by Rob Durbridge

The crisis besetting the Federal Government looks like a rising Queensland flood, while Abbott and Co watch and wait for the Government to drown.

It’s a crisis with multiple causes, linked by the failure of a leadership without a sense of identity or direction.

The undoubted achievements of the Government are submerged by short term opportunism, capitulation to the powerful at the expense of progressive support and an inability to communicate effectively.

However, this is all its own doing as the Abbott Opposition does not command much popular support either; from them there are no big ideas for reform, just more neo-liberal slogans and anti-union plans.

The one positive in this is that despite everything, Labor and the Greens could still win a majority next year.

It’s a long shot but,building on the blocks of the Carbon Price and its progressive compensation package, the NBN, and the Equal Pay commitment to community workers, a platform of social, environmental and economic reforms could still defeat the Coalition’s plans for greater inequality and disadvantage.

Instead of making concessions to corporations who will never repay the favour, take the concessions away from them so they pay their way like the good citizens they claim to be.

If the ALP wants the electorate to start listening, start saying things the majority wants to hear; public nation-building projects to stimulate growth, create jobs and protect the environment protection like fast rail, renewable energy sources and a publicly-owned and modernized energy sector.

Instead of becoming fixated on the budget surplus, how about building quality public services like education and health with the taxation base to do it? The increasing fragility of the prospects for growth may well demand further economic initiatives after May.

The ALP needs internal reform to allow adopted policies and members’ views to prevail and the restoration of caucus democracy so that isolation of the Government from the community can be addressed. Instead of blaming the Greens for the plight of the ALP, ask why it is that the Greens have won the progressive constituency where ideas count and swing votes.

The Greens have found articulate and knowledgeable leaders who are able to communicate the issues effectively while the ALP lurches from crisis to crisis alternating between denial and ultimate policy concessions which win no new support.

Withdrawal from the war-without-mandate in Afghanistan is an example; costing billions, lives and life-long disabilities for purposes never explained and then ended, but not ended with SAS units to continue indefinitely. US bases that are not bases but ‘joint facilities’, drones being launched from Australian territory and billions to be spent on submarines and aircraft for the privilege of the US alliance just don’t add up. Who are we arming against again?

The Carbon Tax is another – something which could be a key building block for the new economy which is now being downplayed and blamed on the Greens while renewable energy is downgraded in favour of more coal and gas exploitation. When it is known that the compensation is real, the costs are minimal for households and the sky has not fallen in, the Coalition’s scare campaign could be neutralized.

Instead of sulking about the success of the Greens, and prophesying doom with Bob Brown’s departure, the ALP should accept that Milne’s team will be vital to regaining government and act accordingly. One way would be to make Bandt the Minister for Energy, replacing the corporations’ favourite son.

Short of that, a reform program which distinguishes Labor from the Coalition and joins the Greens in building a coherent vision for a more just and sustainable Australia would reach traditional and new ALP voters. Leaders who can articulate and reach voters who are sick of spin and manipulation is another necessity. The ALP of all parties knows that its first duty is to win elections and to find the people who can do it.

The Greens new leadership in Christine Milne and Adam Bandt will see the party maintain its vote and reach out to more traditional labour voters in unions and social movements beyond the environment. Marriage equality and all the issues which relate to it, rights for workers to organise beyond the half-finished repeal of Work Choices, ending the demonization of refugees, the unemployed and Indigenous people are all part of the Greens future.

Christine Milne began the leadership of the Greens with a stellar performance which illustrated her command of the economic and environmental issues facing the nation. With a background as a community activist and state politician she has experience in government with both major parties as well as their hostility and ruthlessness.

Of all Federal politicians she has shown her knowledge and ability and is respected internationally for her political and community campaigns against harmful emissions. The Greens’ near 20% primary vote in the recent Queensland by-election shows that predictions of the party’s demise are premature.

Both the Greens and the ALP will continue to compete, particularly in inner-city electorates, but both parties also need to recognize that sitting on cross benches does not achieve much in the way of reform; together they can win government but apart they will be on the sidelines.

The immediate challenge for the two parties is whether or not to exchange preferences in Deputy Leader Bandt’s seat of Melbourne. For its part the Coalition is likely to not preference the Greens as they showed in the 2011 Victorian state poll.

This is a challenge to both the ALP and the Greens, but it is also symbolic of the wider challenge for the two anti-Coalition parties.

- Rob Durbridge, SEARCH President

http://www.search.org.au/archives/3112

Unions will seek a $26 a week pay rise for Australia’s lowest paid workers in 2012, whose wages have fallen well behind average income earners over the past decade and are not keeping pace with the cost of living.

The ACTU will today lodge its submission to Fair Work Australia’s annual wage review to increase the award wage for the lowest paid workers to $615.30 per week.

This would mean a 68c/hour increase from $15.51 per hour to $16.19 per hour. For other award-reliant workers above the benchmark tradesperson’s rate, unions will seek a 3.8% pay increase.

ACTU Secretary Jeff Lawrence said it was time for an increase that stopped the gap between low-paid workers and other workers from growing further.

“The 1.4 million workers on award wages – one in six workers – can barely meet the cost of living let alone live comfortably in an economy that is the envy of the developed world,” Mr Lawrence said.

“It is grossly unfair that minimum wages have fallen further and further behind average wages. The purchasing power of minimum wages is now also below the level it was in 2005.

“The wage increases awarded in 2010 and 2011 have stopped minimum wage workers from falling further behind. It’s time to make up the ground that was lost under WorkChoices.”

Mr Lawrence said that while the National Minimum Wage had more or less kept pace with overall wages growth in the early 2000s, low-paid workers had lost ground under Work Choices.

Since mid-2005, overall wages have risen by 27.5%, while the NMW has gone up by 21.7%. The benchmark tradesperson’s award rate has risen by only 18.7% over the same period.

Mr Lawrence said that if the National Minimum Wage had kept pace with overall wages growth since 2005, it would now be $617.50 per week. Instead it’s just $589.30 per week.

Mr Lawrence said unions were seeking a $26 a week increase in the National Minimum Wage and in other award minimum wages up to the benchmark tradesperson’s rate, equal to a 4.4% increase. Unions are seeking a 3.8% increase for other award workers.

“Minimum wage workers are the backbone of the economy. They are the people who clean our schools and shopping centres, serve us in hotels, who take care of our elderly and our children. These are people we cannot live without, yet their value is not reflected in their pay packets. We must ensure they are not forgotten.

“An extra $26 a week is modest and affordable, but will make a difference to the lives of minimum wage workers and their families. Over the past year they have shouldered large price rises for fruit and vegetables, fuel, electricity, water, and education and childcare.

“This is money they will spend on food, clothes, fuel and other necessities in the main streets of every Australian suburb and town.”

Contact Details
Rebecca Tucker
Ph: 0408 031 269

The campaign is called Better Jobs 4 Better Chicken and you can follow it here

http://www.betterjobsbetterchicken.org.au

The ashes of Joe Hill

Let’s start from three interlocked expressions of the IWW’s approach to educating, organising and agitating: its humour, its slogans and its songs.

In comparison, today’s grouplets, including the IWW, seem po-faced.

The first aspect is the power of IWW satire, sarcasm and irony. We remember jokes and repeat them in ways we don’t with the best argued ideas. On slogans, ‘Fast Workers Die Young’ is still going the rounds when not many Marxist scholars can define universal labour-time.

Tom Barker was gaoled in 1915 for a headline in Direct Action to counter wartime recruiting: ‘Your Country Needs You: Workers, Follow Your Masters.’

Similarly, we remember snatches of IWW songs because they are witty and because we sing them together.

The whole of a May Day march should be a massed choir. ‘Bump me into parliament’ to ‘Pie in the Sky’ circulated long after speeches and manifestos were forgotten.

The second weapon in the Wobblies’ armoury was ‘Propaganda by deed’.

My father and his workmates at a Brisbane tannery joined a union in 1917 after a Canadian seaman Wobbly king-hit the foreman. The workers had never seen anyone stand up to the boss. Of course, the effectiveness of that blow was increased because it took place during a revolutionary upsurge around the world.

Propaganda by deed is not just the one-off punch but involves building up strength in the workplace by initiating a campaign for a winnable demand that has broad support, for a shithouse or potable water on site.

That is the way to recruit and to keep those who join active once they pay their union dues.

Read the whole article here

http://workersbushtelegraph.com.au/2012/05/11/iww-then-and-now/

joe hill

Australian unions have endorsed the International Labour Organisation’s (ILO) support for co-operative operations, recognising the critical role they play in advancing the organisation’s Global Employment Agenda and promoting decent work.

ACTU President Ged Kearney said the 2012 ACTU Congress had endorsed the position in support of co-operatives as they had a proven record of creating and sustaining employment, now providing more than 100 million jobs globally.

“Co-operatives have also been more resilient to the deepening global economic and jobs crisis than other sectors,” Ms Kearney said.

“Trade unions and co-operatives have a long association in this country. Industry based credit unions gave workers access to financial services and loans, and co-operatives provided affordable services for key workers such as childcare, housing and health.”

The motion adopted at the Congress supports the ILO’ position on co-operatives, outlined in Recommendation 193.

The resolution acknowledges the importance of co-operatives in job creation, mobilising resources and generating investment, as well as their promotion of economic and social development to the benefit of their members.

Ms Kearney said a good example of how co-operatives fostered decent work was Earthworker Co-operative, a micro-financing venture aimed at resourcing manufacturing start-ups including Eureka’s Future Workers Cooperative destined for Morwell, Victoria.

Earthworker Co-operative project officer Dave Kerin said that as future jobs began to disappear out of the power industry, it made sense that co-operatives had higher productivity and better work environments as employees were co-owners.

The Eureka Future Workers Cooperative, which starts manufacturing of its solar hot water units in Knox, Victoria, in July, was the first of a series of union-based worker-owned renewables manufacturing businesses to be rolled out across the nation.

Factories are planned in the Hunter region in NSW, Geelong and WA. The model is unique because of a distribution system where units will be purchased through the wages component of the enterprise agreements negotiated between unions and companies with incentives paid out of rebates.

“Australia’s International Year of Co-operatives Secretariat now seeks to partner with the ACTU to progress the development of a strong social sector of the Australian economy,” said Melina Morrison, Director of the International Year of Co-operatives Secretariat.

“Trade unions and co-operatives share sustainable employment agendas.”

The ACTU Congress backing of the resolution follows the introduction last week of new national co-operatives legislation which aims to strengthen the sector by removing restrictions on co-operatives doing business in other states and territories.

TCFUA campaign for sucessful legislation for outworkers
See http://www.tcfua.org.au

United Voice for Earlychildhood Educators in Child care Centres Big Steps campaign
http://bigsteps.org.au

At the ACTU Congress there are a range of other supportive issues for unions.

Not exhaustive, but they include…

Strong support for Union Aid Abroad APHEDA and much money raised…see http://www.apheda.org.au

Launch by TWU Tony Sheldon of the Australian Aviation Unions Federation
http://www.australianaviationunions.com.au

ican International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons http://www.icanw.org

Conflict in Western Sahara, Africa’s last colony, one of the longest and most neglected colonial conflicts of our time.
http://www.awsa.org.au

Australian unions supporting Palestine
http://auspalestine.org

Australian unions have been central to the advancement of progressive economic and social policy in the past.

Unions have fought for, and secured, vital elements of the social wage, like pensions, superannuation, Medicare, and income for the unemployed.

Australian unions have always had a vision for a fair and prosperous Australia that starts with rights at work, and looks outward beyond the workplace. Congress recognises the challenges and opportunities that Australia faces over the coming decades and commits to the development a new union agenda for the future of the economy.

 While the Australian economy has outperformed most other advanced economies since the global financial crisis (with low public sector debt, a low unemployment rate and solid real growth in average wages) the benefits of prosperity have not been shared broadly enough.

 Key areas of the economy are under pressure – the multi-speed economy is real. Some sectors, particularly trade-exposed industries such as manufacturing, finance, and tourism, are struggling with the dramatic and sustained appreciation in the exchange rate.

Jobs have been lost and more are under threat. Australia needs a comprehensive plan for sustaining employment and economic development beyond the mining boom.

 Secure jobs are becoming rarer, with precarious work on the rise. Income, job and working time insecurity have profound negative implications for workers, their families, and their communities.

 Inequality has risen, putting at risk the long-standing norm that Australian should remain a relatively egalitarian place.

 A form of corporate inequality has developed. A greater share of corporate profits are being taken by a handful of the largest companies while many smaller enterprises struggle. An enormous share of national wealth is being captured by a handful of mega-rich individuals who also seek to dominate policy making and public debate.

 Public services are under threat, with the rise of a radical ‘small government’ ideology threatening the health, education, and other vital community services that Australians take for granted.

 There has been a decade long under-investment in infrastructure and skills, leaving Australia under-equipped to grow and compete in the Asian Century.

Unions seek a strong Australia that is fair and prosperous, with secure employment for all who want it, social assistance for all who need it, and truly equal opportunities for all.

Unions seek dialogue with political parties, civil society, and business leaders on this agenda.

Consistent with the policies adopted at the Congress the ACTU will urgently convene experts from across Australian unions to develop a plan to make sure workers and their families, no matter where they live or work, benefit from a prosperous economy. The union agenda for the Australian economy will be centred on the following issues.

 Jobs & Employment: Ensuring that Government policy does everything possible to create and sustain good jobs;

 Productivity: The human and physical capital necessary to secure sustainable productivity growth that lifts real wages and workers’ living standards;

 Public Services: Securing adequate and sustainable revenue to provide high-quality public services; and a response to the ideological attacks on public services.

 Macroeconomic Policy: The appropriate framework for managing macroeconomic policy, (including the inflation target, fiscal rules, and exchange rate policy) and the possible role for policies such as the creation of a sovereign wealth fund.

 The Mining Boom: The best ways to ensure that the benefits of the current mining boom are used to benefit all Australians, including future generations of Australians;

 Inequality: Rising inequality, especially inequality of earned income, and the need for intergenerational equity;

 Personal Tax & Transfers: An equitable personal tax that will help promote social inclusion and jobs and a welfare system that does not create or entrench poverty; and

 The Social Wage: Ensuring that the components of Australia’s social wage keep pace with the evolving needs of the needs of the community;

 Corporate Tax: A corporate tax system that promotes productive investment, infrastructure development and employment, and ensures that taxes fall most heavily on sectors and companies extracting economic rents.

This ACTU Congress declares its full support for the 4,000 mineworkers who have been attempting to negotiate a new Enterprise Agreement at BHP’s seven Central Queensland coal mines for over 18-months now.

We note that the while the CFMEU, AMWU and the ETU have been negotiating in good faith BHP has refused to do so, a point made clear by its chief of global coal operations Marcus Randolph who declared in an email to staff leaked to the media that the company’s demands were “not negotiable now, next month or next year”.

This is not in the spirit of good faith bargaining.

We fully support the mineworkers in their campaign to protect their rights at work and defend vital safety, workplace and other conditions such as rosters and accommodation that would damage families and hurt mining communities if BHP has its way.

We condemn BHP’s pursuit of safety deregulation that would transfer vital safety roles from qualified workers on the job to management. We note that this was the key factor that led to the recent Pike River Disaster in New Zealand in which 29 coal miners perished. We further note that the last three big coal mine disasters in Australia all occurred at BHP mines.

We condemn BHP’s insistence on clinging to
WorkChoices provisions imposed on BHP coal mineworkers in the last EA reached in the Howard era in 2007, particularly the provision that stripped contract and labour hire workers of equal pay and conditions and have allowed them to become a source of cheap labour to undermine permanent employees.

We note that this dispute has occurred in a period when BHP has made the greatest profit in the history of Australia – $23 Billion and find it repugnant that at a time when the company has never had more it has never done less.

We call on BHP to start listening to its workforce and respect their right to bargain.
We declare the full support of the ACTU for the BHP mineworkers.

In the event that the company continues to refuse to negotiate in good faith and inflicts further harm on its workers, their families, mining communities and investors in its coal operations, we will mobilise support throughout the trade union movement in Australia and internationally.

The ACTU recognises that multi-national companies like Chevron and its contractors are exploiting loopholes in Australia’s Migration Act – loopholes which mean that Australia’s offshore resources projects are often not classified as being in Australia’s territory.

Because of this, companies such as Chevron as bringing in foreign labour to do work that could and should be done by Australian workers.

In addition, they are contributing little or no training to Australians in these sectors.

This affects workers in the marine, construction, resource and transport industries.

The Chevron campaign is fighting to secure the protection of Australian jobs, the right of Australian workers to work in their own country on union wages and conditions and for the creation of jobs and opportunities for young and indigenous workers.

The ACTU supports this campaign, and encourages all affiliates associated with these industries to get involved and work together to secure outcomes for workers in these industries.