Gotcha go and David Boaz be at least fair dinkum please, can it be you both think you live in a world that only has bad union officials?
That no boss is ever wrong?
That with the right to trade comes a halo?
That union is an evil name?
Bosses have unions, the NRMA was on foundation nothing less than a union, once it was owned by its members who lobbed for better cars ,roads services for drivers, parts , it is now privately owned but its reasons to exist the same.
Do you understand this current reporting on the BRAND NEW ADD ON TO WORKCHOICES the fairness test.
Screams that workchoices Mk 1 was unfair?
That back packers are employed in the complex issue of reviewing new agreements?
Can you [please answer honestly,] see that half the presented agreements ARE INDEED being rejected by this GOVERNMENT department as unfair?
So why would our halo wearing bosses do that?
What is so wrong with unions wanting a fair go?
DAVID I do not dislike you but what you stand for, your post reeks of right wing Christian rabble rousing!

Who to vote for - Liberal or Labor? Let's see when John Howard came to office in 1996, his first act was to cut $A400 million from the
Aboriginal affairs budget. Once in office, Howard began to reverse the most significant gain made by the Aboriginal people. This was the Native Title Act, passed by Federal Parliament in 1993. Based on a landmark ruling by the Australian High Court the year before, the new law had removed from common law the fiction that Australia was uninhabited when Captain James Cook planted the Union Flag in 1770.
Known as 'Terra Nullius', it was used for most of two centuries to justify the dispossession of the indigenous population. Unlike Australia's sheep, the Aborigines were not counted until the late sixties. "We occupied the land, but we were fauna," said Aboriginal lawyer Noel Pearson.

When British nuclear scientists were given permission by Prime Minister Robert Menzies to test nuclear weapons on Aboriginal land at Maralinga in the 1950s, they used site maps marked 'Uninhabited.'
Patrick Connolly, who served with the Royal Air Force in Maralinga, was threatened with prosecution by the security services after he revealed that 'during the two and a half years I was there, I would have seen 400 to 500 Aborigines in contaminated areas. Occasionally, we would bring them in for decontamination. Other times we just shooed them off like rabbits.'

There are other issues to consider, Think you've got Government protection - - when overseas - think - Hicks. Remember - asylum seekers - remember - AWB. Remember - workchoices - AWAs. The list goes on and on. This government should stand on its record. Make sure you know which record. Not the media hype.

The scare of unionism - is what they would have you believe about Labor - but where would we be without unions? Long before the rest of the world Australia had a minimum wage, child benefits,
pensions and the vote for women... Would the nurses in Victoria have achieved more hospital beds, extra staffing, and decent wages without their unions help

Seems if you get into some here they hide, come David Boaz you are always telling us how big you are, and the vain, but constant references to your gym are remembered.
In a post here and not for the first time you decry all unions.
Yes idiots do exist, yes too many of them, but why do we never see headlines about the rest?
Why is it not reported my phone has never been quite this weekend ,and that it is near equal bosses wanting help and members?
Who can look after my first customer this morning? a good young girl, honest quite girl, who has been sexually harassed by a thuggish boss?
Who rang crying her eyes out? who is fear filled her dad may find out and kill him?
UNIONS, via me thats who, not one cent more than you are entitled to and not one less.
No shouting, even today my task is to win the girl justice and then see penalty's hurt the grub, maybe in a few weeks the world will see him for what he is a grub.
Unions are no different that any group built on self interest of it members that includes yours BD.

The company concerned will be closing for the Christams-New Year break between Dec 22 and Jan inclusive, but will will not be paid even one cent of the expected holiday pay. It will be compulsory unpaid leave, Full stop!

It seems the boss chose to end our AWA without consultation and submit terms for a new AWA, thereby automatically ending our present AWA. The goverment allows this course of action.

George001

I *hear* you George, in Liberal worldview employers would never rip their workers off. Bite your tongue. They are all ethical. (Sarcasm intended). They have the money and the clever lawyers to screw you in the ground, can afford to break the law and shove their fingers at any "fairness" test.

I'm worse off after 11 years of Coalition, despite managing to have remained in secure enterprise bargained employment but pay and conditions have whittled.

I've been double-taxed, coz I'm in the wrong age-group, wrong-demographic. A 'sandwich generation' between the baby-boomers & Gen-X. My kids are now Gen-Y 20s and they've been double-taxed too.

Baby-boomers get tax-free super payouts and their kids the Gen-Xers get baby-bonuses & pork-barrels every 3 years. The rest of us just got more taxes, less pay.

My living conditions have worsened considerably over the last 11 years. Howard increased HECs by 25% in one massive painful hit then tacked on annual interest charge without warning, when my 3 kids were in that age-bracket. Several $$kk extra of education taxes (plus interest) Every time there is a tax-cut I get hit with an increase on the mandatory private health "tax", that I can't afford to use because of the excess and 26% "age-loading" surcharges(wrong age-group).

One of my kids is disabled on pension. 9-mth legal battle with Centrelink when they illegally stopped his pension, hitting me as "carer" with a $3,000 "debt". I won in the end but at great cost. Then the following year they cut all disability pensions by around $10/week. Liberal voters probably think thats fair, so they can get increased subsidies for private schools.

Now growing older my super has gone down by 8% in real terms over 11 yrs while my elder brother (a baby-boomer)has gone up by the same amount?

Thats just on personal hip-pocket. On broader social issues,infrastructure, communications, transport etc all screwed - not to mention health & education. I also felt deeply ashamed of the majority of Liberal-voting neo-nazi thugs in this country for supporting action in Iraq, Tampa, and sending the army into Indigenous communities