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	Australian Government launches attack on Workers Rights by ABC News Australia   November 3, 2005   “All the way from America: another bad example”, by Elliot Perlman. (The Age)   If the commentators are right and the Howard Government”s vision for our industrial relations is American, then the recent experience of one New Yorker suggests a bleak future for many Australians.   Danielle is an attractive, well-spoken 42-year-old college-educated black single mother. She worked as an administrative assistant at a prestigious university in Manhattan. Unfortunately, her boss was an intermittent illegal drug user with a severe personality disorder and a history of churning through staff.   Danielle had managed to hang on for five years. Six months after instructing her to enter a particular appointment in his work diary, he abused her for failing to remind him to check his work diary and dismissed her on the spot.   Six months after this, Danielle is still looking for work, finding it hard to pay for food and facing eviction from her apartment. One would imagine that the law of any civilised society would protect her. But it does not.   New York, like so many American states, is what is known as an "at will" state — one where an employee can have his or her employment terminated at the will of the employer at any time without any reason being offered and without the employer needing to give any warning of the impending termination. The inherent unfairness of the "at will" system is recognised even officially in some quarters.   Thus the website of the New York State Attorney-General contains the following: "New York State is generally considered to be an” employment at will" state, which means that a private-sector employer can pretty much hire and fire as he or she pleases and a discharged employee will have no legal recourse, even where the discharge is unfair or unreasonable."   The website goes on to answer some frequently asked questions. If you are accused by your employer of stealing or some other misconduct but are innocent, you may be fired anyway. If your employer wants to reduce your salary, change your hours and threatens to fire you unless you accept the changes, you must accept the changes or lose your job. If your employer claims you have been off work too much because of illness, injury or disability, you may be fired. If you are late back to work after a holiday because your flight was cancelled, your employer may fire you with impunity.   Most federal and state government employees in the US are not "at will" employees and most members of trade unions are similarly protected through collective bargaining agreements that permit dismissal only for "just cause". But, as in Australia, the proportion of the workforce with union membership has declined dramatically. In the United States 35 per cent of the total workforce were trade union members in 1950, dropping to 12.5 percent in 2004. In January this year, only 36 per cent of government employees and 4.9 per cent of private-sector employees were union members. This means that the overwhelming majority of American workers may be dismissed unfairly or unreasonably and without warning without any legal recourse whatsoever. The low rate of union membership may help to explain why there has not been sustained pressure to overturn such a grossly unfair system. When the minimum wage hovers around $5 to $6 an hour and the vast majority of working people can be fired without warning, the average worker is probably too anxious about his or her own wellbeing and that of their family to be much concerned with macro-political change.   The New York State Human Rights Law does prohibit discrimination against an employee on the grounds of race, religion, gender, place of national origin, age, marital status, disability or sexual orientation. This sounds comforting, but the burden of proof is on the employee. Not only are the costs of private litigation likely to be prohibitive for the very people the legislation is intended to protect, but it will usually be extremely difficult to establish the reason for the dismissal when the law does not require that any reason be given.   In contrast, Australia has a long tradition of industrial fairness of which we can be proud. As long ago as 1907, Justice Higgins of the High Court and later of the Court of Conciliation and Arbitration wrote of the "rights of a human being in a civilised community". His and the other judges" ruling in the Harvester case made it illegal for Australians to be exploited economically. Fairness was the measure, not raw bargaining power in an untrammelled market. The notion of the "fair go" was also reflected in Australia"s unfair dismissal laws. Until now.   There is much to be admired and even sometimes emulated about American society. US industrial relations laws are not among them. We got it right on our own a long time ago.   (Elliot Perlman is a barrister and author).   October 26, 2005   "Former Australian prime minister Bob Hawke says IR changes are unfair and immoral". (ABC News Online)   Former Prime Minister Bob Hawke has delivered a stinging rebuke of the Federal Government"s industrial relations changes. Mr Hawke described the changes as an attempt to destroy the trade union movement and the arbitration system. He says the claim by the Prime Minister John Howard that real wages have risen more under his government than under the previous Labor governments, is one of the most cynical and dishonest pieces of politicking in Australian history.   "We did the hard policy work, unionists made the sacrifice, which have created a strong economy which can now afford these real wage increases," he said. "Instead of being grateful, John Howard now launches the most vicious attack upon them."   Mr Hawke says the workplace changes were an attempt to destroy the arbitration system and the trade union movement. "It is wrong. It is unfair. It is un-Australian. It is immoral," he said. He says the laws will allow employers to use individual workplace agreements to cut workers" pay and conditions, such as public holidays, penalties and meal breaks.   And he took issue with the proposed Fair Pay Commission. "This is simply a monstrous trick on the least privileged workers in our society," he said. He says the laws are an assault on the core Australian notions of a fair go, and the belief that governments should protect the most vulnerable.   Bob Hawke, Former Prime Minister of Australia: We, in this country, have already paid far too high a price for the Americanisation of Australian foreign policy under the Howard Government, including our unqualified identification with the dangerous and self-defeating American adventurism in Iraq. But the damage that that has done to our country is as nothing compared to what this move down the path to an Americanization of labour relations in Australia. In the USA, minimum wages are just US $5.15 an hour and have not increased for eight years, leaving hundreds of thousands of the poorest working families living below the poverty line..   What John Howard is proposing is not just an attack upon an effective, independent conciliation and arbitration tribunal and a free trade union movement. It is an assault upon the very core of what generations of our citizens have been proud to boast of - at home and abroad - as the essence of the Australian character. The "fair go", the belief that might is not right, that it is not those already with privilege who should be protected by Government, but the most vulnerable in our society.   October 23, 2005.   Make collective bargaining a legal right. (ABC News)   ACTU secretary Greg Combet says the Federal Government"s proposed industrial relations laws do not meet internationally-recognised workplace rights. Mr Combet says Australia should consider adopting laws similar to those in the United States and Britain, where employees have a legal right to choose collective bargaining by a majority vote.   He says that the proposed workplace changes in Australia ignore workers” rights to collective bargaining. "Every mug knows that an individual employee does not have equal bargaining power with a business," he said. "That is why collective bargaining is an internationally respected right and for it to be a meaningful right it"s got to be an enforceable right."   10 October 2005   The Brotherhood of St Laurence today warned that Australia"s poorest households were at risk with the Federal Government’s Industrial Relations changes. Tony Nicholson, Executive Director of the Brotherhood of St Laurence said, “The risk is that the working poor will become a permanent feature of Australian society. “Unless the social implications are more carefully thought through those with the least skills, the least personal resources and the least networks are likely to be caught up in a "churn" between unemployment and a succession of low paid, low skilled, short term jobs. “This will be insufficient to lift people out of hardship and will leave them teetering on the edges of poverty on a permanent basis.” Visit the related web page
	Ruling Powers distort Morality so that it does not restrain them by Andrew Bard Schmookler, Helen Thomas CommonDreams / Seattle Post USA   Posted: October 26, 2005   “How Ruling Powers distort Morality so that it does not restrain them”, by Andrew Bard Schmookler. (CommonDreams.org)   I"ve been taking a look, lately, at what power can do to morality, and it"s not a pretty sight. In a wise and fortunate society, ruthless and amoral forces are kept out of power, blocked by good constitutional checks backed up by the moral capital to endow its elites with a genuine love of the greater good.   America, regrettably, is not now in that fortunate position. And nowhere is that clearer than in the way our present rulers are working to bend and distort those “Christian” moral values they love to trumpet.   If one knew nothing of the Gospels, but learned of Christian values only from our current ruling forces, one would think that Jesus" moral concerns focused on sex. But the red letters in my Bible show that he had almost nothing to say about sex. The moral issue that seems to have concerned him most were not such private matters but how the rich and powerful treat the poor and vulnerable. “The least of these, my brethren.”   A truly Christian morality would be a huge obstacle to the abuse of power. That"s why, ever since Christendom first arose, unprincipled power has worked to pervert Christian morals.   Certainly, sexual issues are relevant to a moral life. Sex is a powerful force, with socially disruptive potential. And the circumstance of life"s creation is serious stuff, with the destiny of the new generation at stake.   But sex is just a piece of a much larger moral terrain. And when it comes to the leader of the world"s greatest power, the destiny of the nation –and indeed of all life on earth– depends a whole lot more on how he uses his power than on when he unzips his pants.   And so it is that our present ruling powers seek to divert the attention of people who care deeply about morality away from the uses and abuses of power onto other areas peripheral to the rulers" own lusts for riches and domination.   They hoist the banner of morality over the question of whether people of the same sex can marry, so no one will notice how they are plundering the treasury to enrich their friends—all part of an unholy marriage of dominant economic powers and those who govern our supposedly democratic polity. They raise a hue and cry over the exposure of Janet Jackson"s right breast so that no one will notice how they"re removing from Mother Earth the protections which previous American leaders have wrapped around her.   And they whip up hysteria over poor Terri Schiavo in the name of a “culture of life”, a laudable value, but one that again they narrow into a concern only about intimate family matters, as if a sense of the sacredness of life had no bearing on how eager one should be to go to war, or on the morality of gutting the Clean Air Act in a way that will hasten the deaths of thousands of Americans each year.   By such old tricks has power freed itself of moral constraints, claiming to “restore integrity to the Oval Office” because there"s no intern with a stained blue dress. But meanwhile, power is systematically subverting the common good.   America’s greatest challenge at this moment in its history is to make sure that it is morality that controls power, and not the other way around.   (Dr. Andrew Bard Schmookler conducts regular talk-radio conversations in the US).   October 26, 2005   “Faith should be Personal, not Presidential”, by Helen Thomas. (Seattle Post-Intelligencer)   Few, perhaps none, of the U.S. presidents have injected their religion into statecraft as much as President Bush has.   I"ve covered presidents since John F. Kennedy and they all have regularly attended worship services. Lyndon B. Johnson went to as many as three nearby churches on Sundays when he was in Texas at the LBJ ranch.   None of the chief executives was more deeply into religion than Jimmy Carter, a Baptist. As president, he continued to teach Sunday school in churches in Washington and Plains, Ga.   But Carter and his predecessors were careful to observe a time-honored tradition of preserving the wall of separation between church and state. Bush does not seem to know where the line is drawn between his secular status and his spiritual beliefs.   Early in his first term, the "born again" president established the White House Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives which, among other things, helps to promote and federally fund religious charities.   The president"s speeches justifying the war in Iraq are laced with his belief that "the God Almighty" wants all people to be free.   The Israeli newspaper Haaretz reported that Bush told Palestinian Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas in June 2003 - when Abbas was the foreign minister-- that God had told him to invade Iraq.   More recently, Nabil Shaath, the Palestinian information minister, said in a BBC broadcast that Bush informed a gathering of Palestinian ministers that God also wanted him to create a Palestinian state. Shaath quoted Bush as saying: "I"m driven with a mission from God."   White House spokesmen have refused to comment on what they call the president"s private conversations. There is also perhaps the question of literal interpretation of the president"s remarks.   But Bush"s public speeches are replete with implications of spiritual guidance. There is no doubt that he is guided by his faith and feels the need to spread the word.   In his controversial selection of White House counsel Harriet Miers for the Supreme Court, Bush emphasized that she is a woman of deep faith. She had been a Roman Catholic and became a Christian evangelical convert.   He was motivated by the need to reassure her most severe critics - mostly right-wing columnists - that Miers would remain a true conservative if confirmed for the high bench.   It appeared that the president also was subtly trying to tell his GOP constituency that she is on their side against abortion rights.   Meantime, an issue we thought had been settled long ago has erupted in the schools over the teaching of evolution versus creationism - or what is now called "intelligent design."   President Bush opened a hornet"s nest last August by telling Texas newspaper reporters that he thought intelligent design should be taught along with evolution so that people could be exposed to "different schools ...different ideas."   Intelligent design - a concept being promoted by conservatives -challenges scientific theory and holds that living organisms are so complex a higher authority must have designed them.   There is no question that Bush is a committed Christian. But he should understand he governs people of many religions and that his own faith should be personal, not presidential.   (Helen Thomas is a columnist for Hearst Newspapers).
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