An Israeli air strike killed at least 40 Lebanese civilians, including 23 children, on Sunday, prompting Lebanon to tell U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice she was unwelcome in Beirut before a ceasefire.AiG chief Heather Ridout said her organisation never supported the junking of unfair dismissal rights and Australians had ended up with harsher laws than employers wanted.
"The parliamentary system failed us and we got tougher laws than we might have," Ridout told a Women, Management and Employment Relations Conference in Sydney.
Ridout's comments broke ranks with other peak business groups, including the Chamber of Commerce and Industry and the rich man's, Business Council of Australia, made up of chief executives from 200 leading companies.
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Tasmania’s Anglican Bishop has told the Fair Pay Commission how a national contract cleaning company- Biniris – is using individual contracts to undercut Award wages. Biniris has been a target of rowdy rallies in Tasmania by cleaner activists and supporters of the Clean Start: Fair Deal for Cleaners campaign.
Anglican Bishop John Harrower has urged Australia's Fair Pay Commission to live up to its name, in his submission to the new wages umpire.
Bluescope Steel boss, Kirby Adams, has labelled the federal government’s free trade infatuation a “naïve fantasy”.
ICFTU/WCL statement on the crisis in the Middle East
Ordinary Palestinian, Lebanese and Israeli families are suffering from a military conflict that must cease says the Australian Council of Trade Unions."Union Aid Abroad - APHEDA has two appeals for humanitarian assistance, one for families in the Gaza Strip and another for families in Burj el-Barajneh refugee camp in Lebanon. I urge people to make donations to these appeals - please ring 1800 888 674 or visit www.apheda.org.au," said Ms Burrow.
Commenting on the document and a leaked agenda and discussion paper for ACCI-Government talks, ACTU Secretary Greg Combet said:
"These documents show that there are secret discussions between the business lobby and the Government to further attack the basic rights of Australian workers.
Employment Minister Kevin Andrews needs to come clean and explain whether he met with the ACCI last week to discuss business proposals for more IR changes that would further cut the wages and conditions of employees.
The big business documents detail changes that would deny more workers access to overtime pay, and indicate that employers also want to allow AWA individual contracts to override the current five minimum standards.
Together, these proposals would mean that all working Australians would be in danger of being put onto an AWA individual contract that cuts their sick leave to just 5 days a year, takes away their annual holidays and has no limit on the hours they have to work each week."
read more| CLICK HERE TO SIGN THE PETITION TO SUPPORT THE COLES DRIVERS |
Mr Jampijinpa is one of the few Aboriginal stockmen still alive who walked-off the Lord Vesty-owned station on August 23, 1966 in what turned out to be the beginning of Australia's land rights movement.
The protracted industrial action taken by 18 crew members on board the MT Stolt began last weekend after the company revealed plans to reflag the ship to the Cayman Islands and sack the crew in favor of cheap unskilled foreign labour.
The MUA National Assistant Secretary, Mick Doleman said, the stance taken by the crew was extremely significant in the current industrial relations environment.
"This MOU is a moral victory for the crew on board the MT Stolt who stood up for their rights and their jobs".
The ACTU said workers on the Perth rail project, who face fines for a strike in February, could be jailed unless they attended secret hearings about the industrial action.
ACTU secretary Greg Combet said the workers faced jail if they did not attend the hearings or if they did not answer questions put by investigators from the Australian Building and Construction Commission. The workers are prevented from disclosing details of the hearings to family members and have to be represented by separate lawyers.
"It's an extreme denial of basic civil rights," said Mr Combet. "This is David Hicks-style treatment. It denies them the right to silence and to protect themselves from self-incrimination.
"Under threat of being thrown in jail, you have to incriminate yourself. That is a breach of one of the fundamental democratic and human rights that people have had in democratic countries."
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"Having done that we are still of the view that we must continue to take a firm stand and refuse to sail the ship today.
"We call on Stolt to enter into immediate and good faith discussions with our union to explore ways and means of retaining the Stolt Australia as an Australian flagged and Australian crewed vessel."
MUA Asst National Secretary Mick Doleman said 20 years of progress towards a globally competitve shipping industry in Australia will be undermined unless Stolt Australia takes urgent steps to work with its crew and unions to protect the jobs of Australian seafarers and help prevent the loss of another Australian operated ship,
"The 18 crew of the Stolt Australia are faced with losing their jobs and safety standards being compromised so that cheaper labour can be employed. The significant progress made in recent years to ensure Australian shipping remains competitive on the world stage will be eroded if this proceeds."
On site at the Hobart dock, MUA NSW Secretary Warren Smith said Australian seafarers are the best trained in the world and the unions have played a key role to ensure that the industry remains among the most competitive.
"The Howard Government has sanctioned the demise of the Australian shipping industry over the last 10 years. The MT Stolt is only 1 of 52 Australian flagged ships left in operation.?Stolt Australia's actions will hurt working families all for the sake of a bigger bottom line. Where will it stop?" Mr Smith said.
The Australian Greens today suggested it would be more honest for Prime Minister John Howard to swap the Australian flag used for news conferences to a Cayman Islands flag, since he seems to prefer it flying over ships plying Australian waters.
Australian Greens Senator for Tasmania, Christine Milne, said the dispute in Hobart over the intention of the Norwegian company to change the MT Stolt Australia to a foreign flag and dismiss 18 Australian crew members was the latest example of the Howard government undermining Australian shipping and Australian values.
"Waving the Australian flag and wearing the Australian colours are more than just for show. Every time the Cayman Islands flag is run up the flagpole where an Australian flag used to fly, the Prime Minister stands condemned.
"Prime Minister Howard says he supports the battlers and Australian jobs but he continues to drive jobs offshore, leaving the battlers unemployed and faced with a $33,000 fine if they take action to try to save their jobs. How un-Australian is that?"
On June 29 1981, the Japanese electronics company OKI sacked one of its workers, Tetsuro Tanaka, who had refused to sign the choices he was offered, a transfer order to work far from his home or to a piece of paper that said he agreed to be fired.For Ms Delofski, whose film is to be called Mr Tanaka Will Not Do Callisthenics, the spectre of psychologically whipped workers bending to a company exercise routine captures the struggle.
Tanaka's extraordinary struggle was picked up by the Saturday papers in Australia on 8 July:Workplace Relations Minister Kevin Andrews said last night it was one thing for Calwell (Canberra high school) to educate students about current issues, "but it's another thing entirely for teachers to politically hijack a rock eisteddfod, which is designed to promote positive lifestyle messages for our youth".
"This is totally inappropriate, regardless of which side of politics is being targeted," he said, adding, in his paternalistic way, it was "difficult to believe" students came up with the idea themselves.
The high school has vigorously defended its portrayal of the Howard Government's industrial relations laws, which swept its students to victory in the national capital's rock eisteddfod grand final.
But Calwell High's dance teacher and eisteddfod co-ordinator, Cheryl Diggins, insisted the Work Choices pastiche was both student-driven and appropriate.
"We have a history of tackling contemporary themes," Ms Diggins said. Realising the anti-government theme might upset some parents at Calwell, Ms Diggins sent performers home with an explanatory note for parents. "You have to respect other viewpoints, but I didn't get one withdrawal or complaint," she said.
Ms Diggins said previous themes for Calwell eisteddfods included the stolen generation, the detention of Burmese opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi and the power of corporations. The Nine Network is expected to air the pastiche later this year.
read more"We were also influenced by The ABCs, The Chasers War on Everything, Charlie Chaplin's Modern Times and Fritz Lang's Metropolis.
"During the process the students gained a greater understanding of the issues involved and the impact it will have on them now, as casual workers, and later when they leave school and move into fulltime work.
"Some of them have already been forced to agree to a flat rate after having penalty rates abolished by their employers.
"They understand that employers have been given all the power with few safeguards for the workers."
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As it was confirmed that Cowra workers could be legally sacked and re-employed on lower wages, the ACTU said workers on the Perth rail project, who face fines for a strike in February, could be jailed unless they attended secret hearings about the industrial action.
ACTU secretary Greg Combet said the workers faced jail if they did not attend the hearings or if they did not answer questions put by investigators from the Australian Building and Construction Commission. The workers are prevented from disclosing details of the hearings to family members and have to be represented by separate lawyers.
"It's an extreme denial of basic civil rights," Mr Combet said. "This is David Hicks-style treatment. It denies them the right to silence and to protect themselves from self-incrimination.
"Under threat of being thrown in jail, you have to incriminate yourself. That is a breach of one of the fundamental democratic and human rights that people have had in democratic countries."
read moreDocuments reveal for the first time the extent of the extraordinary co-operation between the Howard Government and AWB during 2004 as they worked to defuse the US Senate's probe into corruption of the United Nation's oil-for-food program.
While 850 Australian military personnel were fighting the Iraq insurgency, Australia's ambassador to the US, Michael Thawley, his deputy, Peter Baxter, a team of AWB lawyers and influential Washington lobbyists including former Clinton defence secretary William Cohen worked on a strategy to conceal the full extent of its activities from the US Senate committee.
AWB's in-house name for it was Project Rose.
The AWB strategy was, in effect, to play the Iraq card — using the presence of Australian troops as a leverage point to protect Australia's wheat market.
Most of the workers face fines of up to $28,000 each under tough federal laws to regulate the industry.
It is the biggest prosecution of individuals taken by the ABCC, which was set up last year by the Federal Government.
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The workers, employed on the Perth to Mandurah railway project, were charged by the Australian Building and Construction Commission last night for taking industrial action after a union delegate was sacked.
CFMEU Construction national secretary John Sutton said the charges, the first under harsh and punitive anti-union laws, should be of concern to all Australians who care about democratic rights.
"This is not a case of workers taking industrial action being docked paid or even about the employer attempting to recover for economic loss.
"It is about the Howard Government launching prosecutions that could see ordinary working Australian families lose their homes as punishment for standing up for their rights.
"We have been warning these building laws were extreme even by the standards of the Howard Government. These prosecutions show our fears were well-founded.
"These laws can see workers jailed for refusing to answer questions about what is said in union meetings to government investigators."
"And the Howard government has been quite open in stating they would like to see the same laws spread across the entire workforce.
"The 107 WA workers are the first union members to face political persecution in more than 50 years - Australians should be concerned they will not be the last."
NAIDOC celebrates the survival of Indigenous culture and the Indigenous contribution to modern Australia. NAIDOC Week celebrations in 2006 are from 2 to 9 July.
The national theme for 2006 is, Respect the Past - Believe in the Future.
Workers who are unfairly sacked face eight weeks without welfare assistance and have no avenue of appeal under 'welfare to work' laws.Ms Wong says the worker then faces eight weeks living on charity.
"The Howard Government is leaving these workers like a shag on a rock, having to rely on friends and family, on their kindness," she said.
"And it is an example on how out of touch this Government is that it believes Australian families can sustain themselves for eight weeks without any income support whatsoever."
