Angered by the (deservedly) bad press WorkChoices has copped so far, the Prime Minister ordered his staff to redress the balance. Pretty soon they hit the phones “demanding major employer organisations give it good news stories about the laws.” Tasmanian CCI board member John White rose to the challenge, eagerly telling the media how he [...]
While I was watching this preview for The Red Tail, I couldn’t help thinking about Australia’s own red tail airline. Qantas has been at the forefront of the push to create a “flexible” workforce, and the tactics have been almost identical — sacking staff, shifting jobs overseas, hiring scabs, freezing wages while directors get huge [...]
The introduction of WorkChoices has seen some disgraceful behaviour from employers. A photo-lab worker was sacked due to “overstaffing”, despite the company hiring a new employee last week. A special needs worker was sacked for asking how a new timesheet system worked. A sports club cook was sacked after ten years’ service, without a single [...]
V for Vendetta hits Australian screens today; I will be going along this weekend to see if the translation from Alan Moore’s wonderfully conflicted graphic novel is successful. I’ll also be going because we ought to support stars who stick up for their behind-the-scenes co-workers. Natalie Portman, who stars as Evey, told the San Francisco [...]
Western Australia’s police and justice minister, John D’Orazio, has been in trouble in recent months over his failure to pay staff at his pharmacy business their proper superannuation entitlements. A number of his employees say they approached him about their super, but were unsuccessful in their approaches. The manager, too, says he spoke to D’Orazio [...]
On Saturday, I predicted that after WorkChoices took effect “shop stewards will be sacked” and “[o]ther union members will be next”. I didn’t expect the first example to be so blatant, or so soon. On the first day of the new industrial era, Triangle Cables advertised for “experienced machine operators and storepeople.” On the second [...]
Australian workers should pay close attention to the mass protests against the First Employment Contract (Contrat Première Embauche; CPE), an attack on job security reminiscent of our own Government’s removal of unfair dismissal protections. When — if — the law comes into force, employees under the age of 26 can be sacked within a two [...]
Workplace relations minister Kevin Andrews reckons it will take “three to five or six years” before his WorkChoices package comes into its own. Andrew Murray agrees, saying there is “a two-year impact buffer” built in: “little industrial relations bombs will go off but the big one will not explode before the next election.” WorkChoices has [...]
The ACTU revealed some interesting polling yesterday. Of 1000 voters in 24 Coalition-held marginal seats, a significant majority are opposed to the WorkChoices package: 59% of voters believe that “the Government’s new IR laws alone are a strong reason to vote against the Government” at the next federal election. This figure was backed up by [...]
In a media statement last week, Minister Helen Coonan explained how she was going to “restructure” the ABC board by removing the staff-elected position. The rationale, apparently, is that the current staff-elected director, Ramona Koval, was accused of leaking board business — never mind the fact that, as Steven Fenely put it in Crikey: The [...]
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