In a bad week for the Carr Government, a majority of Labor backbenchers also indicated they were prepared to support amendments to the legislation (see feature 'Della's List')
And the ALP's governing body, Administrative Committee tonight passed a unanimous resolution stating its 'grave concern' about the current Bill before Parliament and warning the Minister to stick to NSW ALP Platform and Policy which:
"supports the current review of workers' compensation arising from the incompetencies of the former state government/ However, our support for such a review must be premised on the fundamental principle that workers' benefits are not reduced."
While the Minister is sticking to his proposition that now worker will be worse off under the changes, doctors, physiotherapists, lawyers and even actuaries have publicly criticised the package.
With Easter now looming, the Labor Council campaign committee has warned that it will step up its public campaign if the legislation is not withdrawn and the reform package is taken back to the drawing board.
Trade unions are maintaining their attack on the legislation on four fronts:
- increased thresholds to access benefits
- introduction of a US-style assessment scheme
- use of binding medical panels
- insufficient focus on employers who evade premiums and workplace safety.
Grass Roots Campaign
Some unions have already voted on industrial action, with CFMEU building workers voting to shut down the construction industry on April 19.
Scores of other unions are looking at targeted action - both against government revenue-raising and through raising public awareness through distributing fliers to the public or wearing badges to work where members deal directly with the public.
The Campaign Committee is also continuing its community activities with a Injured Workers Forum to be held this Sunday at Granville Town Hall.
The International Day of Mourning in the Workplace - which is being hosted by Australia this year on April 27, is also shaping as a watershed day of action, falling as it does right on the four and a half-week deadline.
For all the latest campaign news keep tabs on http://www.labor.net.au/compo
That was the reaction to the proposal to introduce binding medical panels, part of the controversial package of workers compensation reforms currently before the NSW Parliament.
Representatives of both the Australian Medical Association and the Australia Society of Orthopaedic Surgeons raised concerns at the Workers Compensation Forum held in State Parliament last night.
The AMA's Fiona Davis said the changes, which had pushed through without any consultation with the medical profession
And Stephen Millgate, representing physiotherapists said his members were highly skeptical about the introduction of binding medical panels.
"Three of our members were shot dead in the 19960s over a workers compensation claim. We do not want to see them in the same position again.
Millgate also raised concerns about the operation of the Motor Accident scheme, which will be the new WorkCover model. "None of our members are seeing anyone through the MAA scheme - people are just not being assessed," he said./
Direct Steal from MAA
Labour lawyer Richard Brennan demonstrated how close the Della compo plan was to the Motor Accident scheme by placing yellow tabs on pages that were a direct steal. There was more yellow than white.
At the same time, the Carr Government has been facing scrutiny in Parliament because the MAA reforms are not delivering the projected savings.
And as Labor Council secretary Michael Costa pointed out in conclusion, the American medical Assessment guidelines that will be the basis of the new scheme, carry a warning they should not be used in financial determinations.
"You have a new system of medical assessment for financial damages that explicitly says it should not be the basis for financial damages," Costa said.
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Police Association president Ian Ball stole the show at the Labor Council's Workers Compensation forum at State Parliament, painting the picture of the human cost of policing the state.
Ball says he has colleagues totally ruined by what they have seen at work, young people forced to confront crime scenes, car accidents and child sexual assault cases.
"We have great kids walk into the police service - but many come out the other end broken people," Ball said.
Currently 700 police are on leave for psychological injuries - injuries that would receive restricted access under the Della Bosca proposals.
"And it's not just the cops," Ball said, "its the firefighters and ambulance officers as well."
He flagged Police support for any wider compensation campaign within the trade union movement. "If anyone thinks the cops of this state will allow bureaucrats to decide how injured they are, then they are sadly mistaken."
Carr Verbals Cops?
Meanwhile, the Premier is dragged into the Workers Compensation row this week when he came very close to misleading the parliament.
The State Opposition, to date conspicuous by its silence on the issue asked Carr a question about Police Association concerns that their members will be "left on the scrap heap".
In usual imperial style Carr brushed the question away saying the Police Association had written to the Police Minister admitting they were wrong.
But Carr went further, playing with the letter to caste the Police Association as honourable for admitting their mistakes - unlike the Opposition.
In fact, the Police Association letter withdrew one of four concerns, but reiterated its dismay and disgust at the package.
'Minor Injury' Victims Speak Out
A nurse whose live has been ruined by back pain and a young building who lost an eye at the age of 18 last night provided compelling evidence why there is nothing minor about 'minor injuries'.
The two were members of the Workers Compensation forum that was held at State parliament, replacing the weekly Labor Council meeting.
Workers who suffer injuries that are not classified as major injuries are the main losers under the Della Bosca plan to reform workers compensation.
Griffith nurse Denise ..... and building workers Mick Jones both gave moving accounts of the impact of so-called minor injuries on their lives.
Nursing Her Life
Denise injured her back in 1996 and since then has spent the past five years in and out of work of medical treatment and unable to move ahead in her career.
She has had no go form being a clinical nurse to registered nurse and is now on non-nursing duties. Apart from costing her about $500 per week, the injury has prevented her pursuing further studies because she can no longer concentrate.
"Nursing was my life, but this injury has taken away my staus in the workplace ... noone wants me - I'm an injured person."
The mother of three teenagers, Denise says the injury means she can't go on ;picnics, play sport, even attend her daughter's high school graduation ceremony. "The whole family life is now centred around my injury," she said.
Labour lawyer Richard Brennan said that Denise would have her access to compensation reduced by the Della Bosca package.
An Eye for an Eye
Losing your eye after it has been pierced by a roof nail is a horrendous experience. But young building worker Mike Jones told the forum how the accident had only been the start of his ordeal.
When Mike lost his ey, he also lost his sense of distance - a disability that meant he could not pursue his dream of being a building supervisor. Half-way through the course when the accident happened, Mike had to abandon his studies.
Mike moved to the hospitality industry but found it difficult because, without a depth of vision he had difficulty working in crowds. "I kept walking into drunks," he said.
"My injury was not called 'major' but it did have a major impact on my life," he said.
Luckily, Mike received a lump sum payment to help him plan a new life. But lawyers say someone in Mike's position will no longer be eligible to launch common law claims because they'll miss the 25 per cent all of body threshold.
Workers are the Voice
Labor Council will this weekend launch a delegates featuring some of the workers who have stood up in the workers compensation fight.
The stars of the video include crane driver Pat Portlock, who lost his leg and building worker Michael Jones, who lost an eye from a roof nail who have both come out in the media in support of injured workers.
In the video, they movingly tell their own story and call on the Carr Government to withdraw the legislation.
To get a copy of the video for your workplace contact Paul Howes at mailto:[email protected]
Who Bothered to Show?
As the briefing had been called to educate members of parliament about the changes, it good to see representatives of all political parties in attendance.
While there were a few spare seats in the area of the room dedicated to MPs, we had 41 MPs sign the guest book.
From the ALP the following MPs attended: Milton Oruopoulos, Kerry Hickey, Paul Lynch, Gerard Martin, Ian McManus, Peter Black, Barry Collier, Wayne Smith, Ian West, Paul Gibson, Bryce Gaudry, Alan Ashton, Matt Brown, Deirdre Grusovin, Amanda Fazio, Johno Johnson, Janelle Saffin, Meredith Burgmann, Joe Tripodi, Grant McBride , Ernie Page, John Hatzistergos, Peter Primrose, Reba Meagher, Graeme West, John Mills, Marie Andrews, John Murray and Jan Burnwoods gave her apologies as she was at ALP National Executive in Canberra.
The following Liberals attended: Greg Pearce, Malcolm Kerr, Brian Pezzutti, Brad Hazzard, Chris Hartcher, Mike Gallacher, John Ryan and Liz Kernohan - although Hartcher and Gallagher snuck off as soon as they had signed the book!
Don Page, National Party MP attended, as did both Greens MPs, Ian Cohen and Lee Rhianon and two independents Peter Breen and Clover Moore.
by Scott Connolly
They gathered in protest over proposed changes to workers compensation laws and the continued failure of WorkCover to act to protect the health and safety of Transport Workers and their families.
In particular, the workers' identified the recent failures' of Workcover to investigate unsafe work practices in the armoured car industry and a spate of accidents in the long distance trucking industry.
Responding to the continued failure of Workcover to act, even in spite of Monday's demonstration, TWU members and their families from the Armoured Car Industry will consider industrial action at a mass meeting in Sydney this Sunday.
Sunday's meeting will focus on an ongoing dispute with Chubb Security Services where a reduction in manning levels, training, security arrangements and the use of unarmoured vehicles is putting the lives of drivers and innocent members at risk.
"Since the attempt to shift to unsafe work practices there has already been 6 additional armed robberies of unarmoured cash transit vehicles," TWU State Secretary Tony Sheldon told Workers Online.
Sunday's meeting is being held in the Trades Hall auditorium off the corner of Goulburn and Sussex streets' Sydney and commences at 10.00am.
Drivers and their families attending the meeting will also be invited to join a further demonstration of TWU members in front of Workcovers' Head Office at 400 Kent Street on Monday the 9th of April.
The IT Workers Alliance concept was approved at the last Organising Committee meeting and we are now developing a prototype.
Before we get too far advanced, we need your input on the sort of information and services that will be useful to you.
The aim is to create a self-sustaining network of IT workers, which will evolve - over time - into whatever IT workers want a trade union to be.
Read the paper and give us your views at: http://www.labor.net.au/forums/itworkers/index.html
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Creation of the IT Workers Alliance
Background:
Unions have had only very limited success to date in organizing IT workers, a growing section of the workplace and one of the defining groups in the New Economy.
This hole in membership leaves a profound gap in the movement's reach. While traditional modes of 'recruitment' have so far failed, some success has been achieved in the USA orgasnising workers online.
The most impressive of these efforts is the Washington Alliance of Technical Workers. Funded by the Communication Workers Union, WashTech's key presence is it's website (http://www.washtech.org). Washtech exists as an information hub. There is free and members-only content, but no industrial services are offered.
Proposal:
The proposal is to build a website modeled on the Washtech site, to provide a hub of information for IT workers in Australia. I would propose a similar model of free and member-only services. Initially, I would look at either free or very low-priced membership.
As with WashTech, we would not offer any industrial services, although we could broker pay-for services with labour-friendly lawyers and accountants. Assistance with contracts and BAS are two areas where there could be immediate demand.
Resources should be dedicated to ensuring the site is updated with useful information and to develop networks of IT workers. Ideally, a base of workplace activists would congregate around the site, providing targeted organizing opportunities for affiliates prepared to give it a go.
While union membership is not the initial aim of the site, a range of members'-only services would be offered. In the initial stage a Unions 2000 - style structure could be considered, where any membership fees are reinvested into the site or allocated to relevant affiliates.
Unions with a demonstrated interest in the field would also be consulted about developing official structures in the medium term.
The Website:
- To be badged the 'IT Workers Alliance'
- to include the following content:
- latest news on local industry
- BAS help site for accounting services
- Check my contract
- Job Opportunities - with members to share job info
- How to Organise your workplace
- Bosses to avoid/blow-off at the boss section - info from mebers
- International technology news - via Labourstart
- Technology features
- Links to local, international sites
The FSU has sent an Easter Card to all its members, with the text :"I believe in fair pay and achievable workloads. If the Easter Bunny doesn't bring them, we just might have to get them ourselves!"
The cards are the precursor to an industry-wide industrial campaign after the Easter break.
The campaign is stepping up as, for the first time, employees in the four major banks - Westpac, ANZ, National Australia Bank and Commonwealth Bank - are negotiating new enterprise agreements simultaneously.
FSU National Secretary Tony Beck says unions are mounting a coordinated campaign in the four big banks to press a better deal for both customers and staff.
'Banks have been singing the same negative tune with their destructive agenda of job losses and branch closures for years,' Beck says.
'Despite claims of social responsibility, banks are planning many more branch closures and job losses. We already know of 250 branch closures and 4000 jobs that are set to be slashed.
Bank employees from the big four banks are meeting across the nation to authorise a formal bargaining period.
'It's the first time we've got Westpac, ANZ, CBA and NAB staff together for an industrial campaign. Its obvious that the banks behave like a club - similar fees, cuts to staff, products and branch closures,' Beck says.
'Both our members and the public say the big bank are all as bad as each other! The big banks have given banking a bad name and bank employees are copping the flack.
The Astral Commerce and Language College in Sydney had not paid teachers for the past five weeks and were due to settle outstanding entitlements yesterday.
But the Company Directors are missing and assets of the rented premises - computers and other office equipment were sold and removed during the day.
The trade union representing the teachers, the NSW Independent Education Union took action through the Industrial Relations Commission and will consider proceedings for contempt against the company directors of "Catch the World Pty
Ltd.".
The union raised concerns about the college to the industry regulatory bodies, the National English Accreditation Scheme (NEAS) and the Australian Council for Private Education and Training (ACPET).
The college was known by many in the industry as a "visa factory".
by Andrew Casey
Kim Beazley told LHMU members, who were distributing petitions and flyers at the match seeking support, he would approach multinational Goodman Fielder to see if he can restart talks with management to prevent the retrenchment of 58 bakery workers later this month.
The community campaign in the Hunter region is getting more and more support.
LHMU workplace delegate John Tucker, told the Newcastle Herald that about 4000 people had signed union petitions at the Newcastle Knights home game to support the bakery workers campaign.
Mr Beazley's office has promised to send a shadow minister to Newcastle to liaise with the unionists and intervene with Goodman Fielder.
The local Hunter-area media are reporting huge community support for the Buttercup workers.
Shopkeepers have told the media that customers are demanding they not stock Buttercup bread or any other Goodman Fielder products.
Pensioner groups have contacted the LHMU's Newcastle regional secretary, Carmel Cook, to inform her that they had vowed never again to purchase Goodman Fielder products if the Newcastle bakery workers lose their jobs.
You can join the campaign on-line by clicking here to tell Buttercup's owner, Goodman Fielder, what you think of their decision to shut down their Newcastle bakery.
You can also boost the morale of LHMU members by sending solidarity messages to the Buttercup Bakery workers through this mailto:[email protected]
by Jeremy Vermeesch
A joint statement issued after talks in Washington between the ACTU and the American Federation of Labour and Congress of Industrial Organisations (AFL-CIO), said unions from both countries would combine to oppose any bilateral trade deal that failed to include the guarantees.
ACTU President Sharan Burrow and AFL-CIO President John Sweeney said any deal resulting from government negotiations in the US this week must not disadvantage working families in either country.
"We are committed to taking joint action to ensure any trade pact includes guaranteed standards on jobs, employment rights and local content, and enshrines the principles of sustainable development and equitable social policies," Ms Burrow said in Washington after the talks.
"We are determined to ensure that both governments work in the interests of the majority of people in our two nations. Governments everywhere must acknowledge and act to meet the growing concerns of communities about globalisation so that the benefits of trade are shared by all."
The joint statement from the AFL-CIO and ACTU calls for any US-Australia bilateral trade and investment agreement to incorporate a commitment to:
� Core labour standards identified in the International Labour Organisation's Declaration on Fundamental Principles and Rights at Work;
� Domestic laws and international treaty obligations on labour and environment standards;
� Transparency and accountability through public consultation on trade treaty negotiations and disputes;
� Guaranteeing the ability of governments to provide public services and enforce legitimate regulations in the public interest.
The Union wants the funds put back to meet chronic staff shortfalls and equipment updates.
"This is the amount of money that the Federal government has stripped from Universities. Universities need this funding to restore staffing and resource levels to an adequate level," said David Carey, Federal Secretary of the Union.
The Union told the Senate Inquiry that the University sector was surviving on thousands of hours of unpaid work by University General Staff. "We think that we have uncovered the tip of the iceberg. If this problem is not fixed, Education quality will go nowhere but downhill."
In its submission to the Senate inquiry, on the capacity of Universities to meet Australia's higher education needs, the CPSU also recommends that the Federal Government conduct audits into the infrastructure and human resource needs of universities.
"The government needs to examine the full extent of the problem", said David Carey. "Conducting audits will give us important and comprehensive information not only about the needs of universities, but also about how resources are currently being allocated".
The CPSU conducted a pilot survey of university general staff to get data for its submission. Results include:
� reduced levels of funding have resulted in fewer staff working longer hours for no extra pay. Two-thirds of respondents reported working unpaid overtime, and of these nearly half work more than 20 unpaid hours per month;
� women are not only working longer hours for no extra remuneration, but are also undertaking the vast majority of all types of unpaid work, and
� staff are also increasingly undertaking duties not originally assigned to them, and in many cases are doing work which should be undertaken by more junior staff who have left and not been replaced.
The Union represents thousands of non-teaching "General Staff" in Universities across Australia.
For copies of the submission or for further information please contact CPSU federal office on ((02) 9299 5655 or [email protected]
by Mark Morey
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Participants were so enthused by the training that they are now eager to put their new skills into action within the Orange and Bathurst areas.
The campaigning workshop was well attended by organisers and delegates from the Orange and Bathurst areas. The aim of the campaigning workshop was to building on previous training conducted by Labor Council's Mary Yaager in rural New South Wales.
The delegates at the training were from the Bathurst and Orange Base Hospitals, a Bathurst nursing home, the Department of Parks and Wildlife and Armaguard. Union organisers were from the AWU, Nurses Association, CPSU, and PSA s also attended the workshop.
Labor Council's Mark Morey and Adam Kerslake from the ACTU's Organising Centre facilitated the workshop. The workshop provided participants with an opportunity to learn about campaigning and then to practice applying those skills in their local area and workplaces. The workshop sessions covered topics including how to identify campaign themes and target groups, determining the resources available for your campaign, how to develop effective strategies and tactics, developing campaign work plans and using the local media.
This was the first of a series or workshops that Labor Council is intending to run over the next 12 months in rural areas. Labor Council will also be providing further assistance to the development of the campaign in Orange and Bathurst.
Labour HIstory Conference
The theme work organization struggle highlights the role played by work as a source of identity, consciousness and mobilization, and as site of political struggle. It will be the background to the contributions by historians, journalists, industrial relations specialists and those generally concerned with labour history to the 7th Biennial National Labour History Conference to be held at the Australian National University, Canberra from 19th to 21st April.
The sessions will include panels run by Ray Markey, John Shields and Bradon Ellem on peak union bodies, Marilyn Lake, Bain Atwood and Sue Taffe convening a panel on Aboriginal Rights and Community Activism, Stuart Macintyre convening a series of panels on the history of the Federal Parliamentary ALP, Brad Norington and Helen Trinca on the role of the IR journalist in writing labour history and, showing its not all just talk, Marilyn Dooley and David Headon presenting rare political historical material from the national film and video collection.
Keynote speakers are Neville Kirk from Manchester Uni, Joy Damousi from Melbourne Uni and Terry Irving, President of the Australian Society for the Study of Labour History. Sharan Burrow will give the opening address at 10.00am on Thursday 19th.
The conference and its themes are timed to coincide with the centenary of the Federal ALP (8th May, 2001). The ALP's role within the labour movement will be a major theme of the conference.
The conference program and registration information are available at http://histrsss.anu.edu.au/labourhist/program.html#Timetable
Kingsley Laffer 1911 - 1993
The Ninth Annual Kingsley Laffer Memorial Lecture will be presented on 2 May by Sharan Burrow on "Trade Unions in the Future". The lecture will be at the Institute Building Lecture Theatre 1, City Road, University of Sydney.
Kingsley Laffer was the founding father of industrial relations at the University of Sydney and a pioneer of teaching and research in Australian industrial relations. At the time of his retirement from the University of Sydney in 1976, he was Associate Professor and Head of the Department of Industrial Relations within the Faculty of Economics. Kingsley was the founding editor of the Journal of Industrial Relations for 18 years and helped establish the Industrial Relations Society of NSW, which later became a national organisation.
Born in Western Australia on 28 February 1911, Kingsley Laffer became an external student of Economics at the University of Western Australia while working in the country. He was the first external student to be awarded the Hackett Bursary. After graduating with first class honours, he taught briefly at the University of Melbourne and then joined the University of Sydney in 1944. He was a member of the academic staff at Sydney for more than three decades. After his retirement, Kingsley became the first Fellow of the Nepean College of Advanced Education (now part of the University of Western Sydney) where he helped develop academic programs in industrial relations.
The inaugural Kingsley Laffer Memorial Lecture was given in 1993 by the Hon Bob Hawke. Subsequent Laffer Lectures have featured Mr Bert Evans (1994), Justice Deirdre O'Connor (1995), Ms Jennie George (1996), The Hon Jeff Shaw (1997), Mr Justice Bill Fisher (1998), Ms Quentin Bryce (1999) and Brian Pickett (2000).
The lecture is co-sponsored by the Centre for Work and Organisation Studies, at the University of Sydney and ACIRRT
RE: ACTU Organising Conference
"If there is anything that can be said about the Australian Organising Conference, it is that a lot of people care about our movement, its future and what it stands for."
Chris Christodolou, NSW Labor Council - as printed in Workers Online
The ACTU Organising Conference was a great follow up to last years first real attempt in two decades to debunk the conservative view of Bill Kelty's union experiment.
The pushers of change at the conference were many of the delegates and speakers who said we need to challenge ourselves as workplace and union leaders. All those at the conference, selected by the leadership of their unions to be there, spoke about the desire to look, listen and learn how we can improve our members lot.
Greg Combet, Sharan Burrow's, Richard Marles and the ACTU Organising Centre needs to be congratulated on throwing the challenge out to all of us. For encouraging debate on how I, and other union leaders, approach our role, despite the risk of making some of us uncomfortable.
The cross factional groupings (at least in Labor Party circles) found a lot of reasons to feel confident that the conference "Love In" went further to breakdown barriers and difference and anything else organised this year.
650 people sharing a common goal is a pretty empowering event.
The workforce leaders from BHP telling their story of the Pilbarra dispute was a prime example of union disunity being turned around by the unifying challenge of organising realities.
The great glimmer of hope for us all is that the organising agenda now being adopted is not only giving the unionised workforce real hope but is shining as a beacon for unity in an increasingly competitive environment.
One of our delegation, himself a workplace leader, summed it up saying -
"I realised that the union is not just a pillow for me to rest my head on, but that I and my workmates are the union."
Unfortunately in NSW, the state with the largest workforce and largest potential membership base, we have suffered the greatest actual and real decline in membership numbers in recent years. Over the last ten years, despite having a State Labor Government, the greatest collapse in membership numbers has been in NSW.
Regardless of the "American Accents" the contribution of the Canadian speakers, though sort of sounding American, the "Pom", and the New Zealanders who maybe should be our "Eight State", was invaluable. I for one, and everyone I have spoken to so far, were inspired by their dedication, their campaigns, and their successes in trying new approaches to the old theme of Unionise, Organise or Perish.
Great care should be taken before criticising these success stories as mere Americania.
I am sure many of the 650 delegates at the conference have a very different view. Obsessive intellectualising is no substitute for the real substance of overseas experiences dealing with many of the same types of bosses and situations we have to deal with in Australia.
From the speakers and comments in the corridors I picked up the message I got from the Conference was that there are another 650 people out there united and proud to be in a union movement with a growing future.
Congratulations Michael Crosby.
I can't wait to next year.
Tony Sheldon
State Secretary
Transport Workers Union
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I am writing to take issue with a number of points made in a recent article on Workers Online entitled "Unions: Organising Theory".
I too, attended the recent Australasian Organising Conference at Sydney University and I felt it was a stunning success.
The Conference certainly laid a number of challenges out before us, and as Union leaders, officials and activists, these are exactly the sorts of issues that we need to be facing.
I think it unfortunate that the article sought to criticize Michael Crosby for 'dividing' the movement. I don't think that's a fair reflection of what he's trying to do at all.
Michael's challenge to Union officials and activists to engage their leaders in a debate about the organising approach was just that. In the early days of this debate, I admit that I was an 'Organising model sceptic', but after considerable education and internal debate, our union is now well and truly committed to adopting an Organising approach.
In this period of declining union membership, I think it is critical that Union leaders are able to engage in a debate on new ways of doing things. Those who feel 'uneasy' or uncomfortable, or threatened by the prospect of change are ill equipped to handle the challenges facing us as a movement.
Far from being made to feel 'very uneasy', I felt the Organising Conference feeling inspired. Inspired that a majority of unions are committing resources to Organising and embracing this opportunity to rebuild the union movement.
Michael Williamson
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Having just read Labor Council's Chris Christodoulou's comments on the Organising Conference and in particular the non issue of Michael Crosby's "you need to challenge the Leadership of your Union" remark i felt the need to respond.
Whilst i agree with most of Chris's comments, i for one was not one of those "who felt uneasy" with the remark, and quite frankly don't know what all the fuss is all about.
In any democratic organisation, leaders are constantly being challenged by the rank & file in various ways, whether it be current thinking, policy debate, direction of the union and dare i say it, during elections.
If this is what made some feel uneasy then so be it, but i for one just see it as a sign of a healthy and democratic union movement. To not have such challenges would only lead to more pain for the movement then we are already experiencing, but are turning around,through new thinking, policy and direction.
To Michael and all the staff of the Organising Centre, all i can say is keep up the good work, and to those "who felt uneasy" get use to it.
>From a very at ease
Bob Hayden
Divisional President
Rail Tram and Bus Union
NSW Branch
ps - yes i am, an elected full time official and I have discussed this a number of my collegues who also attended the conference who agree with the above views.
Locomotive Division
Rail,Tram & Bus Union
It was good to see a response from both Tony Sheldon (TWU) and Michael Williams (HREA) with regard to my story on "organising". It shows, as I said in my article, a lot of people care about the future of our movement.
Tony and Michael have a great admiration for the way Michael Crosby has led the way in driving the organising agenda. I share that admiration. I was also inspired by the way many delegates and officials in the movement share and practise this vision. My article was simply a note of caution that we shouldn't let our organising agenda become an excuse for unnecessary political division within unions.
I'm sure both Tony Sheldon and Michael Williamson will agree, that whilst we need to push an organising approach, nothing can be more destabilising to the movement than internal union leadership challenges. These types of challenges only deflect our energy away from building a strong and united movement.
I haven't studied the historical data with respect to union membership in NSW, as mentioned in Tony's response, although the latest figures in NSW give us some hope that we are bottoming out. There were actual real increases in union membership in key growth areas of retail, accommodation and community services.
I hasten to add however that, "organising" at least in the short term is simply not about increasing membership. It's about finding activists, organising around issues and building strong and united unionism.
Chhris Christodolulou
Why not a compo song competition?
Strangers in the night
Helping insurers to take away my rights
To sue at common law, to go before a court
Unless my leg's cut through
Della's from the right; oh so aspiring
Macca's from the left; oh so compromising
Sometimes in my heart, I can't tell who's who
To the tune of Strangers in the night
Thank you for your invitation to attend the meeting in the Parliament House Theatre.
I attended and I found it very informative. I was extremely
impressed with the remarks made by Ms Forbes, Ms Davidson Mr Bull and Mr Jones.
They raised pertinent issues which need to be addressed. I will do my best to ensure that they are.
Yours sincerely,
John Ryan MLC
Dear Editor,
"Please Don't Tell my Kids".(page 13 Sunday Telegraph April 1) What a missed opportunity by Journalist James Hooper, for a probing investigation into annals of the private attitudes and preferences of those involved in Australian Rugby League the game for men.
This story, if it had not been used as - a tear jerking, heart bleeding, lip biting supplication for domestic blindness could have erected the N.R.L.,from only being relevant in Australia, the arse end of the world, to an
exposure of international dimensions.
Perhaps given that , Mr. Hopoate indicated that he intends to remain involved with Junior League, the department of community services should be examining the circumstances of this involvement.
One must also question the palpated recipients of this "niggling" behavior,they must surely be considering other options and aqueous passages for compensatory amends to be made, by both Mr. Hopoate and the Club.
As for Mr. Hopoates` request that parents not take their children away from the game, it is Mr. Hopoate who should be removed from the game permanently.
One could speculate, could these actions be misconstrued as public acts of sodomy?
If nothing else, Mr. Hopoate has stimulated Australian Rugby League into penetrating the Digital Age.
by Peter Lewis
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Are you surprised that it has come to this?
Well our preference would have been for consultation before the bill was introduced, but I am not surprised at the concern, the feeling, the outrage that has been expressed by the unions. This is a cornerstone issue for the Australian union movement and any Labor government ought to understand that unions will quite vigorously defend workers' entitlements in relation to workers' compensation.
What do you think the government's game plan was?
I think that the government handled it very, very badly. It should have consulted broadly in a formal process to ensure that their concerns in regard to dispute resolution were the focal points of the passage. What we have got here is the government saying that it's focussing on simplifying dispute resolution, but everybody is concerned about the benefits structure within the proposed package.
On the actual merits of the argument, you have been on the WorkCover Board for a long period of time, what is wrong with the scheme at the moment?
The reason we have got a deficit is because our premiums have not been increased over the years to ensure that the premium rate and the underlying risk rate were balanced. So there is no doubt that the reason there's a deficit in the scheme is because employers haven't paid the cost of workers' compensation - the true cost of workers' compensation in this State. That is the first thing that needs to be established.
The reason there has been an underestimation of premium clearly leads into the secondary issues about the role of common law, the role of statutory benefits, and most importantly dispute resolution and the role the insurers play in that.
My personal view is that the way this ought to be resolved is by a sensible package that recognises there has to be some form of deficit reduction levy placed on this scheme. Our actuaries are telling us that if you had a very small deficit reduction levy applied over a long period of time you would get the scheme back into balance.
At the same time I think the Minister is right. We need to look at dispute resolution. We need to find a streamlined process. But the current one which is based on a bureaucratic administrative system is not going to be acceptable to the unions. There needs to be some mechanism for appeal because they all feel that they have been treated unfairly, and in addition there needs to be a focus on the fundamental issues - and they are workplace safety and rehabilitation.
If you look at this policy it is very, very one sided. It deals with one set of issues. It doesn't deal with the issues that unions believe are the most important. That is workplace safety, rehabilitation and compliance.
I am really surprised that this policy has nothing in it in relation to compliance. It has been estimated in the building industry for example, that around 25% of employers are failing to pay their workers' compensation premiums, or are operating in a shonky way. Having premiums that don't meet the full quantity of workers that they have got employed.
So all of those issues should be brought into the package - and we have a balanced package - this package appears to be very one sided.
The government is obviously spooked by the large number in the actuarial deficit. Is an actuarial deficit something that you should be concerned about?
I think you have to be concerned about an actuarial deficit. But the key thing with the WorkCover deficit is that it has been relatively stable - stabilising. If it is the underlying deficit minus two one-off factors of the GST and change in investment performance plus the under collection of premiums, the actual deficit itself has stabilised.
So I think the government is wrong to try and beat up a climate of crisis in the scheme. The deficit itself, as we all know, is a long term deficit - this is an actuarial deficit based over a long period of time - and it is clear that the scheme has enough cash flow to fund its daily requirements in terms of meeting costs and workers' entitlements.
There is no crisis in the sense that necessitates a rushed process. There is an opportunity to sit down and sensibly discuss these issues through. Now, you can get an actuary to say anything. They tamper around with the two or three variables that are critical to assessing the deficit. I can produce an actuary that says that the deficit is lower. I'm sure others can produce an actuary that says the deficit is even higher. But that is not the real issue.
The real issue is that the scheme has cash in it. It can fund its ongoing liabilities. There is no need to rush in with a package that is very one-sided.
Are their issues where compromise could be made?
The onus is on the Minister to establish that there are no benefit reductions. Certainly our analysis is that there are quite clear examples where benefits are reduced to a large amount of potential beneficiaries. That is the problem. He is claiming that the system that he has introduced might lead to a reduction in benefits. He hasn't established that.
That has been the third phase of this campaign. I am hopeful that when we get to a point where we can establish clearly that the guidelines are an inappropriate way to measure medical disability and as a consequence of that we can modify those and get to a situation where workers' benefits are not jeopardised or diminished by the process.
Let's make that clear - there is no compromise in that area. Any package that goes before the parliament that reduces workers' benefits will be opposed by the Labor Council.
Where there can be room to compromise I think is on dispute resolution and the issue to do with compliance and the issues to do with rehabilitation. I think we need to focus in on those as soon as possible, but the first hurdle is to get over the threshold issue of benefit reduction.
If the government doesn't withdraw the legislation in the next week before Easter, what can they expect after the Easter break?
They are not going to withdraw the legislation before Easter. They've told us that. They have got four and a half weeks. The more appropriate, I suppose, phrasing of that question, is if the government doesn't compromise or display some flexibility in the period leading up to Easter, there is likely to be an intensification of industrial action after Easter.
That is unfortunate. We don't want that but unions feel very passionate about this issue and they are having workplace meetings discussing the issue, and I can clearly see a section of our affiliated base taking industrial action after the Easter break if this issue is not resolved.
What sort of action do you think that will be?
I think there will be a variety of action, depending on the sector, and I don't want to canvass the details of that - that is up to the Labor Council's campaign committee to work through that, but clearly the passion is there, the desire to defend benefits is there and the industrial muscle is there as well.
Finally, if you were a betting person, what do you think are the odds of the Della Bosca package getting through Parliament as it currently is?
I think the package will not get through as it currently is. I think there needs to be, as I said, compromise, flexibility and negotiation and some additional elements added to the package. Particularly elements dealing with compliance, rehabilitation and workplace safety.
Sandra Moait at the Parliament House Forum |
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This week Labor Council has been in touch with ALP back benchers to find out their position on the Workers Compensation Bill. A majority of backbenchers have said they will support Labor Council in seeking amendments to the Bill which protect workers' benefits.
The good guys are:-
Lower House
Pam Allen
Marie Andrews
Alan Ashton
Diane Beamer
Peter Black
Matt Brown
Bryce Gaudry
Paul Gibson
Kevin Greene
Deirdre Grusovin
Kerry Hickey
Jeff Hunter
Paul Lynch
Colin Markham
Gerard Martin
Reba Meagher
Alison Megarrity
John Mills
Neville Newell
Milton Orkopoulos
Ernie Page
Joe Tripodi
Upper House
Meredith Burgmann
Jan Burnswoods
Amanda Fazio
John Johnson
Peter Primose
Janelle Saffin
Henry Tsang
Ian West
John Hatzistergos
Late Additions
Graeme West
Ian Macdonald has asked that he be added to the list of "good guys" with a notation that he " supports the position of the Left (Parliamentary) Caucus and profoundly supports a negotiated settlement (to the Workers Comp issue)".
David Campbell
There are 52 ALP Backbenchers - 21 to go. Its not too late for the remaining back benchers to join the good guys list. All they have to do is contact Labor Council and we will add their names to the list on the Make a Noise For Compo webpage http://www.labor.net.au/compo
NOTE: ALP Ministers were not approached as they are bound by the protocol of Cabinet solidarity. This means that they are bound by the collective decision of Cabinet to support the Bill even although that may not be their personal position.
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Moss Vale, population 7592, is a semi-rural town in the Southern Highlands of NSW. During the era of steam-rail it was a major stop-off on the long haul between Sydney and Albury. Today it struggles for relevance.
Between the wars the State Governor maintained an apartment over the station's refreshment complex; an Edwardian rest-over whilst awaiting the chauffeured automobile to his nearby rural estate.
On a rise overlooking town, behind a huge photinia hedge, is Trelm, a prominent political address during the Menzies era of Liberal Party politics, site of much head kicking, number crunching, and the go-ahead for Australia's Korean War involvement.
Somewhere in the area is the railway bridge under which Cold War Soviet defector Vladimir Petrov allegedly collected clandestine materials secreted by his alleged Australian network of informants; a post-box in espionage parlance. As to which bridge, well take your pick; there are a few that fit the bill.
North some ten kilometres, across the algae clogged Wingecarribee River choking its way through the tax dodge rural holdings of Sydney's elite, before ending up in the Sydney water supply, is affluent Bowral, headquarters of the Sir Donald ("Don't Use My Name") Bradman cricket marketing machine. The town also hosts the residence of the high-flying lawyer and smooth neo-liberal acolyte, Federal Finance Minister John Fahey, "the invisible member" according to some locals.
On the northern outskirts of Moss Vale is the former rural campus of the exclusive girls' school SCEGGS. Here, one morning in November 1961, Lennie Lawson, former prolific comic book artist and creator of the long-running Lone Avenger series, broke up a pre-examination chapel service; he was armed with a rifle. By the time he was overpowered by the headmistress, five shots had been fired, and a schoolgirl was dead. The surviving senior girls were ushered off to commence their Leaving Certificate.
Not far away as the crow flies, and also on the outskirts of town, is a factory; Joy Mining Machinery. Since 1994 it has been part of the global empire of American mining machinery multinational Harnischfeger Industries Inc. In 1998 Harnischfeger commenced what its website terms "aggressive' and permanent global downsizing, cost-cutting and "headcount reduction".
For 205 days during 2000, the Moss Vale factory, which also houses the headquarters of Joy's Australian operation, was the focal point of a bitter industrial dispute, played out away from the attention of the city-based mainstream media, but arguably with national importance nonetheless.
The dispute began following the collapse of five and a half months of negotiations for a new Enterprise Agreement. The main contentious issue was the company's insistence on replacing the one agreement with four separate agreements and treating each individually. In context with other events at the Moss Vale factory during 1999, including 41 redundancies which effectively culled union activists with enterprise bargaining skills, workers regarded this as an attempt to undermine their unity and bargaining power, a prelude to deunionisation and casualisation.
The company warned that failure to reach agreement would result in factory closure or lockout. The Joy style throughout seemed intent on closing unions out of negotiations, and at the end of March unfinished work started to move off-site.
A picket line was established, to which the company, relying on Peter Reith's Workplace Relations Act (WRA), responded with a three-month lockout. This was the first of two lockouts, linked and extended by Joy workers with strike action.
Throughout the greater part of the year, the 63 men involved, members of the Australian Manufacturing Workers' Union (AMWU), the Australian Workers' Union (AWU), and the Communications, Electrical and Plumbing Union (CEPU), maintained a 24 hour picket line, 7 days a week.
Originally 73 men were involved, but some broke rank, while personal circumstances compelled others to withdraw from the industry. Supreme Court injunctions restrained activity on the line as the company continued to shift work off-site, 70 kilometres away, to non-union workshops in Wollongong employing the breakaway workers. The move from Moss Vale commenced with a large and heavy handed, out-of-district, police presence, and continued with clandestine truck movements under cover of darkness.
Union solidarity protests, swelled by students from Wollongong University, took place outside the relocated workshops, and occupations occurred. The regional media became interested in the dispute.
The company responded to protests; in the months that followed, personal damages claims were issued against key unionists totalling a reported $1.7 million, and hundreds of subpoenas, possibly 250, were issued to stifle opposition.
Throughout the dispute the Moss Vale factory continued to function, albeit in a greatly reduced capacity. Management, supervisory, and office personnel functioned in capacities well beyond original job descriptions, their efforts bolstered by the employment of non-union contractors. Stress counsellors were reportedly called in. Physically, the site took on the appearance of a penal institution.
Nature threw its best at the picket line, and there was a particularly harsh Winter: temperatures at night hovered around zero; there were storms, oversized hail, and snow. The WRA also brought harshness, encouraging industrial behaviour more in keeping with Upton Sinclair capitalists than Business Review Weekly types.
Perhaps it is the case that sophisticated information technologies, designer clothing, designer offices, tertiary IR and management courses, and glossy profiles in business journals, do not really change the conflict that is at the core of the relationship between capital and labour, something the Reith legislation, with its first belligerent tryout in 1998 during the Waterfront dispute, helps cut to the quick and make abundantly clear.
Joy increased site security with guards who boasted of previous anti-union experience. The picket line was constantly under video and photographic surveillance, with special interest taken in recording supporters who came by, a number of whom ended up on the receiving end of subpoenas. Agents variously posed as media representatives, and a private detective was hired, to identify picket line supporters. Company lawyers tried to subpoena the photographic, paper, and mobile phone records of those on the line, which led to circumspection in regard to the making of photographic and paper trails.
Wives of picket line unionists were recipients of anonymous correspondence apparently aimed at driving a wedge between them and their husbands, with a view to ending the dispute in the company's favour.
When the company contacted the workers, it was by letter to home addresses, such correspondence characterised by 19th century paternalism and industrial threats.
A classic throwback to American style baseball-bat industrial relations, not surprising given the company's ownership, was the hiring of a team of interstate contractors, put together by an agency that had done similar work for Patrick Stevedores in 1998. Flood lights appeared, and video surveillance intensified; some of the contractors seemed intent on provoking the men on the line, taunting, teasing, and acting in a macho-bullying manner, as though inviting violence.
When the dispute ended, and the contractors had left, unionists returning to work found their lockers had been gone through, personal items removed, work clothes and boots trashed, and at least one incident of industrial sabotage.
Overall a vast amount of money must have been spent by Joy during the dispute. This, together with the length of the dispute and the energy with which it was prosecuted, suggested to some union observers that more was at stake than the conduct of a small-town industrial dispute. The seeming inexhaustible money supply raised questions, and there was speculation as to its origin: a neo-liberal fighting fund of some kind?
Increasingly union leaders came to believe the Joy dispute was being watched by related industry employers all over Australia, the possible defeat of the unions providing both inspiration and an example of what was possible when employers creatively took advantage of the WRA. The tacit approval and support of the Howard government was suspected.
The picket-line workers were a mixture of young and old men, many with dependent families. One young newly wed worker returned from his honeymoon to find himself on the line. Some had been with the company for decades before it had become a multinational pawn.
Emotionally and financially the dispute hit them and their families hard as they adapted to surviving on anorexic budgets, personal savings, the contributions of family and friends, family allowance payments, credit, Strike Fund payments, and any work the wives could arrange. At the outset of the first lockout, the workers found themselves blacklisted with Centrelink and prevented from collecting social security benefits. Within families there were personal and psychological strains and tensions. As one young wife explained to me, these were the sorts of tensions you can't directly attribute to the dispute, but which you know are somehow related, like the young child who unaccountably started wetting his bed at night.
The fact the dispute was a family affair partly explains the eventual union victory. Despite great pressures, families remained firm, and there was a lot of inter-family mutual support and assistance. The more Joy was perceived as attacking the fabric of family life, the greater the resolve to struggle on. Families visited the line regularly. When major union decisions had to be made about the conduct of the dispute, mass meetings involved the workers and their wives.
For the men on the line, 205 days was a lot of picketing. Physically the task was made easier by union provision of a site-shed and portable toilet facility on the roadside outside each of the two factory entrances. Caravan park and camping skills made these encampments habitable; tent annexes with pallet floors, garage furniture, a couple of old television sets, generators, camp kitchens, and the ubiquitous 44 gallon drum brazier, became part of the scene. By Spring, one of the union flag bedecked picket encampments even had its own thriving vegetable garden.
Union delegates drew up attendance rosters, and the men came to regard picket line duty as defacto work, for which they drew Strike Pay. Men came and went with the punctuality of regular shift work; whilst on duty there was work to be done: explanations for the umpteenth time to interested passers by; donations to be accounted for; intelligence to be gathered about what might be happening inside the factory by monitoring traffic flow, what trucks were hauling, and general yard activity; leaflets, media releases, placards to be prepared; individual and collective morale to be maintained; firewood to be collected; surrounds to be kept clean; food to be prepared.
Events helped relieve tedium and generate morale. Visiting groups of unionists from Wollongong and Sydney resulted in festive occasions, with speeches and barbeques. As the dispute lengthened, picket line delegations toured worksites in NSW and interstate, explaining the dispute and successfully soliciting financial support. A delegation dropped in on Chase Manhattan Bank in Sydney, getting as far as the boardroom before being evicted; the workers were interested in the financial status of American parent company Harnischfeger when they found out the Bank was helping bankroll it out of debt.
The resilience of the line had a great deal to do with the trade union organisational practices and attitudes evident during the dispute. Joy's union delegates were intelligent and respected shop-floor colleagues; they took on the organisational/leadership roles the situation demanded locally; it was not an elitist role assumption, but based on necessity, ability and skill, reflecting workshop attitudes of recognising someone who can do a job, and respect for the skills involved; everyone on the line had a point of view, an opinion, some level of understanding, the sophistication of which increased as the dispute lengthened; there was a lot of discussion and communal decision making, over coffee, around the brazier, especially after the gossipy picture weeklies had been exhausted of diversion, and during miserable days of boredom, hunched against the cold in old lounge chairs with the stuffing coming out, dodging rain that managed to work its way through the annexe roof.
The three unions involved were able to maximise unity and campaign for common objectives. Union organisers made regular visits to the line, some even camping on a regular basis, sharing the experience of being out in the cold, a factor greatly appreciated and respected by the workers.
Seventy kilometres away in Wollongong, the supportive and imaginative South Coast Labour Council kept the dispute in the regional news, and worked at building union solidarity and support.
Communication was maximised; no one on the line felt isolated, or out of touch with developments; the only 'them' and 'us' in this dispute was capital versus labour.
Sometime after the 1998 Waterfront dispute, the Maritime Union of Australia, the Construction, Forestry, Mining and Energy Union, and the AMWU, agreed that given a significant dispute any was involved in, there would be no standing alone. The Joy workers, via the involvement of AMWU members, had significant support from the outset.
Support grew. While the local Bowral-based newspaper generally ran an anti-union line, regionally the workers received sympathetic media coverage. Moss Vale businesses donated supplies of food, newspapers, magazines, and fuel to the line, while cash donations came from local individuals and unionists.
As awareness of the dispute spread, there were solidarity actions by other Joy workers in Australia, and moral and financial support increased. Trade union publications, the web, the left newspapers Green Left Weekly, the communist Guardian, and the NSW Labor Council's electronic weekly Workers Online, all played important publicist roles. The Sydney Morning Herald and The Australian discovered the dispute when it was about half-way way through. Kim Beazley made it to the line a week before the dispute concluded.
There were international expressions of solidarity from the United Steelworkers of America, industrial lobbying by the National Union of Metalworkers of South Africa (Joy has significant South African interests), while the Geneva-based International Metalworkers' Federation threatened an international campaign against Joy. This support reflected the growing awareness by some Australian trade unions of the need to develop international trade union links and perspectives in the struggle against the neo-liberal agendas of global corporations.
Touching was the donation from boxer Justin Clements. A scaffolder by trade, he apparently found out about the dispute via the net, and donated his $5000 purse from a draw in a Light Heavyweight fight held in Las Vegas.
After months of meetings between the disputing parties, the involvement of the ACTU, legal manoeuvring and numerous sessions in the Australian Industrial Relations Commission, the Joy dispute was arbitrated in October by Justice Munro. His decision awarded a twelve per cent pay rise over three years to Joy workers instead of the company's original offer of five per cent over two years. A three year enterprise agreement for all sections of the workforce was stipulated, instead of the company's preferred four separate agreements. Controls were placed on the use of contractors and casuals.
The non-union contractors were sent packing, and legal actions pending as a result of the dispute were dropped..
On a cool Spring morning, to the skirl of bagpipes, the joyous applause of a crowd of well wishers, supporters, and families, the air alive with union flags, the first of the Joy workers walked through the factory gates and back to work. The sun chose the moment to break through the clouds. There were few dry eyes.
The picket line had been the necessary, in a sense theatrical and symbolic, tip of a complex industrial process. It purposefully kept a specific group of workers defiantly together, thwarted the industrial intent of the lockout tactic, and readily provided images of media interest. Beyond this the line was a reminder to managers, who regularly passed through the line behind tinted windscreens of company cars, that decisions made about workers in American boardrooms and Sydney legal offices, in the name of corporate profits and shareholders, affect human beings; Supreme Court injunctions could not restrain the human emotion expressed in faces, nor ease the discomfort caused by the non-violent bearing of witness to hardship. For the town the line was a reminder that an industrial dispute was in progress, affecting people who were part of the town, and a cash flow that was a vital part of the local economy.
The locking-out of employees is an employer right under the WRA. Capable of being dispensed in large time-blocks, the lockout is an aggressive industrial action designed to force reduced wages and conditions on employees. By implication it not only targets workers as individuals, but also their families and dependents; and it does so in a way that employee industrial action, limited and curtailed by a raft of inhibiting and punitive legislation, finds difficulty matching.
The lockout is a tactic harking back to the second half of the 19th century when it was extensively used in the UK and Australia in response to growing union power, with the intention of breaking that power. After a long absence from Australian industrial life, both the lockout and the picket line are returning, in keeping with the old-time intent and implications of the WRA.
The Joy dispute is a reminder that 'old' trade union notions of struggle, and traditional approaches to organisation and mobilisation, are relevant modern responses.
Article reprinted from Overland, Issue Number 162, Autumn 2001. Rowan
Cahill reported the Joy dispute for Workers Online.
by Jim Walshe
Tony Mulvihill |
Former ALP Senator and Australian Railways Union life member Tony Mulvihill passed away on 12th December 2000.
Tony started on the railways in the 1930s, as a labourer, and worked up to a crane driver. He was soon to hold a number of positions with the ARU. From his earliest days he was revered as a people person, always looking at t6he worth of the individual, and he never lost the capacity to help other people out.
He also joined the ALP in the 1930s and was to become president of the Concord branch for many years prior to becoming assistant general secretary of the NSW branch in 1957. He became a Senator in 1967 and retired from full time politics in 1983. His role as assistant general secretary was crucial in maintaining stability in the NSW ALP as the party disintegrated elsewhere.
The 1950s and 1960s were also times of great changes in Australian society with post war development, large scale immigration and the long boom, and new social movements developed in response to new concerns with the environment especially.
Sydney, in particular, changed dramatically as developers set out to change the face of the city and suburbs. At Chullora Workshops Tony was an active member of the ARU and was one of the first to campaign for improvements to the deplorable living conditions suffered by new Australians in migrant hostels associated with the railway department in the immediate post war period.
From his earliest days at Chullora, he took a deep interest in the welfare of recent immigrants. His selfless nature helped greatly with the successful integration these new arrivals made into the railway and Australian culture.
He made many friends with various ethnic groups and took an active interest in the problems of refugees. He continued to assist migrants in his role with the ALP and as a Federal Senator. He continued this role throughout his life.
Through his active involvement with various ethnic communities he developed close friendships with leaders of many Eastern European countries. During his stint in Federal Parliament, Tony was at one time chairman of the Commonwealth Immigration Advisory Council and played a major role in developing public policy in that field.
Another interest that Tony championed passionately all his life was the Australian environment. One contemporary was to remark in later years that Tony was an environmentalist when most people couldn't spell the word.
In the early 1950s he began advocating for the introduction of a law to be passed to establish a "green belt" around Sydney. The intention of this new law was to stop the encroachment by the "well heeled" on to the beaches, parks and waterways to ensure ordinary people and their families would have access to these wonderful resources.
Because of Tony's efforts, a number of important changes were made to legislation. He paved the way for people like Jack Mundey and many others who were to take up the cause as generated by Tony's original efforts.
He was among the first to sound warning bells on the environmental damage to Kakadu by uncontrolled seepage of waste into the river systems. His untiring work on this issue over many years led to a plaque being erected at Kakadu commending his efforts.
Tony was the Australian Parliamentary delegate to the 3rd and 4th International Parliamentary Conferences on the environment held in Nairobi (1974) and Kingston (1976).
One of his last major campaigns was to obtain recognition for all those who participated in the construction of the Snowy Hydro Electricity Scheme. Over many years he campaigned on this issue amongst members of all parties in both State and Federal governments.
Finally in 1999 a monument was unveiled at Talbingo power station near Tumut, celebrating the 50th anniversary of the completion of the scheme. A reunion of the workers was held at this time and Tony was very proud that his efforts had helped gain recognition of the astounding efforts of all those involved in this wonderful achievement.
In her eulogy at Tony's funeral, Marion Grace, his electoral secretary for the whole time he was in parliament, reminded those present of his successful campaigns in saving the Cape Barren geese, the hairy nosed wombat and the dingo. H was also a leading light in the campaign to clean up the Parramatta River.
Tony never forgot his railway friends, proudly marching with the ARU on Labour Day or playing golf as part of the ARU team at the Labour Day Golf event. He was also to play a vital role in the establishment of the Sussex Inlet Holiday Park in 1983/84.
The union facility was in danger of reverting back to the government because of difficulties with Federal public servants. They advised the Coalition Minister against allowing the union to lease the site for the use of its members on reasonable conditions and affordable terms.
Tony joined the union delegation and his lobbying skills were seen to great advantage by all present. He told the Minister in no uncertain terms that "...public servants should be on tap - not on top!" We were eventually able to win the day, and members now have the facility to enjoy.
He was made a life member of the ALP in 1990 and the guest speaker was Tony's hero - former Prime Minister Gough Whitlam.
It is important for RTBU members and union members generally to be aware of the effort Tony Mulvihill put in, not only for the then ARU, but for the people of Australia today, the environment and the native animals and fauna of this wonderful country.
It can truly be said that Australia is a better place for having Tony Mulvihill as an activist/citizen. I would also like to convey my condolences to Patricia O'Connell.
An edited version of an article that originally appeared in Rail and Road; vol. 93, no. 1, February 2001, the magazine of the Rail, Tram and Bus Union (Public Transport Union).
by Mark Zirnsak
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"The kids can eat a lot of food and sometimes we are short of it. Occasionally we have what we call a 'pretend chicken dinner'. We'll have baked potatoes, cauliflower, carrots and gravy, but no chicken. Life like this has its bonuses though. Like if we're really poor the night before pay night and we only have bread or something, the food the next day tastes really lovely." A mother describing her experience of poverty in Australia (Burnside, "Images of Children. Background Paper", September 1999)
A national campaign is underway to persuade politicians from both the major parties that they need to be addressing the issue of poverty within Australia. The National Coalition Against Poverty (NCAP) is a coalition of community service organisations, religious organisations, unions and local government joined together to work for the eradication of poverty in Australia. The campaign is stressing that the right to 'an adequate standard of living' is a basic human right of all people that Governments have a duty to promote, protect, respect and fulfil and not remove this right from anyone as a punitive measure. This is an internationally recognised human right, enshrined in a number of human rights treaties and conventions that Australia has pledged to uphold. The right to an adequate standard of living includes food, clothing, housing, healthcare and education.
It needs to be recognised that there is a significant movement by some sections of the Australian society to resist any increase in social security payments so as to enable reductions or stagnation in minimum wages. To assert the right to an adequate standard of living is to oppose this pressure to undermine minimum wage rates.
Poverty in Australia
The community is aware of poverty as a major issue. A recent Brotherhood of St Laurence survey found that nearly 60% of Australians think poverty is a major problem in Australia and 80% think its everyone's problem - not just the poor. They also found that our community is concerned about the widening gap between rich and poor and its contribution to poverty in Australia
An estimated two million Australians (11%), live in a household in poverty. In its most recent report on child poverty in industrialised countries, UNICEF reported that 12.6% of children (or one in eight) in Australia live in poverty. Of 20 industrialised countries, UNICEF found Australia ranked 6th in terms of national income per person, but 12th in terms of the level of child poverty. In other words, Australian Governments are not doing enough to address poverty for the size of Australia's wealth.
UNICEF found a strong correlation between the child poverty rate and the percentage of full-time workers in low-paid jobs (Figure 1). The organisation concluded that an increase in employment opportunities was unlikely to make significant inroads into the problem of child poverty if wages at the bottom of the income scale are too low.
NCAP aims to put poverty back on the political agenda for both of the major parties. NCAP will undertake a range of activities to advocate for the elimination of poverty that will involve the community.
The first major initiative of the campaign has been to promote a national petition asserting the right to an adequate standard of living in Australia. The petition calls on the House of Parliament to:
10 As an immediate step all pensions and benefits be brought up to at least 25% of male total average weekly earnings as is the case for the single pension.
20 Establish a Royal Commission into poverty in Australia with the aim of developing measures to determine an adequate standard of living for all people and to make recommendations as to how poverty in Australia can be eradicated.
The Australian Council of Social Services believes that increasing pensions and benefits paid by Government to just one quarter of the male total average weekly earnings will address the most immediate needs of those living in poverty in Australia.
The petition also highlights the need for an official measurement of poverty. Measuring poverty is a necessary first step to eliminating it. In September 2000, the UN Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights requested that the Australian Government "establish an officially set poverty line, so that credible assessment can be made of the extent of poverty in Australia." The Australian Government has so far refused the request.
By the end of February 2001 a total of 46 organisations from across Australia had endorsed the petition and agreed to circulate it as widely as possible. Endorsements included the ACTU and the Australian Education Union.
Unions interested in endorsing the petition or anyone interested in learning more about NCAP should contact Mark Zirnsak on (03) 9251 5265 or mailto:[email protected].
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But for the East Timorese people, the struggle to rebuild their country as a peaceful and stable democracy is very much an ongoing one. Union Aid Abroad - APHEDA has recently been successful with a three-year contract from AusAID for programs in East Timor. These will build on pilot activities undertaken over the last 15 months in a very practical demonstration of Australian unions' solidarity with the people of East Timor.
The East Timorese people face major challenges as they rebuild their country. East Timor is one of the least developed countries in Southeast Asia in terms of both economic and social indicators, but also as a direct result of the impact of the violence that followed the 1999 popular consultation. There is frustration with lack of employment opportunities, services, information and consultation. Illiteracy is long standing and is estimated at 49% nationally. Lack of vocational skills, lack of services, poor infrastructure and few opportunities for training are further issues. In the context of long-term oppression and transition, a vibrant, competent civil society will be important if East Timor is to achieve a peaceful and stable democracy.
This new AusAID funding will enable Union Aid Abroad - APHEDA to further expand work currently underway in three areas. Firstly, to expand non-formal vocational training and literacy training projects; secondly, to strengthen East Timorese community based organisations, particularly in the districts; and thirdly, to increase assistance to the development of community radio working with the Timor Loro Sae Journalists Association.
This is great news for our East Timorese partner organisations including the East Timor NGO Forum, the Labour Advocacy Institute for East Timor (LAIFET), the East Timorese Student Women's Group (GFFTL), emerging community radio stations and the Timor Loro Sae Journalists Association (TLJA). Trust and networks developed between Union Aid Abroad-APHEDA and local communities and groups such as these form the strong base of the project.
Also participating in the vocational and literacy training project are three Australian training institutions from the adult education sector - AMES Victoria, the CFMEU's COMET and the AMWU's MISTAS. They will assist, at cost or in some cases, for free, with training modules in ESL, literacy, construction, small business skills accreditation and vocational training. MEAA is also supporting the media development project.
The East Timor program will need ongoing fundraising in Australia to supplement the AusAID funds, and one of the challenges will be keeping the ongoing struggle of the Timorese to rebuild their country in the public consciousness over the next few years.
Union Aid Abroad - APHEDA has been working in East Timor since 1998, and has had an office in Dili since December 1999. For further information or to find out more about supporting these projects, contact us through our website www.apheda.org.au or email [email protected]
East Timor - Beyond the Headlines
It's now more than 18 months since the violence and bloodshed following the popular consultation on the future of East Timor was front page news in Australia.
But for the East Timorese people, the struggle to rebuild their country as a peaceful and stable democracy is very much an ongoing one. Union Aid Abroad - APHEDA has recently been successful with a three-year contract from AusAID for programs in East Timor. These will build on pilot activities undertaken over the last 15 months in a very practical demonstration of Australian unions' solidarity with the people of East Timor.
The East Timorese people face major challenges as they rebuild their country. East Timor is one of the least developed countries in Southeast Asia in terms of both economic and social indicators, but also as a direct result of the impact of the violence that followed the 1999 popular consultation. There is frustration with lack of employment opportunities, services, information and consultation. Illiteracy is long standing and is estimated at 49% nationally. Lack of vocational skills, lack of services, poor infrastructure and few opportunities for training are further issues. In the context of long-term oppression and transition, a vibrant, competent civil society will be important if East Timor is to achieve a peaceful and stable democracy.
This new AusAID funding will enable Union Aid Abroad - APHEDA to further expand work currently underway in three areas. Firstly, to expand non-formal vocational training and literacy training projects; secondly, to strengthen East Timorese community based organisations, particularly in the districts; and thirdly, to increase assistance to the development of community radio working with the Timor Loro Sae Journalists Association.
This is great news for our East Timorese partner organisations including the East Timor NGO Forum, the Labour Advocacy Institute for East Timor (LAIFET), the East Timorese Student Women's Group (GFFTL), emerging community radio stations and the Timor Loro Sae Journalists Association (TLJA). Trust and networks developed between Union Aid Abroad-APHEDA and local communities and groups such as these form the strong base of the project.
Also participating in the vocational and literacy training project are three Australian training institutions from the adult education sector - AMES Victoria, the CFMEU's COMET and the AMWU's MISTAS. They will assist, at cost or in some cases, for free, with training modules in ESL, literacy, construction, small business skills accreditation and vocational training. MEAA is also supporting the media development project.
The East Timor program will need ongoing fundraising in Australia to supplement the AusAID funds, and one of the challenges will be keeping the ongoing struggle of the Timorese to rebuild their country in the public consciousness over the next few years.
Union Aid Abroad - APHEDA has been working in East Timor since 1998, and has had an office in Dili since December 1999. For further information or to find out more about supporting these projects, contact us through our website www.apheda.org.au or email [email protected]
by MEAA's Walkley Magazine
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******
You don't have to be a competent musician to work at The Sydney Morning Herald, but these days it can help. Fortunately my parents got me guitar lessons when I was a kid. Live musical performance wasn't on the curriculum at uni, and it didn't come up during my cadetship at News Ltd in the early '90s. (In fact, I remember Jeni Cooper, then chief-of-staff at The Australian, advising me to burn my record collection after I nervously strayed on to the topic of Mudhoney during a cadet interview in 1992).
Nonetheless, deep within the SMH web site, buried under gigabytes of text, images, animations, audio and video -- the work of SMH editorial staff over the past few years -- you will find me strumming a guitar.
It's a video interview with Rob Glaser, the founder of a US Internet company called Real Networks, on a visit to Australia in 1997. Real Networks invented software that allows audio and video to be broadcast online.
After the interview I recorded a "to-camera" intro. I played my guitar to prove a point about how the Internet was changing every aspect of our lives.
Here I was, a newspaper reporter with no broadcast experience addressing my "readers" through a video camera. Hell, why not play them a goddamn song while I was at it?
At that moment, not five years since the invention of the World Wide Web, I honestly believed the SMH would evolve into an online TV network. Watch out all you broadcast journos. I was moving into new territory.
An awful lot has happened since then. The technology industry has waxed and waned. The media industry -- along with every other sector in the global economy -- has invested millions of dollars in Internet strategies fuelled by even grander visions than my own.
Then, over the past 12 months, when those visions couldn't be communicated to consumers or shareholders, they literally pulled the plug. News Ltd and the Seven network enacted perhaps the most brutal cuts to their "new media" budgets -- in March, for example, Seven cut its Internet budget by 75 per cent over 18 months. But all media outlets have done likewise, whether they admit it or not.
You couldn't blame journalists for being confused, even cynical, about the impact of new technology on the profession.
Yet few journalists doubt that we do indeed face great change -- albeit not quite as soon as we had expected. (Today, like most SMH reporters, I still focus on the paper edition, but sometimes I'm asked to do audio and video Q&As. Likewise, photographers and artists are experimenting with animation and video).
Computer-types like to say we generally over-estimate the impact of technology within a two-year time frame and under-estimate its impact in a decade.
And although editors and producers now face a much tougher task getting Internet budgets past board members, the issue has not gone away.
The new tech buzzword is "re-integration". Around the world, media companies are closing down their interactive divisions and reuniting Web, WAP and broadband staff with the old "off-liners".
In short, journalists are being put back in charge of their Internet destiny.
This is the ultimate in "convergence", according to Bruce Dover, a former boss of News Ltd's News Interactive Internet division and now managing editor of CNN Asia.
Dover recently set up the first Australian CNN bureau, staffing it with former print journalists who are now expected to talk to TV cameras, write for web sites and edit for mobile phones.
"I don't know if there's a one-model-fits-all, but at CNN where we see everything converging, it makes more sense for journalists to work across platforms rather than be platform-specific," Dover says.
"I know there are some conservative pockets that think if we do more we should be paid more because somehow we're extracting more from people. [But] the CNN thing has been embraced by journalists because it's making us stretch our creativity."
CNN has developed a "content management system" where reporters "write" the story once, commonly as a TV script, then edit it for other media, right down to a 38-character mobile phone text message.
"Because the [profit] margins are pretty thin across all these devices at the moment, you have to be efficient. We were guilty in the past at CNN of employing people in all those areas. We even had a special team dedicated to doing WAP (Web pages designed for mobile phones). We have taken 10 per cent out of the workforce by reintroducing integration."
There was a time, not so long ago, when it was thought the Internet would not only split the profession into specialties according to technological platforms. It was thought the Web would fundamentally reshape the industry by breaking the grip of large media conglomerates. Just as desktop publishing had enabled anyone to become a printer, the Web would allow anyone to become a publisher. Finally the barriers to entry -- ownership of printing presses and distribution networks -- had disappeared.
There are three main reasons why the same media proprietors still hold the power. And they illustrate an important point for journalists still uncertain about their "online future".
Firstly, online advertising and retail markets did not eventuate, cutting off revenue before Web e-zines got going. When investors subsequently turned away, online-only publications were starved of funds. By then the venture capital or float proceeds had already been spent on advertising and promotion -- with barely a ripple of response.Hold that thought and consider the second reason.Internet start-ups grossly underestimated the cost of marketing, both online and off. Put another way, they did not understand that "brand" was a barrier as big as ownership of a printing press. For all the money spent on billboards and banner ads, there is not a single successful new online-only media brand.The thing about media brands -- luckily for journalists -- is that they can't be built through marketing alone. The one and only reason that established media outlets have valuable brands is through the skill of their journalists.
Well sure, but you can always buy journalists, as many web sites did. But there was a third problem facing the few web sites that could afford to keep good journalists after their option schemes collapsed.
Like every other e-commerce business, Web-only operations suffer from the Internet's all-encompassing reputation as a shonky place.
There are plenty of high-quality e-zines out there. But how can you tell?
More often than not, readers have stuck to established sources they trust.
If the prospect of writing for a mobile phone leaves you cold, at least take comfort in this: Every day the ever-expanding Internet is deepening the demand for quality journalism.
The basic skills of journalists have become even more valued since the advent of the Web, says Julian Sher, who operates an online resource called Journalism.com.
"The Web has dramatically increased the noise factor -- the amount of junk info -- making it all the more important that journalists do what they were always supposed to do -- sift through the garbage and sort out the truth. The job of journalists remains the same as always, only more so."
What about its effect on how we do our jobs? The majority of this story was researched on the Internet. In fact, Hugh Stephenson, professor of journalism at London's City University, offered his comments by e-mail: "The Internet is just part of the whole 'new technology' revolution that has undoubtedly changed the nature of the reporter's trade," he said. "The volume of information available electronically and the cutting of editorial budgets have together put pressure on reporters to do their job sitting at a keyboard and not spending time getting facts by getting out and about."
Stephenson says the "out and about" aspect of journalism is "suffering badly" because of the Internet.
But others such as Dr Stephen Quinn, a senior lecturer in journalism studies at Victoria's Deakin University, says Internet research has improved the quality of journalism and it is vital that young journalists gain skills in online data collection.
"The core segment of a journalism curriculum needs to be information skills. Students should learn to be information workers first before they become broadcast or print reporters."
Editorial staff at some outlets, such as The Australian newspaper, have been offered Internet training. The Australian's deputy editor, Peter Wilson, says it has, ironically, been the "more mature" journalists who have been keenest to adopt Internet research and to see their stories on the web site. However, Professor Mark Pearson, editor of the Australian Journalism Review and the head of journalism at Queensland's Bond University, says "most mainstream media staff are still locked into classic roles" and cadets are still mostly headed for familiar rounds.
"Traditional media have been slow to shift towards multi-media roles for their staff, although there are pockets of experimentation with reporters collecting a range of content. An example is the trend towards some television reporters carrying handycams to collect actuality, particularly in regional stations which cannot afford many crews.
"Few news web sites are investing in multi-media coverage of breaking news stories and are under-utilising the potentials of the Internet. It is hard to determine whether most will ultimately opt for multi-skilled generalist reporters or highly skilled specialists. That depends on whether their emphasis is on quality, polished productions or faster, more economical delivery."
For all the debate, the current direction of journalism has probably never been less certain. The tech wreck has undoubtedly slowed any online evolution in journalism. It has given us breathing space -- a chance to catch up with technology before the evolution resumes.
Journalists must believe, however, that the "transition period" is real -- and will affect ourselves and our employers, says CNN's Bruce Dover.
Both parties must learn important lessons from the Internet-inspired events of the past few years, he says.
"Let's remember a lot of media companies like Fairfax and others moved well beyond their core competencies into areas from retailing to recruitment placement."
A "return to core competencies, (to) what media companies do best is probably pretty central to what has to happen".
At the same time, while protecting and enhancing our core skills, journalists must understand that the medium we work for -- if not the way we work -- may be unrecognisable in years to come.
David Higgins is The Internet and Technology Editor of The Sydney Morning Herald.
by The Chaser
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Mr Howard revelaed his re-election campaign hinges entirely on the impaired judgements of the electorate.
"People can do some pretty stupid things when they're pissed," said Mr Howard. "Things which they're bound to regret afterwards. Obviously no one with a clear head would dare to give me a third term. But if I can
get enough people drunk on discounted beer I may just get across the line."
New legislation will make drinking compulsory in the lead-up to the federal election. The Prime Minister said he further intends to place a VB stubbie in every polling booth to help prevent voters from thinking sensibly. All households will be sent how-to-drink cards in the mail.
In addition, the recent TV drug campaign has been amended to encourage parents to discuss drugs with their children over a quiet beer.
"Drug abuse destroys society," said Mr Howard. "And what better way of demonstrating this to our children than by having booze-addled voters re-elect a Coalition government."
by Peter Zangari
Peter Zangari |
Now it wouldn't be fair to tar the newest addition to the Sydney FM airwaves with the brush that tars its competitors, but one would say that Nova 96.9 FM, launched on Sunday 1st April 2001 is trying to be all things to all people. It has elements of all the above stations, but hopefully not the worst.
As for the similarities:
There is a bit of commercial dance on Nova but not the cheesy variety Who Let the Dogs Out that you sometimes hear on 2DAY Fm
There is a bit of classic hard rock on Nova but you wont be hearing 'another non-stop block of non-stop rock' like Khe Sahn all day every day like 2MMM.
There is a bit of alternative stuff on Nova but not the nauseous guitar noise like you sometimes have to listen to on JJJ.
There is a touch of commercial adult popular music on Nova, but you won't be subjected to Michael Bolton or Tina Arena Love Song dedications as you do on Mix 106.5 Fm
But wasn't the 96.9fm dial set aside for a special community station? Over 5 years of special broadcasts were heard from various community groups. Remember FBI, Wild Fm, Radio Dex and Free Fm. All of those faxes of support came to no avail, a commercial station got the goods in the end anyway.
Maybe the launch date of Nova 96.9 was appropriate, April Fools Day.
Should we really takes this seriously at all when you consider how much the licence cost DMG, a staggering $140 million. I may not be an authority in valuing radio stations in the millions but I do know that's quite a lot when you are starting afresh and trying to tap into the millions of listeners the other stations have.
The radio business is funny business. Re-badging of old stations, re-modelling, a lot goes on.
After the first six days of broadcasting, it might be is a little early to start making predictions about the station.
Something that we have learnt by listening to Nova so far is that, there is more music for the listening hour. I hope it stays that way. There is nothing worse than sitting through
10 minute ad and announcer breaks to listen to the next song.
At least Nova has got it right in that department, with advertising and back announcing limited in some respect.
Another unusual thing about the station is the selection of the Radio jockeys.
I was pleased to hear Merrick and Rosso back on radio for breakfast. Since first seeing the duo at the Harold Park for their Mardi Grouse tour in 1997, I've been a fan. And fans won't be disappointed because Merrick and Rosso still know how to deliver the goods. We'll wait and see if they are able to play "Teenage Mullet Fury"- a cult classic.
Something else, I don't know how that annoying Ugly Phil got a Guernsey, he is making the station sound as cheap as 2DAYFM.
I was quite surprised the other day when in a sequence of four songs I hear Smell like Teen Spirit by Nirvana, followed by Walking Away by Craig David backed up by Blister In the Sun by The Violent Femmes then Silence by Delirium. Go figure what the producers are trying to get to.
Whilst I think Nova has a long way to go before it cements a base in the Sydney radio market, they'll soon find out how tough it is so you might just start seeing Nova Black thunders at a corner near you, dishing out those 'icy cold cans of coke'.
Current Playlist from NOVA
Expect to hear this sort of music when you tune in, its not that bad at all:
Dido,
3 Doors Down
Fat Boy Slim
Daft Punk
Creed
Armand Van Helden
Superjesus
Powderfinger
Smashing Pumpkins
ATB
Go check yourself, you might just like it.
by Peter Moss
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Against a background of wailing funeral laments for the death of community culture and tradition, these youngsters in their boots are the good news.
Their club - the Newtown Australian Football Club, with a 100-year history - is supposed to be long dead and buried.
In its hey day, the Newtown Angels (a variation on the Bloodstained Angels tag worn by South Melbourne for decades) drew a fair crowd to games at Erskineville Oval.
Sporting legends like boxing trainer Johnny Lewis and North Melbourne AFL wild man Sam Kekovich turned out in the Angels' red-and-white strip.
Club funds were generated through a boisterous licensed club on Cleveland Street, Redfern.
But by 1986 the Newtown area was changing fast with working-class families pushed out to cheaper postcodes.
Just a few years after the area lost its first grade rugby league team the Jets, the Newtown Angels AFL club lowered its colours also.
The amazing rebirth of this local AFL institution after 13 years in the grave is due to years of collective effort, but one person can take more credit than most.
Eddie Greenaway is a bloke who not only has ideas, he makes them happen.
A former Young Labor activist and inner-city band scene identity, Eddie found his AFL mission quite late in life.
Growing up in country Victoria and studying in Adelaide, Eddie probably always had football in his blood, but not at dangerous levels.
He moved to Sydney in 1986 - the same year the old Newtown Angels team folded - and moved into a tiny room above Newtown's Sandringham Hotel, then a thriving nerve-centre of live independent music.
Eddie co-published the influential Eddie magazine and organised gigs and fundraising events to keep the publication afloat.
In the mid-1990s Eddie started attending the odd Sydney Swans game at the SCG - at a time when the transplanted AFL club had few active fans and even fewer wins on the board.
When the Swans, with Plugger and Roos now stoking the engine, started their startling rise up the ladder culminating in a 1996 grand final appearance, Eddie Greenaway was just one of thousands swept up and on to the red-and-white bandwagon.
His self-titled fanzine was winding down, so Eddie reckoned the time was right to wind up a street football publication.
Footyzine, a seat-of-the-footy-shorts no-budget A5 pocket magazine, was born.
The magazine was launched at the Metro by Swans stars Mark Bayes and Andrew Dunkley.
Eddie and others, including regular Workers Online sports writer Terry O'Brien, built a culture round Footyzine with social AFL matches and band and quiz nights to raise funds.
A lot of ageing footy legends-in-their-own-minds who should have known better slipped a boot on for the first time in years at games organised by Footyzine.
On some lazy afternoons at Camperdown or Jubilee Ovals you might have caught a glimpse of this writer on the backline attempting to keep Workers Online editor Pete 'Mini-Plugger' Lewis in check.
And if you let the field glasses stray down the paddock, you might have picked out a sweaty puffing committee-load of labour movement activists clutching at various limbs and ligaments.
It was the injuries as the games became more frequent that got Eddie Greenaway thinking about the need for insurance and a higher level of organisation.
He approached the AFL in 1998 to support a rebirth of the old Newtown Australian Football Club, asking initially for access to better playing grounds.
The AFL people must have thought Eddie had something - they not only offered him playing facilities but asked him to start up a junior league as the focus of the reborn club.
Eddie and his group took the challenge on. In 1999 the first Newtown juniors since 1986 ran on to Alexandria Park ready to play.
Last year the Newtown club boasted 60 juniors. The under-10s made the finals and finished fourth.
In 2001 the club will be stronger again at junior level, while the seniors have also maintained their competition.
As Eddie repeatedly emphasises, the credit for this triumph belongs to many.
But Eddie, when pressed, admits his true motivation is not primarily about football, it's about community.
He and his mates should be deeply satisfied and proud because their efforts haven't just resurrected a footy club.
They've swum against the stream to generate and rebuild a living piece of community.
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"Short-term" for Casuals Doesn't Mean Less Than Six Months
the full bench of the NSW IRC has ruled that those with less then six months service are not necessarily excluded from lodging claims under the State IR Act.
They found that Regulation 5B(1)(d) did not say that engagement on a casual basis for a period of less than 6 months is necessarily for a short period."
In another important aspect of the decision, the full bench said that Commissioner John Elder erred when he decided that the matter was beyond jurisdiction before attempting to conciliate it. The process was contrary to the Act's s87(1), which only enabled an application to be dismissed when "all reasonable attempts to settle the applicant's claim by conciliation have been made but have been unsuccessful", the bench said.
This effectively means that the IRC's power to conciliate a dismissal claim cannot be circumscribed by arguments that it lacked the jurisdiction to later go on and arbitrate.
The case involved a 19-year-old sales assistant who worked as a casual at Dymocks bookstore under the Shop Employees (State) Award. She was there for eleven weeks, working between four and 15 hours a week from July 27, 1999. She then did one shift on October 9, but, without any further notice, was not rostered on again. When she contacted the company, she was told that she wouldn't receive any more work.
SDA, NSW v Librus Pty Ltd, t/as Dymocks Parramatta [2001] NSWIRComm 46 (26 March 2001)
http://www.workplaceexpress.com.au
Productivity and the 35 Hour Week
Despite forecasts of doom, the legislation of a maximum of 35 hours work per week in France has not been disastrous, and has boosted producutivity for the who have embraced the laws. The French Labour Ministry claims 150,000 new jobs have been created so far because of the laws. The laws have had a one year trial and are being fully enforced. Employers who are using the laws find it allows them to extend operating times when they employ extra staff. Disneyland, for example, has increased its workforce by 10% and stays open for an extra 2 hours per day.
Another outcome has been that at Wanadoo, France's largest Internet portal. Wanadoo has seen a dramatic increase in productivity from individual workers since it started to comply with the law last year. Wanadoo's salaried employees are now getting an extra 10 to 18 days off a year. But they're still getting their work done. And despite the intent of the law, Wanadoo has not hired any new employees.
http://www.thestandard.com/article/display/0,1151,22531,00.html
Working Hours Continue to Rise
In Australia, the number of employees working longer hours continues to rise. The ABS survey of employment arrangements and superannuation shows that over 14% of employees with leave entitlements worked more than 50 hours per week.
41.1% worked more than 40 hours per week.
21% did unpaid overtime. 75% of casual employees expected to be working at the same employers in 12 months time.
ABS. Employment Arrangements and Superannuation, Australia, 6361.0
(http://www.workplaceexpress.com.au)
Equal Remuneration Should Be Enshrined In Law: Qld Report
Queensland needs further industrial legislative reform to ensure pay equity, according to Queensland Industrial Relations Commissioner Glenys Fisher, who has handed down her report into pay equity.
'Worth Valuing: A Report of the Pay Equity Inquiry' was delivered on Friday 30th March
The report calls for:
� legislative reform to ensure pay equity in the making of awards, certified agreements and Queensland Workplace Agreements;
� the redefining of 'remuneration' to cover more than just the basic wage;
� the annual setting of a minimum wage; and
� a draft pay equity principle to be considered for adoption by a full bench of the QIRC.
The QCU's Grace Grace said soon after the report's release that, "on first glance, there's some pretty good stuff in it". She said the draft equal remuneration principle was "very extensive and most welcome".
She was also pleased that the report recommended financial assistance for organisations running equal remuneration cases.
http://www.workplaceinfo.com.au; http://www.workplaceexpress.com.au
Post Employment Restraints by Stephen Price
Employers often seek to protect their business interests from past employees attracting or taking customers. This article sets out the way various legal mechanisms operate to protect employers or limit their rights to restrain past employees.
Price sets out:
� what can and cannot be restrained;
� whether adequate consideration has been provided by the employer in return for an employee entering into a post-employment restraint;
� what confidential information is;
� what is reasonable;
� what activity it is that is being restrained;
� geographic area of the restraint;
� the length of time on the restraint;
� how carefully drafted is the document setting out the restraint;and;
� remedies available to employers to act on an apparent breach of a restraint agreement
(CCH Work Alert; March 2001)
Workplace Pregnancy Guidelines
The Workplace Pregnancy Guidelines give effect to the HREOC's Report of the National Inquiry into Pregnancy and Work, Pregnant and Productive: It's a right not a privilege to work while pregnant.
The voluntary guidelines set out the rights and responsibilities of employers, employees and other parties under the Sex Discrimination Act.
It suggests positive ways that employers can act to avoid discriminating against pregnant and potentially pregnant female employees and provides a range of illustrative case studies.
The full guidelines are available from the HREOC site at http://www.hreoc.gov.au/sex_discrimination/pregnancy/guidelines.html
Workplace Accidents Stats
The National Occupation Health and Safety Commission (NOHSC) key statistical findings for 1998-99 were published recently.
The preliminary data shows that in 1998-99:
� there were 372 compensated fatalities in Australia (except ACT) which occurred because of workplace activity. A further 67 occurred on the journey to work;
� the number of workers' compensation cases reported which resulted in a fatality, permanent disability or a temporary disability resulting in an absence from work of one week or more was 111,168 (excluding Victoria and ACT)
� incidence rates, cases per thousand employees, were 20 for males and 12 for females (excluding ACT and Vic.). Frequency rates, cases per million hours worked, were 11 all persons, 13 for males and 8 for females.
� Manufacturing industry (excluding ACT and Vic.) had the highest incidence rate (37 per thousand employees) and highest frequency rates (19 cases per million hours)
� Labourers and related workers category had the highest occupational incidence rate at 50 per thousand employees and highest frequency rate (32 cases per million) (excluding Vic. And ACT)
� The nature and type of disease which accounted for the highest proportion of all cases nationally (excluding Vic. And ACT) was classified as Sprains and strains of joints and adjacent muscles. Nearly 25% of all new injury and disease was back related
(NOHSC News; vol. 2, no.1 summer 2000-01)
We here at Workers Online are big fans of the Della: we love his slept-in appearance, his stream of consciousness oratory, his philosophy that life is one big Caravan Park. We, alone amongst all media, chose to blame Maxine rather than Della for the infamous lunch. We took our own degree of pain for that decision, what with Tories attacking us in State Parliament, but we stood up for Della with pride.
We also love Della's office. From the bemused diligence of long-time union officer Glen Bacic , to the polite efficiency of media flak and former Voice of Gosford, 'The Plum', to chief-of-staff Matthew Strassberg, a true romantic who awaits expectantly for the North Sydney Bears to be readmitted to the NRL, the staff in Della's office are a top bunch of people. We even hear Francis Maguire is great fun out of working hours.
So none of this is personal.
But, guys, what on earth were you thinking in trying to sneak through the most significant changes to workers compensation in a decade and a half through parliament before Easter? What made you think you could pull it off? Did you think the workers and their representatives would just shrug their shoulders and say 'too good, you win'?
The reason the Della compo reforms are now in so much trouble is that you didn't think. Workers comp is a core activity for trade unions, one of the most traumatic processes a member can go through and one of the real benefits of being in a trade union. To attack this system is to attack the union movement. The consultation processes were in place. An Advisory Council had been set up of employer and trader union reps which had spent three years educating themselves about the system, taking ownership of the scheme and turning it around. Indeed, over the last 12 months, the WorkCiover asset base had increased!
In the end Della thought it would be easier to snow his friends in the union movement. He would have thought that the good editorial in the daily telegraph would have been enough to carry the day. He alienated the press gallery by releasing the major reform ten minutes before a big announcement by the Premier (known in the trade as "snowing"). His package contained figures that did not stand up to scrutiny, overstating the amount that both doctors and lawyers take out of the scheme. And by packaging the Bill 'faster, quicker, ...." He raised hackles with a movement who had just been through reith's "More Jobs, Better Pay" legislation.
Della's problem is that about the only people in the state who think these reforms are a good idea are the editorial writers. At the grass roots, people see it as just another 'solution' being imposed on them, a US-style system, calculated to reduce their quantum of benefits in order to reduce business costs. If this is not the sort of logic that has created the backlash against economic rationalism and gliobalistion, then I don't know what is.
The other crazy thing about this so-called 'simpler' system that is meant to knock the lawyers out of the system is that its enabling legislation is totally impenetrable. We spent one day this week trading press releases with The Plum over whether or not victims of armed hold-ups would have reduced access to common law. Our lawyer's gave us the advice - but it was based on an analysis of four, partially contradictory sections of the legislation. If Della were serious about getting the lawyers out of the system he could start with an Act in plain English!
The reality is that Della has handled the reform progress all wrong. He needs to do what his predecessor did so successfully: (i) engage the key stakeholders (ii) get them to commit to incremental change (iii) work on the 50 year deficit as a 50 year plan, rather than trying to impose some quick fix master plan. None of these steps can be taken until the legislation is withdrawn. Until it is withdrawn, the current campaign continues.
So despite you might think, this is not a personal campaign. Targeting Della is merely the most effective way to get, what is a perennially dry topic, into the public consciousness. And if you're really worried about us going hard, a final word of advice, get Della to lose the "faster, simpler, slicker' mantra. It's just setting him up for a pisstake.
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