Archive for 'Building industry'
One punch tragedies, racism and deaths on building sites
Posted by John, January 8th, 2016 - under Building industry, Building unions, Building workers, CFMEU, Lock out laws, One punch laws, Safety at work, Social control.
Comments: 2
There was another death recently that we didn’t hear much from the media about. On Tuesday a 24-year-old electrician at Dallas in Melbourne’s north was electrocuted on a building site. Not much mass media reporting, no mass outpouring of grief, no questioning why, and certainly no campaign in the media calling for tougher criminal sanctions against employers for deaths on site or for better policing of safety on building sites.
Sensibly, and viewed rationally, the best people to police safety on building sites would be the workers and their unions, that runs counter to the narrative of the capitalist class in its attempts to smash the building unions, especially the CFMEU, precisely because they defend their members against the bosses and their rapacious and dangerous drive for profit.
Building unions challenge putting profit before people. That is why the government and bosses want to smash them. The media as part of the cabal of capital won’t publish stories or analysis which challenges this fundamental attack on unions because these unions put people before profits and fight for safety on sites.
To save lives on building sites would mean empowering workers and their unions. Defending building unions is literally a life or death matter.
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In defence of the CFMEU
Posted by John, October 2nd, 2015 - under Building industry, Building unions, CFMEU, John Lomax, Royal Commission into unions, Safety at work, Trade unions.
Comments: 1
The CFMEU is a major target of the Royal Commission witch hunt into unions precisely because it is one of the few unions left in Australia today that actually stands up for and fights for its members. The MBA’s safety smear campaign and the clearly anti-union and political nature of the charges against Lomax show that the building industry bosses and their state apparatchiks will stop at nothing in their quest to put profit before people.
Fair Work, building workers and 7-Eleven
Posted by John, September 2nd, 2015 - under 7-Eleven, Abbott government, ABCC, Building industry, Building unions, Building workers, CFMEU, Fair Work Australia, Royal Commission into unions, SDA.
Comments: 1
It is all about priorities, and making sure that bosses don’t rip off their workers isn’t a priority for the Abbott government in Australia. Destroying the CMFEU, one of the few unions that fights to defend its members, is. If the government can do that it makes the climate even better to drive down wages and cut conditions in other industries across Australia. 7-Eleven is a microcosm of Australia’s industrial relations. What Abbott and his hired anti-CFMEU puppets in the Fair Work industry want is a cowered and compliant building workforce a la 7-Eleven. They want workers to work longer for less, just like the 7-Eleven bosses have been doing, with the same result – more profit for the bosses.
Defend Johnny Lomax; defend union rights – two photos
Posted by John, August 5th, 2015 - under Building industry, Building unions, Building workers, John Lomax, John Passant.
Comments: none
Here is one photo from the 150 strong demonstration of support for building union organiser Johnny Lomax, charged with blackmail for the ‘crime’ of winning a pay rise for workers. If you look closely enough you might be able to see me.
Defend building union organiser John Lomax against the criminalisation of union activity
Posted by John, July 27th, 2015 - under Building industry, Building unions, Building workers, CFMEU, John Lomax, Royal Commission into unions.
Comments: 1
This is part of a letter I sent on Sunday to the Canberra Times on the arrest and charging of building union organiser John Lomax. ‘Unionists and union leaders should be very very worried about this attempted criminalisation of industrial activity. If successful it will undermine every union in Australia. The charges against Lomax are an attack on unionism.’
The ‘evidence’ for the Abbott inspired police witch hunt against the CFMEU
Posted by John, November 2nd, 2014 - under Building industry, Building unions, Building workers, CFMEU, Royal Commission into unions.
Comments: none
This is just some of the ‘evidence’ Abbott used to justify his recently announced police taskforce witch hunt into the building union, the CFMEU. It would be laughable if it weren’t so serious.
Can we cull the business sharks who kill building workers?
Posted by John, January 10th, 2014 - under ABCC, Australian Building and Construction Commission, Building industry, Building unions, Building workers, CFMEU, Profit, Profits.
Comments: 1
Briggs identified the real problem when she said that profit cannot come before safety on building sites any more. However proft does come first, and will continue to come before safety. That is what the ABCC is about. It is what smashing union industrial campaigns for safety on site are about.
Can we cull the business sharks who kill building workers? The best way to ensure there is safety on building sites is to give the workers power to cut off the flow of profits to the bosses, without loss of pay, when sites are unsafe, or for workers to take that power.
Of police and other deaths
Posted by John, December 8th, 2012 - under ABCC, Aboriginal deaths in custody, Australian Building and Construction Commission, Building industry, Building unions, Building workers, CFMEU, Deaths at work, Deaths in custody.
Comments: 10
Perhaps the difference in treatment in death is that police protect the profit system, whereas workers don’t. We workers make the profit for the bosses. We are expendable and our deaths at work are nothing to them compared to the death of a police officer.
By their eulogies shall ye know the bosses and their system.
Canberra – the building site death and injury capital of Australia
Posted by John, November 26th, 2012 - under ACT Greens, ACT Labor, ACT politics, Australian Capital Territory, Building industry, Building unions, Building workers, CFMEU, Safety at work.
Comments: none
The best way to ensure there is safety on building sites is to give the workers power to cut off the flow of profits to the bosses, without loss of pay, when sites are unsafe, or for workers to take that power. The stakes are high. It will take a long and bitter campaign of strikes and wildcat action to force the building bosses in Canberra and elsewhere to take safety seriously and to save lives.
Grocon: will it be pigs and wigs or workers and hard hats who win?
Posted by John, September 4th, 2012 - under Building industry, Building unions, Building workers, CFMEU, Clarrie O'Shea, Class struggle, Grocon, Strikes.
Comments: 1
If Grocon wins it will be a setback for all workers. That’s why it is important for building workers to fight back in the way that has the greatest chance of success – striking and shutting down the building industry and cutting off the flow of massive profits to bludgers like Grollo and his ilk, and in doing that calling on other workers to join them to bury Labor’s anti-worker Fair Work Act.