Chris White Online

BOOK REVIEW: Andy Alcock
“Framework of Flesh – Builders’ Labourers battle for Health & Safety”
by Humphrey McQueen (2009) Ginninderra Press (Port Adelaide)
I am very interested in this topic, because at an early age, I was confronted with the hazardous circumstances in which building workers were forced to accept.
For most of his working life, my father [...]

Abbott tells corporate leaders that WorkChoices was not an economic mistake, not all bad, but politically a mistake.
WorkChoices was necessary as regulation for unlimited freedom for profit making and undermining unions.
Turnbull was to hide WorkChoices 2. With Abbott the contest is back in the open.
But the Murdoch press weekly has propaganda “Abbott [...]

Typical media reactions against current workers’ strike actions hides the political reality analysed in detail on this blog that Labor’s Fair Work fails to ensure the right to strike, largely denies workers’ lawful industrial action, and so continues one of the worst repressive regimes against unions.
I will look at in 2010 some of the specifics [...]

ACTU OHS Harmonisation from Geoffrey Fary
“I refer to our previous circular of 10th December 2009 (No. 111/2009) regarding the outcomes of
the previous day’s Safe Work Australia (SWA) meeting – and to our subsequent distribution of the decisions of the Workplace Relations Ministers’ Council (WRMC) on 11th December.
That correspondence detailed that the draft Model [...]

TWO young Victorian workers have died in the past 24 hours.
It is reported in the Age yesterday that “A 24-year-old Wangaratta man was hit by concrete as he cleaned out a concrete pump hose yesterday, and a 21-year-old plumber died in hospital on Monday night after receiving an electric shock while working at Stawell in [...]

ACTU says: Tragic deaths of young workers must be stopped: call for urgent changes to Insulation Scheme
The Federal Government should immediately halt the Ceiling Insulation Stimulus Scheme until there are major improvements to its safety, training and licensing standards, say unions.
The tragic recent deaths of three young workers — two by electrocution and one by [...]

We all know Abbott.
One memory I have is in Adelaide at an AIRS conference addressed by Abbott as Workplace Relations Minister spinning his Building and Construction laws.
At the time little building work in Adelaide meant few strikes.
More union industrial action in Melbourne and Perth had Abbott’s ‘double-speak’ labelling lawful and legitimate workers [...]

ASBESTOS MEMORIAL DAY 2009 ADELAIDE by Andy Alcock
On Asbestos Memorial Day 127 November 2009, two events were held in Adelaide to commemorate those who have died or are suffering from asbestos-related diseases.
KILBURN
The first event was held at the Jack Watkins Reserve [see note(1)] which is located near the Islington Railway Workships where many succumbed [...]

How fair is the Fair Work Act 2009? A socio-political legal analysis
By Michael Tubbs
The Opposition’s anti-union and anti-employee WorkChoices IR regime cost it Government on 24 November 2007. Thus one would expect the new
Rudd Government’s Fair Work Act (The Act) to be the complete opposite – liberating.
Unfortunately, inexplicably this is not [...]