Bruce Childs, President, Evatt Foundation.

Howard's way - marry the boss

Editorial by Evatt Foundation President, Bruce Childs.

President's perspective

I have seen it happen many times: when workers had a major grievance that required them to make a stand and there was an individual who was prevaricating for fear of offending their employer, they were told that the alternative to taking action was to marry the boss.

The industrial relations proposals of John Howard's government are the most radical challenge to the Australian way of life in one hundred years. It means that all wage and salary earners effectively face 'marrying the boss in a shot gun wedding.'

In this Evatt Newsletter, we feature papers on the issue presented at the Evatt Breakfast Seminar in May by John Della Bosca and Doug Cameron, and at the Evatt Sunset Seminar in July by Meg Smith and Justine Evesson. We also present:

• the text of the major speech on Howard's proposals to the National Press Club by Secretary of the ACTU, Greg Combet;
• an article by leading labour lawer, Josh Bornstein, on the 'freedom of contract' myth;
• an assessment of the government's proposed changes by seventeen leading researchers;
• a detailed paper by Chris White on the right to strike and the Howard government's flouting of international law.

At a time when the trade unions are calling all people of good will to become active, it is pleasant to be associated with a project to show the proud history of progress in society on many diverse issues achieved by the trade union movement.The Evatt Foundation was one of the sponsors of Changing Australia - The Union Story, a booklet for students to understand the role of unions in Australian society. The leader of the group that pulled the project together was former Evatt Foundation Vice President, Tom McDonald, and the book was launched by Carmel Tebbutt, MLC, Minister for Education and Training and a former Evatt Executive Committee Member. All the speeches on the occasion of the launch are reproduced in this Newsletter, and copies of Changing Australia - The Union Story, are available to order from our office at the special price of $5 per copy (plus postage).

This far from exhausts the Foundation's contribution to the vital struggle against the Howard industrial relations proposals. At the June New South Wales ALP conference, a trade union leader who represents municipal employees pointed out that many regional and rural municipalities that employ fewer than one hundred employees will face the arbitrary 'dismissal at the employer's whim' legislation. This threatens people in what has historically been the most secure area of rural employment. The development points to the pressure that all regional and rural Coalition parliamentarians, particularly National Party MPs, will be under. The very structure of Awards has guaranteed that people in regional and rural settings have had their work classification and qualifications respected and codified at a common minimum rate.

In view of the profound nature of Howard's attack on the Australian way of life, the Evatt Executive has decided to devote our annual publication The State of the States, being prepared now, to measuring the effects of the changes.

In my view, the sleeper issue that will emerge, is the way pensioners over a period of time will lose out. The pension is determined on average weekly wages. Howard has effectively sacked the independent Arbitration Commission. Attention is on how Howard will handpick a team to determine minimum wages. This is a move to the United States and United Kingdom models, which have played a role in increasing inequality in those countries. If minimum wage increases can be slowed down, then, over time, pensioners will suffer.

Iran: new danger

The election in Iran of the fundamentalist hard-liner, Mahamoud Ahmadinejad, means that there is a need to understand this country, not least because of its influence on Iraq. The issue that links the two countries is oil. Just as the Bush Administration is obsessed with Iraq oil, the European powers have compromised with the Iranian leadership because of their interest in Iranian oil.

The President of the New South Wales Legislative Council, Meredith Burgman, recently chaired a seminar to draw attention to the shocking suppression of dissidents in Iran. Siliva Hale, MLC, reported on the International Women's Conference in Paris, the theme of which was "Women's Participation in Political Leadership, Antidote to Islamic Fundamentalism". Dr Arthur Chesterfield-Evans, MLC, and barrister Terry O'Donnell supported Iranian Resistance in Australia. Mohammad Sadeghpour, the Secretary of the Australian Resistance Coalition, was supported by a detailed analysis by Professor Amin Seikal, a prominent expert on the Moslem world at the Australian National University.

An impressive cross-section of parliamentarians from the UK and EU are spearheading the demand that the People's Mojahedine of Iran (PMOI) should be removed from the terrorism list. The resistance movement to the Iranian regime claim that the government is working to get nuclear weapons. This will raise the danger of a nuclear crisis to a new level. In this Newsletter, we publish Professor Seikal's paper, plus the contributions by Mr Sadeghpour and Dr Chesterfield-Evans.

And more

If there is to be a nuclear debate, we must look at the two sides of the nuclear issue, where there is nuclear power there is danger of nuclear weapons. Frank Muller puts the view that "just keeping the nuclear option open will require big new subsidies - at the expense of sustainable energy and other options like cleaner coal technologies - with no guarantee of success".

I also wish to highlight our forthcoming Evatt Sunset Seminar on "Young people and politics: Engagement and participation". To be convened on 6 September, the Foundation has been very fortunate in securing an outstanding range of speakers in Monika Wheeler, Dr Rebecca Huntley, Dr Ariadne Vromen and Damian Oliver. The topic is obviously crucial as we look to the future, and this is a seminar not to be missed. To allow us to cater properly for the event, please RSVP as early as possible.

Also featured in this Newsletter is the text of a recent address by Dr Christopher Sheil on globalisation. Chris is the editor of the Foundation's popular book Globalisation: Australian Impacts, and in this address he revisits the topic, taking into account events subsequent to his book's publication. Perhaps his most surprising finding is that, "for all the ideological and policy thunder that has accompanied the lowering of trade barriers around the world over the last two decades or so, world economic growth has not leapt forward. On the contrary, growth has dramatically slowed. Per capita world economic growth during the globalising 1990s was less than a third the growth rate of the 1960s." The paper is interesting, and dovetails with a new book I'm now reading by John Ralston Saul, titled The Collapse of Globalism and the Reinvention of the World. Saul is about to embark on a speaking tour Australia and will be in Sydney on 22 August. Based on what I've read of his book so far, this is another event not to be missed.

Bruce Childs
President
Evatt Foundation

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