Labour Notes

A "foreseeable" accident that claimed the life of a Newcastle 
electrician has cost his employer Tomago Aluminium Smelter just 
$146,000. The NSW Industrial Relations Commission imposed the 
penalty just one week after workers unveiled a permanent memorial 
at Darling Harbour to fallen colleagues. "What should have been a 
routine maintenance task resulted in a fatality because the 
appropriate safeguards were not in place", NSW WorkCover CEO John 
Blackwell said. The incident occurred in November 2001.

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Victorian nurses have voted to accept the State Government's 
revised wages and conditions package, which includes maintaining 
minimum nurse patient ratios and a 12-15 percent pay increase 
over three and a half years. Australian Nursing Federation 
Victorian Branch Secretary Lisa Fitzpatrick said, "This is a good 
agreement and like all negotiations it has involved some 
compromise from both sides, but importantly for nurses and their 
patients it maintains the existing mandated, minimum nurse 
patient ratios which the State Government wanted to replace with 
the computerised patient dependency system TrendCare." Victorian 
nurses have had a long battle with the Bracks Government and 
would like to thank the Victorian public for their overwhelming 
support during their dispute.

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The Construction Forestry Mining and Energy Union (CFMEU) has 
responded to a new report by the Office of the Employment 
Advocate on Freedom of Association, strongly defending the right 
of union members to use moral persuasion to encourage fellow 
workers to join a union. CFMEU Construction Division National 
Secretary John Sutton said last week that the Office of the 
Employment Advocate has been a dedicated anti trade union agency. 
It has been funded by the Howard Government to weaken trade 
unions and is run by people like Jonathon Hamberger who 
previously worked for former Workplace Relations Minister Peter 
Reith.