*****
The toolshed is an interesting place.
Not just because of the menagerie of rabid right-wingers and corporate shysters that inhabit it, but sometimes the shed takes on a mystical aura one would expect of a New Orleans fortune-teller.
Witness! Last year the Toolshed predicted the then-National Farmers Federation President Peter Corish would one day speak of "how we need to lower wages because Australian consumers are actually earning too much".
Well, Corish has gone one better and done got the law chasing him after an employee on one of his farms, who was paid $13 an hour, claimed to be short-changed $15,000 while working on the farm.
The worker also claims to have lost $56,000 after being kicked off the farm in breach of the AWA.
Now, far be it from the Shed to judge the guilt or innocence of a man with a name like Corish, but the Office of Workplace Service investigation is going to be difficult.
It turns out that the AWA had not been registered with the relevant government department and has gone missing.
A disturbing thought.
After all, this is no Pa Kettle; this is a man who hoedowns around the corridors of power.
He is President of its Agriculture and Food Policy Reference Group, as well as National Water Commissioner, where he advises the Howard Government on drought policy.
Whether it is precipitation or payment, Corish seems to have a special interest in things that don't exist.
Speaking of which, Corish is also a hopeful to run for the National Party in the next Federal election.
Judging by the talent that frequents the National Party these days, he should fit in like a pig in the proverbial.
As President of the NFF, he represented Australian farmers by negotiating a free trade deal for the yanks and selling Telstra to the big end of town.
Both of which, the Shed understands, were official National Party policy.
While the Shed feels some sympathy for Coresh's workers, I suppose we can be thankful he Coresh in Canberra, well away from farm equipment.
The Blue Scope steel workers were among thousands who down threats of reprisal to participate in the National Day of Action against Howard Government IR laws.
Australian Workers Union Port Kembla secretary Andy Gillespie is investigating the incident and has warned that the union will act if manage goes ahead with the threats to discipline the workers.
While numbers were down at some venues around Australia, more than 250,000 workers attending the protests - including 116,000 in more than 200 venues across NSW - to watch the Sky Channel broadcast from the Melbourne Cricket Ground.
The ACTU said that significant numbers of workers rallied across Australia today despite intimidation from the Federal Government and strong pressure to stay at work from many employers.
Under the new IR laws workers can be docked four hours pay for any unauthorised work stoppage and in businesses with less than 100 employees, workers have no protection from being sacked unfairly and can be sacked without warning.
Earlier this week, a Commonwealth public servant, Greg McCarron, was also forced to appeal to a Full Bench of the Federal Court just for the right to use his leave entitlements to attend today's protest against the Government's IR laws.
In Melbourne, unions estimate that 60,000 people turned out at the MCG with Sharan Burrow, ACTU President, opening the rally by listing some of the unfair aspects of the new laws including the loss of protection from being sacked unfairly for millions of workers: "The Howard Government wants Australians, to "sit down and shut up", and take what the employer offers... You can be sacked without rhyme or reason and you have no right to defend yourself."
"With AWA individual contracts, we are now a nation where employers can say, "take it or leave it." It is a fact that every AWA made under these laws has removed award conditions. Overtime pay, penalty rates, public holiday rates - these are all being systematically stripped away," said Ms Burrow.
Speaking at the MCG rally and to the national broadcast, ACTU Secretary Greg Combet said: "It is undeniable that the longer these laws are in place, the more people will be directly affected. We are not engaging in a scare campaign as we have been accused by the Government. Our aim is to win the support of Australian people by telling them the facts."
Mr Combet revealed that the unions' would embark on a renewed push to overturn the IR laws with a concerted effort to win community support for a change of government: "We will campaign in the wider community and ask people to vote for change. What we do now is not just for us, but also for our children and for future generations... I am confident of our capacity to win."
ALP Leader Kim Beazley addressed the national protest and received a rousing cheer from the crowd when he promised that a future Labor Government would tear up the IR laws. Victorian Premier Steve Bracks also addressed the Melbourne rally, saying that the new laws are putting further pressure on working families.
Rocker Jimmy Barnes closed the unions' national rally satellite broadcast to an appreciative crowd with a terrific rendition of his famous song, 'Working Class Man'.
Qld Premier Peter Beattie addressed the Brisbane rally.
Union initial crowd estimates: 264,000 in total (not including Perth and WA rallies): Melbourne - 60,000 people; Victoria regions - 5,000; NSW - 116,000 at more than 200 venues, including 40,000 in the Sydney CBD; Canberra - 4,000; Adelaide - 30,000; SA regions - 1,000; Darwin - 2,500, NT regions - 500; Brisbane - 20,000; QLD regions - 25,000.
The Finance Sector Union wrote to the bank requesting permission for staff to take time off to attend the union-organised day of action against new IR laws. Permission was denied, said FSU national secretary Paul Schroder.
In the same week, the bank began offering new and existing staff an AWA individual contract that does away with a raft of long-held award conditions including overtime payments, shift penalties, weekend and public holiday loadings and rostered days off.
It also waters down redundancy and parental leave rights and gives the employer carte blanche over work duties, hours and location.
The Commonwealth Bank becomes the first major employer to introduce AWAs on a large scale.
It is also the largest employer in the finance sector and its move to cut costs by attacking employees' conditions will create pressure for other workers to do the same, said Schroder.
"It is a wake up call to all people working in the finance industry, who until now may have thought they were immune from the laws."
The bank has made clear to the union that the AWA meets the legal requirements of the Federal Government's extreme IR laws, demonstrating how unfair and extreme the new laws are, said Schroder.
The union is calling on the bank to withdraw the AWAs and advising all members not to sign any AWA without first consulting their union, he said.
The ACTU has attacked the Commonwealth Bank's introduction of AWA's and challenged the bank to conduct a staff ballot over whether workers want an individual job contract or a collective agreement.
"The Commonwealth Bank is one of Australia's biggest and most profitable companies. It made nearly $4 billion profit last year and employs 35,000 staff around Australia," said
ACTU Secretary Greg Combet.
"It is unnecessary and unacceptable that hard working employees in bank branches as well as in call centres and back-office operations are facing major cuts to their basic job conditions.
"But that is exactly what big companies are being encouraged to do under the Federal Government's IR laws."
The biggest losers under the AWAs would be workers with family responsibilities, with maternity leave at the employer's discretion, the removal of standard hours of work and employer control over work location, said Combet.
A major rally, with a target of 100,000 participants, will be held in Sydney on April; 22, immediately before the ALP National Conference.
Final details have yet to be released, buy a major city venue has been booked and some Australian's biggest musical names have pencilled the date into their diaries.
Unions NSW secretary John Robertson says the increased power employers have to prevent workers protesting meant weekends were the way to mobilise people.
"The behaviour of some employers in stopping workers attending this week's rally were heavy-handed and un-democratic," Robertson says.
"But we recognise that workers being threatened with disciplinary action, against a back drop of eroding job security, face a lot of pressure to stay away."
Full details of the event will be announced early in the new year.
Carmel Bourke told the Sydney Rights at Work rally she had been informed this week she would not be receiving the annual bonus, valued at between $3000 and $5000.
While she has not been told the reasons she failed her performance review, Carmel says she has been under pressure from managers for making public comment on the off-shoring proposal.
Finance Sector Union state secretary Geoff Derrick says the decision reeks of pay-back over the campaign to halt the off-shore of Westpac's Concord transactions centre..
"Carmel is a dead-set hero for her courage is standing up for her job and the jobs of her co-workers," Derrick says.
Carmel received a heroe's welcome when she took the stage alongside NSW Premier Morris Iemma before 40,000 Sydney protestors.
She thanks the public for their support and paid tribute to the work of the FSU.
Unions NSW secretary John Robertson told the crowd it was an historic win against one of Australia's strongest corporation.
"You sent the bank the message that Australian companies have a responsibility to their workers; you can't send jobs to the lowest bidder and expect customer loyalty in return."
Judge Helen Morgan, while exempting a juror from duty due to financial hardship, said under the new IR framework many employers would shuck their civic obligations and refuse to pay employees or even sack them while on jury duty
While employers have no legal obligation to pay their juror employees, traditionally most have chosen to - with employees passing on the juror payment, less than half average weekly earnings.
"On other occasions, as obviously now in this climate employers are entitled to do, they will not pay the amount of the usual salary of a person and consequently ... the juror can be obviously in quite severe financial difficulty and the court recognises that," Judge Morgan was quoted by the Sydney Morning Herald.
"The way in which the industrial area is proceeding now, it's going to become more and more likely that we will face this position."
But unions are still waiting for a broader policy on local content after a major train-building contract was awarded to a Chinese company.
The procurement policy, announced this week, requires businesses bidding for $3.4 billion in SNW government to show they:
- comply with state award conditions
- allow union access for recruitment
- open themselves to random inspections from the Office on Industrial Relations.
But the Australian Manufacturing Workers Union has questioned the governments commitment to local industry, after it emerged hundreds of recently commissioned rail carriages will be largely built by a Chinese company.
A 3.6 billion contract was awarded two weeks ago to a Hunter Valley-based consortium headed by Downer EDI, the company responsible for building the Millennium trains.
The AMWU union says EDI will only be responsible for the design and the final fit-out of the carriages.
AMWU state secretary Paul Bastion told ABC he was bewildered that the government contract only required that 20 per cent of the carriages be built locally.
"Where is their commitment to local industry, what is the proper policy settings for local content, are they going to weigh up just as much the social benefits of large infrastructure jobs going to New South Wales companies as well as for the simple economic benefits?"
The NSW Government claims the carriages could not be built locally.
Lab ouirstart's eric Lee says over 2,500 protest emails have been sent, but that the situation is worsening.
"We know that Oslanloo has been taken to Evin prison where authorities claim that they are "negotiating" with him," Lee says.
"The authorities also claim that he will be allowed one visitor, his mother -- but no one has told the guards outside the prison. His mother waited in vain for a chance to see her son. His family has not even been allowed to phone him.
"Clearly the authorities are hoping to break his will -- and thereby weaken the emerging trade union movement in Iran.
"Remember that this is a movement which managed to completely shut down the capital with a transport strike earlier in the year, despite massive repression.
"It is essential that we turn up the pressure and flood the Iranian government with more messages this week. "
English:
http://www.labourstart.org/cgi-bin/solidarityforever/show_campaign.cgi?c
=167
The ACTU says new law will give big business the upper hand in pay negotiations and fails to protect contractors who wish to bargain collectively.
"This law fails to help sub-contractors who are being pushed around by big companies," ACTU president Sharan Burrow says.
For example, more than 100 independent contractors working as telephone technicians in regional NSW for Telstra are facing cuts of between 25% and 50% to their contract pay rates as well as 'fines' for minor defects that are putting their incomes at risk.
The technicians are employed as sub-contractors for Downer Engineering but carry out the majority of their work on residential and business telephone lines for Telstra.
They say they cannot afford to accept most country work under the new contract rates which mean a cut in the rate of pay for repairing most rural telephone faults in NSW from $105 to $80 - a 24% pay cut.
Overall, Telstra's pay cuts could amount to as much as $25,000 less pay for the sub-contractors in a year.
But under their current terms of employment the 'subbies' have no capacity to negotiate directly with Telstra for decent contract rates and their legal rights to bargain collectively are severely limited.
"It is wrong for companies like Telstra to unilaterally decide on the pay rates for sub-contractors," says Burrow.
Unions are also concerned that the proposed new 'independent contractor' law will fail to prevent employers from pushing more workers into sham contracting arrangements where employees miss out on award rates of pay, annual leave, superannuation, workers compensation and other basic entitlements.
The Australian Workers' Union says management of the major car companies should bow their heads in shame for double-crossing more than 180 Ajax workers.
The car companies informed a meeting today - which involved AWU officials and administrator Price Waterhouse Coopers - that they were walking away from the deal reached in August to keep Ajax running until March, providing the administrator with time to prepare the business for sale.
"Despite the cloud hanging over their heads, our members at Ajax have kept working their hearts out, and have kept supplying quality products on-time to these car companies," AWU Victorian Secretary Cesar Melhem says
"It is truly sickening for these companies to turn around and treat our members and their families so callously.
"If the car companies weren't prepared to keep their side of the deal, the very least they could have done was to give us some warning that they were going to renege.
"Instead, we now have to deliver some truly terrible news to our members.
"A month out from Christmas, these hard-working Australians are facing the real prospect of losing their jobs and the full entitlements they have accrued over many years of loyal service."
The LHMU Security Union won its largest prosecution in the Brisbane Magistrates Court against Quest Security and its executive officer Steve Jackson for more than $330,000.
Brisbane Magistrate Ehrich fined Jackson and Quest Security $127,200 for 53 separate offences, ordered they pay almost $200,000 in unpaid wages and superannuation and a further $3,500 in court costs.
On default, Jackson faces the seizure and sale of his assets. On further default, he could face up to four and a half years in jail.
Many employees suffered extreme financial hardship unable to pay rent, home and car loan repayments. Some even forced to borrow money from family and friends just to make ends meet.
Former employee, Nathan Applebee, told the court he couldn't afford petrol to get to work and regular payments from his bank account bounced costing even more in dishonour fees.
"I used to be able to take my wife out to dinner and the movies, but that had to stop," he said.
Queensland LHMU Branch Secretary Ron Monaghan says the record prosecution highlighted the dangers facing lower-paid workers and the support they can find through being part of a strong union.
"These guys worked without being paid and their loyalty was repaid with nothing," Monaghan says.
"There is no way they could have taken this action to recover their pay by themselves and it would have cost them tens of thousands of dollars to hire a solicitor to do it for them."
Consumers and workers will be worse off if Medibank Private, Australia's largest health insurer, goes under the hammer, according to the union-backed Save Medibank Alliance.
"A for-profit Medibank would put the interests of shareholders ahead of members," said campaign spokesperson Margaret Gillespie, of the CPSU.
A foreshadowed cost-cutting campaign - in the face of predicted rising premiums - would see member services plummet and jobs cut from across the insure, said Gillespie.
A recent report by accountancy firm CRA International claimed the sale could result in 7% 'increased efficiency', specifically by "rationalisation of management, call centre and customer service mechanisms".
The Howard Government - which intends to sell Medibank if reelected - will use its numbers in the Senate to push the bill through, said Gillespie.
The impact of the sale on the community has not been thoroughly investigated and there will be no avenues for parliamentary scrutiny or review of the sale beyond next week .
Just read your WoL editorial. Couldn't agree more. Now, could you just send that message about building Workchoices into a frame for dealing with the whole question of how Howard governs and for whom, to the palukas that are running the ALP campaign? If I hear a breathy reference to 'middle Australia' one more time, I will scream. If I hear one more reference to 'Howard's IR legislation' from a pollie that misses the whole point of this legislative attack on 'Australian values', I will just go mental.
Just what does it take to get these idiots to say what is waiting to be said. I am just beside myself looking at the ''free passes' this government has been given from a timid and unsure Opposition. What is it with these people? Anyway, had my say. Not feeling any better, just a bit relieved that someone else has grasped the nub of the problem!
The sooner we get some people who know how to do the job, into a place where they can do what it takes to actually win, instead of going down to one more loss, the better! Let's hope someone besides the usual suspects actually reads Wol editorials.
But I suppose that would be beneath them. You know. Trade Unions are so passe these days. What we need is a party freed from the shackles of any organised opinion from below, and one where spinmeisters and graduates on marketing can just run free-free of any policy that is accountable to anyone not earning $100,000 pa that is. Bah humbug!
Linda Carruthers
This is a little strange for me to be writing this, for you see, I am actually a manager who has worked in the security industry for many many years who started as a casual guard so long ago I can't really remember when it was. The reason I thought I would write is simply because, having working with so many wonderful security employees I just wanted let everyone know that there some managers (me for one) who hold you in the highest regard.
Without all of you on the coal face (so to speak) the rest of us who sit in the head offices would be nothing ... it's all of you who make the big dollars for the share holders and directors, and what do you get - probably the lowest wage and hourly rate imaginable. I am one manager who is happy to admit that the very people whom we employ (and often never support when they really need it the most) are seen as nothing more than just a payroll number who can be manipulated and thrown from site to site or differing rosters without a single thought for how it will effect them or their families. To cut a long story short ... after almost 10 years working for the biggest security provider in the country (maybe the world) I was questioned re my loyalty to the company and why I was showing compassion toward an employee during a family crisis and allowing him some time off. Following this ... several more conversations and meetings took place, until eventually I was dismissed (or sacked if you want it simple terms) because they had issues with my loyalty to the company!
I will end this by saying ... please remember there are some of us who have been in the same position some of you are in right now, and we respect you and hold you in the highest regard. We will (or I will) continue to support the guys and girls for whom I am responsible for to try and make their day at work just that little bit more enjoyable - even if it does cost me my job (which it did ... and if I have to do it again, I wil).
With the support of the NSW Labor Council, now Unions NSW, the publication has occupied a privileged position of working from within the movement, yet having an independent voice to comment as an outsider.
But after much reflection, in consultation with the officers of Unions NSW, I have decided that this will be the final year for Workers Online and that this is its penultimate edition.
The reasons for this are both complex and obvious.
When we began publication back in 1999, we created a clearly defined role. In the absence of a coherent media policy for the movement, Workers Online would package the news that should be published, the way we wished it would be - tabloid and in your face.
It is perhaps a reflection of the success of this idea that in 2006 the media does cover union affairs again, tabloid press and TV in particular. The niche we set out to occcupy has been back-filled.
Back in 1999, it is fair to say that Workers Online was at the cutting edge of political activism on the web. Even our dearest friends would concede our look, and more importantly, our model is getting a little retro. Back then, we thought we were constructing virtual universe - today, post dot.com buts - we know this was only ever a communications tool.
Over this time, my interests have broadened too. More and more unions have come on board to take media advice from me - and my colleagues at EMC - allowing me to develop more sophisticated public strategies than merely running a lairy headline on a website.
What this means is that where once Workers Online broke the news, these days our team are forced - often reluctantly - to hold back on stories so we can implement releases in the mainstream press. So instead of leading the debate, we have forced ourselves into a position of following.
With this increasing responsibility to the movement has also come a need to pull back on the provocative agitprop - when your one-time targets become your clients it is, sadly, a little harder to tip the gratuitous bucket.
But there has been a more profound concern about our model emerging in my mind over recent months: that while it is easy to chart the weekly news in bite-sized chunks, the real intellectual heavy lifting of building a model of politics for the 21st century has been sliding.
Despite the quality of some of our features, the weekly news cycle does not give the chance to reflect, develop policy ideas and build campaigns. And a broadcast format, where ideas are merely printed, does not make for dynamic debates
That is where Unions NSW and EMC have determined to take the web activism in the next few years - with the nascent Working NSW think tank we want to build a centre of policy debate and formulation to help imagine an economy that operates in the interests of working people and their families.
Our team of journalists will help drive this project, developing what I believe will be a ground-breaking partnership between academics and writers to not just develop, but drive the public debate.
That is not to say there is no need for a service that chronicles the ebb and flow in IR; to this end we will continue to produce a regular email bulletin that will link up the leading news stories and debates. Current subscribers will get the opportunity to convert to this service when we relaunch in early 2007.
But as for the tabloid yarns and my pontificating editorial, this is it; one more edition to sum up the seven years of Workers Online will be published before Christmas, but then we will be history.
It is not an easy decision, but I have always argued that institutions need renewal and I must apply that logic to my own work. And after 335 missives on what I think about the world, I feel like it is to time step back for a while for some quieter reflection.
Peter Lewis
Editor
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