The living standards of the lowest paid and most vulnerable workers must be protected as Australia faces an economic slowdown this year, say unions.
Clamping down on the minimum wage would be counter-productive by dampening consumer spending at a time when the government is trying to stimulate domestic demand to prevent the downturn from worsening, said ACTU Secretary Jeff Lawrence.
It would also be inequitable to expect workers who are totally dependent on the wage safety net to have a cut in their real income when they are already struggling to make ends meet, he said.
Mr Lawrence urged the head of the Fair Pay Commission, Ian Harper, to be careful when considering the needs of low-paid workers.
“Professor Harper knows that if the minimum wage does not rise, people will leave the labour force and go onto the unemployment rolls,” Mr Lawrence said.
“It would be a mistake for him to listen to the discredited and utterly predictable arguments from employers that a modest increase in the minimum wage will lead to unemployment.
“Last year, the lowest paid gained a pay rise of just 57 cents an hour from the commission. That was hardly a great extra burden on business and despite the scaremongering of employer groups, employment has risen every year since 1996, unaffected by increases in the minimum wage.
“Unions will be responsible in their wage claims this year but we will continue to do our job to obtain improved outcomes for Australian workers and we’re certainly not proposing that wages go backwards.”
more
Tuesday, January 13, 2009
Friday, January 09, 2009
Gaza: Red Cross report
Four small starving children too weak to stand were found next to the bodies of their dead mothers by ambulancemen who had been trying to reach their Gaza neighbourhood for four days after it came under Israeli attack, the Red Cross said yesterday.
In what the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) called a "shocking incident", another man, also too weak to stand, was found in the same bombed house, along with at least 12 corpses on mattresses.
Accusing Israel of violating international law by imposing "unacceptable" delays on rescuers trying to reach the scene, the ICRC said that when ambulance crews were finally allowed to access the area in Gaza City's Zeitoun district during a bombardment pause on Wednesday, they found 15 other survivors, including several wounded in another house. In a third house, they found three more corpses.
The ICRC said that because the military had erected large earth walls around the site, the crews were forced to use donkey carts to convey the children and the wounded to ambulances. Pierre Wettach, the ICRC's head of delegation for Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territories, said: "The Israeli military must have been aware of the situation but did not assist the wounded. Neither did they make it possible for us or the Palestine Red Crescent to assist the wounded."
The organisation accused the Israeli military of "violating its obligations under international law to care for and evacuate the wounded". The criticism was unusual as the ICRC generally refrains from publicly attacking the conduct of warring parties in conflict zones.
more
In what the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) called a "shocking incident", another man, also too weak to stand, was found in the same bombed house, along with at least 12 corpses on mattresses.
Accusing Israel of violating international law by imposing "unacceptable" delays on rescuers trying to reach the scene, the ICRC said that when ambulance crews were finally allowed to access the area in Gaza City's Zeitoun district during a bombardment pause on Wednesday, they found 15 other survivors, including several wounded in another house. In a third house, they found three more corpses.
The ICRC said that because the military had erected large earth walls around the site, the crews were forced to use donkey carts to convey the children and the wounded to ambulances. Pierre Wettach, the ICRC's head of delegation for Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territories, said: "The Israeli military must have been aware of the situation but did not assist the wounded. Neither did they make it possible for us or the Palestine Red Crescent to assist the wounded."
The organisation accused the Israeli military of "violating its obligations under international law to care for and evacuate the wounded". The criticism was unusual as the ICRC generally refrains from publicly attacking the conduct of warring parties in conflict zones.
more
Tuesday, January 06, 2009
Monday, January 05, 2009
Maritime Union condemns Gaza invasion
05 January 2009
By MUA media release
The Maritime Union of Australia today condemned the Israeli invasion of Gaza and called for the Australian Government to back the United Nations General Assembly calls for an immediate withdrawal and ceasefire.
By MUA media release
The Maritime Union of Australia today condemned the Israeli invasion of Gaza and called for the Australian Government to back the United Nations General Assembly calls for an immediate withdrawal and ceasefire.
"We call on the international trade union movement and the Australian Government to join the UN General Assembly condemnation of the invasion as a 'monstrosity' and the Israeli blockade of Gaza as a breach of international law," said MUA National Secretary Paddy Crumlin.
The national secretary said that the union did not condone terrorism or the killing of innocents by either side, but noted the disproportionate loss of Palestinian lives.
"Even by conservative estimates nearly a quarter of Palestinians killed by Israeli fire in the latest bloodshed are civilians - men women and children," he said. "More than 500 Palestinians have been killed in the past week against the 20 Israelis deaths by Hamas rockets in the past eight years. Israel is not eliminating Islamic extremism by such bloodshed, it is helping create it - worldwide. Far from their intent of creating a more moderate Palestinian government they are giving Hamas even more legitimacy and support among Arab and Islamic peoples."
Mr Crumlin said he also noted the cynicism of the Israeli government in moving before US President elect Barack Obama replaces Bush in the White House on January 20 and the Israeli elections in February.
"The Australian government should not wait for the Democrats to take office, but act immediately in speaking out against the invasion and calling for peace negotiations to resume."
The Maritime Union will be supporting people in the occupied territory through the ACTU aid agency Apheda and calls on members to do likewise.
Apheda reports medical supplies in Palestinian hospitals are seriously depleted due to the Israeli-imposed blockade of the Gaza Strip for the past two years.
In a Palestinian population of 1.5 million in the Gaza Strip, the United Nations reports that almost 80 percent of Palestinian families are almost entirely dependent on food aid or direct assistance
"Union Aid Abroad -APHEDA calls on the government of Israel to immediately cease all military attacks and open the borders for the flow of essentials: water, food, medicine and fuel."
To deliver much needed assistance, Union Aid Abroad is asking for a ONE-OFF DONATION, to help continue to implement our program in Gaza.
How to Donate
Phone
1800 888 674 (toll free)
Email
office@apheda.org.au
Cheque
The national secretary said that the union did not condone terrorism or the killing of innocents by either side, but noted the disproportionate loss of Palestinian lives.
"Even by conservative estimates nearly a quarter of Palestinians killed by Israeli fire in the latest bloodshed are civilians - men women and children," he said. "More than 500 Palestinians have been killed in the past week against the 20 Israelis deaths by Hamas rockets in the past eight years. Israel is not eliminating Islamic extremism by such bloodshed, it is helping create it - worldwide. Far from their intent of creating a more moderate Palestinian government they are giving Hamas even more legitimacy and support among Arab and Islamic peoples."
Mr Crumlin said he also noted the cynicism of the Israeli government in moving before US President elect Barack Obama replaces Bush in the White House on January 20 and the Israeli elections in February.
"The Australian government should not wait for the Democrats to take office, but act immediately in speaking out against the invasion and calling for peace negotiations to resume."
The Maritime Union will be supporting people in the occupied territory through the ACTU aid agency Apheda and calls on members to do likewise.
Apheda reports medical supplies in Palestinian hospitals are seriously depleted due to the Israeli-imposed blockade of the Gaza Strip for the past two years.
In a Palestinian population of 1.5 million in the Gaza Strip, the United Nations reports that almost 80 percent of Palestinian families are almost entirely dependent on food aid or direct assistance
"Union Aid Abroad -APHEDA calls on the government of Israel to immediately cease all military attacks and open the borders for the flow of essentials: water, food, medicine and fuel."
To deliver much needed assistance, Union Aid Abroad is asking for a ONE-OFF DONATION, to help continue to implement our program in Gaza.
How to Donate
Phone
1800 888 674 (toll free)
office@apheda.org.au
Cheque
Made to Union Aid Abroad - APHEDA and posted to:
Union Aid Abroad - APHEDA,
Level 3, 377-383 Sussex Street,
Sydney NSW 2000.
Union Aid Abroad - APHEDA,
Level 3, 377-383 Sussex Street,
Sydney NSW 2000.
PPP and Tolls
Tolls on and for the people
Sydney Morning Herald (5 Jan 2009)
Large corporations are not to be trusted with public assets, at least not as much as they used to be. This is one of the harsh lessons of the global credit crisis. It is one of the byproducts of a sequences of disasters and excess by the private infrastructure sector.
First, we had the financial collapse of the Sydney Airport rail link. Then the bankruptcy of Sydney's Cross City Tunnel. Then the virtual bankruptcy of Babcock & Brown. Then the debacle of Macquarie Bank's public float of the Brisbane toll road company, Brisconnections. Then the plunge in the market value, and reputation, of Macquarie Bank itself. Then the cost blow-out in the State Government's toll rebate scheme. Now comes the news that by the time the Sydney Harbour Tunnel reverts to state ownership in 2022, NSW taxpayers will have paid about $1.8 billion for an asset that cost $550 million to build.
This is but a partial list of problems. It is time to reconsider whether the financing and ownership of such public assets should return to state control, a model that worked well for two centuries. In the past, the Herald has supported the growth of infrastructure projects funded and owned by public-private partnerships, or PPPs as they have come to be known. It is a field in which Australia led the world, and was in the large part successful. But the world has changed. Would the state be better off returning to building public infrastructure with public financing, so that when the public pays for using toll roads at least they are paying tolls that are for the people and by the people?
With the federal Labor Government about to finance an ambitious national infrastructure program, and the NSW Labor Government in financial straits, this question has urgency. Several factors suggest that reliance on private funding is no longer as necessary as it once was. The Federal Government is intent on upgrading Australia's infrastructure and stimulating the economy in the process. There is an enormous pool of superannuation savings looking for safe havens. The cost of government borrowing is lower than the cost of private borrowing. These elements could be harnessed in common cause by the creation of infrastructure bonds, issued by the government, backed by the assets they fund.
This is not an original suggestion, yet it barely rates a mention in public policy.
Sydney Morning Herald (5 Jan 2009)
Large corporations are not to be trusted with public assets, at least not as much as they used to be. This is one of the harsh lessons of the global credit crisis. It is one of the byproducts of a sequences of disasters and excess by the private infrastructure sector.
First, we had the financial collapse of the Sydney Airport rail link. Then the bankruptcy of Sydney's Cross City Tunnel. Then the virtual bankruptcy of Babcock & Brown. Then the debacle of Macquarie Bank's public float of the Brisbane toll road company, Brisconnections. Then the plunge in the market value, and reputation, of Macquarie Bank itself. Then the cost blow-out in the State Government's toll rebate scheme. Now comes the news that by the time the Sydney Harbour Tunnel reverts to state ownership in 2022, NSW taxpayers will have paid about $1.8 billion for an asset that cost $550 million to build.
This is but a partial list of problems. It is time to reconsider whether the financing and ownership of such public assets should return to state control, a model that worked well for two centuries. In the past, the Herald has supported the growth of infrastructure projects funded and owned by public-private partnerships, or PPPs as they have come to be known. It is a field in which Australia led the world, and was in the large part successful. But the world has changed. Would the state be better off returning to building public infrastructure with public financing, so that when the public pays for using toll roads at least they are paying tolls that are for the people and by the people?
With the federal Labor Government about to finance an ambitious national infrastructure program, and the NSW Labor Government in financial straits, this question has urgency. Several factors suggest that reliance on private funding is no longer as necessary as it once was. The Federal Government is intent on upgrading Australia's infrastructure and stimulating the economy in the process. There is an enormous pool of superannuation savings looking for safe havens. The cost of government borrowing is lower than the cost of private borrowing. These elements could be harnessed in common cause by the creation of infrastructure bonds, issued by the government, backed by the assets they fund.
This is not an original suggestion, yet it barely rates a mention in public policy.
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