Members at BlueScope Steel Westall voted last week to accept a revised company offer for their new Collective Agreement. The deal ends a week long picket after members walked off the job following a break down in negotiations.
BlueScope members win back their rights, 12% increase

Members strongly united against Bluescope Steel

Site Organiser Justin Cartwright and delegates Steve Confait, Daniel Blackmont and Lawrie Sheehan met with the company on Wednesday to broker the revised offer for the membership to vote on.

Justin stated:

"It's a great outcome. Negotiations were stalled at a 3% yearly wage increase, and after only a week of the members showing their collective strength and spirit we have added a further 3% to the total 3 year offer.

"The wage outcome is fair and reasonable, and keeps our BlueScope members' wages in line with their direct competitor OneSteel."

The deal also includes a further 9 local claims being met, including the re-introduction of members' rights provisions that were removed under the former Howard government's extreme building code regulations.

The members' RDO entitlements were also cemented into place, as well as superior flexibility arrangements that protect members' overtime and penalty rates.

And this
Battle for Melbourne: Labor scrambling for union cash in Greens fight
by Andrew Crook
Labor candidate for Melbourne Cath Bowtell is scrambling for trade union cash in a bid to blunt renegade support for Greens candidate Adam Bandt, as the battle for control of the electorate enters its final days.

The Australian Services Union’s Victorian divisions are leading the charge, donating physical labour, office space, phone lines and about $10,000 in cash. They have also plastered the walls of their national office in Carlton with ALP propaganda, with Bowtell’s HQ located inside the bunker.

Vehicle Builders Union chief Ian Jones said he was providing “as much financial assistance as possible”, with the union also helping with phone polling, pre-polling and the distribution of how-to-vote cards on August 21. His cash splash is expected to run to five figures. Australian Manufacturing Workers Union national secretary Dave Oliver, of which the vehicle builders are a part, told Crikey that “several thousand” dollars will be directed to the Bowtell following a national directive.  A “small donation” would also be made to the Greens Senate campaign.

CFMEU national construction scion Dave Noonan is also supportive, saying the former ACTU organiser was “one of the most capable people that I’ve ever dealt with” and that he was firmly behind her. Although the union will provide some support form the Greens in the Senate, Noonan said that a Bandt victory in Melbourne was a “zero sum game” in terms of worker rights because it did nothing to keep Tony Abbott out of power. While the union was yet to write a cheque out to Bowtell, its members would be providing logistical support in the election’s final days.

Maritime Union of Australia Victorian branch secretary Kevin Bracken told Crikey his members had helped out with ALP pre-pollling and had made a recent cash donation to Bowtell that he was reluctant to reveal. However, union sources suggested the cheque could run close to $10,000.

And Crikey understands that a number of large right-wing unions, including the National Union of Workers and Paul Howes’ Australian Workers Union have also pledged conditional support via the ACTU.

The surge in support for Bowtell is expected to be spent on a last-minute blitz to counter the Greens momentum in the seat, which has been building for at least six months. The departed Worksafe chief was forced to hit the ground running following the surprise resignation of Lindsay Tanner on the same day Kevin Rudd was knifed by Julia Gillard for the prime ministership. Frantic fundraisers have also seen many of Bowtell’s legal comrades leaned on for personal donations.

Labor holds the seat by just 4.7% with the latest Sportingbet odds rating Bandt as a $1.60 favourite compared to $2.60 for Bowtell.

Meanwhile, the plumbers division of the of the Communications Electrical Plumbing Union is also believed to be tipping in cash, putting it at odds with the broader union, which has elected to support the Greens. The union’s national vice president, Len Cooper, has recently refused to turn the union’s membership list over to the ACTU to enable members in Melbourne to be cold-called and has instead backed Bandt.

The Liquor Hospitality and Miscellaneous Workers Union has transformed its offices into a call centre and the public service division of the Community and Public Sector Union has helped bankroll a direct mail blast. Former CPSU SPSF assistant secretary Peter Keogh is Botwell’s husband and currently serves as chief of staff for Socialist Left state housing minister Dick Wynne.

On Sunday, former ACTU chief Sharan Burrow, who supported Bowtell in her failed bid to replace her as president, was seen pounding the footpath in North Fitzroy to spread the word. The ACTU’s building in Queen Street has erected Botwell billboards in addition to attempts to marshal phone numbers.

Still, the election continues to splinter support with a number of unions rounding behind Bandt over Julia Gillard’s lukewarm approach to industrial relations reform.

Last month, Crikey revealed the Victorian branch of the Electrical Trades Union was preparing to donate around $20,000 to Bandt’s campaign and $100,000 to Richard Di Natale’s Victorian Senate bid. Chief Dean Mighell, whose members recently voted to disaffiliate from the ALP, is currently involved in a Federal Court bid to claw back the $500,000 the federal Communications Electrical and Plumbing Union (of which the ETU is a member) donated to the ALP’s national campaign. Mighell says around $100,000 of that money originated from the wallets of the Victorian ETU’s 15,000-strong membership.

Crikey can reveal that tomorrow afternoon the ETU’s state council will meet and vote on a resolution to throw $20,000 behind Greens senate candidates Penny Wright in South Australia and Larissa Waters in Queensland. The motion is expected to be passed unanimously.

And the United Firefighters Union, currently embroiled in a dispute with dissident members in New South Wales, has also pledged support for the Greens, although Crikey understands this is likely to be in-kind rather than a substantial cash injection.

The funding stoush in Melbourne is all the more intriguing given both Bowtell and Bandt’s close working relationship in the trade union movement. Both have previously toiled at the ACTU, where Bandt regularly popped up representing workers as part of his Slater and Gor

Verge wrote on Aug 10^th, 2010 at 6:43pm:


As always, Labor have funded their said "no frills" campaign off the hard-working backs of ordinary Australians.

I'm sure they will advise it was all for a good cause though.

..This and find some way of accounting for every cent, after the election of course.

Teachers and principals have raised concerns about Labor's new education policies.

Campaigning in the marginal seat of Canning in Perth's south-east, Prime Minister Julia Gillard announced a $388 million plan to reward schools where students' results have improved.

Primary schools would be given $75,000 and high schools $100,000 for improvements in students' performance in the areas of literacy and numeracy.

It would begin in 2013 and work in conjunction with the MySchool website.

Ms Gillard also announced a plan for teachers to earn an extra 10 per cent of their salary up to $8,000 if they meet new performance benchmarks.

Australian Secondary Principals Association president Sheree Vertigan says the performance incentives are worrying and the plans are not clear enough.

"The question about all of the policies that have been released today is around the detail - what exactly do they mean on the ground and what impact will they have in schools when they're introduced?" Ms Vertigan said.

The teachers union is also disappointed with the Government's proposals.

Australian Education Union (AEU) president Angelo Gavrielatos says what the school system needs is long-term planning not cash incentives.

"Effectively the Labor Party has announced two corporate-style bonus schemes for schools and teachers. You don't get school improvement through the payment of bonuses," Mr Gavrielatos said.

"This is bad policy. It's misguided policy. We need investment in sound education policy.

"We need investment in schools' funding to ensure that all school students can have their needs met and to ensure we continue to work towards lifting overall student performance and addressing underachievement."

Opposition education spokesman Christopher Pyne says Labor's proposals are seriously flawed.

He says the Government should be directing any extra money to schools that are struggling.

"Common sense would tell us that if you have the resources for schools to achieve literacy and numeracy outcomes you would want to pay those to the schools that are struggling to achieve, not reward those schools that have already found the formula for getting the best results from their student," Mr Pyne said.

Ms Gillard also announced a plan for an Australian baccalaureate - a voluntary qualification of international standing that would supplement existing state-based school qualifications, but Mr Pyne doubts Labor can deliver on that pledge.

"The Coalition is of the view that if a Government can't deliver a national curriculum in a three-year period of time, why would they be able to deliver an Australian baccalaureate?" he said.

Well the fact is that Gillard has got it right, and the fact is that while investment in school infrastructure is critical, and something that Labor has been investing in strongly, in stark contrast to the neglect of the Liberals, whose spending is always biased to widen the gap between the rich private schools, and the state schools, there comes a point where investing in better teachers, and using incentives to create an environment where teachers get the rewards and recognition they deserve for delivering results on the ground.

Gillard does more for education in this country than any Liberal minister has for two good reasons, she really cares about making tangible improvements, and she has the knowledge and expertise to instigate the right policies.

Gillard is the best thing to happen to the education system in more than fifty years.