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Good Times
Hands up who watched Kim Beazley’s budget in reply last night? None of you? Thought so.
Interview: Out of the Bedroom
Reverend Jim Wallis is leading a crusade to take the moral debate into the public arena.
Industrial: Cloak and Dagger
The Howard Government has begun a series of workshops to sell its WorkChoice vsision. Sean Ambrose sneaked through the doors for Workers Online.
Unions: Lockout!
Jim Comerford’s eyewitness account of the 15-month Lockout of 10,000 New South Wales miners in1929-1930 records the inside story of Australia’s most bloody and bitter industrial conflict
Legal: The Fantasy of Choice
Professor Ron McCallum argues the WorkChoices laws are built on a fundamental fiction.
Politics: Labor Pains
Labor has dealt itself out of the crucial workplace relations debate by failing to articulate a credible policy alternative to Howard’s new WorkChoices legislation, argues Mark Heearn and Grant Michelson
Economics: Economics and the Public Purpose
Evan Jones pays tribute to John Kenneth Galbraith, a big man who never stopped arguing that economics should serve the public good, not create public squalor.
Corporate: House of Horrors
Anthony Keenan takes a tour of Sydney’s notorious, Asbestos House, courtesy of Gideon Haig.
History: Clash Of Cultures
Neale Towart with a new take on Mayday through the words of a punk icon
International: Childs Play
An ILO report into Child Labour shows some progress is being made to curb this gobal scurge .
Culture: Folk You Mate!
Phil Doyle dodges Morris Dancers to find signs of Working Life at the National Folk Festival in Canberra over the Easter Weekend.
Review: Last Holeproof Hero
Finally, a superhero who has worked out how to wear his underpants. Nathan Brown ogles V for Vendetta
 Howard Hunts Heroes
Workplace Cop Shrugs Shoulders
Gerry Built Apartments Fall Behind
NFF Axe Over Childcare
Ballarat Suffers Maxi-Rort
Hunter Collects on Jobs
Company Doctors Terminal
Killer Bosses Swoop on Croweaters
US: Thousands Fired For Joining Unions
Cozzies Skills Skid
Howard’s Unpaid Photo Op
Activist's What's On!
The Soapbox
Albo's Meltdown
Labor's environment spokesman Antony Albanese argues that Chrernobyl is one reason why the ALP should stand firm on nuclear. The Locker Room
A Sort Of Homecoming
Phil Doyle plays to the whistle. Parliament
The Westie Wing
Our favourite MP, Ian West reports from Macquarie Street on some strange collective acction.
Immigration Department Strikes Again
Budget Dividend
The Real Truth About Independent Contractors
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News
Ballarat Suffers Maxi-Rort
A company boasting record profits has tossed 35 regional Victorians out of work to retain 25 Chinese welders, imported under John Howard’s cut-price labour scheme.
Ballarat-based manufacturer, Maxi-TRANS, punted 13 locals a fortnight ago, and another 22 last week.
AMWU state secretary, Dave Oliver, said federal government policy was directly responsible for the job losses.
"The federal government is fuelling the skills crisis and costing our young people opportunities, so it can drive down wages," Oliver said.
"These local people had been employed as casuals, for years, but not offered the training they needed to become skilled welders.
"Instead, MaxiTRANS has used government's scandalous policy to import and keep Chinese welders who only have to be paid the minimum wage."
MaxiTRANS, which builds semi-trailers, announced a $14 million profit, last year, under the headline: "MaxiTRANS Delivers Another Record Profit.'
The figure is nearly double that it recorded for the 1994 financial year.
During that period, it has been mired in controversy over its use of cheap overseas labour at the expense of Victorian youngsters.
Its strategy was unmasked, last year, when it brushed nine locals who had been promised starts through a group training company in favour of imported tradesmen it could put on individual agreements that undercut negotiated rates.
One youngster, Chirs Walters, confirmed his promised steel fabrication apprenticeship had been shelved.
He called the MaxiTRANS about-face a "kick in the guts".
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Issue 306 contents
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