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  Issue No 73 Official Organ of LaborNet 13 October 2000  

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News

The Joy of Burning Rubber

By Rowan Cahill

It has been an eventful week on the Joy Mining Machinery picket line. On Sunday Opposition Leader Kim Beazley took time off from an ALP fund raising function to visit the Moss Vale workers who have been on the line for six-months since the breakdown of enterprise bargaining processes.

Also on hand helping boost picket line morale were Senator John Faulkner, former ACTU President Jennie George, and AMWU National Secretary Doug Cameron.

On Wednesday a marathon session in the AIRC moved the disputing parties close to resolution. A meeting of the 60 workers involved (members of the AMWU, AWU, and CEPU) will hear a progress report today (Friday) from their unions.

It is understood that while there are some outstanding matters requiring arbitration, the company has agreed to drop huge damages claims against prominent unionists, an issue central to settlement.

Providing scabs introduced during the dispute are removed, there will be a return to work beginning October 23.

Lightening the tedium of picket line life, there was some unexpected comic relief on Tuesday.

For over a month the Tasmanian based professional scab Bruce Studley Townsend has been at the Moss Vale factory with a team of interstate cronies.

Their presence aggravated the dispute, moving the unions and the company further apart.

Townsend has a long history of anti-union activity, and is a veteran of the Mudginberri, Burnie Pulp and Paper Mill, and Patrick disputes.

He supplies non-union labour, has a record of infiltrating union meetings and picket lines, and is proud of his surveillance skills. Video-surveillance is a speciality, and this technique has been much used by his Moss Vale team.

Most of all Bruce is tough. He has a scorpion tattooed on his left arm.

At Moss Vale the man who calls himself Bruce Townsend is known to the picketing workers as King Scab.

Tuesday was not his day. On his way to work he inexplicably stopped his late model Fairlane, with its black tinted windows, about 50 metres from the picket line, and in the middle of the road.

The men on the line looked up, and yawned; King Scab was about to make yet another ostentatious run through the Supreme Court restrained line.

It had been like this for a month. Scabs in, scabs out; like yoyos looking for trouble. Monotonous.

The car idled in the middle of the road for a while. Then the engine gunned, and King Scab was off in reverse in a blue cloud of burning rubber.

Some 50 or so metres later King Scab apparently decided to show the unionist yokels a thing or two. How about a handbrake controlled skid turn, so he could keep going away from the line, but in forward gear, and without loss of momentum?

A top idea.

But this was not Webb Dock. It was a country road. And King Scab lost it. The Fairlane whipped off the road, into the gravel, skidded about 5 metres, and thumped into an embankment, whacking the wire guy of a power pole in the process.

The exhaust pipes burned deeply into embankment clay.

Picketing workers hot-footed it to the accident scene and found their nemesis examining his damaged vehicle.

King Scab really had the shits when a picket pursuit-ute and amateur video crew arrived on the scene.

Hurriedly getting back behind the wheel of the wounded Fairlane, he fled at high speed towards town, ignoring level-crossing caution and stop signs, and sought the sanctuary of an auto-repairer.

Returning to the picket line, the workers got to thinking. Entrepreneurs one and all, they came up with a business possibility.

It did not take long to erect prominent signs facing the besieged factory, advertising the picket site-sheds as unregistered offices of a new Driver Training School; with a special on Advanced Driver classes.


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*   Issue 73 contents

In this issue
Features
*  Interview: Righting The Wrongs
Improving the lives of Aboriginal people can't be taken out of the context of the economy, welfare and other areas says Bob McMullan, Shadow Minister for Aboriginal Affairs.
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*  Economics: At The Mercy Of Gamblers
The plunge of the Australian dollar relative to the greenback has consequences for Aussie workers according to Frank Stillwell.
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*  History: Labour History Under Seige Again
The Friends of the Noel Butlin Archives Centre have recently been informed of proposed changes to the Noel Butlin Archives Centre (NBAC), changes that will cut staff by more than 50% and leave the Archives mothballed in the tunnel where the repository is situated.
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*  Workplace: Fighting The Flexible Firm
We are told that hardship and exploitation at work is dying out, and the new economy offers opportunity, freedom and job satisfaction for all. Richard Sennett unveils the true nature of the flexible workplace.
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*  Safety: Being bossed around is bad for your health
A survey of more than 3,000 Australian workers has revealed that some 54% of workers experience intimidating behaviour in their workplace. In almost 85% of cases it is employers, managers and supervisors who are identified as the culprits.
*
*  Unions: Discrimination
New to the union and the maritime industry and with only a few days casual work to live off, Stephen Rolls courageously spoke up against individual contracts during a job interview with Burnie Port Corp.
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*  International: Serbian Workers and Their Unions Fight for Freedom
Serbian workers and their unions have been at the forefront of the struggle for democracy in Yugoslavia as they led a general strike in response to attempts by President Slobodan Milosevic to nullify the defeat he faced in the Sept. 24 election.
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*  Satire: A few more years of civilised brutality will advantage Aborigines: Ruddock
CANBERRA, Tuesday: The Minister for Reconciliation Philip Ruddock has defended his comments to French newspaper Le Monde claiming that Aborigines were disadvantaged because they were late in coming into contact with developed civilisations.
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*  Review: Poetry For Workers By Workers
Poems about the trials and tribulations of a waitress and what you learn in a chocolate factory are among the gems from the 925 anthology.
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News
»  Rorter Reith's Gotta Go Say Unions
*
»  Reith's Wharf Secrets Return To Haunt
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»  Unions And Community Groups Call For Bank Social Charter
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»  Landmark Victory Extends Severance Pay To All
*
»  5 Day Strike Burns BHP Coal
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»  Parramatta Workers Enjoy Union Chill Out
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»  Report Finds Fatigue Fatalities Avoidable
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»  Queensland Peak Union Body Elects First Female Secretary
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»  The Joy of Burning Rubber
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»  dot.humanservices
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»  Unions Raise A Motza To Combat Youth Suicide
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Columns
»  Away For The Games
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»  Sport
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»  Trades Hall
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»  Tool Shed
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Letters to the editor
»  Not a Fan
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»  No Justice-No Peace
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»  Blow Up the Councils
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»  Vindicated
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