Labour notes
The Australian Workers Union (AWU) has launched a national campaign to save hundreds of jobs at Electrolux plants in Orange, NSW and Adelaide. In launching the campaign, AWU Secretary Bill Shorten attacked the Swedish multinational's disregard for the social impact of its business decisions, which have cost over 24,000 jobs over the last five years. The AWU campaign includes an online protest service. Supporters can send a message to Electrolux by going to http://www.awu.net.au/national/campaigns/electrolux* * * In a report handed down last week, the NSW Independent Commission against Corruption (ICAC) found that thousands of WorkCover competency certificates had been corruptly used by private assessors. The ICAC report comes after the Cole Royal Commission and the Building Industry Taskforce failed to address union allegations that "corrupt practices" were killing workers in the construction industry. It recommended that criminal charges be bought against six assessors, a trainer, and the boss of an Illawarra crane company after they were found to have given false and misleading information to ICAC when it was investigating a worker's death. "We can put this down to downsizing and cost cutting," Brian Parker from the Construction Forestry Mining and Energy Union said. "WorkCover should take the assessor role back. We feel these issues should be controlled by the government."* * * Thousands of Australians are registering their protest against the Free Trade Agreement (FTA) with the United States. Almost 4000 emails have been sent (through the Global Trade Watch website) to Federal Opposition Leader Mark Latham's Office calling on the Australian Labor Party to reject the Federal Government's FTA legislation. Unions including the Media Entertainment and Arts Alliance and the Australian Manufacturing Workers Union have also mounted email campaigns against the free trade deal. These can be found at http://www.tradewatch.org and http://free2baustralian.org.au.