The Union Show

Workers at bionic earmaker Cochlear yesterday voted 185 to 120 have the AMWU represent them in enterprise bargaining negotiations.

However Cochlear CEO Dr Chris Roberts still believes that a majority of workers do not wish to be represented by
by the AMWU.

“If the majority of employees want to bargain, then we need to bargain, the question is with whom you wish to bargain”.

Well Dr Roberts the majority of workers have decided who they wish to be represented by – the AMWU!!!.

AMWU National Secretary Dave Oliver said he was puzzled by Dr Roberts interpretation of the vote and that the company should “pay attention to their legal obligations”.

Dave Oliver said that it was the sixth time in 3 years a majority of workers had voted to have a collective agreement involving the AMWU.

Below is a story from The Age online today and the findings against former James Hardie directors and executives.

Thursday 20th August 2009

Elisabeth Sexton

Ten former executives and directors of James Hardie have been fined and banned from company directorship for at least five years by the NSW Supreme Court.

The penalties follow the April ruling by Justice Ian Gzell that the ten breached their duties to the company in 2001 over a misleading media release about asbestos compensation.

The release said a new compensation trust would be ‘‘fully funded’’ and offered ‘‘certainty’’ to claimants suffering from asbestos diseases.

This morning Justice Gzell imposed the heaviest penalty on the former chief executive and managing director Peter Macdonald, 56, fining him $350,000 and disqualifying him from managing companies for 15 years.

The former general counsel Peter Shafron, 48, and the former chief financial officer Phillip Morley, 61, were fined $75,000 and $35,000 respectively and banned for seven and five years.

Seven former non-executive directors, Michael Brown, 63, Michael Gillfillan, 61, Meredith Hellicar, 55, Martin Koffel, 70, Dan O’Brien, 53, Greg Terry, 64, and Peter Willcox, 64, were fined $30,000 each and banned from boardrooms for five years.

The company itself was fined $80,000.

Some defendants have already cut short their corporate careers, with Ms Hellicar and Mr Willcox resigning high-profile positions after the April judgement.

Ms Hellicar resigned from the boards of AMP and Amalgamated Holdings, among others, while Mr Willcox, who had been tipped as the next chairman of Telstra, announced he would retire from its board at the annual meeting in November.

Lawyers for some of the defendants foreshadowed appeals against the April decision in their July submissions on penalty. They argued that the judge should not take into account that their clients had expressed no contrition because such admissions could not be expected if they were preparing appeals.

The bans are likely to have less impact on Mr Gillfillan and Mr Koffel, who have long business careers in the United States, where the ban will not apply.

Mr Macdonald and Mr Shafron both moved to California when James Hardie set up its operational headquarters there in the late 1990s, but both resigned from the company in 2004 after the trust was found to be grossly underfunded. They have not returned to corporate roles in Australia since.

The ACTU is leading discussions with Qantas to ensure that there is a co-ordinated approach to negotiations on wages conditions and job cuts.

This is on the back of Qantas yesterday announcing a 90% drop in profit for the 2008-2009 financial year and the intention to slash $1.5b in costs over the next 3 years.

ACTU Secretary Jeff Lawrence and a union delegation have met with Qantas CEO Alan Joyce last Friday and flagged the intention of having a co-ordinated approach.

Unions argued that previous CEO Geoff Dixon had a “divide and conquer” tacting in negotiations for individual enterprise agreements.

The Age is reporting this afternoon that Queensland unions are backing a move by indigenous leaders in their battle to have stolen wages returned to court.

A number of Aboriginal elders gathered in Brisbane today, with meetings in regional cities around the country to launch the campaign and the Queensland Council of Unions will lodge a writ in the District Court on behalf of Yarrabah mand Uncle Conrad Yeatman, seeking recovery of wages withheld by state governments over the decades.

In 2002, former premier Peter Beattie acknowledged that as much as $500m may have been stolen as Aboriginal wages were taken and supposedly placed in trust accounts which were later found to be different or non-existent.

$55m was offered as compensation and a repatriation scheme paid out $35 to around 7,000 people, and Premier Anna Bligh placed an additional $20m into indigenous education.

Mr Yeatman who was worked as a carpenter and labourer in the north Queensland community of Yarrabah from the age of 14.

Below is a media release from the ACTU and the proposed OH&S scheme.

Wednesday, 19 August 2009

Australia is falling well short of national targets to reduce workplace deaths and injuries and proposed new national Occupational Health and Safety laws could put Australian workers further at risk, say unions.

A progress report issued by Safe Work Australia, the Federal Government agency charged with reducing workplace injuries and disease, has revealed that self-imposed targets for reducing serious injury claims have not been met.

The report shows the injury rates in key industries of manufacturing, agriculture, forestry and fishing, as well as in health and community services are failing to reach international benchmarks.

ACTU Secretary Jeff Lawrence said the report added weight to union concerns that standards and rights for workers could be compromised by proposed new national occupational health and safety laws.

According to the interim report on the National OHS Strategy 2002-2012, Australia failed to meet the target of a 20% reduction in the incidence of serious injury and musculoskeletal claims.

And in a comparison with seven other OECD nations, Australia has only slightly improved its work-related injury fatality rate since the start of the decade to two deaths per 100,000 workers.

The situation is more grim for several industry sectors, particularly manufacturing. The industry’s serious injury incidence rate has fallen by only 6%, and has risen in sectors such as prefabricated building materials, furniture, petroleum, coal and chemicals and non-metallic mineral products.

In agriculture, most sectors have shown no improvement, with worse injury rates in marine fishing, shearing, fruit picking and crop harvesting.

“Australia has a long way to go before success can be claimed on achieving national targets for workplace death, injury and disease,” Mr Lawrence said.

“With proposed uniform national occupational health and safety laws, we have a once-in-a-generation opportunity to lift protections for workers by achieving the world’s best safety standards for the entire country.

“But working Australians will not support the proposed new OHS laws if it means compromising standards.

“The new laws must make employers clearly responsible for ensuring workplaces are safe, give workers’ health and safety representatives the power they need to do their job, respect the role of unions, and enable workers and unions to take court action.

“With an estimated 7000 Australians dying each year as a result of injuries or diseases from work, it is essential the proposed new OHS laws do not undermine standards and put more Australian workers and their families at risk.”

On tonights Union Show we are revisiting the episode we aired earlier this year on the DSE firefighters in light of the interim report of the Bushfire Royal Commission released on Monday.

Cochlear the bionic earmaker has said that the employees voting to be represented by a union in EBA negotiations could endanger their pay and conditions and even the future of the Australian operations CEO Chris Roberts warned.

Cochlear wants to deal directly with its workforce – who are mostly female Asian immigrants, however the company will have to negotiate with the AMWU if todays ballot of 320 workers wins majority approval.

Onesteel is cut around 1240 jobs as the company seeks to keep costs under control, despite reporting a better than expected result and avoiding their first ever half year loss.

In April the company flagged that it would look to cut some its 11,000 strong workforce despite yesterday announcing a better than expected full-year result.

The company said that 840 staff had already gone and a further 400 jobs would be disappear by the end of the year.

This is appeared in The Age today.

Ben Schneiders

August 18, 2009

THE most serious criminal charges against 12 men involved in the West Gate industrial dispute have been withdrawn following pre-trial talks that will result in guilty pleas for six lesser charges – four of which are for dangerous or careless driving.

The case drew political attention when Deputy Prime Minister Julia Gillard, in a controversial June speech, used allegations of violence during a car chase at the West Gate dispute to justify keeping different laws for building workers.

Lawyer Rob Stary, whose firm represented those charged, and the Construction, Forestry, Mining and Energy Union yesterday demanded an apology from Ms Gillard for those charged. Last night the Deputy Prime Minister said she stood by her comments.

The Magistrates Court was told yesterday that four men would plead guilty to five charges for their roles in the car chase while another man would plead guilty to offensive behaviour. Four others – Bernard Ferrie, Steve Balta, Julio Pizarro and Stuart Corkran – had all charges withdrawn.

The men had faced more than 80 charges including indictable offences such as reckless conduct endangering serious injury and other charges of assault and assault with a weapon, namely a motor vehicle.

The Australian Building and Construction Commission has a separate civil case under way that alleges 92 breaches of the Building and Construction Industry Improvement Act. That could result in fines of as much as $7 million. A directions hearing is scheduled for October.

Mr Stary said yesterday’s settlement and the dropping of all charges against CFMEU delegates Mr Balta and Mr Corkran showed there was an acceptance that what had occurred had ”erupted in a spontaneous sort of way” and did not involve planning as the commission has alleged.

CFMEU state secretary Bill Oliver attacked the commission and Ms Gillard and said ”these workers are not thugs or bullies, they are simply normal blokes who were angry about losing their jobs”.

The three men who pleaded guilty to dangerous driving were Christopher Kyriacou, Trent Padula and Scott Williamson, who also pleaded guilty to carrying a piece of pipe without lawful excuse. Steve Williamson will plead guilty to offensive behaviour.

They will appear in court on September 7. Lawyers indicated a fourth man, Rodney Dentsen, would plead guilty to careless driving at a later date with his other charges to be dropped. Three other men had their cases adjourned to the Magistrates Court’s diversion court .

This is a statement from the ACTU on their ongoing campaign.

Welfare, union, environment, and research organisations today launched a major national grass roots ‘clean energy jobs’ campaign aimed at ensuring future CPRS or other negotiations strengthened climate action and clean energy policies.

“Our campaign is now going local to put some clean energy forged steel into the backbone of negotiators from all parties,” said John Connor, campaign spokesperson.

On Sunday the groups launched a national multi-media campaign calling on “dinosaurs” in politics and business to stop blocking urgent climate and clean energy action.

“After this week of Parliament it is dinosaurs 1, clean energy jobs 0.

“Our politicians need to turn this around not only next week by strengthening and passing renewable energy legislation, but also in coming months by ensuring CPRS negotiations strengthen, not weaken, climate and clean energy action.”

The campaign will now roll out around the country and include actions and educational events in regional and inner city areas.

“The ‘dinosaurs’ are being put on notice – we’re coming to a town near you!” said Mr Connor.

“Any changes to the CPRS need to face two key tests – will they help make Australia competitive in the emerging global clean energy economy and will they be cooperative in achieving an effective global climate agreement in Copenhagen in December”