The poll, conducted by the Sydney Morning Herald website is still running and shows union leaders blitzing the field.
As of Friday afternoon the standings were:
-Politicians: 174
- Economists: 168
- Chief executives: 78
- Union leaders: 282
And there's no point voting Queensland-style, the poll only takes one vote per email address.
Labor Council secretary Michael Costa says the results confirm private polling undertaken by the Council over several years.
"While you could argue the competition was not too strong, the outcome does show that the public holds elected trade union officials in high regard," Costa says.
"All our polling shows that despite the negative images of union officials pushed by the conservative politicians and sections of the media, trade unions till enjoy a high public approval rating," Costa says.
"On repeated occasions we have found that more than 50 per cent of workers say they would join a trade union if they felt free to do so.
"Given these findings, backed by the recent SMH online poll, I would call on the Howard Government to immediately look into ways to make it easier for people to join trade unions."
Workplace Relations Minister Peter Reith hit the brick wall at a meeting of federal and state IR Ministers in Melbourne today.
Instead, the Ministers from the Labor States - NSW, Queensland, Victoria and Tasmania, plan to release a discussion paper on the issue next week.
It will flesh out proposals raised in a Five-Point Plan devised this week by NSW Industrial Relations Minsister John Della Bosca.
The five points are:
- Establishing a national entitlements scheme based on contributions by employers, not taxpayers. The schemen would also allow the recovery of entitlements owed to an employee. The scheme would need agreement from and application in all States and Territories.
- Urging the Federal Government to reform Corporations Law to (a) make directors personally liable for unpaid employee entitlements; (b) make employee entitlements rank first in the order of priority following any liquidation or administration fees (c) deem redundancy payments to be a debt for the purposes of insolvency; (d) treat related companies a s a single entity for the protection of employee entitlements.
- Calling on the Federal Government to reform the Wokrplace relations Act to prevent corporate restructuring designed to deny employees their entitlements.
- - Working with the federal Government and the other States to draft complimentary legislation requiring notification of staff prior to nay transfer of employees or major assets from a company.
- Developing a framework with the Federal government and the other States to require companies to set aside funds in an industry trust fund or pay entitleme3nts as their accrue.
Labor Council secretary Michael Costa backed the plan's broad direction and called on federal minister Peter Reith to work with the state's to deliver real protection for workers entitlements.
Reith's Tries Again on Dismissals
Meanwhile, the reintroduction of Peter Reith's Unfair Dismissal laws amounts to little more than a sham, according to the Shadow Minister for Industrial Relations, Arch Bevis.
"The laws have already been rejected by both Houses of Parliament, so their reintroduction can only mean that the Government is desperately looking for a Double Dissolution trigger.
"We should not forget the Minister has already once tried sneaking them past the Parliament, when he enshrined his laws in Regulations and lodged them just before Christmas 1998, Mr Bevis said.
"Minister Reith has not come up with any new justification for the proposed laws, preferring instead to trot out his already discredited claims.
"As was clearly demonstrated by last year's Senate Inquiry into these laws, the Government has relied on bogus surveys and even dodgier guesses from business friends claiming their proposed unfair dismissal laws would create jobs.
"It's about time Minister Reith came up with some real policy options to help Australian workers - not rehashing laws to strip rights away," Bevis says.
The miners were left more than $6.5 million out of pocket in unpaid entitlements after the mine collapsed in March 1998.
Since then, their union - the Australian Workers Union - along with the Transport Workers Union has pushed hard for the wastefill site proposal as a way of recovering some of the moneys owed.
They had reached an agreement with administrators Pricewaterhouse Coopers that once approval was granted, the administrators would use this approval as a basis for obtaining finance to pay the outstanding entitlements.
That approval was granted by Planning Minister Andrew Refshauge on Wednesday, in what will be the largest sustainable waste management site in NSW. Under the plan, methane from the waste will be used to generate electricity.
Following approval, the administrators pledging the first stage of repayments - totaling $3 million - would be delivered within 12 months. They said once other payments are settled, the balance of entitlements 'could become available from the royalty scheme received over time'. However, no guarantees have been given at this stage.
Labor Council, at the request of the AWU, is now seeking a meeting with Pricewaterhouse Coopers to progress the payment of the workers entitlements.
The workers, members of the Community and Public Sector Union have intervened on behalf of auditor who was stood down after complaints by a KPMG partner, despite the ATO being aware the same accountant had intervened to have auditors removed eight times previously.
When the same accountant complained about CPSU member Bob Fitton, the ATO responded by apologising to his client, Daihastu, and removing Fitton from the case.
Although an internal ATO investigation cleared Fitton of any misconduct, the ATO's fraud unit was called in, who despite their lack of evidence, referred another matter, a leak to the media about the Daihatsu audit, to the Director of Public Prosecutions.
The pressure was such that Fitton was forced to take stress leave. But while he recuperated, his colleagues stepped in. The CPSU wrote, with Fitton, an open letter to ATO Commissioner Michael Carmody outlining the concerns about the way the matter had been handled and calling for the charges to be dropped immediately. A petition was then circulated to all ATO workplaces around the country. Hundreds have signed, calling on Carmody to 'back off'.'
At the same time as the petition began to circulate, the DPP told the ATO bluntly that they would not proceed to charge Bob, due to the ATO having produced no evidence.
Fitton and his union are awaiting the Commissioner's response. Will they back off or go for a 'third dig' and proceed with internal 'breach of code of conduct' charges?
Bob started to feel better this week and returned to work on Tuesday. He couldn't have chosen a better day; the Daihatsu case, with all the details of the ATO's apologies to the company and persecution of their auditor, were on page 1 of the Financial Review!
Stephen Long reported that the partner, Mr Stephen Breckenridge, on eight separate occasions succeeded in having senior ATO officers removed from audits or reviews of his corporate clients, or otherwise undermined their credibility, according to a report by a senior ATO executive.
Long reported that the report into an ATO officer's handling of a tax investigation is understood to say that Mr Breckenridge has established a pattern of behaviour that involves playing one ATO officer off against another, exaggerating, or having the position of ATO staff involved in tax audits of his clients misrepresented. It calls for his behaviour to be documented and monitored and recommends that ATO staff be briefed before auditing taxpayers represented by the KPMG partner.
The CPSU says its pleased with the response to the petition, and pleased that their member is well and back at work.
"An important issue has been raised through this - that the ATO must stand up for its front-line staff and presume their innocence rather than their guilt," CPSU's Michael Tull says.
"The ATO's front-line staff deserve protection from allegations made solely to stop the ATO getting its fair share of big business's tax obligations," Tull says, "and the CPSU intends to pursue this issue through the next round of bargaining in the Tax Office.
The Open Letter
11 November 2000
Dear Mr Carmody
Re: CPSU MEMBER MR BOB FITTON
I am writing on behalf of all CPSU members employed by the ATO to protest in the strongest terms about the treatment of our member Mr Bob Fitton of LB&I Sydney.
Mr Fitton is currently on sick leave suffering from a stress related illness and awaiting news of whether unproven allegations about his conduct and the resulting investigation by Internal Assurance will result in a brief being referred to the DPP.
Mr Fitton has been aware of these allegations for some months. It was only after our member, through his legal representative, sought details about the evidence against him did the ATO reveal the nature of the evidence it was relying on. It is our firm belief that the evidence disclosed is insufficient to support any charges being laid, either criminal or code of conduct.
CPSU will never accept such a situation. Not only has the ATO failed to support our member when flimsy allegations about his conduct were made, but it has placed him under intolerable stress by unnecessarily prolonging the matter.
I am seeking your personal intervention and asking you to take the appropriate steps to end this situation.
As you are no doubt aware, our member is a widely respected and popular member of staff with 31 years service. A petition is currently in circulation for ATO staff to sign calling on you to step in and stand up for Bob Fitton.
Yours sincerely
Michael Tull
Acting Secretary
The International Union of Food, Agricultural, Hotel, Restaurant, Catering, Tobacco and Allied Workers' Associations (IUF) has taken up the case of the more than 150 union members, employed by Cadbury-Schweppes at the Tullamarine plant, have been locked out of their jobs.
Last Saturday police forcibly removed them to bring an end to a sit-in at the plant which had lasted for several days. The sit-in began to protest the failure of negotiations for an enterprise agreement.
The police reaction came shortly after the Victorian WorkCover Authority had forced a shutdown of the plant because unqualified management personnel and casual workers brought in as strike breakers were operating the sensitive syrup room in violation of health and safety regulations.
The IUF on its website has called on all its affiliates to fax and e-mail Cadbury-Schweppes in Australia and the UK.
The IUF has advised its affiliates and supporters that E-mail protests should be directed to the global headquarters of Cadbury-Schweppes by clicking here.
Copies should be sent to [email protected] and [email protected] to be passed on directly to the LHMU workplace delegates and members.
More information about the IUF campaign for Melbourne's Cadbury-Schweppes workers can be found on the IUF website by clicking here.
For protest faxes, the addresses of Cadbury-Schweppes Australia and the UK are:
* Schweppes Cottee's Australia, Cadbury Schweppes House,636 St Kilda Road, PO Box 6134, Melbourne, Victoria 3004,
Tel: + 61 3 9520 7444
Fax: + 61 3 9520 7400
* Cadbury Schweppes plc, 25 Berkeley Square, London GB - W1X 6HT
Tel +44 20 7409 1313
Fax +44 20 7830 5200
More information about the dispute can be found at this web-site. Click on Cadbury-Schweppes Locks Out Workforce.
Media, Entertainment and Arts Alliance national secretary Chris Warren says the online registration initiative, developed earlier this year, has been very popular with new members.
Warren says about three quarters of financial members of the AJA now pay their fees through regular deductions from their bank accounts, credit cards or payroll.
And a large proportion of the remainder pay through other electronic means such as Bpay, leaving o nly a handful continue to pay through sending a cheque to the union office.
"About a half of all AJA members have provided the union office with email addresses, enabling them to receive a weekly update on union activities,": Warren says.
"And in many major national workplaces, activists around the country and overseas can keep in touch and coordinate action through email and web links."
Warren says while there's a lot of talk about b2c and b2b applications, almost without realising it, MEAA is developing an electronic o2m - union office to member - and m2m applications which are transforming the most mundane of the union's activities.
"Of all occupations, journalism has been in the front line of change for the past quarter of a century - and we all know that that will continue," he says..
"The continued opportunity our union faces is how we take the benefits of technology to equip ourselves for the inevitable challenges of the 21st century."
Organising Online
MEAA will host a specil conference to look at the impact of new technology on journalism and organizing next Thursday, to coincide with the annual Walkely Awards.
MEAA promises a day of panels, professional development and information at Sydney's Hotel Westin on December 7, 2000.
Informative! Entertaining! And best of all free to Alliance members.
Speakers include:
- Yashwant Gaunder from fijilive.com who'll share his experiences covering the recent Fijian crisis
- Danielle Hickey from Greenpeace to tell us why their website makes it all look so easy.
- Linda Foley from the Communication Workers of America will give us an international perspective
- Julian and Charles from the chaser.com.au in a panel with "Workers Online's Peter Lewis who promise to end things with a bang rather than a whimper
The Shop Distributive and Allied Employees Association (SDA) is calling for a full overhaul of the apprentice allowance system, arguing the current regime is a disincentive for young people to undertake training.
Under the current Vocational Training Assistance Scheme, apprentices receive the following:
- $14 per night allowance
- 12 cents per kilometer traveled outside the metropolitan area
- a State transit Travel concession pass for travel within the metropolitan area.
SDA assistant state secretary Gerard Dwyer says that many apprentices who are forced to travel to complete parts of their courses are finding the allowances totally inadequate.
Some are taking inappropriate boardings for young people - such as caravans at the back of pubs, while there are fears that others may be living on the streets.
Dwyer says the training allowance is less than most industrial awards lay down for breakfast only allowances.
"As the allowances stand they are inconsistent with encouraging a training culture and ignore the real cost impact on these young workers," Dwyer says.
"The reality is you can not negotiate and apprentice accommodation rate with a hotel."
The SDA has called on Labor Council and affiliates to take up the issue with NSW Industrial relations minister John Della Bosca.
The Transport Workers Union says the contract was awarded despite evidence that the company had an appalling OH&S record, was playing well below TWU rates and actively discriminated against union members.
After being assured that an appropriate company would receive the contract, the company has refused to engage three active TWU members since taking over the Liverpool council job.
The TWU has been scathing of the behaviour of Liverpool mayor - and former state ALP minister - George Paciullo - for his failure to act on the unions' concerns.
TWU official Shane O'Brien told Labor Council delegates that the attitude of ALP councilors, and Mayor Paciullo in particular, was a sign that they had lost touch with their core constituents.
"We founded this party and its about time we said to our Labor politicians: it's your job to work for the interests of our membership," O'Brien said.
The ILO last month handed down the historic ruling, that calls on all member nations to cease investment and other assistance that could lead to further breaches of core labour standards.
Addressing the NSW Labor Council, Dr Myint Cho said several unions, such as those representing energy workers, have already started pressuring governments and major companies to withdraw from Burma.
Labor Council secretary Michael Costa pledged the NSW union movement's support for the sanctions in both local and international forums.
Big Win With Burma Fundraiser
Meanwhile, Phil Davey reports that Labor Council, the CFMEU and PSA held a fundraising concert last Thursday night for Burma which packed the punters in.
Over 250 people partied into the small hours of the morning to the sounds of salsa supremos BABALU and funk superstars B'DUSSY.
Proceeds from the gig went to assisting working people escaping the dictatorship in Burma and living as refugees on the Thai Burma border.
The concert was complimented by some rowdy singing and co-ordinated fist waving from a visiting group of Korean construction workers who had earlier in the evening taken Labor Council's weekly meeting by storm with a similar performance. Concert goers from the local Burmese community reciprocated after the Koreans sang with a number of traditional Burmese fighting songs which had everyone on their feet.
The Burma gig takes to six the number of concerts which NSW Unions have put on this year. The LHMU, Labor Council and CFMEU put on two concerts early in the year for independent Timorese radio station "Voice of Hope". 2,000 CDs were donated by the public for "Voice of Hope" at these concerts. A fundraiser for workers locked out at Joy Engineering was put on by the AMWU and CFMEU in July and two S11 fundraising gigs were put on by an alliance of unions in August.
Well over $10,000 was raised at these six gigs, and total attendence at these Union sponsored concerts over the year topped 2,000
by HT Lee
Just down the road two blocks away a jack hammer had accidentally slipped and went through a workers foot--luckily for him there was a first aider on site who was able to administer immediate first aid and call in the ambulance.
The building workers were concerned changes to the Occupational Health and Safety Regulations 2001 would diminish rather than improve the standard of OHS and first aid standard and facilities especially in the construction industry.
CFMEU State Secretary Andrew Ferguson addressing the rally said: 'We will not cop any watering down of the first aid minimum standard in the most dangerous industry in the country.'
This second draft of the OHS Regulations 2001 was supposed to have addressed the concerns raised by the CFMEU to the first aid section in the first draft released in October 1999.
However, with their banks of expertise working through the submissions to the first draft, WorkCover has failed to come up with the goods--the second draft still needs clarification and improvement.
In the latest submission to WorkCover the CFMEU pointed out it is possible and probable that under the new draft code, WorkCover could place employers and employees at risk if appropriate changes to the new regulations are not made.
An area of contention is the definition of 'trained first aid personnel.'
In this latest draft trained first aid personnel besides being a registered nurse or a medical practitioner is a person with a 'current first aid certificate' approved by WorkCover.
The CFMEU wants a person with a current 'occupational' first certificate--a higher level of first aid training added to the definition.
It has been the policy of the union for sometime now to have as many workers as possible trained in basic first aid and for the first aid officer on site to have at least a current occupational first aid certificate.
The CFMEU submission also includes:
� trained first aid personnel to be responsible for controlling and maintaining the first aid facilities;
� when determining the nature of first aid facilities, employers must take into consideration the location of the place of work, the number of employees at a particular location and the type of work being undertaken
� when assessing risks employers must evaluate the likelihood of an injury or illness occurring and the severity of any injury or illness that might occur
� first aid facilities must include a first aid kit or a firs aid room that reflects the outcome of the risk assessment
� first aid room to be used exclusively for firs aid or the provision of medical services
� the documentation of injuries and illness in the workplace
A delegation from the rally delivered the submission to WorkCover.
After the meeting two WorkCover representatives--Kate McKenzie and Michelle Patterson came down and address the rally.
Mckenzie accepts the legitimate concerns of the union and said WorkCover had no intention of lower the first aid provision. Patterson agreed and said there was some misunderstanding and WorkCover will be looking into the points raised.
It has taken WorkCover more than a year and a rally to realise both drafts to the OHS Regulation and might end up in having the reverse intention.
by Dermot Browne
Their motions said Shier had "demonstrated a manifest lack of commitment to the principles of independent public broadcasting", and "shown contempt for staff".
This situation has been further inflamed by announcements today that the science program "Quantum" has been axed, and that respected journalist Paul Barry has been sacked from "Media Watch".
Interestingly, the final episode of Media Watch this year featured a hard-hitting Barry interview where ABC chairman Donald McDonald was tackled over Shier's management style.
The ABC's viability has been threatened by almost 20 years of funding cuts. The most significant occurred in 1997 when the Howard Government reneged on its election commitments, slashing an additional $66 million from the budget.
These cuts led to a reduction in programming and the stripping of resources from a range of programs. Staffing levels were reduced by approximately 20%. Most of the cuts occurred within Radio and TV general programming.
Since 1997 the ABC has increasied the use of 'repeats', reduced the production of television programs and deferred capital and infrastructure expenditure.
Community and Public Sector Union spokesman, Graeme Thomson, said the appointment of Jonathan Shier as Managing Director had worsened an already difficult situation.
"Shier's structure is dysfunctional. Huge amounts of desperately needed funding have been squandered, firstly on redundancies, then on inflated salaries for a new, expanded executive team.
"The net result is a massive cutback in the budgets available for program makers which will inevitably lead to cutbacks in programs and service levels," said Thomson.
The fear is that Shier's plans for the ABC may be the straw that breaks the camel's back.
What you can do
CPSU activists and other ABC supporters are mobilising to
� defend the editorial integrity of the ABC
� oppose commercialisation
� secure better funding
If you would like to be involved in this campaign, contact your local CPSU office or e-mail [email protected]
Why not put your views on the ABC to your local MP
For more information visit
CPSU - http://www.cpsu.org/abc
Friends of the ABC - http://www.fabc.org.au/
The Finance Sector Union traveled to Canberra this week with petitions signed by 35,000 Australians from twenty five marginal electorates, calling on the Federal Government to introduce a social charter for the banking industry. But when they turned up, Howard ducked for cover.
"Mr Howard ignored our request to present him with the petitions, so they will be tabled in Parliament by the Leader of the Opposition, Kim Beazley," FSU National Secretary, Tony Beck says.
"Banking services are viewed by the community as essential services and ordinary Australians expect their Government to take real action against banking closures, increasing fees, understaffing and job losses," Beck says.
"As an election year approaches, no politician can afford to ignore the king tide of public concern about banks' poor treatment of customers and staff."
35,000 Australians have signed our petition calling on the Federal Government to act in the interests of customers, staff and the community..
The petitions were presented to Kim Beazley, Leader of the Opposition, by representatives of the Finance Sector Union, Australian Pensioners and Superannuants Federation and Consumer groups.
" That's why we are surprised that the workers at half the Wattyl plants around Australia have again been locked out by their bosses - till at least Monday," NSW LHMU Assistant Branch Secretary,Mark Boyd said.
" We are fair dinkum about a solution but Wattyl seems to be fair dinkum about having a blue."
Workers at two plants in Victoria, one plant in Queensland and one in NSW were locked out on Thursday.
All other LHMU members around the country employed by Wattyl have now taken national industrial action in support of the locked out workers.
The Wattyl Paint 2000 Campaign aimst o win better pay and conditions for LHMU members.
LHMU members and delegates from all Wattyl sites drew up the claim - and have been negotiating for several months in the hope of making a deal before November 1 when the last national Wattyl agreement expired.
We are seeking the following positions to consolidate and develop further our education, labour rights, health and media programs with local partners particularly in East Timor, Indonesia and the Philippines.
All positions should be available to start late January/early February 2001.
Project Officer South East Asia (East Timor, Indonesia, Philippines)
We require a Sydney based Project Officer for a 12-month position to manage programs in East Timor, Indonesia and the Philippines. The position will form part of the team of 5 international program staff in Australia. APHEDA operates a program office in Dili and commenced a program of support to labour education in Indonesia in 1999. APHEDA maintains several small projects in the Philippines in labour rights including OH&S.
Project Co-ordinator East Timor Program
& Development Officer East Timor Program
APHEDA is also seeking a project co-ordinator for a full-time 6 month position, based in Dili to co-ordinate APHEDA's development program in East Timor and a Development Officer Vocational Education/Media based in Dili (6 months)
APHEDA opened an office in Dili in December 1999 and has been working with local East Timorese organisations in supporting capacity building and development programs particularly in vocational training, labour rights, community media and health.
Assistant Project Officer (P/T)
APHEDA is also seeking a P/T assistant project officer for a 12-month position (0.6) to support the project team also based at the Sydney office. Applicants should have excellent administration skills and experience. Salary $34,895 pa pro rata.
Applications all positions close strictly COB 11 December 2000
Applications/further info www.apheda.org.au or email [email protected]
Fax 02 9261 1118 or mail to Box 3 Trades Hall 4 Goulburn St. Sydney, 2000.
*************
APHEDA Fundraiser
Meanwhile, the Independent Education Union is aiming to raise a moderate cash injection for the highly successful IEU/APHEDA East Timor Appeal. We can't go to The Markets for funds, but in labour movement tradition we will hold...a raffle.
How: Raffle Books ($5 each ticket, $25 a book)
What: 1st Prize, a dozen sensational medal-winning selection of wines valued at $300, 2nd Prize: Dinner Party Dozen, 3rd: Six Bottle Mixed Case
When: Raffle books on sale now, drawn on 15.12.00, person notified by phone and wine delivered.
The IEU/APHEDA East Timor Appeal has already spent $40 000 directly on things like classroom materials, books, carpentry courses for school furniture-making, women's literacy project, Uni of East Timor library, ESL teachers. The union's appeal funds also assist in getting further funds from the bigger govt aid projects - a marvellous multiplier.
Appreciate you picking up a book to sell - we are looking to raise a quick $5000 before the end of the year. Remember, employers also drink. If you want a book or to committ $25 and go in the draw, please let me know and money can be given to me, Cheryl or Franca.
The Brisbane Institutes director's recent 'expose' on organising missed the mark. The most important aspect of the ACTU Organising is its simplicity. There is no conflict between 'servicing' or 'organising' they're in all practical senses one in the same, as long as it empowers the workforce. Union Administrative support, through research, education and most services is 'organising' if it participatory and strategic to a process of empowering the workforce.
The suggestion that the X Generation is made up only of the 'directors' fellow travellers is ridiculous. Truck drivers may not be making a cafe latte in 'trendy' parts of Australia but some do 'aspire' to own there own business. They're small business people collectively bargaining in thousands of workplaces around the country. Owner/drivers act mainly with direct Union Administrative participation, through industrial services backed by strategic campaigns.
Union administration and such members from the L.H.M.U., I.E.U., some ASU Branches and many more, have developed a strong representative culture on behalf of individuals, professionals, employees aspiring to be managers and at times the management workforce itself. They also represent a large section of the workforce who are happy to be employees for a living.
The New South Wales Transport Workers' Union has just posted a 13.2% increase in membership for November 1999 to November 2000. This was achieved by organising as many strategic opportunities as resources allow. Members in organised sites have doubled in the last two years to the number of paid officials coordinating those sites. The number of delegates, committees and active union members has increased by over 700, whilst resignations in the last twelve months have dropped by 926. Thank goodness we didn't listen to the old guard views of the Brisbane Institute and the failed Kelty experiment they continue to embrace.
Tony Sheldon
Ten out of ten for phony iconoclasm-zero out of ten for facts, premises and therefore conclusions. First factual error-the AFLCIO is in fact organising in 'new industries.'For example Microsoft temp workers, IT to a "T", except they suffer problems of temporary employment status, low wages (comparativly speaking) and no security of employment. Sound familiar Peter? Like post graduate students, university tutors, medical staff and other service workers at the higher end of the so called 'new service economy'in the US.These workers have all been involved in organising drives devised by unions in the US that are all too well aware of the significance,for those who have no bargaining power, of being in any industry whether new or old. Plus ca change, plus la meme chose, Peter. Next factual error. The coffee shops, bars and restaurants in Newtown exhibit a mixture of ownership and employment patterns-like small business everywhere. However the last time I looked (yesterday) there were about five 'jobs vacant' cards in a strip of approximately a kilometer along King Street. So someone actually is required to employ people. More importantly, Peter's facile attempt to lump together the international tourist industry labour market, with the traditional main street aggregation of small business is not worthy of any serious analyst of labour market trends. Just which small, friendly family firms employ mum, dad and the kids, in the Continental hotel chain, the Marriott group, the Hilton chain, the Sebel group, Novotel, McDonalds and the like? I think you will find Peter, that it is precisely this sector, a sector of the service economy which is increasingly ecomomically important both here and abroad that has been the focus of very successful campaigns by unions in this country and in the US. Or don't you think these workers in this sector of the 'new economy' need power, representation and a voice at work? Or perhaps you think that international tourism and food services is not an important part of the 'new economy'?
Your basic premise that because increasing numbers of young people want to own their own business, the ACTU should turn its attention to teaching people to be nice to their employees, is simply ludicrous. First, a desire to be independent of the employment contract is neither new nor surprising in the context of the 'new labour market' which is increasingly regulated by management prerogative. Yes Peter, despite the deregulation mantra, in fact the labour market has become increasingly regulated, this time by law firms and unchecked managerial prerogative. Many young, and not so young people, are voting with their dreams and their feet, on this reality. Problem is, dreams are not necessarily reality. How do you explain the fact that despite the increasing level of understandable escapist fantasy on the part of those who must deal with this reality, that there has never been so many people in paid employment in this country? Perhaps you missed the fact that around 65% of all women now participate in the labour market compared to about 35% a decade and a half ago? I can assure you that the idea that all these women are busy building small networked consultancies from their computers at home is as much a fantasy, as the twentysomethings' dream that he/she will be able to run a small business and be independent. By the way, checked the figures on small business failures recently?
Iconoclasm is a great technique for moving a debate forward. However it depends for its effectiveness on finding a response in the receiver of the outburst. To find a response, there must be some rough relationship between the proposition pushed and the facts on which it bases itself for effect. On this one Peter, facts count,not fantasies, be they 1st way, 2nd way, or 3rd way. Ignoring concrete reality is no way at all for serious people who must attend to serious issues.
PS Peter, Why don't you leave the 'Tank' and go out with a couple of organisers in areas of the new economy, both top and bottom end. You might learn something.
Linda Carruthers
Hi, i'm writing apropos Kemp's idiot education funding scheme and Labor's shamless cave-in.
No doubt, one can go on in great, grave detail about the same and more alarmingly, the horrendous intellectual and socioeconomic impact of the plan down the road, but all I need to know is how Kim justifies his party's stand on the issue.
That he has appointed Lee as the shadow speaks volumes towards his commitment to education in particular & the 'knowledge nation' generally but wonder if Kim has discussed the issue with his dad? If not, i think he bloody ought to.
thanks,
Taz
Dear Sir,
In response to your advertisment for the Martin McGuinnes fundraiser. Over the past thirty years little of significance or for the greater good of mankind (LEAST OF ALL MCGUINNESS)has emerged from that nation of belligerents Ireland. That is , other than violence against the common man in a perverse and reverse iconoclastic and ideological power struggle .
An ideological struggle, that was philosophically structured under the influence of poteen , Guinness , and other forms of Porter brewed with the waters of the Liffey , a river consisting of effluent and toxic wastes from the city of Dublin
A futile and cancerous battle, which was relegated to the garbage tip of history with the European Union , You know the theory , eg: people living in peace , together..
That is until now I have recently from the Church of Ireland Internet Forum, received this draft groundbreaking Peace Agreement, which will peacefully resolve the battle for supremacy in that Land of the Free. The good old U.S. of A.
This revocation OF Independence will far surpass the Good Friday Peace Agreement, and will as a by-product dry up any further transfer of funds for the purchase of semtex , and will perhaps permit the remnants of many families , including mine to live a normal life after 30 years of senseless terror.
On a Lighter Note!
NOTICE OF REVOCATION OF INDEPENDENCE
To the citizens of the United States of America,
In the light of your failure to elect a President of the USA and thus to govern yourselves, we hereby give notice of the revocation of your independence, effective today.
Her Sovereign Majesty Queen Elizabeth II will resume monarchial duties over all states, commonwealths and other territories. Except Utah, which she does not fancy. Your new prime minister (The rt. hon. Tony Blair, MP for the 97.85% of you who have until now been unaware that there is a world outside your borders) will appoint aminister for America without the need for further elections.
Congress and the Senate will be disbanded. A questionnaire will be circulated next year to determine whether any of you noticed.
To aid in the transition to a British Crown Dependency, the following rules are introduced with immediate effect:
1. You should look up "revocation" in the Oxford English Dictionary.
Then look up "aluminium". Check the pronunciation guide. You will be amazed at just how wrongly you have been pronouncing it. Generally, you should raise your vocabulary to acceptable levels.
Look up "vocabulary". Using the same twenty seven words interspersed with filler noises such as "like" and "you know" is an unacceptable and inefficient form of communication. Look up "interspersed".
2. There is no such thing as "US English". We will let Microsoft know on your behalf.
3. You should learn to distinguish the English and Australian accents. It really isn't that hard.
4. Hollywood will be required occasionally to cast English actors as the good guys.
5. You should relearn your original national anthem, "God Save The Queen", but only after fully carrying out task 1. We would not want you to get confused and give up half way through.
6. You should stop playing American "football". There is only one kind of football. What you refer to as American "football" is not a very good game. The 2.15% of you who are aware that there is a world
outside your borders may have noticed that no one else plays "American" football. You will no longer be allowed to play it, and should instead play proper football. Initially, it would be best if you played with the girls. It is a difficult game. Those of you brave enough will, in time, be allowed to play rugby (which is similar to American "football", but does not involve stopping for a rest every twenty seconds or wearing full kevlar body armour like nancies). We are hoping to get together at least a US rugby sevens side by 2005.
7. You should declare war on Quebec and France, using nuclear weapons if they give you any merde. The 8.85% of you who were not aware that there is a world outside your borders should count yourselves
lucky. The Russians have never been the bad guys.
8. July 4th is no longer a public holiday. November 8th will be a new national holiday, but only in England. It will be called "Indecisive Day".
9. All-American cars are hereby banned. They are crap and it is for your own good. When we show you German cars, you will understand what we mean.
10. Please tell us who killed JFK. It's been driving us crazy.
Tomas O`Colliean
Dear Sir,
How ironic to read the critique of St. Aloysius` Catholic School, Milsons Point, by Lord Mayor Sartor.
This harsh and pointed criticism ,(Sydney Morning Herald, Saturday, November 25 Page 6) declaring - " this Pandora's box, revealing a lack of accountability to parents, obfuscation, bullying of students and retribution against teachers who speak out".
Hypothetically, let us change the faces:
Parents to ratepayers: Students / Teachers to employees, and any one else who has had a similar relationship with Lord Mayor Sartor, or had employment with Sydney City Council during his tenure. They must surely be overcome with a sense of Dejavu.
My immediate family and I,wish to share with your readers our deeply painful, emotional, financial and personal experiences,in dealing with this egotisticial and petulant Sartor and his Sydney City Council.
We, typical Aussie Battlers, who have had our careers, children's education and personal lives almost completely and utterly destroyed, and we are confident as to our convictions as to whom the real the bully is!
For without the Aussie spirit of resolute defiance in the face of overwhelming odds and the solidarity of Australian Trade Unionism we would have been crushed as a grape in a wine press.;-))))))))))))lol
To meld the generations and nations :
Dear Frank,
"tiocfaidh �r l�"
"Te Nui Teke"
"Pog ma Hone"
From All - Te Iwi ngatiwhatua
Tom Collins
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A lot of people may not realise this but you actually started out your working life as a trade union official. What is your clearest memory of your work with the trade unions?
As a union official I had a dispute once in the Central Reservation Service at Central Railway and it was probably the most interesting dispute I ever handled. Funnily enough, it was a dispute over new technology and new work practices. At the time the Public Transport Commission introduced a computerised system for recording reservations for interstate and intrastate major passenger services. This was a changeover from the old- train diagram system - each train had a long drawer which the clerks would pull out and actually enter the passengers name and details on a diagram of the train. Suddenly and quite properly they decided to put it all into a computerised system. It created a lot of difficulties because clearly there was a lot of people who had been working in an essentially computer-free, keyboard-free zone, suddenly put in a situation where they were operating quite a sophisticated range of software and hardware.
It had a curious end because as I was working for a white collar union - UI was called upon to represent the manager who had been the centre of the dispute! I think he was charged with one of those omnibus incompetence charges that used to exist in the Railways Act and I had to defend him as a member.
That was in the pre-Accord era. How do you think the union movement has changed since those days?
Well, the good thing is that the fundamentals haven't changed. The fundamentals the labour movement is about are still there, which is collective action in defence of individual rights; collective concern and concern for the right to combine and negotiate with your employer, not only on your own behalf, but on behalf of your colleagues. Out of that the basics of human activity are the same. They've been the same not just since I became involved, but the same since the labour movement started.
But the ways in which we go about it and the impact of it are completely different to a lot of the ones that we were dealing with back in the 80s. I think the union movement has completed the leap to being pro-change rather than anti-change when it comes to the workplace. It's the Conservative side of the workplace agenda that wants to turn back the clock. I think the labour movement now pretty readily accepts a whole lot of economic fundamentals that it was less likely to accept in the past - and that's really across the factions and across the different organisations which probably wasn't the case back in the 70s and 80s.
At the same time, numerically the membership coverage has dropped. Do you think that has had an impact on the unions' ability to play a role?
It doesn't seem to have had an impact in a major way in the union movement's ability to play a role in the political context. I suppose we have to think about the role the unions can play in the workplace itself when there are obviously a smaller number of people who are union members. But if you look at the wages and conditions of ordinary working class Australians, the only people standing up for them in the debate that really matters is the union movement. So, even if they are not union members, it is still the union movement doing the job.
There is the new organising model and new approaches the union movement is taking. A lot more of the union members are really active union members or aware, conscious union members. They have to be because the Federal laws and other things mean that they will be. Perhaps going back a bit longer - about 20 or 30 years ago a lot more of union members are what were otherwise thought of as conscripts by one form or another.
What about the other side of the equation? What would be the implications for the ALP if trade union density continued to fall?
People have been asking me that in different forms for a long time now. I have always been careful to say that I'm not a soothsayer, I can't tell into the future what will happen. I think the unions have accepted a more democratically organised Labor Party internally. I have never seen the entire union bloc in any party forum vote down a proposition from the general party membership. So at this stage of the game unions just remain a dynamic part of the Labor Party - and I personally can't see a serious diminution of the unions' role.
You have this debate over what the formal nexus should be. It is one that I didn't really prosecute as a party official. I mean, we kicked it around a few times: whether the formal nexus between the general membership and the union membership should be 50/50 or 60/40 or 60/40 in reverse. That is literally a numbers game that doesn't really mean anything. It is all about symbolism. As I have said, I have never seen the unions do anything but accept quite reasonably - in fact in many cases more easily than the general membership - the difficult calls that Labor in government has to make and the party organisation has to make. I think in terms of pragmatic support there is more coming from the unions than the general membership in many cases.
I guess one of the issues that is resonating with workers today is job insecurity. What can a Labor Government do in a practical way to make work more secure? More importantly, is it possible?
That is one of the really big challenges and it is one that I would like to be able to produce some new answers to over the next few months. Our current approach has been twofold. One, we have concentrated on the existing protections in the NSW industrial action system, with the acceptance of a neutral umpire and the notion of award making as the principal kind of method of protecting employees. The second angle, which I think is less shouted from the treetops, will become more and more important: that is that the old ethos was that a good employer gives an employee a job for life has passed: the idea was that unless the employer went broke, died or the employee died or became incapacitated, the employer always had a job for them if they were otherwise observing the employment contract. Nowadays that just isn't so, because the nature of the economy just isn't so.
I think we have got to instil a new ethos with employers - a new ethic for employers and employees alike. We may not be able to employ you for life but we can do things on the job that make sure that you are employable for life. We don't just chew you up, either physically or emotionally - or vocationally; we keep renewing your skills on the job. So, if here is a bumpier market and people have to change jobs and the skill sets required to do their job change - well, how do you get security? You get the feeling that you can change jobs without finding yourself mixing with the thieves and street brawlers.
So, you would be talking about something like putting obligations on employers for ongoing training?
Maybe it ends up being obligations, but maybe it just ends up so that there is arguments over things like construction training levy and things like that. That is all out there in the political marketplace as an argument to be had between the unions and employers and government. But I think it is also about the culture of the workforce. It is also about the culture of the workplace and government has got a critical role of leadership in saying, well, that's the way a decent employer should behave.
That's a different line from governments actually going out there and pretending they can give formal security and jobs for life...
I tend to take the view that the best way forward in these sorts of political debates is not to give people false expectations. It is important to give people real expectations about what governments can do.
On a bigger level a lot of the cynicism that has arisen is this notion that a political culture exists in democracy that says that the government and ministers have to know everything - have to have it all right and can never admit that they don't know. I think that comes from the days of depressions and wars when the big decisions - we couldn't possibly admit that you didn't know what to do, and you had to give everybody the impression that you knew everything, or the government knew everything and could look after it.
The reality is that the population is now much cleverer. The population is now much better educated. There is not only rising economic literacy there is rising political literacy. People actually know that that is not the way institutions work. They know that no bureaucracy, no government research bureau, no minister, no government or political party has all the answers to any problem, and it is all a matter of an ongoing debate and progress bit by bit. And I think it is probably prudent for politicians not to pretend that they have all the answers, but rather admit that they have got to canvass it more widely, or find out the way forward by other means.
One of the things that would sit well is the current inquiry into labour hire that Jennie George is carrying out? What would you like to see come out of that inquiry?
Well, I suppose we wouldn't be holding an inquiry if I thought we had a pretty clear view as to what I thought should come out of it. But I suppose what we need out of an inquiry is the factual basis for some new policies in this changing area. We know that a lot of workplace and industrial relations issues have been changed partly by technology, partly by change in the nature of competition. Employers are no longer thinking how do I market my widgets here? I'm making them in Newcastle, how do I market them down in Sydney? If they do, they probably would pretty quickly go broke. They are probably thinking, what is the global niche for this widget that I'm making? How do I get some markets all over the world? How can I keep them? They are the businesses that seem to be succeeding and providing jobs, and I think the evidence here has increased and that they will be the businesses that do provide jobs for the future - for Australians at least.
So given this context you have got to say what we are looking for from the George inquiry is guidance on what new obligations exist in the labour market; what new regulations might be required in order to provide for a fair basis for people to contract into this array of more flexible arrangements based on employers having to keep tight costs, and based on the fact that technology requires people to be hired in and hired out. Certainly labour hire, has, with the established labour movement, a bad name and in the past that has been in some cases, deservedly so. But I think what will increase a balanced view of what the facts are; what the options are; and to present it as fairly as we can.
Another issue that must be taking up a bit of your time is workers compensation. In recent weeks you have downgraded the Advisory Council and also advertised for debt reduction strategies. What is the gameplan??
The gameplan is fairly public. I'm a bit worried about your use of the term "downgraded the Advisory Council". What I have sought to do is clarify the role of the Advisory Council. In some ways I have upgraded its role because now it advises me directly. I have taken the WorkCover General Manager off the Advisory Council - made it a sort of stand-alone body - and I have merged it with the Occupational Health & Safety Council. So I have changed the role of the Advisory Council, but certainly I don't think I have downgraded it at all, I think I might well have upgraded it, and I am glad if that is the outcome.
The second specific point you mentioned was debt reduction. That's pretty innocent. There is a lot of debt reduction type initiatives that exist again, largely in the global marketplace for insurance products. What we want to do is explore what options there are to fairly and as acceptably as possible, start making progress on that debt reduction
The game plan above all else, is that my priorities are occupational health and safety, and getting some incentives and motivations in the system, wanting to do as much as possible towards injury management of people that have been injured and giving them proper compensation and giving employers incentives to reduce the risks of their employees. Obviously too, we have put some things in that are compliance issues, to get the punishment right for those that don't do the right thing, whoidon't pay their proper premiums and other things.
The second tranche, if you like, is working towards better dispute resolution - quicker, more timely settlement. If you look at the old pie chart I want to make sure that that bit of it that says workers benefits, doesn't get any smaller and if possible gets bigger. I'm sure if I looked at one of those pie charts for 1950, employee benefits would be a much, much bigger part of the pie than they are now. And if you look at it over the last decade, what has happened is that employee benefits have just gone down and down and down, as other things have intruded and taken more and more of that pie. What I want to see is a fight back for the bit of the pie that is employee entitlements.
The privatisation issue has been on and off the agenda really. Where is it sitting with you?
I regret to say that you have got to watch this space. I think the fundamentals of good workers compensation reform are not bound up in the issue of whether it is a private scheme or not. I think if you look at the options in the system; if you get the incentives and the motivations and the rewards and the sanctions right, you could in theory do that either under a managed fund, or a private, underwritten fund. It doesn't really matter a lot. I think that once you get a lot of the fundamentals of the system right - the actuarial fundamentals and the dispute resolution fundamentals, you will make a final view as to what the ideal shape of the Workcover system.
Another issue on the agenda, although not of your making, is Peter Reith's plan for a unitary industrial relations system. What is your position on this?
I said today at a briefing, that there is a tradition that the Victorian labour movement supports the unitary system and the NSW labour movement opposes the unitary system. I remain highly suspicious of the unitary system. I suppose you can't ever write anything off, but you can see that the Reith inspired unitary system is all about continued attacks on workers' conditions; and all about attacks on collective bargaining; all about continued attacks on wage levels - so I'm not really interested in it.
I also think that it is one of those "if it's not busted why fix it?" arguments. The two systems work quite well together, some employers and unions find it easy to organise themselves under a Federal Act, others go for the State jurisdiction. I don't see any reason why government has to decide all of a sudden it will have a single system. There are a few on the employers side that are arguing that that is a better way to go, but I think we think it is an unconvincing argument.
What are your other priorities as IR Minister?
I think the labour movement needs to claim back the workplace. One of the things that has happened, is that because we have needed for political reasons to defend the role of the umpire; because we have needed to defend collective bargaining, while issues of individual contracts have come into place, we've lost control of the agenda. The critical thing is for Labor has something to say to the workplace, that we have got more to say about it than anybody - and working with the union movement I would like to to take the initiative to make for a more productive, safer, better trained workplaces. At the moment Peter Reith sort of owns the workplace and I think that is a bad thing
So, how do you seize the mantle back?
Maybe I will give you another interview in a year and tell you how we have done it. I think you can only do it cooperatively with the union movement, and frankly, you have to do it with the employers. It doesn't make sense to try to do it without them. It gets down to sponsoring a bit of a cooperative effort to reclaim the workplace issues - everything from occupational health and safety right through to legal relationships; right through to coping with change; productivity issues and all those sort of things.
Having been in State Parliament now for about 18 months, what do you think the main differences are between Macquarie Street and Sussex Street?
Almost everything!
Which is the more powerful place?
That's a bit like asking which is more powerful on a chess board a Queen or a King ?- It depends on what you are trying to do. I'll only talk about functionality and how I felt about the job on the one hand being a minister and on one hand being a senior party officer. As a senior party officer I think I developed a personal style that suited me. I think I got the respect of a lot of people. I could come and go more or less as I chose. I set a lot of my own agenda. Things are a little bit different as a minister - as someone I know used to say "it's like fighting for your food every day". That is probably an inelegant way to put it, but you have really got to establish a new set of credentials for every day. And that is a difference that I find both challenging and tough.
Just a brief question on Federal Labor. What chance do you think at this stage of a Federal Labor victory next year?
A good one. I think a lot of the fundamentals are there for Labor to move forward very positively and I am looking forward to it ending up being a tough contest and one which Labor can win.
What impact would a change of Federal government have on the Carr government?
Ask me when one is elected. I think that it would give us the ability to branch out a bit more. At the moment we are carrying the overwhelming burden of good health policy and good education policy. I think with a Federal Labor government we could work cooperatively those two areas, which would make a hell of a big, positive difference. It would also mean that we could strike out and concentrate on some other issues as well, because we have got to do a lot of backing and filling to make up for the deficiencies of the Federal government in both those two critical areas. So, I think that is one way of looking at it. In a whole lot of other areas it is fair to say the difference would be in the level of cooperation more than anything else. I think we would get a more cooperative attitude out of the Beazley Labor government on a range of areas.
Finally I have to ask you, as your sole public defender at the time, after the infamous lunch with Maxine, what really happened?
I'll have to pass on that one Peter. I decided some time ago to leave sleeping dogs lie on that. The fact of the matter is, as I said at the time, is that I have always in the past: I always was opposed to the GST. I have said consistently that the Party needed to campaign on progressive policies as well as a critique of what the Federal government was doing. That was the substance of the comments. How they were construed by Maxine McKew, I'll have to leave to history.
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In the last issue of Workers Online an extract from a speech by Peter Botsman to the ACOSS National Conference was reprinted. To illustrate his points he used some ill-informed references to the union movement's organising agenda.
These comments may well reflect Mr Botsman's lack of active contact with unions in recent times but are sufficiently wrong to warrant a response.
In particular I would like to respond to three of Mr Botsman's comments:
1. "The Organising 'model' is not primarily about gaining representation in new industries" Botsman
Mr Botsman talks about the ACTU's adoption of an American model of organising that has little to do with organising the new workforce. He is wrong on both scores - the US and Australian unions that are pursuing this agenda are very much focussed on organising the unorganised.
He mentioned the Justice for Janitors organising drive in the US. If they aren't the success story of an organising approach what is? SEIU, the union organising North American janitors, took on the task of organising minium wage migrant workers (many of whom are undocumented) when traditional union approaches had either failed or ignored their need. Today, Justice for Janitors is an internationally recognised organising success story.
In Australia if you look at where unions have been particularly focussing extra organising resources in the last 2 years - hospitality and call centres - what are these if not growing new labour markets?
2. "I think the ACTU strategy is well intentioned, defensive, old fashioned and ultimately about maintaining the status quo" - Botsman
Our movement's organising agenda is markedly different to how most Australian unions have been operating in recent decades.
The approach is different - it is about involving workers in solving their own problems through activism and innovative tactics - relying much less on 'professionals' or 'institutions'.
The content is different - the organising campaigns are very much moulded around issues of deepest concern to workers - not a top down imposed agenda.
The desired outcome is different - it is not just about winning issues, although that is still important, but it is focussed on how we build power and organisation amongst workers.
3. "To be really on top of their game representing people in the workforce, the ACTU would be running courses for generation X'ers in how to run your own business..." Botsman
I can assure Mr Botsman that not too many of the thousands of hotel workers we are organising are likely to be setting up their own hotels in the near future. The Australian market is dominated by a number of very large players including two of the worlds biggest hotel operators - Accor and Bass.
For all that some young people might desire their own business the reality is that many more Australian workers are working for an employer. And for young people in general, polls taken in recent years actually show an increase in support for unionism.
In conclusion I'd suggest that anyone with close contact with our movement in recent years would appreciate the enormity of the transformation we are pursuing. Our agenda is one of challenge and change but ultimately about the activism and empowerment of Australian workers and their families - in both traditional areas of organisation and new.
by crikey.com.au
Stephen Mayne |
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The combined wisdom of the Howard Government and Telstra's spinning machine managed to produce a farcical AGM as far as corporate democracy was concerned on November 17.
The five defeated candidates were not told how they polled. Telstra chairman Bob Mansfield even refused to reveal the proxy votes at the meeting which is a requirement under the Corporations Law.
So here we have a government-stacked board - 11 of the 12 members have been appointed since the Howard Government came into office - breaching the corporations law which it administers.
Every other board that I've stood for so far has declared the proxy votes and the final votes to the shareholders at the meeting.
When I asked to be told the proxy votes chairman Bob Mansfield simply said he was complying with the relevant regulations. When I asked him what he was going to do with the open proxies granted to the chairman, he refused to say.
Four days later at the CDS Technologies AGM in Mornington, chairman Bob Mansfield happily provided the proxy votes to the meeting.
About 30 per cent of small shareholder who vote, simply sign the form and send it back in the reply paid envelope, thereby handing their votes to the chairman. This often amounts to about 20 per cent of the vote and can be crucial in determining resolutions.
When he was asked how the government intended to vote its 50.1 per cent stake, Bob claimed he had no idea, which is very difficult to believe.
Those shareholders who hung around to see the result of the poll were simply told that John Fletcher, Catherine Livingstone and Sam Chisholm had been elected for the first time and deputy chairman John Ralph had been re-elected.
It was weird that none of the hand-picked new directors bothered to turn up at the meeting when the two union candidates and Crikey all spoke up.
And it was even more strange that two of the three directors who walked the plank in September - Chris Roberts and grain grower Celia Moar - were sitting on stage with the other directors.
When I asked for explanations as to why they'd resigned, Bob Mansfield refused, saying that it was a private matter for the individuals concerned.
The mystery fifth vacancy appears to have been Steve Vizard's as he was up for re-election this year yet appears to have resigned in a great hurry, unlike the two other sacrifices.
This made my candidacy for the Telstra board somewhat redundant because I specifically stood on a platform opposing Steve Vizard because of his various conflicts of interest which had been tolerated for far too long.
Getting back to the question of how we all polled, a quick inspection of the Telstra announcement to the stock exchange late on Friday simply restated that the four government-backed candidates had been elected by poll.
No Telstra official made any contact before the meeting to advise of the voting procedures to be adopted or to advise whether candidates would be given an opportunity to speak.
And still no-one has made any contact after the meeting to advise on what the vote actually was.
Bob Mansfield made a cryptic remark before the poll that the incumbent directors received more than 95 per cent of the non-Commonwealth proxy votes. Gee, maybe Bob did know how the Commonwealth voted after all.
But Bob did not make any reference to that crucial fifth vacancy which was available for one of the five outsiders.
Did any of us receive a majority of the proxies and then get defeated by the chairman with his open proxies or by the government exercising its no vote?
Given the extraordinary secrecy one can only suspect that the government and the board have something to hide.
ASX-Perpetual have also been strangely secretive through the process. On arrival at the meeting one hour after it started I asked to see my proxy votes and it took more than an hour for an official to come up with something that made no sense whatsoever and was apparently only a representative sample of the votes.
At the Commonwealth Bank AGM an ASX-Perpetual official was able to tell me before the meeting that about 17,500 individual shareholders had voted for me and 5,500 against.
There was no such luck at Telstra.
The media really should have a look at this issue and Terry McCrann has been leading the charge on it but still no government spokesman has responded explaining why the government voted the way it did.
Despite all the secrecy, Telstra advised the ASX on Monday afternoon that the four government-backed candidates had been comfortable returned.
Setting a good precedent for how institutions should vote, the government only cast its 50.1 per cent stake during the poll, meaning they hung around and listened to the debate before registering their voting intentions.
The proxies showed Crikey finished third out of the five external candidates with 82 million votes in favour and 467.87 million against - a "yes" vote of just 15 per cent.
Union leader Len Cooper did best of the outsiders with 130.66 million in favour and 426.35 million against - a "yes" vote of 23.45 per cent.
And the eccentric Mervyn Vogt finished a long last with just 49.75 million votes in favour and 470.26 million against - a "yes" vote of just 9.5 per cent.
Even the three newcomers - former Cochlear CEO Catherine Livingstone, outgoing Brambles CEO John Fletcher and former BskyB chief Sam Chisholm - encountered some stiff opposition with "no" votes between 105 million and 106.5 million which equated to about 16 per cent.
It is very rare for a board-backed director to get less than 95 per cent so maybe this reflected the size of the field, lack of incumbency and lack of voting direction from the board.
The only incumbent up for re-election was deputy chairman John Ralph and he clearly polled better than everyone else with 630.6 million in favour and just 19.5 million against - a "yes" vote of 97 per cent.
The actual meeting itself contained some of the worst debate Crikey has ever seen at an AGM. Thank god chairman Bob Mansfield tried to limit speakers to three minutes each.
CEO Ziggy Switkowski put himself forward as the fall guy for his chairman and his favourite underling Ted Pretty.
When I listed Mansfield's string of Packer associations over the years and then expressed horror that he'd backed an $18-a-share bid for PBL early last year that valued the business at $10 billion, Ziggy said that it was him and not Bob who had brought that proposal to the board.
Then when I listed the litany of disasters that Ted Pretty had been involved in, Ziggy said that Telstra was in front overall from the various experiments and that Ted had only been involved in some of them whereas Ziggy was responsible for all of them.
Crikey is a supporter of the Zig. He's got the toughest gig in corporate Australia, is relatively underpaid and has a million forces pulling at him simultaneously.
However, he needs to forget his Ted Pretty friendship and cut his mate adrift in the interests of the company. Pretty is a lawyer and a dealmaker, yet Ziggy now has him responsible for about 70 per cent of Telstra's revenues.
Wouldn't it be better to have a career telco person with oodles of operating experience in such a pivotal position.
And as for Bob Mansfield, well he is definitely in the Howard-Packer sphere of influence but he and Ziggy appear to be getting on well so the jury is still out on him with the share price picking up somewhat after the renegotiation of the PCCW deal.
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The NSW Government is reviewing the Industrial and Commercial Training Act, 1989 - the legislation that regulates NSW Apprenticeships and Traineeships. Whilst most of the Government's proposals are agreeable, the Labor Council is at odds on the issue appeals from the Vocational Training Board. The unions are also calling for a ban on the use of Australian Workplace Agreements in training.
The Labor Council's submission supports a range of the Government's proposals to reform the administration of the training system, including the establishment of training agreements, the declaration of Vocational Training Orders and the implementation of individual training plans. The scheme to implement a register of employers banned from taking on trainees or apprentices because of consistent breaches of their training obligations is a welcome reform.
Employer's use of Australian Workplace Agreements to drive down conditions such as overtime, allowances and shift arrangements for trainees and apprentices has resulted in Labor Council calling for their prohibition as an employment arrangement for vulnerable groups such as apprentices and trainees. Young people have little or no serious workplace experience and so have no concept of their market value. This makes them highly dependent upon their employer to give them a fair deal. The notion that a young person entering an apprenticeship or traineeship can bargain equally with a prospective employer is laughable. Awards still provide the fairest and most universally accepted terms and conditions for employment.
Concerns regarding the spread of AWAs through the training system have increased with the Federal Department of Education, Training and Youth Affairs having developed pro-forma AWA's for Trainees that it is distributing to employers via the New-Apprenticeship Centres. The Labor Government should act to stop their spread of these arrangements in NSW by amending the act to prohibit AWA's for Apprentices and Trainees.
Unions are concerned about plans to replace the Industrial Relations Commission with the Administrative Decisions Tribunal as the body that hears appeals from the Vocational Training Board (VTB). The VTB hears disputes between Apprentices and Trainees and their employers. Currently the Industrial Relations Commission determines appeals from the VTB.
In a dispute, the VTB hears arguments from both sides and attempts to conciliate or broker an agreement that is acceptable to both parties. This emphasis on dispute resolution is more in keeping with the culture of the Industrial Relations Commission. The danger is that the Administrative Decisions Tribunal could reflect its more legalistic culture back into the VTB, fundamentally changing the way it operates. Ultimately this could result in increased expense for both employers and trainees/apprentices having to employ lawyers and ultimately shifting towards a more adversarial culture, making reconciliation of the parties more difficult.
The Labor Council's submission canvasses a range of issues in addition to those outlined here. For those that are interested a full copy of the submission may be found at http://lcnsw.labor.net.au/papers/ictactrev.html.
by Neale Towart
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"Ballot irregularities on a grand scale." Justice Dunphy's statement on the Ironworkers ballot was used far and wide to implant the idea that no trade union ballot is honest; that they are all rigged.
A pamphlet, apparently produced by the CPA and printed by G Wheeler of 16 Corr's Lane, Melbourne, puts the case for the CPA in union ballots, and clearly points out the flaws in the processes introduced by Menzies, with support from the Groupers who benefited from them. The legislation was an amendment to the Commonwealth Conciliation and Arbitration Act.
The Menzies government, in its Communist Party Dissolution Act (rejected by the High Court and by referendum) included a "scheme by which the trade unions would become mere appendages to the State - would be led by officials who were nominees of the government."
The employers and Menzies carried through the secret ballot legislation separately. Menzies' legislation said that if 10% of members of a union made a request to the Court, the Court must order a government ballot.
The government, employers and the press waged a long-term campaign against workers' rights (following World War II in the context of the realignment of powers following that conflict). The influence of communists was the big demon factor, and the FIA battle between Thornton and Short was the focal point for some time.
The secret ballots were always depicted a means of defeating the communist rorters. This pamphlet asserts that real secret ballots would increase communist influence.
The ALP groups, eventually defeated by Evatt, were "fostered and developed" by the Security Service; "they put their own men into them: they enlisted some of the people already active in them: they provided funds: they enlisted the aid of the newspapers."
The employers and the government, in their new -found concern for fairness and democracy, claimed it was only corrupt ballots that kept the groups out. Thus it was "impossible for the authorities to allow the militants to win in a Government ballot. If the militants had won, it would have destroyed years of work on the part of the government - work in to which they had thrown the whole resources of the press, the courts, the security service. It would have exploded for ever the lie that trade union ballots are rigged."
Menzies' acting Minister for Labour, Mr McBride, stated categorically that "by the end of 1954, there would have been a full round of Court controlled ballots and that would mark the end of "Communist control"." The pamphleteer asks; "how could he possibly know" that? All evidence at the time pointed to the opposite. The left were being very successful in union ballots, in unions whose election processes had never been the subject of rorting claims even by the most rabid of the groupers.
The pamphleteer sets out the ballot process under the Menzies rules:
"There is no single polling day. The ballots have in each case been open for a full fortnight. There is no polling place: there are no scrutineers. How would it be if in the next Senate election, or election for members of the Federal House of representatives, or a State Parliament, the ballot was open for a fortnight, ...the candidates had no scrutineers - no one knew where the ballot papers were kept ". No appeals against decisions in the government ballots were allowed.
Ballots were by post, with:
� no supervision of the printing; no scrutiny before counting;
� no safeguards on the papers,
� no supervision at the Post Office on behalf of candidates;
� no one on behalf of candidates knew where the papers were kept or what is done with them after they are returned; and
� information about the ballot was given to candidates from the groupers, whose campaign material arrived at members homes at the same time as the ballot papers.
The cost of running all these elections and the challenged elections all return to the union too, so the government attempted to bleed the unions with this legislation.
The results of the government ballots, conducted after the union ballots, almost all exactly reversed the votes with the two-thirds/one-third majority swapping to the groupers side.
A detailed look at the government ballot in the ARU Victorian Branch election indicated the rejection of any safeguards suggested by the ARU, which were aimed at preserving the anonymity of voters and the integrity of their postal ballots.
Malpractice was also observed, according to this pamphlet, with many members not receiving ballot papers, many having their mail interfered with, papers arriving or being discovered in the paddock next door, papers arriving after polling day.
The pamphlet's position is:
Some ballots were rigged internally, it would seem chiefly by left officials. The processes set in place by the government were designed to keep the left out, and made it certain that this would happen by allowing ballot rigging, in secret, with no recourse to challenge, the very process that allowed Short and others to overturn the FIA ballot.
by Luc Demaret
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"I am 26 and have one child. In 1996, a blood sample taken when I was pregnant revealed that I was HIV positive. I didn't even know that I was going to be tested for it. I thought that AIDS was a disease that only affected homosexuals and prostitutes. I went to see several doctors because I just couldn't believe it. I warned my husband immediately, but it took me more than a year before I dared tell my mother. My baby died at 21 months".
Stories such as this, by South African Nthabiseng Sandra Moagi - now committed to the fight against AIDS launched in South Africa by NACTU (National Council of Trade Unions) - lie behind the terrible statistics of the AIDS pandemic that has ravaged the African continent. But in her speech to an assembly of African trade unions convened recently in Gaborone (Bostwana) by the ICFTU's African Regional Association (AFRO), Nthabiseng placed the emphasis on remedial action.
AFRO listened to what she had to say and then took the necessary action. The figures are there, implacable. The HIV virus is spreading fastest in South Africa, where another 1,500 people become infected each day. Globally, more than 11 million people have died from AIDS and more than 34 million are HIV positive. Of these, over two thirds live in sub-Saharan Africa.
Botswana, Namibia, Swaziland and Zimbabwe are some of the most affected countries, with between 20 and 26% of the 15-49 age group HIV positive. In Botswana, where AFRO held its conference, one person in three has the virus.
"The fact that AIDS kills off people in Africa is, in itself, a direct threat to development", says ORAF General Secretary Andrew Kailembo. The economic and social consequences of this plague ravaging the active population of the countries concerned are truly catastrophic." He continues: "The nature of their work is such that workers in the transport sector, especially road and maritime transport, are extremely vulnerable to the disease. Similar risks have been observed in the mining communities of South Africa, Namibia, Botswana and in the agricultural sector and the plantations of East Africa. The commerce and hotel sector in Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania are also highly exposed."
This fact naturally led the ICFTU and AFRO to consider that the workplace plays a key role in AIDS prevention campaigns.
AFRO therefore drafted a five-year action plan in Gaborone in late September which it then officially launched in Nairobi.
The action plan, which has benefited from a number of large financial contributions, will include on-the-job training, health and hygiene programmes, the forging of alliances with other bodies fighting AIDS and information campaigns. These campaigns will also be directed at governments and employers. "We want to encourage the African governments to voice their concern about this plague and to demonstrate their political determination to see it eradicated", Andrew Kailembo said recently.
Beyond mere prevention, two major problems will also be tackled by the unions: discrimination against people who are HIV positive and the relative inaccessibility of treatment. The unions feel that thousands of people are being discriminated against at the work place simply because they are HIV positive. There is no doubt that this is a very real problem but it is often shrouded in silence.
"Discrimination is widespread," explains Franklyn Lisk, an expert at the International Labor Organization (ILO). "But what comes to our attention is only the tip of the iceberg. Many workers prefer to remain silent, afraid of revealing the fact that they are HIV positive to the people they live and work with". Nevertheless, there have been many cases of unfair dismissal, HIV tests performed on job applicants, violations of confidentiality and refusals to promote or train those afflicted by the disease.
Recently, the national carrier South African Airways was forced to hire a steward whom it had refused to recruit because of his positive HIV test result: this court ruling has set a precedent. Franklyn Lisk notes: "It is not uncommon for training requests to be turned down. Employers are not keen to invest in a worker who risks falling ill at any time".
Fortunately, not all employers react in the same way. In South Africa, the carmaker Ford is leading the way. Johan Strijbom explains: "In our company, confidentiality is the rule. The worker can have the test done by the plant clinic safe in the knowledge that the result will remain confidential. We will not tolerate any discrimination against HIV positive workers." Each month the company hands out thousands of contraceptives and has gone into partnership with the unions on the AIDS issue.
Breaking the wall of silence surrounding discrimination is one of the central aims of the AFRO plan. The organization is also inviting the unions to negotiate protection clauses in their collective agreements on the basis of ILO Convention 111, which outlaws any discrimination at work, and Convention 159 on vocational training.
Finally, the lack of access to treatment for AIDS sufferers remains a major problem. Andrew Kailembo is critical: "In most African nations, a patient has to pay out around $42,000 a year to have access to the treatment he needs to keep him alive. It's just not realistic."
His criticisms are aimed essentially at the pharmaceutical multinationals, protected by the World Trade Organization's intellectual property rules, which despite reaping massive profits refuse to lower the cost of life-saving medicines.
Stopping off in the Kenyan capital, Nairobi, ICFTU Secretary General Bill Jordan fumed: "The greatest scandal of our time is the way the pharmaceuticals companies are holding people on death's door to ransom. They are equalled only by the governments that defend them through an immutable view of intellectual property rights". He added: "No right is more important than the right to life".
Unequal access to medicine is probably one of the main lessons sadly highlighted by the AIDS epidemic. Alain Lejeune, professor of pharmacology at a Belgian university and an acknowledged world expert reports: "When it comes to the consumption of medicines, Africa doesn't even enter the frame". While the pharmaceuticals industry generates global turnover of USD 214.4 billion, Africa accounts for less than 1% of this. The inequality goes beyond this, however, with 17% of the world's population consuming 83% of global medicine production. In other words, only 17% of production goes to the remaining 83% of people. What is more, now that the pharmaceuticals industry has managed to shrug off the Californian lobby, which appears relatively satisfied with tritherapy solutions, it is less motivated to undertake research into an AIDS vaccine.
Doctor Lejeune stresses: "The industry is still researching this problem, but it only makes a concerted effort when there is funding from governments or international organizations. And, of course, it would rather sell its expensive medicines in countries with the requisite purchasing power and health insurance funds".
And yet only 40 years ago, the experts recall, the pharmaceuticals industry managed to produce a low-price low-margin polio vaccine. Perhaps this was because the disease threatened the wealthier nations. The fight against AIDS must challenge the role played by the medicine multinationals. AFRO, in any event, is targeting them for a campaign that has since become "the mother of all trade union campaigns in Africa".
For more information, please contact the ICFTU Press Department on +32 2 224 0212
by The Chaser
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The reshuffle, blamed on a suspected computer security breach at the Federal Parliament's IT facility at Belconnen, has resulted in a radical change in the balance of power in the Federal Cabinet, with key portfolios being moved, Ministries being amalgamated or created, and the Prime Minister reluctant to re-order the new appointments until there had been a "full inquiry" into the affair.
Newly appointed Minister for YoU BLOW GOATS, and former Minister for Youth Affairs, Mr David Kemp, has been amongst the most trenchant critics of the proposed new front bench. Speaking at an emergency session of both houses of Parliament called by Senior Balding Git, Wilson Tuckey, Scott lamented: "It's an outrage, Mr Speaker, an outrage - how is Government meant to function when our own IT systems can't be trusted! The Leader of the Opposition must take full resp.. - stop smirking there! This is not funny! There is nothing amusing about breaking into a Government system and replacing the picture of the PM of this great country with a poorly-scanned picture of an orang utan's erect penis!"
The SpANker of the House then interjected, to break up the fracas, naming not only Opposition sitting members such as the Member for Grandler and the Leader of the Opposition, but being forced to prevent Government former back-benchers (including recently promoted Minister Assisting the Minister for Nob Jockeys, Ms Jackie Kelly) from leaving their seats in uproar.
Under the Constitution, Ministries are apportioned by the Department of the Prime Minister, who has the power to appoint members to the front bench so long as he enjoys the confidence of the House of Representatives. By convention, Ministers are appointed from within the elected members of the lower house, although the former Attorney-General's Department was frantically working to establish the constitutionality of the appointments of the incoming Minister for Defence ("Big Derek"), Minister for Trade ("Waxxy Chick") and Minister for Going Off ("My mate DaZZa goes fucken off"). The new appointments, sent under cover of email duly formatted by the Prime Minister's Department, have force of law and, say leading constitutional lawyers, must be respected unless withdrawn by the PM. The former PM, Mr John Howard, suggested to reporters today that he was "minded" to reverse "most, if not all" of the appointments, although he and his legal advisors were not clear on whether his current status as Minister Responsible For Doing Rimjobs was compatible with the exercise of that type of executive authority.
Some have found their portfolios largely intact, although the PM's Department's instructions indicate a clear change of direction, which some senior political commentators have suggested is in keeping with Mr Howard's previously-avowed intention to get 'closer' to the electorate. Senator Jocelyn Newman, who today found her portfolio of Family and Community Services now combined to form a new 'super-Ministry' including key social portfolios such as Skateboarding, METALLICA RULE and KISS MY (_x_), was one of few Government Ministers with her previous duties intact. She told ABC Radio earlier today that she did not expect any difficulties in getting on top of her new brief, which she characterised as a "logical" extension of Family and Community Services.
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The play attempts to explore the possibilities and limits of theatre as a means for making political change. The play has a number of strengths in relation to the way it develops and challenges the audience and the perceptions and stereotypes Australian's have of refugees. The actors undertake their roles with great enthusiasm and subsequently deliver passionate performances. The strength of the actors performances is one of the greatest strengths of the play.
The plays text is supported by effective and innovative staging and lighting that enhances the images developed by the play. The set and staging effects are very successful in engaging the audience and drawing you into focus on the actors and the dialogue.
At times I found the paly a little disjointed and this, at times detracted from the continuity of the performance, however, the enthusiasm, passion and professionalism of the actors performance drew me back into the play. The last part of the play is a dialogue between the audience and one persons experience as a refugee under the Khmer Rouge. While this is an interesting and obviously moving section of the play, it seemed wasted at the end and could have been more effectively if it had been wound into the body of the work rather than appearing as an after thought.
I think the play dealt well with a range of complex issues and provided a thought provoking and challenging night out. Three out of Five.
Manufacturing Dissent"
Urban Theatre Projects
Performance Space - Redfern
Davey Devours the Enermy |
Seattle is slowly becoming seen around the world as a significant new chapter in the class struggle that has been raging since time began. There were some significant "firsts" at Seattle which I maintain the multinationals have cottoned on to even as the more myopic within the labour movement prefer not to see significance.
Steelworkers uniting with greenies, student rads with Christians-a violent crackdown from the powers that be, the trade talks that were being protested collapsing in disarray and "globalisation" becoming a part of the language for the first time.
All of this was pretty new stuff.
Multinationals understand the significance even if we don't. Seattle accelerated trends that began some years ago. Anyone who suffers through advertising on commercial television can't help but notice the phenomenon of "Green washing" (filthy polluting companies like Shell marketing themselves as eco-aware) becoming more pronounced.
I believe this is just one of the lessons the corporations took from Seattle.
Multinationals got the message loud and clear- if you want to keep making your mega-profits you have to arc up your propaganda radically coz people just don't believe the hype any more.
So why aren't we learning from Seattle? When Australia hosted a similar event -the World Economic Forum in Melbourne in September (the protest against which was known as "S11") - progressive forces in this country were divided. Significant sectors of the labour movement refused to organise around it and some amongst us actually ran interference.
And make no mistake -that cause was just. A meeting of the top 1000 multinationals on the planet in our own backyard. The unelected pig bosses who run our world, ruin working communities, defile the environment -meeting appropriately in that symbol of greed and ruined lives Crown Casino-and meeting to plan greater profits at our expense.
A pretty legitimate target for working people in Australia and their organisations I would have thought.
The media of course didn't help. The lies about overseas bomb makers jetting in, the very thorough vilification of the protestors, the hysteria around violence...some of those articles from before S11 are a real laugh to read back over now. Piers Ackerman predicably was the most over the top. "Terrorist organisations like Hezbollah, the IRA and S11" was how he started one of his memorable articles from around that time.
But surely the organised left can recognise a media con job when they see one? Couldn't people see that what the media was doing to S11 protestors was no different to co-ordinated, systematic vilification campaigns conducted against our own organisations (Teachers Federation, MUA) in the very recent past? That many amongst us believed the hype and still run around parroting "S11 they were all ferals or middle class uni students" is pretty indolent.
For the record the people who were down at Melbourne for S11 defied such easy categorisation. There were 20,000 people protesting in Melbourne, easily more Christians than trots/anarchists, easily more workers than uni students. In fact they were precisely the people we need to bring with us if we are actually going to win and reorient the world away from corporate rule and towards our values of community and collectivism.
Those 20,000 at S11 saw through the media hype and recognised that the true enemy of humanity was meeting at Crown and had to be stopped. That these people chose to do this using classic labour movement tactics of a blockade/picket is one of the many little ironies of S11.
Everyone who went to Melbourne saw the bestial reality of the state lining up with the corporations lining up with the media...it was unambiguous and tremendously radicalising. The other great message for everyone who went is that the unity of those who share our belief system - broadly defined - is absolutely crucial if we are going to stop the growth of corporate power.
The CFMEU learned this lesson before my time, with Rio Tinto. It doesn't matter how disciplined your members are (and few Unions have such impressive discipline as the miners), taking on the world's biggest mining company is going to end in defeat unless you go global with your strategies and bring communities with you.
No one is strong enough to stop the multinationals by themselves any more. We have to bring the churches with us, the greenies, yes even the trots.
We also must not allow the anti globalisation movement to be painted as luddites. Protestors in Seattle and Melbourne were not anti-trade or anti-technology, but were able to be painted as such. We should perhaps start describing ourselves as anti corporate globalisation or as pro-community or pro global justice.
It's only a broad coalition that can stop multinationals. The Americans got that right at Seattle. In spite of the success of S11 we largely failed to achieve that in September in Melbourne.
At the moment I would have to say the multinationals have learned the lessons of Seattle better than we have.
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For an organisation, often lampooned by Liberal detractors as elitist and irrelevant to the average Joe or Joanne, it sure makes an effort with sport.
You don't get much more mainstream in Australia than horse racing and cricket and the ABC, alone, has screened stand-out documentaries on both subjects in recent months.
The Track, over five or six weeks, provided an in-depth history of the Australian turf from its earliest days, telling the often-colourful stories of champions, jockeys, trainers, bookies, punters and pollies in a way that broadened its appeal.
Similarly Calypso Summert used the memories of the combatants, now in their 50s, 60s and 70s, to recall the drama and emotion of that sport's signature test series.
It was an emotional two hours of television that rekindled memories of how wonderful sport can be when played in the right spirit.
Those West Indians and Australians, 40 years down the track, clearly had more than respect for one another. They still revelled in friendships forged in one of the closest contests imagineable.
Television has one great advantage on its media rivals. It can put flesh on familiar names and for those not plodding the planet when Wes Hall, Gary Sobers, Frank Worrell, Rohan Kanhai, Lance Gibbs, Richie Benaud, Alan Davidson, Norm O'Neill, Slasher Mackay and Wally Grout were at the peaks of their powers that was reward enough.
Their talk of sharing a few beers, not just at the end of the series or match, but often at the completion of a stirring day's play should fuel the thought processes of today's combatants.
But no doubt the Liberals, read arch-conservatives, would argue that even in such apparently apolitical fields the ABC just couldn't help itself.
Sport today, after-all, is an end in itself, completely self-contained and absolutely unrelated to issues that surround it. The commercial networks that own it have seen to that, despite bitter bleatings from the burrows of south Sydney.
This fact, promulgated by Messrs K.Packer and R.Murdoch, and signed off on by Mr J Howard, apparently hasn't got through to the ABC.
The Track was set against the social backgrounds of the eras it moved through - landholder v squatter, Protestant-Catholic, genteel clubs-independent tracks, the Depression and the world wars.
Even Calypso Cricket played on a stage coloured by Robert Menzies' White Australia policy.
Neither program made big deals of the political, economic, religious or social backdrops. They were passing mentions that gave their subjects form and context.
Funny, but before Murdoch and Packer took complete control of Australia's commercial media, which was a while before they carved up the nation's sport, such approaches to documentary-making were regarded as standard, good journalism.
Times, however, have changed and there is no doubt the new ABC management will be making that point to pesky program makers.
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Working for Change
Founded in 1985 Working Assets is a company which provides long distance, credit card and online services with the profits (over US$20,000,000.00 to date) going back into campaigns for social justice, education and the environment.
The main product of Working Assets however is WorkingForChange.com. This site will blow you away. It is the main portal for all of Working Assets' campaigns such as ShoppingForChange and RadioForChange. It features progressive news stories from sources across the US, regular columns from the likes of Jesse Jackson & Michael Moore, guides on how to get involved in campaigns and much more.
http://www.workingforchange.com
WashTech
Amazon.com workers in the US have recently started campaigning for job protect and union rights at their workplace and as a part of their campaign have launched an online headquarters named Day 2. The site features information on the campaign to date and info for other Amazon workers on how to join the campaign. The workers are members of the Communications Workers of America (CWA).
The Third Way
Casting itself as a forum for third way discussion in Australia, Latham's 'ThirdWay Australia' website is an interesting if ultimately disappointing attempt to spark debate.
The layout and design of this website are impressive, though not fantastic, and in a similar vein, the content is mostly rehashed articles that Latham has published in the 'Daily Telegraph' or 'Financial Review'. Whilst the links section is excellent, the lack of a properly interactive section is the greatest downfall of the site. This site is a good start but needs much further development
Death Clock
Just when your faith in humanity has been reestablished you always seem to stumble upon a site like this. The Web Death Clock is an hourglass which tells you how long you have to live ... just enter some personal details and count down the minutes!
If you have any sites you want Paul to review email him [email protected]
Scott is the man who's said no to nurses who want access to veterans' entitlements, claiming on technical grounds that they were not directly engaged by the Defence Forces.
Try telling that to the 120 brave woman working close to the front and dealing with casualties from battles like the Tet Offensive.
Of course, Scott, who's been one of the under-achievers in an under achieving government, can't. Instead he hides behind bureaucratic advice.
Try this for tangled logic: "In line with established policy the Government has decided not to extend Repatriation benefits to members of Australian civilian surgical and medical teams who worked in Vietnam as no clear evidence of their attachment to the Defence Force has been provided."
Excuse me? Doesn't the process of putting together bodies of defence personal that have been hacked apart in battle suggest some sort of connection??
No, the Minister is more interested in being " mindful to ensure that the application of the repatriation system remains within its legislated bounds of recognition and compensation for service by veterans of the Australian Defense Force." Pure twaddle.
The crazy logic of Scott's determination means that 'members of approved philanthropic organisations' such as the Red Cross and Salvation Army have been deemed to have been attached to the Defence Force and, thus, eligible for benefits. But the civilian nurses miss out. Why? Because they have not been deemed. Yosarian would be proud of that one.
Worse still, this position sits in direct conflict with recommendations for the Defence Force to accept the role the civilian nurses played. Like his role model, Frank Burns, Scott grasps legalistic definitions to try to bluff his way out of taking the decent course of action.
This is an issue that is not going to go away, the NSW Nurses Association and their leader Sam 'Hotlips' Moait, is fuming and committed to embarrassing the Howard government until it shows the respect these nurses deserve.
Until that time, Scott will remain in the Toolshed, a prime example of a politician who has risen way beyond his level of competence. You're a Goose, Bruce.
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