by Dale Keeling
Meeting in Sydney for the first time since the May 19 coup People's Coalition leader Mahendra Chaudhry and ACTU president Sharan Burrow discussed the stepping up of the international campaign aimed at restoring democracy in the island country.
Mr Chaudhry said after the meeting that he was very impressed with the response of the ACTU and trade unionists in Australia to the plight of his country and people.
"I wanted to thank Sharan and the ACTU for everything they did for us and the FTUC after the coup. It was tremendous. She has told me that the trade unions here are fully committed to re-applying tough sanctions if required by the FTUC.
"I have outlined my views to her concerning the interim administration's likely moves towards constitutional change. I expect it will be a re-run of 1987 where we ended up with a racially weighted constitution which will not comply with international norms on good governance.
"Every time that there is an election in Fiji and certain vested interests lose they change the rules. How many times will the international community put up with this? I believe that a clear message needs to be sent to Fiji."
Ms Burrows said that the planned three year lead time to proposed elections was far too long. "The international community needs to bring pressure to bear on the President and the Great Council of Chiefs to appoint a Government of National Unity under the 1997 Constitution.
"The ACTU is looking to sending a delegation to Fiji to support public action and to show that our support for trade unionists in Fiji is solid. I also think that Mr Downer should go to Fiji and see the President."
Ms Burrow said that the ACTU will urge the United Nations to make clear to the President the organisation's support for constitutional rule and to monitor the situation.
She also would like the UN High Commissioner for Refugees to take a greater interest in Fiji in the light of some 250 refugees currently located within the Girmit Centre at Lautoka, largely without assistance.
At the same time, the owners of Warringah Mall and Westfield's Burwood, Liverpool and Hornsby centres are planning to offer the majority of their customers free parking.
The workers, members of the Shop, Distributive and Allied Employees' Association, are organising a series of meetings to dicuss the assault on their working conditions.
They are concerned the move is not only unfair, but will increase safety risks for all workers, including shift workers, who will be forced to park in unsecured residential streets.
And they fear the 'pay to work' scheme will spread across the industry if Westfield and AMP proceed with the plan.
SDA State Secretary Greg Donnelly says: "Free and safe parking is a right for all retail workers, not a privilege for the few who can afford it.
"These greedy plans target those in our community who can least afford to bear the burden.
"It's outrageous to be targetting workers as an income stream rather than a valuable resource for the company."
A mass meeting of Warringah Mall workers is scheduled for August 8, with more action to follow.
by Peter Lewis
The three strands are woven into a platform that winds back the Reith agenda while providing support for working families squeezed by longer hours, through initiatives focussed on early childhood services.
Opposition leader Kim Beazley has placed the platform as a 'critical area of product differentiation' difference between the ALP and the Howard government; while endorsing the role the labour movement has played in developing new agendas for working life.
"The trade union movement are the frontline defences of the needs of ordinary Australian families," Beazley said.
Labor's industrial relations spokesman Arch Bevis said a Beazley Government would be driven by six core principles in framing its IR framework:
"This strategy replaces the gladiatorial nature of industrial relations to restore a sense of community and common purpose in the workforce," he said.
The Conference endorsed a series of amendments aimed at constructing a response to the partial protection of workers entitlements by the Reith Government.
Textile union delegates called for changes to Corporations Law to allow workers to pursue directors who trade while insolvent. That was adopted as was a commitment to develop a national approach to the entitlements issue.
They also called on State Labor Governments to introduce a transition scheme to "fully compensate workers for all entitlements lost as a result of the inadequate federal scheme". That proposal was referred to the national Executive for action.
And the Party endorsed the Delegates Rights Charter, giving union delegates rights to organise, consult and be trained. Under the platform a Labor Government would promote the rights in the charter through legislation and other initiatives.
by Noel Hester
ASU Industrial Officer Wendy Wakefield says this right to access full time or part time employment now comes independent of the agreement of the employer.
'Many clerks in South Australia have been employed as casuals but have been working regularly. There are people working on a regular roster, working 20 hours or more who are still seen as casuals.'
'These workers - usually women - don't ask to be made permanent part-timers because they're scared and can't speak up in workplaces or aren't asked by the employer.'
'This decision injects some security into a worker's life after 12 months as a casual.'
The South Australian Commission found that they were 'concerned for those casual employees who would prefer to be weekly hired employees but who are unable to articulate that position or unwilling to do so for fear of possible reprisal.'
The Commission stated it would be possible to find women employed as casuals that suffer from a form of indirect discrimination. Access to part time or full time employment may help to prevent and eliminate discrimination in employment and 'encourage and assist employees to balance their work and family responsibilities.'
'It is in the public interest that those employees who have worked for at least 12 months on a regular and on going basis should have their service and their commitment recognized.'
After 12 months ongoing and regular employment an employee can elect to become full time or part time. At any later time a worker can give the employer 4 weeks notice to elect to become full time or part time.
Wendy Wakefield says the ASU is looking to flow this right into other awards.
'Other unions around the country will also want to look at it,' she said.
by Rowan Cahill
Questioned last week by the Sydney Morning Herald and The Australian about the long running Joy Mining Machinery dispute in the Southern Highlands of New South Wales, Reith and press secretary Ian Hanke pleaded ignorance.
"I don't know anything about this", Hanke told The Australian.
Journalists were exploring claims that the Joy company, owned by the US multi-national Harnischfeger Industries, was engaging in union-bashing with the tacit approval and backing of the Howard government.
The denial was strange. On Friday May 19 Reith commented on the dispute to the Illawarra Mercury when he came face to face with 200 protesting Joy workers and supporters in the Southern Highlands town of Bowral.
Regional television later showed 20 police shepherding a grim faced Reith through the back door of the Grand Mercure Hotel, Bowral, where he was scheduled to address an industrial relations conference.
Since April 14 seventy Joy workers have been locked out of their Moss Vale factory following the collapse of EBA negotiations.
Joy and its legal team have taken a hard anti-union line. The main unions involved in the dispute (the AMWU, AWU, and CEPU) have been hamstrung by Supreme Court injunctions. Attempts have been made to intimidate supporters by issuing hundreds of subpoenas and a couple of huge personal damages claims totalling something in the region of $1.7 million.
In spite of this pickets have been maintained around the clock. Solidarity actions and factory occupations have occurred at worksites where Joy has attempted to relocate operations.
Financial, industrial, and moral support has built during the months of lock-out. Joy workers in America and South Africa are campaigning on behalf of the Moss Vale workers, as is the Geneva-based International Metalworkers' Federation. Joy workers in Rockhampton have taken solidarity strike action. Industrial action has commenced on the NSW coalfields. Financial support for the workers is being received from around Australia. There has been strong local community support from the outset.
Last Friday it seemed a breakthrough was in sight when the Australian Industrial Relations Commission made recommendations for an end to the lock-out.
However discussions between Joy and the unions on Thursday August 3 failed to generate a recommendation to put to the workers.
Parties report back to the Commission next week, and further meetings between Joy and the unions are scheduled.
Meanwhile South Coast Labour Council secretary Arthur Rorris has welcomed news that former NSW Attorney-General Jeff Shaw will help defend him against one of the huge damages claims issued by Joy alleging breaches of the Crimes and Summary Offences Acts.
by Andrew Casey
Limro Cleaning Services has got the lucrative contract to keep our Federal pollies offices clean and tidy.
In a face saving measure Limro has now agreed to trial a new work program suggested to them by the Cleaners' Union, the Liquor, Hospitality and Miscellaneous Workers Union (LHMU).
But the union members are ready to continue the fight if the company gives the thumbs down to the trial.
The Federal politicians, when they are in Canberra, are very sensitive about the cleanliness of their offices.
The long winter Parliamentary sitting break is about to come to an end, so both the union and the company want the problem fixed before the politicians arrive.
" The company it seems has been in breach of their contractual obligations to Parliament House, but it is the workforce which is taking the brunt to fix up their emplyer's mess," Yvette Berry, the LHMU organiser in the ACT said.
LHMU members were angry and disappointed that Limro had unilaterally stopped talking to the union and their workforce about changed hours of employment.
" They stopped talking to us and unilaterally notified at least 4 cleaners of drastic changes to the hours of their employment ... from a 6.00 am to 2.30pm shift to a midnight to 8.30 am shift."
Limro Cleaning Services wanted the change to take place because for the last 12 years they had been breaching their contract obligations and that there are Occupational Health and Safety risks to Parliament house occupants if cleaning is not done before 9.00 am each day.
"We were not surprised to learn that Limro had beached their contract," Yvette said.
" When we had an order issued by the Industrial Relations Commission in 1996 stating that they must provide replacements for cleaners on leave they breached it and pocketed the extra money".
"There is a lot of tax payers money at question here.
"Our members are concerned about Occupational Health and Safety risks for Parliament House occupants. They are certainly concerned about OH&S risks for themselves 'cause they are often required to do the work of two or three people.
" Limro are breaching the Occupational Health and Safety Act by not ensuring a Safe work environment. When we asked Limro to identify the risks Limro refused.
"The two rich owners of this company ignore their legal obligations and get richer at the expense of a safe and secure job for our members," Ms Berry said.
"Given that farmers are always crying poor mouth, you would think that they would make a strategy for reducing the costs associated with injuries, and yet they don't", AWU state secretary Russ Collison says.
This is why the union is stepping up our campaign "Push for the Bush" and safety is a major part of this. The union intends to hold a number of forums to bring home to the rural community that these horrific deaths and injuries can't continue.
"Employers often come screaming to me and say that they are going to go wall because their compensation premiums are too high. It is only going to get worse unless they act now", Collison says.
According to our Safety Watchdog Mary Yaager, the rural community is well aware of how dangerous the industry is and they seem to accept it as a part of life in the bush.
"But we can't just stand back and allow the senseless loss of life and limb to continue let alone the soaring costs," Yaags says.
These Rural Safety Forums will be held in August in Wagga, Goulburn, Albury and Orange. Details as follows:
Goulburn Workers' Club
10 August 2000
3.30 pm - 5.30 pm
Function Room
Orange Ex Services Club
24 August 2000
3.30 pm - 5.30 pm
Moresby Room
Wagga Commercial Club
31 August 2000
4.00 pm - 6.00 pm
RJ Hall Room
Albury Commercial Club
1 September 2000
4.00 pm - 6.00 pm
Wattle Room
The flogging off of these assets and services would result in an immediate loss of 30 jobs and undermine the job security of 200 other employees according to the LHMU.
Students are concerned there will be an increase in prices, a change to operating hours and a loss of employment opportunities.
Over 5000 students have signed a petition circulated by employees in support of keeping the services in-house.
LHMU organiser Sophie Cotsis says the moves to outsource have been shrouded in secrecy without consultation with students or workers.
'Union activism has forced management to talk with a newly formed consultative committee,' she says.
'Union membership has jumped from 20 to over 200 in the last twelve months. And workers recently closed down the food and beverage outlets for the first time.'
'This stop work was followed by a march through the university grounds to protest outside the Vice Chancellor's office. Union members have been busy circulating the petition among students before and after work and in their lunchtimes.'
Sophie Cotsis says with a captive market of 30,000 the university should b able to turn a healthy profit from the catering, keep jobs and maintain services.
'Members are putting together proposals to keep the outlets and making them more profitable so that assets are maintained in students hands and jobs are kept,' she says.
There will be a public meeting next Tuesday on the UNSW campus at CLB3 at 1.00 pm where union reps and student reps will bring the issues out into the open.
Under the policy, being developed by the CEPU, members have been urged to take a precautionary approach to mobile phone use.
They are advised:
" Unlike most consumer safety approaches, the phone sellers do not have to prove that their product is safe. The onus is on the public to prove that it is unsafe. "
A number of studies are now commencing or under way (July 2000). These will take 2-4 years to complete. The results are not expected to give a final answer, but they should clarify many questions, the CEPU says.
The Senate Economics is currently reviewing the Financial Sector Legislation Amendment Bill. This Bill would see mergers becoming easier on the basis of Commonwealth Bank style undertakings between the Treasurer and finance sector companies.
"The voluntary undertakings provided by the Commonwealth Bank saved only 60 Branches, while a further 250 will be closed and more than 2500 employees will lose their jobs," FSU National Secretary Tony Beck said.
"In communities like Bourke NSW and Scottsdale Tasmania, where unemployment rates are higher than the national average, our members know this deal will cost jobs. In Scottsdale, our members say that once their jobs with Colonial are gone their only option for work will be seasonal fruit picking.
"We want the Committee to understand the impact on real people and real communities and think the Treasurer should be forced through legislation to do the same before signing off on mergers," Mr Beck said.
"The Australian Bankers Association would have us believe that banking services are no different to McDonalds and should not be subject to minimum service requirements. The ABA argue in a media statement this week that tax payers should foot the bill for banking services in areas where the banks have pulled out to cut costs.
"With a combined annual profit of more than 7 billion dollars it is clear the 'Big Four' are out of control and enough will never be enough. We think it is time the Federal Government took decisive action and will be saying so at the inquiry. Meanwhile Government inaction means customers, jobs and communities like Scottsdale Tasmania continue to pay the price," Mr Beck said.
by Dermot Browne
CSIRO staff, and others in the research community, are alarmed at the government's reckless outsourcing plan. They believing it will compromise Australia's capacity for desperately needed scientific research, putting Australia dangerously behind other countries, economically and ecologically.
Sandy Ross, Secretary of the CSIRO Staff Association, says, 'More than at any time in the organisation's 74 year history, our research is dependent on sophisticated computer systems. Many have been modified especially for particular research projects. They do sophisticated real-time analysis during fieldwork and feed data into super computers for analysis. This is not the sort of work that can be easily picked up by an outside contractor.'
CSIRO staff are holding meetings this week to plan a range of industrial and community campaigning activities.
Sandy says there is no reason for the government to pursue this direction, other than its own ideological belief.
"In spite of a growing body of evidence that shows the outsourcing of public sector work rarely delivers real savings or better service, the Howard government appears determined to crash on blindly. What is at stake here is Australia's ability to keep pace with the rest of the world in terms of scientific research. To jeopardise this vital work for the sake of some unproven 'private good / public bad' mantra is foolhardy in the extreme."
"In fact," says Sandy, "outsourcing would actually lead to a massive increases in costs."
These include unreasonable demands on room attendants, more union rights, and improving the wages and conditions of more than 60,000 workers in the sector.
The Hotel Union - the Liquor, Hospitality and Miscellaneous Workers Union (LHMU) - held a three day national conference in Melbourne this week to agree on national strategies.
"We are particularly interested in getting a greater level of security for the long-term casuals who work in the growing hospitality industry," Mr Tim Ferrari, the Assistant National Secretary of the Hotel Union said.
"This is an industry where more than 50 per cent of the workforce is casual. Most of these workers want Hotel management to provide a greater sense of permanency in their working lives."
The top five Hotel groups, which will be the target of a national campaign, are Accor, Starwood, Bass, Rydges and Mirvac.
" The other important area of concern, reported at the Hotel Union's conference, was the high level of workplace injury - especially among room attendants.
"The cleaning rates per shift that room attendants are being asked to accept are unreasonable and outrageous. Hotel management expectations of room attendants performance levels are, unfortunately, an important trigger for the increasing number of workplace injuries being reported to our union.
"Hotel workers want the LHMU to act on this issue and get management to realise they need to reduce these excessive performance targets so as to protect the health of their employees."
Tim Ferrari says hotel workers intend to be particularly vigorous against a number of 5 star hotels who have set up fraudulent non-union agreements.
The Court Reporters - members of the Public Service Association (PSA) were protesting the shortage of Court Reporters staffing all the Courts.
Maurie O'Sullivan, Acting General Secretary of the PSA, says the Attorney General's Department has refused to recruit the Court Reporters the PSA says are needed.
'Less and less Court Reporters are being told to do more and more".
"Our members have continued to service the Courts while we have repeatedly asked the Department to appoint more Court Reporters. Many of them have become injured and sick trying to keep up with the workload. Yet still the Department refuses to listen and act responsibly".
Maurie Sullivan says there is a staff shortage of at least 23 reporters at the courts.
'These employees aren't radical but have been driven to this action. There even seems to be some support from the judiciary for their position.'
It's free! Union activists are welcome.
Next week they will be looking at the politics of interest rates, how banks exercise their power in competitive markets and why the Australian dollar goes up and down.
Wednesday 9 August, 6.00pm to 7.30pm
Brennan Room, Holme Building (ground floor),
Sydney University (Parramatta Rd side)
Presenter: Tim Anderson
For more info check out www.ozemail.com.au/~timand/pe/
In January 2001 there will be a tour to the Thai-Burma border and/or Cambodia, in May Indonesia is the destination and in May there may be a study tour to the Middle East according to interest.
APHEDA-Union Aid Abroad Education Officer Peter Jennings says these tours provide a unique opportunity to experience different cultures, learn from local people about their lives and communities and visit famous tourist sites.
'The annual APHEDA-Union Aid Abroad study tours play an important role in helping Australian trade unionists become even more aware of global issues and helps them more fully appreciate the culture, the situation and the struggles of workers in the countries which they visit,' he says.
For more info contact:
Phone (02) 9264 9343
Fax (02) 9261 1118
Email: [email protected]
First it was the attack on the cappucino set by all those rightwingers in western Sydney (Craig Know-alls, Alex Sandshoe etc) and now Kim Beasley has attacked latte drinkers in the cafe strips.
Workers Online, having already carried a review of cafes by Peter Macchiato, is now compromised by legitimising a preferred recreational drug deemed inappropriate by ALP power figures.
What is this, New Labor as the Tea Way?
Caffeinists of the world unite!
Ian Robertson
Having just endured another breakdown on the rail system here in Sydney (Friday 28th July, Illawarra line) I believe it is most important to note that this time the reaction of the commuters was decidedly different.
The announcements of a train broken down were greeted with laughter and there was no hostility to rail staff on the trains or stations. Instead, there was a determination of a more dangerous political nature. Any comments I heard were directed squarely at the Government. Those MP's along the commuter lines must take note. The passengers were clear that the responsibility for this mess must be at the top of the organisation and a failure to act would be political suicide for the Labor Government and Scully, in particular.
Brian Everingham
When is the union movement going to lobby government to legislate for the distribution of profits to workers? While shareholders these days are demanding more and more and workers are getting less and less, there needs to be a widespread campaign to ensure that profit margins are distributed back to workers. That this check on greed must be enshrined in law is a reflection of our current materialistic culture. If workers are expected to cop the down-side when a company goes bust, they should also benefit from its upside when it is making healthy profits.
Unions need to go for the big issues to restore some faith amongst workers in their existence. While executives can excuse their disproportionate salaries and their mean salaries to workers on lower levels because shareholders demand higher dividends, these faceless shareholders must be held accountable to the increasing numbers of working poor in this country whose working conditions are daily eroding.
When are you going to start listening to these rumbles of discontent? Workers in most situations, can't negotiate with their employers, the shareholders, you must do this - start talking to the big corporations like Woolworths, whose check-out chicks aren't happy!
By the way I am a member of the Teachers Fed. and have utmost faith in the union movement to restore this country to a place of the fair day's pay for a fair day's work.
Wayne Patterson
Without rejecting everything Mark Latham suggests, many of his proposals are so naive that it is difficult to take him seriously.
For families dependant on welfare support, Mr. Latham proposes a program of mutual responsibility including a requirement for parents to be good educators for their children. Parents who may themselves have a low level of education and poor literacy and numeracy skills would somehow be compelled to spend time reading and providing homework assistance to their children. A nice idea, but what sort of agency will enforce it, the police, the Department of Community Services the local school? With government agencies hardly able to cope with cases of serious child abuse, I hardly think they will be able to add "failure to help with homework" to their responsibilities.
Mr. Latham praises an arrangement by a British soccer team that requires all players to teach at least three hours per week in local schools. "The players fulfil a valuable function as role models and mentors," he says. This suggests that being good at sports automatically makes a person a good role model and a good teacher. Has Mr. Latham ever watched the Footy Show? Is he familiar with the checks required before a person can work with children in NSW? Presumably a new government agency will be formed to screen out sports people involved in drug abuse, illegal gambling, match fixing, head high tackles and anti-social behaviour before they take up their mandatory role as part-time teachers.
"Whether we like it or not, the days of tax and spend policies have ended," Mr. Latham says. I suspect that at their core, his ideas are really about education on the cheap, education provided by parents, shopping centres, fast food outlets or football teams; anyone except the government.
What is wrong with the community, through its government, providing community services and being accountable for those services? We elect our government, we don't elect fast food chains.
Wayne Patterson
This weeks Workers Online editorial contains the extraordinary assertion that "the One Nation backlash... has now morphed into the anti-globalisation movement".
Nothing could be further from the truth. One Nation was/is a racist, pro business, anti green crusade. The anti globalisation movement is the opposite of this.
I hope this is some sort of typing error and not the first shot across the bow of Online/Labor Council to line up with the Fin Review and the rest of the corporate media in misrepresenting ordinary Australians concerns at the growing power of multinational corporations.
I also hope Online will accurately represent the concerns of Labor Council affiliates heading to Melbourne to protest the greatest gathering of pig bosses ever seen in this country.
"Free trade" exponents within the Labour Movement can rationalise their position as much as they want, but at the end of the day they are lining up with the ruling elite who are wreaking havoc on the rest of us.
Michael Costa needs to decide whether he is going to line up with his affiliates on this issue, or divide our movement and sing from the song book of Rio Tinto and McDonalds.
Phil Davey
by Peter Lewis
|
What was your evaluation of the Conference and what has come out of it?
I think the Conference was one at which we saw a real determination to try and best position the Labor Party to win the next election. It was a conference at which we saw a willingness by people to try and put aside some of their differences. There is a complete acceptance that it is a hell of a lot better in government and having a capacity to do things, than having a lot of fun tearing one another apart in opposition. There is a feeling that we can actually do something for the people we believe need assistance and really position Australia for the 21st Century from government.
A key plank is packaging up this idea of a "knowledge nation" into something that is going to connect with real working people. As a former ACTU president, do you think Labor are on the right track with it?
Whilst we will not have an Accord-type agreement with the union movement again, if you actually look at the type of issues we talked about there is a positive agenda for working people. They're the very issues we pursued during our last long period of government, in essence trying to work out how we improve the standard of living of Australians, not just relying on the wage packets but with proper attention to education and skills; improvements in the health care system; a more worker friendly workplace; and also seeking to develop a process which means all Australians share in the benefit of growth. There is also a focus on regional issues - not just rural and remote localities, but also suburbs of some of the cities which just don't have an infrastructure of support which guarantee the same standard of living as the other areas of the city.
If there was an area of conflict it occurred over the so-called "Fair Trade" debate. While the actual vote on the conference floor was along factional lines, there seemed to be a fair bit of movement within each of the two groupings as well. What was your perspective on that debate?
I think there is a realisation across the whole Party that the debate shouldn't be about free or fair trade, but more importantly how you share the benefits of economic growth, which is related to globalisation across all sections of society. That debate throughout the history of society has always been a complex, difficult debate. And it is a bigger problem for the current government - it is very clearly emerging that we have two parts of Australia now. Those who are going exceptionally well, for example in areas of Sydney, and those who are doing it exceptionally bad in other areas of Sydney such as fringe suburbs. So the debate about free trade, or fair trade is also part of a broader debate about the so-called good levels of economic growth.
Why are some going further ahead and others falling further behind? It comes back to where we as a Labor Party actually believe we can help people. We actually believe there is a case for government doing something to try and create opportunities, and to also push the benefits to all Australians.
How you achieve that has always been a debate within the Labor Party. I think historically some people in the labour movement only saw it being achieved through negotiations with the employers about a wage increase or alternatively a tax cut. Kim Beazley has now said we are going to actually take on a bigger debate, a more important debate, which is about the role of government and the provision of services, as against a very narrow focus by Howard and Costello, which is just on tax cuts.
But by the same token there is that fundamental difference around the free trade issue, which is, do you best protect the interest of Australian workers by raising some barriers against trading nations?
There is a fundamental difference about free trade or protectionism, and it is a very simple debate in the minds of some people. The heart of the debate is actually working out, in the knowledge that we are not going to go backwards, how you actually even the ledger for those who you believe are disadvantaged by the impact of free trade, which include people in particular industries and some suburbs.
I would also say that the pain that is being attributed to free trade in some of those regions and industries is probably more inter-related to the process of technological change. You take the issue of the automotive industry. We did lose some jobs through reducing trade barriers, but we also lost a lot of jobs through the introduction, for example at Toyota, of the most modern vehicle manufacturing technology in the world. Technological change is also going to occur. Our job is to actually harness technology to our best advantage, in the same way we have to harness changes on the trade front to our best advantages and needs.
But without a social tariff linked to international labour standards, without that sort of penalty, how do you ever give global standards any teeth?
Global standards are always going to be set by international organisations such as the ILO and the UN. Remember this: the trade union movement historically has never argued the same wages and conditions that apply to a vehicle worker in Australia should apply to the vehicle worker in Thailand. We have always argued that it is the core ILO standards that should apply in each country. It is then each country's responsibility on the basis of its level of economic growth and development, to then set appropriate wages and conditions.
One of our responsibilities is to actually promote an adherence to those standards, such as opposition to child and prison labour; support for collective bargaining; and the freedom to associate. I have never argued in my history, that the rate of pay for a vehicle worker in Australia should be the same rate of pay for a vehicle worker in Thailand.
I think it has also been commented that this debate is not a particularly new one and it was really the debate that the ACTU went through in the early days of the Hawke government...
I think back to the whole period of the Hawke government. Across a range of industries from textile, clothing and footwear to vehicle manufacturing and the Garnaut Report. This debate is not new, and it is also going to be a debate we have for many, many years to come. Our objective has got to be to avoid falling into the simplistic notions of those who associate themselves with the narrow-minded view of One Nation, and more importantly, challenge ourselves as a Party to putting in place a process of government which harnesses the benefits of free trade to assist all Australians.
The issue is how we extend that net and fit them up, such as through Knowledge Nation and skilling, to actually try and give them a new opportunity in life. Even if we didn't have free trade the days of being able to work in one industry, or with one employer all your life are gone. So what is the alternative mechanism of picking these people up and helping them? Unfortunately in the rhetoric about social tariffs and questions of protectionism, you don't often hear from those people what we ought to be doing in government to actually do more for people who are affected in society.
But what do you say to the blue collar workers who see their job disappearing? What do you say to them that can make them feel secure about the future?
The message to the worker - be it blue or white collar - who thinks that his or her job is disappearing - is that we are there to actually make sure that if you are required to have a change in employment, that there is a responsible government and employer to help you. And that is what is missing from the Howard Government at the moment.
Where are they talking about us competing in whatever industry we can on the basis of the best skilled workforce in the world? Where are they talking about a decent Industrial Relations Commission that can actually help you in your workplace? Where are they actually helping you with respect to the education and health of your children? Which are issues that you worry about when you start to question whether or not you are going to be with this employer next year and the year after.
It is all about the role of government, and that is what we are going to fight our next election on. Not a simplistic notion of cutting taxes and supporting free trade, which is the Howard Government approach. But a comprehensive approach to government which tries to build some security back into people's lives so that they can manage a move from one job or an industry to another job or industry.
One final question: You have been out of the union movement for almost five years now. I am just interested in your perspective of the new ACTU leadership and the direction it is going?
I am a big supporter Greg Combet. I see him as a talented young person who has a big contribution to make. I think he is still in the process of finding his feet, and the recent Congress was a success for him and the new Executive. They, I suppose, confront the same challenges today that we confronted in 1982 as a union movement, trying to work out: do we go from the opposition of some people who fear change, to people on the front foot who actually want to mould change in Australia to the best advantage of all working men and women.
That is the challenge for Greg, and that is the challenge for the union movement: not to be negative in opposition - and I don't think Greg as a person is. But to be able to harness the energy in the whole union movement, to put the union movement in a position that is proactive and broadens horizons. It's about the change from simple negotiations with the employers about how you improve a worker's standard of living, to driving a view about education and health, and access to childcare - and I might also say, on an international front - how you promote a better understanding and adherence to core labour standards to help workers in other countries.
by Peter Lewis
Wired Conference |
Day One
You follow the yellow brick road, past the jungle bar, through the banks of pokie machines until you end up in an altogether more serious game of chance, the national gathering of the ALP.
This has been the home base for ALP Conferences for more than a decade - Hobart's Wrest Point casino, jutting into the Derwent River like a pimple at the end of a pretty face. The big difference this year is the Party's discovery of technology, state-of-the-art flat-top consoles on the tables of all delegates where the Party platform, resolutions and amendments can all be reviewed without the carnage of mountains of paper that normally characterise this event.
Beazley's opening address is framed like the speech of US presidential nominee to a Party Convention, minus the balloons, streamers and schmaltz. While the delivery of the speech is sober, there is more than a hint of US-style poll-driven policy in the speech with three key themes placed on the key issues consuming the electorate - education, health and jobs. These are the words writ large on the screen as Beazley works his way through his call to arms. The GST takes back seat to Beazley's positive Knowledge Nation agenda as he castes Labor as the Party for engagement with the future.
The two big announcements are both commitments to new state structures - educational priority zones and a new Medicare alliance. In many ways they are old Labor with a makeover - a centralised response to social policy problems being caused by global change and local neglect. While Beazley talks to the challenges of globalisation, it is still through an Old-world prism, pigeon-holed in individual portfolios like education and health, rather than a holistic vision. But there are also some omissions from a Knowledge Nation agenda. Nowhere is the issue of connectivity mentioned. Why is this important? Because the bigger structural issues like digital and internet access to rural Australia are fundamental to meeting these specific portfolio objectives.
The day pans out with the scheduled debates: commitments fiscal responsibility, a kick-start to the Republic, protection of regional services, national leadership on the environment. It isn't until about 4pm that President Barry Jones has to call for a genuine vote - over the wording of an amendment to the environment policy. The Liberals have been running press ads highlighting the influence of trade unions on the party, which is hardly surprising given the party's historical; routes. You can see the dynamics of the relationship as individual policies are debated. In most cases, the contribution comes from union representatives commenting on the impact of policy positions on their members. Surely this is what the conference is for, the industrial wing scrutinising the political wings agenda in the interests of the working people who have, at the least, spiritual ownership of the Party..
As always, the real action occurs in the corridors, where there's an almost surreal amalgam of Labor faces. Deals are being nutted out on trade and workers entitlements, where the states have different models to promote. There's also jockeying over the vote for the National Executive, with talk that a deal that the factional balance could be upset by an internal play within the Victorian Left. But at the end of Day One, there's still no issue dominating the corridor talk - it's a white noise waiting to take form. One thing's for sure though, with this many journalists, this many politicians and this many bars all in the one place, something, somewhere will explode sometime.
Day Two
The ALP held a genuine debate today on an issue of substance and came out looking stronger for the exercise.
While predictions of a conference floor bloodbath over trade policy did not eventuate, the calls for 'fair trade' prompted Labor's leadership into a spirited defence of the Hawke-Keating Government's economic policies of tariff reductions, financial deregulation and economic restructuring.
Doug Cameron had come to Hobart with a dozen amendments to make to Peter Cook's trade policy. In the end he only moved the one, a benignly worded proposition for Labor to "call on the ILO and the international financial institutions to assist governments to take the necessary steps to implement basic labour standards". Of course, the significance was in the context. Cameron had been gathering support for his agenda with rallies around the country, where he repudiated free trade and called for an increase in tariffs in the manufacturing industry. A group of Tasmanian AMWU workers who had earlier rallied outside the Hobart Casino were in the hall as Cameron made his play to deliver them the job security they so desperately want..
Don't get me wrong, this was not a no-holds barred fight. Careful factional dealings had taken some of the heat out of the debate - there was agreement to go hard, but not too hard. The debate opened with Trade Minister Peter Cook moving the ALP's trade platform, with Victorian premier Steve Bracks seconding. They tied trade to Beazley's knowledge nation and talked about the 'honesty' of their position. Cook has been the lightening rod for trade unions, who perceive his support for trade liberalisation as a dry economic orthodoxy. But Cook put his view clearly: free trade is the vehicle for greater global and domestic prosperity.
It's a view a world away from Cameron, who has adopted the fair trade slogan as a rallying call against the excesses of big business and globalisation. He's also locked into the growing debate in Europe about mechanisms like the Tobin Tax on currency speculation and social tariffs on countries which do not meet core labour standards. It's a message that resonates, both inside the conference hall and in the broader community. And for a controlled debate, Cameron went hard - openly criticising the Hawke-Keating legacy and Cook's policy settings.
Cameron's speech drew out the Labor leadership team, with first Crean, then Beazley repudiating any winding back of free trade as a reversion to a closed economy. As Beazley put it, to support even Cameron's moderate amendment would have been to send a message to the electorate that Labor was turning back the clock. While this is the message Cameron's members want to hear, it would be poison to a media and Government already sniffing for leadership weakness. Instead, Beazley committed his team to working tirelessly on an international stage to promote the substance of the 'fair traders' agenda - raising global standards in developing countries to give Australian workers a better chance to compete. Only Labor would have the 'herbs' to push hard on this front as the Howard Government continues to wash its hands of the impacts of its laissez faire policies.
Day Three
Hobart is a long way from Canberra. It's been one of the reasons Labor keeps coming here for its binannual conference.
No diversions, no access for big protests - plus, for the south in winter, it's a beautiful place to be. But the virtue can also be a liability, as Labor discovered this morning when they wake to discover the trade debate has been knocked off the front pages by Howard's attack on GAY MOTHERS. In a classic piece of spoiling spin, the short-sighted PM had unilaterally announced a move against states that allow IVF treatment for Lesbians. It was as facile as it was effective. When the leaders met the daily press gang, it's not talk about about globalisation or education, but fornication.
The story runs all day, highlighting the power of the one thing Beazley can not get before the next election - incumbency. But the Big Guy was a dominant presence on the conference floor, injecting himself into the morning debate on job security and leading the post-lunch education discussion. In fact, these are just short-hand descriptions of the debates - Labor has wrapped its policies into clusters, so that IR, social security and incomes policy becomes 'Income, Job and Social Security for Working Age Australians' and education is grouped with training and population policies under the banner 'Developing Australia's Human Resources'. The approach is a welcome acknowledgment that more than the old portfolio 'pillars' are required to deal with the complex issues of a globalising economy.
The morning debate saw Cheryl Kernot, Wayne Swan and Arch Bevis team up to deliver the one thing the electorate wants but hands-free economics cannot deliver: security. Their vision combined state intervention in areas like early child support for workers with young families and career transition for older workers, with a partial re-regulation of the industrial relations system. The common thread was partnership over conflict - in Arch Bevis' words a repudiation of the Gladitorial model of the Howard Government. From the floor, Beazley offers his three shadows a group hug for their work in what he nominated as a key product differentiator with Howard. "It's not just a question of attitude, but active government support."
The contentious debate revolved around the running sore of unpaid workers entitlements. Not over the inadequacy of Peter Reith's scheme, but over Labor's short-term response. It was agreed that corporations law should be tightened to chase errant directors and that a Beazley Labor Government would introduce a comprehensive national scheme. The big question was whether State Labor Governments should kick into the Reith scheme before the next election. The States are not keen - arguing that it would prop up an inadequate scheme and give Reith political legitimacy that his policy does not deserve. But textile unions seeing their members hurting now want more immediate action - an issue that was referred to the Party's National executive in order to avoid a split on the conference floor.
If Beazley had been a touch wooden in his opening address and a tad agitated in the trade debate, he was on song talking about education. It was a key pitch, the flesh to hang his Knowledge Nation on. For perhaps the first time, he wrapped his policy initiatives into a vision that people can start to touch and feel. "We know what we need. We need much more investment in research and technology, We need sharper industries adapting the world's best ideas to our own use and to export more good products with a recognisable Australian name for excellence. We need a country where our best and brightest strive to win the top positions here, rather than leaving forever to pursue careers overseas. We need a high-skill, high-wage economy. This, delegates, is why we need to become a Knowledge Nation."' It may not have involved Lesbian Mothers, but it is a vision that should resonate with the heartland..
Conference Diary - Day Four
Last days of political conferences traditionally see talked out delegates planning their early escape to the airport. You wonder why they just don't cancel the last day of conferences - except then there'd be a new last day and the problem would just occur earlier.
For those in Hobart, there is a feeling that the week is done nefore the day has started. If there has been a word to sum up the conference performance of delegates its 'discipline' - even the participants in the trade debate had one eye on ensuring the leader did not return to Canberra with a hint of division. It stands in stark contrast to many of the participants' nocturnal performances.
Beazley gives his last set-piece speech of the conference on health policy adding his gravitas to what is a key plus for Labor. It's a policy that melds the core Labor commitment to Medicare with the beginnings of a move to virtual government. Across the key policy areas the driving intellectual force has been the adaptation of new tools to bread and butter problems like the drain on casualty wards. Rather than an ideological approach, Labor is framing new policy based on a recognition of the enabling potential of network technologies. Pragmatic? Perhaps. Visionary? You bet.
Even the rules debate, traditionally the lightening rod for factional showdowns, is more like a love-in, all groupings committed to a process to end 'the cancer' of branch stacking. The fact that many on the floor have been beneficiaries of what Beazley described as an "excess of enthusiasm for wanting to encourage party membership", means that there was some room for cynicism, but noone is prepared to be seen at the barricades defending their narrow turf. There is a recognition that the party must reform to stop the sort of people like them running the party in the future. And agreements to move on a national database and ongoing affirmative action, show that there is a degree of goodwill that is a sign of the common purpose in preparing Beazley's run for office. For all the pre-conference hype about Beazley's shaky hold on leadership, he leaves Hobart looking firmly in control.
The real emotion was saved for a tearful Barry Jones who had run the show like the eccentric he is; likening mobile phones to herpes, exclaiming wonder when a formal vote was called for and dropping endless references to his 1982 book Sleepers Awake. Nearly 20 years after Jones' foresaw the Information Age, it must have been bittersweet to be exiting the stage at the very moment Labor starts to embrace a wired agenda.
So what was the point of the week? Lots of direction, lots of vision and a platform that wraps many of the themes Labor must confront in the Information Age into a coherent vision. But with a few notable exceptions, it is still just a platform, an orientation, from which concrete policy must evolve. At least that orientation, now, is clear: from the computers that eliminated so much paper work from the conference floor to the IT initiatives in education and health to the Leader's spirited defence of internationalism, Labor is positioned as the political force engaged with change and determined to channel for all Australians. At the end of the week, Howard's Lesbian Mums play only served to highlight the gap between Labor's vision and his myopia.
For trade unions, their representatives have had a significant presence, not just in the big trade debates, but in the details of platform in areas as diverse as transport, education, regional affairs and health. In all these debates, it has been the trade union representatives who have injected the voice of Labor's core consistency into the equation. At the beginning of the week Peter Reith tried to kick the labour movement, with newspaper ads highlighting the influence of former trade union officials. By the end of the week, their involvement could only be seen as a plus.
Sharon Costello |
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"It was my second month of nursing school. I was caring for a dying breast cancer patient. Only thirty two. I was much younger but she still didn't seem old enough to die. There was a do not resuscitate order: if she dies just let her go. I bathed her even though she didn't want it. And I needed to take her blood pressure. She looked tired. I thought I was doing it wrong because I couldn't get a reading. I kept going in and out of the room asking the teacher. The instructor finally got fed up with me and came in and even she couldn't get one because the patient was dying. It was low. She was dying. She was dead. I'd thought she was sleeping.
Later on her sister was crying down the hallway because she had died. I went back in the room and her soul had filled the room...that's the only way I can describe it. Her body was cold but in the room there was this heavy warm feeling. This four bed room with other patients and one dead woman. I never experienced death before...that was my first time. I never believed in the afterlife until I felt her soul in the room. I cried. I felt guilty, she was so tired and I'd washed her. My idea of life and death changed in that one day. Another nurse said: 'good thing you washed her, you won't have to wash her when she's dead.' The patient's family was coming to visit. First the husband, followed by the eight year old, then the four year old. A tragic dance of mourning...
Did you know the body makes noises after the spirit has passed away?" - Marianne Sawchuk, RN and member of the cast
( Anna character ) in the BCNU production of "Hurl, Hemorrhage, Heal - The Nurses' Musical" )
That was a personal story from a young RN, Marianne Sawchuk , who along with seventy other BCNU members told their stories as the basis of the creation of a play about nurses and their work. Marianne was also one of five nurses selected for the cast of the final play which toured all over the province of British Columbia
for six weeks this past spring.
The Nurses' play was a smash hit. It played over 22 shows in 15 different regions to about 4000 people and raised several thousand dollars for various charities and causes.
The media coverage was excellent, extremely positive and there was lots of it. The nurse/actors held public forums with the audiences after each show. They also did much of the TV, radio and newspaper interviews about the play, as well as other nursing issues, while they traveled through the various communities in BC.
Healthcare managers, politicians and other nurses as well as the general public were all invited to attend and filled out hundreds of comment sheets about the performance. Many of them were extremely moving and heartfelt and always in support of nurses.
Eighteen nurses from around the province organized each show in their area and they also often talked up the show and nurses' issues with the media.
The back page of the Program listed a number of things that nurses wanted the public to support and lobby our governments for. More education seats, more fulltime positions for nurses, more federal funding for Medicare, among others.
The play was part of a large campaign called "Valuing Nurses' Work" designed to highlight the importance and worth of Registered Nurses' (RNs) in our healthcare system.
The other part of this large campaign involved many small local worksite campaigns. These were aimed at addressing the nursing shortage though changes that would lessen nurses workload. Specifically, by reducing so-called "non-nursing" duties which have been increasingly loaded onto already overworked RNs. Duties such as answering phones, stocking shelves and delivering meal trays to name a few. Many of our members felt the quality of their working life and patient care were suffering due to increases in such duties.
The idea for the worksite campaigns had its roots in the job actions during our last round of bargaining. One of our most successful strategies was implementing a ban on non-nursing duties.
It improved conditions for many of our nurses and put enormous pressure on managers who had to deal with getting these other duties done.
Nurses from one hospital in Nanaimo on Vancouver Island, who originally had resisted participating in ANY job action, became so inspired during the ban on non-nurse duties that even after bargaining ended they decided to continue. The nurses in the understaffed hospital lobbied management to relieve RNs of meal tray delivery duties. They called their campaign "Trayless in Nanaimo" and used innovative ways to demonstrate and document how much of their time was being spent on an array of non-nursing tasks. They put pennies in a jar for every task and then donated the proceeds to a charity. The local media followed the campaign closely and reported that on one ward 11.5 hours of RN time was being spent on these tasks. The nurses had a newsletter, held rallies, wore black T-shirts on one specific day, wore ribbons on another day and held regular campaign meetings.
They were successful and the end result was the allocation of a quarter of a million dollars from the Regional Health Authority to hire more support staff to deliver the meal trays. These nurses have continued their campaign and have since secured over $600,000 for more full-time positions for nurses and two educator positions. They've also secured more help with portering, 400 new phones for the rooms and are currently finalizing the addition of 4.5 more relief positions for their Emergency Dept. (worth about $300,000).
Our elected Council decided to see if other worksites might be able to adopt and adapt this campaign model. So they allocated funds to train members and provide worksites(branches) with local campaign budgets. The Council also did a road show to explain the "Valuing Nurses' Work" campaign to our members.
One of the resources that we provided nurses with to use in conjunction with their local campaigns were radio commercials. We also designed a newspaper ad that nurses could place in their local community newspaper during their campaign.
There are absolutely no limits to the creative ways that nurses will tackle this issue and reduce their workload.
The results from these initiatives are still coming in.
Our initial News Conference to kick off the campaign received a lot of news coverage as did a contest where our members submitted "The Most Ridiculous, Outrageous Duty" that they had to perform. The media loved it and so did the members. There were so many submissions that we published three newsletters full of the duties and then sent them out to our union stewards (branch representatives) and activists as well as publishing some of them in our magazine.
Recently, as a result of the worksite campaigns one Health Region recently announced 1.5 million dollars to hire support staff for overworked RNs and they have pledged another 1.5 million dollars in the near future to hire more RNs and support staff to address the nurses' workload problems. While announcing this funding the Vice-President of Human Resources said:
" We hope RNs in our region see the 3 million dollars as a clear message that we are listening to them and that we support them. We're trying to give nurses in our region the respect and value they deserve. If we respect and honour nurses while at the same time reduce their workload, I believe it will be easier to recruit and retain nurses."
We couldn't have said it better ourselves. In fact, nurses had been saying it for weeks. It was the key message in our overall campaign. Clearly the message was being heard.
Another group of nurses from a 160 bed Long Term Care Centre
( like your aged care ) discovered during their campaign that they were spending up to 50% of their time on duties other than bedside care. They will be meeting with management to present their findings and their demands for solutions.
One of the nurses involved in that campaign said:
" All the members were pleased with the campaign. They are happy to know that the union supports them and is trying to do something about our workload."
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So what do the BCNU theatre production and these worksite campaigns have in common?
They begin with and succeed through the experiences, knowledge and involvement of the members as their foundation and are driven by the engine of the nurses' creativity, dedication and actions.
What exactly is a campaign anyway?
Well, here's one definition.
" A clearly articulated set of goals, with strategies and an action plan to achieve these goals which includes membership participation in collective action."
-Ken Margolies, Cornel University, 1993, via Teresa Conrow, SEIU
AND
"The underlying philosophy is one that values all workers and their experience."
- Anne Harvey, Chief Operating Officer, BCNU
So what do we need to do to begin this kind of work? Based on the experience of BC's unionized nurses, four major things.
Increase our Education, Member Involvement and Communication AND assess our allocation of Resources.
We need education for our membership, our elected officers and our staff. Education that looks at facilitation and communication skills, strategic thinking and planning, action planning, media and lobby training, member involvement and evolving issues.
We need to recruit more members as stewards (branch representatives) and worksite union representatives.
We need to increase "actions" such as rallies or leafleting and increase member visibility in our workplaces, our communities and with our elected union representatives.
We to need to have members canvas other members one-on one, and do membership surveys.
In the BCNU we now mail out weekly to 1600 local union reps and stewards. That number has doubled since 1993. There are several union publications, a newsletter for stewards, a magazine for all members and lots and lots of Bulletins and information sent by FAX to worksites. The union has supplied the local union coordinators at the workplace level with Fax machines.
We need to build our links with the community through coalition work and working with other unions.
AND YES we may need to allocate more resources. It costs money to involve more members in the work of the union. At BCNU in 1995 members supported a dues increase from 1.35% to 2.0% based on the increased visibility of the union work. BCNU hired three Education Officers in the mid-nineties and BCNU also hired two Campaigns Officers over the past three years.
Why do we do campaigns?
Because often they can maximize the involvement of our members and active members are the best source of strength and effectiveness.
- BCNU "Update" magazine December, 1994
How do we actually go about undertaking issue-based worksite campaigns?
1) Listen - What are the members' "burning issues" in your workplace. Let's get rid of our preconceived ideas and our own agendas.
2) Collect experiences and views in a safe and open environment that fosters equality of participation - Everybody likely has a different view. Develop consensus through observing patterns and then, collectively set priorities.
3) Figure out how the group will work together - Will you vote or use consensus? Who will coordinate? Will we have a phone contact list, newsletters etc. How will we keep members, elected leadership and staff informed of our work.
4) Generate ideas- brainstorm, anything goes, encourage creativity
5) Establish collective priorities and issues - Set a goal and objectives. What do you want to achieve and how are you going to achieve it. Be specific.
6) Consider and develop strategies - Who are the decision-makers? What politics are involved? How will the members support us? Will the public support us? How should we use the media, if at all? What are the other challenges we'll face? What's Plan B, C, and D?
7) Check in and clarify regularly - How is it going? Are the members still supportive? What strategies might we now need to change?
8) Action Plans, Time Lines and Commitment - Have clear goals, objectives and key messages. Create very specific outlines of the tasks and who is responsible for them and by when. Together the group must design clear effective communications systems so that everybody will know what they need to know when they need to know it.
9) Evaluate and Celebrate - Determine what we've learned. What we did we do right, what could we have done better? Were members supportive? (why or why not ?) Did we achieve what we set out to achieve? If not, what other benefits resulted from our work? AND WE NEED TO BRAG. BE PROUD. Often our members underestimate or downplay their accomplishments. We need to acknowledge and profile our successes for all the members to see.
But what about apathy? How do we get more members involved?
Our issues must have personal meaning for our members. We need to make personal contact, really listen and value the input from members. We must treat one another with respect. Information must be provided in a timely way and our meetings need to be productive. Activities must be easy to get involved in, be based on members' ideas and be successful. This increases confidence.
Remember start small and build.
We also need to recognize and value that everyone has different skills, levels of commitment. We must welcome and reach out to the diversity of our membership. If we communicate clearly what we hope to achieve and what we expect from one another we will succeed. If we share power we increase power. We need to actively seek out members' views in decision-making, planning and actions. We have to regularly check-in with members to make sure they are "on-side" with the goals and purposes of our campaign or activities. We must all support one another and we should look for ways to MAKE IT FUN!
This is an edited version of a paper presented to the NSW Nurses Association in late July
Telefonica is committed to developing an Employee's Portal - an electronic channel for the company's relations with employees said Juan Villalonga.
This portal would handle, said Mr Villalonga, "all issues of concern to (employees) - information, job offers, holidays, social issues, mobility, payroll, advances, time off complaints and sundry notices.
"We forsee that the portal will eventually serve as a union bulletin board or information and communications medium between unions and Telefonica employees."
On-line rights for on-line workers is one of the key campaigning targets of Union Network International.
"We have decided to begin, preferably, with the Employee's Portal because if our human resources fail to acquire this new culture, we shall hardly be able to implement it in our external relations," said the President and Chief Executive of Telefonica.
"Your challenge is to know how to involve workers - and in fact involve therm - in the new Internet culture, to know how to enable all workers to access information and communications technologies, to define the role of trade unions in this process and to determine how it is going to affect their future."
His general message to delegates was that the Internet revolution is unstoppable and that it is going to mean new approaches to the Group's relations with others.
He urged UNI to become actively involved in the changeover to the new culture.
"We need the unions and they need the company, since in the face of something that is unstoppable, something that is going to change or already is changing the ways we inter-relate, if we are able to anticipate the direction to take and run a fast race, it will be to the benefit of all - the company, employees, customers, suppliers and society at large - but we have to do it together."
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Eleven tips on getting more efficiency out of women employees
1. Pick young married women. They usually have more of a sense of responsibility than their unmarried sister, they're less likely to be flirtatious, they need the work or they wouldn't be doing it, they still have the pep and interest to work hard and to deal with the public efficiently.
2. When you have to use older women, try to get ones who have worked outside the home at some time in their lives. Older women who have never contacted the public have a hard time adapting themselves and are inclined to be cantankerous and fussy. It's always well to impress upon older women the importance of friendliness and courtesy.
3. General experience indicates that "husky" girls - those who are just a little on the heavy side - are more even tempered and efficient than their underweight sisters.
4. Retain a physician to give each woman you hire a special physical examination - one covering female conditions. This step not only protects the property against the possibilities of lawsuit, but reveals whether the employee-to-be has any female weaknesses which would make her mentally or physically unfit for the job.
5. Stress at the outset the importance of time - the fact that a minute or two lost here and there make serious inroads on schedules. Until this point is gotten across, service is likely to be slowed up.
6. Give the female employee a definite day-long schedule of duties so that they'll keep busy without bothering the management for instructions every few minutes. Numerous properties say that women make excellent workers when they have their jobs cut out for them, but that they lack initiative in finding work themselves.
7. Whenever possible, let the inside employee change from one job to another at some time during the day. Women are inclined to be less nervous and happier with change.
8. Give every girl an adequate number of rest periods during the day. You have to make some allowances for feminine psychology. A girl has more confidence and is more efficient if she can keep her hair tidied, apply fresh lipstick and wash her hands several times a day.
9. Be tactful when issuing instructions or in making criticisms. Women are often sensitive; they can't shrug off harsh words the way men do. Never ridicule a woman - it breaks her spirit and cuts off her efficiency.
10. Be reasonably considerate about using strong language around women. Even though a girl's husband or father may swear vociferously, she'll grow to dislike a place of business where she hears too much of this.
11. Get enough size variety in operator's uniforms so that each girl can have a proper fit. This point can't be stressed too much in keeping women happy.
The article is from the July 1943 issue of the Transportation Magazine, written for male supervisors of women in the workforce during World War Two.
by The Chaser
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Comrade Addison, as he insists on being called, believes that the Collective's meetings provide what he calls "a blueprint for tomorrow".
Addison believes that the Collective's activities provide a useful model for political participation. "In this day and age, the average citizen plays no part in politics. Our Collective is quite different. Last night we discussed the GST, and there were some rousing speeches. Quite a powerful message was sent to Canberra when we voted to condemn it." The Collective also plays a valuable role in politicising the wider community of Newtown, and after last night's meeting the members went out to the streets to spraypaint "NO GST" on a nearby wall. "That will show John Howard," said a proud Addison.
The Secretary dismissed as "ridiculous" the notion that communism was dead. "We are proof positive that this is not true," he said. "We pool our resources, and each takes according to his need," Addison explained. "For example, I bring the tea and instant coffee, as I am a waged worker, and one of my fellow members only contributes hot water because he is on the dole and it's his house that we use for meetings. While yet another provides a ready supply of milk arrowroot biscuits. That's a system that works."
Though on a small scale, Addison maintains that the Collective's meetings provide a workable model for the allocation of resources within society generally. "I know it sounds like a Utopia," he says, "but if we can have a Utopia amongst the three of us, why can't everybody have one?"
by Neale Towart
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Employer Associations and Industrial Relations Change: catalysts or captives? Edited by Peter Sheldon and Louise Thornthwaite
"Follow the money" urged Deepthroat. Industrial relations researchers haven't really followed this advice. This book may be the beginnings of deeper study of the real power in the industrial and post-industrial landscape.
Industrial relations researchers have paid relatively little attention to employer associations. The shift to a more decentralised bargaining system in Australia, however, supports the view that ultimately it is employers and their associations who determine the IR structure. This even more the case when union peak bodies are effectively frozen out of industrial legislation discussions by the federal government.
The media generally devote a lot of time to ACTU and union views and actions on particular topics but the controversy and shock horror attitude so often adopted to "outrageous union claims" is noticeably missing in the reportage on employer actions and statements, all of which seem to be accepted as in "the national interest", as opposed to union attitudes which are seen as parochial, narrow minded and economically irresponsible. This despite the fact that the employer body which attract the most attention, the Business Council of Australia (BCA) and whose agenda was pretty much adopted by the ALP government and now the Coalition, represents a small group of large companies and very wealthy people.
This book provides a much needed overview and analysis of the influence of the big players in industrial relations reform. Chapters on the BCA, the Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry (ACCI) and the Metal Trades Industry Association (MTIA) (now the Australian Industry Group (AIG)) cover the main national organisations, with further research devoted to the road transport industry bodies, coal mining industry, meat industry and private hospitals. The contributors cover the period from the early 1980s to the present, an era of rapid structural change in the economy and in industrial relations. An era when the role of what Gerard Henderson derisively termed the "Industrial Relations Club" was challenged and changed forever.
Earlier research by David Plowman, who has been the only IR academic to take much notice of employer bodies, saw them as chiefly reactive. The Accord between the ALP and the ACTU was probably a catalyst the development of a new role. Indeed the BCA was formed shortly after Hawke's 1983 Economic Summit where business disunity prompted a group of larger employers to begin developing a collective body. This body itself was attractive to politicians, particularly with the corporatist atmosphere illustrated by the Summit, as it provided direct central access to influential and high profile business people and opinion leaders.
The role of the many associations (there are hundreds) varies greatly, with many remaining accommodated to the existing IR environment or playing the role of a chief source of advice on industrial law matters such as award rates, dismissal and leave advice. This diversity of roles perhaps disguises the influence of the larger bodies on shaping rather than simply being support players in the industrial environment. Not all the larger bodies had such a determined agenda. Indeed the CAI/ACCI remained accommodated to the centralised system. Moves firstly to award restructuring and then to enterprise bargaining and more wholesale deregulation were driven by the BCA.
Disunity amongst employers and within associations has not been a hindrance to this agenda. The authors a move away from Plowman's view that union and Labor governments will always provide institutions and processes hostile to employer associations interests. The evidence from the period from 1983 would indicate that the corporatist approach has been anything other than detrimental, despite the conflicts within the associations themselves.
The success of the BCA in influencing policy is well summed up: "Public debate came to embrace the concepts, and focus only on the precise details of the changes to bargaining structure that would take place." (authors emphasis).
The international political economic climate has also favoured the neo-liberal agenda adopted by the ALP and now the Coalition, an aspect not covered in depth by this work but perhaps beyond the scope of an analysis of employer association functions and operation. The use of strategic choice theory is seen by the editors as the best method of continuing the analysis of employer bodies. Employers have come to a strategic approach over the period covered by the book, and instead of reacting to union and government approaches, have aggressively pursued the deregulation on their own terms.
The study is based on a great deal of research with many interviews with key people and much trawling through the archives. It provides much needed information and analysis on how employer associations form, how they make decisions, their attitudes to government policy making processes and towards unions. Sheldon, Thornthwaite and co-contributors have provided a valuable resource for researchers and union strategists.
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Let me begin by acknowledging the Mouhe-neene people on whose land we stand today, and recognise the living culture of Tasmanian Indigenous peoples.
As we move into the 21st Century Australia faces a clear choice - an increasingly divided nation with more of the same or a chance to restore the balance and construct a fairer Australia.
This choice makes this ALP Conference one of the most important in our history. The policies that emerge from this conference will guide voters all around Australia when they make their choice for the future at the next federal election.
I believe the job of re-building Australia will fall to Labor under the stewardship of Kim Beazley. John Howard and his followers will be tossed out because they have doggedly continued to show disdain for the plight of the majority of Australians.
If the views of unions have added to the intensity of the spotlight in which this conference is being held it is because we know that only Labor will put people back into public policy and ensure that economic planning is focussed on the task of building and sustaining viable communities.
Fair-minded Australia cannot continue to accept the growth of poverty and inequity:
BANKS:
HOTELS:
I could elaborate on other industries but the fact is that Australia has had nine years of unparalleled growth. And now we hear a call from Peter Costello for wage restraint! The GST is an unfair tax that we didn't want and if it is driving inflation then it's the Government's responsibility.
Peter Costello recently took both a massive pay rise and significant tax cuts but has the audacity to call for working Australians to show restraint. The ACTU is committed to the maintenance of real wages and to bargain increasingly for a fairer share of the nation's wealth for working families.
On the GST our position is clear. Kim Beazley's position is a principled one. We all know that significant groups will be disadvantaged and we will not let John Howard render those people invisible. We may be stuck with a regressive taxation system but when the evidence is clear, and that will take 6-12 months, then the only decent thing to do is to make the tax fairer by lifting the burden on those who have suffered the most.
When you add to this picture the destruction wrought to our social fabric since 1996 - health, education, child care, aged care, transport and housing - there is little wonder that more and more Australians are seeing that they cannot trust the Howard Government with their future. The stress felt by working families as they struggle to balance competing demands is amplified by the increasing cost of services that were once guaranteed.
Many of you will know that the ACTU held its three-yearly Congress recently. The strongest theme to come from Congress was the need to restore the balance so all Australians get a fair share.
Minimum rates of pay are lagging well behind the market and families are struggling to make ends meet. Casual employees now make up 27 percent of the workforce - but they do the work of permanent employees, mostly without holidays, sick leave and maternity leave. What these figures mean is that more than a quarter of all employees now work under arrangements that were designed to allow employers to cover the Christmas rush.
Polling shows that the majority of Australians believe that the balance of power has shifted too far against employees. Restoration of the powers of the Industrial Relations Commission and the relevance of awards, the elimination of secretive individual contracts, and a focus on collective bargaining where parties are required to bargain in good faith should form the heart of new legislation.
Right now, under this Government's legislation, even if every employee at a workplace wants to bargain collectively through their union, their employer does not have to meet with them, let alone negotiate. Australia stands out as one of the few nations where working people are denied the fundamental right to bargain collectively.
Unions will campaign with conviction to rid ourselves of a Minister whose mission is to de-unionise Australia. While we met at ACTU Congress in Wollongong, Mr Reith was busy introducing a Bill a day in an attempt to further erode the rights of working people and any day now he plans to release a third wave of legislation, this time based on the corporations power.
The level of working people's concern for job security, reasonable hours and the capacity to balance work and family will enable Labor to respond with policies that restore the balance. Australia's working families will respond.
The bail-out of private health funds makes no economic or social policy sense unless public policy is now to be driven by the minority of Australians who have the capacity to pay. That is not the way forward for this country.
To attract an additional 7-10% of people to private health insurance this Government has committed up to $3 billion that otherwise could been used to expand public health provision.
Unions recognise the historic role of Labor in establishing and defending our universal health care system. Our public hospitals must be an election priority if Australia is to retain any dignity as a compassionate country.
Unions will oppose funding cuts to public hospitals, and we will support the expansion of Medicare. Bulk billing must be available to all. Private health insurance should always be a choice and not a necessity, and it must provide value for money within a stronger universal public system.
Unions will continue to speak out for equitable wages and working conditions for health care employees. We will oppose further privatisation and contracting out, and we will campaign for adequate staffing levels in the interests of patient care and respect for health workers.
Aged care has become a scandal in this country. We are all sick to the stomach from hearing horrific stories of neglect on the evening news bulletins. This is an Australia that we do not want. This may be Howard's way but it is not our way. Our aged citizens must be treated with dignity and respect - nothing else is good enough.
The ACTU and health unions will work to enshrine the highest standards of care for the elderly in our communities by:
Public education is in a precarious state. Pre-schools, schools, TAFE and universities are struggling. More than $5 billion was stripped from education and training in 1996. Public institutions have been undermined through de-regulation, privatisation and user pays policies, resulting in an alarming fall in participation rates that sees life opportunities go sliding by.
The chance for all Australians to achieve their potential through education is under threat. Nursing, teaching and the traditional trades are suffering from severe skills shortages - but there was no extra money in this year's Federal Budget. Australia faces a knowledge deficit of $130 billion within a decade, brought on by the lowest investment levels in education and training as a percentage of GPD in almost 20 years.
Knowledge must be recognised as paramount and funded accordingly and returned to at least the OECD average. In a global economy Australia cannot afford to fall behind comparable nations. Unions applaud the priority being given by Kim Beazley and the Labor Party to education as a foundation for Australia's growth.
There has been much debate recently about the declining birth rate in Australia and what this means for our future. Many women want to work in paid jobs and have a family. The squeezing of the childcare sector means they cannot do both, so many women are leaving the workforce or are reluctantly saying no to having more children.
Reduced funding for childcare assistance together with the removal of the operational subsidy to community based centres have pushed the price of childcare too high. Childcare is not a right in the Coalition's Australia.
Unions will fight to elect a government that supports parents, values our children and allows people to balance work and family. Australia can have both, and Labor knows it.
There have been no increases in real terms in the Commonwealth/State Housing Agreement since the early years of the Hawke Government, and in the first two years of this Government massive cuts were made.
Affordable housing is not a concern of this Government despite increasing poverty levels. A Labor Government must make housing a significant issue. This is about community planning at its most fundamental.
We really see this Government's paucity of wisdom when we examine the transport sector. Our colonial ancestors constructed a great rail network across this nation; as well as urban tram and train systems. Contrast that with the sale by this Government of the former Australian national railways and the scrapping of half the jobs in that sector.
Now we have the anomaly of working people paying GST on public transport while private cars for the executive class are subsidised through salary packaging. What a strange view of fairness this mob in Canberra has.
One of the great losses under this Government is an effective employment service. During this great upheaval, thousands of people have been cut off from benefit support by policies designed to artificially reduce unemployment numbers.
Australia needs far-sighted policies that allow those marginalised people who are able to work to be equipped with skills that match our evolving industries. On top of this more than 70,000 jobs have been cut from the public service at a cost of some $700 million in redundancies, only to be replaced by consultants at a cost of more than $600 million. Do the sums, and it leaves you scratching your head over why we simply don't employ people with the expertise as we used to - it would certainly be cheaper!
This is the context that must drive the priorities determined this week. Labor must win the next election and that is why policies that deal with industrial relations, health, education, jobs, industry policy, infrastructure and regional development are critical.
Having touched on most of these priorities already, let me focus on regional development. Regional unemployment is still above 10% on average and more than 20% in some areas.
Labor must be committed to targeted programs that
I guess no-one here would be surprised to know there is some small debate about trade! This is an important debate but one which is just beginning.
Global futures that incorporate human rights and labour rights have become core business for unions. As unions increasingly bargain and campaign across national borders, there is a growing concern by churches, unions and community groups about the prevalence of child labour, forced labour, discrimination and gross exploitation at the workplace.
Trade and investment contribute to growth, employment and the fight against poverty. The ACTU does not support a return to protectionism. We do want a set of fair global rules that establish benchmarks by which to audit commercial endeavour.
The ACTU defines a fair trading environment as one that ensures that trade delivers progress for all countries in the areas of:
Increasingly European governments and the US are leading the call for values like core labor standards to be internationally recognized. The ALP platform incorporates a commitment to advocate for the recognition of core labor standards. We welcome that and hope to achieve even greater consensus over time.
Unions understand the impact on our members and their families of what seem like almost daily factory closures and redundancies. This despair highlights the increasing fear associated with policies like deregulation, privatisation and contracting out. It is therefore little wonder that people want transparent global rules such that they understand the decisions affecting their lives.
This debate goes beyond the trade in goods. We also need to keep essential public services such as education and health in government hands, and away from international profit takers.
And unions want international investment to be governed by transparent regulations that incorporate the interests of business, governments and people.
Above all, Australia needs balance and substance in a debate that covers trade, industry policy and labour rights. This debate will gather momentum as communities escalate their calls for reforms that result in transparent global bodies, including the World Trade Organisation.
Locally, the Productivity Commission's recommendations for zero tariffs are not the solution to Australia's structural balance of payments problem. The ACTU supports Australian industry and has called for a freeze on tariff reductions until 2003, with a subsequent call for significant manufacturing industry plan.
Industry policy, structural adjustment, planning, education and training are vital for a high-skill, high-wage nation. Global futures must be just and economies must serve communities. This debate is healthy if it has the concerns of people and economic democracy at its heart.
We have never been more united on our focus on the needs of working people - and it pays to belong to a union. On average, union members in full-time work earn 17% more than non-union members and casual and part-time workers earn 20% - 40% more depending on their classification.
We have set ourselves some serious tasks but two of them put 'dignity' up in lights. No union members should earn less than $500 per week. $25,000 a year is a minimum income not a greedy ask. Over time we will also move to secure 15% superannuation as a dignified minimum income for those workers who have invested their lives in work that has made Australia strong.
There are many challenges facing unions. W are targeting growth industries, training young organisers and prioritising our support for delegates; the union representatives who ensure our workplaces are fair. I am confident unions will remain a vital part of the industrial, political and social fabric of Australia.
The history of the labour movement in Australia is a proud one. It has driven a commitment to fairness and embraced social change and fronted issues of social justice that conservative governments would prefer to render invisible.
I am asked frequently about the unions' relationship with the Labor Party. The answer is simple - unions have a responsibility to articulate the needs of working families and their communities and we are confident that Labor will listen.
Our relationship will be independent, at times feisty, as we struggle to find just solutions, but at all times constructive and committed to the joint endeavour of building a decent society.
I want to conclude with a few comments about nation building. Now that the Coalition has done its damage to the tax system, it has shifted its gaze to what John Howard defines as nation building. For him this is building railways and roads.
Roads and railways are important but I have always associated nation building with great leadership. Nation builders are people who understand the soul, the psyche of a nation.
Nation builders are those rare people who inspire with their vision for a collective future. Nation builders understand the lessons laid down by the leaders of past generations. They overlay that with a real understanding of their nation's place in the world today.
Real nation builders have a gut feel for the future of the nation they lead. Real nation builders are guided by decency and fairness that raise their vision above and beyond the mechanics of building roads and train tracks.
Consider the choice - John Howard or Kim Beazley. You all know who the real nation builder for 21st Century Australia is!
Kim Beazley will lead the Labor Party to victory in the next election because he does see a brighter future for Australia. He does understand the need for policies and investment that educate our young people, that create jobs, that give working people a dignified wage, that respect Indigenous peoples, and that build a sustainable economy that is structured to engage with a rapidly changing world.
But much more than that, Kim Beazley has a big heart. He has a heart that knows instinctively that the needs of this nation go way beyond the mechanics of good government. I have no doubt that Kim Beazley and the Labor Party will give us good government. But Australia will also gain from a generosity of spirit that has been so lacking in this country for the last four years.
I want to live in a country that is again applauded for its concern for its people and consequent social policies, not condemned by United Nations committees of inquiry. I want to live in a country that balances the needs of working people and the business community so that each gets a fair share.
This is what Kim Beazley and the Labor Party will give us. Roll on the election. Australia's union members, working Australians, and their families will be with you every step of the way, Kim.
by Buster Punter
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Whatever the contest � you can always boil it down to those to two intoxicating elements of sex and power. Punting on this stuff only heightens the interest.
With the excesses of a northern winter in Brisbane now gone and the Spring Carnivals yet to hot up, the main betting interest now is on the Olympic Games - so what's there to punt on...
Who's on Drugs?
Now this a bookies dream to bet on: plenty of speculation, hardly any form on the board plus the whiff of scandal hanging in the air to keep the media kettle boiling along. This is just like being at the track with no formguide but being armed with the knowledge that there's a fix on � so you have to know what to look for.
For all the Olympic power sports like weightlifting, shotput, sprinting and cycling, the drug of choice is the tried and trusted anabolic steroid. Apart from gorilla like physiques, things to look for here are athletes with:
For the more endurance types of events though we're looking at a different form of "chemical fitness", as one of my old track vet mates used to affectionately term the process of hitting up with a bit of gear. The latest drug crazes here are stuff like EPO � a growth hormone that naturally occurs in the body in small amounts, or stimulants like speed or maybe even good old elephant juice (etorphine). Detecting these junkies by the naked eye is a tough call but some tell tale signs to look out for are an athlete that:
So let's not stuff around here punters, I reckon we go the whole hog and not only bet on who's taking the drugs at the Olympics but have drug taking as a demonstration sport, to find the champion substance abuser.
In fact I wanna do a Rupert style take over of the Olympics, sign up all the name athletes and stage a free drugs Games freak show rather than a drug free Olympic Games, where taking drugs is OK and the accent is on how grotesquely you can distort human development to achieve superhuman performance. Think of the ratings and all of the revenue that would come with it. This would have the added advantage of making all those reality TV freak shows redundant and opening up the sponsorship floodgates for well meaning transnational drug corporations.
Sex, Power and the Olympics
Putting aside the drugs for one moment (which one has to do now and then to retain some sensibility) isn't the Olympics just about the spectacle of sex and power? I mean isn't the Games an exercise in mass voyeurism with the world watching super sexed bodies competing for the power of celebrity? Or watching some very unsexed bodies jockey on the sidelines for a spot on the Olympics gravy train. Doesn't matter how ugly you are punters � power is seductive and just downright sexy � just remember that when you're on your 40th cigarette, 10th beer, carry 20kg over correct weight chasing a box trifecta on the last in Perth: you're still in the sex game if you can get the money.
So we've got the legitimised sex of skimpy outfits, tastefully nude sporting celebrity calendars with all the attendant tabloid gossip, so where does the last frontier lay? Well how about the first full-on porn video for a sports team, tastefully done of course. What 'Romance' was to art house cinema 'Softballers Get Hard' or 'Awesome Foursome' could be the groundbreaker for sex in sports media? Only a matter of time I reckon given the long-term trends of tolerance of sex and commercial exploitation of athletes in the media.
Kerry Stoked with Souths
Maverick media baron Kerry Stokes' recent sponsorship deal with the Rabbitohs is a nice little powerplay against his media rival Rupert Murdoch, whose News Limited empire is showing signs of distinct discomfort as the Red & Greens inch closer towards a judicial victory.
By throwing Souths a financial lifeline in the form of $1 million per year over three years, Kerry has kept the Rabbitohs in the court game, blocking the one weak spot they had in their legal defensive line: assuring the Federal Court beak that they would be financially viable if admitted back into the National Competition.
So here we have Rupert, with a shareholding in Channel 7, getting a touch up from one of his fellow shareholders and executive chairman of C7 - nice. Throw in the Sydney Morning Herald championing the Souths cause, Kerry Packer becoming a patron of the Souths football club ready to open the purse-strings and CNN supremo Ted Turner making sympathetic noises with Rusell Crowe, and you then start to get the feeling that the whole non News Ltd media world is urging on a Souths victory.
A Sheila Cracks It with the Old Boys
Finally, some congratulations is due to the dear old Australian Jockey Club. Those Kings School old boy types, after nearly 160 years of comparing the size of each others wads over a few balloon glasses of brandy, have decided life would be a bit more interesting if they had a girl on the inside, and so have elected a woman to their once all powerful committee for the first time. So in the 21st Century the AJC finally makes it to the 20th. Keep whacking away chaps � a bit more hard riding in the affirmative action stakes and you just may tack on to the tail of the field by next century without getting run over by the sexual discrimination ambulance.
Heard some hot goss, sourced some scandal? Then email Buster with the dirt and he'll lift the lid. Confidentiality and discretion guaranteed.
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The Week that Was
With all the action of ALP National Conference now over, you can take time to reflect and go back to see the week that was in Hobart at the ALP' National Conference Site http://www.alp.org.au/nc2000 . The Conference was tagged as Australia's first online conference for a political party, it featured live web casts of all the sessions and was continually updated as the conference progressed.
Tanner Re-Vamped
Lindsay Tanner MP, Federal Labor Member for Melbourne and Author of "Open Australia" has recently re-vamped his website located at http://www.ozemail.com.au/~lindsaytanner (unfortunately he hasn't registered a domain name yet). Whilst a lot of the content remains the same he has created several new sections and it is well worth checking out.
Get on line to get active
Greenpeace Australia's website now has a section called "Get Active" http://www.greenpeace.org.au/getactive. Get Active is an online guide on how to set up your own campaigns on environmental issues in a local setting. It is a well designed and well thought out site and a definite bench mark for activist organizations who want to educate their membership on self-organising.
International
This week I checked out the website of the Socialist International (SI), which is the international organization of social-democratic parties (the ALP is the Australian Section). The SI has historically been a very European oriented organization, although in recent years they have tried to overcome this by encouraging participation in the running of the organization by South American and Asian sections of the SI.
The site located at http://www.socialistinternational.org has had a recent make over and typifies the new breed of European Political websites that are emerging. It is very attractive and actually contains information (unfortunately Political Parties in Australia have generally failed to grasped the idea of including information in their sites).
Irish Labour
The Labour Party in the Republic of Ireland has been online for several years now their site is located at http://www.labour.ie . This site is an absolute gem, and should be viewed as an example to all Parliamentary Parties around the world. You could sum the site up by saying less is more.
It contains enough information for the punters to be able to feel that they can understand Party policy but doesn't go overboard so that when you are reading their policy you don't feel like your reading an Insurance Contract.
On top of the content of the site it has a nice, simple and easy to navigate layout without appearing like a billboard. So many political sites around the world (especially the Federal ALP site) are so huge and complicated that electors and members aren't going to be bothered searching for information.
If you have any sites you think Paul should review or add to the LaborNET links section email him at mailto:[email protected]
While the Labor movement was grappling with the complex and difficult issues confronting Australia 'free trade vs fair trade', building a knowledge society, developing strategies to increase the opportunities for and improve the lives of working people John Howard again resorted to the moral panic button.
Monsieur Lash has moved from bashing blacks and pummeling pinkos, to socking it to the solo mums and lashing lesbians.
And also true to form the baa baa media and the social conservatives - including elements of the labour movement - start salivating like Pavlov's dog.
Faced with the accelerated pace of change from the IT revolution and globalisation, if there was ever a time for a focused debate on where this country is to go, it's now.
And what sort of leadership does our Great Tory Helmsman give us? He takes us down Tin Pot Alley into a divisive and destructive dialogue of the deaf over some obscure piece of Victorian legislation about fertility treatment!
It's another classic example of Wedge Politics, that clever tactic of dividing and confusing before taking us all down the road to nowhere.
Obviously every child deserves a supportive family, but in Australia circa 2000 in all its richness and diversity surely we can rear well adjusted kids outside the limits of Howard's 1950s retrovision of the nuclear family.
Not only is John Howard this week's Tool he's this week's prize hypocrite.
Here is the Prime Minister who refuses to accept responsibility for the generations of black children stolen by the state from their stricken families. The PM who oversees the dismantling of public education, health and childcare. The National Leader who twiddles his thumbs while his wacko mates in the Northern Territory lock up kids for stealing biscuits and throw away the key.
John Howard taking the moral high ground about what's best for kids. If it wasn't so sick it would be laughable. An incorrigible tool.
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