LL:ART: Meatworkers say: NO INDIVIDUAL CONTRACTS

[Communist Party of Australia]

Locked out meatworkers say: NO INDIVIDUAL CONTRACTS

The following article was published in "The Guardian", newspaper of the 
Communist Party of Australia in its issue of Wednesday, October 6th, 1999. 
Contact address: 65 Campbell Street, Surry Hills. Sydney. 2010 Australia.
Phone: (612) 9212 6855 Fax: (612) 9281 5795.
Email: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Webpage: http://www.zipworld.com.au/~cpa
Subscription rates on request.
**

By Rohan Gowland
At G&K O'Connor meatworks, in the outer Melbourne suburb of Pakenham, a key 
struggle against individual contracts is taking place. The company has 
locked out its 380 workers since March this year. It has now been given the 
green light by the Industrial Relations Commission (IRC) to offer 
Australian Workplace Agreements (AWAs) - individual contracts - to selected 
workers.

by Rohan Gowland

The ruling of the full bench of the IRC says that the current enterprise 
agreement had not been properly certified and therefore the company could 
ignore it.

The ruling allows O'Connor to opt out of negotiating a new enterprise 
agreement with the union and employ hand-picked workers on individual 
contracts.

Australasian Meat Industry Employees' Union Victorian Secretary, Graham 
Bird, told The Guardian that since the IRC ruling, O'Connor has told the 
workers if they don't sign an AWA they'll never work there again.

Mr Bird said the union believes that Richard Hamberger, the Federal 
Employment Advocate, whose role it is to oversee the introduction of AWAs, 
has some questions to answer in relation to the AWAs being offered by O'Connor.

"Our belief would be that the agreement doesn't fulfill the no- 
disadvantage test and that people had been coerced into signing them."

O'Connor has claimed that up to 20 AWAs have been registered, but Mr Bird 
said that to his knowledge there may only be one or two workers who have 
signed while the "vast majority are holding firm, refusing to sign the AWA 
and maintaining their position that they are prepared to work under decent 
wages and conditions, the same as other people in Victoria".

Casual ``on call''

What O'Connor wants to impose on its workforce is the system operating in 
the US where, instead of a weekly wage, workers are paid by the hour. They 
would be permanent casuals and be expected to work at any time "on call", 
with no guarantee of any work at all.

O'Connor has targeted the guaranteed minimum weekly payment that workers 
currently receive. Even under this present system, the guaranteed minimum 
was only four days minimum pay per week.

Mr Bird said that under the proposed system, "apart from dropping the wages 
by about 25 per cent, he [O'Connor] also brings in a system where they only 
get paid if there is work.

"They simply get told, `well, there's no work tomorrow, so you don't get 
paid tomorrow'. And if there's no work for three days of the week, you 
don't get paid for three days of the week.

"Basically, it's formalised casual work", he said.

The union is pursuing various applications in the Federal Court and the IRC.

O'Connor has made full use of Reith's industrial legislation which allows 
employers to lock out workers once the company has made a show of 
attempting to negotiate.

This legislation has enabled O'Connor to make outrageous demands for a 17.5 
per cent wages cut, which it knew the union would reject, and then claim it 
had attempted to negotiate, and so was now free to lock out workers, its 
intention from the very beginning.

The owner O'Connor himself has given plenty of evidence, through statements 
he has made to the union, that he is getting support from Reith to follow 
the example of the waterfront dispute.

Throughout this dispute, O'Connor has used the same legal firm that was 
used by Reith during the waterfront dispute, Dunhill Madden Butler, despite 
promising the union that it would not use this firm.

O'Connor has been the "Chris Corrigan" of the meat industry, one of the 
four industries that Reith announced would be targeted by his government - 
along with mining, the waterfront and construction.






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LL:ART: EAST TIMOR: ESTABLISHING SECURITY

[Communist Party of Australia]

East Timor: establishing security

The following article was published in "The Guardian", newspaper of the 
Communist Party of Australia in its issue of Wednesday, October 6th, 1999. 
Contact address: 65 Campbell Street, Surry Hills. Sydney. 2010 Australia.
Phone: (612) 9212 6855 Fax: (612) 9281 5795.
Email: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Webpage: http://www.zipworld.com.au/~cpa
Subscription rates on request.
**

By Lynne Androniki
As the Australian led INTERFET forces move to secure key towns to the West 
of East Timor, questions are being raised as to the role the East Timorese 
themselves will play in East Timor during the stabilisation and peace 
keeping stages of the campaign.

INTERFET forces are actively striving to disarm all other armed forces in 
East Timor. These forces include not only the TNI (Indonesian Armed Forces) 
supported pro-integrationist militias but also the pro-independence 
FALINTIL forces, who for a quarter of a century have resisted the TNI from 
their strongholds in the mountainous interior regions of East Timor.

Totally disarming the East Timorese population over the next six months is 
a key part of the INTERFET strategy which has been challenged by FALINTIL.

In a statement issued on Monday this week, Jose Ramos Horta, Senior Vice 
President of the National Council of Timorese Resistance (CNRT), welcomed 
the introduction of INTERFET in East Timor but said it would be an affront 
if they attempted to disarm FALINTIL's members.

"FALINTIL has been for 24 years the only force standing between the 
Indonesian army and the people of East Timor. In the last few weeks, when 
the whole world and the UN abandoned the people of East Timor, it was the 
FALINTIL that provided protection for the hundreds of thousands of East 
Timorese people in the mountains of East Timor.

Ramos Horta said that the responsibility of INTERFET was to protect the 
people of East Timor from the militia gangs and the Indonesian army.

"They should not behave in a manner that would make the people of East 
Timor see INTERFET as an enemy of FALINTIL."

Vice-Commander of FALINTIL, Taur Matan Ruak, in a statement from Uimori HQ 
in central East Timor, urged INTERFET to keep its mandate of disarming the 
militias, providing security and protection for the population and security 
and safe passage for the expeditions delivering humanitarian aid.

"We would be willing to negotiate with INTERFET when the last TNI soldier 
has left the territory, but it would be conditional, we would like to see 
the development of an appropriate mechanism such as a police force to 
maintain security", said Vice-Commander Taur Matan Ruak.

Ramos Horta said security in a new East Timor must be through the creation 
of a new security force comprising FALINTIL members and others. In the 
meantime, he said, orders are being issued by Commander Xanana Gusmao and 
Vice Commander Taur Matan Ruak that all FALINTIL elements remain confined 
to their cantonments.

It is clear that the INTERFET presence in East Timor does not guarantee the 
safety of the East Timorese people.

The East Timorese know this, and they still fear the plans of TNI. They 
have experienced the violence that has accompanied the economic 
exploitation of their country not only in the last couple of months but for 
almost 25 years.

As such, even though some relatively safe areas have been established few 
have returned from their precarious existence in the mountains.

The safety of around 200,000 others is still in question as they huddle in 
camps in West Timor and in smaller numbers throughout Indonesia itself.

Larger safe areas need to be established throughout East Timor and it is 
imperative that these refugees be able to return home free of intimidation 
and violence from the TNI-backed militias now building up in concentration 
in West Timor.

The ability of aid workers to distribute desperately needed aid is still 
severely debilitated throughout most of East Timor due to the lack of security.

It is imperative too that those hiding in the mountains be able to return 
to safe areas where they can access food, water and medicine.

Longer term security for the area is also critical if shelter is to be 
quickly built before the fast approaching wet season and crops need to be 
planted at appropriate times if famine is to avoided in the coming 12 months.

The Australian Government has made it clear that it is unable or unwilling 
to continue its support for the UN mission, to the same extent as at present.

This means that in less than six months the lives of the East Timorese 
people will increasingly be placed in the hands of a world community who 
has largely ignored their plight over the last 25 years and was slow to 
deliver any assistance during the latest unprecedented wave of murder and 
destruction.

We have seen already how quickly UNIMET had to evacuate when under threat 
from TNI and their militias, and only after many of the UN's Ea

LL:INFO: Activists occupy Burmese embassay in Bangkok

[toni bloodworth]

Title: Burmese Ex-Students Turn Militant
Author: Free Burma Coalition
Date: 1-OCT-1999
Source: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Reference: F R E E   B U R M A   C O A L I T I O N
www.freeburmacoalition.com

Contact:  Dr. Zarni, Free Burma Coalition, 202-777-6009
  Jack Healey, Human Rights Action Center, 202-547-2582
  Larry Dohrs, Free Burma Coalition, 206-784-5742

Elements of the fundamentally non-violent Burmese student movement have
resorted to arms and taken over the Bangkok (Thailand) embassy of the
military junta that rules Burma (also known as Myanmar).

This act, apparently by a small number of Burmese ex-university students,
reflects the growing frustration of a Burmese populace which has suffered
under 37 years of military rule.

Corporate support for the Burmese military, in the form of joint ventures
by companies such as US-based Unocal, France-based TotalFina, UK-based
Premier Oil, and Japan-based Mitsubishi, Marubeni, Mitsui and Suzuki, has
helped keep the junta in power despite the overwhelming desire of the
Burmese people to rid themselves of the junta.

A lack of support from international bodies, and the United Nations in
particular, has contributed to despair among pro-democracy Burmese, both
within and without the country.  Inside Burma, the economy has collapsed,
universities are permanently closed, forced labor is rampant, narcotics
trafficking is rife, and, according to Amnesty International, more than two
thousand pro-democracy activists languish in the country's notorious
prisons and labor camps.  The junta is also holding two British citizens
who peacefully protested the military's human rights abuses. They received
prison sentences of seven and seventeen years at hard labor.

"Now the UN Security Council must take up the case of Burma's 45 million
people and their struggle for freedom," says Dr. Zarni of the Free Burma
Coalition.  "They overwhelmingly expressed their desire for a democratic
government in 1990 elections. The military is negating the expressed will
of the people, just as the Indonesian military did in East Timor."

The United Nations has made tepid gestures toward resolving the crisis in
Burma, but its envoys are normally blocked from entering the country.

US Secretary of State Albright has declared that Burma under the junta has
become "a threat to stability in the (Southeast Asian) region."

"This embassy incident is another example of how Burma's problems are not
confined within her national boundaries.  It is crucial that the questions
of democracy in Burma, and the crimes of the Burmese junta, receive serious
attention both in the UN General Assembly and the Security Council, before
the situation becomes even more desperate," adds Zarni.

The Free Burma Coalition remains committed to non-violent political
struggle, and calls for a peaceful resolution to the standoff at the junta
embassy in Bangkok.



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BOYCOTT YAHOO & GEOCITIES FOR AIDING & ABETTING FASCISTS

[John L. Wickham]

2nd October, 1999

Dear Fellow Activists & Comrades

I am writing this to urge as many people as possible to boycott the 
services of both "Yahoo" and "GeoCities".  These two cyberspace 
organisations are permitting fascist and racist groups to use their 
services to promote the gutter filth of fascism and racism.

We need to know how we can go about having some kind of "cyberspace 
petition" against not only the turdle durds who are spewing forth their 
racist filth on the Internet, but also against both Yahoo and GeoCities for 
allowing disgusting racist filth on their systems.

We have all worked hard in fighting National Action, The Citizen's 
Electoral Council (the Laurouchite group) and Pauline Hanson and her one 
nation party.  We know how to stage successful counter-demonstrations 
against these turdle durds whenever they rear their ugly heads in our 
streets, but how do we fight them in cyberspace?

If you need to use a search engine to find your favorite web sites, 
remember that Yahoo is not the only search engine system, instead, try:-



and select search the Internet.

So, for the reasons outlined above, boycott both Yahoo and GeoCities.  As 
well as aiding and abetting racist and fascist filth, they are both 
extremely commercial and put "mind-poisoning" advertising, for the 
corporatist dollar, over everything that comes through their systems.

If anybody has any ideas on how to fight fascists and racists in 
cyberspace, please email:-

Matthew Davis



Thank you and best wishes.

Yours in Struggle


John L. Wickham





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LL:PR: East Timor: Howard and Keating both responsible

[Max Lane]

Howard can claim no credit for independence in East Timor

John Howard has been loudly claiming that his January 1999 letter to B.J.
Habibie proposed the independence referendum that President Habibie also
announced in January.

In fact, the Howard-Downer position in January, 1999 was OPPOSED to any
early referendum on independence.

On January 12, Alexander Downer stated:
"an immediate move to self-determination would not work because it would
lead to a civil war. If you have a plebiscite now I think that (civil war)
would be the result, that's the whole point."

In fact, Howard and Downer proposed to Habibie a scheme whereby Jakarta
would provide some "autonomy" to East Timor, with Indonesian military still
present in East Timor.

The Howard letter suggested that this "autonomy" with Indonesian military
presence be for a "substantial period" before any act of self-determination
take place.

Both Howard and Downer both stated that they still preferred East Timor
remain within Indonesia.

No civil war, but Indonesian military vengence
The violence that occurred both before and after the August 30 referendum
was not a part of any civil war but a result of the systematic activity of
the Indonesian army (TNI) and its puppet militias.

THERE WERE NO MILITARY CLASHES BETWEEN THE PRO-INDEPENDENCE FALANTIL and
the TNI militias.

Cooperation with the TNI
The Howard government's persistent refusal to apply real pressure on
Jakarta to withdraw its forces from East Timor or even just confine its
troops to barracks as well as disarm the militias was a contributing factor
to the TNI's ability to carry out its scorched earth policy. Howard and
Downer's repeated public acceptance of TNI assurances about peace and
security for the East Timorese people only encouraged the TNI its violence.
Howard should have acted in accordance with the demands of the Australian
public and the East Timorese resistance that the Australian government end
all military ties with Jakarta.

Keating is wrong
The ability of the TNI to carry out its brutal occupation of East Timor and
its scorched earth policy after August 30 has been the PERSISTENT POLICY OF
ALL AUSTRALIAN GOVERNMENTS, INCLUDING THAT OF KEATING HIMSELF AND OF
HOWARD, TO REFUSE TO APPLY REAL PRESSURE ON JAKARTA TO WITHDRAW ITS FORCES
FROM EAST TIMOR. KEATING AS WELL AS HOWARD SHARE RESPONSIBILTY WITH
SUHARTO, HABIBIE, AND WIRANTO  FOR THE BLOOD SPILLED IN EAST TIMOR.


Action in Solidarity with Indonesia and East Timor (ASIET)
P.O. Box 458, Broadway NSW 2007
Australia
Telephone: 02-96901230
Fax: 02-96901381
Email: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Homepage: www.asiet.org.au
End all military ties with Jakarta!
Free Budiman Sujatmiko and all political prisoners!
Full Aust/UN recognition of CNRT, FALANTIL and other pro-independence
organisations!





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LL:DDN: East Timor Indonesia Solidarity Conference

[Max Lane]

ASIET EMERGENCY NATIONAL CONSULTATION, October 9-10

The people of Indonesia and East Timor are still in the firing line - Join 
the struggle for freedom and democracy

ASIET EMERGENCY NATIONAL CONSULTATION, October 9-10
Glebe Neighbourhood Centre, (former Glebe Town Hall), 160 St John's Rd.,
Glebe, Sydney

ASIET is holding an emergency national meeting on October 9-10 in Sydney to 
discuss the dramatically changing political situation in Indonesia and East 
Timor and ASIET's future campaigns.

The meeting will be held at the Glebe Neighbourhood Centre (formerly the 
Glebe Town Hall), starting at 1pm for lunch on Saturday October 9 and 2pm 
for the first session on Struggles for Democracy in East Timor, Aceh and 
West Papua. Following discussion, another panel at 5pm will look at the 
People's Struggle for Social Justice in Indonesia.

Dinner with speakers and video

A cultural evening at the same venue at 7.30pm will hear from Max Lane, 
ASIET national coordinator (recently returned from Jakarta), and Sam King 
(eyewitnees from the UNAMET bunker in Dili).

There will also be video footage of the September 11 demonstration calling 
for UN/Australian troops to enter East Timor to assist the East Timorese 
people as well as video footage of the July 1 PRD demonstration that was 
attacked in Jakarta.

Indonesian food will be available.

Campaigns
On Oct 10, starting at 9.30am the focus will be on ASIET's campaigning 
projections including promoting better ties between the trade union 
movement of this country and the Indonesian National Front for Worker 
Struggles (FNPBI) and better ties between the Indonesian and East Timorese 
student associations and those here. A new East Timor project will be 
launched as well as initiatives including an Artists for East Timor 
campaign and planning for a student and trade union exposure tours to 
Indonesia in 2000.

The meeting is open to everyone interested in helping ASIET to develop 
solidairty with the Indonesian pro-democracy peoples movement for full 
democracy and social justice as well as the East Timorese people's struggle 
to set up their own independent nation.

Entry is $15/10 for the weekend, and $5/3 for single sessions. Please call
Pip Hinman or Jon Jamb on (02) 9690 1230 for more information.


Help us with organising the conference: send us an email letting us know you
are coming and whether for all or for particular sessions, days or events.


LL.NJ

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LL:AA: Aust govt intervenes in ILO to destroy working womens'

[Bullimore / Kim Maree (COM)]

conditions
Sender: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
X-Loop: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Precedence: bulk


Please distribute as you see fit. Yet another reason why unions are just as 
relevant in the 21st century as they were in the 19th and are now.

Women @ Work


** MATERNITY PROTECTION ATTACK **
** Women urged to be vigilant **

The Australian Government recently sent 12 male delegates to the 87th 
Session of the ILO Conference to represent Australia in debate on the 
review of the Maternity Protection Convention No. 103.  The only Australian 
woman at the conference, ACTU delegate Lisa Heap, was not recognised by the 
Australian Government, and was forced to join an international union 
delegation, in order to attend.

It was reported that the Australian Government delegates indicated support 
for pregnancy testing prior to employment, and maternity leave rights 
applying only to full-time permanent employees.  They opposed maternity 
leave applying to adoption, and paid maternity leave.

In her report "Maternity Protection: A Duty of Society" Lisa Heap says the 
Australian Government also proposed to delete the paragraph that allows for 
an extension of the maternity leave period in the case of 
illness,complications or risk of complications arising out of pregnancy or 
confinement.

Thankfully, these proposals didn't see the light of day, however it is a 
sign that Australian women need to remain vigilant, said CPSU/SPSF State 
Secretary Karen Batt.

It should be noted with alarm that our federal government did not send a 
woman to this conference, and refused to recognise the only Australian 
woman there, because she was representing workers.

The message is, women workers cannot rely on their government to protect 
their interests.  I think its disgraceful that Australian women at the end 
of the twentieth century still face the threat of losing their maternity 
related entitlements, after fighting for them for so long.  Not only are 
current entitlements at risk, but women face the threat of new forms of 
discrimination in employment, such as pregnancy testing when applying for jobs.

Karen said Australian women should lobby the federal government between now 
and June 2000, when the final debate of a new Convention and 
Recommendations will take place.

** WHAT CAN WOMEN DO ABOUT IT? **

Distribute this information to as many other women as you can. Hold 
meetings at your workplace to discuss the legislation.  Be prepared to 
participate in union meetings and rallies in the campaign against the 
legislation.

Write to Senator Andrew Murray, the Australian Democrat spokesperson on 
industrial relations.  Stop this unfair legislation being passed.

Senator Murray can be contacted @
Fax: 02 6277 3767
Email: [EMAIL PROTECTED] 
Also write to other Democrat Senators, particularly
Meg Lees,
Fax: 02 6277 3996
Email: [EMAIL PROTECTED] 
Natasha Stott-Despoja,
Fax: 02 6277 3235
Email: [EMAIL PROTECTED]

Vicki Bourne,
Fax: 02 6277 3815
Email: [EMAIL PROTECTED] 
Lyn Allison,
Fax: 02 6277 3087
Email: [EMAIL PROTECTED] 

Encourage as many women as you can to make submissions to the Senate 
Inquiry which will be held late in September.

** EVENTS **

CLARE BURTON MEMORIAL LECTURES
The Beauty Therapist, The Mechanic, The Geoscientist and The Librarian:
Addressing Undervaluation of Women's Work
Speaker: Associate Professor Rosemary Hunter
5.00 pm  21 October 1999
RMIT University,
Ethel Osborne Hall, Russell Street, Melbourne
RSVP:
Ph: (02) 9514 2909
Fax: (02) 9514 2930
Email: [EMAIL PROTECTED] 





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