FSU Secretary, Peter Presdee, Addresses Bank Worker Rally |
Commonwealth staff throughout the country stopped work and stepped up the campaign against management's attempts to deunionise the bank.
Earlier this week Commonwealth Chief Executive David Murray, who picked up a $1.9 million dollar paycheck last year, said the bank 'could not afford' the FSU's pay claim of 13 per cent over two years in a collective agreement. Instead the Bank has played the Reith card and offered individual contracts to all of its 28,000 employees.
The former People's Bank, this week posted a massive $1.7 billion profit.
FSU Commonwealth Bank Officers(NSW) Secretary Peter Presdee says People Power has been revived at the Commonwealth Bank.
'From here it is up to the bank. From next week they should calm down and come back and negotiate with us,' he says. 'If not there will be an industrial and public campaign.'
'We will be taking this to the mums and dads of Australia. There is enormous support from the public. When we walking down the street today everyone was clapping. People know that the Commonwealth Bank needs to change.
The trade union movement has thrown its weight behind the campaign.
Secretary Michael Costa pledges the support of the Labor Council of NSW
'It's a threshold issue. Like the MUA dispute the union movement will lock in behind it. This is a strategy to break the union,' he says.
The ACTU President Sharan Burrow says the bank's record profit was clear proof that the bank could afford to treat its customers and staff better.
"What staff at the Commonwealth Bank must be asking themselves today, is how much profit does this bank have to make before staff and customers are given a fair go?" she says.
"Surely after posting a $1.7 billion profit this bank can afford to deal with the legitimate issues of its staff."
Sharran Burrow says Commonwealth staff won't be standing alone.
"Australian unions, and I think the broader community, will be throwing its support behind bank staff," she said.
The Commonwealth Bank has cut 600 branches and 8,000 staff since 1990.
Meanwhile...
Acting Australian Banker's Association Chief Executive Jeff Oughton told the joint parliamentary inquiry into fees last week that Australian banks do not have a social obligation to their customers. When a very stunned senator asked if Mr Oughton agreed with John Howard that banks accept social responsibility he responded with a succinct 'no'. Instead he raved about the good citizenship of banks, referring to donations to charities and the banks' involvement in community programs. No reference was made to their obligation to the people of Australia.
Vote in poll
The Sydney Morning Herald is running a poll on their internet site - asking people to vote on whether they prefer individual contacts rather than collective agreements.
You may be interested in registering your opinion visit the site and vote: http://www.smh.com.au
by Peter Lewis
Early in August, a trade union was for the first time registered in the Sialkot region of Pakistan where the majority of the world's soccer balls are produced for international labels such as Nike and Reebok.
Wages in the region are so low that entire families are forced to work, including children. The International Confederation of Free Trade Unions (ICFTU) has been campaigning to end child labour and secure trade unions the right to organise in Sialkot since 1996.
And while soccer's governing body, FIFA, had agreed to force producers to address child labour issues, employers were resisting FIFA's call for union organising and bargaining rights.
That was until the SOCOG deal, struck with the NSW Labor Council and the ACTU, which guarantees that equipment licensed by SOCOG for the Games will be made by workers who have the right to organise.
ICFTU internal campaigns coordinator Tim Noonan says the SOCOG agreement helped to break through employer resistance to the international unions' agreement with FIFA.
This means that the 7,000 soccer ball workers in Pakistan have access to trade union representation for the first time, a major step in the campaign.
"This is an example of how action by trade unions in the developed world have led to concrete results for workers in less developed nations," Noonan says.
"The SOCOG deal showed that global union action can and does bring real results for low-paid and exploited workers around the world."
At present there are six BHP operations locked in enterprise agreement talks - Crinum, Gregory and Hay Point in Queensland and Appin, Tower and Cordeaux in NSW.
At the sixth, Gregory, where there have been no negotiations so far, BHP was instructed by the IR Commission to start talking to the Unions.
The miners union -the CFMEU - says for the past two years mineworkers and their communities have suffered all the pain while the company has reaped all the gain. Jobs have been slashed, productivity has skyrocketed, and profits have soared.
In the past two years BHP has made $1.86 billion profit from coal. Over 2000 BHP coal workers have lost their jobs and there has been a staggering 54% increase in productivity per person.
CFMEU (Mining) President Tony Maher says BHP miners are sick of being taken for granted.
'The company likes to drive up the share price but doesn't pass on the benefits to those at the coalface. What is even more hypocritical is they have collective agreements in steel which deliver good outcomes. Mineworkers are delivering better profits and returns on capital but don't get the rewards,' he says.
'The employer always says we must share the pain in the bad times but won't share the benefits in the good times.'
BHP workers in the mines want
by H.T. Lee
Building firm Leightons coughed up the money - $100,000 - after one of their contracted security firms Weechase disappeared and refused to pay the workers.
According to CFMEU organiser Steve Keenan, the workers were ripped off-they were not paid super, overtime rates, redundancy and other entitlements.
Like the Deemah dispute (see last week's WorkersOnline story-$1milion reasons to belong to a union), a picket was organised at the AMP Circular Quay office. Leightons is building the AMP building at Angle Place.
One of the security guards Sonny Edwards in thanking the CFMEU said: 'We were employed by the security company to keep the CFMEU out and it ended with the CFMEU getting us out of the shit.'
Other Kiwis seek Unions' help
Before leading off the Haka, Joe Eru a Maori elder thanked the CFMEU in traditional Maori and also sought the union's support for other Kiwi workers left out in the cold.
Joe and about 70 other Maoris arrived in Sydney from New Zealand to take up jobs for the Olympics. They were recruited by an Australian training company-Aust Colnet which was given the contract by WorkForce.
When they arrived in Australia, they found their NZ qualifications were not recognised and were not allowed to work.
When they saw the Haka performed by the security guards at the AMP building they decided to contact the CFMEU for help who then contacted the LHMU and the Labor Council.
Joe said, 'I have been a union member all my life and without the union you are nowhere.'
After the Haka, the delegates demonstrated in front of SOCOG's office in Jones Street, Broadway. Over 100 delegates took part.
SOCOG agreed to meet with the LHMU, Labor Council and CFMEU. SOCOG have agreed to fast track the recognition of NZ qualifications and promised they would all be given jobs.
'We are glad we are able to help our Kiwi brothers and sisters,' Andrew Ferguson said.
Chris Chridodoulou from the Labor council said the priority is to find employment for these people who have been misled.
'Then we will be chasing up the people who misled them.'
by Andrew Casey
Both the Sydney Hilton Hotel and the Airport Hilton Hotel were badly affected by the strike today with the Sydney Hilton's switchboard shutdown.
Most of the day's laundry and housekeeping were not done, at either of the Hilton Hotels, and many of the porters, chefs and kitchen hands did not turn up for work.
" All our members want is respect," Jagath Bandara, the LHMU Hotel Union organiser for the Hilton, explained today.
" They have sent postcards and petitioned the Hilton management asking for a meeting to discuss their concerns about the Olympics. The postcards and the petitions didn't work.
" So today they went on strike. That resulted in a meeting and management made their first offer.
" But the offer was paltry. Our members were unhappy with the offer and immediately rejected it."
On Thursday - at the Intercontinental Hotel - members of the LHMU Hotel Union lampooned their management when they raffled toy cars at the front of their workplace.
The Intercontinental management has refused to discuss with the LHMU the introduction of an Olympic Bonus for their employees. They have offered instead to supply all their workers with a $50 gift voucher and the chance to enter a raffle for a new car.
Intercontinental Hotel seamstress Amy Youngman described her employer's offer of a car raffle as downright insulting.
Other hotels where union members held rallies, protests and strikes this week included the Regent Hotel and the Gazebo Hotel.
The Regent Hotel was embarrassed by the scenes outside their hotel, with a huge international media throng reporting on the Hotel Union members struggle.
The media from the USA, Japan, France and Brazil joined their local colleagues to report the dispute because the Regent Hotel is where the boss of the IOC, Juan Antonio Samaranch, will stay during the Olympics.
by Dermot Browne
Following a successful round of protest rallies earlier this week, scientists have received many messages of encouragement from high profile scientists and political figures including former CSIRO chairman and NSW Premier, Neville Wran AC QC.
Staff are concerned that the outsourcing of CSIRO's IT will damage the organisation's research ability. Sandy Ross, CSIRO Staff Association Secretary, said "Our success relies on teamwork and the IT people are an important part of that team. Outsourcing makes no sense."
Mr Wran has written to the CSIRO Staff Association supporting their campaign. In his letter, Mr Wran strongly criticises the government's outsourcing plan calling it...
"...an affront to the skills and talents, not only to IT staff, but to all the men and women, who together make up the scientific contribution of CSIRO. I think it is a great pity that the government has seen fit to undermine the intellectual integrity of Australia's principal scientific research institution and I sincerely hope that the arguments advanced against outsourcing will prevail."
The campaign has also been strongly endorsed by both the Australian Democrats and the ALP with Lyn Allison and Kate Lundy both raising the issue in the Senate.
"We have been greatly encouraged by the support we have received on the issue and we are determined to keep the pressure on. The work science agencies do has a direct impact on the future well-being of the nation and the economy. We understand that the Minister for Finance is seeking better information about the interrelationship between science and IT, and we welcome that," said Mr Ross. "We just hope the government can take on board how important IT is to the science agency research effort."
For background information:
www.cpsu.org.au/csiro
by Rowan Cahill
Union officials will report back to the workers involved next Tuesday on the outcome of these talks.
The dispute has see-sawed between strikes and lock-outs for almost six months. Of the original 70 workers involved, about 60 remain on the picket line. A few men crossed the line in May, while personal circumstances compelled others to withdraw from the industry.
The American owned Joy company continues to legally hound the workers; there are five separate court actions in place. During the last fortnight the company took the preliminary steps necessary to pursue damages claims against unions and individuals. The company has also moved to terminate the current bargaining agreement.
In spite of all pressures the workers remain firm in their campaign for wage justice and the preservation of a unionised workplace.
The regional Illawarra Mercury newspaper recently devoted two pages to the devastating impact of the dispute on the families of the workers. This coverage was sympathetic and dignified, personalising the dispute to the detriment of Joy management's cause.
Recent visitors to the Moss Vale picket line include American union activist Margaret Trowe, Socialist Workers' Party candidate for the American vice-presidency.
This weekend representatives of the South Coast Labour Council and officials of the unions involved in the dispute (AMWU, AWU, CEPU) will take over the Moss Vale picket line for three days as a fraternal gesture, honouring the embattled Joy workers and giving them a well deserved and welcome break.
by Andrew Casey
"It is a disgraceful situation. Defence has decided - for the sake of so-called efficiency - to centralise their pay system to Sydney.
" Ever since the Sydney shift our members in Townsville are having to go without money," North Queensland organiser for the Liquor Hospitality and Miscellaneous Workers Union (LHMU), Evol Fayers, said.
" Some of our members have had to wait for more than a month to get paid.
" They have to ring a 1800 number to whinge to an unknown, unseen and uncaring face 2,500 kilometres away in Sydney whenever they have a pay problem.
" They cut out the local job last September - and ever since then Sydney has been stuffing up the paypackets of Townsville people," the LHMU's Evol Fayers said.
Townsville is in the centre of the most marginal Federal electorate held by the Howard Government.
The Liberal Party Member for Herbert, Peter Lindsay, would lose the seat if 76 votes changed hands at the next Federal election.
So the LHMU - with 100 members and their families hurt by the pay crisis - decided to highlight the problem this week with a vocal picket line outside Peter Lindsay's office.
The picket was held on Tuesday and Mr Lindsay told the local media all would be fixed in a timely manner.
He assured the Townsville Daily Bulletin that the picket line was not necessary as he had arranged with the Minister Assisting the Minister for Defence, Bruce Scott, to have the workers concerns addressed.
The LHMU's Evol Fayers wrote to the Minister in December 1999 about this issue and received a reply in May - but still there has been no effective action.
The Townsville paper quoted the local MP, Peter Lindsay, on Wednesday as saying "in future" the workers would all be paid properly.
But on Thursday - pay day - the pay problems were just as bad - so the pickets were put back on Mr Lindsay's office on Friday.
Now the LHMU has decided to add a fresh new picket line onto Mr Lindsay's office - an electronic picket.
" We are asking union members and supporters from around the nation to join the electronic picket.
"Help us in Townsville by sending Peter Lindsay an e-mail Email Me Now! telling him workers should be paid on time, paid correctly and have a right to expect a little thing like a payslip.
" Let him feel the pinch of bad publicity ' cause our members are definitely feeling the pinch in their pockets," Evol Fayers said.
" The cooks and kitchenhands are not the highest paid workers at the Barracks. If the money goes missing out of their pay they, and their families, feel the pinch quickly," Evol said.
" The Howard Government claims it cares for rural and regional Australia but they keep taking jobs out of Townsville - and this is the result."
" The local economy is hurt and the people of Townsville get a poor service,"
PS. If you do join the electronic picket, and send an e-mail to Peter Lindsay, please send a copy to the LHMU's Evol Fayers Email Me Now!
by Alice Deboos (TWU Taxi Organiser)
Transport Workers Union State Secretary Tony Sheldon says, the decision goes a long way to both compensate and provide drivers with an incentive for working during the games period.'
'While not delivering everything we asked for the fact that this increase goes directly to the drivers and applies across the board means that drivers will be effectively getting a 20% increase anyway - 10% during the day, and an additional 10% on top of the already existing night time tariff.'
Tony Sheldon says it is particularly pleasing that those drivers working at night, who are at the greatest risk of assault and robbery will receive the greatest benefit under this increase.
Taxi drivers are among the worst paid and highly exploited workers in Sydney. Drivers still earn as little as $5 per hour. A quarter of drivers don't receive the right rates.
Tony Sheldon says drivers are entitled to a wage increase and to receive an additional incentive period for working during the Olympic period.
'The Minister definitely deserves our congratulations for recognising this and ensuring that this increase goes directly to the taxi driver and is not passed on the owner or fleet operators,' he said.
TWU taxi driver delegate Michael Hatrick told Workers OnLine, 'What we have to do now is to make sure all drivers are aware that it is absolutely illegal for owners to increase their pay-ins to account for this increase.'
The TWU invites any driver who feels they are getting ripped off during the Olympics or at any other period to contact them on (02) 9912 0700.
by Andrew Casey
The delegation is visiting at the inviation of the Fiji TUC's Felix Anthony who is organising meetings with unions and community groups.
They are also hoping to see the refugee centre at Lautoka and the Tai Levu area north of Suva where dairy farmers have had their houses and farms burnt out.
Other members of the mission include Tony Sheldon, from the Transport Workers Uunon , Paddy Crumlin from the Maritime Union of Australia, Paul Slape of the Australian Services Union
and Susan Hopwood of the Australian Education Union.
Meanwhile...
ICFTU backs fight for the restoration of democracy in Fiji
'The International Community should refuse to recognise the interim government in Fiji and should demand the reinstatement of the 1997 Constitution', Mahendra Chaudhry, Fiji Prime Minister, today told a high-level delegation from the International Confederation of Free Trade Unions (ICFTU) in Brussels.
Mr Chaudhry was visiting the ICFTU Headquarters in Belgium as part of a tour to promote international support for the restoration of democracy in Fiji.
The ICFTU, which co-ordinated an international trade union campaign to secure the release of the democratically-elected government is now fully behind its local affiliate, the Fiji Trade Union Congress (FTUC), to urge the reinstatement of the 1997 Constitution.
The ICFTU is the world's largest trade union grouping with affiliates in 145 countries. Its members include the trade union centres of Australia and New Zealand, which play a major role in the area.
"Any solution to the Fiji crisis must be found within the framework of the 1997 Constitution", said Eddy Laurijssen, Assistant General Secretary of the ICFTU, following his talks with Mr Chaudhry.
The ICFTU said it would use all avenues to make sure international institutions and governments "are kept on the right tracks" concerning democracy in Fiji. The ICFTU also expressed concern about violation of workers' rights and discrimination in Fiji and said it was in daily contacts with the UN's International Labour Organisation (ILO) concerning developments there. For the ICFTU, trade union rights can never be fully safeguarded if a country is not governed in a democratic and constitutional way.
by Jim Marr (CPSU)
The company's enterprise bargaining agreement expires in December and unions have already filed a log of claims aimed at turning around the aggressive programme of chief executive, Ziggy Switkowski.
"We would like to see some of these profits lead to better pay, better services and more fulltime jobs," CPSU Communications Union assistant national secretary, Stephen Jones, said in reaction to last week's $4 billion profit announcement.
"The way Telstra treats staff at the moment you would think the company was on its last legs, not breaking profit records."
Negotiations with the 50.1 percent publicly-owned communications giant will be seen as a litmus test of how the trade union movement is faring in the new economy.
Operating in the fastest growing section of the Australian economy, Telstra has sought to use the first wave of Peter Reith's industrial changes to strike a more confrontational approach to unions and collective bargaining.
Fifty thousand Australians will be covered by the Telstra agreement, making it the largest in the country. Unions are claiming a 14 percent pay rise over two years with no reductions in conditions.
Human Rights Watch examined United States workers' rights to organize, to bargain collectively, and to strike under international norms. It found widespread labor rights violations across regions, industries and employment status.
The U.S. government has called for "core labor standards," including workers' freedom of association, to be included in the rules of the World Trade Organization and the Free Trade Agreement of the Americas. But Human Rights Watch charged that the United States itself violates freedom of association standards by failing to protect workers' right to organize.
"The cards are stacked against workers in the United States," said Kenneth Roth, executive director of Human Rights Watch. "The U.S. government cannot effectively press another country to improve labor standards while violating them itself. It should lead by example."
Each year thousands of workers in the United States are fired from their jobs or suffer other reprisals for trying to organize unions. Millions of workers are excluded from labor laws meant to protect workers' organizing and bargaining rights, and their number is growing, according to the report.
Employers can resist union organizing by dragging out legal proceedings for years, the report said. Labor law is so weak that companies often treat the minor penalties as a routine cost of doing business, not a deterrent against violations. Some workers have succeeded in organizing new unions in recent years, the report said, but only after surmounting major obstacles.
According to statistics from the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB), the federal agency created to enforce workers' organizing and bargaining rights, the problem is getting worse.
Among other conditions cited in the report that impede workers' freedom of association:
Human Rights Watch also called on Congress to ratify International Labor Organization conventions on worker organizing and collective bargaining, and to strengthen U.S. laws protecting these rights.
The Council of Trade Unions and Trade Union Federation signed a heads of agreement to begin the process of unification last week.
The smaller TUF split from the CTU in 1993 in protest against what they saw as a weak reaction by the CTU leadership to the introduction of the Employment Contracts Act.
With a Labour-Alliance Government in power and the ECA now repealed the union merger is the last act in a healing process in the Labour movement over divisions arising from the neoliberal policies of the Labour Government of the 1980s and the National Government that followed.
CTU president Ross Wilson says a single, united trade union is the best way to advance the interests of workers, and the first priority is to rebuild the union movement.
Wilson says the combined organisation will provide an even stronger voice in dealings with employers and the Government.
And the president of TUF, Maxine Gay, says changes in the CTU leadership and its structure have been an important factor behind the decision to unify.
Gay says the process of unification is expected to be completed by late next year.
The new body will be called the New Zealand Council of Trade Unions.
You can find out this month as the campaign challenging Nike to live up to the Olympic ideal steps up with the visit to Australia of an Indonesian worker from a Nike factory.
The campaign is being organised by Community Aid Abroad-Oxfam Australia, Fair Wear and the Textile, Clothing and Footwear Workers' Union of Australia.
In December 1999 this worker helped organise a strike and demonstration by all the workers in his factory. In the following months he and the other workers who organised the demonstration were subject to continual harassment and intimidation. They were told if they didn't resign they'd be beaten up by hired thugs. One had his house ransacked.
Community Aid Abroad says it can't release the workers' name until just before the tour starts in case the factory that forced him to resign tries to stop him from coming.
It'll give you a different perspective on your sneakers. He'll be in Australia from September 2 until September 16 and he'll visit Sydney, Melbourne, Adelaide and Perth.
Campaign Events
You can help make these events huge - both by being there and by helping with planning. If you'd like to help and have any time at all in the first two weeks in September then check out http://www.caa.org.au/campaigns/nike/olympics/help.html or email [email protected] (Adelaide), [email protected], (Melbourne), or [email protected] (Sydney).
Sydney
Monday, 4 September, 10.30am - Press Conference, NSW Parliament House. 11 a.m. to 1p.m. - Nike has been invited to debate whether the company's labour practices meet the Olympic ideal of respect for human dignity. Jim Keady and the Indonesian worker will speak from direct personal experience about what it is like trying to live on the wages of a Nike worker in Indonesia. Parliamentary Theatrette, NSW Parliament House, Macquarie St, Sydney.
Monday, 11 September, 6p.m. - 7.30 p.m., Alternative Olympic Opening Ceremony in Victoria Park in Sydney. This is the big one. Come and challenge Nike to live up to the Olympic ideal. There will be giant floats (including a Nike shoe the size of a small car), speeches and performances by the combined Trade Union choir. (Wet weather number, after 5 pm on the day only - 9698 2394)
Adelaide (Hosted by Fair Wear)
Thursday 7 September 2.30pm to 4pm. Public Forum - "Nike and the Olympic Ideal: Nike's Labour Practices in Indonesia" W. P. Rodgers Room, Union Building University of Adelaide Friday, 8 September 7.30am - 9am. A Breakfast for community leaders and people concerned about the conditions of outworkers in Australia and the South East Asian Region. Dowie's Brasserie 83 Currie St, Adelaide. $22.00 waged $12.00 unwaged. (Includes Admission & cooked breakfast) RSVP to Rosie Falco Textile Clothing and Footwear Union 8139 1050 or Sally Biddle Working Women's Centre 8410 6499 by 28/8/00
Friday, 8 September 4.30pm - Public Demonstration at BEEHIVE CORNER Cnr King William St and Rundle Mall.. Show your concern for Outworkers. Support the Campaign to have Nike sign the Homeworkers Code of Practice. Contact John Wishart on 83631322 or mobile 0413 444692 for details.
Melbourne
(Hosted by Fair Wear and the Textile, Clothing and Footwear Union of Australia)
Saturday, September 9, 9am to 5.30pm - The People's Conference (alternativeto the World Economic Forum), VUT Conference Centre, 300 Flinders Street, Melbourne. Contact Public First
Monday, September 11, Fair Wear action at Melbourne Exhibition Centre "Fashion Exposed Trade Fair". Call Fair Wear on 03 9251 5270 for furtherinformation Perth (Hosted by Community Aid Abroad - Oxfam Australia)
Saturday Sept.16, 2-4pm: Campaigns Cafe on Nike in Indonesia at Totem, 446 Beaufort St, Highgate. All enquiries to Pete Stone 08 93813144.
Meanwhile...
US soccer pro tries an Olympic event with a difference - living on Nike wages for a month
Former professional soccer player Jim Keady and activist Leslie Kretzu are in Indonesia trying to live on Nike Workers' standard wages. They are going hungry. Check out this site for their daily updates -http://www.nikewages.org/ . Jim and Leslie will be in Sydney from September 2 until September 16.
Full details at http://www.caa.org.au/sweatshops
Why has there been so little discussion or debate over the Federal Government's legislation to send in the troops in our ranks.
There has simply been no justification of the need to introduce troops. There has been no use of the army in any civil situation for 50 years.
We are witnessing the introduction of repressive legislation on demonstrating and even on handing out leaflets in 'proclaimed areas'. We have the ludicrous spectacle of the Olympic disorganisers trying to ban the Aboriginal flag.
The army has had no training in crowd control, which makes any confrontation potentially more dangerous - if you thought the Victorian police were dangerous, wait until you see untrained soldiers whose only crowd control weaponry is guns. It is almost certain that there will be large scale demonstrations in Melbourne at the World Economic Forum (S11) and in Sydney at the Olympics. There are tragedies waiting to happen here.
Why are we just rolling over and copping this. It's an outrageous attack on our civil liberties. Why have our political and union leadership been so timid about this? Try to stiffen their spines to respond to this onslaught on our rights. Contact your parliamentary representatives at both Federal and State level to make known your opposition to these attacks on our basic rights.
jules wynhausen
Congratulations to the OHS officers at the Westfield Burwood site.
Recently I was involved in fitting some equipment in one of the retail outlets in the new Westfield Burwood complex two days before opening. Before starting our work the group was given the OHS talk by one of the officers on site.
The group was made up of men and women, some of whom probably had never been on a site before. The talk was straight to the point,given by a broad speaking Irishman, on safety and harrasment issues "the boys don't harrass the girls and the girls don't harrass the boys" etc.
Everyone was made welcome not a hinderance as on some other sites and even getting parking for trucks and gear unloaded was handled in a helpful and friendly way although it was a complete madhouse as you would expect so close to opening.
Well done everyone on the Westfield Burwood site.
James O'Brien.
In the East Timor section of your book Deliver Us from Evil-there are some factual errors, omission of certain events and mixed up dates.
We, the foreign media who were in East Timor at that time feel it is important to put the facts straight. Many of us ended up under siege at the Dili UN compound.
Page 356
...Hundreds sought refuge in the UNAMET compound, throwing their children over the razor wire on the walls, cutting themselves badly in their desperate search for safety.
You implied the incident took place not long after the 30 August ballot. You got your dates mixed up.
The incident took place at around 7.30pm Sunday 5 September when a nearby Indonesian army position began firing tracer rounds into the hill behind the UN compound, starting the panic in the carpark next to the compound-the footage was shot by Max Stahl and smuggled out to Darwin on Monday 6 September.
Around the same time the journalists staying at the Turismo Hotel were also pinned down in the hotel.
Page 356
...Thousands of locally recruited East Timorese soldiers and police mutinied and joined the militias.
You implied the mutiny took place after the announcement of the ballot on Saturday 4 September.
What mutiny? The fact of the matter is members of the TNI and the local police (BRIMOB) had been swapping their uniforms for the militias uniform before, during and after the 30 August ballot-the militias were organised and run by the TNI.
How could there be a need for a mutiny? Documents abandoned in the Aitarak HQ after the militia fled showed plainly any such 'mutineers' were joining a force consisting largely (at least) of enlisted Indonesian military personnel when they 'joined the militias.'
These militias clearly continued to act under the command of Indonesian soldiers and officers who stood behind the militias or joined with them directly in all the major attacks of those days.
There is not only eyewitness testimony of this, including that of journalists present, but also of militia who later defected or gave themselves up or were captured-a leaked document from TNI sources showed the militias were included in a list of battle-ready forces at the disposal of the TNI regional commander for the East Timor region.
Page 357
...September 6 was worse...The city centre was looted, stripped and burned by the militias; telephone, water and electricity services were shut down.
The looting began on Saturday 4 September immediately after the announcement of the ballot.
By Sunday 5 September we were all forced to leave the Mahkota Hotel and retreated to the Turismo Hotel or to the UN compound.
Our mobile phones were initially cut off on Tuesday 7 September at around 6pm. It was then back on again on Thursday 9 September for a short while and was off again. The pattern seemed to be if the news was favourable to the authority the phone was on and if the news was unfavourable the phone was off.
Some local phones on the other hand were functioning throughout the crisis but could only receive calls.
Page 357
...They targeted UN officials, foreign aid workers and journalists in an attempt to terrorize all observers out of the territory, they largely succeeded.
The journalists (including Indonesian journalists) started the exodus on Friday 3 September and by the time we did a head count at the Makota on Sunday morning 5 September there were only 30 odd of us left-mainly freelancers.
During the ballot on 30 August there were over 600 media personnel in East Timor.
Page 357
...In the next few days...Two thousand people seeking refuge in Bishop Carlos Belo's house were driven out and Belo was forced to flee to Australia.
This incident took place on Monday 6 September not a few days later.
There were 15 of us foreign media personnel (and one East Timorese interpreter) who had decided not to go to the UN compound-we used the Turismo as our base.
At around 11.30am while we were having a meeting the militias started their attack and pinned us down. Their mission was to clear the International Red Cross (ICRC) compound next to us and Belos house next to the ICRC.
We had to retreat to a room and 12 of us ended up in the bathroom for our protection. Four were in another part of the hotel-Marie Colvin, Carmela Baranowska, Max Stahl and Robert Carol and witnessed what happened at the ICRC compound.
We were pinned down for about an hour while the militias and the TNI cleared the 2,000 odd refugees at the ICRC compound and 3,000 odd refugees at Belo's house.
When we got out of the room an hour later we noticed the refugees were on the beach and were herded towards the wharf to be shipped to Atambua. We also noticed about 200 of the refugees were herded in the opposite direction towards the statue of Jesus-their fate unknown.
The police came back and told us to leave as the militias were returning to burn down the hotel. They wanted to take us to the police station-had that happened we would have been flown out of Dili.
We refused and told them we wanted to go to the UN compound and rang the Australian Ambassador John McCarthy.
On the way to the Turismo McCarthy's car was shot at.
When McCarthy finally arrived it was agreed only those who would be filling stories would go to the UN compound.
Three decided not to stay and were dropped off at the Australian Consulate-they were later flown to Darwin-the remaining 13 of us including our East Timorese interpreter went to the compound arriving, after 1pm.
On the way to the UN compound we noticed armed militias in army trucks roaming the streets unchecked by the TNI and BRIMOB.
Bishop Belo was not evacuated from Dili but from Baucau. He was taken there and was evacuated with members of CivPol and the UNVs to Darwin on Tuesday 7 September when the UN decided to abandon Baucau.
CivPol officers, whilst being threatened themselves surrounded the local Timorese staff to prevent them from being harmed by the armed militias.
They refused to be evacuated until they were sure the local UN staff would be evacuated to safety-the local UN staff were eventually put on the UN (Lloyds) helicopters bound for Dili.
When they arrived at the Dili airport CivPol officers had to negotiate with BRIMOB for their save conduct to the UN compound.
According to an eyewitness Max Stahl spoke to, at least eight people were murdered inside the Bishop's house during the 'evacuation' on 6 September (the same day as a coordinated attack on churches in Suai, and elsewhere also began). One of the victims was just fifteen years old.
Page 359
...Annan woke after 3pm on September 8 to talk with Habibie, who rambled for almost an hour...Annan told him that was just not so, and that the situation was so bad that UNAMET would have to be evacuated...
Later that morning Annan briefed the Security Council and told them no government wanted to deploy troops in an international force without the consent of Indonesia. He did not want to pull UNAMET out and leave the East Timorese who had sought the UN's protection to be cut to pieces. He authorized only a partial withdrawal and told UNAMET to seek volunteers to stay behind to extend the UN's protective presence. There was no shortage of volunteers.
When Annan was speaking to Habibie it was 3pm Dili time-around this time Marie Colvin (Sunday Times, London), Irene Slegt (Dutch freelance) and HT Lee (Australian freelance) spoke to Ian Martin the UNAMET Head of Mission in his office. They wanted to know what plans if any the UN had-earlier at around 1pm the convoy came back almost empty and our supplies were therefore running out.
They also wanted to confirm the rumours of the impending UN pull out and if so would the local staff and the Timorese refugees be evacuated.
Martin's reply was the UN was monitoring the situation and was in constant contact with New York. There would be an announcement later that afternoon.
Ian Martin did not seem to have any contingency plans-in a media conference at the compound on Monday night 6 September when asked if there were any contingency plans Martin did not seem to know and could not give us a clear answer.
We had the briefing at round 6pm which is 6am New York time-about two hours after Annan's phone call with Habibie.
According to your account Annan told the Security Council no government wanted to deploy troops in an international force without the consent of Indonesia-when Annan was speaking to Habibie, Jakarta's position was not to support any peace keeping troops.
In the briefing we were told we would be evacuated the following morning at around 5am-all UN international staff would be relocated to Darwin.
When we inquired what would happen to the local UN staff we were told negotiations were still going on with the Indonesian authority to allow them to be relocated to Darwin.
More importantly the UN could not tell us what would be the fate of the 1,500 odd Timorese refugees in the compound-mainly women and children.
Members of CivPol and the UN international staff were also briefed separately and were told to pack up their bags and be ready for evacuation in the morning. CivPol officers were also told the Timorese would not be informed of the decision to evacuate until after midnight.
After filling our stories to the world media we had our own meeting at around 9pm-9am New York time.
We made the decision not to leave-the UN could not force us to leave because we were not employed by them. We refused to leave because we knew a human disaster worst than Srbenica would occur as soon as we all left-the militias, BRIMOB and the TNI would come in and kill all the refugees.
We thought by staying behind we could provide a human shield for the women and children in the compound and force the international community to act-surely the world would not stand by and allow a massacre of innocent women and children to take place. All we had to do was to rough it out with them for one or two days and the international peacekeeprs would arrive.
Immediately after our meeting we informed the world media of our intention to stay behind with the East Timorese refugees if the UN pulled out the following morning. Over 100 members of the UN international staff including CivPol officers had also volunteered to stay behind.
We decided to draft a petition which reads:
We the undersigned foreign media wish to express our deep concern about the sudden termination of the UN presence in East Timor and urge the UN Secretary General to urgently reconsider this decision.
We would give our warmest support to all efforts by the head of UNAMET to prolong the stay of the UN mission and to avert the imminent humanitarian tragedy.
All the remaining 25 journalists signed the petition.
We wanted to see Ian Martin earlier but he did not have the time or did not want to see us. We finally went to his office at 1.30am Thursday morning-1.30pm Wednesday New York time. We confronted Ian Martin but he refused to see us and we gave the petition to his off-sider.
Less than an hour later we were told the decision to completely pull out in the morning had been delayed for at least 24 hours.
You claimed Annan briefed the Security Council 'later that morning' and authorised only 'a partial withdrawal and told UNAMET to seek volunteers to stay behind...'
This seems to contradict with events unfolding in the compound-Annan could not have briefed the Security Council before 9am New York time-9pm Dili time. The briefing must have taken place well after 9am New York time-by then the foreign media, and over 100 UN international staff and CivPol officers had already made the decision not to leave.
We believe the UN would have pull out of Dili as planned on that Thursday morning and left the East Timorese to fend for themselves had we not taken the stand we took.
Late Thursday afternoon we were told the UN mission would not be abandoned:
� About 40 UN personals would remain
� All other UN staff, including local Timorese staff, would be relocated to Darwin
� The refugees in the compound would be given safe conduct to Dare escorted by CivPol
� All the remaining journalists must leave for Darwin or leave the UN compound.
We were under pressure to leave for Darwin. We had another meeting and six decided to stay-Marie Colvin, Irene Slegt, Minka Nyhuis, Max Stahl, Robert Carol and Alan Nairn.
The rest of us were evacuated to Darwin on Friday 10 September-to put it bluntly, we were expelled.
Max and Robert left the compound in the early hours of Friday for the hills and resurfaced after the arrival of Interfet on 20 September.
Alan left the compound and stayed in Dili but was arrested shortly after. He was transported to Kupang and was subsequently deported.
Marie, Irene and Minka moved out of the compound to a nearby house. However, they were forced back into the UN compound when renewed militia activities occured (unchecked by the TNI and BRIMOB) at the carpark next door to the compound.
They had the support of CivPol and later that day their stay was 'formalised'-so long as they did not mention they were reporting from the compound. They were subsequently evacuated to Darwin with the 1,500 Timorese refugees on 14 September.
We believe in the negotiations between New York and Jakarta that went on throughout Thursday we were used as pawns-the local UN staff were allowed to be relocated to Darwin, the refugees were to be given safe conduct to Dare, there would be a small UN presence in Dili but in return we were sacrificed-we the media had to leave for Darwin or leave the compound-Jakarta wanted us out and the UN agreed to their demand.
August 2000
H T Lee (Australian, Freelance, Sydney, Australia)
Email: [email protected] Mobile: +61 (0)419 411 240
Liam Phelan (Australian, Freelance, Sydney, Australia)
Email: [email protected]
John Martinkus (Australian, Freelance, Melbourne, Australia)
Email: [email protected]
Carmela Baranowska (Australian, Independent film maker, Melbourne, Australia)
Email: [email protected]
Marie Colvin (American, Sunday Times, London, UK)
Email: [email protected]
Max Stahl (British, Independent film maker, London, UK)
Email: [email protected]
Joanna Jolly (British, Freelance/Scotland on Sunday, Jakarta, Indonesia)
Email: [email protected]
Tom Fawthrop (British, Freelance, London, UK)
Email: [email protected]
Jerry O'Callaghan (Irish, Independent film maker, Dublin, Ireland)
Email: [email protected]
Berkeley Hotel
158 Abercrombie street Chippendale
3rd Sept Sunday at 2pm
Church and Drug law reform
Rev Ray Richmond Wayside chapel - he faced serious charges in campaign to get a self-injection room trial. Other speakers approached Tony Trimingham.
22nd October Sunday at 2pm
East Timor
Panel Margherita Tracanell who worked on the staff of Fretlin. In charge of media during before and after the ballot.Plus others. As well as footage of film shot after ballot, will be shown not been seen before
Sunday 12th of November at 2pm
Debate Euthanasia
Dr Phillip Nitschke Australia's own Dr death Vs Dr Keith Suter (to be confirmed)
Sunday 25th of November
Progressive Local Government City Politics
Speaker Lord Mayor of Brisbane Jim Thoorley
Sunday 3rd December
Womens prisons and their future
The recent upper house enquiry into prisons unanimously recommended no more womend prisons should be built. Both political parties will be on the panel. As well as Brett Collins John Ryan Liberal MP and Peter Primrose Lab
All of these take place at the Berkeley Hotel
158 Abercrombie street
Any more info phone 0416 347 501
by Peter Lewis
|
How did an Australian come to be coordinating international trade union campaigns in Brussels?
The ICFTU held its international congress in Australia at the time of the Bicentennial in 1988. At the time it was decided that Australia should have a presence on the secretariat staff. I was working at the WA Trades and Labor Council at the time and and the ACTU asked for candidates from each state. I sent my application in and after a fairly rigorous interview process I was offered a job in Brussels as the International Youth Coordinator.
It was difficult, but exciting work, with a lot of international travel - I was travelling for six months of every year. About six years ago I was appointed international campaigns and education director and I've been doing that ever since. Basically, I work with affiliated bodies like the ACTU on the ground to help run campaigns on issues of significance and gathering international support on their behalf.
Is there a difference between national and international campaigning?
The main difference is the lead-time required. The wheels of international action can turn slowly and it takes a lot of planning to keep things on track. I'll give you an example. The ICFTU has backed the campaign by Pakistani trade unions in the town of Sialkot to stop the use of child labour in the production of soccer balls and allow the adult workers to organise. Three quarters of the world's soccer balls, and lots of other sporting goods are made in and around that one town.
The campaign commenced in 1996 when we received a request for assistance from Pakistan. During the 1996 European soccer championships, we released the story to the world's media with a special video, and started discussion with the world soccer body FIFA. FIFA logos appear on many of these balls, and FIFA and the regional bodies such as UEFA receive income from license fees. We agreed a set of principles on core labour standards with FIFA, guaranteeing organising and bargaining rights for all the adult workers of the companies making the balls and their sub-contractors, as well as a guarantee of non-discrimination, no forced labour and a programme to remove and rehabilitate the child workers. The International Labour Organisation then began working with UNICEF and others to put a rehabilitation programme in place, and inspecting the workshops for child labour. But only when the parents of the kids get proper wages (at the moment they get less than one dollar for a ball that sells overseas for up to 100 dollars) can they afford to send the kids to school.
The big companies reacted strongly to our agreement with FIFA. So we started talks with the world sports industry federation as well. They have agreed to most of our claim, but still the companies are not doing enough. We, working with several NGO's, have kept up the public pressure, and bit by bit the companies are realising that they can't avoid trade union and consumer pressure.
While all this was going on, our affiliate the All Pakistan Federation of Labour began laying the groundwork for organising in Sialkot. A tough job to say the least. But just a couple of weeks ago, APFOL told us that the first union had been registered in a factory with seven thousand workers.
In the end the work of Australian trade unions through the ACTU and NSW Labor Council in negotiating an agreement on labour sources for sporting equipment with SOCOG has been decisive in keeping up the pressure on the industry and setting a real benchmark. The SOCOG agreement was also instrumental in thousands of garment workers in Fiji finally being able to join their union.
This has been an important start, but as you can see it's the end of a difficult year process, where there were many occasions when a positive outcome was not assured. And because you have to invest this sort of time, you need to pick the right campaigns to run.
What is your take on the fair trade - free trade debate going on in Australia?
We watched the recent debate at the ALP's Hobart conference with interest. The ICFTU's position is that core labour standards, , as well as environmental standards need to be given a greater priority. We believe that the World Trade Organisation must work with the ILO and include the core standards into trade agreements. It seems to me that the ALP now has a policy position pretty much in line with this and I think the Australian trade union movement can take a lot of credit for that. A Labor Government in Australia could play a very positive leadership role in moving this important debate further.
One argument against fair trade is that developing nations end up being the one's locked out of trade and development. You talk to them on the ground, what is their attitude?
It's important when working through these issues that workers in a country not meeting the required standards be given a central role in the process. No-one is seriously advocating immediate on the spot penalties; we are talking about a process where a country would receive a formal warning if it were found to be in breach and assistance would be offered in addressing the problem. In this context, the right for workers to organise collectively could be a key remedial measure.
There is no sense in which this would be an attempt to rob workers in developing countries of opportunities to improve their lives. The global economy needs global rules that do more than just protect companies and profits. The recent unrest in Fiji illustrates what I'm talking about. The international action against the coup leaders came at the express request of Fijian workers. It was the business leaders who were talking about the negative affects on Fijian workers.
What role can Australian workers play in improving the plight for workers in the developing world?
There's a leadership role to be played by workers in the developed world, particularly in dealing with multinationals. The recent campaign on Rio Tinto shows how international action can move company policy. There is also a growing awareness that superannuation and pension funds can exert influence for better social and environmental standards. And there's the pressure workers can bring in their capacity as consumers, which is a potential that we have only begun to work through. So there's a series of tools that are now at the disposal of workers in developed countries.
Are you optimistic about the future of trade unions in the 21st century?
I'm very optimistic. The trade movement is by far the most representative body on earth. We speak for more than 120 million people, which is more than any other group, anywhere. It is true that we have experienced difficult times in recent years, through reasons largely beyond our control - economic change and outright management hostility. But we have maintained our base and are in a good position to seize the initiative in the future. There is a feeling that the balance in the workplace has swung too far - it's our task to develop the framework through which working people can fight back. Ultimately, the answers lie within the union movement itself and our ability to regenerate and re-invigorate.
by John Shields
|
Although standing just a tad over five feet tall, at the zenith of his power, in the mid 1960s, he was the unchallenged voice of by far the most powerful of Australia's local union movements.
He was also the undisputed ruler of Australia's most remarkable local peak trade union bodies, the famed Barrier Industrial Council. Under his stewardship, the BIC ruled Broken Hill like a state within a state, regulating almost every conceivable aspect of daily life and work in the 'Silver City'.
To his admirers he was a resolute, wily, irreproachable and indomitable champion of the workers' cause; to detractors, he was a truculent and heavy-handed chauvinistic and autocrat. To be sure, his industrial ethic was remarkable for its simplicity: 'If you don't kick, you get kicked'; but then the industrial stakes for which he played were amongst the most valuable imaginable, and his corporate opponents amongst the most powerful and best resourced in the world.
A militant who despised radicalism; a labourist with a deep distrust of lawyers and arbitration; a democratically elected and unpaid official who saw no inconsistency in wielding the institutional power of unionism 'over' as well as 'for' working people - in many ways he personified the complexities and contradictions of the local union movement to which he gave his all and upon which he left an indelible stamp. He was William Sydney ('Shorty') O'Neil - the 'king of Broken Hill'.
But the king is no more. He passed away on 24 March this year, in the city of his birth, aged 96. With his passing Broken Hill has lost its last direct link the glory days of Barrier unionism and the last of those larger-than-life characters who were responsible for shaping the legend of Broken Hill as Australia's one true 'union town'.
O'Neil's life of union activist was practically predestined. His father Mick, a western plains shearer, participated in the shearers' strikes of the early 1890s and, with brother Andy, was evidently involved in the torching of the scab-laden paddle steamer Rodney on the Darling River during the strike of 1894. While Mick escaped the arm of the law, brother Andy was not so lucky, serving seven years jail for his trouble. Thereafter, Mick took up work as an underground miner in the dust-laden and deadly stopes of the Broken Hill 'line of lode' and began a life-long involvement with the Barrier Branch of the Amalgamated Miners Association. It was here that son William was born in 1903.
In 1917, aged 14, Shorty followed his father onto the line of lode. Working initially as a surface worker at the BHP's 'Big Mine', Shorty carried kerosene tins full of coal to fire a 'steam navy' and joined the syndicalist-led miners union. Progressing to engine cleaning, he joined the second largest of the Barrier unions, the moderate-led Federated Engine Drivers and Firemen's Association. Barely two years later, the O'Neil's and their fellow mine workers were plunged into the longest and most bitter dispute in the town's history, the 18 month long 'Big Strike' of 1919-20. As Shorty's biographer, Bill Howard, has observed, it was an experience which seared itself into the young O'Neil's consciousness; the long months of deprivation convincing him that neither arbitration nor the strike weapon marked the way forward for ordinary working people. To aid the cause, father Mick, a one-time bootmaker, dusted off his cobblers kit and set to work repairing boots and shoes at the town's Trades Hall building, with Shorty as his 'shoeshine boy'. Shorty supplemented the family's supply of strike rations with vegetables from the garden of the local jail by forging a friendship with the local prison warder.
The radicals in the Amalgamated Miners won the war with the mining companies but they lost the ensuing peace and over the course of the next five years the local union movement underwent an almost unimaginable transformation. As a result of the strike, underground miners won an unprecedented 35 hour week, an end to night shift work, a cessation of the deadly practice of firing explosives on shift, and the introduction of a company-funded scheme of medical inspection and workers' compensation. In the afterglow of the strike victory, the syndicalists even restyled the union as the Barrier Branch of the Workers' Industrial Union of Australia (WIUA). However, the world metal price slump and recession of 1921 saw the O'Neils thrown back once again on union sustenance payments.
The recession marked the beginning of a retreat from radicalism in the WIUA and the forging of new institutional presence and purpose for Barrier unionism. In 1923-24 the unions on the mines and in the town sector formed a new and instantly powerful peak body, the Barrier Industrial Council (BIC), charged with enforcing closed shop unionism and with overseeing the creation of a system of local peak level collective bargaining and triennial agreement-making. In the space of a few short years, the BIC oversaw the locality's near complete removal from centralised arbitration and for the next 60 years peak union centralism and local collective bargaining would remain the defining features of formal industrial relations in Broken Hill.
This was the institutional stage on which Shorty O'Neil would establish leadership credentials in the years after World War Two. O'Neil's role model in this process was the BIC's second and most long-serving president, E.P. 'Paddy', O'Neill. O'Neill, who presided over the BIC from 1924 until 1949, was a council employee (night soil carter, in fact), a Municipal Employees Union official, devout Catholic, social conservative and wily tactician. Under Paddy O'Neill's presidency, the BIC not only consolidated its influence over local industrial relations but also emerged as a social regulator par excellence. It banned paid employment by married women, enforced a rule of 'one man-one job', banned 'outsiders' from local jobs and union membership, and controlled the price of virtually every basic commodity, from bread and milk to beer and theatre tickets. Paddy O'Neill was not only the founding father of the system which ultimately Shorty came to inherit but also a significant role model in the art of union leadership. If Paddy O'Neill was the first uncrowned king of Broken Hill, then it must be said that Shorty was a worthy successor.
But the young Shorty also had other less likely but perhaps equally important mentors. By far the most significant of these were WIUA and Communist Party activists Frank Kelly and A.R. ('Flossie') Campbell. Throughout the 1930s and 1940s, O'Neil worked underground at the Collins-House-run North Mine and it was here that he served his apprenticeship in rank-and-file activism. Ironically, it was here too that O'Neil became closely involved with a movement which undoubtedly posed the greatest single internal challenge ever to the BIC and the system over which it presided. Between 1931 and 1935, communist miners associated with the Militant Minority Movement established job committees on each of the mines, ostensibly to bargain with management over issues specific to particular mine sites. By 1935, the job committees had become so influential that neither the BIC nor mine management could afford ignore their presence and for the next ten years the committees were major players on the line of lode, particularly in relation to conditions, allowance and contract rates for underground miners. Committee activists also captured a number of key union positions, with Campbell, for example, being elected to the influential post of WIUA Check Inspector. Under Frank Kelly's tutelage, O'Neil emerged as a key figure in the North Mine committee, eventually becoming committee president. In the closing months of World War Two he and Kelly led a walk-out at the North Mine over the transfer of a miner on disciplinary grounds; a strike which attracted national attention. By this time, however, the communist star was on the wane and the BIC leadership acted in concert with mine management to shut the committees down.
For O'Neil, the job committee movement provided not only invaluable political experience but also a solid basis of rank-and-file support within the WIUA for a tilt at high union office. After serving several years on the WIUA Committee of Management, in 1952 O'Neil elevated to the post of WIUA Check Inspector, a position occupied until just a few years earlier by his old mentor, Flossie Campbell. Like Campbell before him, Shorty carried out the duties of this onerous but unpaid job by night while working on the mines by day. In 1953, he became a WIUA delegate to the BIC.
By this time, wider changes were afoot in the local union movement. In 1948 Norm Dunleavy, a supporter of the right-wing Industrial Groups, had won the WIUA presidency. To Dunleavy, O'Neil loomed large as both a dangerous militant and a threat to his own aspirations to leadership of the BIC. By the mid-1950s the two men were locked in an acrimonious struggle for ascendancy. In the process, O'Neil aligned himself increasingly with Paddy O'Neill's successor as BIC president, Federated Engine Drivers leader and left-winger, Bert Kersten. Under Kersten, O'Neil served as a BIC trustee, then, successively, as junior vice-president and senior vice-president. Then, on Kersten's retirement in 1957, fellow delegates elected O'Neil to the BIC presidency.
O'Neil's elevation set the stage for what must surely rank as one of the most brazen, if not bizarre, political manoeuvres in Australian union history. In 1958, in an effort to unseat his rival, Dunleavy engineered O'Neil's defeat as WIUA Check Inspector and then conspired to rule O'Neil out of contention for the annual BIC presidential election by overturning his status as a WIUA delegate. Sensing this possibility (or perhaps tipped off about it), O'Neil secretly joined the local branch of the Theatrical Employees Union, and submitted himself for presidential reelection as this union's delegate. The ploy worked. Shorty retained the presidency with the support of the dozen or so town-based unions whose combined delegate strength significantly outweighed that of the numerically far larger WIUA.
In this respect, O'Neil owed his survival to the gerrymandered delegate structure which Paddy O'Neill had pioneered over thirty years before as a means of keeping the then left-dominated WIUA in check. While relations between Dunleavy and O'Neil remained nothing short of poisonous O'Neil encountered no further serious challenge to his authority during his dozen years at the apex of Barrier unionism. Dunleavy died suddenly in 1959 and O'Neil's relationship with Dunleavy's successor as WIUA president, Arthur Treglown, was little better but Treglown had no designs on the top BIC post.
It was under O'Neil's unchallenged stewardship that the BIC attained the height of its power and prestige. By the late 1950s outside observers were referring to the BIC as the defacto local government, regulating everything from labour supply, job access and shopping hours to leisure activities and the local press. In 1962, at O'Neil's instigation, the BIC extended its social control by buying up the languishing WIUA paper, the Barrier Daily Truth, and making it compulsory for every local unionist to subscribe. Its concern to preserve local jobs for locals even led it to place a ban on door-to-door canvassing by travelling salesmen. Its forays into commodity consumption and family life extended to the maintenance of a prohibition on sales of bottled beer on Sundays, evidently with the object of persuading working men to share the Sunday roast with their families in a state of sobriety. Under O'Neil, the BIC was also reputed to be the last avenue of protection for mistreated wives.
At the same time, the Council turned a blind eye to illegal gambling and after hours bar trading, evidently in recognition of the working miner's right to post-toil leisure. To many observers, the BIC loomed large as the sovereign power in the Silver City. It retirement, O'Neil recalled a meeting with a newly installed State Premier, presumably Liberal Robert Askin, who allegedly suggested: "You leave me alone, and I'll leave you alone."
While his Catholicism was largely nominal, O'Neil asserted a place consciousness, social conservatism and regulatory intent every bit as intense as that of his illustrious predecessor, Paddy O'Neill. As he saw it, the BIC's ban on married women's paid employment was a matter of social justice and employment opportunity - for single women. It was also, of course, a means to upholding the male breadwinner ideal and retaining young 'eligible' women in the town.
O'Neil's interventions in matters industrial, social and moral didn't always go according to plan. On one occasion his efforts ran counter to local consumer tastes - quite literally! In the early 1960s, an attempt to ban Adelaide pies and bread from local shops caused an outcry from local consumers who claimed that the local product just wasn't up to standard. When it came to consumer sovereignty, even the collective power of the BIC had its limits! O'Neil's efforts to spread the benefits of a 35 hour week to town employees also met with limited success.
In 1966, Council workers secured a 35 hour week with help from the BIC, but other town employees remained on longer hours. It was during this campaign that O'Neil locked horns with journalist, Bob Bottom, then a locally-based ABC reporter. Summoned to appear before the BIC after alleging that printers at BIC-owned Barrier Daily Truth had themselves been refused shorter hours, Bottom refused to oblige. He was fined and appealed to his own union, the AJA, which paid the fine but agreed to Bottom being gagged. None of the parties emerged from this taudry episode with reputation enhanced. In Shorty's last year in office, a ham-fisted attempt drive out a group of women imported to sell the salacious publication The Kings Cross Whisper landed the BIC and the Truth in court on a charge of defamation.
For all of this, though, we would do well to remember that O'Neil was no union despot. The BIC presidency was a purely honorary post. For most of his presidency, Shorty remained a working miner and on retirement from the North mine in 1965 he took up work in a local concrete batching plant. Equally, his was a union movement that remained true to the traditions of direct participatory democracy and the mass meeting. In a very real sense, he remained answerable to his (male) working class constituency and, by and large, and notwithstanding the creeping apathy spawned by post-war affluence, that constituency continued to invest its trust in him.
In retirement, O'Neil continued to figure prominently in local union affairs. He helped to manage the Broken Hill Base Hospital Contribution Fund, another of the town's celebrated union achievements. But retirement was also a bitter-sweet experience. Under his successor, Joe Keenan - incidentally the first WIUA leader to elected BIC president - the power built up by the BIC over the previous four decades began to unravel and its ability to shield its domain from the outside world began to crumble.
Certainly, Shorty was of the view that Keenan was simply not up to the task. Mine closures and mechanisation cut deeply into union membership, depleting the Council's constituency and resources. State intervention in local social and industrial affairs increased dramatically, undermining the BIC's power as both a bargaining agent and social regulator. As compulsory unionism came under challenge from within and without, so too did the BIC's ability to regulate local labour markets.
In a protracted and at times farcical dispute, which ran from 1977 until 1981, local Council employee Noel Latham mounted a successful Supreme Court challenge to a longstanding BIC rule banning a union member from informing on another. Latham was summoned before the BIC and fined for dobbing on a workmate but refused to pay. Latham eventually lost his job after unionists refused to work with him. He then sued the workers concerned and won $70,000 in damages, which the BIC decided to pay by means of a compulsory levy. The case was fuelled by both personal animus, political-motivated outside interference, and a demarcation dispute between Paddy O'Neill's old union, the Municipal Employees' Union and the Amalgamated Metal Workers Union, to which Latham belonged. The sheer pettiness of all involved exposed the BIC's bureaucratic rigidity for all the world to see. O'Neil spoke out in support of the Council but he most have been privately horrified at the ineptitude of those around him.
By the 1980s, the residential qualification could no longer be policed. Nor could the marriage bar, as more and more local women and employers openly flouted the BIC. The BIC's ability to enforce the marriage bar was dealt a fatal blow in 1981 when a local dental assistant named Jeanine Whitehair successfully challenged the bar using the Wran Government's anti-discrimination and equal opportunity legislation.
In his eighties, O'Neil had the satisfaction of seeing his son, Bill, occupy the post which he himself had so treasured. However, Bill's tenure of office was marked by a concerted and largely successful management assault on the very things that Shorty had spend all most of his working life defending - the hard-won gains of 1919-20 and the decades-old system of non-arbitral peak level bargaining. In 1986, mine management demanded an end to a number of work practices which had been in place since the Big Strike.
The main demands were for the reintroduction of the night shift and a reduction in the time lapse required before re-entry to a mine after firing had taken place. In response the WIUA struck work for eight weeks - the longest strike since that of 1919-20. Management responded by doing the unthinkable. It applied to the NSW Industrial Commission for an award; and the Commission obliged. The unions then challenged the Commission's right to issue an award and, under conciliation, the parties agreed not to give effect to the award but to accept the recommendation of the Conciliator that the management demands be met. Despite the non-activation of the award, the outcome signalled the abandonment of the 61 year old industrial relations regime from which the BIC had derived much of its power and legitimacy.
Shorty O'Neil's tragedy, then, was to have lived long enough to witness the undoing of those ideals and institutions that he had worked so assiduously to uphold. In 1985 he even consented to his daughter leaving the Silver City for work further afield. Yet the institutions and practices which he guarded so jealously were indeed long-lived - more enduring, I fact, than the mining companies against which they were directed. And in their longevity lies the personal triumph of Shorty O'Neil - and that of the miners and town workers for whom he spoke.
John Shields
Senior Lecturer
Work and Organisational Studies
Institute Building
University of Sydney
Sources and Further Reading:
Much of the detail in this piece derives from W.A. Howard's illuminating1990 biographical study Barrier Bulwark: The Life and Times of Shorty O'Neil, Willry, Kew, Victoria, and I am indebted to Bill for making the task of researching this piece far less exacting than would otherwise have been the case.
Other sources consulted include:
Anon. (1952), 'Paddy O'Neill. The Uncrowned King', The Conveyor, May, 4-6, June, 22-23.
Dale, G. (1918), The Industrial History of Broken Hill, Fraser and Jenkinson, Melbourne.
de Vyver, F. T. (1960), 'Australian Labor's Closed Preserve: The Mining Town of Broken Hill', South Atlantic Quarterly, 59: 409-424.
Ellem, B. & Shields, J. (1995),'Why Do Unions Form Peak Bodies? The Case of the Barrier Industrial Council', The Journal of Industrial Relations, vol.38 (3), pp.377-411.
Ellem, B. & Shields, J. (1999), 'Rethinking "Regional Industrial Relations": Space, Place and the Social Relations of Work, The Journal of Industrial Relations, 41(4), December, 536-560.
Ellem, B. & Shields, J. (2000), 'Making a "Union Town": Class, Gender and Workers' Control in Inter-war Broken Hill', Labour History, 78, May, 116-140.
Ellem, B. & Shields, J. (forthcoming, 2000), 'H.A. Turner and "Australian Labor's Closed Preserve": Explaining the Rise of 'Closed Unionism' in the Broken Hill Mining Industry, Labour and Industry, August.
Ellem. B. & Shields, J., (forthcoming, 2000), 'Exploring Peak Union Purpose and Power: The Origins, Dominance and Decline of the Barrier Industrial Council', Economic and Labour Relations Review, December.
Flynn, B. (1988), 'Trade Unions and the Law: The Broken Hill Dispute', Journal of Industrial Relations, 30(1), 32-53.
Howard, W.A. (1992), 'The Rise and Decline of the Broken Hill Industrial Relations System', in Tenfelde, K. (ed.), Towards a Social History of Mining in the 19th and 20th Centuries, C.H. Beck, Munich, 1992.
Kimber, J. (1998), '"A Case of Mild Anarchy"? The Rise, Role and Demise of Job Committees in the Broken Hill Mining Industry, c1930 to c1954', BA (Hons) thesis, School of Industrial Relations and Organisational Behaviour, University of New South Wales.
Maughan, B. (1947), 'Review of Industrial Negotiations 1920-1946', Typescript, Charles Rasp Memorial Library, Broken Hill.
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Walker, K. (1970), Australian Industrial Relations Systems, Harvard University Press, Cambridge (first published 1956).
by Chris Owen
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USWA members have been covered by contracts negotiated after industrial action against Bridgestone/Firestone in 1994. Since those contracts expired early this year employees have been working under tentative contract extensions which have raised benefit renewal and job security concerns. The USWA is seeking to improve the situation with a comprehensive agreement that improves working conditions, wages and pensions for its members working at Bridgestone/Firestone facilities.
Talks between the USWA and Bridgestone/Firestone management have been ongoing since March this year. After much delay, the company finally presented a limited proposal on Tuesday 29th August which fell far short of meeting the critical issues identified by the union.
The two sides are at odds over both pensions and working hours. Union members want a bigger pension increase than Firestone is willing to give yet the company still pushes for the union to agree to forced overtime and changes to holiday and vacation time.
The USWA has threatened strikes against Bridgestone/Firestone to encourage serious agreements for workers.
"It's time to bring these negotiations to a conclusion" said John Sellers, chairman of the USWA Bargaining Council. "We expect intensive bargaining to continue. If an agreement is not reached during this time, a strike at every location is most probable."
The USWA represents more than 75,000 workers in the North America rubber and tyre industry. The union grew in 1994 with a merger with the Rubber Workers Union and smaller tyre workers unions and combined forces to successfully tackle Bridgestone/Firestone over contract issues.
That dispute began in 1994 when the Japanese-owned company refused to go along with a new model contract with a former tyre workers union. On 4th January 1995, twelve thousand tyre workers struck Bridgestone-Firestone who responded by hiring as many as 2000 replacement workers.
The agreements struck by the USWA-led union front allowed most of the workers to return to their jobs under better contracts in May of that year.
by Malcolm Fraser
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This lecture was delivered at the Northern Territory University, Darwin. on 24 August, 2000.
I acknowledge the Larrakia people who are the traditional owners of the land on which this University stands. I thank the representative of the Larrakia people, Mr Bill Risk for the welcome that has been expressed.
I also acknowledge the representatives of the Gurindji people particularly those who have travelled a considerable distance to be here for this afternoons launch of the spectacular banner project which tonight forms the backdrop to this lecture which honours the memory of the great Gurindji elder, Vincent Lingiari.
I also take the opportunity to thank the Centre for Indigenous Natural and Cultural Resource Management and the Council for Aboriginal Reconciliation for the invitation to deliver this 5th Vincent Lingiari Memorial Lecture and I acknowledge the continuing support of the Northern Territory University for this valuable historical lecture series.
I am also pleased tonight to acknowledge Mr Galarrwuy Yunupingu, Chairman of the Northern Land Council, who delivered the third VLML, We know These Things to be True in 1998.
The Gurindjis fight for justice was a milestone in relationships between indigenous and non-indigenous Australians. It was a start of the long road. We should all be grateful for the leadership that he and his people then gave.
Many of the things I say to you tonight will not be new to your ears. But I thought long and deeply about the thrust of this Lecture. The Governor-General, Sir William Deane, drew from his lecture signposts which pointed to a better situation in the future, signposts which indicated the world was changing. We would recognise that in some respects it changes too slowly.
In the second lecture, Gough Whitlam explored the reluctance of Parliaments to act in timely and effective ways. In the next two lectures, Galarrawuy Yunupingu and Patrick Dodson, in quiet but powerful terms, spoke of past injustices and of Aboriginals' appeal for a fairer world, for justice. Their lectures were powerful not only for content and the latent passion which they contained but also because of the moderation of the language, because of their recognition that they and those who recognise the justice of the cause, are fighting for outcomes which will make Australia a stronger and more credible nation.
Tonight my remarks are directed primarily to non-indigenous Australians. I recognise in particular the quarter of a million people who walked across Sydney Harbour Bridge, the 50,000 who marched in Brisbane, 55,000 who marched in Adelaide and the 20-25,000 who crossed the bridge in Hobart. These marches, by far the largest and by far the most peaceful in Australian history, demonstrate an undercurrent of support, a strength of feeling, amongst Australians. With their feet they were saying they want to see justice done, they want to see the traditional Australian colloquial fair go truly applicable to all members of our society and in particular to those who represent the oldest inhabitants of this island continent.
I would like to ask everyone who marched to go to one unbeliever and convince him or her that there must be greater change and that we do not want to wait too long before we see the most powerful foundations for reconciliation.
As many have recognised, reconciliation is not something that will happen on one day in one particular year. It is an ongoing process which involves both government and people. But as we close out the last millennium and begin the next, as we end the Commonwealth of Australias first one hundred years and begin the next, it is more than a little sad that we have not yet in this year achieved a significant landmark which enables us to say: From this point onward, reconciliation is assured, from this point onward we are building the reality of Australians united in a common purpose.
In the last half century there has been significant progress. The Referendum in 1967 was itself an overwhelming expression of Australian support for the dignity and participation of Australias indigenous population. Different governments and a succession of ministers in charge of indigenous affairs have sought to make progress, not all with equal success. I can remember as Education Minister over thirty years ago, asking my Department to strain every nerve to find qualified Aboriginals who could teach Aboriginals in schools throughout the Northern Territory. There were a few but clearly not enough.
Today many Aboriginals have been successful in teaching and in all the professions but the more some succeed, the more it throws up the stark gulf between the generality of the Australian population and those who still live in camps in Third World conditions in one of the wealthiest countries in the world.
So while we can recognise and be thankful for the successes, we must also recognise the failures and recommit ourselves to reconciliation, to make sure that all indigenous Australians can take charge of their own lives and share in the Australia we are trying to build. We must recognise that reconciliation involves matters of the spirit as well as matters of a practical nature.
I was in the Sydney Opera House when Mick Dodson gave his address at Corroboree 2000. He spoke of the reality of his lifetime and of the lifetime of people in that audience and of the reality of the archaic attitudes and racist thought that had dominated much of his experience, especially in his early life.
There are some who suggest that the darkest hours of Australian history belong to the remote past, something that may have happened in the nineteenth century, certainly not something that happened in our lifetime or in the lifetime of people whom we have known. Mick Dodson made it plain that that perception is incorrect.
Here let me appeal again to my fellow non-indigenous Australians.
It is hard to realise that the history we were taught of a great empty land being settled by brave explorers was largely false. It is hard for us to understand that the real history of Australia was quite different from that which we were taught as children. It might be harder still for some of us who have known people of influence and respect, who participated in policies which today we regard as outdated, barbarous, cruel and racist. But that is the reality of non-indigenous Australians upbringing. It is something that all Australians, those whose parents or grandparents were born here and those who travelled across the seas from Europe or from Asia, from any part of the world to make their home in Australia, need to understand. Because, at the end of the day, the road of true reconciliation involves all of us. Reconciliation involves our capacity to face the past and accept its reality.
There is a document published by the Australian Archives. It contains photographs and documents relating to the removal of Aboriginal children of part-descent from their families and communities in the Northern Territory.
Whatever may have happened beforehand, it seems that the policy of separation was formalised around 1911/12. Baldwin Spencer, Chief Protector of Aboriginals over that period, made it plain that no half-caste children should be allowed to remain in any native camp. Baldwin Spencer apparently believed that because children of mixed race had some white blood they could be civilised. Areas were chosen, compounds established, for the purpose of removing children of mixed race, especially girls.
An Aboriginal Ordinance was established in 1912 which authorised the removal of any Aboriginal children from their families and communities. The policy was official. The Ordinance made it clear that the Chief Protector or his delegate had power to take any Aboriginal or mixed-race child into protection. It made it plain that any person who refused to co-operate in achieving this objective was guilty of an offence. In reality the policy was applied to children of mixed race and not to full-blood Aboriginals.
Separate provisions were contained in the Ordinance for children not being properly treated. In the general policy of removal, the quality of care provided by parents and communities was not relevant. The removal depended on race. That was in 1911.
There was a meeting of Aboriginal Protectors in Canberra in 1937 which seemed to be a major attempt to co-ordinate policy between the Commonwealth and the States.
The Aboriginal Protectors from Western Australia, Mr A.O. Neville and Dr C.E. Cook from the Northern Territory, led the conference. Neville made it plain that the Aboriginal problems were to be looked at on a long-term basis. He believed that, full-bloods would die out, therefore half-bloods, who had been strengthened by white genes, should be removed from the Aboriginal environment where they would forget language, history, culture, family, group and tribe. This is not the Australia we love, it is not the Australia we want to remember.
Shortly before Christmas, in December 1949, Patrol Officer Evans reported certain incidents at Wave Hill. Part of his responsibility was to take young, mixed-race Aboriginal children away from their families. He recommended, because of the grief caused, that children should be left with their mothers at least until the age of six. He asked for the appointment of an itinerant female welfare worker to assist Aboriginal mothers whose children were taken away.
Patrol Officer Evans was clearly personally upset at the policies he was asked to implement. His report went to the Government Secretary, Mr Leydin. Leydin included Evans report in a note of his own to the Administrator.
In the report to the Administrator, Leydin wrote:
I cannot imagine any practice which is more likely to involve the Government in criticism for violation of the present day conception of human rights. Apart from that aspect of the matter, I go further and say that superficially, at least, it is difficult to imagine any practice which is more likely to outrage the feelings of the average observer.
Leydin also wrote in his note to the Administrator: If children, however, are to be forcibly taken from their mothers despite what Mr Evans calls distressing scenes which he hopes never to experience again it is of the greatest importance that the Ministers approval of such a policy can be readily stated, and further, that the administration of such policy can be shown to be just and considerate.
He continued: The Native Affairs Branch is however unable to procure such an approval, at least not readily. In other words, at this point the administration in the Northern Territory had misplaced earlier Ministerial approval.
Leydin also drew attention to: a further practice followed by the Native Affairs Branch which I believe should be referred to at this stage, and that is the apprehension of Aboriginals who are regarded as delinquents, and the despatch of them for specialised terms to a settlement maintained partly at least for that purpose. It is to be noted that Aboriginals are held in what is in effect in custody in this way without any investigation by a properly constituted court. An Aboriginal may be sent, for instance, to Snake Bay, on the report of a Patrol Officer who may or may not be a properly informed, impartial person. Leydin, as Government Secretary, recommended that both practices cease until the policies had been considered by the Minister and approved.
In responding, Administrator Driver replied indicating that, if Ministerial approval could not be found on the files, that he himself would put forward a policy to the Minister covering the removal of children. Driver, however, saw nothing untoward in the policy of apprehending and sending delinquent Aborigines to a settlement, even though no charge had been made against them and no trial held. This was certainly in contravention of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, to say nothing of our own laws.
The actions of Patrol Officer Evans and the subsequent comments by the Government Secretary Leydin indicate that outrage at the policy of removal was alive, even in 1950.
These incidents led to a lengthy note being put to Paul Hasluck as Minister early in 1952. Frank Wise at this time was Administrator. Wise had gone to considerable lengths to dress the policy in better clothes, trying to make sure in accordance with the conscience of the day, that it could be argued that the policy was reasonable and humane.
But the arguments put, rested on a racist foundation. Aboriginals or part-Aboriginals were to be assimilated, mingled with whites and bred-out.
It is worth noting that in his notes to Hasluck, Frank Wise tentatively suggested that a partly coloured person who remains in his native camp is said to be the cause of constant trouble. Wise, a cautious man, did not put that statement in terms of his own belief. In this context the words is said to be are important. It is important because this became a significant justification for the policy of removal.
In 1928 J W Bleakley, Chief Protector of Aboriginals in Queensland, had recorded a different view. He wrote in a special report on the condition of Aboriginals in the Northern Territory past experience has shown that the half-caste with few exceptions does not want to be separated from the blacks, in fact, is happier amongst his mothers people. That comment is also significant because Bleakley in his time was widely respected in Government circles. He was still in position when the 1937 conference was held between Aboriginal Protectors in Canberra. At that conference he had demonstrated greater concerns for the well being of Aboriginals, especially of full-bloods, than other representatives.
Haslucks own handwriting notes his approval of the major policy recommendations, including the policy of removal but he rejected the suggestion that there should be a minimum age of four, saying that it was better for the child to be removed at the youngest possible age. The note made it clear that partly coloured children were to be removed if the Director of Native Affairs thinks it necessary in the interests of the children. And of course, because of the policy of the times, that was virtually automatic. Policy stated that children of mixed-race were to be removed under the assumption that it was best for the child, regardless of individual family circumstances. It would be interesting to know what Paul Hasluck thought of such policies in the 1970s when he was the Governor General.
The policy was plainly alive through the war years in Curtin and Chifleys time. It was equally plainly operating through Menzies time and one of Menzies strongest ministers was in charge of the policy.
It is worth noting also from the archives that, in the early 1950s there was beginning to be a little publicity decrying the policy of the Federal Government in relation to young Aboriginals.
I want to pause at this point because much of this represents the past that we have to face. We cant say it happened beyond the memory of todays Australians. We cannot say it happened in a past age. These events were continued after we and many other states had accepted the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Clearly the test of those human rights was not put against the policy of removal.
Today we find these policies abhorrent. They are totally outside our understanding and our belief in human rights. If we wish to advance the cause of human rights in Australia and internationally, we have to accept that that will only come through our own actions and through international instruments.
Through much of my political life I accepted the view of noted lawyers, that our system of law, derived from Britain and the development of common law best protected the human rights of individuals. I now believe that our own system has so has so patently failed to protect the rights of Aboriginals that we should look once again at the establishment of a bill of rights in Australia. The circumstances of Australias indigenous population provides a powerful argument for such a change. The need for an Australian bill of rights would be broadly based to guarantee basic rights to all individuals and minority groups.
While we reject the attitudes that led to these policies, we also need to have enough humility to recognise that our condemnation comes from a later stage in human development. It is a mark of how far Australia has travelled. It is a mark also of how far much of the world has travelled. All the more reason for todays Australians officially to express their sorrow for what has happened.
We should note also that such attitudes and policies were already recognised as outdated and barbaric in 1952. A Patrol Officer charged with implementing the policies, a Government Secretary oversighting such policies, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and protection for individuals within our own law, should have caused such policies to be abandoned. But they werent because they were regarded as essential for the policies of assimilation, which were designed to breed out Aboriginals.
Australia is unfortunately divided on the appropriate response to these acts. There are those who prefer to forget that past and almost pretend it never happened. There are others who believe an honest apology on behalf of the nation is necessary and that we should follow Canadas example and act with greater generosity and understanding of those terrible events.
While no two cases are strictly analogous, I believe the Canadian experience has more relevance for Australia than New Zealand or the United States.
In the years after the Referendum, Australian policies may have been regarded as more advanced, more sympathetic, than those of Canada but in the last twenty years of the last century, Canada leapt ahead and has adopted policies and approaches which some people still dont even want to think about in Australia.
They have made their apology.
As late as 1998, the Canadian government announced Canadas Aboriginal Action Plan, designed to take Canada a significant further step forward. In particular, the Canadian government expressed regret for its role in the Residential Schools system which took children away from their family, community, culture and language.
In some respects the Residential Schools system had similarities with the removal of children in Australia. The Canadian statement makes it plain that no attempt at reconciliation can be complete without reference to those events.
The Canadian Government at the same time committed $350 million for community based healing as a first step to deal with the legacy of physical and sexual abuse at residential schools. It will be will be First Nations, Inuit and Métis people themselves, along with health and social professionals who will help in shaping support that is culturally sensitive and reflects experiences of different communities. The Canadian Government has not yet decided to negotiate compensation rather than force claims through the courts. A number of claims have been successfully made.
We can see from the nature of the Canadian statement that the Healing Fund will be spent on things that ought to be done anyway. It was the recognition and the response to the trauma and hurt that has made Canadian progress possible.
When I first read of the happenings in Darwin's Federal Court and noted the statements made on behalf of the Commonwealth, I wondered what we had learnt.
But now, following the OLoughlin judgment in Darwin in the Cubillo and Gunner case, the Government should alter its policy and avoid forcing more people to fight for justice through he courts. Unless it could be overturned on Appeal, we know that under the discriminatory ordinances, it was then legal to take mixed-blood children from their families. We also know that the judgment said that the Commonwealth had not failed in its duty of care.
I believe that the Commonwealths duty of care should have extended not only to the act of taking the child away, but also to making sure that the conditions of the institution, the physical facilities, the teaching and the general management of the institution, were appropriate. In that respect I do not believe the Commonwealth did meet its duty of care. Mr Justice OLoughlin made it plain that he accepted the Gunner and Cubillo evidence concerning the treatment they had had at the institutions to which they were sent.
Unless the Courts decision can be reversed on appeal, any settlement which is to be lasting, which contributes to reconciliation, will have to be a political settlement. Thus the Commonwealth should seek alternative approaches, which would do much to advance reconciliation and overcome the injustices of the past.
There is another aspect which needs to be clearly understood. The cases have to be tried considering the law at the time. They cannot be tried under todays law. If that were possible, which it is not, the Commonwealth would lose every case. The injustice done to individuals was substantial. So many were tragically and traumatically affected. Surely it is reason enough to shut the doors of the courts and solve the issues politically, which is what ought to happen.
On last reckoning about $11 million had already been spent on one case. How much will be spent on 2000 cases, or whatever the number might be? And what damage is done in the process, forcing people to relive the tragedy of broken homes with the loss of family, culture, history and language? Aboriginals in these circumstances are being forced to reveal more of their lives than would occur in relation to other courts and other Australians.
Shortly before Corroboree 2000 where the Reconciliation Council laid out its blueprint for the future, Patrick Dodson made a speech which referred to the need for a Treaty and many other things. This opened a door to a world for which Australia is unfortunately not yet ready. The Canadians have learned to be comfortable, not alarmed, not frightened, not deterred by the use of terms such as self-determination, self-government, even the term Treaty does not frighten them or cause them to believe that Canada is any the less a nation. Canadians of whatever background do not believe that their nation is divided, fragmented because they have started to come to terms with the problems of the Inuit, the Métis and the Indians.
I have seen copies of several agreements recently negotiated by the Canadian Government with different groups. When the word Treaty was used in Australia it was clear from the immediate reaction, that politicians, journalists, commentators, editorialists were disturbed by the use of the word. Let us accept that that is the case, although we are perhaps a lesser nation for it. Is there a problem with the term Agreement?
We already have agreements. The Northern Land Council has published a useful briefing paper on some of these aspects. It is worth recording that a number of agreements are already in place. There is one in Cape York, there are a number of registered agreements before the Native Title Tribunal. Other agreements have been negotiated by the Land Councils. Successful negotiations and agreements have been reached concerning the future Alice Springs-Darwin railway. The law and the mechanisms are already in place which will allow agreements in different regions to be pursued more vigorously. This is one possible way forward.
Let us look more closely however at words like self-determination, self-government. Non-indigenous Australians need to recognise that the overwhelming number of us have charge of our own lives in ways that many indigenous Australians do not.
We only have to look at the main differences in terms of life expectancy and health. The difference between indigenous and non-indigenous Australians is great. Let me just quote from a letter sent in 1997 by Dr Keith Woollard, then President of the AMA and Prof Ian Ring of James Cook University, which was published in The Weekend Australian. They wrote:
In just three short decades, the health status of Maoris has improved dramatically. This is in stark contrast to the health of indigenous Australians. In 1950 the life expectancy for Maori people was 15 years less than for non-Maoris. By 1992 the gap had been cut to just five years. In contrast, Aboriginal people die 16-20 years younger than the rest of the population.
Important factors in the improved health status of Maori people include: Maori control of health services; health service provision in a wider context of language, culture and social services; workforce development designed to close the training gap between Maoris and non-Maoris; Maoris receiving the same level of funding a non-Maori with similar health problems Indigenous Australians receive a substantially lower level of health care services in many areas, despite being in greater need.
Self determination has always been a significant factor in improving the situation in New Zealand, as indeed it has in Canada. Self-determination very largely means being able to have charge of their own life the way the rest of us can take charge of ours. So lets forget about any fears or concerns about that word and accept it as reasonable.
Let us move to self-government. This does not relate to setting up a separate state. It doesnt relate to establishing a separate sovereignty, to the division of this country. Aboriginal leaders have spoken overwhelmingly of their wish to contribute to Australia. They have not spoken of separation. Self-government can apply to running your school, running local community health centres and services, or perhaps a cultural association, matters which might in some cases be undertaken by local government. The Canadian experience is a positive one, it is not a frightening one. We should learn from other people, especially where their experience is so relevant to ours.
Two other aspects I would like to touch on: The role of the United Nations and the role of Government.
Two aspects are involved in the role of the United Nations. Australia committed itself to this organisation and all governments have been and remain committed to its success. Australians played a leading role in its formulation. We have a better record than many, including the United States, in acceding to its conventions and resolutions. We have supported the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. We have ratified the International Covenant of Civil and Political Rights, the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination and the Convention on the Rights of the Child.
Did we mean it when we took these steps? Or were we trying to say we ratified these instruments so that we can apply them to the rest of the world but they do not apply to Australia?
The substance of human rights, in the international context, is that individuals or groups have a right to appeal if they wish to. No government has the right to deny that right. That is not to say that in all cases the United Nations committees will make universally acceptable or correct decisions, but it is important that a country such as Australia, whose only protection ultimately is a civilised world, support the United Nations rather than deride it.
One of the great dangers of todays world is that the worlds one and only superpower has increasingly, over the last ten years, said that the determinations of international bodies do not apply to them. That perhaps is the greatest single threat to world stability and progress. It is overwhelmingly in our interest to assist the United Nations and its instrumentalities in establishing a rule of law which internationally can apply to the great and powerful, just as the rule of law can apply to the great and powerful within Australia.
Our activities in recent times have diminished Australia and damaged the United Nations. On both counts it is unfortunate.
The best course with United Nations bodies is full and open disclosure. Three years ago the rapporteur for the Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination was not allowed to come to Australia. The Committee was told that a visit would be inadvisable, unacceptable, inappropriate. Hardly the best way to get a good report.
I have read the comments contained in the report of the Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination. If those comments had been made by any person in Australia, the Government would have had to regard them as reasoned and thoughtful. They were not offensive.
Governments cant have it two ways. It is not rational to say that we live in a globalised world economy, that there is one world market place, that financial market places must be open and transparent from one country to another, and to reject the inevitable conclusion in relation to matters such as human rights and the environment.
Australia as a nation has taken a reasonably vigorous role in the promotion of human rights. We have often criticised other people. If we have presumed to believe that we have the right to do that, we cannot deny that right to others. We cannot say that international rules and norms which our governments of different complexions have accepted can only apply to others but not to ourselves.
In todays world, Australias lack of progress in reconciliation greatly weakens our capacity to offer credible criticism of the record of other countries.
As a small nation in terms of power, our best protection is in a civilised world. Whatever its imperfections, we do not advance the cause of civilisation and of security and peace by condemning the instruments of international order. In these matters there is clearly a fundamental concern because there are some Australians who reject the inevitable consequences of internationalisation. It is easy to say to our own people we are to be governed from Darwin or Canberra but not from the United Nations. Such views play, for some people, on a nerve that is too responsive to rejection of international law.
If governments take that approach, when we ourselves have accepted those international norms and have sought to apply them to other states whose human rights record we regard as imperfect, we cannot deny the application of such standards to Australia itself. Our response to such matters should be open and transparent. If we want to avoid criticism we should put our house in order.
If the treatment of the original inhabitants of Australia by the white settlers represents the darkest hour in Australian history, the rejection of what many Australians would regard as justified criticism of Australian policies by international institutions, in a way which puts jingoistic nationalism over and above the concept and ideal of human rights, is a step into the past which we should not have taken.
Let me speak to the Role of Government.
There have been some suggestions that in the future reconciliation must become more and more a peoples movement. In one sense people have responded to that by marching with their feet. But in another sense, it is wrong. Issues of race are always the hardest to resolve, especially when the issue involves property. They are most unlikely to be resolved by the initiative of citizens alone unless those citizens so hound their politicians that the politicians become frightened not to act. But that happens rarely. 50,000 people in Brisbane, 250,000 in Sydney, 55,000 in Adelaide and 20,000 in Hobart represent a good start, and Governments should take note. This is an issue on which votes will change.
But it is the Government that is informed, it is the Government that is meant to have all the facts, it is the Government that has resources, authority and power, it is the Government whose files contain the evidence of the past that today we condemn.
In a matter so critical to the future of society and the future of Australia, it is not reasonable to say the community must lead. The community and its actions are an important component but it is the Government that must be to the fore and persuade all Australians that we must act with greater expedition and with greater generosity. Government, if not this, another, will set the pace.
Mandatory sentencing is one issue where only the government can act.
I understand both the Prime Minister and the Attorney-General, Daryl Williams, have said that they are personally opposed to mandatory sentencing. If ever there was a case for the use of our External Affairs Power, it was surely in relation to a matter of human rights which affects in particular the condition of the indigenous minority. The law, we know, was aimed primarily at indigenous Australians. The consequences of the law fall most heavily on indigenous Australians. It is extraordinary to give police a special discretion while that discretion is denied to the Magistrates. In a matter so sensitive, to deny the court the capacity to take into account all the circumstances of a case, is a basic denial of justice and an abrogation of our International Treaty obligations.
We should recognise and accept the fact that the condition of young Aboriginals and their communities is, in significant measure, the consequence of past government policy. These underlying causes should be attacked and mandatory sentencing abolished.
I have not always agreed to the use of the Foreign Affairs Power. It is meant to apply if the action of a State is likely to cause dislocation in our relations with some other country or state. There are many occasions when the power has been used, when there was no chance of the action affecting our relations with another country or state, but in this case it could, in this case it is relevant.
One might almost say this is the classic example of the purpose of the Foreign Affairs Power but the Government wont use it and we know why. There is not even a clear expression of view from the Opposition and we know why.
Amidst the disappointments, which are substantial, we should not forget that substantial and material progress has and is being made. That it is not as much as we would want is not a reason to be disheartened. Progress made is a reason to continue to use our powers of advocacy to convince Governments that Governments must act and, if Government will not act, this is a matter on which people must act to secure a government that will. The dignity and self-esteem of Australia demand it.
The agenda in front of Australia relating to our indigenous people is a substantial one. While the issue of an official Government apology has to be set aside for a while, it will re-emerge at a later point. Meanwhile, there is much to be done to lift the standards amongst the generality of Australias indigenous population.
If all of this could be advanced and achieved in a foreseeable time frame I believe Australia, as a nation, would benefit enormously. We would be a more credible and stronger people.
by Sharan Burrow
ACTU President: Sharon Burrow |
Democratising the economy will become a goal for working Australians who, as shareholders, do not want their financial returns to come at the expense of social concerns such as the environment and human rights.
The ACTU aims to play a role in promoting a reformed corporate culture for the 21st century.
A new century, a rapidly changing economy and a new leadership team at the ACTU. This is the right sort of time and context for unions and the ACTU to critically examine some of our traditional views and practices. Not because our goals have changed, but because the world in which we are operating is different.
As it has always been, the ACTU is primarily committed to a fairer distribution of the nation's wealth so that working people and their families can achieve a secure income, access to fundamental services like health and education and improve their living standards in line with growing prosperity.
As a preface to this speech we should all remind ourselves that there is much work that needs to be done to achieve this ambition.
Despite one of the longest periods of sustained economic growth in this country's history there are an increasing number of people in our community who are simply not getting a fair share. Large sections of the community are being left behind.
A 1999 National Institute of Economic and Industry Research report - "State of the Regions," found that only half the Australian population, located in just 15 out of 57 regions, live in communities that are equipped to handle the economic pressures of the next century.
Eight years of economic growth may have seen executive salaries increase by 30% but for many working families the benefits of a strong economy are hard to see. They are obscured by a fog of job insecurity, longer, unpredictable and often unpaid working hours, increasing costs of essential services and the inequitable distribution of the nations wealth that sees the top 20% of income earners get 48% of weekly income while the bottom 20% take just 3.8% home to their families.
These issues must be addressed. Our social cohesion as a community depends on it.
But today, more than ever, improving the living standards and quality of life for working people requires much more than just a concentration on the profit share versus the wages share.
We are and will remain primarily concerned to ensure that workers receive a fair wage that properly rewards their efforts and reflects an equitable share of the productivity and general economic growth to which they have contributed.
However since their establishment in this country, unions have recognised that workers' living standards are not dependent on wages alone. For this reason, unions have campaigned to ensure that improvements in standards of health, education, childcare, aged care, housing, transport and social security are at the centre of government policy.
Over the last 20 years, particularly during the period of the last Federal Labor Government, the ACTU has also been engaged at the macro economic level with the objective of ensuring that inflation, high interest rates and taxation arrangements do not negate gains made in wages and working conditions.
The issue I want to talk about tonight is an emerging strategy around issues of corporate governance and socially responsible investment. This results from a series of social and economic developments that now have the potential to drive a process of significant corporate reform.
First, our population is retiring earlier and living longer. For example, in 1966 life expectancy for men was 68 and 80% of males worked until around 65. In 2000, life expectancy for men is 76 and only 41% of men aged between 60 and 65 are in the workforce.
Second, financial support for these workers in their retirement years will come increasingly from superannuation funds and less from the social security system.
Third, an unprecedented 53% of Australians now own shares. Given that 10% of the wealthiest Australians own 90% of the shares for most working people this is currently indirect ownership through their superannuation funds. While superannuation shares are increasingly significant we also acknowledge that a shareholder culture is extending beyond wealthy Australia as evidenced by the float of major companies such as the Commonwealth Bank, Telstra and the NRMA.
Institutional investors control most public companies' share registers and superannuation funds are very significant institutional investors. Superannuation funds are predicted to make up more than 30% of the capitalisation of the Australian share-market within two years. Total superannuation fund assets (listed and non-listed investments) already stand at $416 billion compared to the $867 billion deployed on the Australian Stock Exchange. This is hardly surprising when in the US pension funds already make up more than a third of the capitalisation of the New York Stock Exchange and the picture is similar in the United Kingdom.
Once unions might have seen shareholders' interests as opposed to those of workers, but this can no longer be the case. The fact is that shareholders are all of us.
Employee representatives, whether elected or appointed by unions, make up half the boards of funds with almost half of total superannuation assets - around $200 billion.
Employer and employee representatives, along with the entire investment community, will increasingly come under pressure not just to ensure sound returns but to ensure that funds align their investment policies with the interests and values of fund members.
Internet transactions are set to rise. Ernest and Young predict that 50% of financial transactions will be on-line within the decade. Internet-enabled scrutiny of product will complement increasing interest in investment generally and facilitate rapid and major shifts in consumer choice.
What all this adds up to is that unions, along with everyone else involved in the superannuation industry, have a responsibility toward ensuring that workers' retirement savings are managed in their long-term economic and social interests.
There is no doubt that this has been done pretty well over the last 15 years or so; that is, since we had significant union involvement in superannuation.
However, along with many others in the community, we believe that not enough has been done by the investment community to influence the way that the companies in which they invest behave.
We need to look at two aspects of corporate behaviour:
First, corporate governance - how corporations govern themselves in relation to issues like the independence of Boards, transparency of decision-making and executive remuneration
Second, corporate citizenship - how companies treat their customers, suppliers, employees and the community - are they good corporate citizens?
According to KPMG, 80% of working people aged between 25 and 39 would consider investing their superannuation in socially responsible investments. There is growing evidence to show that socially responsible investment, such as those based on the Dow Jones Sustainability Index do not sacrifice good returns.
Of considerable interest to our members is the example relayed by Richard Trumka, the Secretary of the AFL-CIO, during his recent visit to the ACTU Congress in Wollongong. American Airlines has instituted an employee satisfaction survey as one of the indicators that influence its CEO's performance related remuneration.
If the workers in the Commonwealth Bank branch I visited today had a say about their work satisfaction, they would tell you a story of chronic understaffing and the slashing of 600 branches and 8,000 jobs in the past decade despite the Bank continuing to return record profits. They would tell you that their CEO earns more than $30,000 a week while a teller earns less than $30,000 a year. They would tell you that the unpaid overtime that increasingly keeps them from their families too many nights of the week has been rewarded by an offer of a take-it-or-get-nothing individual contract in the face of the Bank's refusal to negotiate a fair and reasonable collective agreement with their union. If employee satisfaction was a measure directly affecting Commonwealth Bank CEO David Murray's remuneration I'm not sure the $1.9 million he received last year would be endorsed by those he relies to make it possible.
Profits are an essential base of good business but excessive profits at the expense of community services and dignified salaries and conditions for staff must be judged through the lens of a fair share for all involved, employees, communities and shareholders.
These issues are important, first, because they are about ethics - what is right, and second, because there is a correlation between good corporate behaviour and long-term profit and shareholder value.
In Australia industry super funds like HESTA are leading the way with its environmentally responsible Eco Pool investment option. Make no mistake this trend will continue if experience overseas is any guide. In the US investment in socially responsible funds now exceeds US $2 trillion. One in every 8 US dollars is now invested giving consideration to corporate governance and social responsibility criteria.
Support for greater shareholder activism cannot be dismissed as a radical frolic. The Federal Government's Financial Services Minister, Joe Hockey has called on fund managers and trustees to take a greater responsibility for making company boards accountable for the decisions they make on behalf of shareholders.
Similarly, Mr Hockey's shadow equivalent, Senator Stephen Conroy, has called for greater obligations on institutional investors to exercise the voting rights attached to shares.
In the United States, these voting rights are legally treated as assets of the fund, and must be dealt with by trustees in the interests of the beneficiaries. This means that trustees must adopt principles on voting proxies and monitor fund managers if voting rights are delegated to them.
A recent report on proxy voting in Australia's largest companies by the Centre for Corporate Law and Securities Regulation at the University of Melbourne concluded that the legal position under Australian law is similar to that in the US, even though the general practice of funds managers and institutional investors here is not to vote shares.
Assuming this is correct, many trustees may not be aware of their legal responsibilities in that they have no policy for dealing with voting rights and do not monitor the exercise of these rights by fund managers.
In Australian public companies that do not have a major non-institutional shareholder, proxies are received for only around one third of voting capital, compared to 50 per cent in the United Kingdom and 80 per cent in the United States.
The ACTU unashamedly stands for democratic practices and transparency - in our political system, in our workplaces, in communities - and in the boardroom. We believe that the workers who are the beneficial owners of billions of dollars worth of shares should have those shares voted in ways which will maximise their long-term earning potential and their broader interests as members of the community.
Some of you may be aware of the recent campaign around two resolutions presented to the Rio Tinto Annual General Meetings in London and Brisbane.
The resolutions were sponsored by the ACTU and the trade union centres of the United Kingdom and the United States (the TUC and the AFL-CIO) together with the CFMEU and its international trade secretariat the ICEM.
The first resolution was directed at achieving a majority of independent directors on Rio Tinto's board. The second at committing the company to abiding by International Labor Organisation core labour standards.
Although Rio Tinto's board strenuously opposed both resolutions, and attempted to paint the exercise as no more than an industrial tactic by a disaffected Australian union, more than one in five shares were voted in favour of the corporate governance resolution, and 17% of shares supported the proposal that the company should commit to abide by ILO core labour standards.
Interestingly, although separate figures are not available for the UK and Australian shares of the dual listed company, it would appear that the vote for the corporate governance resolution was higher in Australia, with more support for the labour standards proposal in the UK.
Where the issue was raised on superannuation boards, the general outcome (with a couple of exceptions) was an inability to agree on taking a position on the resolutions. Overwhelmingly, the Australian votes in favour of the resolutions came from funds managers and non-superannuation investors. Unions might have initiated the campaign, but ultimately some of its strongest support came from the general investment community.
In the face of this kind of growing support for better corporate governance in Australia we have seen something of a backlash.
First, there were the comments of Stan Wallis questioning the value of governance principles such as independent directors. Second, there have been the recommendations of the Corporations and Security Advisory Committee to the Government proposing to make it more difficult for shareholders to call special meetings or to put resolutions.
I support greater, not diminished shareholder democracy. If Australia is to be a "shareholding democracy" then we must have rights for shareholders. It is time that the real owners of companies, including working women and men, had a greater say in ensuring that companies are run in their long-term interests.
Why should workers' money be used to fund share option plans for executives whose short-term incentive is to maximise the share price through short-sighted cost cutting and asset stripping? The executives can take the money and run, leaving the company shorn of its physical and intellectual assets.
Unions work to improve the wages and conditions of their members. Why should we accept workers' money being passively invested in companies that employ children or forced labour, or which poison the environment, force subsistence farmers off their land or kill communities by taking away their jobs and their hope?
No doubt everyone here would agree that these are issues which should concern us all. Some of you might argue that these are government responsibilities to address and deal with, and that the sole concern of companies and those who invest in them should be to remain within the law.
That is not my view. I don't need to remind you of the tragic results of such policies throughout the twentieth century where capital ignored its social responsibilities, justifying itself behind the thin veneer of legality for the war-making, the labour camps and the torture in which it has at times participated.
There is a ground swell of opinion that is beginning to argue for corporate reform that recognises and responds to shareholder and community values. Sean Kidney in last Friday's AFR makes a solid case:
We are moving into a new economy that relies on, and has a huge thirst for, smart educated workers, and where lifelong education/continuing education becomes paramount to success. The economy needs thinking workers and this will apply as much to agriculture and mining as to IT and hospitality. A logical, if unforeseen spin-off is that a lot more people will be thinking about the social role of their investments.
By carving out a position that has economic and social returns, the more competitive funds will also create a significant differentiation that will stand them in good stead to win new members in an environment of super choice.
This is moving closer to worker direction of the economy and not the more limited shareholder control envisage by John Howard and Co. ...... The outcomes will see super funds:- co-ordinate investment in social as well as physical infrastructure, pursue a range of investment measures for addressing environmental issues and act to maintain a vibrant economy. (Sean Kidney - AFR 25/8/00)
In my view, this more principled corporate culture will extend beyond superannuation funds. For example, serious questions are being raised about the social responsibilities and performance of Australia's banks. Over 20,000 Australian's have signed a petition circulated by the Finance Sector Union calling on the Federal Government to institute a charter of social responsibility for Australia's banks. When the Commonwealth Bank hands down its projected record profit tomorrow of around $1.7 billion, it should keep in mind that many of its share-holders are also members of the community; a community that has become increasingly frustrated with the way it is treating its customers and its staff.
In Australia we are behind much of the rest of world in addressing these issues. In the UK, recent legislation requires pension funds to disclose whether they take account of the environmental, social and ethical impact of investments, including their policy, if any, on exercising the voting rights attached to shares.
The ACTU has supported the Australian Conservation Foundation's call for similar legislation to be introduced in Australia, and we will campaign for other legislative changes to ensure proper accountability by companies and funds managers to their owners.
Quite simply, we believe that all investors, including working women and men, have a right to proper information about how their assets are being managed. Proper information includes not just details about returns but also the environmental and social policies and performances of the companies in which they invest.
Australian companies are currently required to report on their environmental performance. This should be extended to social issues, to complete the "triple bottom line" - economic, environmental and social performance.
There should be statutory support for initiatives such as Amnesty International's human rights framework for Australian companies. The framework seeks to encourage and assist companies to adhere to key international human rights documents covering their employees and the community.
The ACTU wants to play an active part in promoting these ideas.
Unions do have an agenda - it is about fairness, about sharing the benefits of growing prosperity, and achieving a high level of security for all at work and in retirement. These are, of course, the values that underpinned the establishment of universal superannuation. Likewise they are the values that no doubt motivate the trustees of superannuation funds, whether representative of employers or employees, who volunteer to manage the funds on which workers will depend in the later parts of their lives. However, beyond this, these values must also become the values that underpin a successful and inclusive global corporate culture. A culture based not on the principles of secrecy and isolation but on what my colleague, John Sweeney of the AFL-CIO, calls economic democracy.
Corporate governance and strategic campaigning, in the interests of working Australians, their families and their communities, is now very much union business.
by The Chaser
Chaser Online |
Until the mid 1990s, Australians were only able to attend to the arduous tasking of cleaning windscreens at service stations or at home. But with the rise of the "Washerati", since 1998 Australia has experienced a revolution in road-side cleaning service convenience.
Speaking from his modern, sparse "office" at the corner of City Rd and Broadway in Sydney, Samuels puts his success down to a number of factors. "Location is obviously a big factor" he says. "It's not that difficult to find a busy intersection where no other human being would think of working - outside the sex industry, of course. But once you've started working successfully, the trick is defending your territory. Any junkie within a two kilometre radius seems to think that your business is fair game. In my experience, the best way of dealing with this is violence and intimidation".
Samuels also put careful thought into his customer service policy. "Most people in traffic are irritable and frustrated. The last place they want to be is stuck at my intersection and they could really do with a bit of light relief, and maybe a smile. But that's not my job. I do windscreens, that's it".
In accordance with industry practice, he has employed an aggressive marketing strategy. This initially involves offering his services by walking down the row of vehicles at the red light waving the squeegee in a menacing fashion. Occasionally a motorist voluntarily engages the washer's services, but more often than he takes time to identify a target vehicle and then starts cleaning while the driver tries to avoid eye contact.
Samuels adds, "It's important that you mouth the word 'free' - though you don't actually say it of course. Then you do the windscreen quite slowly, looking as desperate as possible. The idea is to make people concerned that you'll lash out if they don't give you something, and more often than not it works".
With this simple, commercial approach Samuels says he has made just over a million dollars over the last twelve months, giving him an after tax income of just over a million dollars. "Now I can buy a higher grade of heroin" says Samuels, who's been able to start dealing as well.
In fact, Samuels' business is so successful that he is looking to raise money through float on the stockmarket later this year. The shares will be $1 or $2, and instead of issuing a prospectus, Samuels will simply force people to buy shares at traffic lights.
But success hasn't gone to his head - Samuels has been careful not to let expenses blow out. "Just because I'm making a lot of money, doesn't mean I'm going to start washing. And I figure if I got here by using the same flithy bucket of water all day long, why risk changing the formula?"
by Noel Hester
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The most tangible sign of that change might be the motto 'No long term.'
It is the time dimension Sennett says in The Corrosion of Character which most directly affects people's emotional lives outside the workplace. Transposed to the family realm 'no long term' means keep moving, don't commit yourself and don't sacrifice.
The new corporate regime is characterised by short termism, extreme flexibility, high levels of risk and what Sennett describes as concentration of power without centralization of power. There are constant attacks on the 'bureaucratic nature' of the old regime.
The new 'flexible corporation' has become an archipeligo of related activities with communication in a network occurring like travel between islands- but at the speed of light, thanks to modern technologies.
There is a convoluted command structure which no longer has the clarity of a pyramid but domination from the top is both strong and shapeless. New information systems provide a comprehensive picture of the organization to top managers in ways which give individuals anywhere in the network little room to hide.
Sennett asks these questions of this regime ; can long lasting social relations be sustained? How can a human being develop a narrative of identity and life history in a society composed of episodes and fragments?
Sennett points out that the long term capitalism which the new regime takes aim was short lived - the decades spanning the mid 20th century. The disorder of early capitalism was brought under control after World War Two by strong unions, the welfare state and large scale corporations . All combined to produce an era of relative stability.
In the operations of modern markets the disruption of organizations has become profitable. Yet Sennett points out studies of firms in the 1990s by the American Management Association and private HR studies found that 'repeated downsizings produce ''lower profits and declining worker productivity.'. The Wyatt group of companies found 'less than half the companies achieved their expense reduction goals, fewer than one third increased profitability and less than one in four increased their productivity.'
Sennett damns the superficially progressive practices of flextime and team work.
While the flex time worker controls the location of labor, surveillance of labour is often greater for those absent from the office than for those who are present, he says. The 'metric logic' of time has shifted from the time clock to the computer screen. Power over the worker is more direct. Working at home is the ultimate island of the new regime.
Teamwork allows the boss to avoid being held responsible for his or her actions; it's all on the player's shoulders. The good team player doesn't whine. Fictions of teamwork because of their superficiality focus on the immediate moment, avoid resistance and deflect confrontation and are therefore useful in the exercise of domination.
Risk is central to the new regime. For Bill Gates and the other corporate emperors of Davos the capacity to let go of the past and the confidence to accept fragmentation make them at home in the new capitalism.
But risk is no longer the domain of venture capitalists or extraordinary adventurous individuals. Risk is to be a daily necessity shouldered by the masses who know a kind of dull continual worry. Being continually exposed to risk eats away at your sense of character. You are always starting over.
Risk is the making of the magnate but it corrodes the characters of more ordinary employees who try to play by these rules.
by Peter Lewis
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Coming face to face with the city that houses the European Parliament, UNESCO and NATO, you can't help comparing Howard's longing for a European nation in the Antipodies with the dreaming of some of our own post-War immigrants for an Italy or Greece that no longer exists. While they practise the traditions with fervour in the back streets of Leichhardt or Marrickville, the homelands they strive to recreate have changed fundamentally from the places they remember. In the case of Brussels, what is most striking is the confusion that abounds when what you expect is clarity.
Brussels is a city of big ideas and even bigger contradictions; gleaming skyscrapers, hugging historical buildings with their green copper domes amid barren areas of neglect that would not be out of place in a developing nation. It's certainly not the shiny, efficient, modern polis one expects driving into the home of the unified Europe; the streets are cluttered, there are no street signs to speak of, there is a lack of logic in even the simple transactions. But as you get a feel for the place, perhaps it is more appropriate than it first appears. Because the Europe it is creating is itself still a work in progress, an attempt by the nation-states that have dominated the globe for the past millennium - and provided the theatre for so much bloodshed in the past century - to come to terms with a new way of being.
For a start, if this is the centre of Europe, then Europe is no longer a white continent. Aryan dreams of a master race have been subverted by the racial mixing pot that has accompanied the post-colonial era. There are African faces - many from the colonies of Zaire, Rwanda and Burundi that the Belgium so mismanaged; there are even more with olive skin, the southern Europeans, the Spanish, the Turks; many who have been here for two or more generations, intermarrying to create a multi-coloured mainstream. Of course there are still the dreamers of yesteryear, like the Flemish right wing Vlaams Blok movement which has secured a strong base in Antwerp and other centres across Europe; nastier than One Nation, they are caricatures of the Nazis who took their principles of purity to their unnatural conclusion just 50 years ago. They generate a lot of White Noise, but their chances of seizing control and implementing their programs on a broad basis are becoming slimmer by the day. The process of European unification is robbing them of nationalism, the only proven vehicle for driving the politics of difference.
The new Europe has no concrete borders, no check points where passports are stamped, suitcases checked, people searched. There's just a sign welcoming you to France or Belgium or Germany, much like you get when you cross the Murray River. The new Europe has a common currency, accepted everywhere alongside the local notes and coins - and, of course, the ubiquitous Visa and Amex cards. The new Europe trades as a block, pooling strength to former a bigger entity than the USA; and causing the rest of the world grief through its agricultural tariffs that protects a rural sector that still remembers the post-war famines. While economic integration gathers pace, the individual languages and culture of the member nations acts as a natural buffer against the homogeneity it promotes.
That's the theory, anyway. Resistance to integration remains high - in recent elections for the European Parliament, nationalist parties won widespread support across Europe. Britain remains, at best, ambivalent. And the corporatist fundamentals that have underpinned the economies of western Europe since the Marshall Plan are under assault from the 'Washington Doctrine' of deregulation, which bodies like the OECD appear determined to implement, despite the evidence of growing inequality and dislocation that flow in their wake. For a movement that is attempting to redefine state structures, a proposition that junks them outright looms as a major paradox for the EU.
For trade unions their international body, the International Council of Free Trade Unions, is based here, making it the centre of the world for organised labour. The links with Belgium and trade unions are profound. It was trade unions that led the push towards European unification after World War II - recognising that it was their members who were literally first in the firing line when partisan trade disputes and nationalistic fervour turned into armed combat. During the post World War II reconstruction phase it was the unions who recommended a European Coal and Steel Union, to be based in Brussels - between the mines and manufacturing belt of the Germany and France and the ports of Antwerp and Rotterdam. Indeed, it is this economic body that has morphed into the European Union, ripping away trade the national borders and unifying the continent to the point where war between constituent states is beyond contemplation. And so, the original mission has, to an extent, been accomplished.
The plight of the union movement in this new Europe is less clear. The end of the Cold War has also seen the end of acceptance of trade unions by big business as the palatable alternative to Communism. Where once it was the shining light for labour relations, now it too is facing the hostility of the union-busters as big multinationals chase US-style short-term profit levels. Where the European model of unionism prevails, it is tripartism, its position at the centre of many European nations' welfare and pension systems - often more a corporatist model where policy influence obscures falling levels of activism. In France, for instance, where the Socialist Government implements the 35 hour working week initiative, the formal union movement is in disarray. While membership levels in Europe remain around 30 per cent, way above other continents, the legitimacy of the movement is being questioned for the first time.
Like everyone else in this strange and slightly discomfiting city, the international union advocates are trying to invent a new reality out of the collapsing certainties of the 20th century. In the case of the ICFTU it comes in global campaigns against the huge corporations, operating across borders to link workers to common causes.
Where we have celebrated nation builders in the past, today's historical mission is to build networks between people that serve some of the functions but mitigate from the excesses of nationalism. It's a tightrope mission - linking up cultures without losing their essence. At its heart are unresolved questions about identity and the collapse - or at least weakening - of nationhood. It raises the intriguing dilemma: what happens if we are ceasing to be European, African, Asian and are becoming just people? How does that change the way the world operates, what we share and what we fight over?
Bringing the question back to Sydney, it makes one wonder whether the Olympics are really just the last hoorah for the nation state. When entire racial descriptions, let alone individual countries are collapsing into the one mass, what do the Games really mean? Does the American of Jamacian extraction running against the Englishman of Barbados extraction, or even the Australian of Aboriginal extraction say anything about anything to anyone anymore? Can we gauge our worth as a nation by the number of medals we win? Or is it really just a group of professional athletes, sponsored by different government sports institutes - but often the same corporations - striving for individual excellence? Where is the national significance of success or failure when the boundaries and definitions of nationhood are so fluid?
As Brussels shows, internationalism is a tricky business, with many layers of contradiction. Merely cheering for our own might not have become meaningless but it's getting more and more confusing. And when John Howard, a neo-Nazi, or even a trade unionist points to the New Europe as the 'answer', it bears remembering that it is still more of a question.
by Terry O'Brien
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The season draws to an end. That One Day in September is a week away. And I have to find a reason to get excited about it. Last week's games had four of the teams I hate most playing. This week two of them are left. I know I'm going to watch the bloody game but I need to find a reason to do so. The rationalization process begins.
Well Essendon aka the Bombers, henceforth known as the Bummers are unbackable favourites. At least I wouldn't waste any money betting against them. Melbourne are the establishment club. All those MCC members. Their unbearable smugness is the unthinkable consequence of a Demons win.
OK, where does that leave me? The unthinkable versus the unpalatable. Which is which? Doesn't matter - they're interchangeable. Let's start with the Bummers. Lost one game all year. As I write this piece I am watching a replay of last week's game, and I see Matthew Lloyd (one of their "pretty boys"), getting an unjustified free kick. And it just confirms they're on their way to a thumping victory and are destined to sail their way into the big one. Definitely not the Bummers! Can't bear the thought of that.
All right then, it's got to be the Gutnicks by default. They haven't won a Grand Final since I was learning to use a dip pen at school. Last time they played in a GF it was the most lop-sided final ever. It was so boring that I struggle to remember it. So they're the underdogs, the rank outsiders, just there to make up the numbers. That should be enough to make the decision automatic. But the thought of all those power brokers lazing in their leather lounges sipping on their brandy balloons and nodding and winking to each other knowingly in the Melbourne Club starts things churning. Stomachs, mainly.
Since it is all too difficult, I'll take a look back over the season - after all, there's nothing like procrastination when it comes to the too hard basket. My team, the Swans, missed the end of season play-offs for the first time since '96. They started of f with an unexpected bang, winning their first three of their games. Then they fell into the bad habit of losing the close ones. They missed several games by two kicks, or less. Had they got up in any of them they would have been in the finals.
St Kilda were the under-achievers of the year. Fremantle jumped up the ladder a bit, perhaps not enough to make many see them as a threat, but up is better than down. Collingwood started with five wins on the trot and visions of this being the year glazed over the faithfuls' eyes once again. Then the rot set in. They never learn.
West Coast had their most miserable year in what seems like living memory. The once all conquering Wiggles looked too old, too slow. Port Adelaide's report card will read "Expected to do better." After making the final last year, they fell in a heap. Their neighbours, Adelaide, must look at their back-to-back premierships and wonder if it was all a dream. Richmond fulfilled what appears to be their destiny and finished ninth on percentages - yet again.
Geelong and Brisbane made the Eight and that was it. Hawthorn went better than most expected and stretched their season into the second week of the finals. North Melbourne, the Kangaroos, if you insist, failed in their quest to defend the title and get the coveted back-to-back record in their CV. Carlton sealed their own fate, losing to Melbourne in the first week of the finals and met their end at the hands of a ruthless Bummers onslaught and in the process robbed the pundits of their dream Grand final. Somewhere in there Footscray, who now want to be known as the Western Bulldogs, made the finals and failed to make the most of their chances - for the umpteenth year running.
So that left us with the Bummers and the Gutnicks and me with my dilemma. So I took another look into the too hard basket and went for the only option remaining. At least it will sustain my interest for a bit anyway. I can hope for a close one. And the Dees get up by a point. With a kick for goal after the siren. It's not asking too much is it?
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Another LaborNET site has just been launched for the Construction & General Division of the Construction, Forestry, Mining & Energy Union (CFMEU) http://www.cfmeu.asn.au/construction. This is a part of a major overhaul for the entire CFMEU site that will progressively include all the other divisions.
The site is very refreshing for a blue-collar union and one of the most notable features is an automatic translation feature which can translate the site into 12 languages, which with the multi-cultural makeup of the CFMEU's membership will no doubt be a valuable tool in facilitating communication within the union.
The site also features the Workers Online Live News Feed, International News, an online version of their journal Unity, information on awards, OH&S & Workers Compensation plus much more. This is a site to definitely keep an eye on and when it is fully completed will set the benchmark for union sites.
More Pollies
Michael Lee the Federal Labor Member for Dobell recently joined the ever-growing list of Labor politicians going online recently with the launch of his site at http://www.michaelleemp.com. The site was designed by icreate http://www.icreate.com.au which is an internet design company run by Bryn Battersby who is an ALP member from Wagga Wagga. Michael Lee's site is attractive and easy to navigate. However it is encouraging to see Lee go online and hopefully for MPs will follow.
icreate is also behind a new site launched by Penrith City Labor Councilor David Bradbury http://www.davidbradbury.com. Bradbury would have to be the first Councilor in Australia to go online and once again this is a very neat and attractive site. Unfortunately the site is almost completely static however he has made some attempts to make the site more interactive with a downloadable petition. The site is a bit light on the information side nevertheless Bradbury must be commended for being the first councilor to utilize the internet in communicating with his constituents and no doubt the site will evolve with time into a valuable campaigning tool.
Just to put in my two-cents worth: Why are all these pollies registering their sites in the US? This really is bad branding - if you are an elected member of parliament or a councilor you don't have to have a registered business name to get a .com.au domain. For example, Reba Meagher the State Member for Cabramatta's site is http://www.reba.com.au.
For a laugh
The funniest site I went to this week was The Onion.com http://www.onion.com. A satirical newspaper from the US similar to the Chaser here. Well worth a read
An Apology
I'm sorry this week's Web Week is a bit light on but as you can imagine with the Olympics only two weeks away it has been very busy. However to all those who have emailed me sites to review I will get to them, I promise so please keep on emailing me the sites and I will review them a put them in the LaborNET links section.
You can send mail to Paul at [email protected]
Just when you thought they couldn't go any lower the banks find even deeper subterranean passages of lowlife to take up shop.
In the same week as announcing a record $1.7 billion dollar profit CEO David 'Chopper' Murray visited the real world from Bank Fairyland and claimed the Commonwealth Bank couldn't afford to give its hard working staff a moderate pay rise.
(John Laws knew a good thing when he saw it. Bank bosses are so thick when it comes to PR anyone with the minutest knowledge of spin could make a killing out of these drongos.)
Murray also announced the Once Was a People's Bank was being forced to offer individual contracts to all its 28,000 workers because it 'hasn't been able to get anywhere' with the FSU.
Naturally, it is a mere coincidence that CBA General Manager of Human Resources Les Cupper said 18 months ago that the Bank's vision (fantasy?) was for the majority of staff to be on non-collective employment arrangements.
Cupper along with CBA Chairman John Ralph honed their union-bashing skills at notorious union-hating minerals giant CRA-Rio Tinto before moving into the more urbane environment of bank gnomes.
One thing you can say about Murray - he's not one of those bullshit snag bosses passing himself off as a 'facilitator' or 'coach' or 'leader'. (Richard Sennett describes 'leader' as the most cunning word in the modern management lexicon; a leader is on your side rather than your ruler.)
No sirree, Murray's more from the John Elliot school of headkicking, drill seargent, no nonsense business management. The sort of manager that pays himself $1.9 million dollars a year, (73.5 times more than a CBA teller) and cashes in four million plus in stock options. All for the wonderful community contribution of branch closures, job killings and exorbitant fees for everything bar breathing bank air.
In a memorable outburst Murray complained that his highly unionized workforce is a 'protected species' and 'a koala park, the protected lot, not to be exploited or shot at'.
You could argue - as the FSU does - that just like koalas Commonwealth staff are an endangered species because they're losing their branches through exploitation and greed.
David Murray is Peter Reith's dream - a zealous corporate kamikaze ready to push the boundaries with individual contracts. And like Reith, a very, very nasty tool.
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