The worker issue 1 2013

THE AUSTRALIAN

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ISSUE 1 2013

WORKER STATES OF DECAY LIBERAL

MISMANAGEMENT AROUND AUSTRALIA

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CONTENTS

FEATURES 08 MAKING THINGS BETTER After a strong AWU campaign, the new federal government assistance package aims to ease the pain for Australian manufacturing. Paul Robinson checks out the prescription.

PAGES 15-38 08

15 AWU 2013 NATIONAL CONFERENCE This lift-out section explains the resolutions adopted by delegates at the Union’s biennial national conference.

Resolutions emanating from the conference set the course for the Union’s future campaigns. The conference carried resolutions on a scope of areas that affect the Union and its members, from superannuation and nanotechnology, to co-investment and state government cuts.

39

GLOBAL LINKS Bob King, President of the United Auto Workers in the US, explains how a combined effort by the major players resurrected the American automobile industry.

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TEAM SUPREME It’s an exciting time for the AWU. The recent Union elections saw key executive officers re-relected to their positions, along with some new faces. Fresh ideas and new directions will see the AWU remain the strongest representative for workers’ rights in Australia.

And we have a new mate on the team! Iconic Australian actor Jack Thompson came on board to greet conference delegates in a film about Australia, the Union and the legendary Henry Lawson’s classic poem, Freedom on the Wallaby. Michael Blayney reports.

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SAVED BY THE BELL It’s a lesson in sweet science as one-time Australian amateur boxer Chris Ryan shares a bout of nostalgia at New York’s famed Gleason’s Gym. The training ground that has seen legends like Jake LaMotta, Muhammad Ali and Roberto Duran sweat it out.

REGULARS 04 National Opinion 07 Union Update 12 Meet the Delegates/Officials 50 Bindi & Ringer PRIVACY NOTICE This issue of The Australian Worker may contain offers, competitions, or surveys which require you to provide information about yourself if you choose to enter or take part in them (Reader Offer). If you provide information about yourself to Bauer Media Group, Bauer will use this information to provide you with the products or services you have requested, and may supply your information to contractors that help Bauer Media Group to do this. Bauer will also use your information to inform you of other Bauer Media Group publications, products, services and events. Bauer Media Group may also give your information to organisations that are providing special prizes or offers and that are clearly associated with the Reader Offer. 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 Bauer holds about you, please contact Bauer’s Privacy Officer at Bauer Media Group, 54-58 Park Street, Sydney, NSW, 2000. Cover photo Fairfax Photos

AUSTRALIAN WORKERS’ UNION EDITOR Paul Howes, AWU National Secretary AWU EXECUTIVE OFFICER Henry Armstrong AWU NATIONAL COMMUNICATIONS OFFICER Davor Schwarz Address: Level 10, 377-383 Sussex Street, Sydney NSW 2000 Email: members@nat.awu.net.au Website: www.awu.net.au Telephone: (02) 8005 3333 Facsimile: (02) 8005 3300 BAUER CUSTOM MEDIA EDITOR Kyle Rankin ART DIRECTOR Wayne Allen SUB-EDITOR Lucy Tumanow-West PRODUCTION SERVICES Peter Woodward PUBLISHER Sally Wright PUBLISHING MANAGER Nicola O’Hanlon BAUER MEDIA GROUP CHIEF EXECUTIVE OFFICER Matthew Stanton PUBLISHING DIRECTOR Gerry Reynolds Published for The Australian Workers’ Union (ABN 28 853 022 982) by Bauer Media Group (ACN 053 273 546) 54 Park St, Sydney NSW 2000. © 2013. 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 Bauer Media Group. While all efforts have been made to ensure prices and details are correct at time of printing, these are subject to change.

ISSN 1324-4094

www.awu.net.au THE AUSTRALIAN WORKER

3

NATIONAL OPINION

BI LL LU DW IG

Bill Ludwig National President

“… the one distinct advantage that we have… is our capacity to mobilise numbers on the ground. Huge numbers.”

It should come as no great surprise to Labor Party activists and union members, but the one distinct advantage that we have over our conservative opponents is our capacity to mobilise numbers on the ground. Huge numbers.

We know it, and they know it too.

From 2005 until the federal election on 24 November 2007, when Labor was first re-elected, the country witnessed the capacity of the Australian labour movement to stand up and fight back against John Howard and his deplorable administration.

Unions, and millions of their members and supporters, working under the banner of the ACTU’s “Your Rights At Work” campaign, mounted a nationwide blitz and joined forces with the Australian Labor Party to put fairness, inclusiveness, equity and social justice back on the political agenda. All things that Howard and his ilk were hell-bent on destroying during their period of elected office.

As a consequence of that united effort, we have seen some truly amazing things undertaken at a federal level by our Labor Party: nationbuilding projects like the National Broadband Network: social and economic policies like the

Ben Swan Queensland Branch Secretary

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THE AUSTRALIAN WORKER www.awu.net.au

National Disability Insurance Scheme; worldenvied economic management through the Global Financial Crisis; direct and immediate action against natural disasters; and industrial relations legislation like the Fair Work Act. In many cases, the achievements of our Labor Party are cast against a backdrop of minority government and naked obfuscation by Tony Abbott and his mob.

Right now, a lot of these achievements and programs face serious challenge, not only at a federal level with the potential of an Abbott-led government, but also at a state level with obstructionist and uncooperative conservative governments. We see the negative and sometimes dehumanising effects of decisions made by the likes of Newman in Queensland, Baillieu (and now Napthine) in Victoria and O’Farrell in New South Wales, through their slash-and-burn approaches and their hostile and arrogant indifference to the needs of ordinary working people.

Which is why this year’s federal election campaign is all the more important. The federal election will be won at the kids’ football clubs on a Saturday; at the pub after a hard days’ work and in the lounge rooms of working Australians – places where people have a chance to speak to one another and reflect on the damage and harm that conservative state governments are already inflicting on public service delivery in our hospitals and schools; the protections they are stripping away from working people in workers’ compensation cover and wages; and their refusal to stump up and protect the most vulnerable in our society.

This federal election can only be won on the ground by mobilisation, grass-roots networking and face-to-face conversation. Spin won’t cut it and workers cannot afford to be disengaged from the realities of what will very likely happen under an Abbott-led federal government.

Too much rides on it.

Ben Davis Victorian Branch Secretary

Russ Collison Greater NSW Branch Secretary

Photography Getty/Shaney Balcombe

GRASSROOTS CAMPAIGNING

Stephen Price West Australian Branch Secretary

PAU L HOW ES

YES WE CAN! Of all the speeches and discussions at the AWU National Conference 2013, none were more inspiring than the address by North American union leader Bob King, of the United Auto Workers (UAW).

Bob understands what AWU members are going through today because his union has been through similar times. The Global Financial Crisis hit US manufacturing hard, and North American auto workers were right on the front-line of a national economic disaster.

With their industry collapsing around them, US auto workers had to fight like never before to save their jobs, their careers and their futures.

The American auto industry was forced to go through an extremely difficult period of transition, but today it is on the road to recovery.

Thousands of jobs were saved because the industry had the support of the White House.

While the free-market economists and the anti-jobs environmentalists were united in vocally opposing any sort of industry bail-out, President Obama took decisive steps to keep the auto industry alive.

American auto workers today have a future because they have the support of a President who cares about people and cares about jobs.

But it could have been a lot different. President Obama’s decision to make the US Government an active partner in the automotive industry was highly controversial.

If the US Republican Party had won last year’s Presidential elections, the industry policy of President Obama would have been wound back, and the US auto industry would again be in crisis.

Here in Australia, the federal government is moving towards a more active role in supporting our key manufacturing industries.

We’ve already seen it with support packages for aluminium refineries and the steel industry. It is no coincidence that the AWU has been arguing strongly for these measures, and pushing for

Paul Howes National Secretary

American voice Bob King of the United Auto Workers.

greater industry support to offset the sustained high-value of the Australian dollar.

But the outlook for our manufacturing sector remains highly challenging. Continued federal government support will be absolutely critical.

That’s why the billion-dollar manufacturing jobs package announced by Julia Gillard, just days before the AWU National Conference 2013, is so important. The package will secure thousands of manufacturing jobs, and help many Australian companies to negotiate difficult economic times.

The support of the Federal Labor Government is extremely welcome, but we still have a lot of work to do.

Bob King told delegates at the AWU National Conference that US auto workers never gave up. They fought to convince politicians that their industry was too public.

“I know that you can do the same thing here,” he said.

Bob is right. Our future is in our own hands, and it’s up to us to fight for it.

“The outlook for our manufacturing sector remains extremely challenging.”

POST LETTERS TO: The Editor, The Australian Worker, Level 10, 377-383 Sussex Street, Sydney NSW 2000 OR EMAIL THEM TO: members@nat.awu.net.au FOLLOW ON TWITTER: @AWUnion

Wayne Hanson South Australian Branch Secretary

Ian Wakefield Tasmanian Branch Secretary

Wayne Phillips Port Kembla Branch Secretary

Richard Downie Newcastle Branch Secretary

Norman McBride Tobacco Branch Secretary

LIKE THE AWU FACEBOOK PAGE: facebook.com/AustralianWorkersUnion

www.awu.net.au THE AUSTRALIAN WORKER

5

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NEWS

UNIONUPDATE

The chart, below, details how much The Australian Workers’ Union allocates resources to each area of its operations. Union members can be assured that the AWU conducts its business lawfully and ethically at all times and is diligent in the protection and integrity of its members’ contributions.

4CENTS

7CENTS

EDUCATION PROGRAMS

MOTOR VEHICLES

4 cents of every dollar goes to membership training and education programs

7 cents of every dollar covers the cost of operating the AWU’s vehicles

3CENTS

7CENTS

COMMUNICATIONS

BUILDING EXPENSES

3 cents of every dollar goes to AWU communication with its membership (including this magazine and the website)

7 cents of every dollar goes to owning and maintaining the buildings owned by the AWU

21CENTS

58CENTS

ADMINISTRATION

MEMBERSHIP SERVICES

21 cents of every dollar goes towards the general administration of the AWU

Providing direct services for AWU members.

W EST ER N AUST R ALI A

QU EENSLA N D

A General Meeting of The Australian Workers’ Union, West Australian Branch, Industrial Union of Workers held on 17th December 2012 in Perth endorsed the proposed rules of the Union. The purposed rule amendments are as directed by WAIRC in decision 2012 WAIRC 00850.

The Union intends to apply for registration of the proposed rules to the Registrar of the Western Australian Industrial Relations Commission 21 days after the date of this issue of The Australian Worker. A member may object to the rules by writing to the Registrar of Western Australian Industrial Relations Commission within 21 days of this issue of The Australian Worker.

For further information or a copy of the proposed Rules, members can contact AWU WA Branch on (08) 9221 1686.

Under s.580 of the Industrial Relations Act 1999, The Australian Workers’ Union of Employees, Queensland may apply for an exemption from holding an election for stated offices if the federal counterpart body (The Australian Workers’ Union) has held an election and the same persons elected to the stated offices in the federal election fill the State offices The Executive of The Australian Workers’ Union of Employees, Queensland intends to make an application for exemption of a State election for all positions of office. A member of The Australian Workers’ Union of Employees, Queensland may object to the application in writing to the Registrar, Industrial Registrar’s Office, Level 13, Central Plaza 2, 66 Eagle Street, (corner Elizabeth and Creek Streets), Brisbane, 4000.

NOTICE OF ALTERATION OF RULES WA BRANCH

NOTICE TO QUEENSLAND AWU MEMBERS

www.awu.net.au THE AUSTRALIAN WORKER

7

NATIONAL INTEREST

POUR WORKMANSHIP Molten steel is poured prior to casting in the melt room at OneSteel’s Steel Mill in Laverton.

TOP RIGHT The lid from a ladle of molten steel is lifted prior to pouring BOTTOM RIGHT The entrance to an Alcoa smelting plant.

MAKING THINGS D

BETTER

espite his visual impairment, Blind Freddy is aware that the Australian manufacturing industry is not in the best shape. The Global Financial Crisis, high oil and commodities prices, and an Australian dollar on steroids have combined to kick the industry when it’s down.

At a time when the resources sector is enjoying unparalleled growth, steel and aluminium manufacturers are downsizing, the clothing industry is threadbare having dispatched most of its work offshore, and car makers are hurting with assembly lines grinding to a halt, Ford and Holden both laying off workers, and parts manufacturers going under. To rub salt into the wounds, on March 11 this year CSR announced it was closing its Sydney Viridian glass-making

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THE AUSTRALIAN WORKER www.awu.net.au

After a strong campaign by the Union, a federal assistance package aims to ease the pain for Australian manufacturing. Paul Robinson reports.

factories, pu"ing 150 people out of work.

The stats in this instance don’t lie: in December last year, the Australian Manufacturing Index notched up its tenth consecutive month of shrinkage, and it seems that everywhere you look bad news is glowering on the horizon.

Thankfully, the federal government recognised that these dire straits aren’t going away any time soon. After se"ing up the Prime Minister’s Taskforce on Manufacturing, to identify key

issues that needed to be addressed, its recommendations led to the announcement and formation of the Manufacturing Leaders Group to address issues in order for manufacturing to prosper.

CARE PACKAGE In February this year, the government announced a $1 billion package that will create new opportunities for Australian manufacturers and in turn create more Australian jobs.

Fund will be used to stimulate private investment in innovative Australian start-up companies. There will be focused support for SMEs identiÞed as having high-growth potential and a new program will assist SMEs to develop solutions to public sector requirements and tender more effectively for public contracts.

Officer within their global supply sector. Long-overdue anti-dumping reforms will also strengthen protection for local industry against the unfair competition from overseas that is crippling areas such as aluminium processing. Ultimately, it is hoped that this legislation will mean bidders for large Commonwealth projects will need to show they are using goods and services provided by local companies.

PROACTIVE INNOVATION

For far too long, multinational companies running major projects in Australia have been sourcing equipment, material and services from international suppliers unhindered. Hopefully, this untenable situation is about to change. In the interests of backing Australian Þrms to bid for and win more work in their own country, the new Australian Industry Participation Authority will assist businesses to grow the capability and connections to win contracts on major projects.

New legislation will require, by law, that multinational companies undertaking substantial resource or infrastructure projects in Australia worth more than $500 million must give local Þrms a fair go in bidding for material, equipment and services contracts before those tender processes are sent offshore.

This, in turn, will allow Australian companies to gain the experience and business connections necessary to compete globally.

As well, projects worth more than $2 billion where concessions will be applied for under the Enhanced Project Bylaw Scheme will need to have an Australian Industry Opportunity

Innovation is a key part of the plan.

A $500 million component of the federal investment in manufacturing is set to encourage collaboration between companies, business service providers, research organisations and universities by establishing a network of 10 ‘industry innovation precincts’ around the country by 2014.

The plan is to encourage industry to be far more proactive in directing our research sector, which should trigger more practical research that can be more effectively commercialised, leading to the subsequent development of new products and skills to penetrate new markets, especially in Asia.

The Þrst two manufacturing precincts will be established in Adelaide and south-east Melbourne; a food precinct will also be set up in Melbourne. The research innovation plan will be funded through the removal of a research and development tax concession currently being enjoyed by big business.

SMALL AND MEDIUM BUSINESS BONUS Small and medium enterprises (SMEs) will also beneÞt from the planned changes. Venture capital tax arrangements will be restructured, and a $350 million chunk of the Innovation Investment

A BIG TICK Support for the Australian Industry Participation Plan was swift.

Australian Council of Trade Unions (ACTU) Secretary Dave Oliver said the legislation would keep jobs in Australia.

“This will be the Þrst time that the responsibility of major project developers to consider local companies will be wri#en into law,” he says.

He was also pleased at the smart precinct proposals, calling them “a great example of what we need to do to have a thriving, high-value manufacturing sector… that can take advantage of growing markets in Asia”.

For The Australian Workers’ Union, the package comes at a crucial time.

As our exports wither in the face of unfair competition, the high dollar and cheap imports, the Union has long recognised the miserable state of Australian manufacturing. AWU National Secretary Paul Howes declared 2013 would be “the making or breaking year for the future of Australian manufacturing”.

After news emerged of new job cuts at Boral, Paul said it showed that prompt, strong and decisive government action was needed if manufacturing was to survive in Australia and that the resources sector alone wasn’t enough to maintain a healthy economy.

“The reality is, Australia can’t be a country that makes things if we put all our eggs in the resources basket,” says Paul.

Some sectors of the Australian economy, such as mining and gas exploration, are experiencing unprecedented investment. Yet despite record levels of money coming in, local manufacturers still have to beg for capital works crumbs from the resource project table. In areas such as steel fabrication, Australian companies are receiving only about 10 per cent of the pie.

www.awu.net.au THE AUSTRALIAN WORKER

9

NATIONAL INTEREST

“Bombardier has gone from employing 50 people this time last year to about 200…”

THE RIGHT TRACK Bombardier Transportation is building trains in Dandenong, Victoria.

The AWU has been campaigning for local industry to get a bigger share of the work on Australian resource projects.

The Australian Industry Participation Plans are a good Þrst step, but stronger and more enforceable local content standards are needed to ensure the mining ‘boom’ beneÞts all Australians.

REVVING UP R&D The AWU is also concerned that Australia has been consistently failing to capitalise on its research sector, spending some $9.4 billion annually on publicly funded R&D, but missing the boat when it comes to translating that intellectual property into commercial gain. Consequently, the Union welcomes the federal government’s acknowledgement of the AWU-led Manufacturing Taskforce’s recommendations with regard to improving cooperation between industry and the research sector.

The Union also supports the allocation of some funding to knowledge exchange between users and the R&D sector, along with the establishment of innovation precincts that share resources, knowledge and networks. These initiatives actively encourage proven industry innovators (a process that has worked well in countries such as South Korea with companies such as Samsung) on the premise that a successful global competitor earns more jobs at home.

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THE AUSTRALIAN WORKER www.awu.net.au

THE VICTORIAN OUTLOOK AWU Victorian Branch Secretary Cesar Melhem reckons the new legislation is a good thing for Victorian workers.

“There are 250,000 manufacturing jobs in Victoria, a bit over 25 per cent of the national total,” he says. “So it’s quite signiÞcant. If the job plan is implemented properly, it will have a huge impact on Victoria. The only way for us to really compete is to become a smart country again. But we need to cultivate and commercialise our homegrown ideas so they don’t end up going overseas.”

To that end he’s a big fan of the ‘smart precinct’ component of the plan.

“The manufacturing precinct in Clayton is a good idea,” Cesar says.

“We have a lot of industry there and it’s next to the research facility near Monash University, and the CSIRO, so it’s the ideal location.

“Couple that with the access to Þnance for SMEs and that’s the key.

By supporting SMEs with assistance for R&D, to get Þnance and with good networking to exchange ideas and expertise, it should streamline operations.”

Cesar cites one local example of how the smart precincts can work.

“Bombardier Transportation in Dandenong is building a train,” he

explains. “It is ge!ing assembled in one plant, but a lot of SMEs around the area are supplying the various parts for it.

Bombardier has gone from employing 50 people this time last year to about 200. That will probably double because it is winning a lot of contracts now.”

He adds that, after all, this model has worked in other countries.

“If we look at the German model, their living standard and wage structure is very similar to ours,” he says, “and they’ve got these regional clusters of SMEs, but they are exporting plant and equipment to China. Why can’t we do the same?”

CRUCIAL UPGRADING State and federal government investment to help Australian companies upgrade ageing capital equipment and provide expensive new technologies in areas such as oil reÞning and aluminium processing is also crucial if these industries are to remain competitive in the face of the Asian juggernaut. To that end, the AWU lobbied strongly for the recent $300 million Steel Transformation Plan, which will help process innovations to lower costs while creating new product.

The Union also locked down $42m in co-investment from the Victorian and federal governments to help upgrade the Alcoa smelter at Point Henry and save jobs.

STEELY RESOLVE AWU South Australian Branch Secretary Wayne Hanson has seen Þrst-hand how effective timely government assistance can be.

“I’ve got to salute Julia Gillard and our own state premier [Jay Weatherill] as far as the Port Pirie smelter is concerned,” he says. “That place is 123 years old and full of band aids.

“Finally Nyrstar said it wanted to

AUTO INDUSTRIOUSNESS

PORT OF CALL in Port Pirie, South Australia, federal and state assistance is breathing life into the town.

upgrade this facility and build a worldclass recycling facility, but it would require a massive capital investment. To Gillard and Weatherill’s credit, they said, ‘Okay, if you’re fair dinkum about this, federal and state governments will work with you to the extent of $300 million’. Now 851 people in Port Pirie feel more comfortable about continuing longevity in their town– and the ripple effect goes right through the economy of the place.”

Wayne also notes that it is only Labor governments that have rescued struggling manufacturing industries in times of economic hardship.

“Whenever there’s a crossroads with manufacturing,” he notes, “it’s always a Labor government that comes to the rescue. I can’t recall a time when the conservatives have stepped up.

“Similarly, the rescue package for the steel industry – $180 million to BlueScope, $120 million to OneSteel – demonstrates commitment to the industry and the people that work within it. Labor did that – not the conservatives.

“Abbo" has already said, with regard to manufacturing, that it’s sink or swim.”

THROWING A LIFELINE In Port Kembla, NSW, the steel industry assistance was a lifeline. As AWU Branch Secretary Wayne Phillips tells it, the town was going under fast.

“I’ve never seen manufacturing so low in the Illawarra/South Coast region.

At one stage we were having workplace closures and mass retrenchments once a month. The companies simply couldn’t get work – they couldn’t compete with imported and dumped steel. OneSteel Oil & Gas pipe manufacturers closed down because of imported pipe,” he says.

“Right beside OneSteel was Shaw Pipes, where the pipes were coated with plastic or ceramic. They went out of business because OneSteel went out of business. The ßow-on effect has been horrendous. So these new regulations are a godsend.”

As far as Wayne is concerned, the buy-local procurement policy for major projects is a no-brainer.

“A new Australian Cement grinding plant is being built on one side of the harbour,” he says. “Every bit of that, even the nuts and bolts, has been imported from overseas, but right across the other side of the harbour is the steelworks. It got in before the new legislation, but it’s a classic example. Some contractors have got a li"le bit of work pu"ing it together, but all the material, from whoa to go, has been imported.

“Hopefully the legislation will stop this nonsense and give our people a fair go.

Our future really does depend on it.”

The AWU also strongly supported the government’s $280 million auto-industry support subsidy in early 2012, to secure the country’s car-manufacturing capacity and protect thousands of jobs. South Australian Branch Secretary Wayne Hanson says it was essential to keep the industry viable and enable it to capitalise on an exploding potential export market in Asia.

“In an open economy, if vehicle builders have the right to source their supply from offshore, there’s got to be assistance to the local automotive components industry,” he says. “Give them breathing space to become competitive with offshore interests. The pay-off will be in taking advantage of an enormous emerging market on our doorstep. Within the next 10 years, about three billion people will move into the Asian middle class and there will be an enormous demand for consumer products, not just cars.

That middle class will want quality – and the car-making industry in Australia produces quality automobiles.”

CAPITAL IDEA However, the problem of ageing manufacturing plants in Australia is a big one and it is by no means sorted.

The AWU accordingly advocates a concerted capital investment effort to give Australian manufacturing the best-practice shot in the arm it needs to innovate, grow and be a viable competitor in the global market.

As Victorian Branch Secretary Cesar Melhem says, “We need to sell the message that it’s time to rebuild and now we have a plan to rebuild. A smart country has to have manufacturing and we are doing things to make it a"ractive for companies to move forward.”

South Australian Branch Secretary Wayne Hanson agrees: “We have to wipe out the negativity, the adversarial headbu"ing approach that was established during the Howard era. If we Þne-tune a"itudes, the willingness of people who want to get along together for the beneÞt of all, then you’ve got the answer.

“And I reckon Julia Gillard’s innovation initiative is a step in the right direction.”

www.awu.net.au THE AUSTRALIAN WORKER

11

MEET THE OFFICIAL

DI ST R IC T SEC RETA RY, S OU T H W EST DI ST R IC T, QU EENSL A N D

TRACEY SHARPE

Words: Michael Blayney

I

joined the AWU straight out of school.It was in 1987 and I was enjoying myself on Schoolies Week. The week afterwards I started the job at the AWU’s Brisbane office. When I was told that I had the job, I accidentally hung up on the person on the other end. They called me back, so they must have really wanted me!

My dad worked at the Queensland Industrial Relations Commission and my stepmother was an organiser at the Queensland Independent Teachers Union.

I was always brought up Labor and pro-union, and that’s the way I’ve raised my children.

My first job was in the AWU mail room, but I moved on to the industrial typing area where we typed up all the court work. About twenty years ago, I went to the membership side and helped put together a new system.

After that I worked as an associate at the Queensland Industrial Relations Commission before coming back to the AWU as an advocate. It wasn’t until 2004 that I became an organiser when I went off to Toowoomba.

There’s plenty to keep us occupied here.

So many people are moving to small towns

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THE AUSTRALIAN WORKER www.awu.net.au

Tracey Sharpe

in Queensland and we’re getting a lot of members through this. It’s all to do with Bechtel and their LNG (Liquefied Natural Gas) projects. They’re being built within four hours of Toowoomba and the massive growth continues to this day.

When I first came to Toowoomba there was only a District Secretary. That was the legendary Dudley Watson. When Dudley retired, I got his job. After a few years, I convinced the former Queensland Branch

“I was always brought up Labor and pro-union, and that’s the way I’ve raised my children.”

Secretary, Bill Ludwig, into giving me an organiser. Two years later, I asked for another organiser to look after the LNG side of things.

So, we’re definitely growing in the region.

The two organisers travel at least an hour east, five hours west, and another six hours north-west. They just about live in their cars, travelling about 80,000 kilometres a year. We struggle with mobile service sometimes. Most mining sites have a tower, but not all the time.

We have iPads now which (newly elected) Queensland Branch Secretary Ben Swan brought in. It’s so much easier when we have documents on us all the time.

Every day we achieve something. They don’t have to be major, world-beating achievements, but it’s just good making a difference. We had a gentleman at Lockyer Valley Regional Council who was reinstated after being incorrectly terminated. After 12 months of negotiation, we ended up at the Commission and he was returned to work with back pay as well. That was a very satisfying victory, and he’s been back working that job without a problem for two years.

Outside of work, I’m married with three children, 17, 15 and 5. My five year-old son has been to six Labor Day marches. I count the first one when he was still in my stomach! His cousins come along with him as well. On Labor Day, there’s usually about 1000 of us marching in Toowoomba. About 50 AWU members join in, and then it’s off to the bowls club afterwards.

I’ve just been elected to the Union’s National Executive which means I’m now part of the team making decisions nationally.

I’m only the fourth woman to be given the honour, and there’s just me and Marina (Williams) on the Executive at the moment.

All women in the AWU should just go for it.

I haven’t found it difficult at all, and there’s nothing we can’t do when we put our minds to it. We can talk the talk and walk the walk.

MEET THE DELEGATE

AW U DELEGAT E AT RO SEBERY M I NE, TA SM A NI A

MAL JAGO

Words: Michael Blayney

I

’ve spent almost all my life on the west coast of Tasmania. Most of that time’s been in Rosebery, working at the same mine for 31 years and drilling for 26.

We mine zinc and a bit of lead and copper. I operate a big super driller, taking it underground, setting it up and drilling to a plan.

Rosebery is a unique place. There are about 84 blokes at Rosebery Mine who have 3000 years of underground experience between them. It would have to be one of the most skilled workplaces in Australia.

Working underground is always dangerous, but Rosebery is one of the safest mines.

I’ve been a delegate coming up to 13 years now. It was a natural progression pretty much. I was an OH&S rep for 22 years. One of the delegates left and I was asked to take up the position.

About a year ago, AWU National Secretary Paul Howes contacted me about the situation in the Tarkine, a large wilderness area on our doorstep. It was

listed as a National Heritage Area a few years ago, but it was about to lapse and there was an opportunity to open some of it up. Then our local industrial relations officer in the north west asked if I’d like to have a say as part of the ‘Our Tarkine, Our Future’ campaign, and I put my hand up.

The Tarkine has potential to create permanent jobs, bearing in mind that Tasmania has the highest unemployment rate in Australia. The way I look at it is that if the Greens had their way we’d be pegged in on three sides by national parks and world heritage areas. It’s about 430,000 hectares of land and it would have resulted in mining dying out and jobs going from the area.

Opposition to the growth of the area was backed by The Greens, so when I went down to Hobart for the state conference, I was asked if I could say something to the media about it. The next day I’m out the front of Parliament House. I’m used to speaking to our members but it’s a bit different when a camera’s staring down your face. It was all a bit daunting, but it was about getting the message out there.

People can then make their own valuation.

Still, all the boys started calling me “Hollywood Jago”!

The Greens wanted to solely lock up a whole area. If they just said a few areas here and there, a lot of local people probably would have agreed with them, but they wanted to lock it up right up to our back doors, only a couple of hundred metres from my own home.

The “rape and pillage” they were talking about was mostly button grass. We’re

“… bearing in mind that Tasmania has the highest unemployment rate in Australia.”

Mal Jago

not talking about pristine temperate rainforest.

Only one per cent of the land has been earmarked for mining, and the areas would be rehabilitated because the EPA laws in Tasmania are some of the strictest in Australia. You can’t just go and dig a hole and leave it these days.

The challenge was getting our message out there. We had a rally in Burnie where around 3500 people turned up. These people weren’t just union members. They were concerned locals.

Back in January, I was in the garage working on my daughter’s car and I caught a snippet on the radio when the Federal Environment Minister, Tony Burke, announced his decision. I didn’t quite hear it all, so I gave Tasmanian Branch Secretary Ian Wakefield a call and asked him what’s going on. He told me that the government had locked up some land along the coast, but had left the rest open.

For all of us, that was a better than expected result. When we went and saw Burke in Canberra, he said that he had reservations about an area west of Savage River where there was some temperate rainforest area. I thought he’d lock up a corridor there, but he didn’t.

The decision is expected to generate about $250 million a year and create up to 1000 jobs in development. Everyone in Rosebery is pretty chuffed about it.

I’m a pretty logical bloke, and I reckon this was a victory for common sense.

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AWU 2013 NATIONAL CONFERENCE

AWU NATIONAL CONFERENCE

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CONTENTS

The 2013 AWU National Conference was held at the Gold Coast in Queensland in February 2013. This report highlights important resolutions and extracts from the main key note addresses to delegates.

RESOLUTIONS WELCOME 18 An introduction to the 2013 Australian Workers’ Union National Conference.

GROWTH PLAN 20 After extensive research, the AWU is forging ahead with renewed growth strategies.

CO-INVESTMENT 20 New capital investment could help Australian manufacturers compete internationally.

SPEECHES SUPERANNUATION 25 The AWU calls on the federal government to explore incentive ways to invest super funds.

ONLINE TRAINING 26 AWU delegates now have options for how they receive their training.

STATE GOVERNMENT CUTS 26 The AWU condemns the savage cuts to frontline services in Liberal-held states.

LOCAL CONTENT MENTAL HEALTH 21 We 28 One need more enforceable local in three Australians suffers content standards in Australian Industry Participation Plans.

DOMESTIC GAS POLICY 22 Why is Australia’s domestic economy subjected to higher gas prices than necessary?

PROMOTING WINNERS 23 Smarter Australian Precincts should be established to combine capabilities and industries.

anxiety or depression at some point in their lifetime.

SKILLED MIGRATION 29 The AWU strongly supports heavy scrutiny to ensure 457 Visa workers are protected.

WOMEN IN THE AWU 30 The National Conference adopts the Þrst “Women in the AWU Report.”

24 AWU members can be conÞdent 30 The AWU calls for compulsory UNION GOVERNANCE

NANOTECHNOLOGY

that the Union conducts its business lawfully and ethically.

labelling of products containing manufactured nanoparticles.

31 BILL LUDWIG AWU National President Bill Ludwig explains the importance of unity in strengthening the Union’s inßuence.

32 PAUL HOWES AWU National Secretary Paul Howes’ Conference address reinforces the role of the Union in defending workers’ rights.

34 PRIME MINISTER THE HON JULIA GILLARD Labor Prime Minister Julia Gillard outlines her government’s vision for a fair and equitable Australia.

36 DEPUTY PRIME MINISTER & TREASURER THE HON WAYNE SWAN The Treasurer explains the federal government’s economic rationale.

IN CLOSING FOR MORE INFORMATION For the full content of resolutions and speeches go to: www.awu.net.au/awu2013

PHOTOS Shaney Balcombe

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WELCOME TO THE AWU 2013 NATIONAL CONFERENCE REPORT For 127 years, working men and women have been working together at Australian Workers’ Union Conferences.

In 2013 the National Conference was held at Jupiters on the Gold Coast from 18-21 February.

Over 500 delegates and guests from across the country and overseas attended – representing the range of industries covered by the AWU. This year’s conference was by far the biggest, brightest and most dynamic conference in the AWU’s history, attracting huge media attention as well as international interest.

The conference was addressed by a line-up of key note speakers whose vision and empathy for working Australians was truly inspirational.

WHAT DELEGATES HAD TO SAY REPRESENTATIVES FROM INTERNATIONAL UNIONS CAME FROM SWEDEN, SOUTH AFRICA, FIJI, CHINA, CANADA AND THE USA

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For 127 years our movement has persevered, and has kept searching for that promised land.

The land where people get a fair day’s pay for a fair day’s work.

Where they can provide for their families, knowing they have secure employment.

Where they can balance work, rest and recreation.

And where everyone can share in the bounty that our land provides.

The AWU believes that our great nation is in good hands. The Federal Labor Government, led by Prime Minister Julia Gillard, has worked hard to restore an Australia that was left damaged and bitterly divided by years of the previous conservative government’s agenda.

The PM’s address to conference delegates outlined a grand, co-ordinated plan to launch Australia forward with fairness and equity; while Federal Treasurer Wayne Swan explained to the conference how the Labor Government’s economic management saw Australia dodge the major blows emanating from the Global Financial Crisis.

Delegates also heard from a host of labor leaders from Sweden, South Africa, Fiji, China, Canada and the US,

who shared their nations’ experiences and forged stronger links with Australian workers in this globalised working world.

But it was the business of the conference that was paramount. The conference agenda was made up of all of those issues that are fundamental to protecting workers’ rights in a rapidly changing world. These resolutions steer the Union’s path into the future with strength and solidarity.

The Australian Workers’ Union is proud to present to members the 2013 National Conference report.

“I’m keen to educate the younger members. That’s the big one. We have about 350 members on site and members need to know the proud history of the AWU and where all the current conditions have come from. A lot of young lads come onto the site and they don’t know the struggles and victories we’ve had in the past.

They need to understand that we’ll always be there for them.”

“This is my first conference, and I’m learning a lot of things from all the different speakers. I love the whole atmosphere. I thought it might be more of a training thing, but this is a big picture thing. The Union does so much work behind the scenes that I didn’t know much about it.

The whole Bell Bay thing was a real eye-opener for me. The Union’s in the background all the time working for us.”

GRANT PETAGNA WATER PLANT OPERATOR, NYRSTAR SMELTER, PORT PIRIE, SA

FRANCES DEED TRUCK DRIVER, GRANGE RESOURCES IRON ORE MINE, SAVAGE RIVER, TAS

AWU NATIONAL SECRETARY PAUL HOWES

“We all take a heap of notes at the conference, and then we sit down and work out what we’ll be showing and telling our members. I’ll take that inspiring Jack Thompson video back and it will show them that this is where the Union is now. We’ll all sit down and watch it, and when it finishes we’ll talk about how it makes them feel. I feel that it is a great honour and privilege to be here.”

PETA THOMSON ALCOA ALUMINA MINE, WAGERUP, WA

“We are the biggest union in Australia. We’re working towards a common goal, and we’ll all be working together. There is no in-fighting in the AWU. There is unity. This union is unity to me.

If we stick together, and we have the numbers and the membership behind us, we are the ones with the strength – not management.”

GEORGE NUKUNUKU MANITOU DRIVER, BECHTEL LNG PROJECT, CURTIS ISLAND, QUEENSLAND

“The main message is where the Union is heading. We make things happen. We’re a union that makes things, and Australia is a country that makes things. Our members need to know that. We need to maintain that culture. Unions have always done that. Australia has a working-class culture. The AWU supports those who work with their hands.”

JOE ALAALATOA THIESS BALFOUR BEATTY, REGIONAL RAIL LINK PROJECT, VICTORIA

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GROWTH ORGANISING PLAN GR

O

ver the last two years, since Conference last met, The Australian Workers’ Union has continued with its growth reform, building the Union’s membership up to some of the highest levels since amalgamation.

The growth has been fundamental in providing additional resources to ABOVE: AWU Victorian represent and campaign for Branch newly members around the elected Secretary, country. Since we embarked Ben Davis. on the reform program, we have seen more than 30,000 new members.

Now while our detractors will try to cast dispersion on the amazing results, the simple fact is that we are the biggest, fastest-growing blue collar union in the country.

Having a unified, strategic growth organising plan that focuses on existing sites in conjunction with our comprehensive delegate education plan has delivered us these spectacular results.

In recent months, however, our resolve has been tested, as the high Australian

dollar puts pressure on a number of our industries, particularly the manufacturing sector. This has led to the closure of a few AWU workplaces and a significant amount of resources put into fighting for our members’ job security.

In 2009 the Union faced similar circumstances with the global financial crisis (GFC) hitting our major industries.

What we learnt through that experience is that despite the great results we had to that point, it can easily be washed away if we don’t keep growth as the number one focus in everything we do.

In late 2012 the Union conducted a review of our broader campaign strategies, including the Intensives. It was clear that we needed to develop a sustained approach to campaigning, avoiding the blitzes, which only deliver the small spikes in membership.

This led to the updating of our strategy and a consistent approach to growth, focusing week-by-week and month-by-month.

As a result of its research, the AWU is calling for renewed growth plans to keep the spotlight on growing the Union. Growth plans should aim to address the regular fluctuations in monthly membership trends due to seasonal work, as well as offset the membership losses

that flow as a consequence of the economic challenges facing our members in struggling industries and sectors.

Recognising and celebrating the recent successes of the Union in re-unionising the Bell Bay aluminium smelter – one of the first major sites to be de-unionised in Australia – the AWU calls for a concerted push to re-establish itself in sites lost during the previous 20 years.

The AWU resolves to invest significant resources in maintaining its growth through its Growth Organising Plan, as well as targeting de-unionised sites in traditional AWU coverage areas.

The AWU also acknowledges the success of the National Company Database pilot in identifying new sites and targets of growth, which builds the strength of our existing members by organising all the operations of their company, regardless of their location.

Further, this initiative will empower workers in the workplaces that are newly identified in the systematic review of our databases.

The Union also resolves to implement a broader roll-out of the National Company Database and continue to develop it to research, track and analyse sites of potential employers of our current and prospective members.

CO-INVESTMENT FOR A STRONGER MANUFACTURING SECTOR

T

he age and scale of Australia’s capital stock is having a negative impact on the competitiveness of the manufacturing sector.

This is particularly so in the large traditional manufacturing sectors competing against newer facilities in Asia with the advantage of size, scale and access to the latest capitalintensive technologies.

Some Australian sectors, such as aluminium and oil refining, have aging plants and equipment in urgent need of updating. However, due to the economic pressures, manufacturers are

AWU Newcastle Branch Secretary, Richard Downie.

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BELOW RBA Board Member Heather Ridout and Professor Roy Green.

unable to invest in these upgrades.

The Australian Workers’ Union has successfully secured a $42 million coinvestment from the Victorian and federal governments in the Point Henry Alcoa smelter allowing an upgrade of the facility.

The AWU’s lobbying was central to the formulation of the $300 million

Steel Transformation Plan that will secure the future of Australia’s steel industry as it seeks to create new product as well as develop process innovations to lower costs and increase profits.

The AWU remains concerned about the general state of capital stock in the Australian manufacturing industry. It sees a strong need for a concerted effort to boost the productive capacity of Australian firms with new capital equipment.

In view of the success of previous co-investment schemes, which provided assistance to Australian manufacturers to ensure access to market leading and best-practice capital and equipment, the AWU believes new capital investment will allow many Australian manufacturers to innovate, grow and compete internationally.

LOCAL CONTENT AND GOVERNMENT PROCUREMENT

A

ustralian manufacturers are struggling to stay afloat due to the current crisis of demand as a result of the high value of the Australian Dollar. The Australian Workers’ Union National Conference recognised that Australian resources belong to the Australian people – including those who are employed in the manufacturing sector – and that Australia requires more readily enforceable local content standards in Australian Industry Participation Plans.

Our exports have become increasingly uncompetitive and imports have become more attractive domestically.

In the medium and long term, Australian manufacturers will need to become more innovative and adapt

to the pressures of global competition, but this can only happen if they survive this period.

Australia has a projected mining investment pipeline of roughly $500 billion, with some $270 billion of that already committed to investment.

Several major gas projects involve some of the largest capital investment in the history of Australia.

Despite the record levels of mining investment, Australian manufacturers continue to receive a very small share of the capital works programs associated with these major resource projects. In areas such as steel fabrication it is estimated that local manufacturers are receiving only 10 per cent of the available work and this is unacceptably low.

In response to the AWU’S national

RIGHT AWU Greater NSW Branch Secretary, Russ Collison.

campaign to draw attention to the plight of manufacturing in Australia, the Gillard Government has made recent improvements to the local content regimen, including strengthening the governance regimens around Australian Industry Participation Plans.

This will ensure that large mining projects use Australian manufactured products, and Australian jobs and industries are protected throughout the mining boom and into the future.

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DOMESTIC GAS RESERVATION POLICY

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he Australian Workers’ Union National Conference resolved to commence a campaign calling on the federal government to implement a sensible gas policy for Australia that aims to moderate energy costs both through a retention of AWU Western gas supply for domestic use Australian as well as a focus on Branch Secretary, Stephen Price. expansion of new natural and coal seam gas supply.

Australia subjects its domestic economy to higher gas prices than necessary. The increases in domestic gas prices could cost industry and households an extra $3.1 billion a year in Western Australia; an extra $597 million a year in Queensland; and an extra $1.6 billion a year in Victoria, NSW and South Australia.

At present, prices are set based on regional supply; there is no ‘global price’ for gas. Australia should not allow exporters to

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integrate gas markets, which would increase prices for Australian energy users and effectively cause Australia to trade away a potential competitive advantage.

Statistics show that 92 per cent of the world’s natural gas reserves are either controlled directly by governments or are under quasi-national control through state-owned energy enterprises. With only two per cent of the global conventional gas supplies and only eight per cent of gas available for ‘open’ investment, Australia is allowing its reserves to be dominated by international oil and gas companies for their own market purposes.

According to some reports, as much as 80 per cent of Australia’s projected gas supply has been secured by LNG exporters.

This is a concern, as Australia seems to be trading away its advantage.

Many Australian manufacturers are finding it difficult to enter into new gas supply contracts for 2015 and beyond as suppliers seek to send more gas offshore. It is anticipated that many industries will be

paying significantly higher prices for this energy source from 2015 onwards, as will households and small businesses, which will significantly increase the cost of doing business in Australia and place further pressure on industries that are already being rocked by the record high dollar.

Australia is the only country in the world that allows energy companies to export gas as LNG without appropriate consideration of the effects on domestic supply.

The AWU believes that Australia’s natural resources are held on behalf of the Australian people, so it is worth debating whether there are broader benefits in a more strategic deployment of Australia’s vast energy wealth rather than simply exporting it for a narrow financial benefit to a few direct beneficiaries.

Australia’s vast gas supplies should be available to domestic energy users, with a focus on assisting downstream manufacturers.

The retention and expansion of gas supply will act as a ‘feed stock’ for Australian manufacturing and allow the Australian economy to capture a greater amount of value-added production and export earning.

INDUSTRY POLICY – PROMOTING WINNERS

A

ustralia is a world leader in research production, however we are failing to make the most of the ideas produced and our intellectual property.

In view of this, The Australian Workers’ Union National Conference has called on the Gillard Government to implement a policy vision and agenda that promotes Australia’s manufacturing sector. By harnessing Australia’s competitive advantages in resources, research and a highly skilled workforce, Australia can create vibrant industries that add value to our resources and produce highly paid, secure jobs for current and future generations of Australian workers. For the $9.4 billion spent annually on publicly funded research and development, Australia has poor innovation commercialisation.

Further, while we rank amongst the top nations in the OECD in terms of research papers produced, Australia is in the bottom third for registration of patents.

AWU Port Kembla Branch Secretary Wayne Phillips.

The AWU has called on the Gillard Government to articulate a clearer vision for Australian industry policy that focuses on harnessing our competitive advantages in resources and adding value to them through complex manufacturing and innovation.

The Prime Minister’s Taskforce on Manufacturing, led by the AWU, has rightly identified the importance of the manufacturing sector in providing innovation benefits throughout the production supply chain.

The Taskforce has called for greater collaboration to help overcome the cultural problems associated with the transfer of knowledge between Publicly Funded Research Agencies (PFRAs) and business.

As a result, PFRAs will be required to work more closely with business to understand the competitive pressures associated with Australia’s manufacturing sector.

Specific recommendations by the non-government members of the Taskforce included the following: • A formal and ongoing dialogue should be established between industry and the research and education sector.

• A research-impact measure tied to funding should be introduced to

address deficiencies in current industry research links and the lack of incentive in the research sector to collaborate with the manufacturing industry.

• Consideration should be given to diverting a modest proportion of current research funding streams into a third stream aimed explicitly at knowledge exchange between users and the research sector, as has been done successfully in the UK. • A limited number of Smarter Australia Precincts should be established involving large-scale facilities to bring together a critical mass of capabilities and industries.

This would allow businesses, researchers, end users, students and government to share resources, support knowledge spill-overs and diffusion, and strengthen networks.

Promoting winners in order to secure an economic future for workers and businesses has worked well in South East Asian nations.

In South Korea, for example, promotion of the Samsung company has seen it grow into a world-class conglomerate that leads in not only electronics, but also in ship building, construction and advertising internationally.

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UNION GOVERNANCE

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he Australian Workers’ Union has strict governance policies and structures in place to ensure that the organisation conducts its business lawfully and ethically at all times, and to protect the integrity of union funds.

The AWU adheres to the ABOVE AWU National highest standards of financial Assistant management, with accounts Secretary, Scott McDine. formally audited by an independent accounting firm.

The Rules of the AWU (and Branches) determine the capacity and authority of the Union’s decision-making bodies and of individuals within the AWU, and establish the basis for how the Union acts. The Rules of the AWU are subject to the provisions of the relevant legislation.

The AWU’s Code of Conduct states that AWU officials, employees and contractors must at all times comply with the relevant legislation concerning Industrial (or Workplace) Relations, Occupational Health & Safety, Anti-Discrimination, Freedom of Association, Trades Practices, Competition,

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and all other relevant legislation.

The Code also includes obligations around integrity and diligence, equal opportunity, respect, and the management of private and confidential information.

The AWU’s finances are managed in accordance with the Union’s Financial Management Policy, and are overseen by the Union’s Finance Committee.

annual basis. Wages and conditions of appointed officials, industrial officers, administrative and specialist staff are determined by the relevant Branch (or National Office) to which they belong.

The Finance Committee is established by the National Executive, and is responsible for: • Reviewing the expenditure and financial performance of the National Office and each Branch before each meeting of the National Executive.

• Reviewing the financial management of the Union by the National Secretary.

• Monitoring the performance of the National Office in relation to the Budget.

The AWU is committed to: • Zero tolerance to any union’s misuse of union funds.

• Transparency and accountability in relation to finances (including remuneration) and risk management (including the management of conflicts of interest).

• Financial controls and procedures (including income, membership systems, expenditure, procurement, investments and audits).

• Member contact, complaints handling and grievance/dispute procedures.

• Appropriate training standards and programs in relation to governance issues for officers (including Committee of Management members).

The AWU declares the remuneration of all senior officers in its annual financial reports. From 2012, the AWU determined to release details of the remuneration of all elected officers in future financial reports.

Wages of elected officials are set by National Executive and reviewed on an

The AWU is determined to continue to pursue the best governance practices for the Union which meet the requirements under the law and where possible exceed those requirements to ensure that all AWU members can be completely confident and informed about the governance practices of the Union.

AUSTRALIAN SUPERANNUATION

T

he Australian Workers’ Union National Conference determined that Australian superannuation funds belong to Australian workers and should be used in a manner that benefits their overall interests.

At this point, Australian superannuation funds now hold roughly $1.35 trillion of retirement savings on behalf of Australian workers and represent the fourth largest pension savings pool in the world.

Australia’s compulsory superannuation scheme is unusual compared to other OECD nations, producing a superannuation pool of roughly 90 per cent of GDP compared to the OECD average of around 30 per cent.

With the increase of contributions to rise from 9 to 12 per cent, the overall value of superannuation funds is set to rise to roughly $6 trillion, and these funds will need to find a home in terms of stable and secure investment.

Since the end of 2007, Australia’s superannuation funds have been losing an average of 4.5 per cent a year. This performance is worse than the advanced country average of 1.6 per cent and has occurred during a period of relative AWU South Australian Branch Secretary, Wayne Hanson.

ABSOLUTELY SUPER AustralianSuper CEO, Ian Silk.

domestic prosperity for Australia as compared to the rest of the world.

One reason for this poor performance is the over-reliance on investment in equities (stock market) which has performed poorly since the onset of the GFC. Since 2001, equities have risen from 41.9 per cent of total portfolios to 46.5 per cent, while real estate exposure has gone from 5.8 per cent to 7.4 per cent. Only 25 per cent is in bonds or other fixedinterest investments, of which threequarters are private sector.

Across the advanced world, the average exposure to equities is only 14 per cent, while real estate is only two per cent.

Denmark, which has recorded by far the best average returns since the crisis of just over four per cent a year, has just 15 per cent of its investment in shares, one per cent in property and 69 per cent in fixed-interest investments.

It is clear that there must be a deliberate diversification strategy implemented for Australia’s superannuation funds. The question is, where and how best to deploy these funds?

Australia faces challenges that impact on the lives of its workers. These challenges are faced in three particular areas where superannuation funds could be deployed: 1. Infrastructure – Australia has infrastructure shortage in the order of $700-1000 billion. Australians experience

the effects of these shortages every day through higher inflation, supply constraints and the impact of declining productivity on living standards.

2. Commercialising innovation – Australia has a poor ability to commercialise the ideas it generates, with a relatively shallow capital market, particularly in the area of venture capital, being used to commercialise Australian intellectual property. While a world leader in research, Australia has poor outcomes in creating new businesses and jobs from these ideas.

Jobs are then lost overseas as researchers are forced offshore to find capital to grow their businesses. These are the jobs of the future that Australia must fight to keep.

3. Retooling industry – Australia has many older and smaller industries that require injection of new capital to rebuild and modernise operations.

Industry is highly productive but suffers from a lack of scale when it comes to competing with emerging economies.

With a particularly long tail of small manufacturers who are unable to compete with larger and newer factories overseas, Australian manufacturing needs to find ways to partner with domestic rivals and expand capital stock in order to compete into the future.

These expansions will require access to credit and capital injections.

Australia faces a challenge to retool its economy for the 21st century. Fortunately, there is a ready-made pool of collective funds that could be judiciously deployed to the advantage of the Australian people.

Therefore, the AWU calls on the federal government and, in particular, industry super funds, to explore ways that can encourage and incentivise the investment of Australian retirement savings, such as: • Greenfield and brownfield infrastructural projects that reduce Australia’s infrastructure bottlenecks, reduce congestion and boost productivity performance.

• Australian innovation to secure the jobs of tomorrow.

• Retool Australia’s existing industries to secure jobs, improve growth and boost competitiveness in the 21st century.

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AWU Queensland Branch Secretary, Ben Swan.

ONLINE DELEGATE TRAINING 2013

T

he Australian Workers’ Union National Conference has resolved to commit to the development of a new online training platform.

With over 2400 delegates embarking on training since 2011, to date, all training provided to members and delegates has been face-to-face.

Given the geographic diversity of the Union’s membership, regional and remote members have not had the opportunity to access to training without travelling to a regional port or city centre. The Union is now looking towards developing an online training platform that will allow all members and delegates to participate in the Delegate Level 1 Program.

This will not replace face-to-face training, but add an additional option for members.

It is proposed that the training platform

be developed with Branch educators from around the country as well as testing it with our delegates in trial periods. The aim is to make this available to anyone with the most basic of internet access, to log in from home and run through the course.

Support will be made available to those participants as they make their way through the course.

The training program will be managed through our national website by using a learning management system which will allow our delegates access at their convenience to complete training sessions.

This development will also include a follow up session as soon as practicable to ensure our delegates foster a positive relationship with their Branch and have tools and resources available to continue their role.

STATE GOVERNMENT CUTS

T

he Australian Workers’ Union National Conference has condemned the cuts to public services in all states and the attack on frontline service provisions to Australian workers across the country, and determined to launch a continued campaign against these cuts.

The campaign will focus on the protection and reinstatement of jobs as well as the promotion and protection of basic services such as health, education and safety.

Coalition Governments in Queensland, New South Wales and Victoria, for the most part, have made significant cutbacks over the past two years. Many cuts have been to public sector jobs in areas of service delivery and future productivity generation.

The impact of conservative governments on jobs and infrastructure can be seen in a state-by-state round-up:

QUEENSLAND There have been total cuts of over 14,000 Queensland public sector jobs, including nurses, doctors and other health service providers.

• Cuts aim to generate savings of almost $3.7 billion over the next four years,

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2750 of which will be Queensland health employees.

• There will be 10,600 paid redundancies over the next financial year while another 3400 positions will be scrapped by axing temporary jobs or not filling existing vacancies.

• Total employee numbers will decrease by more than 6.7 per cent.

• • • •

NSW Significant cuts have been made to education and health, as well as cuts to public service jobs. The NSW government has announced a significant change to the powers of the Industrial Relations Commission as well as the wage-setting policy for the public service.

The cuts made were unnecessary given that the O’Farrell Government “lost” $1 billion in its budget process and underestimated its revenue position.

Education The O’Farrell Government announced cuts of $1.7 billion over four years to the education budget. This included: • A $1.6 billion cut for public education, including TAFE. Meanwhile, the cut for

Catholic and independent schools is $116 million combined. This equates to roughly a three-per-cent cut in total funding for public schools.

1800 jobs to be cut in the Department of Education.

800 TAFE teaching jobs to be slashed.

600 jobs to be cut from public school and regional offices.

TAFE fees to increase by 9.5 per cent.

Health A slash of $3 billion has been earmarked for health. The government will apply a “labour expense cap” cut of $775 million and a further $2.2 billion will be cut.

Jobs Savings of $2.2 billion over four years are forecast by imposing a ‘’labour expense cap’’ to target an annual 1.2 per cent reduction in labour costs across all government agencies.

• This could result in the loss of 10,000 public sector jobs over the next four years. Though the Government has said that this is not the “upper limit”.

• The foreshadowed cuts come on top of 5000 redundancies announced in September.

.

VICTORIA Under Baillieu, the Liberal government announced significant public sector cuts as well as large cuts to education funding, including TAFE cuts, and $25 million from community health services. While Baillieu may not be premier any more, it is still a Liberal Government and we expect nothing will change.

Jobs 4200 public sector jobs to be cut, with a further 600 announced in the 2012-13 budget.

• Thirteen government departments and entities have been ordered to cut 3615 staff over the next two years.

• The government revealed that a total

of 910 public-service positions have already been lost through attrition and the non-renewal of fixed-term contracts since the first round of cuts was announced in December.

Education • $481 million cut from the total education budget.

• $300 million cut from the TAFE budget.

• The TAFE Association has said the government cut funding to 80 per cent of TAFE courses in the May 1 budget.

Those courses are under serious threat as they are now funded at only $1.50 per delivery hour. This includes many hospitality, business administration, events management, and sport and

recreation fields of study.

• Current estimates are that 2000 staff redundancies will occur as a result, with 600 jobs in regional Victoria and 1400 in metropolitan Melbourne.

WESTERN AUSTRALIA The Barnett Government has implement a two per cent cut in spending in government departments aimed at saving $1 billion.

• The two per cent requirement for 2012-13 will apply to all government departments except education, which will be held to a saving of one per cent.

• Additional one per cent savings targets have been set in subsequent financial years to 2015-16, saving up to $2.5 billion.

www.awu.net.au THE AUSTRALIAN WORKER

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MENTAL ME ENTAL H HEALTH AWARENESS

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he Australian Workers’ Union National Conference has resolved to tackle the issue of depression and anxiety and actively encourage other unions, employers and governments to recognise the rights of all workers to mentally safe workplaces and to engage with their workers to identify and manage risks associated with mental health in the workplace.

This includes policies and procedures for managing workers who may be experiencing depression or anxiety, raising awareness and making reasonable adjustments for workers returning to work after a mental health problem.

One in three Australians experiences

Kate Carnell, AO, from beyondblue.

depression and/or anxiety at some point in their lifetime. The causes of mental issues are complex and relate to a combination of factors (genetics, personality traits, life events, workplace practices, for example).

In Australia, work-related mental health disorders are the second most prevalent compensable occupational illness or injury. In 2008-09, they represented 4.8 per cent of all serious compensation claims (defined as claims resulting in at least a one week’s absence from work).

Australian workers without access to paid sick leave lose $85 million per annum in income due to absence through depression.

Job stress is associated with poor health, increased injury and accident rates. It accounts for depression in 17 per cent of working women and 13 per cent in working men. Job stress

is also associated with alcohol and drug consumption patterns, with many workers using alcohol and other drugs to alleviate the effect of work stress.

Risk factors for job stress include: • Workloads (high or low), and lack of control over pace of work.

• Poor task design, lack of task variety, skill under-utilisation.

• Role ambiguity and role conflict.

• Low levels of decision making, poorly defined organisational objectives.

• Social or physical isolation.

• Poor communication with supervisors or co-workers.

• Job insecurity, poor pay, low levels of career development.

• Poor work environments and poor work equipment quality.

• Bullying, harassment and discrimination.

Factors that can protect workplace mental health include: • Strong leadership.

• Strong morale.

• Employee consultation and involvement in decision making.

• Collaborative peer working relationships.

• Effective training.

• Effective mental health policies and programs.

All employers are required to adhere to legislative obligations, including the Disability Discrimination Act (DDA) 1992 under which depression is recognised as a disability.

The AWU recognises that the mental health of workers and workplace practices are directly linked. Workplaces can make either a positive or negative contribution to the mental health of workers and, therefore, the Union commits to engaging with its workers and members to support their mental health.

The Union will continue to work with organisations such as BeyondBlue in raising awareness amongst workers of mental health issues and identifying and eliminating the causes of depression and anxiety.

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SKILLED MIGRATION

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he Australian Workers’ Union National Conference has resolved to call on the federal government to ensure that Australia’s immigration policy is permanent, rigorously tested and enforced with penalties, and does not undermine or displace the rights and conditions of Australian workers.

Australia is a nation of immigrants.

Twenty-six per cent of all Australians were born overseas and a further 20 per cent have at least one parent who was born overseas.

The Australian Workers’ Union is a diverse union that opens its arms to the workers of the world. Blue-collar workers in Australia are welcome regardless of their background.

The AWU believes in a ‘Big Australia’.

A larger population means more growth, more jobs and more prosperity for Australian workers. However, in order to have a larger population, migration to this country must be permanent.

If a policy of temporary skilled migration existed during the great post-WWII immigration program, many of the 26 per cent of Australians who were born overseas would no longer call Australia home today.

This would have substantially weakened Australia’s development as a vibrant,

democratic and multicultural society that is an example to the rest of the world.

The AWU does not oppose skilled migration, however the Union will never back away from its position of ensuring that the wages and conditions of Australian workers are protected. The Union will never allow hard-fought victories of workers to be undermined by unscrupulous employers who seek to exploit overseas workers.

Many sectors in Australia are struggling under the weight of the record high Australian dollar, and thousands of AWU members have lost their jobs through no fault of their own. These hardworking Australians should have the first opportunity to apply for jobs in the growing mining sector and be afforded the opportunity to retrain.

The AWU will only ever support skilled migration in this country when: • There is a demonstrated need for the worker.

• There has been sufficient domestic labour market testing to ensure that an Australian is unable to be hired for the job.

• The migration is permanent.

• There are appropriate safeguards in place to ensure that wages and conditions of

Australian workers are not undermined.

• There are significant penalties for companies that are found to be breaking the law.

• There are training programs and pathways to employment in place for workers displaced from traditional industries that are downsizing or closing.

Enterprise Migration Agreements (EMAs) and Regional Migration Agreements (RMAs) should only ever be accepted on a case-by-case basis and must always be scrutinised intensely in union consultations.

All 457 Visas should also be rigorously overseen to ensure that the scourge of sham contracting and worker exploitation is eliminated.

The union movement must ensure that Australia does not subject its workers to a global race to the bottom in wages and conditions, where workers are shipped in under a glorified system of international Fly-In-Fly-Out arrangements.

The Union endorses a campaign that will ensure that any future EMA and RMAs on large resource projects are subject to heavy scrutiny and labour market testing that involves extensive union consultation.

Australian workers should have the first and full opportunity to work on the exploitation of the resources that they own.

www.awu.net.au THE AUSTRALIAN WORKER

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WOMEN IN THE AWU

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he Australian Workers’ Union National Conference introduced and adopted the first “Women in the AWU Report”. This report will be presented at all future National Conferences and will focus on the Union’s progress in promoting women’s issues and leadership within the Union.

Women now make up more than 30 per cent of the mining industry and more than 20 per cent of the manufacturing industry in Australia. Almost one quarter of construction workers are women. This percentage is likely to continue increasing with the current recruitment campaigns specifically targeted at women.

Since its formation in 2010, the AWU Women’s Committee has worked to encourage more women to assume

AWU National Vice President, Marina Williams.

NANOTECHNOLOGY

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he Australian Workers’ Union National Conference has called on the federal government to maintain the precautionary approach in the use of nanotechnology and continue to devote the necessary funding to ensure that the safety risks are assessed.

The AWU has a major presence in the manufacturing sector and welcomes innovation that seeks to secure the future prosperity of members and protects Australia’s position as a world leader in manufacturing.

Over the last 30 years the development of nanomaterials – particles that measure from 1-100 nanometers – has aided advances in both healthcare and manufacturing with the future potential still unknown.

It is estimated that since 2000, governments around the world have spent in excess of $67 billion alongside an industry spend in excess of a quarter of

AWU Tasmanian Branch Secretary, Ian Wakefield.

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leadership roles within the Union.

Comprised of representatives from Branches across Australia, the Committee has drafted maternity leave and domestic violence clauses for the AWU model agreement. It has overseen the development of Equal Opportunity Training for delegates and has also coordinated Branch involvement in White Ribbon Day and International Women’s Day. A ‘Women in the AWU’ website was included in the Union’s online presence to provide information about equal pay and maternity leave.

Recognising the changing demographics of the AWU’s membership, with young women currently comprising the highest percentage of membership growth, the AWU commits to an

action plan. This will see continued support for the Women in the AWU campaign in seeking to improve the model agreement to encourage gender equality in the workplace and to encourage women to take up leadership in the Union.

The AWU will include an equal opportunity component in training and information about equal pay and maternity leave will be made available to Branches for distribution.

The AWU will also continue its participation in the annual White Ribbon Day and International Women’s Day events and will support the Women’s Committee in their co-ordination of events at Branches and on worksites with members.

a trillion dollars. The US alone has invested $3.7 billion in the area of nanotechnology.

It is estimated that there are now in excess of 2000 products in use today containing nanomaterials, including sunscreens, cosmetics and pharmaceuticals, as well as products used in the Australian manufacturing industry.

However, while the benefits and potential benefits of nanotechnology are significant, the risks are less known. Due to their small size and large surface area, nanomaterials are known to be potentially hazardous. Moreover, substances that are non-hazardous in their larger form can be hazardous when reduced to a nanomaterial.

Despite the investment poured into developing new applications for nanomaterials, little is spent on investigating the health effects of these substances.

There are risks with adopting ‘revolutionary’ products without careful analysis of the risks associated with the production and use of the substances.

Asbestos is a powerful example of the dangers of rapid implementation of a new product.

Over the past four years the federal government, through the National Enabling Technologies Strategy (NETS), has spent $38 million on researching the emerging

social, ethical and safety issues around nanotechnology.

Recently, the Gillard Government released a report confirming that carbon nanotubes used in aerospace composites and other products are carcinogenic.

While Australia remains a world leader in researching the effects of nanomaterials on health and the environment, there are still a number of areas that require research, including the development of an exposure standard for carbon nanotubes.

The AWU considers the further development of nanotechnology and the use of nanomaterials has the potential to underpin innovation in dealing with major industrial and social challenges such as medical treatment and energy generation.

Therefore, the AWU calls on the federal government to maintain the precautionary approach in the use of this technology and continue to devote the necessary funding to ensure that the safety risks are assessed.

The AWU further calls on governments to legislate a requirement that all products (or parts) containing manufactured nanomaterials be clearly identified in both MSDS/SDS and labels, to ensure effective identification and control measures.

AWU National President, Bill Ludwig.

AWU NATIONAL PRESIDENT BILL LUDWIG

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e’re here at a very important moment. Many of our industries are at a crossroads.

The conservatives are on the march.

And across the country, unions are under attack.

It would be easy to be overwhelmed by all this. But not The Australian Workers’ Union. That’s not our style. That’s never been our style. I’ve been involved in this union for over 40 years and I’ve been involved in some of our great battles. I can tell you that we’re a union of fighters, and we’ll fight all the way.

I’m sure you’ve all seen the troubles that workers have had in Queensland since the election of the Newman Government.

But you just can’t understand how it has affected the Queensland community unless you’ve lived it.

Unemployment has risen sharply.

Confidence has been shattered. Young people are worried about their future.

But we’re fighting the Newman Government all the way. We’ve come too far, and achieved too much, to let the conservatives trample all over us.

And we’ve got an important ally in our fight… the Federal Labor Government, and Prime Minister, Julia Gillard.

When the Newman Government changed the laws to make it easier to outsource public service jobs, and to cut people’s pay and conditions, we turned to our friends in Canberra for help.

And I’m proud to say that it was a former National Secretary of this union who was there to protect the public sector workers of Queensland.

It was the Federal Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations, Bill Shorten, who put through changes to the Fair Work Act, to ensure that transfer of business laws apply equally to all employees, including outsourced public sector workers, right across Australia.

This means that Queensland public sector workers, who find their jobs being outsourced to the private sector, will get to keep their pay and conditions if they are covered by the federal system.

It’s reassuring to have a government in Canberra that does not accept that workers should be worse off, or should have their entitlements put at risk, simply because their jobs are outsourced. But we can’t take it for granted.

There will be a federal election this year, and the people of Australia will make a choice: to re-elect the Gillard Government, or to roll the dice with Tony Abbott’s Coalition. And when so many of us are fighting against the ideological madness of Coalition state governments, we can’t afford to have a conservative government in Canberra as well.

But we are ready, and we are strong.

The reason we are so strong is because we are unified. And it’s because we have focused on growing our union. We’ve grown industry by industry, workplace by workplace, member by member.

We’ve grown through the dedication of our officials.

www.awu.net.au THE AUSTRALIAN WORKER

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“We have weathered the most severe Þnancial crisis the world has seen since the Great Depression.”

AWU NATIONAL SECRETARY PAUL HOWES

F

rom the very beginning, 127 years ago, our founder, William Guthrie Spence, defined The Australian Workers’ Union as a union that believes in practical measures to improve the lives of working people. And that’s why we’re here. We’re here for the fair go, and we’re here to get the job done for our members. Our union is a movement of working people that is almost 140,000 strong. Attack one of us, and you attack us all.

Whether it’s fighting for workers who’ve been unfairly dismissed, fighting for better pay and conditions, or fighting for safer workplaces. Whether it’s fighting to save jobs when companies threaten to shut down plants, fighting on behalf of local communities who are suffering from high unemployment, or fighting to protect our rights at work – rights which have been hard earned over generations. We’ve been making a difference for 127 years.

In the five years since I was elected National Secretary, we have weathered the most severe financial crisis the world has seen since the Great Depression. We have seen the most significant downturn in Australian manufacturing since Federation.

In the past two years we’ve seen BlueScope Steel shed jobs and move from

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being a major international steel producer, to being a relatively small company. We’ve seen hardship in places like Wollongong, Western Port, Whyalla and Newcastle.

We’ve seen the first aluminium smelter to shut down in Australian history. But despite this, if it wasn’t for the tough and drastic action our union took, when the crisis in manufacturing first hit, we wouldn’t be talking about one aluminium smelter shutting. We’d be talking about one million working Australians in manufacturing being out of work, and that is the reality.

We are a union that makes things.

We make the steel roofing that keeps the rain off our heads. We make the paper your children write on. We build ships and cars and the parts that go into them. We build train tracks and the trains that run on them. We drill for oil, and refine our fuel.

We’re the engineers who keep our planes in the air. We look after the sick, and provide services for the poor. We clean our towns and patrol our beaches. We make the food we eat. We supply the water we drink. We were the people shearing sheep when our country rode on the sheep’s back. And we still do it today.

We are the union that makes Australia.

But change is like a train. If you don’t get on board it runs you over. Our union

has survived 127 years because we deal with change constructively. We adapt, but we never lose track of what we are trying to do. And we should never forget what our political opponents are trying to do to this country.

Tony Abbott and the Liberals have to create a situation where governing is impossible. Where the country suffers, where the people suffer, and the people are forced to change the government to break the deadlock.

But the people of Australia are awake to what is happening. This time we have a Prime Minister who’s street tough and determined. I’m proud of what we have achieved with the Federal Labor Government.

The steel transformation plan, which has secured a future for our iconic steel industry. The support plan for aluminium smelters – which has saved thousands of jobs. The creation of an Anti-Dumping Commission, after a two-year campaign by this union. The Prime Minister’s Manufacturing Taskforce, which brought together industry and unions to work through the problems and to find solutions.

And now the Federal Government’s billion-dollar rescue package to transform our manufacturing sector. That’s why I’m proud to be a supporter of Prime Minister Julia Gillard.

We can sit here and talk about what might happen if Tony Abbott and the Coalition win the next Federal election.

But if we want to see what life’s like under a conservative government, then all we have to do is look at Queensland over the past 12 months. A state ravaged by drought, then by flood, then by cyclones, and then ravaged by Campbell Newman.

Queensland has seen 17,000 jobs gone.

The people who work in our hospitals, and

FACING THE PRESS AWU National Secretary Paul Howes meets the media.

RIGHT Solidarity forever.

keep our streets safe. The people who educate and care for our children. We pay taxes so the government can employ these people to provide us with basic and essential services.

These are our people. They are part of a union that makes things. They make communities, they make life better for Australians. And what do the conservatives do? They abolish their jobs at the altar of a credit rating determined by some fat-cat banker.

Campbell Newman is the new pin-up boy of conservative government in Australia. But conservative premiers are all cut from the same cloth. In NSW, Barry O’Farrell is quietly cutting a swathe through the public service, and attacking basic conditions like workers’ compensation.

In Victoria, there’s an attack on the jobs of teachers, of nurses, of our members in the Department of Sustainability and the Environment, and more. Our members in construction need to know what’s happening next –- when the major projects they’re working on, which were all started by the previous Labor Government, are finished.

Over in the West, the cost of living continues to rise. Regional towns are overcrowded and expensive, and essential

services are stretched to breaking point.

The mining boom is making a few people rich, but working people are being squeezed.

If Abbott and the Coalition win the next federal election, this is the model we will see right across our nation. The Liberals do not believe in a fair day’s pay for a fair day’s work. They do not believe in good Aussie jobs.

That’s why we have to prepare ourselves for the fight of our lives.

Two years ago we launched a campaign to get a collective agreement for workers at the Rio Tinto smelter in Bell Bay, Tasmania.

We got derided for telling home truths. We got told that we can’t criticise the head of Rio Tinto, Tom Albanese. A few weeks ago Albanese announced that he’d managed to lose, to misplace, 14 billion dollars.

That’s a lot of money to lose. That’s not leaving a twenty at the bar. And yet we’re the bad guys for daring to criticize people like that.

It’s people like Tom Albanese, Gina Rinehart or Clive Palmer who have the gall to try to buy an election with a $30 million advertising campaign, just because they don’t want to pay their fair share of tax.

These geniuses from Rio Tinto – who can blow 3.2 billion dollars on one failed

project in Mozambique – who have the audacity to fly here from London and threaten our democracy by telling us how much they’ll pay for the resources that we own. Those resources aren’t being mined in the West End of London, they’re being mined in Paraburdoo, Western Australia; in Cobar, New South Wales; in Roxby Downs, South Australia; in Rosebery, Tasmania and in Mount Isa, Queensland.

They’re Australian resources, being mined by Australian workers. But what these kings in sand castles forget is that they’ll have to reckon with us.

Two years ago we said we’d take on Rio Tinto, and we did. Two years ago we said we’d take on Rio Tinto, and we won.

When you go to Launceston and drive up the Tamar, and see that big industrial site by the river, you are looking at a reunionised AWU aluminium smelter. For the first time in 20 years, those workers are going to have an AWU collective agreement. For the first time in 20 years, those workers are going to get a fair go at work, with AWU protection.

And for the first time ever, in the history of this union, indeed in the history of this nation, we’ve re-unionised a factory that was aggressively de-unionised by a ruthless multi-national almost a generation ago.

They told us we couldn’t do it, but we did. And there’s sweet irony. The week that we won our great victory at Bell Bay was the same week that the Emperor of Rio Tinto, Tom Albanese, was shown the door.

He was sent packing in absolute disgrace.

As Tom Albanese slid out the back door, the AWU walked in through the front.

We’re a union that carries the torch for working Australians, their families, and their communities. We’re the guardians of our 127-year-old legacy.

www.awu.net.au THE AUSTRALIAN WORKER

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PR PRIME RIME MI MINISTER OF AUSTRALIA THE HON JULIA GILLARD

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s Labor leader it is a privilege to be amongst a room of people who understand in every way that what enables them to have a decent life and to aspire to a better life is access to work. Not just any job, but a job that offers them fairness and decency at work and the opportunity to have their voice heard through their trade union.

A job is an incredibly precious thing.

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“We want to make sure prosperity is shared by giving Aussie companies and Aussie workers a fair go...”

We are in a world shaped by the global financial crisis where tens of millions of working people have been thrown out of jobs – on the scrap heap, in their countries, with all the misery that situation implies for them, their families, their children, the prospects for the rest of their life.

We come to that national economic debate having protected jobs during the global financial crisis when the going

was really tough. When the other side of politics slept through a global financial crisis they now seek to deny ever happened, we didn’t rest.

What that means is we have come out of the global financial crisis unlike other nations around the world that have seen millions of people thrown out of work, their skill base destroyed. We have come through the global financial crisis with economic strength, unlike the rest of the world.

But you know that doesn’t mean that our future is assured. We still have to plan and think and work to shape our future.

We understand that the strong persistent strength of the Aussie dollar is putting a lot of pressure in many industries.

The strong dollar that has resulted because so much of the world’s economy is weak.

The strong dollar which has resulted because of the resources boom and the big capital inflow that we have seen. The strong dollar that has persisted even when the price for resources has gone down. The strong dollar that has continued even as our interest rates have gone down. The strong dollar which will continue to be a feature of our economy for quite some time to come.

Those who say the answer is to cut the average wage for full-time working people from $70,000 to $50,000, to try and offset the effect of the dollar’s rise. That is not a future for our country and we won’t embrace it. We will choose a different path.

We have embraced the Union’s ideas through a process and our comprehensive plan is to make sure that we are a country that makes things. We want to make sure that prosperity is shared through the Australian economy by giving Aussie companies and Aussie workers a fair go at the work that is generated here at home.

Projects in Australia, employing Australians, is part of our plan for secure

jobs that help people build a life and give their families a future.

For many years we looked to markets in the US and Europe. We overlooked Asia because we identified it as a place of poverty or a place of competition. Now we live in an age where the European economies face so much strain from the global financial crisis and its aftermath and the US economy faces the challenges of 12 million people unemployed – the same number of people as our total labour force.

Meanwhile, here in this growing region of the world, we will soon see the growth biggest middle class on earth.

That middle class will want to buy the things that we’ve got to sell provided we get the plans right now. So our product is there and it’s high quality, available, and desired in the region. That’s why we are investing in industry precinct and innovation precincts to bring together researchers and businesses to make sure the great ideas are spread and adopted, to give us that comparative advantage that will help us sell our exports into Asia and create Australian jobs.

We have a vibrant small business economy, but often they hit a constraint and can’t grow. Access to finance is a hindrance, even though they’ve got good ideas and good products to sell. We will be helping those businesses grow and to grow Australian jobs. It is a plan that will work with everything else we are doing to modernise the Australian economy.

All this will join with our plan for a clean energy future. Our role out of the National Broadband Network. Our investments in infrastructure, in road, in rail and ports. Our investments skills, more apprenticeships and traineeships than ever before – and more university places, too. These are the ingredients of the vibrant, modern economy with many sources of strength.

As part of that future, it can only be the Australia we want if it is a country offering jobs with decent working conditions and fairness and respect at work.

Let’s never forget WorkChoices particularly pressed on the young, pressed on women workers, on workers who don’t come to the labour force necessarily able to demand for themselves. We got rid of it with the Fair Work.

But when it comes to fairness and decency at work we have more to do.

We have announced new measures that will make a difference to workers trying to balance work and family life. This will make a difference to people who face bullying in their workplace, particularly the young. We will keep improving to give Australians the fairness, the decency, the respect at work they deserve and you want to see for them.

We’ve got work to do to make sure that every Australian child, no matter the circumstances of their birth, goes to a great school and gets a real chance at a great life as a result. That they aren’t denied the things that will give them the power, options and choices to structure a life for themselves. We are improving the nation’s schools. But we’ve got more to do to ensure that every school is a great school and has the resources it needs.

Any Australian can end up with a disability that changes their life forever.

But getting that disability shouldn’t put that person on the scrap heap. And it shouldn’t put that family into a life of ongoing strain – help should be at hand.

Which is why I’m proud that this year we will launch the National Disability Insurance Scheme to make a difference.

The watch-words of this nation’s future are: jobs, opportunity, fairness, stronger, smarter. That is our mission for 2013 and beyond 2013.

I am confident that as we fight the upcoming election campaign that Australians will see that we have the plan for the nation’s future that is right for their families and for the nation beyond that.

And I know we’ll be working together.

www.awu.net.au THE AUSTRALIAN WORKER

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TH THE HE H HON ON WAYNE W SWAN MP DEPUTY PRIME MINISTER & TREASURER

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’m just back from G20 Finance Ministers meeting in Moscow. These meetings always reaffirm my optimism about the future of our nation.

A lot of finance ministers around the table would give their right arm for the resilience of the Australian economy.

Yes, we face challenges. The higher dollar being one. But we approach these from a position of strength that few developed economies have. Every time I sit in these meetings I think about people like you.

I think of the Labor values that go to the core of our party and movement. Jobs first, fair days’ pay for a fair days work – high skill high wage careers. Always putting growth and jobs first, and making sure we’re prepared for the challenges of the future by dealing with dangerous climate change and investing in infrastructure and education. We’re stronger today because we applied these values during the global financial crisis, we saved hundreds of thousands of jobs and small businesses, and in doing that we were opposed every step of the way by Mr Abbott and his Tea-Party style negative tactics. Had Mr Abbott and his slash-and-burn Tea-Partyers been in charge during the financial crisis, we would have gone into recession.

I note today the Leader of the Opposition said this morning that coalition policies will have an Australian accent.

Well this is what I say to that – “putting lipstick on a pitbull doesn’t make a blue heeler”. Delivering American Tea-Party policies in an Australian accent doesn’t make them home-grown.

Two years ago we celebrated our 125th anniversary. It was five months after the bloody battle of the 2010 election.

The Prime Minister – who I’ve described before as the toughest warrior for Labor values in our history – had led our party and our movement back into government, but only just. That victory – prolonged and bruising as it was – belonged to all of us here, and to every sister and brother of every union around the country. Just as we’d come together in 2007 to defeat the greatest threat to working people’s lives

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and livelihoods in modern Australian history, we had rallied once again to overcome that same threat by a different name.

This year our nation has again come to a crossroads.

We’re now facing one of the toughest and possibly most important elections in many years. Many of the usual pundits have written us off. My advice is to not listen to them. There’s no sure thing in a two-horse race, especially when one of the jockeys is called Tony Abbott. We can win. We have to. Because I think Australia is on the cusp of something big – but only if we have a government that has a real economic and social vision for Australia.

I often think,if only we’d got our chance when things were booming. We wouldn’t have wasted the boom years the way Howard and Costello did when the global economy was firing on all cylinders. But

whilst we all would have preferred the Global Financial Crisis never happened, we should feel proud of the things we have achieved together. We’ve protected our economic foundations and taken important steps to set the nation up for the future.

Our economy is now 13 per cent bigger than it was just five years ago. When the rest of the world finally recovers, we will be in the box seat. We’re still living with the fallout from the GFC. But we have come through so far with people’s living standards intact, and have begun to lay the foundations for another era of prosperity for all. So we look to the future. We’ll keep doing the hard yards on the big reforms like investing in our schools through Gonski, setting up a National Disability Insurance Scheme and rolling out the National Broadband Network. These are the reforms that are critical for our economy and our community. They will help ensure all Australians can make a contribution and

share in the prosperity we will build together in this Asian Century.

Of course, Tony Abbott has never seen a scare campaign he didn’t like. The Liberals have also been running around the joint trying to scare the pants off Australians with a bunch of claptrap about our resource rent tax deterring investment even though the facts say the complete opposite. The fact is that we’ve seen over $152 billion of capital expenditure in the mining sector since the MRRT was announced in July 2010, representing a staggering increase of nearly 160 per cent. Now clearly, MRRT collections in its first six months of operation have been lower than Treasury expected, with global uncertainty causing a spectacular drop in commodity prices in the second part of last year.

Any serious participant in the economic debate understands just how significantly commodity prices have continued to impact MRRT revenue. But we didn’t bring in a resource rent tax as a six month proposition. This is a big, long-term economic reform to help set our country up for the decades to come, just like we floated the dollar, brought down the tariff wall and introduced workers’ superannuation all those years ago.

Of course we didn’t judge those big economic reforms after just six months – they were far-sighted reforms which built the foundation of our resilient economy and three decades later helped us avoid recession. So, yep, last week was a pretty tough week – but I didn’t get into politics to make the easy decisions and I won’t be taking a backwards step now. I don’t apologise for one second for trying to get a fair share for the Australian people for the resources they own 100 per cent. .

The most important thing for a fair

society and a strong economy is the opportunity for every Australian to contribute. We know that the sustained higher dollar is putting a huge amount of pressure on some of our traditional Australian industries and is making them much less competitive in their own global markets. The strong dollar hasn’t come down as interest rates and our terms of trade have fallen – and that’s challenging a lot of business models.

We can’t control the dollar, but we can control how we respond to it.

As a Labor Government, we believe innovation and higher skills are the answer – rather than always resorting to cutting costs by cutting jobs. Our plan is to back Australian firms to win more work, support Australian industry to increase exports and win new business abroad, and help Australian small businesses to grow. It’s about what we can do right now to get more work into Australian factories, workshops, construction sites and service sectors.

It’s about what we must do for Australia to get a bigger slice of exports and opportunities in our growing region; and what we should do to secure good jobs for the next generation of Australians.

In stark contrast, the Liberals truly believe that the adversarial workplace relations system of the Howard government was the ‘golden age’. They would rather see employer pitted against worker.

Mark my words on this – whatever pledges

Tony Abbott makes in blood, whatever he claims is dead, buried and cremated, whatever name he chooses for it, he will bring back the worst elements of WorkChoices. WorkChoices is in Tony Abbott’s DNA. This is a man who said Australians could not trust anything but his most carefully scripted remarks. He has always believed it is better to ask forgiveness than to ask permission. All of us here know what is at stake. None of us here can rest for a moment while this profound threat exists to the jobs and livelihoods of decent Australian workers.

The AWU, and unions like ours, must stand together to stop the Liberals tearing away the most basic rights at work for ordinary Australians. The threat of an Abbott Government in 2013 is no less than the threat which Howard posed to jobs in 2007. If anything, it is greater.

This is the most destructive force in our modern political history. Just as you were in 2007, you will again be the difference in 2013. You can marshal the formidable power of our great union to help protect the fundamental right of your members and of every Australian to fair pay and conditions and a decent social safety net. We are a young, optimistic country with the world at our feet.

But we have much more work to do.

You can help build our country into what it can be in the Asian Century, with every Australian having a stake in our prosperity.

“We are now facing one of the toughest and possibly most important elections in many years.” www.awu.net.au THE AUSTRALIAN WORKER

37

Irvin Jim, General Secretary of the National Union of Metalworkers (South Africa).

POSTCARD FROM...

Heather Ridout, RBA.

Han Dong Fang, Founder & Director of the Chinese Labour Bulletin (Hong Kong).

John Mudaliar, Secretary of the National Union of Factory & Commercial Workers (Fiji).

AWU NATIONAL CONFERENCE Monika Theodorsson, Secretary of IFMetal (Sweden).

Bill Newson, National Secretary of the Engineering, Printing & Manufacturing Union 38 THE AUSTRALIAN WORKER www.awu.net.au (New Zealand).

MEET A MATE

DRIVING FORCE America’s UAW President, Bob King, has a strong message for workers in the Australian car industry.

“The AWU has given us a lot of support and we learn from each other when we work together...”

GLOBAL LINKS BOB KING A

s President of one of America’s largest unions, the United Auto Workers (UAW), Bob King has a clear message for Australians thinking of voting for Tony Abbott at September’s federal election. Think again!

Bob King is a legend of the American labour movement. During the automotive crisis of 2008-2010, he worked closely with American car manufacturers and Barack Obama’s administration to help keep the US industry afloat.

Attending the 2013 AWU National Conference as a representative of the 390,000-member-strong UAW, this is Bob’s first visit to Australian shores. He is keen to forge closer ties with this part of the world and, in particular, the AWU. “We have a common agenda to build power for workers globally. The AWU has given us a lot of support and we learn from each other when we work together. We’ve been building networks for many years now.”

Bob says that in today’s globalised world, multinational companies have an advantage over workers who aren’t well-organised. Only by standing strong can we compete fairly.

“The wins we have in our workplaces depend on power. In the US, if the UAW represented only 20 per cent of the workers in General Motor’s plants we’d get a lousy contract, but we have the power to bargain.

From a global perspective, when companies pit one group of workers against another, we all lose. Global solidarity is all about workers standing together.”

The UAW has been credited with playing a key role in the re-election of US President Barack Obama, and he believes Australian trade unionists can play a similar role before our September showdown.

“By going down to the delegate and local union levels, and the commitment of every local union leader to talk every day to their members about why the election was important, we won an amazing victory,” he

says. “I know you can do the same thing here.”

Although Bob is reticent to offer advice on the state of the Australian car industry, he believes that real change can happen in the workplace when all parties involved act in good faith.

“In the US, we had unions, management and government working together to save the industry. We restructured, we changed classifications and work rules, we agreed to some new terms. We made a number of sacrifices to save the industry, but the industry survived and it is now very strong.”

Bob was fearful of a Romney win at the 2012 US elections believing that Obama’s opponent would have offered little support for the car industry. Similarly, he shares the same concerns when viewing our political landscape as we head into a federal election campaign.

“I don’t know the Australian industry intricately, and I don’t want to be presumptuous, but a change of government could be catastrophic for the Australian car industry.”

www.awu.net.au THE AUSTRALIAN WORKER

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UNION BUSINESS

TEAM

SUPREME

With a newly elected Executive the AWU is set to tackle the future with the same commitment it has always shown. Michael Blayney takes a look at our Union, where it’s come from, and a couple of its famous mates!

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THE AUSTRALIAN WORKER www.awu.net.au

O

n the first morning of the 2013 Australian Workers’ Union Biennial National Conference, delegates and officials enjoyed a short film showcasing the Union’s proud heritage and bright future.

The centrepiece of the stirring footage featured Australian cinema legend Jack Thompson reciting a Henry Lawson poem, Freedom on the Wallaby. So popular was the film (and poem), a standing ovation followed its screening.

The story behind Henry’s poem is just as powerful as the words themselves.

Freedom on the Wallaby (or Blood on the Wattle as it is sometimes referred to) was first published by the celebrated labour movement advocate William Lane in the Queensland pages of The Worker (this magazine’s ancestor) on May 16, 1891.

Something of a prodigy, Henry was just 23 years of age when he wrote the poem, although he had been contributing prose and verse to publications for close to four years. His first printed foray was the urgent call-to-arms A Song of the Republic, published in The Bulletin in 1887.

When Henry wrote Freedom on the Wallaby, the bitter Queensland shearers’ strike had been dominating the industrial landscape throughout the colony for four long months. At the strikers’ campsites and under Barcaldine’s famed Tree of Knowledge, Henry’s ballad of solidarity was a favourite with both shearers and

sympathisers. Even today, it crackles with a rebellious spirit.

While the shearers were striking for better conditions and to halt a threatened loss of a third of their salaries, their bosses took arrogance to new lows. The Queensland squattocracy believed they were – as quoted in The Australian Pastoralists Review of 1891 – “men who by superior intelligence, enterprise, and business aptitude have built up for themselves pastoral properties…[and were] the real builders of the national wealth and prosperity of these colonies.’’

Just weeks after the Lawson poem was published, scab labour infiltrated the shearing sheds after open invitations were handed out by Queensland squatters supported by the government. As conditions in the strike camps deteriorated, proud shearers and their loyal families starved.

Armed policemen quickly moved in, effectively breaking up the strike, charging thirteen union leaders with sedition and conspiracy. The men were hurriedly tried in Rockhampton, controversially convicted, and sentenced to three years’ hard labour on St Helena Island. No freedom on the wallaby for this baker’s dozen!

On July 15, 1891, conservative politician and industrialist Frederick Brentnall disrespectfully recited the final two stanzas of Lawson’s poem in the Queensland Legislative Council as a “Vote of Thanks” to the armed policemen who ended the strike.

After Brentall’s parliamentary performance, calls were made in the conservative chamber for Henry Lawson to be arrested for sedition! The young poet was outraged. He immediately penned a response to Brentnall in The Worker, titled The Vote of Thanks Debate. In it, the poet took the Queensland MP to task for his “cold sarcastic style” and suggested that Brentnall’s “daily bread is buttered on the upper crust.”

The other night in Parliament you quoted something true, Where truth is very seldom heard except from one or two.

You know that when the people rise the other side must fall, And you are on the other side, and that explains it all.

Although the shearers’ strike was unsuccessful, the dispute marked the birth of the Australian labour movement, and Henry’s Freedom on the Wallaby has unofficially become the poem of The Australian Workers’ Union. To this day, it still represents our struggles.

ROARING JACK

job. Before his acting career took off, he was actually an AWU ticket holder himself. Furthermore, Jack played a union rep (and gun shearer) in the ‘70s Australian cinema classic Sunday Too Far Away.

This sensational Aussie flick chronicles the harsh life in a South Australian shearing shed during the nationwide 1956 strike. Once these facts had been unearthed, all the

boxes had been ticked. The job was obviously Jack’s!

“We know that Jack is a strong believer in fairness and social justice, and that he also has an interest in the poetry of Henry Lawson – who wrote for this very magazine,” says Paul. “We approached Jack to become involved in the project through his management, and we were thrilled when he agreed to come on board.”

Asking Jack Thompson to narrate Henry Lawson’s Freedom on the Wallaby was a no-brainer, according to AWU National Secretary Paul Howes. “When we were looking for an authentic Australian voice, the first person we thought of was Jack Thompson,” he says.

Just one look at Jack’s resume, and it was clear that he was the man for the

So we must fly a rebel flag, As others did before us, And we must sing a rebel song And join in rebel chorus.

We’ll make the tyrants feel the sting O’ those that they would throttle; They needn’t say the fault is ours If blood should stain the wattle!

www.awu.net.au THE AUSTRALIAN WORKER

41

UNION BUSINESS S

FREEDOM ON THE WALLABY

BY HENRY LAWSON Australia’s a big country An’ Freedom’s humping bluey, An’ Freedom’s on the wallaby Oh! don’t you hear ‘er cooey?

She’s just begun to boomerang, She’ll knock the tyrants silly, She’s goin’ to light another fire And boil another billy.

Our fathers toiled for bitter bread While loafers thrived beside ‘em, But food to eat and clothes to wear, Their native land denied ‘em.

An’ so they left their native land In spite of their devotion, An’ so they came, or if they stole, Were sent across the ocean.

Then Freedom couldn’t stand The glare O’ Royalty’s regalia, She left the loafers where they were, An’ came out to Australia.

But now across the mighty main The chains have come ter bind her – She little thought to see again The wrongs she left behind her.

Our parents toil’d to make a home Hard grubbin ‘twas an’ clearin’ They wasn’t troubled much with lords When they was pioneering.

But now that we have made the land A garden full of promise, Old Greed must crook ‘is dirty hand And come ter take it from us.

So we must fly a rebel flag, As others did before us, And we must sing a rebel song And join in rebel chorus.

We’ll make the tyrants feel the sting O’ those that they would throttle; They needn’t say the fault is ours If blood should stain the wattle!

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THE AUSTRALIAN WORKER www.awu.net.au

PERFECT MATCH Iconic actor Jack Thompson (left). was the natural choice to appear in the AWU’s film campaigning for Australian manufacturing.

Afterall, Jack was once an AWU member. His spine-tingling reading of Henry Lawson’s Freedom on the Wallaby does justice to the legendary poem.

2013 ELECTIONS COMPLETE RESULTS NATIONAL OFFICE N AT I O N A L S E C R E TA R Y

Paul Howes N AT I O N A L P R E S I D E N T

Bill Ludwig A S S I S TA N T N AT I O N A L S E C R E TA R Y

Scott McDine N AT I O N A L V I C E PRESIDENTS

Stephen Bali Peter Lamps Liam O’Brien Rodney Stockham Daniel Walton Marina Williams Sam Wood

NATIONAL EXECUTIVE Ben Swan Russ Collison Cesar Melhem Stephen Price Wayne Hanson Ian Wakefield Wayne Phillips Richard Downie Steve Baker Keith Ballin Peter Gunsberger Tracey Sharpe Kevin Brown Paul Noack John-Paul Blandthorn Frank Leo Mike Zoetbrood

QUEENSLAND BRANCH B R A N C H S E C R E TA R Y

Peter Gunsberger Hag Harrison Lisa Harrison Barry Martin James Martin Paul Robertson Matt Sellars Tracey Sharpe Troy Spence Tim Sullivan Peter Ward Sharon Winn BRANCH ORGANISERS

Tony Beers Hag Harrison Lisa Harrison Brenton Hill David Groessler Bede Harding Rob Carson Cathy Janetzki Jack Liston Barry Martin James Martin Paul Robertson Matt Sellars Marina Williams Sharon Winn Peter Ward

QLD SOUTH WESTERN DISTRICT BRANCH EXECUTIVE MEMBER

Tracey Sharpe

Tracey Sharpe D E L E G AT E TO B R A N C H D E L E G AT E S ’ M E E T I N G

Cathy Janetzki

QLD WESTERN DISTRICT BRANCH EXECUTIVE MEMBER

Cowboy Stockham

Tim Sullivan

BRANCH VICE PRESIDENTS

D I S T R I C T S E C R E TA R Y

Tim Sullivan

Tony Beers Peter Ward Zac Beers

QLD CENTRAL DISTRICT BRANCH EXECUTIVE MEMBER

Tony Beers

QLD METALS AND CONSTRUCTION DISTRICT

N AT I O N A L C O N FE R E N C E D E L E G AT E S

BRANCH EXECUTIVE MEMBER

Anthony Callinan Robert Parkinson Thomas Matheson

Troy Spence DISTRICT PRESIDENT

QLD NORTHERN DISTRICT BRANCH EXECUTIVE MEMBER

Paul Robertson

Marina Williams DISTRICT VICE PRESIDENT

D I S T R I C T S E C R E TA R Y

Cowboy Stockham D E L E G AT E S TO B R A N C H D E L E G AT E S MEETING

Rob Carson Hag Harrison Paul Robertson Michael Kerley

QLD FAR NORTHERN DISTRICT

Peter Gunsberger

Troy Spence D E L E G AT E S TO B R A N C H D E L E G AT E S ’ MEETING

Marina Williams Barry Martin

NEWCASTLE, CENTRAL COAST & NORTHERN REGIONS BRANCH Richard Downie BR ANCH PRESIDENT

Anthony Callinan D I S T R I C T S E C R E TA R Y

D E L E G AT E S TO B R A N C H D E L E G AT E S ’ MEETING

Lisa Harrison Sharon Winn

QLD SOUTHERN DISTRICT

B R A N C H A S S I S TA N T S E C R E TA R Y

John Boyd BRANCH VICE PRESIDENTS

Thomas Matheson Robert Parkinson ORGANISER/ BRANCH EXECUTIVE COMMIT TEE MEMBER

Paul Delaney BRANCH EXECUTIVE MEMBER

Don Bulow D I S T R I C T S E C R E TA R Y

D E L E G AT E S TO B R A N C H D E L E G AT E S ’ MEETING

Matt Sellars David Groessler Brenton Hill James Martin Terry Cross Wally Boulton Judy Jones

B R A N C H S E C R E TA R Y

Russ Collison BR ANCH PRESIDENT

B R A N C H S E C R E TA R Y BRANCH EXECUTIVE MEMBER

GREATER NSW BRANCH

Bede Harding D I S T R I C T S E C R E TA R Y

Steve Baker D E L E G AT E TO B R A N C H D E L E G AT E S ’ M E E T I N G

Tim Sullivan

Steve Baker Keith Ballin Tony Beers Don Bulow Rob Carson David Groessler

D E L E G AT E S TO B R A N C H D E L E G AT E S ’ MEETING

D I S T R I C T S E C R E TA R Y

BR ANCH PRESIDENT

N AT I O N A L C O N FE R E N C E D E L E G AT E S

Keith Ballin

Peter Gunsberger

Ben Swan

Keith Ballin Steve Baker Marina Williams

D I S T R I C T S E C R E TA R Y

BRANCH EXECUTIVE COMMIT TEE MEMBERS

Evan Lawless Neville Freund Vieslav Smolarz Janey Zycki Bill McGuinness John Hicks Wayne Pringle Gerard Sissingh Paul O’Brien Brett Slavin Kate Thomson Mark Hughes

Bob Fraser B R A N C H A S S I S TA N T S E C R E TA R Y

Stephen Bali BRANCH VICE PRESIDENTS – FULL TIME

Kevin Brown Glenn Seton BRANCH VICE PRESIDENTS

Peter Kelly Robert O’Neill O FFI C I A L S/ BRANCH EXECUTIVE COMMIT TEE MEMBERS

Paul Farrow Terence O’Connor BRANCH EXECUTIVE COMMIT TEE MEMBERS

David Boreland Jeffrey Buhler Geoffrey Dawson Robert Dunn Lorna Fairless Jason Freudenreich Anthony Garay Ross Hillary Blanca Livioco Craig Mason Ian Morley Patrick Murray Paul Noack Peter Quirk Christopher Ryan Steven Ryan John Scott Ian Thomas Garth Toner Leah Tucker N AT I O N A L C O N FE R E N C E D E L E G AT E S

Salim Barbar Kevin Brown

www.awu.net.au THE AUSTRALIAN WORKER

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UNION BUSINESS

2013 ELECTIONS COMPLETE RESULTS Paul Farrow Paul Noack Terence O’Connor Robert O’Neill Glenn Seton Leah Tucker

PORT KEMBLA, SOUTH COAST & SOUTHERN HIGHLANDS BRANCH

Ilija Sukoski Glenn Leake Risto Tancevski Les Millar Brett Withers N AT I O N A L C O N FE R E N C E D E L E G AT E S

Sean Burke Brett Withers

B R A N C H S E C R E TA R Y

Cesar Melhem BR ANCH PRESIDENT

BR ANCH PRESIDENT

Branko Gorgievski

Jimmy Mastradonakis

B R A N C H A S S I S TA N T S E C R E TA R Y

B R A N C H A S S I S TA N T S E C R E TA R I E S

Dave Hancock ORGANISER/ BRANCH EXECUTIVE COMMIT TEE MEMBER

Boris Baraldi BRANCH VICE PRESIDENTS

Caner Karasu Sean Burke BRANCH EXECUTIVE COMMIT TEE MEMBERS

Colin Langlands Joe Fernandes William Beaumont Peter Armstrong Saso Stojanoski Robert Turford Gregg Davies

Joel Archer Shane Burd Susan Carey Heidemarie Dixon Peter King Harry Lumanovski Rodney Lynn Brett Noonan Paul Spear Neill Tacey

VICTORIAN BRANCH

B R A N C H S E C R E TA R Y

Wayne Phillips

BRANCH EXECUTIVE COMMIT TEE MEMBERS

Benedict Davis Frank Leo BRANCH VICE PRESIDENTS (FULL TIME)

John-Paul Blandthorn Colin Heath Graeme Rae

N AT I O N A L C O N FE R E N C E D E L E G AT E S

Joe Alaalatoa Dennis Bradford Ray Christie Tanya Green Bill Hector Len Hosking Peter King Brett Noonan Geoffrey Terrill Ray West

SOUTH AUSTRALIAN BRANCH B R A N C H S E C R E TA R Y

BRANCH VICE PRESIDENTS

Wayne Hanson

Liam O’Brien Shannon Threlfall-Clarke

BR ANCH PRESIDENT

ORGANISER/ BRANCH EXECUTIVE COMMIT TEE MEMBERS

Sam Beechey Rita Nasr Gavin Penn Jeff Sharp Dick Stomps

44

Gary Henderson Michael Hopgood Joseph Kane Scott Martin BRANCH ORGANISER

Peter Lamps BRANCH EXECUTIVE COMMIT TEE MEMBERS

B R A N C H A S S I S TA N T S E C R E TA R Y

Frank Mateos BRANCH VICE PRESIDENTS

Terry Bails Kristen Rogers

BRANCH EXECUTIVE COMMIT TEE MEMBERS

Alanah Donaghy Stephen Dowling Phillip Garth Bill Lowe Ross Richardson Peter Ward N AT I O N A L C O N FE R E N C E D E L E G AT E

Robert Flanagan

Ian Ashmore Nathan Crack Marcus Hanson Martin Hilton Joseph Mezzini Martin O’Connor Nick Pettina Jim Phelan Colin Shooter Sue Sonntag Trish Stringer

WEST AUSTRALIAN BRANCH

N AT I O N A L C O N FE R E N C E D E L E G AT E S

Paul Asplin

Gary Henderson Michael Hopgood Jospeh Kane

TASMANIAN BRANCH

Peter Lamps B R A N C H S E C R E TA R Y

Ian Wakefield BR ANCH PRESIDENT

Laurie Gregson B R A N C H A S S I S TA N T S E C R E TA R Y

B R A N C H S E C R E TA R Y

Stephen Price BR ANCH PRESIDENT

Andy Hacking B R A N C H A S S I S TA N T S E C R E TA R Y

BRANCH VICE PRESIDENTS

Chris King Jake Pascoe BRANCH EXECUTIVE COMMIT TEE MEMBERS

Dene Cullen Matthew Dixon Gary Free Tristan Gulvin Peter Hampton Nik Pavlovic Craig Ramirez Dee Solly Mike Zoetbrood

Robert Flanagan BR ANCH VICEPRESIDENT

STOP PRESS! The AWU is delighted to announce that Ben Davis (right), a long-serving member of the Union’s National Executive, has been elected unopposed as the new AWU Victorian Branch Secretary.

Ben’s appointment, effective immediately, fills the position left vacant by the resignation of Cesar Melhem, who is now a member of the Victorian Legislative Council.

Ben has worked with the Union for the past 18 years as an organiser, in both Melbourne and rural Victoria,

ORGANISER/ BRANCH EXECUTIVE COMMIT TEE MEMBERS

A L C OA P I N JA R R A S U B BR ANCH PRESIDENT

Stuart Allen

Jill Reid

a Victorian Vice President and a member of the Union’s National Executive.

“Our Branch is nothing without the tireless work of our delegates, members and staff,” Ben says. “I’m honoured for the opportunity to work alongside them in this role.”

Ben said that his predecessor, Cesar Melhem, leaves with the eternal graditude and admiration of the membership and staff alike.

The AWU thanks Cesar for his hard work and dedication and wishes him the very best in his new role.

THE AUSTRALIAN WORKER www.awu.net.au

BRANCH ORGANISER/ BRANCH EXECUTIVE COMMIT TEE MEMBER

A L C OA P I N JA R R A S U B B R A N C H S E C R E TA R Y

Clifford Hope

Don Hayes A L C OA P I N JA R R A SUB-BRANCH VICE PRESIDENTS

Adam Draper Darren Enright N AT I O N A L C O N FE R E N C E D E L E G AT E S

Paul Asplin Andy Hacking Simon Price Mike Zoetbrood

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SPORT

One-time amateur boxer Chris Ryan shares a bout of nostalgia at New York’s famed Gleason’s Gym.

SAVED BY

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THE AUSTRALIAN WORKER www.awu.net.au

BELL

Bruce Silverglade lives the dream at Gleason’s Gym.

B

oxing is dead, the glory days long gone. Now fight fans want to see the kicking and grappling of the UFC’s cage fighting. They dismiss boxing as one-dimensional. But I count myself amongst followers of the one true faith. I boxed from when I was 13 until I was 22 and have never been able to shake my love for the sport.

That’s why I’m climbing the steps to Gleason’s Gym in New York at 6am on a Saturday.

In a sport that relishes tales of the past, Gleason’s Gym is a link to the days when boxing was king. It was opened in 1937 by Robert Gagliardi, who changed his name to Bobby Gleason to appeal to Irish fight fans, and dozens of boxing greats have walked through its doors to work their trade.

Legends of the sport like Jake LaMotta came out of Gleason’s. Muhammad Ali prepared for his fight against Sonny Liston there, and Panama’s Roberto Duran used it as his American base.

As I head up two flights of stairs to the gym’s entrance a grey-haired man, a little stooped, trudges ahead of me carrying a leather satchel. I recognise him as the gym’s owner, Bruce Silverglade, and introduce myself. The gym doesn’t open until 7am on the weekend, he tells me, but I’m welcome to come in early.

He unlocks the heavy grey door, revealing a dark cavern. He tells me to wait by the doorway. “I wouldn’t want you tripping over anything,” he says.

I stand in a small rectangle of light as he disappears into the darkness.

Gleason’s was originally in the Bronx, moved to Manhattan in 1974, and came to its current home in the shadow of the Brooklyn Bridge in 1984. I wonder if I’ll still feel the history after all the moves.

Rows of fluorescent lights flicker then reveal the gym. The floor is a mottled grey, paint worn away unevenly. The walls are painted blood red. The gym is huge, with four boxing rings, 10 punching bags and plenty of open space.

The most striking thing is the stench: that strong odour of stale sweat and almost-rotted leather.

“I don’t even smell it anymore,” Bruce tells me. “My nose is burned out.”

He bought into the gym back 1983, then took an early retirement from his office job to devote himself to Gleason’s.

“I never looked back,” he says. “There was a financial disruption, but it didn’t matter. I turned my love into my profession.”

THE SWEET SCIENCE In his office I pay $85 for a month’s membership. He lends me a skipping rope and I walk out into the gym alone. Normally a noisy place, where bags are thumped and jingle on chains, trainers bark instructions and speedballs rat-a-tat, it’s eerily quiet, like a cathedral waiting for a choir to bring it to life.

There’s a tick of leather on concrete as I skip, punctuated by the beeping of the electronic timer. As I warm up I move around the gym, taking it all in.

Black lockers are decorated with news clippings and fight posters. Above a row of exercise bikes there’s a large poster. A quote attributed to Virgil reads, “Now, whoever has courage and a strong and collected spirit in his breast let him come forward, lace on the gloves and put up his hands.”

The full-length mirrors are flecked with dried sweat. You can sense the blood and sweat shed by hundreds of boxers in the pursuit of all too elusive glory. The magic,

the sense of history, is still there.

I’m not the only one who feels it. Alicia Ashley, the World Boxing Council (WBC) women’s super bantamweight champ, tells me about the attraction.

“Any other gym you go to has a totally different feel. They are so modern. This has kept the old-fashioned gym with the exercise machines and everything. It’s a whole different intensity. When you are here, you want to train and you want to feel immersed.

Even if you don’t box, you have that feeling.”

The no-frills gym attracts an unpretentious crowd.

“The people here aren’t stuck up. You’ll train among champions and they’ll act like they are your best friends,” she continues, her unmarked face belying her ring experience and her 45 years.

Alicia was one of the first women at the gym 17 years ago. Now there are hundreds of female members.

Bruce says the diversity of the gym reflects the city.

“A boxing gym, and particularly Gleason’s, is just another cross-section of New York City.

I have 67 nationalities here. My youngest is six years old, my oldest is 87. I have heads of corporations, doctors, lawyers and teachers.

I also have kids from the projects with limited amounts of money, so there’s a tremendous diversity. And there’s respect for everyone.

“There is a mutual respect and mutual admiration, because it takes a lot of courage to step through those ropes. Your level of ability doesn’t matter – your fear, your adrenaline, is the same whether you’re a world champion, or you’re a businessman or woman. There’s a respect for that.”

Bruce has no time for the heckling armchair critic.

www.awu.net.au THE AUSTRALIAN WORKER

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SPORT

Hector Roca the top-shelf boxing trainer who trained Hilary Swank for the hit film Million Dollar Baby.

Boxing legend Jake LaMotta, right, in the ring with Tiberio Mitri.

Jake trained at Gleason’s Gym.

Alicia Ashley WBC Women’s Super Bantamweight champ.

“When you are here, you want to train and you want to feel immersed. Even if you don’t box, you have that feeling.”

“Fans say, ‘He’s a bum.’ The person who says that doesn’t understand what it takes to be a boxer. They are sitting on their couch eating chips and saying, ‘I can do that,’ but they won’t get off the couch and go through the strenuous training it takes to be a boxer.”

There are dozens of trainers working out of Gleason’s. Ashley, who trains fighters herself, tells me, “There are a lot of characters, you couldn’t even write a book about it.

“You have some that are rivals. Today they are talking to each other, tomorrow they are not, and the next day they are back together. It’s a big dysfunctional family.”

One of the more colourful characters is John Douglas, who wears a gaudy purple Yankee’s cap. I talk to him while he’s sitting on one of the bicycles watching sparring.

He fought for Guyana in the 1996 Summer Olympics, then moved to America.

John, his accent still heavy, says, “My dream was to be world champion, five times, but they deny me that.”

Like any boxer will tell you, the judges just didn’t get the decisions right.

“I still have hopes,” John says. “That’s why I’m still training at 40. Foreman won at 43.”

He laughs, but goes on to explain how training fighters has honed his skills.

“It makes me be the best boxer in the world,” he says. “Nobody can beat me.

Because I see all their mistakes, it opens my eyes to a lot of things I never see.

“I’ll beat anybody, because I ain’t scared of nobody,” he laughs again. “God is my best friend. Once the Creator is your best friend, you have nothing to worry about.”

As the day draws on the gym grows busier. There are kids, just learning,

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THE AUSTRALIAN WORKER www.awu.net.au

awkwardly lunging over their skipping ropes. Inside one boxing ring a couple of novices spar, faces red as they trade punches frantically and ineffectually.

In another ring, two seasoned boxers throw punches with purpose. Delon Parsley Snr, known to all as ‘Blimp’, is preparing his son, Delon Jr, for a fight. Delon Jnr moves around the ring as smoothly as a cobra, throwing punches at his opponent from unexpected angles.

In his time, Blimp sparred the likes of Mike Tyson and Lennox Lewis.

“I love the art of boxing,” he says. “You got to look out for yourself. You can’t tag out. You can’t take a break. I love the chess game of the sweet science.”

Of Gleason’s he says, “I love the atmosphere, it’s real raw. I love the purity of it. It’s not coming to work here, it’s like coming somewhere to have a nice time.”

EYES ON THE PRIZE Hector Roca, a weathered, heavy-set trainer originally from Panama, is up at 4am on weekdays to be in the gym when it opens.

“If I don’t come I feel like I missed out on something,” he says in a thick accent.

He invites me into his small office.

Dominoes are scattered on the table. Hector plays for cash games when the gym is quiet.

Not that he is too worried about money.

“With [light welterweight champ] Arturo Gatti I make millions of dollars, and I lose everything, but I’m happy,” he says, as he tells me about the fallout from a divorce.

“I need the money to live, but money don’t mean everything. When you dying, money don’t want to care for you.”

Walls are papered with photos of Hector with famed boxers. There’s a signed picture from his countryman Roberto Duran and a photo with Hilary Swank, who he trained for the film Million Dollar Baby. He pulls out a photo album and shows me a picture of himself with Australia’s Jeff Fenech, when the two of them were about 20kg lighter.

Like Alicia Ashley says, there is something about the being at Gleason’s that makes you want to dig deep and train harder. It might be that trainers like Roca are looking on, silently judging, finding you wanting if you slack off, or that you’re following in the steps of the greats.

After a month in the gym I’m feeling a touch of the ‘John Douglases’. I’m thinking that maybe I could make a comeback and find the success that eluded me as an amateur; that, despite retiring 10 years ago, my best days are ahead of me. I wonder if I should ask Bruce about doing some sparring.

Then I remember some advice another Gleason’s trainer, Don Saxby, gave me: “Boxing doesn’t like everybody, as much as they would like to do it. There are certain things in life you are just not going to grab.

You can want it, you can like it, but boxing is not for everybody.”

There’s no doubt that I liked boxing more than it liked me. I fought some of the best in Australia, but would never be number one.

I spent countless hours in the gym and never won so much as a State title. The best move I ever made in the sport was getting out.

I leave the gym glad I got to train at the still-beating heart of New York’s boxing world, and relieved I wasn’t silly enough to climb through the ropes one more time.

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This advertisement contains general information only and is issued by FSS Trustee Corporation (ABN 11 118 202 672, AFSL 293340) as Trustee of the First State Superannuation Scheme (ABN 53 226 460 365). Any advice it contains does not take into account your specific objectives, financial situation or needs. Consider the Product Disclosure Statement available at www.firststatesuper.com.au or by calling 1300 650 873 before making a decision in relation to your membership. Financial planning services are provided by Health Super Financial Services Pty Ltd (HSFS) (ABN 37 096 452 318, AFSL 240019) trading as FSS Financial Planning (FSSFP) and Health Super Financial Planning (HSFP), which is wholly owned by the FSS Trustee Corporation. HSFS is responsible for the advice they provide. November 2012.

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WORDSEARCH B

EDITED & ILLUSTRATED: Melissa Martin

indi & Ringer have made a list of some of the things to do with outer space and they want you to find them in the wordsearch grid. The words run both across, down and diagonally – in either direction.

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