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*****
This week the toolshed had the pleasure of bumping into an old boy from Canterbury Boys High School, who told a story of a kid he used to go to school with.
"There was this strange little bloke," the man said, as he took a sip of Reschs and gathered his memories.
"Johnny was his name. He wasn't really like the rest of us. He wore thick coke-bottle glasses; his socks were pulled up so high he had to pull his daks up even higher.
"His voice would whine with a deluded excitement when he spoke, occasionally pausing to suck in the spit that used to gather in his cheeks.
"As you can imagine, he wasn't the most popular kid in school. The rest used to get stuck into him a bit.
"It wasn't really his appearance that got the goat of so many people - he really thought he was hot shit.
"He always used to boast how well he could bowl an off-spinner, but he couldn't play cricket to save his life, embarrassing.
"I remember one time he was standing at the crease and this other kid, Muggsy, threw a beamer at him.
"It knocked him to the ground. All the other kids were laughing. Johnny groggily stood up, took one constipated look at Muggsy, and hobbled away.
"It was after then that the poor little bloke started hanging around this kid called Walker.
"Walker was a couple of years ahead of us - a real nasty peace of work. He had a head like a robber's dog, and a smell about him like the back of a fish shop on a hot afternoon.
"Walker's Daddy was some big noter but he didn't have too many friends in his form.
"He was quite solid and would go around standing over people. Sometimes, he would hit them up for a bit of coin, but mostly he'd just beat them up.
"Johnny would cheer when Walker got into a fight. Occasionally, Johnny would wander up and sink his shoe into the victim's goolies, but only when he was sure they couldn't move.
"When a teacher caught them in the act, they would come up with some gobbledegook about protecting another kid or say it was for the good of the school.
"Most of the time the teachers would shake their heads and move on, rather than having to listen to their nonsense.
"They developed quite a friendship, Walker and Johnny. For the first time, Walker had a friend, and Johnny wasn't getting beaten up.
"But I think there was more to it for John. I mean, I don't think he did it just for protection.
"I think he really enjoyed watching some of the nasty stuff Walker used to do. It was almost as if he wished he could do it himself if only he was a little bigger.
"Eventually, Johnny would go around picking on kids in lower forms, trying to be just like Walker.
"Of course, if the situation ever got too tough for him, he'd go running back to Walker for protection.
"Imagine if Johnny had gone into politics. He'd hang off the coat-tails of some world class bully. I could imagine him, in the papers, talking about how pulling out of a war would make him and his mate look weak. He'd say, getting out of a war would make the world less safe.
"Some people change, old son, but the worst of em just seem to stay the same."
The quartet - crane operators and metal fabricators - are fighting back from a double blow inflicted by John Howard's IR regime.
They were sacked last week after refusing to sign AWAs that would have cut their wages by $3 an hour, or more than $100 a week, according to the CFMEU.
Today, they appeared in the Federal Magistrate's Court, arguing they had been unlawfully dismissed by a Villawood-based company.
The four men arrived from Singapore a month ago on controversial 457 'skilled migration' visas. They paid $10,000 each to secure jobs, and agreed to the deduction of another $100 a week to live in crowded bunk accommodation at a factory.
CFMEU NSW secretary, Andrew Ferguson, said the demand for further wage cuts had pushed the men to seek union assistance.
"This is a clear case of an unscrupulous employer using the Howard Government's guest worker scheme and radical workplace laws in tandem to exploit foreign labour rather than employing Australian workers on appropriate pay rates and conditions," Ferguson said.
Sacked worker Rajan Kandasamy said the workers had been lied to over the conditions they would enjoy in Australia.
"I gave up a job in Singapore to come here," he said. "They told me it would be a good job, with good money and that we would live in very good accommodation and have food provided," said Kandasamy.
"I feel I was tricked, because after I paid thousands of dollars to come here for this work I was told I must sign the new agreement, but I knew there was something wrong with it."
The four workers want their jobs back on their original conditions.
Feisty AMWU member, Karen Palmer, hit national headlines as a WorkChoices victim when Greer Industries gave her the punt the day she returned from surgery.
Last week, she looked and sounded like a winner, as she introduced the ALP leader to 500 delegates at the ACTU's triennial conference.
Palmer, 60, said she had been looking forward to getting back to work after two bouts of surgery on a shoulder she had injured at Greer Industries.
"Suddenly my boss came up to me and said I had to go up into the management office," she recalled. "He wouldn't tell me why.
"In the office, the head boss sacked me. He said I was a liability and that I had to get my things and leave immediately.
"My boss said, because of John Howard's new laws, he could sack me and there was nothing I could do.
"But Greer got more than they bargained for."
Workers Online can reveal that Greer Industries only got its name out of the headlines when it came up with a substantial compensation payment for the mother-of-three.
Palmer said she had gone to the AMWU and Greer knew it had a fight on its hands.
The popular worker found herself pitched into the national debate about WorkChoices.
"Because of what Greer did, I have already met Mr Beazley," she said.
"The first time, when I flew to Canberra, it was my first time on an aeroplane.
"I'm glad to see him again because he's here to talk about how we are going to get rid of these rotten laws. He said if he got into office, he'd rip these laws up.
"I'm going to vote Labor because he said that and, I reckon, there are a lot of other people who think the same."
As reporter John Stewart began his cross to newsreader Juanita Phillips from Lakemba - where Muslim leaders were in a crisis meeting over comments by controversial cleric Sheikh Taj Din al Hilaly - the camera trailed off then cut out. The camera operator then packed up his camera and left the scene.
The bizarre stunt left Stewart, along with the audience, mystified while Phillips cut to the next story citing 'technical problems'.
But the camera operator's action was part of a rolling industrial campaign of 'selective disruption' at the ABC.
Over the last two weeks TV and radio programs including the 7.30 Report, state-based 7pm news bulletins, current affairs show AM and the Triple J morning show have been pulled as employees in different sections walked off the job without warning.
The Media Entertainment & Arts Alliance (MEAA) and the Community & Public Sector Union (CPSU) - which cover 2,500 ABC employees between them - are co-ordinating the rolling strikes in a bid to win an acceptable pay rise.
But Thursday's action has caused some friction between the unions, with MEAA journalists critical of the unilateral and unflagged action taken by the CPSU-affiliated camera operator.
The unions are campaigning for a pay rise above the 4% a year for three years currently being offered by management, which is up from the 3.5% per year on offer before a nationwide 24-hour strike in September.
Delegates at the triennial ACTU Congress want workers to be able to access a �majority rules� trigger in a bid to prevent bitter stand-offs like the one Boeing provoked at Newcastle, last year.
The American multinational ignored a vote by Williamtown engineers for a collective agreement and, rather than negotiate, locked them out for nine months.
ACTU delegates felt respect for a majority vote would be a circuit breaker in similar situations.
The ACTU is pressing the Labor Party to adopt its program - centred on collective bargaining, good faith negotiations and union recognition - in the run-up to next year's federal election.
It is also calling on affiliates to give until it hurts so it can ramp up its publicity campaign against Canberra's WorkChoices regime, based on individual contracts and the stripping of unfair dismissal rights.
ACTU secretary, Greg Combet, told delegates they needed to intensify their advertising campaign and maximise marginal seats activities.
Combet said he was "increasingly confident" unions could win their fight but more resources, on top of the $10 million already pledged, would be needed.
Surveys, from a variety of national polling organisations, have confirmed the ACTU's WorkChoices campaign is biting in the electorate.
The program, endorsed this week, is designed to take the campaign one step further by offering a concrete alternative.
Key elements include:
- the right of workers to determine the industrial instrument they are employed under by majority vote
- the scrapping of AWAs and employer greenfields agreements both of which allow employers to unilaterally undercut negotiated wages and conditions
- a requirement for good faith bargaining to be overseen by the Australian Industrial Relations Commission
- the removal of "prohibited content" which forbids employers and unions from including anything in an agreement that the Workplace Relations Minister disallows
- increased recognitions and support for elected union delegates
- the scrapping of contentious building industry-specific laws and the scrapping of the proposed Independent Contractors Act
- a jump-up clause that would stop labour hire workers being used as cheap labour on sites covered by existing awards or agreements
Meanwhile, the ACTU has launched a one-stop joining service that will allow Aussies to join unions by phone.
It has also unveiled a "supporters" category for retired people and those ineligible to join unions.
People can join the union movement, or register as supporters in the battle against WorkChoices, by ringing the ACTU call centre on 1300 486 466.
Safety delegate, Mal Peters, has successfully challenged �operational reasons� in the WA Industrial Relations Commission and won the right to have his unfair dismissal case heard.
Peters was dumped after returning to Perth from an east coast speaking tour where he raised support for 107 workmates on Leighton's Perth-Mandurah rail project who face fines of up to $28,000 for striking in support of a sacked union delegate.
He took annual leave to go on the speaking tour with his wife, Bernadette.
In an important decision, Senior IR Commissioner Jack Gregor, said the Leighton Kumaigi joint venture had a case to answer because their claim to have dismissed Peters for operational reasons did not appear genuine.
John Howard added "operational reasons" to a suite of sack-at-will options for employers in this year WorkChoices legislation.
Previously, IR Commission had only held that operational reasons needed to be "reasonable" to ring-fence employers from scrutiny. They had not made any findings on whether or not they needed to be genuine.
The decision is doubly important because it goes to the heart of the reason Peters and his workmates were hauled before the federal court by the Building Industry Commission.
They struck because they claimed a union delegate had been victimised by the company.
Similar arguments lie behind the CFMEU's defence of Peters.
Leighton Kumaigi claimed Peters had not been rissoled because of his speaking tour but because work on his section of the project had finished.
But the IRC found Peters had been involved in safety issues across the site and the contractor should have tried to find him employment on unfinished sections of the project.
Specifically, the commissioner found there was no genuine operational reason for Peters' dismissal and that his unfair dismissal action should proceed.
The AFL-CIO alleges a new definition of supervisor, brought down by the Bush-stacked National Labour Relations Board, will effectively destroy collective bargaining rights and deny millions of Americans union protections.
The Board, in controversial Kentucky River decisions, has ruled employers can fire employees, reclassified as supervisors, for union activities.
The AFL-CIO says the ruling violates international labour law that guarantees freedom of association, including the right to union organising and bargaining to "all workers without distinction".
Its complaint was laid on the same day the President used a "recess appointment" to put a mine boss, whose pits had worker injury rates twice the national average, in charge of the country's Mine Safety and Health Administration.
The United Mineworkers of America has protested against the appointment of Richard Stickler.
Bush used the recess appointment to slip Stickler into the post, while the Senate was not in session, after the body had twice blocked the appointment.
Forty American coalminers have died at work so far this year.
Last September, Bush outraged unions by nominating Republican activist and aggressive anti-unionist, Edwin Foulke, as Assistant Secretary of Labour for Occupational Health and Safety.
Bush lifted Foulke straight out of the anti-union law firm, Jackson Lewis, which skites of its expertise in "Labor Relations, Preventative Strategies'
Jackson Lewis sets up armed guards at factory gates to prevent union access and advises companies to impose forced overtime whenever union meetings are scheduled.
Foulke's company charges corporates $US1600 a head to attend seminars entitled "How to Stay Union Free in today's Era of Corporate Campaigns" and its deluxe version "Best Employer Practices to Stay Union Free in the Millenium".
According to US reports, Tonight Show host, Jay Leno, was so appalled by Jackson Lewis' union-busting that he refused to appear at the Society of Human Resource Management's annual convention until the law firm was ditched from the bill.
Botany Cranes sent Hemsworth packing nearly two months ago when he opposed a move to shift health and safety responsibilities onto individual employees.
Botany Cranes moved under Under WorkChoices provisions that exempt companies with less than 100 employees from having to justify sackings.
Hemsworth has been keeping his own vigil in a shed outside the company gates for the past 52 days.
The threat of heavy fines and prosecution under new industrial rules means the CFMEU can do little in the workplace to bring the rogue employer to heel.
But the company is facing growing community opposition, with three early morning blockades in as many weeks swelling Barry's one man Banksmeadow protest.
Organised through community network, Worker Solidarity, hundreds of workers, students and concerned members of the public have tried to blockade cranes from being dispatched to building sites around the city.
The tactic has spooked the owners of the multi-million dollar company into moving cranes out of the yard in the dead of night and parking them at secret locations around the suburbs.
The parking could land the company heavy fines if they attract the attention of council rangers.
With plans for a larger public rally and a community forum, Worker Solidarity's Rose Jackson told Workers Online that the campaign had only just started.
"There's been a great response with many people turning up as early as 5am to take action. We've got a really clear message for management at Botany Cranes: Give Barry back his job," she said.
"Barry appreciates the support and the company is feeling the pressure, having to secretly move the cranes out in the middle of the night."
"We're also telling business and the government that the community oppose these unfair workplace laws and are prepared to take action to defend our rights at work," she said.
Unitcentre Ltd, at Wollongong University, is pushing itself to the front of the fight over workers rights to be covered by industrial instruments of their choices.
Choice was at the heart of the federal government's publicity blitz for AWAs until it admitted they could be forced on new starters, even when they undercut existing agreements.
Now it is as the core of ACTU policy, thrashed out at National Congress this week, that seeks the right for workers to vote on the agreement they want.
SDA secretary, Gerard Dwyer, said the Unicentre stand-off was a "classic example" of the need to "restore democracy to our workplaces".
"This company's actions in ignoring a unanimous vote of its employees highlights the importance of Kim Beazley's commitment to the right of Australians to vote for a collective agreement," Dwyer said.
Permanent staff at the facility voted unanimously for a union agreement at a meeting, last week.
But Unicentre, funded by student union fees, said no dice.
It is the latest development in a three-year battle by staff for a collective contract.
At one point, employees wearing union badges, were locked out.
Dwyer says a key issue is substantially different rates of pay for people doing similar work on campus.
"People want a union negotiated collective agreement and a bit of wage justice wouldn't go astray either," he said.
Unicentre's stance is backed by the federal government.
Prime Minister John Howard told Melbourne radio, last month: "Our position is very clear and that is that it's for the employer to determine the nature of the industrial arrangement in a workplace."
Howard publicly supported American multinational, Boeing, when it locked out Hunter Valley employees who wanted a collective contract.
Talking up the bank's massive $3.7 billion annual profit, ANZ CEO John McFarlane dismissed concerns about data privacy in India, where workers are paid just $100 per week.
McFarlane told reporters he "couldn't see what the problem" with off-shoring Aussie jobs and that "there are no issues about data security in our Bangalore office."
"If anything, the data security is tighter than anywhere else in the group," he sapd.
Finance Sector union national secretary Paul Schroder says the ANZ bank needs to explain to customers and staff how this approach is in the long-term interests of the bank.
"We know that Australians expect their major corporations to keep jobs in Australia and we know that consumers do not want their personal information sent offshore," Schroder says.
"In this context, the FSU calls on ANZ CEO John McFarlane to tell the public today how profitable the bank would need to be before he would commit to keeping these jobs in Australia.
"Is two billion dollars enough? Or three billion dollars? Or four billion dollars? Or will the bank continue to send Australian jobs overseas regardless of how much money it makes.
"These policies will have a detrimental effect on customer satisfaction levels for the major banks,
"Customers are not fools - this is a chase for short -term profits by an industry that is already extremely profitable and highly efficient."
But the ruling of the Fair Pay Commission - a body set up by John Howard to replace the wage-setting function of the Australian Industrial Relations Commission - should be celebrated cautiously, said Unions NSW secretary John Robertson.
"It's the first pay increase in 18 months, in that time interest rates have risen three times and petrol prices have skyrocketed," said Robertson.
"It still represents a decrease in real wages; $30 a week was required to maintain wages for the low paid.
"Federal workers will fall behind those employed under NSW awards who have received regular increases in line with or above inflation determined by an independent umpire.
"There is no guarantee of when future pay rises will be granted. This decision does nothing to allay our concerns that the so-called Fair Pay Commission is a tool to drive down the minimum wage in real terms."
The ACTU said the decision was a victory for union campaigning and a slap in the face for employers, who had argued for just $14 a week for minimum wage workers.
In Australia almost two million workers earn minimum wages, with many working in child care, aged care, labouring, clerical services, the retail and hospitality sectors, and agriculture.
The new minimum wage will apply from December 1.
CFMEU NSW secretary, Andrew Ferguson, announced the initiative at this week's opening of a wall that already carries the names of 116 people who have lost their lives in the Sydney construction industry, since 1988.
"We will encourage new entrants to our industry, especially apprentices, to visit our memorial. It should play an important role in educating them about the importance of workplace safety," Ferguson said.
Other speakers at the day of dedication included widow and mother, Andreia Viegas, Monsignor Robert McGuckin from the Catholic Diocese of Parramatta and Opposition Leader Kim Beazley.
About 300 people, including many who had lost family members, attended the ceremony.
Viegas told guests there should be "zero tolerance" for workplace deaths.
"Instead, we have a federal government bringing in laws that undo decades of good work on health and safety," she said.
"Every time someone looks at this wall I wan them to remember that no worker should die at 28 like my husband, Glen, did.
"No family should be forced to go through the pain and suffering that my family has.
"No children should have to grow up without a father like my son Corey and daughter Makayla now have to."
The wall was opened two years after Glen Viegas was electrocuted at a Wesfield shopping centre on the Central Coast. He cut through a wire after being told it had been disconnected at the power board.
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 protesting against the unfair sacking of their union delegate.
6.00pm, Wednesday November 1st 2006
NSW Teachers Federation Auditorium
39-41 Reservoir Street, Surry Hills
Speakers
John Robertson - Unions NSW Secretary
Bernadette Peters - Partner of one of the WA workers being prosecuted
Andrew Ferguson - NSW CFMEU Secretary
Maree O'Halloran - NSW Teachers Federation President
Chris Harris - Greens Councillor City of Sydney
Defend Workers Rights
107 building workers prosecuted for defending a sacked workmate.
Penrith meeting:
6:30pm, Tuesday 31 October 2006
Q Theatre (Joan Sutherland Centre) 597 High Street, Penrith
Speakers:
o Mal & Bernadette Peters (one of the workers facing a $22,000 fine)
o John Robertson (Secretary, Unions NSW)
o Cameron Murphy (President, NSW Council for Civil Liberties)
o Rev. Dr. Ann Wansbrough (Uniting Church)
o Tim Vollmer (CFMEU - construction union)
Yes employers are crying poor and the government is claiming the union has been crying wolf, after its team of part-time appointees handed down a ruling at the high end of expectations.
But the fact that this body, charged with wide-ranging powers in gathering information that is by its nature subjective, felt compelled to hit high is totally consistent with the core concerns that this body is too open to political influence.
In this case, that influence took the form of the union Rights at Work campaign, backed by a phalanx of religious leaders putting government on notice that a decline in the minimum wage would draw them into the political domain in a way rarely seen in this country.
It was positive influence, but an influence nonetheless, that highlights the fact that the Fair Pay Commission is a totally different beast from the Australian Industrial Relations Commission it replaces.
The AIRC exercised judicial powers underpinned by the constitution; it heard evidence under oath, judicial procedures prevailed and its findings, by their nature were robust and based on an objective analysis of evidence.
In contrast the FPC appoints 'experts' - predominantly free market economists, who collect academic papers, conduct focus groups and get PR consultants to run community consultations on their behalf,
They are laden with political appointees, with a keen political eye. They know their long term task is to drive the minimum wage down in real terms, but they know too that to move too quickly would spell disaster for their political masters.
Like the major corporations holding back from using WorkChoices to de-unionise their workplaces, they know it is in their long-term interests to sit back until after the next federal election and make themselves a small target until they are more deeply entrenched in the system.
The employers knew this and their outrage this week was just too cute; the PM was positively gushing - the first time he has ever endorsed a pay rise that hadn't been awarded to himself, using the term 'genius'.
The danger for unions is that the religious leaders who have spoken out, now reading the headline figure and convincing themselves there is really nothing to worry about. In a modern take on Catch-22, this mindset would ease the pressure to ensure the original fears are realised.
As for the low paid, dig behind the headline figure and it looks a little less special:
- as it's the first pay increase in 18 months - in that time interest rates have risen three times and petrol prices have sky-rocketed.
- It represents a decrease in real wages. $30 was required to maintain wages for the low paid.
- It also means federal workers will fall behind those employed under NSW awards who have received regular increases in line with or above the CPI determined by an independent umpire.
And don't forget the key difference, under the old system a pay rise was guaranteed every year - now will only occur with the government and their appointees deign it.
This breaking of this nexus will inevitably drive real wages down. It may not happen overnight, but it will happen.
Peter Lewis
Editor
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