Labor Council secretary Michael Costa has warned that the decision by the Department of State and Regional Development to fund the Stellar call center in Wollongong could spark a brawl at the June party conference.
The South Coast Labor Council has endorsed a peaceful protest at the site, amidst fears that any jobs created will come at the expense of existing workers employed on award rates.
Costa says he'll take the matter directly up with treasurer Michael Egan, who has responsibility for the funding decision.
"This is a firm that has no place in NSW if they continue with these practices," he told the weekly Labor Council meeting.
"This is an outrageous decision ... I'm happy to take it to State Conference to ensure that not one cent of taxpayer money goes to this company."
Costa says the funding issue is broader and that he'll be promoting a resolution calling on the Carr Government not to provide any form of government assistance to firms not prepared to work in accordance NSW Government policy on industrial relations.
Second Strike for NSW
The Carr Government has already raised eyebrows by awarding a contract to Stellar to provide timetable information for the State Transit Authority via a center at Hornsby.
As whistleblower and former human resources manager Andrew Hilliard has told Workers Online (see issue #47) that the AWAs were part of an explicit strategy to drive labour costs down.
Stellar is an offshoot of Telstra, established specifically to undercut the existing Telstra workforce's wages and conditions by placing staff on Australian Workplace Agreements.
The Community and Public Sector Union's Stephen Jones says Stellar's modus operandi is to target depressed regions and then offer jobs at the bottom rate.
Jones has called on all state Labor Government take on Stellar and declare their states "no go area for bottom-feeders" like the Telstra offshoot
The public sector unions gave the government the two week ultimatum on Thursday, but the Rail Tram and Bus Union upped the ante late today imposing bans on all Games preparation immediately.
RTBU state secretary Nick Lewocki says it's been more than 24 months since his members made their claim
Transport workers will bear the brunt of Sydney 2000 mayhem, with trains running to a 23-per hour day peak.
"It would appear that the government has decided on a course of trying to force an industrial dispute over the Olympic allowance proposal at the eleventh hour which is totally unacceptable," Lewocki says.
"We lodged this claim with the State Government on January 7, 1998 and in all certified enterprise agreements since this date the Olympic claim has been included in leave reserve clauses."
Lewocki says the government has handled the claim in a "cavalier" fashion and will now work to the award du5ring the games.
Among other things, this will mean the government having to employ a further 500 security guards over the Games period.
Meanwhile, Representatives of other public sector workers including police, fire brigade, ambulance and general public servants on altered duties will meet in a fortnight to consider industrial action if there's no movement
Gibberish from Gallagher
Meanwhile, NSW Opposition industrial relations spokesman, Michael Gallagher has burst onto the public stage after more than a year of silence.
The man they call 'The Shadow' this morning attacked a claim by his former colleagues in the police force, ambulance, fire brigade officers, transport workers and public servants to be compensated for increased duties during the games period.
The basis of Gallagher's attack - that the unions have breached an undertaking to not seek any wage rises - wrong.
"It is clear that the Opposition spokesman on industrial relations does not know the difference between a wage claim and an allowance," Costa says.
"As this is a fundamental principle of industrial relations one can only question his capacity for understanding his portfolio.
"The facts are that the union movement has been responsible during the Games preparation. Construction came in on time and under budget. Workers at Olympic venues have settled on an award to avoid Atlanta-style wage blowouts.
"But public sector workers who will be denied leave and face massive increases in work intensity have a legitimate claim to an allowance for the period of the event. (Michael Gallagher please note: allowances are linked to an event, wage claims are for ever).
"Rail timetables, for example will run to a 23 hour peak, that means a lot more stress and hard work for those in the industry.
"To deny workers in emergency services a modest pay bonus for the massive dislocation to their working lives is not only mean-spirited, but will undermine the goodwill of workers required to make this event run smoothly."
Labor MP Tony Stewart told the weekly Labor Council meeting that the government had made the exemptions after the intervention of unions' whose members would have been affected by a plan to cut entitlements for psychological harm to victims of crime.
This followed the intervention of the Finance Sector Union, Transport Workers Union, Nurses Association, LHMU and SDA about the impact of the changes.
Stewart, who chaired a cross-party inquiry into the scheme, told the Labor Council the changes had been designed to address a $200 million per annum blow-out in the scheme.
The cuts to access for psychological damage will also exempt the families of homocide victims, victims of sexual assault and victims of domestic assault. The changes are expected to be announced next week.
The Commission will hear submissions on the rise in Wollongong on May 15 and May 16, where unions will argue the $15 a week increase should flow through to the 1.1 million workers employed under the state system.
Labor Council secretary Michael Costa says the decisions has been made not to go for the full $24 the ACTU sought because this would hold up any flow-on and was unlikely to succeed.
"We've been done that track before and spent a lot of time arguing for more than the federal decision and all we did was delay the pay rise," Costa says.
The federal increase of $15 will boost the minimum wage from $385.40 to $400.40. The ACTU argued for an increase of $24 when submissions were heard in March.
Over the past four years the ACTU, through its Living Wage claims, has secured total wage rises of $51 for low-paid workers despite opposition from employer groups and the Government.
Good result for ACTU
Meanwhile, ACTU secretary Greg Combet says the federal decision is a win for all low-paid workers, and would address the widening gap between award-dependent employees and those groups of workers who had achieved higher rates of pay.
"There are still far too many working people who are struggling to pay for the basics in life," Combet says.
"Casual and part-time workers, women, and people from non-English speaking backgrounds are among the lowest paid people in Australia - this rise will help them all.
"The decision supports the ACTU's argument on behalf of all low-paid Australians that the current minimum weekly wage of $385.40 is just not enough.
The decision also shows how out of touch the Government and employers are with the genuine needs of working people. The Government offered a miserly $8 increase, and the major employer group ACCI argued against any increase at all.
"Only the State Labor Governments supported the ACTU's case. It is only fair and reasonable that low-paid workers benefit from the fruits of economic growth - especially when company executives are receiving pay increases of up to 20 per cent.
The FSU claims the cost-cutting plan discriminates against women, who make up "90 per cent of ANZ's 6000 part-time staff across Australia" FSU Industrial Officer, Emma King says.
FSU's pacesetting action is new to the union movement, transcending the traditional routine of only complaining to HREOC if it is behalf of individuals who had been discriminated against.
King says the ANZ is in breach of various provisions of the award and enterprise agreement and that the "union has deliberately pursued the new tactic because of the systematic indirect discrimination against women apparent in ANZ's moves to change work arrangements".
The FSU believes the cuts were unnecessary given the bank is expected to deliver another record profit of $1.7 billion this year.
by HT Lee
He was proudly displaying a large placard saying: 'I Support Casino Workers Fight.'
The placard was clearly visible and would have been seen by
hundreds of thousands of viewers on Fox Sky TV.
The casino workers are fighting for better wages and conditions including the questions of passive smoking and intoxicated patron behaviours.
Justin easily won his title fight on points against his tough Maori opponent John Pulo who was built like a solid brick wall.
The fight lasted the whole eight rounds with Pulo taking the full punishment from Justin but refusing to give in.
Justin was also spotted with a CFMEU cap when he entered the ring and his team of trainers wore CFMEU polo t-shirts with the slogan: 'CFMEU Union Fighter.'
At the end of the fight Justin put back his cap and gave the CFMEU supporters a thumps up salute. He said: 'I am proud to be union and I fully support the casino workers fight for wage justice.'
The casino is making mega profits and its about time they listen to their hard working workers and gave them their proper wages and conditions.
Justin will be off to Italy next where he will be fighting for the cruiser-weight title.
Passive Smoking Laws Welcomed
Meanwhile a State Government decision to ban smoking in enclosed spaces has left Casino workers out in the cold, with gaming tables not included in the ban.
The issue of passive smoking, particular on dealers, is one of the key issues driving the current campaign at the Casino.
With Casino management refusing to budge on the issue and ban smaking at the tables, workers had hoped the government initiative would force the issue.
The workers, members of the Liquor Hospitality and Miscellaneous Workers Union are now planning a campaign to place pressure on authorities to extend the ban.
ASU members in the sector are angered by the State Government's refusal to commit funding for a new SACS Award.
They believe the government position is causing significant hardship and uncertainty for the sector.
In the lead up to the June strike SACS workers will implement work bans and a work to rule for four weeks. This will include a ban on unpaid overtime, a ban on data collection for State Government funding bodies and a ban on taking referrals from State Government agencies.
A central rally will be held in Sydney on the 23 June and regional activities are also being planned for this day. The theme of the events will be the promotion of the range of services provided by the non-government community services sector - and that Quality Service Deserves Quality Pay.
In Sydney the plan will be to cover the front of Parliament House with a display demonstrating the importance of non-government community services.
ASU Secretary Alison Peters said workers in the sector are sick of employers and the Government passing the buck to each other over the funding of the award.
'To survive in Community Services you need to be patient and stoic. But our members have made it clear their deep well of goodwill is running dry. They want action from employers and the Government and a better SACS Award.'
SACS Award Hearing opens to raucous rally
The hearing on the ASU's application for a new SACS Award began last week before the Full Bench of the NSW Industrial Relations Commission.
ASU members rallied outside the Commission beforehand carrying banners adorned with the SACS Award Campaigns mascot, fictional community worker, Ms Faye Lo'Pay.
A transcript of the ASU's opening address in the award proceedings will be available on the ASU website (www.asuservices.labor.net.au) from next week.
The hearings are to continue in late June.
A new report into the casting of television drama productions such as Water Rats, Blue Heelers and All Saints concludes that racial discrimination in the casting process persists.
A new report into the casting of television drama productions such as Water Rats, Blue Heelers and All Saints concludes that racial discrimination in the casting process persists.
The report, the result of a survey of all actors working in Australian television drama productions in 1999, has found that there were no Asian actors or first generation migrants cast in sustaining roles.
Simon Whipp, National Director of the Media Entertainment and Arts Alliance said, "It is appalling that in the 21st Century our television screens still do not reflect Australian society."
"How a performer looks or sounds, rather than their skill, continues to prevent them obtaining work."
On a positive note overall casting of non-anglo performers was up significantly to 23%.
The last survey on the issue conducted in 1992 found only 2% of all roles were cast with non-anglo performers. The representation of indigenous Australians was also up.
"This is a positive sign. While the improvement is applauded we were starting from a low base. In 1992 no roles were cast with indigenous performers" said Whipp.
"This report highlights that further work is needed with a co-operative approach between the networks, the producers and the Alliance. This is what we will be trying to achieve" said Whipp.
by Paddy Gorman
In the last decade alone, Australia has lost billions of dollars in earnings as a result of collusion by Japanese buyers to fix coal prices.
While greedy Australian exporters have cut each other's throats and undermined the national interest in a grab for market share, our Union has consistently pointed out that strategic investment in Australian coal operations by the Japanese buyers has provided them with the vital information they require to drive down prices.
Our Union has possession of documents from Japan that prove our claims of collusion are correct.
We have passed them on to the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission
(ACCC). The ACCC is never hesitant when it comes to threatening the MUA or other unions with prosecution for alleged breaches of the competition and consumer regulations. It is not so gung-ho when a Union demands action.
Even though the ACCC agrees that there is a case for prosecution, it has declined to pursue one because of a lack of support from spineless coal producers. The ACCC also claims that the cost of such a prosecution might outweigh the public benefit and it is concerned about the potential for Japanese trade reprisals.
CFMEU General President Tony Maher has made it clear that this is a cop out and the Union is considering legal action to force the ACCC to act. "Coal is an asset owned by the people of Australia, a fact enshrined in law. We are entitled to a fair return on our coal. If the coal producers haven't the guts to take on Japanese collusive practices, then the ACCC has a public responsibility and duty to do so", he said.
Coalowners Bury Huge Productivity Increases
In the latest industry survey released by the NSW Minerals Council, another massive 18.4 per cent increase in coal mineworkers productivity has been buried in the back of the report.
In all previous years, the labour productivity data was featured near the front. However, the coal employers realise that successive massive productivity increases undermine their claims for further cost cutting so they have attempted to hide it in the back of the report in the hope that no attention is drawn to it.
While output per employee increased by 18.4 per cent for the year 1998-99, the coal employers survey revealed that wages only went up by 1.2 per cent.
by Peter Murphy
For over two hours, the occupiers - mainly Korean-born building workers - discussed the situation at Daewoo and chanted slogans, while union officials negotiated with the local manager.
Daewoo Australia were extremely cooperative and refused suggestions by the building manager that the police be called. They arranged a phone connection to the Daewoo Motors Union office in Korea to allow the occupiers to directly communicate their support in conversation and by chanting.
Over 80,000 workers employed by South Korea's big four car makers - Hyundai, Daewoo, Ssang-yong and Kia - launched a series of strikes from April 6, leading up to a general strike on April 12. A further general strike was held on April 27 and a mass protest rally was held in Seoul on April 28.
At 3.40 AM on April 25, 2000, over one hundred battle-dressed police raided the office of the Daewoo Motors Workers Union in Pupyung near Seoul and arrested everyone in the office. There were twenty union leaders and activists who had made the office their temporary home for the duration of the campaign.
The pre-dawn raid signals the government's hard line attitude towards the workers' demand that a special taskforce be set up, comprising workers, company, creditor banks, the government, experts and other interested stakeholders. The taskforce would undertake a comprehensive examination and discussion of the best way to rescue the troubled Daewoo Motors.
The union had taken a step back from its original position of immediate and unconditional cancellation of the plan to sell Daewoo Motors overseas.
The government said it would not participate in this kind of consultation and joint decision-making process with the trade union movement.
This triggered a seven day strike from April 6 that included all four car companies.
In response, the Public Prosecutor's Office issued arrest warrants against 34 union leaders and activists. So the April 25 raid was long expected.
Of the twenty who were dragged away, thirteen low-ranking activists were released, but the other seven are held by the police. They are:
LEE Nam-mok, Vice-President
CHANG Soon-kil, Organising Director
KIM Jo-hyun, Industrial Action Director
BOK Jae-hyun, rank and file member
YOO Young-ku, Sports Activities Director
LEE Bong-yong, Industrial Health and Safety Director
Vice-President Lee and Sports Director Yoo are expected to be charged for organising a protest public meeting in front of the Central Office of the ruling Millennium Democratic Party before the April 6 strike. The rest, plus union President Choo, had outstanding warrants against them.
Key unionists at Hyundai Motors, including President Jeung Kap-deuk, also have warrants out against them.
The Korean Confederation of Trade Unions (KCTU) has complained to the OECD Employment, Labour and Social Affairs Committee on April 7 that the Korean government was making loud threats of arrests of union activists.
President Kim Dae-jung held a summit with the opposition party on April 24, and referred to the workers' actions as "illegal collective self-interest" and said his government would deal with them "sternly".
The trigger for this sharp conflict was the decision to sell the troubled Daewoo Motors to an overseas company - General Motors is the leading contender.
The Korean Metal Workers Federation, which covers the unions in these companies, predicts that if the sale goes through then a large number of Daewoo workers would be made redundant under the new labor code, and that imported cars would take a significant share of the domestic car market, thus forcing redundancies in the other three companies.
Daewoo has 30% of the domestic car market and its mid-range and large size cars are popular. The domestic car market is now 160,000 units per year and it is predicted to double in the next five years. This makes Korea a target market for transnational car makers.
Since China joined the World Trade Organisation last December, it is committed to reduce its tariffs by 20% by the year 2005. This makes export car plants in Korea attractive for carmakers wanting to export to China.
Daewoo was largely a subcontract producer for General Motors in the 1970s. the workers already know that working for GM will be a bad experience. Resistance to the entry of GM is very high.
Meanwhile, the privatised French auto-maker, Renault, has announced that it is buying a controlling interest in Samsung Motors. This company is viciously anti-union and has no union in its motor division. Samsung has 10% of the Korean domestic car market. Renault has just bought a controlling interest in Nissan, and Samsung makes Nissan-designed vehicles.
KCTU is planing a general strike of all its affiliates for May 31, 2000, on the following range of demands: higher wages, shorter working hours, trade union rights for public servants, a social welfare system, ending the conglomerate (chaebol) company system, co-determination by unions about restructuring.
The Australian Services Union's Lisa Heap, the ACTU delegate to the ILO Review of the Maternity Protection Covenent will report on the progress of the review and the international trade union movement's concerns.
The briefing will take place in the Labor Council Executive Boardroom, Level 9, 377-383 Sussex Street between 9.30am and 1.00pm on Tuesday May 16.
Click here to confirm your attendance by May 11.
mailto:[email protected]
Shaw let the milestone slip during an interview with Workers Online to be published next week. The clock passed ten on May Day.
After five years in Opposition and another five in Government, Shaw says the highlight was definitely the 1995 election win.
He cites the 1996 Industrial Relations Act, which has served as a model for other Labor states and the federal Opposition, as his proudest personal achievement.
As for Long Service Leave? "We don't get it here."
Meanwhile, following the huge success of the "Radio Free East Timor" a follow-up fundraising concert will be held at The Basement on WEDNESDAY night May 17th 2000.
The "Big Drum-up for East Timor" will raise more money for new transmitters for "Radio Voz do Esperanza" (Voice of Hope) the only East Timorese controlled radio station in that country.
The East Timorese people consider a comprehensive radio network as one of their priorities in rebuilding their country. Radio Voz do Esperanza currently broadcasts 16 hours a day, and their coverage includes news, feature stories, community service announcements, information on health and agricultural techniques, and of course music.
The Big Rum-up for East Timor features an amazing line up of Australia's best drummers including Epizo Bangoura Mahamed Bangoura (West African Drumming) Blair Greenberg (rhythmic vocals) Quarteto Y Su Descarga (featuring Aykho and Fabian Hevia - Afro Cuban), Erik the Dog (as seen on ABC TV) Joel Salom (rhythmic juggling) Womangospeach (body percussion) and Peter Kenard (frame drumming with triggers).
All this for $12!
Old CDs can be donated on the night for the radio station or dropped into the Labor Council Union shop front at 377 Sussex Street.
The Fundraising Concert is organised by the Construction Forestry, Mining and Energy Union (CFMEU), the Liquor Hospitality and Miscellaneous Workers Union (LHMU) and the Labor Council of NSW.
Tickets are available NOW from Aaron Magner at the LHMU (9281 9577 or 0418 964806) Phil Davey at the CFMEU (9287 9387) or at the door on the night.
What else you can Do!
Further assistance is needed to help these community radio stations in East Timor.
� Make a tax deductible donation to APHEDA - marked East Timor Radio Project.
� Encourage your members to donate old cassette tapes or CDs. Tastes are wide - anything from Mozart to Madonna, and remember, if they haven't listened to it for a year, they will never miss it!!
� Come to the Fundraising Concert at Sydney's Harbourside Brasserie on WEDNSDAY night May 17th to raise money for new transmitters for "Radio Voz do Esperanza".
by Peter Jennings
Sharan Burrow, the new ACTU President, and Geoff Clark, the Chairman of ATSIC were among the guests, along with Warren Snowden, the Labor MP for the Northern Territory. Other visitors were Mick Doleman, Assistant National Secretary of the MUA, Trevor Charles representing the International Transport Federation and the MUA, Joe Gallagher from the CFMEU and Margaret Gillespie, the National Organiser with the CPSU. Others who attended were Pat Anderson, Bob Lee, Fran Chinn and Chips McNulty representing the NT Aboriginal people and Peter Jennings representing APHEDA - Union Aid Abroad. A representative from the trade unions in Portugal also attended.
The May Day celebrations and march was a colourful event with both speeches and exchange of gifts. Xanana Gusmao, President of the CNRT and Sergio de Mello, the head of the United Nations Transitional Authority for East Timor (UNTAET) addressed the group.
Sharran Burrow told the people that "the reconstruction of East Timor must also involve democratic organisations such as trade unions that speak for the people", while Geoff Clark spoke about the common ground between East Timorese and Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples, especially with the challenges of overcoming unemployment, poor health and inadequate housing.
The people of East Timor rejoiced at their first opportunity to celebrate May Day as a free nation, but I was also struck with their quiet determination that the unfinished business of rebuilding their lives, communities and nation would continue.
Sydney May Day March
Sydney workers will march through the city streets to mark May Day this Sunday. Assemble Bathurst Street near the Sydney town Hall at 11am. Rally and concert Fisrt Fleet Park at 1pm.
We can be grateful that Peter Reith's guide to negotiation only suggests deception, threats lies and attacking negotiators character. When Reith gets into real negotiations he uses Masked men and Doberman dogs!
David Goss
Oh dear. "Wrestling with Reith" (Workers Online 28 April 2000)was nothing but propaganda for the Caird team in the upcoming CPSU elections.
Given her bellyaching about how we Public Servants have lost so much, (too true), I wonder when Wendy will lead a real union campaign to defend jobs, wages and conditions. My guess is never.
John Passant
CPSU member
Im getting a little weary of my fellow workers continually
screaming about lack of decent pay, lack of decent working conditions,lack of decent union support etc etc.
Our future lies in our own hands!
My recipe is simple
1) Sell your labour to the highest bidder.
2)Don,t give away misguided loyalty to your employer for free.
3)Accept that some employers are better than others,leave the bad ones they dont deserve you, you dont need them.
4)If its the government you work for study their own internal systems, then use them to protect yourselves.
5)Do what they do...work smart... not hard.
6)Always have a back up plan so your not so reliant on the employer.... start a small buisness doing whatever you can
eg; car cleaning, welding.tiling, anything,the less reliant on the employer the stronger your negotiating position.
7)Always look after your fellow worker their the only ones who give a damm about you.
regards,
a man whose moved on but has and always will have the union running through his heart.
I found the May Day History article somewhat disappointing. May Day is very important to me as it represents past and future struggles of working people for social justice. I have been attending May Day marches since 1970, and I have been celebrating May Day on May 1st since about 1978. I have also done a reasonable amount of reading on the origins of May Day, and its celebration in Australia.
I was somewhat disappointed when I discovered that Neale Towart had incorporated substantial sections of his article on PreIndustrial May Day and Working People from Eugene Plawiuk's very informative website on the origins of May Day, without giving due credit. Surely sections should have been quoted, with an appropriate link at the bottom of the article.
The section on May Day in Australia is interesting, but too brief. The inclusion of extracts from O'Dowd's poem and Lawson's poem was particularly nice, but could have been more extensive.
For a detailed history of May Day in Australia, the Melbourne May Day Committee published in 1990 'A Short History of May Day 1890-1990'. This is an excellent book, now likely to be out of print.
Readers of Workers Online may be interested in a brief article on the origins of MayDay in Australia and its connection to anarchism. This is available at:
http://members.xoom.com/takver/history/mayday.htm
Also of interest is Chummy Fleming's biography http://members.xoom.com/takver/history/chummy.htm
Eugene Plawiuk's excellent website on 'The origins and Traditions of May Day' - http://www.geocities.com/CapitolHill/5202/mayday.htm
And for many other relevant links and information try 'May Day on the Web' - http://www.mayweek.ab.ca/
Takver
10th June forum at the Berkeley Hotel Abercrombie st Chippendale on Sunday at 2pm.
Clover Moore speaks about what independents can do
this is on sunday of state conference sunday is usually boring so we urge all delegates to drop in and have a go with Clover.
Sun 16th july Berkeley Hotel 2pm - cartooning Australian style Bill Leak/ Australian/ Warren BROWN Daily Telegraph chaired by Meridith Burgman
by Noel Hester
What sort of losses did the Service Workers Union suffer after the introduction of the ECA?
Huge losses, mainly in the first three years. 18,000 workers covered by the Tearooms and Restaurants Award disappeared when the employers refused to renegotiate that award ? covering every little coffee bar and restaurant in town, with high turnover and an impossible job to do workplace contracts for them all. This was followed by losses of around 5,000 in rest homes when first the private employers refused to negotiate a national contract and then the religious and welfare employers went feral ? remember the PSS lockout? This was designed to force workers onto a new cec with no penal rates and much reduced conditions and they did it by approaching people individually and scaring the shit out of them.
We lost masses of cleaners, hospital workers were halved because of contracting out in the 1993 ?1994 health reforms and on and on. If you believe our membership figures at the formation of the SWU in 1991, we had 70,000 members. By 1993, we had 30,000 and today, with two other amalgamations under our belts, we have just over 20,000. My real estimation is that the combined unions that have amalgamated to form the SWU (and who incurred their own losses before amalgamating ? for example, the Clerical Workers Union, which in Wellington and the South Island went out of existence within 18 months of the ECA ? the Northern amalgamated with us), I would say that around 100,000 workers in our industries used to be covered by national awards and compulsory unionism.
Was that the only reason the union went backwards or were there other reasons as well?
There were many reasons. While we had done more work than most unions on getting ready for the ECA, I don't think we made a philosophical shift - in other words, we were bound up in compulsory union and servicing thinking.
50 years of compulsory unionism, where national awards were settled away from workers and where most workers thought the government gave them pay rises meant that we were seriously weakened. Other things hurt too, like the halving of numbers in our strong bases, such as hospitals, due to contracting out along with closures and redundancies throughout the 90's. And every time there was a sale of a business, a unionised workplace quickly became a non union workplace ? for example the Air NZ Catering Site - which had around 300 members. When it was sold to Caterair, the workers had to reapply for their jobs on lesser pay and conditions ? and most of our activists didn't get jobs. The union was shut out without access and it made very clear that being part of a union was career limiting. We are just starting to organise Caterair again. This happened time and time again across all of our industries and is the reason we have been campaigning for a transfer of undertakings provision in the ERB (which isn't in there) - so that workers jobs and pay and conditions must be transferred in a sale or contracting out of business.
How come the SWU wasn't completely obliterated?
Many commentators said a union like ours wouldn't survive under the ECA ? especially a union with predominately small workplaces, (average workplace size less than 10 members) and part?time, casual and temporary jobs in the secondary labour market. Our union had made real attempts in the 80's to build strong delegates networks and structures for maori, pacific island and women members. I think this held us in good stead because it built a culture of activism. Our union, more than most, had some major campaigns in the health and hospitality sectors in the mid to late 80's, which built confidence among members and helped sustain some of the attacks. I think we also had such a shock in 1993, when the union faced $1million deficit and had to make some really tough decisions, including laying off a third of our staff, restructuring and taking all of the layers out of the union. So, we've learned to be really careful with money, to fund raise for activities and members freely giving of their own time to be active in the union.
When and why was there a change in the way of doing things?
From before the ECA, proponents for organising change, such as Paul Chalmers, our previous Education Officer, was trying to get people to focus on organising as a response to the ECA. We had sent him and others to the USA in the late 80's to find out how to prepare for what was coming, and we had Val Ervine of the UFCW here in the early 90's with a national conference on organising for all staff. He introduced the concept of one to one organising to the union, along with mapping and analysing workplaces.
In the Health Division in Auckland, we got re-inspired by a couple of visits by people like Marge Kruger from the CWA and Teresa Conrow and started trying to build organising committees, revisiting and revamping the stuff both Paul, and his successor, Annie Newman, who is a community activist, had been running in education programmes since the early 90's.
We set ourselves some goals of getting Workplace organising Committees in as many workplaces as possible, we found new ways to get workers involved and active and we had some real successes. I took over the role of the organising proponent and evangelist in the organisation and for the next few couple of years was probably the most unpopular person among the organising staff ? because I was challenging the status quo. The platform for the challenge was our continuing shrinking membership, our concessionary bargaining, our stressed our staff and our lack of genuinely active members.
It was painful and difficult still is. Those of us who supported the organising programme learned that initiating change in unions needs an organising model ? you have to find supporters and leaders, you have to build a network of people who are committed to the change and you have to expand that to others. There are some people you will never convince or change ? either you find roles for them that are useful to the organization that don't contradict the organising programme or they have to go.
It's been a long haul, and we are just beginning to see some results. I think we spent a lot of time trying to convince tired and burned out staff that this is a good idea, instead of convincing the people who really should make the decisions ? the executive and the members.
What's changed in the last year is that the leadership of the union has become absolutely and firmly united around the organising programme and the executive has taken charge of it and is holding me and the other regional secretaries accountable for its delivery. And what's different is that we have gone to members and asked for their help. This year's AGMS have been all about that ? about the union's programme, about the crisis and what it will take to rebuild ? even under the ERA ? and the response has been overwhelming.
We have hundreds and hundreds of members who have signed up for our Be ACtive programme ? being active in their industry, winning in the workplace, becoming a member organiser, or joining our maori, pacific island, women's, young workers or gay and lesbian networks.
Describe the differences between the organisation now and say ten years ago?
Ten years ago, we were a much bigger organisation, with 100 odd staff, national infrastructure, research capacity, industry leadership and so on. Today we are around a third of our previous size, with 63 staff, some infrastructure in terms of our legal and publicity staff. Our industry influence has been weakened by enterprise bargaining, whole parts of some sectors in our industries are deunionised, new industries have sprung up and the work places that we knew ten years ago have changed forever.
The impact and devastation of the ECA has been massive in hospitality, in cleaning, in caregiving, in clerical and admin work. Our density in hospitals is relatively high, despite contracting out, our density in age care and community services is around 30%, our density in contracting cleaning and accommodation is less than 10%. Food manufacturing has high density, but these are large workplaces that have by and large been hit more by economic policies than the ECA.
We are focussing on the industry and sector organising themes and the threat of the non?union competition, whereas before, I think we concentrated a lot on building workplace organisation ? perhaps seeing it as the first step towards getting activists who will help organise in other workplaces.
The leadership (elected secretaries) has almost completely changed, apart from Wellington and two women are now in these positions.
The most significant change is the way we do our work. It's almost as if we have had to revisit the politics of organising ? because the ECA has turned unions in narrow negotiators of contracts and handlers of disputes. We've had to challenge this thinking with members, with organisers, with the executive ? it's core and critical to being a successful organising union ? where the members are the union ? not the organiser. We say that blithely, but it's practising it ? in everything we do and say, in the way we work with members and the way we work with the boss. This has been the biggest change and on?going change in our union in the last ten years.
In terms of organising, we have allocated 20% of our organising resources to new organising, so that in Auckland, we have three organisers, plus an organising co?ordinator allocated for "external" organising. All "internal" organisers have growth, targets for more activists, targets for involvement in union activities and democracy and campaigns.
We are setting up a Union Rights Centre in Auckland, which which includes the information organiser, who is also responsible for compliance issues ? such as wage claims, a mediations organiser, who does the mediations beyond the workplace after they've been assessed for organising potential and the legal officer. The Centre will provide research, is developing an intranet for organisers to access collective agreement and industry information and will access first contacts for organising potential, will collect industry information and help free up organisers for more organising.
We have more activists than before. We have a goal of one activist for every five members and we are almost halfway there. We have renewed networks for women and pacific island members (including in the South Island!) and maori structures are starting to take off.
This year, we have a special budget that has allocated out of reserves money for education and support ? for staff, members and executive to help implement what is quite big change for some parts of the union.
We piloted a Volunteer Organiser Programme last year in Wellington and Auckland and it worked well. One of our volunteers in Auckland helped recruit a rest home the other day. The only problem in Wellington has been that they stand out so much that they get employed as organisers ? one for our union and one for another! However, it's our version of Organising Works I suppose. This year, we are running a Volunteer Programme in all three regions.
We have a bunch of young enthusiastic members and organisers who have set up YUM, (Youth Union Movement) ? the first iniative of its kind in more than ten years. We aim to provide a place for every member to be comfortable and to be active. So members, as outlined above have stepped up for all kinds of activity.
I also think we are more open and accessible. Even although we remain affiliated to Labour, we encourage those who prefer to be involved in the Alliance. We are the only union in NZ who is affiliated to both the CTU and the TUF. If people want to be involved in anything, it is welcomed, not restricted.
My aim is to provide for every member no matter what age, gender, ethnicity, sexual preference, occupation or industry to feel there is a place for them to be active in our union.
Are you growing?
We are growing in community services, cleaning and age care. Just in the last month, we recruited 500 members ? two new rest homes, some Spotless workers in a large worksite we didn't know about, a call centre for PizzaHutt. I expect the union to grow significantly this year.
Are you effective?
Yes, I think we are. We've just won a huge case in Wellington against Capital Coast Health ? over contracting out in 1993. The settlement's worth $9million and involved 150 workers, many of whom were in the court every day of the 20 day hearing.
Members are encouraged to be active, to be confident about asserting their rights, we challenge injustice, such as the contracting out at the Hyatt last year with action and we have a high public profile.
We are rebuilding the notion of industry strength ? that a hospital worker in Invercargill is linked to a hospital worker in Whangarei. This is a biggie, because there's no doubt that the ECA successfully fragmented industries and workers from one another. We're pushing the non union competition as a threat to the job security of unionised workers and our education programmes have expanded beyond workplace organisation to industry organisation and getting workers to help organise outside of their own workplaces.
Do you have a different sort of membership?
Yes, I think the members have changed with the changing population of NZ. It's very obvious in Auckland for example, that the majority of our members are PI or Maori ? even in rest homes, which used to be predominately pakeha women ? or it may be that PI and Maori have been morely to stay unionised. Workers from Mainland China, Malaysia, Vietnam, India, Phillipines and many other countries are now turning up in cleaning and at the casino. We have new jobs, such as those in the information and callcentre fields and the NZ Symphony Orchestra!
by Rowan Cahill
The Joy Manufacturing Company (Joy) is headquartered on the industrial outskirts of the semi-rural town of Moss Vale in the Southern Highlands of NSW. It is a pleasant industrial area, surrounded by trees colouring in Autumn hues, towering pines, and rural pasture land.
Joy produces mining equipment and has 377 full time employees in Australia, with branches in Northern NSW and Queensland. It is part of the American holding company Harnischfeger Industries Inc., with global interests in the mining, pulp, and paper making industries.
Harnischfeger Industries Inc. currently operates under Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection. This section of the US Bankruptcy Code allows a debtor to continue operations so long as it reorganises, restructures, and cuts operating costs. Since 1998 the company has been involved in what it terms "aggressive" and permanent global downsizing, cost cutting, and "headcount reduction".
Outside the Moss Vale engineering works there is five week old picket line: angry workers exercise considerable restraint; there are trade union slogans on makeshift signs and banners, union flags, and two clusters of tents complete with kitchen, toilet, and sleeping facilities.
Strictly speaking it is not a picket line. It began that way at the end of March, the line forming as enterprise bargaining processes broke down.
In the face of strong worker resolve and considerable community support, management turned the dispute into a lock-out (ending July 13), affecting some 70 workshop and store workers, and leaving the company's operation in the hands of supervisory and management personnel.
The line held, so a fortnight ago management secured an injunction against the unionists, members of the AMWU, the AWU, and the CEPU, preventing them from blockading the site.
Trouble at Joy had been brewing for months. During 1999 new management came in; there were redundancies without prior warning and high profile unionists with EBA negotiating skills were part of the non-voluntary cull.
During later enterprise bargaining, management sought the negotiation of four agreements in place of one, a move unionists saw as an attempt to erode worker unity and bargaining power. EBAs on offer to the workers were deemed unsatisfactory, coming with strings attached; there were rolling stoppages, and a picket line was formed, and so on to lock-out.
The locked-out workers are a mixture of young and old men, all of them locals, many with dependent families. Emotionally and financially the lock-out has hit them hard. They are now surviving on anorexic budgets, personal savings, the contributions of family and friends, and credit.
In spite of this the mood on the line is buoyant. Families visit whenever possible; union organisers are present. There is wide community support with local businesses donating supplies; others who turn their backs on pre-lockout 'good customers' are outed on encampment signs. There has been significant financial and moral support from the wider union movement.
Following the picket line injunction, volunteers with trade union principles came forward to fill the breech, calling themselves "Concerned Citizens". On Thursday 27 April these, including university students who had made the trek from Wollongong, bore the brunt of heavy handed police rough house when 16 uniformed officers and 8 police vehicles arrived to help a truck enter and leave the Joy works. Plain clothes personnel were also present, handcuffs obvious in their jeans.
The orchestrated escort and the accompanying police violence in clearing the picket reflected the involvement of city based police, the local constabulary having been cooperative with the workers.
Management has treated its locked out employees in a manner many feel is intimidating. There is a new high security presence around the work site; picketers have been video-taped by management; company legal advisers have been conspicuously visible.
Amongst the workers there is growing concern that the lock-out may have little to do with enterprise bargaining. They believe Joy management is intent on further downsizing and restructuring, given the depressed state of the Southern Mining District with its pit closures and cut backs, and the American parent company's financial problems and aggressive global downsizing.
The real agenda, the workers believe, is the break up of the Moss Vale operation, the shedding of the locked-out workforce, and the cut down of entitlements.
Since the injunction, the regular movement of police escorted trucks hauling workshop equipment from the site has fuelled this belief.
It is night as I write. A passing freight train on the main southern line adjacent to the picket encampment sounds its horn in solidarity, as they all tend to do; the blast reverberates through the cold Autumn night. The heartening fire in the 44 gallon drum that serves as heater and communal centre is fed a few logs; the dishes from dinner are cleaned and put away in the kitchen tent.
Cows call in the distance. Mist rises from nearby wetlands and drifts across the paddocks. The night rostered picketers variously prepare to bed down; they think of family warmth, providing for loved ones, no income, and the uncertain future.
But they also think of the struggle; for these are unionists, and much is at stake. Whatever else the Joy management set out to do, it has ironically reinforced the union spirit in these rural backblocks.
Rowan Cahill is an activist historian.
by Stan Sharkey
72 nations, represented by more than 400 delegates, participated in robust debate and working class analysis of the current world scene.
Many examples were given of workers in struggle against anti-social and anti-peoples economic policies being imposed by the employing class and their conservative governments in the name of globalisation, liberalisation and privatisation.
These policies, as in Australia, have led to privatisation of public services, discontinuing essential services to communities and forced transfer of these services to private monopolies for unrestricted exploitation for private profit.
Democracy, national sovereignty and people's rights are the casualties of globalisation of capital
Congress declared that: "the last 5 years of the 20th century have witnessed systematic efforts by the ruling circles in many countries to liquidate the gains of the trade union movement achieved over the whole century - especially in the matter of job security, income security and social security, the right of association, collective bargaining and people's participation in development."
Further, in what could have refered to the Howard Government's policies, a resolution warned that globalised capital and its compliant national governments immediate aim is to dismantle the "welfare State" system.
This is to be achieved by ending all social guarantees won by trade unions including safeguards for the deprived and dispossessed, unemployed and underemployed, attacking trade union rights, cutting jobs and wages, eliminating collective bargaining agreements and promoting individual contracts, part time and temporary employment.
World public opinion is increasingly expressing concern at the growing anarchy and crisis in world markets while transnational corporations closely linked with global finance and banking capital are further reinforcing their stronghold over key sectors of the world economy.
Of serious concern to world development and UNO declared policy is the transfer of investment from production of goods and services for human development to currency speculation.
While economic growth in the industrialised countries has grown by 60% since 1980 the capital traded in the world's stock exchange has increased by 1,400%.
The daily trade in currency exchange alone is more than 50 times the value of world trade in goods and services. Daily turnover in currency exchange exceeds 1,500 billion (US) dollars and capital of the speculative elements is estimated at over 21,000 billion (US) dollars.
These are speculative funds which are not used for production of goods and service, for peoples needs. They are misused for private fortunes and personal enrichment
Call to restore original principles of the UN
Congress observed that the past 5 years have seen a dangerous tendency by the US to marginalise the United Nations. Membership fees were withheld to politically influence UN policy. Decisions of the General Assembly concerning development strategy, social development, women's rights, protection of the environment, food security, habitat and human rights are being sidelined or undermined.
Instruments of the UN (i.e. World Bank and Monetary Fund) are being used to impose economic policies, which are harmful to social development. The so-called "adjustment measures" demanded by IMF are causing a huge rise in unemployment, a serious decline in living standards and a worsening of social and economic crises in many countries
All unions are called upon to demand that the UN structures are reformed and democratised reflecting the true interests of all its members and all people's of the world, as was intended on its formation.
Call for World trade union unity
The final Congress proposal observed that:
� The struggle for a democratic alternative economic and social policy is gathering strength all over the world, as the turbulence in currency markets and stock exchanges and the bursting of the bubble economy "reveal the incapacity of neo-liberalism to ensure stable economic growth or social development".
� The world trade union movement, by building and strengthening its unity in action, must rise up to meet the challenge
Stan Sharkey is a former national secretary of the CFMEU
by Dr Patricia Ranald
The successful campaign against the Multilateral Agreement on Investment and the collapse of the Seattle World Trade Organisation meeting in November 1999 have empowered unions and other community organizations to start a critical public debate on WTO structures and to demand greater accountability by the Australian government for its role in them.
They have formed the Australian Fair Trade and Investment Network (AFTINET) which includes the ACTU, several national unions, the Australian Council for Overseas Aid, the Australian Council of Social Service and the Australian Conservation Foundation. AFTINET supplies education materials, regular bulletins and speakers at public events and has been receiving media coverage. It is making submissions to government and conducting policy discussions with the Federal opposition political parties to have an impact on preparations for futher WTO negotiations which are now planned for 2001.
What's wrong with the WTO and Australia's policy towards it?
The shortcomings of the WTO as an international body become obvious when it is compared with the United Nations . The UN was founded after World War Two as a democratic forum to resolve international issues peacefully and establish international legal standards. It has public debates, majority voting, and there are non-government observers. After signing agreements, governments must pass domestic legislation to implement them Thus there is public debate and accountability at the international and national levels. The UN has developed a wealth of international law on human rights the environment and health and safety. Conformity to UN agreements can be tested in international law but there are no international penalties for breaching them.
Australia has had a good past record of ratifying and abiding by UN agreements. However, since 1996, UN bodies have found that some Australian laws are contrary to UN agreements on labour rights and racial discrimination. The Government has ignored the findings and the laws have not been changed. In response to the recent UN findings on race discrimination, government Ministers dismissed the UN decision as an unwarranted interference in Australia's domestic law.
The WTO was founded in 1995- a child of the economic rationalist era. It replaced the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT), but was given much wider and stronger powers by its member governments than GATT had.
In the WTO there is no public debate, and no majority voting. Agreements are supposedly reached by consensus, but in reality the United States, Canada, Europe and Japan reach agreements which are then presented to smaller and developing countries. The Seattle meeting of the WTO collapsed not only because of demonstrations outside the meeting but because 70 developing country governments which were excluded from the drafting process refused to be steamrollered into agreeing to negotiations on a new agenda in which they had no effective voice.
The WTO has no formal process for non-government observers. Business groups attend the meetings and are also often included in government delegations. The Australian Seattle delegation included eight business representatives and no unions or other community organisations.
The WTO has teeth. WTO agreements are legally binding whether or not there is domestic legislation-often there is no national public debate before agreements are signed. Governments can complain about other government's regulation on the grounds that it is a barrier to trade. These decisions can be enforced through trade sanctions.
These WTO complaint processes, conducted behind closed doors, have defined US environmental regulation and European food labeling regulation as barriers to trade.
This global regulation favours some corporations, but erodes regulatory standards.
In the last year WTO decisions have resulted in the outlawing of an Australian industry subsidy and the weakening of Australian quarantine laws for the import of fresh salmon. In the latter case, the Australian government moved quickly to change the law without even appealing the decision.
Thus the Australian government refuses labour rights and human rights regulation from the more democratically accountable UN but embraces global economic regulation from a secretive and undemocratic WTO.
What can you do? Join AFTINET
AFTINET argues that international trade institutions should be open and democratically accountable and should not undermine established regulatory standards. WTO structures should be radically reviewed. UN and ILO principles on human rights, labour rights and the environment should not be undermined by trade agreements. Australian trade policy should be publicly debated and democratically accountable.
You can subscribe to AFTINET as an organisation or as an individual by email : mailto:[email protected]
by Micheal Herbert
The North West Labour History Group was formed in the early 1970s, originally as an off-shoot of the National Society for the Study of Labour History, although that connection has ceased over the years. Our aim has been to popularise and promote the knowledge and study of labour history in this area of England ie Lancashire, the area where the Industrial Revolution began in the late eighteenth century and which saw the emergence of the world's first industrial working class.
Manchester, in Asa Briggs memorable phrase, was the shock city of the early nineteenth century, a small and obscure market town that in a matter of a few years had become a huge city, the centre of a vast system of cotton manufacture, trading and export which stretched for miles around.
Manchester evolved into a commercial and banking centre but elsewhere in the region whole towns were given over to the spinning and weaving of cotton. On the coast sits
Liverpool whose merchants made vast fortunes out of slavery and when that was finally outlawed moved on to other lucrative imports and exports.
In the wake of the Industrial Revolution followed political and social radicalism as the working class began to flex its muscles to the dismay of the ruling class. Trade unionism, Chartism, Votes for Women, the fight against the Poor Law, the struggle for factory reform, the campaign for a free press, the co-operative movement, the emergence of socialism, the formation of the Labour Party, Syndicalism, Communism, the Miners' strikes of the 1970s and 1980s, the Women's Liberation movement, the campaign against nuclear power - all of these movements either had their origins in our area or were strongly supported here.
Thus we have no shortage of labour history here to tell people about! Our group has always been a broad church, involving academics, trade unionists and others who believe that it is vital that the present day labour movement knows its own history. We have a very strong connection with the Working Class Movement Library, founded by Ruth and Edmund Frow in their own home in the 1950s which evolved into a huge archive of the history of the Brittish and Irish labour movement, now housed in its own dedicated building in Salford.
We produce an annual bulletin called the North West Labour History Journal which consists of news, articles, essays and other material. Our primary focus is naturally the history of our own area but we welcome news of the activities of comardes from other parts of the world.
We also try to hold regular conferences with speakers and discussion. At one time we held two conferences each year but this has dwindled in recent years to one each year and we now try to hold them in comjunction with another body eg we recently took part in a conference on the history of the Labour Party 1900-2000.
We have tried to take a fresh look at issues eg we have run sessions on football and a memorable conference on politics and music at the height of the Manchester movement in the late 80s in which an audience which was mainly over 50s sat through loud music videos and then discussed with a young music journalist why young people had no interest in left politics.
We have also tried to connect our activities with some important struggles in the labour movement. We ran a day conference on the history of the miners during the 1984/85 Miners Strike, we ran a similar conference on the history of dockers in Liverpool during the Liverpool Dockers dispute and have reported on the dockers struggle and current initiatives in our Journal.For the past decades the labour movement has suffered defeat after defeat yet we have managed to keep our group going and continued our work.
We would be pleased to welcome visitors from Australia to the North West and show them round. Contact Michael Herbert, mailto:[email protected].
We would also welcome contributions to our journal. Write to us: - North West Labour History Group, c/o working Class Movement Library, 51 Crescent SALFORD M5. Finally take alook at the WCML website:- www.wcml.org.uk.
Michael Herbert works in local government and is a trade union representative in the Transport and General Workers Union. He is an active member of the North West Labour History Group and a trustee of the Working Class Movement Library. He has written about the history of black people in Manchester and is currently working on a history of the Irish in Manchester.
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CALL FOR PAPERS
The Ontario Workers Arts and Heritage Centre (OWAHC) is creating an exhibition on service workers in Canada. Entitled, "Can I Help You? Canadian Workers At Your Service," the exhibition will run from January 2001 until the end of November 2001.
To complement this major exhibition, OWAHC and the Labour Studies Program at McMaster University, are co-sponsoring a series of symposia and a conference on Canadian service workers with themes that parallel those of the exhibition. The conference is scheduled for Friday, April 14 to Sunday, April 16, 2001. Three half day symposiums will take place apart from the conference, with one being Saturday, March 3, 2001, and one each in October and November.
This notice is a call for papers and participants for the conference and the symposia. We are interested in two kinds of contributions: those will add to our analytical understanding of the evolution and future directions of service work in Canada, and, those that add to our understandings of the current dynamics of service work in Canada. We hope, in short, to bring theory and practice together in each session.
Listed below are the session headings and suggested topics (these are far from exhaustive) for the conference and the symposia. If you are interested in either presenting a paper, or in participating in a session as a representative of an organization active in service work, e.g. union organizer, advocate of domestic workers, etc.. In your reply, please include either an abstract of a paper you would like to present, or a short summary of how you would like to participate in either the conference or one of the symposiums.
Please include a brief CV or resume or biographical note.
Please send your submissions by September 30, 2000 to:
Robert Storey, Labour Studies & Sociology
McMaster University,Hamilton, Ontario, L8S 4M4
Email: [email protected]
(Please note: If you reply by email, indicate that you message
concerns the conference or symposia by placing CIHY-CONF in the
subject area.)
CAN I HELP YOU? CANADIAN WORKERS AT YOUR SERVICE
Symposia
1. "MINDING THE KIDS, CLEANING YOUR HOUSE: DOMESTIC WORK IN THE SERVICE ECONOMY" (March 3, 2001)
2. "MIGRATION & CITIZENSHIP IN THE SERVICE ECONOMY" (October 2001)
3.. "FROM BENEVOLENCE TO FOOD BANKS: VOLUNTEER WORK IN THE SERVICE ECONOMY" (November 2001)
Conference: Friday, April 14, 2001
* SERVICE WORKERS IN THE GLOBAL ECONOMY Topics: description/analysis of service work in Canada
* BEHIND THE SMILE: YOUNG & IMMIGRANT WORKERS AT YOUR SERVICE" Topics: re-emergence of child/youth labour via service work
health & safety conditions of service work in these areas
* IN THE PUBLIC INTEREST" Topics: federal/provincial government workers, postal workers, educational workers, welfare workers
* CARING FOR YOU: THE CRISIS IN HEALTH CARE DELIVERY"
Topics: overview of changes in health care delivery systems hospital restructuring and impact on nurses forms of home care
Saturday, April 15
* COMMERCIAL SERVICES: SELLING YOU, SELLING THEMSELVES: Topics: temporary workers sales clerks (from the Bay to Starbucks),waiters/waitresses,fast food workers, tourist workers
Sunday, April 16
* ORGANIZING SERVICE WORKERS: A NEW KIND OF UNIONISM?
Topics: home care workers, janitors, domestic workers, university staff
* PLENARY: SERVICE WORK, SERVICE WORKERS IN THE 21st CENTURY" Topics: reports from each session, general discussion about what is happening and what is to be done.
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Waterfront Makes History
The ACTU and the Australian Society for the Study of Labour History are compiling an archive of material relating to the 1998 MUA Dispute.
The dispute was a critical moment in the history of the Australian labour movement and the Archive is attempting to draw together material held by unions, organisations and most importantly participants and supporters.
If you have access to or know the whereabouts of any material relating to the dispute contact Sean Butler at VTHC mailto:[email protected]
We're interested in any or all material ranging from newspapers to stickers, letters to T-shirts and photographs and film as well.
Even if the material can't be sent to the Archive we would like to record its location for the reference of future research.
by The Chaser
CANBERRA, Wednesday: The Federal Government's Department of Workplace Relations has released a controversial training package that tells its heads of Department how to deal with its own employees.
The package has caused uproar because of the tactics it suggests during workplace negotiations. It advises Department bosses to lie, stall for time, make false demands, make negative comments, provide biased information and feign ignorance.
The Workplace Relations Minister denied any knowledge of the package. "Don't look at me," said Mr Reith. "Ask David Kemp, he wrote the thing." It is understood that Mr Reith intends to release a revised package that includes an entire section on cowardly buck-passing.
But Dr Kemp, the Minister for Education and Portfolio Mismanagement said that he wasn't to blame either. "I lifted most of the tactics directly from the 1999 Liberal Party Election Guide. Especially the stuff about providing statistical misinformation. It worked a gem with the GST, so I thought it would be worth a try on our own employees."
Dr Kemp explained that the package had also received significant input from the Prime Minister John Howard. "He's been really helpful in testing and refining the negotiation tactics during the reconciliation process. Especially all the stuff about making negative comments and discrediting the negotiation party."
But the Minister said he had consulted widely in formulating the package. He confirmed that the Liberal Party Women's Committee wrote the entire section advising how to act irrationally during negotiations. A spokeswoman for the Committee agreed to an interview with The Chaser, but later withdrew without explanation.
Reporters later discovered that the policy was actually created by the Labour government. "Along with Privatisation and the GST this is just another Labour party policy that the Libs are trying to take credit for," said Kim Beazley.
by The Australian Financial Review, May 3
''This book, being about work, is by its very nature about violence - to the spirit as well as to the body,'' Studs Terkel wrote in Working, his seminal oral history. ``It is about ulcers as well as accidents, about shouting matches as well as fistfights, about nervous breakdowns as well as kicking the dog around. It is above all (or beneath all) about daily humiliations. To survive the day is triumph enough for the walking wounded among many of us.''
Twenty-eight years later, a Sydney author has followed in Terkel's footsteps, telling the story of people's working lives as the industrial age gives way to the information economy. His conclusion? Terkel's grim take on the world of work is an anachronism. The jobs that are emerging today are less secure, but they are also less routine, boring, and soul destroying.
``The Information Age is delivering smarter and more satisfying jobs for those prepared and equipped to embrace it,'' Peter Lewis writes in tales from the new shop floor.
His 15 subjects reflect how work is changing. You won't find factory workers here, but you will meet a call-centre specialist, bush regenerator, web designer, personal trainer and an organic vegetable retailer, among others.
Sole traders, contractors and small business people almost outnumber employees. Full-time employees account for less than half the total. And the young people profiled are confident and unfazed by the tide of instability troubling a generation raised on the certainties of the long boom.
Lewis suggests that the demise of the jobs-for-life era and employer paternalism has empowered a younger generation of workers to take responsibility for their careers and destinies. His personal background lends a heretic quality to the conclusion. As media adviser to the NSW Labor Council and editor of its internet newsletter, Workers Online, Lewis catalogues the downsides of working life today: a litany of alleged transgressions by harsh bosses, the impact on working conditions of ``contracting out'', the toll of workplace stress.
He has pitched the book as an antidote to the political Left's romanticizing of blue collar work and its denigrating as ``McJobs'' many of the emerging service-sector occupations. I'm not sure, however, that he isn't knocking down a straw person. When did anyone argue that underground coal mining or shiftwork on an assembly line was pleasant or fulfilling? And despite Lewis's optimism, his profiles show the harsher side of some ``new'' jobs.
Does Vanessa, the child-care worker, really deserve a meagre $360 a week?
It's questionable how representative his sample is, too. On Lewis's own admission, the subjects are his friends, or friends of friends. With few exceptions, they are young and childless, which makes it a tad easier to embrace uncertainty. Most, like him, are also gifted and creative. Life might be tougher for those born on the wrong side of the bell curve.
These issues aside, his beautifully written profiles convey the dignity that people bring to their working lives the skill and ingenuity involved in jobs sometimes decried as mundane together with their hopes, dreams and aspirations.
I reckon Studs Terkel would approve
Stephen Long's 'Work Relations' column appears in the AFR every Wednesday.
Today on 2BL I broadcast my usual commemorative public verse on the dread events of the month of April. For all here who will have missed it, I thought I would read the first two minutes, no more of it, as a kind of kick start for what else in grief and nostalgia and ideological remembrance I might then say to you.
APRIL 2000
A cruel month, of lies and ruthless cheating,
And needless exhumations of Paul Keating,
Of tumbling stocks and tumbling Aussie dollars,
The fall from power of certain ayatollahs,
A Cuban boy at risk, a President on trial,
A Bill Gates in extremis, a Herron in denial,
A tax man in the dock, his name, perhaps, Petroulias,
A PM with mores knives in him that dead and mighty Julius,
The Nationals agog in pain and sore distress,
At the Liberal Party's weekly bloody mess,
A Liberal Party conference, bleak and loud and shallow,
Harsh whispers of a Christmas coup by loyal, shy Costello,
A petrol dearth, an interest hike, a trike of luggage porters,
A GST, a Telstra sale in early rigor mortis,
A frail and tumbling Pope, composing his last canto,
An anal pineapple for proud Wiranto,
Instructions in untruth from Peter Reith,
A smiling goggled grey nurse with white and pointy teeth,
A while shore leave for Homer, elephant seal,
A two ton heavy breather of limited sex appeal,
Who tried to mount without success a struggling Volkswagen,
And bayed for love upon a rock,
Like Puff the Magic Dragon.
A march down George Street for the Interfet
For letting go mass murderers, and flying home by jet,
An Anzac march for those who had it harder,
Who saved the world, perhaps, at Bretonnieres,
And ended up with little in the larder -
Dull jobs through life, dead sons in other wars -
Who copped it sweet, who suffered for the Cause,
The Cause of bigger, safer lives for us who were their heirs,
(Three generations now enslaved by men who trade in shares).
They dream away their twilights now in prisons for the aged,
Their dreams aswirl as driftwood, their mighty spirits caged,
Their slouch hats useful cover for a government uncivil,
Which breaks the Anzac spirit, blows bugles and talks drivel,
And stands in mist, bareheaded, looking perky,
Silent, short., and counting votes upon a beach in Turkey.
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May Day is five days from Anzac Day, and celebrates for some as old and Aussie as me, a lot of the same ideals of risking all for a good cause, of helping out a mate, of thinking in the plural, or never deserting, never betraying the companionship or the comradeship that that binds us into the one tribe; the one team; the one brigade; the one battalion; the one fellowship; or nation; or union. That makes of disparate voices a single song or anthem, singing the same tune. The band plays Waltzing Matilda, or Solidarity Forever. A single civilisation different in its unanimity, its common melody, from the rogue priorities of the roving, bloodthirsty white-pointer sharks who run our economy now. The Corrigans, Switkoskis and Packers and Peter Reiths - whose first thought is not, is never and has never been for an "us" but instead is always for a "me", a first person singular, a dictator, a monarch, an industrial boss, a press lord. One who, in Neil Kinnoch's great words, has only one unchanging credo: no sisterhood, no brotherhood, no neighbourhood, no number other than "one", no person other than "me".
Now this is a far cry indeed from the Anzac's credo of self-mocking mateship and chiacking comradeship and two-up and beer shouts, and the common songs we sing when our way of life is threatened, and we must bloodily fight and truly sacrifice some of our component precious numbers; some of our family members, to preserve the whole and a decent minimum level of civility and health and income and a reasonable certainty of expectation that this time next year our address and our job and our children's school will be the same.
Chips Rafferty in his final scene in the semi classic, imperfect, Australian film The Rats of Tobruk, when asked what you Australians were fighting for said: "Well I guess it's the right of any bloke to stand up and say what he likes in the Domain."
This is not too far from what the union movement believed from time immemorial. That in fearlessly speaking up for our just entitlements, and taking industrial action when capitalist injustice is on the rampage and coming our way, to preserve what we can for those we call our workmates, for our fellow workers and their families, and their peace of mind.
And we are reminded, I think, of our common "Australianness" on these two days, five days apart, in a way that John Howard, lately touring the battle sights ... - there goes the neighbourhood - could not.
He does not, and possibly cannot, understand that the freedom our tribe fought for was not the freedom to be sacked at moment's notice, by the uncaring, pump action shotgun slaughters and massacrers of our way of life. Who have never worked as we have; or scrimped as we have; made choices of the enormity we make; or cared as we have. Who have never pushed a broom, or dug a ditch, or unloaded a ship, or tended a dying man in a nursing home.
It was not the freedom to wreck a town, a community, in a single, erotic moment of sheer fluctuation. It was a freedom to choose to stay, and be there next year, next decade, in the same neighbourhood, with the same neighbours, drinking and playing darts and pool in the same local pub. The freedom to know where your home is and to keep it looking good. The freedom to stay put and raise kids and to lead what we used to think was a normal life.
It is we who are the conservatives now, and they who are the dangerous revolutionaries smashing, burning, laying waste, and randomly lining up against a wall and liquidating innocent bystanders. It is they who are the danger to the common good. For a while - for a while they had it easy. They were, as Roger Rogerson put it, "green lighted" to commit a lot of unpunished crime. And they did it with a lot of zest. And they had fun. But their licence, their permission to live like raiding and roistering Visigoths has a time limit, I suspect.
And the time is drawing near when those who think a new Millennium must mean a new dispensation for humankind will say so loudly enough to be heard.
In even New Zealand, at long last, the rights of unionists - or some of the rights of unionists - are being restored. And there is no flight of capital; no mass emigration of tycoons or talent, or entrepreneurial chutzpah from that considerable civilisation - just because a Labor Prime Minister for once is acting like one - on behalf of the people and not the big end of town - not the despoilers of civility and the crunchers of numbers and human lives - and their japing Gauleiters like Tony Abbott, who believes that the dole must now be earned by six humiliations a week.
In Canada, in the EEC, in the coming free republic of Scotland, the wheel is turning and the mighty gatherings of angry, ordinary people outside the WTO Conference in Seattle will not be the last.
The payout of WD & HO Wills to people it knowingly gave cancer will not be the last. And great and searching populace films like "Face Off" and "The Full Monty" and "The Insider" and "Erin Brockovic", will not be the last. The word is spreading, that injustice is bad for nearly everyone, not for the rich. And the once revered surnames "Thatcher", "Reagan", "Kennet", "Kohl", and "Chirak", "Mulrooney", "Netanyahu", "Hindbridge", "Yeltsin", "Walsh", and "Latham" have lost their ancient lustre and speak to the here and now of a far, dark age when pillage and looting and cruelty and suffering and the pointless further reward of life's lottery winners and the pointless further punishment of life's lottery losers for the sin of being born.
That he is glad he has put behind him and he is beginning to look closely and every more closely at the governments he elects. At the egomaniacs and psychopaths and surveillance solicitors he sets loose. And to vote at last with mortal caution for maybe Independents, maybe Democrats, until he or she maybe gets it right.
As a result there are 17 million Australians now living fairly contentedly under Labor governments, and 2 more million if the polls are right, keen to do so too. And at federal level an extermination, or at the very least, Chikarovski proportions and possibly worse, is looming for this most shaming and stupid and schoolboy sadistic, bunch of brain-dead ministers ever to put the boot into the lower orders crying "nyah, nyah, nyah!".
In I think our history, and for the present Prime Minister who has most of the lesser qualities of a vegemite sandwich in a Globite suitcase and was best described by me, I think, as the itching haemorrhoid in the arse of the body politic.... the only just outcome is the straightforward loss of his seat.
This does not mean that the bad days are even nearly over. Or that the long, duchessed high living veterans of the Hawke and Keating years can be trusted now to do right and fear not.
In a world where the economic fundamentalists have gained such territory and influence and infrastructure and billions, that we dare not even say the word "socialism" any more; nor quote its marvellous definition by Dennis Healey: "An obstinate will to erode by inches the conditions which produce avoidable suffering". But it is perhaps to say that the worst of it will maybe soon, in months, or a year, or two be over.
And Beazley, a decent and very intelligent man, will turn his ear and his considerable powers of sympathy to those Australians - the ordinary struggling workers and families - who like the Anzacs and the Light Horse, the men of Kokoda, he has always truly admired. And begin, however cautiously and consultatively and long-windedly to minimise the cruelty.
If he does not, and this is possible too, the vengeance I think will be great. For do not mistake it, the voters of the West are very angry. And democracy in the West is pretty entrenched. And the result in England where the Tory Party got its worst vote since 1831, and in NSW where the Tory Coalition got its worst vote since 1930, and in Canada where the governing Tories in one election night lost 161 of their 163 seats, is not beyond all conjecture. What imagination.
And the word is out on economic rationalism. And nobody - not even the strutting moron Max Walsh, speaks favourably of it anymore.
And in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye ... a year from now perhaps, when Putin repudiates all overseas debts and all of Africa follows - or the salmon embargo of Tasmania spreads to other industries and other countries - or the socialist government of France displays a few more teeth - or the first Telstra executive is shot by the wife- We may, with luck, return to a reasonable balance of workers' rights and company profits. Of shareholders vulgar priorities and our human need for a roof and sustenance and health and communal continuity and good times and holidays and unriven families and workplace companionships that are not betrayed, and a system whose wheels are not turned just by the greed of the rich, or the roll of the dice or the smell of a falling dollar.
And civility and something like the Anzac spirit and the spirit we see in times of bushfire and flood, may return to an Australia we can admit is our country, not with the diffidence and guilt and shame we currently feel when foreigners ask us where we came from, but with a certain pride that our great, egalitarian experiment has not altogether come unstuck, and we can see some light on the hill arising in the years we yet have to spend on this earth, and fight for our rights and perhaps, perhaps prevail ..... I second the motion LONG LIVE MAY DAY!
Last week my team lost their - our - fifth game on the trot. The Swans', (we, that is) haven't done that for years. Not since Rodney Eade started coaching them. Up until now it hasn't been a disaster. The last game, against the Mexican Silver Tails, (Carlton, for the uninitiated), was a calamity.
It brought back memories of last year's finale. In inglorious loss to the lowly rated Hawthorn, followed by being unceremoniously dumped out of the finals by Essendon. It also brings back memories of the dark ages. The days when the Swans' - we, I have to keep reminding myself of that - couldn't have got an Indian bookie to buy us a game. The days when you knew everyone in the ground on a first name basis. The days when I was the only person, well one of the few anyway, that was silly enough to buy a ticket to the game. Everyone else was picking up freebies at Hungry Jacks. The days, I remember, walking out of the ground getting sympathy from a couple of Fitzroy supporters. Well, at least Sydney's - sorry, we - are still in the comp. The Roy Boys were subsumed by Brisbane.
Today's the day after the debacle. The pain is still real. By Thursday, with luck, the idiotic optimism will return. On Sunday I will go to the game. Guaranteed.
What I wonder about is who else is going to be there? Sydney has a reputation for loving a winner. Mexicans love to point the accusing finger at us claiming we are just fair weather friends. Band wagoners. No knowledge of the game.
Now, some of this may have some basis in fact. But, we don't exactly corner the market in fickleness. Victorian club memberships rise and fall with the relative, or perceived, successes of their clubs. When it comes down to it the world loves a winner. Even the most ardent socialist probably had a sneaking admiration for the wing-keeled win over the cheating Yanks in the America's Cup. Even Alan Bond, then comparatively untarnished, included.
Still, I remember seeing people leave the SCG after 'Plugger' scored that goal. And it wasn't even quarter time. There for the moment? I guess so. There were those that left the St.Kilda game at half time when it was patently obvious we were going to cop a flogging. I was one. I reserve the right to vote with my feet. They were playing badly. I told them the only way I could. I was, of course, back the next week. Then there were those who bought Swan's memberships so they could see the last few games of the '96 season. It was the only way to get a ticket. How many came back for more? How many of those will stay if things go pear shaped again? I don't know, and only time will tell.
Having said all that, I reckon 'Rules' has taken a hold on Sydney. Sure, we're going to lose a few punters if things go down. Quite a few perhaps But, it seems to me, that the core supporter group is there and there to stay. They days of pick-any-seat and freebie tickets are gone. Forever.
The problems with Rugby League are still there. The dumping of the Rabbitohs and the 'enforced' mergers, for instance, has and will continue to take their toll. That, and continued (relatively) good coverage TV of 'Rules', and the Swans in particular, have left an indelible mark on our 'Harbour Siders' psyche.
But I suspect that the real strength of 'Rules" in NSW is the number of kids playing the game. The AFL has targeted this State, (and Queensland), in order to help the game become truly national. The figures for the junior teams have gone through the roof over the past few years. The number of parents involved, obviously, has increased proportionately. Most of this, it could be reasonably argued, is on the back of the Swans success over the past few years. It seems, therefore, that it is in the best interests of the AFL to ensure that the Swans remain a viable force in the League.
I suppose the test of the commitment of the junior 'converts' will come when they reach fourteen to fifteen years of age. The world game, aka soccer, suffers its biggest loses in this age group. Not even the staggering, if not obscene, amounts of money that a talented player can make in the game seems to dent the power of peer group pressure. Many go on to join their mates play other codes of footy. Perhaps the success of Harry Kewell, and the press coverage that surrounds him, may change that. Australia making the World Cup wouldn't hurt either. If it does, then all other footy codes could suffer. But I have a sneaking suspicion that the cultural forces surrounding the more 'traditional' codes will bolster their prospects for some time to come.
So I reckon I can look forward to going out to the SCG, hopefully not Homebush - too often, at least - for the rest of my lifetime. I can sing "Cheer, Cheer, the Red and the White" more often than walk out of the ground before I hear too many bars of the opposition blasphemies. And best of all, I will, one day, sing THAT song at the MCG on that One Day in September.
by Mark Lennon
Corporate governance as the term implies is concerned with the way companies are managed. What this means in practice is still evolving. In its narrowest terms it is simply concerned with how the board governs the company. But more broadly the concept concerns itself with matters such as the structures, designation of responsibilities and levels of accountability within the organization.
The push for greater corporate governance is clearly a reflection of the changing structure of our economy and the parameters within which companies operate. Deregulation, globalisation, more transparent systems of reporting, and the growth of superannuation funds and other institutional investors all account for why the governance of corporations is coming under increasing scrutiny.
The call for greater involvement on the issue is coming from across the political spectrum. The Minister for Financial Services, Hon. Joe Hockey has recently gone public and called upon fund managers and trustees to become more involved in the governance of companies particularly in light of the recent problems at AMP.
On the other side of the coin, the CFMEU, together with trade unions overseas, have recently taken an active role in its quest to wring changes to the board of Rio Tinto. The union has argued quite rightly that the company's board presently has too many executive directors sitting on it and consequently doesn't comply with the principles of good corporate governance. They have been seeking that superannuation funds support motions at Rio Tintos AGM that would rectify this situation.
For many superannuation funds the question of corporate governance really starts with the fund itself. Trustees responsibility to members is to first ensure that the fund is run according to the principles of good corporate governance. This means that concepts such as a clear definition of roles, performance monitoring, trustee training and risk management to name a few have been considered by the trustee board and appropriate strategies have been put in place.
As to the governance of companies in which funds have invested - the issue is a little more problematic. Probably the largest impediment to funds being more active in this area is the nature of there holdings. Most funds invest in companies through fund managers who hold the monies in unit trusts. This means that the funds holdings in a particular company are arms length and that the level of influence they can exert is limited. That is the fund cannot easily direct the fund manager as to how they should vote on a particular issue.
This is not such a problem for large funds that in many instances hold shares directly and therefore have clear voting rights.
Whatever the impediments at present the issue of corporate governance is one that super trustees will have to address as the size of their investments will continue to grow making funds in many instances substantial shareholders in particular companies.
Cameron is the accident-prone member for Parramatta, a born-again believer whose tenuous hold on his marginal gets weaker each time he opens his mouth.
Last week he let out a howler with his contention that the ANZAC tradition had become "obsessive" and "in terms of economics the egalitarian tradition has been excessive".
The problem? It encourages the idea that "every man is entitled to the same wage regardless of the productivity of his endeavours."
These words of wisdom come from the same man who contented that the people of rural Australia should stop their whinging and move to the city.
Those comments moved colleague to Winston crane to observe: "It's the sort of stuff that only comes from bigotry or a twisted mind.''
But this rugged individualistic streak has not stopped Roscoe using his position on the public purse to get himself into more tangles than Spiderman.
Here's some more highlights from his CV
� In 1996 as new member of Parliament, as the House of reps debated gun laws, Roscoe hit a hole in one of Hamilton Island - the photo is mounted in the clubhouse.
� During the 1998 election campaign when PM Howard visited his electorate, he was looking around for the local member. Where's Roscoe? In Fiji at the time on a Chrsitian conference and hadn't told the boss.
� Then there's the weekly bible study groups which Roscoe convenes with the help of his brother, Jock, who is known to lead the pollies in prayer. Where these good Christian folk were during the recent debates on mandatory sentencing and reconciliation is one of the more intriguing mysteries they have yet to explore.
� And there's the aspiring Young Liberal leader who uses Roscoe's electoral office as a base to plan his takeover for the Hard Right.
With those credentials we reckon Camo should get used to his new surroundings - he might become a regular visitor.
NB Our technical crew now assure us that the tool Shed Gallery is up and running. Have a doodle and try posting your artwork. Free T-shirt to the best offering!
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