Unions have approached their relevant departments seeking the special provisions to support what is shaping as a mammoth rebuilding task. The CFMEU is also devising a plan to provide support for the rebuilding of Dili, through the deployment of skilled tradespeople.
The NSW Teachers Federation made its request in early May to Premier Bob Carr who referred it to Education Minister John Aquilina, who is yet to reply to the teachers..
But the NSW Nurses Association, currently coordinating a campaign to provide vital medical supplies for Timor, have received in principle support from Health Minister Craig Knowles to the idea of paid leave for nurses.
"Only where people coordinating the efforts make the call - but we need to get the structures in place - there are a lot of nurses putting their hands up.
"It's not just related to nurses, there is an overwhelming feeling of support for the people of East Timor amongst our membership.
The NSW Nurses' medical campaign is gaining momentum, with the Pharmaceutical Guild of NSW lending its support in collecting medical supplies and TNT agreeing to provide free transport of supplies to the Nurses' Camperdown base.
The Nurses have launched a special hotline for public donations to provide emergency health care to the East Timorese people and to restore their health services.
Donations to the Nurses APHEDA East Timor Appeal can be made by calling the hotline on 1300 653 238 or sending a cheque to Box 3, Trades Hall, 4 Goulburn Street, Sydney 2000.
APHEDA Endorsed by CNRT
Meanwhile, the CNRT has nominated the trade union aid agency APHEDA as the approved contact point for trade union donations to the East Timorese.
APHEDA has had a long association with East Timor, having established health and education programs and working closely with the CNRT in the lead-up to the referendum.
The union agency is sending food and medical supplies to East Timor on the Mercy Ship which will leave Darwin this September.
The Mercy Ship, a joint venture of several aid agencies, is carrying 300 tonnes of urgently-needed food and medical supplies for the people of East Timor.
Part of the medical supplies on board are a result of the Nursing Unions throughout Australia collecting urgently needed medicines from hospitals, health centres and pharmaceutical companies as part of the Nurses Union Aid Appeal.
APHEDA's Executive Officer, Phillip Hazelton, says:"We have provided medicines to this first mercy ship from the very generous donations from hospitals and companies around Australia. From the cash donations received from union members and the public we have also provided $26,000 to buy food and additional medicines to go on this first ship. Volunteer nurses are sorting through the rest of the donated medicines over the next few days and these also will be sent to Darwin next week to supply medical teams going to East Timor" he said.
To find out more about APHEDA visit them at http://www.apheda.org.au
Roger Woodward Fundraiser
The Media, Entertainment and Arts Alliance is holding a benefit for East Timor in the Concert Hall of the Sydney Opera House on Friday October 8 at 8.00pm.
Internationally acclaimed pianist Roger Woodward has agreed to perform at the concert, with all money raised going to the Catholic charity CARITAS. Tickets available at the Opera House box office.
STOP PRESS: Union calls on Telstra to reverse discriminatory leave policy
The CPSU has called on Telstra to change the way it handles leave arrangements for staff called to active duty in East Timor.
The union claims Telstra is discriminating between 'contract' staff and 'award-based' staff, forcing award-based staff to use their own leave entitlements while they are on duty in East Timor.
Stephen Jones, Secretary of the CPSU Telecommunications Section, said, "Telstra have issued an e-mail to managers which states clearly that contract staff who are ordered to active duty will be fully paid for the duration of their tour of duty, but award-based staff will only be paid for 14 days. After that they will have to use their own recreation leave while serving their country in East Timor. "
'Everybody knows Telstra wants to get as many staff as possible onto contracts (Australian Workplace Agreements) but this development is completely over the odds. We are calling on Telstra to do the right thing and behave like a decent corporate citizen. " Mr Jones added.
CPSU has sent an urgent letter to Telstra chief, Dr Ziggy Switkowski, calling for an immediate change of policy.
CFMEU construction division president Peter McClelland will this week warn a meeting of community activists and residents in Sydney's outer west that the Reith laws will kill off the ability of trade unions to act on their behalf.
The Second Wave would remove the Australian Industrial Relations Commission's discretion to accept industrial action is legal on public interest grounds and compel it to issue orders stopping any unprotected industrial action, exposing offending unions to damages.
McClelland says that the community needs to realise that if these laws go the imposition Green Bans would place the trade union's future in jeopardy. "That doesn't ,mean the CFMEU won't be active in community issues - but it will be a lot harder to be effective".
The meeting has been organised to discuss the possibility of an alliance between Unions, Environment Groups and the Community to fight the threats of over-development and urban
sprawl in the region - particularly a major new housing development.
McClelland says it's ironic that an area that has elected Liberal leaders to federal parliament, is now turning to the union movement for support.
"I wonder if those people who voted for Jacqui Kelly or John Fahey realise that they are part of a government that will leave them powerless to oppose developments on their back door?".
Peter McClelland will address Politics in the Club Friday 1st October 1999 - 7.00pm-9.00pm, Mt Druitt Workers Club 247 Woodstock Ave, Dharruk.
Other Speakers: Jack Mundey, BLF 'Green Bans' leader & heritage campaigner; Lee Rhiannon, NSW Greens MLC; Charles Manche, ADI Residents Action Group and Shane Bentley, Democratic Socialist Party.
Audience participation will be welcomed. Enquires: 9673 2545 or 0411 681137
ACTU Puts Submission to Senate
Meanwhile, the ACTU has presented its submission to the Senate inquiry into the Reith laws, describing the legislation represents as the most serious attack on the rights of workers this century.
ACTU President Jennie George says the Government's proposed laws will further weaken the safety net award system; unfairly strengthen the bargaining position of employers; restrict the ability of collective bargaining and union representation; promote exploitative individual contracts; and diminish the role of the Industrial Relations Commission.
The submission argues that the Bill be withdrawn and proposes a series of recommendations to redress the injustices of the current legislation. These include:
- Providing the Industrial Relations Commission with stronger powers to arbitrate on disputes and other employment-related matters and to ensure that all employees are protected by fair and effective awards.
- Establishing a Senate References Committee Inquiry be established into job security issues including precarious employment; hours of work' and employment protection in order to develop initiatives to increase job security for Australian employees
- Ensuring that the current industrial law conforms with International Labour Organisation (ILO) standards and conventions
- Proposing a range of amendments to the current Act in relation to collective bargaining and the right to strike
- That employers be required to negotiate in good faith with a union if that's what employees want rather than be offered AWAs
- That the Office of the Employment Advocate be abolished.
The ACTU will be appearing before the Senate Inquiry into the Workplace Relations Legislation Amendment Bill 1999 which begins in Canberra on 1 October. The Senate Inquiry will hold hearings in all major centres during October.
A range of unions, community groups and individuals will seek to make submissions to the Inquiry.
They are expected to call on state government departments and agencies to discount legally sanctioned wages and conditions when comparing bids for government jobs.
And they will argue that independent social impact studies should be conducted before contracts for government work are awarded to the private sector, arguing the current system ignores the impact of these decisions on rural communities.
"It's not a case of comparing apples with apples," Labor Council secretary Michael Costa says of the current competitive tendering system.
"We have reached the point where we do have an efficient public sector - but we can't expect people to do the impossible."
The resolution on competitive tendering will be one of a series of motions that will be put to conference in a bid to push the Carr Government from its market-driven policy agenda.
These include support for ongoing industrial relations reform and the running of a social audit into the distribution of government services, which will be the focus of a conference this week, jointly hosted by the Labor Council, NCOSS and the Ethnic Communities Council.
Rising Anger
Anger amongst unions has been rising over the impact of government policies since the state election victory in March, with a wave of industrial action in agencies as diverse as TAFE, Sydney Water, the Roads Transport Authority and State Rail.
Costa says a social audit would be a mechanism for addressing these concerns in a controlled and rational manner, charting both the distribution of government services and the level of community expectation.
"We need a process to identify the social impact of government spending decisions, whether they are being shared fairly across the community and whether the community has a realistic expectation of what governments can do," Costa says.
The Audit would provide a clear and transparent for a long-term evaluation of government spending levels and priorities. Unions will finalise their conference positions early this week.
Faction Friction for Open Forum
The ALP State Conference will conclude with an open forum on the future of the factions, with delegates given the opportunity for a free discussion on party structures.
While there will be no resolutions arising from the debate, Costa says it's an important first step in engaging with the need to reform the factional system.
"I'd be hoping that we would at least see a recognition that in the post-Cold War era the old ways of running the party are increasingly irrelevant," Costa says.
He says the preceding debates on key union resolutions will be the first test of Conference's ability to work across the factions on matters of substance.
Left Calls on Carr to Review Debt Target
Meanwhile, the ALP Left is preparing a resolution calling on the state government to review its commitment to eliminate debt by 2020 and free up money for the sort of needs that would be identified in a Social Audit..
ALP assistant secretary Damien O'Connor says the Carr Government's Debt Elimination Act is the only legislation of its type anywhere in Australia.
O'Connor says the decision to pursue zero debt is a political, not economic, decision. "A rational, progressive policy is to have manageable, or sustainable debt," he says. The Carr Government has already seen the size of government net debt decline from 7.2 to 4.5% of the State economy.
"This is a notable achievement but the wisdom of further reductions is highly questionable given pressure for spending on social justice areas such as community services and rural services. Considerable funds would be released if the Government was to lock in Government Net Debt at 4.5% of GSP, and place a moratorium on the quest for zero debt.
"The difference between a manageable debt approach and the zero debt by 2020 approach is hundreds of millions of dollars each year. This money would be available to spend here and now, rather than be paid to banks and bondholders here and now."
The Social Wellbeing Conference - Thursday Septemeber 30
A Sydney audience will hear first-hand reports from a UN conference held this week in Copenhagen, about how quality of life is affected as the world grows economically.
Around 200 people, members of the Labor Council of NSW, the NSW Council of Social Service and the Ethnic Communities' Council of NSW will attend a forum at the Masonic Centre in Goulburn Street to discuss a social audit, to be held in Sydney on 30 September.
After the keynote speech on quality of life indicators from Australia Institute director Dr Clive Hamilton, a panel will discuss the distribution of government resources, and the effect this has on the people of NSW and Australia. The panel facilitator is Dr Michael Fine, from the UNSW Social Policy Research Centre. He will be joined by five panellists including Human Rights Commissioner Chris Sidoti, NSW Reconciliation Council Chairperson Linda Burney, and Social Science lecturer Eva Cox.
The conference is free. Ring Deirdre Mahoney on 02-9286 1631 to register
The details have emerged as the ACTU presses ahead with its plan to trade control of its web-site to a private company in return for cheap home computers.
Delegates and officials will be expected to sell the computers in workplaces - with unions required to use their "best endeavours" to sign members up to the deal. This may place a legal requirement on state union branches, whether or not they back the deal.
And despite earlier assurances, unions will not have a right of veto over which companies will buy space to advertise their products on the Virtual Communities home page - which will be integrated with the union site.
Instead, the ACTU and Virtual Communities will set up a four member steering committee to oversee complaints about content - although the committee must have regard to "the commercial objective of Virtual."
Under the draft contract, circulated to ACTU affiliates, unions who devise their own on-line products must offer Virtual a first right of refusal. If no agreement is reached, the union may still offer the service - but only through a third party's site - they won't be able to host it themselves.
For further details of the plan see Michael Gadiel's Column in From Trades Hall
Staff employed between 9pm December 31 and 3am January 1 will receive five times the normal rate of pay.
This is the period where any problems in power caused by the Millennium Bug would be likely to hit.
While Transgrid is confident Y2K won't be a problem, they are putting a contingency plan in place with workers patrolling all key areas.
Unions across the public sector have nominated the 500 per cent figure as a fair New Years Eve remuneration and are negotiating with individual agencies on the claim.
Labor Council assistant secretary John Robertson says the deal recognises the one-off need to secure staff for the night in the power industry.
Half Day New Years Deal
Meanwhile, Industrial Relations Minister Jeff Shaw has approved a half-day public holiday from midday on December 31.
Unions had sought a full day holiday, given that thousands of workers will be called into work and monitoring the Millennium Bug.
But Labor Council secretary Michael Costa says the half day is a reasonable outcome that will benefit those workers who miss the night's celebrations.
But he's put employers on notice that the half-day public holiday will not stop site by site negotiations by unions to receive extra bonuses for the night's work.
"Employers have to be realistic," he says. "There will be a shortage of labour in some areas and they may have to pay a premium."
The Finance Sector Union says members were paid $40 to attend a group run by a private consultancy with customer service officers and tellers.
"The research included seeking reaction of staff in handling customer complaints if "non value transactions", such as inquiries about account balances, collecting keycards, and similar activities, were added to the number of fee attracting services," FSU Commonwealth Bank Officers state secretary Peter Presdee says
"Transactions made by pensioners, low income earners and battling Australian families are now potentially in the fee charging arena."
Revelations of the Bank's focus groups follow a front-page story in the Daily Telegraph criticising the FSU for paying members $20 to attend focus groups.
At the time bank management, federal workplace relations minister Peter Reith and the terror's editorial characterised the move as a sign of desperation by a union forced to pay members to attend meetings.
Presdee has challenged the Daily Telegraph to give the story about the Commonwealth Bank's focus groups the same prominence.
Management has written to the Australian Services Union telling it that the Committee - which has been in operation since 1978 - "is serving no purpose and involves unnecessary additional expenditure to the Authority."
"From my observation the employees who attend your JCC neither receive nor impart any benefit as a result of their attendance nor do they positively add to the consultation process or assist the Authority in implementing new initiatives," State Rail's general manager employee relations Bob Mackenzie says in the letter.
The Australian Services Union says it considers the latest move by SRA management as "another tactic to further erode democratic participation by trade unionists in the operation of this organisation through consultative mechanisms."
The blue over the consultative committees comes as rail union commenced what could become a series of strikes over the Carr Government's management of the rail system.
The ASU's Gary Sergeant told this week's Labor Council that State Rail management was "liberal" and pro-Reith".
"The workers have got to the stage where they have had enough", Sergeant said, while revealing that State Rail management was now moving to block the union's access to internal mail systems.
He also criticised Scully for spreading "dis-information" that there were three employees for every manager in State rail. Sergeant says that Scully is counting station masters as employees - where they are in reality "workers and trade unionists".
by Noel Hester
Years of relentless downsizing, a recent offer of voluntary redundancies to the entire staff plus a lack of movement in enterprise bargaining has led union members to say enough is enough.
ASU Secretary Alison Peters says although a new management team and a new management structure was put in place after last year's contamination scare profits continue to be the bottom line.
'At the end of the day we accept that Sydney Water should be run in an efficient manner. But there is no clear direction from management about how to deal with the issues raised in the McClellan report. These are the same issues the ASU has been raising for close to a decade,' she said.
'ASU members are as frustrated as other employees in the public sector - in transport, community services and the other utilities.'
ASU members at Sydney Water will be conducting a stop work meeting at Redfern Oval at 9 am Wednesday 29 September. They are expected to rally outside the Sydney Water Head Office in Bathurst Street after the meeting
Botsman made the brazen prediction in an April speech, reproduced in the July-August issue of Australian Quarterly.
In the speech, titled "How Media Killed the Political Star" Botsman argued that "in the era of John Howard and Bob Carr, charismatic leaders or those leaders who have an ad hoc or opportunistic approach to the media never survive much beyond one time.
"Based on this theory, then" he went onto say," my prediction is that Jeff Kennett will lose the next Victorian election."
Botsman told Workers Online his theory is based on a law of diminishing returns politicians who enjoy being in the public spotlight.
"The problem is that the public don't want to see their leaders in the spotlight all the time," Botsman says. "They don't want show ponies and they don't want the emperor."
he contrasts the success of Howard and Bob Carr with the Kennetts and Keatings. It is the more low key leaders who are finding success. ""Both are nerds," Botsman says, " but this has worked to their advantage."
"Populist politicians need a wake-up call - Kennett style politics is a recipe for disaster".
At the conclusion of the ballot count, 1,210 (74%) of eligible academic staff voted against the management proposal while only 423 (26%) voted for it. Some 60% of all eligible staff voted in the ballot.
The University management had offered a 7.2% pay rise over two and a half years. The members of the National Tertiary Education Union had previously rejected this offer.
"The academic staff have clearly rejected the Vice-Chancellor's divisive and negative strategy, Dr Rae Frances, President of the UNSW Branch of the NTEU, says.
"Professor Niland should accept the clear view expressed by UNSW academic staff that any agreement should be negotiated with the NTEU and must deliver an acceptable salary rise, job security and protection of our working conditions" she says.
NTEU General Secretary, Grahame McCulloch, has welcomed the result as a decisive vote of support for the NTEU�s national bargaining approach. "Professor Niland has completely misjudged the feelings of his staff."
"This result sends an important message to Vice-Chancellors around the country," McCulloch says. "We know that many Vice-Chancellors have been waiting for the outcome of this ballot."
"The message for them is to get on with the negotiations and deal with their staff in a constructive way."
The NTEU now expects to reach agreement at a number of universities within weeks. Negotiations at UNSW resumed this week.
The organisations, including Community Aid Abroad and Australian union groups, this week presented a letter to Nike's annual shareholders meeting in Hilversum, Netherlands.
One example of Nike's abuse is their recent refusal to stop an Indonesian supplier from employing the army to intimidate factory workers during a wage dispute.
On-site investigations at other Nike factors have also revealed:
* workers being required to work more than 65 hours a week and being paid less than $2 a day
* physical and verbal abuse of workers in Nike factories in Vietnam and El Salvador
* Nike's refusal to reinstate Vietnamese workers sacked for talking to journalists
* workers sacked for trying to organise unions in Nike factories in El Salvador, Thailand and Indonesia
* Nike's refusal to sign the Homeworkers Code of Conduct in Australia - which Reebok and Adidas have signed.
Nike's actions on human rights still don't live up to its rhetoric, according to Community Aid Abroad's Tim Connor. "Nike responds to human rights abuses by its suppliers with cynicism and denial." Ara Tibi, of Indonesian human rights group SISBIKUM, agrees: "Nike is a great pretender."
"They know the reality in Indonesia, they know it well, but forever they keep in silence. They never show their concern for the labour situation or condition."
The joint letter calls on Nike to:
* reinstate all workers fired for organising unions or talking to journalists
* ensure workers are paid a living wage for a standard 40 hour week
* publish the addresses of all its suppliers' factories and put in place a credible system for monitoring conditions in those factories.
In Australia, the letter has been signed by Community Aid Abroad, Fairwear, Australians in Solidarity with Indonesia and East Timor, and the Textile, Clothing and Footwear Union.
For more information contact: Tim Connor of Community Aid Abroad, phone 02 9698 2394 or Annie Delany of the Australian Textile Clothing and Footwear Union, phone o3 9347 3377.
The letter and other contacts is available on the internet on the website of the Canadian Maquila Solidarity Network in Canada: http://www.web.net/~msn/3nike9.htm
Barry is seeking real stories about working life - from the perspective of both union officials and rank and file workers.
The rule is no jokes - just true stories -- but names will be deleted to protect the guilty.
"Apart from producing a good read, what I hope to do is show that the Trade Union Movement has a great sense of humour and Australian workers can laugh at themselves," Cohen says.
Anyone with a story they think could cut the Cohen mustard can contact Barry direct on 02 4367 7323 or fax 02 4367 2453 or post to RMB 8050, Matcham Road, MATCHAM 2260.
Alternatively click below and we'll pass it on.
I wish to express my support for the NSW unions proposal to lobby for the amendments of both State and Federal Industrial laws for the payment of a fee by non unionists who gain pay rises from the efforts of Trade Unions.
There is nothing more objectional from the stand point of rank and file union members who pay union fees and take strike action for improved conditions under Enterprise Agreements then have free loading non unionist share in the spoils.
Unions should be able to charge a fee in these circumstances or be able to register Enterprise Agreements which are only applicable to there members and restrict the flow on to parties not registered.eg non unionist.
All types of organisation promote the user pay principles. Banks use these terms to justifie ever increasing bank fees politicians rant about mutual obligations for the unemployed Council Rates are not optional,Work places are not only commercial ventures they are also a community of people and as in the wider community no one likes bludgers.I think this campaign should be promoted to its fullest.
Mark Pearce
I read you article on the Destruction of public Education in NSW.
My wife is a teacher in Detroit, MI USA. There is so much collusion between the (union ) DFT (Detroit Federation of Teachers) and the school board, it is dificult to understand where one stops and the other starts.
The Union went along with the Board to extend the teachers work day to 8.5 (from 7.0) hours with no increase in pay. This in addition to eliminating sick days and a whole host of other regressive issues.
When the "union" presented the "contract" for "extension", the Detroit teachers walked. In the US, today, if a worker goes on strike, it is the same as a death sentence. Here in Michigan, the teachers INDIVDUALLY faced fines of $200 per day ! This was NOT enacted because of lack of support in the Detroit community. [The parents supported the strikers].
Conditions are so bad in Detroit schools : As reported in the New York Times : in science labs the most technical piece of equipment is a stop watch. (!)
In the end, a less regressive contract was bargained. A rigged vote on the contract is now underway. The State of Michigan legislature is now rewriting the law that if any teacher strikes they will be both fined and terminated.
In solidarity,
Cheryl and Michael
Michigan
Page 12 of today's Domain in the SMH has a story on renovated properties in Balmain.
The sub-head is "What was it with workers 100 years ago? Why didn't they like windows?"
Probably the same reason they didn't like cappucinos and focaccia. No taste darling!
Paul Murphy.
The Government takes the issue of employers not having correct workers compensation insurance very seriously. Employers who do not hold correct workers' compensation insurance reduce the effectiveness of the workers' compensation system and endanger its financial viability.
In addition, those employers who do take out correct workers compensation insurance bear the burden of uninsured or under-insured employers avoiding their premium obligations. This is inequitable and unacceptable.
WorkCover NSW regularly undertakes strategies, both specific and as part of occupational health and safety education and enforcement programs, to address compliance with workers' compensation insurance requirements.
From July 1998 to June 1999 WorkCover NSW successfully prosecuted 176 cases of non-insurance and other breaches of employer obligations under workers' compensation legislation.
WorkCover also undertakes wage audits of employers suspected of underinsurance, which increases the financial burden on those employers who pay the correct premium for the amount of wages paid. During 1998-99, WorkCover conducted specific wage audit programs for the building, cleaning, and clothing manufacturing industries.
In addition to WorkCover-initiated wage audits, licensed insurers are required, under the WorkCover Scheme, to undertake an annual program of wage audits to identify underinsurance and collect premiums owed by employers to the Scheme.
WorkCover is introducing a program to develop a new workers compensation compliance improvement function. As part of the project, WorkCover is developing additional information sources to assist employers to comply with their workers' compensation obligations.
WorkCover currently provides a range of information on all aspects of workers compensation (including employers' obligations under the legislation) and occupational health and safety. The WorkCover Information Centre can be reached on 13 10 50. WorkCover publications can be obtained from the Publications Hotline on 1800 658 134.
The regulatory framework for occupational health and safety in New South Wales is increasingly performance based, which requires employers to identify workplace hazards, assess their risks and implement appropriate controls. WorkCover provides practical guidance and assistance to industry to enable them to carry out their occupational health and safety responsibilities. WorkCover achieves compliance with occupational health and safety legislation through advice, education, consultation, technical assistance and the issue of permits, licences and accreditation. However, WorkCover employs enforcement measures if employers fail to comply with their responsibilities. These measures include the issuing of improvement notices, prohibition notices, penalty notices (on-the-spot fines), and prosecution.
In addition, Industry Reference Groups are a key feature of the Government's workers' compensation reforms. The aim of the thirteen groups is to develop industry-specific solutions for significant workplace occupational health and safety problems, so as to reduce the frequency and severity of workplace accidents and reduce the cost of workers' compensation. They comprise union and employer representatives with particular industry experience working together in a cooperative way to develop strategies, specific to their industry, to improve injury prevention, injury management and workers compensation outcomes. The establishment of the groups has been a major development over the past twelve months in WorkCover's approach to improving workers compensation and occupational health and safety outcomes in New South Wales.
Jeff Shaw
NSW Industrial Relations Minister
by Peter Lewis
Someone from the progressive side of politics working in talkback radio almost sounds like a contradiction in terms. How have you found being a commentator in this particular medium?
Having a Left perspective is unusual in this business. Almost unique. In commercial talkback they're all Right Wing demagogues. And I'm neither Right Wing nor a demagogue, so that gives you a bit of a lead weight in your saddle bag, but only because it hasn't been tried before. And I think over time it will work, so you're not worried about it, it's a badge of honour, and I'll just wait them out.
So how do you approach it?
Talkback radio is about talking about the news of the day. But you can also make continuing issues out of things that you see as important. I've done a lot of work on reconciliation - even when it's not fashionable. I was running the Republic when it was out of the news. I'm running a big thing on poker machines against Bob Carr at the moment because I think the Government is going to make a lot of money on the backs of working people, and I don't like it much, so I'm going to keep that running, whether it s news or not. So you have an opportunity to indulge yourself, if that's the right term, but certainly to get across your own views and your own point of view. But the format of this station is that of news talk, so what's news is what you have to cover.
I guess the objective wisdom in the past has been that progressive people listen to the ABC, and so there's no point having that sort of market out there in commercial radio. Are you finding you are getting a lot of new listeners?
Well I've upset a lot of the old, because a lot of the old 2GB listeners are conservative people and they don't like it much. But you're finding we get calls from the Western Suburbs where 2GB never had an audience. So yes, it's changing. It's just that in commercial radio it's painfully slow and so it's going to take a while.
The other string to your bow is working for Kerry Packer. How do you think working people would regard you?
How do I think working people would regard me?
Working for someone who's the archetypical boss?
I don't know. I mean, how do they regard Laurie Oakes. Is it bad?
Do you have any problems with it?
None whatsoever. I mean, Kerry Packer has voted Labor a lot more in his life than he's voted Liberal. He's had a problem with one Labor politician - and that was Paul Keating. Now Keating declared war on him and apparently everyone thinks that therefore that having been done, Kerry Packer has to sit back and say that's OK. Well he won't. That having been said, there's so much hysteria around about this that it is very disturbing.
Any idea that the 60 Minutes stories on Keating were Packer driven are absurd. I think that the thing that I like about working there is that never once have I been asked to restrain myself in an opinion. Never once! And the station still gets complaints about me on Saturday mornings being too pro Labor. Just like this station gets it.
But the Packers have never said to me "slow down". When I had a Bulletin column they never said to me "You can't write that". And no one bucketed Howard more than I did, and I actually say no one. And no one on radio or television buckets him more than I do either. But they never stopped me. So, why should anyone in the Labor Party care?
Do you reckon that the big media players have too much power?
Nup. Um, I think what's going to happen if we continue with our current set of laws is that our telcos, like Telstra, will finish up owning great chunks of the media. And as they are privatised, as they will be, I think that's more dangerous. You're going to have Telstra - well the Telstra board's already discussed buying Fairfax - , and so, you don't know where they'll go. But if you look at AT&T, I mean that is the way the world will go . is that telcos will buy cable and free to air television networks. That's inevitable. Now, we'll have to sit down and work out whether this is a good thing. I think maybe the Labor Party's problem at the moment is that they haven't worked out who the enemy is. They ought to give it a bit more thought I suspect.
Having worked in now, the media, politics and business - which has more influence?
Oh look, they all do. I don't know. They all do in a different way. I'm not powerful like I used to be. In the sense that for a lot of years I could get most people in the Labor Party and governments to do what I really wanted them to if I pushed hard. I can't do that anymore. So I'm not powerful, but that doesn't mean I'm not influential. You sort of exchange power for influence. You have an effect on a decision, but you're not the decision maker and that's different, but just as much fun. And because it's new, I guess it's more fun. Because you're not just trawling the same ground, which is what I did for a lot of years.
Is there a sense that polticis is about brokering deals rather than being the intellectual force behind them?
Well, that's certainly the fashionable view for those who always wanted to sort of write me down. I guess I kind of object to that a bit, but it's a fashionable view and it's not worth me fighting at the moment. But in 1990, I don't know if you call it the intellectual force behind decisions but I came up with a preference strategy that won us an election, which I didn't think was a bad effort. When we got 39% of the vote and still won, with an increased majority.
But, I mean the point is, if you apply yourself and you've got the power, then there's all sorts of things you can do. You can get through a decision on deeming that every pensioner hates but within 12 months they will adopt and now fight governments to keep it. I did that in 1990. And you can look back on tropical rainforests and 400 year old trees in Tasmania, I think I did OK. But I can't do that anymore. I can agitate towards it, urge someone else to do it, but I can't do it. Big difference.
Do you admire the alliances that Howard is building at the moment?
Oh yeah. I think he's being very clever. I mean we never got the Democrats in the cart the way he has. And we had several Democrats who were natural Left leaning Democrats, but they never had the force to opt for an alliance with Labor in the same open way that the Democrats are now. Largely because a lot of them were sort of Lefty type dissident people, rather than mainstream Left people. You know, the John Coulter's of the world. They just didn't like anybody and saw themselves as someone who was stood above organised politics. Now, you've got a fellow called Andrew Murray, who led them into the Liberal Party and has done it brilliantly. He's obviously got a decisive sway over Meg Lees and I think Howard has behaved incredibly well. He's played a blinder.
How's Beazley going?
Well, I mean, it's very hard for an Opposition leader at the best of times but when you get a period where it would appear the government could get through most of what they want anyway, it's going to be very difficult for Kim. But, as I said to Kim last week, that all changes from the 1st July next year. When the GST comes in, and it's going to be a shambles, I think Labor stands to get a lot more popular a lot more quickly.
I read silly articles writing Labor off. We are two to four points behind the polls .. it's anyone who you believe. At this stage of the electoral cycle, that's a very good effort and we are not swamped in the preferred leader polls either. Howard's in front as you would expect him to be, but nowhere near as in front as he should be. The mob don't like him. They're never going to like him. They do like Kim Beazley. So Labor's still got a big chance in the next election. I don't write them off. It's a big task but by no means a foregone conclusion. The last one was. We couldn't win the last one. The next one's different. We can.
In terms of new ideas in Labor what's your take on Latham?
I just find it takes out the compassion that makes the Labor Party what it is. And that really worries me, because it's very easy to go on with all that stuff. You just wonder at the end of the day, how it will impact on people. Wayne Swan made a great statement that I'll never forget - and he said that we've got to remember is that "we live in a society not just an economy". I'm not sure Latham understands that yet.
One of the other new ideas floating around, particularly in your old hunting ground of head office and Level 10 is the notion that the factions may have passed their use by date. What's your view on the notion that there should be a process of de-factionalisation within the Party?
My view is as irrelevant as everybody elses view on it. It isn't going to happen, so why have a view on it. How would you have resolved, as an example, who was going to be in the Ministry in the State without a total bloodbath if you didn't factions? And the answer is, you couldn't have. You'd have just had a total bloodbath.
Now, if people want to return to those days. Goodluck to them. I think that would be a terrible, retrograde step. What we need to do, rather than de-factionalising the Party, is to make sure that overriding nationally, the factions can get together, so that when a faction in a State goes overboard and does something monstrously stupid, or is totally incompetent, their own faction acknowledges it, and something's done to fix it.
We don't do that now. I mean, it's pretty obvious that the South Australian Labor Party is a joke. Now, sometime, somewhere, someone has got to do something about that. I don't think we have that mechanism yet and we need that. Because, in South Australia they came very close to winning an election - the last election which was what last year or something. I mean, how would they do if there was one now? It would be a disaster and clearly there's something really sadly amiss with the way that State's run. Now that means that the factions nationally have to come in and sort it out - and they're not going to. And that, I think, is disappointing.
But would you agree that there is not much of an ideological component in the difference between the Left and the Right anymore?
No, see, part of the great problem is that if you take a John Faulkner and line him up with Leo McLeay - they actually don't disagree about anything? I mean, what is the ideological battle ground of the late nineties. I don't know what it is. The only battle ground is who gets what job. It's all to do now with who gets what job. Really, the policy differences are so minor as to be indistinguishable.
So a faction's just become a means of how to get power?
Well, that's all they are at the moment, which is a bit sad. But as long as being civilised and kept within reasonable bounds, it means that you don't get terrible outbreaks of warfare, and I think that's pretty important. So, it serves a purpose.
And everything that goes with it .. the Branch stacking .. that sort of stuff?
No, no, it should be abolished. That's not necessarily just the fault of all the factions. There's a lot of very ambitious individuals and they think it's wonderful. And he'll fight to the death to preserve the system. If you were Paul Lynch, why would you want to stop branch stacking? It enables you to control vast areas of - not just where you live - but all around it. So you'd love it. But it stinks! Both sides have been in it. It's extremely bad. it gives the Party a rotten reputation - but more importantly - it browns off the backbone of the Party - the bit who've been there forever, who line up at polling booths and look after you - and let me tell, those stackees - you never see them on a polling booth. They turn up at three meetings a year, sign books. (The allegation being that many of them don't turn up at three meetings a year but sign books anyway) but you never see 'em on polling booths. They aren't Party activists. Most of them don't even know what Party they're in. And I find that just appalling! And if I was the Labor Party I would stamp that out completely. Forgetting all the niceties, it's not that hard to do.
How do you do it?
You refuse to accept in any Branch, any more than four a night. Just stop it. Just say "no". Bet you they don't, but that's what you've got to do.
What about the trade unions? Where do they fit in to the factional equation these days?
Well, I think they're the most important players in the factional equation. Without them factions wouldn't be what they are. I mean, how does an Albanese exist without the metal workers and a few of his mates. I mean, he can't. It's the same for the Right. I mean, if you haven't got the unions backing you up with numbers at conferences you are in all sorts of trouble. They still own between 50 and 60 percent of the stock of every State conference so they are vitally important. You know, they are a big part of it.
The problem with the unions is, how relevant are they. And in the modern era the answer is not very. And they will lose their grip on the Labor Party as a matter of certainty unless they can reverse this trend of falling membership. I mean, now when you look at it, in private industry their figures aren't a lot better than 20 percent. They only maintain their abysmal figures as high as they are because of there is a public sector. In the private sector with all the new service industries, the unions are falling way behind.
Now, unless they can reverse the trend and find a way to get real coverage in the service sector and build up their percentage of membership again, it's inevitable that they will lose their hold on the Party. Now, I don't want to see that, because I think that will mean a very different Labor Party to the one that I joined and that I love. So I wouldn't want it to happen, but it will..
What will become of the Labor Party if that happens?
Well, it just becomes an amalgam of like-minded souls who hopefully will retain some sort of social vision that in some way resembles what we have now.
The ACTU is struggling to find a President, so if we were to put you up for the job (a) would you take it? and (b) if you got there what would you do?
I can't take it, so the answer's no. But by the same token that wouldn't happen. I can't imagine a body with 2/3 of the Left putting me up for running anything ..
But let's just say you got there ...
The first thing you've got to do is look - it pains me to say it - but you've got to improve the standard of union official. There are just too many unions where the officials are hopeless. Who just don't do their job and there's going to need to be some sort of performance audit of union officials beyond union elections. If you run the show and you're popular and you are the secretary of the union you can keep winning elections, but it doesn't mean that you are doing a good job. You can really over-service brilliantly a declining number of people and keep winning elections. That doesn't mean that you've got a good union. And I think the ACTU has got to step in and find a way of getting a proper performance audit on union officials so that you know they are really out there trying to expand the movement, not - and I said - simply trying to over-service a dwindling group. It seems to me that's what more and more unions are doing.
So, you'd need to have some central body with some authority over the individual branches in effect...
Yeah. Well, how are you going to do it if you don't? See, the trouble is, everyone fights that notion. Says, oh that's terrible. And so the inevitable conclusion is you leave it as it is - and the longer you leave it as it is - and the longer in private industry numbers go down ... I mean, you've got to say within a decade the number of unionists in private industry is going to be 10 percent. How relevant are unions then? They just don't matter. And unfortunately, with Labor governments who open the door to enterprise bargaining, it's just killing them off. Now you've got individual contracts where workers have no power against big companies and they're signing them. They're signing them all over the place. We are losing this war.
If the ACTU doesn't step in and do something about it at some central level. ... I'm not talking about factional advantage. It isn't a matter about factions. We are now talking about the very existence of the union movement. Once you lose critical mass you get to a point where you are not relevant. And they are fast getting below that critical mass.
So, would you say that they should be pushing for a re-regulation of the labour markets?
No, it's never going to happen. That's my whole point. We need to be smarter and better than we are. And so the old style official, who as I said, over-services his mates. Who calls into the same factory every day because it's easy .. because they like him .. because you just keep doing it .. you've got to get rid of that bloke because that bloke won't ensure your future.
What worries me, if I can sound prophetically profound for a moment, is that I reckon that workers desperately need unions. And yet workers are increasingly convinced they don't need them at all. And that means that fundamentally we are failing in the job. It's very serious. And no one, it seems to me, is doing anything about it.
The ACTU have just released another survey - that's terrific. And then they get the unions here and say, we've got to do something about this. And they say "Yep, that's right". Then it fades. It dies, and the numbers continue to drop. Every year, year after year they just drop. It seems to me that what more and more people are doing is having a very big fight to see who can be the emperor in a smaller and smaller empire - or the empress in some cases - but I mean, that's all it is. If you are not going to expand the kingdom, then who cares who's the monarch?
by John Passant
The outcome should also put an end to the calls from those within the Labor Party for an extension of the market philosophy of the Hawke and Keating Governments. But it won't.
Instead, those advocating the New Thatcherism (which masquerades under names like the Third Way and the Radical Centre) will continue to push their agenda in the belief that it is economically sensible and electorally popular. It is neither.
Years of Tory rule in Britain did not produce a better life for people. Years of Labor rule in Australia, following much the same sort of policy prescriptions as the Conservatives but incorporating the trade union bureaucracy into the decision making process, failed to deliver benefits for ordinary working people.
The experience of countries where Third Way politics has won elections recently shows that if the ALP were to become a shadow of the Coalition it may permanently alienate Labor's natural constituency.
So what is the Third Way? This new radical centre is supposed to replace the old Left/Right dichotomy by constructing, in Mark Latham's words, "a new social consensus around the values of social responsibility, reward for effort, devolution and the interdependence of society." This looks suspiciously like individualism with a communal gloss.
The Third Way is supposed to be so inherently attractive to the fragmented working class that the likes of Perry Anderson of New Left Review have hailed one example, the Red-Green coalition in Germany, as marking "the potential emergence of a long run sociological majority for the left" in that country.
A more somber analysis of recent election results in the UK and Germany suggests otherwise.
In regional elections in Scotland and Wales earlier this year Tony Blair's New Labour in Britain suffered large swings against it in working class areas.
Two years of Tony Blair's budget cuts and a penchant for privatisation saw New Labour lose half its European seats in June. The Tories under William Hague were for the first time able to beat New Labour.
The most recent country in which the Third Way has been put to the electoral test has been Germany.
Just on a year ago Gerhard Schroder won a landslide victory. His Social Democratic Party (SPD) victory, in conjunction with the Greens, ended 16 years of conservative rule.
There was euphoria among working class and progressive people. But now there is widespread disillusionment with the Schroder Government. Why? Because the new centre cannot fulfill the hopes of those who vote it in.
The German Government had a few internal problems. The business friendly Chancellor, Gerhard Schroder, manoeuvred successfully to get rid of the left-wing Finance Minister Oskar Lafontaine.
But it was Lafontaine who best expressed the political reality of the SPD victory which was in fact a shift to the left by German society. His calls to increase taxes on the rich and business proved popular with workers, but not business.
Since Lafontaine's resignation, the Red-Green Government has moved rapidly to the right. Tony Blair and Schroder released an historic document calling for flexible labour markets, corporate tax cuts, and welfare reform. The document was so anti-working class that the French Socialist Prime Minister, far from joining in, lambasted it to protect his own political position.
The Red-Green German Government wants pension increases to be tied to the rate of inflation rather than rises in earnings. This will impoverish pensioners over time. Schr�der followed this up by cutting public spending by around $25 billion.
The degeneration of the Greens, the junior partner in Government, is even more marked. Joschka Fischer, Germany's Green foreign minister, was one of the main cheerleaders for the NATO slaughter in Serbia and Kosovo.
And what has this conservatism produced electorally?
In the European elections the SPD performed badly. In recent state elections it lost control of Brandenburg and Saarland. Nationally, the Conservatives have opened up a ten percent lead in the polls over the Government.
There was an SPD and union reaction to Schroder's reforms - 40 left-wing Party parliamentarians condemned them. And the reformed communists have seen their vote strengthen.
However the New Thatcherism in Germany has driven many voters to the right. East Germany supported the SPD on the basis that it would attack unemployment. It has done nothing. The East has now become fertile ground not only for the Conservatives but also the neo-fascists.
With Third Way disasters like Germany, why would the ALP adopt the New Thatcherism?
by Kamal Fadel
East Timor and Western Sahara have many parallels, both countries were abandoned by their former colonizers. They were invaded by their neighbors in the same year-1975. They have gone through a very long and arduous struggle to achieve their independence.
East Timor is on the verge of becoming a full independent country. Western Sahara is expecting a UN organized referendum in July next year after many years of delays.
Western Sahara is situated in North West Africa. It was a Spanish colony until 1975, when Spain signed a secret agreement with Morocco and Mauritania and handed the territory to them. Western Sahara is still considered by the UN as the last colony in Africa.
The Polisario independence movement, which was fighting for the liberation of Western Sahara from Spain, resisted the new colonizers and fought against them. Mauritania, which was the weaker side, signed a peace treaty in 1979, with the Saharawi republic and joined the 76 countries, which officially recognise it as a sovereign state. The Sahrawi republic has also been admitted as a full-fledged member of the OAU.
The Moroccan invasion and occupation of Western Sahara was bloody and brutal. The regime used Cluster and Napalm bombs against the civilians who were fleeing the occupation. Those who remained in the occupied territories were subject to imprisonment, disappearance and intimidation. These human rights abuses are well documented by Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch. 165.000 Sahrawis were forced to flee their homes and live as refugees in one of the harshest deserts in the world in the south west of Algeria.
The occupation of Western Sahara was a grave violation of international law and the resolutions of the United Nations (UN) and the Organisation of African Unity (OAU) and the International Court of Justice. The question of Western Sahara has been on the Agenda of the United Nations as a decolonization issue since 1963.
Because of war-weariness and international pressure, Morocco agreed to a UN-OAU peace plan in 1988. The plan, which Polisario also accepted, included a cease-fire, identification of eligible voters, repatriation of refugees and the organization of a free, fair and transparent referendum. The cease-fire was declared in September 1991, the referendum itself should have taken place in January 1992.
The referendum was stalled until 1997, when the newly elected Secretary General, Kofi Annan, appointed the former USA Secretary of State, James Baker as special representative for Western Sahara. Baker's mission was to find a solution to the deadlock. He called for direct negotiations between Morocco and Polisario. An agreement was reached and signed in September 1997 in Houston (Texas).
The Houston Agreement brought a new atmosphere of optimism. The UN re-deployed its mission and the Identification Commission resumed its work and made great progress. The referendum date was set for 7 December 1998.
Nevertheless, Morocco's relentless violations of the Houston Agreements and its continuous insistence for the inclusion of thousands of its own citizens in the voting lists for the referendum, once again stalled the peace process. In November 1998, Kofi Annan visited the region and met the Moroccan and Polisario leaders. He presented to them a package of proposals aimed at moving forward the implementation of the peace plan. Polisario accepted the package and Morocco reluctantly followed suit.
Morocco's reluctance and delay in its response to the package deal resulted in another delay for the referendum. Now the new date set for the referendum is July 2000. This is the best opportunity for a peaceful resolution of this conflict, which has lasted too long. The Saharawi people and the entire region deserve peace and stability.
Western Sahara is rich in mineral resources such Phosphates, oil, Gas, Iron Ore, Diamonds and is internationally renown for its quality and quantity of fishing resources. It therefore has the potential of contributing to the development and progress of the whole North Africa region.
The trade union movement in Western Sahara has played a very crucial role in the independence movement. During the Spanish colonial period the Sahrawi labour movement organised strikes and demonstration asking Spain to start the process of the decolonisation of the territory.
Since the Moroccan occupation the Sahrawi labour movement has reorganised itself and adapted to the new situation. It has set up a trade union council called: UGTSARIO. It has members in the refugee camps and in the occupied areas of Western Sahara.
The UGTSARIO has been very active internationally. One of its main tasks is to raise awareness about the plight of the Sahrawi people and to establish links with the international labour movement. Now UGTSARIO has close relations with trade unions all over the world and particularly in Europe. UGTSARIO hopes to establish close ties with trade unions in Australia. The ASU. National Office is providing support to a representative from Western Sahara, who is based in Sydney and is hoping to introduce him to other trade unions.
The Sahrawi people need all your support and solidarity as they prepare to achieve their freedom.
As the experience of East Timor has shown, the presence of observers, NGOs and the media during the referendum is vital. There is a need for everyone to be vigil and to keep the pressure on Morocco and the UN. The Australia Government should also play an active role in this issue at the UN.
by Mark Hearn
The 25 workers, members of the Australian Workers Union, were offered individual contracts, or Australian Workplace Agreements, as Mr. Reith likes to call them, earlier this year. Management was dead keen: win-win situation. More dollars. No unwanted third parties, etc., - you know the spiel.
Kim Crossman, the local AWU delegate, remained suspicious. "Management only gave us a booklet and said: take it home and read it." But in the way delegates do, he didn't just read the booklet telling them what a great idea the individual contracts were. Kim started thinking.
Kim has worked with the company 23 years. His workplace looks - and smells - like something straight out of the late nineteenth century. Ancient machinery groans, burps and fumes as raw shorn fleece, dag-stained and crusted with seeds and grass, is massaged - none too gently - along the shaking production line, transformed almost miraculously into top export grade wool, so white it gleams from the loom.
While the routines of work went on, Kim talked to his fellow workers, and to his local AWU Organisers Mick Madden and Anne Kelly. After they all talked to the company, the proposed individual contracts became a collective enterprise agreement, with a 3.5% pay increase. A win-win outcome, but perhaps not one that Peter Reith would gloat about.
Mick Madden and Anne Kelly picked all the pit-falls in the individual contracts like they were plucking burrs from a filthy fleece. 39 burrs, in fact, that would only start to itch and scratch after those few extra dollars had been spent. Like cutting penalty rates and overtime. Taking annual leave when it suited the company. Accepting personal liability for damaged tools or equipment.
Russ Collison, the Secretary of the AWU's Greater NSW Branch believes "the company wanted unfettered control over its employees". Mr. Collison noted that while Canobolas Wooltopping was advised by Australian Business (the employers manufacturing industry peak council), the workers were expected to look after themselves - individually, with no professional guidance.
As Kim Crossman says, "we were going to lose the conditions that unions have fought years to achieve." Kim would rather have been getting on with his job than fighting to protect basic entitlements. "It's all been new to us, we didn't know which way it was going to go." He's grateful for the help he received from the AWU, and the loyalty of his work mates. Kim says quietly and smiles, "Management realised, we're not going to win this one."
by Zoe Reynolds
Black bans, black armada, black cargo... union bans on trade like those slapped on Indonesian goods this month give the labour movement a public face and a social conscious outside the bounds of the industrial arena.
But are they soon to be a thing of the past? Is the ability of workers to make a collective stand against injustice, repression and the abuse of human rights now in jeopardy?
Union protest against genocide in East Timor, nuclear blasts in the Pacific, the felling of the world's rain forests are already subject to anti-boycott laws when trade is affected.
Both unions and individual workers are vulnerable to massive fines and court costs.
But who would dare prosecute a union or workers for standing up against injustice? Not even the notorious Mr Reith or Patrick Stevedores it seems.
Soon after anti-boycott legislation was reintroduced in January 1997 (Clauses 45b1, d and e of the Trades Practices Act) the new laws were put to the test.
The Maritime Union was put in court by a rogue ship owner guilty of driving one Honduran seafarer Rommel Salvador into shark infested waters off Newcastle. Reith and co kept a very low profile. Rommel had made the front pages of the Newcastle Herald after being rescued only moments from death.
His story of abuse and exploitation on board the MV Hunter and the fact he risked his life to escape horrific conditions on board made prime time television. That the MUA officials and the International Transport Workers' Federation came to the rescue, winning all Hunter crew back pay and repatriation, made prosecuting the union for allegedly breaking the boycott laws an unpopular move.
The Howard Government remained conspicuously silent. The ship owner attempted legal action. But nothing came of it.
The next celebrated move to test the law came with the ACTU coordinated blockade of WA in protest at the State Government's Third Wave of industrial legislation in April, 1997. The protest included power cuts, bans on flights in and out of the state, post, telecommunications and freight. But what legal action ever came from the bans?
Then came the great wharf war. When court injunctions were slapped on Maritime Union officials, the CFMEU took over. When everyone from priests and politicians, students and environmentalists joined the picket they were transformed into community assemblies. Court action focused on a Conspiracy case, rather than an industrial dispute or secondary boycotts.
Then the courts uncovered a legal loophole further protecting workers from Reith's anti-strike laws. The Australian Financial Review on April 20 this year referred to the Federal Court dismissing an employer application against industrial action by workers at a Queensland coal mine. Justice Cooper ruled the protest stoppage was not in breach of the act because it did not make any specific demand on the employer.
The AFR interpreted the ruling as allowing unions to engage in politically motivated or wildcat action provided they made no specific industrial demands on employers outside the protected bargaining period.
Mr Reith presumably reads the Financial Review. His second round of repressive industrial relations legislation tabled in Federal Parliament on June 30, pays special attention to protest action. His proposed legislation tightens the criteria for what constitutes illegal industrial action to include protests strikes.
But the bill is yet to pass the Senate and become law. When, and if, this happens, it would soon be put to the test.
CANBERRA REGION BRANCH, LABOUR HISTORY SOCIETY OF AUSTRALIA
TOPIC: WAS MANNING CLARK A TRUE BELIEVER?
Speaker: Stephen Holt
Venue: The Chifley Room, Canberra Workers Club, Childers Street, Canberra.
Date: Thursday 14 October at 6pm
The presentation will be followed by questions and discussion.
The seminar will end at 7.30 pm, after which participants may choose to dine at the Club and continue the discussion.
Stephen Holt is the author of a recently published book, A Brief History of Manning Clark. He had previously written Manning Clark and Australian History, 1915-1963, in 1982. Stephen also wrote A Veritable Dynamo: Lloyd Ross and Australian Labour 1901- 1987, published in 1996.
Further information on the seminar can be obtained from Frank Mines on telephone: 6253 9096; or mailto: [email protected]
by Ian Syson
Frank Devine has (via an article in The Australian, 19 April) added his name to the list of those arguing that the documents should be photocopied and housed in the National Library of Australia. I couldn't agree more. The whole truth must be revealed for us to understand our history properly. The whole truth, however, means revealing the perfidy of the right as well as that of the left.
Readers are already aware of my thwarted attempts to get into the Cultural Freedom archives. I have previously discussed the phone call I made to Coleman, one of the trustees, during which he declined my request (Editorial, 153). What I didn't describe is the way he became increasingly annoyed throughout the conversation. He referred to "your sort of people" and made disparaging comments about the quality of overland's editing after the death of Stephen Murray-Smith. He said that he had to discuss my request with another trustee. I asked why, given my very clear request, it was so difficult to make a decision. Just what was he afraid of? Coleman then became very agitated and said loudly words to the effect that he didn't want people like me throwing mud at his friends. Before hanging up he told me to "Fuck off!"
More recently, in a radio interview with Julie Rigg on Radio National, Coleman gave a different reason: my letter was too brief.
In his Australian opinion piece, Devine gave yet another interpretation of this phone call. Coleman apparently refused me access simply because "he dislikes [me] intensely". Perhaps Coleman is by nature quick to form intense opinions of people he has never met, on the strength of a brief, polite letter and a tense, five-minute phone conversation.
Whether the is-he-a-good-bloke? test is a good criterion for preventing a researcher from seeing archival documents is another matter. Devine does Coleman a big disservice in interpreting his actions in this way. The excuse he offers for him makes him look a hypocrite. However, I suspect Coleman's reasons were more than personal and were, to use Devine's words, a case of "fleeing to ideology for comfort".
My interpretation is that there is information in the Cultural Freedom archives that Coleman does not want me to see.
The upshot of all this is that during my recent research trip to Canberra, I never did get to see the documents I was looking for. But I have more than Peter Coleman to blame for that. ASIO, the organization that broke into people's homes and offices to steal copies of their writings and other records and then copy them for the CIA, prevented me from seeing the true extent of a national disgrace. Document after document in the ASIO Archives has crucial names, dates and times expunged. Who did the dobbing, who was transferring the information, who received it: all left blank, covered over, crossed out and made illegible, or cut out. Some pages have been so censored that all that is left is a narrow frame: a window through which you can see nothing but a sheepish, embarrassed librarian.
Yet the scissors, pen and paste people are only human and some names do get through the censoring process. As Les Louis's Cold War Dossier has already revealed and Stuart Macintyre reiterates in this issue, ASIO records indicate that Peter Ryan supplied ASIO with information on Melbourne academic, Max Crawford. Ryan was the one-time publisher of Manning Clark at MUP and the critic who arguably set the ball rolling in Clark's posthumous harassment (aided by Robert Manne's Quadrant, Chris Mitchell's Courier Mail, Les Murray and several others). On the same theme, Lucy Sussex discusses the strange case of deliberate and apparently self-confessed ASIO-dobber, J.K. Moir. And Cassandra Pybus delves deeply into Quadrant and James McAuley's CIA connections. We plan a series of such expos�s over the next few years.
There is a need for Australians to come clean about the espionage work and dirty deeds of all our intellectual forebears. Some Australian communist writers were active Stalinists or unwilling dupes of the Soviet Union. This fact clouds overland's history and we are perfectly happy for the truth to come out. So I for one echo Devine's call for the photocopying of the documents which apply to Australian writing in the State Literary Archive in Moscow and their housing in the National Library of Australia. It would be an immensely valuable archive and one which should be funded by the Australian Research Council.
But why should we end there? We could then move on to the Australian Archives and get all of the ASIO collection out in the open. Let's 1) acquire the Moscow archives and 2) open up the ASIO collection and 3) remove the restrictions from the Cultural Freedom papers. (To digress only slightly, I'd also like to see a push for access to files, probably held at the Vatican, which illuminated the extent to which B.A. Santamaria, for example, was 'doing the bidding of a foreign power', a criticism so often hurled at Australian communists.)
Historians of every stamp and flavour could then get into these collections and perform their proper role of telling Australians their history whole. Until Devine and Coleman begin to call for such a broad history, and not just the ideologically blinkered story of the 'shame of the left', we can't even begin to take their calls seriously.
Devine believes a movement is afoot to prevent the photocopying of the Moscow archives: what he calls, in a disgracefully facile analogy, "an almost Kosovan attempt to strip us of our identity". (And, is he suggesting that the Kosovars are engaged in ethnic cleansing?) But who is trying to stop this process? No-one I know. All serious scholars of Australian-Soviet literary relations will be rubbing their hands with glee at the prospect of seeing and reporting on these records. The "underground rumble" is a Courier-Mail-Coleman-Devine beat-up which justifies their own ideologically myopic politics. Unlike the records in the ASIO archives, there are no real names to be excised from this totally imagined history.
In a recent article in the Sydney Morning Herald (29 April 1999), P.P. McGuinness complained that contemporary left-wing commentators were being too hard on the anti-communists: "One does not expect the former communists to go around apologizing for all their sins and errors of the past, and will judge them on their present behaviour. Why not extend the same charity to the anti-communists?"
Just what are their past sins that McGuinness mentions? He certainly seems to know more about these sins than those without access to the Quadrant, ASIO and Cultural Freedom archives. However, this whole issue is not about blame, it is about archival freedom and openness.
McGuinness laments the passing of a culture of decency where people on both sides could treat each other with respect: "Stephen Murray-Smith, the first editor of overland, was a good and large-spirited man who was well-liked by many who did not agree with him politically. The same was true of James McAuley, the first editor of Quadrant."
From all accounts this is largely true. But in McGuinness's curiously evenhanded and temperate article, one vital difference remains archivally buried. Murray-Smith was kept under ASIO surveillance for most of his adult life. McAuley was part of the team doing the surveillance. This is the kind of truth we all need to know and to remember.
This is an edited extract of the editorial to the most recent issue of overland magazine
by Neal Towart
Virtual Organizing
Laureen Lazarovici
Activists with the Washington Alliance of Technology Workers (WashTech) a Communications Workers affiliate in Seattle, are using electronic mail and the World Wide Web to send out information that is unavailable elsewhere, such as Microsoft's (huge employer in Seattle) overtime regulations. This is one way union organizer's are using the internet to contact and mobilize workers. Interactive capabilities are also important, as well as the web's role as a research tool. Examples of US union strategies involving the net are included in this article. The National Labor College of the George Meany Center for Labor Studies in Maryland offers an "Internet for Union Activists" short course.
(America@work; vol. 4, no. 9, September 1999)
Casual Employment and Employer Strategy
Sally Weller, Jane Cussen and Michael Webber
The growth of casual employment in manufacturing has been boosted recently by recruitment practices developed to meet internal labour demands and in the context of the changing industrial laws in Australia.
(Labour and Industry; vol. 10, no. 1 August 1999)
Reinterpreting the 1989 Pilots' Dispute: the role of managerial control and labour productivity
Mark Bray and Nick Wailes
Most analysis of the 1989 pilots dispute have focused on describing the progress of the dispute and its relationship to the politics of the Accord and wages policy. The authors argue that the origins and the effects of the dispute were based in the more fundamental issues of managerial control and productivity. Control over the labour process was at the core, and the conditions forced on pilots after the strike were an indication of managements concern to assert their control.
(Labour and Industry; vol. 10, no. 1 August 1999)
Superannuation and Award Simplification
The AIRC has set out a framework for simplifying superannuation clauses in awards. The framework:
� Recognises the superannuation guarantee legislation
� Provides for awards to include a definition of ordinary time earnings, including where they are expressed as a flat dollar amount
� Provides for inclusion of choice of fund provisions in awards
(Australian Industrial Law News; newsletter 8/1999; 31 August 1999)
Maternity Leave Compo
An employer ignored an employee's statutory rights by confronting her with a demand for an immediate return to a full time position or a part time position with no rights to her original job. The maternity leave arrangement was an informal one and the employer claimed a right to dismiss because of the employees failure to advise on absences. The AIRC, however, found that the dismissal was unfair. Reinstatement was deemed inappropriate. The Commission developed a complex formula for determining compensation due which involved how much she would have earned, how much she had earned in another job. The amount awarded was influenced by the fact that important statutory benefits had been removed by the dismissal. (Vincent v Network Sets and Scenery Pty Ltd 1999 46 AILR 4-117)
(Australian Industrial Law News; newsletter 8/1999; 31 August 1999)
Ernies
The Gold Ernie for 1999 went to Anonymous Magistrate no. 1 who told a survey " Hallelujah. Women cause a lot of problems by nagging, bitching and emotionally hurting men. Men cannot bitch back, for hormonal reasons, and often have no recourse but violence".
Industrial Ernie went of course, to Steggles, for changing the rosters of young mothers to start at 6.30 am then fighting them in the NSW Industrial Commission.
Politics Ernie went to Michael Thompson for the remark in Labor Without Class " working mothers with children are the cause of many problems in society"
Media Ernie went to Thompson supporter Paddy McGuinness: "some of our best known feminists have slept their way to the top".
Elaine for the remark least helpful to the sisterhood went to Senator Jocelyn Newman, Minister Assisting the PM on the Status of Women: when asked about low-income earners and the cost of child care "if they can't afford it they have other options"
Gareth for men behaving better: George Trumbell (ex AMP CEO) who, when stating his job asked ten senior AMP women to list their ten most sexist colleagues
Clinton (repeat offenders) Workers Online star Piers Akerman and Alan Jones
(Discrimination Alert; issue 95, September 14 1999)
Putting People into Safe Jobs
Joe Catanzariti
An appeal by Drake Personnel against a conviction in the Chief Industrial Magistrate's Court for breaching s15 (1) of the NSW OHS Act was dismissed recently. The case illustrates the extent of the duty of employers to ensure a safe workplace.
A consultant for Drake had inspected the machine the employee was supposed to operate. The employee was shown a safety video and was provided with an instruction booklet. However, on the day of the accident the worker was asked to operate a different machine. Drake argued that they had done everything reasonable to comply with their obligations. Section 53(a) of the OHS Act allows a defence of doing everything "reasonably practicable" to comply with the Act. Section 53(b) provides the further defence if the commission of the offence arises from causes beyond the defendant's control and against which it is impractical to make provision.
However the Commission held that no defence for Drake had been made out. It was said to have been feasible for Drake to have a established a notification system whereby they would be notified before an employee was instructed to work on a different machine. This would allow them to carry out a risk assessment. The duty of care imposed by the Act must be strictly observed.
(OHS Legal Guide; vol. 2, issue 9, September 1999)
Bullying: Eight Steps to End It
The National Children's and Youth Law Centre, with funding from the WorkCover (NSW) Prevention, Education and Research Grants Scheme, has produced a resource kit featuring practical guidance for employers to help stamp out bullying, harassment and violence, especially involving young trainees and apprentices.
The Youth Law Centre sets out an eight step programme to prevent these problems, and the resource kit contains information on:
� What constitutes workplace violence and harassment
� Legal consequences for employers and employees of failing to prevent violence and aggression
� Intervention strategies
� Model protocols for investigation of complaints and interviews, model grievance procedures, and a model code of conduct
These can be found at http://www.workcover.nsw.gov.au
(Occupational Health and Safety Bulletin; vol. 8, no. 178, 15 September 1999)
by The Chaser
I was struck by this today when visiting the websites of the Trades Union Congress here and the Australian Council of Trade Unions there.
The ACTU has been very active in the campaign in support of the people of East Timor. They have organised demonstrations and other actions and their website reflects this. Together with other groups, they have launched a special website called "Free East Timor Now!" which is rich in daily content and shows a campaigning spirit.
The work of the Australian unions on the web concerning East Timor has been a model. They have reacted quickly, published tons of information, and done what trade unionists should do in a situation like this.
The British labour movement hasn't reacted with the same vigour, but perhaps that is to be expected as East Timor is very far away. But my intention is not to criticize the TUC on this issue.
This week the TUC is holding its annual congress in Brighton. Media coverage is intensive, even on the web. The BBC website is full of daily articles about the congress with colour photos. But what does the TUC website offer?
When you first visit the site, you'll probably miss this, but there is a little link on the very top of the front page that says "TUC Congress 1999". Not very exciting text, but let's give them a chance. So you click on the link. And up comes a screen, just like every other page in the TUC site, that reads: "Congress Agenda -Motions and Nominations; General Council Report 1999; Releases; Speeches."
Yawn.
I clicked on "Speeches", hoping for at least a list of catchy or informative titles, something to convey some of the flavour of the Congress. There are 12 links here and they all have titles like "Bill Morris - Employment Law - Speech by Bill Morris made at Congress 1999". They're listed in alphabetical order by the speakers' first names, so Bill Morris gets to be first and Stephen Byers comes last. (Where's Tony Blair? Listed under "r" because he's the Rt Hon. Tony Blair.)
That's pretty exciting, isn't it? Gives you a real feel for what's happening. Makes you want to read more, right? Doesn't anyone at the TUC ever read a newspaper? Can you imagine a newspaper with headlines like this, and the articles appearing in alphabetical order?
It goes without saying that things like photos, audio files, video, etc. are nowhere to be found on the TUC's site.
The TUC is not new to using the Internet. It was one of the first national trade union centres to create a website. And its website was, in its time, fairly sophisticated. It allowed staffers throughout the TUC to add pages to their sections of the site while most other trade union sites had (and still have) a webmaster who does all the work. But today its website remains frozen in time, a fossilized relic of the early days of computer networking.
It's not only the websites that reflect the differences between the two labour movements. In Australia, the unions are grappling with the question of Internet access for members. The ACTU negotiated a controversial deal with a private company to provide inexpensive computers and Internet access. Their focus groups show them that between 300,000 - 500,000 workers are likely to sign up for the deal.
Opponents claim that the unions are giving up control of the web portals to which those who've signed up for the deal will be brought. Leading the opposition is the New South Wales Labour Council which produces the terrific weekly online newsletter, Workers Online.
I'm not sure who's right and who's wrong in Australia. But I envy trade unionists whose movement actually discusses issues like this and tries to do something about them. The ACTU's leading body recently had a long and intensive discussion about the problem of Internet access for working people. I doubt that Internet access is high on the agenda of the TUC General Council.
The Australian unions are hardly perfect, even when it comes to working with the Internet. But with their rapid response on the web to the crisis in East Timor, their pioneering weekly Workers Online, and their ongoing debate on how to get workers on the net, they provide an example of best practice which British unions would do well to emulate.
Necessary because the Steelers would not have survived on their own. And natural because St George have been the major beneficiary over the years of great footballers from the Illawarra: Changa Langlands, Craig Young, Lord Ted Goodwin, slippery Steve Morris, John Jansen. Many other ex-St George players finished their careers in Steel Town - Rod Reddy, Steve Rogers, Brad Mackay.
But more importantly, as a kid who grew up in Wollongong, we all wore St George jerseys to footy training and made a priority of trading the St George footy cards after school.
I joined the Wollongong Football Club because its strip was the same as St George. And none of the other clubs bothered to adopt any other Sydney club - they knew they wouldn't have got any players.
So you can see be now why I am totally comfortable with the St George- Steelers merger.
But let me try to be a little more objective. When the Illawarra Steelers joined the Sydney competition some 20 years ago Wollongong was a buzz. The year we nearly won the wooden spoon, Wollongong was still abuzz.
In the early eighties recession the one thing that kept some sanity in Wollongong amidst the steelwork redundancies and mine closures was the Steelers.
The point I'm trying to make is having no rugby league club in Wollongong was never an option. The Steelers management knew this when they made the pragmatic decision to merge with St George. The Steelers financially were on their last legs and the NRL's criteria could have seen Wollongong without a regional football team.
The real challenge for Wollongong was not so much the colours or the name but to have a rugby league team whose majority of home games would be played in Wollongong.
On Sunday at 4.30pm I have no doubt that St George-Illawarra will be doing the victory lap at the Olympic Stadium. The players will than travel the St George Leagues Club to begin their celebrations, but at 9pm they'll hop on a bus and head for Wollongong.
They'll arrive at WIN Stadium to the roar of over 10,000 people who would have been partying all afternoon in anticipation of the win.
Wollongong will again will be abuzz and our team will have finally come home.
Go you Dragons
Pick Chris Christodoulou from this footy team photo and be his guest for the first St George-Illawarra Wollongong home game of the 2000 season. The first correct entry will be the winner.
Steve Vizard himself has pulled out (at least his active involvement) but Chris Clarke and a range of Industry Superannuation funds have taken up the Virtual Communities proposal. But at Workers Online we can't help but think of it as the Vizard deal.
The ACTU has released the details of the contract that unions and other community organisations would be asked to sign with Virtual Communities. The flaws with the whole Virtual Communities concept are threefold:
Firstly - in five years time everyone will have regular access to the Internet, regardless of whether the union movement supports this deal or not. Why? Because e-commerce providers and ISPs want to expand their market - currently they are limited to people with computers. They'll expand their market by cross subsidising computer prices to ensure that people can access the web.
This is analogous to the mobile phone carriers who subsidise to up-front cost of a mobile phone to gain the on-going contract for network access and usage. Already there are deals in Australia for free Internet access and overseas ISPs (Internet Service Providers) are giving away computers to lock in their market share.
If this is the case, then why must the union movement take up the responsibility for ensuring wider computer ownership, when those that primarily benefit - the ISPs and e-commerce providers - will ensure this anyway? This deal is based on the mistaken presumption that there is some social justice objective served by selling low cost computers to our members.
Secondly - there is no organising focus in this deal. In fact the contract requires unions to ensure that delegates "work actively to maximise the take-up". Time and energy of union delegates, that ought to be spent organising will be spent selling a computer deal. This package could be seen as a benefit of membership, but nobody to going to join a union for a cheap computer deal, they'll join a union to protect their industrial interests. This deal will divert union time and resources away from the main challenge, as set down in the ACTU's "Unions at Work" - organising and recruitment.
Thirdly - this deal interferes with unions' online relationships with their members. The deal proposes to create a Virtual Communities portal which, is a third party, trying to make a profit by selling products. But the Internet doesn't work this way. Unions need to focus on building a direct relationship with their members online, a relationship of trust, where a member knows that any product or service offered through the union website is supported by the union. They also know that unions are non-profit; any money made through commercial activities to put back into the organisation to improve member benefits. This deal gives no reassurance because unions don't have any right of veto over the companies endorsed to members through the Virtual Communities portal.
In addition the structural flaws in the proposal there are many unattractive elements in the detail of the contract:
In short all responsible unionists should be concerned about what this deal represents. It is a misguided attempt to trade union loyalty for a commodity which the market will shortly deliver anyway - that is computers and Internet access. This deal is the result of industrial age thinking projected into the information age - an obsession with the tangibles when the real value lies in the relationships, the loyalty of members and the network. Worse still it will devalue these important assets. It should not go ahead.
He was at it again this week, seizing on a snippet we had planted in a recent Pierswatch column about the fact that several Labor Council officials were once members of more hardline Left organisations.
We raised the information in the context of wondering how a senior columnist could dedicate a full page to beating up on a fringe Leftist group while people were being hacked to death with machetes on our doorstep.
Piers refused to answer this question in his reply - instead using it as the launching pad for another more virulent attack on Resistance - likening it to "the Hitler Youth, the Young Pioneers, Komosol and a host of other brainwashed youngsters". We're not sure if he was also referring to his boss, the Big Rupe, who boasted of having a bust of Lenin as a youngster.
Whatever. His increasingly hysterical attacks on political activism amongst the young, has got us thinking. If Piers was really interested in convincing people of his arguments would he employ such heavy handed methods? Wouldn't his insulting and belittling merely push people further apart, polarising views until they were in a state of conflict?
There's a pattern here with most of the issues Piers covers. By the time he's finished his attack even those who might have started off in agreement are looking for a reason to support his target.
Victims of drug addiction, school teachers, trade unionists, Labor politicians - they all get the same heavy-handed treatment. Kick them until they're down - and then kick harder.
Looking at his modus operandi objectively we can come to only one conclusion. Piers is himself an enterist, a Resistance operative planted within the mainstream media to expose the paucity of conservative thought.
What appear to be tired and hollow rantings are actually masterful and subversive. They seize the right-wing agenda and take it way beyond the bonds of credibility until it lies destitute on a sea of ridicule.
Just as the Republican think tanks turned the world upside down when they invented "political correctness" to undermine liberalism, the Left have now come up with their own form of PC - "Pier's Crap" - to turn reactionary politics on its head.
Watch the Tory leaders like John Howard, and Kathryn Greiner seek his counsel, kidding themselves that they are feeding Piers a line - when in fact it is the puppet who is pulling the strings.
I mean, look at the City Council elections - how could a columnist who openly supported Frank have had such a definitive impact? Yet by purporting to oppose, Piers actually casts Sartor as the hero - the victim of a spiteful ideologue. As we say - masterful and subversive.
Having uncovered your true purpose, we bow to your deft brilliance, Piers, offer you the secret handshake and promise to keep your secret as long as you continue to fight the powers. Viva la Resistance!
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