Normal service will return soon. I hope. In the meantime, check out The Manic Times. Thanks to its ongoing IR coverage, it’s not welcome at the HR Nicholls Society — and I can’t think of a better endorsement.
I’m putting together a post on Labor’s IR backdown, but I’m snowed under at work right now so I’m not really in the mood to finish writing it just yet. In the meantime, here’s some video and music you might find interesting. Kath & Kim: “Bloody Howard” You’ve surely heard that this week’s episode of [...]
John Howard made news recently by putting a couple of dull speeches up on YouTube, and Kevin Rudd has launched a big site to sells bumper stickers. As Mark has pointed out, these token efforts don’t really take the online plunge, they just move the same old campaign from talkback and letters pages to a [...]
A recent episode of Channel 9′s drama McLeod’s Daughters showed how AWAs are introduced as take-it-or-leave it contracts that cut pay and conditions. The script was apparently inspired by the real-life case of Bill Schultze, an Adelaide teenager who was pressured to sign an AWA by BP — it cut his pay by $2/hour, supposedly [...]
Put this in your diary: the ABC’s new drama, Bastard Boys, will screen in two parts at 8:30pm on Sunday, 13 May and Monday, 14 May. The show tells the story of the War on the Waterfront, in which the Howard Government ganged up with a stevedoring company to try to smash the Maritime Workers [...]
The Maritime Union of Australia has launched a campaign to honour the men and women who worked Sydney’s wharves and ships. They want to rename a foreshore redevelopment in Darling Harbour “The Hungry Mile”, as the area has been known to workers since the Depression: It first became known as the Hungry Mile during the [...]
This week, Australian Story featured ACTU secretary Greg Combet in an episode called Man of Steel — a play on his resemblance to Clark Kent as well as his personality. It’s a very interesting exposition of Combet’s background, his home life, his commitment to working Australians, and his possible future in politics. A large part [...]
The Catholic Bishop of Parramatta, Kevin Manning, has been attracting some media coverage — in the church press and elsewhere — with his comments about the ways WorkChoices contravenes Catholic social teachings. The full text of his 28 June speech is available, and in it Bishop Manning argues that WorkChoices constitutes an “inherent affront to [...]
The US National Labor Relations Board is considering whether to classify certain employees as “supervisors”. This is ostensibly on the basis that they sometimes direct the work of other employees — such as new staff, who need guidance while they learn the ropes. You might think this sounds like a good thing, as these workers [...]
Today’s Crikey daily email reckons the media — especially the Murdoch press, and very especially The Australian — is severely biased against Labor on industrial relations. First, Richard Farmer sums up the recent reporting: On Monday Kim Beazley was “to axe AWAs in backflip”. On Tuesday that had become “Unions push ALP for more”. Wednesday [...]
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