by Humphrey McQueen

For months, the bosses, their stenographers in the mass media and their political agents have been publicising corruption in the East Branch of the Health Services Union to tar the whole of the labour movement.

The responses from the Killard government and the ACTU have been as tardy as they have been lame. The best their leaders can mouth is that the HSU is the one rotten apple. This apologetic line is the latest instance of how organised labour is on the back foot.

The most obvious example of this retreat has been in regard to the Australian Building and Construction Commission where the Construction Division of the CFMEU has never taken the fight up to the bosses by focusing on their ‘ingrained culture’ of criminality. Too often the union pleads: ‘we’re not as thuggish as they say we are’.
The union is vigorous in attacking OH&S violations and detailing non-payment of wages, Super and taxes, But these offences are confined to the workplace and don’t help the populace to see the nature of capitalism.

Exploitation is not theft

Before documenting a few recent instances from the avalanche of the activities considered crimes even by the standards of bourgeois justice, it is vital to be clear about how the capitalist system works.

All the money that capitalists steal from each other and swindle out of governments and the public comes from the surplus value added by wage-slaves.

That exploitation is not theft. On average, capitalists pay wage-slaves the full value of the cost of producing the one commodity – their labour-power – that we have for sale.

That exchange is the core of capitalism. Once that surplus value has been produced, sections of capital battle to get their hands on as much of it as possible. That is where the most of the swindling comes in. In some cases, the original capitalist can be left with no profit. No commentator on the accumulation of capital has paid as much attention to swindling as did Marx who nonetheless kept it in its place.

Construction

Collusive tendering and price-fixing are the ‘ingrained culture’ of the employers in this sector. In 1995, Leighton’s then CEO, Wal King, justified his company’s use of false invoices to conceal price-fixing on the Sydney Casino as ‘the culture … and custom that had been long-standing in the industry that had been handed on for years.’ So had King’s excuse.

In 1911, the NSW MBA justified its members’ involvement in illegal commissions by saying that they ‘should be openly recognised’ as ‘universal and worldwide’.

The 1995 report branded King and Leightons as ‘not of good repute, having regard to character, honesty and integrity’. Despite this, he and Leightons continued to flourish.

They were not banned from sites, unlike CFMEU organisers defending the lives of their members.

The NSW Gyles Royal Commission in 1990 forced the resignation of the executive of the NSW MBA which had been a clearing house for collusive tenders. This unanticipated outcome was similar to that from the Royal Commission into the Ship Painters and Dockers which had exposed bottom-of-the harbor schemes across the big end of town.
Howard did not make that mistake in setting the terms of reference for the Cole inquisition into the building and construction unions.

Killard followed suit when she excluded health and safety from the review of the ABCC, which thereby had an easy time in finding that her ‘tough cop on the beat’ was necessary.

The gravest matter in building and construction is the Hardie Asbestos case. The High Court endorsed the disbarring of its directors for seven years for rigging the books about the compensation fund. There is no chance of their being charged with complicity in the mass murder of workers since, under capitalism, killing is not murder when done for profit.

In April, Lend Lease was made to pay fines and restitution of $54USm. for ten years of ‘a systematic pattern of audacious fraud’ in the US of A. Yet again, the company’s defence was ‘everyone does it’. Yet again, Lend Lease is allowed to tender for government contracts.

Funny money

John Gay, former head at Gunns in Tasmania, has been charged on two counts of insider trading late in 2011. It is alleged that he sold shares in Gunns knowing that funds for its pulp mill were not going forthcoming.
In the same week as Gay faced court on 14 May, the Securities Commission (ASIC) reported a boom in insider-trading, with as many as 200 alerts received every day, that is, some 50,000 a year. The authorities managed to get eleven convictions in the three years to December, a slight improvement over their ten successes in the decade before 2008. The financialisation of the economy has inserted multiple levels of intermediaries with access to advance information about company accounts. The disproportion of alerts to convictions is a measure of how light is the hand of the law on corporate crooks.

The shopping center giant Centro lost track of more than $3 billion and thereby misled shareholders in 2007. A judge fined its Chief Financial Officer $30,000 and disqualified him for two years. In delivering his findings, his honour warned off ASIC by ruling that the Centro board had not been personally dishonest. Indeed, they had been ‘intelligent, conscientious and well-advised’. Perhaps if they had been stupid, lazy and ignorant they would not have lost anything? We might compare the court’s kid-glove treatment of Centro’s bosses with what its managers would have done to an honest, intelligent, conscientious and well-advised shopkeeper who happened to lose track of even $3,000 in unpaid rents.

Much smaller in one sense yet also far larger in its implication is the plundering of Super fund Trio by its executives. Alongside the Wollongong battlers whose losses were covered by government guarantees were several hundred leafy North Shore investors who went for Trio’s self-managed funds because they promised higher returns. Where did those ‘victims’ think the extra spondoolicks were going to come from if not from shonky deals such as Trio’s transferring $124m. to a tax haven?

The problem is not the individual rip-off merchant or a few greedy Pymble millionaires, but the institutionalisation of tax havens with the connivance of governments across the globe.
ASIC recently fined Leightons $300,000 for non-disclosure of information to the stock exchange. That is a hanging offence because they were ripping off other capitalists. A fine for killing for profit can be as little as $35,000. Bourgeois justice values a worker’s life at one-eighth of a share-holder’s monetary loss.

Bribes
Leighton’s is also under investigation here and in Iraq into whether one of its subsidiaries paid bribes to get information to win a contract with South Oil Co.

Queensland ex-Minister Gordon Nuttall is in jail for taking bribes from mining magnate Ken Talbot. Talbot was due to stand trial on thirty-five charges of corruption but died in a plane crash between Cameroon and the Congo, two of the most corrupt countries on that continent. You can bet your bottom dollar that Talbot had been as generous to the thugs ruling over those mines as he was to Nuttall. Perhaps his plane crashed because it was overloaded with gifts.

In the wake of the Wheat Board’s bribery in Iraq, the Reserve Bank of Australia got around to cleaning up its act.

Between 2001 and 2009, two subsidiaries, Note Printing Australia and Securency, paid $50m. to agents to win contracts to supply plasticised bank notes. How much of this payout ended up bribing officials in places like Nepal? How much did the RBA oard know, and when did they know it?

On 4 April this year, thirty Victorian building inspectors were charged with ‘alleged corruption, serious misconduct and harassment’; they allegedly took kickbacks to block formal investigations. On the same day, the State government announced the formation of its own Construction Stasi to ban the flying of the Eureka flag on sites. There will be no special police to investigate who bribed the inspectors.

Killing no murder

Four trucking companies are up on 1,000 charges of disabling the speed governors on their trucks. The practice came to light after a truck killed three people in January. In the aftermath, NSW police found that scores of governors at four firms had been tampered with.

The Transport Workers’ Union repeated its accusation against Coles and Woolworths for imposing unsafe delivery schedules. For proof, stop at the Truckies’ memorial at Tarcutta. The employers’ association defence is that executives sit in offices and don’t sully their suits by tinkering with accelerators. Hence, any blame rests with the drivers. At law, corporations don’t have a soul to condemn or a backside to kick, yet they seem well supplied with arseholes.

Price-fixing

One QANTAS executive in the US went to gaol for eight months in 2008 for colluding with competitors to fix freight rates.

Qantas has also been fined by the European Commission, the New Zealand authorities and paid $26m. in penalties early last year in the US of A. If Qantas bosses were indigenous lads in Western Australia they would be behind bars under the three-strikes-and-you’re-in rule.

Dick Pratt made a name for himself as a philanthropist before the Competition Commission fined him $36m. for price-fixing. By colluding on the price of cardboard cartons, Pratt’s Visy and rival Amcor stole money from every pensioner who bought a packet of corn-flakes. Out of that rip-off of the most vulnerable, Pratt made a big fellow of himself.

It is typical of the ingrained culture of capitalism that his associates said that the head of the Competition Commission, Gordon Samuel, had behaved badly in pursuing the case because he had been a guest at Pratt’s house.

Prime Minister Rudd knew about the scam yet flew to the funeral to pay homage to one of the biggest crooks yet to be exposed in Australia.
Transfield’s co-founder, Franco Belgiorno-Nettis, subsidised the visual arts out of the profits he made from exploiting workers while swindling customers and governments. He confessed to his corporation’s official historian that he had engaged in corruption and strong-arm tactics: ‘We cover this with a veneer of civilization.’ In a class society, each act of civilisation is met by a piece of barbarism exacted from workers whose creativity and suffering pay for the benefactor’s noble gestures.

Activists must voice class bitterness and class contempt.

We lose by cringing before bad behaviour in one union.

Instead, we must go straight for the corporate jugular to publicise organised robbers and serial killers.

Dickens got it half wrong in Bleak House when he has detective Bucket observe that, while murder could be done by amateurs, thieving needed professionals.

Dickens was right to foresee that Pratt did not wake up one morning after a blameless career in business and decide to steal tens of millions of dollars. He was a professional thief. Moreover, killing for profit is no work for amateurs as asbestos makes clear.

An International Class-War Crimes Tribunal would charge the Hardie executives with ‘prole-cide’.

Today’s release by the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) of the Labour Force data for April 2012 reveals a weak labour market with the employment gains being confined to part-time work and workers dropping out of the labour force due to the limited available vacancies. While unemployment fell by 28.8 thousand, the drop in participation accounted for 26 thousand of that – meaning the Australian economy has been busy over the last month converting the official unemployed into hidden unemployed. This is not a “good” outcome as some in the media and the Government are claiming today. The outlook is also not very positive either given the Federal government’s obsessive pursuit of a budget surplus which will cut economic growth by some percentage points. They are even boasting that if growth falls short and tax revenue shrinks they will impose even further cuts on spending and/or increases in taxes. At that point the word idiocy comes to mind. The most disturbing aspect of the labour market data remains the appalling state of the youth labour market. This should be a policy priority for the government. But they have gone missing in action – lost in their surplus mania. My assessment of today’s results – very subdued indeed. I will be on ABC Radio National Drive program tonight from 18:15 talking about today’s data! Live Feed.

The summary ABS Labour Force (seasonally adjusted) estimates for April 2012 are:

Employment increased by 15,500 (0.1 per cent) with full-time employment falling by 10,500 (0.1 per cent) and part-time employment rising by 26,200 (0.8 per cent).
Unemployment decreased by 28,800 (4.6 per cent) to 598,200. The decline in unemployment is almost solely due to the declining participation rate.

The official unemployment rate fell to 4.9 per cent because of the labour supply contraction.
The participation rate decreased by 0.1 pts to 65.2 per cent.

Aggregate monthly hours worked increased by 6.6 million hours (0.4 per cent).

The ABS broad labour underutilisation estimates (the sum of unemployment and underemployment) is published quarterly (next release in May 2012) and in February was 12.5 per cent. I expect that underemployment will have risen given that drop in full-time employment.

The Sydney Morning Herald story – Jobless rate in surprise fall – referred to the prediction by bank economists that the unemployment rate would rise to 5.3 per cent (up 0.1 per cent).

One bank economist was quoted as saying:

It’s generally stronger than expected … You’ve got another reasonable gain in employment and while the previous month was revised down, the last couple of months have been decent.

Which is not the story that the numbers are telling. The gain in employment was tepid and full-time employment fell. An economy that adds part-time jobs only is not providing a “reasonable gain in employment” or indicating strength.

And with the participation dropping again, the story is far from decent. I will show you what the decline in participation means further on.

The Employment Minister was quoted as saying:

Even the most trenchant critics of the government would have to acknowledge that an unemployment rate of 4.9 per cent is good news for the nation.

As one of the Government’s most trenchant critics a fall in the unemployment rate that is associated with a drop in full-time employment (that is, further moves to casualisation and low-pay) and the unemployed leaving the labour force because vacancies are scarce is hardly “good news”. It just means that the quality of employment is declining and the official unemployed are becoming hidden unemployed as an artefact of the way the statistician conducts the Labour Force Survey and classifies activity.

Three days ago (May 7, 2012), the same Sydney Morning Herald reporter (Chris Zappone) reported that – Job ads point to labour market weakness. This story was in relation to a job vacancies series which is published by one of the four main banks. The bank also indicated that it was revising its previous estimates of job ads growth down because the data was found to be unreliable.

Last week, the RBA in its Statement on Monetary Policy – see Chapter Domestic Economic Conditions – also said that the current expectations of jobs growth were too optimistic:

… these leading indicators have tended to overestimate net employment growth … Overall, the vacancy data and survey measures continue to point to modest employment growth in the period ahead.

So today’s data does not alter that view – a very sombre outcome was presented.

The ABC report – Unemployment drops as job seekers give up – focused on what is actually happening:

Australia’s unemployment rate dropped to a 12-month low of 4.9 per cent last month in a surprise result as people gave up looking for work … The figures suggest job seekers dropped out of the hunt for work; the participation rate, which measures the number of people at work or seeking work, fell 0.1 of a percentage point to 65.2 per cent.

While most people will think the decline in unemployment is a “good thing” the reality is as explained above – a conversion of unemployment to hidden unemployment in the face of declining vacancies and increased casualisation is not a good signal.

The ABC also quoted the Employment Minister as saying that:

… the figures showed that more Australians were at work than ever before Federal employment minister Bill Shorten said the figures showed that more Australians were at work than ever before and highlighted the importance of the Government’s confidence building measures, such as bringing the budget back to surplus.

First, the ABS Population Clock tells us that there is “an overall total population increase of one person every 1 minute and 34 seconds”. Saying that “more Australians were at work than ever before” is thus meaningless. There are also more American in work than Australians and so on.

Second, the data does not suggest an increased confidence in the private sector. Exactly the opposite. Full-time jobs vanishing, casualisation increasing, people dropping out of the labour force because there are limited new vacancies.

Third, the pursuit of the surplus is the reason the labour market is so flat and on trend terms in decline.

Read more

http://bilbo.economicoutlook.net/blog/?p=19359#more-19359

ACTU CONGRESS Fringe Event Public meeting
AUSTRALIAN JOBS AND THE RIGHT TO STRIKE
Discussion and Drinks: Mark Lennon, Ged Kearney,
Brian Boyd, Dean Mighell, Len Cooper & more…
Time: 5.15pm – 6.15pm Date: Monday 14 May 2012
Where: Unions NSW Atrium, Trades Hall
Job Creation
Organising rights Fair tax system
Cap Exec pay
Sham contracting Phoenixing
sponsored by VTHC

See ACTU Congress website for other Fringe events.

Please in Sydney distribute this flyer.

Right Strike ACTU Fringe flyer

26 March, 2012 | Media Release
Almost 1000 delegates representing workers from every industry and sector in Australia will attend the ACTU Congress at the Sydney Convention Centre from 15-17 May.

This is the largest and most important gathering of Australian unions. Delegates will debate and vote on policies regarding the workplace, rights, and campaigns to improve wages, conditions and quality of life for Australian workers and their families. This process sets the union agenda for a further three years.

The Congress will also elect a new Secretary to lead the ACTU, along with other office-holders.

The theme of ACTU Congress 2012 is Secure Jobs. Better Future. With about 40% of the Australian workforce employed as casuals, in labour hire, on short-term contracts or in other forms of insecure work, improving their rights, entitlements and protections is a major priority of Australian unions.

All media are invited to this important event in Sydney from 15-17 May.

Congress highlights:
High profile national and international speakers
Public release of the report of the Howe Inquiry into Insecure Work
Youth Congress (14 May)
Spotlight on union campaigns and special focus on secure jobs
Congress dinner with special guests
Policy sessions and debates: industrial relations, economic and social policy
Fringe events
Speakers will include:
The Prime Minister, Julia Gillard
The Minister for Workplace Relations, Bill Shorten
Incoming ACTU Secretary-elect
ACTU President Ged Kearney
Outgoing ACTU Secretary Jeff Lawrence
Chair of the Independent Inquiry into Insecure Work, Brian Howe
Director of the Economic Policy Institute (USA), Lawrence Mishel
General Secretary of the Fijian Trades Union Congress, Felix Anthony

More announcements will be made soon. Visit www.actucongress.org.au for more information.

Media can register their interest in attending the ACTU Congress 2012 by contacting Michelle Ryan on (03) 9664 7379 or mryan@actu.org.au

1. Amend the Fair Work Act to have a real right to strike.

2. Amend the Fair Work Act to restrict casual and other forms of precarious work to a limited period. Provide the requirement for on-going work, more secure contracts of employment. Fair Work Australia is to have the power and discretion to conciliate and arbitrate the transition to the more secure employment contracts.

1. The right to strike

I submit the lawful strike is essential for collective bargaining. WorkChoices’ repressive provisions with unnecessary and unfair sanctions against industrial action were retained in the Fair Work Act and all have to be repealed for effective collective bargaining system.

Only with employees’ ability to bargain with protected action without being ordered back to work and suffering penalties can employees and their unions be able to respond to the dire precarious work of continuing capitalist labour relations.

The international capitalist crisis daily worsens putting more pressure on business to move to precarious and exploitative work. In response, unions have the Secure Jobs campaign.

What is essential is for employees to have the FWA amended to protect the right to strike in order to balance the more powerful corporate and government forces.

I have written on my recommendations for a right to strike. I reference articles on the arguments for amendments to the Fair Work Act to protect the right to strike.

I argue for the fire walling of industrial action for protection for employees and their unions so that sanctions are removed.

I argue such an amendment is vital for employees in all the forms of non-standard work.

I urge as necessary the repeal of the Australian Building and Construction Improvement Act, and the ABCC functions and powers and not replace it with the current amendments before Parliament that have no merit.

All of the existing provisions from the earlier Workplace Relations Act and Work Choices still in the current repressive regime against strikes are to be deleted, as well as those in other laws such as the Trade Practices Act and the Crimes Act.

Instead, a broad legal protection for all forms of industrial action is inserted.

At a minimum, commonly accepted ILO principles as required protecting the right to strike are to be implemented. The history of such ILO principles and their non-application by Australia is well known in the industrial relations and labour law community.

Furthermore, as a result to the Qantas lockout, the employer is to be denied this bargaining weapon of the lockout and the provisions in FWA deleted.

Much criticism has occurred about the failure of the FWA to have an effective right to strike by industrial relations specialists, labour law academics, the ACTU and unions. In particular, see the critical analysis in Shae McCrystal’s book ‘The Right to Strike in Australia’. I recommend Professor Keith Ewing’s research on the right to strike and Tania Novitz on the ILO’s protection for the right to strike.

Fire walling the right to strike is necessary for parliament to accept as essential for workers to have some power in this capitalist crisis and to assist strategies for secure jobs.

2. Job Security in the Fair Work Act

The overall merit evidence from employees’ adverse experiences in precarious work and the unjust impact socially in the Australian community requires Fair Work Act amendments for job security. Here are key recommendations.

2.1 One amendment is to clearly restrict casual employment to only short periods, such as 4 hours daily and no more than fortnightly.

Then a provision that compels employers to move to on-going and more permanent employment and allows employees the transition from existing casualisation to these more permanent on-going employment contracts.

Such a provision has bargaining rights for precarious workers to change to secure employment with the terms to be negotiated and agreed. The clear right exists when not being able to reach an agreement for the employee(s) to access conciliation and arbitration from FWA to gain orders for process steps for more permanent work.

The same applies to ending many short-term contracts. After two short term contracts, then the employer is required to move to more permanent, on-going contracts.

Special attention is to support any employee with service e.g. more than seven years who is to be on a permanent contract. As well, an existing employee with 10 years before retirement is to be on a permanent contract. Employees in other non-standard employment sectors are to be protected such as in the disability sector.

2.2 The next new section is to ensure that labour-hire contract provisions are not attractive
to employers for lowering costs. The aim is have protections dealing with precarious work in the labour-hire industry. Such provisions are to ensure the same wages and conditions
in the user firm in similar work. Employees must be hired permanently for not less
than two years. There is a formal written contract with the same rate and benefits. The
worker may join the user firm’s union. Labour-hire is to be implemented generally for
short-term, supplementary and substitute positions. Provisions for transition and
compliance need to be put in place.

2.3 Strengthening enforcement provisions by employees and unions to ensure that employers pay legal wages and comply with all employment conditions of the contracts of employment, with speedy measures for exploited workers to recover wages. Increased penalties and damages against non-complying employers.

2.4 A provision that deems for compliance that legal minimums exist in contracts of employment so that those entitlements can be enforced even if there is no evidence of a written contract of employment.

2.5 Amend the unfair dismissal section so that the right applies to all employees, irrespective of the employee’s status or contract of employment or the size of the employer’s workforce. The big lie that employers may not employ was made up by Ian Hanke Peter Reith’s press secretary and is repeated by Liberals and Nationals ad nauseum in the media, but is to be rejected. Precarious workers ‘dismissed’ ought to have the lawful right to argue their case about why they were unreasonably dismissed before a user friendly FWA conciliator then arbitrator for reinstatement.

2.6 I urge strengthened redundancy provisions in a new minimum entitlement that has a provision for three months notice and one month’s pay for each year of service for redundant employees. Such a job security measure as a national entitlement deters employers from making employees redundant and assists redundant employees in this recessionary period.

2.7 A specific process provision for precarious workers with non-standard work arrangements to have the legal right to union representation and to be able to organise in unions.

I support the ACTU campaign for Secure Jobs.

I attach reference articles. I attach a brochure from the National Right to Strike campaign to have the FWA ILO compliant.

Insecure work issues in Australia are similar to those overseas. I urge investigation of other countries attempts to provide greater protection for their employees. As well, I recommend China’s labour relations and laws grappling with insecure work.

I have an arts/law degree from the University of Adelaide. I worked in SA for the AWU, the LHMU and then was elected as Assistant Secretary and later Secretary of the UTLC of SA. I then in Canberra worked for ASMOF and the NTEU and at the ANU teaching in Politics.

I have posts on the right to strike on my blog http://chriswhiteonline.org

I now live in Darwin and am a Senior Research Fellow at The Northern Institute Charles Darwin University.

References
Cameron, C. (1970) ‘Industrial protest: the Right to Strike’ University of Adelaide, WEA ‘Social order and the right to dissent’ 27/11/1970. (Australian Parliamentary Library).
Ewing, K. (2004) ‘Laws Against Strikes Revisited’, in Barnard C, Deakin S and Morris G editors ‘The Future of Labour Law’ (Hart Publishing, Oxford, 2004).
Ewing, K. (2008) ‘Restoring rights at work Lessons from the UK.’ Professor of Law, Kings College London (Published 10.11.08 by Catalyst http://www.catalyst.org.au)
Glasbeek, H. (2009) ‘Rudderless in a Sea of Choices: The Defeat of Your Rights At Work—Analysis and a Possible Response’ Professor Emeritus and Senior Scholar Osgoode Hall Law School, York University,Toronto and Visiting Professorial Fellow, Victoria University, Melbourne. Dissent Autumn/Winter 2009, p33 and posted http://chriswhiteonline.org
Peetz, D. (2005) 151 Industrial Relations and Labour Law Academics Senate WorkChoices No 175. http://www.aph.gov.au/Senate/committee/eet_ctte/wr_workchoices05/submissions/sublist
Roberts, T. (2005) ‘Civil Disturbance’ Workers Online June 2005, http://workers.labor.net.au/features/200506/c_historicalfeature_tom.html; ‘Into the Industrial Dark Ages: the civil liberties implications of the Federal Government’s Industrial Laws for the Australian Construction Industry’ in Civil Liberty, the Journal of the NSW Council for Civil Liberties Inc. June 2005
Romeyn, J. (2008) ‘Striking a balance: the need for further reform of the law relating to industrial action’ Published by the Australian Parliamentary Library

http://parlinfoweb.aph.gov.au/piweb//view_document.aspx?TABLE=PRSPUB&ID=2789.

International Centre for Trade Union Rights ICTUR (1999,2002-2007) Senate Submissions into WR Act and WorkChoices submission no.185. http://parlinofoweb.aph.gov.au ILO 1983, 1998, 1999 – 2003 Reports of the Committee of Experts on the Application of Conventions and Recommendation www.ilo.org
McCrystal, S. ‘Shifting the balance of power in collective bargaining: Australian law, industrial action and WorkChoices’, The Economic and Labour Relations Review, 16(2), May 2006, 210;
McCrystal, S. ‘Smothering the right to strike: WorkChoices and Industrial action’, 19 (2006) Australian Journal of Labour Law, p. 201
McCrystal, S. 2009 ‘A New Consensus: The Coalition, the ALP and the Regulation of Industrial Action’ in Fair Work The new Workplace Laws and the WorkChoices Legacy edited A. Forsyth and A Stewart (Federation Press, Sydney).
Novitz, T. (2003) International and European Protection of the Right to Strike A Comparative Study of Standards Set by the International Labour Organization, the Council of Europe and the European Union (Oxford University Press).
White, C. (2010) ‘Firewalling the right to strike in Australia?’ chapter 8 in G Radhika
Anand (ed). ‘The Right to Strike’(Amicus The Icfai University Press).
White, C. (2009) Senate submission the Fair Work Bill No 122 http://www.aph.gov.au/Senate/committee/eet_ctte/fair_work/submissions.htm
White C (2008) ‘The right to strike’ chapter in Evatt papers Sheil, C (ed) ‘The State of Industrial Relations’, Vol. 5, No. 1, Evatt Foundation, Sydney, 2008, pp. 91-102.
White, C. (2005) ILO Protection of the Right to Strike: ‘Inside the ILO Tent’ Evatt Foundation http://evatt.org.au/news/336.html.
White, C (2005) ‘The right to politically strike? The case for re-evaluation’. Evatt Foundation on-line13/4/2005: http://evatt.labor.net.au/publications/papers/139.html
White, C. (2004). ‘Right to strike issues in the October 2003 Universities national strike’ AIRAANZ 2004
White, C. (2005) ‘The Right to Politically Strike?’ AIRAANZ 2005 Conference Sydney Universityhttp://airaanz.econ.usyd.edu.au/papers.html
White, C. (2005) Senate Submission on the Building and Construction Improvement Bill
White, C. (2005) Senate Submission on WorkChoices Bill (2005) Senate Inquiry submission No. 129;www.aph.gov go to Senate submissions
White, C. (2005) ‘WorkChoices: Removing the Choice to Strike’ Journal of Australian Political Economy No56, 66. www.jape.org.
White, C. (2005) ‘Howard makes the ‘blue’ unlawful. The right to strike is down the WC’, Evatt Foundation on-line 2 November 2005, http://evatt.labor.net.au/news/358.html
White, C. (2006) pamphlet on ‘How Howard is taking away the right to strike.’
White, C. (2005) ‘Howard’s IR plans’ ICTUR International Union Rights Journal
White, C. (2006) ‘Provoking Building and Construction Workers’ 20th Conference AIRAANZ 21st Century Work: High Road or Low Road? http://www.aomevents.com/conferences/AIRAANZ/papers.php.New Matilda 7th July 2006 http://www.newmatilda.com
White, C. (2006) ‘The Perth 2007 and the right to strike’ ICTUR International Centre for Trade Union Rights magazine International Union Rights. Volume 13. Issue 3.
White, C. (2006) ‘The Perth 107 Right to Strike Contest’ the Australian Institute of Employment Rights www.aierights.com.au
White, C. (2006) ‘Right to strike contest. Provoking Building Unionists’ http://www.aeufederal.org.au/E07/FR/Perth107.pdf
White, C. (2006) ‘The right to strike removed’ Dissent, No. 21 Spring 2006.
White,C.(2007).‘What limits the right to strike?’ Blog: Larvatus Prodeo http://larvatusprodeo.net/2007/05/21/guest-post-by-chris-white-what-limits-the-right-to-strike/
White,C.(2007)Criticism of Kevin Rudd’s limitations on the Right to Strike.www.aeufederal.org.au/E07/election
White,C.(2007) Howard’s Prohibited Content on strikes http://solidarity.redrag.net/2007/05/03/prohibited-content/
White, C. (2007) ‘Restore the Right to Strike’ www.greenleft.org.au/2007/711/36927
White, C. (2007) ‘From Penal Colony to Penal Powers’, www.greenleft.org.au/2007/715/37126
White, C. (2007) ‘The Right to Strike to Save the Environment’
www.aeufederal.org.au/E07/election.html
White, C. (2007) ‘China Labour Law’ International Union Rights Journal,
International, 14(1), p17
White, C. (2007) ‘China’s New Labour Law The challenge of regulating
employment contracts. China moves beyond WorkChoices,’ Evatt Foundation,
Sydney http://evatt.labor.net.au/publications/papers/193.html.
White, C. (2007) ‘China moves on rights at work: China may be about to go past
Australia’, Evatt Foundation, Sydney, http://evatt.org.au/news/451.html
White, C. (2007) review of the DVD film by Joe Loh ‘Constructing Fear: Australia’s Secret Industrial Inquisition’ (www.constructingfear.com.au)

http://bushtelegraph.wordpress.com/2007/08/29/%e2%80%98constructing-fear-australia%e2%80%99s-secret-industrial-inquisition%e2%80%99/

White, C. (2004) Review Jim Marr, ‘First the Verdict The true story of the Building Industry Royal Commission’ Australian Options, No. 35, Summer 2004 www.australian-options.org.au.
White, C. (2004) ‘Howard Threatens the Right to Strike’ Australian Options, No. 38

http://securejobs.org.au/

I recommend two changes for more secure work.

1. Amend the Fair Work Act to have an effective right to strike.

2. Amend the Fair Work Act to restrict casual and other forms of precarious work to a limited period and apply more secure contracts of employment. Fair Work Australia is to have the discretion to conciliate and arbitrate the transition to the more secure employment contracts.

1. The right to strike

I submit the lawful strike is essential for beginning to enable employees and their unions to respond to dire precarious work of existing capitalist labour relations.

The international capitalist crisis daily worsens putting more pressure on business to further move to precarious and exploitative work.

In response, there is a driving imperative for employees to have the FWA balance the more powerful corporate and government forces by amendments that protect the right to strike.

I have written on this blog for a right to strike, firewalling industrial action for protection for employees and their unions.

I argue the right to strike is vital for employees in all the forms of non-standard work.

Arguments are strong for amendments to the Fair Work Act to protect the right to strike. I urge as necessary the repeal of the Australian Building and Construction Act, and the ABCC functions and powers.

All of the existing provisions from the earlier Workplace Relations Act and Work Choices still in the current repressive regime against strikes are to be deleted.

Instead, a broad legal protection for all forms of industrial action is inserted.

At a minimum, commonly accepted ILO principles protecting the right to strike are to be adopted. The history of such ILO principles and their non-application by Australia is well known in the industrial relations and labour law community.

Similarly, labour law critical analysis by Shae McCrystal ‘The Right to Strike in Australia’. I recommend Keith Ewing’s research on the right to strike and Tania Novitz (see this blog).

There is much criticism of the failure of the current FWA to have an effective right to strike in writings by industrial relations specialists, labour lawyers, the ACTU and unions.

Firewalling the right to strike I submit is essential to assist strategies for secure jobs.

2. Job security in the Fair Work Act

The overall merit evidence from employees’ adverse experiences in precarious work and the unjust impact socially at many levels in the Australian community requires Fair Work Act amendments for job security. Here are some recommendations.

2.1 One amendment is to clearly restrict casual employment to only short periods, such as 4 hours daily and no more than fortnightly.

Then a provision that compels employers and allows employees the transition from existing casualisation to more permanent on-going employment contracts.

Such a provision has bargaining rights for precarious workers to change to secure employment with the terms to be negotiated and agreed. The clear right exists when not being able to reach an agreement for the employee(s) to access conciliation and arbitration from FWA to gain process steps for more permanent work.

The same applies to ending many short-term contracts. After two short term contracts, then the employer is required to move to more permanent, on-going contracts.

Special attention is to support any employee with service e.g. more than seven years who is to be on a permanent contract, as is an existing employee with 10 years before retirement. Other non-standard employment sectors could be protected such as in the disability sector.

2.2 The next new section is to ensure that labour-hire contract provisions are not attractive to employers for lowering costs. The aim is have protections against precarious work in the labour-hire industry.

Such provisions are to ensure the same wages and conditions in the user firm in similar work employees from must be hired permanently for not less than two years. There is a formal written contract with the same rate and benefits. The worker may join the user firm’s union. Labour-hire is to be implemented ‘generally for short-term, supplementary and substitute positions’.
Provisions for transition and
compliance need to be put in place.

2.3 Strengthening enforcement provisions by employees and unions to ensure that employers pay legal wages and comply with all employment conditions of the contracts of employment, with speedy measures for exploited workers to recover wages. Increased penalties and damages against non-complying employers.

2.4 A provision that deems for compliance that legal minimums exist in contracts of employment so that those entitlements can be enforced even if there is no evidence of a written contract of employment.

2.5 Amend the unfair dismissal section so that the right applies to all employees, irrespective of the employee’s status or contract of employment or the size of the employer’s workforce.

The big lie that employers may not employ was made up by Peter Reith’s press secretary and is repeated ad nauseum in the media, but is to be rejected.

Even precarious workers ‘dismissed’ ought to have an opportunity to state their case about why they were unreasonably dismissed before a user friendly FWA conciliator then arbitrator for reinstatement or not.

2.6 For strengthened redundancy provisions in a new minimum entitlement that has a provision for one month’s pay for each year of service for redundant employees. This new minimum deters employers from making employees redundant and assists redundant employees in this recessionary period.

2.7 A specific process provision for precarious workers with non-standard work arrangements to have the legal right to union representation and to be able to organise in unions.

I support the ACTU campaign for Secure Jobs.

As the many issues of insecure work in Australia has overseas the same issues this Inquiry will investigate other countries attempts to deal for greater protection for their employees. I recommend China’s attempt (see this blog).

I urge support for the Independent Inquiry into Insecure Work in Australia

Poem/1090
[1]16/2011

We are the 99%

a materialist concept
of class struggle endures
recurrently high & low

“rise like lions after slumber
in unvanquishable number-
shake your chains to earth like dew
which in sleep had fallen on you-
ye are many- they are few”
by Percy Shelley

The War of Wealth McQueen on the capitalist crisis

Workers have an extra month to tell their story to Inquiry into Insecure Work

15 December, 2011 | Media Release
Workers, unions, community and other representative groups have an extra month to contribute their experiences to the Independent Inquiry into Insecure Work in Australia, with the deadline for submissions now extended until late-January.

ACTU President Ged Kearney said 317 workers, community organisations, unions and academics had already lodged submissions by Tuesday.

“Submissions were due to close this Friday, but the inquiry panel, chaired by former Deputy Prime Minister Brian Howe, has extended the deadline until 20 January 2012, in recognition of the amount of preparation needed, particularly for organisations, and the pressures to complete other work before the Christmas-New Year break,” Ms Kearney said.

“The submissions received have already provided valuable evidence for the Inquiry to consider the impact insecure work has on people’s ability to plan for their future, to make ends meet and to spend time with family and friends.

“We know that insecure work – casual, fixed or short-term contracts, labour hire, and contracting – has almost doubled in the last two decades to make up about 40% of the workforce now.

“We know from research we have conducted, that for workers, insecure work often means lower pay and fewer rights and entitlements at work. It makes it harder for them to manage their household finances, to spend time with their family and friends, and to plan for the future.

“This inquiry intends to examine the impacts of insecure work and propose policy actions.”

Ms Kearney said once submissions closed, the Inquiry would then conduct hearings around the country in February and March next year, before preparing a report for the ACTU.

The ACTU recently prepared for the Inquiry an options paper, The future of work in Australia: dealing with insecurity and risk, which found half of all casual workers would prefer to have a standard, secure job.

“The paper acknowledges that solutions to the growth of job and income insecurity in Australia will be complex and diverse, but should aim at improving the rights and conditions of all work for all workers,” Ms Kearney said.

“Approaches to insecure work should also ensure that non-standard forms of employment are used for their legitimate purpose and not as a cheap substitute to ongoing employment.”

Ms Kearney said there was a range of views on job security, and the inquiry wanted to hear from as diverse a representation of the Australian community and economy as possible.

Submissions can be lodged on the campaign website, securejobs.org.au, by email to inquiry@securejobs.org.au, or by phoning a special hotline on 1300 362 223 (toll free).

Contact Details
Rebecca Tucker
Ph: 0408 031 269

Workers have just one week left to tell their stories to the Independent Inquiry into Insecure Work

12 December, 2011 | Media Release
Workers across the country have less than one week left to contribute their experiences to the Independent Inquiry into Insecure Work in Australia, with submissions set to close this Friday.

ACTU President Ged Kearney said an overwhelming number of workers had already lodged their submissions, with 265 received at the end of last week.

“The submissions from workers will provide valuable evidence for the Inquiry to consider the impact insecure work has on people’s ability to plan for their future, to make ends meet and to spend time with family and friends,” she said.

“We know that insecure work – casual, fixed or short-term contracts, labour hire, and contracting – has almost doubled in the last two decades to make up about 40% of the workforce now.

“We know from research we have conducted, that for workers, insecure work often means lower pay and fewer rights and entitlements at work. It makes it harder for them to manage their household finances, to spend time with their family and friends, and to plan for the future.

“These submissions from Australian workers will provide further valuable insights directly from those who are impacted the most.”

Ms Kearney said the Inquiry would also be collecting submissions from unions, employers and other workplace representatives.

It will then conduct hearings around the country in February and March next year, to prepare a report on solutions to insecure work for the ACTU.

The ACTU recently prepared for the Inquiry an options paper, The future of work in Australia: dealing with insecurity and risk, which found half of all casual workers would prefer to have a standard, secure job.

“The paper acknowledges that solutions to the growth of job and income insecurity in Australia will be complex and diverse, but should aim at improving the rights and conditions of all work for all workers,” Ms Kearney said.

“Approaches to insecure work should also ensure that non-standard forms of employment are used for their legitimate purpose and not as a cheap substitute to ongoing employment.”

Ms Kearney said there was a range of views on job security, and the inquiry wanted to hear from as diverse a representation of the Australian community and economy as possible.

The Inquiry, chaired by former Deputy Prime Minister Brian Howe, will hold a series of regional hearings across the country in February, before preparing a final report, expected by May.

Submissions can be lodged on the campaign website, securejobs.org.au

by email to inquiry@securejobs.org.au, or by phoning a special hotline on 1300 362 223 (toll free).

Contact Details
Rebecca Tucker
Ph: 0408 031 269

by David Peetz and Georgina Murray
Griffith University

“We sociologically investigate how deeply embedded finance capital is within very large global corporations, by asking the following questions:

Is ownership of very large global corporations dispersed amongst a wide variety of individuals, families and shareholder types?

Or are there common patterns of ownership across the largest corporations?

Are the largest corporations dominated by industrial capital, finance capital, or something else?

Does the state still have any role to play in ownership of large corporations?

What does this mean for our understanding of the debate about a transnational class?

We use a database of shareholdings in the 299 largest global corporations.

Our data speaks to the existence of a true transnational class comprising finance capital: a group that, sometimes directly, sometimes indirectly, controls the exercise of economic power across and within national boundaries.

Financial capitalists appear to vary in the basic strategies they employ, with some financiers seeming more aggressive than others in seeking to exercise greater influence over individual companies.

In turn, collective ownership by finance capital is concentrated in the relatively small portion of finance capitalists that comprises the top share controllers.

We also find that the state is still a major player in ownership.

And we find power in the BlackRock corporation…

The second noteworthy aspect is that a remarkable 6.06 per cent of the assets of the 299 VLCs in our database (around USD 3 trillion) are held or controlled by one company that is relatively unknown: BlackRock Inc, a financial company with offices in 24 countries and approximately 8,400 employees.

BlackRock exercises control of shares principally through the funds it controls rather than through direct ownership: over 85 per cent are via funds it controls rather than through direct ownership.

http://www.tasa.org.au/uploads/2011/01/Peetz-David-and-Murray-Georgina.pdf