Preston Motors, strike over - workers win : Melbourne Indymedia

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Preston Motors, strike over
The month long dispute at Preston Motors is over. A breakthrought came on April 13 and NUW workers voted to return to work.

Lessons learnt
Yet again another employer has been forced to negotiate with the relevent union in dispute through community assemblies and wider support. Congratulation to the workers at Preston Motors who stuck together and were successful in achieving a much improved union EBA (Enterprise Bargaing Agreement)

Press Release Preston Motors dispute ends

http://www.nuw.org.au/articles/vic/MediaReleases/prestonends

Monday April 16, 2007
Preston Motors workers are back at work after a month-long dispute

Preston Motors’ Campbellfield warehouse workers returned to work today (Monday, April 16) after successfully negotiating an end to their four-week dispute with the company.

The workers met late on Friday to accept a revised offer from the company that resolved the dispute amicably for both parties.

Victorian State Secretary Antony Thow said the settlement was a great outcome for the Preston Motors’ warehouse employees.

“The wage increase the employees have successfully negotiated will make a significant difference when trying to provide for themselves and their families.

“This new Union Collective Agreement will take a lot of pressure off the weekly budgets of these workers and enable them to make ends meet in the face of rising living costs.”

Thow also said the employees had displayed incredible resolve and dignity throughout their month-long protest.

“These workers are not highly paid by anyone’s standards. However, they know they are entitled to wages that reflect their hard work each week.

“The workers’ victory at Preston despite the Howard Government’s attempts to make collective action all but impossible for working people shows the only real way that workers can gain the rights and recognition they deserve is when they act together through their union.”

No strikes without secret votes: Rudd

Matthew Franklin (Mint) April 17, 2007
Duh Orstrayon

STRIKES would be banned without secret ballots under a Labor Government, and workers in small businesses would be given a year of
coverage under unfair dismissal laws - a protection removed under the
Howard Government's Work Choices laws. Opposition Leader Kevin Rudd announced his surprise plan today in an adddress to the National Press Club.

He said Labor, badgered by the Howard Government for being in the pockets of trade unions, accepted it could not take the nation back to the industrial arrangements of a previous aged.

Under a Rudd Government, the only industrial relations that would be legal would be conducted during a bargaining period for a collective agreement and would be subject to a secret ballot among emplyees.

“Industrial disputes are serious,” Mr Rudd said. “They hurt workers, they hurt businesses ... and they certainly hurt the economy.”

But he said Labor would craft fairer workplace laws that would give families security and guaranteed family time.

"Australia can go forward without throwing a fair go
out the back door,” said Mr Rudd, restating his promise to scrap Work
Choices with its emphasis on individual workplace contracts that exclude trade unions.

He said that giving small business employees unfair dismissal protection was common-sense and would give employees ample time to priove themselves before they could be sacked without the right to press unfair dismissal claims.

He also defended his party's decision to adopt a target to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 60 percent by 2050, rejecting John Howards' ongoing criticism that such action represents panic and will cost Australian jobs.

Mr Rudd said his position was “the balanced response” to the problem of global warming.

“The time for practical action is now,” Mr Rudd said.

He said failure to act now to clamp down on emissions would cost jobs.

"McCarthyism" at Virgin Blue

Pilot fatigue and pay are not the only stress points in the flight roster disagreements that have made it hard for Virgin Blue to stick to its schedules.

There is the relationship with the Australian Federation of Air Pilots, the union which most people might have thought had the life crushed out of it by Bob Hawke's response to the domestic pilots strike of 1989.

The AFAP didn't die. It represents about four out of five Virgin Blue pilots. It also covers about one in three Jetstar pilots and most of those flying for Qantas regional carriers like Sunstate. But for Virgin Blue, the AFAP was a critical element of its early success and some pilots are saying that the dispute is a sharp reminder that the original culture of the airline is now broken.

Those that stuck with the AFAP under the presidency of Captain Brian McCarthy were blacklisted for life after the 1989 strike, and forced overseas to fly. Virgin Blue brought them back after 12 years or longer in exile. And they gave the new airline the depth and breadth of piloting experience that provided an operational integrity it could not have acquired from scratch to grow from two 737s to a fleet of 32 in less than three years from launch. It has 53 jets in service today with another 30 or so due in service over the next three years.

In 1989, the AFAP action was locked out by the employers the ALP government and ACTU; activists were shut out of the industry and international scabs brought in.

Today, unsafe rosters will harm pilots, flight crews and passengers, an unacceptable safety risks. Some AFAP members say the airline is doing individual deals with pilots, something they claim management sees as important as the 'original' pilots retire and take their union with them.

Management isn't saying anything, other than that it is getting on with a constructive dialogue. And while these issues get 'resolved', one interested onlooker must be Captain Brian McCarthy, who flies for Virgin Blue, and is said to be happy not to have made any headlines for nearly 18 years.

The Pilots crime was not be worshipping at the altar of the Accord, like the BLF who were deregistered by the ALP State and Federal regimes.
The Nurses in 1986 were also vilified, ried by media and prosecuted by the Another Liberal Party State and Federal regimes...is there a esson here for workers ? Vote Howard out but watch ya back when Politicians are about especially ALP ones kids !

Funny how an industrial dispute involving fewer than 100 members has been resolved, despite Work Choices. The union has 'won', as the above writer asserts. Notwithstanding Work Choices.

Love to all the Striking workers, their families and unionists, well done.

Workers are being warned they will not be insured for death or disability if their employer has not made correct superannuation contributions.

The Australian Tax Office (ATO) says about 10,000 employers underpay superannuation contributions each year.

John Berrill, from law firm Maurice Blackburn Cashman, says many superannuation policies include death and disability insurance which lapses when a payment is low or late.

"If you get hit by a truck and you become disabled or you die, then what the Tax Office can be looking at claiming after that is a refund of the superannuation contributions," he said.

"But they will not pursue the employer for the lost insurance benefits and we can be talking here about large six-figure sums."

http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/200704/s1899969.htm

For arguments sake let's say Lab just happened not to throw the election by coming up with say, an anti strike policy? Just Hypothetical of course?

Then say Lab wins! Yay! No?

At the next COAG meeting there is no real opposition to new Anti-Terror laws for opening your mouth more than five times in one day?

Labor agrees with Labor that that's okay now. No one argued at all!

Then on that basis Lab does what it wants?

So how does that work? Come on smarty I'm just stupid! Never went to school either!

Now I put it to you clearly as my proposition that in fact, Labor cannot Win on that basis because the Neo-Liberal Coalition would not allow it, for a start!

Who controls everything? They do!

The second point is that it wouldn't look right to the general public if and when a controversial issue come up.

What line of defence has either Lib or Lab come up with as a proposition to an event whereby one part ruled States, Territories, and the Central Gov't?

I rest my case!

Mr Speaker!

What did I say!

=================

The Business Council of Australia says the current Council of Australian Governments (COAG) model needs to be overhauled because it is [incapable of addressing important national issues.]

The BCA says the relation between the federal and state governments is one of five key areas that politicians should focus on reforming as part of their federal election promises.

The BCA's president Michael Chaney says an overhaul of COAG will help make any reforms more effective.

[THE LIES]

"We simply can't afford a system of federal state relations which meets only occasionally, this year just once for half a day, decides erratically and follows through irregularly," he said.

"Businesses have really stopped believing in the effectiveness of COAG as it currently stands." [LIES]

Mr Chaney says reforming state-federal relations is the key to progress in education, workplace relations and business regulation.

"Frankly if the states aren't prepared to make regulatory reform a priority issue, it makes sense of the Commonwealth to take over repsonsibility for business rules and reuglations that are inefficient and inconsistent," he said.

"They've made life very costly and cumbersome for businesses operating in this country."

http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/200704/s1899792.htm

COAG is only for PNAC Neo-Liberal Dictators! This is just a nonsense by the Business Council to say that under a Labor Gov't considering they have control of the STATES and TERRITORIES THAT COAG CAN'T WORK.

OF COURSE IT CAN'T WORK!

That's the real reason because it can't work if one party ruled the nation can it? DICTATORSHIP!