Saturday, April 21, 2007

Flight attendants union working against members?

Shenanigans in which former flight attendant union officials are now running labour hire outfits - http://www.smh.com.au/news/business/ welcome-aboard-flight-to-lower-pay-cheques/2007/04/15/1176575687668.html - illustrate the poison that can easily take hold in union officialdom. Scott Rochfort in the SMH of 21 April digs deeper still in an article in News Review entitled "A case of cabin fever strikes Qantas" - which so far I cannot locate online. On 16 April, the day of the earlier report, I emailed the Rights at Work campaign, and still haven't had a reply.

"Dear Rights at Work,

I am very disturbed to read this story in today's SMH, disgusted to read that Maurice Alexander is a former union official. The article also says that "the [flight attendants's] union shares office space with Mr Alexander's labour hire firm. The union's domestic secretary Jo-Ann Davidson declined to comment."

I hope to hear that there are serious errors in this SMH report, and that whatever connection Alexander may have had with the union movement, they do not continue. I support Rights at Work. Alexander is (according to this story) profiting from running a scheme that attacks rights at work.

Please let me know the ACTU/Rights at Work response to these allegations.

In soldarity"

It's not easy to promote trade unionism if this is what union officials can get away with, undenounced, uncensured.

Wednesday, April 18, 2007

Rudd makes farce of Rights@Work at ALP Conference

The Rights at Work website is running an email campaign to Federal Labor prior to ALP National conference.

They have a form letter that can be edited. I sent this version in response to Rudd’s pre-emptive announcement the a Labor government will retain major provisions of WorkChoices http://www.smh.com.au/news/opinion/back-to-fair-and-flexible-for-boss-and-worker/2007/04/17/1176696834741.html. It could say a lot more about the right to strike and organise. Someone else might like to write that message.

Dear Mr Rudd, Ms Gillard, and the Labor party team,

The ALP was supposed to be deciding its priorities for the next election at the ALP National Conference this month.

As a Rights at Work supporter, I am writing to express my outrage that you have made pre-emptive annoucements about industrial relations policy.

I am convinced that your policies are going to continue the weakening of the union movement, and thus of the ALP as a party capable of representing workers. Australian Industry Group chief Heather Ridout is quoted in today's SMH "The retention of laws which ban industrial action in pursuit of industry-wide agreements, ban industrial action during the term of agreements and require a secret ballot before industrial action can be taken, appear to be a response to ... industry concerns"

Why give in to "industry concerns" ahead of rank and file ALP concerns, and the considerations that will be brought to ALP Conference? Are you trying to convert the ALP to a US style Democratic Party that requires millions of dollars for campaigning? Are you trying to gut the ALP as a party where working people can organise democratically to express their opinions and have a chance of carrying the day with policies they campaign for? Do you not understand the decay of democracy in general that you are contributing to by flouting the remnants of democratic process inside the ALP in order to behave as the powerful leader who gets his way?

A serious mistake that will demoralise trade unionists and Labor voters.

Tuesday, April 10, 2007

Working too hard to produce toxic junk

Many of us with jobs spend too many hours at work to maintain what is currently called "work-life balance". Several commentators say we have only ourselves to blame for being greedy consumers (Clive Hamilton, Ross Gittins). Then there is the global warming perspective - too much consumption of energy.
What about putting these 2 issues together and looking at solutions differently? Why should we all be trapped in a way of life based on decisions to produce goods and services, decisions that are made by a minority. Why should production of everything (transport, housing, food, health, entertainment, communication, clothing, everything) be decided by the people who own the means to produce them, being allowed to make guess what the rest of us can be enticed to spend our money on and make them a profit?
So - what if transport facilities were to be decided not by car manufacturers, petrol companies, ad they had no access to lobby governments or departments of main roads? What if the criteria for developing transport services were reducing fuel consumption and environmental impact, reducing gross expenditure on transport, reducing the labour hours involved in providing transport, sharing available hours of work amongst all workers involved in vehicle production and transport services, reducing the time taken to get places? Then we might come up with policies such as - increased public transport routes based on a wider range of vehicles, and free public transport; vehicle manufacture shifting the balance from cars to energy efficient public transport; rail not roads for freight; car depots for occasional personal use; bicycle facilities; free deliveries of groceries. We might find policies to reduce the need to travel, more children at local schools, help people to live near work.
But we don't have a collective basis for making these decisions, because "the market" gets to decide, and government works with what resources it can put together after "the market" has its way. We decide to travel by car, because public transport doesn't go where we want to, when we want to. That's the market. We don't have a "market" mechanism that lets us choose between effective public transport and driving. Who is "the market"? Supposedly us, so we are to blame. But "the market" is what we can all be convinced to consume, to pay for, as individuals. It is the opposite of us being able to make sensible, considered decisions in the common interest.