CFMEU's Joe McDonald statement

Joe McDonald

Press Statement by WA CFMEU assistant secretary Joe MacDonald, 21 June 2007

Thank you all for coming

On average one worker is killed on an Australian Construction site every week. Both of the jobs where I was filmed were plagued by safety issues and continue to be.

This whole debate is a huge distraction from the real challenges confronting building workers.

I hope that when Kevin Rudd speaks of zero tolerance on lawlessness he means that bosses who kill workers with unsafe work practices will be jailed and workers who have had their entitlements stripped away by employers with the backing of the Howard Government will see justice.

That is why I joined the Labor Party and why I would still like to see them elected to office in the upcoming federal election.

Since coming to power, the Howard Government has put in place the most draconian set of industrial laws in the Western World.

Building workers now face massive fines for taking industrial action even where that action is to fix safety problems and they can be jailed for six months for refusing to answer questions from the ABCC about what happens at union meetings.

Yet a negligent boss who kills a worker or robs entitlements from his employees still retains his right to silence. It is an appalling double standard, something the public has come to expect from the Howard Government.

I would like to tell the Labor Party how hard it is to represent workers in the building and construction industry under the Howard Government's industrial laws. It's a story I intend telling them during the expulsion proceedings they are going to bring against me. For this reason I am not going to resign.

These are the real issues facing workers in the building and construction industry and whether I remain in the Labor Party or not, I will continue to campaign to protect the rights and entitlements of building workers.

Thank you all for coming

For further information

WWW:	http://www.cfmeu.asn.au/

From penal colony to penal powers: the right to strike by Chris White

The right to strike is always agreed in principle. “We won’t remove the right to strike”, the Work Choices ads said. Employers agree — subject to restrictions to protect their class interests. The Australian Council of Trade Unions (ACTU) policy is for the workers’ right to withdraw labour without sanctions.

Labor, Greens and Democrats MPs support the right to strike. Industrial relations practitioners and labour law academics, community groups and public opinion all support the principle that employees, when bargaining with powerful corporations and the state, ought not be denied the ability for a lawful strike as a last resort. Socialists of all persuasions have long campaigned for the widest scope for the right to strike. Even neoliberal ideologue Freidrich von Hayek supported the right to strike in principle — but in practice subject to property rights.

The fierce contest is over the boundaries to this universally agreed right.

In Green Left Weekly #711, I gave details of how PM John Howard has delivered for the powerful corporations a strategy to legally suppress strikes. Any enterprise bargaining industrial action is risky and difficult. On the other hand, the employers retain a free hand to use lockouts unencumbered by any complex legal processes or obligatory secret ballots of shareholders.

Howard and his corporate backers relentlessly pursue their interests in today’s class struggle but, of course, deny the class nature of their attack as Ross Gittins made clear in his May 8 Sydney Morning Herald piece, “Work Choices stoush revives class warfare”.

While I support ALP leader Kevin Rudd’s policy for the right to strike for enterprise bargaining, I’m concerned about his unfair limitations. That’s because the right to strike is a fundamental social right, without which workers are not able to use their collective strength to improve their working and social conditions.

Attempting to suppress the right to strike paradoxically does not work, even from the point of view of the owners of capital. A key factor in provoking strikes from unions and workers is the management and government belief that they can be eliminated. By the same token, a lawful right to strike places downward pressure on strikes as the employers more readily negotiate when they have to respect the fact that the strike weapon is available as a last resort, if not so often used.

A long history

As a young unionist I learned how the strike weapon led to all major improvements in wages and conditions. It is all about workers’ collective countervailing power to employers. I learned of the long history of workers’ struggle against the state, and employer use of penal powers against strikers and their unions.

These struggles have a very long history. From the first Egyptian strikes in 1165 BC, workers have always resisted them. Historically, the justifications were for freedom from serfdom, forced labour or involuntary servitude.

With the rise of British capitalism, workers formed unions and took strike action despite laws making unionism illegal. The Tolpuddle Martyrs, transported to the penal colony for violating the anti-union Combination Act in Britain, are a proud part of Australia’s history.

In 1787, even before the First Fleet weighed anchor, the sailors struck over conditions — and their leaders were flogged for their pains. Australia’s penal colonies brutally repressed strikes and, as 19th century Australian capitalism developed, anti-strike laws repressed union action. The great strikes of the 1890s were brutally crushed with lockouts and state violence.

In the 20th century, the introduction of the conciliation and arbitration system replaced the “rude and barbarous” strike and lock-out. Unions conducted short strikes that, although strictly illegal, demonstrated worker anger about their grievances, and were settled by arbitration.

Most workers turned to the Australian Labor Party to provide remedy for their demands. But at the same time, the revolutionary International Workers of the World in the early part of last century asserted the general strike as the means to challenge capitalism and were ruthlessly suppressed.

In the wages struggles of the 1960s and 1970s, employers inserted “bans clauses” into awards, making strikes illegal. The unions developed a lengthy mass campaign against employer overuse of these penal powers. When tramways union leader Clarrie O’Shea refused to pay fines, Judge John Kerr jailed him. National strikes were immediately launched and an anonymous donor paid the fine.

After that victory, strikes were tolerated although still strictly illegal — mass action had made the penal powers a dead letter. Part of Howard’s motivation for the repressive Work Choices laws was political revenge against this union action of 40 years ago.

The government of Malcolm Fraser (1975-83) stiffened no-strike legislation and created the Industrial Relations Bureau to police strikes. This failed due to union opposition and employer reluctance to have their work force prosecuted once a dispute is settled. With the Trade Practices Act, Fraser banned solidarity strikes and secondary boycotts, ensuring that competition law still overrides labour law to this day. However, penal powers did not stop the ACTU’s national political protest strike against Fraser’s demolition of the Medibank health insurance scheme in 1976.

Unions also campaigned with some success for legal protection against old common law doctrines against strikes. Employers and the arbitration system also, at times, exercised tolerance towards the right to strike: penalties were not sought but, rather, grievances were solved by collective agreement with arbitration in the background. Repressive tolerance prevailed.

Yet, under Work Choices, the old common law view is back and limited protection repealed. Judges follow the ancient precedent that strikes are unlawful, a civil wrong (“tort”) and breach of contract.

One example is the unprecedented prosecution by Howard’s political police in the Australian Building and Construction Commission of 107 Perth Construction, Forestry, Mining and Energy Union (CFMEU) unionists who struck after their shop steward was unfairly dismissed. Howard’s Gestapo-like law flouts building workers’ civil liberties, giving them fewer rights than suspected criminals.

Howard and employers will, no doubt, try to associate the ALP with so-called “unlawfulness” in the Perth 107 trial later in this election year. But it was Howard who, with the worst legislation in the industrial world, made legitimate building and construction strikes “unlawful” without good reason.

As the CFMEU poster says: “When they jail a man for striking, it’s a rich man’s country yet”. We are not wage slaves to submit to every unreasonable employer demand.

Right to strike a human right

Human rights advocates argue that the right to withdraw labour is an inalienable human right. As such it cannot be taken away but must, in practice, be protected by the state.

For the right to strike to be effective the individual on strike must have a “firewall protection”. Apart from losing wages, no other penalties should be imposed — neither dismissal nor discrimination nor legal assault on union organisation.

To be real, the right to strike requires immunity from common law damages and injunctions. It should not fall foul of the ancient and unfair doctrine that a strike is a breach of the individual’s contract. The right to strike in solidarity with others should also be protected.

Today, some balance for workers and their unions is needed against dominant global corporations. Global unionism to enforce collecting bargaining agreements with global corporations across countries needs the internationally recognised right to strike as a backup.

As a democratic civil right, the scope of the right to strike should not be restricted to wages bargaining and socio-economic issues. Workers must be free to determine the causes they will promote by using it. Just as the Australian state does not censor the aims promoted by exercising the right to freedom of assembly, so it is not for it to determine the causes that may be promoted through strike action. This is the basic human right of freedom of association.

For example, green bans in response to the environmental crisis or environmental assemblies with community support must not lead to workers or unions being penalised. The social or community values defended through action to protect the environment must take priority over short-term profit-making that ruins the environment.

The International Labour Organisation position that all countries with agreed industrial relations systems must have labour laws to ensure the right to strike is not extreme. Remember that the ILO was established in 1919 in response to the Russian Revolution, by offering unions participation in industrial reform within capitalism. These minimum ILO principles were an indication of consensus among governments, employer associations and unions.

The ILO does not support “wild-cat” or “sit-down” strikes, picketing where non-unionists or management are “coerced”, or a sympathy strike, if the initial strike the workers are supporting was not lawful. It allows judges to repress “abuses” by unions, is not in favour of “purely political” strikes, but accepts “protest strikes” which criticise a government’s economic and social policies.

The ILO’s position is: “The right to strike is one of the essential means available to workers and their organisations for the promotion and protection of their economic and social interests. These interests not only have to do with obtaining better working conditions and pursuing collective demands of an occupational nature but also with seeking solutions to economic and social policy questions and to labour problems of any kind which are of direct concern to the workers.”

Labor MPs have supported these democratic principles. Respect for the right to strike is the very least workers should expect from the ALP, especially given a Rudd government will probably not have control of the Senate.

Politicians talk about the damage caused by strikes. But the worker’s basic freedom to withdraw labour takes priority.

It is not often that US Republican President Dwight Eisenhower is quoted approvingly in Green Left Weekly, but he said: “The right of workers to leave their jobs is a test of freedom. Hitler suppressed strikes. Stalin suppressed strikes. But each also suppressed freedom. There are some things worse than strikes, much worse than strikes — one of them is the loss of freedom.”

[ALP member Chris White has been a union advocate for 27 years with the Australian Workers Union, the Liquor, Hospitality and Miscellaneous Union and was secretary of the United Trades and Labour Council of South Australia (now Unions SA). He is now a labour law researcher in Canberra. For references contact .]

From: Comment & Analysis, Green Left Weekly issue #715 27 June 2007.

We need a mass protest when Bush comes to Sydney APEC summit

The Socialist Alliance supports the Stop Bush Coalition’s call for a mass protest when the world’s biggest war criminal, US President George Bush, attends the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation summit in Sydney in September. A mass protest is exactly what the John Howard and NSW governments (and the federal Labor opposition) don’t want - and should get.

The NSW ALP government is using APEC as a pretext to introduce unprecedented powers of arrest and bail restrictions to scare people into not joining the protests. Deputy premier John Watkins has even urged Sydneysiders to get out of town while the meeting is on!

But APEC is an important opening for peaceful protest by all who care about the fate of our planet and its peoples. It is an opportunity to express what the majority of Australians think about war, global warming, and attacks on workers’ rights and democratic freedoms. It is also a chance to protest against a model of regional “economic cooperation” that will make the rich countries of the region even richer by stifling and distorting the development of poor and underdeveloped nations.

Look at the powerful grounds for protest that APEC presents:

War

Eighty per cent of Australians are angry about the US’s illegal wars of occupation in Iraq and Afghanistan, which are responsible for the death of hundreds of thousands of people and the devastation of those countries.

The US-led “war on terror” - a war without end - has been an unmitigated disaster for human rights and democracy. What greater terrorism is there than the US’s trashing of international human rights conventions, its illegal gulag at Guantanamo, its proxy wars in Palestine and Lebanon, and its economic aggression against countries and peoples who dare to pursue policies that Washington doesn’t like?

Workers’ rights

From its beginning in 1989, APEC was designed to assist the club of rich countries prise open Third World markets for First World goods and services, and push low-paid Third World labour into factories owned by the Nikes, Dells and Wal-Marts.

The trade “liberalisation” that goes with this “development” model aims to boost productivity and corporate profits by intensifying competition among workers in all countries. In Australia, we get the nasties of Work Choices partly as a result. At the same time, Philippine unionists who speak up for workers’ rights are murdered by anti-union hit squads financed by the employers.

The Sydney APEC meeting is an ideal opportunity to speak up for international economic relations built on the principles of solidarity, helping those who most need help, and extending and defending workers’ rights everywhere.

Global warming

In a world of runaway greenhouse gas emissions, APEC 2007 also needs to become a huge protest against the two key Kyoto Protocol rogue states - the US and Australia. All the more so when Howard is marketing the summit as the one that will deal with energy “security” and clean energy for the region.

Such greenwashing is farcical, especially as Howard and Bush continue to push for “clean” coal and nuclear power as “solutions” to the global warming nightmare.

Civil liberties and democratic freedoms

This APEC summit will focus on ending “terrorism” and “weapons of mass destruction”. But the bipartisan consensus that the state needs more powers to tackle “terrorist” threats is everywhere a thinly veiled attempt to drive back the people’s right to protest against bad policies and bad laws.

In Australia, the Muslim community and people of Arabic background have been under pressure from racist “anti-terror” laws for some time. Now, state and federal governments and their security services are striving to marginalise anyone who tries to organise or participate in protests against the wars in the Middle East.

The Socialist Alliance stands in solidarity with the people throughout the world who have protested in their hundreds of thousands against Bush.

Potentially, such mass protests can not only topple dangerous criminals such as Bush and Howard, they can also begin to push back their political agenda. A massive protest in Sydney against Bush and all he represents would be a fitting prelude to the well-deserved defeat of the Howard government at the next federal election.

From: Green Left Weekly issue #713, 13 June 2007.

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Download poster for Bush protest here. Details of protest organising meetings here.

Building industry secret police bully workers by Sue Bolton, Melbourne

Dave Noonan, the Construction, Forestry, Mining and Energy Union’s construction division national secretary, has slammed the Australian Building and Construction Commission (ABCC) for “intimidating and bullying” workers.

“The ABCC is engaged in systematic intimidation and bullying of individual workers in the construction industry”, he said on May 22. “This government body has the power to fine workers for taking action to defend their wages and conditions and to jail workers who take part in union meetings and refuse to cooperate with secret government interrogations.”

Noonan told Green Left Weekly that the ABCC’s approach is to litigate first and ask questions later. “They’re a highly politically-driven organisation.” He said that the ABCC is prosecuting the union and five workers who were employed on a mine site in western NSW, a John Holland project, for alleged industrial action after the workers had complained in 2005 about maggots in their food.

Noonan said that there had been a number of ABCC-initiated prosecutions of the union, including one in the Wollongong area which resulted in a court order that the union take out an advertisement advising people that they don’t have to be union members to work in the construction industry. The CFMEU is appealing the order.

The ABCC is continuing litigation against the 107 West Australian construction workers, who were employed on the Leighton Kumagai Perth to Mandurah rail link project, for taking strike action in February 2006 to protect job safety and to protest the sacking of their health and safety (OH&S) representative. The next hearing is due in October, and the ACTU has established a fund to provide the workers with legal support. If the ABCC prosecution is successful, each of the workers could be fined up to $28,000.

In another ABCC attack a CFMEU shop steward, Charlie Corbett, has been charged with coercion and unlawful industrial action and is facing $44,000 in fines for insisting that Hooker Cockram honour a 2004 agreement with the union to take on a third- or fourth-year apprentice at the start of the job and another, preferably Indigenous apprentice, halfway through. The company reneged on the agreement in 2005.

CFMEU organiser John Parker is also facing $66,000 in fines in the Federal Court over this dispute, which was settled two years ago, for allegedly imposing an overtime ban at the site to force the company to honour the agreement. If he is convicted, Corbett faces fines of up to $44,000, while the CFMEU is facing a fine of $20,000.

The ABCC has also bought a court case against crane driver Brodene Wardley over a September 2005 health and safety dispute at the construction site of a Mineral Sands processing plant in western Victoria.

Wardley, a single mother with three children, who was named WorkSafe Victoria’s 2006 health and safety representative of the year, was one of the 200 workers who voted to take strike action after a minibus carrying workers to the site was involved in a near miss with a freight train close to the site’s main gate. Noonan said that the ABCC had subjected Wardley to “secret star chamber interviews” with the threat of imprisonment if she didn’t comply.

The ABCC operates in complete secrecy. When a worker is summoned to questioning by the ABCC, he or she is allowed a lawyer, but the worker nor the lawyer is allowed to reveal the content of the interrogation with anyone, under threat of imprisonment.

“The ABCC encourages employers to try to keep the union out at all costs”, said Noonan. “Where employers have a good relationship with the union and access has been properly negotiated, the ABCC will go to that site and threaten the employer with loss of commonwealth work if they don’t exclude the union.

“The impact on safety is predictable: we have seen a decline. Construction workers are now confronted with a situation where they have a reverse onus of proof if they take action over unsafe conditions. Workers have to prove that they had a reasonable expectation that the job was unsafe or face prosecution in an industry that kills on average a worker a week. The consequences of that are predictably dire.”

“The ABCC is funded $32 million a year — rising to $34 million in a couple of years’ time if the Liberals get back into government. It’s focus is purely to attack union organisation and activity in the construction industry. It hasn’t prosecuted or investigated one employer for underpaying workers, ripping off workers’ entitlements, poor safety practices, tax evasion or any of the other practices that some employers engage in the industry. It focuses entirely on anti-union litigation, agitation on sites and propaganda”, said Noonan.

“It’s clear what the government is up to: with the ABCC, it’s trying to do to construction workers, with lawyers in wigs and gowns, what it tried to do to the waterside workers with dogs and balaclavas.”

Sue Bolton

From: Comment & Analysis, Green Left Weekly issue #712 6 June 2007.

It’s not the wife. It’s the Party, stupid by Humphrey McQueen

Kevin Rudd and his wife Therese Rein

The underpayment scandal around Ms Rein is not so much a gender issue as a class question. And because it is a class issue, Gillard skates over the mistreatment of Rein’s female employees. The femocrats on Rudd’s front bench define equity as their right to expect a seat on the board of McBank alongside Carr. They could not care less whether Rein encourages her employees to join a union.

The focusing on the rights of a woman to grind the faces of her female labour is one more sign of what has gone wrong both with the ALP and with the women’s movement.

That the ALP’s leader’s wife runs a $180m. a year business should upset labour stalwarts less than the nature of her business at WorkDirections. Not so long ago, the ALP criticised the Coalition’s handing of employment services to the Job Network. Did that trifle ever come up around the Rudd meal table?

The IR police will have plenty of questions to pursue for their political masters. Into what workplace conditions do Rein’s underpaid staff place the unemployed? For instance, does her firm stitch job-seekers up with AWAs? Has her partner checked out how Christian are the criteria on which she decides which employers are fit to service?

What the Rein matter highlights is that to draft Rudd’s policy speech you apply through McBank, not your nearest ALP branch. That situation is the end product of policy purges and administrative debasement that have fed each other to deliver an ex-Labor ex-Party. Before the 1980s, Labor leaders sold out on a case-by-case basis. The Hawke-Keating governments conducted a closing-down sale. Their changes have made it impossible for Rudd to join the venerable tradition of Labor rats. There is nothing left for him to rat from and nowhere different to rat to.

Meanwhile, the organisational wing became an ex-Party, its branches stacked with ethnic gangs, its structures dominated by weathervane factions, and local hopefuls over-ridden for celebrities as policy-free as the machine that picks them. At least, the ALP’s refusal to restore compulsory student unionism will choke off the sewer that flushed know-nothing apparatchiks out of student politics and through trade union and ministerial offices.

The past six months have witnessed a further mutation. The 21st century IR policy of no strike-pay and one-strike-and-you’re-inside revealed that the initials ALP now stand for Anti-labour Party.

O brave ex-party that has such spouses lead it.

Where to now for unions and the Anti-Labour Party? by Peter Curtis

That the ALP deserves to be re-badged the Anti-Labour Party as historian Humphrey McQueen suggests, the ALP’s public dressing down and forced resignation of Electrical Trade Union secretary Dean Mighell reinforces this view. We have now, by default, a bi-partisan national government, a parliamentary system, that in effect, acts unilaterally for big business interests. The dilemma Rudd’s election strategists have is that they know IR is solidifying their vote but not enough to guarantee them the necessary victory in the marginals. As the days roll on towards eviction day more of us are realising that the Coalition-ALP cabal have more in common than not. Both are united in their belief that it is workers and unions that are, ultimately, their most difficult political problem. Being sprung caused Rudd’s embarrassment; when it was reiterated for all to see just how comfortable and cosy the ALP is with business? Such public ‘conflicts’ of interest with these bedfellows are class and social divisions made personal. However, the real conflicts of interest is ours with them; the sixty-odd percent of us who have always opposed the coalition’s Work Choices counter-reforms, and increasingly, the ALP’s variations upon that theme.

Dean Mighell was recorded expressing a fundamental truth for workers. First and foremost strength is unity, and organising is our best defence. Workers know that the pursuing ‘fairness’ in the workplace often requires the ‘hot’ language of class hatred. After all employers will rarely pay you more than they have to, and how much they pay you will depend on your bargaining power. That this offends the ALP leadership’s thin-lipped sensibilities, ones that have more in common with the façade of the boardroom and the pulpit, speaks volumes about their values. Like any number of unions, the ETU, apart from organising workers, supports and initiates a number of necessary social welfare programmes. Filling the cracks of inequity and injustice created by the demands of the capitalist economic system is the grist of union work. Standing up to employers and corporations who are ever seeking ways to increase the rates of our exploitation requires that the stick be bent.

The gentility of the ALP’s deputy, appealing against ‘union bullying’ by ‘union bosses’ is the ALP purging itself of our most effective industrial unions. Only organised workers are capable of standing up to the organising forces of capital. Gillard has reaffirmed the ALP’s opposition to pattern bargaining, this strategy of industry wide negotiations for wages and conditions draws on the strength that it garnered through unified action. The evidence suggests that women and young people have the most to lose Is there a concern with big business’ auxiliaries such as the Shop Distributors Union? The driving force behind the ALP is to win elections at any cost, and then, true to their past form, appeasing the concerns of the most powerful members of organised business by uniting with them to bully ordinary working people. Will we see our ‘friend’ Rudd run off to find a photo opportunity with a ‘union boss’ and have it splashed across Murdoch’s mass media?

Global corporations and their national counterparts and organisations, such as the Business Council of Australia, are the organising force behind the current government’s IR counter-reforms. The Coalition government, and its loyal ‘opposition’, are combining in action to put the unions down. Two examples suffice; by enforcing, with penal powers, the secret ballot over our right to strike and the retaining of the Building Industry Tribunal, who through their star chamber methods, have redefined, or better, exposed the limits of ‘truth and justice’ under their laws. The combined efforts by these two political parties of anti-worker counter-reforms, along with the assistance of their business associates, are all working to frustrate the organising efforts of workers on the shop floor.

The ALP’s IR Lite has raised the slogan of fairness. Diminishing our hopes, the ACTU’s “Rights at Work” campaign has also degenerated into farce as it attempts to sell the ALP as a ‘fair’ option. The “best of two evils” is an oft repeated response to any suggestion of the hopelessness of relying on the ALP’s and the ACTU’s attempts to redress three decades of social, political and industrial counter-reforms through the ballot box. The ALP’s IR proposals are up there with the Fine Cotton scandal, a case of substitution and subterfuge. The majority of us, who have nothing but our capacity to work, that is, selling our labour power to the employers, cannot afford to believe that the current political arrangements on offer are in anyway intended to benefit us. We have no other alternative but to organise ourselves, in our own interests, and those of our children’s children, just as generations before us have had to do. The ALP has made its position clear. It is time for unionists, and all of us who care about achieving and defending equity, justice and solidarity, to start building a social movement that represents our most immediate needs in regards to health, education and housing. But we will have to do something about those who purport to be on our side

ALP betrays building workers By Dave Noonan

THE Labor Party's decision to delay abolishing the Australian Building
and Construction Commission until 2010 will disappoint tens of
thousands of hard-working Australians.

The ALP needs to keep faith with working Australians. Construction
workers don't deserve laws treating them worse than other Australians.

The ABCC powers are sweeping – workers and their representatives can
be fined and jailed; union meetings can be secretly recorded; legal
representation can be denied.

Under the ABCC, so-called freedom of association clauses are applied
to restrict union access to the workplace and make most forms of
industrial action illegal.

The Howard Government's myth of a corrupt and lawless industry is an
insult. The ABCC's actions, against people like 65-year-old
grandfather Charlie Corbett in Victoria and the 107 construction
workers it is prosecuting in Western Australia, are about intimidating
honest workers.

Under the Building Industry Improvement Act, policed by the ABCC,
workers who simply stand up for safety and their rights can be fined
or imprisoned.

They can be sent to jail for nothing more than refusing to discuss
what was said at a union meeting.

Construction workers don't expect preferential treatment. They expect
to be treated fairly – the same as everyone else – by the Howard
Government and any incoming Labor government.

If illegal activity is discovered it should be dealt with by the
police, not by a politically-biased body like the ABCC.

The ABCC isn't going after the bosses who skimp on safety
requirements, or rogue companies who declare bankruptcy just to avoid
paying their bills.

No, they'd rather attack and malign ordinary working Australians who
are simply trying to stand up for their rights at work and earn a living.

The way forward for our industry is via the road of high skills,
ingenuity and vision. Most of all, the way forward for the Australian
construction industry in the 21st century is by employers and
investors, together with workers and their unions, working together to
forge a new path, one independent of the ideological prejudices of the
Howard Government.

Australia has one of the most highly skilled and productive
construction sectors in the world, worth billions to our economy every
year. What we need now is not the narrow, ideological battle Howard
and Hockey are so intent on but a plan for our industry focusing on
occupational health and safety, skills training and new
apprenticeships and innovation.

Australian construction workers are sick to death of politicians
maligning our industry and their hard work.

The laws governing the ABCC are bad laws – authoritarian, undemocratic
and profoundly unfair.

The CFMEU will continue to campaign against the ABCC no matter who is
in government.

Dave Noonan is CFMEU Construction and General Division national secretary

from: The Daily Telegraph, Sydney, June 01, 2007

JULIA GILLARD Radio Interview with NEIL MITCHELL, 3AW Melbourne

JULIA GILLARD

This interview between Gillard and Mitchell shows just how conservative and capital serving the ALP has become. Talk about crawling to the bosses. Mitchell by the way is Melbourne's answer to Alan Jones.

Togs

NEIL MITCHELL: …on the line is the Shadow Minister, Deputy Leader, she seems to have been appointed the opposition spokesperson in charge of Mitchell she is on so regularly. Julia Gillard, good morning.

JULIA GILLARD: And it was a job everybody fought for Neil.

NEIL MITCHELL: Oh Julia, all lined up to do it. Now, Dean Mighell didn’t break the law did he?

JULIA GILLARD: No but his comments are right over the line Neil, right over the line.

NEIL MITCHELL: Why?

JULIA GILLARD: I am not going to repeat them on radio, I suspect that wouldn’t be something your listeners want to hear. His comments were way over the line.

NEIL MITCHELL: A union leader using bad language, I mean you have been known to use bad language yourself.

JULIA GILLARD: Oh Neil, let’s be clear here. Sure, if I drop my suitcase on my foot I can say the occasional word; there is a difference between that and getting on a stage and using that language…

NEIL MITCHELL: But it was a union meeting.

JULIA GILLARD: …using allusions to people being paedophiles, those sorts of things. That is right over any line that anybody would find acceptable and because of that Kevin acted decisively yesterday.

NEIL MITCHELL: So Dean Mighell has been expelled because of bad taste, is it?

JULIA GILLARD: Dean Mighell has been expelled because his comments are way over the line and they are the sort of conduct that we find unacceptable. We don’t want to see an industrial movement that behaves itself like that and it was made perfectly clear to Dean yesterday.

NEIL MITCHELL: But was it his language, was it his turn of phrase or was it what he did in 1993, getting pay rises for his members?

JULIA GILLARD: All of the above interrelate, don’t they Neil….

NEIL MITCHELL: What did he do wrong? What did he do wrong in getting that pay rise for his members?

JULIA GILLARD: The language was right over the line, the language bespeaks of an attitude that is over the line and it is unacceptable. And Kevin made that clear yesterday in, what I think, was a very firm, focused and decisive act.

NEIL MITCHELL: So what did he do wrong, in getting that pay rise for his members?

JULIA GILLARD: Neil, what he did wrong and you obviously are familiar with the language he used, he used language that was right over the line, it was unacceptable, it was berating third parties in a way that is completely unacceptable and…

NEIL MITCHELL: I understand your point.

JULIA GILLARD: …it is an attitude that doesn’t have a place in the modern labour movement.

NEIL MITCHELL: I understand the point about the language. Has he been expelled just for the language and I repeat the question, what did he do wrong when he got that pay rise for his members?

JULIA GILLARD: In describing getting the pay rise for the members he exhibited an industrial attitude which is unacceptable in the modern age and in addition to that, his language at that meeting was unacceptable in the way it referred to third parties and its allusions to their conduct and it was right over the line, Kevin said it was right over the line, I thought it was thuggish, I thought it was stupid, I thought it was unacceptable, we made those views clear yesterday and Kevin decisively acted.

NEIL MITCHELL: What did he, I will try once more, I promise the last time. What did he do wrong in getting that pay rise for his members in 1993? You are objecting to his language, fine, although this is coming from the party that turned the word scumbag into popular usage but what did he do wrong?

JULIA GILLARD: I am objecting to an attitude that is about industrial thuggery and that is what the language spoke of and…

NEIL MITCHELL: So he did nothing wrong, is that right?

JULIA GILLARD: … that is what the language meant. I can’t make it clearer than that, he was…

NEIL MITCHELL: You can make it clearer because I have asked you four times now, what did he do wrong?

JULIA GILLARD: And I have answered you exactly the same way four times.

NEIL MITCHELL: Yeah, language, you have referred to the language. I am talking about his actions, how were his actions wrong?

JULIA GILLARD: When you use language, it means something. When you use language that is being used to describe conduct, that conduct…

NEIL MITCHELL: So on that debate [inaudible]

JULIA GILLARD: …that conduct is part of an attitude that in our view…

NEIL MITCHELL: Ok.

JULIA GILLARD: … shouldn’t be in the industrial landscape in the modern age.

NEIL MITCHELL: Was he wrong to con employers into paying more than he was willing to accept, was he wrong to get 10 per cent for his workers rather than 6 per cent?

JULIA GILLARD: It is wrong to breach industrial law…

NEIL MITCHELL: But he didn’t.

JULIA GILLARD: I can’t tell you everything to do with the circumstances of the dispute that you refer to…

NEIL MITCHELL: No but you agreed with me that he didn’t break the law.

JULIA GILLARD: …which happened in the early 1990s? So Neil I am not going to speculate…

NEIL MITCHELL: But you told me he didn’t break the law, at the beginning of this interview you agreed he didn’t break the law.

JULIA GILLARD: Well Neil I can’t go through the circumstances of a 1993-1994 dispute. All I know about that dispute…

NEIL MITCHELL: So is it possible that he broke the law?

JULIA GILLARD: All I know about that dispute is what Dean said in this tape and the attitude displayed in the tape is an attitude in terms of industrial thuggery that is not appropriate in modern Australia.

NEIL MITCHELL: So he has been expelled for his attitude, not because of what he did.

JULIA GILLARD: He has been expelled for language and conduct which we find unacceptable and over the line.

NEIL MITCHELL: Do you remember a bloke called Mark Latham and his language? Do you remember Paul Keating, one of the foulest mouths I have ever come across? Who objected to him?

JULIA GILLARD: Well Neil, Kevin Rudd is Leader of the Parliamentary Labor Party today, I am Deputy Leader of the Parliamentary Labor Party today. We are calling it as we see it.

NEIL MITCHELL: You were in trouble yourself for saying shit publicly, weren’t you?

JULIA GILLARD: And I freely conceded to you Neil that when I drop a suitcase on my foot or whether, in that case, I dropped a sausage at a barbeque, I am capable of using the occasional word but Neil you can’t sustain an argument that basically, using a word like that when you have dropped something is comparable with what Dean Mighell did, that is not a rational argument.

NEIL MITCHELL: I would say that he picked his audience, he was at a union meeting and yes he used bad language and he has got a shocking turn of phrase, I mean I thought what he said about John Howard being a skid mark was offensive, didn’t you?

JULIA GILLARD: Yes and I went to an ETU meeting and specifically repudiated those remarks because they were offensive, they were disgusting and they don’t have a place in modern politics.

NEIL MITCHELL: So he has been expelled because of bad manners, is that it really?

JULIA GILLARD: Neil, I have explained to you he has been expelled because of language and conduct which we saw as right over the line.

NEIL MITCHELL: So if you have any other union leaders using similar language and similar tactics, will they be expelled?

JULIA GILLARD: Kevin will be tough on these matters, he showed he was tough yesterday and he will be continuously tough on them.

NEIL MITCHELL: The building and construction unions in this town has a no ticket no start policy which is basically illegal, will the leader of that be expelled, Martin King?

JULIA GILLARD It would be in breach of the freedom of association provisions that are part of Labor’s policy and…

NEIL MITCHELL: So will you investigate that and expel Martin King if they’re doing that?

JULIA GILLARD: If there is no ticket, no start breaches and breaches of the law then that should be dealt with by the Australian Building and Construction Commission. That is…

NEIL MITCHELL: Martin King also swears a bit and if he is doing these sorts of things, are you going to expel him? You have set a precedent here.

JULIA GILLARD: What I have said to you Neil is Kevin was tough yesterday, you can’t get me to speculate on a million things that may or may not happen. He was tough yesterday; he will be tough everyday…

NEIL MITCHELL: Well can I…

JULIA GILALRD: If there is a comparable incident that comes to Kevin’s attention then he will be tough about that as well.

NEIL MITCHELL: So union leaders are on notice they could be expelled?

JULIA GILLARD: People are on notice that there is a line in industrial relations, there is a line in conduct that ought not be crossed.

NEIL MITCHELL: Is scumbag an acceptable word?

JULIA GILLARD: I wouldn’t use it.

NEIL MITCHELL: Would you expel somebody for using it?

JULIA GILLARD: Obviously Neil you are going to go back to Paul Keating and his use of…

NEIL MITCHELL: And Mark Latham, a bit more recent, you were his mate. You have got to admit he had a turn of phrase which makes Dean Mighell look calm.

JULIA GILLARD: The things Dean Mighell said, the allusions about the people who work at the ABCC they were grossly unacceptable and they’ve been dealt with. You can’t get me to go back in time…

NEIL MITCHELL: Fair enough.

JULIA GILLARD: …and say what could have happened five, ten, fifteen, twenty, fifty years ago. Kevin is the leader of the Parliamentary Labor Party now, I am the Deputy Leader and we made a judgement call yesterday and I defend it as the right judgement call.

NEIL MITCHELL: Did Kevin Rudd consult you before it happened?

JULIA GILALRD: Yes.

NEIL MITCHELL: And did you consult others in the party?

JULIA GILLARD: No, I spoke to Kevin about it.

NEIL MITCHELL: But nobody else in the Party, you have got three former ACTU presidents there were any of them consulted?

JULIA GILLARD: No.

NEIL MITCHELL: Why not?

JULIA GILLARD: This is a leadership decision and it was taken at a leadership level.

NEIL MITCHELL: It was a Party decision wasn’t it? You don’t expel somebody from the Party, since when can someone from the Parliamentary Leader expel people?

JULIA GILLARD: Kevin Rudd, yesterday, directed the National Secretary to obtain Dean Mighell’s resignation and that’s what occurred. Of course, the Leader, Kevin consults with me frequently, I am the Deputy Leader, you would expect that to happen in a political party. In the same way I suspect that John Howard consults with Mark Vaile and Peter Costello about some key matters.

NEIL MITCHELL: Is it wrong, in principle is it wrong for a union leader to trick an employer into paying more than they intended?

JULIA GILLARD: It’s not wrong for a union leader to engage in tough negotiations. It is always wrong to cross the law. What…

NEIL MITCHELL: He hasn’t crossed the law.

JULIA GILLARD: …I am just about to say Neil, what the word ‘trick’ means in that context I don’t know.

NEIL MITCHELL: Well you know what happened here. He has convinced one employer that another employer has already caved in and then they both caved in. Is that wrong?

JULIA GILLARD: Well our industrial policy would actually say people have to bargain in good faith which would require people to be forthright. I want people to be honest with each other in negotiations, I think that is the best way to negotiate.

NEIL MITCHELL: Fair enough, so it was wrong. Why have you decided to retain the Australian Business and Construction Commission, the watchdog on the construction industry?

JULIA GILLARD: Yes, it’s the Australian Building and Construction Commission.

NEIL MITCHELL: Building, I’m sorry.

JULIA GILLARD: There are a lot of acronyms in industrial relations, too many alphabet soups but…

NEIL MITCHELL: Sorry, Australian Building and Construction Commission which is really the industry watchdog.

JULIA GILLARD: Yes, it is an industry watchdog. What we said in our policy, when we announced it is we would have tough building industry compliance through a specialist division of the inspectorate of Fair Work Australia. Currently, we have the ABCC. It came to my attention that there was confusion and certainly apprehension in the industry that the ABCC would be abolished or run down first and then there would be a period where there wasn’t anything before we built the new compliance division. That was never my intention; my intention was always to have a seamless transition from one to the other. So I spelt out yesterday the best way of doing that is to have the ABCC stay, and we have nominated the date, 31st January 2010, then you can be building up the new watchdog and do a seamless handover.

NEIL MITCHELL: Was there any consultation with the Party on that?

JULIA GILLARD: No, I made that decision and we announced it yesterday. I announced it at the National Press Club.

NEIL MITCHELL: Fair to say the unions won’t be happy about it?

JULIA GILLARD: No they weren’t happy about it but it is the judgement call I made and I think it is the appropriate judgement call.

NEIL MITCHELL: Can you tell me whether any businesses went broke as a result of what Dean Mighell did?

JULIA GILLARD: I don’t know Neil, I can’t tell you.

NEIL MITCHELL: Isn’t that relevant?

JULIA GILLARD: In what sense?

NEIL MITCHELL: Well in the sense he is being accused of doing something dreadful here, did he drive anybody to the wall or did he just use bad language?

JULIA GILLARD: We judged on the matters that became public yesterday.

NEIL MITCHELL: Is that the first you knew about it yesterday?

JULIA GILLARD: Yes.

NEIL MITCHELL: You weren’t aware of what he did back in 1993?

JULIA GILLARD: No I was not Neil.

NEIL MITCHELL: Really?

JULIA GILLARD: No I wasn’t.

NEIL MITCHELL: You would have been aware of the settlement, above 10 per cent which was above the odds?

JULIA GILLARD: No I wasn’t Neil.

NEIL MITCHELL: That’s strange.

JULIA GILLARD: I mean, 1993 it may have been in the newspapers I don’t know, I don’t recall, obviously we are talking more than a decade later here but I have got no personal knowledge of the circumstances of the 1993 dispute.

NEIL MITCHELL: Did you see the transcript of what he said before it was made public?

JULIA GILLARD: No, I did not.

NEIL MITCHELL: So the first you knew of it was when it appeared?

JULIA GILLARD: Yes, that’s right.

NEIL MITCHELL: How much money has the ETU provided the Labor Party?

JULIA GILLARD: Look I don’t know that Neil, donations are a matter dealt with by the National Secretary.

NEIL MITCHELL: Why did you kiss him?

JULIA GILLARD: I was walking into an ETU shop stewards meeting, I was actually there to deliver a very firm message. The very firm message I was there to deliver was that the statements Dean Mighell had made at National Conference about Mr Howard were unacceptable, that some of the ways that he was characterising Labor’s industrial relations policies were wrong, that Labor’s industrial relations policy was different from what the ETU wanted and I was there to explain those differences. In the modern world, when you move round in professional circumstances, as I do, sometimes men shake hands with you, sometimes they kiss you and there we have it.

NEIL MITCHELL: Peter Costello I think is claiming that the union handed over I think $3.8 million over the years to the Labor Party, will all that be returned?

JULIA GILLARD: As I have said, the National Secretary deals with these matters.

NEIL MITCHELL: One last question. What sort of car do you drive?

JULIA GILLARD: I drive a Toyota. I live in Altona; you could actually go on a walk from my place to the Toyota factory so I drive a Toyota made in the factory.

NEIL MITCHELL: Are you going to buy a hybrid?

JULIA GILLARD: The problem with a hybrid of course is you can’t get one that is manufactured locally. That’s why we have created a $500 million fund to help our local industry make the move to hybrid cars. Obviously, hybrid cars, energy efficient cars, cars that make a difference for climate change are going to be what the world wants to have. So we have got to get in the business of making them. We are going to help the Australian industry get into that business and when there is a locally produced hybrid car I will be very, very pleased to drive it.

NEIL MITCHELL: You wouldn’t buy it until it is a locally produced one?

JULIA GILLARD: It’s important to me Neil, I live in Melbourne’s West, I live very close to the Toyota factory, I am a supporter of Australian industry. I don’t try and pretend me with my one car is the difference, obviously Toyota is a big and very profitable factory but I like to support it by my choices and I choose to drive a Toyota.

NEIL MITCHELL: It is the symbolism.

JULIA GILLARD: It’s so local to me Neil, I literally could walk there, people I know work there, many of my constituents work there and I want to support it. But I want to see our local industry and obviously its not just about Toyota, it’s Ford, it’s Holden, it’s Mitsubishi, I want to see our local industry get in what is going to be the new age of motor vehicles, the green cars and we have got the big package of assistance there to help them do it.

NEIL MITCHELL: Are you aware Kevin Rudd has announced today he is buying a hybrid?

JULIA GILLARD: No I wasn’t aware of that…

NEIL MITCHELL: Maybe you better advise him, you can only get Japanese ones.

JULIA GILLARD: Oh look, he is absolutely aware of that because the reason we did the big industry package is to help our industry get into the business of making green cars.

NEIL MITCHELL: Should he be buying a hybrid?

JULIA GILLARD: Neil, there is a choice here and I understand the conflict in the choice…

NEIL MITCHELL: But you have just told us all about supporting the local industry yet he is buying a hybrid.

JULIA GILLARD: Yes, and I am just trying to explain to you Neil, there is a choice here and there are two things that people would think about. People want to drive green cars; people want to support local Australian industry. Tragically, at the moment, you can’t do both. Labor’s got a big policy to make sure in the future we can do both. Unfortunately, today you have got to make the choice.

NEIL MITCHELL: Thank you for your time, are you still willing to be the Shadow Minister in charge of Mitchell?

JULIA GILLARD: Oh always.

NEIL MITCHELL: Thank you very much.

The Reigning Rein by Shane Elson

In the ever lasting battle for the minds of men and women, one of the key
strategies employed by the ruling classes, should their interests be
challenged, is to create a smokescreen to obscure the real issues that
should be occupying the minds of those they are trying to win over. For last
couple of weeks Therese Rein, the wife of wanna be PM, Kevin "I'm from
Queensland" Rudd, has been leading news bulletins over a supposed breach of
workplace rules by underpaying some of the workers in one of her
multimillion dollar, international businesses.

Last Sunday, in The Age's "Sunday Life" supplement, readers were treated to
a nice, warm, fuzzy story on the 'hard' road she has trod to get to where
she is. The story revolves around a two central premises. The first is that
she had a bit of a rough go as a kid and that she is torn between being a
mum and a multimillionaire business women.

Now, I don't want to turn this into a "bash Therese" rant but I think this
story provides an interesting case study that helps us understand one of the
primary issues that affect us as citizens and particularly, as workers. The
"Sunday Life" story allows us a glimpse into the mind of the ruling classes
(again) and gives us a glimpse into the future of politics under Labor,
should they win the next ballot.

Ms. Rein is described as having a "happy" childhood "riding horses, swimming
and playing tennis, devouring Jane Austin books" and talking politics around
the dinner table. We're told she attended exclusive girl's schools, St.
Peter's in Adelaide and Firbank Grammar in Melbourne. She graduated in
arts-law from the Australian National University and was part of the Student
Christian Movement.

After meeting and breeding with Kevin she was torn between being a mother
and running a multinational company. She says that she "wanted to be in four
places at once" and found the only solution was to "hire a nanny" who "tries
to bring order out of chaos". Running her businesses, spread across
Australia, Europe and the UK means she does a lot of travelling but I assume
she is compensated quite well, earning not only her salary but also share
bonuses of up to about a million dollars a year.

According to the "Sunday Life" article Therese is not above a little rough
and tumble when it comes to money. It seems Therese was quite prepared to do
a backroom deal to get her hands on $5 million worth of shares when her
former business partner died. Therese, we're told, wanted everything signed,
sealed and delivered but, alas, her now dead business partner didn't want
that, because, for her, according to Therese, a handshake was a good as her
word. The executors of the deceased's will thought this was a crock, took it
to court and won so Rein missed out on a quick $5 mill from a dead woman.

The road to good times is sometimes paved with rocks and her most recent
elevation in the media was caused by her ripping off her workers. Her
defence was that she bought a company that had existing arrangements that
she was unaware of. After the media broke the story she said she had begun
paying back the workers she had been ripping off and was doing all she could
to ensure her businesses complied with Australian Workplace Agreement
requirements.

When Kevin's party was asked to comment on Therese's propensity to rip
workers off while claiming ignorance, all they could say was that it was an
"honest mistake" and she was doing her best to repay the workers. There was
no condemnation of her behaviour even though they were quite happy to vilify
other employers who did the same thing. Dear ol' Kev said it was none of his
business and that his wife would do the right thing. Within a few days it
was reported that she had sold her shares in the Australian arm of her
company. No doubt it will emerge that all she has done is set up some form
of shelf structure that means she still reaps the profits but at 'arms
length'. After all she did admit she didn't want to "complicate the
decision" the voters have to make at the next election.

I want to turn, briefly, to a tape that emerged earlier this week in which
Electrical Trades Union, Victorian Secretary, Dean Mighell talks about how
he came to a deal to up the wages of some of his members. It seems that he,
too, was quite comfortable doing backroom deals for those he thought would
benefit. However, the language he used to describe his tactics were, some
would argue, "colourful" and not very polite.

Dean Mighell

Within a few hours of the Mighell's taped remarks going to air Kevin "I'm
from Queensland" Rudd had come down from the North and demanded Mighell's
resignation. Why? Because it was obvious that Dean had lobbied hard, played
rough and won a few extra dollars for his members. Which is, by the looks of
it, a much better deal for workers than the Labor party will ever offer. I
make this diversion into Dean Mighell's comments because it brings to the
surface the real issue that is being obscured by the hype surrounding a rich
boss ripping off her workers.

The real issue, that needs to be talked about in the pubs and around the
office water coolers, is why we believe the ruling class understand the
needs and aspiration of those they rule over?

We must remember that Kevin "from Queensland" spent the first six weeks of
his incumbency talking, not with workers, but with their bosses. Not
prepared to sit down and sup with the under-employed or the carers of the
disabled he flew to New York and had a slap up, six star meal with Rupert
Murdoch. While he was not willing to spend time in shorts and reflective
vest driving from Adelaide to Brisbane with a trucker, he had plenty of time
to enjoy the sumptuous surrounds of the Sydney Institute and the Business
Council of Australia and to meet with the Australian Industry Group.

In short, the Rudd family are, perhaps, even more embedded in the ruling
class than John and Jeanette Howard. Kevin's past life as a toe cutter in
the Queensland bureaucracy would have opened up numerous doors for him now.
His wife's role within the business elites ensures that he has contact with
those he feels comfortable with because he certainly isn't comfortable
around the rough and tumble that is the real world of the working classes he
soon hopes to rule.

As I said at the outset, when an issue that may expose the real intent of
the ruling class threatens to expose their true hearts, a smokescreen is
created to obscure our view. Kevin "from Queensland" and his wife are being
constructed as 'accessible', nice, polite, innocent and brave. However, the
reality is that they are ruthless, cunning and not above a bit of biffo if
it serves their own interests.

The working class should applaud Dean Mighell because at least he told the
truth and for that the boss of the 'worker's party' sacked him. The real
issue is, then, who is protecting the interests of the working class
because, as history show's, the ruling class have no interest at all in
doing so.

Tear up 'Work Choices'!

Since the ALP national conference, the big companies have had the ear of the Liberal and Labor parties about what sort of changes should be made to Australia's industrial relations laws. The voice of workers and their unions has not been heard.

We believe that in order to defend our rights at work workers need to mobilise again so that our voices are heard in opposition to the anti-worker laws.

We therefore call on the ACTU and state, territory and regional labour councils to immediately call a day of protest that demands:

1. The full repeal of the Howard government’s Work Choices and Workplace Relations Act (including the abolition of all individual contracts) and;

2. The enshrining in Australian law of the internationally recognised right of workers to take industrial action in defence of their economic and social interests.

Download petition here, get your workmates to sign and return to: Socialist Alliance, PO Box 1246, A’Beckett Street, Melbourne Vic 8006 FAX: 03 9639-8452 EMAIL: sue_bolton@hotmail.com PHONE: Sue Bolton 0413-377-978

Geelong Trades Hall votes to defend right to strike by Sue Bolton, Melbourne

Geelong Trades and Labour Council Secretary Tim Gooden at the opening of It's About Time! at the Geelong Performing Arts Centre.

At its May 15 meeting, Geelong Trades Hall Council passed a motion declaring that “GTHC is opposed to any laws that fetter and/or criminalise union activity and workers’ rights under International Labour Organisation conventions to organise and take action to advance or defend our economic and social conditions. To this end we call on the Victorian Trades Hall Council to organise a mass delegates’ meeting to discuss how we can best help the ACTU [Australian Council of Trade Unions] defend its own industrial relations policy and thus the rights of all workers.”

A second motion that was passed noted the council’s concern that “fundamental International Labour Organisation conventions on workers’ rights are under further attack by big business. Therefore, we need to raise the profile of workers’ concerns through large-scale demonstrations to counter the pressure that big business is placing on the government and the opposition. GTHC calls on the ACTU to call a National Day of Action around 28th June.”

Tim Gooden, GTHC’s secretary, told Green Left Weekly that the council is very concerned that the Labor Party is not promising to get rid of the Howard government’s restrictions on the right to strike: “Geelong unionists believe that the right to strike is a basic right of workers, as well as being ACTU policy. Trade unions and labour councils are obligated to defend this basic right, regardless of which party is in government.”

Gooden said that since the ALP national conference, “the big corporations, especially the mining companies, have dominated the public debate about industrial relations. The only way that workers can start to influence the public debate again is if there is another mass protest of workers.”

From: Australian News, Green Left Weekly issue #710 23 May 2007.

Unionists to Rudd: 'Don't backflip on AWAs' by Graham Matthews

On May 12, federal opposition leader Kevin Rudd chartered a private plane to fly to Western Australia to meet with BHP, Rio Tinto and Woodside bosses. The meeting followed two weeks of the mining bosses arguing that Labor’s promise to abolish AWAs (individual contracts), confirmed at its April national conference, would harm the resources boom and lower productivity in the mining sector.

Since his return from WA, Rudd has been looking for the wriggle room to water down his AWA promise. The May 17 Daily Telegraph reported that Julia Gillard, Labor’s spokesperson on workplace relations, announced that Labor would introduce “transitional” arrangements to allow mining companies to keep AWAs until at least 2013.

Unionists across a range of industries, and the Australian Council of Trade Unions (ACTU), are unhappy with any suggestion of a Labor compromise on AWAs, and are demanding that the ALP live up to its commitment. Private Labor polling published in the May 16 Sydney Morning Herald also reveals that Labor’s promise to abolish AWAs is popular.

Labor’s threatened retreat comes hot on the heels of Gillard’s promise to give mining companies most of what they want. Labor will provide “an award system that allows individual flexibilities, having that facilitated through awards, so it is a flexible system”, Gillard told Channel Nine’s Sunday program on May 13. “It’s got an individual arrangement in there through common law contracts”, she stressed.

Unsurprisingly, the media debate on AWAs since the ALP conference has been dominated by the bosses. However, there is another side to the story.

The much vaunted “flexibility” of AWAs provides few benefits for workers, even in the highly paid mining sector. “We asked a long line of mining companies in WA if they could give us an employee who’s on an AWA who’s happy about it, and happy to spruik about its benefits — but no luck”, Fran Kelly, ABC’s Radio National Breakfast presenter, said on May 4.

“There’s no involvement from the worker at all, it’s just here it is, like it or lump it and give us a hug and we’ll look after you”, Kevin Quill, an electrician employed by mining giant Rio Tinto in the Pilbara, told Green Left Weekly. “The contract is pretty simple, but at the end of it, it says: ‘You will abide by the policies and procedures of the company and these will change from time to time to suit the business needs’. So it’s a blank cheque. One day they could say you’re working eight hours, the next day they could say you’re working 10.”

Quill explained that workers on AWAs in the mining industry are generally working more than 12 hours each shift. “The guys in the trucks or stuck in a machine start work at 5.30am or pm, go virtually straight out to their machine until 1.30-2am or pm. There’s no set breaks where we are. You’re there until they get someone to swap you out. All we’re guaranteed is a base pay of 40 hours and it’s up to the bosses as to what roster you’re on.”

Quill stressed that the mining bosses would not give up on AWAs unless forced to do so. “They love these AWAs; they can do what they like on them. They don’t have to talk to us. They can tell us what we’re going to do, [that] we’ve got a different shift.”

ACTU secretary Greg Combet, on the ABC’s Lateline program on May 15, opposed the mining industry’s campaign to get Labor to abandon its pledge to abolish AWAs. “Collective bargaining is an internationally respected human right”, he said, adding, “Individual contracts are at fundamental odds with that right”.

Derek Belan, NSW state secretary of the National Union of Workers, told GLW that getting rid of AWAs is “fundamental to the Labor Party’s platform”. “It shouldn’t be a question in Labor’s head. AWAs are designed to strip away conditions.”

Belan said he was “happy that Rudd wants to talk to business”, but stressed, “he must maintain the fundamental principle of abolishing AWAs”.

Following the mining bosses’ campaign, CEOs of other industries are lining up to pressure Labor to backslide on its IR policy. The Master Builders Association has criticised Labor’s promise to abolish the draconian Australian Building and Construction Commission, whose powers include the right to interrogate building workers in closed session.

Refusal to attend or answer questions can lead to six months’ jail for contempt. Gillard responded by assuring business that Labor’s specialist building division, to be attached to Fair Work Australia (Labor’s replacement for the Australian Industrial Relations Commission), will be a “tough cop on the beat”. On May 16, Gillard also confirmed that stopping work in the event of a death in the building industry would be illegal under a Labor government.

Mining and building bosses are also concerned about a Labor government reinstating union officials’ right of entry to workplaces. Work Choices imposes a condition of 24 hours’ notice on union officials wanting to enter a work site. It also gives the boss the right to set the time and place that officials may meet with members (in the room next to the boss's office, for instance) and to prescribe the path the union official can take from the site entry to the meeting place (to avoid the official seeing potential health and safety risks). So far, Labor has been silent on whether it will reinstate the right of entry.

“The right of entry is fundamentally important”, Tony Papa, secretary of the NSW Building Group of Unions, told GLW. “If officials can’t get on building sites to police safety and to ensure that people are getting their proper entitlements, it’ll create a tremendous amount of problems. If we can’t get on to sites to do what we have been doing for years, then the accident rates will increase substantially.

“The Labor Party, particularly Julia Gillard, is aware of the need to access building sites for those reasons. For us, there won’t be any compromise about what happens with the right of entry. It’s a cornerstone of the activities that we undertake on a daily basis.”

Belan agreed: “The employer has a right to bring in representatives of his employer group at any time he likes. The workplace is a worker’s home for 10 hours a day. Why shouldn’t they be able to invite anyone they want? Unions are not third parties; they’re there at the workers’ request. Right now, the employers would even let your mum come into the work place — if she’s not a unionist.”

From: Australian News, Green Left Weekly issue #710 23 May 2007

How to get out of an AWA by Fiona Taylor, Melbourne

A group of construction workers in Somerton have proved that it is possible to get off an individual contract (Australian Workplace Agreement — AWA) and onto award rates and an enterprise agreement.

Metal construction workers building the new Coles distribution centre were forced to sign AWAs that dramatically undercut their wages: they were being paid $18 per hour casual rate and their penalty rates were being undercut.

Some of the workers were referred to the job through a Centrelink Job Network member. Under the federal government’s Welfare to Work breaching system, they were threatened with losing their benefits for eight weeks if they refused the position. Also, some workers were asked to sign a 20-page AWA, which they had seen only on a computer screen.

The AWAs might have been a clever device for the boss not to pay the building industry award, but the workers weren’t going to put up with that. Striking outside a bargaining period is illegal and AWAs are supposedly binding contracts. So, all the affected workers simply resigned en masse and protested outside the distribution centre gates.

Their employer sought legal sanctions against the workers, claiming that the Australian Manufacturing Workers Union was organising an illegal strike. The case was thrown out. The workers weren’t on strike, but had resigned and were protesting against their rotten conditions. They were hoping to be re-employed on the industry standard rate of pay.

The company refused to budge. While Coles was not the direct employer, it was happy to allow a contractor to rip off the workers.

At 6am on May 13, in the fog, a community assembly formed outside the main gate of the distribution centre. Security and amazed truck drivers were informed that nothing would be going in or out until 10am, and that’s what happened.

Protesting by the construction workers and the community assembly had the desired effect. After some argy bargy with the union, Coles and the contractor agreed to pay the correct rates and the workers were re-employed.

Workers on the site have scored a $10-per-hour increase and a host of other benefits that come with working on a union enterprise agreement linked to the correct award. Victory doesn’t get much sweeter than this.

[Fiona Taylor is a member of Union Solidarity in Melbourne.]

From: Australian News, Green Left Weekly issue #710 23 May 2007.

Don’t give in to the bosses — tear up Work Choices!

Since the ALP national conference in April, the big companies have had the ear of the Liberal and Labor parties about what sort of changes should be made to Australia’s industrial relations laws. The voice of workers and their unions have not been heard.

Socialist Alliance believes that to defend our rights at work workers need to mobilise again so that our voices are heard in opposition to the government’s anti-worker laws.

We therefore call on the Australian Council of Trade Unions and the state, territory and regional labour councils to immediately call a day of protest that demands:

1. The full repeal of the Howard government’s Work Choices and Workplace Relations Act (including the abolition of all individual contracts or AWAs) and;

2. The enshrining in Australian law of the internationally recognised right of workers to take industrial action in defence of their economic and social interests.

[This petition can be downloaded at www.socialist-alliance.org. For more information, contact Sue Bolton on 0413 377 978 or at sue_bolton@hotmail.com.]

From: Comment & Analysis, Green Left Weekly issue #710 23 May 2007.

Did Bastard Boys get the point of the MUA dispute? by Mick Bull

MUA and Community Picket Line Melbourne's East Swanson Dock 18-20 April 1998

If watching the ABC TV’s drama Bastard Boys is the only information that you have about the Maritime Union of Australia lockout of 1998, then you would probably conclude that the dispute was won by the brilliant tactical skills of Australian Council of Trade Unions (ACTU) secretary Greg Combet and former Maritime Union of Australia (MUA) national secretary John Coombes, and the legal talents of union lawyers.

At lunchtime on January 28, 1998, day-shift workers locked themselves inside onsite buildings after hearing that the National Farmers Federation was being issued space on the wharf. After being addressed by the MUA leaders, the workers instead decided to set up a picket outside the front gate.

Early on in Bastard Boys, just after the lockout at Webb Dock, Combet told Coombes that the dispute couldn’t be fought in the old way, otherwise, under the Workplace Relations Act, the union would be fined out of existence. The “old way” that Combet was referring to was taking industrial action to severely disrupt production and trade.

The phoney war at Webb Dock went on for months. The union allowed scabs to go through the picket line unobstructed, allowing them to learn the skills they needed to eventually take over and run the much larger Swanston Dock and other ports around the country.

At that time I was unemployed and spent most days down at the picket line. The decision of the MUA leadership to not impede the scabs infuriated MUA members and the leaderships of other unions.

But then the situation changed. Patrick Stevedores upped the ante by locking out the Swanston Dock workers and taking out injunctions to keep many MUA members away from the picket line.

The militant wing of the union movement — the Construction, Forestry, Mining and Energy Union, the Electrical Trades Union and the Australian Manufacturing Workers Union — with the Victorian Trades Hall Council responded by taking charge of the picket line and encouraging all unions and the community to get involved. The battle was then fought the old way.

The picket was converted into a real picket line. Patrick Stevedores could not move gear off the dock. The police couldn’t break the picket line unless they used extreme violence. Patrick could not win from there and everyone, including the banks, knew that the writing was on the wall.

Rumours spread across the picket that MUA members were going to be ordered back to work by the ACTU and their own leadership. The CFMEU leadership opposed this and urged the MUA members not to return to work until they had an agreement.

The MUA leadership responded by ordering the CFMEU off the picket line. MUA members were told that if they didn’t return to work at Patrick Stevedores, the company would go broke and they would lose their jobs anyway. This argument swayed the membership and they returned to work with no agreement and no pay.

Months of being locked out for some of the membership, followed by weeks of no pay for the locked-out workers after returning to work, softened waterside workers up for the huge losses they copped in the end.

Combet and Coombes sold the workers an agreement that resulted in losses that waterside workers had not seen since the Great Depression. Casualisation is now rife on the wharves. A large section of waterside workers have to ring up every afternoon to find out if they will be working the next day. Some wharfies are forced to remain as casuals for years.

Then CFMEU president John Cummins advised the MUA that it did not matter if Patrick went broke, because whichever company replaced it would still need workers to unload cargo. Instead the MUA and the ACTU chose to “snatch a defeat from the jaws of victory”.

As a result of these losses, seafarers and wharfies in Victoria and Western Australia elected new MUA leaderships in the following ballots.

The ultimate outcome of the 1998 MUA dispute was both a victory and a defeat. The victory was that Patrick Stevedore’s boss Chris Corrigan failed in his mission to destroy the MUA. Corrigan began to lose the dispute once the pickets were converted into real picket lines that blocked the scabs and trucks.

However, the MUA lost the battle over wharfies’ conditions. Many unionists blame Combet, Coombs and the lawyers’ “clever” tactics for settling for an agreement that resulted in big losses for wharfies, once Chris Corrigan began to lose the dispute.

From: Comment & Analysis, Green Left Weekly issue #710 23 May 2007.