the australian worker magazine issue 1 2011

ISBN 978-186396379-4

WORKERTHE AUSTRALIAN www.awu.net.au $4.50 (INC GST) ISSUE 1 2011

SPECIAL REPORT: 2011 NATIONAL CONFERENCEINSIDE:

STORMS, CYCLONES & SURVIVALWHAT A WAY TO EARN A LIVING

HELL & HIGH WATERWHAT A WAAAYYYYYYYYYY TO

HISTORY’S WORST JOBS

THE SONGS OF INDIGENOUS WOMEN

DESERT FLOWERS

HOW CHINA BREAKS FREE TRADE RULES

www.awu.net.au THE AUSTRALIAN WORKER 3www.awu.net.au THE AUSTRALIAN WORKER 3

CONTENTS

AWU EDITOR Paul Howes,AWU National SecretaryAWU NATIONAL COMMUNICATIONS CO-ORDINATOR Andrew Casey AWU NATIONAL COMMUNICATIONS OFFICERHenry ArmstrongAddress: Level 10,377-383 Sussex Street, Sydney NSW 2000 Email: [email protected] Website: www.awu.net.au Telephone: (02) 8005 3333 Facsimile: (02) 8005 3300

ACP CUSTOM MEDIA EDITOR Kyle Rankin ART DIRECTOR Wayne Allen DESIGNERAdrienne ZinnSUB-EDITOR Aaron Bertram PRODUCTION SERVICES Rachel WalshPREPRESS SUPERVISOR Klaus Müller

GENERAL MANAGER Sally WrightPUBLISHING MANAGER Nicola O’Hanlon

ACP MAGAZINESMANAGING DIRECTORPhil Scott PUBLISHING DIRECTOR Gerry Reynolds

NINE ENTERTAINMENT CHIEF EXECUTIVE OFFICERDavid Gyngell Published for The Australian Workers’ Union (ABN 28 853 022 982) by ACP Magazines Ltd (ACN 18 053 273 546), 54-58 Park St, Sydney NSW 2000. © 2011. All rights reserved. Printed by PMP, Clayton, Vic 3168 and cover printed by Webstar, Silverwater, NSW 2128. Distributed by Network Services, 54 Park Street, Sydney, NSW 2000. Articles published in The Australian Worker express the opinion of the authors and not necessarily ACP Magazines Ltd. While all eff orts have been made to ensure prices and details are correct at time of printing, these are subject to change.

PRIVACY NOTICE This issue of The Australian Worker may contain off ers, competitions, or surveys which require you to provide information about yourself if you choose to enter or take part in them (Reader Off er). If you provide information about yourself to ACP Magazines Ltd (ACP), ACP will use this information to provide you with the products or services you have requested, and may supply your information to contractors that help ACP to do this. ACP will also use your information to inform you of other ACP publications, products, services and events. ACP may also give your information to organisations that are providing special prizes or off ers and that are clearly associated with the Reader Off er. Unless you tell us not to, we may give your information to other organisations that may use it to inform you about other products, services or events or to give to other organisations that may use it for this purpose. If you would like to gain access to the information ACP holds about you, please contact ACP’s Privacy Offi cer at ACP Magazines Ltd, 54-58 Park Street, Sydney, NSW, 2000. Cover photo: Getty Images

FEATURES 06 DON’T DUMP ON AUSTRALIA Illegal dumping – mainly by China – is killing the

Australian manufacturing industry. A new AWU campaign aims to raise awareness about the need to protect Australian jobs.

PULL-OUT SECTION: 2011 NATIONAL CONFERENCE For 125 years the Australian Workers’ Union has

been at the forefront of protecting the interests of Australian workers. Now, the Union looks forward to continuing to do this well into the future.02 Contents03 Photos04 Resolutions: 04 Anti-dumping, 05 Industry Campaigning, 06 AWU growth campaign, 07 Union education, 08 Precarious work, 09 Cost of living, 10 Superannuation 12 Asbestos removal, 13 National OHS laws,14 Guard it or Ban it, 15 Mexican miners.16 Speeches: 16 Paul Howes, 17 Bill Ludwig,18 Anna Bligh, 19 Julia Gillard, 20 Wayne Swan,21 Bill Shorten, 22 Greg Combet, 22 Jeff Lawrence, 23 Bob Katter. 24 Photos

40 WHEN THE LEVEE BREAKS When fl oods and a massive cyclone ravaged

Queensland, AWU members were in the thick of it.

44 DESERT FLOWERS Indigenous women raise their voices singing

sweet harmonies with a strong message.

48 YOU DO WHAT FOR A LIVING? Read about some of the most dangerous jobs in

history and you’ll wonder why some people still believe workers have never needed unions!

REGULARS04 National Opinion 12 Meet the Delegates/Offi cials 50 Bindi & Ringer

Special report06

A General Meeting of The Australian Workers Union, West Australian Branch Industrial Union of Workers held on 16th March 2011 in Perth endorsed the proposed amalgamation with The Forest Products, Furnishing and Allied Industries Industrial Union of Workers, WA and the proposed rules of the amalgamated Union.The Union intends to apply for registration of the proposed amalgamation and rules to the Registrar of the Western Australian Industrial Relations Commission 35 days after the date of this issue of The Australian Worker. A member may object to the proposed amalgamation by writing to the Registrar of Western Australian Industrial Relations Commission within 35 days of this issue of The Australian Worker. For further information or a copy of the amalgamated Union’s Rules, members can contact AWU WA Branch on (08) 9221 1686.

4 THE AUSTRALIAN WORKER www.awu.net.au

NATIONAL OPINION

AWU Reps are the face of our Union in their workplaces, and they doa bloody great job.”

Richard DownieNewcastle Branch Secretary

Russ CollisonGreater NSW Branch Secretary

Andy GillespiePort Kembla Branch Secretary

Cesar MelhemVictorian Branch Secretary

Bill Ludwig National PresidentQueensland Branch Secretary

AWULEADERS

Later this year I am hoping to host a special meeting of our National Executive in Barcaldine where the Union started and where its history is celebrated at the Australian Workers’ Heritage Centre next to the famous “Tree of Knowledge”.

Barcaldine, of course, played a signifi cant role in the history of the AWU and the birth of the Australian

Labor Party. In 1891 it was one of the focal points of the national shearers’ strike, with the Eureka fl ag fl ying proudly over the strike camp. Under what has now become a landmark, the Tree of Knowledge, the strikers met to air their grievances.

Whenever I have a chance to visit this place I am reminded that the backbone of our Union are its members who are prepared to fi ght for what is right – and the most important group are the Delegates who deserve special acknowledgement.

The hundreds of Delegates who turned up to our national conference in February made me really proud to be part of the AWU. I told them that it is their job to ensure we leave the Union and its members better off than when we fi rst joined. We are all, after all, just passing through and we all want to ensure the Union and its members are better off than when each of us fi rst found the Union, and our place in it.

The AWU is the greatest union in Australia because of our members. We should all feel a strong sense of pride and responsibility at being part of its history.

Certainly I continue to look to the future and continue to believe in growing the Union to ensure that we have another 125 years of involvement in this wonderful country – and many, many more years after that.

We started this year off with a great national conference here in Queensland where the

feeling amongst Delegates and observers was clearly that, in this our 125th year as a union, we’re riding high and we’re ready to continue to do big things for our members, the working people of Australia and their families.

For me, of course, it is humbling to be National President of this great union whose history is so strongly embedded in the life of my home state Queensland.

www.awu.net.au THE AUSTRALIAN WORKER 5www.awu.net.au THE AUSTRALIAN WORKER 5

NATIONAL OPINION

Ian Wakefi eldTasmanian Branch Secretary

Wayne HansonSouth Australian Branch Secretary

Stephen PriceWest Australian Branch Secretary

Norman McBrideTobacco Branch Secretary

POST YOUR LETTERS TO:The Editor,

The Australian Worker,Level 10, 377-383 Sussex Street,

Sydney NSW 2000

OR EMAIL THEM TO:[email protected]

Paul Howes National Secretary

We’ve got a massive year ahead of us in working to protect the jobs of AWU members. We started 2011

off with a bang when we held a fantastic National Conference in February where more than 500 Delegates and observers were in attendance to celebrate our 125th anniversary.

The natural disasters at the start of the year were ever present in the thoughts of many of the Delegates who’d come to Queensland. After all Queensland and Victoria were the two “homeland” states in the AWU’s history. It is in those states where the Union began 125 years ago.

Delegates decided that the best way to remember that history, and honour those who had suff ered, was to commit the AWU to help rebuild our historic homelands.

The big issue we face through 2011 is how to secure AWU jobs in the face of the continuing political battles over climate change. It is not an easy issue. Unfortunately the major political parties are at loggerheads and not ready to work together on this important national issue in a non-partisan manner. And then we have added to the national debate an extraordinary level of hysteria whipped up by the media.

The AWU is committed to protecting every single union job on the frontline of the climate change debate. We have told

Government and Industry and the Green groups that we won’t allow our members to be sacrifi ced. The AWU has made it clear that not one Australian steel worker, aluminium worker, cement worker, glass worker or any other member should fi nd their job security under threat because of the proposed Carbon Tax.

Job security is also at the core of another campaign adopted at the AWU National Conference – the “Don’t Dump on Australia” campaign. Joining with other unions, industry and politicians, fi ghting companies and countries cheating on the World Trade Organisation’s free trade rules. China is the main culprit. We want the Federal Government to follow the lead of other countries – especially Canada, the US and Europe – who have begun to fi ght against the importing of products which not only undermine the free trade rules but also destroy good local jobs.

China continues to cheat on the WTO free trade rules, rules that they had

agreed to abide by, so they can kill off competitors. By cheating they hope to dominate whole industry sectors. Our “Don’t Dump on Australia” campaign aims to get the Australian government to take the same attitude as other governments

now committed to fi ghting WTO cheats. Help our campaign by getting a campaign postcard, signing it, and sending it back to our offi ce. Email the Union at [email protected] to receive your cards.

Finally, we’ve got a huge fi ght with one of the world’s biggest resource giants Rio Tinto Alcan who are fi ghting their workers at Bell Bay in Tasmania because they have simply asked to uphold their democratic right to meet with the Union in the crib room.

Rio Tinto is dipping into its massive pockets to drag the workers and the Union through a legal minefi eld. At every stage the Union has won in the legal fi ght. But each time we win, Rio Tinto ratchets up their campaign and issues a new legal appeal. We’ve told the company we’re not prepared to have Australian workers’ democratic rights rolled back just because they’ve got the money to launch a massive litigation war. We’re ready to fi ght them in the courts on this important issue – all the way to the High Court.

We won’t stand by and allow jobs to disappear overseas.”


THE BIG ISSUE

Words: M

elissa Sweet

Illegal dumping – mainly by China – is killing the

Australian manufacturing industry. A new AWU

campaign aims to raise worker and community

awareness and make the government understand

the need to protect thousands of Australian

jobs. Paul Robinson reports…

DON’TDUMP ONAUSTRALIA

!

www.awu.net.au THE AUSTRALIAN WORKER 7

system is administered by the Australian Customs and Border Protection Services. However, a recent Australian Government Productivity Commission report (May 2010) admitted that the industry and product coverage of the anti-dumping system is ‘narrow and diminishing’. In plain speak that means the regulatory whip has only been applied to a minority of cases, fewer every year. Since 2006, Customs has collected a paltry average of $9m a year in anti-dumping duties. This is small potatoes in the context of the total value of imported goods, averaging $240 billion a year.

Free trade mantraOften, the offi cial mantra has been to make goods cheaper for the consumer. But at what cost to Australia? In its blinkered pursuit of that mythical free-trade Holy Grail, a “level playing fi eld” – and seemingly unwilling to rock the boat for raw material exporters – the government is crippling the Australian manufacturing industry to the point where many sectors are facing collapse. Obviously, this situation represents massive job losses and the resultant knock-on socio-economic eff ects to communities, which are already biting, have the potential to be catastrophic. Cheaper toilet paper hardly stacks up against thousands of job losses.

e don’t make stuff in Australia any more. They can do it

cheaper overseas.”It’s a common enough

sentiment, although not really true – yet. But the writing is on the wall. The fact is, for the past 20 years, Australian manufacturing industries have been doing it tough. Faced with relentless foreign competition, able to regularly undercut the local industries on pricing, many have gone under. Who remembers when we had a viable Australian clothing industry, for instance?

Australia has one of the most open markets in the world, but far from giving everyone a “fair go”, this makes the local market extremely vulnerable to predatory trade practices such as ‘dumping’.

Dumping – it’s a trade practices off ence that involves foreign companies pricing their products below market value in an attempt to undercut domestic prices and, in the worst-case scenario, eventually to destroy the domestic competition putting the local companies out of business and thereby achieve a monopoly. These foreign exporters seldom adhere to the same industrial and environmental standards as Australia, and are often aided by government subsidies such as tax breaks.

Regulations exist to control this practice in Australia. The anti-dumping

ach

sen

Australia has one of the most open

markets in the world and this

makes the local market vulnerable.

ROBBIE RUDD (STEELWORKER, VIC)“Anyone with half a brain can understand that bringing in cheap imports is going to shrink our market, and give us less chance of gaining employment. How bloody level can the playing fi eld be with cheap imports from China? Labour costs are nothing, so they can

aff ord to fl ood us with cheap steel. And their government owns the steel mills. If your materials aren’t up to scratch, there’s got to be some impact. One example is the big ferris wheel they were building in the Melbourne Docklands. The fi rst really hot day we

had – about 37 degrees – the damn thing started to buckle and fall apart. They’d bought Australian steel, but sent it overseas to be welded. It came back as components ready to be assembled, but the welds were sub-standard. The thing is still in bits!”


THE BIG ISSUE

The main dumping off ender – in Australia and globally – is China. The World Trade Organisation (WTO), which has the fi nal say on dumping disputes under Article VI of GATT (General Agreement on Tariff s and Trade) 1994, acknowledges China as the most frequent subject of new allegations and investigations. Australia is a signatory to GATT and a member of the WTO, but many consider the organisation a bit of a toothless tiger, with too many rules and too few specifi cs on how to enforce them. And China is aggressive in fi ghting any impediment to its trade, recently persuading the WTO to rule against European Union tariff s that had been imposed on Chinese screw and bolt exporters.

Where’s the government?Australia has more measures in place on goods from China than from any other country, yet the Productivity Commission report ran scared on the issue, stating that although “Australian recognition of China as a market economy raises some particular issues for anti-dumping investigations, this is a much broader issue and beyond the purview of this inquiry.” The report states its concern that anti-dumping measures will become a “crutch akin to tariff protection”. Apparently it’s all about your perspective.

By its relative inaction, the government can be seen as leaning towards the free- market viewpoint, which generally regards any form of ‘protectionism’ as a negative act with harmful consequences for the consumer. The plight of Australian manufacturing companies and the thousands of workers these fi rms employ seems to have slipped under the radar.

And the Australian manufacturing industry is hurting bad. Car manufacturing is a case in point. This industry has bent over backwards trying to stay competitive as government support – such as the

Green Car Innovation Fund (GCIF) – is removed. Since tariff protection was stripped away, foreign car imports have gobbled up 80 per cent of the market. The idiocy of this situation is obvious. Australia exports iron ore to China and Japan at about $250 a tonne. We then import it back in the form of motor vehicles for around $20,000 a tonne.

The pulp and paper industry is also feeling the squeeze. Australian health care manufacturer Kimberly-Clark announced last month that it would soon close two tissue machines and a pulp site at its Millicent mill in regional South Australia. These closures would put 235 people out of work and devastate the small community.

Once again, government attitudes have been trying to have a bet each way. In 2008 dumping duties had been imposed on Chinese and Indonesian tissue producers after it found Chinese tissue products being sold at between two and 25 percent below cost in domestic markets, and Indonesian toilet paper sold at 33-45 percent below market value. All good, you might say. But then the Trade Practices Commission (TPC) overruled the decision, saying that there was “no material injury to Australian manufacturers”. The extent of that ‘material injury’ is now being felt by the workers of Millicent. And it is Independent politicians Senator Nick Xenophon and Bob Katter, not the government, who are going to bat for Australian jobs by moving amendments to anti-dumping laws.

The timber industry is also getting hit. Citing an inability to compete pricing-wise with often illegally logged timber products being dumped into the Australian market, timber giant Gunns recently halved the workforce at its Manjimup plant in Western Australia (and fl agged the possibility of more redundancies to come) in a shrinking industry.

Dumping occurs in other “fi nished

goods” such as wind towers, rail track, rolling stock, solar panels, structural steel frames and mining infrastructure. Every cheap foreign import is another nail in the coffi n of Australian manufacturing. But the Australian government off ers minimal protection in terms of dumping margins by comparison with other trading partners such as Canada, the European Union and the US.

Australian steel processing and aluminium extrusion industries are copping it. Despite stiff competition from China and the added burden of a strong Aussie dollar, the government is off ering minimal support to companies facing

Australian steel processing and aluminium extrusion industries are “copping it”.


When I hear words like ‘level playing fi eld’ smoke comes out of my ears...

RISTO TANCEVSKI (STEELWORKER, WOLLONGONG)“When I hear words like ‘level playing fi eld’ smoke comes out of my ears. Every country besides Australia has some sort of protection. The big corporations run things and the government tows the line. When I left school, BHP [then owners of BlueScope] used to hire in excess of 1000 apprentices each year.

Now they don’t hire any; they go to labour resource

companies. The young blokes fear for their kids’ futures. And if you’re in your 40s or 50s, it’s a lot

harder to re-skill or get another job.”

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“The amount we’ve got to pay for our labour compared to China, we’re miles apart. It means they can produce at less cost and charge less, which makes it hard for Australian companies to compete. I’ve been told their quality is close to ours, but they’re able to undercut us because our protection is next to nothing. The worst part is that we’ve got no protection for our

workers. Some of the companies around Brisbane import [Chinese] coils and we can’t compete with them on price because we buy ours straight from BlueScope. And we pay the Australian dollar market value, where they don’t. The blokes aren’t worried about what will happen in the next few years; they’re worried how things will go this year and the year after.”

JOHN SULEJMAN (STEEL WORKER, QLD) d

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“We’ve pretty much

had to live with this

[dumping] since the

1970s in our

industry. We’ve

been moderately

successful in shaking it off , but it’s

taken us up to two years to get some

wins out of it. It [the anti-dumping

system] needs to be overhauled. Some

of the quality is comparable, but with

the price you can just tell that some of

these other countries are subsidising

their overruns and that’s not right. We

all know there’s no such thing as a

level playing fi eld. China’s just got to

have an overrun or two and the

Australian market is wiped out.”

DENIS BRADFORD (GLASS-WORKER, VIC)

subsidised and dumped product challenges. Australian steel is quality stuff and its manufacturers are competitive with a productivity rate at least double that of other Asian producers. But the price of Chinese steel is only half of which Australian manufacturers can produce it for, mainly thanks to minimal labour costs ($3-$10 per hour).

The price of steel in the Chinese market is up to 40 per cent cheaper than anywhere else in the world (Australian Steel Institute estimate) and the Chinese currency is undervalued by up to 40 percent. This is an unfair advantage up there with Mike Tyson vs Bambi.


THE BIG ISSUE

Victorian steelworker Robbie Rudd has had a gut full. “Anyone who dumps cheap product on the market should be kicked in the arse because they’re taking another bloke’s livelihood away.” He’s realistic about the situation.

“Australian steel, given what it costs us to produce, is not a bad price. Our workers are multi-skilled and we produce it with a lot less people, but to compete with Chinese prices is just too hard. The company is backing away from markets that used to be their bread and butter.”

Risto Tancevski, who works for BlueScope Steel in Wollongong, rates Chinese steel as the number-one threat

“I’m not happy about the dumping of anything, really. I’m in the aluminium industry and it’s especially hurting us at the moment in the extrusion side. The company I work for, Capral, used to do a hell of a lot more work than they do now. They’re in the same position we are – they want to stay in business and they want to stay in Australia. Chinese quality can be rough. I know we make a superior product here in Australia. Politicians need to start thinking about Australia. We’re cutting our own throats at the moment. We send them the raw stuff at good prices and they send it back in ready-to-use form.”

CRAIG SELL (ALUMINIUM WORKER, QLD)

to his industry. “We make some of the best quality steel in the world and that’s what’s keeping us alive at the moment.”

He knows it’s not rocket science explaining why Australian manufacturing is fi nding it hard to compete. “We’re on an uneven playing fi eld from the start because of the dumping – and we pay the same price as the Chinese for our iron ore. Every country besides Australia has some sort of protection in place. The beauty of the Chinese system is that every penny they make goes back to their country – and if there are any problems the government bails them out.”

Our environmental standards put us

at a further disadvantage, Risto says. “I don’t reckon there’ll be another steel factory built in Australia, but I bet the Chinese don’t worry much about their steel plants’ emission levels.”

Queensland steelworker John Sulejman can also see what’s happening. “I’m seeing the amount of work the company has lost. Contractors are going for the cheaper material. The Chinese can produce for less and sell for less.” He has

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“They’re importing mesh product

from China and the undercutting is

substantial. The containers are

already fi lled with aluminium

extrusions for windows and they just

fi ll up the room left at the top with the

mesh and it virtually costs them

nothing to ship it here. I’ve seen

some of the imported metal – most

customers say ours is better quality,

but it comes down to cost – they can

buy it cheaper from the Chinese.

DALE JOHNSTON (ALUMINIUM WORKER, QLD)

“Working at Capral Aluminium, we have experienced a downturn in the volume of sales and production here. The existing

tariff does not enable the local industry to be competitive. The Federal Government should increase the tariff to the levels imposed by other countries, such as Canada and the US. This would ensure the Australian aluminium industry and the workforce are looked after and able to compete.”

BRUCE CHEONG (ALUMINIUM WORKER, NSW)


no doubt what action the government should take. “The best thing they could do is set a quota for Australian steel content in government buildings, schools and bridges. And we should have much better protection. The Canadians only let in about 6 per cent foreign steel.”

Aluminium extruders are in the same boat. As Queensland worker Craig Sell says, “There’s a lot of stuff coming into the country and it’s undercutting Australian products.” He’s confi dent the Australian product is superior. “We make a better product but contractors are often more concerned about the hip pocket.” Craig also reckons the government could do a lot more. “They need to get out of China’s back pocket and provide more protection for our industries and jobs.”

Bruce Cheong, from NSW, is also against dumping, but reckons too many workers either don’t know or don’t care as long as that weekly pay cheque is coming in. “I know it’s because they don’t pay their workers much. But we have a lot of guys who don’t worry too much about the future. They’re just happy to have a job.”

Queenslander Dale Johnston has had experience of the knock-on eff ects of dumping. “The undercutting is substantial, to where we were running at a loss. Part of our factory that made mesh product closed down at Christmas. About 40 people out of a job. We tried to keep things going as long as we could, but we couldn’t compete on price.”

Consequently, many of the workers are fearful for job security. “Three years ago we were running 10 shifts on four presses at the Bremer Park facility. Now we are running seven shifts and we have 100 less people working there. The blokes do feel threatened.”

Taking actionDale agrees with Craig Sell: the government needs to do something soon.

“Until the government increases the percentage of import tax on dumping, it’s always going to come back to the cost factor. There’s a hell of a lot to lose here.”

Victorian Denis Bradford works in the glass industry. He reckons the Australian share of the Southern Hemisphere glass market has shrunk by at least 20 per cent since the 1970s. “Malaysia, Indonesia, China – they’re not just competing, they’re actively working against us now. And their labour costs are so low.”

He agrees that government action is way past due. “The government seems to be hamstrung. You can have all the legislation in the world, but if it hasn’t got teeth, it’s no use.” Denis also agrees that some sort of Australian content minimum in government infrastructure is the go. ”Schools, hospitals should all have Australian steel, concrete and glass.”

AWU launches campaignThe anti-dumping viewpoint is one instance where the interests and attitudes of workers and manufacturing companies are pretty much united. The Trade Remedies Task Force (TRTF) is a body of some 50 Australian manufacturing companies across a range of industries, including glass, steel, chemicals, plastics and cement. The TRTF strongly urged the Productivity Commission to consider the impact of predatory pricing and dumping, especially in the wake of the GFC. Dale Johnston is impressed with the hard yards being made by his own employer.

“The AWU has done a lot of work with Phil Jobe [Capral CEO]. He was amazed at the support from the Union, but so frustrated that he can’t seem to get any government support. In a situation like this, everyone is on the same page.”

The AWU recently commissioned a poll that showed a worrying lack of awareness on the part of workers in regard to dumping and its eff ects. Auspoll found

that 17 percent (mainly union members and older workers) have some idea; but 40 percent were in the dark. However, once the situation was explained, 80 percent of workers agreed the government should set up a commission to investigate illegal dumping and award tariff protection to protect local jobs and business; that this was more important than the constant drive to lower consumer prices.

To make workers more aware of the threat of illegal dumping, the AWU will launch its “Don’t Dump on Australia” campaign this month.

“The campaign will seek legislative change to ensure everyone is playing by the same rule book,” says AWU National Secretary Paul Howes. “We want to form alliances between our Union and the Australian manufacturing sector to convince the Australian government we need to harden up the oversight on the trade cheats.”

The campaign hopes to educate workers and the community at large.

“When workers are told how WTO rules are bent, they understand that the failure to prevent illegal trade dumping will cause job losses and further manufacturing sector shutdowns,” Paul says. “We will also talk to the community about these issues.”

It’s simple. If Australia wants to retain a healthy manufacturing sector then action must be taken against illegal dumping. Either we act now or we can forget about a “level playing fi eld” – because the game will be well and truly over.

Join the campaign!The Union has produced Don’t Dump on Australia Campaign postcards. Please email [email protected] or call 1300 885 653 and provide your name, address, membership number and how many cards you’d like.


MEET THE OFFICIAL

Igrew up in a traditional blue collar family and have remained a lifelong resident of Doonside located in western Sydney.

Since my earliest memories I have been politically active. I have handed out Labor how to vote cards since the Whitlam era and my father, Charles Bali, was a staunch union and Labor man. During the 1980s Charlie was the National Organiser of the AMWU and a Labor Councillor in Blacktown City and was Deputy Mayor.

As a Labor Councillor he set up the Blacktown City Sports Awards in 1982 which is still going today with many Award winners going on to become Olympians and world champions.

As a kid growing up, because of my father’s union activities, I was fortunate to know, and often speak to the labour movement giants such as Ralph Marsh (ACTU), Bill O’Neill (ARU) and Laurie Carmichael (AMWU). They helped form my strong social and moral

conscience in support of the working family and to understand that the role of government is to assist all people to have opportunities and protections.

In my view politically, you can’t go past Neville Wran. Wran, the man who

NAME: Stephen Bali JOB: Assistant Secretary, Greater NSW Branch AND… Blue Collar boy with a union pedigree

brought NSW Labor back from electoral disaster and lead the Government with vision and great labour principles.

Today, unionists such as Russ Collison and Paul Howes, show that unions are relevant not only to their members but to the broader community. Unions have become the voice of the people and holding governments (regardless of political persuasion) to account. Whether it is being the leading voice in stopping the privatisation of ferries or electricity (Russ) or leading national campaigns against overseas dumping in Australia or refugee rights (Paul) we, as part of the union movement, can be proud that the AWU is respected and listened to.

The best thing about being a union offi cial is helping people, resolving disputes and the friendships established, particularly with Delegates. When a worker’s rights have been trampled upon, it not only aff ects the worker but their family. Restoring their rightful pay, helping to make the workplace a better environment, or delivering great outcomes in enterprise negotiations brings a great feeling.

Unions have become the voice of the people and holding governments to account.”Stephen BaliASSISTANT SECRETARY,GREATER NSW BRANCH

Former Prime Minister Bob Hawke

(left) with former NSW Premier Neville Wran.


MEET THE DELEGATE

in Bexley. I’d also like to learn candle making but it’s diffi cult to fi nd a place that conducts such a course in Sydney.

One of my greatest joys in life is my four-year-old grand-daughter Sienna. She’s taken my heart away. My daughter Jody tells me when Sienna wakes up in the night she doesn’t call for her mum she calls for her nanny!

NAME: Patricia Gutierrez JOB: AWU Delegate at British American Tobacco in Sydney AND… Proud nanna and leadlight window maker

I became a Union Delegate for the Tobacco Workers Union, a branch of the AWU, in 1988. They needed a Delegate and I put my hand up for the job. I’ve

been a Delegate ever since. British American Tobacco (BAT),

where I have worked for the past 34 years on the factory fl oor as a technical operator, is in the process of taking the manufacturing of 15 of its cigarette brands off shore to Malaysia and Singapore, so there is a lot going on.

They are building a new factory here in Australia at East Gardens and will now only manufacture two brands in Australia – Benson and Hedges and Winfi eld.

We will lose about 130 people from the factory, a lot of whom are being forced into redundancy. But BAT has been really good throughout all this process by working with the Union.

They have set up a deal with an employment agency, to give everybody the equivalent of $6000 in retraining for other jobs, training with computer skills, assistance preparing a CV, or getting a heavy vehicle or forklift licence.

Everybody is also getting three months’ pay on top of their redundancy which will start taking eff ect between June and September this year.

The agency has also been told by BAT that if they fi nd reemployment for 100 per cent of people who want another job they will get a bonus.

I’m 58, so I’m actually taking voluntary redundancy, which won’t be until the end of 2012, but I still haven’t fi gured out what I want to do in my retirement as yet.

I’ve done a leadlight course in the past and made windows for my home

We will lose about 130 people from the factory, a lot of whom are being forced into redundancy. But BAT has been really good throughout all this process by working with the Union.”Patricia GutlerrezAWU DELEGATE, BRITISH AMERICAN TOBACCO

I met my husband John, who is Spanish, after I came out to Australia from the UK in 1970. He works for City Rail and we have three children.

I think when I’m no longer working with BAT, which will be strange after 34 years, I will spend a lot, but not all of my time, with Sienna and any other grandchildren that come along.

theaustralianworker 1

ANTI DUMPING UNION GROWTH & EDUCATION

INDUSTRY CAMPAIGNING PRECARIOUS WORK

COST OF LIVING SUPERANNUATION

ASBESTOS REMOVAL OHS AND MORE...

2011NATIONALCONFERENCE

YOUR COMPLETE GUIDE TO THE

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AWU

CONFERENCE REFERENCE GUIDE 2011Pull out & keep:

2 theaustralianworker www.awu.net.au for more information on the AWU 2011 conference

CONTENTS

Resolutions 04 DON’T DUMP ON AUSTRALIA Tighten trade rules now.

05 UNION GROWTH STRATEGY AWU membership on the increase.

06 INDUSTRY CAMPAIGNING Implementing effi cient strategies.

07 UNION EDUCATION Teaching Reps their rights.

08 PRECARIOUS WORK Securing employment standards.

09 COST OF LIVING Combatting rising prices.

10 SUPERANNUATION Bringing super benefi ts up to date.

12 ASBESTOS REMOVAL The worst workplace hazard.

13 OH&S HARMONISATION Creating national cohesion.

14 GUARD IT OR BAN IT Tightening machine safety laws.

15 INTERNATIONAL SOLIDARITY Supporting the Mexican miners.

Keynote speakers18 Anna Bligh

19 Julia Gillard

20 Wayne Swan

21 Bill Shorten

22 Greg Combet

22 Jeff Lawrence

23 Bob Katter

Inside AWU National Conference – 2011

Images: Shaney Balcombe; Getty Images

theaustralianworker 3www.awu.net.au for more information on the AWU 2011 conference

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Top: West Australian BranSecretary Stephen Price. Above: Newcastle BrancSecretary Richard DownieCentre right: Whyalla-Woomera Branch Secretary Graham Hall. Right: Tobacco Branch Secretary Norman McBrid

NO MATTER

WHAT THE FUTURE

HOLDS, THE AWU WILL BE THERE.

WORKERS KNOW UNIONS ARE THE ONE GROUP IN OUR SOCIETY MOST LIKELY TO PROTECT THEIR INTERESTS.


DON’T

DUMPON AUSTRALIA

The Australian Workers’ Union has resolved to launch a campaign to protect Australian companies and

Australian jobs from unfair competition from overseas.AWU research indicates that while accepting the World Trade Organisation’s (WTO) rules regarding free trade, Australia needs to do a lot more to protect Australian industries and jobs from overseas “predators”.

Currently, Australian Customs and Border Protection Service is responsible, as a government instrumentality, to determine allegations of “dumping” practices which impact badly on Australian industry. However, Customs runs a bureaucratic and opaque investigative process, which challenges its effi cacy.

The AWU has looked at models in the US and Canada where laws and regulations on dumping issues are more transparent, giving working families more confi dence that free trade has positive value which can help improve living standards.

Recently WTO cheats have seen the Australian market witness dumping in a wide range of “fi nished” goods competing with Australian producers. Products like solar panels, rail track, wind towers, mining infrastructural equipment, structural steel frames, and more, are being produced overseas, primarily by China, and dumped on the Australian market.

The AWU has resolved to call on the Federal Government to establish an independent commission to investigate dumping allegations and related matters and legislate to enable affected groups and unions to petition for investigations to be undertaken by this new body.

The Union also calls upon the government to improve the effectiveness of Australia’s anti-dumping and countervailing system by adopting a proactive trade policy-based approach in line with our WTO entitlements, rather than a negative competition policy-based approach in assessing dumping cases.

ANTI-DUMPINGNO. 1RESOLUTION

The AWU is taking a proactive stand against WTO cheats.


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There is an abundance of uranium in Queensland.

Over the last 20 years, a signifi cant number of the companies employing AWU members have shifted to operate on a national and International basis. This means that while negotiations take place on one site,

a company will then have the same discussions elsewhere with a different Delegate and a different Organiser from another Branch at any given time. More importantly, it gives employers an opportunity to record the Union’s techniques, preparing for the next campaign in a different state and with a different Branch.

The Union has seen examples where this has occurred, in many cases making it diffi cult to obtain the best outcomes for members. This does not only occur on larger sites or with larger companies. These days it is not surprising to fi nd 40-50 employees working for the one company spread across all states and territories.

Industry Campaigning is the next step for the union movement. With that in mind, it is crucial for the Union to select appropriate targets.

The AWU has had tremendous success through the AWU Growth Organising Plan leading us to become the fastest growing union in the country. In view of this, the Union is committed to making the appropriate resources available to develop and implement an AWU Industry Campaigning Strategy.

THE WAY OF THE

LET’S GO TO RIO...

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AWU Assistant National

Secretary, Scott McDine.

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FUTURE

INDUSTRY

CAMPAIGNING

NO. 2RESOLUTION

The Australian Workers’ Union has launched its fi rst-ever industry-focused campaign – the Aluminium Industry Campaign. The Campaign is focused primarily on Rio Tinto’s Bell Bay smelter in Tasmania.

“We are responding to increasing concerns expressed about workplace safety and the lack of respect for the workforce shown by Rio Tinto Alcan,” AWU National Secretary, Paul Howes said. “Rio Tinto is one of the few companies in the Australian aluminium industry that has successfully managed to keep unions off their sites for the past 20 years. This means that Rio Tinto is more profi table than other unionised sites, which puts direct wage pressure on our members at these other workplaces.

“At Rio Tinto’s Tasmanian operation at Bell Bay, we have found workers performing the same work as our mainland members, yet they are being paid up to $20,000 less. Meanwhile, the company is refusing to negotiate a fair pay deal with its Bell Bay workforce. As part of its industry campaign strategy, the Union will be targeting companies like Rio Tinto who undermine conditions across the entire industry,” Paul said.

The fi rst round of the campaign will be focused on the aluminium and glass industries where AWU members are facing a real threat to their hard won wages and conditions. In them meantime, the Union has sent Rio Tinto’s Chief Executive Tom Albanese a letter congratulating him on his own massive pay rise of 31.4 percent, which equates to a salary of $4500 per hour.

Rio Rinto Chief

Executive Tom Albanese


Over the past two years, the Australian Workers’ Union has continued to focus resources on growth. The AWU is now the

fastest growing union and national leaders in union growth and campaigning techniques. These results come off the back of the AWU Growth Organising Plan.

Throughout the years of the Howard Government, workers and their unions faced daily attacks and fought the erosion of the working rights that generations before us had fought for. Throughout that period the Union directed its efforts toward protecting members from these attacks, particularly so-called Australian Workplace Agreements, and it was a job that the labour movement did well.

Since the Labor Government has introduced the Fair Work Act, an opportunity to start conversations in workplaces about the benefi ts of being a member of a union has emerged. And this has meant refocusing resources and developing best practice campaigning techniques to make it work.

In early 2008, representatives from around the country came together to construct the basis of the AWU Growth Organising Plan. This collaborative

THE AWU GROWTH

ORGANISING STRATEGY

NO. 3RESOLUTION

approach lead to the development of the plan and identifi ed what additional resources were required to make it work.

Since that time, the Union’s National Offi ce has put in place a team to work with all Branches around the country to establish growth. The team, comprises of a Campaign and Organising Coordinator, Campaign Organiser and a Training and Education Coordinator. Nationally, Branches have increased their resources with a campaign organiser and lead organiser to drive the campaign at Branch level.

The early elements of the strategy built in refresher training for all offi cials. This was provided as in-house training sessions and led to the development of our training and education strategy.

The Growth Organising plan has focused on building the Union’s existing membership base. It has worked by implementing basic steps, which include identifying upcoming agreements, the number of members and non members on site, and by working with the Site Delegates to campaign for a new agreement.

Another important implementation has been the development of the July Intensive, (now the May Intensive). The Intensive is planned ahead to ensure a seamless roll-out of the Union’s campaigns and reviewed at the completion to ensure improvement on previous results. In 2009 and 2010 the Intensives alone accounted for almost 5000 new members. The direction taken has ensured long term growth. The AWU

AWU South Australian Branch Secretary, Wayne Hanson.

Growth Organising Plan is still in its early years, however it has generated the largest increase in membership in over 25 years. This plan will continue to deliver substantive improvements in the working conditions of members and maintains the Union’s position as the biggest, strongest, blue collar union in the country.

In view of this success, the Union is committed to the ongoing implementation of the Union’s Growth Organising Plan to ensure that the AWU continues to gain the best conditions possible for members, through the growth of the Union.

The Union’s Growth Organising Plan has recruited some 5000 new members.

Union growth means better conditions for Australian workers.

WE’RE AUSTRALIA’S FASTEST GROWING

UNION


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In 2008 the Australian Workers’ Union established the National Growth and Campaigns Team, which saw the development and resourcing of

Campaign Organisers in all Branches. This development and a campaign

organising plan saw the beginning of a National Training and Education role to complement the new structured approach to organising, through promoting and delivering Union education. This was set up to ensure that Delegates, members and activists had access to training to further develop and enhance their skills and knowledge, and to provide them with the necessary tools and resources to be successful leaders in their workplaces.

APPROACHSTRUCTUREDn 2008 the Australian Workers’ Unionestablished the National Growth and

UNION EDUCATION

RESOLUTION

NO. 4RESOLUTION

From this, Delegates Training Level 1 began. This course introduces Delegates to their role in the workplace and the Union and provides them with basic skills to manage their tasks. It is expected that Level 2 and (any further development of higher skilled training) will be implemented with a common approach.

Specifi c campaign training has also been delivered to a range of industries in Queensland and campaign training to Growth Organisers within the AWU, which gives particular focus to the industry involved. The Victorian Branch has continued a signifi cant schedule of training to Delegates throughout the state in both in core delegate skills and OHS.

A large part of our focus throughout 2011 will be the National Workplace Education Program (NWEP). A Delegate

development program, as an extension to training already provided, will specifi cally target members in regional and remote areas. Training will be accessible to Delegates, members and activists of those areas allowing them to integrate formal or informal or distance education through development plans.

There is also a focus on delivering a Delegate Leadership Program in 2011, which will increase skill sets. It will also assist Delegates to develop other activists, and participate in broader AWU activities.

The AWU’s National Union Education Strategy focuses on building a union culture that values, promotes and integrates the aims of union education and contributes to organising and campaigning plans. The Union is committed to dedicating resources to the expansion of union education.

AWU Newcastle Branch Secretary, Richard Downie.


Job trends in Australia, and across the globe, show an increasing demand by companies to shift from secure to insecure

employment standards – making all jobs more “precarious”.

In the last decade we have seen an exponential increase in temporary, more casualised, more part-time and more contracted jobs, along with an ever-increasing out-sourcing of jobs from Australia to overseas sites.

The unsavoury fact is that workers performing the same tasks, side-by-side, might share everything except job security, wage rates and working conditions.

This alarming trend undermines the living standards of Australian workers.

PRECARIOUS WORK

NO. 5RESOLUTION

PRECARIOUS WORK CREATES CUT-PRICE

LABOUR

AWU Tasmanian Branch Secretary, Ian Wakefi eld.

Workers in “precarious” jobs have less chance of gaining access to mortgages and credit; and the right to live in comfortable circumstances and afford an education for their children is becoming increasingly out of reach.

The Australian Workers’ Union believes that “precarious” work has widened the gap between rich and poor and is undermining solidarity between workers as it creates a cut-price labour market that drives down wages for everyone. And while many of the Union’s members are concentrated in high-paying resource sector jobs, “precarious” work is a key issue as today’s secure, well-paid unionised job could well become tomorrow’s temporary contract.

The AWU, therefore, is committing resources to fi ghting “precarious” work in Australia. The Union will call for consultation with all levels of government to discuss the threat to the nation’s living standards by the spread of “precarious” work and seek to obtain agreement on appropriate remedies. The Union will consult with members to formulate a new-model anti-precarious work bargaining paragraph, and campaign to have it inserted in all of the Union’s agreements during enterprise bargaining.

The AWU also recognises the global nature of this threat and, where possible, will develop international links to challenge the spread of “precarious” work through global mobilisation.


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AWU Tobacco Branch Secretary, Norman McBride.

Workers around the country are all concerned about the increasing cost of living.

AWU members in the resources sector are well paid because they are unionised. But even those well-paid workers, living in isolated areas, where even the basics have to be transported great distances, feel the sharp changes in living costs.

AWU members who aren’t as well paid and live in the major capital cities are also feeling the effects of housing costs and mortgage rates, the sharp increase in food costs, petrol prices, and the rising cost of educating children.

The AWU now calls on the Federal Government to consult with the union movement and the wider community about how best we can bring economic levers to bear on the rising cost of living.

The AWU is committed to building new roads, rail and port facilities which can help Australians to move out of the big metropolitan centres where family costs are driven up by expensive housing and long commutes to work. The Union also supports intelligent long-term planning to decentralise Australia; supporting the creation of good new jobs, quality hospitals and fi rst class education and training facilities away from the capital city centres which dominate the economy.

nch

COST OF LIVING

NO. 6RESOLUTION

MEMBERS ARE

HOUSING COSTS

FEELING THE

EFFECTS OF


SUPERANNUATION

NO. 7RESOLUTION

FAIRERSUPERANNUATION

WORKERS NEED

Australia has a proud history of compulsory superannuation contributions for workers. And unions have been at the

forefront of these reforms to the national retirement savings scheme. However, many workers are being left behind. Those on low incomes, casual workers, the young, the old and many women are not reaping the benefi ts of our nation’s progressive retirement planning.

The superannuation exemption clause stipulates that all workers who earn under $450 a month are not guaranteed to receive superannuation payments, those under 18 and over 70 are also exempt from the guarantee.

This effectively discriminates against the very people in most need of support at retirement age – low income earners.

Casual employees made up 20 percent of the labour market in 2009 and the female workforce is 25 percent casual. This means that the exemption has particular affect on women’s retirement savings.

The Australian Workers’ Union believes that all work is a valuable contribution to society and should be renumerated accordingly, and that

includes superannuation payments. The $450 a month exemption was

a part of the original superannuation legislation and was meant to be a transitional arrangement during a period when casual employment was much lower. In the current labour market, the exemption has become prejudicial.

Many companies already pay superannuation for those earning below the applicable monthly wage as the administrative costs of not doing so outweigh the savings of the actual contributions. So the exemption is unnecessary and serves merely as a disincentive for employers to do the right thing by their employees.

Better superannuation is an ongoing campaign for the union movement to ensure that all Australians receive the benefi ts that they are entitled to.

The AWU believes that all Australians should be assured of retirement savings without discrimination and extending superannuation contributions to all working Australians would assure that. The Union therefore calls upon the Federal Government to immediately abolish the $450-a-month superannuation exemption and

THE AUSTRALIAN WORKERS’ UNION BELIEVES THAT ALL WORK IS A VALUABLE

CONTRIBUTION AND SHOULD BE RENUMERATED ACCORDINGLY, AND THAT INCLUDES SUPERANNUATION PAYMENTS.

AWU Assistant Queensland

Branch Secretary, Ben Swan.

AWU Victorian Branch Secretary,

Cesar Melhem.


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end discrimination against low income earners.

Further, that while the AWU supports the Federal Government’s plans to

increase compulsory superannuation contributions to 12 per cent over the coming years, the Union maintains its continued commitment to campaign

for a further increase to the full 15 percent which the Union believes every Australian worker should rightly receive.

The Union will pursue, through its enterprise bargaining, 15 percent superannuation retirement savings to members.


WORKERSUNSUSPECTING

WERE EXPOSED TO ASBESTOS DAILY

AWU West Australian Branch Secretary, Stephen Price.

Asbestos is one of the most virulent disease- causing materials of the modern era. In common use before 1985 it has been revealed to be a silent killer claiming the lives

of hundreds every year and causing serious health conditions amongst countless more. Unsuspecting workers were exposed daily in the mining and manufacturing of asbestos and in the construction of the of buildings that contain the material.ASBESTOS – is a common cause of at least fi ve conditions:→ MESOTHELIOMA – a terminal cancer where exposure need not even be frequent or recent; → LUNG CANCER→ ASBESTOSIS – A scarring of the lungs following signifi cant exposure to dust and fi bres.→ PLEURAL PLAQUES – Marking on the lung lining. → GASTRO-INTESTINAL CANCERS

ASBESTOS REMOVAL

NO. 8RESOLUTION

Miners, manufacturing and construction workers exposed to asbestos have suffered from serious health conditions, sometimes resulting in death, for the last decade. It is believed that the next wave will be those exposed in their homes and offi ces to the material that was used as a fi re retardant insulation for fi fty years. The Australian Workers’ Union has long been a vocal advocate for those who suffer from asbestos-related conditions. The Union has established a national asbestos registry for those exposed to asbestos. The registry is a knowledge bank helping to establish facts of a case in the event of future health complications due to the exposure. In 2010 the AWU called for a “Dangerous Product” recall of all asbestos. The Union called on the Federal Government to establish a national body with a regulatory mandate to map priority areas for asbestos product removal, such as schools and public places, and oversee its careful and

total removal. The AWU called for an Asbestos Summit, to bring together industry leaders, regulatory bodies and medical asbestos disease experts. The aim being that, along with all levels of government, such a summit could identify priority areas for asbestos removal and develop a strategy to deal with the national emergency. The cost of the prioritised removal of asbestos is outweighed by the health cost incurred nationally if the material is left only partially regulated as it is now.

The AWU now calls for the prioritised removal of all asbestos with immediacy, as the insidious threat of asbestos exposure will not lessen without urgent intervention. To implement this, the Union will campaign for the formation of a national taskforce of stakeholders to facilitate this removal process, and the inclusion of the Australian Workers’ Union in any such body.


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The Australian Workers’ Union has always argued that workplace safety should be a priority issue for governments, unions and business.

But the Union also believes that the “harmonizing” of Occupational Health and Safety standards across Australia should not come at the cost of maintaining best practice standards.

The AWU acknowledges the importance of creating national harmonised OHS standards, but does not believe this process should be a backward step. Unions have campaigned long and hard for improvements in OHS standards which have been achieved slowly over the years – particularly in NSW.

The Union calls upon the Federal Government to properly recognise that, as the representatives of workers, unions play a signifi cant role in maintaining OHS standards in workplaces across the country.

The Union further believes that laws which simply rely on self regulation by industry will not achieve best practice standards in the workplace.

Tragedies occurring in the mining

industry in Western Australia are proof of this.

With states and territories developing legislation on an ad hoc basis, there is minimal uniformity across the ten specifi c work health and safety statutes (including the two Federal Parliamentary Acts) and the multiple industry-specifi c legislation. The Union believes that this varied and inconsistent regulatory process has created a greater risk for workers who are employed in states and territories which have outdated and inadequate regulation.

The Union is committed to campaigning strongly for OHS standards which will ensure only the best standards available to anyone wherever they work in Australia. Further the AWU will always argue that union right-of-entry needs to be enshrined in the regulations, giving unhampered access to workers to discuss with them OHS matters.

The Union has therefore called on the Federal Government to ensure that the harmonisation of Australian workplace health and safety laws and regulations work cohesively to improve safety in Australian workplaces rather than diminish standards.

AWU Greater New South Wales Branch Secretary, Russ Collison.

AWU Port Kembla Branch Secretary, Andie Gillespie.

HARMONYIS NEEDED FOR OHS

OCCUPATIONAL HEALTH

& SAFETY HARMONISATION

NO. 9RESOLUTION


In Australia today, the rate of workplace accidents is so bad that an average of two amputations occur each working day. This shocking statistic culminates in an average

of around 675 amputations being carried out as a result of industrial accidents.

While the business sector can almost always be relied upon to blame workers and human behaviour for these incidents, it is rarely seen as the fault of their workplace procedures and policies, lack of appropriate training, or poor supervision. Nor do employers accept that poorly designed machinery and equipment causes many accidents.

The horror of such a workplace accident happened to AWU member Alan Newey, who lost his right arm to a conveyor belt and subsequently spent ten years in recovery and rehabilitation. In view of his experience – and the experiences of the many other workers who have suffered similar horrifi c work-related injuries – the

AN AVERAGE OF

OCCUR EACHWORKINGDAY

TWOAMPUTATIONS

Australian Workers’ Union will resource a national campaign to raise awareness of how poorly designed machinery leads to preventable workplace deaths and casualties.

The “Guard it or Ban it” campaign will underline the Union’s position that all moving parts must be guarded (by a machine guard or guarding technique) in a fail-safe manner.

Any removal or breach of such guarding must automatically result in the machine immediately becoming inoperable.

The Union’s campaign will also call on the Federal government to initiate an appropriate review process, involving Union reps and other stakeholders, to ensure that all the requirements of relevant OHS regulations are adhered to strictly.

GUARD IT OR BAN IT

NO. 10RESOLUTION

AWU member Alan Newey,

who lost his arm to

a conveyor belt.


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The Australian Workers’ Union strongly supports the rights of international unions worldwide and offers aid to the many struggling at the hands of undemocratic governments. The Mexican

Miners’ Union is currently being systematically persecuted by both public and private interests.

Delegates at the AWU’s National Conference were told by Jyrki Raina, General Secretary of International Metalworkers’ Federation (IMF), that the Mexican government must end its campaign of political persecution against independent and democratic unions in Mexico. He said that a six-day campaign had been launched to coincide with the fi fth anniversary of the deaths of 65 miners at the Pasta de Conchos mine disaster in Mexico on February 19, 2006.

“Instead of attempting to rescue the miners at Pasta de Conches and investigate the cause of the disaster, over the last fi ve years the Mexican government has escalated its illegal and violent attacks on the Mexican Miners’ Union for demanding justice,” Jyrki told the conference.

Unions around the world affi liated with the IMF, including the International Federation of Chemical, Energy, Mine and General Workers’ Unions (ICEM), the International Transport Workers’ Federation (ITF), UNI Global Union and the International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC), are supporting the international campaign.

Speaking in support of the global action, AWU National Secretary Paul Howes spoke of the essential role trade unions have played throughout Australia’s history in improving health and safety in the mining industry, something workers in every country have a right to.

In Australia, a rally was held at Parliament House in Canberra on 18 February, to support the global action.

PERSECUTION MEXICAN MINERS’ UNIONOF THE

INTERNATIONAL

NO. 11RESOLUTION


Paul Howes

In his opening address, AWU National Secretary, Paul Howes said it was with great pride that he could report that, since its last conference, the Union continues to fulfi l its 125-year-old mission of

ensuring that Australian workers receive a fair go.Paul acknowledged that while the recent fl oods, fi res

and cyclones have infl icted a toll, these tragedies have also shown that the amazing spirit of mateship is still alive and well. He said that even in our darkest times the national spirit of togetherness, is also a spirit that guides the Union in its commitment to the betterment of working people through collective action.

Paying tribute to the AWU members who helped with sandbagging streets, moving people out of unsafe houses and running shelters for fl ood, fi re and cyclone refugees, Paul reported that Selwyn Schefe, a long-standing Queensland Branch member had been killed in the fl oods that swept through this State. Selwyn, from the Murphy’s Creek area, worked for G. James Aluminium for more than 30 years. He and his six-year-old daughter, Katie, were both tragically killed when they were swept away by the great inland tsunami of mud and water that stormed through the Lockyer Valley.

Paul assured Delegates that the Union and the company were working together to support Selwyn’s immediate family during this crisis. Selwyn was a part of the great AWU family, so it was the Union’s duty to honour him and the other victims of the disasters witnessed during the summer. He also paid tribute to those Victorian Branch members who were affected by fl oods – and the many DSE

Australia has the resources and the talent to be innovative

members who, not long ago, were putting their lives on the line to fi ght horrifi c bush fi res.

Paul reported that the third annual AWU-Auspoll Job Satisfaction Index tracking study had been released. The study is commissioned to read the pulse of working Australia. The latest Index shows that while working people’s confi dence had lifted at the end of 2009 – by the end of 2010 their confi dence in the economy and job security was on the wane. But the study clearly showed that workers know unions are the one group in our society most likely to protect their interests. Unfortunately confi dence in Labor’s ability to protect the interests of working people has slipped.

Paul said, that regardless of this lack of confi dence, he felt that the leadership in Canberra will see another upswing among workers in their support for Labor. Investment in infrastructure, investment in rebuilding the rail, roads and ports damaged by the fl oods and the cyclones will keep the economy growing.

Paul said that shutting down the evil Australian Building and Construction Commission – the ABCC – was now a matter of pressing urgency. With the massive re-construction projects in Queensland to rebuild roads, rail, and ports, AWU members in the construction industry (who will be the people building this infrastructure) do not want the evil of the ABCC hanging over their heads. The ABCC is a threat to their basic working rights and it is an instrumentality that can only undermine the reconstruction effort.

Paul said that the time is now for Labor to remove the

last remnant of John Howard’s union busting government instrumentalities. The AWU is ready to hold Labor to account to ensure we have good work laws in this country. Work laws which respect Labor’s core support base and respect the rights of union members.

Paul reminded Delegates that the 2010 federal election saw the threat of the reintroduction of WorkChoices if Tony Abbott and the Liberals had won. Paul also reminded Delegates of Tony Abbott’s track record in the Howard Government and of the damage he could have unleashed if he had become Prime Minister.

Turning to the Global Financial Crisis, Paul said that despite the world gloom Australia remained economically buoyant – largely due to the resources boom. He said that it was this sector that triggered a national debate about making those who exploit the natural resources pay for the right to mine minerals which they don’t own. In pursuing the campaign the Union was assured by the government that the Mineral Resources Tax imposed on mining companies would be spent in the regions, on projects of national signifi cance and on infrastructure. More than half of the Union’s membership live and work in regional and rural Australia. The resources tax will see these workers benefi t from a massive expansion of investment and jobs.

Paul then referred Delegates to the manufacturing crisis in Australia. The level playing fi eld Australia was promised by the World Trade Organisation appears not to exist. He announced that the Union was launching its “Don’t Dump on Australia” campaign targetting free trade “cheats”. The campaign will lobby Government to demand transparency in trade and the sidelining of those countries that circumvent the rules. The campaign will also promote the fact that Australia has the resources and the talent to be innovative in the manufacturing sector and that the nation is not simply a sandpit for China and a tourism resort for North Asia.

Paul told Delegates that for 125 years the Union and its members have fought for decency, equality, and a fair go. He assured them, too, that the Union is right here, right now and will be there in the future, too.


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National President of the Australian Workers’ Union Bill Ludwig opened the conference by paying tribute to the six men who met in the back of a pub in Ballarat, Victoria, 125 years

ago, to plan a better life for themselves, their families and their mates. These forefathers of the AWU also had a collective vision for a better way of life for all working Australian men and women, both back then and in the future. And it was there, and then, that the Australian Workers’ Union was born.

Bill told Delegates that when the Australian Labor Party was formed by AWU members under the Tree of Knowledge at Barcaldine in Queensland, the Party and the Union movement forged ideals to become a driving political force in Australia.

Recalling his many years with the Union, Bill told Delegates that during that time he had met members who had fought in both World Wars and it was those workers who returned home to rebuild Australia. He said they worked with pride and a sense a humour and a sense of solidarity.

It is a unique and particular character that AWU members have always seemed to have, Bill told Delegates. Be they men or women, working in heavy industry, in shearing sheds, or in any other jobs that AWU members work. Bill said that they are the sort of

characters who are quick with a joke,

The AWU will always be AUSTRALIA’S greatest union

Bill Ludwig

a smile and a hand for their mates. But, he said, they are also quick to stick up for themselves and their mates.

For 125 years, AWU members have usually been found in the less glamorous jobs, the jobs that are hard and sometimes down-right dirty. But, Bill said, while others may not like to think about these jobs, they are jobs that need doing.

The real strength of the AWU, Bill believes, comes from its members and their workplace Delegates. He said he understood fully that being an AWU rep can sometimes be a diffi cult and even thankless task. He said that often, when Delegates are doing a good job, they’re not told so by anyone. But if things go wrong, it’s the Delegates who cop the fl ak.

AWU Delegates are not paid for their services, Bill said. They do it out of a commitment to unionism, and a commitment to helping their fellow workers.

Bill thanked the Delegates for their dedication and commitment and told them that without their hard work, the Union would not be celebrating 125 years.

The AWU is the largest blue-collar Union in Australia and is also the fastest growing union. Bill sad that Delegates should be proud that, together, they have helped to arrest the membership decline that occurred

during the Howard regime’s war on workers’ rights.Now, the labour movement is, again, gaining strength

and it is fundamentally important that the Union takes this opportunity to look to the future. Bill said that the

Union – and the broader labour movement – must bear in mind that while union membership increases are a great thing, if unions are unable to deliver good outcomes for their members, it is pointless signing them up. Bill highlighted the need for the Union to educate its members to understand the role they have to play in making their workplaces stronger. He said that the changing nature of work and workplaces has seen the Union evolve to meet the challenges of these changes and provide communication and services to its members that would have been unthinkable 125 years ago.

Bill said he believes that no matter what the future holds, the AWU will be there standing proudly. He concluded his address by saying that the assembled Delegates,

offi cials and members were just passing through a great organisation. The AWU was there before them, and will be there long after they had all gone. But, he said, it was their responsibility to ensure the AWU will always be Australia’s greatest union.

The real strength

of the AWU comes from its members

and their workplace Delegates.

Delegates are not paid for their efforts, they do it out of commitment.


Queensland Premier Anna Bligh’s commitment to those who suffered in the fl oods impressed the nation.

Taking the stage at the 125th anniversary of the Union’s foundation, Queensland Premier Anna Bligh also found herself in the midst of an epic and unprecedented string of natural disasters,

on which she had little choice but to refl ect. But she was also keen to assert that the very

strengths of local character on which the state’s formation had originally drawn were also those that would pull Queensland’s people through their current travails. And in this, members of the AWU could hold their heads high as being among those whose “inspirational responses to the disaster” were leading the way in getting the state back on its feet.

The Premier cited the “mighty effort” of workers who were part of the clean-up, the road and bridge repairs and the sandbagging that had protected businesses and homes. She also spoke of the health workers who couldn’t do their shifts or rosters because they were unable to reach their places of work, and then those who worked double shifts or above and beyond the call of duty at a time of great diffi culty to themselves.

She spoke of those 55,000 people who had volunteered and went on city council buses to places they’d never been to for people they had never met and who had assisted householders who “felt defeated by it in their own houses” in cleaning up most “revolting mud you have ever seen”.

She said the fl oods had affected disproportionately those living in low-lying parts of town, “poor people, working people who don’t have a lot of choice about where they live, young families, people renting, people living in caravan parks people who were affected most and worst. And many didn’t have much to start with.”

And, while the worst of the fl ooding and the mess may now have receded, and those passing through might look at the houses and say, “what fl ood?”, she said that behind those doors were people who may have been paying insurance, but were now fi nding out they might not have been covered for the kind of fl ood they had suffered and may have just a chair and a table left.

The Premier said that the AWU has been successful though wars and big events and should be proud of its achievements. Where its founding fathers and mothers could see the potential of an equality of opportunity

that had not been on the minds of the colonial ruling class of the time, the fair go principle had since been established irrevocably now as a mainstream Australian value through the efforts of its members.

She said they had fought for a fair day’s pay for a fair day’s work and that we should never forget that when we take our paid annual leave, get compensation for a work injury or whenever we take paid sick leave, family leave or compassionate leave.

She said our super entitlements and the conditions we take for granted were not just handed out – every one of them has been won by the union movement, mostly in the face of massive opposition by leaders who claimed that every one of them would result in the ruin not just of their industry but of the country itself.

That same spirit would pull Queensland through its present crisis, and it was the spirit of which the AWU should be proudest.

In handing back the stage to National Secretary Paul Howes, she paid personal tribute to AWU President Bill Ludwig, as “a leader of substance and vision”, from whose wisdom that “he doles out in a pretty savage way” she had learned a lot.

A fair day’s pay for a fair day’s

work should

never be forgotten

Members of the AWU could

hold theirheads up high

for their inspirational responses

to the disaster.

Queensland PremierANNA BLIGH


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Prime Minister Julia Gillard opened her address to Delegates by paying tribute to the Union’s members and offi cials, both past and present, for their unfailing efforts in fi ghting for and

defending the rights of working Australians – and the broader labour movement. She said that the history of the Australian Workers’ Union was a rich and colourful one that told the story of unity, strength and the unwavering belief in a fair go for all Australians.

The PM reminded Delegates that the Union’s great history has at its core a belief in the politics of opportunity and social mobility. That the Union and the labour movement had always had its focus on creating a fair nation. She said the movement was built and upheld by working people who had and have done some

Prime Minister Julia Gillard with AWU women Delegates and activists.

We’ll be as bold in our future as we’ve been in our past

The Union’s great history has at its core

a belief in the politics

of opportunity and social mobility.

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PRIME MINISTER, JULIA GILLARD

courageous things, fuelled by the ambition and belief that their sons and daughters would live a better life, a more prosperous life and a life that offered them greater opportunities than their parents lives.

The PM said she believed that while it may seem fashionable to dismiss the labour movement as being no longer relevant and to arrive at the conclusion that, somehow, the Australian Labor Party no longer understood its purpose, these refl ections are fl awed and hold no justifi cation. The labour movement has a bold course for the future, the PM said, and that it still has, like it always has had, a pivotal role in shaping the destinies of working Australians.

The PM then presented to Delegates her vision for her government. She said that the Labor Government,

despite being a minority parliament, was determined to work as a political party with the broader labour movement – and the broader community – to continue to bring positive change to our nation and further opportunities for all. She said that her government has set a course to harness the benefi ts of economic prosperity, and to make sure that those benefi ts are shared.

She acknowledged that Australia faced some diffi cult challenges and that they were different challenges to those presented to us in the past. Issues such as climate change and pricing carbon, the rapidly changing technology we have to keep up with, like the National Broadband Network. She said that by rising to these challenges and taking clear, precise and decisive action will keep Australian in front, rather than falling behind.

She closed her address to Delegates with the assurance that through unity and action, we will be as bold in our future as we have been in our past in bringing opportunity to every Australian. The historic mission of fairness that has created the Australian Labor Party that has endured all these years has forged the labour movement and the Party as an unbeatable team.


Deputy Prime Minister and Federal Treasurer Wayne Swan opened his address by sharing his own experiences as a member of the AWU. He told Delegates that the Union’s offi cial records

say that he joined the Union in January 1982. However, he said, those records didn’t capture the ticket he took out way back in 1974 when he was employed by Brisbane City Council. To the Delegates’ delight, he described his time as a sewerage maintenance worker, and also as a casual worker at the Brisbane Exhibition where he shovelled chook manure!

The Deputy PM spoke of his sense of genuine loyalty to the AWU. He told Delegates that he’d worked alongside them, marched in the rain with them and, as a representative in the Australian parliament, represented their hopes and aspirations.

The Australian Workers’ Union, he said, had been there for workers across many industries for a century and a quarter looking after decent, hard-working people, defending and advancing their wages and conditions.

Together, he reminded Delegates, battles had been won – and some lost. But the fact was the labour movement always wins more battles than it loses. He said he believed that the movement’s successes came about through the strong links between the Australian Labor Party and working together that forges the movement’s strength.

The Deputy PM said he felt it was impossible to separate the history of the AWU from the history of our nation. The AWU had survived and prospered, he said, because at key times the Union has helped Australians recognise that, as a nation,

I’ve marched in the rain with the AWU

Deputy Prime Minister, WAYNE SWAN

Australia can only succeed if we band together. He said this was shown during the Global Financial Crisis, and proven yet again, through the recent natural disasters.

He made the point that “stronger together” is more than a simple slogan for the Union. He said that it was a philosophy that can confi dently steer Australia forward.

Australia had changed so much in the 125 years of the AWU’s existence. In the mid-1880s, he said, when the Union was formed, Australian workers died young, of avoidable illnesses, owning little and having enjoyed little chance of education and self-improvement. And, he said, that’s why Unions were necessary and why they were formed.

The Deputy PM said that the pastoral workers who formed the AWU could hardly have dreamt of the standard of living the vast majority of Australian working people enjoy today. Health care, life expectancy,

retirement benefi ts, holidays and the prospects for their children have come about largely through the work of the labour movement.

He said that today, unions like the AWU simultaneously represent industries like tourism and manufacturing that are struggling and industries like the resources sector that are prospering.

It was interesting, he said, that one of the reasons why unions like the AWU, the miners and the maritime workers gained a foothold, was the 19th century creation and expansion of an export-oriented, resource-based national economy. As the world demand for wool, coal, iron ore and other resources went up, so did the bargaining power of the people who produced them. They made gains, he said, but when prices later fell, they fought hard to hold on to those gains, which led to the great strikes of the 1890s and the formation of the Australian Labor party.

The Deputy PM said he believed that Australian unions can fi nd a new future in an era of continuing export expansion. He said that by working with employers, the AWU and other unions can help expand our resource-export capacity by creating jobs, increasing skills, boosting productivity and, he said, particularly important for mining communities, giving a future to young Indigenous school leavers. He said that if ever there was a nation-building Labor Government, it was now. And while there is a massive job ahead to rebuild parts of Australia affected by

natural disasters, the government was responding to it with commitment, passion.

The Deputy PM closed his address by saying that the Labor Government wanted to ensure that every Australian has the opportunity to make what they want of their life. And it was up to unions like the AWU to help explain the benefi ts of reform to workers who are under pressure and that by working together, we will see another defi ning moment in Australia’s history.

It is up to unions to help

explain the benefi ts of reform to

workers who are under pressure. Deputy Prime Minister Wayne Swan

joined the AWU back in 1982.

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successes camstrong links between the Australian Labor Party and working together that forges the movement’s strength.

The Deputy PM said he felt it was impossible to separate the history of the AWU from the history of our nation. The AWU had survived and prospered, he said, because at key times the Union has helped Australians recognise that, as a nation,


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Federal Assistant Treasurer and Minister for Financial Services and Superannuation, Bill Shorten, was well known to Delegates and all AWU members as the former National

Secretary of the Union. He told Delegates that while there are great things to be done in Parliament, and great challenges to face, he felt that nothing beats a Union education, or his time of being a representative of the Australian Workers’ Union for job satisfaction. He also told Delegates that trade unions are the most important institution in a functioning, prosperous democracy.

The Assistant Treasurer then turned his attention to superannuation and retirement. He said people were living longer due to the availability of quality healthcare, so there was concern about workers having enough money to live on in retirement. He said that retired workers needed more than the aged pension to live comfortably in retirement. In fact, he said, it’s been demonstrated that for a dignifi ed retirement, 60-65 percent of a workers’ pre-retirement average weekly wage was required.

In 1985, the Assistant Treasurer said, workers gave away a three percent wage rise to allow for “compulsory” superannuation, which Unions pushed through Awards. Then, in 1992, the Keating Government raised the percentage to 9 percent. However, all these years later, this is not enough. At the last election the

Federal Assistant Treasurer BILL SHORTEN

There is nothing stopping

progressive unions from

improving the super

payment to workers.

government went to the polls with a policy proposal to increase superannuation from 9 percent to 12 percent. He said, of course, the Liberal Opposition is against this.

The Assistant Treasurer explained that when the Government passed the Minerals Rent Resource Tax on the super profi ts of mining companies, that money will replace the tax income that we lose, because by moving superannuation on all Australian payrolls from 9 percent to 12 per cent means paying less tax on that 3 percent that goes into super. It’s taxed at 15 percent rather than the normal marginal rate. So the loss of that to tax revenue will be compensated by the mining tax. He said the Government is also proposing that workers who earn less than $37,000 per year receive $500 each year in super regardless of their circumstances.

He further explained that the super increase is not a tax on business, it’s part of the improved remuneration package that employers decide they want to give their workers through negotiation. He said he knew it could be moved to 12 percent and that, ultimately, moved beyond that as a compulsory standard. And, he added, there is

Adequate superannuation is a real issue

nothing stopping progressive unions from improving the superannuation payment to workers. The reality is that on an issue of the adequacy of retirement income no one else other than a Labor Government, and an empowered union movement is going to deliver that outcome.

He closed his address by reminding Delegates that the AWU was a union which prevails. He said he looked forward to seeing even more work done to ensure the dignity of our members’ retirement.

Federal Assistant

Treasurer and former AWU

National Secretary Bill

Shorten.

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FederalAssistant

Treasurer andformer AWU

National Secretary Bill

Shorten.


Australian Council of Trade Unions Secretary Jeff Lawrence opened his address to Delegates by congratulating the

Union on its 125th anniversary and acknowledged that for the fi rst time an AWU offi cial has become a full-time offi cer of the ACTU. He welcomed Michael Borwick and said he looked forward to working with him.

Jeff reminded Delegates that at 125 years of age, the Australian Workers’ Union was older than the nation itself. He said he believed that Australia grew into the nation it is today because of unions. We could thank the labour movement for the benefi ts working Australians enjoyed today, like universal healthcare, wider access to education and decent retirement benefi ts. But Jeff acknowledged that from its origins, the

Federal Minister for Climate Change Greg Combet told Delegates that Australia stands at a crossroads. He said that as a nation we are

confronted with a choice between continuing to reform to secure the living standards of all Australians for the next century, and living in fear

of the future.

ederal MinisteGreg Combet toAustralia standHe said that as

confrontedbetwereformlivingAustrcentu

of the

Climate change

is real

Minister for climate change Greg Combet

ACTU SecretaryJeff Lawrence

The Minister told Delegates that if decent rights at work were the most important reason for the change of government back in 2007, climate change was also one of the top two or three. He said that climate change was now a signature issue for the Gillard Labor Government and that the government was determined to deliver on a carbon price as a key economic reform supporting a long-term climate change policy.

Climate change, the Minister explained, begins with science. He said the government accepts the fundamental conclusions of science: that climate change is real, and that human activity is contributing signifi cantly through carbon pollution. If that pollution continues to grow, our climate could change in ways that present risks to the economy, our environment, and our way of life. He said that those risks fall most heavily on our children and their children.

The Minister said that the best way to approach the issue is to place a price on carbon pollution. He said that this price will tilt the economic balance in favour of

low pollution options and that a carbon price gives incentives to low emissions technologies and encourages householders to opt for lower emissions choices by making these choices less costly than higher emissions choices. Over time, the Minister said, this would allow the decoupling of economic production from carbon pollution, which is essential if Australia is going to compete in a carbon constrained world. However, the Minister warned that this was a large-scale challenge and that assistance was needed to transform high-energy consuming industries that relied on cheap electricity. These transformations, he said, came with signifi cant advantages if pursued as soon as possible, in a sensible manner. History has shown, he said, that the countries that move fi rst and develop new technologies and production methods benefi t the most. He told Delegates that we have no choice but to begin this transformation, but that it can’t be won without the support of the labour movement through unity, discipline, passion and commitment.

Markets should not dictate working rights

AWU had been in the forefront of campaigning for a fair go and through that commitment saw Australia be one of the fi rst nations in the world to adopt a national minimum wage, win an eight-hour working day, put a workers’ party – the Australian Labor Party – into parliament. However, Jeff said, the labour movement was just as relevant and pertinent as it had ever been and that it must remain actively strong and grow.

Jeff that the forces that wanted to cut the shearers’ wages back in 1891 are still with us, as we had seen with the implementation of the Howard Government’s dreaded WorkChoices. He said that unions will always have a role in ensuring workers’ rights and giving voice to working Australians and it was fundamental that this voice was strong.

Jeff reported that the ACTU had

endorsed a full agenda for 2011 and would be working through it to prioritise issues that will make the most difference to workers and unions this year. The agenda included campaigns to increase job security, improve Delegates’ rights and ensure that collective bargaining works effectively in Australian industries and workplaces. Most importantly, Jeff said, in a rapidly changing world, working people must have a say in the future of their work. He said that markets should not be allowed

to dictate working rights; that the recent trends of workers remaining casual for years on end and contractors paying their own superannuation and workers’ compensation while working for the one employer is not good enough. He also said that waiting for a text message each morning to say whether you have work or not that day must end.

Working life, he said, should be equally shaped by the needs of workers, families and communities.


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Independent MP Bob Katter

Scabs got high prices for their labour

There is no doubt that Bob Katter earns and wears his inimitability with pride, and in this no one could have been disappointed

with his conference performance.Bob comes from a long-established

and infl uential Queensland family and his speech came full with references to the AWU and the labour movement’s history, but also a plea to the Union to pull out the stops to save the state’s sugar industry, which, he said, only the AWU could do.

Citing historical precedent of his own learning about the power of collective bargaining, he said that when the wool industry had its own collective bargaining structure in place to protect the interests of growers, “it was bringing in more than the coal industry”. Since, however, “because industry after industry has lost its rights, cattle numbers are down 20 percent and sheep numbers down 60 percent”.

He said, “The 200,000 people I represent desperately need the AWU to fi ght for them as the sugar industry is a bigger employer than even coal.”Yet, while Brazil is opening 20 mills a year to produce ethanol, Queensland is closing seven mills every nine years.

The Liberal-National Party he said, however, had introduced changes to the legislation for ethanol that had taken the industry’s production backwards,

from 72 million litres to a current 24 million litres, making its future survival precarious. But, if the use of ethanol could not be mandated in fuels, the sugar industry – the 50,000 workers in the biggest industry in Queensland would not survive, he said.

In a speech peppered with in-jokes, asides and historical references to the

history of the union movement in Australia and its initial foundation on the back of the defeated shearers’ strike of the 1890s, Bob described Australians as an “incredible people”. He said, “if you know history, you can not write it without mention of the AWU.”

He spoke of how his great-grandfather in Charters Towers had in 1894 put up the equivalent of $1 million at today’s value to support that strike whose cost had been 11,000 members to the AWU and two years of starvation for them while the “rats and scabs did well and got high prices” for their labour.

He said he’d got his own start in life when for a brief period in Mt Isa he was an AWU Delegate, and how, “in 1907, one in 31 of those who went down the mines would not come back up again, and if they came back up again they died of [chronic lung disease, common among coal miners, due to the inhalation of coal dust] miner’s phthisis”. And he spoke of how even those who had managed to leave the pits for politics, Anderson Dawson had been forced to quit because of it, at a time when even Black workers in South Africa enjoyed better protection for worker safety than did local pit labourers.

Bob spoke of his lifelong admiration for Ted Theodore (who with Bill

McCormack, was one of the Union’s forebears from the Amalgamated Workers’ Association). Ted later became the premier of Queensland and a Federal Member of Parliament. He said this deep respect for Theodore was the one thing that united both him and former Prime Ministers Paul Keating and Malcolm Fraser.

He expressed his regret that when the

Great Depression arrived in the 1930s people didn’t understand Theodore’s urgings for an expansion of the money supply and that instead the electorate blamed the Labor Party for the slump. The government then imported an economic advisor from the Bank of England, Otto Niemeyer, whose solution of sharp reductions in government

spending had, in fact, perpetuated the slump.

As he left the lectern, Bob reiterated his plea to the Union to save sugar. “Thanks to the Union,” he said, “some of those [sugar workers] were proud farmers up until 15-20 years ago, and some of them have sadly forgotten where they came from.”

In 1907 one in 31 of those

who went down the mines did not come back up again.


STRONGER TOGETHER: Delegates and friends of the AWU

For 125 years we have fought for what’s right and we know we will be here for the next 125 years to ensure that we advance Australia.

Paul Howes, AWU National Secretary

REAL LIFE

Images: Getty, Supplied

Hopes of a bright, new year were dashed when a

series natural disasters shattered the lives of many

Australians. But when a crisis occurs, AWU members

were there, as they always are, lending a hand to

help bring relief. Michael Blayney reports…

JANUARY 9-13Devastating fl oods cripple south-eastern Queensland with Toowoomba, Ipswich, and Brisbane copping the brunt.▪ DAMAGE BILL: at least $5 billion.▪ CASUALTIES (at time of printing): 35 dead and 9 missing in fl oods throughout Queensland since November 30, 2010.

JANUARY 12-14Major fl ooding across much of the western and central parts of Victoria.▪ DAMAGE BILL: Agricultural industry decimated to the tune of an estimated $1.5-2 billion.▪ CASUALTIES: 0

FEBRUARY 3Cyclone Yasi: Category 5 cyclone strikes north Queensland, the full force landing near Mission Beach.▪ DAMAGE BILL: est. $800 million▪ CASUALTIES: 0

PATH OF DESTRUCTION

TIMELINE

h a

Hopes of a bright, new year were dashed when a

h tt red the lives of many BREAKSWhen the levee


FEBRUARY 4Flooding throughout Melbourne’s east, Gippsland, and north-west Victoria on top of fl ooding in January. Up to 94 communities aff ected.▪ DAMAGE BILL: unreported, but estimated to be hundreds of millions of dollars▪ CASUALTIES: 0

FEBRUARY 6-7Bushfi re in the south-eastern suburbs of Perth destroys 72 homes.▪ DAMAGE BILL: estimated to stretch into the ‘tens of millions of dollars’.▪ CASUALTIES: 0

Every cyclone season, Rod ‘Cowboy’ Stockham has one eye on his television’s

weather channel as he goes about his business. In late January this year, a swirling mass forming off the North Queensland coastline captured his attention.

“It was such an extensive system,” says Cowboy, AWU Northern District Secretary based in Townsville. “I wasn’t worried about the fi rst one (Cyclone Anthony, a category 2 cyclone that hit on January 30). It was the big bastard tailing it that worried me.”

The big bastard was Cyclone Yasi, the core of which passed between Cardwell and Innisfail early on February 3. The Stockham family (Cowboy, his wife, and two kids) was holed up approximately 200 kilometres south, preparing for a sleepless night upstairs in their Majors Creek home – without power.

“We copped a hell of a battering. I’ve been through about a dozen cyclones, and this was a particularly fi erce one. The really big wind gusts came through about 8 o’clock at night, and it belted shit out of us right up until lunchtime the next day,” he says.

“I lay on the fl oor there for one minute, and the fl oorboards were all moving

underneath me. It was the scariest feeling, like a snake crawling across your belly. I got up off the fl oor and sat back on the couch pretty quick smart.”

Cowboy stepped outside at 4.30am to assess the damage. Twice he attempted to walk across the backyard, and twice he was blown off his feet. “That was enough for me,” Cowboy laughs. “I headed straight back inside.”

When the wind and rain

COWBOYSTOCKHAM

WE COPPED A HELL OF A BATTERING

fi nally subsided, Cowboy counted the cost. “Trees and power lines down everywhere, a big tree crashed down on my machinery shed, I lost the roof off my stables, but no structural damage to the house, thank God.”

Days later Cowboy toured the area by helicopter, struck by the devastation – and the drenching. “We had 240 mills, 10 inches, over 24 hours,” he says, paying tribute to the role AWU members played before and after the cyclone. “Many of our members are also SES volunteers, and they looked after others before themselves.”

Nothing was spared in the deluge.

Roads became rivers.


REAL LIFE

W hen Jeena Habib talks about the recent Brisbane

fl oods, emotions are raw. Although her Calamvale home was unaff ected, her parents’ single-level brick house in Jindalee was not so lucky.

Jeena’s 76 year-old mother is terminally ill, requiring regular chemotherapy.

“When you’re going through this treatment you need to be positive or it can aff ect the recovery process,” says Jeena, an AWU staff member for 24 years. “Since the fl ood, Mum’s not sleeping and she’s lost weight.”

Back in January, Jeena visited her parents in Jindalee on the same afternoon the Brisbane River broke its banks. Local roads were already fl ooded, but her parents’ and their house were fi ne. Her father was adamant that they could ride it out, but changed his mind that evening after predictions that the fl ood

AWU member Chris Brown was working dispatch at Lindeman’s

winery on a particularly damp February afternoon when his wife Kim sent him a photograph of rainwater on their lawn outside their Mildura house. An hour later, Chris arrived home to witness the big wet fi rst-hand.

“It wasn’t too bad, so I didn’t think much more of it,” Chris says. “But that night it just steadily rained and rained, and the next morning we woke up just about fl oating!”

As Chris walked towards his front door, he could hear water splashing underneath the fl oorboards. His verandah was submerged, and his Nissan Gazelle in the driveway looked more like a Nissan Walrus.

“We put everything inside up on bricks, ladders, buckets, containers, anything we could grab at the time,” he says. “Our other car is a four-wheel drive,

so we got out with that.”All the while, it continued

to rain. Mildura, in Victoria’s north-west, received 250mm or thereabouts in a 24-hour period, close to its average annual rainfall.

“Thankfully the water didn’t seep through the fl oorboards, but it sat under the house for days. The stench was terrible,” he says, adding that

the house has extensive structural damage as a result. “We’ll have to re-stump the house, probably rip up the boards and replace the carpet.”

Now living at Kim’s brother’s house, Chris expects to return to his home in the next six months. His workplace is struggling with rejected grapes and damaged roads, but his major concern has been for his pregnant wife Kim. “We’re having a baby in seven weeks and all the newborn gear was wrecked. She cried for two days.”

waters would peak in two days’ time.

“They went to my sister’s place in Westlake with just a few clothes and the cat. They were confi dent they’d be back in a few days’ time.”

But when the river peaked, the Jindalee home went under, water rising inside to 1.25

metres. Everything was damaged beyond repair. Since then, the family has been trying to return the home to its former condition.

“We’re trying to make things as comfortable as possible while we get the house up to scratch. The stress is worse for Mum because of the chemo.”

Despite everything, Jeena’s been humbled by the support of her fellow workers in the AWU Brisbane offi ce. “I’m in tears every time I think how generous people have been. It’s more like a family than a workplace, and everyone has assisted in some way. We’re all here for each other.”

JEENA HABIB CHRIS BROWN

THE STRESS IS WORSE FOR MUM BECAUSE OF THE CHEMO

WE PUT EVERYTHING INSIDE UP ON BRICKS, LADDERS, BUCKETS, CONTAINERS


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ALL ABOUT AUSTRALIA

A s little girl growing up in Alice Springs, Rhubee Neale dreamed of

being American country singer Patsy Cline.

“In the 1960s, the only modern music we heard was rock or country. I used to listen to Patsy and imagine myself up on that stage in a big, fl owing gown.”

Today, Rhubee, 46, is one of a growing number of indigenous female singer songwriters gaining acclaim. These feisty females are making their voices heard up and down the country to large and growing audiences.

Rhubee, a mother of four, put music aside in her twenties after a friend told her she “sounded terrible”, and

FLOWERS Gill Canning talks to some fabulously talented

Indigenous women with voices singing loud and clear.

desert

Rock Chick

Mechelle Wilson

I try to inspire people to be the best they can be– Mechelle Wilson

concentrated instead on motherhood, social work and working as a TAFE teacher. But several years ago, after going through a divorce and gaining a diploma in music, she sat down and asked herself, “What do I really like doing?”

The answer was obvious, as she’d been writing songs ever since she was little. Living in Sydney at the time, she recorded eight singles and performed wherever she could, including at two Dreaming festivals.

Probably her best known song, Crystal Velvet Night is about her homeland. She also sings on subjects such as racism, feminism and the Stolen Generation, but, “subtly, as it’s not good to be in people’s faces”.

Growing up with others, many of whom learned English by listening to country music, Rhubee was thrilled when a fan recently told her she was like a “female Slim Dusty”.

“The songs I write are very pictorial. I see music as a form


Rhubee Neale writes “pictorial” songs”.

Robinson and Nat King Cole.“There was a dance club

here in Perth called the Coolabaroo Club. My pop’s cousin was the jazz singer there. I remember watching her practise in the backyard, singing with her accordion. I was enthralled by her.”

She says, “Sam is the composer and I write the lyrics. I take everything in all the time – I try to write about small things people might not notice. My songs are quite optimistic – they’re about being grateful, smiling, talking yourself up. I try to inspire people to be the best they can be.”

The Old Flames have a strong following in WA and enjoy playing “country towns in the middle of nowhere”.

Says Mechelle, “I like people to appreciate the music and connect with my emotions and my stories. And have a good laugh – a lot of our songs have comedy in them.

“Our audience tends to be people who like a laugh and the upbeat – a lot of Elders like it because it’s ‘old school’. I love a dance – there is nothing more enjoyable than seeing

of oral history, of capturing a moment in time,” she says.

“I am Aboriginal-Irish and I wrote a song called Kangaroo Irish Stew. It’s

Rhubee Neale

writes “pictorial”

songs”

Magical harmonies

The StiffGins

I see musicas a form of

oral history,of capturing

a moment in time

– Rhubee Neale

about the Coniston Massacre of the 1920s, which occurred in the Northern Territory and ended with more than 100 Aborigines killed, including

my great-grandfather.”Rhubee, who grew up

listening to her mother sing in her native language, is fi ercely proud of her heritage and is currently working on her fi rst album.

“My music is Australian, grassroots, from the heart. There is no pretending. I don’t want to sound American; I want to capture us.”

Like Rhubee, singer Mechelle Wilson came late to music, forming her band The Old Flames after meeting up with her own “old fl ame”, Sam Turvey, at music college four years ago. The two reunited, both romantically and musically, producing both son Cassius and their band, which Mechelle describes as “old-school rock and roll, blues and boogie woogie”.

Their fi rst album, Blackfella Boogie, was released last year and their second is scheduled for release in later this year.

Mechelle, who grew up in Perth and still works there as an indigenous caterer and radio announcer/producer, always heard about visits in the 1950s and 60s by Black American acts such as Smokey


ALL ABOUT AUSTRALIAALL ABOUT AUSTRALIA

Born in Cairns of Torres Strait Islander descent, Christine has fi ve ARIA awards and fi ve albums under her belt and is arguably Australia’s most successful Indigenous female singer. Her biggest hit, My Island Home, was performed at the 2000 Sydney Olympics. In 2005, Christine performed a musical autobiographical show, Intimate and Deadly. Her most recent album was Chrissy’s Island Family, a children’s CD released in 2007. Christine also appeared in the musical, The Sapphires.

The winner of Australian Idol, Casey, 22, grew up in Sydney as a musical youngster, gaining overnight fame when she was crowned as Australian Idol in 2004. Her fi rst album, For You, released later that year, went triple platinum. She was awarded Single of the Year and Artist of the Year at the 2005 Deadly Awards. In 2010, Casey performed in the musical The Sapphires and released a single, Big, Beautiful and Sexy. She is thought to be working on her second album.

CaseyDonovan

Back in the 1960s, this Indigenous girl group modelled themselves on Diana Ross & the Supremes. The group of sisters and cousins from country Victoria dreamt of Hollywood fame but the height of their international career was playing to Australian troops in Vietnam in 1969.

Some of the women went on to work for indigenous rights, education, Aboriginal Legal Service and Aboriginal Medical Service. A musical about the group, The Sapphires, was produced in 2005 and 2010 and has at various times starred Christine Anu, Casey Donovan and Deborah Mailman.

Christine Anu

TheSapphires

people get up and dance in front of me.”

On stage, Mechelle is a natural performer, describing herself as “joking and naughty”. But, she says, “Put me in a crowd and I can’t cope – I start sweating and shaking!”

Two well-known indigenous singer-songwriters are Kaleena Briggs and Nardi Simpson – collectively known as the Stiff Gins.

Kaleena and Nardi met at TAFE in 1997, where they were both studying music. Recognising each other as kindred souls, they joined up with fellow student Emma

Donovan and started creating their own style of acoustic harmony-based music.

“Another lady at TAFE used to say she needed ‘three stiff gins’ just to get through the morning and we latched on to that,” grins Kaleena. “‘Gin’ is usually used as a derogatory word for an indigenous woman but originally it didn’t have that connotation and so we’ve tried to take the name back, instil it with power.”

Nardi and Kaleena (Emma left the band in 2001) write all the songs.

“In our songs, we want to tell you something. It could be

political or observational on what’s happening in Australia. We talk about the emotion; for example, Nardi wrote a song about the Redfern riots and a young boy who passed away.”

Nardi, who plays French horn, cello and guitar, came from a musical family, as did Kaleena. “My Nan was a classical and opera singer, and my dad was also in a band. I play guitar, but only enough to write a song – Nardi is the musician!”

In the past decade, the band has toured extensively, to Europe, America, Africa and the Middle East. Perhaps surprisingly, the only racism

they have encountered outside Australia was “reverse racism”.

“We try to educate people on two things: being Indigenous and being women.”

Their fi rst two albums were well received with Kaleena and Nardi receiving a 2000 Deadly Award for Most Promising New Talent the year after they formed. The Stiff Gins’ third album, Wind and Water will be released later this year.

Says Kaleena, “Our second album was recorded in Nardi’s bedroom. For this one, we have a studio and professional musicians! W

Making matches was a dangerous task.


Phot

os: G

etty

Back in the 18th Century “castrati” were the crowd-pulling singing sensations of their time. Back then, around

4000 Italian boys, upwards from age eight, would be castrated each year in the hope of pursuing fame and fortune as opera singers and soloists performing for the aristocracy and in churches.

Poverty-stricken families would sometimes be forced into considering having their child castrated in the hope that he would achieve successful singing career.

Music composers were enamoured by the castrati pitch and tone because the castrated singer could reach impossibly high notes, but deliver them with strength.

When it came to castrati, the best of the best were given celebrity status and were adored by legions of female fans. The castrati stars would perform in the palaces of Europe, drawing devoted crowds wherever they performed.

And while they often lived outrageously hedonistic lifestyles and were highly temperamental, demanding and prone to tantrums, is it any wonder? They were, after all, mutilated at a young age by a hideously cruel and crude surgical implement known as a “castratori”.

Sadly, out of all the boys put through this ordeal, relatively few ever grew to achieve fame and fortune.

Match makers The woman most people associate with matches is the redhead emblazoned on boxes of that brand name. The women making matches

You do WHATfor a living?

Throughout history, there have been good jobs and there have been tough jobs. Chris Ryan looks at a mix of the dirty, demeaning, and downright dangerous ways to earn a living through the ages...


WORKING LIFE

An unfortunate fact about running a country is that a lot of people are going to hate you. And in a country like America, it won’t be hard for those people to get their hands on a gun.

Four out of 43 presidents have had their terms cut short by a bullet: Abraham Lincoln (1865), James

Garfi eld (1881), William McKinley (1901), and JFK (1963). Two other presidents have been shot in over 20 assassination attempts. President Gerald Ford survived two assassination attempts, both by women. President Ronald Reagan was lucky to escape with a bullet in the lung when John Hinkley

Jr fi red six rounds at him to impress Jodie Foster.

In 1912, Teddy Roosevelt was three years out of offi ce when he was shot outside a Milwaukee hotel while campaigning. Bleeding but unbowed, he went to an auditorium and told the crowd, “I don’t know whether you fully understand that

I have just been shot; but it takes more than that to kill a Bull Moose.”

Roosevelt presented a damaged manuscript of his speech, saying, “There is where the bullet went through – and it probably saved me from it going into my heart.”

The crowd was in for a long speech.

FROM LEFT: Abraham Lincoln, Ronald Reagan’s security guards react after the attempt on his life, and the tragic JFK.

in Victorian England weren’t nearly so glamorous. Working 14-hour days, they had the dangerous job of dipping matchsticks in white phosphorus.

The toxic chemical could cause phosphorus necrosis of the jaw, or “phossy jaw”. What started as a toothache and swollen gums developed into a rotting, puss-riddled jawbone that had to be removed to prevent death by organ failure.

In 1888, some 1400 matchmakers from the Bryant and May factory in London went on strike after three co-workers where sacked for speaking out about conditions. They fought successfully for a wage increase, the end of fi nes for so-called off ences such as going to the toilet without permission, and the right to eat meals in a room that wasn’t contaminated with white phosphorous.

By 1901, bad publicity about the shocking eff ects of white phosphorus

saw Bryant and May switch to the more expensive but safer red phosphorus.

Sewer hunters In Victorian England, sewer hunters would brave the maze of tunnels beneath London looking for scraps of metal, lost coins, bones and rope. Besides the health problems associated with wading through human waste, sewer hunters faced a number of risks described by journalist Henry Mayhew in London Labour and the London Poor (Penguin Classics; fi rst published 1861). In older sections of the sewer system, brickwork could collapse and crush sewer hunters, and in confi ned spaces there was foul air that could see a man die for want of oxygen.

“Other stories,” Mayhew wrote, “are told of sewer hunters beset by myriads of enormous rats, and slaying thousands of them in their struggle for life, till at length the savage things

overpowered them, and in a few days afterwards their skeletons were discovered picked to the bones.”

Chimney sweepsDespite what you saw in Mary Poppins, poor little chimney-sweeps didn’t have much to sing and dance about.

In Britain, an 1817 parliamentary inquiry detailed horrifi c reports of children as young as four being forced to climb and clean chimneys. If a boy wasn’t a good climber, the kindly boss might off er encouragement by burning straw beneath him, or having an older apprentice follow him up the chimney to stick pins in his feet. Sometimes he was stripped naked at the time. Occupational hazards for chimney sweeps included stunted growth, asthma, burns, and chimney-sweep’s cancer, also known as scrotum cancer.

And there are some people who still believe that workers have never needed unions!

US PRESIDENT

FROM LEFT Ab h Li l

ed unions!

FROM LEFT Ab h Li l

BINDI & RINGER


B indi and Ringer have discovered crosswords and they can’t get enough of them! Here’s one they’d like you to try. They’ve added pictures that might help you with some of the clues. If you run into diffi culty, perhaps your Mum or Dad can help out. But if not, Bindi & Ringer have put the answers at the bottom of the page. But no peaking unless you’re really stuck!

BINDI & RINGER

indi and Ringer have discovered crosswords and they can’t they’d like you to try. They’ve added pictures that might helrun into diffi culty, perhaps your Mum or Dad can help out. Bthe answers at the bottom of the page. But no peaking unle

Across1. Auckland and Christchurch

are there (3, 7)8. Sage is one, so is basil (4)9. Tight hair curls (8)10. Curved yellow fruit a

monkey loves! (6)11. Photos, pictures (6)12. Chemical used to colour

hair (3)13. Grown-up (5)15. Composition, school

assignment (5)17. Cry (3)19. Bugs Bunny’s favourite

vegetable! (6)21. If you’re lucky you might

fi nd a pearl in one (6)23. Ten plus nine (8)24. Lion’s noise ( 4)25. Schedules (10)

Down2. Green gemstone (7)3. Striped horse-like animal

found in Africa (5)4. Overseas (6)5. Your Dad’s or Mum’s

sister is your ------ (7)6. ------- and cents, Australia’s

currency (7)7. Name of a book (5)14. Biggest (7)16. Not the best or the worst (7)17. Small river or creek (6)18. Type of hat for a baby (6)20. Creature from outer

space! (5)22. Dry bushland (5)

25

23

2019 2221

24

16151413

12

1110

8 9

7654

17 18

31 2

10 across 21 across 24 across 2 down 20 down

ANSWERS Across: 1. New Zealand, 8. Herb, 9. Ringlets, 10. Banana, 11. Images, 12. Dye, 13. Adult, 15. Essay, 17. Sob, 19. Carrot, 21. Oyster, 23. Nineteen, 24. Roar, 25. Timetables. Down: 2. Emerald, 3. Zebra, 4. Abroad, 5. Auntie, 6. Dollars, 7. Title, 14. Largest, 16. Average, 17. Stream, 18. Bonnet, 20. Alien, 22. Scrub.

the australian worker magazine issue 1 2011

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