Howard and his party are puppets to big business and there aim is to lower pay rates and sell of all government assets, what a bunch
of. Now they want to sell our water. What a weak country we have become, I say there should be more referendums with important issues.

Can I ask one question? how many know, understand just what workchoices is?
How a firm just got away with removeing overtime and sick leave, meal breaks and so much more for a pay rise, of 2 cents an hour!
That on one civil construction site this union oficial must ring and request a visit, fax a request turn up at the ofice and be told to go into a back room and wait, see a forman go to lunch room and ask anyone want to see the union?
See him return and say no one wants to come.
Leave the site stand around the corner and take 5 phone calls saying we want to see you but they are on our back.
Well you can beat this!my newsletter arives weekly at one address and EVERY WORKER on that site ALL unions reads it.
Why the fear John Howard? why no action on $50 a month wages but laws like this?
Why can union dues not be on payroll but health insurance can? why union dues no longer tax deductable but busness council of Australia fees are?
Why builders industry group free to wander sites but not workers groups?
why AIG tax free and free to comment but not unions?
John Howard do you think Labor will never win again? that history will not judge you?
Workers United Will NEVER be defeated John.

I fear for the future of unions, most must do surely?I fear for the future of All who work in Australia, surely most do?
Workchoices must be taken on, every single day, and in every way, includeing the best team Labor can field campaigning now.
Unions must take on workchoices in the same way, every word the same.
My battle plan? 3 layer fees, now, suporter yes we have many pay a fee just to be part members no service given about $25 a year, low income ,half full fees and full service[ full fees are about $415 a year.
Low income workers are unable to spend that full fee price on Christmas for the kids, unions could get thousands of new members.
All unions to recruit only the commited and best skilled future oficials.
A single ALL UNIONS insurance sceme for total funeral benefits of ALL members.
An all unions National insurance sceme to asist famillys of union members in trouble , say health ext instead of hard hat collections and raffles, set amounts.
A national levee of say $1 per week per member every week to fund the defeat of workchoices.
Other ideas?

Belly, there I was thinking I was on my own trying to knock some sense into you over there http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=4452 . Here is some TRUTH about how the unions united the workers during the waterfront dispute:

“As part of its negotiating tactics, the MUA applied to the IRC for "protected strike action," allowed in bargaining periods under the Howard government's Workplace Relations Act. By limiting stoppages to single facilities and giving the required notice of intention to strike under the act, the union ensured the actions had minimal effect on Patrick's operations.

When 300 workers at Sydney's Port Botany went on strike for 48 hours on March 11, for example, the company was able to divert two ships to the P&O container operation at Port Botany and two ships to its own terminal at Darling Harbour, where they were worked by MUA members…..

…..Such "protected strike action" was designed to wear down the resistance of waterfront workers and head off possible national strike action.

…. the ACTU said unions would not allow industrial action to defend waterside workers. ACTU President Jennie George gave the excuse that the Workplace Relations Act contains tough legal sanctions against solidarity action. Unions were not going to "commit a kamikaze act," she stated.

The MUA also used this legislation as a pretext for calling off industrial action by its members. But the act would not exist except for the collaboration of the union bureaucracy. In 1996, after 5,000 workers stormed Parliament House in Canberra, George and other ACTU officials worked closely with Cheryl Kernot …..now a Labor Party figurehead, to ensure passage of the legislation.

Kernot and the ACTU leaders were intimately involved, with Reith, in drafting the final version of the act, and specifically those sections OUTLAWING SOLIDARITY ACTION (so-called secondary boycotts) …” http://www.wsws.org/workers/1998/apr1998/actu-a9.shtml

Union “unity” defeated the workers (before Workchoices).

The unions and the ALP are a dead end which cannot be revived or reformed. The sooner workers recognize the fact, the better off we’ll all be.

I while from another faction of the union movement got together with a group of country workers and marched down the main street giveing up a Saturdayfor that and the meeting.
Gave $50 per week to them ,my union drafted members who manned the picket lines and cooked food for all on the line we bought that food.
Your strange view is that Labor and unions betray workers?
All my life I have watched the very left and understood they are as much my enemy as the very right.
That view is shared by most Australians one great and forever honored union from Poland, solidarity understood the threat leftist policys pose to freedom.
Reality has its part to play and my home is in that real world.

Belly the unions make laws with the bosses against solidarity action. The ALP sent in the military to break up the pilots strikes. The military! If you don't believe me, check it out.

Face reality Belly, and stop fostering the illusion in workers that the ALP will save them. You are paving the way for them to be crushed. It is that serious. Hopes and wishes are not going to cut it.

Wake up.