Blogging this year has been sporadic. Miss Eagle has been living life instead including pleasuring herself in the Northern Territory during the last month. But I have to burst into print to-day over Kevin Rudd and his so called "work ethic".

Let's take a little walk down memory lane.

It is Queensland in the 1990s and Wayne Goss (Wayne Swan was State Seceretary of the ALP) has just ousted the National Party from 32 years in government. Wayne Goss was elected Premier of Queensland on 2 December 1989 and remained there until 1995. Two things characterised the Goss period of government - arrogance and aloofness - and they were demonstrated before Goss was ever sworn in as Premier.

On election night in the tally room, he famously told a group of cheering young Labor supporters who were beside themselves with understandable excitement that they should take a cold shower. In my view, it was - eventually - this same sort of arrogance and aloofness which brought the Goss Labor government unstuck so that, on the morning after the loss, Queensland Treasurer Keith de Lacey could say "There's a message in there somewhere but I don't know what it is."

And what has this to do with Kevin Rudd's so-called work ethic? Heaps - if one could just learn from the Queensland experience.

It is said that, when Rudd was interviewed by Goss for the position of Chief of Staff, Goss was taken aback when Rudd asked if there was any objection if he took Sunday off. And so the Rudd "work ethic" entered political life.

But it is not just this anecdote that provides our lesson. When the Goss government came to power it had the support of most of the Queensland Public Service. To be sure, not the support of the high-ranking bureaucrats who were put to one side with in-trays and no out-trays. But, generally speaking, the support of most members of the Queensland Public Service. Within about twelve months, the Goss Government - with Rudd as a significant player - had lost the support of the Queensland Public Service because of the way it was treated.

There was no mention then of huge work demands - they were just treated shabbily. In fact, all round many long time, long term supporters of the ALP and the incoming Goss Government were treated shabbily. However, it could also be fairly said that the Queensland Public Service was the first to feel the heat, the first to lose the faith.

So my heart goes out to the public service tribe of Canberra when people say it is a public service town, a Labor town and now people there, the "working families" there, cannot stand a fair chance of establishing the work-family balance.

I have often wondered what Kevin Rudd has learned from the Queensland experience that would change his attitudes this time around - if change there would be at all. And then I thought that Canberra is a large stage with a diverse group of players which might limit some of the attitudes seen in Queensland. Perhaps this is happening. Perhaps, behind the scenes, Rudd is receiving some astute advice - if he is not too arrogant and aloof to listen.

But - as I have always said to my kids -

if you don't chose to listen and take on board good advice.

That's OK.

Life has a way of teaching you.

It seems that the

Australian Public Service and the Commonwealth Public Sector Union

might just have a life lesson for Kevin Rudd.

~~~~
When you can do nothing else: bear witness.

Is the ACTU under pressure?

Miss Eagle was forced to ask the question above after reading this. The ACTU is, perhaps, flinching under the fruit of success. It's wonderful Your Rights At Work campaign was central to the Rudd Labor Government's ascent to the reins of power.

We all watched open-mouthed the me-too campaign run by Labor in the lead up to the election. We wondered if this is what really had to happen to come to power and if Rudd would change his public tune when he came to power. Rudd seems set on being a promise-keeper and appears determined not to follow John Howard down the dishonest path of core and non-core promises.

Rudd and Gillard prior to the election were intent on projecting an image that was business-friendly and business wanted what they had got out of Howard. But, as the union movement is set to remind Rud and Gillard, the Your Rights At Work campaign by the ACTU delivered government. People who had never voted Labor before changed their vote. John Howard's Work Choices were, for most people, a bridge too far. Business has to face that fact. After all, they do love the benefits of a democracy governed by the rule of law, don't they?

And why this magic year of 2010 before things can really begin to change - if at all? Rudd had said that this was because business had to make forward plans. But, really, Kevin. A business that does not factor in the "change of government" risk? A business that can't figure out that industrial relations might change with Labor in power?

People are - by year's end - going to want demonstrable workplace change. They really would like it sooner, like right now. But their patience may stretch to year's end. After that, Kevin and Julia, if there is no demonstrable and meaningful change you will be seen as someone who keeps your word - to business but not to ordinary working Australians.

The left unions are restless. The Socialist Alliance - not an organisation brim-full of burgeoning membership - had a State conference here in Melbourne. The Saturday afternoon panel was devoted to the industrial relations scene and the AMWU, Textile, Clothing & Footwear Union, and the CFMEU as well as the Geelong & Region Trades and Labour Council turned up and clearly expressed their points of view.

The contribution of these unions was indicative of what could be a groundswell from the Left. The AMWU with its strong foothold in a declining Victorian manufacturing base clearly wants a return to the previous way of operating including Pattern Bargaining. While the TCFU outlined lucidly the way in which flow-ons have operated in Australia, the AMWU's dream of pattern bargaining is a wish that Miss Eagle predicts will remain unfulfilled. Somewhere, though, between the traditional flow-on practices and the rigidity and targetting of pattern bargaining there could be an opportunity for some new and negotiated thinking.

Traditionally, there have been unions like the AMWU and the Construction Unions who have set the pace. They have used their clout to progress demands and those with less clout - particularly in industries whose workforce is populated by women and the young - have, in time, been able to apply for flow-ons into their own industrial instruments.

However, back in the 1980s the AMWU and the Construction Unions overlooked one very important factor: the service sector. There was a time back then when the service sector was the one area of the economy that displayed marked growth at the same time as manufacturing entered its decline and some areas of construction were in the doldrums.

The AMWU drove through enterprise bargaining. This was a disaster for workers in the service sector such as the retail and hospitality industries. Enterprise bargaining has potential in the tradeable goods area and in construction. The economies of these industries were the meat and milk of the old Industrial Relations Club. The IR Club knew the ins and outs intimately and its people on a first name basis. The service industries were foreign to them - even to the men who ran the trade unions who serviced these industries. No thought had been given to how they operated: their culture, their economic milieu. I'm not sure that this has occurred yet. Draw an AIRC Commissioner into conversation over a coldie and he (very few she-s) would admit his ignorance.

To put it simply, dear Reader, in Enterprise Bargaining one could negotiate efficiencies in this wise:
If the business was making 500 ball bearings per day but efficiencies were negotiated and work practices not currently facilitated by the industrial award were streamlined and 750 ball bearings per day could now be made, then workers could negotiate a share of the increased productivity. Dead easy.

Then you go to the service industries. A check-out operator has no control over the number of customers served; the room attendant has no control over the number of beds made and rooms cleaned; the bar attendant has no control over the number of customers nor beers pulled. And while, in this day and age, it is possible to measure anything. When people do not want to find quantifiable or qualitative data, that data will never be forthcoming - particularly in relation to the work of women. This is why, in the end, Enterprise Bargaining became associated in these industries not with improved productivity but being forced into giving up conditions and working horrible hours without penalty rates. Of course, the more this sort of Enterprise Bargaining became the norm in these industries the fewer people joined trade unions. Mmmmm.....!

So to-day we look at the linked article which seems to be attributed more to Jeff Lawrence (himself from a Left union, the LHMU) than to the Rudd Government. It is interesting that this has come within ten days of the union panel at the Socialist Alliance. Within ten days of the panel at the Socialist Alliance saying that the current position of the ACTU was quite confused; saying that if the ACTU was to mount any sort of campaign it would be months away.

But the revival of the Australian Labour Advisory Council will hardly be a sop to disgruntled unions. This would have been likely to occur anyway. Similarly, union business committees to consult on legislation - as has been advised by Miss E's AWU contacts. This process is always likely under a Labor Government.

What Australian trade unions don't take to kindly is having a Labor government giving business its wish list or giving business an upper hand to the disadvantage of trade unions and, particularly, trade union rights as spelt out in ILO conventions.

And, as you are aware Kevin and Julia, the CFMEU want the abolition of the draconian Office of the Australian Building and Construction Commissioner forthwith.

Workplace Relations and Aged Care

My friend Gina over at Patra's Place and Patra's Other Place has had trials and tribulations in recent times in relation to her employment. Gina is feisty - and a fighter. Now she has set up a new blog to document what has been happening. It is called Workplace Relations - what a farce!

Miss Eagle commends Gina for this well set up blog. Gina brings a personal take on some of the major issues at the forefront of the contemporary Australian workplace and highlights the often hidden practice of service delivery in aged care.

Miss E believes that Aged Care is, as a political issue, a major sleeper. The number of aged people is increasing - and so are their friends and relatives and the number of people employed in the Home and Community Care (HACC) program.

Gina is right! Let's get stirring. Please let her know your experience in the workplace - any workplace. If you work in a HACC program, please make getting in touch a priority. Major issues within Aged Care include:

1. Lack of a grass-roots consumer complaint system for those receiving Commonwealth packages or HACC services.
2. Lack of organisation among employees of private service providers - particularly those who are outsourced by local government.
3. Gender domination by women in delivering services to the aged. The dominance of women in service sector occupations can be equated with lack of employee organisation and inequities in pay scales.
4. Lack of a voice at the policy table for those who work at the coal-face of delivery of services to the aged in the home.
5. Governments are making major changes to policies affecting the delivery of services to the aged in the home with major input from doctors and nurses but not for personal care workers.
6. The role of guest workers in aged care services now and in the future.

Yahoo, Channel 7 & Kevin Rudd: masters of disrespect

Miss Eagle continues to battle back to health as the flu won't give up its grip. However, life - and blogs - go on. The email address connected to Miss Eagle's blogs has been provided by Yahoo which, in Australia, is in alliance with free-to-air media corporation, Channel 7. To-day, Miss Eagle has opened an email account with a different provider for blog readers and has spent the day transferring documents and emailing contacts with the new address.

So, dear Reader, if you have the Yahoo address for Miss Eagle but haven't had an email to-day, please contact me rather quickly while the Yahoo account remains open for just a little while longer.

Then Miss Eagle will cancel the account - and there is a reason. Or, to be more correct, there are two reasons.

Firstly, and most importantly, there are the allegations which link Yahoo in China to the imprisonment and torture of bloggers. Secondly, there is the Channel 7 malpractice in which it purchased stolen medical records relating to AFL football players. It is possible that Channel 7 may face police charges in regard to the matter. AFL footballers - except for Essendon who are sponsored by Channel 7 - are boycotting Channel 7 refusing to speak to the channel's reporters. Channel 7 is reported to be in discussion with the AFL and the AFL Players Association. No sign of an apology yet. Two items about which Miss Eagle wonders:

• about Channel 7 demonstrating a conflict of interest in relation to its sponsorship of one AFL club and reporting denigration of the members of another;
• if the Howard Government will be brave enough to try to incorporate such activity under the coverage of its recent ACCC boycott legislation.

The matters facing Yahoo and Channel 7 have one thing in common: lack of respect for the individual, in the former a right to free speech and the right to be free of torture and in the latter the right to privacy and the right to patient confidentiality. In each case, a corporate body has assumed rights for itself and made them paramount to the legitimate rights of an individual. In each case, power has been wielded well beyond the power that the individual can bring to bear. In other words, the individual has no prospect of exerting countervailing power against the corporation - public or private.

Which brings me to Kevin Rudd's backbone. You will recall, dear Reader, that Miss Eagle has taken an interest in Kevin's backbone for quite a while. Miss Eagle has wondered when curvature of Kevin's spine, under pressure, would become evident. It is now there for all to see in the form of Labor's announced IR policy.

Miss Eagle asks Rudd and Gillard and Kevin's Krew:

• how do you think you got to where you are in the polls?
• is this how you show respect for working people?
• what else will you do to show your disrespect for working people?

In case you are too middle-class and dumb to figure it out, you have done it on the backs of working people and people who care about workers' rights. These people vote and you assume they will vote for a Labor government who, supposedly, can bring them change.

Will all the executives at BHP Billiton and Rio Tinto and their $100K + a year miners vote for you, Kevin? Will they give you the numbers to govern? Or have you figured out that you can take working people for granted? Are their votes in the bag, Kevin, and you don't have to give a fig for their rights and realities?

I'd like to take you for a ride too, Kevin, when Michele O'Neil and her TCFUA officials have finished with you. Through the bleak and poor western suburbs in each of the capital cities of the eastern seaboard. You know the ones Kevin: the ones that are safe Labour seats. The ones that have a Whitlam Swimming Pool and a Wran Community Hall. The ones that are bleak and treeless. The ones that are not known as salubrious, leafy suburbs. The ones where inequity is palpable. The ones where you and Therese would never want to live - and neither would a BHP Billiton or Rio Tinto executive or their $100K+ a year miners - let alone Howard who could not tolerate Lane Cove while Kirribili was on offer.

Miss Eagle was pleased to hear Michele O'Neil on Radio National's Breakfast this morning critical of the policy and challenging Rudd to do the rounds of her members of the Textile Clothing and Footwear Union. Michele spoke powerfully of the realities of life for her members and how they could not wait the projected five years of the Rudd-Gillard policy to get out from under oppressive wages and conditions.

Miss Eagle has to-day been provided with a copy of an open letter to Rudd and Gillard by a senior union official here in Victoria. This letter is also published on Unite.

The following is an open letter to the leaders of the Australian Labor Party, Kevin Rudd and Julia Gillard. It was written by Michele O'Neil who is the Victorian State Secretary of the Textile Clothing and Footwear Union of Australia (TCFUA).The TCFUA, like UNITE are extremely disappointed at Labor's latest sellout in regards to their industrial relations policy. UNITE calls on all sections of the union movement to join with us and begin to seriously discuss the question of political representation of working people. Workers deserve much better than Rudd's Labor Party.

Dear Kevin and Julia,

Don't you get it?I represent some of the lowest paid workers in the country. They sweat in backyard garages, shopfronts, and factories to make the clothes on your back. Some of our members have now faced three years without a pay increase. If they are still getting the minimum rates, and many are not, they take home about $460 each week. If they work at home as outworkers they likely get $3 to $5 an hour.

Yesterday one of the union's officials described how after a call from a worker, she went to a factory and the employer made her sit for two hours in a small room. The boss said that if any worker wanted to see her they were welcome. He didn't tell the workers the union was on site. He wouldn't let the union notice advising workers that the union was coming, go up on the notice board. And he sat a supervisor at the door of the room.

No worker came to the room. A worker rang the union describing payment of $4 an hour. For us to inspect the time and wage book in the factory I have to name the worker, something she doesn't want me to do as she says she'll be bullied and sacked. She's scared and asks me, "why can't you fix this without the boss knowing that I rang the union?" Under the Right of Entry Laws you've promised to keep, I cannot.

Earlier this year, one of my members was badly injured when the company under those same Right of Entry Laws, forced him to walk outside in the dark during a nightshift to a room 10 minutes away from where he worked to speak to his union. He fell and broke both his hands and doesn't have good prospects of returning to work.

Last week we received two calls from women workers in tears because they were being forced to give up their rights by signing an AWA in order to keep their job. They signed the AWA because they were threatened. The same AWAs which you will now leave in place for five years. Under those Right of Entry laws, because all the workers are on AWAs, we have no right to enter that workplace or visit our members.

You know that television ad from the 'Business Action' coalition with 3 thuggish blokes turning off the power in a clothing factory? Did you believe it? Would you like to meet the women who work for this union trying to get into workplaces that exploit textile, clothing and footwear workers? You could listen to our stories about what really happens when we try to use 'Right of Entry.

'My experience of violence and thuggery is of a company boss pulling a large chopping knife out of his draw and placing it on the desk between us as he explained that he didn't employ any outworkers and that I should leave his factory now.

We like other unions, have spent our hard earned union members' money on the ACTU's campaign which has increased your chances of being elected. How do I keep explaining to them what a vote for you will mean? They can't wait until 2010 for justice and fairness or rights - that's like asking them to wait for another election. They need them and deserve them right now. Stand up for the members of my union or don't expect us to stand up for you.

I invite you both to take a day to spend on the road with an official of my union visiting factories and sweatshops, so you can understand and reconsider today's announcement.

In unity,

Michele O'Neil

Victorian State Secretary, National Assistant Secretary, Textile Clothing and Footwear Union of Australia (TCFUA)

http://www.tcfvic.org.au/

http://www.unite.org.au

Miss Eagle thinks that the only hope for a different Labor IR policy when Rudd is Prime Minister is another Howard copycat me-tooism.

Could it be, dear Reader, that this is Rudd's first non-core promise?

WorkChoice retreat

Wot’s in a name?-- she sez . . . An' then she sighs,

An' clasps 'er little 'ands, an' rolls 'er eyes.

"A rose," she sez, "be any other name

Would smell the same.

Oh, w'erefore art you Romeo, young sir?

Chuck yer ole pot, an' change yer moniker!"

The Play

This stanza from "The Sentimental Bloke" by C.J. Dennis came to mind when Casting a Short Shadow drew Miss Eagle's attention to the fact that the Howard Government has beat some form of retreat by backing away from the use of the term WorkChoices for its industrial relations laws.

Congratulations, fair minded Australians (as opposed to the unfair ones who support this), you are doing a great job. Keep up the good work!

Remember, there is one agenda item that the Howard Government has not attempted to meet in spite of Liberal-voting doctors and that is the abolition of Medicare. Why? Because Australians time and again have demonstrated at the ballot box their support for this national medical insurance scheme. Now is the time to demonstrate that Australians want a fair go in the workplace.

Rudd and Gillard need support and strengthening in the face of concerted attempts by mining and big business to retain AWAs. We know how poll-driven the Howard Government is. But paying attention to the polls is not the sole prerogative of one side of politics. If a pollster phones, make your views on a fair go heard. At the ballot box later this year, cast your vote accordingly.

The times they are a-changin' as chickens roost?

Chickens are coming home to roost:

not only for John Howard but for globalization, too

Dear Reader, do you sometimes think you have a different wisdom from the professionally wise? By the professionally wise, Miss Eagle means politicians, senior bureaucrats, leaders of commerce and trade.

Do you think that you recall a certain history of events which the professionally wise - use above definition - seem to have either forgotten or completely bypassed?

Miss Eagle has come across to-day two articles which should reassure you, dear Reader, in regard to your memory and your powers of interpretation and comprehension.

The first is about John Howard in the long, long ago - before he became Lazarus with a triple by-pass - when he was Treasurer and when that name of "Honest John" was coined, not as a compliment as some use it to-day but as a perjorative.

The second concerns the fact that some Americans with strong economic and business credentials are finding holes in that smelly gorgonzola cheese that is globalization. You knew, dear Reader, as did your present correspondent that all was not well in the globalized world. We knew, you and I, that many people were ending up the poorer and missing out on the much- and oft-touted benefits of free and globalized trade.

Now, Miss Eagle is not railing against globalization in and of itself. It is an old and ancient phenomenon. Modern people like some things such as international communications and travel and dislike others like the migration of jobs off-shore, the driving down of wages.

In Miss E's view there should be one catch-cry against globalization and that is Accountablility.



Not the unctious and self-righteous catchcry of CEOs and senior mangers about looking after the stakeholders. No, dear Reader, CEOs and senior managers need to be held accountable in regard to what they deliver and the amount of remuneration, share holdings, and sweet deals they receive. Companies need to be held accountable in their countries of origin as well as their countries of location. They need to be accountable to the communities in which their places of business and their employees are located. They need to be transparent and accountable when governments give them favourable and special treatment. Of course, companies need to be accountable to their shareholders but "stakeholders" goes well beyond shareholders.

Finally, those who believe in free trade, need to be honest - not unctious - about the hidden favours they give or receive from governments and the taxpayers.

For instance, why are companies allowed to go bankrupt or into liquidation without paying workers their wages and entitlements? What happens in Australia is that businesses and corporations can avoid honouring workers entitlements, avoid paying any remuneration, or perhaps pay very poor and minimal redundancy payments and then the shoddily treated employee is thrown on the welfare heap for the taxpayer to take responsibility.

In other words, the employer; the business; the corporation can make a decision to offload employees and offload their responsibility for workers' entitlements. The employer, the business, the corporation can make a decision to benefit itself to the detriment of others. The taxpayer then has the pleasure of paying for the consequences of a decision it had no part in.



But then Australia does not provide subsidies to business! Yeah!?!

Your rights at work : Fill the 'G' to-day

Students continue to protest the CPE (First Labour Contract)

Students in Marseille join the protests against the CPE

Protests against the CPE (First Labour Contract) continue (see previous post) in France and are spreading as students take up the cause for employment in proper jobs not the jobs with diminished conditions proposed by Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin.

It's about time other protests around the world were initiated on employment contract trends.

Student protests over 'Anglo-Saxon' job laws - World - theage.com.au

Miss Eagle is rather pleased with the news from Paris. Students are protesting about what they call the introduction of "Anglo-Saxon job laws". It seems the French Government is proposing to deal with a high level of youth unemployment by stripping away a lot of rights and entitlements.

Now some may think what I am about to say most illogical - but to Miss Eagle it is straightforward commonsense. Why are those who are poor and out of work to have their economic rights and entitlements lowered, removed or dismantled to place them in work? Surely, logic demands that those in positions of economic power with the ability to employ young people shoud face punitive measures if they ignore the plight of unemployed and deskilled youth. Surely, those with economic power should be forced to invest in the future, particularly the future of humanity, by investing in people and boosting their ability for economic participation.

Aah, but economic power prefers to use unemployment whether for the young, the aged or anyone in between as an economic tool: to have a surplus pool of unemployed people and thereby seek opportunities for driving down wages and dismantling sound emloyment conditions. Economic power would prefer the globalization of Chinese wages and working conditions. 'Onya students of Paris. I wish more of us would take to the streets and demand that governments, corporations, and business put an end to the use of the unemployed as economic tools.