Issue No 79 | 24 November 2000 | |
NewsWorkers Ask NAB To Have A HeartBy Alison Peters
Shafted workers from the failed Steel Tank and Pipe (STP) company traveled from Newcastle to Sydney this week to plead with bankers to give them first call on any money recovered by liquidators.
The workers are owed $3.6 million after their employer secretly transferred their employment to a number of shelf companies with no assets. They rallied outside the National Australia Bank's Sydney Office seeking a meeting with the Bank who is the major secured creditor of STP. The workers were asking that the NAB put aside its preferred status so that they could receive the money owed to them. FSU State Secretary Geoff Derrick addressed the rally telling Workers that the Bank had just posted a record profit of $3.2 billion and that the CEO Frank Cicutto had had his salary increased by 20% to $1.9 million p.a. FSU members supported the STP workers' campaign to get their entitlements said Geoff who reminded everyone that bank staff were not responsible for decisions taken by Bank management. NSW IR Minister John Della Bosca told the workers that he supported them getting 100% of their entitlements and that he was going to continue his push to establish a national scheme to protect workers entitlements that wasn't going to let employers off the hook . A small delegation on behalf of the STP workers then met with Bank senior managers to put their case that the Bank should have a heart and demonstrate that it was a responsible corporate citizen as well as a record profit maker. AMWU NSW State Secretary Paul Bastian said that the delegation was told by the Bank representatives that it would be difficult to forego their place in the queue due to the precedent that it might set and that in any event it was a matter for the Bank's head office in Melbourne. The delegation also asked the Bank to publicly support changes to corporations laws to outlaw the sort of shonky arrangements that have seen STP workers lose their hard earned entitlements. Paul said the AMWU and the STP workers would keep the pressure on until the workers got all of the money owed to them.
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Interview: Back on Track After blowing the whistle on rail privatization, NSW Transport Minister Carl Scully is rebuilding bridges with the trade union movement. Unions: The Problem with Organising It may be the new mantra, but Brisbane Institute director Peter Botsman argues that organising may be the wrong to go for a movement attempting to attract a new breed of workers. International: Burma: Workers Act on ILO Ruling Energy workers' trade unions across the Asia-Pacific have urged Western oil and gas companies to "cease investment in Burma while the use of forced labour continues". Economics: Rethinking Incomes Policy While many have thrown incomes policy out with the Acoord bathwater, Graham White argues it still has a role to play. History: What Goes Around Comes Around Labor Council's Mark Lennon argues that while trade unions - and labour history - might be unfashionable, there's life left in both of them. Education: Peas in a Pod Both sides of politics must take blame for funding levels in our public schools, argues NSW Teachers Federation president Sue Simpson. Satire: Hurley Rebukes Actors' Guild: I'm No Actor! Liz Hurley has responded angrily to claims by actors that she crossed a picket line by filming an Estee Lauder ad. Review: It's Only a Job In a stunning new book, author Phil Thornton and photographer Paul Jones have combined to portray working life in all its diversity through the eyes of ordinary people like process worker Sharonak Shannon
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