Issue No 71 | 15 September 2000 | |
NewsInternational Passport for IT WorkersBy Peter Lewis
IT workers will have their trade union membership recognized while working overseas, via a new trade union passport launched by the Union Network International.
The passport, to be launched in Australia soon, would mean workers taking up foreign contracts could seek advice and assistance from participating trade unions in any foreign country. The passport, issued by the Geneva-based UNI, is a response to the growing mobility of in the IT industry with jobs shortages in the USA and Europe, where there are more than 1.5 million mobile workers. 'Business to business e-commerce is set to increase ten fold by 2004,`Gerd Rohde, who heads the professional and managerial department at the UNI said. With the pace of mergers and growing globalisation, companies increasingly look at their IT requirements across whole continents and want staff to move where the projects need them. One major IT company has already begun talk about a single European contract for mobile staff - a prospect that comes closer with the single currency in 2002: UNI's passport will effectively pass workers from one union to another when they relocate, giving them support over their contracts, advice on living problems and help in familiarising them in their new countries. The passport is likely to be available in Australia by summer. Participating Australian unions include APESMA, the ASU, the FSU, the CPSU and the CEPU.
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Interview: Surviving The Firestorm After several years as the focus of some brutal politics Carmen Lawrence is back on the ALP front bench. She talks to Workers Online about her new portfolio, unions and the ALP and mud slinging in politics. History: Unions, Sport and Community Remember when sport was a fun way to relax after arduous labour? The fight for the eight-hour work day was based around a slogan that said, in part, eight hours work, eight hours play. The play was unpaid and unsung, but enjoyable. Politics: Global Failures Sharan Burrow told the World Economic Forum this week that the union movement acknowledges the benefits of globalisation but it's time to address the failures. International: Mobile Workers A global IT labour shortage is throwing up challenges for both the developed and developing world. Gerd Rohde, from the Geneva-based Union Network International, is working to strike a balance. Unions: Stuffed or Stoned? In a recent dispute at the South Blackwater Coal Mine in Central Queensland CFMEU members resisted the introduction of random drug testing in the absence of a better strategy to test impairment and not just lifestyle. Review: A Perfect Circle- Mer de Noms Peter Zangari believes the music world has moved on from the simplistic chords of Nirvana and Soundgarden and the grunge scene has been obliterated. But like most other things, especially music, it re-invents itself. Satire: Silly 2000 Editors demand something happen: �We�ve got 300 Olympic pages to fill and everyone is training�.
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