E D I T O R I A L

Open for Business?
While our focus in recent months has rightly been on the federal political arena, the first skirmish in the battle for rights for NSW workers will occur at the state election, due in just nine months.

F E A T U R E S

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

N E W S

Laughing All The Way To MacBank

Perth Apartments Go Like a Bomb

AWAs - Just Say No!

Andrews Puts Contracts on Families

Safety Laws Mine New Depths

Builder Threatens Homes

Beazley to Halt Maxi-Scam

Umpire Stumps Minister

Worker Dumped Over Casual Affair

Councils Trash Workers

Union Journo Escapes Fiji

Canucks Crash Howard’s Party

C O L U M N S

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.

L E T T E R S

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Independent Contractors

Congratulations on your editorial. The Independent Contractors Act is more of a threat to working families than even Workchoices. Its ambition is simple but bold. It is to eliminate altogether 'employment' law as such, and reduce every person in the labour market to nothing more than a pair of hands/brain for hire, with as little rights as the computer sitting on the manager's desk, and with fewer protections. It is the ultimate in outsourcing - it is a way of devolving every 'risk' of existence onto the sturdy shoulders of each individual and their family. A simple way to reduce the cost of employment is to simply have no employees! The costs of living then become someone else's problem-the contractor's of course! Bingo!

It is time that the implications of this strategy and its meaning for households everywhere was highlighted. By the way, the fanfare for the legislation could be read in the journal IPA Review in February this year. This is a right wing rag whose sources of funding might be usefully pursued by a busy funster, although you would find the usual suspects. They had a goergeous little peice about a conference where independent contractors talked and wrote about the joys of throwing off the shackles of employment and being able to work as long as they wanted! It was a corker.

Linda Carruthers, NSW

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