000 E-mails to Barnaby Joyce ever will.
Are we up to it? We can search for "friends" in Parliament till the cows come home, but in the end we have nobody but ourselves to rely on.
In Solidarity,
Greg Platt, Vic.
2005 has been great! 2006 also promises to be action-packed.
Telstra's credit rating has been downgraded, casting further doubt over next year's anticipated sale (not to mention thousands of employees face being axed). Sol and his team will no doubt get what they want - no regulatory relief, no sale. Or, sale with no regulatory relief at a bargain basement price.
It also seems likely there has been more than just one cockroach in Saddam's kitchen, and we have to question whether AWB were alone, and so incredibly naive, in what may be one of the biggest scandal's the Howard Government
has ever faced.
Add to the fray, workers being stripped of their rights to accommodate 'big business aspirations', as well as attempts to gag dissenters of all varieties is that sedition or sedation?). This is sure to present some major headaches for the coalition.
We are only now being made aware of just how timid our Government have been with our Indonesian neighbours as evidenced by their response to the East Timor crisis back in 99. This too, may be further scrutinised a little
more deeply than Mr Howard would like.
TAX CUTS, TAX CUTS, TAX CUTS FOR EVERYBODY.
It seems to me that the PM senses that 2006 is not going to be a pleasant one for his government, so why not start now by promising generous tax cuts.
As 2005 closes, the Prime Minister has promised the next round of tax cuts would be "for all Australians", a day after Nationals leader Mark Vaile called for tax relief for lower-income workers
However, Mr Costello remains at odds with the PM and cautioned that the minerals boom, which has underpinned the Government's finances, will not last forever. He has again emphasised the need for strong budget surpluses in the years ahead, warning that billions of dollars could be stripped from company tax receipts when the commodity boom ends.
Oh! and Pete won't be challenging the PM for the top job - that could actually be a blessing in disguise for the Treasurer.
This is all pure speculation of course, however, if the PM can make a career out of it, so can I?
Kind regards
John McPhilbin, NSW
Last week's Editorial makes some very valid observations about the decline of our parliamentary democracy. It correctly observes that the power of executive government in our constitutional framework is at its zenith. Equally it points out that the nominal separation of powers between legislature and a responsible executive government have been rendered inoperative by the rigidities of party disciple.
Unfortunately the editor's prescription for this malady is for the parties to abandon the discipline of the whip on all occasions except for confidence votes. This would be a serious error for any party committed to reform. Party discipline is the critical link of accountability between a party's election commitments and what it does in government. We may not like what Howard is doing but the vast majority of this reform agenda has been coalition policy for a long time. Any vaguely politically aware person has known that the Coalition has wanted to do some really nasty stuff on the IR front. The critical factor is that up until now they have lacked the numbers to do it.
The cruel irony is that it was the emergence of the Labor Party on the national political stage that led to the adoption of rigid party discipline. Labor introduced of the union principle of solidarity to parliamentary processes through the instruments of the pledge and the binding caucus. Our conservative opponents were forced to respond with their own tightened discipline. And so we find ourselves in our current predicament.
The Editor holds up the individual freedom of members of the US congress as a model to be emulated. In this system party policy is meaningless and the self-interest of representatives is the key determinate of their voting patterns. That is why money rules in this system and that would be no different here. In the US the Labor movement have been trying to repeal their equivalent of the Workplace Relations Act since 1947. This is despite their so-called friends - the Democratic Party - having a nominal congressional majority for most of the preceding half century. The Labor movement has simply not been able to outbid corporate America to buy back a majority on this issue in the congress. Give me the Australian system any day!
If we are looking for possible ways to strengthen the role of the parliament over the executive then perhaps a better model lies across the Tasman. The New Zealand system of proportional voting (Mixed Member Proportional - MMP) has done just that. Before MMP New Zealand probably had the strongest form of executive government among western democracies. With no upper house and no written constitution a government with control of the numbers in the parliament could do pretty much what it liked. And they did! That's how they got Rogernomics and the Employment Contracts Act. But the change to the electoral system has rendered that style of government impossible now. The executive has to negotiate its entire legislative agenda through a parliament where it lacks a guaranteed majority. The Executive is truly held accountable to the parliament!
Admittedly coalition government has its down sides. Critics of proportional electoral systems often point to post war Italy and the instability of its governments. But other more stable democracies, like post war Germany and Sweden, have operated under PR without this instability. Arguably the key element of stable parliamentary democracies is not the method of election but a nation's history and political culture.
A future Labor government committed to restoring the integrity of our parliamentary system should give serious consideration to changing the way our lower house is elected. What might be lost in stability would be gained in accountability and the strengthening of parliament as the central institution in our democracy.
Anthony D'Adam
Who said the NSW Labor Government was against John Howard's IR changes? Managers in NSW RailCorp Security Division are doing John Howard proud.
Twenty-three staff in the Security Control Centre have been told if they do not become uniformed Transit Officers they can only continue in their current positions if they agree to no more pay increases (other than EBA related). This means that whatever workload management place on the 23 staff they will not be paid for the increased value of the work, contrary to RailCorp's own HR policies.
Additionally, staff have to agree to have their positions reviewed every 6 months to see if they continue. This appears to be introducing another class of employee - a permanent temporary employee.
John Howard would be proud of RailCorp for introducing his reforms and the NSW Government should come clean - if they allow this type of industrial thuggery they obviously support the new IR legislation.
Robert Scott, NSW
In between, a hard-fought, but in the short-term losing battle, for the most fundamental of rights, the right to be treated with respect and dignity at work. And if you don't see the connections between the three, then you are not looking closely enough.
Let's start at the ocean's edge - the outpouring of humanity that greeted the tsunami, represented a real engagement with our Asian neighbour's, that did much to resurrect Keating's fallen legacy of active engagement with the region. Indeed, the public support for appeals was so stark that the Prime Minister was forced to dig in too, his contribution to Indonesia's relief efforts being an act of genuine goodness.
Then he went about undoing all this good work by pulling his extreme industrial relations agenda out of his back pocket - a happy convergence of corporate power and political opportunism dressed up as economic mumbo-jumbo that even his own Treasury wouldn't buy.
With control of the Senate in the hands of a suicidal Nat who would not even stop the sale of Telstra, the changes were never going to be stopped; that they caused the level of public debate is some achievement. At least the lemmings knew they were jumping over the waterfall.
The heartening news was the way that the union movement, that most local of institutions, managed tor ally community opposition to the changes - not through traditional tactics like general strikes but through smart new moves like building alliances with the churches, TV advertisements, video link-ups and SMS trees.
Operating in an hostile environment could well bring out the best in a movement that has only ever been as strong as its base; but we can not under-estimate the challenged ahead: union activity has basically been criminalized; government policy is to push individual contracts any way it can and the electorate has the attention span of two-year-old.
The one thing missing from the government's $55 million advertising blitz and attempt to deflect union arguments as a 'scare campaign' is the courage to admit these laws for what they are - a concerted push to integrate Australia's labour market - holus, bolus, into a global economy without rules.
Which brings us to Cronulla ...
If there was a message that sparked these riots it was delivered by the PM in 2001 - 'we decide who comes into this country' - after adopting One Nation's policies and rhetoric and selling as a future Australia's 'freedom' to harbour racist sentiments.
His studious silence in the face of the Cronulla riots can only be interpreted as an attempt to hedge his bets on the race card. As the Tampa election showed, this is the one card that trumps dissent with economic globalism.
A government responsible for further reducing the economic barriers to the world economy can only make citizens feel secure by diverting attention to cultural barriers; they may destroy the notion of an Australian economy but they can turn refugees around.
Australia is currently a nation in confusion - buffered by global change and our tenuous place in the world; desperate for some sense of controlling the madness, yet being led deeper and deeper into the world of corporate power free from rules and regulations.
Howard's industrial relations changes will only heighten these insecurities - less job security, lower wages, more jobs shipped offshore and no bargaining rights - all handing power to the employer and make workers feel more desperate and alone.
If the market swallows up working life, what have we left? Expect our fears of the outside world - where we will be more likely to blame an outside for our troubles than hold out a helping hand.
If fear and loathing reigns, Howard will be in the box seat. And if that doesn't work, there's always the tax cuts.
But no more gloom so close the Christmas! Here's to more battles in 2006 - because while those who would destroy us have never been in a stronger position, hubris is real.
Finally, seasons greetings to all our readers and if you want to send Workers Online a bit of festive largesse, don't forget to vote for us as the Labourstart website of the year.
Until February,
Peter Lewis
Editor
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