The CFMEU car-bomb hypocrisy

A former CFMEU insider writes:

So my old workplace was attacked with a car bomb last week. There are not many people in this country who can make that statement! The attack occurred in suburban Western Sydney, missing by less than an hour a community group meeting in the building.

A group of people stole a car, loaded it with canisters of petrol, smashed it through a three-metre high wrought iron gate and crashed it into the front doors of a three-storey office block. I had a look at the damage myself less than 12 hours after the attack. The picture to my eyes looked very Baghdad indeed.

Amazingly, since the attack, not one state or national political figure has come out and condemned the violence. The reason? The target was the NSW headquarters of the construction division of the CFMEU.

Imagine for a moment, if such an attack had been perpetrated on any other part of civil society. A church. An RSL. A scout hall even. Our political leaders would have been racing each other to the scene of the crime. Jostling to inspect the damage, crunch over the broken glass, comfort the staff, condemn the violence.

It would have been (mis)named as a terrorist attack. Bi-partisan condemnation would have come from all levels of government. The papers would be full of it for days.

Instead we get this ... silence.

The attack got good electronic media coverage Friday but major papers such as the so-called "paper of record" in my home town, the Sydney Morning Herald, literally ignored the attack. For the readers of the SMH and The Australian, the attack just simply never happened. Not worthy of being reported on it seems. Middle-class indolence at its most revealing.

But I am mostly angry at Kevin Rudd and our political leaders. Rudd and IR minister Julia Gillard have shown their true colours here. They are fakes. Shallow fakes. A serious attempt to terrorise and intimidate a key plank of our civil society and they are mute. Too busy seeking reflected glory from Jessica Watson, in Rudd's case. For these people, including Kristina Keneally, the puppet in NSW, condemning outrages must clearly never be about principle. This incident has demonstrated how there must always be a cynical political calculation behind every expression of sympathy or outrage. Some hollowman down in Canberra must have just done the calcs on Rudd or Gillard coming out on this and decided it didn't fit the government's "narrative." Or something. Best ignored.

Clearly our political leaders are happy to associate themselves with a disaster when politically expedient, but run a mile when its not. That's not what leadership is in my book. What a bunch of frauds.

The hypocrisy revealed in this incident is sickening. A bit of blue language on a building site and there are screaming headlines, a politicised Royal Commission (which could not find any of the corruption and organised crime in the building industry because it was only looking for it among the unions) and an industrial police with powers and an agenda that would make the Gestapo proud. But drive an improvised explosive device into a union office? Somewhere a cricket is audible in the silence.

The shocking explanation is that what happened at Lidcombe simply does not fit with the anti-CFMEU agenda of the political and media elites in this country.

The CFMEU has all sorts of problems, I should know I used to work there. But the reason a terrorist-style attack on its NSW headquarters can be ignored in this manner is because the union represents a danger to the political and media elites. Along with just a handful of other effective unions, it remains an example, an imperfect and flawed example, of ordinary people having a little bit of power in their working lives.

That's why the CFMEU is fair game.

Brisbane: Red, Green and In-between

Red, Green and In-between:

Reviewing Labour and the Environment in Historical Context

Please find attached a flyer (with registration form) for a Brisbane conference on unions and the environment, past and present, with keynote speakers Tony Maher, Jack Mundey, Ian Lowe (and many more). The one-day event is being hosted by the Brisbane Labour History Association (BLHA) and sponsored by, among others, the Qld Council of Unions and the Qld Conservation Council

Register now. See http://asslh.org.au/branches/brisbane for full details.

This conference will address:

* The history of the interface of environmental and union campaigns,

* How working people and unions can contribute to environmental campaigns,

* How the environment movement can engage more meaningfully with unions, and

* What kinds of red/green activism could be helpful for the future.

When: Saturday 6 February 2010 – registration 8.30am. Conference 9am – 6pm

Where: Queensland College of Art, 226 Grey Street, Griffith University, South Bank, Brisbane

Could you please distribute electronically to all friends and work colleages

Kind regards

Ross Gwyther

Brisbane Labour History Association

Geelong Trades Hall Council backs AWU secretary Howes on refugees

"Geelong Trades Hall Council backs Australian Workers Union national secretary Paul Howes 100% in his call for Australia to roll out the red carpet for refugees", Tim Gooden, the GTHC secretary said today. (Pictured right).

"It's a relief that a union movement figure of Howes' importance stands up and rejects the miserable competition between the Rudd government and the Coalition on who can be 'toughest' on people smugglers", Gooden added. "Howes is completely right when he says that the issue 'brings out the worst in our politicians'."

"How ironic that the Rudd government's refusal to let a few boatfuls of people fleeing death and persecution in Sri Lanka enter Australia coincides with the 60th anniversary of the beginning of the Snowy River Scheme," Gooden said. "The Chifley Labor government helped build this country by welcoming people fleeing war and persecution, but Rudd Labor increasingly resembles Howard's, one of the most racist in Australian history."

"It's even reached the point where it is sending demountables from the Baxter detention centre--suspected of dangerously high formaldehyde content--to Christmas Island to house asylum-seekers there."

"The Geelong Trades Hall Council calls on the entire trade union movement to follow the lead given by the AWU national secretary, and for it to mobilise public opinion against Canberra's bi-partisan bullies of refugees."

Gooden concluded: "The Australian Council of Trade Unions must stand up against the inhumanity of the politicians. Geelong Trades Hall Council will be doing all

Comment: Tim Gooden (0438 088 112)

SOS - No privatisation of Sydney ferries!

Privatisation spoils a nice day on Sydney harbour

By Peter Boyle

Sydney, August 21 - It was a nice day to be out on Sydney harbour. But we were at Circular Quay not to go on a relaxing ferry ride but to protest against the planned privatisation of Sydney ferries by the NSW Labor government. The Maritime Union of Australia had organised the rally but it drew support from a range of other unions, including the Nurses Federation, whose members are in the frontline of a hospital system in severe crisis after years of cutbacks by neo-liberal Labor governments.

O'Bray Smith, a midwife representing the Nurses Federation, told the protestors that she had been taught at school that in the late nineteenth century the trade unions had formed a party to represent the interest of the working class. But today, she and other trade unionists are fighting a privatisation- mad NSW Labor government.

"I've spoken to many rank-and-file members of the Labor party and they can't believe what is going on. And many are not going to vote Labor in the next elections as a result."

This echoed the angry sentiment at another anti-privatisation rally in Sydney organised by trade unions less than a month ago, that one being against the Rees Labor government's attempts to privatise jails. And before that it was the privatisation of the power industry that workers had to mobilise against...

Pictures here

Join the protests at the ALP 2009 national conference Jul 30-Aug 1

Below are details of some of the protests against the Rudd Labor government's right-wing policies that will be held at the ALP national conference this week (Thursday July 30 - Saturday August 1). The Socialist Alliance would like to encourage everyone to attend. You can read about why these protests are taking place here.

There will be a Socialist Alliance working bee to make props, placards and banners in Sydney 5.30pm-7pm Tuesday July 28 @ the Resistance Centre, 23 Abercrombie St, Chippendale. If you can come and help us at any of these protests and/or help at the working bee please call Brianna 0439 694 505 or Peter 9690 1977/0401 760 577

Thursday: Tasmanians Against the Pulp Mill
9am @ Convention Centre, Darling Habour

Thursday: Stop the NT Intervention
Join a public lobby of the ALP conference. Hands off Tangentyere - no blackmail! - no take-over of Alice Springs Aboriginal town camps - housing and services NOW for all communities. 12noon Thursday July 30 @ Convention Centre, Darling Harbour. Organised by the Stop the Intervention Collective Sydney.

Thursday: Troops out of Afghanistan
Join the Stop the War Coalition from 12 noon on Thursday 30 July at the Darling Harbour Convention Centre, to call on the ALP to bring the troops home and end the war on the people of Afghanistan. For more information ph Pip Hinman 0412 139 968, Marlene Obeid 0401 758 871, Anne Picot 0404 090 710
http://www.StopWarCoalition.org

Thursday: Gaza Defence Committee is calling on supporters of Palestine to help leaflet the ALP conference
At noon GDC will be leafleting outside the convention centrewith a leaflet calling for support for the campaign of boycott, divestment and sanctions against Israel.
A further action will take place at 5pm at an event being organised by Paul Howes, secretary of the Australian Workers' Union and a promoter of an international group, TULIP, which is opposed to isolating apartheid Israel. This event is at the Maritime Museum, 2 Murray St, Darling Harbour.
For more information about the Howes' event see <http://labor.net.au/news/1246922178_20301.html>
For more information about TULIP, see <http://www.tuliponline.org/>
For a critical appraisal of TULIP see <http://www.labournet.net/world/0905/tufi1.html>
To find out more about this action ring Raul 0403 037 376 or Diane on 0413 003 148.


Friday: Billionaires for Coal's "celebration" of ALP coal & climate change policy
9am @ the Convention Centre

Friday: Protest for Honduras
Restore democrasy, no more dicatorships! Protest outside the ALP national conference. 5pm Friday July 31 Convention Centre Darling Harbour. Convention Centre Darling Harbour.Organised by the Latin American Forum. Ph John for more info 0413 310 452.

Friday: Jobs and Rights for Working Australians - Rip up all Howard's anti-union laws!
12.45pm – 2pm Friday 31 July. Parkside Auditorium, Sydney Convention and Exhibition Centre Darling Harbour. Meeting for all trade unionists & ALP conference delegates. For more information contact Pirjo Laine: plaine@actu.asn.au ph 03 9664 7333

Saturday: National Day of Action for Same-Sex Marriage. This year we alongside our Melbourne brothers and sisters, we will stage the nation's largest 'illegal' same-sex wedding! Chances are your relationships won't be formally recognised on the day, and you'll still be considered a second-class citizen long after you've consumated your marriage... so, what the hell... grab your partner, shine your ring, and invite your friends - we're getting hitched! Start 12pm @ Town Hall march to ALP conference @ the Sydney Convention Centre.
Organised by Community Action Against Homophobia www.caah.org.au.

Progressive fringe events at ALP conference:

Burma's future and Australia's role in it
Date: Saturday, August 1, 2009
Time: 12:30pm - 2:00pm
South Steyne Floating Restaurant and Function Centre
Cockle Bay, Darling Harbour
Sydney, Australia
Phone: 0416289235
Email: admin@aucampaignforburma.org: Australia's Role in a Time of Crisis

THE PERFECT STORM: Australia's role in a time of crisis
The Centre for Policy Development and Oxfam Event at the ALP Fringe Porgram
Friday July 31, 6pm, The Sussex Room, Crowne Plaza, 150 Day St, Darling Harbour.

Speakers include: Sharan Burrow (ACTU and ITUC President), Andrew Hewett (Executive Director, Oxfam Australia), Ian Dunlop (CPD Fellow and previous head of the Australian Institute of Company Directors), Reverend Tafue Lusama (Chairman, Tuvalu Climate Action Network), Ben McNeil (Climate Change Research Centre, UNSW)
RSVP to marian.spencer@cpd.org.au or call 02 9514 2034.

Open letter to delegates to the 2009 ACTU Congress

Dear fellow unionists,

As delegates to this ACTU Congress you have piles of policy before you, but one basic decision to make.

Should you back the ACTU leadership’s support for Rudd’s Fair Work Act or oppose it?

The Congress papers say that “the Fair Work Act sees the end of the direct legislative assault on organised labour” and “represents a substantial, albeit imperfect, transition of the 2006 ACTU Congress policy into legislation.”

That’s just spin! Read the Congress’s own Industrial Relations Legislation Factsheet and the truth comes out (see the basic facts about the Fair Work Act over the page, mainly taken from this Factsheet). Workers are still losing.

The draft Congress Industrial Relation Policy says that the new legislation gives the union movement a chance to “grow unions, protect jobs and advance workers’ interests”.

If the economy were booming we could almost believe this, even though it would still be a recipe for a stagnant union movement. But we’re entering the biggest recession in 70 years, with thousands of jobs already lost and one-and-a-half hands tied behind our backs by Rudd’s law.

If more workers have joined unions since 2006, it’s because the Your Rights at Work campaign was seen as defending their interests. To keep growing we must keep campaigning for our rights, which remain crippled by the Fair Work Act.

It’s high time to drop business-as-usual-don’t-embarrass–Kevin-and-Julia-too-much unionism. This compromised approach gave the vast majority of workers lower wage increases during the resources boom than would otherwise have been the case, and meant that profits and CEO packages skyrocketed (check the Congress Wages and Collective Bargaining Factsheet for detail).

Instead of a vague, feel-good resolution about “campaigning” and waiting for Kevin 2010 to remove the bad bits of the Fair Work Bill, this Congress must adopt two basic positions:

1. For a full-scale, cross-union industrial and community campaign against the Australian Building and Construction Commission, one that will continue until it or any replacement scheme is abolished, and building workers have the same rights as all other workers.

2. For a campaign of industrial disobedience to the most crippling provisions of the Fair Work Act, including its ban on pattern-bargaining, restrictions on the right to take industrial action, restrictions on the rights of unions to organise and enter work sites and restrictions on the contents of industrial agreements.

The November 2008 suspension of charges against CFMEU official Noel Washington shows that workers and their unions can win if they organise to act against injustice. It’s the sort of unionism we´ll need just as much under the Rudd government as under Howard.

Let’s build a campaign now against all that is still anti-worker in the Fair Work Act—beginning with the anti-democratic Australian Building and Construction Commission.

Socialist Alliance National Trade Union Committee

Distributed by Tim Gooden, Secretary, Geelong Trades Hall Council (pictured), as a contribution to debate at the 2009 ACTU Congress

---

Yes, the Fair Work Act is WorkChoices Lite!

Check out the following powers of the Fair Work Act, detailed in the Congress’s own Industrial Relations Legislation Factsheet.

If Malcolm Turnbull introduced such anti-worker industrial laws - which violate International Labour Organisation standards - wouldn’t the union movement be fighting them?

1. The Fair Work Act cuts back unions’ right to organise

• 24 hours notice of right of workplace entry, restricted access to employee records
• Bans pattern bargaining, allowing very restricted “multi-employer bargaining” only for low paid
• No restriction on employers using pattern bargaining
• Employer right to seek injunctions against unions using pattern bargaining
• Employer right to challenge the conduct of ballots to frustrate protected industrial action
• No positive rights for union delegates
• No positive rights for workers to join unions and participate in their work
• Almost no recognition of the role of delegates in representing workers in bargaining process
• No requirement for employers to facilitate union access to workplaces
  

2. The Fair Work Act prevents workers from improving their living standards

• Limits award content to 10 listed matters
• Fails to enshrine in minimum standards: 11 public holidays per annum, a right for parents of pre-school children to part-time work, rights to information and consultation in the workplace, retrenchment pay for employees of smaller businesses, and any guarantee that workers entitlements will be paid first in the case of company failure
• Restricts matters that can be covered in an agreement, banning enterprise-specific unfair dismissal and right of entry agreements.
• Allows award modernisation that could result in reduced standards in some industries and occupations
• Maintains existing AWAs, including ones that would not meet the government’s own standard for fair agreements
• Allows an employer taking over a company to refuse to employ workers transferring from business being taken over
  

3. The Fair Work Act keeps penal powers, including those established by Work Choices

• Requires secret ballots for protected industrial action
• Preserves the Work Choices requirement that employers deduct strike pay even in circumstances where employees are at work
• Allows the use of scab labour
• Doesn´t give workers the right to conduct meetings to prepare for bargaining
• Increases the penalties Fair Work Australia can apply to “ensure compliance” with its rulings
• Bans industrial action in support of economic and social campaigns (like that against Work Choices)
• Bans industrial action even where an employer proposes radical workplace restructuring
• Keeps the anti-union provisions of the Trades Practices Act
• Leaves a dispute with the boss to be settled in the normal court system unless the boss agrees to have it judged by Fair Work Australia
  

4. The Fair Work Act discriminates against different groups of workers

• Removes “high income” earners from award coverage
• Leaves contract workers with fewer rights than employees, including no rights to union representation or collective bargaining
• Allows a longer qualifying period for employees in small business
• Makes it easier for small business to sack workers
  

5. The Fair Work Act maintains unions in a weakened legal position

• Does not actually define the rights of unions
• Abolishes unions as parties to agreements, which are made between employers and their employees
• Does not require unions to consent to changes to an agreement, even when the union is covered by the agreement.
• Fails to enshrine a right for all employees and unions to be informed about the strategic designs of the employers
• Provides no clarity about where federal or state laws apply, much less enable workers to opt into the federal or state system

Radical history conference: A century of struggle

Laborism and the radical alternative - Lessons for today

Saturday 30 May 9.30am (registration) - 5.00pm AMWU offices, 251 Queensberry St, Carlton

Speakers include:
Verity Burgmann, author of many books on labour movement history
Jamie Doughney, economist, National Tertiary Education Union state president
Dave Kerin, CFMEU mining and energy organiser, Latrobe Valley
Chris Spindler, Australian Manufacturing Workers Union organiser

Socialist Alliance is organising a one-day conference on the struggle to build a radical alternative to the deadening hand of the ALP and the lessons we can draw for today. The seminar will draw on the experiences of the communist and trade union movements in Australia over the last century. This will be an important seminar given the global economic meltdown, the crisis of climate change and the dampening impact that the federal ALP government has had on the trade union movement.

Agenda:
10am:
The formation of the ALP. Was it ever a workers' party?
The record of the ALP. High hopes and big disappointments

11.30am:
The Wobblies. Achievements and limitations
The vehicle of socialism? The NSW Socialisation Units in the 1930s

2pm:
Communism in Australia. Some of the issues
Left alternatives in the trade unions

3.45pm
Fighting under Labor governments today
Looking to the future

Registration from 9.30am: $15/$5 concession.
Organised by Socialist Alliance - Sponsored by Green Left Weekly.
For more information phone 9639-8622.

Five reasons why the ABCC must go...

Via Rights on Site:

---

Dear Wombo,

Did you know that you are one of nearly 10,000 activists who support Rights on Site?

Thousands of you responded to our survey with ideas for how to win the campaign

You told us you wanted to write blogs and send letters to politicians by email and snail mail, and take to the streets to demonstrate at big rallies all around the country.

But you also told us you need to know more about the Australian Building and Construction Commission.

So we've made a video about the five reasons why the ABCC must go. You can watch the video here.

You can arm yourself with the facts about the Australian Building and Construction Commission and tell your mates, write blogs and send letters to pollies.

It's going to be a big year for the Rights on Site campaign and we are going to have lots of ways for you to stay connected with the campaign and let the pollies know it's time to get rid of the Australian Building and Construction Commission.

Click here and start by hearing academics and construction workers giving 5 reasons why the ABCC must go.

As electrician Brett Walker says, "Five reasons, do you want to stop there?"

We're not going to stop there.

You can write to us as info@rightsonsite.org.au and tell us why you think the ABCC must go.

At the next Rights on Site rally we'll get up on stage and tell the crowd your reasons why the ABCC must go. Send me your reason to get rid of the ABCC at info@rightsonsite.org.au

Thanks

Dave Noonan and the Rights on Site Campaign Team.

P.S The Rights on Site campaign survey is still open. If you have 30 seconds in your day to help us, you can tell us your ideas about how we can campaign to get rid of the Australian Building and Construction Commission. Take the survey here for Rights on Site.

Lavington: Workers' picket after mass lay-off

The 'divide and conquer' method the bosses are using In Lavington is one that is leaving the workers in an extremely hard position over being able to effectively fight back. This is a major issue for the town on the border of NSW and Victoria, and is not the last we will see of similar.

Please distribute as best you can in solidarity with the workers, they are shattered over the position they are in, with no income they are are at the beck and call of the company, with Centrelink being used to stop them from effective protest. They need the money, and the company not telling them who will be employed possibly in the next few weeks (no timeline) has left them in the position they cannot refuse the work, or any benefits will suffer.

Why are the offshore banks being placed above the workers?
Why are suppliers etc being placed above the workers?
Why is management still on full wages?
Where has the workers entitlements gone between December and now?

The only thing the workers have left is for people to show solidarity in getting the message out there over how they have been shafted. They hope that we can raise the profile so that their struggle is heard in the capitals.

------------ --------- --------- --------- -
Three hundred and thirty eight workers at Drivetrain Systems in Lavington (Albury) have been sacked without pay or entitlements as management proceeds to strip the factory of an estimated $17 million in assets. Sacked: Workers and families gather at Drivetrain Internation on Kaitlers Rd in Lavington.

Workers are camped at the gates of the Kaitlers Road factory demanding the $5 million dollars in entitlements owed to the workforce. In December management and the AMWU assured employees that their entitlements were safe at the troubled business. On Friday workers were sacked without pay, and informed that there was simply no money.

"Between now and December they've been spent our entitlements" said one worker "we don't know what on".

Whilst all workers were sacked without pay, management and executive staff were retained on full wages. Management still occupies the factory.

Workers say that there are still $17 million dollars worth of gear boxes still at the Kaitlers Road factory, but they fear they wont see a cent. The administrator has announced that the payment of financial creditors comes before giving workers their due entitlements.

The Kaitlers Road factory used to employ 1024 workers, this is not the first time that mass sackings have occurred. The factory is the only manufacturer of gear boxes in Australia, and was until the recent sackings the largest AMWU shop in the state.

Management has embarked on a deliberate campaign to split workers at the Kaitlers Road factory. Management has said they will re-employ a third of the workforce for a period of eight weeks, but have not stated which third of the workforce will be re-employed.

Action by workers has been hamstrung by this move. Desperate workers struggling to support families have said they cannot afford to jeopardize the possibility of eight weeks pay. If workers refuse the eight weeks work, they jeopardize future claims to Centrelink payments. Workers find out who will be re-employed on Wednesday, and will vote on whether to return to work on Wednesday morning.

Support the picket line on Kaitlers Road, workers appreciate all supporters who drop in. In you're not in Albury-Wodonga, you can join the Facebook group, contact media outlets, and raise this issue with your local member.

Why will workers entitlements only be paid after debts owed to banks and suppliers? Surely the families of workers must have a higher priority than the profits of foreign banks, when a business like Drivetrain International collapses?

This report from the picket by:

Dave Fregon - 0434000234
Kieran Bennett - 0430509913

If you need information or contacts for the workers, please contact:
Dave Fregon
NetAxxs Workers Collective
Ph: +613 5721 7777
Mob: 0434 000 234 25A
Ely Street
Wangaratta 3677
Australia

The Union Show is back!

We're back.

Union Show friends. Let us Activate!

We have 70,000 weekly telly viewers and god knows how many on the web, we have around 150 of you Facebook group members and about the same number in the Save The Union Show Cause (by the way, we haven't saved it yet!!!).

We want to change the media conversation about unions and workers rights. Let the people report for the people instead of the corporations that own them. Labour rights equals human rights!

The right to work in a safe workplace. The right to strong economic management and economic security. The right to education and opportunity. The right to put our own price on our own labour (our time and our bodies and our minds).

Let's make a year of positive outcomes, let's get onto every damn thing that happens.

We start production in February. So I'm opening a forum for content ideas right now. If anyone has ideas about themes, material, actions, events or whatever else that we might cover this year - now's the time.

If anyone wants to volunteer some time, do some research or admin work or learn and use the skills to make real media that speaks the voice of the labour movement - here is your chance. We will take some interns this year.

Message me, email production@skatv.org.au, or post on this page. All contributions will be considered and are most welcome, indeed sought after.

Welcome to The Union Show 2009!

Cheers

Debra

Read More...

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Rallies against the ABCC, Dec 2

Mass rallies will be held in cities and towns across Australia and the world in support of the Rights on Site campaign and to celebrate the DPP dropping the charges against Noel Washington. Noel had been charged with refusing to attend an ABCC interrogation about a union meeting and was due to face court in Melbourne on 2 December 2008.

Look below for details of where you can show your support for rights on site and join the global day of action on 2 December 2008.

UPDATED RALLY DETAILS

Melbourne
Time: 10:00 am
Assembly Point: ABCC Headquarters, 553 St Kilda Road,

Sydney
Time: 11:45 am
Assembly Point: Sydney Town Hall Square
March Route: Town Hall Square to ABCC, 255 Pitt Street

Brisbane
Time: 9:30 am
Assembly Point: Queens Park – Brisbane City
March Route: through the CBD to Kevin Rudd’s Office.

Click here for the Brisbane Rally flyer

Newcastle
Time: 11:45 am
Rally Assembly Point: Civic Park, Corner Auckland and King Streets

Wollongong
Time: 9:00 am
Rally Assembly Point: Amphitheatre, Crown Street Mall, Wollongong.

Darwin
Time: 12 noon
Rally Assembly Point: Unions NT at Raintree Park, The Mall, Darwin City.

Adelaide ***Dec 3***
Time: 12:00 noon
Rally Assembly Point: Victoria Square.

Click here for the Adelaide Rally flyer

Wellington, New Zealand
Time: 12:00 – 1:00pm
Where: Australian High Commission , 72 Hobson Street, Thorndon. Wellington.

Click here for the Wellington Rally flyer

ALP, media targets militant ETU unionist

22 November 2008

On November 12, Melbourne’s Herald Sun launched an attack on Electrical Trades Union (ETU) southern states branch secretary Dean Mighell, with a front-page article accusing the unionist of having spent $80,000 of ETU members’ money on a luxury trip to Britain in 2006.

The Herald Sun continued the assault on Mighell in its pages for another couple of days, changing facts and figures and even dedicating an editorial to the “luxury union junket affair”. The Sydney Morning Herald, the Age and other publications all carried the story prominently as well.

Green Left Weekly’s Margarita Windisch spoke with Dean Mighell about the validity of the accusations.

“Green Left Weekly readers would know that the Herald Sun is probably the premiere anti-union newspaper in the country, which will even get worse with the new editor. The Herald Sun simply wants to get at unions, they have done it for years”, Mighell explained.

He said that the most ridiculous part of the attack on him was that no union members’ money had been spent at all. “It was the surplus from the Protect industry fund that paid for the trip. It is the best severance and income protection scheme in the country and one we are extremely proud of.”

* * * * * * Like what you are reading? Then get Green Left Weekly delivered to your door every week, and help ensure Australia’s best independent news sources can continue being produced. Subscribe now, special introductory offer of seven issues for $10. * * * * * *

Protect was established as a partnership between the ETU and National Electrical Contractors Association and is an employer-funded scheme. By law, members’ entitlement money cannot be touched, but the interest accumulated can be invested.

According to Protect’s website the fund is controlled by a legally enforceable trust deed and has a five member director’s board. The ETU is involved in all aspects of decision-making and also has a controlling interest on the board.

Mighell told GLW that aim of the 2006 trip was to investigate how Britain administers a secure and portable annual leave scheme, which the ETU has been trying to get for its members in Australia.

“It was a high-level delegation. Three employer body representatives went together with three unionists: two from the ETU — myself and Howard Worthing — and one from the plumbers union, along with a financial systems person and a commercial lawyer.

“The ETU has made claims on employers to introduce a portable annual leave scheme for a while. Most of our members’ annual leave is not locked up in a trust fund and we have seen too many companies fold and members lose their annual leave entitlements”, he explained.

During the trip Mighell also took the opportunity to investigate British industrial relations more generally.

“They do their bargaining on a national level in accordance with International Labour Organisation (ILO) conventions, unlike under to Rudd’s industrial relations laws where we are forced to do individual enterprise bargaining agreements”.

Mighell explained that the campaign against him involves ETU member Vanessa Garbett, who has been quoted in the media, and by the ALP. According to Mighell, Garbett had made vexatious claims against the ETU relating to her past employment by the union.

The Equal Opportunity Commission rejected Garbett’s claim of discrimination in her former employment with the ETU — a claim not even supported by her own union at the time, the Australian Services Union. Mighell said Garbett demanded $22,000 of ETU members’ money to be paid to her to “go away”, which he refused.

“The ETU has done nothing wrong with her employment and then next week she is the public face of an outrageous and incorrect statement to the media”, said Mighell.

Mighell is convinced that had he been a loyal member of the ALP, the trip would never have been an issue at all. “I have got evidence against several members of the ALP who have been working away at undermining me ever since the Kororoit by-election where we supported an independent candidate against the ALP candidate”, he said.

The ETU also donated $200,000 to the Greens’ 2007 senate campaign and has supported many other progressive candidates in elections, including Socialist Alliance candidates.

The ETU has internal elections coming up in 2010, which the ALP will be contesting, Mighell believes. “The ALP people have threatened me at the Kororoit by-elections that if we continued to support non-ALP candidates then their machine — that’s what they called it — … would be contesting us at the next ETU elections and be spending $500,000 in getting rid of me as a leader”, he said.

“I have no doubt that elements in the ALP are fundamental in this current attack on me, which is an attack on my union. If I hadn’t been an outspoken union leader and put my members’ interests ahead of political ambition and hadn’t supported candidates that are in members’ best interests but instead the ALP gang, no matter how bad they are, I would have not been under this attack”, Mighell said.

Other trade unionists have come to his support. At a November 12 Construction, Forestry, Mining and Energy Union shop stewards’ meeting in Melbourne, a motion was passed unanimously, condemning the media- and ALP-led attack on Mighell.

Gary Robb, Australian Manufacturing Workers Union assistant state secretary of the metal division and Tim Gooden, Geelong and Regions Trades and Labour Council (GRTLC) secretary, agree that the current smear campaign against Mighell is a political witch-hunt against a militant union leader who dared to stand up to the ALP.

Both call on people to support Mighell, reject the tactics by the ALP and focus on Mighell’s achievements for the union movement and his members in particular. Mighell has been invited to be the guest speaker at the GRTLC centenary celebration dinner next year.

From: Comment & Analysis, Green Left Weekly issue #776 26 November 2008.

Charge against Noel Washington dropped

Workplace Express
26 November 2008 1:58pm
Six days before the start of his trial for refusing to attend an ABCC interview, the Commonwealth DPP has dropped its charge against the CFMEU's (construction division) Victorian senior vice president Noel Washington.

The head of IR at Slater & Gordon, Marcus Clayton, who is representing Washington, confirmed to Workplace Express that he'd received a letter from the office of the CDPP this morning advising that it had withdrawn the charge.

He said the CDPP, as was typical in such circumstances, did not give reasons for its decision.

Washington was facing a possible six months jail for allegedly breaching s52 of the BCII Act, and the union's national secretary Dave Noonan received the news while marching to Parliament House in Canberra as part of series of nationwide protests coinciding with the trial, which was set down in the Melbourne Magistrates Court for Tuesday and Wednesday. He announced it to cheering building workers.

The charging of Washington had become a flashpoint for the strained relationship between the union movement and the ALP over the Government's decision to keep the ABCC and BCII Act until January, 2010.

The VTHC secretary Brian Boyd predicted a turn-out of 30,000-to-40,000 at next week's planned Melbourne rally alone.

Noonan said it was too early to decide whether next week's protests would go ahead, though the unions' Rights on Site campaign would continue until the ABCC and BCII Act were gone.

Slater & Gordon's Clayton told Workplace Express that he could "only speculate" why the CDPP had withdrawn the charge six days before the trial.

He said Washington's counsel, Robert Richter QC, had told the court that he would argue that the prosecution was an abuse of process, and that the ABCC's former deputy Nigel Hadgkiss would be required to attend to give evidence.

Asked whether the dropping of the charges would encourage more people to breach the BCII Act, the CFMEU's Noonan said that "bad laws would be broken". With more than 100 people already "dragged" to appear before the ABCC, there could be more who decided that the principle of fighting unjust laws outweighed the prospect of jail, he said.

Washington was the first person to be charged under s52 of the BCII Act.

Dec 2 Global Day of Action against the ABCC

Mass rallies will be held in cities and towns across Australia and the world in support of Noel Washington, a CFMEU official facing the possibility of a 6 month jail sentence because of the ABCC’s extraordinary powers.

Noel has been charge with refusing to attend an ABCC interrogation about a union meeting and faces court in Melbourne 2 December 2008

Look here for details of where you can show your support for rights on site and join the global day of action on 2 December 2008. More locations to come soon!

Sydney
Time: 11:45 am
Assembly Point: Sydney Town Hall Square
March Route: Town Hall Square to ABCC, 255 Pitt Street

Newcastle
Time: 11:45 am
Rally Assembly Point: Civic Park, Corner Auckland and King Streets

Wollongong
Time: 9:00 am
Rally Assembly Point: Amphitheatre, Crown Street Mall, Wollongong.

Melbourne
Time: 9:00 am
Assembly Point: Trades Hall, cnr Victoria and Lygon Streets, Carlton South
March Route: March to Melbourne Magistrates Court, cnr William and Lonsdale Streets City

Click here for the Melbourne Rally flyer

October 7 - World Day For Decent Work

STATEMENT ON THE WORLD DAY FOR DECENT WORK
Guy Ryder, General Secretary, ITUC, Brussels

Today, 7 October, Trade Unionists across the World are answering the call of their International, the ITUC, to mark the World Day for Decent Work.

Starting on the Pacific, passing through all of the time zones and ending on the the western coast of the Americas, the workers of the world are mobilising in workplace meetings, through demonstrations, in public debates, with cultural and media events, via the internet.

On this day, together, we raise our voices to deliver a single strong and united message.

That decades of deregulation, of reward for corporate greed and excess, have brought the world to the brink of global recessions. A fundamental transformation of Globalisation is needed. And the time for that change is now.

Workers everywhere demand decent work opportunities for all. Work where our human rights are respected fully. Work which is safe and healthy. Work which provides for acceptable pay and protection for us and our families. Work where problems and conflict are resolved through dialogue and agreement not diktat and repression.

In each of our countries working families are bearing the brunt of the financial, food and energy crises - the deepest crisis that this globalised economy has ever known.

Pulling out of that crisis, restoring workers' living standards, respecting their rights requires fundamental change. Change to put fairness and equity back at the centre of public policy so that Globalisation works for all, not just the priveleged few.

Workers are tired of promises for a better future when what they and their families have to endure today is a constant degradation of working life and an ever harder struggle for the basics of a decent existence.

And as we demand respect for rights at work and an end to poverty and exploitation, the ITUC and its affiliates on all continents reaffirm the International Trade Union Movement's commitment to solidarity.

We will not allow the globalised economy to set worker against worker. Today we are showing that trade unionists are united as never before and determined to act together in solidarity through the ITUC to realise the unchanging goals of social justice.

Sisters and Brothers, as we mobilise today for decent work I ask you all to commit your organisations, your personal efforts to making the ITUC the instrument of a new trade union internationalism equal to the challenges of the era of Globalisation, capable of overcoming the injustices we face and ready to bring in the better tomorrow we know is possible.

Together we can do it.

No co-operation with the ABCC!

Dear Comrades,

These new penal laws that the ABCC rely on have been around for over two years and nearly 12 months of the current Government. Now there is a real risk that workers will start going to gaol for being unionist and organising workers. I think it's time to start putting words into action. Now is the time to decide which side you're on.

I am standing beside Noel Washington and pledging no cooperation with the ABCC.

These are bad laws and are only designed to weaken the union movement and conditions for workers. I cannot support a Government that supports these laws and allows workers to be dragged before the courts for being unionist.

Please sign up and let the Government know we are serious. There can be only one outcome to this and that is workers win the right to organise the way we want to. Not the way that makes the bosses and the Government happy.

We are not slaves and our organisers are not criminals.

Yours in Solidarity
Tim Gooden
Secretary Geelong Trades Hall Council

Labor Omnia Vincit

Text of sign-on statement:

No co-operation with the ABCC

The Australian Building and Construction Commission is an ideologically driven organisation and was set up by the Howard Coalition government in October 2005 to destroy the effectiveness of the unions in the building industry. These unions have led the way in setting benchmark wages and standards of health and safety that have benefitted all working Australians. The ABCC operates like a police force with extensive coercive powers and secret investigations. There is no right to silence- refusing to attend hearings or answer questions can lead to a six-month jail sentence.

The ABCC's predecessor, the Building Industry Task Force, was set up after the $60 million Cole Royal Commission into the building industry. Contrary to the claims of some bosses and media, the Commission found that there is no "endemic lawlessness" perpetrated by the unions in the building industry. We are asking for nothing more than what employers already have; the right to meet with our members and representatives, before, during and after work and the right to defend our working conditions.

Penalising unions for representing workers' rights using hefty fines and threats of imprisonment has to STOP NOW. If the powers of the ABCC remain all Australian workers will have their right to organise and seek representation in a union undermined.

We, the undersigned refuse to cooperate with the ABCC and to pay fines imposed. We are inspired by the fine example set by CFMEU member Noel Washington in refusing to bow to the ABCC's intimidation. We pledge support for all union officials and members who are subject to the ABCC's powers.

We call on all unions to join a campaign of industrial action if any unionist is convicted for not cooperating with the ABCC

Name/Union/Signature

Dare to struggle - dare to win! If you don’t fight, you lose!

---

Download sign-on statement and return, with signatures, to: GTHC, 127 Myers St, Geelong. Tel 03-52211712, or 0438 088 112 and fax 03-52231115. See ACTU's television ad opposing the ABCC

What union response to Garnaut?

Tim Gooden

Green Left Weekly, 12 July 2008


Right at the beginning of his draft report on climate change, Professor Ross Garnaut points out that global warming can’t be beaten unless an international “prisoner’s dilemma” gets resolved.

What’s that? Simply, that each globally competing national economy, like Australia, gains most short-term benefit “if it does less of the mitigation itself, and others do more”.

But if all countries act in this way there will be no solution to the overall climate crisis — the total worldwide rate of investment in sustainable, carbon-free technologies will fall way short of what’s needed to stop global climate catastrophe.

Survival requires that all countries forgo short-term gain and find the ways to work together to keep lifeboat Earth afloat. Otherwise, it’s everyone for themselves, and survival of the richest, the most powerful and the most warlike (and maybe not even of them).

The idea that survival depends on cooperation is nothing new to working people and unionists. It has been the heart of unionism ever since workers found, through painful experience, that we have to unite to defeat those who wish to divide and defeat us.

Of course, that’s not the approach of the rich corporations and nations, especially the United States. While the US establishment now doffs its hat to the critical threat of global warming, a serious plan to reduce greenhouse gas emissions has never taken shape in Washington. Corporate America is determined not to concede any economic edge to rivals in Europe, Japan, China and India.

Now the federal parliamentary opposition has decided to run the same line. Against the advice of former Liberal environment minister Ian Campbell, opposition leader Brendan Nelson is calling for a delay in implementing carbon trading for fear of “damaging our economy”. Nelson has allies on the Labor side of politics, not only in a state treasurer like NSW’s Michael Costa, but in the Australian Workers Union national secretary, Paul Howes.

After the Garnaut report was released, Howes said: “The federal government should be prepared to drag out [its climate change] timetable, if necessary, to ensure that there aren’t any errors in the design of their emissions trading system”.

But even Garnaut, an economic conservative, says of this sort of call: “To delay is to deliberately choose to avoid effective steps to reduce the risks of climate change”.

As to the supposed threat to the export-oriented, energy-intensive sectors of the economy that concern Howes, Garnaut notes a glaring fact of economic life, to which the AWU leader seems blind: “Our trade-exposed emissions-intensive industries have valid concerns … But when assessments of the reasonableness of arrangements for trade-exposed industries are made, we should be mindful of the wider context. [Their] highest possible obligations under an emissions trading scheme … would represent a small fraction of the resource sector’s increased revenue from higher export prices in recent years.”

Howes’ idea of a trade union response to Garnaut is basically to argue for the commercial interests of the corporations in the industries where the AWU presently has members and union coverage. For Howes, defence of jobs means defence of existing jobs, no matter how carbon-intensive the industry that creates them.

This is the worst possible approach for the trade union movement to take to global warming. It ties us into downplaying the urgent nature of climate change and into abandoning serious thinking about, and planning for, how to achieve climate sustainability. It shifts responsibility to others — especially those whose idea is that the bulk of working people will have to bear the economic burden of the shift away from a carbon-intensive economy.

Climate sustainability can only come by replacing, as quickly as possible, jobs in polluting, carbon-intensive industries with “green jobs” based on renewable technologies — even if that brings reduced AWU membership!

Global warming is union business

How is it to be done? The release of the Garnaut report dramatises the fact that the trade union movement urgently needs to develop its own positions on how to fight global warming. Our movement has a very long way to go in working out the policies that would confront the threat while defending the living standards of working people.

The first job is to use unions’ organisational capacity to help get the message out about how serious the global warming crisis actually is. Unfortunately, with very few exceptions, union journals and web sites say nothing about climate change: global warming should be “union business” but even on the ACTU site, it doesn’t feature as a lead issue.

Yet, all workers need to be as informed about climate change as they were about John Howard’s Work Choices laws. That way, unions can begin an informed debate, among the whole membership and not just at the “peak” level, about a policy that both addresses the seriousness of climate change and guards the interests of workers.

For example, how can we answer the following vital questions?

•Is a maximum atmospheric concentration of 450 parts per million of greenhouse gases safe enough, as Garnaut says, or does it already risk runaway climate change, as NASA climate scientist James Hansen insists?

•What targets are adequate for meeting short- and medium- term greenhouse gas reduction goals? The 25-40% cut on 1990 levels by 2020 advocated by the new Southern Cross Climate Coalition (between the ACTU, the Australian Conservation Foundation, the Australian Council of Social Services and the Climate Institute)? Or should we be striving to stop greenhouse gas concentration increases as soon as possible, with the goal of reducing them to a long-term safe and sustainable level of around 300-325ppm of carbon dioxide (as argued by Hansen)?

•Can any carbon trading scheme, as proposed by Garnaut, reach such goals? To date, the price of carbon under all existing trading schemes has been set far too low to force carbon-intensive industry to abandon its polluting practices quickly enough to have anything like the impact on overall emissions that the environment needs.

•What are the alternatives? Why, for example, doesn’t the union movement insist on the “polluter pays” principle. It could be based on the present audit of industry greenhouse gas emissions being carried out by the Rudd government. Polluting firms could be given deadlines to convert to sustainable practices and, if they refused to upgrade to low emissions technology, closed down with the workers involved being retrained on full pay for work in new, sustainable industries.

•Can the transition be left to private industry? Many argue that the climate crisis is so great, and the transition needed so vast that something equivalent to a “war effort” against carbon pollution is required. As a statement from participants in the April Climate Change — Social Change conference in Sydney said: “Climate sustainability will never be achieved if basically entrusted to the profit motive and the market. At the core of any successful transition will be a public agency or agencies entrusted with guaranteeing that adequate targets are met.”

One thing is certain: it will not be “the market” rejigged, by even the most sophisticated carbon trading scheme, that will be the critical force in the shift to a carbon-free economy.

It will be working people who are aware of the issues and determined to play a role in avoiding climate catastrophe. We will be central to identifying and eliminating waste and pollution in the workplace, closing down the old industries and developing and building new ones.

The trade union movement needs to realise this and get serious now about becoming a force for progressive campaigning and policy around climate change.

[Tim Gooden is the secretary of Geelong Trades Hall Council. These are his personal views.]

From: Comment & Analysis, Green Left Weekly issue #758 16 July 2008.