Geelong Trades Hall Council backs AWU secretary Howes on refugees

"Geelong Trades Hall Council backs Australian Workers Union national secretary Paul Howes 100% in his call for Australia to roll out the red carpet for refugees", Tim Gooden, the GTHC secretary said today. (Pictured right).

"It's a relief that a union movement figure of Howes' importance stands up and rejects the miserable competition between the Rudd government and the Coalition on who can be 'toughest' on people smugglers", Gooden added. "Howes is completely right when he says that the issue 'brings out the worst in our politicians'."

"How ironic that the Rudd government's refusal to let a few boatfuls of people fleeing death and persecution in Sri Lanka enter Australia coincides with the 60th anniversary of the beginning of the Snowy River Scheme," Gooden said. "The Chifley Labor government helped build this country by welcoming people fleeing war and persecution, but Rudd Labor increasingly resembles Howard's, one of the most racist in Australian history."

"It's even reached the point where it is sending demountables from the Baxter detention centre--suspected of dangerously high formaldehyde content--to Christmas Island to house asylum-seekers there."

"The Geelong Trades Hall Council calls on the entire trade union movement to follow the lead given by the AWU national secretary, and for it to mobilise public opinion against Canberra's bi-partisan bullies of refugees."

Gooden concluded: "The Australian Council of Trade Unions must stand up against the inhumanity of the politicians. Geelong Trades Hall Council will be doing all

Comment: Tim Gooden (0438 088 112)

Geelong Sandwich-Gate #2: Victory!

From Green Left Weekly:

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Fight reinstates Geelong workers

Lisa Gleeson, Geelong

16 August 2009


Two Geelong council workers who were sacked on July 24 for accepting free steak sandwiches from a Geelong club owner have been reinstated. The victory followed an escalation in the two-week-old dispute, when the Australian Services Union (ASU) members walked off the job on August 10.

Mick Van Beek and Peter Anderson were sacked for filling in a pothole at the Leopold Sportsman's Club car park with material bound for the local tip in November 2008.
Eight months later a “whistleblower” alerted council to the pair's actions, which led to their sacking. The council said the pair were found guilty of theft, fraud and using council materials for personal benefit.

The alleged “personal benefit” came in the form of two steak sandwiches that the owner of the club insisted the workers take — more than a week later.

Geelong city council backed down on August 13 and agreed to reinstate the workers. The settlement negates all allegations made against them.

The sackings sparked an enormous public outcry. It made the front pages of local media most days and provided a hot topic for local talk-back radio. Commercial TV station vans became a familiar sight outside the city hall.

Supporters joked that the workers were getting more media coverage than the town's AFL team, the Geelong Cats. The campaign included street marches, union leaflets, stop work meetings, solidarity T-shirts, a satirical cartoon and even a commemorative song from the Geelong Trades Hall Choir called, “There's a hole in my car park”.

At the height of the campaign all council depots were closed and workers joined community supporters to picket city hall council meetings. Hundreds dressed in yellow T-shirts with the slogan: “Rein-steak Peter and Mick.” They noisily chanted: “Touch one, touch all.”

Geelong Trades Hall secretary Tim Gooden told Green Left Weekly: “The community had quite clearly said that enough was enough. We had people from all walks of life and all the unions coming in to lend a hand so we could build a campaign to get their jobs back.

“One of the local pubs even gave away free steak sandwiches to all council workers one lunch time. At the end of the day the unity and solidarity built by the ASU's industrial campaign, supported by the community and organised through Geelong Trades Hall, won out.”

The Geelong Sandwich-gate Affair #1

From the Geelong Trades Hall Council blogsite:

Get online to help defend sacked workers

Send an email to City of Greater Geelong CEO and Councillors against their decision to sack ASU members Mick Van Beek and Peter Anderson!

The ASU is appalled at the decision handed down by the City of Greater Geelong to sack union members Mick Van Beek and Peter Anderson.To support Mick and Peter, click on this link:

http://www.asu.asn.au/campaign/cogg2009-07/protest/protest_form.htmlhttp://www.asu.asn.au/campaign/cogg2009-07/protest/protest_form.html

to send an email protest form to the CEO and Councillors at the City of Greater Geelong. It will take less than a minute!The pair were unjustly given their marching orders after they filled in two pot holes that were hazardous to elderly patrons of the Leopold Sportsman Club last November during their lunch break, receiving two free steak sandwiches at management's insistence a week later.Assistant Secretary Igor Grattan has announced the ASU will doing everything within its power to help Van Beek and Anderson get their jobs back.

To support Mick and Peter, click here http://www.asu.asn.au/campaign/cogg2009-07/protest/protest_form.html send an email protest form to the CEO and Councillors at the City of Greater Geelong.

It will take less than a minute!More information can be found at:
http://www.asuvic.asn.au/geelong_workers_sacked.pdf
http://www.asu.asn.au/media/localgovt/20090729_steaksandwich.html

It's a corporate crisis: let the corporations pay

By Tim Gooden, Secretary Geelong and Regional Trades and Labour Council

At an Australia Day reception, Prime Minister Kevin Rudd said of the economic crisis: ``In these times, employers must do their utmost to protect their workers from dismissal, knowing that these workers will serve them well when times turn good again.''

Tell that to the 1850 workers sacked by Pacific Brands, or the 3300 set to be axed by BHP Billiton or Rio Tinto's 2000 or any of the 23,000 who have been shown the door by corporate Australia since June last year.

Many employers are saying “we are all in the same boat” facing the global economic crisis. But most of the rhetoric from government and big business has been about preparing workers to pay for the crisis.

All the calls have been for wage freezes, shorter working week, cuts to immigration and increases in government subsidies to support industries.

Workers did not create this economic crisis. It's not workers that have been speculating on the futures market. Yet it is workers that spend and create the demand that brings about economic growth.

Unions want to save our members' jobs and ensure they maintain their living standards. The global financial crisis isn’t just clipping the wings of grossly overpaid bank executives and speculators in shonky “financial instruments”. It’s going to hit ordinary working people hard.

Areas where unemployment rates are higher than the national average willbe worst hit. And it won’t be just blue collar workers in traditional manufacturing, like the several hundreds at Ford Geelong. Victoria University in Melbourne’s West recently announced redundancies: 250 staff (19% of teaching and general staff). Meanwhile BHP's decision to close the Ravensworth nickel mine will completely devastate the entire town.

Economic figures show that while productivity increased 79% between 1979 and today, real wages have only increased 12%. Employers took the cream during the boom – now they expect workers to pay for the downturn.

There are a number of things we can do in Geelong. First of all manufacturing employers should be attending the Geelong Manufacturing Council to contribute to workout solutions. There are already good programs and funding to support business transition to more efficient operations and moves to develop sustainable production and the creation of ‘green jobs’. Training and planning for future challenges is critical for long term viability.

We need a single office front that can support all workers and businesses that are going through transition -- a single point that can identify what jobs are coming and going and any skill gaps in those changes in order to make sure the correct training and support programs are in place to meet the needs of workers and businesses.

Unions should also be campaigning for government intervention that is aimed at job-rich spending. The government has a responsibility to spend money to keep people employed and provide services, not to stimulate profits. Neither should the government be looking to cut public sector jobs – that will only make things worse. Long-term investment in public transport infrastructure and the transition to environmentally sustainable production is a must. The Government should focus on real practical changes such as:

• Giving pensioners and the unemployed a living wage now, at the very least 35% of average weekly earnings.
• Speed up public spending on sorely needed infrastructure. Invest in rail, renewable energy, and decent public housing, health and education
• Nationalise the banks and run them in the community interest, beginning with the re-nationalisation of the Commonwealth Bank.

This might seem an “extreme” policy to some, but l the US and British governments have already conducted crisis nationalisations.

Some companies will go broke, indeed some already have. When this happens, a factory closure must be stopped until the unions and the government sees what part of such a plant could be used and retooled to carry out socially useful alternative production Let's hear the union leaderships really demand this approach from governments who say they put "working families first.

The Australian manufacturing base as a whole should be kept running, if necessary by worker/union control to force the Federal government and state governments to take a stand. Big business should be forced to make special payments to help fund the operation.

Finally, let's see the ACTU and our union leaderships fight for industrial legislation that tears up Work Choices. Only decent, enforceable employment laws will prevent workers from further exploitation. The corporations made the current economic mess: working people and their organisations need all the strength they can command to help clean it up.

Tim Gooden - Secretary Geelong and Regional Trades and Labour Council. This commentary was originally published in the Geelong Times

Socialist Alliance 6th National Conference, Dec 5-7 - Highlights

December 5-7 Geelong Trades Hall, Geelong

SPECIAL PUBLIC FORUM

Saturday, December 6
Financial Meltdown – What Response?
• The financial, environmental and social roots of the crisis
Jamie Doughney (Victoria University) David Spratt (Carbon Equity Project) Lisa Macdonald (Socialist Alliance)

• Building the worker, community and environmentalist alliance against the crisis
Dave Kerin (Union Solidarity) John Rice (Adelaide Ecosocialists) Luke van der Muelen (CFMEU, La Trobe Valley), Mel Barnes (Resistance)

• What politics and campaigns to rebuild the union movement?
Noel Washington (CFMEU), Chris Cain (WA MUA)*

• Latin America’s struggle for a new world
Nelson Dávila (Chargé d’affaires, Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela)

• The Great Socialist Afghan Feast

Rob Stary (Civil rights lawyer) & Margarita Windisch (Socialist Alliance)

Sunday, December 7
Socialist Alliance Perspectives and Tasks in 2009
Sue Bolton (Victorian State Convener)

• Socialist Alliance tasks in the Indigenous rights movement
Sam Watson (Socialist Alliance Indigenous Rights Spokesperson), Pat Eatock (Aboriginal Rights Coalition)

• Socialist Alliance work in the environment movement
David White (National Environment Coordinator), Cam Walker (Friends of the Earth)

• Strengthening ties with the migrant left
Soubhi Iskander (Communist Party of Sudan, Socialist Alliance), Dr Brian Seneviratne (Fighter for Tamil rights, Socialist Alliance), Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front, Turan Ertekin (Party of Labour, Turkey, Socialist Alliance)

* To be confirmed

Read More...

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No co-operation with the ABCC!

Dear Comrades,

These new penal laws that the ABCC rely on have been around for over two years and nearly 12 months of the current Government. Now there is a real risk that workers will start going to gaol for being unionist and organising workers. I think it's time to start putting words into action. Now is the time to decide which side you're on.

I am standing beside Noel Washington and pledging no cooperation with the ABCC.

These are bad laws and are only designed to weaken the union movement and conditions for workers. I cannot support a Government that supports these laws and allows workers to be dragged before the courts for being unionist.

Please sign up and let the Government know we are serious. There can be only one outcome to this and that is workers win the right to organise the way we want to. Not the way that makes the bosses and the Government happy.

We are not slaves and our organisers are not criminals.

Yours in Solidarity
Tim Gooden
Secretary Geelong Trades Hall Council

Labor Omnia Vincit

Text of sign-on statement:

No co-operation with the ABCC

The Australian Building and Construction Commission is an ideologically driven organisation and was set up by the Howard Coalition government in October 2005 to destroy the effectiveness of the unions in the building industry. These unions have led the way in setting benchmark wages and standards of health and safety that have benefitted all working Australians. The ABCC operates like a police force with extensive coercive powers and secret investigations. There is no right to silence- refusing to attend hearings or answer questions can lead to a six-month jail sentence.

The ABCC's predecessor, the Building Industry Task Force, was set up after the $60 million Cole Royal Commission into the building industry. Contrary to the claims of some bosses and media, the Commission found that there is no "endemic lawlessness" perpetrated by the unions in the building industry. We are asking for nothing more than what employers already have; the right to meet with our members and representatives, before, during and after work and the right to defend our working conditions.

Penalising unions for representing workers' rights using hefty fines and threats of imprisonment has to STOP NOW. If the powers of the ABCC remain all Australian workers will have their right to organise and seek representation in a union undermined.

We, the undersigned refuse to cooperate with the ABCC and to pay fines imposed. We are inspired by the fine example set by CFMEU member Noel Washington in refusing to bow to the ABCC's intimidation. We pledge support for all union officials and members who are subject to the ABCC's powers.

We call on all unions to join a campaign of industrial action if any unionist is convicted for not cooperating with the ABCC

Name/Union/Signature

Dare to struggle - dare to win! If you don’t fight, you lose!

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Download sign-on statement and return, with signatures, to: GTHC, 127 Myers St, Geelong. Tel 03-52211712, or 0438 088 112 and fax 03-52231115. See ACTU's television ad opposing the ABCC

Socialist Alliance National Conference, Dec 5-7

Announcing the Socialist Alliance 6th National Conference!!

Venue: Geelong Trades Hall, 127 Myers Street, Geelong
Date: December 5-7, 2008

To register and for more information, visit www.socialist-alliance.org or contact the Socialist Alliance National Office (national_office@socialist-alliance.org) or your nearest Socialist Alliance branch.

More info to follow soon!