Here’s an interesting story: Dancers at the WA Ballet, Australia’s oldest ballet company, yesterday borrowed a lawyer from the union for boilermakers and welders, the Australian Manufacturing Workers’ Union, to take on management over dancers’ pay, which the Industrial Relations Commission heard described as scandalous yesterday. That’s what solidarity is about — workers sticking up [...]
Infamous car parts manufacturer Tristar is screwing its workers again, this time picking on a dying man. John Beaven put in 43 years of loyal service to the company, but now that he is on his death bed with cancer, the company is refusing to offer him a redundancy package: When Tristar began to wind [...]
Yesterday’s anti-WorkChoices rallies were quite good, but bad planning and publicity decisions by the unions led to poor media coverage. In Melbourne and Perth, at least, the choice of huge venues away from the city centre led to a smaller crowd that looked even smaller. If you promise to “Fill the G”, you’d better have [...]
Tomorrow is the national day of protest against the unfair WorkChoices laws. Local rallies around the country will be linked up by a national telecast. Jimmy Barnes will headline the festivities at the MCG, and hundreds of thousands of workers are expected to join in around the country. Even staff from the Office of the [...]
Although this blog is usually quite strictly focussed on Australian issues, I have been asked by the LHMU to mention something that happened in the United States last week, and which is one of LabourStart’s Act NOW! campaigns. As you know, this blog supports the LHMU’s Clean Start for Cleaners campaign. A similar campaign — [...]
TWU members in Sydney struck for two hours this morning, due to concerns about threats that were allegedly made to their delegates. The first incident occurred on 19 July: Three drivers at the Westbus depot at Bonnyrigg — all union delegates — and a union official claim the manager told them during a meeting on [...]
When you’re reading the flood of commentary that will follow this morning’s High Court decision, it is important to remember that it was not a ruling on the merits of the legislation. Just because the law is constitutional does not mean it is good or worthwhile. In fact, the High Court majority went out of [...]
I have been thinking some more about the situation at Heinemann Electrics. In my last post I explained how the legislation had been changed (contrary to the Government’s ongoing lies) to beef up the prohibition on mild industrial tactics like overtime bans. My point was confirmed last night by two IR lawyers: HEATHER EWART: The [...]
At Heinemann Electrics, a factory that produces circuit breakers and switchboards, ETU members are negotiating a new enterprise agreement. They decided to take mild industrial action in the form of overtime bans. Workers would still turn up for their ordinary-time hours, and they would still perform all their duties as directed, but they wouldn’t work [...]
Tuesday’s rallies in support of CFMEU and AMWU members were a great success — well over 1000 supporters attended the early-morning rally in Perth, with 500 in Sydney, 300 in Adelaide, 200 in Melbourne, and hundreds more in regional centres. In court, about a hundred workers and their union representatives packed the public gallery, and [...]
