Local News

Drug haul, ILO condemns Australia, Unions Calling, Rogue Diving Outlawed, Executive Pay Hike

Drug haul

MELBOURNE: The arrest of the Pong Su off Newcastle over the Easter weekend, after a 50kg heroin bust from the Tuvalu flag of convenience vessel Pong Su in Victoria again confirms the links between FOC shipping and crime.

ILO Condemns Australia

GENEVA: The ILO has again admonished the Howard Government for outlawing sympathy strikes, industrial action in support of multi-employer agreements and strikes which may damage the economy.

"Authorities could establish a system of minimum service in services which are of public utility rather than impose an outright ban on strikes," the latest Report of the Committee of Experts on the Application of Conventions and Recommendations says.

As for sympathy strikes outlawed under the Trade Practices Act, 1974 and secondary boycotts, the ILO found that the wide range of specified boycott activity and the severe financial penalties were too severe and open to abuse. The Committee of experts found that workers should be able to legally strike in solidarity with other workers so long as the initial strike was lawful.

The Committee has also requested that the Government provide a response to comments by the International Transport Workers' Federation on its secondary boycott laws.

Unions Calling

SYDNEY: Union organisers will door knock as part of the new ACTU recruitment drive under unions@work mark II.

Under the ACTU Future Strategies: Unions Working for a Fairer Australia the labour movement will also play a role in righting the wrongs and social inequities of conservative governments.

All but a handful (10per cent) of jobs created in the 1990s paid less than $26,000 a year. Half of those jobs paid less than $16,000. But the top 5 per cent of income earners exceeded the entire national spending on all social security and family payments, according to ACTU Secretary Greg Combet.

"This is John Howard's Australia. It is not our Australia," he told one of Australia's largest gatherings of union organisers in Sydney in May.

The theme of the 2003 unions@work blueprint Lets Get Real is economic justice.

Rogue Diving Outlawed

BRISBANE: Rogue diving operators could be put out of business if found unsafe under proposed Queensland legislation.

The proposals will be circulated to industry players in July seeking feedback prior to framing the state legislation.

"The industry is unregulated with inspectors only called out when someone is killed," said MUA Brisbane Assistant Branch Secretary Dave Perry.

The Cairns coroner called for strict legislation after investigating the death of Marcus Williams of Perrots Salvage and Construction in the Gulf of Carpentaria in February, 2000.

The coroner's report found that Williams had been diving in a one metre swell with strong winds and limited visibility and without a secured lifeline or communications.

Executive Pay Hike Exposed

SYDNEY: The income of company executives has quadrupled in the past decade, a study commissioned by the NSW Labour Council has found.

What's more, the higher the bosses pay, the lower the company profits.

The study of Australia's top 100 listed companies by University of Sydney researchers John Shields and John O'Brien, concluded that "more remuneration delivers less performance".

"We appear to be looking at a perverse phenomenon," Dr Shields said.