E D I T O R I A L

The End
In vintage Workers Online fashion we have detected a minor, but telling, factual error in last week’s missive/suicide note. It’s not a seven year itch – this is, in fact, the end of an eight year project.

F E A T U R E S

Interview: The Terminator
Unions NSW secretary John Robertson looks back on the highs and lows of a year when the battle lines were drawn.

Industrial: Vive La Resistance
Jim Marr glances back through a year of news and discovers plenty of reason for optimism…

Unions: Breaking News
The web offered new ways of covering unions issues. Here’s ten ways Workers Online tried to do things differently.

History: Seven Deadly Sins
Looking back on our annual year-ender editorials gives a nice overview of the journey we have taken.

Economics: Back to the Future
Political economist Frank Stilwell looks back at a year that saw the passing of the drivers of two strains of economic thought.

Politics: Organising and Organisations
Organising for unionists can mean overcoming the “union”. The “rolling of the right” by the BLF rank and file shows the power of workers united to defeat the power of bosses and certain union bosses.

International: Web Retrospective
Unions and the web – What's changed in the last seven years? The short answer is – everything and nothing, wrties Eric Lee

Review: Shock Therapy
Unreconstructed Kazakhi journalist Borat is unleashed on the ‘US and A’ offending everyone – except the bigots.

N E W S

High Flyers Go For Gold

Hospital Staff Prescribe Radical Surgery

Holland Goes Dutch on Safety

New Thinking to Transport Sydney

Check Mate - Track Your Personal Info

WorkChoices on a Trolley

See No Evil, OEA

Feltex Carpets PM's Fibs

Workers Blood on the Walls

Lift For Unfair Dismissal Campaign

No Discrimination on Choice

Vanstone Opens New Meat Market

Activists' Notebook

C O L U M N S

The Future
So Where to Now?
Amanda Tattersall outlines her plans for Working NSW and the challenge of connecting research, communications and campaigning.

Obituary
Gone But Not Forgotten
Augusto Pinochet Ugarte (1915-2006). His memory is still being honoured, writes Jim Marr

Parliament
The Westie Wing
Our favourite politician bids adieu and hangs up his chestnuts.

L E T T E R S

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Check Mate - Track Your Personal Info

The Finance Sector Union's site www.bankcheck.net.au lists every bank and every job that has been sent off-shore, as well as explaining what personal information would be sent with the jobs.

The site was launched as the Finance Sector Union posed tough questions to the AGMs of major banks including Westpac, NAB, St George and ANZ on their plans to cut local jobs.

With half of their shares owned by retail, rather than big institutional funds., St George is vulnerable to shareholder back-lash and were desperate to hose down the issue, despite having announced more than 100 jobs will be contracted out to IBM.

CEO Gail Kelly told the AGM that local workers would not lose their jobs, blaming a local skills shortage on its decision to move work to India; rather than the fact that workers earn under 25 per cent of the Australian minimum wage.

That didn't impress shareholders. "I don't want blood on my dividend cheques, through Australian jobs going overseas," one said.

FSU national secretary Paul Schroder says the BankCheck site will provide the public with the facts on off-shoring - which jobs are being sent offshore and what information is going with them.

"Thousands of Australian finance sector jobs are under threat of being off-shored to India where workers are paid as little as $100 per week," Schroder says.

"We also know from research we conducted that the public hates the idea - 82 per cent say they would consider changing banks if their bank sacked Australian workers and sent their information offshore.

The FSU is also calling for legislation requiring banks to inform customers when their personal information is sent offshore.

"The Government needs to force banks and other financial service providers, to disclose these details because customers have a right to know so they can make informed consumer decisions. In the meantime, we'll provide that right through this website. "

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Last Modified: 21 Dec 2006