*****
The Toolshed has worked out why the death of Steve Irwin caused the biggest outpouring of grief this country has seen since Steve Waugh stood down as captain of the cricket team.
The Crocodile Hunter was everything Aussie blokes wanted to be.
He loved everything to do with Australia. He listened to John Williamson. He spoke like Alf from Home and Away.
When the Government attached the prefix "Australian" to a dodgy workplace contract, he sung its praises.
Indeed, it was no coincidence that soon after Irwin's death crazy Mark Latham was lamenting the death of the larrikin culture - Irwin was it.
But, we digress.
The one characteristic about Irwin that made your average suburban conveyency solicitor want to wrestle a crocodile it was that Americans loved him.
Which is why we can understand how Sol Trujillo got the job as chief of the nation's telecommunications carrier.
We can imagine Telstra's board meeting, with Sol putting on his straw hat and swinging around a cane, telling the mesmerised audience about how he'd stuffed phone companies in Ogdenville, North Haverbrook and Brockway.
Evidently, his version of the monorail song from the Simpsons must have worked, because the board got out their chequebooks - and its been revealed the old Sol took home $8.71 million in his first year.
According to Chairman Don McGouchie, Trujillo had met his key performance indicators and deserved the coin.
While reluctant to expand what the KPIs were, we've deduced they were:
* flexible share payment options, including being able to pay for shares in the form of peanuts, cigarette butts or bottle caps;
* reducing profits in a market in which a virtual monopoly exists;
* having the Federal Government declare jihad on the company; and
* services at such a level where people are considering in investing in fishing line and a Heinz Baked Bean can.
By those measures, it's hard to argue Trujillo hasn't excelled himself.
NSW Senior Deputy State Coroner, Jacqueline Milledge, catalogues a scenario that sounds like a scene from the ACCI's dream of the perfect workplace, and its fatal consequences.
BGA won a contract to construct a new water tower in the dry NSW central west by undercutting competitors by more than 13 percent.
Once there, South African principal Anton Beytell hired on individual contracts, used imported labour, paid below industry standards, and thumbed his nose at the 40-hour week.
Beytell was equally flexible on health and safety and the NSW Department of Public Works did nothing to enforce its own standards.
BGA didn't supply a Site Specific Safety Management Plan or submit a Safe Work Method Statement.
On October 22, 2002, formwork collapsed, pitching five men into 140 tonnes of setting cement.
South Australian construction worker Craig McLeod drowned in concrete and Beytell, himself, died from a penetrating blow to the head in the fall.
Three other workers - Michael Abel, Scott Wood and Stephen Molothane - were rescued from the tangle of cement and steel with "significant injuries".
The only workman who didn't fall from the tower roof, Ralph Storr, suffered post traumatic stress.
Shockingly, the coroner found, McLeod knew the job was a death trap but felt he could do nothing about it.
"Craig McLeod knew there were problems on site," Milledge said. "He had confided in his good friends Ms Brauman and Mr Quinn. He also told his brother that he had real concerns the formwork would not hold.
"Mr McLeod was in a difficult position. He was miles from home and without sufficient funds. Like others in that small community he needed work ... They should have been able to rely on the Department of Public Works and Services to manage the project properly."
The coroner heard evidence McLeod had arranged for a city crane driver, Quinn, to tip off a WorkCover inspector about the site. But, for some reason, a planned WorkCover visit never eventuated.
Milledge laid bare Beytell's disregard for workplace standards.
She found Malothane, imported from South Africa on a temporary visa, had been a virtual slave. And there was a suggestion that after being injured he was bribed to keep his mouth shut.
"Malothane slept in the laundry of Beytell's apartment on a piece of cardboard," Milledge reported. "He often worked 11 or 12 hour days, six day per week.
"His wages were non-existent.
"The treatment of Mr Malothane is indicative of Beytell's lack of ethical behaviour as far as his employees were concerned.
"Despite Mr Malothane being severely injured in the collapse, he was somehow removed from the hospital and flown back to his homeland. Mr Malothane did not want to be discharged as he was undergoing treatment.
"When he arrived home, a great sum of money was deposited into his bank account, far more than the wages owed to him. He was told the money came from Beytell's wife.
"Malothane says Mrs Beytell 'warned me not to speak to anyone about the accident'.
"On this evidence it is clear it was intended to 'buy' his silence."
She found local mens wear retailer, Scott Wood, had needed the labouring work to supplement dwindling business income. He worked a 60-hour week, without overtime or penal rates, and didn't get super, sick or annual leave.
Milledge said the isolated workers had been paid "intermittently" and didn't have enough money to sustain themselves.
"Costs were contained by instigating miserable work practices that not only deprived the workers of fair and timely recompense but also skimped on safety to the detriment of all on site," she said.
Lawyer Ian Latham, who represented McLeod's family at the inquest, said the evidence raised serious questions about moves to limit regulations and place greater power in the hands of employers, especially in regional Australia.
"These people were defenceless," Latham said. "They had nobody to look after their interests and Craig McLeod, for one, wasn't confident to raise serious health and safety concerns.
"They were employed on take-it or leave-it individual contracts that left them at the mercy of their employer.
"Like much of regional Australia, the level of unionisation and safety inspection was low. The lack of those protections led almost inevitably to this tragedy."
Milledge directed the coronial file to WorkCover to consider prosecutions under NSW OH&S laws.
Members Equity Bank has offered the support to the 16 Radio Rental staff locked out of their Adelaide employer's premises for a month.
Tony Beck, Head of Workplace Business says Members Equity Bank recognises the Radio Rentals lock out could affect the employees ability to meet their home loan repayments.
"We acknowledge this time is particularly hard for those involved, both emotionally and financially," Beck says.
"Workplace disputes can directly affect an employee's ability to meet the required minimum payments as specified in their mortgage contract."
Beck says with employer lock-outs a tactic being used more and more, workers with mortgages are under extreme pressure because of mortgage commitments.
"Members Equity Bank is extending an invitation to those employees with an ME home loan, affected by industrial action, to approach the Bank for assistance.
"All requests will be individually assessed. However, a customer may request to extend the term of their mortgage contract in order to reduce the amount of each payment, or defer a payment or payments during the period of hardship.
Members Equity Bank (ME) works in partnership with the ACTU, affiliated unions and various industry superannuation funds to deliver a fair deal to working Australian families.
ME is 100% Australian owned and is committed to providing exceptional customer service.
Keating says workers have won nothing from the consensual approach to workplace reform, introduced by governments he was part of, and the ALP should go into the next election promising to legislate for higher wages.
He dismissed the Peter Hendy-led Chamber of Commerce and Industry as a Liberal Party front that wouldn't be placated by concessions.
He said Hendy, a key WorkChoices barracker, was an industry spokeman who trafficked in claims he could not and would not defend.
"Twenty years of co-operation from organised labour has not mattered a tinker's cuss to them," Keating wrote in a letter to the Australian Financial Review, this week.
"Kim Beazley and the federal parliamentary Labor Party should send the ACCI to Coventry, back to the Liberal Party, whose rancid industrial policies it argues for."
Keating said Australians should hope the High Court would green-light Canberra's industrial relations power grab so a Labor Government could use the same powers to lift wages, without reference to any third party.
Business, he wrote, could then "repent in leisure" at the real cost of their ideological support for John Howard's workplace agenda.
It had taken that line, he said, despite 20 years of industrial peace and a "huge share" of GDP going to profits.
"The lesson is clear," Keating said, "Federal Labor should no longer be wedded to a consensual wages model."
Keating was incensed by reports that Beazley and the ALP would have to jump through hoops to win ACCI support in the lead-up to the next federal election.
He said they shouldn't bother trying.
After accusing critics of the section 457 scheme of xenophobia, Vanstone is posed to approve an application by American Express to ship in workers for its Sydney call centre, claiming it can't find Aussies to do the work.
The NSW government and unions are opposing the plan, which would see the workers paid under the legal minimum of $41,000, arguing that if the wages were decent, locals would do the job.
The $41,000 minimum has been the centrepiece of Vanstone's defence of the scheme, claiming it e3nsures that foreign workers are not exploited.
But NSW industrial relations minister John Della Bosca says businesses who train their staff and pay Australians Australian rates are also being disadvantaged.
"Local firms can't compete with companies paying well under market rates," Della Bosca says. "And Australians can be forced into signing substandard agreements because they know they will be replaced by someone on a 457 visa if they don't."
The case has put the spotlight back on the assault on Australian wages and conditions in the fianc� industry, with the 'off shoring' of some jobs and the 'on shoring of others.
Finance workers have called on the Prime Minister to personally convene an industry wide forum on the future of the finance industry.
"In one corner we have banks like Westpac looking at sending work off-shore to drive wages down - and now we have Amex wanting to bring foreign workers in under the bogus guise of the skills shortage," FSU antional; secretary Paul Schroder says.
"The reality is there are no shortage of Japanese speaking people who would take on a secure job, provided it delivered a decent wage."
"The finance industry is at a crisis point and more than 100,000 secure Australian jobs could be lost over the next five years if there is no national leadership on the industry.
"If the government just sits back and allows jobs to be sent off-shore and cheap foreign labour to come on shore there will be very few viable careers left in the industry.
The FSU has written to the Prime Minister seeking his personal intervention to convene an industry forum, as well as support for consume protection ''right to know' laws that would require banks to inform customers when personal information is sent offshore.
The vets turned to the CFMEU after the Totally and Permanently Incapacitated Veterans Association, announced they would be scattered across rural NSW so their Sydney flats could be sold.
There are fears for the lives of some of the 60 Belmore-based vets - two of whom survived the notorious Changi prisoner of war camp.
"Even the veterans' doctor has said that forcing these people out of their homes could kill some of them, yet the organisation responsible for their care seems unable to look past the financial benefits," CFMEU NSW secretary Andrew Ferguson said.
After CFMEU delegates voted to fight for the vets, Ferguson sign-posted their strategy.
"It won't be a sign that says LJ Hooker," he promised. "It will be a sign that says 'Not for sale - union ban."
Former Whitlam Government Minister Tom Uren is backing the green ban.
"This is a struggle of men and women of good will," he said.
Uren, a prisoner of war during World War II, slammed the Howard Government for its involvement in wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
"We have to give [veterans] support because it's not the veteran's problem, it's the government's."
Vietnam veteran Michael Tanovic said residents objected to the breaking up of "a close knit community".
"If we are forced to move into regional areas we will lose access to friends, family and medical care," Tanovic said. "It's time the Federal Government stepped in and saved our homes."
Unions are warning the scheme which monitors personal and vehicle movements could be illegal under NSW privacy laws.
Cage Security is pushing the 'Cardax' system that keeps track of employee movements electronically, citing new time-keeping requirements under the federal IR changes.
"With a Cardax FT system, you have full control over where, and when, staff, visitors or vehicles can move at all times," the promotional material says.
Unions NSW secretary John Robertson says the security push is a worrying trend and shows how even provisions that appear to place responsibilities on employers can be turned against the workforce.
"Frankly, it is obscene that business is trying to create a new market in electronic surveillance.
"All workers should be aware they have rights under the NSW Workplace Surveillance Act and that it is illegal to covertly monitor their movements.
ACTU secretary, Greg Combet, called on Workplace Relations Minister, Kevin Andrews, to make the amendment in response to the continued refusal of a Melbourne electronics company to pay $33,000 in wages.
South African-owned Heinemann Electrics decided to nick the earnings of 54 employees, after they banned overtime following a WorkChoices-sanctioned ballot.
Although every staff member had worked a full 38-hour week, Heinemann refused to make any payments for the week.
Prime Minister John Howard told federal parliament Heinemann had acted under his 1996 workplace law changes.
Combet told Heinemann staff in Melbourne, this week, the concept of a fair day's pay for a fair day's work, lay at the heart of their dispute.
Combet challenged Andrews to tweak WorkChoices to ensure working people were at least paid for work they had completed.
"Last week Kevin Andrews changed the IR laws to make record-keeping easier for employers," Combet said.
"Why won't he now change the laws to ensure workers get paid for the time they have worked?
"This Government always sides with the employer - even in a case like this where workers are being docked for the time they have already worked."
Unions have welcomed a statement by NZ's Labour Minister Ruth Dyson that the government will review the Brethren's exemption from laws allowing unions into workplaces.
Businesses owned by Exclusive Brethren in New Zealand have special status in regard to union access on the grounds they "conscientiously object" to unionism.
But the law was outdated and employees had a right to receive information, regardless of the religion of their employers, said Andrew Little, national secretary of the NZ Engineering, Printing and Manufacturing Union.
In 2004, the union clashed with an Exclusive Brethren business which threatened to sack workers who spoke in their native languages in the tea-room.
That business then barred access to union officials who tried to contact the workers, Little said.
In Australia, the Howard Government has introduced special laws to allow Exclusive Brethren businesses to ban unions from their businesses.
The Sydney Morning Herald has reported that since 2002 every one of the more than 30 employers who claimed a "conscientious objection" exemption to union access belonged to the Exclusive Brethren.
The sect, which has 40,000 members based mostly in New Zealand and Australia, doesn't allow its members to access media, vote or wear shorts. But it has been linked with dirty campaigns here and across the Tasman against left-wing political parties.
Prime Minster John Howard has admitted to meeting with members of the sect, which has been accused of running smear campaigns against the Greens, and was recently implicated in malicious rumour-mongering against New Zealand's Labour Prime Minister Helen Clark and her husband.
The University this week cancelled a September 28 cut-off date and, instead, told staff they could apply for individual contracts at any time.
Fifty university staff celebrated the backdown by staging a Tear-Up-Your AWA demonstration on the sandstone uni's Isabel Fidler Lawns.
"If staff sign these AWAs they stand to lose over 50 percent of their union-negotiated rights, including paid parental leave and sick leave," CPSU state branch secretary, John Cahill, told them.
"These AWAs are a disaster for anyone with a family, a mortgage or who has the misfortune to become seriously ill.
"The union agreement offers higher pay than the AWA over its life, as well as protecting key conditions that cannot be enforced under the AWA."
Sydney University was forced into offering AWAs by a federal government threat to slash funding.
Like most AWA employers, it hasn't offered individually tailored documents but pattern agreements with pay scales that reflect rates negotiated by the union.
The big difference is that most negotiated conditions have been taken out of the AWA and moved into university policy.
Cleaner and workplace delegate, Ralph Halden, said that meant they would be unenforceable and could be changed by the university at any time.
In a leaked e-mail, Medibank Private management has confirmed the existence of an team of Government appointed bankers, lawyers and spin doctors that will start stripping away the health insurer's not-for-profit status.
The Government had announced it would only sell in 2008, if it won the next federal election.
CPSU National Secretary Stephen Jones, speaking on behalf of the Save Medibank Alliance, described the back-door sale plans as "an absolute scandal".
"The Government's been caught red handed trying to sell Medibank on the sly," Jones said.
"If the sale is off the cards until after the next election, why strip Medibank's not-for-profit status now?"
The Government has already appointed advisers to assist with the sale. They are bankers, lawyers, accountants and communication experts, the leaked document states.
It goes on to reveal plans to strip the insurer's not-for-profit status, clearing the decks for a full sale.
"Although the actual float of Medibank on the stock exchange is not for some time, there are a few steps that need to happen before we can be listed... Medibank will be converted to a 'for profit' business," the memo states.
The leaked document contradicts comments made by Finance Minister Nick Minchin to AAP yesterday.
"It is likely that the conversion of the company to 'for profit' status, including amending the constitution, will occur in 2008, prior to the sale being concluded," he said.
All the secrecy and subterfuge concerning the proposed sale means a full-blooded public enquiry is essential, according to Stephen Jones.
Find out more on the campaign to save Medibank by visiting http://www.savemedibank.net.au
Worker Solidarity, which describes itself as a network of people who care about workers rights, is planning a blockade of Botany Cranes in Banksmeadow on October 16th.
The group's convener said Workers Solidarity was formed as a way the broader community could show their opposition to the Howard Government's industrial relations laws.
"The huge fines, and even threats of gaol time, facing union officials could work to dishearten workers," convener Rose Jackson said.
"Worker Solidarity thinks that when unions are prevented from taking action, the community should step in."
Union delegate at Botany Cranes, Barry Hemsworth, was sacked for "insubordination" when he raised concerns about the company shifting its safety responsibilities onto workers.
The Federal Government's WorkChoices laws have denied Hemsworth "unfair dismissal" action and its construction industry laws have prevented his colleagues from taking action.
Since the dismissal, Hemsworth has manned a shed in front of the company's site and says he will not leave until he is reinstated.
The Worker Solidarity action will kick of at 6am, with breakfast provided.
Worker Solidarity can be contacted at [email protected]
His hourly rate of $16.50 didn't stretch far two years ago. Now, having received no pay rise in that time, he can feel his pay packet shrinking.
"Petrol prices have gone up, interest rates have gone up a few times, but my real wages are going backwards," says Archer, who's employed by maintenance contractor Harnleigh Facilities Management.
Archer's not alone. Average weekly earnings failed to keep pace with inflation over the last year, according to an ACTU analysis of data from the Australian Bureau of Statistics.
"Average earnings in the year to June 2006 dropped in real terms by 1% - that is, working Australians have experienced a fall in average weekly earnings of $11 a week as a result of downward pressure on wages and rising living costs," said ACTU Secretary Greg Combet.
"The historically low average earnings are caused by the Federal Government's 18 month freeze on pay rises for award wage workers as part of its new IR laws, and a fall in overtime, penalty rate and bonus payments to workers under the laws."
Two thirds of Australian Workplaces Agreements - the individual contracts at the heart of the new IR laws - scrap penalty rates, a third cut overtime pay, half get rid of shift allowances and another third do away with public holiday payments.
Archer and his colleagues at Harnleigh are paid slightly above-award hourly rates, but don't receive entitlements such as leave loading, overtime, shift rates and are required to provide their own personal protective equipment.
"It's not a feather duster job, you can literally be up to your elbows in shit," he says.
After rejecting an AWA two years ago, Harnleigh employees are trying to boost their conditions by negotiating a collective agreement with the help of the Australian Services Union. But they feel the threat of the Federal Government's new IR laws hanging over them, Archer says.
"When we've tried to negotiate they've said 'well, we could just work you to WorkChoices'," he says.
The high level of union membership among employees has probably protected their jobs.
"If we weren't in the union I think they would have just sacked us and put in new people on AWAs when WorkChoices came in," Archer says.
Leave Your Human Rights At The Door
The workplace in Howard's Australia
The new workplace laws introduced by the Howard Government are a serious attack not just on living standards, but also civil liberties. Special legislation has been introduced to allow government investigators to interrogate workers about union activities. The coercive powers of these investigators are greater than the powers of the NSW police investigating major crime.
The right of a citizen to silence has been suspended, with a 6 month jail sentence for workers or union delegates who refuse to answer questions. The government has created an inquisition aimed at workers in the building industry.
We already have 107 workers on a building site being prosecuted and facing fines of $28,600.00 for involvement in industrial action protesting against the unfair sacking of their union delegate. These laws are extreme and unprecedented in Australian workplace relations.
6.00pm, Wednesday November 1st 2006 NSW Teachers Federation Auditorium 23-33 Mary Street, Surry Hills
Speakers:
John Robertson - Unions NSW Secretary (TBC)
Bernadette Peters - Partner of one of the 107 WA workers being prosecuted
Andrew Ferguson - NSW CFMEU Secretary
Maree O'Halloran - NSW Teachers Federation President
Chris Harris - Greens Councillor City of Sydney
Julian Burnside - QC and Human Rights advocate (TBC)
________________________________________________________________________________________________ Blue Mountains Politics in the Pub
Community Forum about WorkChoices
2.30 pm, Saturday 7th October 2006, Blackburn's Family Hotel, 15 Parke Street, Katoomba
Speakers include: Associate Professor Joellen Riley, author of book: WorkChoices; Mark MacDiarmid, Senior Solicitor, Elizabeth Evatt Community Legal Centre Justice; Paul Munro, former Senior Deputy President, AIRC Sydney; Martin Cartwright, 'Your Rights at Work Campaign', Macquarie, Unions NSW
Further information: Brett O'Brien 0413866520 Margaret McDonough-Glenn 0401385509
Blue Mountains Unions Council Inc. http://bmucinc.com/
Public forum - Knowledge is Power
Freedom of Information in NSW: Why isn't it working?
Information is key to a robust democracy. But the right to access information in NSW is being eroded by an increasing culture of secrecy in government. Come along to our public forum to discuss FOI in NSW, why the system isn't working and what we can do about it.
When: 12:45 for 1pm, Wednesday 11 October
Where: Jubilee Room, Parliament House, Macquarie St, Sydney
Speakers include Journalist Wendy Bacon, FOI expert Peter Timmons and Dr Ann Smith from the Save Barrington Tops Group.
To RSVP and for more details about the Greens FOI campaign, contact Lee Rhiannon's office on 9230 3549 or [email protected]
Seditious Intention
There is a new political correctness, in Australia. People are afraid to speak out publicly about the gradual dismemberment of freedoms.
A dismemberment that means terrorism works against any democracy that fails to hold fast to its intrinsic values.
George Orwell's 1984, spoke of the general hardening of outlook that set in, practices which had been long abandoned, like, imprisonment without trial, torture to extract confessions all were tolerated and even defended by people who considered themselves enlightened and progressive.
Would I be liable, under our recent legislation, to being charged with sedition were I say for example that this Government has given itself powers, whose breadth and arbitrary nature, with lack of judicial oversight, should not exist in any democratic country?
If I remain silent would I be abrogating my duties as a citizen?
John Howard's apologists will accuse me of Howard hating. I don't hate him; I fear him and what he is doing to my country.
We can often be an apathetic, indifferent bunch, too easily intimidated into looking away from bullying.
It is way past time to stand up to speak out.
John Ward, Tasmania
Good Call
I just read your piece 'A Values Call' and I just wanted to applaud you on the tone and content of your article.
I currently live in California and I cannot tell you how many emails I get from what can loosely be called mid-America with alleged statements from that "great man Australian PM" honest John Howard with regards to the Islamic community and how the USA needs to adopt a similar tone.
It is very disturbing on a number of levels, not least because America has such a negligible Islamic population that is so well integrated to make the point moot.
However it is worrying more so because it paints the picture of Australia as this red neck, racist, intolerant nation. Then celebrates that. It reminds me of the Pauline Hansen period (I hope Honest and Bomber are not a common theme?) when I was living in the UK and trying in vain to convince English folk that "no Australia is a tolerant, liberal society".
Good luck in challenging the false logic of terrorism and US corporate capitalism as some kind of unquestionable inevitability.
Yours in solidarity,
Jonnie Cocks, NSW
The Advertiser showed an early picture taken of Howard having an ear operation in Adelaide in 1995 due to a hearing defect from birth.
Obviously it could not have been successful as he has not heard the people when they said no war with Iraq or when they said no GST or when he was told there were no children thrown overboard or when told there were no evidence of WMD's or about kick backs to Hussein by the AWB or the evidence of Global Warming etc etc.
Hal Crossing, SA
The editorial on the values debate said nearly everything that needed to be said. One more thing could be added, which is the deep hatred of Australia and the achievements of the Australian settlement that the claque supporting Howardism holds. There are a number of media commentators and the cheer squad who supply their talking points (the IPA, CIS and the like)that whose writing and opinions generally evince complete contempt for everything this country and the people who actually live and work here, have achieved.
Apparently it is all so terrible and so worthless, that no stone will be left unturned to completely reengineer the whole place. Well, to steal a phrase from the smirkin' merkin, and throw it right back-if it is all so terrible, and if the achievements and policies have all been so bad, why don't those people simply go somewhere more congenial?
Houston, Texas perhaps.
A further point might be added about that old chestnut 'social engineering', much beloved of News Ltd editorials. I have often wondered why no-one has pinned that label on a government that spends billions of tax payers money on the creation and constitution of markets as a matter of ideological preference, millions of dollars on lawyers fees to render criminal, activities that used to be thought legal, and legislative activity focused on removing as many people as possible from the status of the 'employee'.
While the reasons may be obvious to readers on this site, the popint is that no-one has 'called' them on this. What a pity.
Linda Carruthers
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