After altering the details of their package, VC lawyers contacted Labor Council after 6pm Friday advising us that the comparison sheet prepared for the launch was no longer accurate.
They told us to refer to a schedule - which they didn't attach to the email!
We did our own investigations via web and phone and stumbled upon VC's great new deal which seems to offer:
- processor increased from 450 mhz to 500 mhz (to attempt to match getonboard's 500 mhz Intel chip)
- hard drive has been increased from 4.2 gbs to 5 gbs (getonboard offer 7.5gb - not that size is everything!)
- the delivery time - according to the VC call center (who confirmed to us that the deal had been upgraded TODAY) - is now 21-42 days rather than '42 days' as we claimed (getonboard offers 10 day delivery).
Apart from that, it all seems to be the same.
With this new information we'll update our comparisons.
Two points: one, this is proof of our contention that getonboard is good for competition, And two, those that got into VC early must be mighty pissed off by now. (We've actually got some of their comments if anyone's interested!!).
Here's a copy of the lawyers letter as received this evening:
Dear Sirs
Virtual Communities PTY LTD v get on board ? press release issued by getonboard.com.au
We act for Virtual Communities Pty Ltd.
We have been provided with a copy of a press release issued by Get On Board (the press release) which we are instructed has been provided to a number of media entities including newspapers and magazines.
The press release compares products and services offered by our client, Virtual Communities, with products and services offered by your client. It includes in particular a "real comparison" of the products and services offered by Virtual Communities compared with those offered by Get On Board under the heading "Get On Board vs Virtual Communities ? a real comparison" on page 2 of the press release. This comparison asserts that that:
1. Virtual Communities has 450 Mhz whilst Get On Board has 600 Mhz of capacity;
2. Virtual Communities has a 4.2 GB hard drive whilst Get On Board has a 7.5 GB hard drive;
3. Virtual Communities only includes Microsoft Windows 98 and Lotus Smart Suite software;
4. Virtual Communities is a virtual intranet while Get On Board has WWW content and links;
5. Virtual Communities offers no free access whilst Get On Board offers free net access;
6. Virtual Communities has approximately a 42 day delivery time whilst Get On Board has a 10 day delivery time;
7. Virtual Communities' deposit is $60 like that of Get On Board;
8. Virtual Communities' warranty is one year whilst the Get On Board warranty is three and a half years;
We are instructed that the comparisons are not correct. The true position is contained in the enclosed schedule prepared by our client based on its understanding of its own business and products and the information
contained in your website.
By comparing the product of Virtual Communities and Get On Board in the manner depicted above suggests that the Get On Board product is preferable to the Virtual Communities' packages.
These representations are made in trade and commerce and you need to have close regard to the provisions in the Trade Practices Act (Cth) 1974. The press release also clearly constitutes comparative advertising and accordingly there is an onus on your company to accurately reflect the true position of any comparison of its products to that offered by Virtual Communities.
We would appreciate that you base any further comparisons on the enclosed schedule and confirm such comparisons with our client as our client's product offerings change from time to time.
We require a response by 5.00pm Sydney time Monday 26 June 2000. In absence of a satisfactory response we will seek appropriate undertakings.
Yours faithfully
GILBERT & TOBIN
**********************************
Could get interesting ... We'll keep you posted !!!
Orange Trades and Labor Council secretary Mick Madden made an impassioned appeal for support to last night's Labor Council meeting in Sydney at the request of the Email workers.
The Labor Council is now planning to charter a train to transport city unionists to Orange for a July 6 community day of support for the Email operations. Labor Council secretary Michael Costa says he'll be inviting the Prime Minister and Premier to attend the event.
Madden says that if Email fails, 1500 jobs could be lost - with a flow-on effect that would wipe out 35 per cent of the region's economy. Madden, the Australian Workers Union state president, says that steel giant Smorgens is currently eying Email for a takeover. The fear is that if the takeover goes ahead the new owner will keep Email's profitable steel-making operations but sell-off the manufacturing wing - decimating an entire rural community.
The focus of the workers is ensuring that current Email management place obligations to maintain the manufacturing operations as part of any sale packet if it decides to proceed
Now he says it's time for the labour movement, which has been talking about organizing and the importance of the regions, to put its money where its mouth is. "If we, as a labour movement, are fair dinkum about regional areas, now is the time to show it," Madden says.
"This should not be a campaign against the current Email management - who have provided jobs for the people of Orange for many generations - it is about keeping Email as a part of our city," Madden says.
Madden will now report back to Email workers about Labor Council's support for their cause and develop a program for the day.
See next week's Workers Online for more details on the Email train
After launching the $9.95 computer-internet package this week, Costa said that both the Labor Council and the NSW Alp - which control 33 per cent of the company each - would earmark a proportion of their stake for individual affiliates.
Costa also vowed that the Labor Council's proceeds from the venture would be ploughed back into information technology development.
The large equity stake in the new venture, is a key distinguishing feature from Virtual Communities, where the only trade union equity has been purchased. In all, it is estimated that less than five per cent of the company - which is valued by the market at more than $360 million - is in union hands.
Costa says the company, in which the union movement will share a one third stake with the ALP and leading financial services provider Kingsway Capital, had the potential to be every bit as valuable as its broadcast media asset, radio station 2KY.
"As the new economy develops, organizations that develop and consolidate their membership networks will have a huge advantage and a sound footing to deal with the challenging times ahead," Costa says.
"This deal provides the Labor Council with significant equity in recognition of the important asset we bring to the venture - our network of union members."
Costa says the offer of weekly computer for $9.95 per week sets a new benchmark in accessibility for working people who, until now, have been locked out of the information revolution by the high entry costs.
The Australian Consumer and Competition Commission has written to union leaders involved in the bans claiming the action could amount to a secondary boycott and seeking their responses.
"Should there be substance in the allegations, the ACCC considers that there may be contraventions of section 54DB(i) of the Trade Practices Act.," the letter says.
The ACCC has written to the ACTU, Transport Workers Union and the Maritime Union of Australia.
ACTU president Sharan Burrow says the unions will ask the ACCC to detail their concerns, but are determined to stand up in support of Fiji citizens to have democracy as basis for its countries' future.
"I hope that competition laws are not going to be used as a tool to suopport a terrorist," Burrow says.
TWU state secretary Tony Sheldon says he'll invite the ACCC chief Alan Fels to a meeting of all airline workers to explain to them why the protection of human rights in Fiji is contrary to federal government policy.
Carr Government Reviews Relationship
The move comes as the NSW Government moves to review its relationship with Fiji, in an event to increase pressure on the coup leaders.
NSW Special minister for State John Della Bosca told Parliament yesterday the Carr Government would be reviewing its "assistance, support, exchange or relationships that exist with Fiji, both through the Federal government and in this State's own right".
NSW is understood to provide extensive training to the Fijian public sector via both AusAid and the state government.
Della Bosca addressed the parliament after meeting the assistant national secretary of Fijian Trade Union Congress Diwan Shanker at a lunch hosted by a group of NSW trade unions who have been participating in the bans, including the TWU, CEPU and TCFUA.
Australia Fundraising Events
Diwan Shankar will be guest of honour at a fundraising dinner on Tuesday night during the ACTU Congress, June 27 at the Lagoon Seafood restaurant, Stuart Park, North Wollongong from 7.30pm. Tickets $65 each or $600 for a table of ten.
Diwan is also speaking in Sydney on Friday June 30 at Revesby Workers club at 7.00pm. The event is hosted by the Alfords Point/Illawong branch of the ALP and will cost $20 per person, $15 students and pensioners. RSVP: Ann Wilson 9825 3653
The key Upper House members, who hold the balance of power, advised the Carr Government they would defer the entire package over concerns about the regulation independent contractors after being lobbied by former FIME national secretary Steve Harrison.
Harrison had approached the minor party representatives and independents under the guise of the Australian Independent Contractors Association.
Labor Council assistant secretary John Roberston says some of the crossbenchers may have been under the false impression that Harrison was representing a peak group, rather than his own private company.
The key concerns voiced by many of the crossbenchers was the implications of regulating independent contractors in area such as housing, forestry and retail.
Robertson says the government has now deferred consideration of the independent contractor provisions until the next session of Parliament in an attempt to get the rest of the Bill through now.
"What this means is that people compelled to work as independent contractors must wait another six months before they receive any justice," he says.
George to Chair Inquiry
Meanwhile, former ACTU president Jennie George has been appointed to chair the taskforce into the labor hire industry for the Carr Government to commence next week.
The inaugural meeting of the Taskforce will be held at the Department of Industrial Relations next Monday.
The taskforce will examine:
� the employment relationship between workers, labour hire companies and host employers in different Australian jurisdictions and whether NSW legislation should be clarified or varied
� consider OHS obligations and whether legislation should be clarified or varied
Unions will be represented on the Taskforce by Michael Costa, Russ Collison (AWU), Bernie Roirdan (ETU), Annie Owens (LHMU) and Andrew Ferguson (CFME).
New Holiday laws
More success for the Carr Government in passing the Industrial Relations Amendment (Leave) Bill 2000 currently before the Upper House is designed to replace two Acts nearly 60 years old and 45 years old respectively.
"The new laws are clearly written in plain English and provide more flexible arrangements appropriate to the modern workforce making it easier for employers and employees alike," NSW Industrial Relations minister Jeff Shaw says.
The new legislation:
� allows for at least five days of annual leave in single days instead of minimum blocks of several days
� extends the period within which annual leave must be taken from six months to within one year
� removes the discriminatory requirement that an employee must be over 21 years before he or she can accumulate pro rata long service leave where the services are terminated for reasons beyond the control of the employee
� requires that annual leave for part-time employees will be based on the number of weekly hours being worked at the date of commencing leave or the average weekly number of hours worked over the previous 12 months, whichever is the greater
� removes the requirement that annual leave be paid in advance where employers and employees agree that payment continue in accordance with the normal pay cycle.
"These reforms replace antiquated legislation based on prescribing to the workforce how and when they should take leave. The new laws give both employers and employees far greater flexibility to organise their own arrangements within reasonable guidelines."
The payment is part of a Memorandum of Understanding that delivers flexibilities over the life of the Games, such as lifting shift restrictions and working to separate timetables.
But Labor Council secretary Michael Costa stresses the deal is not linked to the Olympics pay claim, where the government has offered $1.50 per hour for all public sector workers affected by the Olympics.
Public transport workers negotiated separately arguing they had a special case givwen the massive workload they faced in ensuring the Games ran smoothly..
Clear Guidelines Needed
Meanwhile, other public sectors are locked in negotiations over who a $1.50 per hour bonus should apply to.
While there appears broad acceptance on the quantum, a series of meetings have faile dto reach agreement on the scope of the deal - which is linked to attendance over the Games period.
The Health and Research Employees Association has suggested the following guidelines be put in place to help resolve the impasse.
Under the HREA plan, the bonus would be offered to any worker who was affected through:
- change in roster/shifts arrangements to meet a changed workload.
- cancellation of leave
- change in usual work location
- and on call rosters created.
HREA state secretary Michael Williamson says that while the list is not exhaustive, it carries the majority of cases where the bonus should be offered.
Williamson says the issue of the allowance during the Paralympics also needs to be addressed.
News of the GST hit has sparked calls from the Labor Council for trade unions to be given the same exemptions as the major political parties and be declared GST-exempt.
Commissions are common in many unions as a way of rewarding activists for keeping fees up to date. But under the new GST guidelines all commissions in excess of $50 will be regarded as business transactions.
The Australian Services Union's Michael Want says it's an issue that could hit many non-profit organizations.
"The administrative work involved is far more time consuming, thus costly, than the measley amount of tax the Government will collect," Want says
"No wonder small business is up in arms about the GST that big business wanted."
by Andrew Casey
"As far as we are aware this is the first casino in the world where dealers' health has been given priority-one status, when it comes to banning smoking in the workplace," Tim Ferrari of the Casino Union says.
The Casino Union - the Liquor, Hospitality and Miscellaneous Workers Union (LHMU) - represents about 2,100 workers at Star City.
" Unruly patrons have been known to deliberately blow smoke in the faces of our members. They want to upset the flow of the cards, because their betting is not delivering them any wins.
" Thanks to legislation introduced into State Parliament this evening our members won't have to suffer this behaviour," Ferrari says.
"Casino dealers and croupiers can be subjected to smokers standing just two feet away - and sometimes up to eight gamblers at a time.
Ferrari paid tribute to Health Minister, Craig Knowles, for taking the time to visit the Casino and see what our members were suffering.
" We are very happy that a Labor Minister is prepared to get out among the workers to investigate legitimate workplace health claims," he says.
The LHMU - the Casino Union - proudly represents more than 150,000 hard working women and men throughout Australia.
Porters win back their Tips
And in another win, hotel workers in one of Sydney's leading Kings Cross establishments, catering to the Japanese tourist trade, asked their union to complain because they believed their tips were being 'nicked', as part of a new company policy.
When the hotel workers - employed at the Millennium Hotel - told management they'd hold a breakfast BBQ today, right outside the front of their workplace, with tourists, the public and the media invited, the company quickly found the missing tips - known in the trade as Porterage.
The management agreement with the hotel union - the LHMU - will deliver hundreds of dollars per month in Porterage to union members, as well as more rostered days off, more permanent jobs and reduced workloads for casual employees.
The Porterage, mainly from Japanese tour groups, was withheld from the workers even though the hotel's management knows many of their employees depend on the tips to earn a more than just decent wage.
" Japanese tour groups collect money from individual members of the groups ( typically $2-$5 per person). This money - known as Porterage - is collected in lieu of the guests giving tips directly to the Porters, who typically move over a tonne of luggage each per day," Millenium Hotel LHMU delegate Vlad Kotler says.
Since changes in management policy at the Millennium Hotel last year, this Porterage money stopped being forwarded to the porters.
"The Porters believe the money is clearly meant to be given to them as tips. That has been the tradition in the industry - here in Australia and overseas - for decades.
"The withholding of this money was misleading to the guests. It was an unfair and unacceptable reduction in our conditions."
Workers in non-government social and community services took part in a statewide Day of Action today, rallying outside NSW Parliament and in regional centers to support of funding for a new Social and Community Services (SACS) Award.
More than 600 of them rallied in Sydney, with other protests in Wollongong, the Blue Mountains, Gosford and Newcastle, Dubbo, Moruya and Armidale
They want the government to agree to fund their organizations to enable them to deliver a pay rise that they say is long overdue. Because employers in the sector are largely government-funded, they are reliant on this before they can offer a pay rise.
Speakers at the Sydney rally were critical of the Carr government's ongoing refusal to increase funding, while throwing millions at the growing Sydney 2000 shortfall.
Australian Services Union services division state secretary Allison Peters says - as a union official - she's saddened by the priorities of the Labor Government.
"One hundred and forty million dollars would more than adequately pay for decent pay and conditions for these workers, who will continue to work hard for the community long after September passes," Peters says.
"The government has been well aware of our award claim for over two years, but are still not prepared to commit to funding whatever the Industrial Relations Commission decided is a fair outcome having heard the arguments from both side."
The Community Sector covers non-profit community services for the aged, homeless, people with disabilities, young people, women and families in need. Agencies include Neighbourhood Centres, Group Homes and other services for people with a disability; Community Legal Centres; Family Support Services; Women's Refuges; Youth Centres and Refuges and Hostels for the Homeless. Most services rely entirely on government funding in order to operate.
Support for Campaign Against TAFE Cuts
The New South Wales Labor Council is supporting the Teachers Federation in its campaign to reverse a 10 per cent cut to the TAFE budget and job cuts and to safe-guard the quality of TAFE education.
The NSW State Budget for 2000-2001 imposes severe cuts on TAFE, there is a reduction of $133M (10.5%) in real terms. These cuts are expected to lead to a loss of 730 full-time jobs.
Student enrolments are expected to rise dramatically for this year by 171,000. While these 171,000 additional enrolments represent only a 0.6% increase in equivalent full-time student numbers. The additional work caused by these enrolments will create massive problems for administrative staff in TAFE colleges.
"Over the last two Budgets, the teaching staff have been reduced by approximately 15% while equivalent full-time student numbers have increased by 2.6 per cent.
"The Carr Labor Government is expecting fewer teachers to cope an increased number of students%," Teachers Federation representative Phil Bradley says.
"This means that the quality of education will suffer as class sizes increase and direct student-to-teacher contact is reduced," Bradley says.
"Such an attack on New South Wales TAFE, the premier Vocational Education and Training provider in Australia cannot be tolerated. It is completely unworthy of a State Labor Government and will damage Kim Beazley's "knowledge nation" policy objective.
"The Labor Council will be asking Unions affected by the TAFE cuts to prepare for the possibility of joint action in the near future.
"Those most affected by the Budget cuts are working-class families. As such cuts invariably fall most heavily in second-chance education areas as literacy, numeracy and English to speakers of other languages, disabilities and other access elective programs.
TAFE (Release)
The NSW State Budget for 2000-2001 imposes severe cuts on TAFE, there is a reduction of $133M (10.5%) in real terms. These cuts are expected to lead to a loss of 730 full-time jobs.
Student enrolments are expected to rise dramatically for this year by 171,000. While these 171,000 additional enrolments represent only a 0.6% increase in equivalent full-time student numbers. The additional work caused by these enrolments will create massive problems for administrative staff in TAFE colleges.
"Over the last two Budgets, the teaching staff have been reduced by approximately 15% while equivalent full-time student numbers have increased by 2.6 per cent.
"The Carr Labor Government is expecting fewer teachers to cope an increased number of students%," Teachers Federation representative Phil Bradley says.
"This means that the quality of education will suffer as class sizes increase and direct student-to-teacher contact is reduced," Bradley says.
"Such an attack on New South Wales TAFE, the premier Vocational Education and Training provider in Australia cannot be tolerated. It is completely unworthy of a State Labor Government and will damage Kim Beazley's "knowledge nation" policy objective.
"The Labor Council will be asking Unions affected by the TAFE cuts to prepare for the possibility of joint action in the near future.
"Those most affected by the Budget cuts are working-class families. As such cuts invariably fall most heavily in second-chance education areas as literacy, numeracy and English to speakers of other languages, disabilities and other access elective programs.
TAFE (Release)
The workers, members of the Health and Research Employees Association, have launched a general campaign on the issue, and have held a day of action at the St George and Kareena hospitals, where they wore green ribbons and circulated a petition.
HREA state secretary Michael Williamson says the St George and Kareena staff are showing the way for all private hospitals who are unfairly paid in NSW
"Private hospitals demand the highest quality of patient care, whilst paying less money to their employees less than the private sector," he says.
For example, according to a HREA salary analysis, wardspersons receive more than $3100 less per year in the private sector, cooks are $3,400 worse off and cleaners are moir� than $2,700 per annum behind their public sector colleagues
"And it's is no coincidence that lowly unionized workplaces pay employees 17 per cent less than well unionized workplaces," Williamson says.
by H T Lee CFMEU Construction
The faulty hoist was carrying more than its allowable working load of tiles when it collapsed injuring the four workers who had to be released from the wreckage by the fire brigade and taken to hospital in a serious condition.
There have been a spat of accidents involving materials hoists in recent times. The regulations covering the use of these hoists are constantly ignored.
According to the Construction Forestry Mining Energy Union (CFMEU) Safety Coordinator Brian Miller there are 100s of these hoists being used all over NSW especially in the home unit sector and unless they are properly regulated serious accidents involving the lives of building workers are waiting to happen.
'WorkCover has recently spent millions of dollars on TV advertisements promoting safety in the workplace. What we need now is a hands on approach to safety.'
Miller said WorkCover must make sure all materials hoists meet the manufacturer's specification and comply with the Australian standard (NSW WorkCover regulation) before they are be allowed on site and should only be erected by a qualified erector.
The NSW Labor Council has lend its support to the CFMEU in seeking to have WorkCover carry out a comprehensive audit of materials hoists within the construction industry and in particular the home unit development sector.
Walsh Bay Site of Another Collapse
And yet another accident-this time at the Walsh Bay development site in Millers Point yesterday (Thursday 22 June) when a major wall collapsed into the building and fell onto a crane.
It was more good luck than good management no one was hurt-the accident happened during the lunch break.
The columns holding the wall collapsed after the roof of the building were removed during the demolition-the columns were supposed to be solid but snapped like match sticks.
There are also OHS problems on the site-lead paints could be seen all over the site including at the entrance workers had to walk though.
The are asbestos sheeting on site and its removal has not been done in accordance with regulations-bags of asbestos stored in a shed a few meters from the lunch shed of the workers.
Project developer Transfield/Mervic seems to be taking the advise of Peter Reith-tell the union as little as possible and don't cooperate fully with them.
Representatives of Transfield arrived at the scene after the accident and kept the media away.
When asked about the asbestos problems, and the engineers report on the columns, representatives of Transfield present refused to comment-any enquires had to be referred to their public relations officer.
Questions about the lead paint, asbestos removal and engineers report regarding the columns were filed to Transfield this morning. However, at the time of writing this article Transfield has failed to reply.
According to CFMEU organiser Tom Mitchell and CFMEUCoordinator Brian Parker Transfield had refused to cooperate with them.
Mitchell said it seems Transfield is refusing to take responsibility for the job and has passed the buck back to the demolition subbie. No more work has now been carried out on the project.
The Vocational Training Centre project, launched today by Wal King, CEO of Leighton Holdings and President of the Australian Constructors Association, has already attracted over $200,000 in sponsorship from leading construction companies and the CFMEU and more donations are expected.
"All of us in the construction industry believe one way to assist East Timor in a very practical way is to establish and equip a Vocational Training Centre for the building trades," King said.
Eleven major Australian construction companies, the CFMEU and the CNRT decided to establish the vocational training fund last year. A Charter was developed to involve the industry and fund raising is being launched in earnest from today.
"This is one occasion where construction and property companies can work together with the unions involved in the industry, in this case the CFMEU, to bring about changes for those who are less well off and having a difficult time.
"We all hope this project will be of tangible benefit to the East Timorese people. It represents a real opportunity for the Australian construction industry to work in partnership with the people of East Timor," he said.
Agio Pereira, head of the Emergency Commission of the CNRT, confirmed the urgent need for assistance with the reconstruction of East Timor.
"Following last year's destruction, the needs are many for the reconstruction of all our physical buildings and infrastructure," said Mr Pereira.
"Construction trades training and other needed skills will be a great outcome of this project and further the solidarity between East Timor and Australia. This project will make us more self-sufficient for the future," Mr Pereira said.
"We thank the Australian construction industry, building companies, the construction union and our friends, who have made this commitment to support us in the future."
The project will be administered by APHEDA - Union Aid Abroad, which is one of the Government accredited aid agencies working in East Timor.
Trumpka was a key member of the Sweeney team which took over the AFL-CIO in 1995 - campaigning on a platform of the need to renew the American Labor Movement.
At the time he was the leader of the United Mine Workers of America and in particulat was responsible for winning two landmark disputes for US labor - the Pittson dispute of 1989 and the Bituminous Coal Operators dispute of n1993.
Central to his approach in these disputes was the need to involve the international labor movement in their struggle.
The service will be available for all unions to post media releases, speeches and resolutions.
At the Congress we'll also be launching a downloadable version of the LaborNet newsfeed for unions to house on their own sites.
This free service will allow all unions to carry up to the minute news on labour movement issues, and become part of Australia's largest labour network.
If you're at the Congress, drop in a have a chat.
News
Orange at Risk - Call for City's Help
News
Unions to Get Equity in New Computer Deal
News
Aussie Competition Laws Protect Fijian Terrorists
News
Union Rat Sinks Industrial Laws
News
Olympic Rail Deal Struck for Games Period
News
GST Fears for Union Delegates
News
No Cigars for Casino High Rollers
News
Frustration Boils Over Olympics Blowout
News
Support for Campaign Against TAFE Cuts
News
Private Sector Health Workers Seek Pay Equity
News
Bosses Hoist on Own Petard
News
Construction Industry Assists East Timor Training
News
AFL-CIO Leader to Address Congress
News
Full ACTU Congress Coverage on LaborNet
Che Guevara was an 'evolutionary'?
I think your conservative roots are showing...
John McCusker
Dear Editor,
Whose idea was it to resurrect VIPs ie. "Volunteers in Policing"?
I and my fellow General Support Officers can't be blamed for building resentment against this concept.
Ever since the first intake of General Support Officers we were promised uniforms. We have been told that the Police Service can't afford to issue them to us, even though we are the first contact the public has at Police Stations.
Why then are VIP's being issued uniforms?
They are not paid officers.
Also, VIPs are being given training in First Aid by the Police Service.
Our General Support Officers are not offered the same training.
These are just some of the issues which concern us. If we complain, we are told that we are whingers and not to worry.
It's about time the Police Service looked after its own.
Yours faithfully
Georgina Longhurst
Dear Sir,
The ridiculous threat by the CPSU to disrupt the implementation of the G.S.T., is another example of incompetents in the Union Movement making a complete bollocks of people representation. Is it any wonder that Union membership is shrinking and Union Leaders are now jumping ship onto the lifeboats called Parliaments , State , Federal and Local?
Like sheep to slaughter, these Union members are being encouraged to create a diversion for the Howard government. If this industrial action goes ahead as this insidious tax is being implemented, all of its initialteething problems will be attributed to an ill-timed and ill-conceived ,industrial action by this obviously naive union, the CPSU.
This is a tactic ,as old as Methuselah , when a problem is foreseen, create a diversion and ascertain the blame elsewhere.
What better diversion than a belligerent, incompetent and fearful but willing Union leadership!
Is it possible that the Liberal Party controls this Union?
The G.S.T., if left to its own devices will completely and utterly destroy this coalition government.
One only has to compare the circumstances in Canada, where only 2 out of 153 members of the Coalition Parliament were returned to Parliament after the introduction of their variation of the G.S.T. The conservatives in Canada , are now a non-entity , and of course the Socialists , in spite of their promises , did not repeal this tax.
Canada is now one of the highest taxed countries in the Industrial World.
Is it not a sign of madness - to continue to do the same things, and expect a different result?
.
Tom Collins
Ps. How does one go about getting a Labor Council Computer and tuition on how use it to become an activist?
by Andrew Casey and Peter Lewis
What is the latest from Fiji
Well, I spoke to a friend of mine in Suva this morning. There is a meeting arranged at 11 o'clock with George Speight and the military again after the talks broke down yesterday, but at this point in time there hadn't gathered any of the people involved in the talks at the military barracks or wherever they were supposed to meet. So it is very much the same as it was yesterday.
In terms of the bans that have been placed on by Australian and other international unions, the argument coming out by employers that we are actually hurting the Fijian workers by our actions - what is the feeling amongst Fijian workers about the international bans?
Basically all affiliates of Fiji TUC who are members both Indo- Fijian and native Fijian communities, and other ethnic groups - not one has said these bans are not a good thing. They are all certainly behind FTUC's actions because we wanted to direct the attention back to the issue of hostages. And as you know, the employers who are jumping up and down and saying there are job losses taking place because of the bans. That is not true. In the tourism industry the bans have no effect. In the industries like the sugar industry, the bans have no effect. This is where the largest loss of jobs has taken place.
The employers are jumping on the bandwagon and reducing hours and that sort of thing. The retail trade - the shops that burned down - the looting that took place - they are still not operational so they have reduced the number of workers in that area. That has got nothing to do with bans.
There is only really the manufacturing sector, but in the garment industry especially the people who are jumping up and down upbraiding the workers outside the factories and telling them to demonstrate against the FTUC decision are the ones who still have work with them, and numbers haven't gone down as such from the surveys that has taken place by the Employers' Federation. The numbers haven't been in any way close to what has been in the tourism industry, sugar industry and other places.
Therefore, the people who are jumping up and down have been least affected at this point in time and they are using the issue of workers being affected and job losses to get the bans uplifted and really the postal stoppages is hurting the system now. The food is such that there has not been a shortage of food, but in time of course it will. But of course, our workers are prepared to take the sacrifice for the greater achievement of democrac. Therefore we haven't had any complaints from our members saying that the bans are a bad thing.
What measures have you put in place to look after workers who end up without an income stream because of this action?
What we have done is that from this week onwards we have asked the teachers who are all around the country - to monitor the situation. There are becoming workers who have lost their jobs and haven't got any food on the table so with the assistance from ICFTU that came in last week, we will be making food parcels and rations available to them and this exercise is now going on and as soon as we determine who the real needy are we will be prepared to provide them with full assistance.
And also school children who have to change schools - as you know there is a large group of people - about 130 people were taken from one area outside Suva to Lautoka to a sanctuary and they are being looked after by people in the Western Division. But should they remain there, then we have to look after the new uniforms, the school books and the rest of the things that goes with it. But that is later on. At this point in time if there is a shortage in anybody's house we are prepared to make the rations available to them.
Also through the Red Cross we are coordinating action, together with the indigenous Fijian Mothers' Group, and also the Women's Rights Group - we are working together with all these groups.
You have been in Australia lobbying both State and Federal politicians. What are you asking for?
There are a whole range of initiatives that we have agreed with ICFTU to be put onto the table. Bans is only one part of it. We are asking for sporting bans; we are asking for aid assistance to be halted. We are asking them to take away the military assistance they give to Fiji. We are asking them also to ask other governments to look into the ways and means of stopping this group of terrorists, together with the people who work behind the scenes, acting with them, in overthrow of the democratically elected government, not to be recognised by any of the countries outside Fiji.
As you know at this point in time Speight and his group are involved in negotiations with the Army in finalising a list of some kind of civilian government. And it is important to note that when the military took over power from the President they told us very clearly that the reason they had come out was because they wanted to bring law and order into the country and that was the only focus.
And they also said to the judiciary, the bureaucracy will be left as it is - as it was in the old Constitution, and the law will remain intact. All the other laws will remain intact, and there is a Decree to that effect. However, after having taken out the second Decree they went in and promulgated Decree number five about the Justice Decree, in which the Chief Justice has ruled Supreme Court, which was then signed by the Commodore. He has made changes to the judicial system, for which the judges are very upset as you know, and there are letters from the Law Society against that.
Similarly, last week they took out another Decree about the Public Servants Decree, in which the Civil Service have taken away the rights of people to have appeals. So what we can see is the Military, over a period of time, instead of just looking at the law and order, is actually becoming a functioning political arm of the government - Which they promised they won't do by a Decree earlier.
Therefore we want to continue to focus, not only on George Speight, but on the Military to be checked too on what they are doing. And as you know, under the martial law that we are in, it is very hard to have any gathering or any public uprising. However, there is a very large, silent protest going on by means of signatures that have been collecting, and there has been an overwhelming response to that.
And we are trying to lobby, with the civil societies and countries like Australia and New Zealand that they must act very quickly and isolate Fiji . Put them in the deep freezer so the people like George don't get tempted do these things again, every now and then.
When Mahendra Chaudry is finally released what do you think he will do?
There have been people who have been able to see him inside in the last four or five weeks .
He has been saying to them, to us, to maintain the pressure and escalate it. Otherwise - without pressure - he knows things won't happen.
The treatment he and his colleagues are getting is inhumane. Mahendra was bashed up. His son was also bashed up. They haven't been able to do any exercises at all, except for two or three times, in the last five weeks. He has been asking us from the inside, with little scanty notes that he has been able to smuggle outside to keep up the public campaigns, to keep up the pressure.
He believes that if the Military steps in and runs things, then we are going to go through a repeat of what happened after the Rabuka Coups. Another 12 years, slow years of process to get back to where we were just a month ago. Chaudry is worried that the final end with the military in charge is a new discriminatory Constitution, a Constitution which will not uphold human rights and those sort of issues.
Do you consider that a released Mahendra Chaudhry might set up and lead an alternative government to the one imposed by Speight and the Military. A government which reflects the democratically elected People's Coalition ?
I think that is the direction he will take. Knowing Mr Chaudhry very well, and working with him for many years, very closely Chaudhry will drive the agenda towards establishing an alternative-in-exile government. I think generally people will support him because he has got the largest numbers, freely elected, in a Constitutional Parliament.
Don't forget that George Speight who is taken our Fiji through all this, hasn't yet shown he has a truly popular mandate. Except for a few provinces he has no demonstrated widespread support. The Military said they will take over to bring back the law and order. They haven't got the mandate. George Speight hasn't got a mandate.
Really, actually for the masses of people Mahendra Chaudry is the only one who has got the mandate. And if there is a call for an election, a free election, he will win again.
One of the main issues in Parliament, just before the coup, was the introduction of new labour laws that Mahendra Chaudry had promised in the election. What is their fate?
Just before the coup Chaudry was directing - and succeeding - in policies for economic recovery; as well as transparency and isolation of corrupt practices in the Civil Service and the government departments.
You've heard of the mahogany timber deal? George Speight was involved in that shady deal. Mahendra Chaudhry was looking at that deal. He didn't like what he saw. He wanted to downstream milling and give the benefits to the people rather than some elites who were happy making shady deals with the outside world.
The labour laws were part of the economic reforms which Chaudhry has been fighting for for years first as a trade union leader, then as Labour leader.
We had all been fighting for these laws for the last 12 years. It was important for the whole labour movement in Fiji.
The legislation was there, prepared by the Minister for Labour. It had gone as a Bill into the Parliament. It was only a matter of days for it to be passed.
The Employers Federation were jumping up and down. They were about to be curtailed. They wouldn't be able to take away the rights of the workers to join unions.
Union rights would have been returned , they would have been able to act like we had before Rabuka's coups in 1987. Our unions organising strengths would have increased, especially in the manufacturing area and the tax free zone areas, where the large masses of workers are now employed.
The Fiji unions would have taken a strong stand in the new factories and would demand better pay conditions, better working conditions and better safety standards.
Many employers, like that Halabe of the Fij-Australia Business Council, would have been set back. Employers like him have the view that Chaudry shouldn't ever be in government.
And therefore, employers like him were somehow behind the scenes helping Speight to organise this coup?
I don't doubt that. There is a great belief in Fiji that employer officials have assisted not George Speight, but the organisers of the anti-Chaudhry march which led up to the coup.
( On the day of the coup there was a march through the streets of Suva. A group of armed militants, along with George Speight, broke off from the march and took the Prime Minister and his MPs hostage.)
They (the employer reps) supported the militants, the marchers by giving them money for bus fares, providing them food and getting them to assemble at the right time.
What would you like to see happen to the people that are behind the coup?
I think New Zealand has taken the initiative of releasing a list of names, saying 85 people are banned, not allowed into New Zealand. I would like to see that initiative spread to other countries and to the relatives and business associates of the people who took part in the coup.
This important initiative could be increased by studying the financial transactions of these people in the lead up to the coup. There assets should be frozen in New Zealand and in Australia.
If they try to come to Australia, they try to come to New Zealand, they should be treated as illegal immigrants. There rights to freely travel and do business should be taken away from them and they should not be allowed in countries where democracy and civic culture is alive.
The problem is going to come for unionis in Australia when the hostages are released. There will be mountingf pressure on Australian unions to lift the bans - straight away. What do you think we should be doing?
When Bill Mansfield, the ACTU Assistant Secretary, was in Fiji earlier this week we discussed this issue. We are prepared to review our position at that point in time.
The union bans, you know, are very important but they are only one part of the campaign. Other issues might be pursued through the union movement and through our colleagues in your Federal and State Parliaments.
Finally, how do you see the situation unfolding over the next couple of weeks?
I doubt that George Speight will leave the Parliamentary complex and let his hostages go without all his demands being met.
At first the Military said they will not give in to all the demands. But then, over a period of time , each one of the things that George Speight has wanted ihe gets from the military. It gradually unfolds in his favour, and he knows it.
He is acting in that manner. I think there is a bit of complicity from the outside, from the military, to allow him to get what he wants. If it doesn't get all resolved in the next couple of days it will not get resolved. George Speight has already said he is prepared to go for months or to go for years. And then there will be, at some point in time, there will be a very public uprising. Nobody will plan it. Nobody will control it. That is certain. I can't tell but I think we are looking at 12 days maybe more, maybe less, before the public says enough of George Speight.
When former ACTU secretary Bill Kelty shook hands with Steve Vizard and his partners in a venture to deliver them access to the trade union movement's network of members for a computer package I was highly critical of the deal.
Why, I asked, was the ACTU giving away its greatest asset in the new economy, its network of members, for next to nothing? It was, I argued, akin to the American Indians, with their different values, selling Manhattan Island to property-hungry Europeans for a few beads.
In principle, there's nothing wrong with the idea of bundling cheap home computers and net access for a weekly rate - although with its focus on hardware, it's certainly not cutting edge. Since the venture was announced, as I predicted, hardware is being given away by companies seeking to tap the real value of the information economy - the network.
Twelve months on, Virtual Communities has been relatively successful, signing up an estimated 30,000 union members and has significant raised funds from the market valuing the company at more than $360 million.
VC's glossy newspaper and TV ads have been funded by astute corporate players as like Packer and Pratt. But the notable absentee from this list are the trade unions who made it happen. It is estimated that unions have less than five per cent equity in the venture.
In response to the Virtual Communities' model, the Labor Council today launches it's own computer deal, 'Get on Board' for working people around the country. One of its aims is to correct the deficiencies in the VC model.
It provides high-quality hardware and software at a competitive price and extensive low-cost web access. But most importantly it ensures that the union movement is properly rewarded for the asset it brings to the venture.
Combined with our partner, the ALP, we will initially hold two-thirds of the equity in the company. This means the business will be majority owned by working people and their representatives.
As the new economy develops, organizations that consolidate their membership networks will have a sound footing to deal with the fast-changing world and the challenging times ahead.
By pooling our bargaining power, union members will get the best deals available in the market to provide the online opportunities for their families.
And because the asset remains largely in the labour movement's hands, profits from the venture can be channeled back into improving the union movement's presence on the Web.
In this way the collective power of the union membership base not only delivers cheap home computers today, it ensures a strong web presence into the future.
Another concern is that Virtual Community focuses in their business model on building a self-contained portal. One just has to look at their site to see significant resources have been poured into a so-called "virtual town" that they hope will meet all the key needs of their subscribers.
It is fundamentally a closed model, that relies on keeping union members inside the site so that it can harness e-commerce opportunities. In many ways, it runs counter to the logic of the Net, which promotes diversity and open-access.
Our model is more synch with web culture, providing free access to 4,000 of the most popular Australian websites, while delivering cheaper access to the rest of the web. It encourages people to roam rather than stay at home.
Our competing deal should be welcomed by all in the trade union movement for offering choice and an alternate model to the one that Bill Kelty left to the ACTU.
If it succeeds, as I believe it will, 'Get on Board' will secure the union movement's presence in the information age by providing both access to union members and their families and the resources to maintain our presence. Our members will have their beads, but we'll be able to keep the bulk of Manhattan Island.
This piece was first published in the Sydney Morning Herald
by Rowan Cahill
Instead an agent of Joy Manufacturing stood on the threshold, attempting to serve a personal damages claim on Ferguson for $700,000.
Ferguson was away at the ALP State Conference, so the agent tried to bully the child into taking the document, until the intervention of his mother.
The claim arises from Ferguson's alleged involvement in the pickets, protests and solidarity actions that have been part of the long running and bitter Joy dispute.
That same week Joy issued a claim for unspecified damages against South Coast Labour Council secretary Arthur Rorris. This claim involves 13 charges and possibly exceeds $I million.
Subpoenas and claims against union officials and rank and file members are being thrown around by Joy like confetti. A Company spokesman has confirmed "dozens" have been issued, while speculation places the eventual number closer to 250.
About 70 workers from three separate unions (the AMWU, AWU, and CEPU) have been locked-out of Joy Manufacturing in Moss Vale for three months since the collapse of EBA negotiations.
Two picket encampments are permanently manned outside the worksite. The workers are surviving frugally on a fighting fund, while their activities and those of their unions are restrained by Supreme Court injunctions.
The damages claims, and the crass treatment of the child by what amounts to an operative of a multinational--since Joy is a subsidiary of the American holding company Harnischfeger Industries Inc.-- have intensified the bitterness of the dispute.
Not everything is going Joy's way. The three unions involved have commenced Federal Court proceedings challenging the legality of the lock-out. The union case is arguable and novel. During the initial hearing the judge was moved to point out that it is not the case that different rules apply for employers than apply for unions, and that neither party is above the law. The matter returns to Court on 31 July.
Concerns by the AMWU regarding heavy handed police conduct in clearing a picket outside Joy's Moss Vale worksite in April are being investigated by the Ombudsman.
Meanwhile some observers are increasingly curious. Despite union pressure, Joy maintains a reluctance to place cash in a trust fund and ease worker concern about accrued entitlements, one of the issues that has arisen during the dispute. The Company maintains that such entitlements are not at risk, and claims an entitlement trust fund would place it at a commercial disadvantage.
However money seems readily available for Joy to employ contractors, a specially hired security team, high powered lawyers with more legal tricks than you can poke a stick at, and a vast array of logistical support. Which leaves many wondering if Joy has access to some mysterious bottomless financial pit, and whether there are other agendas at work here that go beyond the resolution of a local industrial dispute.
Energy Australia's Sydney call centre is a busy workplace. A workplace of controlled tensions. Staff - Customer Service Representatives (CSRs) - listen to customers. Managers listen to the staff. All the time. When a CSR wants to go to the toilet, he or she must tap in the relevant code on their computer. The toilet code.
The Sydney call centre employs about 100 staff. A new call centre in Newcastle now employs 150 operators and is set to grow. The work is stressful and staff turnover is relatively high. As CSR Bill Papadopoulos says, "customers don't ring unless they have a problem". Usually to query or dispute some aspect of their electricity account.
Bill Papadopoulos and Joe Agius are the MEU delegates at the call centre. They do their best to soothe the tensions. "We have a good relationship with management because of the high level of union membership", says MEU delegate Bill Papadopoulos. "We are very upfront about consultation with management, and dealing with small problems before they become big problems."
The CSRs each handle about 80 calls a day, and their performance is routinely monitored by supervisors. To ease the pressure of that scrutiny, the MEU has helped Bill and Joe negotiate a new Call Coaching Agreement. This means that the CSRs will be notified by management on the specific day - once a fortnight - when management listens in as part of an on-going training regime - although management can potentially tap in to a call at any time.
MEU Energy Manager Paul Marzato says the big issues for the call centre staff in the near future are job security, and maintenance of pay and conditions. "With the relocation of the Sydney Call Centre to Head Office in George St, some of the Sydney centre staff, rostered at different times, will share work stations (called hot-desking). The MEU will be working to ensure that these changes don't result in a loss of hours or wages for the CSRs."
Some people can cope with the stress better than others. Joe Agius thrives on it. He's worked in the call centre 14 years - that must be some kind of record - and he's ready for more. "Some stress is good for you", he says cheerfully.
Too much stress is not good for anybody. Joe stops smiling as he recalls when, a few years ago, the centre had too few staff to cope with the number of calls. When staff had to meet a target of 15 calls an hour, MEU action forced an end to the hourly targets.
As Paul Marzato says, "call centres are like pressure-cookers. While management focuses on the bottom line, the MEU has to focus on the people, making sure they are treated fairly, and with dignity. The CSR's are the human voice of Energy Australia. We want to help keep that a happy voice."
by Business Day
The state-owned Herald newspaper said another 40 observers from the newly formed Electoral Commission Forum of Southern African Development Community countries were also denied accreditation.
The South Africans join 17 Kenyan and Nigerian observers who were barred earlier this week and 40 others from the United States' National Democratic Institution and the International Republican Institute.
Chairman of the Electoral Directorate, Mariyawanda Nzuwa, said the Zimbabwean authorities had barred all representatives of non-governmental organisations (NGOs) from observing the elections.
However, members of the NGOs were free to move around the country "but will not be accorded the rights and privilege of observers". The Catholic group will meet members of the South African parliamentary observer team which was accredited last week.
Cosatu spokesman Siphiwe Mgcina said in Johannesburg he could not comment on the matter until he received confirmation from the delegation.
Meanwhile, the credibility of Zimbabwe's forthcoming parliamentary elections this weekend took another knock when President Robert Mugabe's government ordered that only one election monitor would be allowed to oversee balloting at each of the 4 000 polling stations around the country.
Election monitors are appointed by the Elections Supervisory Commission (ESC) and are allowed inside polling stations throughout the voting process.
The ESC has trained 20 700 people to be able to place two monitors inside the polling station, two more outside and a further two as relief. - Sapa and I-Net Bridge.
by Elizabeth Faue
Beginning in the 1960s, the field of labour history in both Australia and the United States underwent a rather startling transformation, shifting its focus from historical studies of national economies, labour parties, and institutionalised labour movements to the social, cultural and political history of the working classes.
Catalysts for this shift included the revitalisation of left politics, the reemergence of social movements for sexual and racial-ethnic equality, and the maturation of cultural Marxism. These political and intellectual influences directed labour historians to ask questions about the multiple identities of workers along gender, racial, ethnic, and religious lines and to explore working class experience in communities and localities. While much of this scholarship neglected formal spatial analysis, it expanded the genre of the community case study and increasingly saw 'class' as contingent, historically specific, and culturally expressed. To examine the processes of class formation in depth and detail, to explore how working class men and women created class politics (in both informal and formal ways), and to study class formation and transformation longitudinally, researchers took their questions to the records and historical memories of working class neighbourhoods, union towns, and small communities. Used in twentieth century contexts, 'community' became understood as working class 'communities of interest' within larger urban settings. In both union cities and company towns, class relations looked different when viewed from the grassroots.
Among United States labour historians, there was little reflection on what 'community' meant. Rather, 'community' often operated as a kind of spatial selection, a way of keeping the material and the study within manageable boundaries. Specific communities (even as locales of nationally significant strikes or unions) served as background for exploring the general meanings of class and community. There were criticisms.
Historian Theodore Hershberg argued that 'urban' (what we might define as 'community') acted only as a dependent, not an independent, variable in social history. In labour historical terms, we might rephrase his criticism and argue that labour historians were concerned with how the specific characteristics of communities (population, composition of labour force, industrial base, etc) provided the preconditions of or barriers to class mobilisation rather than investigating how class created or re-created the forms and meanings of 'community'. Recent studies continue to shortchange spatial analysis and leave unexamined the ambiguous and divergent definitions of 'community'. While the tension between social integration and social conflict captured in class identity and politics occasionally surfaces in studies of residential segregation and housing policy, there is a disconnect between 'community' (or locality) and the formal worlds of work and politics in labour history that simply reinforces the reification of 'community' as either romantic refuge or bastion of bigotry.
As a historian of labour and working class history in the United States, I confess to being only passingly familiar with the development of Australian labour history and at a disadvantage in reading these essays. Yet, the retelling of Australian labour historiography in Greg Patmore's introduction and in Lucy Taksa's theoretical overview resonated with my own understanding of how 'community' works within the boundaries of working class history in the United States. Like many American and Australian social historians, my research has been located at the intersection of urban and labour history and negotiates that difficult terrain. Focusing on how labour and working class mobilisations straddled both workplace and community means understanding and critiquing the tendency of many labour and social historians to endow 'class' and 'community' with the same nostalgic character that Ferdinand Tonnies and Emile Durkheim did a century ago. 'Community' in particular has served as a rough equivalent to traditional solidarities and communal sentiments, one pole in the dichotomy of Gemeinschaft and Gesellschaft which Lucy Taksa describes in her essay.
Despite its occasional romantic tendencies, new labour scholarship has mapped out taxonomies of collective action within working class communities. The meanings and forms of working class resistance have stirred productive scholarship ever since Herbert Gutman published his studies of local working class mobilisation in the nineteenth century United States. In his earliest essays, he argued the relative strength of working class power in rural communities. The isolation of urban workers, he argued, served as a barrier to the communal solidarities required for the emergence of unionism and class politics. While his interpretation has faced serious challenges, Gutman's work pointed the way toward considering how the dynamics of community helped to create class politics.
In studies of small cities and towns, there has been a continued emphasis on communal solidarity, often highlighting the possibilities and contradictions of cross-class coalitions and inter-class conflicts. Much more frequently, 'community' in labour history has described urban working class 'communities within communities' that served as bases for collective action and political mobilisation. Informed by urban sociology, the new labour historians of the 1960s and 1970s saw such class communities as both naturalised and residual, bulwarks against the encroachments of capitalist class relations. They failed to capture the dynamics of change in either community or class relations or to see how both class and community were socially constructed solidarities.
The essays in this thematic section on Labour History and Local History make a significant contribution to the effort of de-constructing and analysing the varying and variable meanings of 'the local' and 'community' in labour and working class history in Australia and internationally. They include six case studies of labour in small communities and cities of under 30,000 in population over the course of the twentieth century. The locales range from the rural and agricultural communities of Dungog and Wagga Wagga to the largely industrial towns of Lithgow, Ipswich, Port Kembla, and Broken Hill. They exist on a continuum of class politics from conservative bastion and divided class community to union town. In each case, the authors address the fundamental dynamics of community building, social integration, social differentiation, and conflict in the course of describing class relations in specific contexts.
A major theme of the essays explores the question of who creates, sustains, and preserves 'community' in its social and political expressions. The essays focus as well on how class relations either are subsumed by or replace the dynamic identification of individuals and groups with the sense of place and of belonging inherent in our notions of 'community'. Strachan, Jordan and Carey's study of Dungog offers us the schematics of community creation and the role of women's paid and voluntary labour. Patmore's study of Lithgow, Eklund's of Port Kembla, and Eather's of Wagga Wagga focus on fragmentation within and exclusion of the working class. Bowden's reveals the fluidity of relationships between and within classes, and Ellem and Shields examine the dynamics of creating class solidarity, even when it entails the exclusion of an important sector of the working class (in this case, married women).
Integral to the concept of 'community', as Lucy Taksa reminds us, is the dynamic of social differentiation and exclusion that defines who is and who is not a member of the community. Working class enclaves could, in creating solidaristic bonds, practice the same politics of exclusion by which local elites locked workers out of politics. They relied on social ostracism and hostility to ward off outsiders in times of economic competition and employed violence toward strikebreakers and others who chose to segregate themselves from the working community. Patmore's essay is particularly interesting in this regard, as he takes on contradictions in the politics of localism that both impede class identification and limit the appeal of class politics.
At the same, local loyalties could and did protect the job claims and economic rights of local workers. Except in the most limiting cases, local community elites often have had to accommodate working class needs and demands. An elite paternalistic ethos born in the early twentieth century limped along through the century's end and faced, in small and large ways, an increasingly organised and self-conscious working class. The promises of employer paternalism and welfare capitalism, as research on US communities has shown, stifled class politics at various points; but they also, when broken, gave rise to renewed class conflict and mobilisation.
The sporadic, intense, and locally specific labour strife of the Great Depression in the United States had, at its base, anger at employers and governments who defaulted on the implied social contract between companies and workers and thus violated community solidarities.
The connection between community action and working class mobilisation leads me to the other major contribution of these essays, which is to illuminate and explore the centrality of gender to class and local identity and labour politics. As Taksa argues in her theoretical overview, the importance of gender to class dynamics informs how she and others understand and analyse 'community'. Not surprisingly, women played a central role in building community through voluntary labour and in shaping labour politics through boycotts and community mobilisations in nearly all of the towns and cities studied.
Over all, the essays seem to have taken their original charge to consider gender relations in each community to heart as the authors effectively integrate gender into their localised understandings of community and class dynamics. Collectively, these local studies argue for the important role of working class women in creating and sustaining the material and affective bonds of community and the evolution of class and community solidarities. How well working class women were incorporated into the class politics of these small communities had an important impact on the success or failure of class politics and the possibility of sustaining working class interests in the wider community.
Where women were excluded, the politics of class suffered, as shown especially in the failure of labour candidates in Ipswich, Port Kembla, and Wagga Wagga and of shop boycotts in Broken Hill. In Broken Hill in particular exclusion of married women led to a precipitous decline in women's union membership. The uneven gender politics of the local Communist Party also kept women from full participation until at least the mid-1930s. Where women were incorporated in labour organisation, however, they often succeeded where men failed. Eather notes that while labour candidates repeatedly failed in the climate of the Cold War to be elected, women members of the Labor Party succeed in gaining seats by running as independents. As Eather argues in his essay:
The viability of the labour movement generally and the establishment of more positive networks in the city might have been achieved if the [Australian Labor Party] and the unions had accepted and encouraged greater participation of women.
These findingss give rise to questions about the masculine meanings of labour and class within unions, political parties, and communities.
The essay which comes closest to my own understanding of the dynamic relationship between gender and class in communities is Bradon Ellem and John Shields' study of Broken Hill. As in their community study, my work on the Minneapolis labour movement asked how labour leaders met the challenge of remaking an 'Open Shop City' into a 'Union Town' during the heyday of radical American labour in the 1930s. Crucial to labour's success was the inclusion and incorporation of various subcommunities and groups within the working class. A powerful and rejuvenated local Teamsters' union (General Drivers local 574) had grasped the dependence of this commercial city on urban transport. The rapid unionisation of drivers and warehouse workers gave them the opportunity to intervene, through local solidaristic action such as boycotts and strike support, in labor conflicts throughout the city and region, including the garment and knitwear industry, clerical work, metalworking and electrical manufacturing, and even among relief and unemployed workers. Bolstered by a vibrant Farmer-Labor party political coalition in the state and locally, the labour movement transformed most manufacturing firms into bastions of unionism. And yet, there were lapses in their campaigns. While bureaucratisation and centralisation of labour nationally explain the decline in labour efforts locally, a prime culprit in limiting the effectiveness and reach of labour both economically and politically was the marginalisation of women, continued opposition to married women's work and participation, and neglect of the vital growth sectors of the economy, namely clerical work, retail, and service employment, where women predominated. As Ellem and Shields suggest of their community:
There was nothing particularly unique about the approach of the Broken Hill labour movement to matters of gender at this juncture. Indeed, working women experienced marginalisation in many working class localities in inter-war Australia, including other mining localities.
The pattern of women's marginality to organised labour and within a labour-defined politics, which Ellem and Shields find widespread in Australia, also finds echoes in work on local labour party organisations in Britain. The active role of male-dominated, and often exclusive, trade unions, especially in areas of male industrial employment, impeded the recruitment and mobilisation of women in working class party politics.
The question is how these themes have been explored and play out comparatively in the United States. Labour historical scholarship continues to be split between workplace and union studies and those which focus on the community bases of working class organisation. It is important, however, to make problematic the pesky assertion that community and local politics are, by nature, more conservative and confining than national labour organisation and politics. The idea that anything which distracts from a focus on the relations of production or traditional political economy is an abandonment of class may be wholly a product of impoverished understandings of class, which tend to see community as oppositional to, not formative of, class identity and solidarity. As a result of this narrow equation between 'class' and 'work', some studies conflate 'community' with gender, ethnic, racial, and other more 'parochial' concerns; others argue, as does Ira Katznelson in City Trenches, that American workers are workers at work and ethnics at home. The contempt for community recently expressed in a forum on alternative community-based unionism in the 1930s and the equation of local unionism and working class politics with racism further compounds these errors.
As the essays in the thematic section have suggested, the use of 'community' obscures the complex meanings, experiences, and identities associated with place, space, locality, and political unit. If at one point, 'community' represents the close material and social bonds of a specific locality, at other times and places it serves (in both scholarly reckoning and in historical experience) as a symbol of the social bonds of specific groups and subcommunities in an urban setting. At other times, working class 'community' harboured different ethnic and cultural enclaves. Much research on the working class in the United States more comfortably resides within immigrant and ethnic history with its questions of cultural assimilation, accommodation, and resistance than in labour history, a fragmentation that provides yet another twist on community and class in working class history. In speaking of community in labour history, the question might well be 'which community'? At the same time, as both place and feeling, 'community' becomes inseparable from the study of how working class men and women understood their lives, built loyalties, and expressed class identity.
The direction to which we are led is the one implicit in Lucy Taksa's essay, namely to start to disentangle the levels, dimensions, meanings, and metaphors of 'community'. It is important to differentiate and delineate the material and physical community (whether as an autonomous geographic unit or as a subdivision of urban settlements) from the sentiment of 'community', its social space, and community as metaphor or strategy within working class history. Because the thematic section does not include studies of larger urban areas, or working class enclaves within cities in Australia, a first task might well be to ask if and how small, self-contained communities express, manage, and incorporate class identity and conflict differently from working class 'communities within communities' in major urban centres. Second, a more formal and far-reaching spatial analysis of class within communities could be further pursued within labour history. A special issue of Social Science History, to be published in spring 2000, addresses public space and the public sphere in working class history. Essays there address the threefold division of space in Henri Lefebvre's work as lived space, perceived space, and conceived space; the working class uses of the street from commerce and labour to protest, class and racial/ethnic divisions in housing and public accommodation, urban public policy, and the working class public sphere as both physical and cultural space. These questions are at the heart of understanding how class and community intersect but also how class conflict, class solidarity, and class exclusion help to build or undermine 'community' for workers and the wider society. They help to reconfigure the many-layered meanings of 'local' and 'community' on spatial lines.
The issues which continue to haunt labour history in the United States include addressing how size, structure, and form of 'community' in both large cities and small ones are linked to class politics in community and workplace in the twentieth century. Much of the work here has been fairly unselfconscious about how communities are constructed or how discussion of 'local' solidarities in class terms might obscure or mask community dynamics in class solidarities. A major debate over the nature of unionism and labour radicalism in the 1930s, for example, has focused on the relative importance and meaning of grassroots labour militancy and the significance and consequences of bureaucratic unionism. As critics of 'We Are All Leaders', an anthology recently published on alternative unionism, noted, most of the studies centred on small communities which might have been atypical. The author thus neglected to address labour movements in major urban areas and industries. While this charge was only partly true, what it revealed was the failure to explore how that unionism was aided, abetted, or impeded by the size and character of local communities and working class 'communities of interest' in major cities. Regional differences have, in many ways, been more attentive to variation in organisation than studies of local movements.
The focus of 'We Are All Leaders' on 'community-based' local labour movements versus workplace-oriented national unions implicitly had argued that there was a point at which 'community' is not just a place or sentiment but a strategy of class organisation. The labour movement built on its connections in the community during the decade of the Depression, and it ignored local organisation and communities at its peril. In a recent article, historian Joseph Turrini demonstrated how a major organising drive in steel foundered on insensitivity toward community dynamics. As he argued in his study of the 'Little Steel' strike in Monroe, Michigan, nationally appointed organisers stumbled in their ignorance of community divisions and strengths, a mistake that was not repeated a few years later when a local plant was organised under different auspices. Turrini writes, 'The neglect of community could and did prove fatal to the efforts of national unions, despite their resources, a factor SWOC [the national Steel Workers' Organizing Committee] never understood'.
The study of working class communities and the working class within communities continues to stumble over how 'community' and a sense of belonging can both impede and further class identity and solidarity. We might take our cue from Lucy Taksa's call for us to understand community 'as a web, a social formation that changes over time depending on individual choices as much as on a variety of social pressures'. That approach, which concentrates on social relations both within and without the arena of production, helps us overcome the somewhat artificial divide between labour and local history, as class can and does participate in both fields. While we have a clear understanding of the limits of localism for working class and labour mobilisation, we need to take into account the ways in which class and community politics have simultaneously shaped each other. If class relations are limited or made possible by the character of local allegiance and the extent to which local elites dominate local institutions, so too are communities (both as social webs and as places of the heart) created from the decisions of the working and middle classes to participate in communities, invest in their institutions, and identify their lives with the lives of their communities. Even within a working class 'community of interest', the dynamic of belonging and exclusion can determine success or failure, based on how well represented the various parts are within the whole. For critics who emphasise the limits of localism for class solidarity, the old American saying that 'all politics is local' might serve as a reminder that distance and size do not guarantee success or depth. Local politics, like local class alliances and organisations, can harbour prejudice, mask political and social exclusion, and lay claim to legitimacy on the basis of 'natural' affinity. What the essays on Labour History and Local History suggest is something quite different. The politics of both class and community were and are the products of human desire and labour. The tension between and dynamism within class and locality as socially constructed identities underwrote much of working class experience in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries and laid the bases for complex and conflicting politics in the national landscapes of both Australia and the United States. Much more needs to be done to understand them, and this thematic section shows us one way.
Elizabeth Faue teaches at Wayne State University in Detroit, USA and she is the author of Community of Suffering and Struggle: Women, Men and the Labor Movement in Minneapolis, 1915-1945, which was published in 1991, and Writing the Wrongs: Eva McDonald Valesh and the Politicial Culture of American Labor Reform (forthcoming). She is
the co-ordinator of the North American Labor History onference, which meets annually in Detroit.
by The Chaser
"What we have always needed was our very own Labor party," said one thrilled grain salesman who has been down on his luck since the dismantling of trade tarrifs in the mid-1970s.
The general response from the country to the new 'Country Labor' party has been very positive. Some described the new logo as one of the "greatest things to happen in the country since Telecom Australia renamed itself Telstra and started taking away all our public phones."
The new party follows a large investment by the Labor party into brand management and brand focusing.
"By looking at the way companies would subtly repackage the same products for different markets we have learnt how democracy must move," said Mr Eric Roozendaal, Secretary of the NSW Branch.
t is understood that Labor is also looking at other new parties such as Indigenous Labor, Ethnic Labor and 'Filthy Rich but still vote Labor Labor'.
Asked why they weren't considering a Women's Labor a source from head office admitted that they had tried that sort of thing once but that they had ended up asking for too much and so they had to be disbanded.
"Let that be a lesson to you bushies," he added. "We've given you a new party so keep quiet and vote the right way."
The positive response to Country Labor has led other organisations to follow their approach. Telstra announced the release of Telstra Country Wide, a totally new and focused approach to the removal of bush services.
Virtual Elections
As the U.S. Presidential race hots up (or cools off for several Presidential Hopefuls) GoVote.com is the place you want to be (http://www.govote.com). The site has heaps (maybe too much) information on every candidate running at the moment in the US as well as all policies explained. Also make sure you do the "Presidential Match Quiz", the questionnaire has a series of questions on the issues of the day and after you answer the site aligns you with the seven candidates based on percentage points it might surprise you for instance I discovered I was 94% likely to vote for Bill Bradley followed by a 62% Chance of voting for John McCain, what can I say I always back the underdog!
While we are on the subject of US politics another site that is literally challenging the way we view democracy is Vote.com (http://www.vote.com) . Founded by ex-Clinton Advisor and Author of "The New Prince" Dick Morris this site aims to utilise the Internet to increase citizen participation in government. Morris in his book describes this as "Jeffersonian Democracy" where citizens can register their opinions and views on a wide range of issues like having a multiple referendums online. We are already seeing organisations realising the potential of the internet for elections such as the Arizona Democratic Parties' Primary this Year for president where they hired the company election.com (http://www.election.com) to run the primary online.
Reba Online
Reba Meagher MP NSW State Labor Member for Cabramatta has launched her website this week at http://www.reba.com.au . This is the first website for a NSW State Labor Member to be launched and currently features a wide range of information on Reba and her local area. Reba has plans to extend her site and currently in the pipeline is a plan to fully translate the site into several languages which are widely spoken in her multi-cultural constituency.
Get On Board
Launched this week was the website of Get On Board (http://getonboard.com.au ), the company founded by the Labor Council of NSW, the NSW ALP and Kingsway Capital which aims to provide cheap computers and internet access to union members and their families.
GST on Beer
The peak body of Australian Brewers have launched a site http://www.itsyourshout.com.au as a part of their campaign against the GST on beer. The site features a online petition (which after you complete you are rewarded with a "Virtual Beer"), information on the GST and general campaign information.
Virtual Trades Hall
Last week LaborNET's Virtual Trades Hall (VTH) Wednesday Smoko had a special guest in Labor Council Assistant Secretary John Robertson, who chatted about issues arising from last weekend's NSW ALP State Conference. Next week's Smoko will be coming live from ACTU Congress 2000 in Wollongong so log on at http://www.labor.net.au/virtualtradeshall between 12 noon and 2 pm and find out all the goss from Congress..
The Labor Party is really going to the pack when the likes of this blown away old seaman are invited to address such an august body as are gathered here tonight. But then, on looking around at all these bright and honest faces, I recall the words of an old Irish shipmate, Paddy Renehan.
During the State election of 1953, in the port of Townsville, after the politically active members of the crew had been campaigning for the Labor Party ashore, we were holding a post mortem in the ship's mess room over a well earned cup of tea. Paddy, disturbed by our revelry came into the room and after looking us over summed up the situation with, "If the devil were to cast his net here, he'd make a fine catch.' The devil may have done so then, but methinks, he'd have better luck here tonight!
When I was asked to speak this evening, it occurred to me that it was a good time to rake over the coals and reminisce on the nights of Labor Council's meetings under the secretaryship of John Ducker. I mean, if I was of a suspicious nature, which I can assure you I am not, I might think that John Ducker's presence here was the result of some set-up, and that John had proposed me as some kind of sparring partner. Thank goodness that that thought never crossed my mind. Yet, here we are.
I came to Council in the early sixties. Meeting nights were occasions for fiery oratory and all too frequently examples of hostility and vindictiveness which lasted for years. For some, they may even continue today. The Right viewed the Left at best as 'Reds and Communist stooges'. The Left reciprocated with labels of 'Groupers' and Reactionaries. If bricks and mortar retain memory, those are two of the milder remarks which, over the years, must have provided the ghosts within the walls of Council with many a reflective chuckle.
One particular incident in the latter 60's comes to mind. I had recently returned from a visit to the Soviet Union and had received some publicity for a letter published in the Sydney Morning Herald. Therein I had criticised the Israeli occupation of Arab territories. What's new?
Prior to Council's meeting, a pleasant hour or so in the Star Hotel - the Left's sanctuary - had had its beneficial effect and I was whiling away Council's Question Time by nonchalantly throwing peanuts and catching them in my mouth.
Tommy Anthes, then Secretary of one of the Right's favourite unions, took the call and proceeded by way of query to pour a bucket over me as a lackey of the Soviet Union. I interrupt myself to once again dismiss any suggestion that Tommy acted under any coercion from Brother John.
I swear to this day that the peanuts stopped in mid-air. As it was only a question, there was no opportunity for me to reply. The response was entirely in the hands of the secretary, John Ducker. To John's credit, he let me down gently - well, as gently as the circumstances permitted in those torrid times.
Of course there were plenty of occasions when the issues were not so friendly.
But then again Labor Council is as close as we'll get to a Workers' Parliament. The thrust and parry of open debate, the wheeling and dealing in the background, the personalities and issues produced historic decisions and educated many competent orators, trade union leaders and politicians.
Their numbers are manifest and to name any would be to exclude some of the many veterans of the struggle who deserve no less acclaim than those who have enjoyed fame and, may it be said, fortune.
In the course of interest in international trade union affairs the Seamen's Union became keen supporters of the anti-war movement, particularly around Australia's involvement in Vietnam. As a result of those activities, the Union responded to an invitation and seconded me to a senior position in the World Peace Council, an anti-war organisation headquartered in Helsinki and active throughout the world.
For the moment, let us overlook the fact that the WPC had been 'blackballed' by Western propaganda. That still left millions of people outside the 'West' - and also many inside - who found common cause with the WPC. And so, in '79, I became an executive officer of that establishment.
If you wonder, "How on earth did an Australian come to get that job?" The answer is complicated.
The decision was made in the light of several circumstances. When the options came to the floor of the WPC, many viewpoints had to be considered. Delegates from anti-war organisations all over the world held strong opinions on who should, or should not, front for their Council.
Africa and Asia would not have anybody from the old colonial powers. Nor could they produce agreement to an individual from among themselves. Citizens of superpower countries were beyond the pale. On the religious side, the believers countries would not accept a non-believer. Nato was out, as was the Warsaw Pact members. By due process of elimination, countries and national organisations were dropped from the list.
Finally, it could be seen that Australia was in a unique position. Ex-colonial but emancipated, religiously broad-minded and, at least in the absence of our current Prime Minister, racially tolerant.
So, this Australian, snuggled down in antipodean isolation, fitted the general criteria and was packed off to Helsinki to an international role in world politics.
Time precludes any detailed reminiscences of that fascinating period but there followed several years of travelling, arranging and participating in meetings and conferences which embraced the world-wide spectrum of human endeavour. Trade unions of course, but also other mass groupings - national liberation, parliamentarians, women, religious sects and denominations, governmental and non-governmental, national and international organisations come to mind as examples of the breadth of the anti-war movement.
Working with the staff of an international body is a source of education also. The experiences of interpreters can be one source of delight. One story comes to mind of an historical meeting of the Big Three in Yalta in February 1945.
Stalin, wishing to exploit some differences between Churchill and Roosevelt chose to make a personal approach to the British leader. Joe invited Winston to dinner. The invitation was accepted and the Prime Minister was subjected to a banquet of Russia's best.
Over the after-dinner drinks, Uncle Joe put his Machiavellian scheme to Churchill who responded, not wishing to agree but also not wishing to offend, with the tactful comment that, "the spirit is willing but the flesh is weak!'. The British interpreter gave his version to the Russian interpreter who then translated for Stalin.
Language being what it is, when the remark reached Stalin's ears it was, 'The wine's good but the meat's lousy!'
By the time 1990 brought an end to my career as a professional unionist I had come to several conclusions which have not been altered since then.
One is that the issues that arouse interest and emotions at labour meetings are reflected when and where workers meet anywhere in the world.
Another is that people are fundamentally the same the world over. If there is one aspiration shared throughout the world it is to be given a 'fair go'.
Finally, let me make some emphasis. The Labor Movement of today is a far cry from that of the 60s, 70s, and 80s. We thought it was tough then. And it probably was. But in those days trade unionism was a part of every working persons life. We lived it completely. Working, socialising, eating, drinking, partying - it was the dominant subject of our social communication.
Nowadays, it is almost a non-subject. Craftsmen and manual labourers are flattered into contract labour 'deals'. For the most part, the media relegates trade union affairs to secondary news.
In our day, we laughed when the US Secretary of State publicly planned to make all US citizens shareholders. Now, Australia leads the capitalist world in its proportion of shareholding citizens.
Of course, we can't turn the clock back. But the task of explaining the socialist cause has never looked so bleak. The challenges facing the new generation of Labor leaders are indeed awesome. But there is always a bright side. You have youth on your side. And the history of the world teaches us that the young have made the human spirit indomitable.
No matter your direction in life the lessons to be learnt in the labour movement will stand any aspiring leader in good stead. It would be foolish indeed to other than appreciate that the past didn't contain the elements of differences and divisions which some will take with them to their grave. That's unfortunate enough to be tragic. But then again, that's life. One thing to be learnt from Labor history must surely be that the unity of our movement is stronger than any issue which has divided us.
These are not just words of some mellowing old Leftie. I still absorb the news each day. I still cringe when I pick up such information gems as building a city-airport railway that doesn't provide for suitcases. And then produces clown-like ministerial statements such as 'If you don't like it, get a taxi!'
I still begrudge those in positions of power and privilege their excesses and arrogance. And I still look to the Labor Movement to right the wrongs of the world.
The single message to be drawn from my experience is that the voice of organised labour represents the finest aspirations of humanity. To be a leader in that force is an honour and a privilege. While each and every one of you are engaged on that path, may you be rewarded with every success.
It's come as a great relief to have eventually got to the point where we can present the case of the "People's Team" more than a year after what we argue was our unjust dismissal from the NRL.
Other than that, I am not able to say much more due to legal considerations, but all our supporters know just how I feel because you all feel the same. We believe ourcase is just and has great merit. We also believe in the truth of what we've been arguing.
But as another demonstration of the popularity of Souths and the extreme unpopularity of the NRL and News Ltd, Saturday night saw more than 700 people turn up to the Barclay Lounge in Rockdale for a night of support put on by Sydney's Greek Community.
I'm told that 300 people had to be knocked back because the fund-raising dinner was over subscribed. The support for our cause just goes on and on.
Like the Lebanese night a couple of weeks earlier, many of the Souths legends were on hand to lend their support. It was great to have blokes like Jack Rayner, Ivan Jones, Ron Coote, Keith Edwards, Wayne Stevens, Greg Evans, Les Davidson, Jim Morgan, Ray and Arthur Branigan, Brian James, Sean Garlick and Craig Coleman.
The gathering opened up its heart and wallet and managed to come up with tens of thousands of dollars to add to our war chest.
Throughout this entire battle, the thing that has kept me and the Board going is the support of the public. It's overwhelming and we can never thank you people and your sense of fair play enough.
I am proud of my fellow Aussies, whether they be of Greek, Lebanese, Anglo or Calathumpian origin. You are all wonderful people and wonderful supporters who have helped bring us to the Federal Court with both your financial and moral support.
History proves that people power is invincible. You might be able to win a few battles against a popular groundswell, but you'll never win the war.
Souths army of support is far too strong, even for the forces lined upon against us. Everywhere you go in this land you can hear the battle cry....
Come on the Rabbitohs!
The NSW Attorney General and Minister for Industrial Relations, the Hon Jeff Shaw, yesterday launched a workplace safety resource kit for high schools which was produced by the Labor Council's YouthSafe Committee.
The workplace injury statistics are alarming. According to the National OHS Commission two people die at work everyday in Australia. The Commission also found that a large proportion of these workers are young or inexperienced.
In 1997/98 a total of 181 people died at work and 22 of those were less than 25 years old. A total of 56,804 workers suffered illness and injury and approximately 10,000 of those were under 25.
Young people enter the workforce as young as 14 years of age and work in the service industries such as fast food and retail. However many are much younger and may work in a family business or on a farm.
The most dangerous industries are rural, construction, manufacturing retail hospitality and business services.
The YouthSafe Committee was established by young individuals in unions who were concerned and wanted to do something about the appalling statistics.
The Committee was officially launched by the Premier and one of its major aims was to develop an information package to help young workers be aware of dangers in the workplace.
The committee produced the kit after conducting surveys and focus groups with teachers and students and this confirmed that young workers are extremely vulnerable because of their lack of awareness, training and they are easily intimidated and won't speak up.
Lois Anderson, Teachers Federation Delegate, who teaches hospitality and tourism at Mclean High School said that the simplicity of the kit is its strength and as a classroom teacher this issue is very difficult to make it real for students. Kids believe that they are immortal and the reality of the photograph of the worker who has lost his hand will show that it can happen to anyone at any time and will drive home the message about needing to consider safety in every thing you do at work.
Kristie Loveridge, student from Matraville High, who attended the launch said: "The kit is great. It provides teachers with good tools to inform students about workplace safety issues, and at the same time gives students information that is easily understood and also the contact points if they have an issue about safety.
Marg Holdman, teacher at Matraville High, who also attended the launch said: "I was involved in the pilot and was pleased with the end result. The kit provides a forum for teachers and students who are working part-time to discuss workplace safety and what to do about issues." She also said that the kit is long overdue and will be used extensively by teachers.
Everyone who attended the launch , and in particular the High Schools, were very impressed with the resource kit and congratulated the Labor Council's YouthSafe Committee and WorkCover on a great achievement.
The Teachers Federation, who were also represented at the launch and who participated in the development of the kit, have asked Labor Council to provide one to all of their delegates in high schools.
If you would like more information about the YouthSafe kit, or a copy of it, please contact Mary Yaager on (02) 9264 1691.
Long-term union watchers will remember Harrison from his days at the helm of FIME when, he fought a futile battle to wrest power away from the state branches during the organisation's amalgamation into the AWU.
When he failed he left the movement to set up his own company 'Australian Independent Contractors Agency Pty Ltd' - basically a operation to assist employers avoiding award obligations.
In the past few years he's made attempts to set up a bosses union under Reith's laws at ICI Botany, actively promoted Australian Workplace Agreement and - this week - lobbied the cross bench MPs to block Jeff Shaw's latest industrial reform package (see news story).
If there were any doubts about Harrison's modus operandi, an interesting little document that has fallen into Workers Online puts his 'labour rat' credentials to rest.
The document contains a scheduled showing how much employers can save in labour costs per hour by moving their workforce onto AWAs. This came into our hands as part of the lobbying plan for the bill.
After being removed from the union movement - is this payback for ambitions frustrated or just his natural inclinations coming to the surface? Either way we have one word for his behaviour. TOOL.
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