Workers Online : Issue No. 68, 25 August 2000


Issue No 68		25 August 2000

LaborNET	Ask Neale	Tool of the Week

Features
Interview: New Unionist
Britain's Trade Union Congress secretary John Monks on life under Blair and why the future of unionism could well rest in Europe.

History: The Victims of Whiggery
George Loveless, the leader of the rural workers who became the Tolpuddle Martyrs, recorded his ideals and experiences in a pamphlet that brings his story to life.

Economics: The Final Station
Corporatisation was first introduced into Australia by the former Greiner Coalition government. What is 'corporatisation' and who should we hold to account under its prescriptions?

International: Massive Union Win in American Telecom
The Communications Workers of America (CWA) announced on Thursday a settlement with Verizon Communications ending a fifteen day strike by 87,000 telephone workers from Maine to Virginia.

Unions: A Vital Community Service
What keeps the engine of the Australian economy running? Manufacturing productivity, the stock market, exports? Try child care.

Satire: Putin copies Clinton: dead seamen stains reputation
MOSCOW, Tuesday: Russian naval authorities today faced staunch criticism, and the anger of a nation gripped by tragedy, as they conceded that all 118 Russian submariners trapped in the nuclear submarine, the Kursk, had died.

Review: Blow Up The Pokies
Whether it arouses public debate about Gambling is best left to the public but Peter Zangarri thinks Tim Freedman is on a winner with the Whitlam's latest CD.

UK Union Chief: John Monks

Notice Board
- Check out the latest events

Latest Issue

View entire latest issue
- print all of the articles!

Previous Issues

Subject index

Search all issues

Workers Online - 2nd place Labourstart website of the year

News

Teens get union active

Public Sector Workers Win $1.50 An Hour Olympic Allowance
The suspense was killing. But the Government finally came up with an acceptable Olympic Attendance Allowance this week to compensate public sector workers for their sacrifices during the games.
[ Full Story » ]

Olympic Vendors Cream Boss
Teenage vendors selling ice creams and confectionary at Stadium Australia have forced French multinational catering company Sodexho into retreat over employment arrangements at the Olympic venue.
[ Full Story » ]

Child Care Workers Pick Up 10% Pay rise
NSW's 15,000 child care workers have just won a major wage increase following a campaign, which got considerable media attention when hundreds of Child Care Union members rallied in front of the Industrial Relations Commission of NSW.
[ Full Story » ]

Boston Bags Bonus While Teachers Wait on Back-Pay
Dr Ken Boston the Director-General who presided over 329 days of crisis in education during the 1999-2000 teachers dispute has just received a $20,000 bonus from the Government. Meanwhile casual teachers are still waiting for their pay rise and other teachers are tapping their fingers waiting for their back pay - all agreed to two months ago.
[ Full Story » ]

Super Saga
The Maritime Union is in dispute with Patrick boss Chris Corrigan over a multi-million dollar super surplus.
[ Full Story » ]

Homecare Workers Hit Streets
Carol Howard takes care of fifteen elderly and disabled people in the Manly/Brookvale region of Sydney but she has decided join a huge rally in Parramatta on Monday to protest about her poor pay.
[ Full Story » ]

CPSU Logs On Internet Providers
In an attempt to improve the lot of over 100,000 workers in Australia's fastest growing industry, CPSU Communication Union is has served a log of claims for a federal award for telecommunication and internet services providers (ISP).
[ Full Story » ]

1 Million Reasons to Belong to a Union
Deemah Marble & Granite is the latest construction subbie to go belly up owing its workers almost $1 million in wages and entitlements.
[ Full Story » ]

City Rail Security Guards Win Olympic Bonus
The Security Union, representing the 1300 City Rail Security Officers, has won an Olympic Attendance Bonus of $4.50 per hour for their members.
[ Full Story » ]

Making a Difference in ICANN Elections
Many people in the labour movement are campaigning for the creation of a 'dot union' domain name. Eric Lee is the principal independent labour candidate pushing this argument around the Web.
[ Full Story » ]

Sydney Hotel Stoppages Throughout Next Week
Hotel Union members will hold rolling stoppages in major Sydney hotels every day next week to back their campaign for an Olympics Bonus.
[ Full Story » ]

Scientists Protest IT Outsourcing
Scientists, technicians and administration staff from CSIRO, ANSTO and other science agencies will attend rallies and events in capital and regional cities on Tuesday, August 29, 2000.
[ Full Story » ]

Dealing With Workplace Deaths
A course introducing the core skills required to support those who grieve the loss of a work colleague, employee, friend or family member through a work-related death is being conducted at the Labor Council in September.
[ Full Story » ]

Sticking Up For Family Values

How far is Farr enough?

From Cryptoneoliberal to Careless

Reversing The Trends

One of the big victories of the 'New Right' (now looking a bit old and tattered) over the last 15-odd years has been to entrench artificial barriers between economics and politics.

Corporatisation, deregulation, privatization and hands-off government-the pillars of American corporate ideology - have been the dominant trends in the English-speaking world. These all aim to create distance between the political process and the economy. In folding to this ideology Governments have distanced themselves from their democratic responsibilities.

Another trend goes hand in hand with these as British union leader John Monks points out in this week's interview. The United States may be the land of the free but it's also the land of the union buster with a rightwing agenda '...dedicated to diminishing, and marginalizing and eliminating, if possible, trade unionism.'

British unions, Monk says, now look to the European model of social partnership, workers rights, and a strong welfare state, as a balance to corporate power. Instead of capital forcing workers to the lowest common denominator globalisation becomes about raising labour standards in other countries to the highest level.

Australia, no less, has been and remains hostage to American-style free market solutions. Christopher Sheil's analysis of the corporatisation of public services highlights the hypocrisy in a lot of debate over infrastructure breakdown. The bleating of the media and the Coalition baying for Carl Scully's blood over the fiasco that is NSW Rail is a case in point.

Scully may well lead with his chin, but at the heart of State Rail's problems is the subordination of management to commercial imperatives and the restraints on government inherent in the corporatisation model initiated by the Greiner Government. The sick state of State Rail is the logical endgame of hands-off government.

The solutions are political as well as economic. Managers left completely to their own devices usually forego community responsibilities and their obsession with the bottom line undermines workers conditions.

Events over the last few years from the Asian financial crisis to breakdowns in electricity, water and transport have exposed the cracks in free market thinking. Reversing the trends that led to these breakdowns should be a high priority of a labour movement committed to building a dignified place for working people.

Noel Hester
Editor