unions - hofreps - 1970

Contexts in which the word unions was used in the House of Representatives during the 1970s

This was done very largely in response to the request received from the various public service associations, including credit unions and other bodies. [More…]
Over the last twelve months lengthy meetings, involving the Director-General and other senior officers of my Department at Headquarters alone, have been held with Unions on the average of one about every 3.6 working days. [More…]
However, only a completely biased observer could interpret this comment as an unwillingness to confer with Unions wilh a view to resolving differences and maintaining good management-staff relations. [More…]
Has bis attention been drawn to the press of 1st March 1970 in which he was reported as saying that, in his view, the Director-General and many other senior officers of the Post Office spend an inordinate amount of time in discussions with unions in attempts to resolve differences and to maintain good management-staff relations. [More…]
If so, in what way is time spent in discussions with unions immoderate, excessive, intemperate or disorderly. [More…]
Is it a fact that there is no provision in the Conciliation and Arbitration Act that permits a ready means of amalgamation between trade unions without any dissolution or division of the funds of such trade unions. [More…]
Is he able to say whether under sections 22, 22a and 23 of the Trade Union Act of New South Wales simple procedures are laid down to facilitate the amalgamation of trade unions registered in that State. [More…]
In view of the growing tendency for the smaller federal unions to seek the greater efficiency and industrial strength that sometimes comes to them through amalgamation with another union, is there any merit in amending the Conciliation and Arbitration Act along similar lines to the amalgamation sections of the New South Wales Act. [More…]
The Opposition will move that clause 5, covering credit unions, be postponed, and we will divide the Committee. [More…]
Clause 5 - (Approved credit unions). [More…]
Can the Minister for Labour and National Service say what degree of response is likely from trade unions to the call for strike action by the organisers of the Vietnam Moratorium Campaign? [More…]
The Minister for Labour and National Service will recall that last week he announced that arising out of discussions between unions and employers a dispute settling procedure had been evolved for adoption in industry. [More…]
Bearing in mind the considerable industrial unrest which exists today and in order to show a conciliatory attitude to this problem, will the Minister revoke his decision insisting upon the payment of outstanding fines by a number of trade unions’? [More…]
As I recall his words, the Minister said that I incited the trade unions to place an embargo on the export of merino rams. [More…]
I ask the Minister for Primary Industry for an assurance that he is doing ail in his power to have lifted the ban by the Australian Council of Trade Unions on the export of merino rams. [More…]
I think that the Leader of the Opposition and the shadow Minister for Agriculture deserve very severe condemnation for their whole attitude in this matter, in inciting the trade unions to defy law and order. [More…]
If so, (a) when was the section established, (b) how many officers are employed and what are their designations, (c) what is the annual cost involved in maintaining the section, (d) is it proposed to add to the staff employed in the section, (e) to what extent are the officersinvolved in security activities and (f) have relations improved with the Post Office unions since the establishment of this industrial Relations Section. [More…]
The Government has taken one step towards the settlement of industrial disputes as a consequence of the tripartite agreement made between the employers, the Australian Council of Trade Unions and the Government itself; but that agreement, which in outline is quite good I believe, will fail because not sufficient attention has been given to some of the details. [More…]
I think both the employers of Australia and the unions of Australia will be bitterly disappointed when they read tomorrow’s newspapers and find that the most vital piece of legislation to which this Parliament could possibly apply itself was pushed through the Parliament when most of the members were away and when everybody was in haste to get home. [More…]
The question of costs in industrial legislation is of vital importance, particularly to many small unions. [More…]
Quite a number of unions have only 2,000 or 3,000 members, each of whom pays $5 or $10 a year in fees. [More…]
After these unions maintain an office they reach the stage where it is impossible for them to go to court secure in the knowledge that they will have enough money to pay costs or to comply with any other sanctions imposed on them. [More…]
I protest in this Parliament against the manner in which the Government is treating the unions. [More…]
I ask the Minister for Labour and National Service: What has been the response to the call by the Australian Council of Trade Unions for a national stoppage today? [More…]
Is the Prime Minister aware that acts of lawlessness and industrial and political blackmail, such as yesterday’s Australian Council of Trade Unions strike, with which the Leader of the Opposition is certainly associated, or the statement of the Labor Premier of South Australia encouraging people to break laws they do not like, fill the ordinary public in Australia with acute anxiety and disquiet? [More…]
Last week on Thursday, 17th September, the Minister gave information on the increased national wages bill should unions’ claims for 4 weeks annual leave be granted. [More…]
In view of his answer I now ask him: Is it also true that many claims now being made by unions on behalf of some or all of their members seek a 35- hour week? [More…]
Having given this matter due consideration, will the Minister indicate what approaches can be made to the unions to remedy the situation? [More…]
When is it anticipated that the Commonwealth, the Australian Council of Trade Unions and the National Employers Policy Committee will complete the drawing up of detailed procedures on principles for guidance in establishing and using effective procedures for avoiding and settling industrial disputes. [More…]
Has a recent industrial dispute been determined against members of that union by a panel of three, one being a principal party to the dispute and opposed to the unions, and one a representative of the rival union that is the only one recognised by the Queensland Government? [More…]
Submissions for amendment of the Bill have been made not only by the Council of Commonwealth Public Service Organisations but also by the Australian Council of Trade Unions and various other interested parties. [More…]
names of those members of trade unions who since 1st January 1967, were granted financial assistance under regulation 138 of the Conciliation and Arbitration Regulations. [More…]
The following are the names of those members of trade unions in respect of whom, since 1st January 1967. a Registrar has directed that financial assistance be given pursuant to regulation 138 of the Conciliation and Arbitration Regulations. [More…]
Has his attention been drawn to a statement by the Minister for Shipping and Transport, when addressing a Country Party Conference at Griffith, on 26th June 1970, that it was the aim of the Government to preserve the status of the many responsible members of the trade unions. [More…]
1 am advised that objections are occasionally made by employers and unions to a board of reference hearing a dispute or a matter which would involve the board exercising judicial powers. [More…]
Is he able to say whether the United States Government has already introduced legislation, and the Canadian Government is considering legislation, for a Bill of Rights for rank and file members of trade unions that guarantees to each member charged with a breach of union rules the right to a fair hearing by an impartial body and to participate fully in union meetings and elections. [More…]
If so, will he consider taking steps to amendthe Conciliation and Arbitration Act in such a way as to give similar guarantees to members of Australian trade unions. [More…]
Has his attention been drawn to the taxation implications resulting from the purchase by the Australian Council of Trade Unions of Bourke’s Store in Melbourne? [More…]
I am not aware of any Permanent Head taking such action, but undoubtedly interested staff associations and unions would be fully aware of the statement my predecessor made in the House on 16th February 1971 concerning reductions in Commonwealth expenditure. [More…]
Have the Public Service Board and the Permanent Heads of the various Commonwealth departments advised the Public Service unions and associations of the precise measures to be taken to put into effect the Government’s policy regarding restraint in the growth of the Commonwealth Public Service. [More…]
If not, will he request the Public Service Board and Permanent Heads to suitably inform the Public Service unions and associations. [More…]
Are credit unions subject lo income tax. [More…]
Is it intended that amending legislation be introduced to relieve credit unions of the burden of income lax. [More…]
Is he able to say what countries, other than Australia, subject credit unions’ to income lat. [More…]
However, what I am sure about is that the more the Australian people understand the action taken by members of the Australian Labor Party associated with the more extravagant sections of the Australian Council of Trade Unions who will do all in their power to obstruct the visit of sporting teams to Australia, the more the public will resent and be horrified at their actions and they will express their displeasure in the proper place, and that is in the polls. [More…]
We examined all the submissions which had been made either in this House or in the Senate, or by the Public Service organisations, the Australian Council of Trade Unions and individuals. [More…]
I preface ray question which is directed to the Minister for Labour and National Service by reminding him that towards the end of last week I personally requested him to support a submission I had made for a compulsory conference of representatives of the Federated Marine Stewards and Pantrymen’s Association, the Australian Council of Trade Unions and ship owners. [More…]
We can only assume, as I have mentioned before, that the honourable gentleman is seeking to recapture the initiative which the President of the Australian Council of Trade Unions has so effectively taken from him in the public forums of this country. [More…]
Which credit unions have been approved for the purposes of the Homes Savings Grant Act since the amending Act was assented to on 2nd June 1970. [More…]
What was the total amount of fines (a) imposed on trade unions by the Commonwealth Conciliation and Arbitration Commission and (b) collected from trade unions during each of the years 1959, 1960, 1961, 1962, 1963, 1964 and 1965? [More…]
The following table, supplied by the Commonwealth Statistician, shows the total male and female membership figures for trade unions in each State for the years 1960 to 1970. [More…]
What was the total male and female membership of trade unions in each of the States in each of the last 10 years for which figures are available. [More…]
I am informed by, my Department that from time to time correspondence is exchanged between employers and unions and the Department in connection with suspected breaches of awards. [More…]
Unions and employers have a perfect right to make representations to the Department on such matters. [More…]
Australia is represented on the scientific committees and unions of the Council that are listed below. [More…]
Is Australia a member of the International Council of Scientific Unions. [More…]
If so, (a) when did it join, (b) how much has it contributed to the Council (c) has it been represented on the executive committee and (d) on what scientific unions of the Council is Australia represented and what has it contributed to each. [More…]
What are the names of the unions which were affected by requisitions for controlled elections under the provisions of section 170 of the Conciliation and Arbitration Act in each of the last 10 years. [More…]
In view of the publicity given in Australia to the proposed amalgamation of 3 large metal trades unions under the leadership of Laurie Carmichael, a leading Communist, and the importance of giving information to the community on the possible repercussions from this amalgamation and leadership which, incidentally, has been supported by employers, will the Postmaster-General suggest to the Austraiian Broadcasting Commission that it again feature, preferably on ‘Four Corners’, that portion of its outstanding series ‘Profiles of Power’ in which Laurie Carmichael was the subject of an interview? [More…]
In view of the growing belief on the part of both unions and employers that enforceable industrial agreements may well become the device used in the1970’s to reduce industrial stoppages, will he examine the possibility of having the Conciliation and Arbitration Act amended in such a way as to provide for the registration of enforceable agreements that do not involve a dispute or an interstate industrial dispute or the existence of a conciliator or arbitrator. [More…]
As the PostmasterGeneral is no doubt aware of the presence in Canberra of a deputation of postal unions seeking to interview honourable members on matters affecting his Department, can he inform the House on the background to these activities and the potential consequences of them? [More…]
Did the Minister state recently that it is for the unions to solve the problem of demarcation disputes? [More…]
Is he aware that it is the policy of the Australian Council of Trade Unions to encourage union amalgamation and that such amalgamation will lessen industrial unrest from demarcation disputes? [More…]
Did his predecessor refuse a democratic ballot for representation on the Australian Honey Board while approving compulsory secret ballots for trade unions. [More…]
I know that this is a matter which has caused concern to some of the smaller merchant unions. [More…]
The industrial unrest prevalent at the present time has highlighted more than ever the need for rationalisation in the number of unions, seven in al), involved in the manning of Australian flag vessels. [More…]
It is to be hoped that in the not too distant future it may be possible to reduce the multiplicity of unions. [More…]
This clause of the Bill is open to political privilege and employers as well as unions should take action to see that it is not abused. [More…]
Such flexibility has not been provided in other clauses which deal with the imposition of penalties, amalgamation of unions and so forth; so why should there be flexibility in respect of appointments of privilege, which I take it that this clause intends, and not the same flexibility in other clauses? [More…]
The proposed amalgamation of the metal trades unions has caused anxiety to many of us, particularly to the peaceful members of trade unions, who cannot in their wildest expectations take any part in running the union because of the fear of victimisation and all the things connected with it. [More…]
Does it cover organisations such as the ACTU, State trades hall councils and similar bodies, or does it cover individual unions? [More…]
If it covers individual unions, does it also cover individual employers who should be placed on the same basis? [More…]
The trade and commerce powers enable the Commonwealth to intervene, for instance, in matters involving maritime unions, in other than industrial disputes. [More…]
Does capital expenditure incurred in respect of senior citizens’ centres by (a) local government authorities, (b) service clubs, (c) churches, (d) trade unions and (e) aged persons organisations qualify for subsidy under the Act. [More…]
In what unions registered under the Commonwealth Conciliation and Arbitration Act is a member disqualified from nominating for office unless he has been (a) a member for at least 5 years and (b) continuously financial for at least 3 years, immediately prior to the date of nomination. [More…]
Which of the unions registered under the Commonwealth Conciliation and Arbitration Act have rules which permit members of an incumbent management committee to sit in judgment on rival candidates’ rights to nominate for office. [More…]
In the event of the compulsory conference in Sydney this afternoon not reaching a decision, will the Minister give urgent consideration to convening immediately a conference of the Australian Council of Trade Unions, together with officials of the union concerned and the Australian National Line, in at attempt to avert a tie-up of all ANL ships which, if it occurs, would have very serious effects on the economic life of the island State of Tasmania? [More…]
Which credit unions have been approved for the purposes of the Homes Savings Grant Act since the amending Act was assented to on 6th February 1970. [More…]
The honourable gentleman would be aware that employers and unions associated with this industry are gravely concerned about its future. [More…]
Council of Trade Unions and other organisations for equal pay for equal work for women? [More…]
Which credit unions were able to establish acceptability for their members’ savings under the Homes Savings Grant Act subsequent to the 1970 amendments to that Act. [More…]
Why are conditions imposed on savings held by credit unions while none are imposed on banks. [More…]
Will the honourable gentleman say that notwithstanding the rejection by the Australian Council of Trade Unions Executive of the committee of inquiry into all aspects of industrial relations which was announced in the Governor-General’s Speech, that committee will be established? [More…]
Has the Government decided to intervene in the national wage case to support the request of the Australian Council of Trade Unions that the minimum wage be made S65 a week? [More…]
I have had many representations from companies and unions concerned in the manufacture of carpets in Australia and it is clear that carpet manufacturers in this country have for some weeks been subject to very intense competition as a result of the importation of carpets at much lower than normal prices - 20 per cent, 25 per cent and 30 per cent lower. [More…]
In Canberra, on 6th May 1970, agreement was reached on these procedures and an official announcement made which stated inter alia that the Australian Council of Trade Unions and the National Employers’ Policy Committee would be advising their respective affiliates to adopt the principles expressed in the agreement. [More…]
It will be the mutual responsibility of individual unions and employers to give effect to the guidelines in one of the following ways: [More…]
Accordingly this responsibility for implementation and observance is primarily a matter for individual unions and employers. [More…]
This should greatly facilitate the implementation by individual unions and employers of the recommended procedures. [More…]
What steps has he taken to obtain observance of the Procedures for Dealing with Industrial Disputes as laid down by his Department, the Australian Council of Trade Unions and the National Employers Policy Committee. [More…]
I have received numerous representations from craft unions supporting the concept of flat rate increases to the national wage. [More…]
What representations has he received from the craft unions on this matter. [More…]
I would expect that all persons in receipt of incomes, whether they are members of trade unions, members of white collar organisations, self-employed or living on dividends, would be less disposed to increase their incomes and to use the means available to increase their incomes if something were done about prices. [More…]
Does he expect that the trade unions will slow down price rises by reducing demands for increased wages and does he expect that the trade unions will call off the crippling strikes now harming the economy and the people of Australia? [More…]
The declaration of credit unions as an approved class of lender follows the liberalisation of the conditions under which they may be accepted as repositories for savings under the homes savings grant scheme and indicates the Government’s support for the credit union movement. [More…]
It is now open for credit unions to apply to the Corporation to become approved lenders and to insure with the Corporation those housing loans which meet its requirements. [More…]
The instrument also caters for co-operative societies other than credit unions which are registered or incorporated under laws relating to co-operative, industrial or provident societies and which lend to their members on mortgage security. [More…]
Why was the Australian Council of Trade Unions the only organisation with an interest in the work of the National Commission on Social Welfare given the right to nominate a representative. [More…]
What steps is the Government taking to reduce the incidence of demarcation disputes within and between unions. [More…]
The government has already taken some steps to ensure adequate representation of trade unions on boards, commissions, trusts or similar governmentcreated bodies. [More…]
Is it his intention to ensure adequate representation of trade unions on boards, commissions, trusts or similar Government-created bodies. [More…]
In fact, if the Minister were to read, as I mentioned during the comae of my speech in the second reading stage of this Bill, the eighth, ninth and tenth annual reports of the President of the Conciliation and Arbitration Commission, he would see that the President emphasised the value of Part X and urged both of the principal parties - the employers and the trade unions - to seek to make more extensive use of that part of the legislation for the prevention and settlement of industrial disputes, particularly those in relation to over-award payments. [More…]
In view of the fact that the Australian Council of Trade Unions intends to place a total ban on French planes, shipping, communications and trade from midnight tonight, I ask: Will he exercise effective national leadership for the first time in his period of office and tell the unions to stop meddling in an area of very sensitive Government policy and to refrain from seeking to usurp the role of his Government in foreign affairs? [More…]
Members of the Waterside Workers’ Federation and other maritime unions have on a number of occasions, withheld labour for cargo handling or berthing facilities from vessels the crews of which have been in receipt of wage rates below levels specified by the International Transport Workers’ Federation (ITF). [More…]
There may be other unions like it; I do not know. [More…]
The arrangement which is being made with the Australian Council of Trade Unions with respect to Australian Crown land certainly will not be confined to that organisation. [More…]
I refer to a statement made by Mr Hawke, the President of the Australian Labor Party, at the recent conference of the Australian Council of Trade Unions to the effect that the Government had agreed to give on very special and advantageous terms a large area of land upon which the trade unions would build houses. [More…]
I did have a conversation with the President of the Australian Council of Trade Unions, a member of the Reserve Bank board, last Wednesday night, and in the course of a conversation on many matters he told me that if the Government were able to moderate the rise in prices through the application of such constitutional power as it obtains the trade union movement would fully co-operate in restraining wages and incomes. [More…]
Did he receive any undertakings or guarantees from the President of the Australian Council of Trade Unions that the trade union movement would moderate its claims for wage increases? [More…]
Yesterday the Prime Minister told the House that the President of the Australian Council of Trade Unions had promised him full trade union co-operation in restraining wages and incomes. [More…]
What was the frequency of involvement in industrial stoppages of the different unions represented among the Garden Island work force in each of the same years. [More…]
Why did the Minister tell this engineer to inform the unions rather than inform the Chief Operational Engineer and the Secretary of the Snowy Mountains Council? [More…]
The labour needs of Australian industry are the subject of continuing consultation with the Minister and Department of Labour the Immigration Planning Council (On which industry leaders and the trade unions are represented), State and other appropriate authorities. [More…]
If so, would not this put private people and companies on the same basis as trade unions, whose fees are tax deductible at the moment and used to finance the Australian Labor Party? [More…]
The Commonwealth Statistician is precluded by legislation from divulging information obtained from individual employers and trade unions concerning industrial disputes, so that it is not possible to provide the information sought about each strike or dispute. [More…]
Did the Minister learn these methods from the leaders of left wing unions or did they learn to stand over the people of Australia from him? [More…]
Henty (Mr Fox) said that I had misrepresented the position as to the rates of pay for postmen on a Saturday morning as compared with the rates for members of the other 2 unions involved. [More…]
The postmen were paid only a loading for Saturday morning work; members of the other 2 unions were paid overtime. [More…]
Can the Minister for Immigration say whether it is true that the Australian Council of Trade Unions has banned overseas trade testing of migrants, particularly from Asian countries? [More…]
If he did make that statement, does he also subscribe to the view that moneys collected by unions should not be used for political purposes because they are, in effect, compulsory contributions and may be subscribed by people who do not support the political party being assisted? [More…]
We are deeply concerned by the fact that members of the Metal Trades group of unions are on strike throughout most of Australia. [More…]
As my good friend, the Minister for Labour, points out, the unions elect the people who administer the affairs of unions. [More…]
There is rank and file participation in the decision-making of unions. [More…]
What has been the Government’s response to the ultimatum issued by the postal unions in these matters 3 weeks ago? [More…]
Since then the waterside workers and maritime unions of both countries have agreed that Australian flag vessels manned by Australians as well as New Zealand ships will be permitted to carry cargo between Australia and New Zealand. [More…]
A very clear and positive understanding on shipping exists between the 2 countries and the unions, which is something more than existed before the Australian Labor Party came to office. [More…]
Has the Minister decided on a date for a conference of Police Commissioners, members of police unions, criminologists and Aborigines. [More…]
New Zealand unions that Australian ships can enter the trade provided the ships are crewed by Australian or New Zealand seamen. [More…]
Taking advantage of the very short time that is available to me, I remind the Minister for Immigration (Mr Grassby) who has just spoken that the Australian Council of Trade Unions is in a state of complete eruption over the Minister’s policies. [More…]
The honourable member is asking me whether it will have any influence on the unions. [More…]
Perkins has been deliberately setting out to bring about a confrontation with the unions. [More…]
The failure of the Government, in formulating the terms of reference for the royal commission into alleged indemnity payments involving maritime unions, to include- [More…]
The failure of the Government, in formulating the terms of reference for the Royal Commission into alleged indemnity payments involving maritime unions, to include: [More…]
If I may just explain to you, Sir, the Minister tabled a letter from one of the unions that I named. [More…]
What we are opposed to is creating an environment wherein irresponsible trade unions, feather-bedded by a government - [More…]
The fact is that during his term as Minister for Transport, the Minister has shown that he is very subservient to the communist dominated maritime unions, and it is well known that he cannot make a decision about the use of a foreign flag ship unless he rings up the Australian communists in the maritime unions and seeks their approval. [More…]
We aU know that the communist controlled unions are providing the funds that elect the - [More…]
I have given to the Minister a list of trade unions which I believe are under very strong communist domination. [More…]
Is the Treasurer aware of the interest shown by members of all Australian Public Service unions in the proposed new superannuation scheme? [More…]
Included on that Committee are Mr Carnegie of the Conzinc Rio Tinto company, Professor Wheelwright, Mr Bob Hawke of the Australian Council of Trade Unions, the Secretary of my Department and the Chairman of the Industries Assistance Commission, Mr Rattigan. [More…]
Mr Hawke, the President of the Australian Council of Trade Unions, was also quoted as saying there would be an improvement in 3 months. [More…]
The honourable member for Melbourne who has just spoken said that I had claimed that the trade unions were opposed to this scheme. [More…]
The statement made by the Prime Minister mentioned the maritime unions alone; it did not mention the Waterside Workers Federation. [More…]
Has he been told that the Minister for Labor and Immigration is forecasting that unemployment will show a big increase in the next few months and that the President of the Australian Council of Trade Unions is forecasting that 300,000 Australians will be out of work in January? [More…]
In view of the remarks of the Prime Minister referring to the unions screwing consumers, will he acknowledge the Prime Minister as the greatest and most unrivalled union basher? [More…]
With reference to the proposed surcharge tax on income from deposits in building societies, credit unions and savings banks, as well as retirement benefits, will this tax also apply to interest on Special Security Bonds. [More…]
In accordance with an undertaking given to the Joint Council, discussions on this matter were held in May 1974 with representatives of the Council of Commonwealth Public Service Organisations, the Australian Council of Trade Unions, the Council of Professional Associations and the Australian Council of Salaried and Professional Associations. [More…]
Temporary telephone services were installed at the Florida Hotel, Terrigal, at the request of- the Australian Labor Party; the Australian Council of Trade Unions; the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet; and various Press, Television and Radio Broadcasting Organisations. [More…]
1 ) Has he yet sought discussions with the Minister for the Capital Territory, the Minister for Manufacturing Industry and leaders of trade unions to discuss the growing demand for all-day parking space in Canberra. [More…]
Does he intend to intervene in the hearing of the Victorian Government’s notification of its dispute with the metal trades unions lodged on Monday, 14 April? [More…]
1 ) Did he say on 23 January 1 974 that he was convinced that the introduction of wage indexation would cause unions to confine their demands to increases based on increased productivity and technological change. [More…]
Is so, from which unions. [More…]
Is he supporting and organising Senator Gietzelt ‘s approach to the Australian Council of Trade Unions to undermine the Caucus decision? [More…]
Does he welcome the support that Senator Gietzelt is seeking to marshal for him from the Australian Council of Trade Unions? [More…]
Did he state on 31 January 1973 that relevant Ministers had been authorised by Cabinet to initiate discussions with the relevant State authorities, proprietors and unions to devise ways and means of assuring the orderly development of mineral industries in the best interests of Australia. [More…]
For the information of honourable members I present the interim report of the Royal Commission into Alleged Payments to Maritime Unions. [More…]
-Has the Prime Minister seen reports of a call by the President of the Australian Council of Trade Unions, Mr Hawke, for the Government to reconsider the phasing out of the Regional Employment Development scheme? [More…]
Is it a fact that the interim report of the Royal Commission on Petroleum on the Australian Council of Trade Unions oil deal has been delivered to the Governor-General? [More…]
and (2) By hand to the Press Gallery; through the Publicity Officer at Parliament House to all Members; and Senators; by mail to the media, appropriate Australian Government departments, and to certain political party organisations, trade unions and staff associations who have requested them; and on request to business organisations, libraries and individuals. [More…]
I do not know whether there have been contributions by any unions or whether contributions have been sought by any unions for Fretilin in Portuguese Timor. [More…]
Has the Prime Minister been made aware that certain trade unions in [More…]
-The Australian Council of Trade Unions and everybody else in the oil industry - [More…]
Will the Prime Minister now accept the assurance of the Secretary of the Australian Council of Trade Unions, Mr Souter, that the Government was not deceived over the price being paid by the ACTU? [More…]
Payments are credited to trading accounts or savings accounts, and I think credit unions and building societies as well. [More…]
However, the 1973 Conciliation and Arbitration Act gave unions until mid-November of 1976 to comply with the provisions of the 1973 Act. [More…]
The rules of the more democratic unions had already provided for the direct vote of members for all offices. [More…]
I ask for leave to incorporate in Hansard a list giving examples of the unions which had full time office bearers elected directly by the membership and those where the election was by the collegiate system. [More…]
Has the Prime Minister seen reports that some left wing unions intend to mount a series of rolling strikes against the Government because of the changes to Medibank? [More…]
5 ) If consideration is being given to such a transfer of administrative responsibility, what discussions have taken place with representatives of the Defence Service Homes Staff or representatives of unions affected. [More…]
At one stage of his remarks the Minister said that there had been, I think, only 29 applications for postal ballots out of 1 50 unions. [More…]
No approaches have been made to my Department by representatives of trade unions or employer organisations in relation to such a proposal. [More…]
Its facilities will be available on a tariff basis for other purposes when courses are not being conducted and it is expected that unions will consider the College as a venue for conferences and seminars. [More…]
Mr STREET (Corangamite-Minister for Employment and Industrial Relations)- I said on that occasion, in answer to that question, that the Federated Ironworkers Association or one of its branches was amongst the unions which had fined members as a consequence of working on the day of the Medibank strike. [More…]
I have a proper regard for the role of unions in our economic society. [More…]
The honourable member for Port Adelaide (Mr Young) said that members on this side of the House had never been actively associated with unions at all. [More…]
Has the Prime Minister seen Press reports today that the Australian Council of Trade Unions has an unbeatable plan to save the shipbuilding industry and that the leader of the ACTU is reported as saying that what is happening in Whyalla and Newcastle is indicative of what the Government will be facing in the whole of manufacturing industry? [More…]
Has the Department discussed the possible copyright liability of teachers with their unions. [More…]
Does the Prime Minister consider that this legislation will lead to a reduction in industrial disruptions by minority controlled unions? [More…]
This is a time when all of our institutions and all Australians- business, trade unions and everyone in a position of leadership in this community- must seek to set aside narrow interests in favour of the overriding common interests that we all share. [More…]
how many unionists covered by unions registered in the Federal jurisdiction have been able to avail themselves of this right, and [More…]
On 23 September 1976 the Prime Minister announced in the Parliament: the Government will be putting down a regulation which will enable the Industrial Registrar to require trade unions to notify the Registrar of their next forthcoming ballot Under these provisions there would be a continuing record held by the Industrial Registrar of ballots for all trade union elections and, therefore, anyone would be able to find out what ballots were to be held in the next few months. [More…]
The Minister will clearly be giving a fully detailed statement concerning the Government’s proposals, and in that it will become quite clear that a major objective of the Government in these matters is to protect the rights of individual employees against opressive actions by unions or by employers. [More…]
I refer the Prime Minister to reports that the Metal Trades Industry Association and the trade unions associated with the metal trades have called on the Government to stop tariff reviews until the economy has recovered. [More…]
-Can the Prime Minister give any information to the House on what the major objections of the peak trade unions were to the wage-price pause? [More…]
How can a government appeal to unions for cooperation when it is pushing legislation through the Parliament to restrict their rights in this way? [More…]
Let it stop its squabbling, stop blaming the unions, stop dithering on prices and get around the table for an honest discussion of our economic problems. [More…]
Is the Minister for Business and Consumer Affairs aware of excessive wage claims being made by unions in the building industry? [More…]
The honourable member made some statements that I just cannot allow to go unchallenged-I should like to put on record that there has been no breach whatever of the agreement reached between the Government and the Australian Council of Trade Unions. [More…]
Will the Minister for Employment and Industrial Relations (Mr Street) say what the position of the Australian Council of Trade Unions or the Council of Australian Government Employee Organisations will be in the event of the Bureau acting in accordance with what I interpret the agreement to be but which it appears the ACTU, CAGEO and the Federal unions do not interpret the agreement to be, namely, that the Bureau will have all of the powers presently possessed by the Arbitration Inspectorate to process the pains and penalties of the existing Conciliation and Arbitration Act? [More…]
In the event of this occurring- that is to say, unions being prosecuted for strikes against bans clauses in awards, if the ACTU and the unions concerned then refuse to carry out the agreement in respect of the Bureau on the ground that it is doing things they did not believe it would do, and thus put themselves in the same court as ACSPA is now, will they be allowed to continue to sit as members of the NLCC? [More…]
All I can do for the honourable member for Hindmarsh (Mr Clyde Cameron) is to refer him back to the statement of the Australian Council of Trade Unions of 1 1 May 1977 which he himself asked to have incorporated in full in the Hansard record. [More…]
Australian Council of Trade Unions which was read at its conference with the Minister on 1 1 May 1977. [More…]
That decision, incidentally, was adopted by the Special Conference of Federal Unions held on 18 May 1977 but it is important to mention that the Australian Council for Salaries and Professional Associations rejected the proposition outright and would have nothing to do with it. [More…]
He has virtually said that the Australian Council of Trade Unions and the Council of Australian Government Employee Organisations have given an undertaking to accept this deal on the Bureau as pan of the price they are prepared to pay for becoming members of the National Labour Consultative Council. [More…]
Why exclude the Australian Council of Salaried and Professional Associations because it will not agree to the transfer of the powers that now reside with the Arbitration Inspectorate to the Industrial Relations Bureau, when the Government will allow the Council of Australian Government Employee Organisations and the Australian Council of Trade Unions to have that benefit? [More…]
What was the prime cause of each industrial dispute and which unions were directly involved on each occasion. [More…]
I ask the Minister for Primary Industry: Has he received a telegram from the Farmers Union of Western Australia (Inc) which clearly demonstrates the hypocrisy of the Australian Council of Trade Unions in supporting the ban - [More…]
It is worth noting that the Australian Council of Trade Unions has policy in two relevant areas of this dispute. [More…]
Undoubtedly there is a strong and heavy onus on the two unions concerned and on the ACTU to try to resolve this dispute as quickly as possible. [More…]
Can the Minister tell the House what action he will be taking to end this damaging dispute which is nothing more than a senseless argument between senior officials of the two unions? [More…]
-Has the Prime Minister’s attention been drawn to Press reports that the President of the Australian Council of Trade Unions is seeking a referendum on the question of uranium development? [More…]
What elections have been held in trade unions registered under the Conciliation and Arbitration Act since 31 December 1975. [More…]
1 ) Which major Federal unions, Le. [More…]
Which unions have compulsory secret ballots. [More…]
The decision to remove trade unions from the list of recipients of free copies of the Social Security Quarterly was made by the Australian Government Publishing Service. [More…]
Did the Minister approve of the decision to remove trade .unions from the list of organisations and persons who receive gratis copies of the quarterly magazine of the Department of Social Security. [More…]
It arises from his answer last night on the television program This Day Tonight that the Government last week had lodged a joint application with the Victorian Government for the deregistration of the unions involved in the Victorian power dispute. [More…]
I also ask him: How does the deregistration of unions assist in settling a dispute between them and their employers when once they are deregistered the unions are no longer within the ambit of existing or amended industrial relations legislation? [More…]
What does he see as the first consequence of deregistration of unions, the dismissal of workers involved in the power dispute and the use of non-union labour? [More…]
It is a very simple and short document which indicates that a donation was made to the Australian Labor Party federal campaign fund from the Amalgamated Metalworkers and Shipwrights Union or the appropriate unions- the amalgamated organisationsof $25,000. [More…]
Finally, has the Minister received requests to halt export licences until a conference of all Australian coal exporters, the Government and trade unions is convened? [More…]
-The House will recall that I indicated in answer to a question asked yesterday about the dispute within the Commonwealth Employment Service that it was of great regret to the Government that the unions involved had rejected proposals made some weeks ago which could have resolved the dispute. [More…]
I advised the unions of the Government’s position and of its determination to reach a resolution of this dispute. [More…]
I understand that executives of the relevant unions will meet today to consider and to endorse the memorandum of understanding with the proposals being put to members in New South Wales and Victoria as soon as possible. [More…]
1 ) To which unions, Federal and State, do employees of Qantas belong. [More…]
) To which unions, Federal and State, do employees of TAA belong. [More…]
1 ) To which unions, Federal and State, do employees of the munitions establishments and the aircraft and guided weapons establishments belong? [More…]
1 ) The number of weekly employees by unions of the Naval Dockyards as at 28 February 1 978 are as follows: [More…]
As my first step in examining the possibility of providing a legislative basis for the National and State Employment Discrimination Committees, I am arranging for consultations, in the near future, with the employers and trade unions, through the National Labour Consultative Council. [More…]
1 ) To which unions, Federal and State, do employees of the Australian Telecommunications Commission belong. [More…]
1 ) To which unions, Federal and State, do employees of the Australian Postal Commission belong. [More…]
The organisers that are not trained and have had no access to training previously understand the opportunities that the Trade Union Training Authority has provided them for the presentation of their cases and the administration of their branches of the unions. [More…]
They have become delegates at the national level of their trade unions. [More…]
Is the Prime Minister aware of a statement which is reported in today’s issue of the Australian that the President of the Australian Council of Trade Unions, Mr Bob Hawke, considers that the National Employment Conference convened by the Victorian Premier is becoming more and more a useless exercise’? [More…]
Did that statement commit the Government to the introduction of democratic procedures in trade unions indicating that in his view it was imperative that the leadership should accurately reflect the views of their members. [More…]
The ABC management, together with those unions representing the staff, have developed a joint statement of their position on this issue. [More…]
1 ) Is it a fact that at a meeting in October 1978, concerning staffing of the Australian Development Assistance Bureau at which the Public Service Board, the Australian Development Assistance Bureau, the Department of Foreign Affairs and certain unions were represented, the Public Service Board undertook to provide to the unions copies of the Joint Review Committee’s report into staffing of the Australian Development Assistance Bureau and subsequently supplied only background material, contrary to an understanding reached by those groups present at the meeting. [More…]
If so, will he endeavour to provide the respective unions with the information they have sought from the [More…]
Are the unions acting in a responsible manner for the good of all Australians? [More…]
-Can the Minister for Employment and Industrial Relations inform the House of the effect on the Australian work force if the Australian Council of Trade Unions wages policy were to be implemented? [More…]
In view of the Minister’s reply to that question that this Government is most unlikely ever to consider public funding, does the Government intend to request private donors such as companies and trade unions to declare their donations? [More…]
The second part is to remove unemployment benefit from those members of unions which have gone on strike. [More…]
Ainslie bus depot, I said that the Government was having expressed to it objections from the unions and also that others in the community had some worries about the project. [More…]
At the time when I answered that question, my recollection was that I had been told that it had run into opposition from the unions. [More…]
The information I had was that that project may produce opposition from the unions. [More…]
Discussions are taking place between the National Employers’ Organisations and the Australian Council of Trade Unions and the Government in an endeavour to develop more effective means of avoiding and settling industrial disputes within the framework of the Conciliation and Arbitration system. [More…]
As to the question which the honourable member asked, today there has been consultation between the Australian Council of Trade Unions, the Amalgamated Postal Workers Union, the Public Service Board and representatives of the Post Office. [More…]
Also for the record I want to state that although this is a matter which vitally affects the Australian Council of Trade Unions, the Australian Council of Salaried and Professional Associations, and the Council of Commonwealth Public Service Organisations, the Leader of the House (Mr Snedden) has decided to refuse the Opposition the right to have more than one speaker on this most urgent and important matter. [More…]
But another point should emerge, that is, that the Commission recently accepted all of the submissions made by Mr Hawke as an advocate for the unions. [More…]
Are we therefore to say that Commission is a rubber stamp of the present President of the Australian Council of Trade Unions? [More…]
When Mr Commissioner Winter accepted the submissions of the unions in relation to equal pay in the metal trades industry, are we therefore to say that Mr Commissioner Winter was under the influence of the unions? [More…]
The fact of the matter is that unions - organised workers and organised employers - and the Government operate in a tripartite manner in industrial relations and before the Commission and. [More…]
These recommendations came from the industry, but now, because Labor does not like what is happening, it incites the trade unions to run this country and to go against the decisions of the Government. [More…]
All I can say is that it is a shameful performance for any honourable member elected to this Parliament, to incite trade unions to act against decisions of the Government. [More…]
Firstly, Mr Speaker, dealing with the question of whether the Australian Labor Party is concerned, not long ago I had the opportunity to hear the President of the Australian Council of Trade Unions, Mr Hawke, address an agricultural economics symposium at Monash University. [More…]
At least the trade unions are systematic; I doubt whether the rural industries are quite as systematic. [More…]
The Australian Federation of Credit Union Leagues has recently renewed its request that savings with credit unions be acceptable for purposes of the home savings grant scheme. [More…]
Lending by credit unions is still predominantly by way of loans of less than $1,000 for such purposes as the purchase of furniture, household equipment and motor vehicles and meeting the cost of medical and educational expenses and home repairs. [More…]
However, a few credit unions are making loans of $4,000 or more over periods of up to 10 years or even longer to their members to assist them to acquire a home of their own. [More…]
These are the conditions on which the Government is willing to accept savings with credit unions for purposes of the home savings grant scheme. [More…]
It is appreciated that very few, if any, credit unions are as yet in a position to meet these conditions. [More…]
The opportunity was taken - after the elections - to reject the joint request of the Australian Council of Trade Unions, the Australian Council of Salaried and Professional Associations and Public Service organisations for 4 weeks annual leave for public servants, thus completing the Prime Minister’s sabotage of this proposal during the Prime Ministership of his predecessor. [More…]
A proposal to make members of credit unions eligible for the homes savings grant was voted down by every Government member when the Australian Labor Party proposed it in 1964 and 1965. [More…]
Let us look at some of the comments made by the new president of the Australian Council of Trade Unions, Mr Hawke. [More…]
During the famous pig iron dispute he was very critical of the trade unions. [More…]
As a result the unions placed a black ban on his newspaper. [More…]
In anticipation of this matter arising I did write a letter on, 1 think, 26th February to the President of the Australian Council of Trade Unions drawing his attention to the way in which things were shaping and asking him to use all the power he possesses to ensure that wiser counsel will prevail in the Waterside Workers Federation. [More…]
Can the Government assist the officers of the genuine unions. [More…]
Having obtained and held their offices they then not merely pursue the industrial interests of the unions but also use their positions of power and influence to pursue their political or disruptive policies. [More…]
What the Government has done is lo provide, in the conciliation and arbitration legislation, provisions for secret ballots or for members of unions to require an election for offices of unions. [More…]
I remind Lawrie that when he delivered his paper The Trade Unions and the Left’ at the Conference for Left Action in April of last year, there was debate amongst the leftists and the Communists present as to whether the Leader of the [More…]
I believe in and am all for strong unions provided that they are in the hands of the rank and file. [More…]
I would like to see control of unions put back in the hands of the rank and file where it ought to be. [More…]
The control of those unions is in the hands of the extreme left, the pro-Communist minority - the militant few. [More…]
Such a step would destroy in one act the control exercised by many left wing extremists over the rank and file of unions. [More…]
I do think that he pointed out, as he had the perfect right to point out, that there were significant Communist influences within the trade unions, within the State branches of the Labor Party and generally those organisations [More…]
I can imagine how the honourable member for Reid (Mr Uren) would have felt during the last war if he had been in a situation like this and had found that back at home, where he was hoping that people were acting in his best interest and trying to support him, trade unions and other sections were coming out blatantly and calling on the Australian troops to lay down their arms and mutiny against their officers and their country, and gaining the greatest coverage in the Press. [More…]
Finally I say to the honourable member that, because I am concerned that these processes should be gone through rather than direct action being taken, I have communicated with the President of the Australian Council of Trade Unions by telegram and I am hoping, through another indirect contact, that I will be seeing him on Monday of next week. [More…]
No mention is made of offering any solution lo the frustrations being felt on wage issues by white collar organisations and trade unions whose confidence in the arbitration system has been shattered, and 1 cite the recent upsurge of protest by .professional engineers at their recent wages decision. [More…]
Is it any wonder then that the trade unions are having an unprecedented spate of militant activity to obtain wage increases. [More…]
In a large number of cases over award payments outside the arbitration system are the aim of unions and white collar organisations. [More…]
Many members of the Party and its affiliated unions have been angered at the public attack I made on some decisions and members of the Federal Executive. [More…]
Four others are members of unions, not of Trades and Labour Councils of the ACTU but of individual unions and 4 are members of Parliament, and only 1 of them. [More…]
When policy items find their way from the rank and file in unions and sub-branches through our State conventions and Federal Conferences into the platforms of our Party, woe betide those of us who are the elected representatives in this Parliament if we ignore those policy items. [More…]
Many members of the Party and its affiliated unions have been angered at the public attack I made on some decisions and members of the Federal Executive. [More…]
This was followed by a meeting with the president and officers of the Australian Council of Trade Unions. [More…]
Honourable members are saying a lot about trade unions and the like. [More…]
But today we see the rather appalling position where the alternative Prime Minister of this country has been inching trade unions to act against a Government. [More…]
That means taking control out of the Government’s hands by using trade unions as a weapon. [More…]
The 50 rams that were bought by overseas interests are still here due to the fact that the trade unions concerned will not handle them. [More…]
He says that the unions acted at the instance of the Leader of the Opposition (Mr Whitlam). [More…]
The Minister knows, as we all do, that the growers and the unions combined on this occasion. [More…]
Will he agree to an independent commission to inquire into the price of petrol and indeed into the price of steel as proposed by the President of the Australian Council of Trade Unions and supported by the President of the Royal Automobile Club of Victoria in reference to the question of petrol? [More…]
The union involved has been concerned in recent times with the drift in its membership to other unions in the building industry and there is little doubt that at present the leadership of the union is trying to be seen to be very militant - trying to increase wages by militancy in order to arrest the movement of its members to other unions. [More…]
In these circumstances is it not understandable that the Australian Council of Trade Unions is under pressure to support strike action as a means of preventing unwarranted and arbitrary increases in prices? [More…]
One is a meeting of the Australian Council of Trade Unions Disputes Committee and the other is a meeting of the employers of waterside labour. [More…]
For example, legislation is proposed in connection with credit unions and the use of their funds for housing loans. [More…]
It encompassed not only the principles underlying other legislation in this sphere and the practices of the respective administering authorities but also the comments of the courts and the proposals and representations received from many quarters - from unions and other employee organisations, from members of the Government parties and from members of the Opposition. [More…]
Finally, is not this concern even more urgent as personal support was assured to the Campaign by the Leader of Her Majesty’s Opposition at a meeting of unions affiliated with the Queensland Trades and Labour Council held in late February at the Brisbane Trades Hall? [More…]
In these circumstances should any of us be surprised that the honourable member for Boothby (Mr McLeay) feels free to defame Australia, its people, its churches, its unions, on Rhodesian television? [More…]
Commonwealth departments will make deductions on behalf of all registered unions and associations. [More…]
Is he able to say whether there is widespread belief among organisations representative of professional engineers and trade unions that the Commonwealth Government and its instrumentalities unduly influence the decisions of the Commonwealth Conciliation and Arbitration Commission. [More…]
Is he able to say whether the combined mining unions have decided to strike immediately any attempt is made to implement the Tribunal’s decision unless the union’s claim for shorter hours is acceded to. [More…]
The district stoppages in the New South Wales Northern and Southern districts on March 23rd, the day that multiple shifts were to be introduced at Kemira Colliery in implementation of the Tribunal’s decision, were organised under the aegis of the Combined Mining Unions. [More…]
In view of the fact that the President of the Australian Council of Trade Unions has criticised the increases in prices of BHP products, will the Minister advise Mr Hawke that BHP competes with overseas producers and must have regard to this competition? [More…]
Do unions have regard to wages paid in Japan and other low cost countries before applying for and, indeed, demanding and striking for higher wages and over-award payments or do they look at these matters in isolation and have no regard for brother unionists overseas? [More…]
There are presently before the New South Wales Industrial Commission applications for the deregistration, under the State arbitration system, of a number of unions. [More…]
Of the large number of unions concerned with the Broken Hill Company there are three unions which are not concerned in the applications for deregistration because, as I understand it, they have been seeking to pursue their claims through negotiation. [More…]
I would hope that all unions making wage claims would follow the pattern of negotiation and, failing negotiation, then arbitration and that there should be no recourse to direct strike action which can only be harmful to the economy. [More…]
Certain arrangements were reached between the employers and the unions. [More…]
In return for the granting of those conditions it is proposed that an agreement will be signed by the employers, the Australian Council of Trade Unions and the Waterside Workers Federation which will provide that during the course of the agreement, which will run for 2 years from 6th May 1970, the Waterside Workers Federation and the Australian Council of Trade Unions undertake that there will be no stoppages of work on the waterfront over any issue of wages and conditions negotiated during these negotiations. [More…]
The answer to the honourable gentleman’s question is that the matter was considered by the Government quite recently as a result of representations made by the Public Service unions. [More…]
My question, which is addressed to the Minister for Labour and National Service, concerns what appears to be a growing tendency on the part of some militant unions to take the government of the country out of the hands of the constitutionally elected Government by an attempt through so called ‘black bans’ to circumvent the policy of the Government of the day. [More…]
Will the Government strongly stress to the Australian Council of Trade Unions that it is not prepared to have the government of the country taken out of its hands by a small unelected minority? [More…]
I have asked for discussions to be held between representatives of my own Department and the Australian Council of Trade Unions. [More…]
In view of the Australian Council of Trade Unions’ recent decision to accept the invitation of the Soviet trade union organisation for the ACTU President to visit the Soviet Union, and in view of the ACTU’s favoring a reciprocal visit by the Russian union leader, can the Prime Minister say whether that person would be given a visa by this Government? [More…]
Finally, is the new tsar of the Labor Party, the ambitious somewhat power hungry President of the Australian Council of Trade Unions, behind the infamous action to prohibit delivery of perfectly legal sales? [More…]
My only comment on the last part of the honourable gentleman’s question is that it ill behoves the Leader of the Opposition and the shadow Minister for Primary Industry to incite trade unions to act against a decision of the industry simply because a minority opposes the decision of the industry and the Government. [More…]
In regard to the rest of the question, I do agree with what the Minister for Labour and National Service said yesterday, which was that the question of 4 weeks leave for Commonwealth public servants had been carefully examined by the Government and had been discussed with representatives of the various unions but on the grounds of the cost to the community generally and on other grounds in relation to shift work, which the Minister mentioned, the Government decided not to grant this leave. [More…]
We remember the well-publicised Press statements, television appearances and so on in which he has been condemning the lawlessness of the Australian Council of Trade Unions because it backed the waterside workers of Australia in wanting to get increased wages from ship owners in Australia, particularly as greater increases in wages had been granted by the same ship owners and their agents to dockers in Britain. [More…]
The Leader of the House will find that the Labor Party will no more accept this high-handed attitude than will the leaders of the great Australian trade unions. [More…]
The cup had to go to a Communist team because the Communists then controlled the south coast trade unions. [More…]
It is perfectly clear, among other things, that the strong line taken by the Leader of this House (Mr Snedden) in his capacity as a Minister with the fairly militant area of trade unions met with some disapproval from the opposite side of the House. [More…]
Some wellintentioned peace activists have become discouraged from lending their support following the Campaign organisers’ failure to obtain the official endorsement of the Federal Executive of the Labor Party or the official backing of the Australian Council of Trade Unions. [More…]
He attended a meeting of unions at the Trades Hall which was designed to support the Vietnam Moratorium Campaign. [More…]
The honourable member for Lalor has been down whipping up the trade unions. [More…]
If one looks at the literature which is being put out by the organisation one will see that it is being mainly sponsored by Communist controlled organisations and Communistcontrolled trade unions. [More…]
Of the affiliated unionists, a small percentage of those who voted in that plebiscite belonged to unions which had Communists on their executives. [More…]
My question is directed to the Minister for Labour and National Service and 1 ask whether it is a fact that, due to the continuous wage demands by unions in Australia and the militant manner in which these demands are being made, the normally accepted principles of conciliation and arbitration are now threatened. [More…]
Has this challenge by unions reached a free-for-all stage and will the powerful unions eventually push the system to the wall? [More…]
Will this be to the detriment of the less powerful unions and certainly to the detriment of Australians generally? [More…]
The concern that I have about direct negotiation is the degree to which powerful unions in an industrial sense are able to use the threat of strike action to coerce employers to give wage increases beyond the capacity of the economy to pay and in advance of the development of productivity. [More…]
I suggest this is far more desirable than the present system of supporting hospitals by a 5c visiting charge, the rattling of tins for appeals on busy streets, the running of cake stalls and beauty contests, raffles and art unions. [More…]
that the clauses of the Bill relating to credit unions should be redrafted to give credit union savings complete and unconditional recognition under the Act; [More…]
My second reason for branding this Bill as a thimble and pea act is the proposal to deny the request by the Australian Federation of Credit Union Leagues for the inclusion of credit unions as approved institutions under the homes savings grant scheme. [More…]
The Government had no consultation with the Australian Federation of Credit Union Leagues prior to the drafting of this legislation, nor did it consider the New South Wales legislation which sets out the conditions under which credit unions may function. [More…]
Section 7 (d) of the New South Wales legislation covering and controlling credit unions permits a maximum loan of $4,000 to be made by credit unions. [More…]
On the one hand the Government is bringing legislation before this House and saying that it is serious about a proposal to include credit unions in the homes savings grant scheme and that they will have to make minimum loans of $7,000, but on the other hand the New South Wales legislation provides that they may make a maximum loan of only $4,000. [More…]
Even the ordinance covering credit unions in the Australian Capital Territory provides that a loan should not exceed $2,000. [More…]
The New South Wales Minister who administers credit unions has stated that his Government does not intend to increase the maximum allowable loan of $4,000 by credit unions in the State. [More…]
It mystifies me that a Minister with a department to back her cannot discover the facts relating to the involvement of credit unions in the proposed scheme. [More…]
I point out that 70% of all credit union assets throughout the Commonwealth are held by credit unions in New South Wales, but the maximum loan allowed in New South Wales is $4,000 and the present proposal is that a loan must be $7,000. [More…]
In 1.969 there were 307 credit unions throughout Australia and 234 of them had assets of less than $150,000. [More…]
Does the Government propose to disqualify these 230 credit unions immediately because of the limitation of their assets? [More…]
It is quite possible that these small credit unions have granted more personal loans for housing alterations, housing extensions and to assist in the purchase of blocks of land than some of the larger credit unions. [More…]
But this legislation will not assist credit unions now or in the future if these stringent conditions are maintained. [More…]
That is why the Labor Party has proposed an amendment to the motion for the second reading to provide that the clauses of the Bill relating to credit unions should be redrafted to give credit union savings complete and unconditional recognition under the Act and will move during th3 Committee stage that the clause relating to credit unions be postponed. [More…]
Far from the Government misunderstanding the credit unions and what they are all about, I suggest to the House that it is the Opposition that does not attempt, with a few notable exceptions, to understand a financial system which is not unitary and strictly under Government control and direction. [More…]
Much has been said about the decision to set down conditions for credit unions to be classified as acceptable under this scheme. [More…]
Nobody would deny t hatcredit unions are big business or that they will become even bigger in the near future, but I would reject out of hand the amendment that the Opposition has put forward. [More…]
Now, I believe with the Government’s proposals the door has been opened for credit unions themselves to consider whether they plan to move away from consumer credit finance and into home loans, and to do so significantly. [More…]
I believe we can assume that the local administrators of credit unions are not unaware of overseas trends in their movement and I commend to them the experience of the credit union movement in Canada. [More…]
In the same International Year Book it states that of $ 10,526m loans made in 1968 by credit unions in the United States, something like $865. [More…]
In fact, we are concerned to see that all forms of credit are made available to the Australian community and in this pattern we readily admit and welcome the role of credit unions. [More…]
Another matter I wish to raise at this stage concerns credit unions. [More…]
I acknowledged his letter and took the matter up with the Minister for Housing- to find out the Government’s latest policy on credit unions and Homes Savings Grant. [More…]
I believe it only fair that the contents of Senator Dame Annabelle Rankin’s letter should be read into Hansard so that people who might want to evaluate the amount of assistance that is given to credit unions can have a complete and proper understanding of the Government’s attitude in this matter. [More…]
She wrote to Mr Stephens on 9th April 1970, and I believe that the Prime Minister (Mr Gorton) saw a delegation of representatives from the credit unions. [More…]
I refer to your letter of 6 March 1970 advising me of your League’s views on the proposed amendments to the Homes Savings Grant Act which will set- out the conditions with which individual credit unions must comply so that savings held with them may become acceptable for the purposes of the scheme. [More…]
For some time the Government has been aware that a number of credit unions have been seeking to have savings held with them accepted for purposes of the scheme. [More…]
I informed honourable senators that I would carefully consider any proposed further amendments designed to admit savings with the larger credit unions if they were to make sizeable loans to their members for the acquisition of homes. [More…]
Although we have not received any such proposals, I and my colleagues have not forgotten the wish of the credit union movement that savings deposited with individual credit unions be acceptable. [More…]
When the situation of the credit unions was reviewed in 1967, there was no doubt that these unions, although assisting their members to improve and furnish their homes, and to meet a small deposit gap in acquiring their homes, were not offering housing loans of comparable size, and on comparable terms and conditions, as those offered by banks and building and housing societies. [More…]
Since that time quite a number of credit unions have been making larger loans and for longer periods, even though they are not yet making many first mortgage housing loans as large as those being offered by the major institutional lenders. [More…]
True, as was frankly admitted in the second reading speech during which the conditions were set out, it is appreciated that very few, if any, credit unions are yet in a position to meet these conditions. [More…]
I have been informed by the Registrars in two States that some credit unions have made housing loans of $5,000, $6,000 and even $10,000 to individual members. [More…]
Savings with these unions may be able to qualify in the near future. [More…]
I shall refer now to credit unions. [More…]
Figures provided by the Australian Federation of Credit Unions suggest that from 15% to 20% of their loans are for land and housing purchases and about 15% for home improvements. [More…]
What is the Government’s policy towards credit unions? [More…]
When homes savings grants were first introduced deposits in credit unions were accepted for homes savings grant purposes. [More…]
Strangely enough credit unions still have not been able to get a reason from the Government as to why their recognition as institutions attracting the homes savings grant has been withdrawn. [More…]
Even the speech read by the Minister for the Navy (Mr Killen) did not contain any reason as to why credit unions are not accepted. [More…]
In fact - this is the cruel and cynical aspect of it - State government regulations actually prevent credit unions from lending up to this amount. [More…]
The limitations on the membership of credit unions prevent this from happening. [More…]
Many credit unions simply could not reach this figure. [More…]
70% of credit unions are immediately excluded from the scheme. [More…]
The Government also demands that the maximum interest to be charged by the credit unions must be, according to the Act, 7i% . [More…]
Also, credit unions charge only 10% reducible, and included in the arrangement is free loan protection insurance. [More…]
Therefore the Minister actually has drawn up legislation saying that credit unions will be eligible but then admits quite openly that few credit unions could benefit under the regulations. [More…]
I believe that the Government’s policy towards credit unions is very unjust and very severe. [More…]
They are savings banks, building societies and credit unions. [More…]
Yet credit unions are the only institutions excluded from eligibility under the homes savings grant scheme. [More…]
This means that many young married couples who borrow from credit unions in order to buy houses, land or to carry out improvements to their homes are prevented from putting their savings to their own benefit and that of their fellow members. [More…]
I point out also that credit unions provide a very valuable service, particularly to low income earners, in the form of second mortgages. [More…]
Credit unions are playing an increasingly vital role in providing second mortgages and loans to enable people to furnish and equip their homes. [More…]
I point out to the Government, as have the credit unions, that they have no wish to enter substantially into long term financing of housing. [More…]
One honourable member earlier this evening said that the credit unions had not clarified their attitude as to how they would develop in this sphere. [More…]
I believe that the Government should redraft this Bill, so far as it concerns credit unions, in accordance with the amendments put forward by the Labor Party. [More…]
It should recognise the credit unions as acceptable institutions to attract the homes savings grant. [More…]
The Opposition has moved that the Bill should be redrafted to bring credit unions wholly within the scope of the homes savings grant scheme. [More…]
If the credit unions are able to show their capacity to meet this requirement, the legislation gives them the opportunity to participate. [More…]
I am in no way opposed to the operation of credit unions. [More…]
I believe that they are a very desirable and very useful medium for encouraging people to participate in a particular kind of ‘financial adventure, if I may so term it, but it would be a sorry day if credit unions were to become the only source of saving that the people had. [More…]
Credit unions have failed to recognise this factor. [More…]
When 1 recall some of- the very caustic statements published in ‘Quest’, the official organ of the credit unions, I wonder whether it would be a good thing for the country if credit unions were to operate collectively because there was certainly a very strong political flavour about some of the expressions in ‘Quest’ prior to the last elections. [More…]
At that time the credit unions, in their efforts to get the Government to act in the interests of their members, adopted the policy of telling their members flatly not to vote for anybody except a member of the Labor Party. [More…]
I wonder whether that policy represented the views of individual members of credit unions. [More…]
I wonder whether a publication such as ‘Quest’ has a right to express a view of that kind on behalf of contributors to credit unions. [More…]
1 would suggest that those who exercise an executive role in credit unions should look at the situation. [More…]
It has advocated that credit unions should be accommodated. [More…]
What is so unscrupulous about young couples putting their savings in insurance, credit unions or superannuation? [More…]
Honourable members opposite then went on to deal with their advocacy of credit unions being permitted tobe recognised in this legislation. [More…]
The question of credit unions has been raised. [More…]
I have no objection to credit unions. [More…]
The honourable member for Reid dealt extensively with this aspect and said that in New South Wales credit unions could not lend more than $4,000 for a home, and in the Australian Capital Terri tory more than $2,000. [More…]
This was never intended by the credit unions. [More…]
These amendments give credit unions an invitation to alter their charter to provide for loans for homes but it would be quite unfair if we permitted credit unions to participate in this scheme . [More…]
The honourable member for Cook (Mr Dobie) pointed out that credit unions were set up to provide consumer credit for people. [More…]
When we proposed amendments for the inclusion of widows, divorced people and credit unions his attitude was the same as it is towards the amendments proposed by the Australian Labor Party on this’ occasion. [More…]
The Government purports in this Bill to recognise credit unions. [More…]
People belonging to credit unions were led to believe that promises were given in this direction. [More…]
The 17,500 members of the Queensland Credit Union Movement were elated to learn of the Federal Government’s intention to allow savings deposited by members in Credit Unions to qualify under the provisions of the Homes Savings Grant Act. [More…]
This statement by Dame Annabelle Rankin makes it abundantly clear that the Government is fully aware that existing Credit Unions cannot meet the conditions prescribed and hence will not qualify to participate under the Act. [More…]
The Government while pretending in one respect to recognise credit unions has, on the other hand, laid down conditions, which have been pointed out by previous speakers, that makes it almost impossible for credit unions to make such loans. [More…]
I point out that in New South Wales where, as the honourable member for Reid pointed out, credit unions have assets of over $l00m with 70% of those assets available for loan, legislation limits the amount of each loan for housing purposes to $4,000. [More…]
In South Australia the maximum loan that can be made by credit unions is $2,000. [More…]
I wish to place on record the position of credit unions in Queensland. [More…]
These are all small credit unions. [More…]
That is not a large amount when we consider that under this legislation credit unions will be obliged to make available a loan of $7,000 for their applicants to be eligible for this grant. [More…]
The maximum loan presently being advanced by credit unions in Queensland is $2,000. [More…]
I think that the conditions applying to credit unions are fair, just and reasonable. [More…]
At present credit unions are geared to lend smaller amounts than are required by people erecting or purchasing their own homes. [More…]
I see that again as being an issue not related to the basic question which I know concerns members of the unions involved and that is whether there is adequate employment for Australian seamen and marine officers on ships around the Australian coast. [More…]
It is not the wish of the organised employers or the organised trade unions that the two issues of equal rates for females and males and the abolition of interstate differentials be tested at this particular point of time. [More…]
Indeed it will be clear - and I recommend to the union that it look at the transcript of today’s proceedings before Mr Senior Commissioner Taylor m regard to the forthcoming national wage case, where the representatives of the Australian Council of Trade Unions made it clear that the A.C.T.U. [More…]
of the Commonwealth give the same protection to unions registered under the Conciliation and Arbitration Act. [More…]
If we care to carry the proposition further, are we then not to meet if the Australian Council of Trade Unions is holding a congress? [More…]
I think it is also a pity that the honourable member for Lalor (Dr J. F. Cairns) has in the past done much to inflame public opinion in the trade unions of Fiji and to damage relations between our 2 countries. [More…]
Under these Acts, unions are separated on racial lines but the African unions are not recognised by law and they are denied the right to strike under the Bantu Labour (Settlement of Disputes) Act 1953. [More…]
Clause 5 relates to credit unions. [More…]
That the clauses of the Bill relating to credit unions should be redrafted to give credit union savings complete and unconditional recognition under the Act. [More…]
At the second reading stage we criticised the Government for its treatment of credit unions. [More…]
We accused the Government of being guilty of perpetrating the thimble and pea trick on credit unions. [More…]
Either the Government is ignorant of the operations of credit unions or it has distorted the facts. [More…]
Of the $100m held by the Australian credit union movement 70% is held by credit unions in New South Wales. [More…]
In other States although credit unions may not be restricted in their lending by Acts of Parliament, their activities are controlled by ordinances requiring that they obtain permission from a registrar before they may increase the advance. [More…]
I am referring to the Minister for the ulterior who is responsible for credit unions within the Australian [More…]
Credit unions in fact were not set up to provide loans to the extent that has been laid down in this Bill. [More…]
At no time has the Federation indicated to the Government that credit unions have any intention or desire to enter substantially into the long term housing loan field. [More…]
Credit unions primarily exist to supply consumer credit and personal loans at reasonable rates of interest to their members. [More…]
The Federation, therefore, seeks complete and unconditional recognition of credit unions under the Homes Savings Grant Act. [More…]
Hansard a table produced by the credit union movement showing the number of credit unions in 1966, 1967, 1968 and 1969 and their assets: [More…]
Recently, the credit unions of this country, which have reached very large proportions now, held their national conference. [More…]
These are the savings ‘banks, the building societies and the credit unions. [More…]
It is interesting to note that the conditions imposed by the Government in offering to admit the credit unions to this scheme are such that the credit unions almost certainly are unable to meet these conditions. [More…]
I think that perhaps the most significant part of the second reading speech by the Minister for the Navy (Mr Killen) was when he said referring to credit unions, and after outlining the various conditions to be imposed, said: [More…]
It is appreciated that very few, if any, credit unions are as yet in a position to meet these conditions. [More…]
Is it just accidental that the credit unions will be excluded or did the Government look at all the difficulties and say: ‘We will create sufficient difficulties to ensure that they just do not get into this scheme at all’. [More…]
Fancy the Minister saying that the purpose of the legislation, amongst other things, is to include credit unions and then saying that it is appreciated that very few, if any, credit unions are in a position to meet these conditions. [More…]
According to the publication Credit Unions and the Economy’ by B. [More…]
There are now approximately 600 credit unions in Australia representing nearly 220,000 persons with total assets of about $100m. [More…]
Credit unions are strongest in NSW where there are 330 unions with 160,000 members and assets totalling nearly $50m, while Victoria has 163 credit unions with assets of around $8m. [More…]
The conditions imposed seem to be purposely designed to exclude the credit unions. [More…]
I think it has been carefully ascertained that the diverse demands of credit unions are such that very few, if any, actually meet that condition. [More…]
A great deal has been said about this and I am sure that most honourable members have had the detailed submission - it numbers some 5 pages - of all the credit unions in this country which was formally conveyed direct to the Prime Minister and to the Minister for Housing (Senator Dame Annabelle Rankin). [More…]
Is the Government intending to make people - especially young people - realise that there is just no prospect of them receiving assistance for the financing of their homes if they continue to belong to credit unions. [More…]
There was a deliberate policy to accommodate credit unions. [More…]
It is most unreasonable to impose financial limitations on the capital they hold because that would be against the basic principles of credit unions. [More…]
One of the important basic purposes of credit unions is to provide democratic processes and practices by which people can have a say in the regulation and deployment of their collective savings. [More…]
To require the credit unions to have a large amount of capital in excess of $50,000 obviously has the effect of defeating the basic democratic purpose of the movement. [More…]
We heard the same arguments last night as we have heard tonight for the admission of credit unions . [More…]
Opposition members know as well as we do that credit unions were not established to meet the purpose for which this scheme was designed. [More…]
No-one has anything against credit unions at all. [More…]
Therefore there is actually no need for the credit unions to be disturbed about this. [More…]
As a matter of fact it is a generous offer by the Government to include the credit unions or to encourage them to lend some of the money that was deposited with them for the purpose of home ownership. [More…]
I know that at the present time - and I think that the Government would have been quite aware of this - very few, if any, credit unions can meet the conditions laid down, but they can alter their charters, if they so wish to meet the conditions laid down. [More…]
It is really very generous of theGovernment to make this offer to the credit unions if they want to enter into this field’ of lending. [More…]
If the credit unions wish to alter their basis to enable them to be lenders to home owners in a major way the deposits by their customers will be recognised as savings under this scheme and they will be able to get the grant of $500. [More…]
I think that the credit unions, those who lend to credit unions and those who deposit their money in credit unions know full well that if they want to save for a home there are other avenues available to them for the deposit of their money that may be better for them. [More…]
In other words, if they want to save for consumer expenditure they should go on with the credit unions but if the credit unions want to alter that the matter is open to them to do so. [More…]
As I said, the Government has been more than generous in allowing depositors eligibility for grants provided the credit unions will lend not less than $7,000 on the purchase of a home, which is really a very small amount. [More…]
To get recognition on this basis is more than the credit unions could have expected in the circumstances. [More…]
There is -nothing against the credit unions let me hasten to say, but this is not the purpose for which they were established and mere are many other established avenues, such as building societies, set up for the exclusive purpose of assisting people to own homes. [More…]
Conditions have been applied which make it impossible without amending State legislation in the case of New South Wales and virtually impossible because of the financial positions of the credit unions in the other States for them to fulfill the conditions which require loans of up to $7,000. [More…]
I am quite certain that the Minister for Health (Dr Forbes) who is representing in this place the Minister for Housing (Senator Dame Annabelle Rankin) interprets the term ‘by way of housing loans’ to mean not loans for assistance in the purchase of homes which credit unions are providing at present but complete loans for the purchase of homes. [More…]
In the first instance, a time was given for the withdrawal of savings from credit unions by prescribing a period within which savings in credit unions would be recognised; after that date the savings had to be transferred to a home savings account. [More…]
Credit unions have had a number of deputations to the various Ministers for Housing. [More…]
Credit unions are doing quite a lot in the way of bridging finance and this has been stated time and again during this debate. [More…]
Last night I mentioned how the credit union movement or some major credit unions in Queensland have been assisting. [More…]
Percentage wise credit unions are qualifying but not to the extent of the $7,000 or the minimum amount of $50,000 per year. [More…]
But there still seems to be prejudice and this will, if carried to the ultimate, mean that persons under 35 years of age are being discouraged by this Government from joining credit unions because when the time comes to purchase a home their savings will not be recognised. [More…]
I rise to speak because the honourable member for Bennelong (Sir John Cramer) made a statement that the Government had made a generous offer to the credit union movement, that it had placed these conditions before the movement and that the credit unions are very fortunate to have these proposals put before them. [More…]
At least 20% of the total lending of credit unions in the most recent financial year must have been by way of housing loans. [More…]
The Government is trying to force credit unions into long term lending when in fact this is not the function of the credit unions. [More…]
It has clearly been stated that the permanent building societies were set up for this purpose and not the credit unions. [More…]
For instance, if a person own a 2 bedroom home, there is an addition to the family and he wants to add another bedroom for the children, loans are available from the credit unions. [More…]
The credit unions compete with the offsprings of the private banking institutions. [More…]
They have the right to speak on behalf of the bankers, so why can we not speak on behalf of the credit unions? [More…]
Of course, if honourable members opposite want to make this a political issue, I say we support the credit unions because the credit union movement is a collective co-operative movement. [More…]
Emphasis was placed on the rapidly increasing role that credit unions are playing in assisting young couples to establish homes and the providing of second mortgage loans and the finance of other essentials such as home appliances and furniture. [More…]
I pointed out to the honourable member earlier that credit unions in New South Wales control 70% of the assets of the movement. [More…]
It has 234 credit unions with assets of $150,000. [More…]
I want to place this protest on record because my colleague the honourable member for Hughes (Mr Les Johnson) expressly desired to have, and I certainly expected to hear, the Government’s explanation of why it would not accept our proposal that the Bill be postponed in order to allow the credit unions to be included unconditionally. [More…]
Adequate notice of their withdrawal was served on credit unions by the Minister for the Navy (Mr Killen) who said in his second reading speech on 5th March last: lt is appreciated that very few, if any. [More…]
credit unions are as yet in a position to meet these conditions. [More…]
The proposed new section is superfluous because notice has already been served on the credit unions in the second reading speech. [More…]
Another penalty is imposed on the credit unions - those few, if any, as stated by the Minister for the Navy who might be eligible under this legislation. [More…]
its suggestions that it would bring the credit unions into the operations of the scheme. [More…]
The Government really does not want credit unions to flourish. [More…]
The reason is that if credit unions flourish they will be a threat to the other financial institutions which this Government serves. [More…]
The Government has no intention of helping credit unions. [More…]
As an active credit unionist, I would have thought that the Government, realising the benefit of credit unions to our community, would have gone out of its way to assist the credit union movement. [More…]
The Government had no intention of assisting credit unions and I suggest that it will give no assistance in the future. [More…]
No attempt has been made to give any answer at all, particularly to the question of the credit unions. [More…]
Clause 14 of the Bill requires credit unions to notify members and intending members of the withdrawal of approval. [More…]
I want to know from the Minister why this penal provision has been inserted to operate against credit unions. [More…]
Under the guise that th; Government wanted to broaden the proposal to include the credit unions, this penal provision has been inserted, lt is just a lol of hypocrisy because no credit union can in fact meet the conditions. [More…]
Credit unions are really the competitors of the fringe institutions. [More…]
Credit unions charge only 10% reducible for consumer goods whereas the fringe institutions, in which the banks are the major shareholders, charge up to 20%. [More…]
As a result of agreement recently reached between the Association of Employers of Waterside Labour, the Australian Council of Trade Unions and the Waterside Workers’ Federation, employees in the stevedoring industry will receive 4 weeks annual leave which I am informed was on the basis that they can be required to work 3 shifts per day, 7 days a week. [More…]
Following my discussions on 1st December 1969 wilh a joint deputation of the Australian Council of Trade Unions, the Council of Commonwealth Public Service Organisations and the Australian Council of Salaried and Professional Associations, the Government decided that having regard to existing relevant circumstances it would be inappropriate to grant an extra week’s leave to the Commonwealth Public Service at that time. [More…]
adding a sub-paragraph to permit trade_ unions to require that resignations shall be in writing and [More…]
The Public Service Board’s appearance in this case arose out of it being a respondent to the matters before the Conciliation and Arbitration Commission involving the Amalgamated Postal Workers Union and other unions. [More…]
How many men who are members of certain groups, organisations or trade unions do not attend the meetings of those bodies and say, when a decision is made which they think is wrong, that they were not consulted? [More…]
The committee consisted of representatives of unions, friendly societies, the Chamber of Mines and others. [More…]
I am basing my argument not on a political bias but on what the unions are saying. [More…]
The powerful combined industrial unions committee group yesterday moved unanimously against supporting next Friday’s Vietnam Moratorium. [More…]
The committee represents these unions: Australian Workers Union, Federated Clerks, Queensland State Service, Teachers, Clothing and Allied Trades, Shop Assistants, Commercial Travellers, Royal Australian Nursing Federation, Queensland Railway Salaried Officers, Railway Traffic Station Masters, and Railway Signalmen. [More…]
The article I have quoted comes from the unions and the unions are the organisations which put honourable members opposite into Parliament. [More…]
The article I have quoted indicates that the unions do not want honourable members opposite to support the Vietnam Moratorium. [More…]
Some weeks ago my friend the honourable member for Lilley (Mr Kevin Cairns) asked the Minister for External Affairs (Mr McMahon) whether personal support was assured to the Moratorium Campaign by the Leader of Her Majesty’s Opposition at a meet:ng of unions affiliated with the Queensland Trades and Labour Council held in late February at the Brisbane Trades Hall. [More…]
The honourable member for Lilley, in putting his question, had been careful to say that it was not a meeting of the Queensland Trades and Labour Council but a meeting of a number of affiliated unions held in the Brisbane Trades Hall. [More…]
It states that a meeting of delegates of 23 unions under the auspices of the Queensland Trades and Labour Council1 had been held and that ‘Mr E. G. Whitlam had attended the meeting’. [More…]
The honourable member for Griffith had produced clear evidence to indicate that the Leader of the Opposition had attended a meeting organised by a number of unions affiliated with the Queensland Trades and Labor Council. [More…]
It is a very melancholy picture, not for the persons who find in the Moratorium deceit by the organisers, but for the organisers because the unions are not responding in anything like the way it was hoped they would. [More…]
Only in Sydney and Melbourne is any real interest being shown, and essentially even in those cities only 4 unions are active - the Building Workers Industrial Union of Australia, the Waterside Workers Federation, the Seamen’s Union and the Boilermakers and Blacksmiths Society of Australia. [More…]
This is not true in Sydney, where the Trades and Labour Council recently had a meeting that was attended by 20 unions which are trying to organise a 2-hour lay down of tools on Friday. [More…]
It looks as though union activity will be confined to the maritime unions. [More…]
So the response of unions makes a melancholy story for the organisers of the Vietnam Moratorium. [More…]
The Minister replied that in his view there was a positive diminution of trade union support and that it appeared now that only the maritime unions were supporting it. [More…]
This is significant, because as all honourable members know the maritime unions without exception are Communist unions. [More…]
I wonder whether the honourable member who has interjected and other members such as the honourable members for Adelaide (Mr Hurford), Kingston (Dr Gun), Sturt (Mr Foster), Hindmarsh (Mr Clyde Cameron), St George (Mr Morrison) and Wills (Mr Bryant), who wear their Moratorium ribbons, insult their intelligence by ignoring these facts; or are they haunted by the nagging thought that the Communists are very close to controlling the majority of the important trade unions, and therefore their Australian Labor Party endorsement? [More…]
They are the card carrying Communists, the Labor Parliamentarians who have become involved in this organisation and the leaders of some of the more militant left wing unions. [More…]
There are left wing unions. [More…]
The interesting thing is that these left wing unions, which get their funds from their members and which are meant to be used for industrial purposes, are being used for political purposes. [More…]
The very extravagance of the propaganda, or the language and the suggestions that are continually being made is in line with the traditional approach of the Communists to foment every grievance, to sharpen the class struggle, and from our school children to our trade unions and from parliament itself to the people there goes out this propaganda embodying the suggestion of the dividing and sharpening of the differences that will lead to this polarisation that 1 deplore. [More…]
The Vietcong and the North Vietnamese Communists were fighting in the field, and the Communist Party, the Communist front organisations, the Communist led unions and in this country the Australian Labor Party were fighting the Communist cause on the political front. [More…]
Dealing with how the right wing of the Labor Party would try to keep the Communists out of trade unions Lenin said: [More…]
We must be able to withstand all this, to agree to all and every sacrifice, and even - if need be - to resort to various stratagems, artifices, illegal methods, to evasions and subterfuges only so as to get into the trade unions, to remain in them, and to carry on Communist work within them at all costs. [More…]
The purpose of the Board is to negotiate with the respective unions or associations the wage rates that are claimed. [More…]
If the arbitration is not satisfactory to either the Public Service Board or, as is more usual, the associations or the unions then they may go on appeal to the Conciliation and Arbitration Commission. [More…]
Three delegations representing Public Service unions and the Australian Council of Trade Unions have come to the Government to ask for an increase in annual leave to 4 weeks. [More…]
The agreement on this was reached within the last few weeks and the new rates were accepted without qualification by the unions involved. [More…]
At that deputation were representatives of the Australian Council of Trade Unions, the Council of Commonwealth Public Service Associations and the Australian Council of Salaried and Professional Associations. [More…]
The unions have clearly indicated that they intend to press for this extra week’s leave even if it means stopping work in support of this claim. [More…]
We have to remember also that the white collar unions have tremendous strength if they were only prepared to use it. [More…]
There are approximately 340 trade unions in Australia, of which 192 are white collar unions. [More…]
These unions have actively campaigned against some Government members, and the huge vote received by the late Jim Fraser in the Australian Capital Territory a few months ago was an indication of their strength. [More…]
Firstly, in opposition to the unions claims before the joint bench the Government intervened- [More…]
It is all very well for some of the bigger unions in this country to endeavour to downgrade the arbitration system. [More…]
It is all right for the large unions to bargain in their own right with employers, but what about the smaller unions which represent many workers but which have not the power to do this? [More…]
What would happen to those unions if there is to be a continual voicing of opinions against our arbitration system and a non-acceptance of decisions made under that system? [More…]
If that is to continue then I fear the day for the smaller unions in Australia. [More…]
They should have this independent machinery to go to because in many areas in which women are being employed their unions do not have the strength of the very large unions. [More…]
They do not have the strength, to fight a case in the way the large unions can fight. [More…]
This is one reason why the Labor Party should urge unions to press for equal pay under the conciliation and arbitration system. [More…]
I do agree with what the Minister for Labour and National Service said yesterday, which was that the question of 4 weeks leave for Commonwealth public servants had been carefully examined by the Government and had been discussed with representatives of the various unions but on the grounds of the cost to the community generally and on other grounds in relation to shift work, which the Minister mentioned, the Government decided not to grant this leave. [More…]
My colleagues, the then Minister for Labour and National Service and the then Attorney-General, had discussions with the employers and the unions. [More…]
In early December last year it became apparent that there could be no further discussions on the penal clauses because in the interim period the Australian Council of Trade Unions Congress had reached a conclusion that the trade union movement would have nothing to do with penal clauses. [More…]
We have the large private trading banks and their savings banks, State government savings banks, the Export Payments Insurance Corporation established by the Federal Government, the private Australian Bankers Export Re-Finance Corporation, the Commonwealth Development Bank - wrongly incorporated, I still firmly believe, in the Government-owned Commonwealth Banking Corporation - the private Australian Resources Development Bank, the hire purchase finance companies, short term money market dealers who have evolved from major share broking firms, life insurance offices, overseas discount houses, the new and rapidly expanding credit unions, and so on. [More…]
In addition to the GovernorGeneral and his party considerable attention was paid to extending an invitation to as representative a group as possible of persons representing Governments and Oppositions of all Australian Parliaments, trade unions and the customers of Railways of Australia. [More…]
In view of the recent agreement between the Commonwealth and registered unions and associations under which Commonwealth Departments will make wage and salary deductions on behalf of members of such bodies who authorise deductions for union or association fees, will he request all Commonwealth instrumentalities to extend similar facilities to organisations whose members are employed by such instrumentalities. [More…]
Clause 5 of the Homes Savings Grant Bill lays down the conditions with which individual credit unions are required to comply if they are to become and remain approved credit unions for the purposes of the homes savings grant scheme. [More…]
The Government has accepted the point made in these submissions, that its objective of promoting an increase in the volume of savings available for home finance could in fact be advanced if the minimum amount of a prescribed housing loan were set at a figure that, while still relatively substantial, would be more readily attainable by individual credit unions. [More…]
As a smoke screen the Government set out in clause 5 certain proposals under which credit unions may become eligible to seek loans under the homes savings grant scheme. [More…]
No negotiations were held with the credit union authorities, there was no discussion with the respective State governments, and there was no discussion between the Department of Housing and the Department of the Interior which controls credit unions in the Australian Capital Territory. [More…]
Canberra has more public servants and a greater percentage of people who are members of credit unions than any other sector of Australia. [More…]
To put the legislation into perspective so that the Department of Housing would have sufficient time to discuss it with the State governments and other departments, the Opposition moved as an amendment to the motion for the second reading of the Bill that the clause relating to credit unions should be redrafted to give credit union savings complete and unconditional recognition under the Act. [More…]
We explained that section 7 (d) of the New South Wales legislation covering credit unions permitted a maximum loan of $4,000. [More…]
Seventy per cent of the members of credit unions live in New South Wales. [More…]
Since the legislation was introduced in this House the New South Wales Minister who deals with credit unions has stated clearly and publicly that he will not increase credit union loans beyond $4,000 No further statement has been made to clarify that position. [More…]
This provision for a minimum loan of $5,000 will prevent members of the credit unions from being included. [More…]
As I said, 70% of the members of credit unions live in New South Wales. [More…]
Some 307 credit unions exist in New South Wales, 234 of which have assets of less than $150,000. [More…]
If honourable members look at clause 5 of the Bill they will see that the minimum amount in subsequent years that the credit unions must lend is $50,000. [More…]
We tried to explain to honourable members opposite that the credit unions were not really geared for long term loans or to be forced into repaying them over a period of 12 years. [More…]
In another place my Party moved that the minimum amount for a prescribed housing loan be reduced from $7,000 to $3,000 and that the repayment period be reduced from 12 years to 5 years, lt also proposed that the total amount required to be lent by credit unions to their members during the financial year be reduced from $50,000. [More…]
If the Government had accepted our proposition it would have enabled many credit unions to be brought under this clause of the Bill. [More…]
This still will not bring in the 70% of credit unions in New South Wales, unless there is an amendment to the New South Wales Act. [More…]
There set out are the assets of the credit unions of New South Wales. [More…]
Of the 307 credit unions 234 have $150,000 or less in assets. [More…]
The credit unions are not competing against the banks, which the Government is interested in protecting. [More…]
These credit unions are in competition with the hire purchase companies. [More…]
It is not fooling those members of credit unions in Canberra who would like to participate in this homes savings grant scheme. [More…]
These credit unions cannot become involved in this scheme. [More…]
This is because, under an ordinance, the Government has said that $2,000 is the maximum amount that may be provided as a secured loan for housing purposes by credit unions in the Australian Capital Territory. [More…]
But the part of the legislation in which I feet the Government has failed to do what it set out to do is in relation to the eligibility of credit unions for people who wish to save the amount of money prescribed to be necessary to qualify them for a homes savings grant. [More…]
The credit unions are entitled to this because . [More…]
My criticism is that the legislation does not do what it set out to do, that is, to make credit unions attractive for young people to continue saving with for the purpose of getting a homes savings grant because it is obvious that only 1 - perhaps none - of the credit unions can meet the requirements of the legislation. [More…]
We initiated all of the ideas that are now contained in the amendment that is before the Senate as to the necessity for compromise particularly on the question of the stringent conditions applied to the credit unions. [More…]
The Government fears the growth of credit unions. [More…]
That is the reason deposits with credit unions are not eligible for the grant now. [More…]
Because of this, the Government fears the credit unions and is determined to do everything that it can firstly to frustrate them and ultimately to crush them. [More…]
I remind honourable members that when the Homes Savings Grant Act was introduced savings in credit unions were recognised for 12 months in the hope that they could be enticed away into the more orthodox institutions. [More…]
Credit unions are in fact workers’ banks. [More…]
The workers who are controlling the credit unions are learning the principles of credit assessment and of general banking. [More…]
There is every incentive for the average home owner to use the credit unions rather than the orthodox banks. [More…]
But this Government, which has expressed its concern about growing inflation and says it sees the need to save and to stop wasteful spending, is not prepared to encourage the credit unions to make available the funds which should be made available for home building or for any other purpose. [More…]
Instead of marshalling the resources of the credit unions and encouraging this important work of providing homes for the newly marrieds, for migrants coming into this country and for all of the people wanting to build this nation through building houses, as they must, the Government has remained cold and aloof from the human problem. [More…]
But why should the Government close the doors upon organisations like the credit unions which are indeed making a significant contribution to saving funds and providing money which is necessary for the building of homes and establishing people in homes, as has been indicated previously by other honourable members who have spoken in this debate. [More…]
The proposal for the utilisation -of the funds of credit unions which was originally made by the Opposition could have helped to overcome these difficulties. [More…]
I want to know, and members of credit unions throughout not only New South Wales but the length and breadth of Australia, and in particular in Canberra, want to know from, the Minister in the Committee stage why the Government is adopting this policy. [More…]
There is a provision in the Bill that if they accept an applicant for a loan credit unions meet these requirements or be liable to a $500 fine. [More…]
1 want to know why it was not reduced at least to $4,000 so as to give an opportunity to some credit unions in New South Wales to come within the provisions of the Bill. [More…]
This legislation will compel credit unions to make loans at not more than 74%, yet the Commonwealth bond rate at present is 7%. [More…]
We must clearly understand that the credit unions are not in competition with the banks. [More…]
If one looks at the interest rates of the fringe institutions with which the credit unions are in competition ‘one will see that they are 19% to 20%. [More…]
At no time do credit unions charge a high interest rate. [More…]
Why does it insist on credit unions having to spend at least $50,000? [More…]
Some of these small credit unions are groups of people in a firm, a church or a union and in some cases they make available more money for housing per member than do many of the larger credit unions. [More…]
But there is no consideration whatsoever of what the credit unions do. [More…]
I will outline some of the assistance which credit unions give. [More…]
These are the major tasks of credit unions. [More…]
It is not interested in helping the credit unions. [More…]
It stands by the wealthy sector of the community and will not give the credit unions a fair go. [More…]
The Government knows that if it were to help the credit unions the banks would put the brakes on, as they did with regard to the Australian Industry Development Corporation Bill. [More…]
In parallel there has been much non-governmental co-operation through the International Council of Scientific Unions and ils constituent unions and numerous disciples, and more recently, in the field of basic oceanography, by the Council of the Scientific Committee on Oceanic Research. [More…]
They come in after discussions between my own Department of Labour and National Service, and trade unions. [More…]
In this respect the New South Wales Government has established a consultative council on the intellectually handicapped with representatives from the major voluntary organisations, the State Departments of Social Services and Labour and National Service, employers and trade unions. [More…]
If so, will he take immediate steps to arrest the depressing trends in wage and salary levels in the Commonwealth Public Service by directing the Commonwealth Public Service Board to meet with representatives of the Australian Council of Trade Unions, the Council of Commonwealth Public Service Organisations and the Australian Council of Salaried and Professional Associations with a view to establishing promptly sound salary levels based upon a full regard to properly established wage relativities, and to the advantages enjoyed by employees in private industry. [More…]
Can he say whether the change in policy by the Hobart meeting is the direct result of the engineers belief that only those unions which are willing to resort to strike action can receive proper recognition of their worth. [More…]
Those sanctions are also necessary to apply against unions when they are in breach of ari award. [More…]
There have been a numb r of unions in breach of enjoining orders of the court and they have been fined for contempt. [More…]
The Australian Council of Trade Unions asked the Government to arrange for Ministers to speak with its representatives for the purpose of rinding a way in which the penal clauses could be altered. [More…]
The Government for its part, through the Industrial Registrar, has been asking the unions to make payment of those outstanding fines. [More…]
That credibility operates in 2 ways: Credibility of employers in the belief that there are sanctions, when they return to the use of them; secondly, credibility on the part of other unions who have already paid the fines that there are sanctions. [More…]
1 hope that the Australian Council of Trade Unions and the unions concerned will adopt a responsible attitude regarding what the Industrial Registrar asks them to do - that is, payment of the fines. [More…]
We already have under consideration at this time a number of suggestions from the Council of Commonwealth Public Service Organisations and we also expect to receive suggestions from other sources such as the Australian Council of Trade Unions. [More…]
He said that the unions would not stand for it. [More…]
The Labor Party is so imbued with the idea of unions, socialisation and nationalisation that it cannot think straight. [More…]
Apparently the Labor Party is proud of this principle of calling the unions out to defy Government action. [More…]
Here the alternative Prime Minister of this country is inciting the unions to defy law and order. [More…]
Is government to be determined by the masses in the streets or the trade unions, or is it to be determined– [More…]
If this is so 1 would be very glad to hear of it, and I would be very pleased if the Leader of the Opposition would go to the Australian Council of Trade Unions and tell it that his attitude has changed and that he is against the unions taking this kind of action. [More…]
But the Labor Party continues to support the trade unions and to incite them not to allow the law to be enforced. [More…]
I was able to tell her and the other representatives of the attitude of the trade unions and of my Party to this question. [More…]
What the Labor Party is saying is that if the trade unions say something, or suggest how the procedures of the House should be carried out, the Government should automatically bow to the unions. [More…]
What the unions are saying, on the advice of the Australian Labor Party, is that there should be a debate on this matter. [More…]
In 1967, an agreement was reached by a national conference, consisting of representatives of the Australian Council of Trade Unions, the Waterside Workers’ Federation, the Association of Employers of Waterside Labour, the Australian Stevedoring Industry Authority and the Department of Labour and National Service on a scheme for permanent employment in the stevedoring industry. [More…]
However, there can be no doubt that this Conference, under Mr Woodward’s capable chairmanship, has been one of the most successful exercises in co-operation between employers, unions and government, in any industry, let alone this most difficult and volatile stevedoring industry. [More…]
The Bill comes at the end of a long series of discussions that have been held between myself, and my predecessor and the Attorney-General (Mr Hughes) and his predecessor with representatives of the Australian Council of Trade Unions and the National Employers’ Policy Committee. [More…]
This means that when the Bill becomes law, the injunction-making powers of the court under section 109 and its powers to punish for contempt will not be capable of being exercised as sanctions against unions or employers for award breaches. [More…]
Unions and employers will come within the same maximum penalties for breaches of awards. [More…]
This meant that unions could be fined up to $1,000 a day. [More…]
Is the Minister aware that many undeveloped countries such as India and Iran which want our merino rams are rightly critical of the attitude of the Australian Labor Party in giving in to dictation by the Australian Council of Trade Unions - or is it that advice is being given by the Labor Party to the ACTU? [More…]
I do not know whether the Labor Party has been putting into effect some of the words uttered the other day by the Leader of the Opposition when he said that he had not said anything to get the unions or the Australian Council of Trade Unions to take the action they have taken. [More…]
I still stand behind those remarks because I know that he met this disgruntled group which was opposing the lifting of the embargo and a group that requested that the unions take this sort of action. [More…]
Yet the Australian Labor Party, through the mass strength of the unions, is defying the law. [More…]
I know that the Department and the Public Service Board have spent a tremendous amount of time in discussions with all the unions associated with the Post Office. [More…]
Trade Unions: Actions in Tort (Question No. [More…]
Is he able to say whether the Parliament of the United Kingdom in 1906 decided that the immunity from actions in tort which trade unions had, prior to the Taff Vale decision, enjoyed in practice should be restored and made into a legal right. [More…]
Is he also able to say whether the United Kingdom Royal Commission on Trade Unions and Employers’ Associations (1965-1968) found that for the proper discharge of their functions, the complete immunity from actions for torts alleged to have been committed by or on behalf of trade unions in furtherance or contemplation of an industrial dispute was still necessary. [More…]
Is it a fact that trade unions registered under the Conciliation and Arbitration Act have no such immunity from the 1901 Taff Vale decision. [More…]
1 am advised that the United Kingdom Royal Commission on Trade Unions and Employer’s Associations 1965-1968 found that trade unions should have immunity from action for tort in respect of torts alleged to have been committed by or on behalf of a trade union iti contemplation or furtherance of a trade dispute. [More…]
I am advised that the provision of the United Kingdom Trade Disputes Act 1906 conferring on trade unions immunity in respect of tortious acts has been reproduced in the Queensland Industrial Conciliation and Arbitration Act and that there is nothing to suggest that a trade union registered under the Commonwealth Conciliation and Arbitration Act could not rely on the provision in the Queensland Act if sued in that State. [More…]
The honourable member may rest assured that the Government is ever mindful of the importance of trade unions in the Commonwealth industrial relations system and will do all that is necessary for their protection as part of that system. [More…]
710 I said: “The Public Service Board’s appearance in this case arose out of it being a respondent to the matters before the Conciliation and Arbitration Commission involving the Amalgamated Postal Workers Union and other unions.’ [More…]
Government supporters are wrong in believing that they can solve their problems by casting innuendoes about people on this side of the House and suggesting that merely by waving the magic wand in front of the Australian Council of Trade Unions the ban on the movement of merino ramswill be lifted and all will be well. [More…]
In the meantime a union officer who, I think, is termed the secretary of the Metal Trades Unions Association in Sydney had responded to the Press report. [More…]
They were passed at a time prior to dispute settling procedures being finalised between working parties from the Australian Council of Trade Unions, the National Employers Policy Committee and the Government on 6th May. [More…]
The Opposition has completed in draft form a full answer to the Government’ > Bill lor ,t new A i. and copies of the Opposition’s proposal in that form are already in the hands of interested organisations, including the Sec.relary of the Australian Council of Trade Unions. [More…]
The Australian Labor Party will be proposing a Bill which is in line wilh the policy of the Australian Council of Trade Unions and of the Labor Party to provide for no loss of wages during periods of incapacitation, so that once again there will be no incentive to become involved in common law actions for damages, which result in tremendous delays and costly litigation, because a person will be regarded as having the right to continue to receive his full normal wage. [More…]
Three years before that Mr Munro and, I understand, representatives of the Australian Council of Trade Unions but certainly representatives of the Council of Commonwealth Public Service Organisations met representatives of the Government and urged them to do something about compensation and to treat it as an urgent matter. [More…]
The CCPSO has made a comprehensive list of amendments, and ACSPA and many individual unions and lawyers practising in the field of workmen’s compensation have done likewise. [More…]
I expect that in due course the Australian Council of Trade Unions will make submissions, as I said earlier. [More…]
The Australian Council of Trade Unions has adopted the principle that a worker who is deemed to be totally or partially incapacitated for work should be entitled to receive during the period of his incapacity the amount of weekly earnings he would have received but for his injury. [More…]
That is a principle which should be applied and it is supported by the Australian Council of Trade Unions and by the Australian Labor Party. [More…]
Some States did not exempt credit unions, and some did not exempt building societies and trade unions. [More…]
by leave - It is true, as the honourable member for Newcastle (Mr Charles Jones) has said, that I did have a conference with the Secretary of the Federated Clerks Union and the Secretary of the Australian Council of Trade Unions on this issue. [More…]
As a result of conferences between the Australian Council of Trade Unions and the Government at that dme it was finally resolved that the Conference should be appointed. [More…]
The Conference was made up of representatives of the Association of Employers of Waterfront Labour, the Australian Council of Trade Unions, the Waterside Workers Federation of Australia and the Department of Labour and National Service. [More…]
The employer representatives and the union representatives at the highest level of the Australian Council of Trade Unions and the Waterside Workers Federation will meet regularly to discuss the problems. [More…]
The waterfront unions are continually meeting to discuss problems within the industry. [More…]
In a document drawn up after an agreement with the Australian Council of Trade Unions and the Federated Clerks Union he spoke of a period of 12 months. [More…]
Originally the waterfront unions came into being because of the imposition of shocking conditions in The Rocks area of Sydney in the 1870s, 1880s and 1890s when waterfront employees were a disorganised force of people who were traded upon by independent shipowners and were subjected to the most frightful conditions imaginable, as were their counterparts of that day in the United Kingdom. [More…]
Any case put forward by anyone in the industry, be it the Australian Stevedoring Industry Authority, which was set up in about 1956, the employer organisations, or any direct representation by the Federation through the Australian Council of Trade Unions which is the recognised head of the trade union movement - and these bodies met consistently - was not acceded to. [More…]
The requests of the trade unions were not accepted on such matters as the simple conditions of annual leave, public holidays, guaranteed shifts. [More…]
They, in association with the Australian Council of Trade Unions, took over the role of the negotiator. [More…]
With the concurrence of honourable members, I incorporate in Hansard a table showing the amount of fines and costs imposed upon various trade unions since 1957 for offences that should have been dealt with under section 119, which fixes a maximum penalty of $200. [More…]
There shall be effective means of consultation between employees and (heir employees and unions on all matters of mutual interest and concern, irrespective of whether these matters are likely to give rise lo dispute. [More…]
The sell lenient of disputes procedures to be observed need to be defined and made known lo employers and employees and accepted by employers and unions. [More…]
Unions and employers should notify to each other in writing the names of their duly accredited job representatives who would bc responsible, in the first instance, for dealing wilh matters arising on the job. [More…]
The Australian Council of Trade Unions and the Australian Labor Party have been urging for years that the sanction provisions in sections 109 and 1 1 1 should be repealed, but we did not want them repealed and then re-inserted in a different section of the Act, as is being done, in effect, so far as the amendment of section 109 is concerned. [More…]
The unions have to go to the arbitration tribunals and argue their case and support it by evidence. [More…]
I suggest to the Attorney-General that the deletion of the injunction and contempt provisions of this Act does not mean that there are no other avenues open to the Commission to deal with unions if they feel disposed to deal with them. [More…]
They turn to sections 109 and 111 when they want to discipline the unions. [More…]
I doubt whether the President of the Australian Council of Trade Unions will be deliriously delighted when he reads of the contributions to the debate made by the honourable member for Hindmarsh and the honourable member for Stirling because we did not hear either of those honourable members come out and make an outright denunciation of the sanctions provisions in any form. [More…]
Because of his conduct and performance as President of the Austraiian Council of Trade Unions for so many years, he is entitled to our warmest and deepest respect. [More…]
I rise to make it quite clear now, if I have not already made it clear, that there is on the part of the Opposition an outright denunciation of the sanctions against unions and against people who have only their labour to sell. [More…]
We are completely and utterly opposed to the penal provisions of the Act, as the Australian Council of Trade Unions is opposed to them. [More…]
The late Mr P. i. Clarey, M.P., who was at one time the President of the Australian Council of Trade Unions, was correct when he declared that the right to strike is the one thing which distinguishes the free man from the slave. [More…]
Rob the unions of this weapon and you rob them of their justification for existence. [More…]
The savage penalties imposed upon unions whenever they attempt to meet rising costs contrasts with the absolute freedom with which the employing class may fix the price of the things they have to sell. [More…]
Its chief claim to fame has been its capacity to prevent the trade unions from taking what the market would have given. [More…]
Tom Mann, who was one of the greats of the Labor movement and a contemporary of Ben Tillet, John Burns and Keir Hardie, said that arbitration had robbed the unions of their fighting efficiency. [More…]
It was clear that a continuation on such lines would result in the unions becoming virtually a part of the civil service. [More…]
Once the unions forfeited the power to cease work they placed themselves at the mercy of the arbitrator. [More…]
I can never forget the look of smug satisfaction on the face of Dunphy one day when I saw him impose a $1,000 penalty upon some trade unions which were merely striking for a better deal. [More…]
I know that the unions concerned which now owe the $38,000 will not pay the outstanding fines and I know that this Government is determined to cause a stoppage in industry in order to try to collect them. [More…]
It is a seller’s market now and the unions are not prepared any longer to take it on the chin. [More…]
Time after time the unions refuse to pay, and indeed, they are likely to continue to refuse. [More…]
Can the Minister say whether the maximum loan fixed by the New South Wales Credit Union Act for credit unions is $4,000 whereas the Government’s proposed legislation extending Home Savings Grants to credit unions stipulates that at least15 per cent of total lending by credit unions should be in housing loans of not less than $7,000. [More…]
Is he able to say what trade unions there are in South Vietnam and what is their membership. [More…]
also includes a number of national unions such as the Vietnamese Petroleum and Chemical Workers Union (1,700 members), the USAID Employees Union (2,000 members) and many smaller unions, including the Commercial Clerical Technical Employees Union, and various dockworkers’ and airline workers’ unions. [More…]
there are other, smaller groups of unions such as the Confederation of Vietnamese Workers’ Unions and the Vietnam Confederation of Industrial and Agricultural Workers. [More…]
Is there a great and growing concern amongst maritime unions for the safety of their members and for the safety of the public who travel by sea. [More…]
I have not been made aware of any great or growing concern among maritime unions in relation to safety. [More…]
The expenditure shown, again with the exception of Tasmania, is mostly in the form of grants by Slate Governmentsto Kindergarten Unions or Associations. [More…]
by unions on behalf of allegedly dismissed employees on nine occasions; [More…]
by unions, on behalf of employees who were alleged to have been threatened with dismissal, on nine occasions. [More…]
I am advised that the Combined Mining Unions and the mineowners are now to enter into private discussions on the question of shorter hours. [More…]
Unfortunately, the works and the unions are now complaining because some people have to work shorter hours and cannot have the same throughput. [More…]
If there is one sector cf the Australian community which is putting an impost on primary producers it is the leaders of the industrial unions, who seem to call on strikes at any time. [More…]
The President of the Australian Council of Trade Unions, Mr Hawke, has publicly said that he is not going to take any notice of the wage impact on primary industries. [More…]
What concern or sympathy for primary industries can there be amongst the Opposition when the leader of the unions which Opposition members come into this Parliament to represent takes this sort of attitude? [More…]
Has his attention also been drawn to the comment on his statement by the non-Communist President of the Australian Council of Trade Unions, Mr R. Hawke, in which it was declared that the Minister was still analysing issues in a reactiona ry looking-under-the-bed-for-Communists fashion. [More…]
Is the Prime Minister aware that the Executive of the Australian Council of Trade Unions has called a nationwide 3-hour stoppage involving 2.5 million Australian workers on next Tuesday as a protest against the Budget? [More…]
I wish to direct a question to the Minister for Labour and National Service concerning the announcement by the President crf the Australian Council of Trade Unions, Mr Hawke, to the effect that bc intends to call a nation wide strike next Tuesday. [More…]
Before it can develop into a national strike, action will have to be taken by individuals at a personal level and by trade union leaders in individual trade unions. [More…]
To call the national strike apparently without even getting a resolution passed by the Australian Council of Trade Unions saying there should be a national strike unquestionably shows an approach to a Government of this country and to the rights of citizens in this country which rides completely roughshod over the concept of elected members of the public coming to this House and deciding economic and other policies. [More…]
I ask the Minister for Shipping and Transport whether he was correctly reported by the Press as having told the New South Wales Country Party conference at Griffith on 26th June this year that the Government was trying to preserve the status of the many responsible members of the trade unions? [More…]
If so, how does he define the term responsible members of the trade unions’? [More…]
Will he explain any other steps that have been taken by the Government to preserve the status of those whom he was pleased to describe as responsible members of the trade unions? [More…]
In reply to the interjection about the need for good unions in those countries, let me say, having been there 3 or 4 weeks ago, that they believe they do have very good unions. [More…]
There has been confusion among unions, among union leaders and as between the industrial wing of the Labor movement and the political wing of the Labor movement. [More…]
Slightly fewer than 2,000,000 workers are affiliated to the Australian Council of Trade Unions, the Australian Council of [More…]
Salaried and Professional Associations and the Public Service unions. [More…]
In view of the latest blatant, politically motivated and irresponsible strike action initiated by Mr Hawke, President of the Australian Council of Trade Unions, and bearing in mind the prior announcement by the Leader of the Opposition of Mr Hawke’s intention, as well as the other recent politically motivated industrial disorders, can the Minister for Labour and National Service give any lead to decent law abiding unionists in Australia who presently have no say in such decisions, as to what action these responsible unionists should take. [More…]
stoppages at 1 p.m. whereas the Australian Council of Trade Unions made its decision at 4 p.m. on the same day? [More…]
I believe I know the time at which the Interstate Executive of the Australian Council of Trade Unions passed its resolution. [More…]
Now the left wing of the unions with the left-wing leader, Mr Hawke, and the left-wing-dominated Australian Labor Party with Mr Whitlam as its voice, all combine, forcefully, by demonstrations outside, which on occasions are quite violent, by strikes and threats of strikes, to defy elected government and defy the laws of Parliament. [More…]
The proper concern of trade unions and white collar and public service organisations is the living standards of their members and their families. [More…]
I have received letters from white collar workers, from the Australian Council of Trade Unions, from people in business, from school teachers - from people in what I would term the low and middle income group - stating that it was their belief that taxation reform was to be introduced. [More…]
The inflow of vast sums of overseas money has created an excessive demand for labour and materials and has played right into the hands of the left wing militant unions led by Mr Hawke of the Australian Council of Trade Unions in collaboration with the Leader of the Opposition and some of his supporters who see, in the depressed state of rural industries, a chance to win country seats by the age-old left wing philosophy that socialism and communism thrive on depression, unemployment and loss, and frustration of the people. [More…]
The strike called by Mr Hawke and the Leader of the Opposition against the Budget would have received very little support if the decision to strike had been made by the rank and file members of the unions. [More…]
I am a strong believer in trade unions and the need for responsible leadership. [More…]
I repeat that I am in support of strong unions representative of the rank and file members. [More…]
But today, because of apathy and disgust with the present leadership of these unions, less than 51% of eligible workers belong to a trade union. [More…]
Unless irresponsible, power drunk, strike happy disruptionists are controlled and unless the control of unions is restored to the hands of the decent rank and file members then the purchasing power of the pensioner, the superannuitant, the lower wage earner and the man with a large family, together with the exporter of primary products and manufactured goods, will continue to deteriorate at an ever increasing rate. [More…]
I am told that inciting the unions to strike against the Budget cost the workers of this country about $5m. [More…]
Regardless of what else this year’s Budget has done, it has at least highlighted the extent of the liaison between the Leader of the Opposition (Mr Whitlam) and the President of the Australian Council of Trade Unions. [More…]
The hysterica] outbursts of late by the traditional supporters of the Liberal Party - the employers’ organisations - against unions, blaming them, together with over-full employment, for the inflationary spiral, is hardly conducive to an objective assessment of our immigration policy. [More…]
I repeat that I have received letters from unions and individuals urging the Prime Minister to implement his income tax proposal this year. [More…]
It needs also to be accepted by employers and unions alike. [More…]
Unions must understand that the exploitation of full employment to make unreasonable demands on employers is self-defeating in the long run. [More…]
This will be achieved by the co-operation of the Commonwealth and State governments and authorities, unions and employers. [More…]
Full employment places high demands of responsibility on employers and unions. [More…]
Some unions have not been accepting this responsibility. [More…]
We have evolved new dispute settlement principles and procedures and these were recently agreed upon by my colleague the AttorneyGeneral and myself, the Australian Council of Trade Unions and the National Employers Policy Committee. [More…]
But the pinnacle policy bodies, the NEPC and the ACTU, have negotiated and endorsed them and will now influence their adoption by employers and unions. [More…]
Equally, the attitudes and performance of the working population, from shop floor to board room, and the leadership given by enterprises and unions will be crucial to our future. [More…]
We have almost reached the stage where, unless the unions use their bargaining power by means of industrial stoppages, they will not get far. [More…]
particularly when the Government is prepared to enter into national cases and rarely support - it generally opposes - an application put before that court by the Australian Council of Trade Unions. [More…]
1 think that the people of Australia now realise that without demonstrations and without industrial strife the unions cannot get far. [More…]
All I want to say is that the trade union movement is fortunate that it has as the President of the Australian Council of Trade Unions a person of the calibre of Bob Hawke. [More…]
Some people wonder why trade unions are on the move today, why they are agitating and striking for more money. [More…]
That dividend of 11% represents, in reality, a dividend of approximately 50% to 55% to anyone who has taken up all the share options in the period between 1950 and 1970. f ask honourable members to compare these facts and tell me why trade unionists in Australia should not go on strike in protest against this Budget, why the trade unions in Australia should not be demanding more wages, and why Bob Hawke, the President of the Australian Council of Trade Unions, should not be going into the arbitration court and demanding from the court or from industry increased wages for the workers and an improvement in their standard of living. [More…]
Are we seriously to believe that he would or could produce a purely economic budget, untrammelled by the pressures of the trade unions, the pensioners or his own social priorities? [More…]
This Parliament had petition after petition presented to it prior to the Budget asking that the Commonwealth Government increase the base pension to 30% of the average weekly male earnings plus supplementary assistance in accordance with the Australian Council of Trade Unions’ policy formulated by those people of whom I spoke before, with whom I am so proud to be associated, and by so doing give a reasonably modest pension. [More…]
Two or three times during their speeches they all paid allegiance to the Australian Council of Trade Unions. [More…]
This is an indication of how at times unions make gains for the members of their organisations at the expense of the general community. [More…]
It is no use employers complaining that the unions are getting the better of them if they are not prepared to stand firm. [More…]
In spite of the criticism levelled at Bob Hawke, the President of the Australian Council of Trade Unions, I would most certainly say that he would be a much more competent person to cure the ills of the rural community. [More…]
I thought that this was a rather tender issue in the Australian Labor Party and in many of the unions. [More…]
I believe that in certain circumstances there are justifications for unions and workers to receive a better deal than they are receiving. [More…]
So long as demand is at or near full employment limits, prices and wages will react on each other in a steady upward spiral in industries characterised by strong firms and strong unions. [More…]
I believe that is entirely consistent with what is being suggested by Mr Bob Hawke and the Australian Council of Trade Unions, as witnessed by Mr Hawke’s statesmanlike message to the National Productivity Council reported in today’s newspapers. [More…]
I would like to refer to the comments made by members of the Australian Labor Party and some trade union leaders - I say some because there were many decent, sensible, intelligent union men who did not go on strike last Tuesday - in support of the strike called by the Australian Council of Trade Unions as a protest against the Budget. [More…]
Unions claim that workers in Australia have a right to strike, but strikes create an enormous cost to rural industry. [More…]
Mr Hawke and the trade unions are represented in this House by the very few honourable members opposite who are present in the chamber. [More…]
The Australian Labor Party and the militant trade unions have combined with natural phenomena, such as drought, to cripple the rural industry. [More…]
The honourable member for Hindmarsh (Mr Clyde Cameron) - a pretty savage debater; he will probably enter the chamber soon to attack mt verbally - has suddenly become aware of the situation after his long career of interference with the trade unions; a long career of causing trouble in the Australian Workers Union. [More…]
Of course, in his view it pays to be amused because if you accuse someone in Australia of being a red baiter you get some sort of support in the trade unions. [More…]
It is appointed by the Trade Unions Defence Council. [More…]
If we look at the Trade Unions Defence Council we see that it is composed of activists - I think this is what they are called - who run the trade unions from the platform at trade union meetings. [More…]
He referred to the troubles in the rural industries and the high costs which, of course, have resulted from the activities of militant unions which have been striking day after day. [More…]
Let us consider Mr Bob Hawke, President of the Australian Council of Trade Unions. [More…]
He is an industrial advocate of some competence and he has suddenly found himself under pressure from the unions to take on the mantle of radical militancy. [More…]
Party and the trade unions themselves are now adopting this mantle. [More…]
Yet there are people on the Victorian Executive of the Australian Labor Party who read the great sayings of Marx, Lenin, Mao, Trotsky and all the others and who, through their magnificent organisation in the trade unions, are starting a movement aimed at defeating Australia’s resolution to defend itself. [More…]
The Australian Council of Trade Unions suggests that there be a protest. [More…]
This was not a protest to improve conditions and pay of workers, for which the trade unions were formed. [More…]
However, the Opposition, the President of the Australian Council of Trade Unions, Mr Hawke, and so many others would have the situation the other way. [More…]
In Papua and New Guinea the trade unions can put in claims until they are black in the face. [More…]
Regrettably, too much do we think of our obligation as being in relation to sectional pressure bodies - manufacturers, farmers, trade unions, and so on - and not enough about the people who really count in the long run and about whom the duties of Government and the aims of society aught to be - that great mass of private people, the consumers. [More…]
Since the Minister may have been alarmed by Mr Gregory’s intention to participate in the Vietnam Moratorium, although his major purpose was to play the campus circuit of university unions as the guest of those unions and the Wayside Chapel, I ask the Minister whether he is aware that Mr Gregory called off his plans to disrupt the Democratic National Convention 2 years ago with the statement: [More…]
We are told that all will be rosy if the workers just stop trying to get higher wages and that the trade unions must desist from matching wages and prices under the full employment conditions when these conditions themselves are fed by Government induced inflation. [More…]
The present Leader of the Labor Party has done the same sort of thing except that, in his typical insincere, shallow and grasping manner he has embraced the would be dictator, Mr Hawke of the Australian Council of Trade Unions. [More…]
Today the general idea of many trade unions, especially the Hawke dominated ones, seems to be: An unfair day’s work for a fair day’s pay. [More…]
He is the willing tool of men such as the would-be dictator, the President of the Australian Council of Trade Unions, Mr Hawke, whose previous effort, the nation-wide Budget strike, was as unsuccessful as his efforts on an Australia-wide basis in connection with the moratorium. [More…]
Mr Hawke, the President of the Australian Council of Trade Unions, is using every group to further his political ambitions - we say political not industrial - because it is obvious that Mr Hawke is usurping the role of Leader of the Opposition. [More…]
The Government has called on the trade unions to exercise restraint in wage claims, but we have not heard a word about restriction of prices or restriction of profits. [More…]
In the March quarter of last year, when Mr Monk was President of the Australian Council of Trade Unions there were about 490 stoppages but the figure has increased to 643 in the March quarter this year since Mr Hawke . [More…]
In the second place there is an instruction to combine with the Australian Council of Trade Unions and Mr Hawke personally. [More…]
In the name of law and order Hitler established the Gestapo, destroyed the free trade unions and sent millions of Jews to the gas ovens. [More…]
He challenged him, thirdly, to refute that the Moratorium movement is composed of 3 groups: The Communist Party of Australia, the peace groups and now the Australian Labor Party; and that the ALP is trying to bring the Australian Council of Trade Unions formally into it. [More…]
It directed the Leader of the Opposition and the Federal Secretary of the Party in combination to meet Mr Hawke, the President of the Australian Council of Trade Unions’, to plan some form of action. [More…]
Honourable members opposite would attack trade unions if they had some of those rules and provisions in their constitutions. [More…]
I would hope that the trade unions, which have indicated through the President of the Australian Council of Trade Unions and the General Secretary of the Waterside Workers Federation that they recognise that productivity is most important, would improve the atmosphere. [More…]
The incongruity of trade unions pointing to the different things and pretending they are connected can only be described in the words used by the honourable member. [More…]
The trade unions recently repeatedly demanded income tax reductions before the Budget was announced with an insistence the Leader of the Opposition and the Labor Party should reflect on. [More…]
I preface the question by saying that I have noticed recently that claims by unions on individual plants contain a demand for 4 weeks annual leave. [More…]
The President of the Australian Council of Trade Unions and the Leader of the Opposition (Mr Whitlam) have combined, for political reasons, increasingly to disrupt industry and to hold the nation to ransom. [More…]
The attack has even been taken outside the Parliament into some of the unions and pressure groups. [More…]
The Labor Party, the unions, and those who shed crocodile tears cannot claim a monopoly of this concern. [More…]
Y/c therefore cull ua/u the Commonwealth Government to increase the base pension rate to 30 per cent of average weekly male earnings, plus supplementary assistance in accordance with Australian Council of Trades Unions policy and by to doing give a reasonably moderate pension. [More…]
Is it correct that the Australian Workers Union in Queenland and New South Wales covers many occupations and is constantly under attack by left wing unions in demarcation disputes? [More…]
Will the Minister therefore do all in bis power to preserve the right of workers to be covered by the unions they respect and to ensure that unions do not adopt attitudes designed merely to destroy the Australian Workers Union in certain States, such attitudes having been exemplified over a number of years by the shadow Minister for Labour, the honourable member for Hindmarsh? [More…]
The Government took action before June on the importation of non-cheddar cheeses, in fact, representations were made by the industry and trade unions which were concerned with the alleged dumping of non-cheddar cheeses in Australia. [More…]
However, subscriptions paid to unions are allowed as tax deductions and some of the increase therefore is borne by the revenue. [More…]
They become members of the postal career service but they retain all rights they now enjoy under the civil service unless changes are made by provisions of labour contracts negotiated between the unions and the board of governors. [More…]
The unions must first place their claims before the Public Service Board, then before the Public Service Arbitrator and, in the last resort, before the Conciliation and Arbitration Commission. [More…]
Here we have delay pyramided on top of delay and, of course, it certainly is one of the factors that causes such a lot of discontent within unions that are associated with the Post Office. [More…]
From discussions with unions associated with the Post Office it seems that all but one support the view that the Postmaster-General’s Department should be divorced from the Public Service Board and made a separate department controlled by a public corporation. [More…]
The other unions consider that if the proposed reform took place there would be better service to the community and industrial relations would improve. [More…]
However in doing so I protest on behalf of the sporting bodies, trade unions and associations, such as the Royal Automobile Club, which have been so severely affected by the proposed alteration in the system of postage relating to magazines. [More…]
The Postmaster-General’s Department will suffer a loss in the volume of its business because unions and other organisations will find it impossible to mail their journals. [More…]
Are we beginning a year of efficiency when the year 1970 began with predictions of war between employers and unions because the arbitrary system of arbitration has broken down and its ignorance of facts and its edicts will no longer be accepted? [More…]
Unquestionably the Australian Council of Trade Unions, in combination with a pretty weak-kneed Arbitration Commission, has contributed to rising costs in this country. [More…]
Government members have condemned the Australian Council of Trade Unions and trade unions generally for rises in costs and for the resultant shortcomings in the primary industries but they know as well as I do. [More…]
Why did he take a similar position to the expelled president of the Victorian Labor Party, Mr Crawford who, not sitting in his Labor capacity, I understand, but addressing a meeting of unions, persuaded those unions to pass a resolution that the troops in Vietnam should mutiny. [More…]
The Merchant Service Guild of Australia’, on 18 February 1970, and on 26 March 1970 the Seamen’s Union of Australia an behalf of the following maritime unions: [More…]
Did any discussions take place at the recent conference between the Commonwealth, the Australian Council of Trade Unions and the National Employers Policy Committee as to whether an accredited job representative should be granted the necessary time off without loss of pay to (a) attend the enrolment of employees eligible to become members of his union (b) communicate with the full-time officials of his organisation whenever such communication becomes necessary during working hours (c) discuss grievances with fellow employees on the job during working hours and (d) communicate and discuss complaints with management during working hours. [More…]
Did the Commonwealth or the National Employers Policy Committee give any undertaking during their meeting with representatives, of the Australian Council of Trade Unions to guarantee that there will be no victimisation of accredited job representatives who are called upon to represent the views of their fellow employees in discussions with representatives of employers, in accordance with the procedures agreed upon for avoiding and settling industrial disputes. [More…]
The Executive Bureau of the WFTU - that is, the World Federation of Trade Unions; a Communist front with which the Australian Council of Trade Unions is not in communion - met in Khartoum from 24th to 26th February, lt published an Appeal to the Trade Unions and Workers of the World’ to make 8th May a ‘day of action for world peace’. [More…]
Abschol the National Union of University Students, many university people, trade unions, Aboriginal rights organisations and of course many individuals have taken an interest in them. [More…]
It is the earnest belief of the majority of Australians, the majority of Australian churches, the Australian Council of Churches, trade unions and all of those interested in the advancement of Aboriginals. [More…]
To those who have made it possible - the first Minister, his successors, the successive govern ments, the departmental officials, churches, trade unions, employers and voluntary organisations - Australia owes a great debt of gratitude. [More…]
Despite resistance from a number of areas and a number of institutions we have been able to persuade many institutes, organisations and trade unions to accept the qualifications of migrants. [More…]
I hope that these guides will be accepted readily by unions and institutions throughout Australia so that those cases of misallocation of human resources which do occur can be curtailed. [More…]
It is responsible for the law that governs the relationship between unions and employers and also for the relationship that should exist between unions and their officials. [More…]
Under a Labor government penalties for strike action against wages and conditions arbitrarily imposed upon unions will be repealed. [More…]
To secure the benefit of such an agreement, employers will be forced to make concessions to unions which would not be available from the Commission. [More…]
We have reached the stage now where the unions are gradually losing faith in the arbitration system. [More…]
Another aspect which I think is responsible for the unions and the employee organisations losing faith in the system is the fact that in most cases - this happened in the national wage case, in the total wage case and in the oil industry dispute where the profitability of industry came in - we have seen the Federal Government come in on the side of the employers or come in and put forward the same case as is presented by the employers. [More…]
But I remind him and all honourable members that not a single complaint has been lodged by any union - certainly not by the Australian Council of Trade Unions - about any appointment that has been made. [More…]
So far as the unions are concerned there is no clear statement of the way it should be determined. [More…]
The unions determine the issue ad hoc on individual occasions. [More…]
Looking at the record it seems that the determination of the unions depends very much on who is making the claim and on that occasion who is to determine the claim. [More…]
There are 3 things which clearly emerge in relation to the attitude of unions to conscientious objection held by a person to joining a union. [More…]
The unions insist that the issue be tested and they in fact do the testing. [More…]
The third thing which is abundantly clear is that unions do not accept a selective conscientious objection to the joining of any particular union. [More…]
Is he able to say whether the Conzinc Riotinto of Australia Ltd company informed the Australian Council of Trade Unions party which conducted negotiations with that company concerning wage rates at Bougainville that the company was fully prepared to bridge the gap between expatriate and indigene wage rates but that this had been prevented by the Administrator of the Territory of Papua and New Guinea. [More…]
I have no knowledge of such a statement being made by Conzinc Kiotinto of Australia Ltd to the Australian Council of Trade Unions. [More…]
We ‘ therefore call upon the Commonwealth -Government to increase the base pension rate to 30 per cent: of the average weekly male ‘ earnings for all States, as ascertained by the Commonwealth Statistician, plus supplementary assistance and allowances in accordance with the Australian Council of Trade Unions policy and adopted as the policy of the Australian Commonwealth Pensioners’ Federation, and by doing so give a reasonably moderate pension. [More…]
Commonwealth Government to increase the base pension rate to 30 per cent of the average weekly male earnings for all States, as ascertained by the Commonwealth Statistician,’ plus supplementary assistance and .allowances in accordance with the Australian Council of Trade Unions policy and adopted as the policy of the Australian Commonwealth Pensioners’ Federation, and by doing so give a reasonably moderate pension. [More…]
We therefore call upon the Commonwealth Government to increase the base pension rate to 30 per cent of the average weekly male earnings for all States, as ascertained by the Commonwealth Statistician, plus supplementary assistance and allowances in accordance with Australian Council of Trade Unions ‘policy and adopted as the policy of the Australian Commonwealth Pensioners’ Federation, and by doing so give a reasonably moderate pension. [More…]
My question which is directed to the Minister for Labour :ind National Service is supplementary to a question asked by the honourable member for Ballaarat a week or so ago concerning pressures on workers to join trade unions even though they might have conscientious objection. [More…]
I am afraid I do not command the influence which is necessary to give the publicity to the unions’ attitudes to conscientious objectors that the public media give in the other area. [More…]
However, I think it is worth reiterating that the unions do not accept a person’s claim to be a conscientious objector merely because he makes the claim. [More…]
Secondly, the unions do not recognise selective conscientious objection. [More…]
Among the most firm in their demands for such reductions were the trade unions. [More…]
Blackburn, Victoria, who had gone to Wodonga to take a job with Lamson Paragon Printers, was sacked from that job because, due to pressure from the unions on that firm, the firm has adopted a closed shop policy against anyone who is not a union member. [More…]
In the unions membership is not only to be mandatory, but once a man is enrolled he is to be tied to union decisions. [More…]
Yet the honourable member stands in this chamber and speaks against trade unions. [More…]
We therefore call upon the Commonwealth Government to increase the base pension rate to 30 per cent of the average weekly male earnings for all States, as ascertained by the Commonwealth Statistician, plus supplementary assistance and allowances in accordance with Australian Council of Trade Unions policy and adopted as the policy of the Australian Commonwealth Pensioners Federation, and by doing so give a reasonably moderate pension. [More…]
I refer briefly to the unions. [More…]
The unions in South Australia are unique. [More…]
It will be the mutual responsibility of individual unions and employers to give effect to the guidelines in one of the following ways: [More…]
The repeated pronouncements by the Prime Minister, the Treasurer and the Minister for Labour and National Service which are calculated to embarrass, compromise and prejudice the Commonwealth Conciliation and Arbitration Commission in the discharge of its constitutional and statutory functions and its hearing of pending matters such as the oil industry and national wage cases initiated and conducted by the Australian Council of Trade Unions. [More…]
That statement was telling the Commission to reject the submissions of the Australian Council of Trade Unions in the then pending oil industry wage case. [More…]
It is opportunistic because it wants to attract the support of people with voting power in the ALP organisation and in the unions. [More…]
The ALP is submissive because it allows itself to be dominated by trade unions on whom it relies for support. [More…]
The unpredictability of this matter of public importance can be judged by the actions and words of the man quoted so often by the honourable member for Hindmarsh in his speech, that is Mr Hawke, the President of the Australian Council of Trade Unions. [More…]
It knows full well that the wage drift goes to the powerful unions and that 85 per cent of the community - the clerks, the carpet layers, the architrave builders and these sorts of people - do not have industrial power. [More…]
The major capacity in a money sense as distinct from a real sense would be distributed among the powerful unions. [More…]
In office, the Australian Labor Party would erode the Commission to the benefit of the musclemen and the powerful unions and to the disadvantage of 85 per cent of the workers. [More…]
The former Treasurer at the annual dinner of the Metal Trades Employers Federation used the occasion to dictate to the President of the Commission, who was also a guest, what the attitude of the Commission should be in regard to the applications of the unions for increased wages in the 1967 work value judgment. [More…]
When he was Minister for Labour and National Service he was guilty of making the most vicious attack on members of the Commission when it awarded increased margins to the metal trades unions in December 1967. [More…]
But this right is denied the unions. [More…]
The unions have to prove their claim for an increase but when an increase is granted the employers and management use this as a means again to raise the price of the products and increase their profits. [More…]
The Australian Council of Trade Unions has registered its strong objection to the partisan submissions of this Government directed to denying workers justifiable increases in wages. [More…]
Reading the text of the matter proposed for discussion one would imagine that unions or leaders in industry do not at any time make reference to matters relating to wages and salaries or conditions of employment which would come within the orbit of the Commonwealth Conciliation and Arbitration Commission. [More…]
When the hearing of the national wage case was taking place in 1969 the unions demonstrated outside the court in support of the submissions of the Australian Council of Trade Unions. [More…]
It is machinery which can handle situations involving not only the larger unions, as the Minister for Labour and National Service (Mr Snedden) has said, but also the smaller unions and the individual bodies in this country which need some voice within the Conciliation and Arbitration Commission. [More…]
I think it is a pretty serious matter and it is important for these people to have a voice within our Arbitration system, which is independent and can make decisions on behalf of large unions and the small unions alike. [More…]
If this machinery were ever destroyed in Australia - and God forbid that this should happen - a lot of the small unions in Australia would be very seriously affected. [More…]
Not only is it important to have the evidence of the unions and the employees but it is also essential to have the evidence of the employers because the decision travels down the line and will affect many people. [More…]
Is it not also right that other unions should also be permitted to express their opinions and disclose information? [More…]
There are 2 unions representing firemen and competition exists between the two. [More…]
I- think that, when there are disputes as between unions, issues are raised which are very difficult to solve and, very often, somebody wanting to do good only achieves harm. [More…]
Has the attention of the Minister for Labour and National Service been drawn to the statement by the President of the Australian Council of Trade Unions that this is the year of the 35- hour week? [More…]
For the Australian Labor Party and the Australian Council of Trade Unions to have a national policy which would foist a 35-hour week on this nation is, I believe, showing complete recklessness, irresponsibility and lack of sympathy for the problems of people in country areas. [More…]
The Chifley Government recognised that it was necessary for this reason: If all departments and instrumentalities were able to make their own separate arrangements, then naturally enough, unions would attempt to isolate an individual department or instrumentality and force a concession from it, and they would use that concession to attack other areas. [More…]
Another point that needs to be made is that the Waterside Workers Federation and the Australian Council of Trade Unions are participants in an agreement in relation to the waterfront. [More…]
I believe that there should be an advisory council of experts, the technologists about whom I talked earlier, people who have graduated from universities and people from trade unions who are oriented to these problems to give some background to the Minister, whether he be a Liberal or Labor Minister, because nobody is terribly satisfied with what is happening at the present time. [More…]
There was the industrial unrest, caused, I understand, by a dispute between land based unions in Tilbury which rendered this tremendously expensive container terminal completely inoperative for, I think, about 18 months. [More…]
1 ask the PostmasterGeneral whether a new shift arrangement has been finalised between the Public Service Board and the various unions connected with the Postmaster-General’s Department, which will mean a 5-day working week. [More…]
Yesterday the Public Service Board made an offer to the Australian Council of Trade Unions and various Post Office unions folowing representations of some 2 or 3 months ago which themselves were followed by work studies within the Department, by unions and by officers of the Public Service Board. [More…]
In terms of penalty payments and substantial additional payments for overtime the total effect of those offers, if they are accepted by the unions, will be an additional cost to the Post Office of about $6m. [More…]
In view of the fact that Mr Hawke regards 1970 as the 35-hour week year, will the Minister for Trade and Industry inform the House what the likely repercussions would be to Australia’s export trade and industry generally and the consequent effect upon the cost of living of workers throughout Australia if the President of the Australian Council of Trade Unions achieves his ambition? [More…]
I record our appreciation of the cooperation given to us by the Maritime Unions, in our efforts to establish an Australian, foreign-going merchant marine. [More…]
There has been a reference in this place in the last few days to a closed shop agreement with the unions. [More…]
We have been given notice by the President of the Australian Council of Trade Unions that next year, after the Senate elections, will be the year of 35-hour working week and that the ACTU will try to bring it in by industrial trouble. [More…]
The Australian Council of Trade Unions has persistently demanded price control. [More…]
There are old union members in the Opposition who have come up through experience in unions that have no industrial power. [More…]
If they can sit there and say that it is in the interests of Australia, or of those trade unions to whom they owe their allegiance and loyalty, I am surprised. [More…]
How many of them these days represent solid trade unions which are concerned for egalitarian principles and the protection of the 85 per cent of the Australian work force which depend on not having inflation for the preservation of their conditions? [More…]
We therefore call upon the Commonwealth Government to increase the base pension rate to 30 per cent of the average weekly male earnings for all States, as ascertained by the Commonwealth Statistician, plus supplementary assistance and allowances in accordance with Australian Council of Trade Unions policy and adopted as the policy of the Australian Commonwealth Pensioners’ Federation, and by doing so give a reasonably moderate pension. [More…]
We therefore call upon the Commonwealth Government to increase the base pension rate to 30 per cent of the Average Weekly Male Earn.ings for ali States, as ascertained by the Commonwealth Statistician, plus supplementary assistance and allowances in accordance with Australian Council of Trade Unions policy and adopted as the policy of the Australian Commonwealth Pensioners’ Federation, and by doing so give a reasonably moderate pension. [More…]
We therefore call upon the Commonwealth Government to increase the base pension rate to 30 per cent of the Average Weekly Male Earnings for all States, as ascertained by the Commonwealth Statistician, plus supplementary assistance and allowances in accordance with Australian Council of Trade Unions policy and adopted as the policy of the Australian Commonwealth Pensioners’ Federation, and by doing so give a reasonably moderate pension. [More…]
We therefore call upon the Commonwealth Government to increase the base pension rate to 30 per cent of average weekly male earnings, plus supplementary assistance in accordance with Australian Council of Trade Unions policy and by so doing give a reasonably moderate pension. [More…]
Employers have been granting wages or conditions that have been demanded by unions which have threatened direct action if they are not granted. [More…]
For example, in 1969 the Australian Labor Party adopted as a resolution the need for an effective political campaign in association with the Australian Council of Trade Unions to achieve a 35- hour week. [More…]
They have illustrated in the last few months the capacity to combine with the Australian Council of Trade Unions for the purpose of political strikes. [More…]
The honourable gentleman will, I have no doubt, have noted that the advocate for the Australian Woolgrowers and Graziers Council has submitted that the Commission should dismiss all the applications at present before it from the Australian Council of Trade Unions and the white collar unions in the national wages case and that there should be no increase in Commonwealth awards this year at all. [More…]
What the ultimate outcome will be really depends on whether the community is prepared to have a little more discipline in its economic arrangements or to succumb to chaos, and it will succumb to chaos if it bows down completely before the systematic policy of the extreme left of the Australian Labor Party and the trade unions which control it and direct its main policy. [More…]
We therefore call upon the Commonwealth Government to increase the base pension rate to 30 per cent of average weekly male earnings, plus supplementary assistance in accordance with Australian Council of Trade Unions policy and by so doing give a reasonably moderate pension. [More…]
We therefore call upon the Commonwealth Government to increase the base pension rate to 30 per cent of the Average Weekly Male Earnings For all States, as ascertained by the Commonwealth Statistician, plus supplementary assistance and allowances in accordance with Australian Council of Trade Unions policy and adopted as the policy of the Australian Commonwealth Pensioners’ Federation, and by doing so give a reasonably moderate pension. [More…]
Earguards are provided to protect them from hearing disabilities but it is difficult for management and even for unions to persuade the workers to use earpads. [More…]
This, I understand, is a general condition laid down by the operators and, with the co-operation of the unions concerned, it is, I think, necessary to see that a type of education programme is introduced to ensure that there is an extension of the use of this type of equipment to which attention was drawn in the report. [More…]
I am not necessarily thinking of teachers’ federations or teachers’ unions. [More…]
People in merchant ships have had their increases for some time now whereas negotiations are still going on between the Public Service Board and the unions representing these men. [More…]
No doubt the Prime Minister saw, or has seen reports of the Leader of the Opposition’s television interview last night on “This Day Tonight’, in which he claimed that the President of the Australian Council of Trade Unions, Mr Hawke, is Mr Gorton’s ‘joss*. [More…]
Has he received a submission from the Council of Commonwealth Public Service Unions regarding the Superannuation Board. [More…]
I am advised that many other prosecutions of a similar nature have been instituted over the years by unions. [More…]
M..B.E., Secretary of Federation of Co-operative Unions and Member of the Development Bank Board. [More…]
that time the Commission had not given its decision on the Australian Council of Trade Unions’ oil industry case in which a claim for increased wages was based upon profitability. [More…]
Migrants mainly find unskilled jobs and if they are prepared to work under conditions which most trade unions would not accept they can earn high incomes. [More…]
It is not the wish of the organised employers or the organised trade unions that the two issues of equal rates for females and males and the abolition of interstate differentials be tested at this particular point of time. [More…]
Indeed it will be clear - and I recommend to the union that it look at the transcript of today’s proceedings before Mr Senior Commissioner Taylor in regard to the forthcoming national wage case, where the representatives of the Australian Council of Trade Unions made it clear that the A.C.T.U. [More…]
If so, in what way will his statement encourage unions and their members to increase productivity in particular industries. [More…]
Would unions and their members receive a greater inducement to co-operate with management in securing higher productivity if the granting of wage increases in particular industries were related to the movements of increased productivity in such industries instead of lying wage increases in those industries to the national pattern of productivity. [More…]
and (3) There is an inducement for individual unions and their members to co-operate with management in securing higher productivity in particular industries because by doing so they will increase the capacity of the economy to sustain real wage increases from which everybody benefits. [More…]
Is it a fact that on 19th October 1967 he and the Minister for Labour and National Service, together with the Director-General of Posts and Telegraphs and the Secretary, Department of Labour and National Service, entered into an informal understanding with the chief officers ot the Australian Council of Trade Unions, the Amalgamated Postal Workers Union, the Australian Postmasters Association and the Union of Postal Clerks and Telegraphists to direct every effort towards reaching agreement on the operation of the 5-day week principle within the Post Office. [More…]
lt is also a fact that since that date his Department has refused to enter into meaningful negotiations for the 5-day week with the unions concerned and that on 20th May 1970 the First Assistant Commissioner of the Public Service Board stated that he had the authority of the Postmaster-General’s Department to announce that the spreading of ordinary hours of duty over 5i days. [More…]
The answer to the honourable members question is as follows: (I), (2) and (3) At a meeting wilh the Australian Council of Trade Unions and the relevant Unions on 15th July 1970, the Board and my Department indicated that in principle they accept the concept of a 5-day week Monday to Friday or 5 shifts within a- calendar week, where such working arrangements, within the framework of the 40-hour week, ate shown to be practicable and without detriment to the services (including trading hours) and the standards of service to the public to he provided. [More…]
Following examination of the Working Party Reports, the Board and my Department met the ACTU and Postal Unions on 21st October 1970, and offered to introduce, within the framework of the existing standard working week of 40 hours, working arrangements based on ‘ ordinary duty over 5 days or 5 shifts per week for all staff in the Post Office not already working on this basis. [More…]
The Postal Unions asked for time to consider the of re rs a nit a further meeting was held on 12th November 1970. [More…]
The outcome was that some Unions accepted and others rejected the offer. [More…]
Discussions are to proceed, between the parties on a bilateral basis in relation to some remaining aspects of the Unions’ claims. [More…]
The answer to the honourable member’s question is as follows: (.1) At a meeting with representatives of the Australian Council of Trade Unions and the relevant Postal Unions on 15th July 1970, the Board and my Department indicated that in principle they accept the concept of a 5-day week Monday to Friday or 5 shifts within a calendar week, where such working arrangements, within the framework of the 40 hour week are shown to be practicable and without detriment to the services (including trading hours) and the standards of service to the public lo be provided. [More…]
The Postal Unions asked for time to consider the offers and a further conference was held on 12lh November 1970. [More…]
The outcome was thai some Unions accepted and others rejected the offer. [More…]
Discussions are to proceed between the parties on a bilateral basis in relation to some remaining aspects of the Unions’ claims. [More…]
especially, on the trade unions and white collar unions and Public Service associations which have approached the Commission. [More…]
Wage and salary earners, their unions and associations are to be made the scapegoats. [More…]
Yet we have this nonsense about the Arbitration Commission and the unions being the sole culprits. [More…]
The trade unions are becoming increasingly powerful. [More…]
As these conditions create a built-in inflationary pressure leading to subsequent inflation it must mean that the trade unions will not accept a lower standard of living. [More…]
I do not take that away from it, but I believe that when the Labor Party supports reckless spending policies, shorter working hours and disruptive moves by trade unions there is a lack of integrity and sincerity to act in a manner to avoid further increases in inflation. [More…]
Responsible restraint by unions and industry is needed. [More…]
The Government has not intervened directly in this area, but it must certainly find itself coming into conflict with any irresponsible action by unions or industry groups to increase wages and prices unnecessarily. [More…]
The decisions of the Arbitration Court may make some difference to some public employees, and to others who do not have strong unions: but generally speaking, the Court does no more than follow what would have been the movements of the labour market in any case. [More…]
They have sent the word along to big business undertakings that if they dare entertain any thoughts with trade unions of over-award payments the Government will do something to them so far as tariff proposals are concerned. [More…]
In the last couple of weeks the Prime Minister again had coming to this city leaders in commerce, trade unions and what have you, pleading about the state of the economy. [More…]
Why did he not offer the complete co-operation of the Labor Party and, so far as he was able to influence and persuade it, the support of the trade unions in improving productivity. [More…]
He mostly concentrated, of course, on the trade unions but the crime of the trade unions is that they have had a successful case before the Conciliation and Arbitration Commission. [More…]
He has blamed the trade unions and wage rises. [More…]
If a Labor government is not in office then it is the trade unions at fault, so in or out of power Labor can be blamed. [More…]
The wage efforts of unions follow prices and rents. [More…]
He suggested also that there was something wrong with the pressure exerted by unions and union leaders that brought about this situation. [More…]
The Labor Party looks on it as a great black bear that frightens it and as something that will distract from its power or from the power of the unions. [More…]
Some of the great figures in the unions in Queensland, and perhaps more particularly in the Australian Workers Union, learnt their trade the hard way on the canefields of northern and central Queensland. [More…]
The Minister actually blamed the Australian Labor Party for the present inflationary situation because it has supported the unions in their demands for increased wages. [More…]
In some countries, employers associations and trade unions have established, both separately and together, at the national as well as at the industrial level, agencies for furthering increased productivity. [More…]
The people who saw this need proposed that this educational process required a joint contribution from industry, commerce, trade unions and government. [More…]
In fact, the Australian Council of Trade Unions is presently considering an invitation to nominate representatives. [More…]
Will the Postmaster-General give the House what information he has on the hold-up of cables and mail in Australia and endeavour to get the union or unions to see the damage they are doing to the Aus tralian economy, including the activities of woolbuyers who expect buying orders io be among the cables, and small businessmen who do not have direct Telex communication? [More…]
1 have said also that apart from restraint by unions and trade union leaders in their own interests, so as not to make money increases sheer illusory increases, they should be looking for increased real wages and the way to increase real wages is not to put pressure on the unit cost of production but instead to look for more effective ways of production and to increase productivity. [More…]
I think the good conditions so far as manufacturing is concerned will continue for years provided the unions and the Conciliation and Arbitration Commission do not decide that the workers must get a little more of the cake. [More…]
What else can the unions do? [More…]
What other actions can unions take than to demand an increase in wages, when we read statements in the Press such as the one I have just read? [More…]
The unions in Newcastle, Port Kembla, Kwinana’ and Whyalla have been conducting a campaign for an increase in wages. [More…]
It has opposed continuously any attempt by the trade unions and the workers to get some share of the profits which it is making. [More…]
The difficulty that is manifest is that unions and union leaders are using their industrial power to force these over award payments in order to receive money increases, forgetting altogether that the money increase turns out to be an illusory increase for it is only a money increase and does not constitute a real increase in purchasing power. [More…]
His masters are already calling upon him to take on the unions. [More…]
It certainly is not to be done for 90 per cent of the Australian work force - the unions, public services and white collar organisations whose wages and conditions depend on the arbitration tribunals. [More…]
That Executive is controlled not by a democratic system, not by a system of universal franchise, not by a system of representative government; it is there because 60 per cent of the members are put up by the trade unions. [More…]
No one knows what the political complexion of those trade unions might be. [More…]
One can see a man who would be dominated by Mr Hawke and by the Australian Council of Trade Unions and the trades halls of Australia. [More…]
The Leader of the Opposition did make one valiant effort to defend the right wing causes of his Parry against infiltration from the left and from the communist dominated unions in the Harradine case. [More…]
Could we really expect his government to exercise restraint against the wild demands of these militant unions? [More…]
We can recall the statement by the honourable member for Dawson and the action of the Leader of the Opposition in inciting the trade unions to prevent the export of merino rams after the wool industry had asked that this be done. [More…]
The Labor Party cannot say that, ft is not free to say that because it is dictated to by the unions which supply the money that keeps it going. [More…]
How do we bring stability to a country like Australia when we have to contend with the conduct of a man like Mr Hawke of the Australian Council of Trade Unions who is trying to bring about conditions in this country that will destroy our development and destroy the possibility of people in this country being encouraged to spend their money to assist our development. [More…]
The Australian Labor Party is dictated to by the unions.’ [More…]
The Australian Council of Trade Unions and the employers of Australia now seem destined to a life and death struggle simply to satisfy the Prime Minister’s almost pathological disdain for organised labour He sees nothing wrong with organised doctors, organised money lenders, organised shipping companies, organised merchants, organised retailers, organised mining speculators or the widespread restriction on trade in all fields of industry and commerce. [More…]
If possible problems ought to be settled by the unions and the employers and the Arbitration Commission. [More…]
I ask the Minister: In view of the widespread public uncertainty and speculation, will he inform the House what action the Government intends to take with respect to the collection of outstanding fines owed by several trade unions? [More…]
One is that no union or group of unions can stand above the law. [More…]
I ask the Minister for Labour and National Service: Is the President of the Australian Council of Trade Unions, Mr Hawke, going right outside his official position by making a threat to certain commercial organisations that he will call their employees out on strike or declare the organisations black if they do not supply Bourke’s in Melbourne with certain goods at prices which he dictates? [More…]
I ask the Prime Minister: Which Minister provided the selective briefing - in plainer language, leaked the story - published today of the recommendations to Cabinet by the Minister for Labour and National Service for a major confrontation with the trade unions? [More…]
It is supplementary to those asked by the honourable member for Warringah and the honourable member for Eden-Monaro concerning the fining of 5 unions yesterday for penal clauses breaches. [More…]
I leave it to my colleague the Minister for Labour and National Service to explain at a later date how an order must first be made; action must be taken before the Industrial Registrar; letters must be written to the unions in order to put them in default of payment; and certain other procedures have to be followed before the Government may decide what it will finally do with regard to the collection of the fines themselves. [More…]
One does not even know whether he was mistaken for his brother Ray who is the Federal Secretary of the Miscellaneous Workers Union and a member of the Executive of the Australian Council of Trade Unions. [More…]
Since the pending High Court decision on the Trade Practices Act and the resale price maintenance legislation which the Attorney-General forecast yesterday are likely to be too late to affect the current dispute between Bourke’s, the Australian Council of Trade Unions store, and the Dunlop companies, 1 ask the right honourable gentleman whether the services of the Commissioner of Trade Practices can be made available as an arbitrator to determine whether in this case managed prices sustained by the withholding of supplies are contrary to the public interest. [More…]
In view of the Australian Wool Industry Conference’s clear recommendation to the Australian Government that the Government continue to allow the export of 300 merino rams this year, can the Minister inform me whether or not exporters of merino rams are still being prevented from honouring their sales undertakings by actions of certain unions? [More…]
No doubt the House is aware of the reports which appeared in yesterday’s Press that the 2 major car companies in South Australia - General Motors-Holden’s Pty Ltd and the Chrysler company - have adopted a get tough policy with trade unions ki recent disputes. [More…]
Furthermore the Chrysler company warned the executive of the Vehicle Builders Employees Federation of Australia - one of the two unions involved - that if it endorsed a ban on their work it would stand down sections of the Lonsdale plant and other lay offs would take place at the plant at Tonsley Park. [More…]
It is all very well for the Minister for Labour and National Service to complain about the activities of militant unions as he has done in recent months but the unions concerned are extremely worried about the future of the industry. [More…]
The unions served a log of claims on the companies last December which included the matter of severance pay. [More…]
However, the Government is on record for a long period as criticising industries, employers and unions for seeking to pass on national wage judgments to the over award salaries and the higher ranges of salaries, In this Bill the Government does exactly what it has criticised others for doing in the past. [More…]
Then the Government decided - I imagine this is the reason for the delay in proceeding with the legislation - to accede to some of the representations made to it by the Council of Commonwealth Public Service Organisations and the Australian Council of Trade Unions, and perhaps by other Commonwealth associations concerned with the Bill. [More…]
Was the public once again made the victim in a needless, costly strike which should not have occurred and which was one of a series of incidents in which the unions have proved powerless to discipline their own members? [More…]
This was one of a series of incidents which clearly shows the problems which arise when unions are unable to discipline effectively their members. [More…]
He said: in these circumstances of what is happening to the salarial, to the professions, to civil servants, to employers, and to the mineral exploiters, it may rather be thought surprising that the Arbitration Commission, the ACTU, the unions and the workers have been so moderate. [More…]
The only positive move has been by the Australian Council of Trade Unions when it struck a blow for the consumers in acting against resale price maintenance. [More…]
Would it not be possible for the Government to make a plea to the Australian Council of Trade Unions - to Mr Hawke who claims that he is acting in the best interests of the people, whether he is or is not - or individual unions to allow the Government to subsidise an employer above and beyond a certain rate of pay to help these unfortunate people? [More…]
It should not be beyond the bounds of possibility for the Government, in conjunction with the trade unions, to work out some scheme whereby these people, instead of being forced onto invalid or unemployment pensions, should be encouraged and should be enabled to stay in industry. [More…]
I know that there are problems in the unions. [More…]
I thought this was an extraordinary reply coming from newspapers which frequently publish great articles on what is not being done for handicapped people and how handicapped people should be assisted not only by governments but by industry, by unions and by others to take their place in this nation at this time. [More…]
It is a matter of these people being occupied and I feel that we should be capable of finding, in conjunction with the unions, some system that will not only implement what we are saying in respect to the rehabilitation of these people but also give them some hope for the future. [More…]
My question is addressed to the Attorney-General and relates to the recent metal trades cases concerning the Commonwealth Engineering works in which 5 unions were involved and in which case the Commonwealth Industrial Court imposed penalties of $100 a day for each of the IS days that the dispute lasted. [More…]
Industry Association and the metal trades unions arising out of .the incidents at Commonwealth Engineering. [More…]
Without statistics of this kind, how can the Government, the Arbitration Commission, the trade unions or employers ever know whether labour is getting its fair share of increased productivity? [More…]
And they can also be used to assist unions to negotiate productivity agreements. [More…]
No wonder Mr Hawke, the President of the Australian Council of Trade Unions, has accused the Government of using double standards for dealing with inflation. [More…]
The future may find a need for the Arbitration Commission to arbitrate overaward rates between unions and prosperous employers. [More…]
Mr Hawke has publicly declared that the Australian Council of Trade Unions will see that any agreement made under the auspices is honoured. [More…]
But the task of maintaining amity between reasonable employers and reasonable trade unions is made difficult when the Government and unreasonable employers combine to provoke disharmony for the crudest political motives. [More…]
It is worth mentioning also that most of the unpaid fines which the Government now proposes to collect from unions, followed the Commission’s deliberate and unsuccessful attempt to convert minimum wage rates into maximum rates. [More…]
Ever since the Menzies Government amended the Act in 1951, trade unions have complained about the highly legalistic nature of arbi tration procedures. [More…]
If we are to allay the Luddite-like fears responsible for some of the union opposition to technological change, we must convince management of the need for prior notice and discussion with the unions concerned, whenever important changes are contemplated in production. [More…]
It is crass stupidity for management to spend huge sums of money for the introduction of new techniques and to wait until the new machinery is installed before bothering to discuss the matter with the unions concerned. [More…]
It is just as damaging to good industrial relations for unions to be oblivious of real dangers to working standards as it is for them to foster false fears of disadvantages that may never eventuate. [More…]
I put it to the House that the activities of the Australian Council of Trade Unions and Mr Hawke, particularly in recent times, do not inspire confidence that the interests of trade unions or of this country will be properly pursued. [More…]
I call for trade unions and employers to assist in increasing productivity, in minimising the losses which are incurred through absences, through job changing and through injury, to all of which the Minister and the honourable member for Hindmarsh referred. [More…]
The unions are trying to gain a greater share of national productivity in relative terms. [More…]
For example, I note that the Australian Council of Trade Unions and the Australian Commonwealth Pensioners Federation have combined to call for pensions to be set at a sum equal to 30 per cent of average weekly earnings. [More…]
The Minister carefully deviated from the contents of the Bill and directed his remarks to attacking the workers and their trade unions for their activities in trying to gain wage justice and improved working conditions. [More…]
Another one, a Sydney report, suggested that the head or the deputy head of the mission had appealed to the trade unions to change their attitude to the entry of temporary workers, particularly Japanese technicians. [More…]
It involves in every case consultation with the Department of Labour and National Service to determine whether workers with these qualifications are available in Australia, and I understand that in appropriate cases the Department of Labour and National Service consults with the trade unions. [More…]
Is strike action by the shop committees in conflict with the policy of the individual trade unions and the trade union movement within Australia? [More…]
What action has the Australian Council of Trade Unions taken to curb this strike programme which could throw many thousands of men out of work? [More…]
It is true that employers within the Australian vehicle manufacturing industry are concerned that officials of certain metal trades unions are organising a strike programme on the basis of shop committees in order to get behind claims for certain conditions within the industry. [More…]
I might say that I understand that the movement by the shop stewards is contrary to the official policy of the Australian Council of Trade Unions. [More…]
It is to be hoped that the unions concerned and the ACTU will not allow their official policy to be abrogated by strike action of this type. [More…]
In the first place, it is to be deplored that the unions concerned have in this case decided to take direct strike action. [More…]
If those unions believe that they have a case for a 35-hour working week which they can effectively sustain they should seek to sustain it before the appropriate tribunal within the ambit of the conciliation and arbitration system. [More…]
I believe that, as the honourable member implied in his question, the unions ought to appreciate that the annual increase in the capacity of the economy to support higher wages and better conditions is certainly not unlimited and that with a given rate of productivity growth any increase in leisure hours can be in fact attained only at the expense of an increase in real wages. [More…]
It further lessens the understanding and conciliatory spirit which is being desperately sought by trade unions, reasonable employers and those conciliation bodies working so hard to find a solution to the adjustment of wages to meet soaring living costs. [More…]
I challenge this Government to give some real encouragement to the Australian work force to convince them that this productivity debate is not some gigantic smokescreen to hide governmental and employer desire to destroy the existing arbitration system; to convince the workers that this is not a counter offensive to the Australian Council of Trade Unions campaign for a shorter working week; to convince them that it is not a campaign to hide the effects of changing technology, computerisation and automation generally. [More…]
One cannot say that the concept of profit sharing can be readily accepted by employers or by trade unions, but the time for imaginative rethinking is here for governments, and instead of debates in Parliament on these matters, round table conferences between those responsible are overdue. [More…]
1 hope it will be obvious to members of the Opposition that the attempts of militant unions to redistribute wealth in favour of their members have been counterproductive for the work force as a whole. [More…]
I hope that the de facto Leader of the Opposition, Mr Hawke, will now devote his attention to the elimination of restrictive practices in the trade unions. [More…]
Would we see Government members bending over backwards to help them and saying to Bob Hawke of the Australian Council of Trade Unions that they would get the workers’ rents paid, their interest rates reduced, the rates on their homes lowered, the interest indebtedness in respect of their motor cars reduced, their hire purchase commitments eased? [More…]
They will find that trade unions in America prevailing upon employer organisations and industry to introduce a shorter working week. [More…]
lt is time this Government stopped treating the trade unions of this country as an alien’ force. [More…]
Let me first of all say to the honourable member for Sturt (Mr Foster) who, as I recall his comments, was complaining bitterly that technological change had not been the subject of adequate discussions between the Government, the unions and the employers, that this topic has been dealt with in some detail by the National Labour Advisory Council. [More…]
Similar estimates are provided by employers and unions at national wage cases and the three sets of estimates do not differ very greatly from each other. [More…]
This needs to be overcome and calls for close cooperation between employers and trade unions as the recent National Labour Advisory Council Forum on Technological Change clearly showed. [More…]
It is important that the guidelines published by the National Labour Advisory Council to cushion the impact of technological change be adopted and applied by all levels of management and the trade unions. [More…]
It requires more efforts also from the Productivity Promotion Council, professional institutes, employer organisations and the trade unions. [More…]
Discussions are currently taking place between the Commonwealth, the States, employers and trade unions on possible action to improve the training of skilled workers who form such an important part of the Australian workforce. [More…]
The Combination Acts of 1800 were deliberately aimed at the trade unions or workmen who combined together in an effort to better their conditions. [More…]
One related to the aggressive attitude of Australian car manufacturing companies towards the unions, and the other to the question of safety following the precipitate dismissal of the inspectors. [More…]
In most instances, credit unions are now accepted as falling within me definition of ‘co-operative company’ for the purposes of Division 9 of Part III (sections 117-121) of the Assessment Act. [More…]
Prior lo that time, there was no basis on which credit unions could have been treated as qualifying for the concessions available to co-operative companies. [More…]
Assessments of credit unions and small loan societies have been referred to Taxation Hoards of Review on several occasions. [More…]
Full particulars are not available of the manner in which credit unions are treated in other countries for income tax purposes. [More…]
United Kingdom - credit unions are liable to tax. [More…]
New Zealand - credit unions are liable to tax. [More…]
Canada - at present credit unions are not subject to tax but a government white paper proposing that they be taxed has been presented to the House of Commons. [More…]
South Africa - credit unions are not taxed. [More…]
The scheme has the support of the National Labour Advisory Council, whose membership includes representatives of the Australian Council of Trade Unions and of employer organisations. [More…]
Close behind the number of man hours lost in that way is the number lost through demarcation disputes and the refusal of people to join unions. [More…]
Must we wait for the Australian Council of Trade Unions to take action in this field also before the Government will do something? [More…]
He spoke about the President of the Australian Council of Trade Unions having made a statement on a 35-hour working week and asked whether the Opposition supported that statement. [More…]
He spoke about the political strikes with which unions had been associated, the strike in support of the speech on the Budget by the Leader of the Opposition and the unity ticket that was established by unions and the Opposition. [More…]
In recent weeks we have seen the Opposition and the Australian Council of Trade Unions working as one in their endeavour to force upon the Australian public and the Australian sporting bodies their views on the question of touring South African teams. [More…]
I pay tribute to the negotiating ability of the Australian Council of Trade Unions’ team which represented the trade unions at that meeting. [More…]
The ACTU is bound by its congress decision to resist all fines imposed for strikes taken against arbitrary decisions imposed upon unions by the. [More…]
Good industrial relations will be best achieved by agreements initially arrived at between trade unions and employers. [More…]
The employers and ACTU members of NLAC agreed that representative tripartite discussions concerning the operation of the Commonwealth Conciliation and Arbitration Act should begin as soon as possible and should embrace the question of sanctions including the ACTU suggestion of the desirability of investigating the adoption of a system of voluntary agreements to regulate the relations between employers and unions outside the legislation including, if desired, by the parties, provisions for their enforcement. [More…]
In the light of the agreement previously arrived at between the employers and the unions as to appropriate guidelines to be followed in the settlement of industrial disputes and parties emphasised the desirability of unions and employers adhering to these provisions, particularly during the period which would be involved in the above discussions. [More…]
In the process thereof he draws our attention to the great good works of the Australian Council of Trade Unions in, as he called it, lifting the current shipping strike in relation to Tasmania. [More…]
Representations about the Bill were received from the Council of Commonwealth Public Service Organisations, the Australian Council of Trade Unions and other sources and suggestions for amendment of the Bill were made by honourable members here and honourable senators in another place during the debates on the Commonwealth Employees Compensation Bill 1970. [More…]
I would also like to say that at the moment I have grave misgivings about the trade unions’ proposal to stop the tour by withdrawing the work force. [More…]
I am delighted to see the Australian Council of Trade Unions take a stand on this issue. [More…]
I shall ask the unions however to reconsider thoughtfully the full implication of their proposals. [More…]
But I would be fairly certain that he is posing this question against the background that the Labor Party and the Australian Council of Trade Unions are attempting to stop the visit of South African sporting teams to this country. [More…]
I believe it is astonishing that we, being willing to accept cultural organisations and for that matter sporting organisations of this kind, should now be subject to the unbelievably contrary action by the Australian Labor Party and the Australian Council of Trade Unions. [More…]
This is a further instance of a growing attitude on the part of some unions which, having taken a case to arbitration, are not prepared to accept the decision handed down. [More…]
When challenged on its record of failures Country Party Ministers always resort to the same tactics of trying to put the blame on the Opposition, the unions, overseas policies, the State governments - anything or anyone as long as the spotlight is focused right away from the real culprits, themselves. [More…]
A LiberalCountry Party Government has been in control of the rural policies of this nation for 21 years, and the full blame for the incredible mess in which rural Australia has now been plunged, with a greater number of bankruptcies than at any other time, even in the great depression, must be borne not by the Opposition, the unions, the State governments or anyone else but by this Government. [More…]
Australia has been asked by the South African trade unions and the Leader of the Opposition in South Africa and by many other people not to try to stop the tour because, they say, it will be worse if we stop it. [More…]
I deplore, as do I think most people in the Australian community, the way that Mr Hawke and the Australian Council of Trade Unions by the use of industrial action have achieved what amounts to a resale price maintenance. [More…]
I deplore the unions’ attitude in relation to compulsory unionism, because that is what it amounts to, in the retail trade in Australia. [More…]
On the one hand there are the militant unions; on the other hand there is the ACTU and Mr Hawke- and I do not know how one would describe him; and on the third hand, if one can have a third hand, there are high taxes. [More…]
But when this happens we usually consult the Australian Council of Trade Unions or, as I recollect was the case in Western Australia, the local Trades and Labour Council. [More…]
How ever, it will be clear to the honourable member that the unions apparently do not share that conviction. [More…]
The Minister speaks of his consultations, but there have been no consultations with any unions, none with any workers, none with any people who might be disemployed as a result of any of these changes. [More…]
There have been no consultations with any unions and if the unions come up later with action the Government . [More…]
Therefore I think today has been a watershed for tariff debates in this country, and that the Australian people, the manufacturers, the importers, the trade unions and everybody associated with our economy can now see quite clearly the dichotomy in policy on tariffs. [More…]
I address a question to the Prime Minister who will have seen reports that 3 unions - the Amalgamated Engineering Union, the Sheet Metal Workers Union and the Boilermakers and Blacksmiths Society - jointly agreed at their annual conferences yesterday to seek a work ban on mining operations in the Gove Peninsula. [More…]
I think it is appropriate to divorce the statements that were made by the 3 left wing unions from the problem of the land rights of Australian Aboriginals. [More…]
I emphasise to everyone, including the 3 left wing unions, that we should not confuse the legal approach, the moral approach and an approach based on justice for Australian Aboriginals. [More…]
While the Government can take the action that it has taken, I impress upon the honourable gentleman and all members on the other side of the House that they should do what they can and use their influence, if they possess any, on the trade unions of this country to moderate their claims and to understand the reality that wage increases beyond productivity are inflationary and illusionary. [More…]
Will these centres compare with the excellent centres conducted by the Lady Gowrie organisation, the Kindergarten Unions and such bodies as the Sydney Day Nursery Association? [More…]
So far many of these organisations such as the kindergarten unions and so on are intent on meeting the needs of the socially deprived and afflicted. [More…]
The kindergarten unions want grants for kindergarten teachers college administration and supervision and scholarships or bursaries for students. [More…]
He also commented that the Commonwealth, the States, employers and trade unions are discussing the possible action needed to improve the training of skilled workers who form such an important part of the Australian work force. [More…]
When the parties to the National Conference - the Australian Council of Trade Unions, the Waterside Workers Federation, the Association of Employers of Waterside Labour and the Australian Stevedoring Industry Authority - endorsed the report, the Government agreed to provide legislative authority to cover these and other matters. [More…]
As part of that consent 2-year award both the Australian Council of Trade Unions and the Waterside Workers Federation gave a written undertaking there would be no stoppages of work in respect of those matters which were the subject of that agreement. [More…]
It is to be regretted that the Federation in some branches has also become the vehicle, along with certain other maritime unions, whereby minority elements within the trade union movement have sought to convert industrial power into political action. [More…]
It adopts what is to me a very strange attitude, in that it does not recognise the Whyalla Combined Unions Council - an organisation which covers most of the unions whose members work at the Whyalla shipyard. [More…]
As a former secretary of a combined unions organisation, I have found that in dealing with industrial enterprises of some size, which have had some concern for the state of their industrial relations, they have been willing to discuss matters over the table with combined union organisations, and in many cases to reach decisions which, because they have been mutually agreed to over the table, are respected by both employer and employee. [More…]
The conference mentioned by the Deputy Leader of the Opposition has not taken place but I can inform him that, as a consequence of talks held this morning in Sydney between the unions and the ship owners, the strike committee and the executive of the stewards’ union have agreed to recommend to a meeting of the stewards’ union a resumption of work tomorrow. [More…]
Has his attention been drawn to the comments of the Acting Premier of Tasmania, Mr Lyons - who* is a supporter of the Minister’s own Party - in today’s issue of the ‘Canberra Times’ in which he praised the President of the Australian Council of Trade Unions, Mr Bob Hawke, for his help in attempting to end the marine stewards’ strike in Tasmania? [More…]
If anything, what the present strike does show is the need for unions involved in these situations to confine their industrial activities to representations before the Commission because that is the proper forum where cases of this type should be argued and sustained. [More…]
I have some idea of the relations which exist between unions and management. [More…]
Sometimes I cannot help but feel that the various unions in the industry have been more militant than even some of the more extreme unions in this country, and it seems very strange that this should happen. [More…]
Did the Australian National Line pay for this round first class air trip and is this another example of ship owners pandering to the left wing led maritime unions while they get tough with the more reasonable right wing unions? [More…]
I refer to the strike programme yesterday by unions in the power industry in New South Wales in support of a 35-hour working week. [More…]
As the honourable gentleman has suggested, yesterday’s strike within the New South Wales power industry by certain unions is a further example of the growing militancy of unions in Australia and the attempt by some unions to exercise their industrial power in deliberately seeking to coerce both employers and the general community by taking direct action outside the Conciliation and Arbitration Commission. [More…]
It must be observed that if the unions felt that they had a legitimate case to put they would have been prepared to put it before the Commission. [More…]
The Prime Minister has been most vocal outside this Parliament in condemning members of trade unions and honourable members on this side of the House because, in his opinion, they have had the temerity to speak out for those whom they represent. [More…]
This scheme was brought about as a result of a conference, constituted back in 1965, known as the National Stevedoring Industry Conference, lt was made up of representatives from the Australian Council of Trade Unions, the Waterside Workers Federation, the Association of Employers of Waterside Labour and the Australian Stevedoring Industry Authority. [More…]
All unions at some time indulge in them because they feel that they are justified in doing so. [More…]
It reminded me of the Taft-Hartley Act which became poison to the trade unions in the United States of America. [More…]
The High Court had occasion to draw attention to another defect in the Act concerning the registration of eligibility rules of unions where the eligibility rules which were sought to be registered conflicted with the description of industry for which the union was registered. [More…]
It means that, if unions prepare sensible logs of claims that represent a reasonable approach to a problem and the cost of living goes up and the standard wages are increased in the meantime, they are no longer able to bring the original log of claims within the scope of the new situation and must serve a fresh log of claims. [More…]
What do the unions do now? [More…]
Indeed, there is nothing we ought to be able to do about it, because the Arbitration Commission has no right to impose upon an employer rates of pay that are’ uneconomic, and similarly, it has no right to impose upon unions and employees rates of pay that are below the market value of thenlabour. [More…]
Every time this Government attempts to collect the fines that it insists upon, imposing upon unions for merely seeking to obtain the market value of the things they have to sell, it cannot blame anybody but itself if, as a consequence of its blind, pigheaded and mule-like determination to create industrial unrest, there is a loss to the Australian gross national product each day of anything up to $100m. [More…]
It wants to sit back and attack the unions and the Commission if its decisions do not suit the Government. [More…]
An effect of penal legislation had been to drive trade unions away from attempts at reconciliation. [More…]
I say without provocation to the honourable member for Hindmarsh that this is a device on the part of the honourable gentleman to seek to capture some semblance of initiative in the Labor movement which the honourable gentleman well recognises has been effectively taken from him by the President of the Australian Council of Trade Unions. [More…]
That representative tripartheid discussion concerning the operation of the Commonwealth Conciliation and Arbitration Act should begin as soon as possible and should embrace the question of sanctions, including the ACTU suggestion of the desirability of investigating the adoption of a system of voluntary agreements to regulate the regulations between employers and unions outside the legislation, including, if desired by the parties, provisions for their enforcement. [More…]
I believe too that a new development of farmer organisations in a 50/50 business partnership with the Australian Council of Trade Unions should be examined further in the fields of food and fruit processing. [More…]
State governments and farmers unions have condemned this legislation. [More…]
If we go through the views of the South Australian Government, the New South Wales Government, the Queensland Government and the various farmers unions of Australia we find that all of them have said that this legislation is totally inadequate, firstly because of the limited amount that is to be provided and secondly because of the very restrictive nature of the legislation which is aimed at ensuring that only the very smallest number of farmers are to benefit, from it. [More…]
I do not know what unions they are in, but if I was a union secretary in charge of the staff of Parliament House; I would take the staff out on -strike in protest against the conduct of this Government. [More…]
The best way in’’ which to bring this Government to its senses would be for the unions concerned to declare this kind of conduct black- and to state- that no man or woman would work ‘for the Parliament without a specified- time1 for rest. [More…]
The Australian Council of Trade Unions came into the picture with the Dunlop situation. [More…]
While the new code has broken some new ground it has not reached the objectives which the Australian Labor Party has represented in its model Bill and which the Australian Council of Trade Unions and the white collar workers unions have been pursuing for years. [More…]
The Australian Council of Trade Unions has adopted the principle that a worker who is deemed to be totally or partially incapacitated for work should be entitled to receive during the period of his incapacity the amount of weekly earnings he would have received but for his injury. [More…]
At that time I was the Secretary of the Port Augusta Combined Unions Council, which included practically all the unions covering Commonwealth Railways wage employees. [More…]
In larger establishments, we should have fully qualified full time safety first officers, with the necessary authority to see that safety first procedures are carried out, and that all this is carried out with the full cooperation of the unions involved. [More…]
It would be impossible for me to raise the many matters that are important for me to raise on behalf of the Commonwealth Public Service unions that I represent. [More…]
On what dates, by what means and with what results has he of his successor and predecessor consulted with State Attorneys-General, the trade unions, both Federal and State, and other interested government authorities to arrange for the examination of the important organisational matters to which’ the Court referred. [More…]
Organisations which are exempt from income tax include religious, scientific, charitable and public educational institutions, trade unions and associations of employers and employees registered under an Act relating to the settlement of industrial disputes, public hospitals and hospitals which are carried on by associations otherwise than for the purposes of profit or gain to their individual members. [More…]
So far as the final point raised by the honourable gentleman in relation to the policy of the Australian Council of Trade Unions is concerned, I am not specifically aware of what the ACTU policy is in relation to Broken Hill but my very clear understanding is that the [More…]
Has the attention of the Minister for Labour and National Service been drawn to a recent statement accusing trade unions of using 19th century methods to achieve reforms? [More…]
Of course, the honourable gentleman would not want to be reminded of the statement that he made and which in fact was consistent with other statements that have been made by the honourable member for Eden-Monaro and the honourable member for Robertson who in part or in whole have expressed concern at the increasing involvement in this country by trade unions in political matters. [More…]
That is certainly a matter of concern to members on this side of the House and I am sure it is a matter of concern to the Australian community, because I believe that the community at large is sick and tired of the extent to which unions are becoming involved in what are essentially political issues. [More…]
In reply to the question posed by the honourable member for Ballaarat, I would say that there are very many good reasons why trade unions should not continue with the use of the strike weapon for political purposes. [More…]
Mr Speaker, trade unions in this country are an accepted part of our democratic fabric and they have a major role to play over the whole of the industrial relations scene. [More…]
But certainly it is time for trade unionists and trade unions at large to stand up on this issue and bring back to the trade union movement the image for which at one time it was distinguished. [More…]
I made a plea for trade unions and trade unionists to be more politically active, not less so. [More…]
Far from objecting to trade unions taking an active part and an active interest in politics, I have always welcomed and encouraged this. [More…]
He has plenty to do trying to get his own Party into shape - and, if I can go a stage further, in coming to terms with the President of the Australian Council of Trade Unions, who keeps rocking the boatwith his excursions into what should be the Labor Parly’s exclusive preserves. [More…]
This is the man who approved the attempt by some unions to interfere with the legitimate trade of this country. [More…]
This is the man who gave tacit support to the left wing unions and the professional dissenters during the recent rugby tour. [More…]
He has stood by helplessly while his authority has been eroded and his bailiwick invaded by Mr Bob Hawke, the President of the Australian Council of Trade Unions, another leader who is causing responsible people in the trade union movement a great deal of activity. [More…]
In an agreed statement issued in connection with the agreement, it was stated that it was ‘the mutual responsibility of individual unions and employers to give effect to the guidelines’ and that ‘it would be important to ‘ translate these principles into action as soon as practicable on the basis of mutual decisions by the parties’. [More…]
Unions and employers are under no obligation to keep me or my Department informed as to the extent or otherwise that they may have given effect to the guidelines. [More…]
I warn honourable members on both sides of the House that the decision by President Nixon will have a remarkable effect on what we are doing in Australia, I would hope that the Labor Party and the Australian Council of Trade Unions and Mr Hawke in particular would have a committee set up to assess the impact of President Nixon’s recent statement because people will be out of work as a result of that statement. [More…]
1 know that the ACTU supports those militant Labor unions which have decided not to work on a pipeline being constructed across Port Phillip Bay in Victoria. [More…]
The unions say: ‘We will not take part in the construction of this pipeline’. [More…]
I have recently returned from countries where good labour is available to carry out the decisions of a State government which have been rejected by the Opposition party and by those militant unions in Victoria. [More…]
Pressure is applied by the unions through the various industrial agreements they have. [More…]
If this is what the unions want and demand, naturally the mining companies find that it is healthy to go along with them. [More…]
There are sufficient matters of one sort or another for dispute in Broken Hill and they are not going to waste industrial powder and shot on the unions over a question like this. [More…]
I noticed a few nights ago that the President of the Australian Council of Trade Unions was complaining at a big union meeting that no women were present. [More…]
I can see that he would not be wrong about the Barrier Industrial Council itself being responsible as distinct from the unions and members of unions. [More…]
What is the Government doing about the militant trade unions which obviously are determined to destroy the arbitration system? [More…]
Will the Government resist the Socialist left and militant unions in order to support those unions which appreciate the conciliation and arbitration on which a large number of workers depend? [More…]
The Public Service Board, the Australian Council of Trade Unions and the Department of Labour and National Service were notified, and it is hoped that many of these employees will find other employment within that period. [More…]
He knows that the Australian Labor Party is a Party which was built by and for the unions. [More…]
Labor parliamentarians are bound hand and foot to the unions of Australia which built the Labor Party for their own ends. [More…]
The unions to this day hold at least 60 per cent of the positions on the Australian Labor Party conferences and councils throughout Australia. [More…]
It is no wonder that Mr Hawke lately has asserted his leadership of the Labor movement over the Leader of the Opposition, for that leadership is a natural consequence of the domination of the unions over the ALP which lasts to this day. [More…]
The vested interests in the Labor Party are a few people on the pay rolls of the Party and the unions in the capital cities of Australia. [More…]
I ask the Minister for Labour and National Service a question further to my question last Tuesday on the control by the unions of employment of women in Broken Hill. [More…]
It is nonsense for him to come into this chamber and talk about selling wheat to China when he knows that the policy of the Australian Council of Trade Unions - indeed, the Australian Labor Party - deliberately to prevent the export of rams from Australia has resulted in Australia having to rat on its international obligations. [More…]
If they can stimulate fear in the Australian people on the subject of China, in addition to the fear of the unions and the fear of demonstrations supporting the United Nations resolutions against South African sporting tours of our country, this will support their narrow, partisan cause whatever harm it is doing to our nation at the same time. [More…]
Wage and salary earners are to be blamed for inflation and their unions and associations are to be hobbled. [More…]
This Budget is a declaration of war against the wage and salary earners of Australia, against the 90 per cent of the Australian work force who are employees and who largely depend for their living standards on awards obtained by their unions and associations through arbitration or negotiation or industrial action. [More…]
Hawke has saved consumers tens of millions of dollars by an initiative which shamed this Government into belatedly enacting legislation against resale price maintenance, which at the conference between the inner Cabinet and the trade unions - the Australian Council of Trade Unions, the Australian Council of Salaried and Professional Associations and the Council of Commonwealth Public Service Organisations - last February, the Government was very intent on explaining it could not do. [More…]
The Treasurer incorporates the figures for this unique stoppage in order to turn Australians against trade unions and employees associations, to turn some employees against other employees and to divide the country - 90 per cent of the Australian work force being employees. [More…]
Contrast him with the former President of the Australian Council of Trade Unions. [More…]
The Government went out of its way not only in the course of the Budget Speech of the Treasurer (Mr Snedden) but in a number of answers to questions and statements that have been made in this House in recent days to see the real villains in the picture of continuing inflation as ruthless trade unions pursuing increases in wages. [More…]
It is the boasted policy of the extreme left and the Communists, many of whom control the largest industrial unions in this country - I am not calling them Communists, because they profess that they are Communists - to destroy a democratic society by promoting strikes, unemployment, hunger and misery. [More…]
Compulsory secret ballots in union elections would put the control of the unions back into the hands of the rank and file where it ought to be. [More…]
Secret ballots would replace the disruptive dictators who are in control of many unions with men of sound commonsense and moderate views who would be prepared to sit down and discuss matters with management in a sensible manner to the benefit of all concerned. [More…]
It is true to say that fewer than 10 per cent of the financial members of unions attend union meetings. [More…]
I am told by many members of unions that this figure is an exaggeration and that it is nearer to 5 per cent but let us leave it at 10 per cent. [More…]
I am a strong supporter of democratically elected unions and nobody can tell me that employers would not exploit employees if we did not have unions. [More…]
But let us have democratic unions and not the farce which exists in so many areas today. [More…]
The unions must have responsible and democratically elected leaders representative of the people in the work force. [More…]
It is with regret that I must say that I sat here and listened to so many people talking about trade unions who so obviously know nothing about them. [More…]
No doubt the Budget is so poor that Government supporters must spend their time talking about unions. [More…]
When he speaks about unions and arbitration it would appear that he is preparing for a confrontation with both these bodies. [More…]
I refer to the lawful organisation of workers in trade unions who in turn make their applications in respect of wages and conditions to a lawfully constituted authority of independent tribunals free from political bias and the interference of Party politics. [More…]
It is a fact that this morning I met with the President of the Australian Council of Trade Unions, Mr Hawke, and representatives of the Professional Radio Employees Institute of Australasia and other maritime unions whose members are employed on the ‘Echuca’. [More…]
It has become apparent that the other maritime unions do not agree that a safety issue is involved, and I am hopeful that the ‘Echuca’ will sail tomorrow on its job of carting backwards and forwards the important import and export cargo of the beleaguered State of Tasmania. [More…]
When Mr Hawke was first elected President of the Australian Council of Trade Unions and on a number of subsequent occasions, the last being only a few days ago, he announced that the ACTU was about to establish its own hire purchase organisation for the benefit of trade unionists. [More…]
I have seen newspaper comments to the effect that the Australian Council of Trade Unions wished to establish consumer credit buying and a number of other things. [More…]
The Australian Council of Trade Unions does not come under the jurisdiction of the Treasurer in relation to that part of the question mentioned by the honourable gentleman. [More…]
Having regard to the Minister’s announced consideration of forcing unions to conduct secret ballots before taking strike action I ask: Firstly, is the Minister also considering requiring Australian companies to conduct secret ballots among their shareholders prior to increasing the price of their products or restricting the supply of those products? [More…]
A week later the Assistant Director-General of the Hydraulics Division of the Department of Works and the Director of Health for the Northern Territory discussed the scheme with elected members of the Northern Territory Legislative Council, the Darwin City Corporation, trade unions, the Port Authority, Darwin doctors, the Darwin Chamber of Commerce, the National Council of Women and the Press. [More…]
His whole speech was a destructive exercise, together with the lauding of Mr Hawke, the President of the Australian Council of Trade Unions. [More…]
I am speaking not only of the trade unions but of the whole pattern of wages and salaries, including Government employees in the Public Service. [More…]
The trade union movement is going far beyond its charter, which is to improve the conditions of labour in unions. [More…]
Since this Bob Hawke became President of the Australian Council of Trade Unions in 1969 - appointed to the position by the left wing element - trade unions have organised political strikes. [More…]
Unions must make it clear that they have a right to interfere in the political movement of the nation. [More…]
So the trade unions must move in. [More…]
lt is encouraging and condoning the leaders of the left wing unions every time there is a demand for higher wages or a threat to strike. [More…]
The Leader of the Opposition obviously is terrorised by the political power of Mr Hawke and the unions. [More…]
The trade unions, employers and the general public at large became adjusted to this rate of increase. [More…]
Probably its most spectacular member currently is the President of the Australian Council of Trade Unions. [More…]
Even the Australian Council of Trade Unions accepted this principle very freely. [More…]
There is no doubt that the McMahon Government is pushing towards a major confrontation with the Communist and Socialist left unions. [More…]
Bob Hawke, as President of the Australian Council of Trade Unions, heads an interstate executive consisting of 17 persons, only one of whom is a recognised member of the Australian Communist Party. [More…]
In pulling on Bob Hawke and the Communist and Socialist Left unions, Billy McMahon and Bill Snedden showed more courage than has been evident from the Federal Government since that Government virtually abandoned the use of penal clauses a couple of years ago. [More…]
For the past 8 years on each occasion that a major basic wage or margins case has been before the Arbitration Commission, this Government has briefed counsel to appear with the express purpose of opposing the trade unions’ claim on the grounds that the Australian economy could not bear the increase. [More…]
The progress which the unions are making is really worrying the Employers Federation. [More…]
It is worried about the growing respect which the unions and individual employers have for each other. [More…]
This Budget is a deliberate attempt to bring about a pool of unemployment and to incite competition among job seekers, such as occurred in the 1930s, just for the purpose of trying to weaken the activities and the support of the unions in their attempts to obtain and retain proper conditions and wage justice for their members. [More…]
It would be foolish to suggest that there is any other meaning in Mr Polites’ remarks than that he, his Australian Council of Employer Federations and the people whom they represent, are in fact demanding of the Government that if any democracy exists in this country it should be replaced by complete dictatorship, in the hands of the Liberal Party and the Australian Council of Employer Federations in order to halt the progress which unions are making in obtaining a fairer share of profits from increased production brought about by the efforts of their members. [More…]
Tn other words, T am saying - and it is something we should all consider - that unions try to impose their own tyranny on their own workers once they take the helm. [More…]
Individual companies do accede to demands, under the stand and deliver tactics of militant unions. [More…]
Industry must look after its own interests and the unions must look after the interests of their workers, but the Government must have a say also because it must have the responsibility of looking after the unemployed, the pensioners, the sick, the maimed and the aged. [More…]
Of course, if such a person is represented by big and powerful friends - I mean by that trade unions who can look after and protect his interests - he can manage to keep up a little. [More…]
Has the Minister for Labour and National Service seen the editorial comment in this morning’s Melbourne ‘Age’ that the Government should have no interest in the affairs of trade unions unless a state of industrial emergency were to exist? [More…]
Australian Council of Trade Unions, myself and the maritime unions involved met the Professional Radio Employees Institute on this question, and the ACTU and the maritime unions accepted that there was no safety issue involved in the sailing of the ‘Echuca’, which was the basis of the dispute. [More…]
The ACTU carried a resolution instructing the other maritime unions that they were free to sail all ANL ships as well as the ‘Echuca’. [More…]
He is the President of the Australian Council of Trade Unions. [More…]
One would think that the small affiliated unions of this nature could be brought under control. [More…]
The great reforms sprang from reforming governments, not striking unions’. [More…]
At any rate, the new Prime Minister (Mr McMahon) told the Government Whip on 31st Mareh, after the Australian Council of Trade Unions had acted on resale price maintenance, that there already was an interdepartmental committee looking into this very complicated matter. [More…]
It is in the interest of unions to assist management in educating the work force to understand that the only way wage increases can be of real benefit is by increasing productivity so that price rises can be kept to a minimum. [More…]
These figures include fees paid for residence at teaching hospitals and fees for matriculation, graduation, general services, library, etc., but exclude fees payable to student unions, student representative councils and sporting associations. [More…]
In what unions and branches of unions in each of the past 15 years has the Registrar received a request under section 170 of the Conciliation and Arbitration- Act that a union election De conducted by the Registrar with a view to preventing irregularities. [More…]
These would be perhaps more related to the activities of certain more militant unions in Victoria - some 26 unions - that have been concerned about the metal workers aspect of the situation. [More…]
If the Budget is successful in changing attitudes to inflation; if it encourages employers to behave responsibly in dealing with excessive wage demands; if it gives unions a more realistic appreciation of the capacity of the economy to absorb wage increases; and if it alters the environment of almost unqualified optimism in which industrial tribunals have operated - if it does these things, even if only partly, then we will have been very well served. [More…]
The Budget will help, but significant progress can be achieved only if trade unions are prepared to show a greater sense of social responsibility. [More…]
They must realise that the economy can produce each year only a certain volume of goods and services and that the attempt by individual unions to apportion for themselves a larger share of the national cake is generally self-defeating in the long run. [More…]
And the ‘rest of the community’ means not only profit earners and farmers - although these may indeed suffer, and certainly do - but also the very people whom unions claim to protect - the pensioners, the small savers and the lower-paid wage earners. [More…]
The lower paid, the defenceless and the handicapped, despite the declamations of the unions, have not been protected. [More…]
The favourite ploy of unions is to assert that labour must submit to arbitration to increase its price whereas employers are accountable to no-one and can increase their prices unilaterally. [More…]
There may be instances of firms in Australia earning excessive profits but what unions conveniently ignore is that competition, whether domestic or external, generally keeps a tight rein on profit margins. [More…]
They quite wrongly claim that wage, increases are the main springboard for price increases and that the unions are doing a disservice to workers in pursuing higher wage rates. [More…]
President of the Australian Council of Trade Unions. [More…]
Some 5 months or 6 months ago, 1 could see coming up in the trade union movement a major confrontation between this Government and the trade unions. [More…]
Will he examine the reasons given by Courts for (a) refusing to convict employers for information laid by unions for breach of section 5 of the Conciliation and Arbitration Act and (b) convictions under the section followed by a refusal to order the reinstatement of a victimised union member. [More…]
Does this case and several others indicate the need for amending the section of the Act in such a way as to make it easier for unions to enforce the policy of the Act against victimisation of union members and union delegates. [More…]
Is it this union - that is, the Waterside Workers Federation - which has the record achievement of more lost time through strike action than all other unions in Australia combined? [More…]
Is it this union - that is, the Waterside Workers Federation - which has the record achievement of more time lost through strike action than all other unions in Australia combined? [More…]
I have been intrigued to hear this afternoon the similarity between the proposals put forward by the Opposition and the proposals for a social welfare programme made by the Opposition’s other partner in power, the Austraiian Council of Trade Unions. [More…]
I think the Minister for Housing mentioned the way in which the Labor Party was tied to resolutions of the Australian Council of Trade Unions. [More…]
I ask the Minister for Labour and National Service: When a senior member of this Parliament tells employers not to confront employees and unions, does it signify that employers should be ready to meet excessive wage demands, which has been the pattern in recent years? [More…]
But they retain all rights that they now enjoy in the civil service, unless changes are made by the provisions of labour contracts negotiated between the unions and the board of governors. [More…]
The unions first must place their claims before the Public Service Board, then to the Public Service Arbitrator and, in the last resort, to the Commonwealth Conciliation and Arbitration Commission. [More…]
All but one of the unions associated with the Post Office, in discussions, has supported the view that the Postmaster-General’s Department should be divorced from the Public Service Board and should be made a separate department controlled by a public corporation. [More…]
The other unions consider that if the proposed reform took place there would be better services to the community and industrial relations would improve. [More…]
The Labor Party talks about high profits but never talks about high tariffs simply because if an industry has high tariffs and that industry then makes large profits the trade unions come in and ask for higher wages. [More…]
But what has been happening in the last 3 or 4 weeks when militant factions in the unions have brought on their confrontations in the building industry, in the Metropolitan Water, Sewerage and Drainage Board - which is a government instrumentality and not something which could be accused of making profits - and in the New South Wales railways a couple of days ago? [More…]
In this debate today, as has been the case over a considerable period of time, the major emphasis of most speakers on the Government side of the House, particularly the Minister for Social Services (Mr Wentworth), has been that for all the ills of the nation there are no other villains than the people who belong to trade unions. [More…]
It is my belief that the millions of people who belong to trade unions in Australia are responsible people, people whose major interests in life are to provide themselves and their families with a decent standard of living and to live at peace with the community, without taking a very active part in politics - most trade unionists do not take a very active part in politics - without making excessive demands on the community but expecting from the community that which they have a right to expect in a society with a standard of living as high as the Australian society has. [More…]
The approach of the Government to the affairs of this nation stands in marked contrast, I would submit, to the actions of the Labor Party and its friends and allies of the trade union movement, whose irresponsible and divisive actions have become increasingly apparent since Mr Hawke became President of the Australian Council of Trade Unions. [More…]
But what 1 am most concerned with is the increasing threat to the civil liberties of the average Australian posed by the activities of the demonstrators and the unions. [More…]
Since Mr Hawke was elected President of the Australian Council of Trade Unions with the support of the extreme left wing we have seen a complete reversal of the policy of his predecessor, Albert Monk, who steadfastly held that there should be no involvement by trade unions in purely political strikes. [More…]
The actions of Mr Hawke and his unions and the actions of the demonstrators are hardly likely to win us friends in that country. [More…]
In more general terms, a bit of unemployment in the cities should give pause to the unions. [More…]
Employer organisations, the Australian Council of Trade Unions, pensioner organisations, health organisations and individuals all have voiced strong criticism. [More…]
The aorta of this whole exercise seems to be, in order of preference: Mr Hawke, the President of the Australian Council of Trade Unions, the trade unions which make an invaluable contribution to the development of this country and the members of the trade unions who can proudly and rightly be called the backbone of this nation, lt is understandable to me and, 1 am sure, to my friend Bob Hawke, that the [More…]
I will never cease to be amazed at the statements, innuendos and speculation on trade unions and the internal affairs of trade unions by people whose very words condemn them as being totally ignorant of the matters on which they profess knowledge. [More…]
The Budget seems to make every endeavour to give impetus to that trend, apparently to satisfy the conservative philosophy of controlling the economy and disciplining the unions by creating a pool of unemployed. [More…]
The Builders Labourers Union, which was one of those unions attacked in this House today, is very conscious of the safety of its members. [More…]
The sooner this Government and its supporters realise the disservice they render to the community and the lack of political mileage they gain from attacking the unions the sooner someone will take the helm and steer our nation on a firm course. [More…]
Its action is certainly not in the interests of the other maritime unions, and indeed none of the other maritime unions agrees with the stand taken by the Professional Radio Employees Institute. [More…]
It seems to bc quite inconsistent with the attitude taken by the other unions. [More…]
The only country that has not been able to obtain rams from Australia has been the Peoples Republic of China which has been somewhat offended that, although its representatives have come here in good faith and have tried to purchase these rams, their endeavours have been blocked because of the policy of the Australian Labor Party and the Australian Council of Trade Unions. [More…]
Before concluding I want to take the opportunity of saying how seriously we in this country should view the activities of the left wing elements of the Australian Council of Trade Unions. [More…]
Naturally the Trades and Labor Council of South Australia and the unions concerned are taking a very serious view of the matter. [More…]
The unions want an adequate severance pay related to years of service and they want the employers to indemnify retrenched employees against a loss of earnings as well as the payment of accumulated sick leave and other measures. [More…]
It is imperative, of course, that the unions take up this matter in the first instance with the employers, but I point out to the House that the platform of the Australian Labor Party indicates that a Labor government would be very active indeed in problems such as this, not only in resolving problems as they arise but also in doing as much as possible to try to prevent these distressing human situations arising in the first place. [More…]
I mention these arguments at this time because the unions have a 35-hour week as one of their proposals to ameliorate the present situation in the car industry. [More…]
We could mention also the World Council of Churches, the Australian Council of Trade Unions and the Labor Party. [More…]
The President of the Australian Council of Trade Unions has pointed out that the present unemployment figure could rise to 100,000 as a result of the Budget. [More…]
He ignores advice similar in nature given to him from all quarters including Mr Hawke of the Australian Council of Trade Unions, Mr Blyton, president of the Associated Chambers of Commerce of Australia, the president of the Associated Chambers of Manufactures of Australia and rural interests, all of whom have warned him of the dangerous consequences of deflating the economy. [More…]
The former Treasurer, now the Prime Minister, at the annual dinner of the Metal Trades Employers’ Association, used the occasion to dictate to the President of the Commission, who was also a guest, what the attitude of the Commission should be in regard to the applications of the unions for increased wages. [More…]
With strong unions knowing that there is so much further to go before they get wage justice, a fairer share of the cake for their members; with so many large impregnable international companies; with institutions, financial and others, which are vastly different from what they were 30 years ago; with the growth of hire purchase and other similar forms of term lending and with savings in arrears; is it any wonder that these behaviour patterns are different? [More…]
It is not the fault of the Conciliation and Arbitration Commission, but it is, I maintain, the fault of the left wing of the Labor Party and the outrageous unions which are putting up demands for excessive wage increases at every available opportunity. [More…]
Already we have known organisations such as the Associated Chambers of Manufactures of Australia, the Associated Chambers of Commerce of Australia, the Bank of New South Wales and the Australian Council of Trade Unions - any responsible organisation at all in the community today - condemn the Budget. [More…]
He just laughed and said Oh, the unions would not stand for that’. [More…]
What would happen to the unions if an enemy did come here? [More…]
Are the trade unions, not the greatest monopolies in this country? [More…]
A document on this subject entitled ‘Training for Work at Sea’, which was prepared by Mr T. Norris, a former First Assistant Secretary of my Department, has been circulated to shipowners, unions, educational establishments and other interested parties. [More…]
Firstly, there is great resistance on the part of some trade unions to the most elementary form of identification cards for the identification of employees. [More…]
Secondly some unions demand the right to put whom they will into a position of employment in our dockyards without the management of the dockyard having any right of scrutiny or say who is to be employed in the dockyard. [More…]
Tn relation to this matter negotiations will have to proceed with the unions concerned before we can risk the kind of operation which is involved in the construction of the light destroyers. [More…]
Is the Minister aware of, and what action does he intend to take following, the irresponsible attitude of both companies in failing to provide any adequate prior notice to either workers or unions - in the case of General Motors-Holden’s up to 10 minutes notice was given - or to initiate any constructive or meaningful discussions prior to such retrenchments becoming effective? [More…]
Finally, will he undertake to speed up consideration by the Commonwealth Conciliation and Arbitration Commission of the unions’ log of claims, particularly the claim for implementation of the 35-hour week - [More…]
Will it send all the right wing unions up to the front and leave all the left wing unions back at the rear? [More…]
But from my recollection of the dockyard in Sydney when I was Minister for Labour and National Service I can say that the greatest degree of obstruction came from such unions as the Ship Painters and Dockers Union under the control of Mr Terry Gordon and honourable members know where his political affiliations lie. [More…]
He used to open on Saturday mornings but he stopped this practice simply because, as be put it: *I would not take as much money on Saturday morning as I would have to pay my staff: and certainly I would not make profit because of the new pay and conditions gained by the unions for the assistant butchers in my shop.’ [More…]
What are the latest available figures on (a) the total number of unions in Australia and (b) the number of unions with a membership of less than (i) 1,000 members, (ii) 1,000 to 1,999, (iii) 2,000 to 4,999, (iv) 5,000 to 9,999, (v) 10,000 to 19,999, (vi) 20,000 to 29,999, (vii) 30,000 to 39,999, (viii) 40,000 to 49,999, (ix) 50,000 to 59,999, (x) 60,000 to 79,999, (xi) 80,000 to 100,000 and (xii) over 100,000. [More…]
At the end of December 1970 there were 305 separate trade unions recorded in Australia. [More…]
For example, the honourable member for Sturt (Mr Foster) will not like it one bit when I point out my complete lack of understanding - and I remain unmoved by any argument against it - of unions demanding increased wage rates at wharves for loading apples. [More…]
I cannot understand why the unions insist that their members require higher and higher wages for transport. [More…]
I cannot for the life of me see why unions such as these insist on trying to grind an apple grower who is having a hard trot completely into the ground by virtually their own insular thinking. [More…]
I would like honourable gentlemen on the other side of the House to listen to this, because so often in this House we hear about the outrageous behaviour of the trade unions with regard to primary industry. [More…]
critically important to us and that if it wants democracy to succeed here it should get rid of the incubus that surrounds it compelling it to vote according to a policy determined by the biennial conferences of the Australian Labor Party and by persuasion from the Australian Council of Trade Unions. [More…]
often in this House we hear about the outrageous behaviour of the trade unions with regard to primary industry. [More…]
In conclusion I pay a special tribute to the role of the credit unions in combating to some extent the rapacity of the hire purchase organisations. [More…]
The credit unions of course have earned the opprobrium of this Government. [More…]
Workers themselves can understand the principles of banking, the principles of credit assessment, and the credit unions are doing a mighty job. [More…]
Is the merger to take place within a year, or will it take 4 years to arrange as I understand the Australian Council of Trade Unions has been told? [More…]
The honourable member mentioned that the suggestion had been made that perhaps this ought to be arranged within one year, and it had been suggested to the Australian Council of Trade Unions that it might take place in 4 years. [More…]
Those several reports and the general concern of the unions, I suggest, must make it clear that a very serious situation may shortly develop. [More…]
It cannot simultaneously seek co-operation from unions and employee associations and coerce them with the bludgeon of an unemployment pool. [More…]
It suits the Labor Party W> have high profits in these industries, lt suits the Labor Party to have this protection which permits these high profits to be made because immediately the secondary industries get high profits the unions involved go to the Commonwealth Arbitration Court seeking higher wages for their members. [More…]
The next point is that in most of these cases - particularly in the case of the left wing unions - there is no doubt whatsoever that it is the union leaders who are responsible for the strikes, not the rank and file. [More…]
The Government certainly is concerned at the increasing trend in recent years by trade unions to take coercive action, against both employees and employers, in relation to compulsory unionism. [More…]
The Government has always encouraged the formation of trade unions and employer bodies. [More…]
I understand that the question of compulsory unionism does not feature in either the policy of the Australian Council of Trade Unions or the official policy of the Opposition. [More…]
If he is thinking of trade unions he should clearly not see those organisations as coming within the control of myself or my Department. [More…]
I say to the honourable gentleman that so far as industrial relations in this country are concerned, it is the proper function of a Minister for Labour and National Service to be critical of trade unions where he and his Government believe that criticism is justifiable. [More…]
The honourable member has conceded that the Minister has a great interest in and is responsible for trade unions. [More…]
If unions do not want to be liable to penalties for going on strike against an agreement, a simple way out is available: Either do not make agreements or make them and do not register them. [More…]
Strangely enough this announcement of a reduction in the quota was made not in this country but in London by a Mr Hay- ward who formerly held an executive position in the Greater Union movie house chain which is half owned by the Rank Organisation of the United Kingdom, lt was reported that Mr Hayward had been carrying out investigations connected with the film industry on behalf of the Government of New South Wales and had been seen at Greater Unions’ London office. [More…]
it is the proper function of a Minister for Labour and National Service to be critical of trade unions where he and his Government believe that criticism is justifiable. [More…]
Is it not time that the Government started thinking that those in trade unions represent a very large percentage of the wage and salary earners within the community, both white collar and blue collar workers? [More…]
It is just not good enough for so-called responsible members of this Government, from the Prime Minister (Mr McMahon) down, to speak in this chamber week after week in the manner in which they have in their criticism of the trade unions, when throughout the length and breadth of this country we have industrial organisations whose members have been going on strike in order to increase their weekly salaries from $46 to $47. [More…]
Mark my words, Mr Speaker, neither the Minister nor the Government will fool the workers and the salary earners of this country by their continual clap-trap and subversive legislation against trade unions. [More…]
We have seen the opposition to proposals for compulsory secret ballots so that sane sensible people could gain control of our industrial unions. [More…]
I, am not an opponent of industrial unions. [More…]
Unions can strike, but JUs- very difficult to make governments act my public life. [More…]
But if the honourable gentleman who asked this question was really sincere and wanted some impact on inflationary forces, he should ask his colleague, and 1 believe master, to ensure that when the next national wage case comes on the Australian Council of Trade Unions will observe moderation. [More…]
The chambers of commerce, the unions, and the staff associations knew little or nothing about the reorganisation of this section of the PostmasterGeneral’s Department until it was announced here. [More…]
Over the past few weeks I have received letters and telegrams from various sections of the Post Office unions and from personnel. [More…]
We have had the growth of the credit unions, the short term money market and the inter-company market, with the borrowing backed in each case by the overdraft limits of the respective companies participating. [More…]
I hope it will produce for me some recommendations to assist the people involved in the field as well as the users of railways and the people in the railway unions by producing a separate and distinct study from the sort of studies that the Commonwealth and State departments under ATAC are undertaking. [More…]
Has his Department investigated the introduction of these revolutionary working hours by employers and what initiatives has he taken to discuss the matter with employer organisations and trade unions? [More…]
We are still awaiting, agog with excitement, the cheap interest rate money which is going to be made available by their friends in the Australian Council of Trade Unions through their own building societies. [More…]
Successive governments and Ministers for Immigration supported by dedicated, understanding, tolerant department officials at home and abroad, with the co-operation of churches, trade unions, employers and voluntary organisations have contributed unselfishly to its success. [More…]
The honourable member will be aware that the operation of the Conciliation and Arbitration Act is currently under review by a tripartite group comprising representatives of the Australian Council of Trade Unions, the Australian Council of Salaried and Professional Associations, the Council of Commonwealth Public Service Organisations, the National Employers’ Policy Committee and the Government. [More…]
It became very apparent, not least notably to the Australian Council of Trade Unions, and in 1970 when the ACTU made its submissions to the Government the main point in them was the necessity to reduce the burden of taxation on low and middle incomes. [More…]
Individual unions and the Australian Council of Trade Unions have done the same thing. [More…]
The present Prime Minister (Mr McMahon) at the annual dinner of the Metal Trades Employers Federation, in front of the President of the Arbitration Commission, used that occasion to tell the Commission what its attitude should be in regard to the application of the unions for increased wages. [More…]
But this right is denied the unions. [More…]
The Australian Council of Trade Unions has registered its strong objection to the partisan submissions of the Government directed to denying workers justifiable increases in wages. [More…]
It has been suggested by the Industrial Registrar that there ought to be a royal commission, on which commission there should be represented parties from the employers, the unions and other interested parties to work out exactly what powers we need so that when the question is framed and put to the people by way of referendum the powers that we eventually get from it will bc sufficient to do what we have to do. [More…]
There was the great shearers’ strike of 1902 in the dispute between the Australian Workers Union and the Machine Shearers Union when, as a consequence of the alteration in 1901 to the New South Wales Industrial Arbitration Act which came into force in February of 1902, the 2 unions sought registration to cover the one field. [More…]
Frankly, I believe that a confrontation must take place between union leaders, the Australian Council of Trade Unions and the Government itself to bring home not only to the Government but also to the workers and their leaders the real need for workers to produce this larger cake - a larger gross national product - rather than to continue as they are doing and price Australia out of international affairs. [More…]
It is being used to cover up for the many weaknesses of this Government and to place the blame on the trade unions. [More…]
But all the Government does is to place the blame on Bob Hawke and the Australian Council of Trade Unions. [More…]
Yet we would have half as many industrial disputes in this country if the Department of Labour and National Service spent half as much time trying to settle the industrial disputes as it spends in trying to destroy the trade unions. [More…]
This body is a grouping of delegates from all unions and its functioning is the ultimate authority in industrial relations in Broken Hill. [More…]
1 have particularly in mind the sort of brochure, a copy of which I have with mc now, produced to denigrate the person of Mr Harradine at a recent conference which involved unions throughout the country. [More…]
Finally, because my time has been greatly taken, I should like to say that while the industrial relations area in the form of the trade unions contents itself with forcing compulsory unionism on people, with striking unnecessarily and with isolating States like Tasmania from the point of view of shipping and all that that implies in Tasmania, the situation will not improve in the direction in which I believe the Department of Labour and National Service is trying, in difficult circumstances, to make it improve. [More…]
Government speakers have constantly attacked loyal citizens, many of whom have adopted this country as their new home and many of whom who have defended this country as loyal servicemen, and housewives who, because of inflation, have had to go to work and, because they arc workers, have joined the appropriate organisations which represent them in advocating improved working conditions and which are more commonly known as trade unions. [More…]
Once members or office bearers of trade unions these people become targets of constant attack by Government supporters who, regardless of the true feelings of those they are attacking, say things under the privilege of Parliament against which ‘ the trade unionists cannot defend themselves. [More…]
As late as last Friday the group of building unions in Western Australia sent a telegram to the Acting Prime Minister (Mr Anthony) requesting that he send the Minister for Labour and National Service (Mr Lynch) to Western Australia to inspect the unemployment situation at first hand so that he would be in a position to act properly in this matter and would be able to gauge personally the distress of the people affected. [More…]
Let us not use the trade unions as a whipping boy. [More…]
Over the years workers have fought for and gained many benefits, including the 8-hour day, the right to form unions, the right to vote, workers’ compensation, paid leave for recreation and illness, the abolition of child labour and many other things. [More…]
There was a vague attempt somehow to associate members of the Australian Labor Party, through unions and strikes, with members of the Communist Party. [More…]
Many books have been written on the question of industrial relations, not the least of which was one prepared in 1970 on the advice of the Department of Labour and National Service, the Australian Council of Trade Unions and the National Employers Policy Committee. [More…]
There shall be effective means of consultation between employers and their employees and unions on all matters of mutual interest and concern. [More…]
At one public meeting he said that he was returning to Canberra the following week and that he intended to ride the unions and to put the spurs in. [More…]
He was to attend a conference at Melbourne the following day and he intended to tell the unions, in no uncertain terms, where they stood. [More…]
The debate on the estimates of the Department of Labour and National Service takes place on the eve of the resumption of tripartite discussions which the Government is having with the National Employers Policy Committee, the Australian Council of Trade Unions, the Australian Council of Salaried and Professional Associations and the Council of Commonwealth Public Service Organisations. [More…]
Last year the Government had extended discussions on disputes settling procedures with representatives of the Australian Council of Trade Unions and the National Employers Policy Committee, and that agreement was reached on principles or guidelines and procedures which could be adapted by individual employers and unions to suit the needs of particular industries. [More…]
I suggest to the honourable gentleman and to the House that the area of inter-union disputes is surely one major area of concern to the Australian Council of Trade Unions and one to which the ACTU should direct its best offices in seeking a solution to these problems, which certainly affect the community at large from the viewpoint of the costs imposed. [More…]
These problems are basically for the unions and, therefore, should properly be resolved by them. [More…]
He is establishing himself not as the representative of the bulk of the people in his electorate but as the representative of a small, militant section which is itself not even representative of the trade unions. [More…]
But there is a need for rationalisation among seagoing unions to reduce costs in shipbuilding, ship operation and industrial negotiations. [More…]
The Government is heading for another period of similar industrial circumstances because at a time when the existing agreement is running out it is doing nothing but harass the trade unions, the employers and the stevedoring companies to ensure that there is not a proper agreement. [More…]
Apart from interference with the overall zoning and planning of shires and cities, I wonder what will happen when unions of workers in these areas commence pressing claims for disability allowances and the provision of protective equipment in order to protect those people who will be affected. [More…]
lt is interesting to realise that the other day the Australian Council of Trade Unions stated that we ought to be particularly severe - I think 1 am quoting it correctly - on tariffs to protect against imports from South Korea, Taiwan, Hong Kong and Japan. [More…]
The Government is endeavouring to throw the onus completely on the wage earner and the trade unions and is calling on the employers to exercise restraint by not granting wage increases. [More…]
It is also threatening to bring down legislation to penalise trade unions for taking industrial action to gain an increase in wages to try to keep pace with the inflationary spiral. [More…]
The simple reason for this is .that the moment the manufacturer makes a big profit the unions go to the Arbitration Commission for a better award and they generally get it, because the Arbitration Commission is said to apply better award conditions and wages to those industries that can pay. [More…]
This is why builders, architects, workers, their unions and other people directly concerned with the industry are trying to persuade the Federal Government to change its policy. [More…]
It believes that it needs to be able to attack wages and to attack the trade unions if it is to have any hope of winning the next election. [More…]
During the course of the next few months it intends to conduct propaganda against wages and against the trade unions in the hope that it can get re-elected with a policy of that kind. [More…]
Government supporters talk about what caused inflation and mention only wages and trade unions. [More…]
It is quite false to talk about controlling inflation by stopping wage increases and by dealing with trade unions. [More…]
It is no use anyone denying that continuous full employment has placed trade unions in a very powerful position which they are exploiting to the utmost. [More…]
But the unions are not the only offenders. [More…]
On the basis of the Australian Council of Trade Unions claim, which was a claim for approximately $8.40 increase in female wage rates, the cost could be in the vicinity of $500m per annum. [More…]
If the Minister for Labour and National Service were to come with me and meet the Federated Ironworkers Association of Australia, the Amalgamated Engineering Union, the Boilermakers and Blacksmiths Society of Australia and the rest of the major trade unions in the area; if he were to come along and see the management of Australian Iron and Steel Pty Ltd, the management of Mount Keira colliery, and the management of Scarborough colliery; if he were to see the tally clerks at Port Kembla and the 16,000 tons of Japanese steel that is being landed there; if he were to come along to John Lysaght (Aust) Ltd and M. M. Pty Ltd, the copper wire and tube mill people, and ask them how many men they propose to retrench; if he were to make similar inquiries at Stewarts and Lloyds (Aust) Pty Ltd, at David Brothers Pty Ltd, at B. [More…]
The Metal Trades Employers Association has already served notice on the rest of the employers that it is no longer willing to fight the trade unions on behalf of the Federal Government and other employers to the last dollar. [More…]
We had - there is no gainsaying this - inflation at an accelerating rate because of cost-push factors, because of Arbitration Court awards, because of wages boards awards and because of negotiations carried out perhaps with a tinge of blackmail by unions or sections of unions with particular employers. [More…]
Is anybody in this House prepared to say that if that could be brought about it would not be to the benefit of everybody in Australia and not just those whom the unions and the Opposition claim to represent, namely, the employees? [More…]
I believe that the unions, the Government, the Liberal Party of Australia and the Australian Labor Party should be at one in seeing that that type of strike is not successful. [More…]
But they are not Party problems nor budgetary problems but parliamentary problems in relation to which we on both sides of the House should set some kind of example to the unions and the industrialists by not scoring political points on every side. [More…]
Trade Unions to take the steps which it took in Melbourne with the acquisition of Bourke’s store to force the Government’s hand. [More…]
As Minister for Shipping and Transport I have been involved in difficulties over shipping strikes when certain executives of the trade unions have held the people of Tasmania to ransom, and in Sydney at the present time we are seeing a similar example of the irresponsible attitude of one of two union executives. [More…]
He had organised certain unions. [More…]
In the field of industrial relations it must be recognised that employer organisations and trade unions will always have different interests to protect. [More…]
One effect of maintaining full employment is that the balance of industrial power has moved strongly in favour of the trade unions. [More…]
The strongest unions have been able to use this power, often by direct action, to achieve increases in wages and improvements in working conditions at an accelerating rate and to a degree which has contributed significantly to a spiralling inflationary situation. [More…]
This has provided major problems for the system in endeavouring to provide wage justice for workers in smaller unions which have not had this advantage in bargaining power. [More…]
The lower paid, the defenceless and the handicapped, despite the declamation of the unions, have not been protected. [More…]
Employers could learn from the generally quite marked solidarity of the unions. [More…]
The important fact is, however, that it continues to have general acceptance, not only from employer organisations and trade unions generally, which are most directly concerned with its operation, but also from the general community. [More…]
During the recently concluded National Tripartite Conference discussions on the Conciliation and Arbitration Act, representatives of both the National Employers Policy Committee and the Australian Council of Trade Unions and the other union associations represented at the discussions supported the retention of the system. [More…]
In passing let me remind the House that the Australian trade union movement has benefited greatly from the provisions of the Conciliation and Arbitration Act and the protection it has given unions and their members. [More…]
The encouragement of employer and employee organisations was an object of the original Act and has been a major factor in the development of the strong and effective trade unions and employer organisations which exist in Australia today. [More…]
Because of the benefits conferred on unions under the legislation the Government is concerned at the increasing degree to which some trade unions are resorting to coercive methods against both employees and employers in order to make union membership compulsory. [More…]
Some firms and authorities are threatened with black bans because they supply goods and services to an employer in dispute with unions over union membership. [More…]
While the Government has always encouraged the organisation of representative bodies of employers and employees and their registration under the Act and has encouraged workers to join their appropriate unions, it believes that coercive action to force people to join unions is wrong in principle. [More…]
A further issue which has greatly concerned the Government in recent years has been the tendency by trade unions to use the strike weapon over issues totally unrelated to industrial matters. [More…]
For example, the Commonwealth cannot legislate to control agreements between employers and trade unions made outside the Commission’s jurisdiction. [More…]
It is the Government’s responsibility to provide the legislative framework to assist employers and unions in resolving disputes between them. [More…]
At the request of the National Labour Advisory Council, I convened a National Tripartite Conference on which were representatives of the National Employers Policy Committee representing all the major national employer organisations in Australia, the Australian Council of Trade Unions, the Australian Council of Salaried and Professional Associations and the Council of Commonwealth Public Service Organisations which between them represent most trade unionists in this country. [More…]
It was not until the Australian Council of Trade Unions succeeded in forcing Dunlop Australia Ltd to abolish resale price maintenance against Bourke’s store in Melbourne that the Prime Minister was forced, unwillingly, to act against its inflationary effect upon the economy. [More…]
The Government says it will alter the law to enable unions to register rules requiring union members to give written notice of resignation. [More…]
Then it proposes also to give protection to ticket dodgers by the deregistration of unions which force those who benefit from union activity to pay their share of the cost and to fine an employer who seeks to prevent or to settle a dispute by dismissing a free rider and to allow non-unionists access to the award making process of the Commission. [More…]
We could have people joining all sorts of unions which they are now not entitled to join. [More…]
There is an innuendo in the Ministers speech that in future whenever penalties are imposed the unions concerned will be given no more than 14 days in which to pay those penalties. [More…]
A Government that has nothing better to offer than a continuation of industrial strife and which then tries to blame unions for inflation, deserves to be thrown out of office, and that will surely be the fate of this Government no matter when the election is held. [More…]
They can get no wage adjustment until their unions are able to prove to the Arbitration Commission that prices have already risen. [More…]
Does it not realise that, in fact, this is exactly what happened on 29th November when, in response to a petition of only a handful of members for a vote in order to test the wishes of the rest of the union, the unions members voted 3,440 to 12 in, favour of refusing to operate one-man buses. [More…]
Plenty of unions have conducted secret ballots to decide whether their members are in favour of strikes. [More…]
If the decision to strike or not to strike is to be decided by ballot of the rank and file members of unions there will be more strikes, not fewer. [More…]
British and American trade unions will abate no fraction of their right to strike. [More…]
It is not the trade unions that are causing the greatest loss in productivity. [More…]
We need it because hundreds of thousands of employees belong to unions which, without the Commission, lack the industrial power to demand even minimum wage rates. [More…]
I see this country irreversibly committed to a movement towards collective bargaining under which the strong unions will negotiate industrial agreements based on specified rates above the awarded minima. [More…]
It should not be left to the unions themselves to have to meet the cost of prosecuting employers who are in breach of their industrial obligations. [More…]
In this way it will be able to guarantee the kind of industrial stability that unions and employers alike have been looking for. [More…]
This will leave unions free to accept - with the agreement of their members - penalty clauses in voluntary agreements if they believe this will win them better wages and conditions. [More…]
Many unions have already done this. [More…]
To assist parties to reach agreement, there should be a panel of mediators and arbitrators of whom one can be chosen by unions and employers concerned to assist them to reach agreement in settling or preventing disputes within them independently of the Arbitration Commission. [More…]
Unions and employers have a moral obligation to abide by their agreements and I can see no reason why parties acting in good faith will object to agreements being legally enforceable. [More…]
Knowing this, many employees will refuse to negotiate reasonably, as they will know that as long as they can hold off a settlement the Commission will have to start the processing leading to penal action against unions involved in any dispute. [More…]
He obviously wants a confrontation with the unions and is dragging out this relic of the past for that end and that end only. [More…]
The Minister has announced in vague terms that the ‘voluntary nature’ of unions will be emphasised in the Arbitration Act. [More…]
What he clearly has in mind is preventing unions and employers reaching voluntary agreements to ensure that all employees in business belong to a union. [More…]
For the unions, this type of agreement has its undeniable validity in the fact that it wins benefits in wages and conditions for all employees and that it is reasonable that anyone who receives these benefits should be a member, unless he has compelling conscientious reasons for not doing so. [More…]
The dedicated members would remain within their unions, but if deregistration is to be applied lo all unions that will refuse to carry free riders, no union of any substance will remain within the arbitration system longer than the end of next year. [More…]
The arbitration system would collapse if the major unions were forced to deregister. [More…]
A weak union will always have the guarantee of the national minima fixed by arbitration, while stronger unions will be able to bargain for standards above those minima. [More…]
lt is idle to suggest that all employers are unreasonable or that the unions are never al fault. [More…]
Despite the secondary role of the Tariff Board during all these years we can say that throughout this time industry and the trade unions were left in no doubt that any industry that was efficient, even if not economic, on Australian standards could expect effective tariff protection. [More…]
If tariff protection is too high, it leaves avenues through which manufacturers can accede to the exorbitant demands of unions for higher wages, which in turn mean higher prices because manufacturers can pass on higher wages in the form of higher prices. [More…]
The first, related to an income-prices policy; the second concerned providing a boost to the economy; and the third was directed to a suggested meeting between the Government, unions and industry. [More…]
The third point concerned a meeting between the Government, unions and industry. [More…]
On the other hand, we are anxious and willing and in fact do receive all sorts of representations from industry, unions and commerce generally, and I will be glad to continue to receive them and to give them consideration. [More…]
Has the Treasurer yet received any notice of the registration of a hire purchase company, bank or other business undertakings which were promised to be introduced over a period of the last 2 years by the president of the Australian Council of Trade Unions or is the position, as far as he knows, that these and other undertakings are still in their perennial position of pie in the sky? [More…]
These avenues are all open to the unions so that they can represent the best interests of the working man. [More…]
But I think the honourable gentleman, having the interests of the lower paid workers at heart, would know that these days, with the great power of the big unions, particularly unions like the Amalgamated Engineering Union - [More…]
Is this to be an indication of the real interest of honourable members opposite in this matter or are we to remind ourselves that 2 or 3 days ago there were sitting in this House and consulting with a large number of members, as is their right, representatives from the Post Office unions. [More…]
Representatives on the unions sent to every member large screeds of Untruthful comment on area management. [More…]
These representatives have been consulting with honourable members opposite and it has pleased honourable members to back up what has been said to them by representatives of the unions with a motion for the suspension of Standing Orders. [More…]
Somebody winds him up, he unwinds in this House for 10 or 15 minutes on a. statement such as the one he made a while ago, and then he clears off again until somebody else winds him up by mentioning trade unions or something of that nature. [More…]
The intervention of the unions is all the more deplorable as the export of merino rams is in no sense an industrial issue. [More…]
1 cannot speak on behalf of the Australian Council of Trade Unions but I can assure the Minister for Primary Industry (Mr Sinclair) that the Australian Labor Party has not in any way changed its opposition to the relaxation or the partial relaxation of the merino ram embargo. [More…]
A month or so ago the Commonwealth Public Service Arbitrator considered the matter and granted a 15 per cent wage increase to Second Division officers, all of whom are members of unions. [More…]
The Opposition, up to this day, in deference to its relationship with the unions which have been relentlessly pushing wage claims, has been unwilling to acknowledge the fact that the inflationary pressures’ flow from these ruthlessly, relentlessly pushed wage claims. [More…]
Has he considered the suggestion made by the Industrial Registrar, Dr Ian Sharp, that a commission of inquiry constituted on a CommonwealthState basis and including management, unions, lawyers, economists, academics and representatives of both Commonwealth and State Governments be instituted to consider such matters as trade union law, over-award payments, penal sanctions, the need for constitutional amendments and other problems that have arisen in recent years. [More…]
If it had a wages policy it would find itself in conflict with the trade unions of Australia, particularly the powerful trade unions, and more particularly with the powerful trade union leaders of this country. [More…]
Yet the McMahon Government offers no objection whatever to a 5.3 per cent increase in steel prices at the same time as it uses all its powers to keep wages and salaries frozen and attacks and vilifies trade union leaders and the unions themselves. [More…]
Unions can sometimes win wage increases and that may have the effect of increasing prices, but they cannot do so without control and restraint. [More…]
I suppose we ought to understand that the Labor Party is tied chain and ball to the trade unions of this country and therefore it is impotent to make any comments in this direction. [More…]
This approach broke down because the leaders of 2 major unions rejected the proposals on wages and salaries. [More…]
But it is time that some attention was paid to the economy as a whole and not just to bash unions because they seek wage increases. [More…]
This does not support the proposition, often put forward by the Opposition and the trade unions, that wage increases are a response to preceding price increases. [More…]
This does not mean that I expect trade unions and workers to bear the full brunt of our anti-inflationary drive. [More…]
If the Government cannot demonstrate how it can be done then it has no moral right to be sending senior counsel into the Commonwealth Conciliation and Arbitration Commission to oppose the claim by the Australian Council of Trade Unions for a national minimum wage of $70 a week. [More…]
I refer to the so called left wing leaders of certain militant trade unions. [More…]
1 think it is significant to note that of the 8 pages in his prepared document, which he did not read particularly well, about 4 of those pages were devoted exclusively to developing some sort of meaningless association between trade unions, Communism and strikes. [More…]
Fiddling about, avoiding referring to the real question by some sort of emotive fishing about, as the Minister does repeatedly, for some sort of response from this side of the House by talking about Communists and the affiliation of left wing unions is utter nonsense when one is confronted with these enormous human problems with which we must grapple in the very near future. [More…]
As the Minister properly said today the communist controlled unions are also in the picture with demands for higher wages and salaries and the promotion of strikes. [More…]
The Minister for Social Services (Mr Wentworth), in typical humanitarian style, said that no members of the 23 unions involved in the dispute would be eligible for the unemployment benefit. [More…]
One of the unions concerned had about 12 members involved in the dispute and about 3,000 members out of work in other States. [More…]
They will not get a penny because they are members of the unions’. [More…]
All honourable members know of the hatred the Minister has displayed for unions over many years in this Parliament. [More…]
There seems to be no compromise on either side, no tapering off as one would expect in big industries and big unions. [More…]
Big business and big unions have great power, as was so ably highlighted in a sermon titled ‘Power’ by the Most Reverend Dr Frank Woods. [More…]
I strongly recommend that all directors of big business and the executives and shop stewards of trade unions obtain a copy of his sermon and thoroughly study its contents. [More…]
These thoughts are the fundamental principles of Christianity which must be demonstrated and practised more in our daily lives, particularly in big business and big unions, if people are not going to be hurt. [More…]
In addition, inspections are carried out in both metropolitan and country areas in response to complaints from individuals and unions. [More…]
How many industrial agreements are now operating between unions and employers. [More…]
How many of these agreements were made (a) under the auspices or (b) with the approval of the Australian Council of Trade Unions. [More…]
(2)I 1 am advised that 2 of these agreements have been formally signed on behalf of the Australian Council of Trade Unions. [More…]
3401 (Hansard pages 186-187, J 7th August 1971) I drew attention to the fact that the statement drawn up by the parties lo announce the May 1970 agreement said that it was the mutual responsibility of individual unions and employers to give effect to the guidelines. [More…]
If the honourable gentleman wants more information I suggest he should speak to the President of the Australian Council of Trade Unions. [More…]
I would als> comment on his mischievousness and viciousness last year in deliberately and cynical)/ working up public feeling against the Leader of the Opposition (Mr Whitlam), hh Hawke, the Labor Party, the unions, students and the many others who were opposing the visits on the grounds of opposition to apartheid, when he was himself using the same claim but doing nothing about it. [More…]
A responsible Minister, after listening to all the rubbish that was being spoken in the chamber about trade unions, political philosophies and so on, thought it was great and glorious to be able to say to the occupant of the Chair as he left the chamber: ‘Real good stuff; that is the way to do if. [More…]
But the unions had decided to strike. [More…]
Do they think that industry can take these losses, still pay the extra wages and meet the cost of non production when unions call wild cat strikes? [More…]
Has it made a deal with Mr Hawke, the president of the Australian Council of Trade Unions? [More…]
Anybody listening to honourable members opposite speaking in this debate would think that there were no problems in the industrial area, that the Labor Party was satisfied with the industrial field and that it was satisfied that industry could continue under the conditions of wild cat strikes held throughout the year with or without the condonation of the various unions. [More…]
Unless those who wield large blocks of economic power in this country display a degree of social responsibility, trade unions will continue to do the only thing they know - to organise collectively to maintain and to improve their conditions of employment. [More…]
1 have never heard this from the Government, but one person who I know has said it and made more damaging statements about the dairying industry in Australia than anybody else is the President of the Australian Council of Trade Unions, Mr Hawke. [More…]
As the law stands a commercial radio station would not be exempt from tax unless ft qualified for exemption under specific provisions relating to organisations such as religious, scientific, charitable and public educational institutions, trade unions and associations of employers or employees registered under any Act relating to the settlement of industrial disputes, public hospitals and hospitals carried on by an association otherwise than for the purposes of profit or gain to individual members. [More…]
During the past 10 years unions have appeared as respondents in such proceedings on 14 occasions. [More…]
What are the unions whose registered rules make it mandatory for members to pay their contributions yearly in advance. [More…]
What are the names of those unions whose total financial membership has fallen since 1956 and what isthe extent of the decline in membership. [More…]
Which are the unions that show the highest percentage increase in membership since 1956. [More…]
information relating to membership of trade unions and employees’ associations as at the end of 1969 is available in ‘A Handbook of Australian Trade Unions and Employees’ Associations’ by D. W. Rawson and Suzanne Wrightson, Occasional Paper No. [More…]
Which unions made application to register rule alterations under the Commonwealth Conciliation and Arbitration Act in each of the last 10 years. [More…]
In which of these applications did officers of the unions concerned seek the advice or assis tance of the Registrar in relation to the rule alterations (a) before and (b) after the formal application was lodged. [More…]
Mr Hawke, the President of the Australian Council of Trade Unions, is fond of suggesting price control and making invalid comparisons with wages paid. [More…]
But a Labor government, based for its support squarely on the trade unions, sooner or later has to try price control. [More…]
This makes a sham of the alleged changes in the organisation of the Australian Labor Party over a number of years because it indicates quite clearly that when the unions want to crack the whip in relation to these matters the Caucus members will respond. [More…]
The objective of the Australian Council of Trade Unions in relation to the 35-hour working week necessarily will take a long time to achieve. [More…]
It will campaign in the election against the trade unions and against wage increases. [More…]
It is in the political interests of the Government, so the Government believes, to have industrial disputes and industrial trouble, to blame the wage earners, unions and workers for inflation and campaign for an election under more favourable circumstances in order to have the best prospects of winning. [More…]
He complained about inter-union disputes, but the very thing that will prevent inter-union disputes, and in some industries perhaps the only thing that will prevent inter-union disputes, is the amalgamation of unions so that there will be no need for unions to argue over which person does what job. [More…]
In other words, it is the rate which the employer knows will apply in his industry for the duration of that agreement and that is why he will pay more to get a maximum rate, which becomes the rate for a given period, rather than worry about a minimum rate which may cause an industrial dispute at the drop of a hat - to use another Minister’s term - whenever the unions concerned feel that the time is opportune. [More…]
If he cannot show how a person can live on $70 a week and pay rent and the other things that 1 have enumerated, his government has no right to send counsel to the Commonwealth Conciliation and Arbitration Commission to oppose the unions’ claim for precisely that figure. [More…]
Do not tell me that unions will not honour industrial agreements. [More…]
Do not tell me that when the unions make an industrial agreement they will not honour it. [More…]
The Australian Council of Trade Unions has recognised the need to honour industrial agreements. [More…]
Unions already have agreements with penalties written into them. [More…]
It is of no use for the Government to say that it is all the trade unions’ fault or for the Opposition to say that it is all the employers’ fault. [More…]
He expressed the view that we should not blame all on the unions. [More…]
It has been said on that side of the House that every increase in prices is due to wage increases demanded by the unions, but I point out that of about 82,000 companies that last year made profits in this country of 3,1 03m, about 240 companies made 38 per cent of those profits. [More…]
We used to look with a good deal of awc too at Rolls-Royce in Great Britain until the unions in the United Kingdom brought that once great company to its knees. [More…]
We will show a sharp cleavage between ourselves and the Australian Labor Party and its supporters in the left-wing unions. [More…]
Have spokesmen for the Government on many occasions blamed industrial disputes on the President of the Australian Council of Trade Unions, Mr Hawke? [More…]
It does not matter whether they are groups from trade unions associated with the total industry, from the Commercial Telecasters Federation or from the. [More…]
The behaviour of the unions with their silly demarcation disputes has been bad, but the lot of the unskilled process worker is not pleasant. [More…]
Industry looks to tariff protection to give it an advantage over firms of foreign companies on the home market, and unions look to the protection of industry because it protects the employment of the Australian worker against the competition of cheap overseas labour. [More…]
Perhaps it could have been as an organiser for the unions. [More…]
People do not even think these things out for the simple reason that it suits Labor, because if some industry is highly or excessively protected., the unions immediately get busy and lodge with the Commonwealth Conciliation and Arbitration Commission a claim for a rise in the wages of the men who are working in that industry. [More…]
Manufacturing industry has to put up with a certain amount of blackmail from unions; if they are to keep on progressing in business they have to accede to demands which are quite unreasonable but which are understandable in the overall picture of the Australian economy. [More…]
We are all aware that during the course of that dispute the Minister for Social Services (Mr Wentworth) publicly stated that those persons who were members of the unions involved in the dispute would not be paid unemployment benefits. [More…]
Despite this fact, there are many thousands of people who are not members of the unions involved in the dispute who have an entitlement and who were stood down. [More…]
When this high profit is publicised in the Press the trade unions immediately file a claim for higher wages for employees in that industry and the matter is determined by the Commonwealth Conciliation and Arbitration Commission. [More…]
The unions argue that the industry can afford to pay higher wages and, of course, this is so. [More…]
It also enables unions to seek and get unjustified higher wages for employees. [More…]
When the scheme was brought out the Department notified employers and the trade unions and left it at that. [More…]
I suggest that these comments by a committee which includes representatives of the Australian Council of Trade Unions are in marked contrast to the rather intemperate language used by the honourable member for Kingston. [More…]
It has used the Department of Labour and National Service for spying on trade unions and unionists instead of heeding the advice of its senior officers on the need to give greater emphasis to meeting the training needs of modern technology. [More…]
Schemes of training and retraining (including adult apprenticeship) within the industry or otherwise outside the industry with the assistance of the employers by agreement with all the unions concerned to equip employees whose skills or age would prevent them from obtaining other suitable employment, to occupy other positions within the industry or, in the cases of redundancy, to obtain employment outside the industry. [More…]
Appropriate extension of the Technological Change Section of the Department of Labor to enable it to undertake research and studies into these and other matters of concern to the unions and workers likely, to be affected by technological change. [More…]
The precise details of that scheme were endorsed and approved by the National Labour Advisory Committee and were therefore endorsed and approved by a very distinguished member of his own Party - Mr Harold Souter, the Secretary of the Australian Council of Trade Unions. [More…]
1 believe that something like 95 per cent of the officers in the Commonwealth Public Service are on or below the level of Class 8 and are therefore affected by this legislation, which J believe has the support of not only the Opposition but also the Public Service unions and associations involved. [More…]
I just wish to register a protest on behalf of the members of the Commonwealth Public Service and the unions in the Commonwealth Public Service at the manner in which this Government has treated them. [More…]
I remind honourable members that there was no great argument with the unions on this aspect. [More…]
The attitude of honourable members opposite, particularly supporters of the Australian Country Party, towards the amalgamation of trade unions is one which is not really understood by clear thinking people who have some knowledge of the trade union movement. [More…]
It so happens though that both arise out of demarcation issues, that is, areas of dispute between unions rather than between management and unions. [More…]
The community is entitled to expect this when repeated efforts are made by a number of unions with members employed by Commonwealth agencies to interfere with the activities of those agencies. [More…]
In recent years, too many situations have developed in which unions with employees in the Public Service have declined to take their claims before the Public Service Arbitrator in the normal and proper manner. [More…]
Moreover, industrial situations have arisen in which the claims by the unions have already been the subject of close and detailed examination by the Public Service Board including discussions and negotiations with the unions. [More…]
The unions have then declined to use the normal arbitration process. [More…]
Most unions with employees in the Public Service do, in fact, follow this course of action but there are some with members employed in key areas of Commonwealth activity which reject the proper processes open to them under this Act and resort to intimidatory tactics by way of strikes or bans on work. [More…]
As I have emphasized, instances have arisen in which unions refuse to lodge claims with the Arbitrator. [More…]
With all the avenues by which unions in Commonwealth employment may seek to have their claims resolved, (here ought not to be any resort to direct action. [More…]
In some instances these have resulted in unions finally agreeing to process their claims before the Public Service Arbitrator. [More…]
This morning I received a request to see a deputation of representatives of Post Office unions while they are in Canberra this week. [More…]
The letter which came to me inviting me to do so suggested that the deputation would represent 6 Post Office unions. [More…]
I am informed that 3 of the most important unions in the Post Office - the Amalgamated Postal Workers Union, the Postal Telecommunication Technicians Association and the Australian Postmasters Association - have dissociated themselves from the deputation to me and to honourable members during this week. [More…]
The 3 unions I have named represent approximately 70,000 members of the staff of the Australian Post Office, so I think it will be seen that the representations are in fact coming to honourable members from a comparatively small area of Post Office unions, and not the broad area. [More…]
Is this the influence which the unions exert on the Labor Party? [More…]
Is it a fact that a free flow of information between management and unions plays an important part in the creation of harmonious industrial relations. [More…]
The Board accepts the view that important advantages derive from exchanges of information between management and unions. [More…]
The Minister will be aware of a current visit to Australia by representatives of a West German trade union delegation who are here, among other things, to discuss housing finance proposals by the Australian Council of Trade Unions. [More…]
What action does the Government propose to take in respect of any claims which may be made to reduce working hours in furtherance of the policies for the early introduction of a shorter working week adopted by the Australian Labor Party and the Australian Council of Trade Unions? [More…]
The disciplinary provisions of the Bill were discussed and made known to the representatives of the teacher unions at a meeting on 1st February of this year. [More…]
The only point brought forward by the unions was the need to provide for lesser penalties than were included in the Bill at that stage. [More…]
This ruling appears to be directed to those people who were not members or who were not eligible to be members of unions, and appears to be a convenient way of denying them the unemployment benefit. [More…]
Mr CONELAN On Tuesday last I asked the Minister for Labour and National Service whether the Government had given consideration to allowing members of unions who were on strike on the coal-fields to register for unemployment benefit. [More…]
Mr HOLLOWAY ; Persons who are members of any union represented on the Combined Mining Unions Council and are employed in the mining industry are not eligible to receive unemployment benefit in respect of the period of the strike. [More…]
Irrespective of that ruling, which I think I would contest, I suggest that the wording of the Act could be stretched to cover members of unions who are employed in an industry in which there is a dispute. [More…]
Firstly, they were those who were evidently members of unions which were participating in the strike. [More…]
There were 23 such unions. [More…]
They are now looking forward, through their contacts with the Australian Council of Trade Unions and the trade union movement, to other strikes of this character being fomented and brought forward. [More…]
The Minister for Labour and National Service might smile at that and he might think that rather extravagant language, but I can assure him that it will be echoed by a very large number of people in this country - by those people who are members of unions and particularly by members of Public Service unions. [More…]
I think the Minister owed it to those unions at least to discuss this legislation before he introduced it. [More…]
The unions must first place their claims before the Public Service Board and, failing agreement, then before the Public Service Arbitrator. [More…]
The unions that have been under attack by the Minister support the view that the Post Office should be severed from Public Service Board control, lt follows that they would then have only 2 bodies dealing with Post Office disputes - the Post Office itself and, if employees could not get their arguments in regard to wage rates determined there, finally the Commission. [More…]
It is being introduced mainly as a weapon to use against the postal unions. [More…]
Hence the undue speed with which the Minister has introduced this legislation without keeping bis promise to consult with the unions therefore any amendments to the Public Service Arbitration Act were introduced. [More…]
The Government possibly expects some retaliation from the unions concerned if the flow on is refused. [More…]
Obviously it was prepared in a hurry and without consultation with the unions concerned - after the Minister had promised to consult with them. [More…]
The honourable member for Stirling alleged that undue pressure was exerted on the Public Service Board in order to prevent wage rises, but he said nothing about the irresponsible pressure exerted by certain unions on other workers and the community generally when they refuse to make use of the means available to them to deal with their claims and resort to direct action, when ‘hey refuse to take advantage of the very processes of conciliation and arbitration which the honourable member for Stirling says he supports. [More…]
Whereas under section 28 of the Conciliation and Arbitration Act an industrial situation can be notified to the commission either by unions or management, no such procedure is available under the Public Service Arbitration Act. [More…]
However, I think it should be mentioned that many unions with employees in the Public Service do in fact follow the proce dures available to them, whereby when they are not satisfied by the response of management to their claims, they bring the matter before the Public Service Arbitrator. [More…]
For example, in 1970-71 there were 249 consent agreements between the unions and the Public Service Board and 31 arbitrated decisions by the Public Service Arbitrator. [More…]
Unfortunately and regrettably a growing number of unions are refusing to use the normal channels to press their claims and are resorting to direct industrial action. [More…]
Again I emphasise that this provision puts employees subject to the Public Service Arbitration Act on the same footing as those subject to the Conciliation and Arbitration Act, including - I draw the attention of the House to this - giving unions the right to make an application to the Public Service Arbitrator to call a conference on matters affecting them. [More…]
This Bill was introduced without consultation with the unions that are concerned and affected by it. [More…]
On the contrary, the Bill before the House gives the Arbitrator power to deal with unions not party to the dispute, and the Government in a political capacity, through a Minister, can buy into a dispute by which public servants are affected. [More…]
It is undoubted that unions have the right to strike but it must also be equally a requirement that the employer or management is entitled to have a tool for proper and peaceful processes. [More…]
Increased militancy on the part of some unions and the use of certain tactics have been the cause of a great deal of loss within this nation in the last few years, but particularly within the last 2 years. [More…]
Some unions, of course, have been reasonable in their attitude but others have been extreme in their approach, to the point of causing a great deal of inconvenience and loss to themselves, but at the same time causing very extreme inconvenience and loss of revenue to the public. [More…]
A more recent example of the guerrilla type tactics of unions is to be seen by looking at the record of disputes at the Sydney Mail Exchange. [More…]
This is far from the experience of the actions of the unions in recent disputes. [More…]
The unions have thumbed their noses at such processes and no appeals were made to the arbiter at all. [More…]
In so doing he and his friends will deny those members of the unions who want to see an improvement in the system the right to see that improvement introduced. [More…]
It will be a breath of fresh air for those honest members of the unions who want to see and experience an improvement in the relationships that have existed in recent times. [More…]
I refer to those members of the unions who through their diligence have worked hard and have sought to gain the kind of recognition and status within their unions and within the Commonwealth Public Service to which they are entitled and which they want to enjoy in the years ahead but which they see crumbling away because of mistrust, misguidance and misadventure on the part of some leaders of some unions. [More…]
foreseeable future there will be a different attitude on the part of unions and the Opposition. [More…]
Recently, some honourable members on this side of the House had an opportunity to have discussions with officers of a number of unions concerning employees in the Post Office. [More…]
As I have said, there has been an increasing inclination in recent years for unions which have members in Commonwealth employment to threaten or to engage in industrial action resulting in disruption to the status quo and to Commonwealth activities, and consequently, of course, to public services. [More…]
This is the bludgeon which is used by militant unions in Australia. [More…]
I am on the side of the pensioners and the superannuitants because they are obtaining nothing from the militant activity of trade unions. [More…]
These are the people who are upset by these challenging tactics of militant unions, this confrontation of the people of Australia. [More…]
Why make these people who are often not members of trade unions and often with no Australian Council of Trade Unions or political affiliation, the scapegoats for what is obviously the result of this Government’s being in office for nearly a quarter of a century? [More…]
We could have the situation where the Department of Supply, involving other unions, could come out in support of the Postmaster-General’s Department, causing a spread of industrial trouble to outside unions who have members within the Department of Supply and, of course, causing further inconvenience to private industry. [More…]
The employers can agree with the unions. [More…]
The unions can agree with the employers. [More…]
The unions, the Government, the Public Service Board and anybody who has any knowledge of the trade union movement - I had 14 years experience of it, particularly in the Public Service sector - know that the Arbitrator has power to fix only minimum rates, not maximum rates. [More…]
This leaves unions and associations within the Commonwealth Public Service with only one recourse - industrial action. [More…]
As a consequence, unions have been forced to fight on 2 fronts over recent years. [More…]
Beyond question it is the Commonwealth Government which should be indicted in respect of this piece of legislation, not the unions or the associations representing the vast body of public servants. [More…]
Therefore it is the Government, not the unions, which stands indicted in relation to this legislation because of its failure to engage in reasonable and responsible conciliation and conference. [More…]
The honourable member for Hawker (Mr Jacobi) was bang on when he said that the blame for the unrest and the trouble which the Government blames on the unions should be laid right at the door of the Government. [More…]
I do not know what honourable members opposite think of unions when they use terms like this. [More…]
It is almost as though they are suggesting that a very large proportion of the Australian population is mindless and that the unions do not consist of the great mass of the people of Australia. [More…]
Surely the position comes to this: Unions exist to further the interests of their members, particularly their working conditions, to increase wages and to chase and match rising prices. [More…]
It is a Bill dealing with what brings into being unionism and the efforts of unions to further the interests of their members. [More…]
It says that it is the unions’ fault. [More…]
All the Government can say again and again is: ‘Bash the unions’. [More…]
He sets up an Arbitrator who is to have the appearance of being fair to both management and the unions. [More…]
It should not just blame the unions. [More…]
It believes it brings the unions into disrepute and that serves the interests of the Government. [More…]
Nothing could serve the interests of the Government more than bringing the unions into disrepute. [More…]
There can be no doubt that the negligent party, the one to whom the blame should be sheeted home, is the Government and not the unions. [More…]
I heard the honourable member for Hawker (Mr Jacobi) give other examples of the same sort, but the Government is never prepared to look into its own system and methods and the methods of its supporters, lt always comes up with the simple cry: lt is the unions.’ [More…]
I also will consult on this matter with the Australian Council of Trade Unions. [More…]
As a result of a politically motivated, illegal black ban placed on the handling and transportation of merino rams for export by the Australian Council of Trade Unions, aided and abetted by the Australian Labor Party, a number of rams which have been purchased by overseas countries cannot be delivered. [More…]
As soon as the limited relaxation of the embargo came into effect in February 1970, the Australian Council of Trade Unions imposed a black ban on the handling and transportation of any merino rams sold for export. [More…]
It is not a proper concern for trade unions. [More…]
It has been made simply for the purpose of delivering an attack on the Australian Council of Trade Unions. [More…]
There was an invitation to unions by wool growers to help the industry. [More…]
The Government’s bitterness against the Australian Council of Trade Unions and the unions of Australia is revealed in this motion today. [More…]
The situation now is ‘.hat it has been suggested that the Australian Council of Trade Unions is in some way the guilty party. [More…]
The other matter to which I would like to refer is the role of the Australian Council of Trade Unions in this issue. [More…]
Yet this Government rushes in, in my opinion merely to try to score a point in a debate about the Australian Council of Trade Unions, and is determined to lift the embargo. [More…]
We have heard some discussion about the fact that the Australian Council of Trade Unions has allowed - I put the word allowed’ in inverted commas - the export of sheep to Communist China but to no other country. [More…]
In moving this amendment, I think the Opposition has overlooked the fact that it was provided quite specifically at .the request of the Australian Teachers Federation that appeals by teachers or their unions against determinations of the Commissioner go not to the Public Service Arbitrator but to the Commonwealth Conciliation and Arbitration Commission. [More…]
The Department says: ‘We do not know which union this person belonged to, but it is probable he was in one of those unions. [More…]
This indicates quite clearly that the Department simply did not know in the first place whether the people it had rejected were or were not members of the appropriate trade unions. [More…]
I want to point this out to the Minister: When he goes crazy as he usually does about industrial disputes, unions holding the nation to ransom, left-wingers and all that, let him come back to a little human reality and recognise that the people with whom we are dealing in the case of cities such as Bendigo or Castlemaine are receiving $50 or $60 a week. [More…]
The House will remember that during the strike unemployment benefits were not made available to members of unions that were involved in that strike. [More…]
Exceptions were made, of course, in the case of members of unions who had been unemployed before the strike commenced, and after the strike had settled down continuity was given to those members of unions who were still unemployed. [More…]
All Unions represented at the Conference with me in Sydney on 23rd April accepted the prin ciple that the Commonwealth could not permit unemployment benefit to be used for financing strifes. [More…]
I have, at the request of the Administrative Committee of the Amalgamated Metal Unions, to protest at your recent action in denying Social Service Benefit to members of unions stood down as a result of the dispute in the State Electricity Commission, Victoria. [More…]
All unions represented at the Conference with me in Sydney on 23rd April accepted the principle that the Commonwealth could not permit unemployment benefit to be used for financing strikes. [More…]
We know that much of the difficulty in the operation of transport arises because of the attitude of the unions in respect of what they believe should be the result for those who have a tight knit control either on the waterfront or in other sections of the transport industry. [More…]
$3,840 was allocated and spent on information leaflets which were distributed widely in the rural community through the Commonwealth Employment Service, Shire Offices, offices of farmers’ organisations, relevant trade unions, country secondary and technical schools, agricultural extension officers, young farmers’ organisations, many branches of banks, and on advertising in a leading farmers’ journal, ‘The Land’. [More…]
An unusually high number of unions were involved in the dispute which resulted in a large section of manufacturing and other industry being seriously curtailed or brought to a standstill with increasing numbers of employees being stood down as the dispute continued. [More…]
I ask the Minister for Labour and National Service whether he has seen a recent statement by the President of the Australian Council of Trade Unions that the number of man-days lost as a result of industrial disputes did not bear getting too excited about. [More…]
If the President of the Australian Council of Trade Unions was correctly reported as saying that the loss in man-days consequential upon industrial disputes was not a subject to become excited about, then this Government would find it very difficult to comprehend the substance of that statement. [More…]
What must be understood by the trade unions of this country is the effect which industrial unrest can have directly on the employment market, the profitability of companies and the economy as a whole. [More…]
If the South is unable to prevent the communist takeover of Vietnam, and if the inevitable mass liquidations occur, the blood of hundreds of thousands of men, women and children will be on the hands, not only of the leftists of Australia, but those dogooders opposite and in the pulpits, universities and trade unions who have done all in their power to sabotage allied assistance to the South and insist on a withdrawal ahead of military prudence. [More…]
In recent days in Sydney the Australian Council of Trade Unions, in conjunction with the federal bodies of a large number of trade unions in Australia, has met to consider this particular question. [More…]
I I per cent of strikes there has been much public discussion in Australia during the past year on the capacity of the ACTU to have agreements between employers and trade unions honoured by the trade unions concerned. [More…]
The decision was not meant to operate in this way: For example, if 2,000 employees who were engaged at a plant were intent on a strike, it would be simple for the unions to pull out 10 or 12 key men to go on strike from that plant and they would be denied unemployment benefits making it possible for the rest of the plant to receive unemployment benefits. [More…]
The abattoir, while not being in my electorate, employs a great number of people from the Australian Meat Industry Employees Union and other unions who live in my electorate. [More…]
I understand that plans have been prepared for a $7.5 m abattoir to be built within a space of 3 to 4 years but this will not overcome the problem that today is immediately facing the producers of beef cattle sent to the abattoir and its employees, the members of the trade unions working at the abattoir. [More…]
I note with some interest that he did not refer in any way to the answer given to a question in this House in 1949 by the then Minister for Labour and National Service, Mr Holloway, who said that the decision of the Labor Government applied to persons who were members of the unions in dispute working in the industry of the dispute. [More…]
If all unions had gone on strike in the La Trobe Valley then there would have been a case for denying these people unemployment benefits. [More…]
The fact is that what the honourable gentleman displays is a complete lack of appreciation of the need for adequate membership control in the trade unions of this country. [More…]
the needs of the members who constitute those trade unions. [More…]
Therefore the answer to the second part of the honourable gentleman’s question about the Government’s capacity to fund challenges to various developments which concern trade unions is that of course there must be opportunities for making those facilities available unless the unions are to continue to be controlled by their officials. [More…]
The thrust of the honourable gentleman’s question - ‘thrust’ is perhaps not an appropriate word to use in relation to the honourable gentleman - concerning demarcation disputes is a question that he might more properly refer to the Australian Council of Trade Unions. [More…]
Today the Party is dominated by the new left wing intellectuals and the communist unions. [More…]
The Hansard staff have to work industriously, trying to take down what we say, but knowing full well that we are working them under conditions and for rates of pay which very few unions in any section of industry would accept. [More…]
Furthermore, I have been talking to some of the trade unions that are involved. [More…]
One of the members of this Council, the Administrative Secretary of Victoria’s 26 rebel unions, is reported to have said: [More…]
If the statements of the Leader of the Opposition are only to cover over the facade until after the election, if the statements of Mr Ken Carr, who, on behalf of the 26 revel unions in Victoria spoke to the motion on Vietnam moved by the Victorian Branch of the Australian Labor Party, are correct, that every true Socialist in the Labor Party supports the National Liberation Front and wants the Communists to win in Vietnam - if these are the true outlooks of the Australian Labor Party - after the election it will be too late for the Australian people to say that they did not know. [More…]
Such an amendment would have had the unanimous support of all maritime unions. [More…]
The company has been trying to force the maritime unions to take this ship to Singapore for a substantial conversion job. [More…]
Employers and unions simply cannot be permitted to resolve their differences without regard to the effect on those groups who are not themselves directly involved. [More…]
There are 3 parties to the industrial relationship - employers, trade unions and government, representing the community interest. [More…]
What happens in the field of industrial relations between employers and unions can be of profound significance for the community. [More…]
There is the need to ensure freedom of action by unions and employers, consistent with the need to protect the public interest. [More…]
It is essential that employers and trade unions resolve their differences by means which do not disrupt production. [More…]
Both unions and employers are bound to observe the settlement of the disputes which awards bring about. [More…]
The Government recognises that amalgamation of employer organisations and of unions is a characteristic of industrialised societies in the Western world and that there are benefits for the members of organisations in combining together their resources to undertake more effectively their responsibilities in the field of industrial relations. [More…]
I am sure that both employers and unions will welcome this provision. [More…]
That Working Party consists of representatives of my own Department, the AttorneyGeneral’s Department, State officials and representatives of the employers and the Australian Council of Trade Unions. [More…]
The unions which are concerned in the discussion are represented on the committee. [More…]
In the event it was found that there was, first of all, a lack of accommodation and, more importantly, it was agreed by the seamen and the other unions involved that it was not necessary from a safety point of view to carry a radio operator. [More…]
All the time the only real protesting parties to this were the maritime industry unions, not the Government. [More…]
It is no wonder that the unions take issue on safety factors, though this may create unnecessary discord in the industry. [More…]
The only people other than Labor members of Parliament who have raised their voices in protest publicly have been the maritime unions who are concerned about Australian trade, and the Australian workers affected. [More…]
They have expressed their alarm to such a degree that it has led to the support of their attitude by the Australian Council Of Trade Unions which, in February this year, passed a resolution which is far reaching and comprehensive in its condemnation of all of the malpractices associated with this section of the industry. [More…]
It imposes no national standards for the safety or conditions of service of the crew, as there are no national trade unions protecting the seafarer with which the operator need negotiate. [More…]
Apparently he would rather see Australia in that position than see Australia participating in competition which would result in Australian seamen and others associated with martime unions receiving higher wage rates for their involvement in foreign trade. [More…]
As the honourable member for Swan has said, in most of these cases the objection to these vessels operating in the first place was raised by maritime unions. [More…]
I mention this in order to refute the argument put forward by the honourable member for Wakefield to the effect that members of these unions do not act responsibly. [More…]
It was because it came under the influence of the unions and its ships were tied up. [More…]
If this were to happen and the unions did what they have been trying to do over the last year or so, there would not be a ship leaving the coast of Australia. [More…]
Honourable members opposite must ensure that their unions and their supporters do an honest day’s work for an honest day’s pay. [More…]
One matter that does concern me and, I think, members of the maritime unions at the present time is the number of Australian ships that are being laid up along the Australian coast. [More…]
It was wrecked by the left wing unions - the seamen’s union and the waterside workers union - which by a series of disruptions and industrial strikes ended up smashing the whole of our shipping industry. [More…]
We want an efficient shipping service, but the left wing unions have seen to it that we have not been able to provide an efficient shipping service. [More…]
I recall that under our Federal system a Labor government had the left wing unions controlling the railways and the Communist unions controlling the seamen and the waterside workers. [More…]
Members opposite have spoken about unemployment among waterside workers and members of seamen’s unions. [More…]
The people who export are the people who earn Australia’s real worth and they must suffer the burden caused by waste and industrial lawlessness by the left wing unions who have wrecked the Australian shipping industry. [More…]
This booklet was forwarded to unions, shipowners and educationists all of whom are studying it as are members of my own Department. [More…]
Therefore the Australian Government has adopted the policy of consulting the unions, the industry and the departments concerned so that when amendments are introduced there will be general accord on the changes required in the Navigation Act. [More…]
But CP, through unions, in position to control. [More…]
Japan in the demand for coking coal, but it was caused principally by one of the unions that controls the honourable member for Cunningham calling a strike. [More…]
The main form of attack has been to bash the unions. [More…]
This is the return for investors, and yet it is the unions and wage earners who are being bashed by this Government and told that they are responsible for inflation. [More…]
The Stevedoring Industry (Temporary Provisions) Act was enacted in 1967 to give legislative effect to an agreement entered into by the National Stevedoring Industry Conference, under the chairmanship of Mr A. E. Woodward, Q.C., on which the stevedoring employers, the Australian Council of Trade Unions, the Waterside Workers Federation, the Department of Labour and National Service and the Australian Stevedoring Industry Authority were represented. [More…]
Did he claim that his decision to deny unemployment benefits to members of unions that sponsor or support an industrial dispute was in accordance with the policy which was laid down by the then Prime Minister, Attorney-General and Minister for Social Services in April 1947. [More…]
Further would the Minister welcome support from the public and trade unions to bring about the desired nontesting of bombs in the Pacific area? [More…]
Has the Prime Minister noted statements by spokesmen, including the shadow Minister in this Parliament responsible for industrial affairs the honourable member for Hindmarsh, and the President of the Australian Council of Trade Unions, that it is impossible for a family of a man, wife and 2 children to live at a decent level on the new Federal minimum wage of $51.10? [More…]
I will make a charge concerning this which it will be impossible to refute: Nobody has beenless concerned with the men on the minimum wage than the honourable member’s colleague on the Federal Executive of the Australian Labor Party, namely, the leader of the Australian Council of Trade Unions, Mr Hawke. [More…]
The nerve concerning the position of the low wage earner, who has been sacrificed by the Australian Council of Trade Unions for 3 years and who has been sacrificed by the political representatives associated with the Party opposite for 2 years, needs to be sensitised in order to be clarified. [More…]
The Government seems to have ignored the lessons learnt in those countries that have experienced and have experimented with and have discovered the value of establishing panels of mediators and arbitrators of whom one can be chosen by unions and employers to assist them to reach a settlement of disputes by agreement Experience does show that a mediator or arbitrator whose selection is dependent upon his proven impartiality will [More…]
The present structure of most unions and the failure of communication between leadership and the rank and file, especially in isolated areas, are not calculated to help overcome these feelings. [More…]
In my view unions should not have to bear the burden of suing for wage arrears or of having to meet the costs of prosecuting employers who are found to be in breach of awards. [More…]
The Minister calls upon the unions to resolve their demarcation disputes without disruption to industry and yet when they seek to overcome their problems by amalgmation this Government places every possible impediment in their way. [More…]
Demarcation disputes are always the most difficult ones to solve for both unions and employers. [More…]
Why has the Government acted in this way when its own Minister conceded to the Central Industrial Secretariat on 2nd March that the functioning of the arbitration system will be facilitated by reducing the number of unions. [More…]
Recent figures show that we have a total of 305 unions in this country, 298 of which have less than 10,000 members and of this number 198 have less than 2,000 members. [More…]
Something has to be done to enable these unions to go out of existence and to become instead larger and more efficient bodies. [More…]
In West Germany, which has a population of 61 million, practically all unionists are covered by 19 unions and that includes 2 or 3 unions not inside the Federation of Labour. [More…]
Three of the largest unions enjoy memberships of 552,000, 718,000 and 969,000, and the Metal Workers Union has the grand total of 2,070,000 members, nearly as many as have all 305 unions in Australia put together. [More…]
Small unions have not the financial resources for research, education, organisation and administration that is needed for the 1970s. [More…]
Some unions are still charging less than the minimum yearly rate of $20 a year recommended by the ACTU about a decade ago. [More…]
Unions cannot function on shoestring budgets. [More…]
Unions must improve the range and quality of their services to members through the recruitment and training of more full-time officers, and more specialist officers, and improvements in the training and servicing of shop stewards and other shop floor representatives. [More…]
Most of the big unions are doing it now. [More…]
A Labor Government will replace the proposed amendments on amalgamations with a new law that will facilitate a speedy method of amalgamation of unions. [More…]
In the whole of the past 10 years only 14 prosecutions were launched against the unions which are parties to the 151 registered agreements now current. [More…]
Given the kind of atmosphere which the repeal of strike penalties would create, there would be no doubt in my mind that unions and their members would honour their agreements to the letter. [More…]
It will give every support possible to the Australian Council of Trade Unions in carrying out its declared policy to secure the observance of all agreements made under its auspices. [More…]
Employers and unions alike are now looking for the election of a Labor government because after 22 years they have come to realise that this Government has not yet learnt even the rudimentary facts of industrial life. [More…]
To my knowledge the honourable member for Hindmarsh mentioned policy on only one occasion, and that was when he said agreements made under the auspices of the Australian Council of Trade Unions would in fact be supervised and probably all action would be taken to ensure that the agreements were made. [More…]
Employers and unions simply cannot be permitted to resolve their differences without regard to the effect on those groups which are not themselves directly involved. [More…]
We do not wish to see a weak trade union movement but, by the same token, we have to see a balance of power between employers and unions in the settlement of industrial disputes. [More…]
We have strengthened that Act by making available to management and the unions the traditional means of conciliation and arbitration to resolve industrial situations as they arise. [More…]
We firmly believe that unions and employer bodies should not be the playthings of those who sit upon executives. [More…]
There has been much said in recent months about the amalgamation of organisations, in particular the amalgamation of unions. [More…]
We recognise that amalgamation of unions is a characteristic of industrialised societies. [More…]
Employers and unions simply cannot be permitted to resolve their differences without regard to the effect on those groups who are not themselves directly involved. [More…]
A more proper description of that part of the Act would be not the amalgamation of unions but the prevention of the amalgamation of unions. [More…]
It wants weak unions. [More…]
The Government is afraid of strong unions. [More…]
What does the future hold for trade unions? [More…]
He was speaking in terms of what was a reasonable percentage of votes in a ballot for the amalgamation of unions, and he said this: ‘It is true that in Victoria, out of 33 members of Parliament, 18 are elected on preferences.’ [More…]
It is no coincidence that it is also the policy of the Australian Council of Trade Unions. [More…]
Unions should be immune for actions in common law against private or civil wrongs alleged to have been committed by or on behalf of a trade union in furtherance of a trade dispute. [More…]
Not only does the ALP believe unions unions should be immune from penalties under industrial law; it believes that unions should be immune from the law altogether. [More…]
Today the balance has shifted to favour the other side and there is a corresponding obligation on the trades unions to act responsibly. [More…]
The trade unions can by a denial of wage restraint oblige Governments (unless they are prepared to follow a politically dangerous course of periodic devaluations) to defend the exchange rate wilh policies of deflation which bite into the aspirations of the people. [More…]
Before the Minister for Labour and National Service (Mr Lynch) brought down his statement of intent in December 1971 meetings had taken place between the employers and the Australian Council of Trade Unions to investigate ways in which the Act could work more smoothly. [More…]
What had been achieved by the unions and the employers was sabotaged by this Government. [More…]
The attitudes of unions were not even considered before this Bill was introduced into this Parliament. [More…]
The 1969 amendments laid stress on conciliation and negotiation before proceeding with sanctions against the unions. [More…]
The Minister will find that the unions will not register agreements if there is a danger of the agreements being disallowed by appeal or otherwise. [More…]
The unions have to go to the arbitration tribunals and argue their case and support it with evidence. [More…]
Increases gained by unions to offset already increased costs can be swallowed up by employers increasing their prices. [More…]
All the Government’s emphasis and spite is levelled at the trade unions. [More…]
The Minister for Labour and National Service introduced these amendments to bring pressure on the unions - to try to curb them. [More…]
The laws of the land are much more easily applied by the State to individuals for the settlement of disputes between them than to exercise compulsion over powerful organisations such as trade unions. [More…]
The honourable member for Stirling mentioned that last year the Australian Council of Trade Unions and the employers got together and were able to thrash out a number of their problems but, unfortunately, there was, it appeared, Government interference and what could have been the establishment of guidelines for a decent industrial policy in Australia was not permitted. [More…]
At the time the unions opposed this concept as they considered that the retention of the basic wage plus margins would have given the workers a much fairer deal. [More…]
I mention these cases to illustrate the way in which unions have run foul of the Commission and the unfair manner in which they have been treated at times. [More…]
It is a gross interference in the rights of unions if they have to tell the Commission where they keep every cent. [More…]
Finally I would like to deal with the subject of amalgamation of unions. [More…]
I know the strong feeling that exists in these unions in regard to what has happened concerning amalgamations. [More…]
Firstly, in deciding to amalgamate, the unions were giving effect to the policy of the Australian Council of Trade Unions. [More…]
The unions held conferences a number of years ago and altered their rules to ensure that the amalgamations could be made. [More…]
The matter was given all the publicity in the world by the 3 unions concerned - the Boilermakers and Blacksmiths Society, the Sheet Metalworkers Union and the Amalgamated Engineering Union. [More…]
The amalgamation has been given wide publicity, including publicity in the journals of the unions involved. [More…]
The unions were advised by the Industrial Registrar that in order to bring about the amalgamation, the two smaller unions, the Boilermakers and Blacksmiths Society and the Sheet Metalworkers Union, would have to deregister. [More…]
The unions agreed to pay them. [More…]
The unions were advised to act responsibly, in accordance with the law and the arbitration regulations. [More…]
In each of the 3 unions concerned a large majority of those who voted were in favour of the amalgamation. [More…]
Despite what the Minister for Labour and National Service said in a statement on 2nd March, we are now to have a situation where it will be practically impossible to bring about an amalgamation of unions because of the percentage of votes required in favour of such a move. [More…]
That is a gross interference with the rights of unions. [More…]
Mainly as a result of interference by the DLP and pressure put on the Government by the DLP over allocation of preferences in the next election, in future it will be very difficult for unions to amalgamate. [More…]
I refer to the President and Secretary of the Australian Council of Trade Unions. [More…]
I will use this slogan if I have to during the election campaign because those who belong to militant unions have overrun their real responsibility to the unions concerned and to Australia. [More…]
I feel that the militant unions will continue their so-called struggle for more money and better conditions despite the effect that their activities have on the balance of the community. [More…]
It remains the only thing now left to the unions. [More…]
What a wonderful introduction for a new piece of legislation to go on to the statute book in this Commonwealth Parliament when we have the spokesman for industrial relations from the Opposition inciting unions to go on strike, to break the law so that the penalties can be imposed. [More…]
I am wondering whether the spokesman for the Labor Party - ‘that is big brother, the President of the Australian Council of Trade Unions - does give any real consideration to the problems that he is creating through his powerful position in that organisation. [More…]
When asked about our present economic system the President of the Australian Council of Trade Unions - and I use his words, although I would normally not do so in this chamber - said that the economy is bloody crazy’. [More…]
This was the response of the so-called President of the Australian Council of Trade Unions when asked on a television programme: ‘What is the present situation of the Australian economy?’ [More…]
What the Australian Council of Trade Unions and the Labor Party want is socialism in Australia. [More…]
I heard a lot of talk about inflation, but I do not know whether the Minister is aware of the sorts of costs which will be involved to members of unions and employers in having every decision within an industry, which would normally have been made by a commissioner, go to the Full Bench. [More…]
There normally seem to be 3 major parties - the unions, the employers and the public. [More…]
Not very far, because it immediately drew the fire of union leaders of some sort or another, such as Mr Carr of the miscellaneous collection of 26 Victorian so called rebel unions. [More…]
Of course, we have the well known situation in the Australian Council of Trade Unions and the various unions in which, under the rearrangements in Victoria and New South Wales, the left wing control has increased considerably both in number and its representation on the major bodies - the Federal Executive and the Federal Conference of the Australian Labor Party. [More…]
The Government is not against unions. [More…]
The Government is for properly run unions. [More…]
There is no doubt whatsoever that, if the unions continue to act in the way they did while the SEC strike was continuing in Victoria, that would be the best thing that could happen to the country at large and to this Government in particular. [More…]
But of course the unions saw the writing on the wall, and that strike was brought to a halt before things got too dangerous politically. [More…]
What I was dealing with when this matter was raised by the honourable member for Perth was the question of the application by the trade unions for an increase in the national wage. [More…]
I might mention, in case the Leader of the Opposition would like to hear it, that when the case came on the Australian Council of Trade Unions wanted the hearing first to be related to the national wage and not to the minimum award wage. [More…]
Has the Minister for Foreign Affairs seen the call by certain unions for a stop work meeting tomorrow to demonstrate in Melbourne and Sydney against the United States? [More…]
He makes the amalgamation of unions very difficult to achieve. [More…]
In fact, some of the notions in this Bill come into that category - for example, the concept of court controlled appeals and the concept of increasing industrial democracy in trade unions. [More…]
It puts every barrier, every wall, every hazard and every difficulty in the way of unions trying to achieve rationalised amalgamation. [More…]
I do not speak for the Minister but I think I would be at liberty to say this: The honourable member will not find him unresponsive if he can make some suggestions for improving the system and facilitating the means whereby expression can be given to the wishes of those unions which want to amalgamate. [More…]
He at least made some endeavour to point out to his more reluctant colleagues that perhaps there is some room for some area of discussion between the trade unions on the one hand and the Government on the other. [More…]
Let us examine what happened after the 1965 legislation the purpose of which was the same as that which the Government must be accused of pursuing today - the enacting of legislation in the hope that the trade unions would over-react and the Government would win an election on that issue. [More…]
Shortly after the legislation was passed in this House the waterfront unions proceeded with a system of discussion with employers which resulted in collective bargaining. [More…]
But the Minister for Labour and National Service and previous Ministers for Labour and National Service have gone along to various levels of employer organisations to persuade them not to do this because they were fearful that the unions might come to some form of agreement with the employers and that the Government would lose another stick to use in an election campaign. [More…]
Your Secretarial is not in itself an amalgamation of employer bodies but some of the reasons which have motivated you to form this body are no doubt those the 3 metal trades unions would put forward in support of their plans to amalgamate. [More…]
There should have been ballots of the members of the 3 unions conducted by a public official such as the Commonwealth Electoral Officer; [More…]
The amalgamation should have been approved by a majority of all the members of the unions . [More…]
The first was that there should have been officially conducted’ ballots of the members of the 3 unions proposing amalgamation. [More…]
This is relevant to the suggestion which has been made that there is a history of ‘ballot rigging’ in these 3 unions. [More…]
The record does not bear this out and it is supported, I believe, by the fact that there has not been a request from the membership of any of the 3 unions for a ‘court controlled ballot’ for a considerable number of years. [More…]
Even if it were accepted that of those not voting 50 per cent were in favour and 50 per cent against - a more reasonable assumption - then the amalgamation proposal could be said to have had the support of more than 50 per cent of total membership of each of the unions. [More…]
It is time he ceased regarding trade unions in this country, which represent millions of people, as being un- Austral ian. [More…]
It is time he set himself the task of looking at the reports of some of the Government departments which have been crying out to him for some considerable time in their annual reports that the number of unions with which they have to deal should be decreased. [More…]
It provides a means of settling disputes fairly and without coercion, lt protects the weaker unions from being disadvantaged by the activities of ruthless, stronger unions. [More…]
The activities of some unions in recent years, and the attitude of the Australian Labor Party, are tending to undermine the Australian system. [More…]
Demarcation disputes between unions are particularly difficult to solve, and we have many such disputes because of the pattern of a multiplicity of unions which we have inherited from Britain. [More…]
We have more than 300 unions as compared with 19 in West Germany and 22 in Sweden. [More…]
These are sensible and fair rules which should result in a continuation of mergers between willing unions. [More…]
Here is where the Australian Council of Trade Unions should play a role. [More…]
If a deal is negotiated by management and unions outside the system, the Arbitration Commission has no power to intervene unless an application is made to have the agreement certified as an award. [More…]
When competing employers reach an agreement with unions on wages outside the arbitration system, such a wage agreement is frequently against the public interest. [More…]
The Prime Minister (Mr McMahon), when entering this debate, was quick to indicate that he supported this line of attack on the trade unions. [More…]
The trade unions have pressed continually for the deletion of the penal provisions which discriminate against the worker, and are designed to shackle the workers’ attempt to achieve reasonable living standards by obtaining a better price for the commodity they have to sell - their labour. [More…]
The Minister has indicated in the Bill that he endorses this double standard by informing the House that in future all fines against the unions will be collected, and as a means to achieving this end all union organisations will be asked to notify the Commission where their finance is banked. [More…]
No doubt this is intended to entice unions and employers into making more use of this feature of the Act. [More…]
It can be seen only as a snide attempt by the Government to exert pressure on the unions, both inside and outside the Commission. [More…]
No matter how much the Government tries, it cannot hide its big stick philosophy when dealing with the unions. [More…]
Government wants to see a balance of power between unions and employers because his bias is shown by the statement that industrial power has moved strongly in favour of the trade unions. [More…]
These contradictory statements will only accentuate the concern felt by the unions that the real purpose of these proposals is deliberately to reduce the power of the unions. [More…]
At a time when mining authorities claim that a large ore body exists in close proximity to a mine that the Broken Hill company is closing down because it claims the ore has been depleted it would be foolish to suggest to 650 retrenched mine workers at Broken Hill that their unions had loo much power, especially since the law allows the management to refuse the unions the right to have representation at an investigation into the amount of ore remaining. [More…]
My information - and I have had a lot of experience in mining - is that the mining unions in Broken Hill resisted attempts to introduce modern mining industrial equipment. [More…]
I believe the Minister has made an excellent attempt to meet the problem or at least to give to rank and file members of unions - this is what T am interested in - more power than they had before when they were being pushed around by the bosses. [More…]
The honourable member for Isaacs (Mr Hamer) mentioned something with which I am very much concerned, that is, agreements between employers and unions on wage rates and working conditions. [More…]
We had the case of the metal trades employers coming to an agreement with the metal trade unions last October, I think it was, when an increase of about $6 or $9 a week was granted, and from this rise we had a flow-on throughout the community. [More…]
The unions and the employers come to an agreement and as a result the community has to pay. [More…]
The story put forward by the honourable member is designed to continue dictatorship in militant unions, to further industrial lawlessness and to promote industrial unemployment. [More…]
We have heard much comment on the question of amalgamation of the metal trade unions - these communist dominated unions. [More…]
Now, on the question of militancy in the unions. [More…]
I would prefer, much prefer, to see a system of industrial unions through amalgamation. [More…]
Larger unions, more efficient, better equipped, more rationalised In their actions, capable of developing strong shop organisation, shop committee organisation, in which there is no disruption between what the unions arc doing and what the workers are doing on the job. [More…]
What is the unions’ attitude to Commonwealth parliamentary laws, to the laws of our national service? [More…]
The unions are so concerned about liberty and the right to do this and to do that that they should be concerned also about the right to work. [More…]
This legislation will make the militant unions more militant and more inclined to demand action outside the Commonwealth Conciliation and Arbitration Commission. [More…]
The weaker unions will be forced to follow suit, because the desperate, despairing rank and file membership will demand action. [More…]
But because of the legislative mumbo jumbo that is being imposed by this Government on the unions it will be impossible for unions to take the action demanded by its members. [More…]
Their problems are being compounded by this legislation, which makes amalgamation of unions even more difficult. [More…]
Its aim appears to be to ensure that the system of a multitude of minor, understaffed and undercapitalised unions continues to exist, thus ensuring that the constantly festering sore of constant industrial disputation continues to divert attention from the Government’s own failure to control the economy. [More…]
Almost daily Ministers and other members on the Government side make statements decrying activity by unions to secure for their members just living wages. [More…]
However, these are not mandatory and the great majority of union elections are conducted by the unions themselves. [More…]
This is relevant to the suggestion which has been made that there is a history of ‘ballot rigging’ in these 3 unions. [More…]
The record does not bear this out and it is supported, 1 believe, by the fact that there has not been a request from the membership of any of the 3 unions for a ‘court controlled ballot’ for a considerable number of years. [More…]
The situation will continue to exist while we have a Government which continues to attack the reputation of trade unions and their members. [More…]
It is far past the time for proper recognition to be given to the part which unions play in the economic community. [More…]
The trade unions should be able to take their place and participate in advisory and consultative areas of management. [More…]
Let us face the facts: The more difficult the Act, the greater is the collusion to defeat its provisions between the larger unions in the interests of their members and the employers with whom they are dealing, who co-operate in the interests of common sense and the welfare of their employees, who are associated with the unions. [More…]
The Government claims that it wants strong unions, yet it is doing all that is possible to defeat this. [More…]
We need it to protect weak unions against strong unions. [More…]
We need it particularly to protect the community against the excesses of irresponsible action by or the overwhelming strength of the strong unions. [More…]
Neither in this country nor anywhere else have trade unions been able to increase the share of wages in total national income. [More…]
Going back again to community attitudes, one of the things we are told by the unions is that they would be more responsible if we could hold prices down. [More…]
I do not think it would do any good, but it would take some of the sting out of the labour unions plea that we should do something. [More…]
The other ways in which we could get a different community attitude, as several honourable members responsibly said, is by having a different kind of attitude towards tariffs so that we would not have this unused tariff protection which would enable manufacturers to put their prices up if the labour unions took industrial action which made their position more difficult. [More…]
I am not blaming the labour unions. [More…]
I can recall on one occasion that, acting in his role as the President of the Australian Council of Trade Unions, he went before a Commissioner Mooney. [More…]
The trade unions which, as 1 have said, are having a subtle change in their leadership - they are getting better educated men and men who look to the public interest more than was done in the old days - would lose their respect for this tribunal. [More…]
It would destroy the respect of the people who have to appear before the tribunal - the people representing the trade unions and all other sections of the community. [More…]
Where do the workers and the industrial unions get off with that type of representation? [More…]
I am quite sure that there will he further opposition to this clause if it is in fact said that there will be appointed to the Commission somebody who has been on various boards of directors and what have you which have slammed the door in the face of the trade unions over the years. [More…]
In this case the Opposition finds that it is out of step with the strongest representations made by the Public Service unions. [More…]
We will let the Public Service unions of this country know that this is only one semblance of the reflection of the manner in which honourable members opposite would seek to disturb wage relativities - by placing a freeze upon the white collar unions. [More…]
We will be very happy to send the text of what has been said to the Public Service unions. [More…]
If the honourable member for Prospect has the courage of his convictions, which I doubt, let him writeto the federal secretaries of the 2 unions concerned and make his point. [More…]
Let the honourable member write to the unions concerned, because there has been a bit of a hush about this debate since the reference to the unions was made. [More…]
I ask the Committee to reflect on the representations which have come in from the Public Service unions, to reflect also on the fact that what the Opposition has called for in the white collar area in this context is no more or any less than a wage freeze and to consider the question of the disturbance of wage relativities which in fact their position would certainly involve. [More…]
There have been repeated appeals by the unions which represent the civil servants for a flow on of salary increases granted to their counterparts in the States but the Government continually refuses these appeals. [More…]
The Minister, ignoring his advisers but being pressured by his own Cabinet, by Mr Polites and all sorts of other employer representatives whom I have seen skulking around the corridors of this Parliament, has brought down legislation which in the future will make it impossible for unions to amalgamate. [More…]
I have heard the Minister say - and I commend him for saying it although it is seldom I commend him for something - that there are too many trade unions in Australia. [More…]
It is agreed that the trade union movement would be so much stronger if there were more amalgamations and unions came together in this way. [More…]
The very nature and the effects of the amendments contained in the Bill make it patently clear that either the Government has no knowledge or appreciation of what is required to improve employer and union relationships or it has deliberately set a course that not only will further aggravate the existing position but also will bring about a situation in which it will be well nigh impossible for unions and employers working in concert to prevent minor issues from becoming major stoppages. [More…]
This in itself quite often made it very difficult for union officials to prevail upon the work force and the members of their unions to continue working while negotiations were taking place. [More…]
The Federation over recent years has lost a lot of its influence with employers and is very concerned with the progress which unions are making. [More…]
It is concerned that unions and employers should be each enjoying the respect of the other and be able to negotiate on reasonable terms. [More…]
What Mr Polites was advocating was that if any wage justice exists in this country by way of some democratic system it should be replaced by a system of absolute dictatorship, a dictatorship controlled by a Liberal Government in collaboration with the Employers Federation, which could stop any further progress by unions towards obtaining a better deal for their members and, in turn, obtaining a fairer share of profits resulting from greater efforts of workers. [More…]
This Government is endeavouring to interfere in the affairs of unions beyond its authority. [More…]
It is endeavouring to create a situation amongst the unions and the employers which neither will tolerate. [More…]
I believe it is clear from what we have heard during this debate that it would be the spectacle of a government controlled by the power of the unions which would be able to strike with impunity against awards of the Commission; a government which by withdrawing the sanctions provisions of the Conciliation and Arbitration Commission would relegate the position of that Commission and effectively erode its power; a government which wanted for the trade unions all the advantages of arbitration but apparently was not prepared to accept the obligations which that system necessarily imposes; a government which certainly would condone an increase in industrial unrest and strike activity; a government which would fail to protect the public interest in proceedings before the Conciliation and Arbitration Commission; a government which apparently refused to recognise the fundamental reality that the rapid escalation in wage and salary costs is the mainspring problem of inflation in Australia’s present circumstances; and a government which, because of that, certainly would fuel the fires of inflation and not contain them as contained they ought to be at present because of the impact that spiral has upon the disadvantaged groups in the Australian community. [More…]
Yet can any member of this House recall during this debate any significant criticism of any of the trade unions of Australia or of any of their officials? [More…]
Is it a belief that the trade unions not only are happy beyond the law but are beyond criticism? [More…]
The Government, however, has a total responsibility for the economy of the country and what happens in the field of industrial relations between employers and unions can be of profound significance for the community. [More…]
Those provisions are designed, and properly so, to ensure effective membership control of the trade unions. [More…]
It is to stop the unions and employers from reaching agreement. [More…]
It is difficult to understand why jurisdiction over bans clauses, which are objectionable to the unions, should be the sole preserve of a presidential member. [More…]
Once a stopage of work takes place the emphasis will be on penalising the unions and the bans clause will be put into awards so that penalties may be imposed. [More…]
As I said in the debate on the second reading of this Bill, the Minister will find that the unions will not register agreements if there is a danger of the agreements being disallowed by appeal or otherwise. [More…]
He understands the point of view at least of the unions and because of the number of times he has appeared against employers he probaby also understands the point of view of the employers and their representatives. [More…]
If, during conciliation meetings, the unions feel that they have persuaded the conciliation commissioner on a point of some relevance that there is something to their case and that their members in fact will strike if they cannot get some particular concessions, it is ridiculous if none of this evidence can be put to the arbitration commissioner and if the arbitration commissioner who finally makes the decision is a completely different person from the conciliation commissioner who originally heard the matter. [More…]
On the other hand, he says to the employers: ‘If you expect to resist the unions’ claim for a 10 per cent shift allowance for night work, let me tell you now that I am going to grant it. [More…]
What about the unions dropping their claim for 3 weeks sick leave and the employer facing up to the fact that if he does not give the 10 per cent allowance for the night shift, 1 will have no alternative but to award it?’ [More…]
The provisions in this proposed new section amount to a threat against the unions as this Government likes to do on the question of arbitration, without any point whatsoever. [More…]
Proceedings were held in a court in Adelaide and at that time one prominent trade union official from one of the metal unions was very ill. [More…]
I can understand these provisions where unions are directly involved or organisations are directly involved but for a penalty of this sort to be hanging over the heads of people who are more or less innocent bystanders in a dispute is more than the average person should be called upon to bear and is more than the average person in the community would tolerate if he knew the full facts of the case and the implications of the subject. [More…]
It strikes me that the Government and everyone else is arguing, and we are supporting, that in arbitration and conciliation there should be as much democracy as possible in relation to unions. [More…]
The Government ought to recognise that some agreements might provide for things like seniority, absolute preference or preference for financial members of unions. [More…]
We note, says the Government in its own counsels, a marked tendency on the part of both unions and employers to keep outside a system of arbitration which they claim to be expensive, provocative and frustrating. [More…]
Honourable members opposite have said that they have been caused through savage attacks on employers by unions and unionists. [More…]
Further, it means that individual unions have been engaged in collective bargaining with individual employers to obtain better rates of pay and, in the case of the waterside workers and other unions as well, better working conditions. [More…]
As a result it has introduced proposed new section 31 in which it will not be possible for individual unions to make individual gains from individual employers. [More…]
Perhaps we should look at the situation as to why unions are succeeding in their individual claims. [More…]
I would be of the opinion that the unions are successful because the employers agree to increases. [More…]
I ask the Minister, if unions and employers sat around the table and, on a balanced evaluation of the situation in the 6 States, found that something was in the national interest according to the States in direct opposition to the Commonwealth, an agreement could not be ratified on that basis because according to the Commonwealth Government it was against the public interest. [More…]
Is it unreasonable for unions and employers collectively to sit around the table and figure out that an industry can afford to make such provision in the State jurisdiction in which they are negotiating? [More…]
It is possible that other unions on the waterfront will press for conditions identically in line with those applicable to waterside workers. [More…]
If there can be agreement between unions and employers why cannot that be ratified without the hammer and sickle being hung over their heads by the Commonwealth Government, on appeal? [More…]
I would like to refer to the expressed desire of the Government to hand over to the Commission the agreements that are made between consenting parties on an industrial basis concerning unions and employers on the one hand or a group of unions and a group of employers on the other. [More…]
I refer to the agreement between certain waterfront unions and shipowners. [More…]
It is not beyond the realm of possibility - in fact it has been mentioned before - that the trade unions will seek to have an agreement between themselves and a particular employer on medical benefits, travel concessions and, as I have already mentioned, retiring allowances. [More…]
One that comes to mind is that this Government in a Bill which came before this House some 2 years ago saw fit to apply a different standard, if I may use that term, to credit unions than applied to other financial organisations. [More…]
It was an attempt to protect that area which has been guarded and jealously looked after since 1951, if my memory serves me correctly, fringe banking institutions, which would have been endangered if credit unions had been included in that legislation. [More…]
Honourable members opposite are not talking to the Parliament; they are talking to Joe and Bob at the Australian Council of Trade Unions. [More…]
If we leave employers and unions to negotiate their troubles betwen them we will find that we will have better industrial relation concepts in Australia. [More…]
A lot has been said this afternoon and this evening about the question of public interest and the situation on the waterfront where the employers and the unions negotiated an agreement which resulted in reduced working hours and increased wages. [More…]
If it was wanted to stop unions from getting something, public interest did not come into it. [More…]
It was not generally realised by unions writing into their awards and agreements these procedures for settlement of disputes that the procedures were in fact a bans clause and that anybody in breach of the procedures for settlement of disputes were just as liable to penalties stipulated under section 119 of the Act as they would have been had they been working under an award containing a normal bans clause put into that award by the Commission itself. [More…]
Mr Williams described an Australian Council of Trades Unions meeting in very robust terms. [More…]
That is what contempt powers give a court, or did at that time give a court - in glaring contrast with the extremely limited scale laid down in the Act, on such Unions as commit and continue breaches of them. [More…]
What I did say, what I still say and what I always will say, is that where freely negotiated voluntary industrial agreements are reached between unions and the employers it is the duty of the unions and the employers to honour those agreements. [More…]
Where the unions decide, with the consent of their members, to incorporate into the agreement enforcement provisions, it is proper that those enforcement provisions shall apply. [More…]
There are very few strikes now in this most turbulent of all industries because the unions officials are honouring their compact. [More…]
The Australian Council of Trade Unions has stated quite clearly that where unions make agreements under its auspices, the ACTU will see that the agreement is carried out. [More…]
The Townsville meeting of the Federal Executive of the Australian Labor Party supported my concept of industrial agreement, saying that where unions recommended to their members that agreements should contain enforcement provisions and the members agreed to those enforcement provisions, that was a matter for the. [More…]
unions themselves to determine. [More…]
This fact, coupled with the Government’s policy of wage and salary freezing, and the unlimited right of manufacturers and retailers to increase prices, will place employees, particularly those represented by unions which adhere to the ordinary processes of conciliation and arbitration, in an impossible position. [More…]
The arguments put by the Australian Council of Trade Unions were disregarded. [More…]
If a ballot is carried by the members of the unions the strike is on and the ballot has the effect of legalising the strike. [More…]
The laws of the land relating to the settlement of disputes are much more easily applied by the State to individuals than to powerful organisations such as trade unions. [More…]
The State, in attempting to exercise compulsion over trade unions, is dealing with a powerful section of the community. [More…]
But these ballots were held on the initiative of the unions concerned. [More…]
The decision on such a matter should continue to rest with the unions. [More…]
I want something that makes it sound as though I am fighting the unions and I am fighting against strikes. [More…]
As they see it, the NSW legislation would make the unions the only pressure groups in that State compelled by law to consult their entire memberships before making decisions which they believe come within the ordinary scope of their administration. [More…]
It is clear that a ballot held in a situation of this kindwould strengthen and not weaken the unions’ stand. [More…]
The members of the unions are terrified by the use of the concerted union machinery to create anarchy in the community as a whole. [More…]
The members of the unions are naturally looking to the Government to protect them against the tyranny of trade union officials, and that is what this Bill is all about. [More…]
It appears to me that if anybody can intervene in these proceedings, unions can be up for a lot of money because of outsiders intervening just for the purpose of breaking a particular union. [More…]
It does not satisfy the viciousness of the Government to impose the penal clauses upon the trade union movement; the Government wants to make sure that it humiliates the trade unions to the utmost because for many years when it has come to the real crunch and the Government has gone to the point of imposing a penalty and seeking to collect it, there is generally some good fairy who comes to life and pays the money. [More…]
We will amend … the Act … to prevent unions from enforcing compulsory unionism. [More…]
He pointed out that the reason which had motivated them to form that body were no doubt those that the 3 metal trades unions would put forward in support of their plans to amalgamate. [More…]
In addition the percentage varies substantially as between different unions and from election to election in the same union. [More…]
All these arguments that he advanced are against the arguments that have been put to him that he should do something about preventing the amalgamation of these 3 unions. [More…]
Even if it were accepted that of those not voting 50 per cent were in favour and 50 per cent against - a more reasonable assumption - then the amalgamation proposal could be said to have had the support of more than 50 per cent of total membership of each of the unions. [More…]
For instance, there are some 300 unions in Australia. [More…]
It could facilitate the functioning of the arbitration system and relations generally between employers and unions if this number of unions decreases. [More…]
I know of situations in which employers have sat across the table with so fewer than 15 unions in relation to one issue. [More…]
At the behest of the Democratic Labor Party he has made it much harder for unions to amalgamate, in spite of what he had to say about the representatives of 15 small unions having been present at a conference in relation to one issue and his statement that that had occurred on many occasions in regard to his Department itself. [More…]
The Minister has admitted that it would be better if there were fewer smaller unions and the smaller unions were to amalgamate. [More…]
It would be better in regard to industrial relations and it would be better in the interests of the unions themselves because there are too many small unions at the present time. [More…]
If unions could amalgamate and there was a bigger body of unions of similar types they could have specialists, they could have an officer dealing with industrial matters and they could have a man dealing with compensation, apart from the administration of those matters which are very necessary. [More…]
I believe that this amendment unduly interferes with the freedom of trade unions. [More…]
It was prepared without any consultation with the trade unions. [More…]
But let us have a look at the way this Government considers it is proper to deal with unions which commit an offence against section 119 of the Act. [More…]
The honourable member for Stirling wants to know whether, in the event of the proceedings now before the Industrial Court going against the amalgamated unions and the Court holding that the application was not properly lodged, and that it therefore was a nullity, and that there was in fact no application legally before the Registrar, this clause will not help them. [More…]
Unless the Government does this, the amalgamated unions run the risk, after long delays, of being told that this amalgamation, which really sparked off the whole controversy following an attempt by the Government to reach a compromise with the Democratic Labor Party, will not be allowed to proceed. [More…]
It will take 3 times as long to comply with those formalities as it takes to comply with the present requirements of the Act, and it has taken these unions more than 2 years to comply with them. [More…]
Is the Minister aware that the Australian Federation of Police Unions recently passed a resolution calling on all members of this Parliament, both Government and Opposition, to assist police to maintain law and order in the light of the growing tendency to resort to organised violence at demonstrations in the streets and in other places? [More…]
Council which I said was a predominantly Roman Catholic organisation which claims that it has about 5,000 members devoted to fighting communist influences in unions, politics and other areas. [More…]
Is the Treasurer aware that when I moved the motion at the Launceston conference of the Australian Labor Party to provide for adequate representation of trade unions on boards, commissions, trusts, etc., and in the management of banking, insurance, mass media, transport and other things I told the conference that the Leader of the Opposition and the Leader of the Opposition in the [More…]
As far as the constitutional power is concerned, I would like to see the written advice of the Leader of the Opposition on the constitutional issue saying that the Labor Party does not have power mandatorily to require adequate representation of the trade unions in the management of such area as broadcasting and television, insurance and banking in which there is undoubted Commonwealth power to legislate. [More…]
It was made perfectly clear to the conference that all that a Labor Government could do would be to encourage the development that is already taking place in Australia, where important companies are putting representatives of unions on their boards of management, and with very good effect. [More…]
Then the Treasurer went on to say that I was telling an untruth - he suggested it but I do not think that he would intend that to be inferred - or misleading the Parliament when I said that I had told the conference that it was not possible to provide for representatives of trade unions to be on the boards of Government enterprises, such as the Australian Broadcasting Commission and bodies and commissions of this kind. [More…]
There is no point in seeking to try to get some small advantage which might help an Opposition come into Government because in the fields of defence of Australia and in the fields of the good government of Australia and in the fields of having a government which is not controlled by outside bodies and in the fields of having a government which is not controlled by militant left wing unions, this is the most important thing but it does not obviate the requirement that we, being a LiberalCountry Party in government, should continue in government but should also seek to serve the national interests and consider these matters as they have been put and consider this matter as it has been put, and carry it to a conclusion, subject to the Government’s having a reasonable time and being able to make reasonable arguments in return to those of us who wish this Bill to become law. [More…]
The sub-committee has consisted of representatives of the Commonwealth and the States of New South Wales, Queensland, South Australia and Western Australia and of employer organisations and the Australian Council of Trade Unions. [More…]
I know that the trade unions involved also are not anxious at this stage to have permanent legislation introduced. [More…]
If that system is to be put in peril because of direct negotiations, industrial unrest or unions acting in defiance of the system, in the long run the workers of this country will be the losers, and certainly those groups in the community who are disadvantaged by wage negotiations but are not party to them will continue to be disadvantaged, as 1 believe is happening at the present time. [More…]
If no such discussions took place, does the Government accept that decisions of this nature should be taken without consultation either with governments or with the trade unions concerned? [More…]
I might as well mention in passing that in the past week I have received 2 letters from members of trade unions involved in the Australian stevedoring industry, who have been expressing concern about what is happening in that industry. [More…]
Then when the Commonwealth Public Service unions applied to the Public Service Arbitrator for an increase in the salaries of their members comparable to those already awarded to Victorian public servants, the Commonwealth moved to have the President of the Conciliation and Arbitration Commission direct that a Full Bench of the Commission should hear the case, obviously to delay the hearing. [More…]
That all words after That’ be omitted with a view to inserting the following words in place thereof: the House is of opinion that the Bill should not be proceeded with until the Public Service Arbitrator has determined the applications by unions and associations for a 9 per cent increase in salaries throughout the Commonwealth service. [More…]
This Government is guilty of quite open and blatant intervention in areas where agreements have been made between unions and employers. [More…]
After a great deal of consultation with all the unions involved it emerged that no other union believed that safety of life at sea was imperilled or that ships were endangered in any way by transferring from wireless operators to radio telephonists. [More…]
Finally, the ‘Echuca’ was allowed to sail and the National Line ships put to sea on the condition that there was set up a committee consisting of technicians from the Postmaster-General’s Department and from, I think, Amalgamated Wireless (Australasia) Ltd, or some other experts in radio, as well as representatives of the unions involved, to study the effect of the use of radio telephony as against wireless operation. [More…]
The facts are that the committee is about to report back to me and, I imagine, to the President of the Australian Council of Trade Unions, and to the employer representatives, on the long term use of radio telephonists as against wireless operators. [More…]
Before the Minister for Labour and National Service brought down the December 1971 statement of intent, meetings had taken place between the employers and the Australian Council of Trade Unions to investigate ways in which the Act might work more smoothly. [More…]
What had been achieved by the unions and the employers was sabotaged by this Government. [More…]
The attitude of the unions was not even considered when that took place. [More…]
These unions had been working on this amalgamation for a period of about 3i years and had almost completed the necessary procedures. [More…]
Finally, after repeated questioning he admitted that the unions could be disadvantaged depending on the decision of the court on the question of deregistration of some of the unions which was before it at that time. [More…]
So the Government was in a very awkward situation as far as the amalgamation of these unions was concerned. [More…]
We will amend the Act to prevent unions from enforcing compulsory unionism. [More…]
That was a proviso to make amalgamation of the unions more difficult. [More…]
He pointed out to this body that the reasons which prompted them to form their body were no doubt those that motivated the metal trades unions to amalgamate. [More…]
In fact, his whole speech showed that he supported the amalgamation of smaller unions into bigger unions. [More…]
However, the progress of the metal trades unions was too great and despite the efforts of the DLP their amalgamation has become an accomplished fact. [More…]
However, the backdating of the commencement of this proposed new section to 26th May means that other unions which have made considerable progress towards amalgamation will have to start all over again. [More…]
I do not know the names of all the unions which are in the process of arranging amalgamation, but there are several. [More…]
The amalgamation of the metal trades unions as the Minister well knows took about 3 years to complete. [More…]
There are several other unions which under this legislation will have to start their negotiations all over again. [More…]
If the Bill had been returned in the form in which it left this chamber - that is, to come into effect on a date to be proclaimed - unions would have been able to commence and complete the amalgamation proceedings. [More…]
Why should this control be restricted to the unions? [More…]
He supported the unions being free to amalgamate. [More…]
But when it comes to interfering with the unions legislation becomes a matter of extreme emergency. [More…]
This Government will go down in history as being biased towards trade unions and not interested in industrial relations except to stir up strife for political purposes. [More…]
We should bear in mind the fact that only on Tuesday of this week, I believe, Dr Sharp, the Industrial Registrar, finally came to execute all of the instruments necessary for the amalgamation of the metal trades unions. [More…]
There were still some arguments going on in the metal trades unions, particularly in regard to the Boilermakers and Blacksmiths Society, on Friday of last week in regard to several pipelines which are to be laid in Port Phillip Bay. [More…]
I well remember the honourable member for Stirling, when this Bill was last in this place, asking the Minister at a very early hour in the morning whether this Bill in any way would affect the amalgamation of the 3 metal trades unions. [More…]
Only when finally pressed by the honourable member for Hindmarsh (Mr Clyde Cameron) did the Minister say that there was no guarantee that the effects of this Bill would not be made applicable to these unions that had come within one inch, after having run a distance of many miles, of consummating their amalgamation. [More…]
It is very obvious that the amendments are aimed at the amalgamation or nonamalgamations of unions and nothing else. [More…]
The Minister has made it clear publicly that he believes there are too many unions and that there should be an amalgamation of unions, yet he has been instrumental in introducing this type of legislation which makes the amalgamation of unions virtually impossible. [More…]
I wonder whether this Government, which is placing all these impediments upon the amalgamation of trade unions, which it seems to regard as different from every other organisation in the country, would be prepared to introduce into this House as an amendment to the Companies Act, the Trade Practices Act or any other Act, guidelines, rules and regulations to resolve the amalgamation of organisations such as Thomas Nationwide Transport Ltd and Ansett Transport Industries Ltd, in respect of which we recently experienced a fiasco. [More…]
Perhaps in the Government’s view - once again, my friend the honourable member for Stirling mentioned this - trade unions’ standing in the community is different from that of other organisations. [More…]
The amendment moved in the Senate by the DLP and supported by the Government purports to assist the amalgamation of unions or the absorption of little unions by big unions. [More…]
The Government would like to have us believe that the amendment will enable small unions, after a plebiscite, to be absorbed into bigger unions. [More…]
I would like to make clear to the honourable member for Burke (Mr Keith Johnson) that the amendment is not designed to interfere with the projected amalgamation of the various metal trade unions. [More…]
I do not think that the Minister will receive any opposition on this score from the Australian Labor Party or from the maritime unions. [More…]
Does the Government agree with the contention of the Maritime Unions that Australian ships now laid up should be used for the transport of iron ore in preference to foreign owned ships. [More…]
Did any member of the Australian Council of Trade Unions or any member of the Labor Party move in any way to prevent this anarchic nonsense or were orders taken from the left wing unions that the members of the Australian Labor Party were not to intervene in any way to prevent this stupidity over the last 7 months? [More…]
As the honourable, gentleman mentioned in his question, I recall no statement made by any member pf the Opposition or any member of the Australian Council of Trade Unions , deploring what has been a series of irresponsible stoppages which have led directly to the unemployment of men. [More…]
Because elements of left wing unions and radicals threaten to cause violent demonstrations and possible bloodshed in Canberra this weekend, as was demonstrated last Sunday, I am required by the Prime Minister to return to Canberra for consultation and take steps to prevent radical elements from using Aboriginal movements for their own purposes. [More…]
I return to the present Minister for the Interior and the extraordinary statement that the situation in front of Parliament House involved ‘left wing unions and radicals’. [More…]
I do not know what figures from left wing unions and radicals appeared there, but I would not have thought it would have mattered very much if people from left wing unions and radicals, or for that matter right wing unions, had appeared there. [More…]
Militant left wing unions, including the New South Wales branch of the Builders Labourers Union were planning to become involved. [More…]
He sailed into the test area and had a good bottle of wine and a chat with the unions. [More…]
He said that the unions seemed to be a bit disturbed but he was not sure what they were disturbed about. [More…]
What he did prove was simply that, in his own view or in the view of those who impose their will upon the industrial section of the Australian Labor Party, the unions can do no wrong. [More…]
I charge the Opposition on this occasion to produce and provide any criticism which has emanated from the front bench in this House of the Australian Council of Trade Unions, or trade unions generally, of strikes or of those who have been involved in strikes such as recently took place at the Riverstone Meat Company Pty Ltd. [More…]
All that we have heard from the Minister for Labour and National Service (Mr Lynch) has been a tirade about trade unions. [More…]
In real money terms the performance of this economy at the moment is $900m annually less than it should be, yet honourable members on the other side say that there is nothing to worry about and that it is all the fault of the unions. [More…]
Incidentally, it is mainly the skilled unions with which this Government is having difficulty. [More…]
Quite incredible figures are available that show how the relative peace of the previous 20 years was savagely broken when Mr Hawke and the Communist-controlled left wing coalition gained control of the Australian Council of Trade Unions 2 years ago. [More…]
After several attempts to settle a new award by negotiation the oil companies and the unions went before the Commonwealth Conciliation and Arbitration Commission voluntarily to seek a decision on a union log of claims. [More…]
In that Commission in July, Mr Justice Moore granted an interim wage increase to the men and made it clear that provided work continued under normal conditions the unions’ full claims would be heard and determined. [More…]
Throughout this period the Government consistently called on the unions to return to work and to let the Arbitration Commission umpire continue hearing their claims, but for weeks the union leadership refused to do this and Mr Hawke refused to direct it to do so. [More…]
One Sunday night the Prime Minister (Mr McMahon) announced that the Parliament would be called together if the strike was not over by the end of the week, lt was following that announcement that we saw action by the moderate unions, which sensibly recognised that industrial upheaval faced the nation. [More…]
We welcomed the decision of the membership of the unions to take their dispute back to the proper legal processes. [More…]
I have no doubt that the cause of heightened industrial unrest lies in militant unions and political leaders inciting trouble for purely political ends. [More…]
If so, will he give consideration to guaranteeing the unions against these costs which are a direct result of Commonwealth Government action. [More…]
The unions could not care less about this inconvenience to people. [More…]
I have no doubt that some of the $500,000 that has been amassed by the Labor Party has been compulsorily acquired from the unions, many members of which do not subscribe to its brand of politics. [More…]
In respect of the last part of the honourable member’s question I must say that I am not sure that the proposition, whatever it may be in detail, would avoid the union trouble that he speaks about because I cannot see the Australian National Line securing a situation where it could avoid the use of seamen and members of seagoing unions which do cause a great deal of trouble in Tasmania. [More…]
Do not blame me, blame the unions and the. [More…]
He himself would negate any idea of equity in the work force for he would give it only to some and would deny it to other members of trade unions who are just as anxious to have it, so they say, but I do not believe that they are because the Australian trade unionist is a sound man when not badly led. [More…]
The power base of the Australian Labor Party resides in the trade unions and the trade unions tell the parliamentary Labor Party what policies it can have. [More…]
The President of the Australian Council of Trade Unions, the Vice-President of the Australian Labor Party. [More…]
The policy initiated by the extremists in the trade unions and. [More…]
If a relatively small union could successfully mount such an attack, what could be achieved by the more powerful unions with more resources if they acted in a similar way? [More…]
The incident to which the honourable gentleman has referred which, of course, involves the State of South Australia which has a Labor Premier, is consistent with what I understand to be the policy of the Australian Labor Party that trade unions should be put beyond the law in the sense that they would have immunity from civil action. [More…]
Well might the honourable gentleman be concerned, as I would expect the Australian community to be equally concerned, at a situation in which the trade unions of this country would be put beyond the law because they would not be subject to action in the civil jurisdiction. [More…]
It is a policy which would place the unions of this country in circumstances where they would be beyond the law. [More…]
I want to put to rest once and for all the misrepresentations that are being made about Australian Labor Party policy in relation to civil actions for torts committed or alleged to have been committed by members of unions, officers of unions, or by unions themselves in pursuance of industrial disputes or industrial matters. [More…]
We certainly abhor recourse to thuggery in pursuance of industrial disputes, either between factions of a union or between unions and employers. [More…]
The decision of the Labor Party’s Federal Conference was that we should alter the Act to provide for participatory democracy in union affairs, including a provision for the immunity of unions from actions for tort in respect of torts alleged to have been committed by or on behalf of a trade union in contemplation or furtherance of a trade dispute. [More…]
These are the precise words used by the royal commission of Lord Donovan, known as the Donovan Commission, which inquired into the question of trade unions in the United Kingdom. [More…]
In the original Trade Union Act of 1871 the House of Commons gave to the trade unions immunity from actions for torts which the Australian Labor Party says should be applied in this day and age. [More…]
From 1906 the law remained as everyone thought the House of Commons had made it, giving trade unions the immunity to which the Labor Party refers. [More…]
Then in 1964, in the case known as Rookes v. Barnard the courts of England again took the view that the law of 1906 had not given to the unions the immunity which the House of Commons thought it was conferring upon them. [More…]
So the Wilson Government in 1965 altered the law yet again to give to unions complete immunity from civil actions for torts in respect of normal industrial actions or in pursuit of industrial action to bring about a certain industrial result. [More…]
This law, which gives immunity to unions against actions for torts, has remained unaltered in Queensland for the last 15 years, during which Queensland has been governed by a Country Party and Liberal Party coalition. [More…]
If unions are not to be given immunity from actions for torts a situation could arise whereby, for instance, in the 15- working-day dispute in 1964 between the Vehicle Builders Union and the General Motors-Holden’s Ltd the union could be sued for well over $100m. [More…]
That is what inevitably would result from any attempt to refuse the trade unions the sort of immunity which arbitration, everybody believed, gave them. [More…]
They started to use the civil law in order to impose penalties upon unions which used this form of industrial action. [More…]
If the Government introduces, succours and supports the idea that unions can be brought to the civil courts, prosecuted and ordered to pay damages as compensation, it will destroy arbitration as we now know it. [More…]
If the honourable gentleman has studied the lessons of collective bargaining in those countries in which it is used as a substitute for the system of conciliation and arbitration, he will know that in all of those countries very heavy penalties are involved in the industrial jurisdiction for trade unions which break industrial agreements. [More…]
He tried, as my colleague suggested, and he tried hard because he knew in his heart, as he knows now, that one cannot have any system of industrial relations in which the trade unions, as one of the principal parties, are subject to no form of constraint. [More…]
The honourable gentleman’s system, if applied, would be collective bludgeoning because the battalions of which he speaks are the battalions of the trade union movement and they would not be subject to any restriction except the so-called moral restriction and restraint which could be imposed and applied by the Australian Council of Trade Unions. [More…]
It would be a question of picking them off, one against the other, in relation to the specific matter of placing unions above the law, it is the Government’s understanding that, as a matter of record, the official policy of the Australian Labor Party calls for legislation which would place unions beyond the law in the sense which I will now explain to the honourable member for Hindmarsh. [More…]
Unions should be immune for actions in common law against private or civil wrongs alleged to have been committed on or behalf of a trade union in furtherance of an industrial dispute. [More…]
All he requires is immunity in the sense that if there is an industrial dispute the trade unions should not be subject to the normal processes of law if in fact any person seeks to bring an appropriate action. [More…]
Presumably the Premier of South Australia believes that that unions and union officials should not be subject to the same law as applies to all other sections of the Australian community in cases of this type. [More…]
But this action is typical of the whole philosophy which permeates the Australian Labor Party in terms of placing the unions beyond the constraints of the law. [More…]
The Minister for Labour and National Service (Mr Lynch) said that 1 had stated that the right of employers to sue unions did not apply in the United States of America. [More…]
Thirdly, the limit on the amount of savings made in any one saving year that may qualify for a grant is being increased from $600 to $900; and fourthly, the conditions relating to the approval of credit unions are being eased. [More…]
Credit unions are playing an increasingly important part in helping young people to obtain their own homes. [More…]
For this reason the conditions relating to the approval of credit unions for the purposes of the Act will be eased. [More…]
We have in the field of labour politics and in the field of trade unions in particular the proposition for a 35-hour working week. [More…]
It could in fact sweep across the board very rapidly although at the onset of this matter within the stevedoring industry it was suggested by Mr Hawke and others of the Australian Council of Trade Unions that there would be no real development of flow-on in this area but it might apply selectively. [More…]
From statements in the last 2 or 3 months by unions of one sort or another this appears to be the case. [More…]
If we turn to the example of the 40-hour week back in 1947 and 1948 there is very little to indicate that an increase in productivity will result despite the claims of the various unions and in fact the hopes of the Arbitration and Conciliation Court, as it then was, in that particular matter. [More…]
This foreboding of doom by the Labor Party is assisted by certain of the trade unions that wish to bring about a continual state of unemployment in this country up until the election time because on that basis they consider that they can win. [More…]
I think the people of Australia are entitled to know what has been the deal between the Leader of the Opposition and the President of the Australian Council of Trade Unions. [More…]
The philosophy underlying the Government’s initiatives is that improved training practices by industry and commerce, and advanced occupational learning by individuals are best achieved through voluntary, co-operative effort involving governments, employers, trade unions, educationists and supervisors, through to the individuals concerned. [More…]
Consistent with this philosophy, the Government has been - and will continue - playing its part in improving the scope and quality of training in co-operation with the States, with employers and trade unions, and individuals. [More…]
It is encouraging that to date co-operation has been freely given by State governments, by the unions, and by employer bodies. [More…]
I am glad to notice that the Australian Council of Trade Unions has relaxed its attitude towards adult training and adult apprenticeships. [More…]
I believe that we ought to provide industrial psychology services to employers and trade unions who are concerned with production practices. [More…]
If we have an attitude of blackmail, which today seems to be prevalent in Australia, with great favour shown in the negotiated agreements which are approved by honourable members opposite, 2 great power groups - the people who control our large industries and our large industrial unions - can come to an agreement to suit themselves their attitude being: ‘Hang the rest of the community who have to pick up the tab’. [More…]
The lower paid, the defencless and the handicapped, despite the declamation of the unions, have not been protected. [More…]
The same point is made by J. H. Portus, in Australian Compulsory Arbitration 1900-1970’, who suggests in guarded terms that one major consequence of the Australian system has been to ensure that compared with the United States, members of weak unions (and members of no unions) have received a fairer share of the cake than they would otherwise. [More…]
These great power groups - I refer not only to the unions but also to large industrial organisations - for the sake of peace make agreements. [More…]
As a matter of abstract principle, unions are as entitled to amalgamate as companies are to merge, either by takeover or by winding up procedures, but it should be on the same essential condition - that the individual proprietary rights of members are safeguarded. [More…]
The practical truth is that the programme of union amalgamation is not directed, as its protagonists claim, to reducing the number of small, non-viable unions. [More…]
Approximately 65 per cent of Australian unionists are in fact already members of 21 unions. [More…]
The amalgamation programme we have seen recently is aimed at bringing together large and medium sized unions, which are already perfectly viable, into more concentrated bodies for political reasons, even more than for industrial reasons. [More…]
Leaving aside the problem posed by the communists and members of the extreme left in the unions, the building of monoliths, in unions as well as in business, encourages bureaucracy, not efficiency. [More…]
Lance Sharkey, the then National Secretary of the Communist Party, in his book ‘The Trade Unions’, made it clear that the purpose is not primarily to bring about economies of scale and an increase of power in industrial relations, but rather to increase the political power of unions as revolutionary weapons - an objective which ought to be alien to trade unionism and which is essentially political and subversive in character. [More…]
I think the best that can be said of the speech of the honourable member for Mcpherson (Mr Barnes) in this Budget debate is that it is a typical one from the Government side; that is, confront the unions and then put fear into the people of Australia by misleading them about the policies of the Australian Labor Party. [More…]
We have a LiberalCountry Party Government which seeks to divide, seeks to blame the unions for inflation, fails to do anything worthwhile about inflation and fails to bring people together in a spirit of co-operation. [More…]
As well, the Government regularly seeks advice from representatives of industry, commerce and the trade unions, but what happens to that advice is not so clear. [More…]
The most extraordinary phenomenon we are witnessing at the present (time is that business, the unions and the financial Press want the sort of approach I have just mentioned - an outside planning body. [More…]
While the Prime Minister was calling on the unions a few months ago to practice restraint the Broken Hill Pty Co. Ltd put up the price of its steel by 5.3 per cent. [More…]
The Australian Council of Trade Unions, through Mr Hawke, has done everything it possibly could to prevent arbitration from working. [More…]
It has said: ‘We must have a situation where ever more powerful unions use ever greater blackmail to achieve their purposes’. [More…]
They put out a bogus petition calling for a vote of no-confidence in the trade unions. [More…]
The Government leaned on them and said: ‘We will not continue the agreement under which we feather-bed the oil cartels and prop them up at the expense of IOC Australia Pty Ltd and XL Petroleum Pty Ltd, the cut-price companies, unless you refuse to negotiate with the unions’. [More…]
An approach by some Queensland unions to the Prime Minister (Mr Holt) to tie the old age pension to the basic wage and abolish the means test, has been rejected. [More…]
I did state that there was a strategic attack on industry planned by the Australian Council of Trade Unions and by the Australian Labor Party on the capitalintensive industries because they were the most vulnerable. [More…]
Trade Unions - who saw no difficulty at all in the invasion of privacy which was so involved. [More…]
Out of this division came the right wing unions with a bias toward the Australian Democratic Labor Party and the militant wing unions, the left wing, with a bias toward the Australian Labor Party. [More…]
When we get control of these unions we will have real power in our hands. [More…]
Have not they gained control of these unions? [More…]
A few weeks ago we experienced the oil strike because the unions refused to remove the 35-hour week from the log of claims. [More…]
Every endeavour was made by the unions to by-pass the correct procedure of arbitration concerning the 35-hour week. [More…]
The oil strike occurred because the unions made every endeavour to bypass arbitration with the decision on the 35-hour week. [More…]
We all know that Mr Hawke is President of the Australian Council of Trade Unions. [More…]
Particularly, we draw the attention of the Affiliated Unions to this resolution and request that they take action to discipline any member involved in such behaviour. [More…]
Should affiliated unions decline to take such action, State Branches of the ACTU should consider the question of continued affiliation of the offending union.’ [More…]
notes the concern expressed by affiliated unions at the introduction of intimidation and threats of violence into the conduct of Trade Union affairs in this State. [More…]
We call upon all affiliated Unions to take appropriate action in order that any instances of violent behaviour at Trade Union meetings are properly, dealt with, and demonstrate to all concerned that the Trade Union Movement, can carry out ils affairs in a responsible way. [More…]
The honourable member for Hindmarsh (Mr Clyde Cameron) is a distinguished and senior member of one of the great trade unions. [More…]
So much for the ‘Economist’, lt is the Australian counterparts of these people who break the provisions of the Conciliation and Arbitration Act and provoke large scale confrontations between unions - which are composed, incidentally, in large part of decent men - and the Government, which naturally is hesitant as it knows that only a minority is guilty. [More…]
Let me make it clear that what is happening within the unions is an affront to all democratic parties, including the Australian Labor Party. [More…]
As I have said, the difficulty faced by honourable members opposite - and 1 feel for them in this - is that their Party is still dominated by the trade unions of Australia. [More…]
The boss of the Australian trade unions, Mr R. J. Hawke, is literally leaving the Leader of the Opposition without a feather to fly with. [More…]
The Leader of the Opposition could grow the wings of an angel but he would still only be able to flutter around in the Hawke cage, for the unions dominate the Australian Labor Party today as much as they did 50 years ago. [More…]
He extolled to the House and to the country the latest rural policy of the Labor Party, which was recently unveiled with a great flourish - as if a rural policy which makes no mention of the Labor Party’s attitude to the 35-hour week, no mention of the Labor Party’s attitude to cost-push inflation and the part of wages in that, and no mention of the Labor Party’s relationship with the city based unions and its domination by them can be described as a rural policy at all. [More…]
The building unions in Western Australia have written to overseas countries requesting that no further migrants come to Australia until the situation changes. [More…]
The Government continues its never ending feud with the trade unions, provoking arguments by appointing a referee in the Conciliation and Arbitration Commission and then saying to that referee: ‘We don’t care what you do so long as- our side wins. [More…]
Australia needs industrial peace and an end to using the trade unions as a whipping boy. [More…]
Excessive wage demands being made by the unions are forcing employers in this country to find ways in which to continue in business with a minimum number of employees. [More…]
Industrial unrest with unnecessary strikes and stoppages caused by communist-controlled unions has resulted in considerable unemployment. [More…]
The working man in Australia would now have his greatest opportunity to provide the necessities of life for himself and his family if it were not for strikes engineered in the main by communistcontrolled unions. [More…]
It would be in his interests to rid himself of this cancer which has taken over key unions of this country, to get rid of the communist leaders and have good, sane leaders take over, leaders who are prepared to abide by arbitration and get on with the’ job of production which is so necessary to our economy. [More…]
For instance, the honourable member for Paterson concluded his speech by referring to the tremendous destructive effects of the trade unions and the frightful workers who wanted decent wages and so on and who used to strike. [More…]
If this is the case, will the Minister agree that the Government’s action is at least 5 times as detrimental to the economy as industrial action attributed to so-called militant trade unions? [More…]
Collusive arrangements were made in the metal trades and many other trades - collusive arrangements between management and unions. [More…]
Government supporters blamed that situation on the unions, but the unionists were fighting for justice and a respectable wage to pay off expensive homes and land, to rear and educate their children and to ensure them a decent footing in their own country. [More…]
The recent amendments to the Conciliation and Arbitration Act seek to bring the public interest into consent awards between management and the unions. [More…]
The obvious danger, and the obvious intention of the Australian Council of Trade Unions, is the taking of consent agreements outside of the conciliation and arbitration system. [More…]
Budget could well produce a 5 per cent real growth rate through new economic growth, without undue heightening of the inflationary pressures, provided the demands of militant unions, urged on by some members of the Opposition, do not inflict greater pressures through extravagant wage claims. [More…]
Recently the honourable member for Hindmarsh denied charges by the Attorney-General (Senator Greenwood) that Labor’s policy was to put unions above the law where strikes and industrial disputes were concerned. [More…]
The real attitude of the Labor Party towards sanctions imposed against unions and unionists was revealed when the Premier of South Australia, Mr Dunstan, authorised the payment from public funds of more than $7,000 in court costs awarded against a union secretary. [More…]
The communist takeover of the Builders Labourers Union could be repeated quite easily in other unions. [More…]
It does not mean, as the Minister tries to pretend that it does or as perhaps he is foolish enough to believe that it does, that unions are free to commit all kinds of civil wrongs free from any action from the courts. [More…]
What it means is that the old law of England of 1871 which gave the unions immunity from civil action for damages as a consequence of loss caused by strikes applies to anybody who takes strike action to achieve an industrial end. [More…]
The honourable member for Cowper, if I judge him right and if I understand what he is putting to the House, apparently has the temerity to say that the law of Australia should be taken back to the state of the law in England prior to 1871 and that unions ought to be liable for civil action for damage caused by breach of contract or by loss of trade brought about by boycott or strike action. [More…]
(Quorum formed) In the few moments left to me I want to say that there can be no union peace in this country until the grass roots members of the unions are prepared to attend union meetings and to stand up to the muscle men, the communists and fellow travellers. [More…]
It is a common ploy of the trade unions to argue that the Government is adopting some form of dual standard by attempting to restrain wages but not prices. [More…]
What those events have shown is that the degree of communist influence in certain trade unions in this country is very real and significant, as certain officials of the Labor Council of New South Wales have pointed out. [More…]
What we have said is that the Labor Party by its omission to comment on this issue, by its support for collective bargaining, by its rejection of conciliation and arbitration, by its concept that draft dodging is not a crime, by the fact that it has refused to be critical of any of the trade unions, is in fact giving support to what has taken place in Sydney in recent days. [More…]
He did not tell us that Sir Henry Bolte, the then Premier of Victoria, played a direct role by requesting the Chamber of Manufactures to advise its members to close their factories and stand men down so that things would look bad for the unions. [More…]
Everybody knows Mr Hawke and that he was speaking on behalf of the unions involved. [More…]
They all know Mr Halfpenny and that he was speaking on behalf of the unions. [More…]
This Government put itself in the position of being the spokesman for the oil companies during the strike because as part of its desperate plan to find some sort of issue to bring up for the coming election - it knows it has lost the elections - it was casting around trying to draw on the law and order issue and trying to associate the trade unions with it. [More…]
That is why we on this side of the House have been pointing out the danger of the communist infiltration of unions and stressing the influence and essence of that danger. [More…]
If the wage rises were unjustified and, to compensate for irresponsible action by the unions and the arbitration tribunal, prices were increased to cover this extravagance, surely after the prices rose the situation should have been restored to what it was before. [More…]
We on this side of the House have had to sit for some time over the last few weeks listening to debates going backwards and forwards on whether or not unions should use force and pressure on large companies which have the capacity to pay. [More…]
The debate has been very largely centred on whether the unions have been a trifle over the fence or a trifle unfair by trying to impress their latest wage claims on petroleum companies. [More…]
The unions and the Opposition have had 2 things running for them. [More…]
If I remember correctly, the President of the Australian Council of Trade Unions, that great spokesman on Labor Party matters, quoted defence matters as number 7 on the list of matters which the Labor Party considered as important for the welfare of Australia. [More…]
If we get a Labor government it will be without doubt under the direction of the left wing trade unions, dominated by the most powerful man in Australia, Bob Hawke, and I leave it at that. [More…]
He has this phobia about left wing unions, to which members of the Liberal Party refer ad nauseum. [More…]
The Minister for Labour and National Service (Mr Lynch) has done much the same thing, yet he stands in this House and blames the trade unions, the white collar workers, the blue collar workers and whathaveyou. [More…]
They were told to break up the trade unions and to kick the old communist can. [More…]
This blast - a real double-bunger - hurled at Australian industry, the life blood of employment, must leave industry and trade unions staggering. [More…]
The next question is: Are some key unions controlled by officers who are members of the Communist Party- [More…]
The Australian Council of Trade Unions - the Australian Labor Party’s industrial organisation - had to have the hearing deferred from November to April because its submissions to the Court in respect of those people at or near the minimum wage level were not ready. [More…]
The Government has already demonstrated its opposition by its intervention in wage cases which include claims for a reduction in hours to 35 a week, and by frequent ministerial statements designed to warn the community of the price it would have to pay if the Labor Party and the trade unions had their way. [More…]
The Australian Council of Trade Unions Congress declared for it in 1969 and again in 1971, and the official policy of the Labor Party lays it down and it was confirmed at the Launceston Conference of the ALP last year. [More…]
In some industries trade unions have succeeded in their claims before the Conciliation and Arbitration Commission, the most recent being in certain container depot unions. [More…]
The Labor Party has never said it; the Australian Council of Trade Unions has never said it. [More…]
What this debate really demonstrates is that the Opposition in this House is compelled to toe the line drawn by the trade unions outside the House. [More…]
The Australian Council of Trade Unions and the Opposition have, by their actions, stimulated union demands for a reduction in ordinary time working hours. [More…]
In fact, what some of the unions are seeking and what the Opposition is prepared to join in is a simple proposition of more and more for less and less effort. [More…]
In pursuit of a reduction in working hours, unions have engaged in direct action and threats of direct action. [More…]
Honourable members will recall that during May and June members of metal trades unions employed in the oil industry engaged in strikes and other limitations on work particularly in Victoria and Queensland because oil industry employers insisted that their claims for a 35-hour week were properly a matter for consideration by the Commonwealth Conciliation and Arbitration Commission. [More…]
In June of this year, metal trades unions employed by contractors engaged in building the Yallourn ‘W power station in the Latrobe Valley in Victoria imposed a 35- hour week limitation on work in support of claims for a new agreement covering wages and conditions including the introduction of a 35-hour week. [More…]
Unions have also been seeking to shorten working time by the grant of increased annual leave. [More…]
But I challenge Opposition members to answer in this debate, if they believe that the concept of 35 hours ought not properly to be introduced in certain industries, the following questions: Would they go before the Commission, would they be prepared to fight the great trade unions of this country, would they be prepared to stand firm in resisting trade union pressure? [More…]
During the whole period of this Government, particularly during the course of the past 2 to 3 years, there has not been one occasion on which honourable gentlemen opposite - the honourable member for Riverina, the honourable member for Sturt (Mr Foster), the shadow Minister for Labour (Mr Clyde Cameron) and the shadow Treasurer - have been prepared in this House to be critical of just one proposal which the trade unions have brought forward. [More…]
Of course, the implication of this is a clear one - that is, that a Labor government would take no action whatsoever in these circumstances because in fact the Labor Party is captive to the trade unions outside this chamber. [More…]
The trade unions, supported by the Opposition, are moving on all flanks. [More…]
But the honourable member is prepared to bleed the Australian community dry in simple support of the Australian Council of Trade Unions. [More…]
This is what the unions and the Labor Party are intent apparently to thrust on the Australian people. [More…]
I think that this misunderstanding by the trade unions and the Labor Party of the national and community interest, that is the interest of all Australians, represents a betrayal of those who have supported them over the year, and I think it is Labor’s misunderstanding of this whole question which has made it very clear that it does not like being picked up and having its policies exposed. [More…]
I said that I had been attacked because I had drawn to the attention of the Australian public a campaign by the Labor Party and by trade unions that was against the national interest and against the interests of the Australian people. [More…]
It seems to me that the very real tragedy in this is that it is not just a campaign; the Labor Party and the unions cannot see or will not admit the damage they can do to the living standards of people they say they represent. [More…]
The position of the Australian Council of Trade Unions also has a clarity about it that the 2 speakers on the other side who preceded me have completely ignored. [More…]
To call meetings of unions employed in the power industry and the oil industry for the purpose of devising and approving appropriate methods of achieving reduced working hours in these industries. [More…]
Whatever may be said today to be the policy of the Australian Council of Trade Unions or the Australian Labor Party - whichever is chosen for the purpose of the day - the fact remains that the honourable member for Hindmarsh (Mr Clyde Cameron), who led for the Opposition in this debate, is recorded quite clearly as addressing members of the Vehi cle Builders Employees Federation in these terms: ‘The policy of the Labor Party in government would be to make available to the unions all the resources of the Department of Labour and National Service; it would intervene in all cases before arbitration tribunals for the purpose of achieving a 35-hour week in industry’. [More…]
The Government believes that it is not right for a government to stand by and allow the issue to be fought out between powerful unions and the employers. [More…]
The combination of the powerful unions, of course, usually renders them far more powerful than an individual employer. [More…]
Is that the next claim to be made by the Australian Labor Party and by the powerful unions? [More…]
The powerful unions are trying to advantage themselves at the expense of the community. [More…]
The Opposition is a party spawned by the Unions and still controlled and owned by the unions. [More…]
The unions will provide all the money that will be spent on beautifying the Leader of the Opposition. [More…]
They are content to misrepresent the Australian Council of Trade Unions. [More…]
It is better for employers to take the initiative rather than wait for the unions. [More…]
It happens that the Australian Labor Party derives most of its funds from the trade unions and this is regarded as a pure source of money for a party. [More…]
Of course, it is perfectly plain that the trade unions necessarily expect their quid pro quo the same as any other interests which provide money for party funds. [More…]
First of all, it is not a matter for the Federal Parliament; it is not a matter for a Federal government; it is a matter for the Arbitration Commission to which particular unions, under the jurisdiction of the Arbitration Commission, can present their case. [More…]
Their intention is not to accumulate funds for great investment, but whilst they are holding funds to meet any anticipated expenditures the funds are invested in bank accounts, credit unions or some such bodies and accordingly they earn a certain amount of income. [More…]
and (2) During April 1972 the Department of Shipping and Transport convened a series of separate meetings with shipowners, unions and educationalists on the general question of training and education of all classes of seamen. [More…]
I think most honourable members would have seen the interview that took place on ABC television between Mr Hawke, the President of the Australian Council of Trade Unions, and the Minister for Labour and National Service (Mr Lynch). [More…]
At that time, Mr Hawke alleged - I believe correctly - that the disputes that were then current between the oil companies and the unions and between Ansett Transport Industries Ltd and the Transport Workers Union were caused by the Government. [More…]
He alleged that the Government put pressure on the employers to stop them from making negotiated agreements with the unions. [More…]
As was their usual practice, the oil companies offered to negotiate with the unions earlier this year, but because it was an election year the Government said to the oil companies: ‘We do not want you to negotiate. [More…]
When Mr Hawke said at this interview that he believed that the Government had intervened to stop the oil companies negotiating with the unions, the Minister for Labour and National Service said that that was not so. [More…]
The Opposition Party spawned by the trade unions and still controlled by the trade unions, is unable to have an incomes-prices policy because it cannot have a policy on incomes at all. [More…]
Consistent with the provisions of the Federal platform on industrial relations and the decisions of the recent ACTU Congress and the Interstate Executive of the Australian Council of Trade Unions of 18th November 1971, the Federal Executive determines that ALP policy supports the following principles– [More…]
I am reminded that back in 1967 when we were discussing the legislation which extended the $2 for $1 subsidy to local government bodies, the Opposition delayed the legislation for more than 6 months because it claimed that it was not specifically spelt out in the legislation that industrial unions could benefit from the $2 for SI subsidy. [More…]
I remember very well that the then Minister pointed out that that was not so, that there was provision for industrial unions to obtain the subsidy. [More…]
Pandering to unions- [More…]
Helping one section of the public (the unions) at. [More…]
The unions can if they wish take advantage of the problems I have mentioned. [More…]
As the Minister also indicated, the conditions relating to savings in credit unions being considered for homes savings grants also are liberalised in this Bill. [More…]
It is a recognition of the very useful and valuable role that credit unions are playing in helping young people to acquire their own homes. [More…]
It is a move that will encourage credit unions to lend for housing and a move that will not disadvantage young people who put their savings in credit unions. [More…]
Right around the country credit unions are performing a valuable service for their members in many fields, including housing. [More…]
I am certain therefore that the action which has been taken in regard to credit unions in this Bill will be very welcome. [More…]
Then the credit unions were adversely affected. [More…]
Savings in credit unions at first were excluded altogether and the unrelenting hostility which the Government has directed to these bodies caused many credit union members to suffer loss of subsidy. [More…]
In regard to credit unions, I again remind the House that there have always been young people who chose to put their savings in a credit union who are penalised by the Government. [More…]
Discrimination is still in evidence against credit unions compared with other lending authorities. [More…]
I mentioned that credit unions should be put on the same basis as savings banks and building societies. [More…]
Under certain conditions the legislation provides for credit unions to be recognised as accepted authorities with which to deposit money. [More…]
The honourable member for Hughes (Mr Les Johnson) said that savings with credit unions should be recognised as acceptable forms of savings. [More…]
1 am particularly pleased and personally pleased with the decision of the McMahon Government to ease conditions applicable to the recognition of savings in credit unions for the purpose of this scheme. [More…]
It should be stressed in this debate that for the purposes of the Act as it applies to credit unions, a housing loan is defined as a loan to buy land, to buy or build a house, and to pay for associated expenses. [More…]
Because of my long-standing interest in and association with credit unions, I am particularly pleased with this aspect of the Bill before the House. [More…]
Rather, in showing a concern to see that all forms of credit are available to the Australian community, I then stated that in this pattern the Government readily admits and welcomes the role of credit unions. [More…]
Professor Neil Runcie is such a person and I commend his fine book on the subject of credit unions to all who hear or read this speech of mine. [More…]
Credit unions, because of their very self help nature - I wish on this occasion the member for Melbourne Ports (Mr Crean) were in the House - are stable and efficient members of the Australian financial community. [More…]
I believe that the credit union movement is very pleased and I would like to quote Mr Dermot Ryan, Chief Executive Officer of the Australian Federation of Credit Union Leagues, who was reported in the August 1972 edition of the ‘Credit Union Quest’, when speaking of credit unions, as< follows: [More…]
Congratulations are in order both for the dedicated and devoted leaders of the credit unions and, I may say, for the Federal Minister for Housing (Mr Kevin Cairns), who has shown a rare quality not only to come to grips with the detailed intricacies of home finance but also to understand the broad economic and social responsibilities that governments must assume in this field. [More…]
Mr Speaker, I have already said on several occasions that it remains for individual credit unions to determine whether they shall move more earnestly into housing loans, as now defined by the Act. [More…]
It is a problem, now, for individual credit unions to work out for themselves. [More…]
I have no doubt that many of these credit unions will follow overseas trends and move into the area of home financing to a sufficient degree to qualify. [More…]
As I have mentioned in this House before, there is a diverse pattern in overseas credit leagues and I have every confidence that the Australian credit unions which decide to qualify for recognition under the homes savings grant scheme will do so responsibly and with as little disturbance as possible to their current lending patterns. [More…]
However, another great philosophical advantage of the credit unions, whose underlying philosophy is the acceptance of the ethic that we are our brother’s keeper, is that each credit union has its own local control and decisionmaking process. [More…]
There is strong evidence that credit unions in country areas are assuming the independent decisionmaking role that branch bank managers enjoyed many years ago. [More…]
This local control, local interest and local concern is a precious element in the credit union movement, and I hope that the extension of the homes savings grant scheme to facilitate the inclusion of credit unions will not see any largescale amalgamation or centralising of authority and decision making. [More…]
Members of the credit union movement should ponder the thought when the Australian Labor Party makes its rash promises about what it will do for the credit unions - and there was much of this at the opening of the premises that I have referred to - and remember that any government that is big enough to give everything is also big enough to take it away. [More…]
The inclusion in this Bill of provisions related to credit unions will increase the number of marginal cases. [More…]
Conditions relating to savings with credit unions will be eased. [More…]
Referring to the last improvement first, I think anybody who is interested in what is being done to involve credit unions should read the speech of the Assistant Minister assisting the Prime Minister (Mr Dobie), who very knowledgeably covered that subject and also pointed out to the credit unions that under a Labor government there will be very little future for them. [More…]
If we multiply the amount that has been paid in grants - approximately $110m to date - by 3, which is the ratio of savings to Government contribution, we see that well over $3 00m has in the past been banked or held in credit unions or other such bodies. [More…]
that the clauses of the Bill relating to credit unions should be redrafted to give credit union savings complete and unconditional recognition under the Act. [More…]
Nobody would deny that credit unions are big business or that they will become even bigger in the near future, but I would reject out of hand the amendment that the Opposition has put forward. [More…]
In this sense the Minister has quite admirably, I think, recognised in this scheme the functions of credit unions. [More…]
He said that the honourable member for Cook had opposed the Opposition’s amendment in 1970 which sought to remove the restrictions on credit unions so far as the homes savings grant scheme is concerned. [More…]
With respect, the honourable member for Sturt was utterly and completely wrong in what be said about that amendment moved in 1970, and he was unjustified in criticising the honourable member for Cook because the amendment moved by the Opposition in 1970 in relation to credit unions was in the following terms: that the clauses of the Bill relating to credit unions should be redrafted to give credit union savings complete and unconditional recognition under the Act; [More…]
If honourable members will look at the Minister’s second reading speech they will see that there are still reasonable and necessary restrictions so far as credit unions are concerned. [More…]
On the one hand, the Opposition put up an amendment that there should be complete and unconditional recognition of credit unions and, on the other hand, the Government has now proposed - it will become law - that 20 per cent of money lent by credit unions must be for housing loans. [More…]
The credit unions themselves have never suggested that they should be completely and unconditionally recognised, as I understand it, and I wonder why they have never suggested it. [More…]
If this division of the Commonwealth Bank were to lend at 31 per cent, where would that leave the free enterprise banks, the building societies and the credit unions who have made and are continuing to make such a substantial contribution to the availability of housing finance and such a substantial contribution to encouraging and enabling people to acquire their own homes? [More…]
the immunity of unions from action for tort in respect of torts alleged to have been committed by or on behalf of a trade union in contemplation of furtherance of a trade dispute. [More…]
Now, one exception - and it is a notable exception - is proposed to the law by the Labor Party, and that is in the case of trade unions. [More…]
It is said that trade unions should not be subject to the law and that if a tort is committed by trade union members then the people responsible for it should not have to indemnify those whom they have harmed in the course of breaking the law of torts. [More…]
In other words there would be an exemption in only one case and that is the case of trade unions. [More…]
All power to the trade unions which are comprised of working men and patriotic Australians. [More…]
Already it has been announced that the Federated Ironworkers Association, the Amalgamated Metal Trade Unions and the Australian Workers Union are prepared to put a ban on handling the overseas made pipes. [More…]
There is no encouragement to new investment when there is no curb on the hard bargaining being indulged in by militant unions. [More…]
Unless we can put some curb on the excessive wage and salary demands that have done and are still doing excessive damage, not only to Australia as a whole but to the people whom the unions claim to represent, whole sections of industry will be in trouble. [More…]
What now is the position in relation to that draft-evading gentleman from Victoria who seeks to represent the Australian Labor Party in this House, with the goodwill of the President of the Australian Council of Trade Unions, if not that of the Leader of the Opposition? [More…]
The trade unions are represented on other boards. [More…]
One of the parameters which govern the operations of the Australian National Line and its capacity to operate successfully and efficiently is the way in which the unions permit it to operate. [More…]
I am always hopeful, indeed optimistic - my optimism is often knocked on the head - that the unions will be encouraged by the Australian Labor Party to behave a little better and in this way enable a better service to be provided to Tasmania. [More…]
In one of the worst replies I have ever heard in this House, the Minister raved about unions and what they were doing to the ANL, as though they were the cause of all of Tasmania’s troubles. [More…]
Among others on the committee was the past president of the Australian Council of Trade Unions, Mr Albert Monk. [More…]
It involves the possibility of serious friction between the industries themselves - this has already occurred - and perhaps between the industries and the unions. [More…]
We are not their protagonists on this occasion but we know the implications, so do the men at the Port Kembla steelworks and in the different trade unions which have decided to take action, and take action they will. [More…]
That is the reason I suggested that this was a facetious motion brought on by the Labor Party today under pressure from trade unions and to satisfy their demands. [More…]
I have discussed this matter with officials of 3 of the unions involved - the Storemen and Packers Union, the Transport Workers Union and the Federated Clerks Union. [More…]
All sections of Australian life from the Australian Mining Industries Council to the trade unions require firm leadership from this Government. [More…]
However, I have noticed reports today that the vice-president of the Australian Council of Trade Unions is offering to conduct Australia’s foreign policy in relation to trade with France. [More…]
The postal unions also put forward the proposition that the Post Office should itself arrange the advertising for the classified telephone directories, that is, that the Post Office should undertake the work of the contract. [More…]
Not many members of this House have not had representations from some of the unions in regard to this matter. [More…]
Firstly, it is not possible to predict the precise conditions which unions will seek and which employers will concede or industrial tribunals will award. [More…]
Despite this very sincere desire and the provisions that have been made for the settlement of disputes and the hearing of claims of unions, we find only too often that unions take matters into their own hands and hold this country to ransom. [More…]
Whatever else may be said about the Labor Party, there is no doubt that it is firmly in the grip of the trade unions and in the grip of the leader of those trade unions in the person of Mr Hawke. [More…]
I am happy to remind the people of Maranoa and the people of Australia generally that the trade unions and their leader will have the power to dictate policy to any Labor government, and the honourable member who interjected will find this position to his cost if ever he sits on the side of a Labor government. [More…]
It would not be in the race to control the trade unions. [More…]
I do not agree with this idea that it can apply to a particular industry and not flow on to other industries when we look at the record of what union leaders have done to try to get a flow on throughout the whole of their unions of any advantages that may be obtained. [More…]
It is just absurd to say that the unions will not put up a fight. [More…]
The adverse effect of unions getting control was amply demonstrated in the recent petrol strike. [More…]
The Opposition has adopted a policy which would place trade unions above the law by rendering trade unions immune from civil action for acts committed by their members during the course of industrial disputes. [More…]
The Minister goes from this chamber and claptraps about trade unions. [More…]
At the same time it goes crook about the unions making demands on behalf of workers who have a take home pay of less than $50 a week, which is below what Professor Henderson says is the poverty line. [More…]
Does the Government intend to leave it to the trade unions to try to remedy the situation? [More…]
In August postal unions began criticising overcharging on subscriber trunk dialling calls. [More…]
I believe we should have an emergency force - a task force - to call on in the event of an irresponsible strike by unions which will not recognise arbitration. [More…]
We are witnessing irresponsibility in unions. [More…]
Our farmers are suffering from drought and associated disabilities but they are affected because of the irresponsibility of unions. [More…]
I believe that we have had a degree of responsibility on the part of unions, but a left wing group is trying to blackmail the community. [More…]
We must instil some commonsense into our key unions which appear to be and which are no doubt communist controlled. [More…]
In Australia we have spent millions of dollars developing crude oil resources and we find that we are thrown to the wolves by the irresponsible action of these communist controlled unions. [More…]
Immediately after the war we had the communist dominated unions - the Seamen’s Union, the Waterside Workers Federation and the railways unions that tied up our transport situation. [More…]
Unfortunately, it has not received co-operation from the unions in this operation. [More…]
As we do not receive co-operation from the unions I believe we must throw our coastline open to foreign flags. [More…]
We cannot afford to support this flag line when wc do not receive co-operation from the unions involved. [More…]
I certainly must compliment the management on this decision and also compliment the industrial unions for the great restraint they have shown while this threat has been hanging over their heads. [More…]
We find another point of view from the unions. [More…]
I thank the Minister for Shipping and Transport (Mr Nixon) for his courtesy when receiving a deputation of Queensland Labor parliamentarians and representatives of trade unions from Evans Deakin and Walkers Ltd to whom I introduced the Minister a little over a week ago. [More…]
Certainly the management would like to know, and so would the trade unions, the future of the naval dockyard. [More…]
I have been asked by the Labor Council of New South Wales to pursue this matter in order to get something definite from the Government in regard to this industry so as relieve the anxiety not only of trade unions involved but also of the management. [More…]
Whether that is so or not - neither of us knows - I seem to remember that the leader of the Australian Council of Trade Unions, despite his greater familiarity with the television screen than any practising politician, recently made stipulations about his interviews on ABC programmes. [More…]
The 40 per cent which I referred to and which constitutes stevedoring charges, harbour dues and all these sorts of things will increase, simply because the waterfront unions and the employers have come to a new agreement which will increase the cost of our shipping operations by S9m. [More…]
I would like him to bend his efforts into bringing a bit of responsibility into the waterfront unions. [More…]
I hope to goodness the primary producer boards understand that their problems come not so much from the shipping companies but from the irresponsibility of waterfront unions here in Australia and overseas. [More…]
The unions held the gun at the heads of the harbour board with demands for increased wages, improved conditions and all the rest of it. [More…]
This is a Bill which follows the request made by Mr Souter particularly of the Australian Council of Trade Unions and by members of the Commonwealth Public Service organisations. [More…]
But the Minister for Social Services (Mr Wentworth) stood in this place tonight and he inferred, by using the name of an officer of the Australian Council for Trade Unions, that that organisation is quite happy with this measure. [More…]
Ill - Discrimination (Employment and Occupation), 1958, steps have been taken in recent years, with the co-operation of the States, employers and unions concerned, to repeal or amend legislation and awards which discriminated in employment and occupation on the basis of race or colour. [More…]
This is a far more salubrious position to be in than most trade unions could find themselves in, given this sort of situation. [More…]
The arguments are not only between management and men; they are between the unions themselves. [More…]
If this Government guaranteed continuity of employment in the shipbuilding industry I am certain that the Australian Council of Trade Unions and the union executives would then be in a position to do something positive such as to say to their members: ‘Look, forget about demarcation. [More…]
Since the amalgamation of the unions representing the boilermakers, the engineers, the sheet metal workers and the blacksmiths has taken place there have been no demarcation disputes in the shipbuilding industry between those 4 trades. [More…]
In conclusion, one of the other things that is most important and needed above all in the shipbuilding industry is an industry award instead of the present situation where about 17 or 18 unions in a shipyard all have different rates of pay and conditions. [More…]
Has the Minister for Labour and National Service seen Press reports of the statement made by the President of the Australian Council of Trade Unions that the Government’s policy on the 35-hour week is designed to set Australian against Australian and that the Government has tried to make this a divisive issue? [More…]
If those reports are correct I can only describe the comments made by the President of the Australian Council of Trade Unions as a sham and political nonsense. [More…]
The simple fact is that the 35- hour week is an issue in the Australian community simply because the unions have made it an issue by including it in their log of claims against certain industries. [More…]
But in terms of the concept, as alleged by the President of the Australian Council of Trade Unions, of seeking division in the community, there is no doubt that the policy which is offered by the Australian Labor Party is, in fact, divisive because that policy seeks to set Australian against Australian and seeks to confer on some a benefit which at the. [More…]
i(4) If so, will the Government pay for rep resentatives of the unions concerned and their employers to come to Canberra and for Government experts to go to Gladstone so that appeals may be made to those concerned to resolve the dispute and to discover whether the agreements alleged to have been breached by the employees were unduly onerous, whether the employers were also in breach of the agreement and whether it is in the interest of the employers to delay construction on account of declining demand for alumina. [More…]
and (4) I am of course aware of the dispute involving claims by unions whose members are employed on the construction of extensions to the Queensland Alumina refinery at Gladstone. [More…]
I am informed that conditions of employment on this project are covered by an award of the Industrial Conciliation and Arbitration Commission of Queensland, and supplemented by a private agreement between the employers and the State branches of the unions concerned. [More…]
Other Media- 59,000 leaflets and 520 posters were made available throughout the Wollongong/Port Kembla area by enlisting the support of doctors and chemists, and organisations such as health funds, bank migrant advisory services, post offices, trade unions, local, State and Commonwealth Government Authorities, migrant organisations and social welfare groups. [More…]
Amalgamation of trade unions will be facilitated. [More…]
Opportunities will be provided for co-operation and consultation between government and industry, trade unions, and other groups in the development and implementation of forward plans for industrial development. [More…]
If the answer is yes, does he, just as an example, intend to ensure adequate representation of trade unions on boards, commissions, trusts or similar government created bodies and in the managements of banking and insurance, mass media, communications and transport, natura) resource development and secondary industry, which is required by that platform? [More…]
In 1947 he, together with the present Secretary of the Australian Council of Trade Unions, Mr Souter, appeared before the Public Service Arbitrator in a hearing to determine a new determination for the Commonwealth Railways. [More…]
As a consequence of this, there was written into the Commonwealth Public Service Arbitrator’s determination for the Commonwealth Railways, a provision which strictly laid down the condition that nobody would be entitled to paid public holidays and other benefits unless they were members of their appropriate unions. [More…]
I repeat that it was written into the determination that no employee would be entitled to the benefit of paid holidays unless he was a member of his appropriate union, but that the Commonwealth Railways Commissioner would be entitled to assume that all employees were members of their respective unions unless the union concerned advised the Commissioner to the contrary. [More…]
The Minister for Works (Senator Cavanagh) has made it plain that government contracts will go to firms that are acceptable to unions. [More…]
This is a situation that could quickly lead to graft and corruption, with unions putting pressure upon companies for political donations before those companies can be awarded any government contracts. [More…]
We have seen the communist trade union group from Hanoi being welcomed and feted by the President of the Australian Council of Trade Unions. [More…]
Legislation will be introduced to repeal needlessly provocative penal sanctions In the Conciliation and Arbitration Act Amalgamation of trade unions will be facilitated. [More…]
Legislation was introduced in the last session of Parliament which makes virtually impossible the amalgamation of trade unions. [More…]
Once again it was introduced because of the fears the previous Government held about what would happen if these hybrid monsters, the trade unions, were to come together. [More…]
That position will be changed, and I should think it will be changed very quickly, so that the amalgamation of unions will be made easier and the efficiency of the working section of the community will be increased. [More…]
I notice from what has been said in this Parliament and from what has been said in previous debates that honourable members opposite seem to have an antipathy towards trade unions. [More…]
Today I listened to the honourable member for Fisher (Mr Adermann) say that he regarded as a security risk the fact that civilian employees in defence establishments were being asked to join unions. [More…]
I remind the honourable gentleman that since 1904 judges of Australian arbitration tribunals, both Commonwealth and State, have said that employees who enjoy benefits of union awards should be members of unions. [More…]
It may be, of course - I gather that it is - that some honourable members opposite, including those who have held ministerial office in this area, regard it as wrong to encourage actively persons to become members of unions. [More…]
I remind the Parliament that it is not the trade unions which significantly limit production in this country and it is not the trade unions which determine that food shall not be grown or that only limited amounts of food shall be grown. [More…]
He drew particular attention to the most important problem facing the Australian industrial community and ‘the principal parties which are operating within it - the employees and the trade unions. [More…]
Of course, we have been critical of trade unions and I will be critical of them in. [More…]
In the area of trade unions and the business community, as I said in the terms of my opening theme in response to the honourable member for Phillip, we join with the Government in seeking in the industrial area a community of interest in which no-one can say there are not faults on one side or on the other side. [More…]
But, of course, in real terms the economic welfare of people who do not belong to unions often depends upon the action of trade unionists. [More…]
Such improvements almost invariably depend on some action by the workers themselves who have formed trade unions to attain these improvements. [More…]
Such a move by the workers usually involves not only the financial sacrifice by members of trade unions in just paying their contributions to the unions, but in addition very often the additional sacrifice of going on strike with their fellow unionists. [More…]
I know that superficially it often seems that the trade unions are defeated when they call a strike and then go back to work seemingly with their tail between their legs. [More…]
But it is very interesting to note how often a judgment comes soon after from the Arbitration Court or some decision is made which gives the unions the very things they had been seeking in their industrial action. [More…]
Now they themselves are joining in the fight, no longer leaving it just to trade unions which in the past have talked about equality of opportunity and equality of wages. [More…]
Surely, having led unions, they have some responsibility to the people who elected them and should be able to exercise their influence over members of the unions if they were good enough to be selected to represent them in this national Parliament. [More…]
However one section of the work force - I will not mention the name of the individual concerned because I have not been able to check my information and I could be wrong - is controlled by one shop steward associated with a union allied with the other unions concerned with ICI employees and he pulled out those men. [More…]
The fear that 1 have is the encouragement by this Government of the trade unions to demand shorter working hours, 4 weeks holiday and higher wages, which will destroy any decentralisation effort. [More…]
It does this in its eagerness to pamper its power base - the trade unions and their powerful leaders. [More…]
Since 1966 the unions have taken a number of cases to substantially increase the level of that minimum wage. [More…]
Those who see union militancy as its basic cause must explain how unions all over the world suddenly became more militant in the late 1960s. [More…]
I believe that if people in the work force want to enjoy the benefits that are gained from trade union activities and the work that is put into industry on behalf of workers, they should belong to unions. [More…]
The Government is hiding behind a smokescreen of buoyant world markets, deliberately, to deny a just debt to individuals who are struggling for their very existence after years of drought, low overseas prices, increased costs which are moving forever upwards at a galloping rate following the Government’s announced intention to grant 4 weeks annual leave, and the granting of concessions to those unions which will dance to the musical strings pulled by such people as Carmichael, Halfpenny and Elliott. [More…]
The AEWL did not consult me, nor did the Stevedoring Industry Council, the Australian Council of Trade Unions or the Waterside Workers Federation. [More…]
The Board, as is its usual practice, had already Invited a number of organisations, including the appropriate unions to submit their views and it will be meeting with the Federation of Australian Commercial Television Stations later this year, to discuss with that body (as it is required to do under the provisions of the Broadcasting and Television Acf) the introduction of revised requirements. [More…]
The then Treasurer wanted to tame the militant unions, regardless of the cost in human misery. [More…]
But he is the same person who before his entry into Parliament must have made a small fortune representing employers in the Commonwealth Industrial Court, kicking the insides out of the unions during the period referred to last night by the honourable member for Gellibrand (Mr Willis) in his maiden speech. [More…]
At that time, with the right honourable gentleman - that is, the Leader of the Opposition (Mr Snedden)- leading on behalf of the metal trades bosses, the metal trades unions were fined approximately $500,000 including costs, for simply defending the right of their members to fight for wages and conditions. [More…]
But I have very grave doubts as to whether his element in the Government will be able to withstand the pressure that will be brought to bear on him by the left wing unions. [More…]
What will happen if the unions tell the Government what to do about the bases in Alice Springs and Woomera? [More…]
Just how susceptible to the pressure of certain unions or how partial or ruthless the Minister will be is yet to be determined. [More…]
The Government has established a procedure whereby firms, by virtue of donations or financial inducement to the trade unions involved, will be able to escalate their credit rating. [More…]
Unions in their turn will have the capacity to threaten firms with poor credit ratings in return for special conditions. [More…]
We believe the Government will be forced by powerful unions to award contracts to those firms which for various reasons, are approved by particular unions. [More…]
The main beneficiaries of the new scheme will be those unions which are able to exert the most pressure and which are the most unscrupulous. [More…]
Firms which express public disapproval of unions or the Government or which in the public interest of this country are prepared to stand up to trade unions in circumstances in which they believe the claims of those unions are unjustifiable can expect to have a very poor relationship with the trade union movement and consequently limited opportunity to gain contractual work from the Government no matter how well merited their tender is in commercial terms. [More…]
The Government is seeking, as an agent of the trade union movement, to advantage the trade unions in a most unscrupulous manner, demonstrably inconsistent with any reasonable concept of the public interest. [More…]
We now have a concerted operation on 2 fronts, both in the public and private sectors of the community, to advantage the trade unions. [More…]
Is it the Australian Council of Trade Unions? [More…]
Because the Minister for Works (Senator Cavanagh) in another place has indicated that under his administration consideration will be given to those firms which have sensible relations with trade unions we find those leading Opposition members intent on demonstrating their spleen and their hostility. [More…]
We want companies which have good relations with unions participating in public works. [More…]
Firstly he said that the Government will set out in such a way as to ensure that the people who are given contracts for public works will be those who can bring home the bacon and who can get value for money because they have decent relationships with trade unions. [More…]
In accordance with Government policy in future recruitment of employees preference must be given to official members of bona-fide trade unions. [More…]
What they seek to do is to protect the fly-by-night elements in the construction industry, to protect the charlatans who operate in many parts of this industry and to encourage the organisation of so-called unofficial unions. [More…]
The Minister for Labour has also foreshadowed amendments to the Conciliation and Arbitration Act which will have the effect of increasing the already excessive monopoly power of the trade unions, and this in turn can only lead to gross maldistribution of our productive resources. [More…]
And between these limits, unions are being encouraged by the Government to use their monopoly power to extract crippling overaward wage increases. [More…]
Surely it is a little unreasonable for the Government to pursue a policy of compulsory unionism because, let us face it, in the political situation in which we find ourselves - and I do not object to this - funds from the unions go towards assisting the Labor Party to gain the Treasury bench or to assist the Labor Party in the political field. [More…]
If this happened those members of the unions employed in these industries would get the benefit as would the whole of the community. [More…]
As honourable members know, the Government was forced to change it attitude yesterday by extending 4 weeks annual leave to all Government servants whether they happen to be members of unions or not. [More…]
Surely the present Government has fostered a lenient attitude to strikes by its stated policy of placing unions above the law and of removing penalties and sanctions from the conciliation and arbitration legislation. [More…]
He told me: ‘In 1940 we estimated we would be in a position to take over Australia in 20 years; we would get control of the unions handling power, transport and food; and we would move from the unions into the universities, and then into the schools. [More…]
When one looks at the unions under communism or left-wing control today, and contemplates the potential pincer movement constituted by the Russian progress across the Indian Ocean and the now apparently inevitable communisation of Indo China, one hopes we shall not too brashly thumb our noses at old friends. [More…]
The Labor Government does not believe in confrontations with the trade unions. [More…]
Our relations with the trade unions are necessarily very close. [More…]
I can give as an example the record of the South Australian Labor Government, which has a very close working relationship with the trade unions in that State. [More…]
In 2 days time an election will be held in South Australia where the South Australian Liberal Party - that is both factions of it - appears hell bent on trying to get into government to force confrontations with the trade unions. [More…]
Since the Federal Executive convened the Special Federal Conference, I sent a letter to the South Australian Branch at its request as follows: “Many members of the Party and its affiliated unions have been angered at the public attack I made on some decisions and members of the Federal Executive.” [More…]
Looking at the pledges he gave to the metal unions on only 2nd June last - given to Communists and to left wingers - I see them being translated into legislation or foreshadowed in the Governor-General’s Speech. [More…]
I might add that if the ALP adopted the same approach to its relationship with the trade unions you would be able to hear the Country Party bellowing in Outer Mongolia. [More…]
Unions and employers have been fighting to preserve the employment of some 600 men in the electorate of Macarthur who, for a 2-month period, have worked on virtually a week to week basis. [More…]
From the outset he realised that the Labor Party had been kept from office, by the fears of the Australian people of the left wing elements of his Party and left wing unions, particularly in Victoria. [More…]
This, of course, is only an extension of the policy of the President of the Australian Council of Trade Unions, Mr Hawke, who some time ago blackmailed retailers into employing only union labour. [More…]
The unions consequently grow more powerful and more wealthy and at election time they have more money to donate to the ALP to keep a Labor Government in power. [More…]
It is a strange reversal for a Party which opposes conscription for the defence of Australia to seek to justify conscription of wage earners into unions. [More…]
The latest announcement is that Federal Government contracts will be restricted to firms that are on good terms with the unions. [More…]
The Government is in fact saying to the industry: ‘If you upset the unions we will see to it that you will not continue to receive Government contracts’. [More…]
In other words industry must bow to the unions or go bankrupt. [More…]
No firm will dare to stand up to the unions, however unjust the demands made upon it. [More…]
This means in effect that the unions will allocate all Federal Government contracts. [More…]
This legislation will provide that unions will be free of sanctions, free from action for tort and free from prosecutions for breaches of contract or conspiracy which may arise in connection with an industrial dispute. [More…]
In the ‘Sydney Morning Herald’ the Minister for Labour (Mr Clyde Cameron) called on Australian unions to boycott the United States and referred to the United States Government as maniacs. [More…]
At the same time as these outbursts were being made the left wing Australian maritime unions were busy banning the loading and unloading of United States ships in Australian ports but they were soon forced to back down when the United States unions used the same tactics on Australian ships, lt is also of some concern to read in the Sydney Morning Herald’ an article by Roy McCartney, who is the newspaper’s staff correspondent in Washington, in which he said that Australia’s relations with the United States were disturbed and the Government’s words and actions were blamed. [More…]
The lifting of the Australian maritime unions ban on American shipping ended the worst week ever in U.S.-Australian diplomatic relations. [More…]
The maritime unions’ ban did not bother the President personally. [More…]
Also we have a White House in Canberra, the Lodge, where a little while ago a Jackie Kennedy kind of performance was held with concert singers and delightful dinky-di comedy, ending in a thoroughly Australian fashion with the President of the Australian Council of Trade Unions playing ‘The Red Flag’. [More…]
The unions, under the Hawke influence at. [More…]
These proposals were made by the Australian Council of Trade Unions, the Council of Commonwealth Public Service Organisations, the Australian Council of Salaried and Professional Associations and the Council of Professional Associations. [More…]
Reference has been made by them to trade unions. [More…]
Trade unions represent the interests of more than half the Australian population and the interests represented by the Opposition are not those of more than half the Australian population. [More…]
Professor Zubrzycki, Head of the Department of Sociology at the Australian National University, who is the chairman of the Committee; Miss Green, Chairman of the Australian Council of Social Service; Mr Hawke, President of the Australian Council of Trade Unions; Sir Arthur Lee, President of the Returned Services League, Mr Lippmann, Chairman of the Migrant Welfare Committee of the Australian Council of Social Service; Air Marshal Sir John McCauley, President of the Good Neighbour Council of New South Wales; Mr McRae, President of the National Youth Council; Mr Nicholas, Executive Officer of the Australian Woolgrowers’ and Graziers’ Council; Mrs Reader, representing the National Council of Women; and Dr Alan Richardson, Reader in Psychology at the University of Western Australia. [More…]
Indeed, he said that there had not been a prosecution against employers under this section for more than 20 years, yet this was the section which the Government always used and supported the use of against unions. [More…]
So it meant that the cost to the union of prosecuting an employer for a breach of an award was far greater than the amount the employer had to meet in the form of a fine, and this had a deterrent effect upon unions pressing their right to prosecute employers who were in breach of awards. [More…]
I have been told that, before you became a Minister, you possessed a considerable ring of informers in the Unions, particularly in relation to individual unionists against whom you had a personal grudge, and some parts of your letter seem to confirm this. [More…]
You will, of course, share my pleasure that the Clerks Unions is no longer under Communist control. [More…]
It is a very serious matter when trade union officials and people in this House who have some influence in trade unions maintain this kind of individual terror against trade unionists. [More…]
The honourable member will remember that he had trouble with the unions. [More…]
So he thought to himself: How do I get on side with the unions? [More…]
Thinking that the unions down there were communist controlled, he got in touch With another communist, a man called Edward Roach, whom he has frequently described in the Parliament as the most dangerous and evil communist that this country had ever seen. [More…]
But that did not prevent him from inviting Mr Roach to his loungeroom to work out some scheme by which he could get the unions on side. [More…]
1 have had members of trade unions, and others who have not been prepared to join trade unions, visiting mc because they had been muscled, and there was nothing I could do. [More…]
I hope the Committee will also call on the knowledge of other Australians with special experience in these areas including academics, journalists, the trade unions and the business community. [More…]
The Public Service unions have claimed an increase of 7.5 per cent which could very easily amount to more than $ 1,000m additional to the pay roll of the Commonwealth. [More…]
The honourable member attacked the trade unions, their excesses, the demands they are making and matters of this nature. [More…]
asked the Prime Minister, upon notice: <1) How many Commonwealth employees were having deductions made from their salary on behalf of each of the Public Service Unions on the pay day nearest to (a) 1st January 1972, (b) 1st July 1972, (c) 1st January 1973, (d) 15th January 1973, (e) 1st February 1973 and (0 15th February 1973. [More…]
One of the major problems in the conciliation and arbitration area in recent years has been the attempt by both employers and trade unions voluntarily to reach negotiated agreements, without reference to the concept of public interest, which they then seek to have legitimised by the machinery of arbitration. [More…]
The pamphlet goes on to repeat the utter nonsense that has been used to justify a one-sided approach by trade union leaders, particularly by Mr Hawke, President of the Australian Council of Trade Unions and Vice-President of the Australian Labor Party - with a mere echo by the Minister for Labor (Mr Clyde Cameron) - the fallacy that maximum wages and salaries are controlled. [More…]
Only those unions with industrial power can enforce claims. [More…]
This is not deniable, and anyone who claims to deny it is not arguing from fact but from the position of being commanded by the political power of unions. [More…]
So long as demand is at or near full employment limits, prices and wages will react on each other in a steady upward spiral in industries characterised by strong firms and strong unions. [More…]
They were completely bankrupt of any way of attacking the problem of inflation other than to confront the unions. [More…]
The extra leave provisions will apply only to members of recognised unions and associations involved in work within the Service. [More…]
I happen also to have been an advocate for unions and you look like one, too. [More…]
These people had well and faithfully served the Commonwealth and were, without being conscripted into unions, as entitled as anyone to the extra week’s leave. [More…]
In 1960, when dealing with the claims by the metal trades unions for 3 weeks annual leave in a case which would have set the standard for private industry throughout Australia, the Commonwealth Conciliation and Arbitration Commission in unmistakable terms repudiated the proposition that conditions in the Public Service set a standard for industry generally. [More…]
It is an open invitation to unions to follow the Commonwealth without regard to the economic consequences. [More…]
This concept of pace setting, now espoused by the Government, has clearly dangerous implications for it can only be an open invitation to unions to entice the Minister for Labour to join in concerted action against private industry by the irresponsible use of Commonwealth economic power and indirect industrial pressure. [More…]
It was formally approached regarding 4 weeks annual leave for Commonwealth public servants by a joint deputation of the 3 national trade union councils, namely, the Australian Council of Trade Unions, the Australian Council of Salaried Professional Associations and the Council of Commonwealth Public Service Organisations, 3 times in its last 7 years in office. [More…]
In fact, this cost has been vastly overstated and does not represent a valid reason for rejecting the sound arguments which had been put forward by unions in the past in their deputations for the granting of an extra week’s leave for Commonwealth employees. [More…]
That was Sir Robert Menzies’ argument in rejecting the unions’ claims in 1965. [More…]
Without the existence of strong, vigorous and responsible trade unions in this country the concept of conciliation and arbitration cannot exist, industrial tribunals in Australia throughout this century and authorities on industrial regulation throughout the free world have recognised that there cannot be a system of responsible and legitimate industrial regulation unless there exist responsible, vigorous, strong and representative trade union organisations. [More…]
Now, apparently with the agreement of the Australian Council of Trade Unions and the Waterside Workers Federation reached at a meeting held in Sydney, where the representatives of the proper port authorities most intimately concerned and the representatives of the State governments intimately concerned were not present, the old system has apparently been condemned and, implicitly, support has been given to the changed levy system which the AEWL has introduced. [More…]
But if the allegations or the suggestions in Mr Craig’s letter are correct, that is, that the WWF and the Australian Council of Trade Unions also have supported the actions that have been taken by Mr Craig as the Executive Director of the AEWL and by that Association, it is a strange alliance indeed when we find the main sections of the trade union movement involved denying any responsibility for the smaller numbers of branch members in decentralised ports and when we find the Minister for Labour apparently unwilling or unable to act. [More…]
Is the Prime Minister aware of the close historical links between Australia and Israel, particularly in relation to the United Nations recognition of Israel and the current close links between Histradut, the Israeli Trade Union Federation, and the Australian Council of Trade Unions, and the mutually beneficial results which have occurred as a result of this? [More…]
This statement by the Minister provoked a strong reaction from the Public Service unions and the Australian Council of Trade Unions who then made immediate representations to the Government. [More…]
On 20th December the Prime Minister issued a statement saying that the first meeting of the Cabinet had decided that the additional leave provisions would apply only to members of recognised unions and associations involved in work within the service; departments, however, would assume that all staff were members unless advised otherwise by a union: provision would be made for conscientious objectors to unionism to obtain this new leave entitlement on payment of union dues to a nominated charity; and the new provision would apply to all public servants whose annual leave was accruing on or after 1st January 1973. [More…]
Following this announcement, some thousands of public servants sought to join unions on the understanding and presumption that they might not receive the additional week’s leave. [More…]
It was also clear to many nonunion members of the Public Service that the Government was contriving to restrict all future industrial benefits to members of registered unions. [More…]
On 12th January the Public Service Arbitrator made a determination granting 4 weeks annual leave to members of certain unions. [More…]
The Minister’s public and accusatory declamation of the Board was at the behest of the Australian Council of Trade Unions and the Public Service unions which had again made representations to and put pressure on him. [More…]
The Prime Minister (Mr Whitlam) stated that departments would assume that all staff were members of unions unless otherwise advised by a trade union. [More…]
The most damaging criticism that can be made of the Government’s policy of preference to members of unions for an extra week’s leave is that the decision to grant the extra leave was not made by an industrial tribunal but by the country’s political masters. [More…]
Labor was not elected to power to single out for privileged treatment the members of the unions which support it and traditionally contribute to election funds. [More…]
Another end result of a policy of statutory preference to unionists is to create a state of industrial conscription that is just as objectionable as some of the features of the policy of conscription for Vietnam which the previous Government introduced and to which the unions objected so vociferously: the rush of new members who enrolled in unions in recent weeks was not prompted by a conscientious belief in the validity of the trade union principle but by the desire for gain. [More…]
lt remains that trade unions are a necessary part of our society and that workers who benefit from their activities have a moral obligation to join and support them. [More…]
It does not follow ‘hat unions should be given the right to coerce people into membership. [More…]
The onus of recruiting members is on the unions themselves and if about half of the workers of Australia do not belong to unions this may be due to their apathy, ignorance, selfishness, or lack of public spirit, but there must also be something wrong with the unions themselves. [More…]
He said that the previous Government always ensured that all employees, members of unions or not, received all the benefits of the Public Service Arbitrators’ determinations. [More…]
Everyone has the right to form and to join trade unions for the protection of his interests. [More…]
Association’ and ‘trade unions’ are used in completely different senses which anybody who understands how words are used in the international sphere would readily appreciate. [More…]
Indeed, neither in those industries which last year agreed to introduce the 35-hour week by way of agreement between employers and the trade unions nor in those establishments where the Commonwealth Arbitration Commission awarded it, has there been such an increase. [More…]
The Opposition preaches to the unions to abide by the decisions made by conciliation and arbitration. [More…]
It was indicated that only those people within the Public Service who belonged to particular unions would receive 4 weeks’ annual leave. [More…]
I believe in organisation and that the unions in Australia can play a large part in improving conditions, especially in those instances where there is a need for negotiations between the employer and employees, perhaps involving even the Conciliation and Arbitration Commission. [More…]
The unions must win their own way into attracting membership to the unions. [More…]
If union membership is compulsory the whole credibility of unions will start to disappear. [More…]
Only by attracting membership and doing those things which need to be done will the unions and their leaders be able to illustrate that they are capable of taking responsibility and doing the things that need to be done. [More…]
The parrot cry that was put forward by the Deputy Leader of the Opposition was that the Government was attempting to force a situation in which additional leave would be granted to members of unions only. [More…]
The Commonwealth Public Service unions applied to the Public Service Arbitrator for an increase from 3 weeks to 4 weeks annual leave. [More…]
The Arbitrator brought down an award which was made applicable only to members of the unions which applied for it. [More…]
The Senate - or the other place, as it is called in this House - for reasons best known to itself decided to make this a political issue, rejected the Commonwealth Public Service Arbitrator’s determination which granted 4 weeks leave to Commonwealth public servants which, in accordance with the Act, restricted the additional week’s leave to members of the unions who had applied for it. [More…]
The stocks of the then Liberal-Country Party Government were so low that the Commonwealth Public Service unions and associations in New South Wales mounted a campaign against the then Government. [More…]
The thought amongst Commonwealth Public Service unions and associations from then on was that the edict went out that Commonwealth public servants would get nothing from that Government because it had almost led to the defeat of their star. [More…]
That is one of the main reasons why the Public Service unions have a just case and why this Government has granted it. [More…]
Wannon to understand the working of the levy system which led to his quite erroneous and unworthy accusation that a deal had been done between the AEWL, the Waterside Workers Federation and the Australian Council of Trade Unions, the parties to the Stevedoring Industry Council. [More…]
How Australia’s trade unions associated with shipping can tolerate such deceit is beyond me. [More…]
Unfortunately Captain Houfe ran into some difficulties with trade unions and others and the ship has been tied up. [More…]
In regard to the policy of the Australian Labor Party, we have written to the Australian Chamber of Shipping and the Australian Council of Trade Unions requesting that they make known their ideas on what they believe should be incorporated in an Australian shipbuilding policy. [More…]
If the Labor Government believes that it can do something meaningful about the preservation of shipbuilding it should turn its attention to its allies, to the unions on which it relies for support and which it claims to represent here. [More…]
For those who like to seek comfort in blaming the unions, as did the Deputy Leader of the Australian Country Party, let me say that my experience with the unions concerned with Adelaide Ship Construction could leave these accusers of the unions absolutely clotheless. [More…]
No-one in the unions or in management makes the claim that everything has been perfect in the Adelaide Ship Construction shipyard or indeed in other ship yards in Australia. [More…]
The statement suggested that the Federal Government legislate to provide a viable shipbuilding industry in Australia and stated that all unions engaged in shipbuilding, once assured of continuity of employment, would enter into an industrial agreement. [More…]
Mr Knevitt went on to say, and this was referred to by a Government speaker earlier, that problems amongst the unions and stoppages have caused many of the problems resulting in the decision to close the Evans Deakin shipyard in August this year. [More…]
He will have seen the statements made) by Public Service unions, presumably close to him and also close to public servants, which have well characterised the Government’s action as a Star Chamber approach which could destroy or hinder the careers of conscientious and able men who may well be entirely innocent of what have been classified as Mr Whitlam’s charges of conspiracy. [More…]
Let us not forget the trade unionists who are in unions which are not in a position to bargain as strongly as are others and, therefore, their rises take place at a slower rate. [More…]
Compensation for workers when they are injured is a matter that has been of great concern to workmen and to those people in the trade unions who manage the industrial affairs of workmen. [More…]
I have no doubt that trade unions and other pressure groups in the community, such as employer pressure groups, which sometimes can be as irresponsible and selfish as any trade union pressure group, have got to him. [More…]
That will cause hardship and worry for 2 sections of the Australian community, namely, the trade unions concerned and the employers concerned, or perhaps members of the industry concerned. [More…]
If it is right I believe that with courage and persuasion, both trade unions and employers can be and must be convinced that selfish devotion to their own industry or company is not in the national interest. [More…]
It will examine the needs of .trade union and employer organisations in Australia, the need for amalgamations, for trade union education and for closer consultation between unions, employers and government. [More…]
As unions and employers become better organised, as their research facilities grow and as they become more aware of the advantages of negotiation and the disadvantages of remaining passive clients of an arbitration commission, so will the acceptability of the Commission’s penal powers diminish and the area of its influence as a arbitral body contract. [More…]
The Prime Minister (Mr Whitlam), in his policy speech, said that the strength of multi-national corporations in the Australian economy requires strong unions as well as strong government. [More…]
He said that Labor would facilitate the amalgamation of trade unions. [More…]
They are: The removal of existing barriers to trade union amalgamation; the protection of organisations and their members from civil actions for tort in connection with industrial disputes; the removal of the Commission’s authority to ban strikes and the removal of all penal sanctions upon strikers; procedures to ensure that certain types of agreement are acceptable to members of organisations affected by them; provision for democratic control of unions and the fullest participation by union members in the affairs of their organisations; provision to enable action to be taken for the recovery of wages at law within a period of 6 years instead of the 12 months’ limitation that now applies; the removal of the various defects which have been shown to exist in the 1972 legislation; elimination of the power to award costs in proceedings before the courts, the Registrar or the Commission; and provision to overcome some of the problems created by the Moore v. Doyle case. [More…]
Both the Government and the people need the organised strength of the working people gathered together in strong, effective and responsible trade unions. [More…]
We plan, therefore, to encourage the amalgamation of trade unions. [More…]
Honourable members will be interested to recall figures supplied by the Commonwealth Statistician through the then Minister for Labour and National Service regarding the size of trade unions in Australia at the end of December 1970. [More…]
He reported that there were 305 separate trade unions in Australia. [More…]
Of the 305 unions, 152 had less than 1,000 members; another 96 had between 1,000 and 5,000 members; 34 between 5,000 and 20,000; 19 between 20,000 and 50,000; and only 14 with a membership of over 50,000. [More…]
In West Germany, with a population much larger than Australia - 61 million to be precise - there is a total of only 16 unions, one of which, the Metal Workers Union, has a total membership of 2,070,000. [More…]
Demarcation disputes concerned with protecting the revenue and membership of a union threatened with loss of coverage by encroachments of other unions are a common occurrence in this country. [More…]
Too much time is lost through disputes over which unions should handle a certain job. [More…]
The cost of libraries and research staff - essential for good quality industrial leadership - is frequently beyond the resources of small unions. [More…]
Even the cost of assembling the members and officials in conference is too much for some unions frequently to bear. [More…]
A strengthening of the resources of the working people in amalgamated trade unions which are possessed of strong, well-trained and well-equipped leaders will redress the present imbalance. [More…]
We are, therefore, wholly in favour of amalgamation of unions of the working people. [More…]
For instance, there are some 300 unions in Australia. [More…]
It could facilitate the functioning of the arbitration system and relations generally between employers and unions if this number of unions decreased. [More…]
I know of situations in which employers have sat across the table withno fewer than15 unions in relation to one issue. [More…]
However, the legislation subsequently introduced by him did not facilitate the amalgamation of trade unions. [More…]
The Democratic Labor Party used every device at its disposal to thwart the amalgamation of the metal trade unions. [More…]
The usefulness of the present provisions will be tested by the simple question - do they help or do they hinder the unification of the trade unions into more powerful institutions to represent and uphold the interests of the employees? [More…]
The Bill provides that the unions themselves will have the power to conduct amalgamation ballots. [More…]
Amalgamation ballots will be conducted by the Commonwealth when requested by the unions concerned. [More…]
The Bill amends section 5 of the Act to provide protection to officials, or members of unions against discriminatory action within the employer’s establishment where the official or member has merely upheld the industrial interests of the employees, so long as the action he takes is within the limits of the authority given to him by the organisation. [More…]
The Bill also provides protection for trade unions and their officials against actions for conspiracy or inducement of breach of contract founded on the events of an industrial dispute. [More…]
Pitt’s Combination Acts failed to suppress trade unions. [More…]
Altogether now, 6 cases have been taken in recent times which involved the use of civil proceedings to obtain damages against unions and union members involved in industrial actions. [More…]
In England, in 1800, trade unions were illegal. [More…]
Since that time trade unions in England, and later in Australia, have had to conduct a running battle with the courts and the legislature to emerge from that illegality into the same conditions of freedom enjoyed by the profit making corporations invented by businessmen. [More…]
Trade unions have consistently sought legal recognition of the fact that by the special nature of their social tasks they are not predators and enemies of society but rather that they are an essential instrument for the protection of the weak and the maintenance of some fair proportion in the distribution of wealth between capital and labour. [More…]
The trade unions have always argued that the role of the law should be to assist and not to hinder them in this work. [More…]
The struggle of the trade unions to overcome these legal handicaps culminated in 1875 in the Conspiracy and Protection of Property Act which provided that in contemplation of furtherance of a trade dispute, no combination to do, or procure, any act should itself be a criminal conspiracy sinless the act itself would be punishable as a crime. [More…]
Criminal liability was not, however, the only legal handicap suffered by the unions. [More…]
Unions were deemed not to exist under the civil law. [More…]
Their rules had no worth in the civil courts and doctrines relating to restraint of trade were used to harass the work of trade unions. [More…]
The immunity from actions for tort that was granted to British unions by the House of Commons in 1906, is now extended by this Bill to officials and members of Australian trade unions. [More…]
It is based upon the principles of the British Trade Disputes Act of 1906 which granted unions and union officials in that country exemption from tortious actions committed in furtherance of industrial disputes. [More…]
If unions wish to submit to the inclusion in an agreement of a bans clause they may do so, but that agreement cannot be certified by the Commission. [More…]
The fallacy of that claim is demonstrated by the fact that the previous Government saw the wisdom of not collecting the fines amounting to $20,700 which had been imposed upon unions under the penal provisions which existed prior to 1970. [More…]
On the other hand, the Government is concerned to see that where agreements are entered into, they do, in fact, represent the wishes of those members of the organisation, be they trade unions or employer organisations, who are affected by the agreement. [More…]
Participatory democracy will be an essential ingredient for the proper functioning of the amalgamated unions. [More…]
As unions become larger, and their governing bodies become more remote from the membership, it will be important to safeguard against the development of bureaucratic relations between the leadership and the rank and file. [More…]
This Government will encourage the elimination of tendencies that prejudice democratic control of trade unions by assisting rank and file members to bring their grievances over alleged defects in rules and in abuse of rules, to the Commonwealth Industrial Court for examination and, where called for, correction. [More…]
The platform of the Australian Labor Party calls upon the Government to ensure a system of democratic control of all unions, allowing fullest participation by members in their affairs. [More…]
Over recent months, there have been a number of disputes between 2 groups of transport workers in New South Wales concerning the legal status of transport workers belonging to the respective State and Federal Transport Workers Unions. [More…]
During such a period, members of the State trade unions became members of the New South Wales branch of the Federal organisation. [More…]
It is an irritation to most unions; an intractable problem for some. [More…]
The system as required to exist by State and Federal legislation and as it has evolved under that legislation in practice is technical, productive of artificialism and in urgent need of the attention of the law reformer … A system of trade union organisation is urgently needed which would enable the one body to represent its relevant members in both the Federal and State arbitration systems and it should be possible for federal and state authorities to examine the question whether organisations and trade unions can be provided with such a system … we have decided to refer our judgment in this matter and these remarks to the AttorneyGeneral for the Commonwealth in the hope that it may be possible, after consultation between the Commonwealth and State Attorneys-General, the trade unions both federal and state, and other interested government authorities to arrange for the important organisational matters to which we have referred. [More…]
It was held in that case that there were 2 separate unions. [More…]
The 2 unions were funded and administered for all practical purposes as if they were one. [More…]
Membership of the one did not entitle a person to vote in the elections of the other, although that had always been the practice of the 2 unions for nearly 60 years. [More…]
This is by no means the complete answer to the difficulties that have caused the current dispute among transport workers and it does not even touch difficulties affecting other unions. [More…]
I have explained that we will remove those provisions which discourage amalgamation of unions; that we will protect organisations and their members from civil actions for tort in connection with industrial disputes; that we will remove completely from the Act the power to prohibit strikes or enforce penal sanctions against strikes and that we will build the framework for more democratic control of unions. [More…]
The McMahon Government’s last set of amendments to this Act was preceded with a ritualistic and phoney series of meetings between employers and trade unions which were memorable only because the minutes of those meetings show that the then [More…]
Minister accepted virtually all of the employers’ requests and rejected virtually all of the unions requests. [More…]
A statement was made today about credit unions. [More…]
I would like to say something about credit unions later. [More…]
This is a philosophy which will disadvantage small unions and small employers, fixed income earners and pensioners - in fact, all those sections in the community which have no access to monopoly power. [More…]
It is a matter which commands the attention of the Minister for Labour because he knows that the Waterside Workers Federation has become a vehicle, along with certain other maritime unions, whereby minority elements within the trade union movement have sought to convert industrial power into political action. [More…]
In many instances strike action has been taken on a unilateral basis without the sanction of the Australian Council of Trade Unions or the Trades and Labour Councils. [More…]
The Minister who is in charge of the Bill and who has a responsibility on behalf of the Australian people, not simply on behalf of the unions that seek to exercise their total control over him and the conduct of his portfolio must, we believe, should speak out in this debate and let the Australian people know where he stands in relation to the agreements which have been made and those which are foreshadowed at the present time. [More…]
lt urged the shipowners’ representatives and employers of waterside labour to seek compulsory retirement of surplus employees, knowing that this would cause industrial trouble on the waterfront, would build another brick into the Government’s law and order campaign, would give another excuse to bash unions and also would lay the blame at the feet of those terrible ‘commos’ on the waterfront. [More…]
The Government was also in close consultation with the Australian Council of Trade Unions throughout the stoppage and as the honourable member will be aware the ACTU played a significant part in resolving the dispute. [More…]
But it is pointless to complain, for instance, of unions moving outside the established machinery for the price fixing of labour if one is not prepared to participate in schemes to examine the methods of price fixing for the employers of labour. [More…]
Too often the unions are blamed as the sole reason for a yard’s closure. [More…]
Certainly, the unions have not been blameless and must accept their share of the responsibility. [More…]
1 do not deny that there are problems in the industrial field in Queensland as far as the unions are concerned. [More…]
The system of trade apprenticeship places very heavy responsibilities on employers and the relevant trade unions. [More…]
It is most unfortunate that there is not more consultation and co-operation between a wider number of companies and trade unions on the subject of technical training. [More…]
He needs, and is entitled to receive, the full support of the employers and trade unions in this country in respect of all his efforts. [More…]
Some of the other members are associated with business and trade unions. [More…]
Before the last elections the present Prime Minister went and cringed to a communist mob in one of the trade unions in order to get money. [More…]
Trade Unions: Representations on Government-created Bodies (Question No. [More…]
Under Labor’s industrial policies, those who are suffering most are the pensioners, fixed income earners and those on superannuation benefits, whose assets are constantly eroded by the continuing escalation of prices, and the small unions and the small employers who do not possess monopoly power. [More…]
The lower paid, the defenceless and the handicapped, despite the declamation of the unions, have not been protected. [More…]
Furthermore, these arrangements accentuate the problem of earnings drift and introduce elements of inequity into the wage structure, by making it more favourable to workers in strong and militant unions and less favourable to those whose weaker bargaining position leaves them more dependent on arbitration. [More…]
Imperfect competition in many industries may enable unions and employers to combine to exploit their market power at the expense of other members of the community. [More…]
At this stage, even the Australian Council of Trade Unions has shown its dissatisfaction with the nature of the inquiry by its reluctance to participate. [More…]
The major terms of that legislation were brought before this House on 7th December 1971 following extensive consultation with unions and employers and widespread coverage in the Press, allowing the public to be informed and to make representations to the Government. [More…]
However, it is evident that public policy cannot be exclusively governmental and to be fully effective must carry the commitment of industrial organisations, notably trade unions and employers. [More…]
In simple terms, the Government is now proposing that the observance of awards on the part of unions and members of unions will rest solely on the good faith of unions and officials who cannot be called to account if they breach agreements into which they have freely entered. [More…]
This Bill seeks to provide unions with a carte blanche to engage in political strikes with no prospect of redress for those directly affected. [More…]
Unions want sanctions against employers who do not observe awards but are not prepared to accept penalties for their own breach of awards. [More…]
There are advantages in enforceable agreements for employers and unions. [More…]
The main advantage of having an enforceable freely negotiated agreement is that it gives more bargaining power to the unions. [More…]
This Bill prevents employers and unions from registering an enforceable agreement with the Commission even though both parties are in full accord with the terms of the agreement and the manner in which any breaches of the agreement are to be enforced. [More…]
The Opposition vehemently rejects the provisions of this Bill which confer civil immunity on trade unions members and their officials. [More…]
He based his alleged justification on what he called the ‘strike’; but it is clear that other actions by unions and their members which do not amount to strikes will be protected so that the persons harmed will be denied civil remedies. [More…]
When placed in the Australian context, the proposal amounts to giving to unions and to their members an almost completely open go in the actions which they can take to achieve industrial objectives. [More…]
It amounts to conferring upon unions and union members the ability to break contracts or agreements; to picket premises; to boycott employers and anyone engaged in business; to engage in conspiracies to prevent contracts being performed; to generally harm or interfere in a manner that is intended to injure another person’s trade, business or employment; and at the same time to suffer none of the ordinary civil consequences for such actions. [More…]
The immense power of the union movement - backed by the concept of the solidarity of all unions which the ACTU can promote - will ensure that in the so-called direct negotiations for agreements the union movement will be allpowerful and subject to no restraint. [More…]
The Bill contains several provisions to facilitate the amalgamation of trade unions. [More…]
The amalgamation of unions and of employer organisations is a characteristic of industrialised society in the western world. [More…]
But we believe that the general community has reasons for considerable concern about the amalgamation of trade unions. [More…]
Amalgamation concentrates major power in the hands of a few officials and there are a number of officials in Australia today who are clearly using their office for political objectives, as is the case with the major left wing trade unions. [More…]
The resultant numerical and financial power of giant unions may become too great for employer organisations, the ACTU or even the Government to deal with effectively. [More…]
The effects could be of vital national importance where the unions concerned have members in critical sectors of the economy. [More…]
Yet this Bill clearly foreshadows a considerable increase in the monopoly and coercive power of the labour unions. [More…]
The Minister adverted to the fact that, at the end of December 1970, there were 305 separate trade unions in Australia. [More…]
However, his figures ignore the fact that approximately 65 per cent of unionists are members of 21 trade unions. [More…]
In addition, it is demonstrable that the current drive towards amalgamation is not directed at absorbing the small and inefficient unions but rather towards the bringing together of large and medium sized unions to a more concentrated body. [More…]
We believe that this is entirely contrary to the Minister’s public posture that unions should be democratically controlled and that rank and file members should be provided with the maximum opportunity to express their views. [More…]
This proposal is consistent with the Government’s jaundiced approach in respect of law enforcement where unions are involved - but not, of course, in relation to employers. [More…]
This proposal must be examined with the Bill’s intention to require that a commissioner, before certifying an agreement, must have produced to him a statutory declaration by an officer of each union affected declaring that the committee of management has approved of its terms and is of the opinion, after consulting with the members of the unions, that the terms are acceptable to a majority of the members. [More…]
The Minister justified this proposal in terms of the preservation of democratic participation in the affairs of unions. [More…]
The Opposition believes that there are 4 possible solutions: The enlargement of Commonwealth power to legislate for terms and conditions of employment in industry and for trade unions; the transfer of certain powers to the Commonwealth by the States without referendum; complementary State and Federal legislation; or the encouragement of unions to go through the procedures required by law for the dissolution of State unions and the formation of State branches of federal unions. [More…]
In fact, the President of the Conciliation and Arbitration Commission, in his 8th, 9th and 10th annual reports, emphasised the value of Part X and urged employers and unions to make wider use of it for the prevention and settlement of industrial disputes - especially in respect of over award payments. [More…]
Secondly, the employee has far more resources, and his unions are bigger and stronger. [More…]
He is not serious because in instances where unions were fined he did not collect the fines. [More…]
The removal of the penal provisions will place a far greater obligation on unions and employees to honour agreements which are made. [More…]
It was amongst the earliest in the world to organise trade unions. [More…]
Trade unions in Australia have always been relatively free. [More…]
We are concerned about the loss to the economy of the nation caused by the failure of industrial arbitration to solve the problems of the dominance of the left wing unions in our current industrial scene. [More…]
They are not designed to protect a system which has been proved adequate for the negotiation of changes in the terms and conditions of salaries and wages over the years but are designed to introduce a new system, a system of collective bargaining without the capacity for any enforcement of any contractual obligations which unions or officials on behalf of unions might enter into. [More…]
I find it quite fascinating to see Mr Bob Hawke in his newfound role in the Australian Council of Trade Unions. [More…]
We believe there is no justification for the removal of the sanctions provisions or for the civil immunity which is to be accorded to trade union officials and to members of trade unions. [More…]
I refer first to the aim of simpler amalgamation of unions and second to the provisions of the Bill dealing with the abolition of the penal sections of the Conciliation and Arbitration Act. [More…]
That amalgamation of unions is to be made earlier will be of great benefit not only to trade unions but also to society generally. [More…]
It is certainly important to the trade unions because, by being able to amalgamate into larger union bodies, they can operate much more efficiently and effectively than as a group of small unions. [More…]
Where unions have amalgamated it has been notable that they have established research facilities. [More…]
Amalgamation has enabled unions to establish effective research sections which, in turn have enabled them to operate much more effectively for their members. [More…]
I do not wish to list all the advantages gained by unions through amalgamation, but it is clear that the greater size of union bodies makes them more efficient in their operations. [More…]
Society as a whole also has a vested interest in larger unions because of the obvious likelihood of reductions in the numbers of demarcation disputes. [More…]
The aim of the Australian Council of Trade Unions is to establish industrial unions. [More…]
Where industrial unions have been established in other countries there has been a marked reduction in demarcation disputes. [More…]
The author explains that in West Germany one of the reasons for the tremendously high productivity there is the small number of unions. [More…]
There are 16 industrial unions who organise 7 million workers on the principle of one plant - one union only, so demarcation disputes which are frequent in England for instance are completely unknown in Germany. [More…]
By enabling simpler amalgamation of unions this measure will help in the establishment of industrial unionism. [More…]
In that period 788 fines totalling $280,210 were imposed on trade unions. [More…]
Of course, it is obvious that once enormous sums like this are imposed on trade unions there must come about not the settlement of industrial disputes but the exacerbation of industrial disputation. [More…]
If we keep fining unions heavily we do not settle industrial disputes. [More…]
We do not establish greater rapport between unions and employers; we just divide them into warring parties. [More…]
In 1964 a big dispute developed and the unions went on strike for the best part of a month for a S6 increase in pay. [More…]
As a result of that strike the unions were fined $19,000, and when they finally agreed to go to arbitration there were potential fines of some $30,000 hanging over their heads. [More…]
Nevertheless, the unions had been fined $19,000. [More…]
But despite this fact the Industrial Court has imposed heavy fines on unions. [More…]
It involved the Melbourne and Metropolitan Tramways Board which tried to introduce one-man buses on certain routes in Melbourne and refused to negotiate with the unions about the matter. [More…]
The unions asked the Commission to put in the award a clause which would require the Melbourne and Metropolitan Tramways Board to negotiate with the unions on this matter. [More…]
The Tramways Board went to the High Court 4 times to try to stop the Commissioner inserting such a clause in the award because it said that this was a management prerogative and that the unions just had to cop it. [More…]
There is a fourth reason, which is a general conceptual one and which has certainly been used by the trade unions and members of the Labor Party in the past to justify arguments for the abolition of the contempt of court procedures. [More…]
This is the general conceptual point that whilst the trade unions are obliged to accept decisions of the Arbitration Commission and the employers must pay the rates awarded by the Commission the employers can, in effect, evade their obligations in this regard by raising their prices. [More…]
It is hypocritical for employers and members of the Opposition to say that unions have an obligation to accept decisions of the Commissioner relating to wages when employers are free to raise their prices. [More…]
But certainly it is true that so long as employers can use a wage increase granted by an arbitrator as a basis for justifying increases in prices, there is no justification for having penal clauses in the Conciliation and Arbitration Act to punish striking unions. [More…]
The Deputy Leader of the Opposition (Mr Lynch) said that other countries have sanctions applying to unions. [More…]
Eighthly, fining unions instead of workers may destroy unions as effective organisations; yet the existence of strong partners in negotiations is recognised by employers as a prerequisite of successful industrial relations. [More…]
One other factor to which I have time to refer quickly is the proposed protection of unions from actions for tort. [More…]
I mention only that in 1968 the British Royal Commission into trade unions brought down its report in which it found that the system which had operated from 1906 until 1968 in that regard should continue. [More…]
lt had been argued by the employers that that should not be the case, that unions should be capable of being sued for actions for tort. [More…]
Every member of this House will remember that, prior to the elections, the then Leader of the Opposition met the members of the executive of the metal trades union and agreed with them that, if there were a $25,000 grant to the compaign funds of the Australian Labor Party, he would ensure that fines would not be imposed on the unions and that the bans clause in the Act would be abolished - in other words, to some extent reducing the effectiveness of the Commonwealth Industrial Court and the Arbitration Commission. [More…]
However, I have to go further and say that because of his continued hostility to arbitration, the present Minister for Labour is being ever so much more drastic than we would have contemplated from our knowledge of what occurred at the meeting between the Prime Minister (Mr Whitlam) and the executive of the metal trades unions concerned. [More…]
That supports what I have said, namely, that the trade unions are now put in an ever so much stronger position than before. [More…]
The balance of strength as between the trade unions, the employers, the Government and the Arbitration Commission is changed so seriously that no longer can one think that influences other than the predominance of trade union power can play an important part in ensuring the public interest in the way in which the former governments since the time of Sir Robert Menzies have incorporated this concept in the Act; in other words, to further the objectives of inducing co-operation between unions and employers and trying to engender a far better feeling throughout the whole complex of industrial relations and to establish the Arbitration Commission as a body that can respect the public interest, bring the parties together and bring about an award that we all hope will be for the benefit of the country rather than for the destruction of arbitration itself. [More…]
The Bill puts the employer in a hopeless bargaining position by comparison with the employee and the Left Wing trade unions. [More…]
Running right through all the comments that they made to this House was one theme only, a theme which they had used over the years, namely to bash the unions in order to attain what they call industrial stability in this country. [More…]
It would be ‘ultimate in idiocy’ for employers and the Government to ‘go to war’ with the trade unions…… [More…]
The Opposition’s point of view is that in order to maintain what Opposition supporters have called industrial stability and industrial peace it is necessary to have penal sanctions against the trade unions. [More…]
The Opposition believes that when the trade unions step out of line they should be penalised. [More…]
In other words, the only bad boys in the whole matter are the trade unions. [More…]
So we have an expression of opinion by many members of the community - I must say unrepresentative members of the community - that the unions must be wrong on all occasions. [More…]
There can be no question about the need for trade unions in the community. [More…]
These generally come under the heading of trade unions. [More…]
I could give the example of the waterfront where there has been industrial peace in regard to all of the stevedoring agreements around Australia since the trade unions in that area have entered into agreements with employers rather than being thrust into the position where a third party would inflict its will upon them. [More…]
The Metal Trades Union, which comes under most attack from members of the Opposition, has had far less warfare since there has been agreement in the trade unions than was the case when the situation was thrust upon them by arbitration. [More…]
I say to the people of Australia that it is not a fair situation and that the officials and members of unions should be protected from the second barrel of the employer’s gun. [More…]
The previous Government made it very difficult for trade unions to amalgamate. [More…]
They were afraid of the trade unions becoming large enough to challenge the interests of the employing class. [More…]
The whole attitude of the Australian Labor Party, especially in government but also out of government, is that the trade unions should be encouraged to amalgamate so that many questions that can arise on a job - questions of disputation over who does which job - will not arise because the people concerned are members of the same union. [More…]
No-one on this side of the House denies the need for trade unions in Australia, nor does anyone on this side of the House deny the right of working men and women to organise themselves into trade unions. [More…]
I cannot claim to be a member of a trade union but I have had a long association with trade unions and I am grateful to those trade unions in Western Australia which have shown their confidence in me because whilst they have known what my politics are they have given me plenty of work to do for them. [More…]
In truth, it is only the expression of the Australian Council of Trade Unions wages policy, and that is something to which J will return later. [More…]
This Bill is aimed at leaving unions uncontrolled and uncontrollable by law or government at every point in the process of conciliation and arbitration. [More…]
The result of this Bill must be for the trade union movement to move further and further away from both conciliation and arbitration - certainly by those major unions formed by amalgamation. [More…]
Negotiated agreements cannot contain an anti-strike clause, so unions are free to overturn an agreement at any time. [More…]
At the same time, unions are given immunity from civil action. [More…]
It is ironic that at a time when the United Kingdom has just repealed laws passed in 1906 giving civil immunity to unions, the Minister is aiming to introduce those same laws into Australia. [More…]
An individual or employer economically hurt by calculated industrial attacks launched by unions intending to harm or destroy by strike, boycott, picketing and sundry other sophisticated techniques of industrial coercion, is to be prevented from suing for compensation in a civil court. [More…]
This is what this Bill aims at giving to unions for not even the Government, acting in the public interest, is to be allowed any right to control unions when they use their industrial strength. [More…]
Wage fixation principles, so reliably turned to in the past by unions, employers and the Commission have been fragmented and eroded. [More…]
The Minister’s proposals will not help because they try to graft full-blooded collective bargaining on to a system made for compulsory arbitration within which unions and employers were bound to accept a measure of control, and self-control, in return for the benefits which arbitration was intended to bring. [More…]
If Australia is to have collective bargaining, let the legislation plainly and unmistakably spell it out, together with the rights, obligations and privileges of the participants and the protection for the public from the monopoly power of unions and of employers. [More…]
The past history of the Australian arbitration system can be seen as an expression of an acceptable wages policy for unions, employers and Government. [More…]
This Bill, on the other hand, can be seen to be the implementation of the wages policy of the Australian Council of Trade Unions, a policy designed to shift union action from achieving its wage claims inside the confines of the arbitration system to breaking those confines and moving outside arbitration. [More…]
I was thankful to hear the honourable member for Gellibrand (Mr Willis) refer to the General Motors-Holden’s case in 1964 and confirm my own conclusions for me, because he put it clearly, in what he referred to as a non-arbitral area of over-award claims, that when the unions went on strike in support of their over-award claims they opposed the attempt by employers to have the penal powers exercised against them. [More…]
It also interested me to hear him say this because I had the unique experience in 1969 of presenting a pay claim for the metal trades unions in Western Australia based on the capacity of Western Mining Corporation to pay an industry allowance, being in effect the same as an over-award payment. [More…]
Congress calls upon the ACTU Executive to consult with State Branches, ACSPA and CCPSO in order to develop a strong campaign by the whole of the Trade Union Movement in support of our wages policy, and in particular to combat the utterly false propaganda of Federal Government spokesmen and employer interests that the Unions’ claims for proper wage rates are inflationary. [More…]
For the purpose of conducting this campaign Congress requests affiliated unions to make their research facilities available to the ACTU and would welcome the co-operation of the entire research and campaigning facilities of affiliated unions. [More…]
That a pamphlet on wages/prices be prepared and circulated to the affiliated unions. [More…]
This policy decision was a calculated turning away from the arbitration system at the top end of wages, leaving the Commission to fix a minimum wage and unions free to bargain in the market place for anything above that. [More…]
Inevitably this debate will lead this Government to a confrontation with the unions because, whatever else an incomes policy might be, it necessarily involves control over wages. [More…]
For 65 years, history shows the Arbitration Commission and the State industrial tribunals have been a stabilising influence on the economy, for in the process of preventing and settling disputes the Commission, by arbitration, shaped a wages policy for the nation, fought over but accepted broadly by unions and employers alike. [More…]
That is basically what industrial arbitration is about - the fixing of wages and basic conditions of employment like annual leave, standard hours of work, concepts like the basic wage, margins, work value, comparative wage justice and conciliation, all principles turned to by unions, employers and arbitrators. [More…]
The complete immunity of unions from strike action, either within the arbitration system or within the civil courts, marks the completion of the change. [More…]
Of necessity the policy will need to control wages, and of further necessity will require some control over the right of trade unions to strike. [More…]
As the Minister for Labour stated in his second reading speech, the Bill examines the need of trade unions and employer organisations for amalgamation, trade union education and closer consultation between unions, employers and the Government. [More…]
Another important aim of the Bill relates to the amalgamation of unions. [More…]
Last year we saw efforts to stop the amalgamation of the metal unions, something the unions involved had been working towards for years. [More…]
As a member of one of the amalgamated metal unions I have personal knowledge of the discussions to achieve amalgamation that took place over many years, not only between the officials of the unions involved but also right down to the level of the member on the shop floor. [More…]
Those who voted in the ballot on the amalgamations were overwhelmingly in support of what was proposed, namely, the amalgamation of the 3 metal unions. [More…]
But after many years of negotiation between the unions involved, legal moves were made to throw a spanner in the works - moves that were supported by the honourable members opposite and their allies in the Senate. [More…]
Fortunately the legal moves failed and the amalgamation of those unions came about. [More…]
At the present time a number of proposed amalgamations of unions are being discussed. [More…]
The alterations proposed in this Bill will pave the way for those amalgamations should the unions still wish to amalgamate. [More…]
When one considers that there are about 350 industrial organisations of employees throughout Australia and that some of those organisations have memberships that can be numbered in the hundreds, there is no doubt that there is certainly a need for a reduction in the number of unions. [More…]
No doubt those who believe in the divide and rule principle will support a situation in which there is a large number of unions with small memberships. [More…]
But if we are seriously to consider our industrial relations a strong case exists for reducing the number of unions covering workers throughout Australia. [More…]
But as the honourable member for Gellibrand (Mr Willis) mentioned in his speech, in other countries many fewer unions than there are in Australia cover work forces much larger than ours. [More…]
His special reference, of course, was to West Germany where, I think he said, the number of industrial unions is 16. [More…]
My own experience as a member of one of the amalgamated metal unions showed me the wastefulness of unions fighting unions over which has jurisdiction over a certain class of work. [More…]
Most of these disputes finished up with hard feelings existing between the unions involved. [More…]
The problem of demarcation disputes in the metal industry became a thing of the past following the amalgamation of those unions. [More…]
Mention was made also by the honourable member for Gellibrand of union research and the greater use of unions resources in setting up research centres etc. [More…]
The existing combined research centre operating in Sydney was set up by a couple of unions of the amalgamated trade unions prior to their amalgamation and certainly is an example of what can be achieved when union resources are pooled for the benefit of the members of those unions. [More…]
This is in line with the aims of the Australian Labor Party which has included in its platform provisions to ensure that unions in Australia are subject to the control of their members and allows the member the fullest participation in the affairs of his organisation. [More…]
In contrast to this, in the same provision which the Minister for Labour proposes, if the commissioner is in some doubt as to whether the members of the unions are in favour of the agreement he can approach the Registrar and secure a ballot. [More…]
Not one piece of that legislation sought to confer civil immunity on trade unions. [More…]
Despite pressure applied to the industry by Mr McMahon not to enter meaningful negotiations with the unions over the Federal oil industry agreement, the companies had capitulated. [More…]
In fact, whilst in government the Opposition, merely as a means of endeavouring to bring about some confrontation with the trade unions and hoping to gain electoral support, apparently was prepared to bring about a situation in which industrial unrest was encouraged. [More…]
It has been suggested that people on award wages will be at a distinct disadvantage when compared to workers whose unions are able to negotiate with employers for over-award payments. [More…]
I have listened to honourable members opposite speaking on this Bill and have heard them say mat they are concerned at the power to be given to trade unions, that the Government Bill ignores the effects of industrial unrest and seeks to give unions carte blanche to become involved in industrial disputes and that no decision could be effective unless it is enforceable. [More…]
1 refer now to the amalgamation of unions. [More…]
An honourable member opposite - I think it was the Deputy Leader of the Opposition (Mr Lynch) - mentioned earlier that two out of 1,000 members of a union could bring about a situation where amalgamation of unions could result. [More…]
Judging from the opinions so far expressed in this debate by Opposition speakers, there is a hatred of trade unions. [More…]
On the question of amalgamation, contrary to the claims by Opposition speakers, fewer unions will mean fewer disputes, better understanding and a higher standard of union management. [More…]
Surely a better system will develop with fewer unions being responsible for award matters. [More…]
The present Government’s intention to facilitate union amalgamations shows a desire to permit unions whose members seek amalgamation to make a decision and thereby to run their own affairs. [More…]
I repeat that fewer unions and a higher standard of representation of unionists will result in better industrial relations in this country. [More…]
As a former trade union official, I know that penalties imposed on unions do nothing to prevent disputes. [More…]
It is claimed by honourable members opposite that we know nothing about conciliation and arbitration or about unions. [More…]
It was suggested by this Government when its members were in opposition that if they were to hold the reins of government they would be in a better position to understand the unions, that they would be in a better position to avoid strikes and that, therefore, there would be greater harmony in the work force in Australia. [More…]
The Government in this legislation has introduced measures concerning the amalgamation of various unions. [More…]
The legislation now before the Parliament indicates to me that amalgamation of unions will be able to take place with very little interest being taken by the members themselves. [More…]
I also appreciate that any major change involving the amalgamation of unions should take place on a more democratic basis than is proposed under the Bill that we are considering. [More…]
I do not believe the proposal that an amalgamation can take place with a majority of those voting - which could be very few indeed in the case of some unions - is in the best interests of the union movement. [More…]
No [ doubt there are far too many unions in Australia Iia at the moment - I think that in all there are more than 300 unions - but I do not believe that this piece of legislation now before the House is the right way to achieve amalgamations in relation to those unions. [More…]
Even the trade unions will not support the Government if it stands by and not only allows the inflationary pressures to rise but also contributes to them by such actions as arguing in the Commonwealth Conciliation and Arbitration Commission that there should be an $11.50 flat rise. [More…]
Indeed, Mr Jolly, the Australian Council of Trade Unions advocate, said that he thought the rise should be about $5. [More…]
The fact that it disadvantages the workforce in a community - fellow workers - and that it makes life intolerable for those people who rely on electricity, transport, power or bread and children who enjoy drinks and ice cream, matters not when a political strike is called for the trade unions’ purposes. [More…]
This Bill builds up the strength of unions. [More…]
But it dare not do so because the base of the Labor Party’s political support lies in the trade unions and the trade unions are totally unwilling to accept that wage increases increase costs and that costs increase prices. [More…]
The unions will not permit the Labor Party to take action on this matter. [More…]
They surely could not have been prepared to have legislation introduced in the House which would put the unions in such a privileged position. [More…]
The Government talks about socialist philosophy, about a classless society, but by this legislation they are creating a class society in which the dominant class comprises the officials of powerful trade unions. [More…]
The unions’ views will be the dominant views of this Government - and by this legislation the Government will strengthen the unions. [More…]
I am not talking about small unions but about the powerful agglomerations of unions that the Government wants to see become even more powerful in amalgamation. [More…]
Trade unions today - when I use the term ‘trade unions’ I [More…]
What is really meant is the absence of any penalties, but the absence of penalties, of course, is related entirely to the absence of penalties on unions. [More…]
In future the unions will be able to do exactly as they wish. [More…]
When a strike occurs those concerned are not just the employers and the unions. [More…]
Yet only a matter of a year or 2 ago the Minister for Labour and the Australian Council of Trade Unions were saying that sanctions were all right provided they were agreed upon between the parties and that the agreement could then be. [More…]
In conjunction with the abolition of sanctions, it will grant to the unions and union officers positions of privilege not enjoyed by other sections of the community. [More…]
The third point about which I wish to speak concerns the amalgamations of unions. [More…]
Under the present law, before unions can amalgamate there must be a ballot. [More…]
This is not really a fair go for the Australian people, who are very greatly affected by what happens in amalgamations of unions, the putting together of very powerful groups in the community. [More…]
I understand that there are just over 300 unions in Australia today. [More…]
There are a number of people who say that amalgamations would be a good thing because there would be fewer unions to deal with but the amalgamations of which we are speaking are not the amalgamations of the small unions to make them more efficient and to take away the need to negotiate with several unions. [More…]
It is not the small unions that are affected by the amalgamation clause. [More…]
There is in fact very little impetus for small unions to amalgamate. [More…]
The major force for amalgamation is in the big and powerful unions. [More…]
There is a great deal of talk about a proposed amalgamation of unions in the transport complex. [More…]
I believe that to take away any statutory provision relating to amalgamation is simply to turn over to the powerful officials at the top of the trade unions a tremendous accretion to their power. [More…]
That is what will happen in the future because he will be confronted with even greater unions power. [More…]
Unions and employers have a moral obligation to abide by their agreements and I can see no reason why parties acting in good faith will object to agreements becoming legally enforceable. [More…]
How is that now to be possible with the provisions in this Bill relating to putting officials and unions above the law in respect of torts? [More…]
The most frequent complaint I receive from my constituents who are businessmen or who are running businesses is that when they negotiate with the unions, they reach an agreement today and it is broken tomorrow. [More…]
Yet as a member of the Australian Labor Party he is perennially dedicated to the proposition that the unions are above the law and that the unions should make the law. [More…]
On the one hand the power of shop stewards is to be exalted and this will make for disruption in a sense directed against the central powers of their own unions. [More…]
On the other hand, the unions as a whole are to be put above the law and are to be made free of any responsibility for what they do. [More…]
This division of purposes probably illustrates the influences of people in the unions who are out not to help the members of their own unions but to cause disruption as a settled policy. [More…]
The unions under our present system, and even more so under the proposals before us, have become law making bodies. [More…]
The first purpose should be to protect individual members of trade unions against terror and victimisation by some kind of kangaroo court in their own unions. [More…]
Any parliament should have the desire to protect members of trade unions against that kind of tyranny and abuse. [More…]
In point of fact, they may disapprove of the announced political actions of their own unions. [More…]
I believe that we have to try to protect not only the whole community but also members of trade unions against that kind of abuse of power. [More…]
It seemed to me it would be a waste of time for unions to be arguing the principles enunciated in ILO Convention No. [More…]
I believe that the Act we are considering, if strictly adhered to, will prevent a lot of demarcation disputes and a lot of membership disputes between unions. [More…]
Apart from the honourable gentleman’s speciality in being associated with one trade union I have probably had far more to do with the trade union movement than has the honourable member who interjects, and I can assure him that this has been not with tame cat unions. [More…]
The honourable member assured the Committee that he knew quite a deal about trade unions and their operations. [More…]
This Bill is merely to give effect to what employers organisations and companies, trade union organisations, trade unions and members of the Arbitration Commission have found to be a very convenient and very useful method of performing the work of settling disputes. [More…]
Not all employers and not all the trade unions want it, but a significant number want it. [More…]
What used to happen subsequently was that employers would use that procedure as a fishing expedition to amass sufficient evidence to take unions before the industrial court. [More…]
He examined what was, in fact, the real difficulty between the 2 parties, and that was a series of about 22 complaints of all the unions against the company involved. [More…]
Later, somewhere in the middle of June of 1971, a very cosy agreement was made between trade unions and manufacturers, particularly the manufacturers in the metal trades industry. [More…]
I invite Government supporters to address themselves to this problem because it poses considerable difficulty for the entire area of the Australian Council of Trade Unions. [More…]
The Deputy Leader of the Opposition (Mr Lynch) expressed concern for the threat to the leadership of the Australian Council of Trade Unions. [More…]
I speak from personal experience in this area as one who has been a shop steward and never a threat to the leadership of the Australian Council of Trade Unions, as one who has never been under the control of communists and as one who has always tried to do a good and honest job on the factory floor on behalf of the fellows who did me the honour of electing me. [More…]
Mention also was made of the fact that the shop stewards movement took action in the Latrobe Valley that was not in conformity with the rules of their organisation and which in fact brought into question the authority of the Australian Council of Trade Unions. [More…]
Unions are responsible bodies of people and if people step out of line and do not act in accordance with the rules of unions, the unions will certainly deal with them. [More…]
What is in fact happening here is that legitimate protection is being given for properly and duly elected officers of unions. [More…]
It does not protect individuals who step out of the bounds of the rules of unions which were set out when the union concerned was first formed. [More…]
The right honourable member for Lowe (Mr McMahon) spoke about great difficulties being experienced in Britain, and he attributed those difficulties to the unions in Britain. [More…]
It seems that the trade unions have resented the oppressiveness of the Conservative Government in Britain and quite naturally have reacted against that oppression. [More…]
The lesson to be learned in Australia is that the oppression of trade unions will bring about exactly that sort of situation. [More…]
They can only act within the limits of authority expressly or impliedly conferred on them by their unions. [More…]
This diametrically cuts across the fundamental basis upon which unions are registered, and authority is granted to a committee of management to stand in the place of the members when an agreement is entered into or when an application is made to the Commission for an award. [More…]
This can be and is an eroding and weakening of the authority of official management of unions. [More…]
lt is not good enough to say that in respect of the negotiation of agreements the unions’ chief officers or their management committees stand in the shoes of the membership. [More…]
Unions are finding difficulty in some industries in having the men maintain the agreements. [More…]
However, unions sometimes do not anticipate this sort of exigency and therefore there may be something to be said for the proposal. [More…]
In simple terms, the Government now is proposing that the observance of awards on the part of unions and members of unions in the future will rest, should this legislation be passed - I would not, of course, predict that for one moment - solely on the good faith of unions and officials who cannot be called to account if they breach agreements into which they have freely entered. [More…]
This is because under the proposals brought down by the new Government, the trade unions will be able to strike with impunity against awards of the Conciliation and Arbitration Commission. [More…]
If we also take into account the proposal, which I do not debate here, to confer civil immunity in certain circumstances on trade unions and their members, we have a situation in which there no longer will be any sense of restraint upon the principal parties, particularly the trade unions, having regard to the very potent nature of the power that they wield at present. [More…]
This debate provides the Minister with a unique opportunity not to act as a captive to the force of trade unions outside the House and to tell us, in a spirit of complete candour and frankness, what is his real view about the need for a form of enforcement in the industrial area. [More…]
It is a policy that has been repudiated completely simply because of the pressures which have been brought to bear outside of the Caucus room by the officers of the Australian Council of Trade Unions and some of the more militant trade unions. [More…]
Because of the tremendous power that trade unions wield in the community, they cannot be allowed to strike with impunity in the conciliation and arbitration area or, indeed, in the civil jurisdiction because the public interest is very much at stake. [More…]
I believe that the increase has taken place against a realisation by the trade union movement that now it has in power a government prepared to support its strike activity and which, in respect of the enforcement of awards, will take no effective action against the unions but certainly will take strong action against the employers. [More…]
Pitt’s Combination Act failed to suppress trade unions. [More…]
He is not entitled to strike benefits from his union because there are very few unions in Australia today with sufficient funds to afford to pay strike pay. [More…]
The main cause today of industrial disputes is failure to consult - management standing on the so-called sacred rights of managerial prerogatives and saying that the worker is nothing but a servant, that the manager is the master, that the old 18th century relationship between master and servant still survives and that no spiritual, temporal or any other power of the Parliament, unions or anybody else should interfere with this long-established but longoutmoded so-called right of managerial prerogatives. [More…]
They related to the operation of the law of torts as it applies to members of unions and to the privileged position in which it puts trade unionists who state that they are acting in the interests of the union either on the factory floor or in any other place. [More…]
In the minute and a half remaining to me I want to point out that we know that today the power of the trade unions is infinitely greater than the powers of management. [More…]
Fitzgibbon and not to Mr Healy - and having introduced his far-reaching and repressive legislation in 196S, he then agreed to a request of the executive of the Australian Council of Trade Unions, of which I was a member, to establish a conference between the warring parties to try, by conciliation, to resolve what appeared to be the interminable disputes in the stevedoring industry. [More…]
Whether we go back in history to the methods used to transport recalcitrant workers to the colonies - and this did not prevent strikes or the organisation of trade unions; whether we look at the steps taken in Nazi Germany to send such strikers and workers to the concentration camps; whether we look at the tactics in eastern Europe where strikers were slaughtered with the guns and tanks of the Soviet Army; or whether we look at these miserable, contemptible and harsh penalties which have been divised through this legislation, none has ever resolved an industrial dispute. [More…]
Employees who have refused to offer for work or employees who have sought to leave their employment have been held to be on strike and their unions have been fined. [More…]
No longer are the unions in a defensive position as they could have been considered to be then; they are now in an offensive position, and there is overwhelming contemporary evidence to show that on occasions they are willing and ready to abuse the balance of power they now hold. [More…]
I am sure that if the Minister really wants fair elections in unions this provision will commend itself to him. [More…]
Clause 55, which is included in this group of clauses, provides for the insertion of a new section 146a which is intended to grant what has been briefly described as civil immunity to unions and to union officials from any harm that is done to other persons by industrial action, except in certain specific cases mentioned in the section, namely, death or physical injury, physical damage to property or threats of that kind, or defamation. [More…]
This is something about which I spoke at the second reading stage but clearly it is tied in with the intention of the Government to give unions immunity not only from civil action but also from any penalty in the face of strikes, whether they be strikes against awards or strikes against agreements. [More…]
It is easy for the Minister to say: ‘Why should unions be subject to any civil action when they have and ought to have a right to strike?’ [More…]
But we are in the 20th century and we have come a long way since the battles were fought for the right of workers to organise into trade unions. [More…]
Everybody recognises and acknowledges the rights of employees and the rights of unions. [More…]
But why should unions, their officials and their members be placed in any different situation from other members of the community when by their deliberate, calculated conduct intended to harm a person, that person is injured? [More…]
These provisions, no doubt, are designed to avoid, for example, the situation in which unions found themselves in the United King- dom where a union sought to deprive a man of his employment because he would not join that union. [More…]
The Minister for Labour is seeking in effect to introduce the provisions of early United Kingdom legislation which protected unions from conspiracy and other tortious acts done in furtherance of industrial action. [More…]
To say this is not to condemn unions. [More…]
What this clause proposes is to prevent the replacement of monetary penalties upon a union with a law that allows individual penalties of imprisonment upon officials of unions because the simple process - to follow the interjection of the honourable member for Stirling who knows the law so well - is to make an application for an injunction, having first of all established liability for torts, and then if the person does not refrain from the action which the injunction seeks to restrain him from continuing he is arrested and taken to prison. [More…]
The only thing that unions can do in these circumstances is to have somebody take the place of the man who is gaoled and for him to give the instruction for the boycott to continue, and as each person who gives the fresh instruction is prosecuted, tried, issued with an injunction and gaoled, somebody else will take his place until the gaols are full of honest, decent hard working men who have never committed a crime in their lives but who find themselves standing side by side with murderers, common thieves, pickpockets and prostitutes. [More…]
As I have pointed out the effectiveness of the organised working people to protect and advance their conditions of life is based to a significant degree on the power of their unions to organise a withdrawal of labour as the last resort. [More…]
But it is a bad thing for the unions. [More…]
These are the features from which the Minister for Labour is seeking to exempt the unions, so as to give them a completely free hand. [More…]
An employer will be left absolutely helpless at the mercy of some irresponsible unions. [More…]
This is the sort of reason that is being advanced as to why the unions must be allowed to have a completely free hand - must be free from any sanction being imposed by way of a bans clause in an award, free of any clause in a voluntary agreement which would enable the employer to hold them to their agreement and freed completely from any tortious liability in the pursuit of their activities. [More…]
For instance: ‘Hawke again scorns Cameron plan’; ‘Cameron quit call’; Stand by ALP or be destroyed, unions told’; Cameron’s new move on penalties - Unwilling to lie down, the Shadow Labour Minister Mr Clyde Cameron is continuing to press for the inclusion of some penalties for breaches of agreement made under Labor’s proposed conciliation system’; and ‘Whitlam booed over strikes’. [More…]
He has brought in a Bill which, as I said, is contrary to so many of his previously expressed ideas and which at the same time veers always in the direction that the left wing or - to use the word which is the appropriate word - the communists, who control so many of the trade unions, want him to go. [More…]
Members of the Panel comprise representatives from industry, trade unions, consumers and the Department of Secondary Industry bringing together the collective experience, knowledge and ideas of a wide cross section of the community. [More…]
Has the Minister written to the Australian Council of Trade Unions for its opinion? [More…]
Will the Minister assure the House that he will stand by his announced commitment to ensure a system of democratic control of all unions allowing fullest participation by members in their affairs? [More…]
It is true that out of 250 unions registered under the Conciliation and Arbitration Act I have received telegrams from 35 of the 41 officials who intend to send telegrams to me. [More…]
Elections can be asked for, which will cost the unions nothing, but I dare say that part of the opposition to the collegiate system will disappear when the position is understood. [More…]
I have not written to the Australian Council of Trade Unions but I have kept in touch with the ACTU for several weeks. [More…]
Some of them are from unions that are not even affiliated with the Australian Labor Party, but that does not matter. [More…]
Has the Minister seen the report attributed to the President of the Federation of Australian Commercial Broadcasters in which he stated that ‘increased interest in radio by government, trade unions and other groups was damaging their industry’? [More…]
We are taking very seriously the views of unions which point out the possible dangers of fallout from French atomic tests to unborn Australian children - a danger by radiation. [More…]
It is one of the possibilities which has caused the International Confederation of Free Trade Unions to organise a world boycott of France. [More…]
The Authority will consist of 5 persons: a part-time Chairman; 3 parttime members, one of whom would represent the trade unions and another will be, exofficio, the Secretary of my Department; and a full-time executive member. [More…]
In this regard I believe that the Authority should have avails able to it the widest panels of advisory groups, including trade unions. [More…]
It seems logical to me in the case of Campbelltown and Camden - which is, in American terms, either a free new town or possibly an old town expanded - that there be representatives of local government, business, unions and academics on the corporation in a board role with a manager heading the board, with a staff composed of personnel from the various State and local agencies. [More…]
A group with the significance which must be attached to tripartite discussions between governments, employers and members of trade, unions must of necessity, I believe, be concerned with the very real practical questions facing all countries throughout the world. [More…]
I think of inflation, of the many systems of industrial relations, of the concept of collective bargaining, of a form of conciliation and arbitration that is applied in so many countries, and of the causes of industrial unrest - those matters which can lead to strike action on behalf of and by trade unions. [More…]
And countries without trade unions. [More…]
So those who stood in this House at that time and criticised and condemned the trade unions for their progressive thinking and their willingness to take action on a social question, must of course now stand condemned themselves, because the ILO states that the action taken by the unions is exactly what should have happened anyhow. [More…]
It was the Government of the day that was at fault not the trade unions which took action. [More…]
Honourable members opposite never miss an opportunity in speaking to bash the unions. [More…]
For as long as they want to do that I will never miss an opportunity to defend the unions and the working people of this country. [More…]
What right has a Government instrumentality like the Public Service Board to treat itself as the spearhead of employer attack upon employees and trade unions? [More…]
In November of last year it reached agreement on all matters except on the question of amalgamations of trade unions. [More…]
Tripartite conferences have taken place between the Government, the employers and the unions. [More…]
A formula of automatic annual adjustments at any time during the period of previous Liberal-Country Party governments would have met the wishes of all Commonwealth Public Service organisations and unions. [More…]
I know that the Treasurer and the Prime Minister will consult with the appropriate unions on this matter. [More…]
There will have to be a lot of consultation with Commonwealth Public Service associations and unions before the detailed recommendations are implemented in their entirety. [More…]
I would like to see the Treasurer actively consult with the unions and associations in this regard and then bring down before this House a really comprehensive review of the Commonwealth Superannuation Fund. [More…]
The Stevedoring Industry (Temporary Provisions) Act gives legislative effect to an agreement entered into by the National Stevedoring Industry Conference on which were represented stevedoring employers, the Australian Council of Trade Unions, the Waterside Workers Federation, the Department of Labour and the Australian Stevedoring Industry Authority. [More…]
It will certainly be much more with the feather-bedding that is going on at the present time by the minority government which is a sedulous and obsequious servant of the union bosses, because it is aware the unions will not re-endorse it for the next election. [More…]
The unions concerned have not decided at this stage to put a ban on mail to the French Embassy. [More…]
I have informed them in the same terms as I informed members of the Australian Council of Trade Unions Executive yesterday about Australia’s obligations in this regard. [More…]
Accordingly, for the information of honourable members and of the public, I will read the terms of my communication with members of the ACTU Executive and with relevant officials of the postal unions who, I am told, will be considering this matter in a telephone hookup about 1 o’clock today. [More…]
Has the Treasurer made any assessment of the likely effect on the national economy of the ban by the Australian Council of Trade Unions on French trade? [More…]
He will be appointed not because of his knowledge of the pipeline business or because of his great skill and ability in particular fields of business but to represent the trade unions. [More…]
Trade unions seek wage increases that relate more to aspiration levels than to productivity levels. [More…]
It must rank the defeat of inflation above the soothing of the unions’ industrial desires and the smoothing of their feathers. [More…]
In Canada the government established a prices and incomes commission in 1969 which sought agreement from the unions, business and the Government to a program of voluntary restraint. [More…]
The unions rejected the proposal but business and professional leaders accepted price restraint. [More…]
Every restraint on the exercise of muscle by the unions has been, or will be if the Bill ever becomes an Act, taken away. [More…]
The national wage case, decision was fortuitous in that it did not follow the advice of the Government which supported the unions’ case for a 25 per cent increase. [More…]
The natural scope for the Commonwealth Conciliation and Arbitration Commission and the central role of the Australian Council of Trade Unions within the union movement tend to accelerate the rate at which money wage increases in industries achieving rapid improvements in productivity spread to industries achieving more modest gains. [More…]
Its only action on prices which comes to mind is the action to abolish resale price maintenance which, of course, it was virtually forced into by the actions of the Australian Council of Trade Unions. [More…]
The Opposition is still saying that wage increases are the basic cause of inflation, but in so doing it is constantly ignoring the evidence from economic and econometric studies around the world that inflation cannot simply be blamed on the trade unions. [More…]
The details of events in other countries can of course be used to tell a tale of domestic causation of inflation and in particular to blame inflation on the irresponsibility of the trade unions, but I would instead regard them merely as details in the process of transmission of world inflation, sparked by the United States, to the individual countries concerned. [More…]
Certainly there is ample room within the explanation I have advanced for trade unions to demand large increase in morey wages in a period in which large increases in prices are anticipated, and for employers to be willing to concede to such increases. [More…]
Secondly, in a situation of world inflation, the use of such draconian measures as penal clauses and unemployment to hamstring unions and control wages will not stop inflation because union militancy is not the uderlying cause of inflation. [More…]
The last few years, for reasons not unassociated with the change of leadership of the Australian Council of Trade Unions, have seen a worsening of the inflationary situation. [More…]
Only minimum wages are controlled, and it is above-award wages obtained by unions ruthlessly using their monopoly power that are the dominant cause of cost-push inflation. [More…]
Whether or not trade unions and wages are the cause of inflation, the indisputable fact is that wage restraint is necessary if the rise in prices is to be slowed down without massive unemployment. [More…]
It will be recalled that the unions will be asked to co-operate in boycotting. [More…]
The Prime Minister (Mr Whitlam) has just been chastising the unions for their actions in relation to French goods, but in relation to the Prices Justification Committee the trade unions will be turned loose with all the ferocity they can gather. [More…]
All the Leader of the Opposition has ever done - he did it again today - is huff and puff against the unions and now this destructive criticism has been turned to such legislation as this Bill, which proposes to establish a Prices Justification Tribunal, and also to the Joint Committee on Prices of which I have the honour to be Chairman. [More…]
He continued with the huffing and puffing against the unions and it was repeated by the Leader of the Opposition. [More…]
Those on the Opposition benches who continue thinking that the way to tackle inflation is just to complain about the unions or to complain about rises in wages are living in cloud cuckoo land. [More…]
Yet the huffing and puffing goes on opposite against unions although the unions represent people on much lower incomes than doctors enjoy. [More…]
I wonder whether it will be that the real rulers of the Australian Labor Party - the Australian Council of Trade Unions - will crack the whip on them and this might make them change their minds. [More…]
The House will recall that the Whitlam Government in the very early days of its reign briefed counsel to intervene in the national wage case to support the application by the Australian Council of Trade Unions for equal pay for work of equal value. [More…]
I have already written to the Australian Council of Trade Unions, the Associated Chambers of Manu factures of Australia and the Australian Council of Employers Federations to seek their co-operation in promoting the acceptance and observance of the policy. [More…]
Any instances of sex discrimination in awards will be taken up with the unions and employers concerned. [More…]
This is not the Government’s fault; it is not the employer’s fault; and it is not wholly the unions’ fault. [More…]
The National Committee on Discrimination in Employment will be organised on a tripartite basis and comprise an independent chairman and other representatives appointed by the Government plus one representative of employers and one of the trade unions. [More…]
I have already asked the Australian Council of Trade Unions, the Associated Chambers of Manufactures and the Australian Council of Employers’ Federations jointly on the employer side to nominate their representatives. [More…]
It is also quite a misrepresentation to suggest that the needs survey - and this is a persistent habit of some of these unions - stated that all the money to be found for education in Australia in 5 years was to come from the Commonwealth Government. [More…]
If Sir Reginald or the board of ATI is not prepared to do that, it is a matter which the unions should be having a look at to make sure that these 2 airline operators operate on identical conditions not only from a governmental point of view but from the point of view of wages and conditions. [More…]
It is very distressing to see that great differences have developed between the Master Builders’ Association oi New South Wales and some of the building unions in New South Wales. [More…]
I have read in the Press that the building unions intend to make a proper approach to Ministers of the Australian Government about the possibility of having this matter examined. [More…]
‘If the unions make a sensible approach to this Government, the Ministers whom I have nominated will work sensibly together to cause this matter to be properly evaluated. [More…]
An approved lending authority could include unions or it could include - 1 am suspicious of this - Bob Hawke’s announced Australian Council of Trade Unions building scheme; it could come into that category. [More…]
Only today I heard the Minister make a statement in this House, backing up the builders’ labourers unions claims for what he called permanent occupations. [More…]
Has his attention been drawn to reports that an agreement has been reached between trade unions and the management of Evans Deakin Industries Pty Ltd which should guarantee to Evans Deakin the Santa-Fe Drilling Co. oil rig contract and also future industrial harmony at its shipyard at Kangaroo Point? [More…]
The position is that there have been meetings in Brisbane between trade unions and employees of Evans Deakin Industries Pty Ltd. [More…]
There have been meetings also between the Queensland Trades and Labour Council, the unions and the management of Evans Deakin. [More…]
As late as yesterday he telephoned me and told me that the unions and the management bad reached agreement and that he expects in future a much better understanding between the management of Evans Deakin and the unions involved with employees of that company. [More…]
He is confident that the bad relationship which existed for many years will be overcome because of this better understanding between the employer and the unions. [More…]
But with demand rising very strongly; shortages in various industries occurring with growing frequency; the power of the left wing trade unions being ruthlessly exploited to extract higher wages; the impact of the $2.50 and the 2 per cent increase in the national wage, adding at least $850m to the current wage bill, or about 4) per cent to average earnings - these are Commonwealth Government figures - and the $9 increase in the minimum wage - the cost of which cannot be accurately determined by anyone but which the Minister for Labor thought would add about $300m to the wage bill - we would have to be extremely lucky in this ‘lucky country’ to prevent average earnings rising by less than 12 per cent during 1973-74. [More…]
A policy absolutely anathema to Labor and the Australian Council of Trade Unions - and that if you were doing something about wage increases you would have to do something about the fight to strike. [More…]
The Unions have quite successfully ignored a Price Justification Tribunal that has been in existence for some time. [More…]
They are the psychology of the buyer, the businessman and the trade unions and the expectations of oversea! [More…]
The very structure of modern society with giant firms on the one hand and, on the other, big unions (and if the Government’s legislation fostering union amalgamation goes through, there will be still bigger unions) and with neither side necessarily or primarily concerned with the public welfare - this very structure of modern society makes government oversight of the economy and government intervention in the economy in some measure essential. [More…]
The Labor Government proposes to abolish sanctions against unions in the industrial system and to erode the authority of the Arbitration Commission to settle strikes and to protect the public interest. [More…]
We know that it may give us some solid ground to stand on when we are arguing or trying to talk responsibly with the unions when they are making what we think may be unreasonable demands. [More…]
Having this Prices Justification Tribunal may give us some status to argue with the unions. [More…]
I will not embark on an exercise of union baiting, but I do say that the lack of responsibility in some sections of our unions, particularly the all-powerful ones, does limit productivity in a way which I think is quite alarming. [More…]
We used to think that unions were necessary in order to protect - I guess they were - the small man against the big employer, but if we are not careful we will run into a different situation which will overwhelm us. [More…]
I am talking about the power of combined unions which can - I do not say that they always do - stand a country up. [More…]
What right has a government instrumentality like the Public Service Board to treat itself as the spearhead of employer attack upon employees and trade unions? [More…]
It went before arbitration tribunals and actively opposed propositions which had been put forward by registered unions and organisations. [More…]
No Government, of course, can command credibility in the field of economic management when it is unprepared to sedulously pursue non-inflationary fiscal and monetary policies, and no Government can command respect when it continually capitulates to the inflationary demands of the trade unions without consideration of the national interest. [More…]
It carried out wide-ranging investigations and produced 3 reports which documented firm support for the School from commercial film producers, the Federation of Commercial Television Stations, the Australian Broadcasting Commission, the Commonwealth Film Unit, guilds and unions, and education institutions. [More…]
Many sectors of the film and television industry, both government and private, have indicated already that they will make available facilities for such training, subject to equitable arrangements being worked out with managements and unions. [More…]
In an address recently to the Australia-Japan Business Co-operation Committee I pointed out that there was a need for more opportunities for all groups - government, business, trade unions and others - in both countries to get together much more often than they do until discussions and meetings lead to mutual understanding. [More…]
In view of Tasmania ‘s almost total dependence for its economic survival on shipping, 80 per cent of which is supplied by ANL, will the Minister confer with the President of the Australian Council of Trade Unions in an endeavour to have sufficient ANL ships released from the strike to maintain essential services to Tasmania, especially for the shipment of perishables, as we have no rail or road alternatives such as are available on the mainland? [More…]
-The honourable member would be aware that the Australian Council of Trade Unions has a policy that at all times it will endeavour to ensure that communications by sea between Tasmania and the mainland are maintained. [More…]
Has the Australian Wool Corporation discussed the implications of technical developments in wool marketing with any of the unions or trade associations involved in wool marketing. [More…]
If so, which unions or associations were involved, and when did these discussions take place. [More…]
There is furthermore a wide diversity in the facilities which are provided under the auspices of the unions. [More…]
and (2) Appointments to boards, commissions, advisory bodies and the like have been drawn from many areas, including the judiciary, commerce, industry, primary industry, education, science and the arts a.> well as from trade unions and employers’ organisations, on the basis of the experience and expertise of the persons concerned. [More…]
I think the honourable gentleman and the House might be interested to know that I, with my Department, am currently engaged in negotiations with the various sections of industry - trade unions, manufacturers of materials and builders - in order to contrive the ways and means of setting targets and objectives. [More…]
Of course the trade unions were there. [More…]
There should be a national conference of Federal and State governments, the unions and employer organisations. [More…]
It lies in the fact that trade unions ensure that wages and salaries keep pace with inflation. [More…]
Their recipients, be they members of communistdominated unions or be they the fat cats of the Public Service are sheltered from the vagaries of inflation; their real incomes are likely to rise, and will rise, at the expense of that part of the economy whose members are exposed to the cold winds of international competition. [More…]
The details of events in other countries can be used to tell a tale of domestic causation of inflation and in particular to blame inflation on the irresponsibility of the trade unions - [More…]
The economic power of sectional interests can be a significant inflationary cause and here the changing relationships of the great and powerful amalgamating unions and employers can be a significant factor in causing inflation. [More…]
It was only through the continuous efforts of the mining unions and ex-employees, who were able to convince another company that the South mine would be a paying proposition, that it was opened again. [More…]
For far too long it has been regarded as the preserve of management, trade unions and investors to slug it out on the floor of the work place and to find a solution the best way they can. [More…]
That the Press Associations will lodge strong protests is predictable, but it may be interesting to discover the reaction of the printing industry unions. [More…]
The more erudite members of the Opposition support moves to make it possible to get rid of a lot of the multitude of unions presently in Australia. [More…]
I think that the Opposition spokesmen who are more responsible than their fellows realise that a proliferation of unions is not good. [More…]
He is the innocent victim because it has nothing to do with an employer when a strike occurs because 2 unions are at loggerheads over which union members should do which job. [More…]
They see no merit in having 305 unions in Australia when in Germany, with 61 million people, they have only 16 unions. [More…]
The alternative procedure, which the Government has decided to adopt, is to remove from the Bill it presents on this occasion those sections which the Opposition regards as controversial, namely, the provisions eliminating sanctions against unions and their members who go on strike and the provisions to give protection to organisations and their members from civil actions in tort in connection with industrial disputes. [More…]
This could toe disadvantageous to unions because of the cost of legal representation if leave were to be refused; where an employer contends in arbitration proceedings that a claim for improved terms and conditions of employment should not be granted because his firm has not the capacity to meet the cost of those claims, provision is to be made that the Commission shall disregard the contention unless the employer produces evidence to support it. [More…]
I refer to the written promise by the present Prime Minister as given to the Australian Federation of Credit Unions in a letter dated 24 October 1972 which stated that a Labor government would (1) grant exemption from taxation on credit union incomes and (2) allow child endowment, social service and repatriation payments to be credited to the savings accounts of members of credit unions. [More…]
The matter is under discussion with the credit unions and taxation authorities. [More…]
He urged the Australian Government to convene a national conference with State governments, unions and employer organisations to reach an agreed program to fight inflation, the conference first to agree on an income and prices freeze and then on guidelines for the control of future wage and price increases. [More…]
These same people, when in Government, continually blamed the inflationary trend on wage increases anc), on all occasions when the Commission discussed national wage cases, the Government of the day had legal representation at the hearing to oppose the submissions of the Australian Council of Trade Unions. [More…]
Now we see the Leader of the Opposition calling for talks between the Federal and State governments, unions and employers, to combat inflation. [More…]
But when the election statements of the Prime Minister are remembered - when he said often enough that the Australian Labor Party’s spending programs would be financed out of Government revenue without any increase in taxation - and when one sees now in the Treasurer’s Budget Speech the statement that it is necessary that the increase in outlays budgeted for be more than covered by increased receipts; when it is realised that the runaway wage increases inevitably move wage and salary earners into higher progressive tax brackets with a corresponding amount of income tax paid into the Treasury; and when the swelling effect this has on Government revenue is observed, there is again an inescapable conclusion that this Government actively sponsored in the Public Service, in the national wage case and in its dealings with unions, an inflation of wage and salary earnings in Australia and that the sponsorship was for the purpose of providing the increased receipts necessary for the Treasury to receive in order to cover the massive increases proposed in the Budget spending. [More…]
He has been known to say that through the arbitration system there is a system of wage justification which provides sufficient control over wage increases but he must know, as the honourable member for La Trobe (Mr Lamb) must know, that that is not true because wages are open-ended in the over award rate area which the militant unions enter so rapidly. [More…]
The Government would try to persuade us that price increases are the chief cause of inflation and that wage claims and increases are merely attempts by the unions to catch up. [More…]
Even the President of the Australian Council of Trade Unions has said that the organisation has no teeth. [More…]
I address a question to the Prime Minister who in answer to an earlier question by me about the undertaking or guarantee from the President of the Australian Council of Trade Unions said that it occurred during a conversation last Wednesday night and that it was part of many items raised in the conversation. [More…]
Before the last election the word was around: ‘We will understand the trade unions. [More…]
Being interested, as I have said, in all sections of the community, I would like to speak for and on behalf of the unions of Australia. [More…]
I might say to the honourable member for Blaxland (Mr Keating), who is trying to interject, that I have served on the executive of 3 unions. [More…]
All they want to do it to avoid strife with the unions. [More…]
There could be no clearer words used by any man than were used by the President of the Australian Labor Party and President of the Australian Council of Trade Unions about what were the words put in his mouth by the Prime Minister. [More…]
Mr Hawke said that he cannot guarantee wage restraint from the trade unions any more than the Prime Minister can guarantee the outcome of Caucus consideration. [More…]
Mr Hawke, with 2 caps- President of the Australian Labor Party and President of the Australian Council of Trade Unions - said raspberries to that statement. [More…]
In fact the power would give the Commonwealth an immense capacity to order social and economic events to suit its own ideology and that of the unions. [More…]
The Labor Government should be seen as wishing to appear to the public as sincere but be known by the trade unions to be supine. [More…]
A few days ago, when the Prime Minister pulled a rabbit out of the hat in the form of Mr Hawke’s famous assurance on wage demand moderation by the unions, I asked what right Mr Hawke had to make such a promise. [More…]
With this sort of influence on the wage bargaining climate and expectation there is less effort on the part of trade unions to try to hedge against increases in costs which will inevitably occur if we do not have some sort of authority to regulate them. [More…]
It provides the political and moral, not to say economic, grounds for the introduction of effective wage restraints and for the fairly drastic changes in the economic power of trade unions which such restraints must inevitably involve. [More…]
In order to gain acceptance by the unions, an income policy must apply to all incomes, and hence prices, as well as wages. [More…]
The Prime Minister himself has sought to purvey a public impression that he has a guarantee from Mr Hawke that if the Government asserts measures to control prices the Australian Council of Trade Unions will accept wage restraints. [More…]
So there are built-in safeguards, firstly, for the employers who do not want to give it unless it has to be given; secondly, of course the machinery that exists to resolve a dispute that occurs when the employer or group of employers cannot settle their differences with the trade unions. [More…]
Whenever a union or a group of unions goes before an arbitration tribunal it says: ‘Prices have gone up, allow us to put our wages up’. [More…]
Action has been taken by the unions to restore the purchasing power of wages and salaries. [More…]
Let me briefly refer to the alleged gap between the Prime Minister (Mr Whitlam) and the President of the Australian Council of Trade Unions. [More…]
The Prime Minister said that Hawke would co-operate in relation to the wage and salary claims that might be put forward by the various unions. [More…]
He has said in effect that if the Government does certain things in relation to prices and brings other economic measures to bear on the economic scene in Australia perhaps in a year or two the unions will review the situation as to their claims. [More…]
For Mr Whitlam that was a critical assurance from the head of the Labor Party and head of the Australian Council of Trade Unions. [More…]
This has been our experience in the past and is now the experience of the United Kingdom where a recent gallup poll, referred to in ‘The Economist’ of 8 September 1973, showed that whereas a year ago 75 per cent of the people with a definite opinion said that the unions should hold back on wage claims to control inflation but now 52 per cent think that they should now go ahead, clearly indicating that the public has become tired of income and wage controls. [More…]
If so, was this strike due to a demarcation dispute between two unions. [More…]
Honourable members do not have to rely on my word, they have only to ask the President of the Australian Labor Party and President of the Australian Council of Trade Unions who saw the Minister for Defence in a deputation a couple of days ago. [More…]
When confronted with rabid socialist unions he becomes a toy rabbit in front of a greyhound. [More…]
Of course, the example was set by the Prime Minister (Mr Whitlam) in a speech to the Australian Council of Trade Unions Congress - a congress incidentally which he treated with contempt by arriving 6 hours late. [More…]
Already Mr Donald MacDonald, President of the Canadian Labour Congress and President of the International Confederation of Free Trade Unions, has visited Australia under this arrangement. [More…]
He has always had the capacity to pay, a term used by the unions when they argue the national wage case. [More…]
Let us not forget that the Conciliation and Arbitration Act with which we are dealing acknowledges the existence of trade unions and their functions. [More…]
Unions have a great responsibility to act within their constitutions. [More…]
Trade unions are honourable organisations and those who belong to them are honourable gentlemen. [More…]
If this Minister is prepared to build up the activities and the force and the strength of the shop stewards in this country he will do so at the expense of the Australian Council of Trade Unions. [More…]
Apparently the Government has chosen to persist with that provision in spite of the very detrimental impact and effect that it will have on the industrial jurisdiction and particularly on relations not simply between employers and employees in the industrial jurisdiction but more especially, in terms of the interest which the Minister seeks to serve, between employees and shop stewards and union officials, particularly member of the Australian Council of Trade Unions. [More…]
Opposition member’s seem to believe that every move by this Government and by Labor people on behalf of trade unions is made with some ulterior motive and to gain some advantage. [More…]
They forget that a little more than 12 months ago a very prominent member of the then Government suggested that that Government might call in foreign companies to try to act against the trade union movement in this country as a means of depriving unions of the 35-hour week that they sought. [More…]
Nothing that has been said has shown that what the Opposition proposes is an attack upon unions or an attack upon officials of unions or members of unions. [More…]
Unions are more aware of their power than they have ever been. [More…]
But before I come to that let me first emphasise the very real advantages that the system affords unions, and quite deliberately so. [More…]
Firstly, it gives unions a monopoly of representation, a powerful weapon indeed. [More…]
Secondly, it enables unions to enforce their own registered rules. [More…]
Fourthly, it gives unions the capacity to get an official award which represents the minimum conditions applicable to a particular industry and it gives it the force of law. [More…]
Certainly a number of unions have moved in the same direction. [More…]
We will also be exploring with management and unions means of easing insecurity caused through temporary changes of demand. [More…]
Is the craft union background and philosophy of Australian unions really the best for Australia or could we do better with industry unions? [More…]
I might add that in my own investigations I have already made arrangements for wide ranging discussions with both unions and management in a number of different industries. [More…]
In view of the Minister’s own record in this particular matter it was a mark of the degree to which the left wing unions can direct the Minister that his earlier proposals forbade the certification of such freely negotiated arrangements. [More…]
The Minister is well aware of the changing power relationship between management and unions. [More…]
If agreements concerning standard hours of work, for altering rates of wages on grounds fundamentally related to the national economy, for altering minimum wages and annual leave, do not have to go to the Full Bench for certification then clearly unions will tend to prefer agreements to awards. [More…]
Union officials would have no negotiating capacity and we do not believe that to be good for unions or for industrial peace. [More…]
The Minister is going to a very considerable length to see that union officials are properly elected - democratically elected - by their unions. [More…]
I want to emphasise that while the principle of amalgamation has been accepted because of the large number of unions in Australia, 65 per cent of all unionists are already in 21 unions and amalgamation has, in the past, seemed to take place between the large and not between the smaller unions. [More…]
Furthermore, demarcation disputes, the existence of which has often been given in favour of amalgamation between unions, represents only a small percentage of strikes and of lost time. [More…]
The Minister had the left wing communist unions, with whom he is normally fairly buddy-buddy, snapping at his heels like an un-Australian terrier, so on this issue his difficulty is understandable. [More…]
Putting aside the provisions of the earlier Bill relating to penalties, the protection of unions and members from civil action, which are to come forward again in a separate Bill, so we are told - I imagine that will come forward after the Senate election - there is no question that the rules are being changed in this Bill to make the lot of the militant unionist easier. [More…]
There are many unions and unionists who, having democratically elected their officials, are prepared to support them through to a conclusion on any difficult negotiation. [More…]
When average weekly earnings are running at a rate of increase of 13 per cent, as has been acknowledged in the Budget, we can properly ask ourselves whether the unions, both blue and white collar, are going to look to the arbitration system to provide their members with an increase in wages sufficient to match that increase in average weekly earnings. [More…]
That fact is something that unions will be fully aware of in the months ahead. [More…]
We are likely also to see leadership in this field taken over by white collar unions rather than blue collar unions. [More…]
We will see also a movement in the workforce of emphasis away from the blue collar worker to the white collar worker so that blue collar unions will become less dominant than the white collar unions in their role within the industrial movement in Australia. [More…]
The machinery that I envisage in this legislation would maintain the role of unions and would render conciliation even more significant than it is today. [More…]
The Labour relations code that I referred to should be regarded as a charter of employees’ rights in 2 respects - the rights of unionists vis-a-vis their own unions and the rights of employees vis-a-vis their employers. [More…]
The Minister’s endorsement of the pace setter principle for the Public Service, the concept of Hat wage increases, the introduction of a 35-hour working week and the total endorsement of the claims by the Australian Council of Trade Unions before the Conciliation and Arbitration Commission in the national wage case, have not only been irresponsible but in fact also have been counterproductive against the context of the inflationary spiral which is so rampant throughout Australia. [More…]
Fourthly, in genuine industrial disputes between unions and employers there comes a time when the parties, in the public interest, cannot be left to fight out to the bitter end a war of industrial attrition which could easily seriously undermine the workings of the economy and national stability. [More…]
Indeed, it was the result of a disastrous confrontation between unions and employers in the 1890s that led to the eventual establishment of statutory conciliation and arbitration systems in this country. [More…]
The Opposition believes there is a real need for employers and trade unions to face up to the responsibilities demanded of them in a full employment society. [More…]
The use of direct action by unions to coerce employers to accede to unreasonable union demand is, of course, not a measure of responsibility. [More…]
Responsible action on the part of unions calls for submitting only those claims which they feel can be reasonably justified and accompanying those claims with supporting information. [More…]
If we are to retain our present system of annual national wage cases as a method for distributing to workers generally the benefits of economic growth, employers and unions need to be careful lest a consequence of their negotiations they exhaust economic capacity to support general wage increases which would normally be awarded as a result of national wage cases. [More…]
I can only agree with the Minister that there are too many unions in Australia. [More…]
In other countries there are far fewer unions proportionately than there are in Australia. [More…]
Haying agreed with that proposition I suggest that the machinery which will resolve that situation and bring more of those unions together for the benefit of everybody concerned is important. [More…]
I do not claim to know all the ins and outs but it is possible that if some unions were amalgamated into a more united force many disputes would not occur. [More…]
Handling and manufacturing techniques are altering and obviously difficulties will arise within the unions operating in those areas. [More…]
They arc really the most difficult disputes to solve because of the internal relationships between the unions. [More…]
I have in mind particularly the small unions. [More…]
They decide the general guidelines that should guide the agreements between particular industries and particular unions. [More…]
Unfortunately, the unions turned him down flat. [More…]
I certainly accept that that is a responsible attitude if we have responsible unions, and I hope that we are gradually working towards that end. [More…]
One feature of the Swedish system is that the amalgamation of unions is easy. [More…]
It is so easy that long since Sweden has got rid of the multitude of unions that we have. [More…]
We have 303 unions. [More…]
Part of its success is due to the fact that it has few unions, but very efficient unions. [More…]
Some are industry unions, but not all of them. [More…]
In our country I do not suppose we will ever get industry unions except in isolated cases, such as the Australian Workers Union in the pastoral industry, although even in that case it is not an industry union because wool classers are covered by another union. [More…]
But the success of the Swedish system does not rest entirely on the fact that it has industry unions. [More…]
Its success rests mainly on the fact that it has fewer unions that are more efficient and the employers do not have the bugbear they have to put up with here of having to become the unfortunate witnesses of industrial disputes over demarcation issues and being absolutely helpless to do anything about it. [More…]
The unions fight over which union shall cover a particular job, and the poor unfortunate employer has to stand on the sidelines and watch his business go down the drain simply because we have too many unions trying to cover the various industrial areas. [More…]
The honourable member will recall that last week I met representatives of the Australian Council of Trade Unions and a request was put to me by them that no retrenchments should take place until the whole question had been further considered by Cabinet. [More…]
That is not why the unions are asking for the 35- hour week either. [More…]
Whilst the Prime Minister has sought to say and did say at his Press conference yesterday that this is not a matter for the Commonwealth or for this Parliament - he made that quite plain at his Press conference and he made it quite plain that the Commonwealth will not intervene - one of his Ministers has quite directly intervened in this case on the side of the power unions. [More…]
He has supported the power unions in subverting the industrial laws of New South Wales. [More…]
It has done a very mangy deal with the Australian Democratic Labor Party and it is terrified of the unions. [More…]
I did have a conversation with the President of the Australian Council of Trade Unions, a member of the Reserve Bank board, last Wednesday night, and in the course of a conversation on many matters he told me that if the Government were able to moderate the rise in prices through the application of such constitutional power as it obtains the trade union movement would fully co-operate in restraining wages and incomes. [More…]
It has not attempted to urge reason on trade unions to restrict their incomes growth. [More…]
There are also those thousands and thousands of unorganised workers - almost 50 per cent - who are not members of unions or industrial organisations although covered by awards. [More…]
The attitude of the Australian Council of Trade Unions is abundantly clear. [More…]
The real objectives have been outlined by the President of the Australian Council of Trade Unions in a number of public statements. [More…]
We have weak trade unions and strong trade unions, parts of the labour force highly organised and able to affect their own wages and conditions, and parts, like the frequently sweated female textile workers, disorganised and defenceless. [More…]
The claims of the power unions were put to the New South Wales Industrial Commission which reported some considerable time later, after an exhaustive examination, that there was no cause to reduce the period of the working week from 40 hours to 35 hours. [More…]
A large number of unions were involved - over 20, including the Amalgamated Metal Workers Union, the Electrical Trades Union of Australia, the Federated Enginedrivers and Firemen’s Association of Australasia, the Municipal Officers Association of Australia, the Public Service Association and a number of others. [More…]
Even though the unions concerned knew last Thursday that there was going to be a report very early this week, there were black-outs and shortages of power over the weekend. [More…]
Either he did not know what was happening or he did not know what his Minister for Minerals and Energy was doing or he was conniving with the Minister to keep this matter secret from the people of Australia, because the Commonwealth has intervened on the side of the power unions. [More…]
Word would have come to members of the power unions who man the Tumut power stations, if they had not obeyed those legal and lawful orders and worked in accordance with them they could have been laid off. [More…]
I am informed also that a member of the Snowy Mountains Council rang the New South Wales authorities on Sunday afternoon and informed them that the Minister for Minerals and Energy had directed that the Council operate the Tumut stations in accordance with the dictates - in accordance with the dictates - of the New South Wales unions’ 35-hour week committee. [More…]
It was making quite sure that the Council would conform to the dictates of the power unions, that it would not do anything that might cause any trouble, but that it would make quite sure that restrictions on power in New South Wales would be much more severe than would otherwise have been the case, thereby causing great inconvenience to many people. [More…]
I am informed that the power unions have spoken to the Minister requiring his support for this action. [More…]
I am informed, as I have said already, that the instruction had the effect of ensuring that the Council conformed to the dictates of the power unions and conformed to their particular requirements. [More…]
Unless the Minister can answer these charges in clear and precise terms it is plain that he has revealed in the starkest sense the power of certain unions over this Government and the power of certain unions over this Minister. [More…]
The Minister , has acted secretly, at the behest and command of unions which are pursuing an industrial dispute with another governmental authority. [More…]
He has shown the power of the unions over the Government; he has shown that he secretly intervened and acted to overthrow the normal processes of law and it has been seen that the [More…]
I have never at any time been approached by any representative of the trade unions in this matter. [More…]
I told him that I thought he should point out the position to the trade unions concerned. [More…]
As proposal not discussed with union demand immediate halt to proposal until such time as discussions held with unions concerned. [More…]
We should move quickly into atomic power and hydro-power but unfortunately when it comes to hydro-power we are inclined to say: What is the use of having a vast source of hydro-power such as we have in the Snowy Mountains if the unions can cut off this power at will?’ [More…]
But more importantly we must make the schools for adult and adolescent migrants more popular, and in this regard I must confess to disappointment that the trade unions have so far made no approach to the Victorian Migrant Task Force Committee. [More…]
Consequently, employers fear that involvement could cause disputes with unions^ 1 am one member who has been as critical as anyone in this House of trade unions, but I would dispute the point that any responsible trade union would register any kind of. [More…]
Surely discussion between employers and trade unions could result in a solution of this objection [More…]
The honourable gentleman also made a point about trade unions. [More…]
He seemed to me to be saying that the trade unions would raise, did raise or are raising some objection to the employment of the handicapped. [More…]
He has intervened in order to further the intentions of left wing trade unions. [More…]
Obviously, we are seeing an industrial blackmail by these unions in New South Wales, supported by the Minister for Minerals and Energy using his authority under the Act to stop the generation of power if it conflicts with the co-ordinating committee’s objective of a 35-hour week. [More…]
There is no member of any of the unions associated with the operation of those stations on strike. [More…]
This enabled the claimant unions to confront Cabinet with a fait accompli. [More…]
Over 20 unions were involved. [More…]
The Minister was charged with supporting the striking power unions against the Industrial Commission of New South Wales, against the Government of New South Wales and against the people of New South Wales. [More…]
On 26 September, in answering the initial charges, the Minister said that he had never at any time been approached by any representative of the trade unions in this matter. [More…]
In that first debate it was hard for this House to understand why the Minister should say that he had told the engineer to speak to the trade unions because that was the first mention of the trade unions in this matter. [More…]
Mr Douglas was in fact representing the views of unions to the Minister. [More…]
Therefore the Minister’s statement that he had never been approached by the unions was a false claim. [More…]
In fact, the Minister said in the House on 27 September that the unions’ demands were reasonable. [More…]
Also, we learned that the Minister thought the unions’ demands were reasonable. [More…]
And that, if the unions were not to operate the power stations, professional engineers would. [More…]
But giving in to the demands made by the power unions is not routine. [More…]
It is an act undertaken secretly on the side of the power unions against industrial law, the Industrial Commission and the New South Wales Government, because it is a Liberal-Country Party Government. [More…]
The directive was an abdication of authority because it gave control of the Snowy Mountains Authority to the power unions. [More…]
The Premier was strongly urging the Prime Minister personally to act in this matter and as a matter of urgency to take action to cause the Prime Minister’s colleague, the Minister for Minerals and Energy, to withdraw his directive issued on 23 September and put in writing on 24 September requiring the Snowy Mountains Council to act in conformity with the wishes and dictates of the power unions. [More…]
This present instance is blackmail of a State and tens of thousands of ordinary workers, housewives, women and children, people in hospitals, people in convalescent homes, by the power unions which will not accept the arbitrator’s verdict, the umpire’s verdict. [More…]
Those power unions have been given material and moral support by the Minister for Minerals and Energy - support which is condoned and supported by the Prime Minister. [More…]
At no time and at no stage during the whole of this situation have I been approached by the trade unions or the 35- Hour Week Committee to implement their policy. [More…]
To attack Mr Connor the way Messrs Fraser and Anthony have is ridiculous, Mr Connor has no more assisted the unions in the management of their campaign than has the New South Wales Premier, SirRobert Askin . [More…]
He does not deny that he was involved with the trade unions. [More…]
According to the Minister, he told this engineer that he should point out the position to the unions concerned. [More…]
To put it bluntly, this whole tactic of scaremongering on irrigation supplies was used by the Minister, and supported in a most unscrupulous way by the Minister for Immigration, in an attempt to hide his real motive which was to support the blackmail tactics of the New South Wales trade unions. [More…]
On that day the Deputy Chairman had been in telephone discussion with the members of the Council and they had decided to stand firm against the trade unions. [More…]
It is also recognised that the suggested composition of these councils - involving representatives of the Australian, State and local governments, trade unions, employer groups, welfare consumer groups and non-government bodies concerned with social welfare - rests on an untried assumption, and more needs to be known about what might be a desirable composition. [More…]
In my opinion, the Minister for Transport has been grossly unfair to the community at large in his failure to call the people concerned together, in considering - with a measure of sympathy, I would suggest - the claim made by the unions concerned and in endeavouring to provide some resolution to this dispute. [More…]
Nothing can be done because the relevant Ministers just have not got the guts to do anything about it and do not dare confront the strikers in the unions. [More…]
Sometimes I have been amazed at this outspokenness in telling the unions where they are wrong. [More…]
It may be of interest to honourable members to know that there has hardly been a day gone by in the time since that strike started that officers of the Department of Civil Aviation have not telephoned me or I have not telephoned them - invariably they rang me - to give a progress report on discussions which have taken place between themselves, the people involved in the dispute, the people associated with it, the Chairman of the Public Service Board, the representatives from the Australian Council of Trade Unions and representatives of the PREI. [More…]
The trade unions - those villainous organisations about which the honourable member for Mackellar (Mr Wentworth) talks - have had discussions. [More…]
The honourable member for Mackellar once again came out with the usual anti-com, hate the unions bogy. [More…]
I would suggest that this sort of action will itself be manifest within the Department of Civil Aviation and every other Commonwealth department within the life of this Parliament as long as we have a Labor Party Government which will surrender itself to the trade union movement, particularly to the left wing unions. [More…]
The Victorian President of the Amalgamated Postal Workers Union, Mr Pat Kirley said that his union would oppose the moves for declassification, and rightly so, but the unions also must be prepared perhaps to relax many of the rules and regulations of employment as they apply to official post offices in small centres. [More…]
The unions, too, in consultation would be in the best position to suggest ways of improving the business of the post office, such as it. [More…]
Perhaps the unions ought to look at whether these can be operated by one instead of three persons. [More…]
This is a matter for the unions. [More…]
an Office of Economic and Social Research, incorporating a Bureau of Industrial Information working in consultation with the Statistician, to compile and compute information on occupational accident and disease and all other matters relevant to industrial affairs for the use of the Commission, trade unions and employers’ organisations;’ [More…]
The Government is aware of the difficulties arising out of demarcation issues and has repeatedly stressed its support for the principle of amalgamation of unions - a move which would eliminate many of the problems which cause disputes of this kind. [More…]
The little people contribute, not the big trade unions. [More…]
The people who donate to our funds have different political philosophies from the Labor controlled unions who say to certain people that they must donate a percentage towards Labor Party slush funds. [More…]
Unions and employers have quarrelled over the proper basis of measurement of relative shares. [More…]
Is the Prime Minister aware of the unanimous decision of the executive of the Australian Council of Trade Unions to campaign for a ‘no’ vote on incomes in the proposed referendum? [More…]
I read that the Australian Council of Trade Unions will be supporting one of the referendums and opposing the other referendum. [More…]
It might be of interest to know that the Australian Council of Trade Unions, as recently as its last congress, did urge the Australian Parliament to regulate non-wage incomes. [More…]
The answer is because the trade unions make contributions to the Labor Party and not only are contributions to trade union funds tax deductible but trade union funds themselves are totally tax free. [More…]
I can assure the honourable member that trade unions do not pay taxation because they are friendly societies. [More…]
I will finish my answer by saying that trade unions do not pay tax any more than do the health funds which make contributions to Liberal Party funds. [More…]
At a time when it is government policy to expend enormous sums of money in the development of its instrumentalities and at a time also when we are being told about the decline in the proportion of gross domestic product going to wage earners, I thought I would like to bring before the House some data which came to my hand a few days ago regarding the claims of the unions which will be involved in the construction of the pipeline from Moomba to Sydney. [More…]
So I give the facts, that is, the claim of the relevant unions, namely, the Australian Workers Union and the Amalgamated Metal Workers Union. [More…]
They claim also that the unions will allow the contractor to use automatic welding machines for welding instead of insisting on hand welding, but this will be done only if first class welder classifications are used. [More…]
It says to the unions: All right, go ahead, demand what you like. [More…]
The ‘Sydney Morning Herald’ had an editorial condemning the gulf that has widened between this Government and the Australian Council of Trade Unions. [More…]
It would interfere with the comfortable position of its supporters, the unions, which finance its election campaigns and which provide large sums. [More…]
Strikes by unions have been allowed to get completely out of hand. [More…]
Now the unions, led by the Australian Labor Party President, have decided to oppose the incomes referendum. [More…]
This year the only donations will be donations by the trade unions, and we know, that the trade unions put conditions on the Labor Party when they give donations to it. [More…]
I can fully understand his concern and his desperation when he sees divisions between his Party and between the trade unions; when he sees the ineptitude of his own Ministers in handling their portfolios; when he sees every single by-election either on a State level or a Federal level moving against the Labor Party: and when he reads the public opinion polls which show the Labor Party going down lower and lower. [More…]
How right the public is to show desperation when this Government moves into the New South Wales power generation dispute and supports the unions to help force a 35- hour week by using blackmail tactics. [More…]
The Minister for Labour in particular - by his personal endorsement of major strikes, the pacesetter principle for the Commonwealth Public Service, flat rate wage increases, the 35-hour week and the claims put by the Australian Council of Trade Unions in the national wage case - has contibuted personally to the accelerating rate of inflation in this country. [More…]
Council matters the Minister had his marching orders from the power unions of New South Wales. [More…]
Rather, it was not the Government that acted; it was the President of the Australian Council of Trade Unions who with one hat supports the Prime Minister but with the other opposes him vigorously and strongly. [More…]
The President of the Australian Council of Trade Unions was in the Parliament this morning, I think when the Prime Minister was speaking. [More…]
I do not know whether it was as President of the Australian Labor Party or as President of the Australian Council of Trade Unions. [More…]
But we all know which hat this man believes to be the most important - that of the Australian Council of Trade Unions. [More…]
It will be interesting to find out what happens when the President of the Australian Council of Trade Unions recognises publicly that a referendum on prices will include the power to control wages. [More…]
I hope that the Minister for Labour will be able to stand up to the Federal President of the Australian Labor Party who is also the President of the Australian Council of Trade Unions, in introducing this kind of sanity into labour relations. [More…]
Me wrote a secret letter to the Deputy Chairman of the Snowy Mountains Council, basically instructing that power be cut and provided in conformity with the demands of the power unions. [More…]
It would pose significant problems for many unions in relation to the employment of their own employees and would be quite impossible of application in the Minister’s own old union, the Australian Workers Union, in relation to the approval of agreements. [More…]
The Deputy Leader of the Opposition (Mr Lynch) had the gall to talk about industrial confrontation when he himself is known to be the one who did everything possible to cause confrontation between the unions and employers in the oil industry last year. [More…]
Compensation for rising prices now has to wait until the Commission’s annual wage case, with the result that unions find it impossible to hold back the pressure of wage increases, and demands for adjustments take the form of claims for payment of over award wages as well as the annual review that is called the national wage case. [More…]
Because unions have to make claims that will anticipate 12 months’ price increases in advance the net result of this sitaution is that it creates much unrest that could be obviated by a return to wage indexation of some form that will take care of price increases as they occur. [More…]
The Australian Government therefore will support the Australian Council of Trade Unions in any move that it makes for the introduction of wage indexation along lines that will, in the Government’s view, relieve the existing pressures for wage rises to compensate for price increases. [More…]
The contrary is a fallacy which professional organisations such as the teachers unions seem mistakenly to fall into. [More…]
I want to say just one thing more about this, and I hope that it is something that will be read by those who sit on the arbitration bench, by the unions and by the employers. [More…]
In the case of the Ford dispute, Mr Justice Moore was absolutely correct in issuing instructions that his reasons for judgment be issued in various migrant languages because there was some evidence that until then the migrant workers in the Ford factory were not really understanding what the dispute was all about, nor were they understanding fully the negotiations .and the compromise proposals that had been worked out by the unions and the employers. [More…]
I point out to honourable members the close connection between various Government supporters and various sections of the ALP with the World Federation of Trade Unions - a communist international show which seems to control policy. [More…]
I will also make copies of the reports available to the various trades and labour councils, to the Australian Council of Trade Unions, to the Council of Commonwealth Public Service Organisations and to the Australian Council of Salaried and Professional Associations. [More…]
Recently during a strike in mental homes in Queensland - I spoke about this previously in this House - I drew the attention of Australia to the sinister attitude of unions which, on a very narrow demarcation issue and because of jealousy among the men because a woman was granted a position of authority, saw fit to place in jeopardy the very existence of many people who unfortunately had been committed to these homes. [More…]
The honourable member for Darling Downs spoke of a sinister attitude on the part of unions. [More…]
I would say that members of these unions are victims of a system, every bit as much as the patients they treat and every bit as much as the psychiatrists who are trained to work within the system which society bred before there were such things as psychiatrists. [More…]
Until we are aware of those social causes, until we can begin to roll them back instead of having them roll on as they are, increasing the burden of mental illness in the community, until we can reverse that position and until we know enough about society and the causes of mental illness, I do not think it is worthy of us to be pointing the finger of accusation at the insensitiveness of unions or anyone else engaged in this field. [More…]
These leftist leaders are not really trying to help members of their unions. [More…]
I invite the House, I invite the country, to consider the way in which responsible Ministers of me Government - I have named two but if one looked at the files one would find it possible to name a great many more than two - have given encouragement to the disrupters, have shown that they are on side with them and by so doing have betrayed the real interests of the people in the trade unions. [More…]
Honourable members opposite say that the answer to the problem is to continue with penal provisions in the Conciliation and Arbitration Act; to apply sanctions against unions when there is an industrial dispute. [More…]
I wonder whether my friends opposite would have any wish to see some of the restrictive trade practices observed by trade unions, artificers, artisans and labourers under this Bill. [More…]
Subsequently, of course, that practice was covered after the previous Government was forced to take action in 1971 following the exposure of this practice by the Australian Council of Trade Unions through Bourke’s store in Melbourne. [More…]
He referred to my statement that the communist leaders in some of these trade unions were not out to help their men get better conditions and that they were deliberately trying to destroy the conditions of their men in order to produce a revolutionary situation. [More…]
B. Martin, the executive director, who obviously is just bristling with belligerence in respect of trade unions. [More…]
I must say to him, through you, Mr Speaker, that, whilst he appears to have intimidatory tendencies towards trade unions and hopes to succeed with that intimidatory attitude, he has no chance of browbeating me or the Australian Government. [More…]
I know that in the past he has been instrumental against Communist corruption in trade unions. [More…]
It would appear that an error has been made because these clauses which impose liabilities, the neglect of which constitute offences, have been drawn in such a way that in the Territories - I speak only of the Territories - the trade unions will be brought within the ambit of these clauses. [More…]
That would include for certain the North Australian Workers Union and it may well include the branches of other unions which are operated inside the Territories. [More…]
I must say on behalf of the Government that it is a bitter disappointment to me that the Senate saw fit to reject the 6 clauses dealing with amalgamation because one of the things that is plaguing industrial relations today is the demarcation dispute which arises as a result of having too many unions and which cause employers to be the innocent sufferers and bystanders in these stupid, inane disputes over which union shall cover which particular occupation. [More…]
This tragedy - and it is nothing less than a tragedy in industrial relations - will never be resolved until the Parliament alters the Act in such a way as to make it easier for unions to amalgamate and thereby to reduce the number of unions. [More…]
We have 303 unions for 13 million people. [More…]
In West Germany there are 16 unions for 61 million people. [More…]
We saw the then Prime Minister, the right honourable member for Lowe (Mr McMahon), intervene not for the purpose of trying to resolve the dispute but to put pressure on the oil companies to ensure that agreement was not reached by them with the unions. [More…]
They sat down with the unions and, through the processes of negotiation, were able to resolve that dispute which should have been resolved many weeks before. [More…]
Then he expressed concern, as he has done outside the House publicly, at the fact that demarcation disputes have nothing to do with an employer, and it is a great pity that an employer is put to the loss of production, the loss of working time and all the disturbance to his business that comes from a demarcation dispute which is solely the concern of the unions involved. [More…]
Perhaps it is some consolation to him that he has his own industrial police force, but we on the Opposition side will be watching the operation of that inspectorate very closely to see that it is not misused or abused; that it is not used to terrorise employers, but that it is used responsibly to see that employers observe awards and used responsibly to see that unions observe awards. [More…]
Is he aware of the unsuccessful attempt by the President of the Australian Council of Trade Unions and the Federal President of the Australian Labor Party, Mr Hawke, who recognised the dispute to be one of national importance, to bring about a settlement? [More…]
The employer organisation, the Australian Council of Trade Unions, the Australian Council of Salaried and Professional Associations and the Labour [More…]
That for the purpose of removing the poisoned atmosphere that is now plagueing labour relations, the Government will ask Parliament to grant unions immunity from actions for torts and, at the same time, repeal all penalties for strikes and lockouts against arbitral decisions of the Commission for a trial period of one year and renewed from year to year so that Parliament can examine its operation. [More…]
That in order to overcome the friction and unrest created by State industrial laws that could prejudice the success of the Government’s initiatives for industrial peace, the Conciliation and Arbitration Act be amended to permit unions in States with repressive labour laws to apply for the extension of federal jurisdiction to the awards, determinations and agreements now operating under the laws of the offending State. [More…]
More significantly, the statement has been made on the first sitting day after the departure from Australia of the President of the Australian Council of Trade Unions. [More…]
Mr Hawke is not only the President of the Australian Council of Trade Unions but also the President of the Australian Labor Party. [More…]
This year the truth is that the Australian Labor Party, which claimed there would be less industrial disturbance when it was in government because it had a special arrangement with the trade unions, has been completely incapable of delivering that promise to the Australian people. [More…]
The Government promised the Public Service unions that it would extend long service leave to public servants in April. [More…]
They were agreed to by the parties concerned but they failed to win the support of the trade union movement, notwithstanding the fact that representatives of the Australian Council of Trade Unions had been the negotiators of them in the National Labour Advisory Council. [More…]
This Parliament - to grant unions immunity from actions for torts - [More…]
In the meantime, the Government should not attempt to draw a smokescreen over its appalling performance in industrial relations with the prospect of a long term future conferene by the 3 parties - the Government, employers and unions. [More…]
He has said that he is going to call a conference of all unions, but he has not indicated to me that he will be calling the La Trobe Valley people together. [More…]
Richard Carlton - Mr Johnson, can I put to you the proposition that you are adopting in essence a double standard; financial penalties on builders who engage in lockouts, on penal clauses, no financial penalties on unions who engage in strikes. [More…]
Richard Carlton- But surely Sir, I mean, that is a double standard though, you want to impose penalties on the builders for engaging in lockouts, but no penalties on the unions for engaging in strikes. [More…]
Mr Johnson No I’m not handling the unionists on the job at all, if there’s any action, and there hasn’t been any action taken by the trade union members in respect of Government contractors, or contracts, if there had been, it would be the job of the contractors, to take the unions through the arbitration system. [More…]
Richard Carlton - But it is the Government’s position though, that there shall be no penal clauses on unions, so, I mean, if you’re proposing that penal clauses on employers will solve industrial disputes that involve lockouts, why can’t the same standard be applied, penal clauses and penalties on unionists for engaging in strikes? [More…]
Mr Bob Hawke, the man who wears or attempts to wear 2 hats, one as President of the Australian Council of Trade Unions and the other as President of the Australian Labor Party, recognises the dispute as being one of national importance. [More…]
In fact, his nation-wide broadcast, stating that he is preparing for a national conference as soon as the President of the Australian Council of Trade Unions leaves the country, indicates to me that he is prepared to prance around and make great clarion calls for industrial peace. [More…]
Earlier this year various public service unions lodged claims with the Public Service Board seeking salary increases for their members employed in both the administrative and clerical and related grades of the Third Division and in the Second Division of the Australian Public Service. [More…]
The following table gives a comparison between what Second and Third Division Officers would have received under my proposal compared with the amounts that they in fact received under the arrangements entered into between the Board and certain Public Service unions. [More…]
I did not say anything about politicians, employers and unions sitting around bottles of champagne in smoke filled rooms in the dead of night trying to work out industrial relations. [More…]
I refer to the president of the Australian Labor Party and president of the Australian Council of Trade Unions, Mr Hawke, more recently the Acting Treasurer and also, of course, the Government’s principal economic adviser, Dr Coombs. [More…]
Already there are too many unions in the PostmasterGeneral’s area of operations. [More…]
I suggest that there should be this freedom to organise in unions and it should be maintained, subject to the arbitration authority and, of course, to emergencies which could be created by sudden withdrawal of labour in an organised fashion where the government must intervene. [More…]
The Opposition’s attitude to those talk6 is almost identical with that of the President of the Australian Council of Trade Unions, Mr Hawke, who is reported as having said: ‘I think it is always possible that you might gain something, and you cannot lose anything’. [More…]
He secretly sent a letter to the Snowy Mountains Council demanding that it produce power only in conformity with the wishes of the striking power unions. [More…]
In that instance the Minister plainly acted on the side of the striking power unions and against the New Souh Wales Industrial Commission and the Government and people of New South Wales. [More…]
It has been pointed out that unions quite clearly have a mandate to look after the industrial interests of their members but not to act as a conservation foundation at large. [More…]
When he was asked whether he would act against unions which were holding up Commonwealth projects, he said no, that it would be for the contractors to do that through the conciliation and arbitration procedures. [More…]
As far as the Government is concerned, the unions can hold up Commonwealth contracts and involve themselves in a wastage of Commonwealth funds and the Government will do nothing about it. [More…]
If the Minister for Labour held that view on 9 November, I am glad that he subsequently changed his view and suggested a conference because whatever the limitations of that conference might be, it is a move which, in the words of the President of the Australian Council of Trade Unions, might result in something. [More…]
In his second and fourth grounds for having a conference he suggests that penalties will be imposed on both parties - on the unions as well as on the employers - if agreements are broken. [More…]
The honourable member for Wannon was a little unkind to me - this was the only thing about his remarks that saddened me somewhat - when he criticised me, I thought most unfairly, by saying that there should have been better communications between me, the Australian Council of Trade Unions and the employers over this forthcoming industrial peace conference. [More…]
There have been communications between my good self, and the various bodies - the unions and employers. [More…]
It was always the unions which were wrong and it was always the employers who were right. [More…]
One would be pardoned for thinking that it is the idea of some agent provocateur designed to inhibit a solution of the present building trades dispute, because the matter is raised in this House not yesterday, not tomorrow, not last week but on the very morning that conferences between the trade unions and the employers in the building industry are reaching their most critical stage. [More…]
Assume that the Prime Minister finds himself beseiged by the supporters of the Federal President of die Australian Council of Trade Unions and there is a significant shearing away of support for him in his government. [More…]
I feel that Tilling and Lampe probably would object to the interpretation that the unions have given to their figures. [More…]
It is drunk for power and it is dictated to by unions of Australia. [More…]
I presume he has been speaking as the President of the Australian Council of Trade Unions. [More…]
Why will it not toe left to the unions, which already have the authority to institute proceedings? [More…]
In my experience in Western Australia, unions have been very active under both State and Federal awards in looking after the interests of their members and in bringing prosecutions where that has been thought necessary. [More…]
Does the Minister for Labour consider that the unions have not been doing their job, have not been looking after the interests of their members, have been falling down on the job and that because of this he must establish a new bureaucracy in order to do what the unions have failed to do? [More…]
As I have said, in my experience the unions have done their job and have done it very well. [More…]
Will it disregard custom and practice within an industry, agreements between employers and unions, by which the establishment has conducted itself? [More…]
I refer particularly to the Minister’s proposal for mediation and conciliation in support of voluntary negotiations to reach agreement between employers and unions and, as the Minister quite deliberately said, independently of the Conciliation and Arbitration Act. [More…]
Unions in this Parliament and which the Prime Minister has apparently adopted. [More…]
A committee within the Department of Supply is working with representatives of the unions involved to ascertain what are the best ways of utilising the production capacity of the factories and of obtaining civilian or non-defence orders to maintain the capacity. [More…]
I know that he appeared for some of the unions in cases but my information is that what he charged was greatly in excess of the value of his work. [More…]
It is clear that this is the story of a failure of abysmal proportions; of a failure of political courage; of a failure to understand the basic rules of finance and economics; and of a failure to govern in the public interest rather than in the interests of Caucus and the Australian Council of Trade Unions. [More…]
Has the President of the Australian Council of Trade Unions and the President of the Australian Labor Party, Mr Robert Hawke, been an embarrassment to this country in presuming to undertake discussions between Israel and the Soviet Union as a sort of roving, self-appointed diplomat? [More…]
Bodies associated with teachers’ unions and with parent organisations in Australia have established that the difficulties experienced by schools in the inner and western suburbs of our 2 principal State capitals are not in any way less than those for which the Plowden assistance was devised. [More…]
Whilst it had on it representatives - in inverted commas - of national employer organisations, the Australian Council of Trade Unions, the Commonwealth Department of Education, the State Department of Labour and State technical education authorities, which had been invited to nominate members to the Committee, the members were appointed as individuals and not as representatives. [More…]
With reference to the recent strong protests by world and Australian Trade Unions and prominent citizens to Spanish authorities over the gaoling of Spanish trade union officials and the alleged torture of prominent Spanish citizens imprisoned for suspected political activity, can the Minister say whether these protests have brought about any change in the treatment and trial of trade unionists and political activists in Spain. [More…]
Not only have I read articles on the subject, but I have had discussions with newspaper sources and representatives of the unions involved in the industry. [More…]
Newspaper proprietors and trade unions involved in the industry have expressed their concern to me about the shortage and the effect it could have on employment within the industry. [More…]
The Federal Liberal spokesman on industrial relations (Mr Fraser) yesterday backed the Minister for Labour (Mr Cameron) in convening a ‘peace conference’ between employers and unions. [More…]
The previous Government absolved itself of all responsibility for the increase in the rate of inflation in those years and blamed the unions for seeking excessive wage increases, and the Commonwealth Conciliation and Arbitration Commission and employers for granting them. [More…]
I see the growth of dozens of action groups which purport to represent the residents, and yet in fact represent multivested interests whether these be politically motivated or are unions or developers insensitive to the expectations and aspirations of the actual residents. [More…]
The Consultative Council of Public Participation has a membership of representatives of community interests such as local government advisers, cultural groups, trade unions, women’s groups and new interests. [More…]
The Congress of the Australian Council of Trade Unions has rejected any form of control over incomes. [More…]
One of the other 3 part-time members will be a representative of the trade unions. [More…]
Will he consider calling an industry conference so that management, unions and others may have a chance to submit plans to retain technology in Australia, to ensure that people now employed in the industry will not suffer undue hardship and, further, to ensure that consumer protection will be such that adequate protection will be accorded to them against surreptitious dumping by overseas manufacturers? [More…]
I would be pleased to have discussions with my colleague, the Minister for Secondary Industry, and other people who are concerned, and meet with people from the industry and the unions and other people concerned to ensure that we maintain the desirable technological aspects of the industry for the future. [More…]
I should like to give a warning not only to those in the House but also to people outside in industry and the unions who will be concerned with these matters after the events. [More…]
Does he include the following, which are accepted by all unions as part of the recompense: superannuation, sick leave, holiday leave, sabbatical leave and after hours work? [More…]
There should be a conference between the Commonwealth, the States, employers, unions and consumers to get consensus and cooperation in a national program. [More…]
The legislation will thus gather within its provisions corporations which may be generally described as finance companies, permanent building societies, merchant banks and money market groups, including the authorised dealers in the short term money market, pastoral finance companies and credit unions. [More…]
It is estimated that there are operating in Australia about 1,000 finance company groups, 200 permanent building societies, 750 credit unions, and somewhere between 50 and 80 corporations operating generally in the merchant banking area. [More…]
Mr Snedden said in Sydney the economic climate was preventing the unions pressing for over-award payments, a major contributor to inflation. [More…]
The temporary advantage to powerful unions’- [More…]
There are far too many unions involved in the Post Office, but that is not a matter for this Government to solve. [More…]
There are some 26 unions involved and nobody has rationalised that position. [More…]
This country is a little better off than most other countries - not because of what this Government has done but, I repeat, because of the wise planning by the previous Government and the co-operation between it, industry management and, if you like, the unions. [More…]
The contribution of the unions has been tremendous. [More…]
I can see at once that this represents at its worst a repudiation of the undertaking that I gave to the unions some months ago but I would have no hesitation or difficulty in justifying such a repudiation. [More…]
We emphatically believe that the Government has an obligation to its own employees to honour the unequivocal promise made in the Cabinet decision of April 3 which resulted from an agreement and negotiations between the unions concerned and the Government. [More…]
It appears that not only was this a broken promise as announced in the Cabinet decision of 3 April this year but it was a breach of an agreement reached by the Government with the Australian Public Service unions. [More…]
Both sides of this House readily condemn unions which reach agreements with employers and then repudiate the agreement. [More…]
In the same way this House ought to condemn the Government for breaking an agreement which was freely and voluntarily negotiated with the Australian Public Service unions. [More…]
I am sure that the Australian Public Service unions will do the same and that they will not let the Government put them off and continually defer the implementation of the promise which was made earlier this year. [More…]
If he knows that, he would know that there was never ever an agreement between the Government and the Public Service unions on this matter. [More…]
As a matter of fact, the same matter is now a matter of negotiation between the Government and the Public Service unions. [More…]
In its dealings with the unions, however, Qantas has to pay regard to the anti-inflationary policies of the Fiji Government, which take account of the need for local wages and conditions to be set at levels that can be sustained by the Fiji economy. [More…]
Section 2.3 of the Australian Assistance Plan advises* that: ‘Each Regional Council should involve representatives of the Australian, State and Local Governments, trade unions and employer groups, welfare consumer groups and non government bodies concerned with social welfare.’ [More…]
Were the activities of Australian trade unions referred to in this context. [More…]
Have consultations on this matter been held with Australian trade unions. [More…]
There was no specific reference at the Conference to activities of Australian trade unions in this context. [More…]
There have been no consultations with Australian trade unions on this matter. [More…]
However, I have sent copies of the Joint Communique to the ACTU and to other central organisations of unions and employers. [More…]
Over the last two or three weeks we have seen a farce in relationships between the Postmaster-General (Mr Lionel Bowen) and various postal unions, and the only persons who are going to pay the penalty for that are the general Australian community and the Australian public. [More…]
We have seen a situation in which electoral promises of the Prime Minister (Mr Whitlam) have been broken as a result of the activities of the Postmaster-General and we have seen the incompetence of the Postmaster-General in incurring the hostility of unions over matters that have arisen because the Postmaster-General was unwilling to consult and negotiate. [More…]
Because he thought that unions would have to support the Labor Government, he took for granted their acquiescence in any action that he might want to undertake. [More…]
He then ran into conflict with a one-time Senate candidate for the Australian Labor Party and various postal unions. [More…]
Even the Melbourne ‘Age’ was prepared to say that the unions, in some respects, have been outrageously arrogant in these matters. [More…]
These 2 events - the Labor Day march and the sweetheart deal with the postmen - opened the door to 2 other unions, namely, the Union of Postal Clerks and Telegraphists and the Australian Postmasters’ Association. [More…]
As the Postmaster-General expected and as he would have known, both unions walked right through that door and ended Saturday post office services in the official Post Offices. [More…]
The Postmaster-General had already sold the pass and other unions walked through to end Post Offices services in their entirety on Saturdays. [More…]
1 turn now to examine the curious way in which the Postmaster-General conducts business with the unions. [More…]
If some of the views expressed by officials of the postal unions are true, it is quite clear that they do not have a great deal of confidence in the Postmaster-General. [More…]
We had the situation on 18 February when the Postmaster-General said that he was seeking the co-operation of the Australian Postal Workers Union and accused the other 2 unions of spite against the APWU. [More…]
If the Minister has had trouble with the unions he has brought it on himself by his own initial encouragement of those particular objectives. [More…]
It was one that clearly could not work in the atmosphere that had been created by the Minister with the unions concerned. [More…]
Later, when he apparently realised that there was a public to be served, he started to attack the unions and said that he was trying to keep services going on Saturdays. [More…]
Today we have a new understanding and a new trust between government and unions. [More…]
Members of Caucus do not like Ministers who incur the wrath of unions and George Slater wm be directing the barbs. [More…]
It is as a result of being able to talk to unions that those troubles have been kept at a minimum. [More…]
Why is it that the only way in which the previous Government could settle an industrial dispute was to grant things to 2 unions with members in the Post Office, unions whose members do not sort the letters or deliver them? [More…]
By way of a settlement in December 1970 the previous Government said to 2 unions that their members may work only 36 J hours, from Monday to Friday, and that it would pay them overtime. [More…]
It compelled one segment of the Post Office, the postmen, the most valuable segment of the postal service, to work every Saturday; but in a strike settlement in December 1970 it said to 2 other unions with many members in the Post Office that they may only work 36$ hours. [More…]
Is it any wonder that the postmen said to me: ‘Do you think it is fair that we are compelled to work 40 hours and 5i days a week and never have a Saturday off when the other 2 unions, as a result of the decision of the previous Government, work only 36 J hours and only need to work on a rostered basis on Saturdays’? [More…]
There has been consultation after consultation and the unions now say that they think the scheme will work. [More…]
He should refer to the previous Government’s failure to have any industrial relationship with the unions. [More…]
Now when postmen are working their 40 hours in a 5 day week, honourable members opposite complain that the other 2 unions really are the ones that matter; that they are the ones who want my scalp, or something like that. [More…]
What we are suffering today is the backlash of under the counter deals between the unions and the Government which have now ended up in a pretty unhappy situation. [More…]
What he has done is to engage in a subterfuge of dilly-dally talk about what he said to the unions and what they said to him. [More…]
This evidently is a further stage in the step by step wrecking of the Post Office which the unions want. [More…]
When the present Government came to office there were in existence claims by the unions, particularly one on behalf of van drivers who wanted an increase in salary. [More…]
He thought that he had satisfied the unions and that he had achieved for them in 15 months something that they had aimed to achieve for years. [More…]
That backlash was the dissatisfaction of two other unions led by that very militant man, Slater, who was determined to get into politics and at that stage suffered a disappointment. [More…]
Therefore, it is obvious that service will not be reinstated, that the existing disability within the postal service will endure, that the Government will take no action to remedy it whatsoever and that all the Government will do now is to allow the unions to run over the top of the Government and increase the $3 5m loss that has been forecast. [More…]
On the one hand, the honourable member for Wannon (Mr Malcolm Fraser), said that the Postmaster-General (Mr Lionel Bowen) should be condemned because of his incompetence in incurring the hostility of the unions. [More…]
Then the honourable member for Cowper (Mr Ian Robinson) said that the PostmasterGeneral had sold out to militant unions. [More…]
Which of the accusations does the Opposition really mean, that he has incurred the hostility of some unions because he has not agreed to every claim, or the other charge made against him that he has meekly laid down in front of every claim that was made irrespective of its merits? [More…]
So jar the criticism has been made on the basis that the Postmaster-General either gives in too quickly to the unions or, alternatively, does not ‘give in to the unions at all. [More…]
The Sydney ‘Daily Telegraph’ of 17 February referred to the action of the unions in banning Saturday work. [More…]
I say ‘the unions’ and not ‘the postmen’. [More…]
He has done everything possible to negotiate with the unions concerned and for the most part the dispute - if it may be referred to as a dispute - is well on the way to being settled to the satisfaction of the Government and to the satisfaction of the unions concerned. [More…]
It is all very well for this Government to back excessive wage increases before arbitration tribunals, but or course it is the unions today who have the strength and the bargaining power and, as I have said elsewhere, it may well be that before pensioners are able to receive their just entitlement of the percentage of the gross national product of this country they may be required to unionise. [More…]
Everyone is contributing, from Mr Hawke to the unions, the backbenchers, members of the Government and the odd Minister. [More…]
It seems to me that there is a need for the Government to intervene strongly in this area to get the mails moving in areas such as Parramatta and the other areas that I mentioned and to ensure that people are not put to such dislocation as has occurred as a result of these particular events simply because the unions object to a more efficient system of working within the Post Office. [More…]
Over the years we have had the co-operation of the Australian Council of Trade Unions in trade criteria testing. [More…]
The Federation was invited to attend the discussions as it could represent the great majority of credit unions and credit union members. [More…]
It is proposed in the near future to advise all credit unions throughout Australia about the new payment facility and the administrative procedures associated with it. [More…]
The Opposition claims that we have a lot of influence with trade unions. [More…]
The Advisory Board to be set up will include members of the public, the trade unions, the business community and voluntary organisations interested in aid matters, so as to enable the Agency and the Minister to obtain advice and objective criticism on aid operations. [More…]
The unions are running free before the winds of unshackled power. [More…]
The Government wants this case to be resumed as quickly as possible so that the 4.5 million workers who were not in the demonstration and who are waiting upon the result of the Commission’s hearing - those workers who have so much to gain if wage indexation which the Australian Council of Trade Unions and the Government is supporting is introduced - can share in the benefits that can come from the present proceedings. [More…]
I hope that the unions, whichever they are, responsible for organising this campaign will now see the error of their ways and that the Commission will be permitted to conduct its business in an orderly manner. [More…]
But at present in Australia, the instability in the value of money means, firstly, hardship for the retired - those people on fixed incomes - and a lower real income for those who are not in the militant unions or who do not wish to strike to achieve adequate rises in wages. [More…]
One of the things they said was: ‘If we have Labor in power it may have more influence with the unions and we will have more industrial peace; we will be able to go forward, to progress and to develop this country’. [More…]
I and my accounting colleagues have spent hundreds and hundreds of non-chargeable hours in improving the accounts and records of trade unions. [More…]
If the obvious pressure that would come in such circumstances were to be accepted by an Australian government or by the management of any particular concern, and they said that they did have a special obligation, they would probably put off people belonging to the Vehicle Builders Federation or other Australian unions. [More…]
It is a situation that would seriously jeopardise the continuing support of the trade unions for an immigration program. [More…]
Funnily enough, both are concerned with the movement of our communist enemies, whether they are overseas or in Australia and working against Australia, or in the unions working against their own members and betraying their own union members. [More…]
It has splurged generally in the public sector, pushed the Public Service salary bill to astronomical heights, encouraged unions to seek unrealistic wage rises, sponsored by inaction the climate for strikes and engaged in wasteful projects so that it can have a greater measure of intervention in the management of the national economy. [More…]
He decided to close these post offices and he supported the unions when they turned down the postmen. [More…]
Indeed, we have seen the amiable colourful Minister when on his overseas tours successfully confuse the Australian people, our Asian friends, the Australian Council of Trade Unions and Mr Hawke, the President of the ACTU, as well as his own Prime Minister and Government on immigration policy. [More…]
In the wings we see the organisations of the Australian Labor Party, the State executives, the Federal Executive, the Australian Council of Trade Unions, and of course the irrepressible Mr Hawke, all having a slap at Government policy. [More…]
There is a need for a massive incentive program to be evolved by the Government after consultation with unions and employer and producer groups. [More…]
I hope that when we get back into government shortly we will resist the temptation to trade blow for blow against unions. [More…]
As an alternative I offer the suggestion that unions and employers should be brought together to make them face the explicit and irreconcilable principles that lie behind the present situation of self-defeating wage and price increases. [More…]
The rock on which the ship “of this Government will founder is its complete incapacity to control the unions. [More…]
It is time a strong arm was used to stamp out illegal strikes by the imposition and collection of heavy penalties when unions withdraw labour for any reason other than strict union business. [More…]
We want a return to the strong-arm tactics of the Premier of Queensland who declared a state of emergency when the unions used the strike mechanism against a visiting South African football team. [More…]
Every time it tries to do something to control inflation, and it does not do that often, it backs down because it is not game to face up to the union leaders, who often do not represent the opinion of the people in the unions they are supposed to represent. [More…]
This debate on the Appropriation Bill is an appropriate occasion to say something about government and business in Australia as it exists under a Labor government because it is sometimes claimed that as many Australian businesses have close associations with conservative parties and the Australian Labor Party has strong associations and affiliations with trade unions an Australian Labor government would be bad for business. [More…]
They are down because of the failure of the Government to get some production out of the trade unions and to get some production out of industry. [More…]
I think he is doing his best and I think that he has tried hard, but the socialist controlled postal unions have gained control of the postal services in this country. [More…]
I have mentioned that the trade unions are communist controlled. [More…]
The Minister for Labour has appointed him as a trouble shooter to settle trouble in the trade unions. [More…]
And then as the time draws near I’ll talk to the trade unions and employers involved to see what problems or disputes are likely to arise. [More…]
We have seen the Australian Council of Trade Unions’ expressed concern and the concern of the building unions. [More…]
On 15 March 1974, following discussions between the Prime Minister and the Ministers for Labour and Immigration and members of the Australian Council of Trade Unions executive, who themselves could get no coherence and, certainly until then, no consultation, the Government announced the shelving of the Leyland plan to bring in 35 semi-skilled Filipino workers. [More…]
Trade Unions, this Declaration was issued. [More…]
It was agreed that a triparite mission to South East Asia and the Pacific region - drawn from trade unions, employers and the relevant Government departments - should proceed first to Manila. [More…]
The unions, far from being racist, are determined to see that the skilled tradesmen who have not had the advantage of being born in this country and therefore who are not in a position to understand what their rights are under the law, are not exploited. [More…]
I will say quite clearly today that the recent announcements by the Prime Minister in the Philippines and the recent decisions by the Minister for Labour and the Minister for Immigration to initiate conferences with the Australian Council of Trade Unions in order to discuss the qualifications of overseas tradesmen are progressive steps on which those Ministers should be congratulated, and it should not be suggested that suddenly, overnight, new Labor Party policies have been devised. [More…]
The Bill also makes allowance for financial assistance for certain persons outside Australia not qualified to receive an Australian social service pension and provides for payment of child endowment, pensions and similar long term benefits to the credit of savings accounts with approved credit unions and also the payment of pensions and similar long term benefits to the credit of bank accounts, as has been the case with child endowment since its introduction in 1941. [More…]
It is proposed that payment of child endowment be made to the credit of savings accounts with approved credit unions. [More…]
At present firms anticipating inflation accelerate the rate of inflation by raising prices, and unions, in their bid for increased wages, anticipate inflation and bid higher for increased wages than a normal responsible union might wish to do. [More…]
This is what is giving the militant trade unions an opportunity to mobilise the working people to hold strikes and stoppages. [More…]
In the period up to 11 April, the examiners will be holding comprehensive discussions with representatives of the Australian and some State Governments, the universities, industry, trade unions, learned academics and professional bodies, on the whole range of scientific effort in Australia. [More…]
2) 1973, contained provision for the easier amalgamation of unions. [More…]
How much longer are we going to allow these demarcation disputes to tie up industry simply because the facilities and means do not exist by which 303 unions - inefficient unions, some of them - are able to amalgamate into fewer and more efficient unions. [More…]
This is one of the reasons why many unions hesitate to enter into agreements of this character which will bind them in perpetuity to the conditions of the first agreement. [More…]
The Bill that I am presenting will not prevent employers and unions from incorporating an enforcement clause in an agreement. [More…]
The unions that have entered into these kinds of agreements are simply saying: ‘We undertake that we will not repudiate the agreement insofar as it relates to the things contained in the agreement.’ [More…]
The Australian Council of Trade Unions does not encourage the making of agreements of this kind. [More…]
Good industrial relations will be best achieved by agreements initially arrived at between trade unions and employers. [More…]
Why, the Treasurer (Mr Crean) said recently that Australia has 1,000 finance company groups, 400 insurance companies, 200 permanent building societies, 750 credit ‘unions, between 50 and 80 merchant banking corporations and 27 trading banks with 5,000 branches as well as a number of other credit unions and terminating building societies. [More…]
I can imagine what the unions will be doing around this country before very long if that situation develops. [More…]
The advisory board to be set up will include members of the public, the trade unions, the business community and voluntary organisations interested in aid matters. [More…]
Church groups, trade unions and others in the community who have involved themselves in voluntary aid programs ought to be consulted in devising a program for the Australian Government. [More…]
Mr Jolly, for the Australian Council of Trade Unions, asserts that the movement in productivity last year was 3.7 per cent. [More…]
Registered newspapers and periodicals of trade unions remain in Category ‘B’ as the publications of organisations of employees. [More…]
Were the activities of Australian trade unions referred to in this context; if so, did the Government give any undertaking to other South Pacific governments concerning this matter. [More…]
Have consultations on this matter been held with Australian trade unions; if so, what form did such consultations take, when and where were they held, and who participated in them. [More…]
There was no specific reference at the Conference to activities of Australian trade unions in this context. [More…]
There have been no consultations with Australian trade unions on this matter. [More…]
However, I have sent copies of the Joint Communique to the ACTU and to other central organisations of unions and employers. [More…]
The Committee also conducted surveys of the attitudes and views of employers, trade unions, the public at large, and current and exmembers of the CMF. [More…]
The report has been considered by this Government as well as by the various unions and associations within the Australian Public Service. [More…]
I know that for many years the various associations and unions within the Australian Public Service have tried to get a succession of Governments to allow the Superannuation Board to lend money to terminating building societies set up with the contributors’ own money for the purpose of assisting contributors to purchase homes. [More…]
He said that there would be fewer industrial disturbances under the Labor Government because, he said: ‘We have an understanding with the unions’. [More…]
There are, of course, hundreds of unions and other organisations which support our health insurance program, many of them no doubt for reasons of ideology and because our proposals offer a materially better deal for their members. [More…]
The panels consist of representatives of management and unions and sometimes other people. [More…]
One knows very well that if industry is to be changed greatly there will be resistance from the (management and the unions. [More…]
Public Service unions, will be introduced by the Government in that form? [More…]
The Prime Minister said that under Labor there would be fewer industrial strikes because, he said, Labor has an understanding with the unions. [More…]
The unions are running this country. [More…]
Some people in the ALP and in the trade unions, for good or not so good reasons, were strongly opposed to the Communist Party and its members and they did not feel like working strongly for the defeat of this referendum. [More…]
We have been in touch with the Australian Council of Trade Unions. [More…]
There is agreement between the ACTU and the maritime unions that in the event of a strike involving Tasmania in the whole of the Commonwealth, Tasmanian trade would normally be exempted from it. [More…]
Because of the actions of the maritime and land-based unions involved in the Tasmanian trade there has been a loss of 100,000 tons of cargo. [More…]
My question is addressed to the Treasurer and is prompted by the presence in Canberra today of the President of the Australian Council of Trade Unions for talks about growing unemployment. [More…]
The recent moves by the metal trades unions to seek a new award in addition to the $15 increase granted in April demonstrates a new militancy and sense of aggression of unions towards the whole concept of wage negotiations. [More…]
This inevitable consequence has been recognised by the Minister for Labor and Immigration (Mr Clyde Cameron), the Minister for Overseas Trade (Dr J. F. Cairns) and also by the President of the Australian Council of Trade Unions. [More…]
I have received information from some of the unions involved. [More…]
Honourable members opposite are very good at criticising the doctors just as they sometimes say of Opposition members that we neglect to consider unions and members of unions and do not treat them as real people when discussing industrial situations. [More…]
We need more people with this kind of courage who, when the union is behaving wrongly as some unions have recently behaved - indeed one union was recently castigated by the Minister for Transport (Mr Charles Jones) at this table yesterday - will stand up and say: ‘I will defy the union. [More…]
What have they done with unruly unions? [More…]
Whenever there is a crisis anywhere, either in the trade unions or in the industry, in relation to the supply of fuel we are the first victims of it. [More…]
The Government would be much wiser if it spent more money on increasing housing opportunities than it spends on feather bedding militant trade unions. [More…]
The legislation will thus gather within its provisions corporations which may be generally described as finance companies, permanent building societies, merchant banks and money market groups, including the authorised dealers in the short term money market, pastoral finance companies and credit unions. [More…]
It is estimated that there are operating in Australia about 1,000 finance companies, 200 permanent building societies, 750 credit unions, and between 50 and 80 corporations operating generally in the merchant banking area. [More…]
In recent weeks other Ministers and I have had a series of discussions with trade union leaders, including representatives of the Australian Council of Trade Unions and others, as well as leaders of industry and we have examined the unemployment situation very carefully. [More…]
I have spoken to industrialists, management and trade unions, making it as well known as possible. [More…]
The Bill before the House dealing with other financial institutions covers specific areas such as finance companies, building companies, merchant banks and credit unions. [More…]
I would like to know what the Minister intends to do to see that more trade unions remove unnecessary bans against the employment of women. [More…]
Encouraging, or where possible, establishing, equal opportunity for recruitment, training and advancement for all groups in the community which means the removal of artificial restrictions on entry into associations, professions or trade unions on grounds other than competence. [More…]
The Government has been able to avoid responsibility for its obvious inability to reconcile postal unions and their disputes by continued reference to the now concluded royal commission into the Post Office. [More…]
The problem is no longer concerned only with New Zealand waterside workers; it is now within the sphere of Australian unions which are attempting to resolve their situation, but this is all affecting an important shipment of citrus fruits to New Zealand. [More…]
One can hardly blame members of unions for the attitude they adopt. [More…]
The New Zealand unions are quite happy to handle the ‘Australian Endeavour’, the ‘Australian Exporter’ and any other Australian ships that might be in a position to carry Australian trade to New Zealand. [More…]
It has solved the dispute which existed between the New Zealand unions and the Australian maritime industry. [More…]
The honourable member would know that as far back as last September there was a meeting which involved members of the trade unions and Ministers of this Government who were directly concerned. [More…]
One of the great promises of the present Prime Minister (Mr Whitlam) before the election before last was that because of the close links of the Australian Labor Party with the Australian Council of Trade Unions, with Mr Hawke and with the union movement generally, the Labor Party would be able to bring to Australia a real degree of industrial peace that had not been seen before. [More…]
The Government is prepared to tackle the marine engineers who do not belong to one of the great traditional labour unions from which the Government requires support and to which it owes allegiance and a duty and whose orders the Government must obey. [More…]
I say nothing of the attitude of unions. [More…]
I think the Press of Australia would have done a public service if it had printed that story and given it the significance which it has given to decisions of unions who break agreements. [More…]
The greatest failure of this Government is its failure to show restraint in its own activities, in what it advocates, in its own expenditure and in its own grandiose plans, and its failure to use its claimed influence with the Australian Council of Trade Unions and with Mr Hawke. [More…]
What about this influence of the Prime Minister with the Australian Council of Trade Unions? [More…]
It is time the Government not only practised restraint on its own account through the measures I have mentioned through the course of these remarks and established restraint in other sections of the community but also used its links with the Australian Council of Trade Unions to see that the Builders Labourers Federation cannot get away with its claimed guerilla tactics, to see that the Amalgamated Metalworkers Union will not be successful- [More…]
I mention two of them - the need to facilitate amalgamations of unions so as to obviate the need for the number of demarcation disputes that plague our industrial scene, the need to make and encourage the making of industrial agreements and the need to encourage the observance of industrial agreements. [More…]
I applaud the Waterside Workers Federation for it, and I applaud him for applauding it for what it did, because it is sensible in industrial relations to give credit where credit is due and not always take an institutionalised attitude towards things and simply assume that employers are always wrong or always right, and vice versa in respect of the unions. [More…]
The other thing of which one needs to be certain if there are to be automatic cost of living adjustments is that the unions will not try to have their cake and eat it too. [More…]
My proposition is that the unions should be prepared to give a firm undertaking that, in return for automatic quarterly cost of living adjustments to the wages of their members to compensate them for price movements as they occur each quarter, they will desist from making claims for wage increases based upon price movements for which they have already received compensation. [More…]
I do not think that a consensus of opinion will arise from the conference which has been convened by Mr Justice Moore and which has now been brought forward to August because I think that the employers have taken up a fixed position against quarterly cost of living adjustments and I do not believe that the unions are prepared to give the kind of undertaking that I think would be needed for quarterly cost of living adjustments to be introduced across the board. [More…]
To the eternal credit of the unions, we have to say that they have accepted that and that there has not been one dispute since then over the basis upon which overtime should be paid. [More…]
One is that we are not discussing a free market situation in which the price of labour is determined by pure competition; rather is there a cartel situation with unions and employer organisations together with important and often decisive outside in fluences, such as government intervention and legal judgments. [More…]
Some unions are ahead in relation to this eroding purchasing power and some are behind, but the determination to preserve and improve relativities ensures constant struggle until the forces of disruption - taxation and inflation - are moderated. [More…]
If this forecast is true then the unions involved will most certainly provoke further industrial action, an effect hardly consistent with the balance of power argument, advanced by the Minister, which implies that increased unemployment should weaken the position of the unions. [More…]
I suppose that is true to the extent to which those unions are not affiliated with the Australian Labor Party. [More…]
Some questions which unions will want answered are these: How is ‘structural adjustment’ defined? [More…]
The Government must adopt a stance in industrial disputes that serves the wider ends of peace and justice, instead of attempting to strengthen the bargaining power of favoured unions. [More…]
Its role was to kick the worker, to criticise the unions and to exacerbate industrial disputes. [More…]
He tries to misrepresent the picture by saying that unions are irresponsible and that a strike wave is upon us but he ignores the thousands of cases in which disputes are settled before any strike or stoppage occurs. [More…]
With the mechanisation by the ship owners and the many different ways of transporting cargo, people who belonged to unions other than the Waterside Workers Federation of Australia, were performing tasks which were very similar in nature to those tasks once performed by waterside workers but which, because of the introduction of technology and mechanisation on the waterfront, are now in fact vastly- different tasks. [More…]
I know that my colleague, the Minister for Labor and Immigration, is very anxious that many of the difficulties that have arisen in the past between various unions, because of the multiplicity of them, should be resolved. [More…]
However, the industry itself is plagued - even the honourable member for Burke admitted this - by a continuing high level of industrial unrest often resulting from demarcation disputes between unions. [More…]
It noted with interest the possibility of involving trade unions in economic and budgetary planning. [More…]
The Treasurer (Mr Crean) estimated that there are now operating in Australia around 1,000 finance company groups, 400 insurance companies, 200 permanent building societies, 750 credit unions and between 50 and 80 corporations in the area of merchant banking. [More…]
It is perfectly true that maritime unions have placed bans on Greek ships because of the things that the Greek Government - or should I call it the Greek junta - has been doing in Greece. [More…]
What further action will the Minister now take to convince the unions concerned that their irresponsible actions in black banning the dump barges have almost brought coastal operations in and out of Darwin to a halt? [More…]
Will the acquisition by the Department of Aboriginal Affairs of a controlling interest in the major barge operator have any effect on the unions’ attitude towards the barge ban imposed on V. B. Perkins and other barge operators? [More…]
It brought to the attention of the House the Government’s failure to use its alleged influence with the Australian Council of Trade Unions, in particular, to exercise restraint when Australia is crying out for restraint and some kind of leadership from the Federal Government. [More…]
The Government and the Australian Council of Trade Unions need to get together on these issues not only in the interest of employees but in the interests of every Australian. [More…]
Basically what the Minister is proposing is not supported by the Australian Council of Trade Unions or by the bulk of union leadership and was not supported by the Industrial Peace Conference, which quite deliberately stated: ‘We want no more changes in these matters. [More…]
Already the 10 largest unions cover 40 per cent of people paid under Federal awards and the 16 largest cover, I think, 64 per cent of those people. [More…]
If the Minister argues that greater peace is achieved by unions joining together, let him look at the record of the Amalgamated Metal Workers Union, which is an amalgamated union. [More…]
Has that union amalgamation really moved towards industrial peace when in the March quarter that union and other metal trades unions were principally responsible for the loss of 2 million work days and $37m in wages with 381,000 men being involved? [More…]
In the same group of unions in [More…]
Until that happens one can expect unions not only to demand wage increases to cover prospective movements in prices, also to .seek, hopefully, to obtain increases to cover prospective movements in prices. [More…]
With the strength that the unions now have, not only in this country but also in other countries of the world, as measured against the power of capital to resist those demands, the sellers of labour are -in the position of living in a buyer’s market. [More…]
In the power game that is played inside industrial relations all over the world the trade unions are calling the tune, and they are going to go on calling it. [More…]
So we will have to come to accept either quarterly cost of living wage adjustments, whereby wages are adjusted automatically every quarter, or a continuation of the present system under which the strong unions especially will not only demand wage increases at regular intervals to take care of price movements that have occurred retrospectively but also will have the industrial muscle necessary to anticipate prospective prices movements and get them. [More…]
It came about because of the factors to which I have just referred, that is, because March represented the end of the agreement which was made between the metal unions and the Metal Trades Industry Association of Australia last year. [More…]
There being no automatic arrangements to compensate for wage erosion due to price movements, there remained only one way in which the unions could obtain compensation for what had occurred and for anticipated movements in the future, and that was by strike action. [More…]
That seeks to make for easier amalgamation so that we will not have 303 different unions covering the work force but will have a very much smaller number than we now have. [More…]
We will be putting to the Moore conference that the Conciliation and Arbitration Commission ought to reintroduce quarterly cost of living adjustments and that in return the unions ought to give the undertaking that once automatic quarterly cost of living wage adjustments are reintroduced they will not include in any wage demands from then on any element that is related to the movement in prices. [More…]
If we can persuade the unions to undertake to eliminate from their future wage demands any element relating to movements in prices then we will have got rid of the major number of industrial disputes. [More…]
The big unions will go on demanding wage increases to cover not only retrospective movements but also prospective movements. [More…]
Once a year the weak unions will pick up a small amount in the national wage case, but that will be infinitesimal compared with what the bigger unions will obtain under the system operating at present. [More…]
It is no use talking about adopting a system under which the Commission in the national wage case will give to unions only the difference between the amount that it considers is justifiable and the amount which the unions have already received in the intervening 12 months. [More…]
It is not good enough for these members of Parliament to come into this place unless they alter their thinking and understand that their role and responsibility now is to look after the community and not just the unions from which they came. [More…]
The Opposition says the whole responsibility for industrial disputation rests completely with the unions. [More…]
Newspaper headlines have stated: ‘Rae’s Next Target may be the Unions’. [More…]
Amongst other things, Senator Rae said to a reporter: ‘I would like to be part of a select committee to investigate the trade unions in Australia’s society and economy’. [More…]
It was headed ‘Rae Eyeing the Unions’. [More…]
Of course he is eyeing the unions. [More…]
The next time they get on their feet for the next thrilling episode of ‘Blue Hills’, which we hear day after day, and refer to the twaddle that is on the blue sheet at present, let them, particularly the honourable members for Wannon and Angas, who would not know anything about trade unions, try to reach conclusions and not talk a lot of drivel. [More…]
I am sure that he will tell his colleagues on the Opposition side that one of the great troubles in Australia today is that we have too many small and inefficient trade unions. [More…]
The honourable member did say in the course of another discussion that I had with him some time ago that this Bill did not have the approval of the Australian Council of Trade Unions. [More…]
The principal provisions of the Bill are to ensure that when agreements are made between unions and employers they have the endorsement of the rank and file members of the unions concerned in the agreement. [More…]
It would be just as relevant because the Wool Corporation is just as important to Australia as the Reserve Bank Board, but that has never been done and so far in this Parliament we have never accepted the principle that there are important organisations like the Wool Corporation where, as of right trade unions could appoint the directors. [More…]
It was during my period as the Minister for Trade and Industry that a request was made by the Australian Council of Trade Unions for some trade union representation on the Tariff Board and I brought forward an amendment of the legislation to provide for an additional appointment. [More…]
‘It is obvious that the Government is looking at only one side of a 2-sided equation and ignoring the excessive demands being placed on business by trade unions, often to the point of disruptive strikes and other forms of industrial unrest’ ‘Present Government policies cannot control inflation without creating business failures and a wasteful degree of unemployment.’ [More…]
If there is a demarcation dispute between 2 unions the Government goes to water. [More…]
If it does, and adopts a commercial approach in dealing with the postal trade unions, and adopts a more realistic approach to the questions of seniority and the hiring and firing of staff and so on, we may well see a more efficient Post Office. [More…]
The Post Office is now being jeopardised by the backlash of deals between the trade unions and the Government. [More…]
Nothing has been done to restore public confidence or to provide a basis for a better relationship between the Government and the unions. [More…]
The Minister for Overseas Trade, at the recent Victorian Conference of the ALP, advocated substantial increases in wages and salaries to the point of endorsing the Metal Trades Unions most recent claims. [More…]
Until such time as the Government is prepared to initiate a co-operative dialogue with the State governments, trade unions and employers there can be no progress towards any program of national restraint. [More…]
There are no monoliths - neither the unions, the employers nor even the government - in this respect. [More…]
As a matter of urgency I call upon the Prime Minister (Mr Whitlam) to implement a wide ranging plan to improve productivity and industrial performance after adequate consultations with the Australian Council of Trade Unions, employer groups, producing industries and select key tertiary industries. [More…]
In the interim a working party of unions, employers and producer groups should begin discussions on an overall comprehensive plan designed to increase productivity in Australia. [More…]
The Government should offer substantial reductions of taxation on overtime earnings based on a minimum of weekly hours of work on the condition that the unions do not make any further claims for shorter working hours for a period of at least 5 years, and that the unions moderate wage demands. [More…]
While the honourable member for Gellibrand was a famed advocate of the Australian Council of Trade Unions, I understand, in previous national wage cases, he is concerned that the consumer price index in a number of areas does not measure the prices which it has the duty of measuring adequately and correctly. [More…]
In my own area on the north coast of New South Wales in the last few weeks there has been a tragic curtailment of services simply because the State Government does not have the funds to do the job and because the unions in collusion with the Minister for Transport, who is now at the table, have another plan. [More…]
This is to deal with some unions and nol all the unions. [More…]
I wish he would come to the north coast and tell the unions there. [More…]
The unions - anyhow, those on the north coast of New South Wales - would be delighted to co-operate with an overall plan that woud assist the total railway system but they certainly cannot sec it in what is being put forward in this legislation. [More…]
This Bill relates to the amalgamation of trade unions and is designed quite clearly to make amalgamations much easier than they are at the moment. [More…]
The general plan that the Minister haslaid down involves committees of management of the unions - the deregistering union and the amalgamating union - making decisions and recommendations to their members. [More…]
That is not necessarily in conformity with the rules of an organisation because while some unions very rightly and very properly have secret postal ballots for the election of officials and on other matters, there are other unions which do not. [More…]
Some Government supporters seem quite deliberately determined to try to demonstrate that under the present provisions all unions conduct secret postal ballots. [More…]
There are other grounds for objection, and these other grounds strike in the same direction, namely, the removal of rights from members of unions. [More…]
These things can be done under cover of an amalgamation arrangement, and at the same time the rights of individual members of a union, an organisation, are further reduced because in relation to those unions which have a collegiate system of election, where there is not direct election by the rank and file, the Minister is inserting a provision which states that for 3 years after amalgamation the rank and file members will not get a vote. [More…]
Now under pressure from some unions which no doubt wanted this circumstance, the Minister has agreed that the rank and file will not get a vote in relation to those positions in less than 3 years. [More…]
Demarcation disputes occurred within a union sometimes as much as between unions. [More…]
He is now saying that most disputes between unions are demarcation disputes and that therefore we need to have legislation of this kind. [More…]
So .5 per cent of total time lost, days lost, does not really appear to represent a major reason for introducing legislation that could do a great deal to run over most of the smaller unions in this country. [More…]
In the March quarter of this year the AMWU and one or two other unions were involved in the greatest industrial unrest that this country had seen since 1929. [More…]
Under the Bill the large unions, such as the Amalgamated Metal Workers Union, could well dominate the smaller unions. [More…]
The Minister has floating around somewhere a proposal that would indicate that any unions with a membership of under 2,000, with very strict exceptions, could not have the privilege of registration under the Conciliation and Arbitration Act. [More…]
More than 100,000 trade unionists and more than 200 unions would be legislated out of business if the Minister had his way in this respect. [More…]
This Bill has its thrust in the same direction to establish the circumstances in which a committte of management of a large dominating union, such as the AMWU, can dominate smaller unions and can run ever them irrespective of what their members really want. [More…]
One of the other things about this question is that 33 unions already represent 70 per cent of the membership of trade unions in Australia. [More…]
The amalgamations that have occurred generally have been between large unions and not between large and smaller unions. [More…]
If smaller unions voluntarily wish to come together no doubt they could provide better service to some of their members. [More…]
But there is quite a different thing in having an amalgamation between small unions and having 70 per cent of the membership now in 33 unions banded together in 30, 20, 16 or 10 unions. [More…]
The Minister, in saying that 300 unions is much too many, is putting a gloss on the total situation which is rubbed away when there are 33 unions and not 300 unions representing 70 per cent of the membership. [More…]
The Minister then goes on to give an example of the Shipwrights Union and the AMWU clearly implying that they are not dissimilar unions and therefore there would not be any exemption in that case. [More…]
There is now very tough restrictive trade practices legislation in this country and it does apply to trade unions. [More…]
If the Minister wants to draw an analogy with company legislation he might find that other people are saying that the provisions of the restrictive trade practices legislation ought not to apply to trade unions. [More…]
The Minister might also say that we have in our policy a statement supporting industry based unions. [More…]
There is all the difference in the world, as the Minister would know, between the amalgamation of craft unions, which spread their tentacles into many industries, and the establishment of a system of industry based unions. [More…]
The latter could be possible only if the trade union movement itself wished to achieve it, if the Australian Council of Trade Unions wished to apply its policy and the Labor Party tried to apply its policy because they all have a similar policy. [More…]
It would do much to jeopardise the interests and prerogatives of people in smaller unions and even if in bigger unions they could be more efficient, if they wished to remain in those smaller unions they have a right to do so and that right should not be tramped upon by some proposed law introduced into this Parliament. [More…]
At least in trade unions ballots are held and the opinions of members sought. [More…]
Honourable members opposite come into this place after such a great display of democracy by their Party and start talking to us about democracy in the trade unions. [More…]
We are discussing the Conciliation and Arbitration Bill which provides for an amendment to the Conciliation and Arbitration Act to permit more efficient and easier amalgamation of trade unions. [More…]
He said, when speaking of the need for ballots to be conducted by the Industrial Registrar, that some unions do not have ballots to elect their officials. [More…]
He even suggested - if he did not say so, and I believe he said it - that some unions elect their officials without holding a ballot. [More…]
He was asked by the honourable member for Phillip (Mr Riordan) and me, across the table - quite out of order, of course - to name those unions. [More…]
Nobody is concerned about any sorts of amalgamations except those of trade unions. [More…]
But if one starts talking to members of the Opposition about an amalgamation of 2 trade unions one sees how they go off. [More…]
The honourable member for Wannon endeavoured to justify that position by saying that 33 of the 303 unions in Australia have comparatively large memberships and represent about 75 per cent of total union membership. [More…]
He seemed to suggest that as it was only a requirement to have a ballot, that in some way ignored the rights of rank and file members of unions. [More…]
So it seems to me that a great disservice is done to members of small unions if it is difficult for them to amalgamate. [More…]
We find that large unions are able to do the most for their members. [More…]
We find that the small unions have great difficulty in competing in any area in which unions traditionally engage. [More…]
Each amalgamation is to be approved by a majority of members who vote in a plebiscite of each of the unions proposing to amalgamate. [More…]
Of course, that excludes those unions which are large, if the Registrar agrees. [More…]
This Bill is intended to facilitate the amalgamation of unions. [More…]
It is intended to make it easier for unions to amalgamate. [More…]
that we have too many small and inefficient trade unions. [More…]
Why are there too many small unions? [More…]
Why should we have fewer unions? [More…]
What he is really asking this House to do is to approve the formation of conglomerate unions within Australia. [More…]
Does he really want the unions of Australia to follow the examples of the conglomerate corporations of the world? [More…]
Is he really calling upon the unions of Australia to embark upon the takeover course undertaken by corporate takeover merchants within Australia? [More…]
If he is asking this House to do that he is asking us to approve the concentration of power within a small number of unions. [More…]
He is not asking us to approve the concentration of power in small unions but the concentration of power in a small number of unions by larger unions gobbling up and submerging the special interests of the group of individual workers who, by reason of their particular craft, calling or vocation, wish to form themselves into a union of their own. [More…]
If that is to happen in Australia, we can see then a path to confrontation between these large unions, few in number with concentrations of power, and Parliament itself and the Government itself. [More…]
In other industrialised countries of the world concentrations of power in a few unions have led to the most dire consequences for the community itself. [More…]
The large unions will naturally follow the takeover path and the small unions will find it very difficult indeed, if not impossible, to withstand the pressure that is put upon them to amalgamate. [More…]
We know that, quite apart from the legal protection that might be given to small unions through the legislative provisions of the existing Conciliation and Arbitration Act, large unions can exert a nonlegal power in a way which small groups cannot withstand. [More…]
Large unions and small unions have played their own part in their own way in the history of unionism in Australia. [More…]
There is great virtue in smaller unions being allowed to continue and to flourish within the trade union movement in Australia. [More…]
I know that it exists also in the legislation of Western Australia under which many unions are registered as State unions whilst at the same time their members are part of a Federal union. [More…]
As I said, there is great value in allowing for a diversity of unions which, at the grass roots level, can represent the true interests of the workers who form the membership of those small unions. [More…]
There can be great damage to the union movement in Australia if continued concentrations of power are allowed to develop into ever larger and larger unions. [More…]
We know from recent history that these large unions will seek not only to exercise that power in respect of industrial matters but also will seek to exercise that power for political purposes which are quite alien to the objectives for which those unions are registered under the Conciliation and Arbitration Act. [More…]
I have the responsibility to represent an electorate which has in it a number of trade unions. [More…]
However, as I was saying, it is my privilege to represent an electorate which has in it a number of trade unions and a varying number of industries and occupations. [More…]
Whilst it may be theoretically convenient to limit the number of unions by amalgamation, it is not desirable to interfere with the rights of individuals who responsibly establish organisations and unions so that matters pertaining to their occupation or interest can be considered. [More…]
As a member of the Opposition, I view the Bill now before the House as an infringement on the rights of individuals and dangerous to the members of unions. [More…]
This will not be cured by the Bill before the House which recommends the amalgamation of unions. [More…]
Suppose all unions wish to amalgamate. [More…]
However it is possible to have affiliation of unions and affiliation of ideas too. [More…]
It then emerges that if the body of affiliated unions reaches a decision it carries sufficient authority to speak on behalf of its individual members, having first obtained their consent. [More…]
Goodness only knows, it is embarrassed often enough now by its own trade unions and their masters. [More…]
After all, this Government is in the hands of the unions - and there are so many of them, all making so many demands and always in conflict. [More…]
I believe in unions, but I would offer them something better than the proposals in the Bill. [More…]
I believe that the Minister should concern himself not with the amalgamation of unions but with the welfare of unionists. [More…]
We will do so in the hope that trade unions will accept their responsibilities and endeavour to consolidate their interests. [More…]
As responsible members of Parliament we ought to take a look at what is happening around the world and see what has happened in those places in which the trade unions have got out of hand and have become the force behind government. [More…]
But it is only to unions the rules of which do not provide automatically for postal ballots that this provision could ever apply. [More…]
Therefore we say that the unions’ rules shall apply wherever they provide for a postal ballot and where they do not provide for a postal ballot 250 members out of 160,000 AMWU members simply have to sign a petition and a ballot will be conducted in the way that most union ballots are conducted. [More…]
That is the main objection by the unions and by the employers who are discerning enough to see where the Opposition is heading. [More…]
We on this side of the chamber are out to protect individual unionists from the tyranny of the corrupt left wing in the unions. [More…]
The Minister, who knows from his own experience how corrupt these unions can be, will, when he thinks of his position, surely come on our side and will surely accept this amendment. [More…]
life may have had the courage to stand up against the tyranny of the unions. [More…]
Does he want to make these 250 miserable unionists the target of black bans, of all the kinds of corrupt pressures which the left wing and the unions can organise against them? [More…]
He knows that the left wing of the unions in Melbourne for example, did not hesitate to stoop to murder in order to intimidate union members. [More…]
Yet here he is coming to this place and abandoning the individual members of the unions to the tyranny of the organised left wing. [More…]
Why does it not have a right to organise in the unions? [More…]
It is significant that the Minister has said that the Amalgamated Metal Workers Union, which has demonstrated itself to be probably the most powerful union in Australia - certainly one of the most militant; certainly one of those that has visited more harm on its own members because of the money lost through strikes - has gained no more and much less than the waterfront unions have for their members but has used much more militant tactics and done more harm to its own members and enormous harm to the Australian community. [More…]
I only wish that when union leaders engage in responsible activities, as they have, the Press would give them as much publicity as the truly irresponsible and damaging actions of other unions. [More…]
It makes our industrial system a farce when the same unions or the same employer organisations, if they are to get the benefits of industrial arbitration, in some cases have to register in 5 separate jurisdictions - Australia, New South Wales, Queensland, South Australia and Western Australia. [More…]
A system of trade union organisation is urgently needed which would enable the one body to represent its relevant members in both the federal and State arbitration systems and it should be possible for federal and State authorities to examine the question whether organisations and trade unions can be provided with such a system. [More…]
We have decided to refer our judgment in this matter and these remarks to the Attorney-General for the Commonwealth in the hope that it may be possible, after consultation between Commonwealth and State Attorneys-General, the trade unions, both federal and State, and other interested government authorities to arrange for the examination of the important organisational matters to which we have referred. [More…]
After that case there was a bi-partisan attempt to find a solution so that the Moore v Doyle case would not fracture unions. [More…]
As a consequence of that the Minister for Labor set up through the employer bodies - .the national employers policy committee - and the Australian Council of Trade Unions a working party to advise the Commonwealth Government and the State governments how the problem could be overcome. [More…]
It was the Government which initiated, in co-operation with the unions- [More…]
We ought to encourage the circumstances in which the leadership of unions can come to appropriate agreements on behalf of their members and can have the authority to make those agreements stick. [More…]
I understand that this provision, this limitation, is also against Australian Council of Trade Unions policy. [More…]
The odd thing about this is that this could well deny - and I believe will deny - additional benefits to members of unions, because I would suggest that if a union were prepared to have such a clause in its agreement and if that union had a reputation for keeping and honouring such an agreement, then the employers concerned would take that into account in negotiating the particular terms of the agreement. [More…]
Without reference to his own Industrial Peace Conference and without consultation with the Australian Council of Trade Unions or with employers, the Minister announced further substantial changes that would alter the whole character of the Act in relation to these matters. [More…]
The Minister knows full well that in relation to these provisions the leadership of most unions in Australia takes a point of view contrary to that of the Minister. [More…]
The Minister believes that he can appeal over the heads of union officials to the shop stewards and to the rank and file membership of unions. [More…]
If he believes that setting up a conflict between the officially elected representatives of unions, by appealing over their heads to the rank and file membership, will establish industrial peace in this country his attitude to these problems must be naive indeed. [More…]
The conclusion of the Industrial Peace Conference which I read points out quite clearly that the National Employers’ Policy Committee and the Australian Council of Trade Unions did not believe that it is desirable or possible to lay down a particular procedure which covers all cases in relation to agreements. [More…]
The principal provisions of the Bill are to ensure that when agreements are made between unions and employers they have the endorsement of the rank and file members of the unions concerned in the agreement. [More…]
It ought not be forgotten - regrettably it is often forgotten by leaders of the trade union movement in Australia and by members on the Government side of the House - that unions owe their existence to the right to be registered by virtue of the provisions of the Conciliation and Arbitration Act. [More…]
It is for that reason that the Opposition does not want to see any alteration to the legislation which allows unions to by-pass or to subvert the arbitration system which has been established in Australia in the name of participatory democracy. [More…]
He strongly condemned the assertions from the Opposition side that if this Bill were passed it would take control out of the hands of the management of unions and put it with the rank and file. [More…]
It is done in the name of allowing, in the words of the Minister: the endorsement of the rank and file members of the unions concerned in the agreement. [More…]
The unions of Australia at the present time wield tremendous power. [More…]
Yesterday in this House we had a debate on the concentration of power which would come about if the amalgamation of unions that the Minister would like to see are allowed to be pursued through the legislation he introduced. [More…]
Those conciliation procedures must operate by and through responsible management within the unions. [More…]
We did this during the election campaign when we said that the Government should exercise some restraint, that there ought to be a convention of the Federal Government, State governments, employers and trade unions, to try to work out a national policy of restraint. [More…]
Is it a fact that a dispute between the NSW Grain Elevators Board and certain unions over a wage demand has already cost the wheat and coarse grain growers of NSW $20m in deferred exports and over $lm in demurrage? [More…]
There are demands by unions for higher wages and more leisure time that are not earned in terms of increased efficiency and greater productivity. [More…]
Will it be this Government, or will it be the unions? [More…]
If the Government is looking for a starting point to begin investigation into lack of productivity and the causes of soaring inflation the area of industrial unrest and the unreasonable attitudes of the unions would be a good place to begin. [More…]
It is the unions and their unreasonable demands and those in government who succumb to all their demands to which I strongly object. [More…]
In no way has this Government at this stage commented on the statement by Mr Mundey a few days ago in which he called on this nation’s trade unions to hold a national strike later this year. [More…]
These sorts of statements literally mean that there will be a system of salaried doctors and the destruction of the doctor-patient relationship, the destruction of the magnificent private hospitals, the public hospitals, philanthropic nursing homes run by dedicated people, government-owned insurance funds including the little ones, and funds owned by trade unions and friendly societies. [More…]
Its unions are saying that they cannot have private hospitals. [More…]
In England people tried to do this and the unions are closing down the private hospitals. [More…]
Will the Minister give us an assurance that the unions will not close down private hospitals in Australia? [More…]
It was the unions which had insisted on that form of words in an amendment with regard to industrial matters. [More…]
Everybody is concerned about the statements which are emanating from the President of the Australian Council of Trade Unions and the Deputy Prime Minister. [More…]
Two very alarming statements have been made in the last 24 hours by the President of the Australian Council of Trade Unions and the Deputy Prime Minister (Dr J. F. Cairns). [More…]
Firstly, will he immediately set up a committee of Ministers, comprised of such people as the Ministers for Minerals and Energy, Transport and Defence, to consult the oil industry, the unions and State authorities with a view to building some safeguards into the storage and distribution system? [More…]
It is an indictment of the Government, which claims to have such close links with the unions, that the Australian community has been brought to such a state of disruption by the actions of militant unions. [More…]
It’s very hard to escape the conclusion that the stranglehold of unions on fuel supplies is seen as providing a very good starting point for a national offensive which Mr Mundey, the President of the Communist Party of Australia has promised. [More…]
But what is he doing to get at the root of the problem- the disruptive tactics of some trade unions? [More…]
In August 8 unions were involved in industrial action in the oil industry in support of a $50 a week pay rise. [More…]
I do not want to put all the blame on the Government for the present situation, because I know how difficult it is to deal with the industrial action of some of these unions. [More…]
The ‘ Government appears to be quite helpless in the face of this problem, and of course this is not surprising in a world in which the power of the trade unions exceeds the power of elected governments, particularly this Government that we have at the moment. [More…]
Today at question time I asked the Prime Minister (Mr Whitlam) to appoint immediately a committee of Ministers to consult with the oil industry, the unions and State authorities with a view to trying to build some safeguards in the storage and distribution system. [More…]
It is beyond dispute that the basic cause of the present crisis is the industrial action of the oil industry unions. [More…]
The government claims to have a special relationship with the unions. [More…]
I hope the Government will make use of that relationship to try to persuade the unions of the urgent need to take greater account of the needs of the nation. [More…]
I wonder whether the strikes would have occurred, and the various kinds of limitations and bans that have been imposed would have occurred, or occurred to such an extent, if the rank and file members of the unions had had a say. [More…]
Mr Speaker, I do not want to bash the unions. [More…]
The nation is at the mercy of a few militant unions largely being led by communists who have this nation almost throttled because of their control of these strategic industries. [More…]
He is a man who comes second only to the unions, the left-wingers and the communists as being responsible; for the situation we find ourselves in today. [More…]
We have also engaged in discussions with unions and employers, particularly in the context of the Moore Conference. [More…]
Secondly, it places the transport sector in a serious psition because if supplies can be held down to a certain level and if there is a strike the unions have a greater opportunity to hold the public at ransom. [More…]
The words of that distinguished gentleman were that if the left wing of the communist unions obtained control of the power union, the transport union and the supply union it could bring this country to its knees. [More…]
The trade unions are starting to complain to him about it. [More…]
He has either to back down to his Asian friends and allies- and the redder ones further up- or he has to back down to the trade unions, one or the other. [More…]
I think that ultimately it will be a good test of power, and we will see who really runs this Australian Government or some of its Ministers, whether they are controlled by the overseas forces or by the trade unions. [More…]
Why is there an acknowledgement by the President of the Australian Labor Party, the same man being President of the Australian Council of Trade Unions, that this Budget will not reduce the level of unemployment; this Budget will increase unemployment; and this Budget will create greater inflation- inflation of at least 20 per cent? [More…]
The failure of the Government, in formulating the terms of reference for the royal commission into alleged indemnity payments involving maritime unions, to include- [More…]
The other reason that the motion for the suspension of Standing Orders ought to be carried to enable points 1 to 4 mentioned in my letter to you, Mr Speaker, to be debated is that it is my firm view- I would be delighted if the Government could contradict thisthat the Government does not intend this inquiry to go beyond the ambit of the maritime unions. [More…]
The statement made by the Prime Minister mentioned the maritime unions alone; it did not mention the Waterside Workers Federation. [More…]
Matters of great substance are involved, including the privacy of members of Parliament, the need to think very deeply about the form that any proposed legislation should take, the question of how far the register should go if it is instituted and whether it should stop at just members of Parliament or should be extended to the judiciary, members of unions or wherever. [More…]
I believe the Minister himself- knowing him well as I do- must be concerned, along with many other members of this Parliament, and indeed with a great many other Australian citizens, representing virtually all shades of political opinion except the extreme left wing unions and those who support the revolutionary socialist left which, as we all know, is dedicated to the complete overthrow of our present social order. [More…]
He told me that, because of industrial disputes, several RAN vessels could not be dry-docked for refitting and repair because of the actions of certain left wing maritime unions. [More…]
Has this been caused by strike action of key unions involved? [More…]
I say without any equivocation that if there were any propriety in this Government, and if the Prime Minister (Mr Whitlam) were concerned for the name and integrity of his Government, he would widen the terms of reference of the Royal Commission which is investigating alleged indemnity payments involving maritime unions; he would give the Royal Commission an overriding mandate to pursue every aspect of this matter. [More…]
The Royal Commission should be permitted to examine every one of the unions that might be involved so that the good name of the Government and of the overwhelming bulk of the union movement can be cleared from the charges and the smell of the incident created by the alleged activities of Mr Elliott and the Seamen’s Union. [More…]
Indemnity payments do not relate only, as you very correctly said, to the maritime unions. [More…]
The letter clearly drew attention to the fact that since April this year the unions led by Mr Elliott had made attempts to disrupt arrangements agreed between the Minister for Transport and the executive of the Australian Council of Trade Unions. [More…]
He also stated that the money will not be returned to the ship’s crew, but retained by the unions ‘so as not to undermine the national economy’. [More…]
Under section 152 of that Act unions are required each year to make an accurate statement of all receipts and expenditure and put in that statement to the Industrial Registrar. [More…]
The unions and Mr Elliott have exhibited utter callousness in relation to people on low rates of pay and they have conspired and extorted to make sure that those parts of the Navigation Act are in fact broken and not held. [More…]
Much of what the Minister for Labor has done has sought to put above the law certain militant unions- not all, but certain ones which are most concerned to use their strength mercilessly against their own members and the people of Australia. [More…]
They have brought the law into disrepute allowing unions to operate outside the law. [More…]
It was a matter between the ship owners and the unions. [More…]
I know and honourable members opposite know that for years shipping companies and the unions have been making all sorts of deals. [More…]
Those are matters, as far as I am concerned, between the ship owner and the unions. [More…]
In the event of an industrial dispute arising the normal arbitration process would involve notification of the dispute to the appropriate industrial tribunal either State or Commonwealth depending on the award under which the union or unions involved are operating. [More…]
In the event of an industrial dispute arising the normal arbitration process would involve notification of the dispute to the appropriate industrial tribunal either State or Commonwealth depending on the award under which the union or unions involved are operating. [More…]
It is addressed to Mr H. Souter of the Australian Council of Trade Unions. [More…]
Later on Monday, 29 July, Elliott advised Mr Deane of Hetherington-Kingsbury of a resolution by the Seafarers Unions that the difference in money amount between Australian rates and leave provisions and ITF rates and provisions applicable to crew members of the ‘Thunderbird’ whilst engaged on the Australian coast be paid weekly into account No. [More…]
I have never heard of any similar demand, but understand it is not unusual for the Seafarers Unions to be paid ‘slush money’ when overseas vessels are engaged in the carriage of Australian goods between Australian ports and amounting to 1 per cent of the freight rate. [More…]
The point is that 7 or 8 other unions are involved apart from the Seamen’s Union. [More…]
The other unions are the Marine Cooks, Bakers and Butchers Association of Australasia, the Federated Marine Stewards and Pantrymen’s Association of Australasia, the Federated Shipwrights and Ship Constructors Association of Australia, the Merchant Service Guild of Australiait shocks me to see that union includedthe Professional Radio Employees Institute of Australasia and the Australian Institute of Marine and Power Engineers. [More…]
How much money have those unions been paid? [More…]
The Australian Council of Trade Unions wanted to hold its own inquiry into this matter. [More…]
How much money did the other unions put in? [More…]
I have no doubt that one of the grave reasons that the shipping companies did not complain was that the Minister for Transport shrugged his shoulders and said: ‘This was a deal between the ship owners and the unions and I have nothing to do with it.’ [More…]
The ship owners were unable to complain because they knew darned well that under this Minister nothing would be done, that their ships would be tied up at the wharves and that this Minister would do nothing but protect the unions. [More…]
The Minister has a great habit of protecting the unions. [More…]
A telex message was sent from my office with the text of the letter from Mr Henry dated 26 July, which included the text of the letter sent to the Australian Council of Trade Unions by Mr Henry on 17 July- it will be noticed that it was 9 days after Mr Henry wrote to the ACTU that he decided to write to me- and advice that he had contacted the Department of Transport about the matter. [More…]
The Minister for Labor and Immigration, Mr Cameron, today condemned the practice of maritime unions demanding payments to allow the movement of ships around the Australian coast, and then paying the money into union funds rather than to the crew members of the ships involved. [More…]
“The gravity of the principle involved is not lessened by the fact that in this case it is not employers, but unions, that are in effect confiscating portion of other workers ‘ earnings. ‘ [More…]
These investigations had established that some maritime union officials had immobilised the vessel ‘Thunderbird’ in Sydney until a sum of about $17,000 had been paid to the unions. [More…]
The President of the Australian Council of Trade Unions, Mr Hawke, also expressed a pessimistic view with regard to the anti-inflationary prospects of the various proposals. [More…]
This was followed by the then Postmaster-General’s agreeing with the trade unions and closing post offices on Saturday morning. [More…]
What about the possible and probable demand by unions for extra wages over and above indexation? [More…]
It is unbelievable that the Government will put up charges without there being an immediate demand by all the unions concerned with the Post Office for increased wages. [More…]
I believe that the unions will not tolerate private enterprise being employed to do this. [More…]
The first is the inherent inefficiency of the Government and the second is the industrial disruption imposed upon them, when very often they themselves do not want this disruption, by their own militant unions who are making disruption not to help their members but in order to break the whole social system. [More…]
It is an unhappy fact the postal unions have to a large extent fallen under the control of Marxists. [More…]
Here we have the Minister, who has had some association with trade unions, corning into this House and asking for the instruments of victimisation. [More…]
He is one of the people who will be working these kinds of standover tactics in the unions- standing over the men in the unions. [More…]
The waterfront unions are refusing to handle ships under contract. [More…]
The President of the Australian Labor Party and President of the Australian Council of Trade Unions and Ministers of this Government are asking unions for restraint in exorbitant wage demands. [More…]
In other words he had achieved a situation in which the unions- the working man- had less bargaining power. [More…]
For example for the year ended July 1974 retail prices increased in Japan by 25.2 per cent; in France by 1 4.4 per cent; in Italy by 1 8.9 per cent; in the United Kingdom by 17.1 per cent; in Belgium by 13.7 per cent; in Canada by 11.3 per cent with 5.6 per cent unemployment; in the United States of America by 1 1.7 per cent with 5.3 per cent unemployment; in Denmark by 15.9 per cent; in Portugal by 25.9 per cent- the unions can hardly be blamed for that situation there because Portugal does not have any unions; in Spain by 15.2 per cent; in Turkey by 25.9 per cent and in Australia by 14.4 per cent. [More…]
The Leader of the Opposition referred to comments made by the Prime Minister (Mr Whitlam) which he claims destroyed any chance of Government cooperation with the unions. [More…]
It heralds m an era of big unions, big business and big government. [More…]
Credit Unions or Co-operative Credit Associations arrange loans to members. [More…]
Societies of the same kind may combine to form co-operative associations and associations of all kinds may form unions of associations. [More…]
The Regulations were examined by unions concerned who advised they had nothing further to add. [More…]
-The Deputy Prime Minister will know that one of the conditions laid down by the unions for their discussions with the Government on wage restraint is that the Government will reintroduce import quotas and provide assistance to industry to restore full employment. [More…]
I ask the Deputy Prime Minister whether the Government considers that the action which it has taken on the exchange ratefor which I commend the Minister, particularly after his statement to Parliament yesterdaymeets the conditions that the unions want. [More…]
It is true that the Australian Council of Trade Unions- it has taken a position that is widely understood as being representative of the view of the trade union movement- has submitted to the Government that, in the course of establishing what would be a common policy to deal with the present economic situation, including both inflation and unemployment, in Australia, the Government should consider favourably the introduction of import quotas or the introduction of quotas allowing smaller amounts to come into Australia than exist under quotas already. [More…]
Whilst I am sure that no remedy can have an effect for a month or two, because of the time taken for orders that are already made to reach Australia and to be sold, I would hope and expect that the depreciation of the currency would have the kind of effect that the ACTU and the unions want. [More…]
I hope that the unions and the workers will understand the effect of that depreciation and that it will be unnecessary in the interests of industry and the country to proceed any further by any other protective measures at all. [More…]
It is an unhappy fact the postal unions have to a large extent fallen under the control of Marxists. [More…]
There is also further evidence in Mr Justice Franki ‘s judgment that the unions had demanded other payments. [More…]
If honourable members were to look at the history of the mines and the mining unions or of the shipping industry and the maritime unions they would appreciate my point. [More…]
It follows that in areas in Australia in which there have been engaged people such as developers, militant unions will emerge. [More…]
I do not believe- as Henry Lawson would say- that the claptrap which has been put forward by the Opposition this morning is the real reason why it wants to bash the unions, nor do I see its attitudes or its venom being directed towards one union only. [More…]
It has not been the function of the Australian Labor Party, even though it knows a great deal more about the subject, to come into this chamber and engage in employer bashing in the manner in which honourable members opposite tend to want to bash those people who have organised themselves into trade unions. [More…]
As the Minister for Labor and Immigration (Mr Clyde Cameron) has said in this House on thousands of occasions, when governments learn to keep their noses out of industrial relations perhaps the unions and the employers will solve the problems. [More…]
The attempt by the Opposition to paint the Government with the political leanings of the builders’ labourers is a faint attempt to intrude into an area where both the employers and the unions have got to solve the problems. [More…]
I congratulate the Minister for Education (Mr Beazley) on standing up to very severe pressure from the Australian Union of Students last year when it tried to persuade the Government that university fees with respect to student organisations, sports unions, etc., should be among the fees paid for by this Government. [More…]
I do not think it is the function of either this Government or university councils to decide that membership of university organisations, such as unions or SRC, should not be compulsory. [More…]
This is one area in education which has been consistently downgraded, consistently neglected and consistently lacking in status in spite of tremendous dedication from all technical school teachers and unions. [More…]
It is a tax brought in by Labor in the mistaken belief that it will make the unions believe that Labor is prepared to sock the rich. [More…]
The economic role of the Budget, so far as I can discern it, is this: By embodying the Government’s program in the Budget in this way, and by a show of ‘soaking the rich’ and demonstrating a real concern to redistribute income towards lower income groups- I refer to the tax on unearned income and the capital gains tax, hitting the multi-national mining companies and the fringe benefits of business men, the reduction in the allowable tax deduction for school expensesthe Government will be able to achieve a social contract with the unions, that is, achieve wage and salary restraint, an agreement to limit income increases, as the means of countering the current accelerating cost inflation spiral. [More…]
I said that gaining the understanding of the unions was the only measure to fight inflation. [More…]
The Government must take the lead, and the unions and employers must follow and co-operate to the full. [More…]
At the apex of these entities are the Federal Government, the Australian Council of Trade Unions and the National Employers Policy Committee. [More…]
The consensus of which I speak for the purpose of resolving our inflation is one between 3 federally structured entities- government, the unions and the employers. [More…]
Such machinery would be more effective, however, if we had fewer unions and employer organisations. [More…]
He has frequently observed that we have far too many unions. [More…]
We have over 300 trade unions and many more employer and trade associations. [More…]
I believe that our current level of industrial disputation and wage cost inflation would be lower if we had co-operative federalism at the governmental level paralleled by a relatively small number of federally structured unions and employer organisations. [More…]
The Budget apparently was aimed at winning the support of the unions. [More…]
I believe that thought should be given to a permanent committee of economic advisers able to give expert advice to the Australian Loan Council so as to enable that body to draw up a rolling plan or a set of guidelines upon which unions and employer organisations could comment. [More…]
My final observation is that when sufficient individual employers and unions give practical application to job re-design programs aimed at bringing the overall quality of working life into line with the quality of life outside the working place, and when more managements recognise that affluence and education have created expectations which cannot be satisfied by traditional systems of work, there will be a better chance of some reduction in the level of wage demand relative to productivity improvement. [More…]
Sanity will only return to industrial relations when management recognises that its most important asset is people and when unions recognise that ‘profit’ and ‘productivity’ are not necessarily dirty words. [More…]
No effort has been made to arrest inflation by cutting down government expenditure, reducing interest rates, reducing taxation across the board, legislating for full employment or getting to grips with the unions in an effort to increase productivity which is the answer to beating inflation. [More…]
Those figures show that the Spigelman tax accepted by the Prime Minister was part of a spiteful package designed to buy union support for this Budget in return for a degree of wage restraint from the unions. [More…]
We have heard tonight from a Caucus subcommittee that the Government is going to change its mind on this crucial element of the Budget designed, as I said, to buy the support of the unions with a spiteful attack on those who hold property or who invest savings or who have deposits in banks, those who have been struck down by an industrial accident and have invested a compensation sum, those who are widowed and have a little bit of money that they can invest. [More…]
We were told that the Budget- Jimmy’s package- was designed to get support from the unions for the idea of wage restraints. [More…]
The Government’s attitude was that if it hit the rich it would gain the support of the unions for its Budget. [More…]
So there was to be a conference of unions. [More…]
I refer to the President of the Australian Council of Trade Unions, Mr Hawke. [More…]
The unions met. [More…]
There was never really any serious consideratioin of the idea of wage restraint when the unions actually met and got together. [More…]
They, the unions, are like the great majority- in fact they are the great majority- of the Australian people. [More…]
The unions know that as well as members of the Opposition side of the House know it and that is why they have rejected the idea of wage restraint. [More…]
We have heard no more about this epoch-making conference of the trade unions of this country. [More…]
Any country that has a socialist government such as Australia has at this time, particularly if the trade unions are communist controlled, has no rural policies. [More…]
So too were Archie Cameron, Arthur Calwell, and Percy Clarey, who resigned his presidency of the Australian Council of Trade Unions to come into this Parliament. [More…]
Finally, let me take up quickly one matter to which the Deputy Leader of the Opposition referred, namely a deal with the unions in Australia. [More…]
Part of the cost inflation is the rate of average increase in wages and salaries, but we cannot ask the trade unions- and 1 would defend their position- to oppose any policy that does not equitably distribute the burden of restraint and self-sacrifice in this community and ask those most able to pay to pay most and accordingly distribute this liability fairly. [More…]
For instance, it is almost certain that the rules of most Federal unions which have State branches registered under State laws are invalid. [More…]
In this legislation we seek not only to correct the problems created by Moore v. Doyle but also to provide machinery for validating all of the rules made and all of the decisions taken by the various federally registered unions that might otherwise be invalid. [More…]
We believe that, if the rules of the Federal unions which have State branches registered as separate entities and whose delegates have attended the governing bodies of the Federal organisation were to be contested, most of them would be struck down as being invalid. [More…]
The courts have watered down the general common law ruling- namely, that a decision taken by an improperly constituted body is null and void- by saying: ‘Yes, but insofar as this rule relates to the operation of trade unions it is null and void only to the extent that the bodies concerned are exercising judicial powers and not when they are exercising administrative powers’. [More…]
We have decided to refer our judgment in this matter and these remarks to the Attorney-General for the Commonwealth in the hope that it may be possible after consultation between Commonwealth and State Attorneys-General, the trade unions, both Federal and State, and other interested Government authorities to arrange for the examination of the important organisational matters to which we have referred. [More…]
The cases in both State and Federal jurisdictions and the rules of many organisations and trade unions show that the constitutions of the Federal and the corresponding State body often differ to some extent so that membership of the trade union and the State branch of a Federal organisation, if full use is made of the range of eligibility, must be different. [More…]
Taking one of the most important rules, that specifying the persons eligible for membership, an examination of the position of 24 major unions in New South Wales comparing rules of the State registered body with rules of the Federally registered body showed that in all the cases examined there were differences- some small but most great. [More…]
It is obvious that the present Labor Administration is hog-tied to the powerful trade unions which exist on the mainland. [More…]
In addition, there were changed attitudes on the part of unions. [More…]
As a carrot, it dangled before the unions a specious tax cut, a tax cut so small that by Christmas at the present rate of inflation, the effect and the benefit of the tax cut will have completely and absolutely disappeared. [More…]
It should not wonder at the reluctance of the unions to embrace indexation and the other proposals which are being suggested to them. [More…]
No single government any where in the western world- honourable members would admit this in private- can curb or eliminate this economic monster of inflation without using, of course, the old Tory methods of deliberately creating a great army of unemployed, creating tame-cat unions and making workers subservient to big business. [More…]
What I wanted to talk about tonight very briefly is the peculiar omission from the terms of reference of the Royal Commission which is inquiring into payments made to the maritime unions under duress. [More…]
There were representatives of Amnesty International and representatives of 3 unions who, I think, could fairly be said to cover the whole range of political views. [More…]
Northern New South Wales is serviced with motor spirit and distillate from the port of Newcastle and industrial disputes in that port covering 7 unions have been one of the main reasons for the shortage. [More…]
The unions involved at the port of Newcastle represent tugmen, fitters and turners, ships9 engineers, transport workers, storemen and packers and clerks. [More…]
I understand that most of the unions involved come under Federal awards. [More…]
I thought that, if we made strong representations to the Government, the Government would take this matter up with the unions to see that some sanity was restored because the adequate supply of motor spirit and distillate is the life blood of country areas and the transport system in Australia. [More…]
The Government sees this measure as being of such importance to the Australian community that we shall welcome any views which any person or organisation including representatives of the insurance industry, women’s organisations, trade unions and, of course, the Opposition Parties in this Parliament wishes to place before us, and I foreshadow now that the Government will propose amendments to the Bill during its passage through the Parliament. [More…]
It has in fact been the Board’s recent practice to discuss matters of programming with appropriate unions and others concerned, but the fact that this consultation has not been mandatory under the Act has given rise to some criticism. [More…]
I do not criticise the building unions for their opposition to adult retraining for the building industry. [More…]
A further tax cut, reduced government spending or a national conference of unions, governments and employers, such as is advocated by the Opposition, would not be anything like a solution. [More…]
Because we have not that power we have had to pursue the process by means of the conference of unions and employers before Mr Justice Moore of the Australian Conciliation and Arbitration Commission. [More…]
In those circumstances it appears likely that the unions will have to go to arbitration to try to get a decision for indexation. [More…]
I would like to assure him that the trade unions have talked about it for years. [More…]
I subscribe to the view of the honourable member for Gellibrand that there will necessarily have to be a lot of co-operation by the 3 areas involved- the employers, the unions and the Government- to overcome some of the difficulties that arise because of the obstructionist attitude of the Opposition. [More…]
At their meeting 2 weeks ago in Sydney, the unions responded positively to the Budget with a declaration which, I regret, has not been published in full in any newspaper throughout Australia and which therefore I seek permission to have incorporated in Hansard. [More…]
The media could remain sceptical about the overtures that the Government has made and the response those overtures have drawn from the unions without doing everything in their power to deny to the community the hope on which, after all, confidence depends. [More…]
The Government has made its own political judgment and decided it can defuse the pressures of cost inflation by demonstrating to the trade unions its intention of restructuring society along lines which will benefit them. [More…]
The declaration has come forward from the meeting of unions that was held in Sydney. [More…]
He called for an allegiance of the Press to the Government, an allegiance of the Press to the social contract of the unions and an allegiance of the unions to the Government. [More…]
Waiting in the wings of the Australian Labor Party is the President of the Australian Labor Party and the President of the Australian Council of Trade Unions, Mr Bob Hawke. [More…]
Promotion by farmer leaders and farmer organisations of demonstrations and retaliatory action against governments or unions can only be self defeating. [More…]
The first concerns the Federal President of the Australian Labor Party, the Chairman of the Australian Council of Trade Unions, and his visit to Perth earlier this week. [More…]
The draft Order has been widely circulated to the ACTU and 18 unions and I shall be pleased to let the right honourable the Leader of the Opposition have a copy if he so wishes. [More…]
Dr Levinsion is currently Secretary-General of the International Federation of Chemical and General Workers’ Unions in Geneva. [More…]
We saw wage demands sought by militant trade unions which used their muscle to hold the nation to ransom. [More…]
Leading Ministers of the Government encouraged militant trade unions in their demands for excess wages without any regard for the nation’s capacity to pay and without any regard for productivity. [More…]
This Government needs to take action to restrain its own spending, to throw out the iniquitous surcharge on so-called unearned income, to restore the deductions for taxation purposes for education expenses, to show some strength with the trade unions and to uphold the conciliation and arbitration system. [More…]
Whether it be minerals, motor cars and accessories, pastoral products, textile goods, manufactured articles or whatever it all requires hard work, confidence in the ability of industry, enterprise and business to carry on and cooperation between all levels of the community- the working people, the unions, the bosses, the owners of businesses and so on. [More…]
Had I said that 2 weeks and 2 days ago I would have been accused of being a union basher yet Mr Hawke had the courage and the guts to come out and indicate some of the problems that unions are creating for Australia. [More…]
He has decried and deplored the actions of the maritime unions in standing over the shipowners and demanding graft and payments which they have no entitlement to receive. [More…]
He also backed the Queensland ALP President, who is also Federal ALP Vice-President, Mr Jack Egerton, who recently had the courage to condemn the actions of the unions. [More…]
The Liberals did better than the Labor Party but, granted, our handling of the unions left a lot to be desired. [More…]
The present Government’s handling of the unions has been a destructive debacle which has been like putting petrol on the fires of inflation in this country. [More…]
Actions by which trade unions drag into their hands the role of deciding whether Government decisionsLabor or Liberal- are right or wrong are also evil and wrong. [More…]
Has he told the Public Service unions of his intentions? [More…]
What will the unions say now that people are getting back a maximum of $1.92 a week? [More…]
That massive inflow which was running at about $2,000m per annum was drifting into building societies, credit unions and finance companies. [More…]
As a result unions, quite rightly tried to preserve the purchasing power of the wages of their members. [More…]
Is it the Prime Minister, the Deputy Prime Minister (Dr J. F. Cairns), the Cabinet, the Caucus, the unions, or is it public opinion? [More…]
First, if I may, I thank the Minister for making available to me copies of the documents he forwarded to the Royal Commission into Alleged Payments to Maritime Unions. [More…]
Thus, concern has been expressed by the principal parties in the industry- employers and stevedoring unions- that this paragraph should be clarified at the earliest opportunity. [More…]
The problems involve dual registration and incorporation of unions in both the Federal field and in the State field, conflicts which may arise between Federal rules and State rules resulting in people being eligible to join one union but not the other union, a conflict of membership, sometimes a conflict of office bearers and the people who might be constituted properly under the State rules taking decisions in matters that ought to involve Federal rules and therefore the decisions in many cases might well be invalid. [More…]
As a result of the Moore v. Doyle case there was a view that a good deal of the registration, incorporation and acts of unions in a number of States could well be invalid and if they were challenged there could be some significant difficulty for unions and union officials. [More…]
In addition to this, some voluntary acts by unions are required and I would be surprised if any union would be prepared to take the voluntary acts that are necessary. [More…]
If the Minister is arguing that they should, he is arguing that they should voluntarily pay State-induced penalties for breaches of State industrial law, and I would have thought that that was contrary to the Australian Council of Trade Unions policy and to Labor Party policy. [More…]
The Opposition supports the objective of this legislation, that is, to remove the legal problems that have occurred between unions by removing the confusion that has resulted from the Moore v. Doyle case, but we are by no means sure that this legislation will achieve that objective. [More…]
Complementary State action is required, significant State legislation is required, in some States affecting more than one Act, and there are obligations on unions which I will come to a little later on. [More…]
He ought to be telling the Parliament of the attitudes of the States in precise terms and of the attitude of the unions, but this would involve the kind of consultation which I suspect the Minister does not really like. [More…]
In terms of the haste which the Minister is exhibiting in pushing this legislation through at the present time, I would suggest that there are few unions that have a real knowledge of the substance of this legislation. [More…]
There are few unions that would understand that if the proposals are to be brought to fulfilment, to become effective, the unions themselves would have to sign good behaviour bonds and lodge those deeds with the Industrial Registrar saying that they would be prepared to pay any fine or penalty imposed by a State jurisdiction. [More…]
I think there would be very few unions who would understand the nature of the Sweeney report, its complication and its implications, and I think there would be few who have a detailed understanding of the complexities that became apparent as a result of the working party report. [More…]
Recent changes in the Conciliation and Arbitration Act have involved a considerable amount of work for many unions in getting their rules up to date so far as the provisions of the Act are concerned. [More…]
They are waiting to see what kind of rules the Registrar will in fact accept, and if the obligations imposed on them under this legislation were also passed into law now, the rules of trade unions and the job of the Registrar would become muddled and difficult indeed. [More…]
Trade unions have been preoccupied with these problems, with these difficulties, and have not had the time they might otherwise have given to the consequences of the Sweeney report. [More…]
The States and the unions have a right to study the legislation, as the legislation is, to see how it will affect them. [More…]
Until we know the reactions of the States, until we know whether they are prepared to legislate in the 9 or 10 areas which are going to be important to them, until we know what the unions will do as a result, this Parliament will not know whether the proposals will work. [More…]
I am fortified in my rejection by the fact that all unions, including a number which have only State registration, were in favour of the scheme and saw no prejudice flowing to them. [More…]
I have been advised that the wide amendment then- I am referring to the part of this amendment which relates to trade unions and not the extension of that part to employer organisations- which virtually made it possible for anyone to be enrolled as a member of a trade union so long as he was involved in the industry, was so wide that it was clearly unconstitutional. [More…]
The rules of organisations, particularly concerning the eligibility of members to join particular unions, would be determined by the Commonwealth Industrial Registrar. [More…]
What unions are going to sign such a deed? [More…]
Plainly, none of the unions are going to sign such a deed. [More…]
Has he spoken to the trade unions about his proposal that they should sign a deed accepting the State’s ability and right to impose penalties for industrial offences? [More…]
So this again is the central hinge and if the unions were not prepared to co-operate the proposal would fall to the ground. [More…]
The way to do this is not to legislate, to throw down the gauntlet and to say that the States have to follow and the unions have to sign this kind of deed but to get agreement beforehand. [More…]
I would be delighted to know whether he has had any discussions with the Australian Council of Trade Unions or any of the significant unions about these Sweeney proposals. [More…]
The Sweeney proposals as they have been recommended involve the Federal bodies of the trade unions signing a deed of this kind and entering into this sort of commitment. [More…]
By agreement and by voluntary act, Federal branches of the unions have to make a commitment to the Commonwealth Industrial Registrar by a deed although there is some doubt whether it is the Commonwealth or State Registrar because the words of the report are certainly ambiguous. [More…]
So the Minister ought to consult with the States and with the unions and tell this Parliament what the position is. [More…]
I hope that the Minister is concerned that the AWU in Queensland, Western Australia and other States as well as other unions in a similar position will be allowed to continue to represent those trades that they have represented up to the present time. [More…]
That all words after ‘That’ be omitted with a view to substituting the following words in place thereof: the House is of opinion that the Bill should not be proceeded with until the Minister informs the House- (a) whether or not the Trade Unions would accept the conditions for non-incorporated registration of State branches as laid down by the Honourable Mr Justice Sweeney and (b) of the position of the States concerning proposed complementary legislation. ‘ [More…]
It amazes me to find suddenly that the Opposition is coming out as a belated champion of the unions after spending almost every sitting day in union bashing. [More…]
Those who oppose peace within the arbitration system will no doubt oppose this legislation because it takes away from them the opportunity to cause dissension and dissatisfaction amongst the rank and file members of unions. [More…]
If all the money that has been spent on both the employers’ side and unions’ side had been invested in a conciliation of differences of views, the settlement of disputes and the training of industrial representatives on both sides, the arbitration system in Australia would have been enhanced beyond recognition. [More…]
An interesting thought which occurs to me is the actual validity in terms of State registration of State unions where union representatives validly enrolled in a federal organisation and not in a State organisation have participated in State union affairs, such as elections, but have not signed the proper application card in that State. [More…]
The working party included representatives of 4 State Departments of Labour which were involved, the Federal Department of Labour, the Federal Attorney-General’s Department, the Australian Council of Trade Unions and employer organisations. [More…]
The working party then quoted from the concluding passages of the Industrial Court’s judgment as follows: ‘When factional differences arise in trade unions, or when it suits the interest of some litigant or litigants to do so, the Federal of State body can be attacked and its valid operation, its entitlement to assets, funds and membership, imperilled. “ [More…]
A system of trade union organisation is urgently needed which would enable the one body to represent its relevant members in both the Federal and State arbitration systems and it should be possible for Federal and State authorities to examine the question whether organisations and trade unions can be provided with such a system. [More…]
Doubt has now been cast upon this by the honourable member for Wannon.. What is important is that the unions and employers who have to make the complex of State and Federal legislation work should have the chance to study it as a whole. [More…]
However, the ACTU representative thought that the provision of a moratorium on challenges for a specified period might be necessary to enable unions to put their affairs in order. [More…]
Any lack of clarity could aggravate industrial relations because the largest number of fights, or the biggest cause of fights, between Federal and State branches of unions are always over money. [More…]
The position in relation to paragraph ( a) of clause 4 is that the New South Wales industrial arbitration legislation specifically allows State registered unions to include in their membership persons who are not employees but who are engaged in work akin to that of employees, for example, owner drivers. [More…]
What I hope the Parliament will do, here and in another place, is forget about party politics, forget about the Government and the Opposition, forget about the political advantages that might be gained from hindering the Government and remember that the people who are the prime actors in this business that we are now talking about are the trade unions on the one hand and the employers on the other. [More…]
I think the officials of the unions realise that the Moore v. Doyle situation has shown the law to be such that the union movement is in a state of utter chaos. [More…]
The property situation today as between Federal organisations and associated State unions is, as a consequence of this case, extremely confused. [More…]
Some property is in the name of the trustees of State unions and some property is in the name of the trustees of Federal unions. [More…]
In fact in some cases some of the properties of some of the unions are still held by trustees who have long since departed. [More…]
The unions knew this. [More…]
It was because the more knowledgeable union officials realised the predicament into which the unions have got themselves that they went along with the idea as indeed did the employers. [More…]
It also recognises that there are a minority of unions- very fewwhose position is not clearly covered or encompassed by the section about which we are talking now. [More…]
Therefore in the case of those particular unions there has to be some sensible way of resolving the problem. [More…]
It is one that is absolutely crucial to the question of resolving these minority cases of unions whose property position is not fully covered by the section as it is drafted. [More…]
This is one of the reasons we felt it reasonable to suggest there should be delay until the House could be informed of the decision of the trade ‘union movement and the unions that might be intimately involved in this matter. [More…]
The reactions that I have had from a number of unions would indicate that there is all the difference in the world between trade union approach in these particular matters. [More…]
If the rules of unions are in as bad shape as the Minister himself has indicated, I think it might be a very difficult practical problem and a difficult legal problem involving a great deal of friction to determine who actually is the present owner. [More…]
That again is just an argument for letting the unions know what is involved in this particular matter- a quite massive task of rewriting the rules which is beyond anything that has ever touched the union movement since the Conciliation and Arbitration Act was first introduced. [More…]
The other thing that the Committee must remember is that the unions have a year from the time the Bill receives the royal assent in which to get their rules in order. [More…]
The Registrar has never been backward in giving unions assistance in bringing their rules into line with amendments to the Conciliation and Arbitration Act. [More…]
The Registrars have been very helpful, as the honourable member for Macquarie points out, and they will continue to be helpful to unions in this regard. [More…]
If the unions cannot get their rules in order within the year that is allowed under the Bill the Registrar still has power to give a further extension of time to them in order that they might do so. [More…]
-I think we ought immediately to expose one of the statements by the Minister for Labor and Immigration (Mr Clyde Cameron) which he made in discussing this clause, clause S. He repeatedly said that this clause will validate certain situations within organisations and unions in Australia. [More…]
It cannot rectify overnight the situation where a group of workers and a group of unions desire to form themselves into a State union and to maintain themselves as an autonomous body, not part of the Federal organisation. [More…]
As the debate has just indicated, we know that the provisions of this Act by and large may not be of much importance if they are not underpinned either by the support of the unions or by complementary legislation on the part of the States. [More…]
If the honourable member for Wannon (Mr Malcolm Fraser) looks at the rules of any organisation that has branches registered in a State he will see that the rules of unions already provide that the secretary shall be the person who is authorised to sue or to be sued. [More…]
There are some unions like the Waterside Workers Federation which for reasons that would be obvious to anyone who understands the industry do not operate and would see no point or future in operating in the State systems. [More…]
The other clause to which I would like to refer is clause 11 which seeks to insert new section 142 A giving the Commission power to demark between unions. [More…]
If that is so, this is again something which requires consultation with the trade union movement because if it were used in the wong way, if it were used in the spirit that the membership of unions State by State had to be as nearly the same as possible, if not identical in relation to the trades, callings and jobs which they were representing, clearly the exercise of powers under proposed section 142A coupled with the exercise of the additional powers given to the Registrar in relation to the rules of organisations could lead to a situation in which some unions would have their present position completely decimated. [More…]
Quite plainly the fact that consultations were held with the Australian Council of Trade Unions a short while ago is not a substitute for the trade union movement itself understanding what is to happen in relation to this matter. [More…]
I would wonder how many of the trade unions affiliated with the ACTU have seen a Bill, a copy of the report or know what any part of it is about. [More…]
That is to say, proposed new section 136a, for instance, requires, as has already been pointed out, certain action on the part of unions and certain action on the part of States to give the ground for the implementation of that section. [More…]
This could be achieved by an amendment to clause 2-1 come back to it- to make the whole of the provisions come into operation on a date to be fixed by proclamation so that after the Bill becomes an Act the consultations can take place with the States, the unions can get thenrules in order and the whole matter can then proceed. [More…]
-As we are now dealing collectively with a number of clauses I shall deal quickly with some of those that I think require an explanation by the Minister for Labor and Immigration because they refer not only to serious legal questions but also to serious practical consequences for the unions who must participate within this jurisdiction. [More…]
I would not think that any union would agree to such a contention because in a situation where 2 unions have concurrent constitutional coverage over the same calling of workers or within the same industry each is entitled to obtain an award in respect of its own members. [More…]
But by virtue of this proposed amendment, one of those unions would deny the right to represent its own members. [More…]
They referred to there being Federal and State unions operating, as it were, within one entity, legal or otherwise, but in one de facto entity known as a national or Federal union. [More…]
A system of trade union organisation is urgently needed which would enable the one body to represent its relevant members in both the federal and State arbitration systems and it should be possible for federal and State authorities to examine the question whether organisations and trade unions can be provided with such a system. [More…]
We have heard in this Parliament this afternoon a plea for further delay because some State parliaments, some State governments and some State branches of some unions are not yet satisfied that this is an answer to the problem. [More…]
The Australian Workers Union in Queensland is one of those unions. [More…]
I fail to see that it could be held by the High Court that it is not an industrial dispute within the meaning of the Conciliation and Arbitration Act and the Australian Constitution when 2 unions are seeking to represent the interests of employees and bargain with an employer and there is a stoppage of work and there are counter-demands as between 2 organisations and an employer. [More…]
The legislation protects the autonomy of State branches of unions. [More…]
The situation between Federal and State unions which the case of Moore v. Doyle highlighted has been with the Australian industrial system since before 1952, as the honourable member for Phillip (Mr Riordan) mentioned, and really since the time when the Federal industrial system and the early State industrial systems were established at the turn of the century. [More…]
Both those systems relied for their organisation within Australia on the registration of voluntary groups of workers or employers into a legal entity described under federal legislation as an organisation and under the State legislation which provides for registration of unions. [More…]
Such people would have federal unions right across the board without any State legislation to complicate the issue and to permit the creation of separate and distinct legal entities. [More…]
On the other hand, there are those who propound the view that because of the regional characteristics of Australia and the regional characteristics of industry and the work force it is proper that there be a system of State unions, that is, a regulation of industrial affairs within a region or State according to the laws of a particular State geared to the particular needs of that region or State. [More…]
They saw a need for a means of settling industrial disputes which are national in character by a system of federally organised unions. [More…]
Some States have chosen a system of registration of unions, compulsory arbitration to a more or less degree. [More…]
Other States, Victoria amongst them, do not have a system of registration of unions or a system of arbitration as States like my own of Western Australia, Queensland and New South Wales have. [More…]
But in those States Uke mine, which have a system of conciliation and arbitration, this system has been provided for by the registration of voluntary groups of workers into legally recognised unions having a separate legal identity, once they become registered. [More…]
As time has gone on, from the days when an award might simply apply to 2 States in order to give it its interstate character, Federal unions have sought to extend their industrial power by extending the award coverage which they have beyond the original States. [More…]
So, in Western Australia there is the example over many years of Federal unions seeking to intrude into the industrial system of that State either by applying for a completely new award which takes in Western Australia for the first time or by way of what is called a roping in award, extending an existing award to Western Australia. [More…]
It is a section with which I am most familiar because I fought many cases on behalf of State unions before the Commonwealth Conciliation and Arbitration Commission seeking to prevent the takeover by a Federal organisation of a State area occupied by a State union. [More…]
To me, what this legislation, which has been brought down in an attempt or in a justification of the desire to overcome the difficulties presented by Moore and Doyle, can do is to concentrate power in Federal unions. [More…]
So, it does not necessarily follow, as the Sweeney report assumes, that a system of Federal unions in Australia is the best way to bring about industrial peace. [More…]
When we look at the pattern of development in the industrial field in Australia particularly post war, we do see a rapidly accelerating concentration of industrial power in federal unions. [More…]
I think that if anyone recognising that fact asks himself honestly the question whether there has been more or less industrial peace in Australia post war, under a system of that kind with a concentration of power in Federal unions, the answer is ready and at hand. [More…]
The Minister for Labour in Western Australia has made inquiries of unions in that State and I am informed that the overwhelming majority of unions registered with the State Industrial Commission do not want this BUI. [More…]
The Bill has nothing whatever to do with altering the Act to make it easier for federal unions to take over State unions or to make it easier for federal unions to get federal awards extended to areas to which they are not at present entitled to extend their awards. [More…]
It is nonsense to say that this Bill concentrates power in the hands of federal unions. [More…]
The Government has responded to the request from the employers and from the trade unions to try to remedy this defect. [More…]
This is a matter that concerns industrial relations, and without it we cannot possibly solve the difficulties that have been thrust upon unions, State and federal alike, as a consequence of the Moore v. Doyle decision. [More…]
The honourable member for Wannon (Mr Malcolm Fraser) suggested that the unions are not supporting this legislation. [More…]
The Australian Council of Trade Unions has asked the Government always to send copies of Bills to it and not to all of the organisations affiliated with it so that the ACTU can then consult with its affiliated organisations. [More…]
It sees the practice of sending Bills to affiliated unions as being an act of going over its head and the ACTU resents it. [More…]
The unions agree with it and the employers agree with it. [More…]
They want to see unions go on strike because there remains to them no other way of settling matters constitutionally. [More…]
There had never been a problem which bristled so much with legal difficulties as the Moore v. Doyle case produced because the Moore v. Doyle case showed that the law as it now stands, and as it will continue to stand until altered, until cured by the proposal that we are now putting forward, is that the majority of federal unions are illegally constituted, that their rules are invalid and that their property is in a state of doubtful ownership. [More…]
It is said that the unions have not had a chance to study the legislation. [More…]
The amalgamation of trade unions without the consent of the majority of their members has been facilitated by a Bill which passed this House today. [More…]
I intend, however, to point out to the House that the amalgamation of unions without the consent of their members is a mixed blessing. [More…]
It would not matter if communists had not infiltrated these unions and were not manipulating these unions in the interests of the Communist Party and against the interests of all Aus.tralians. [More…]
I give it as an example of what happens when trade unions are amalgamated and we get these big communist controlled organisations which are not working for their members. [More…]
The communist officials of these unions are betraying their members in the interests of destroying the Australian economy and producing here a kind of communist-socialist dictatorship. [More…]
I think that this is perhaps not the biggest but certainly one of the biggest and one of the most influential unions in Australia. [More…]
Yet he got up in this House and he tried to deceive us by telling us: ‘No, there are no communists; the unions have never been in better hands’. [More…]
For that purpose we believe that the various sectors of the petroleum industry- the major oil companies and the trade unions associated with marine and land transport- should be brought together so that we can get a co-ordination of effort, and goodwill and understanding. [More…]
This program also has achieved another first in that train drivers and guards are being involved, through their unions, in the design of those compartments of the vehicle in which they must operate. [More…]
With a view to developing a standard specification I hope to arrange for a conference of government and private operators and unions to be held to attempt to rationalise the requirements of each jurisdiction. [More…]
Will unions be prepared to abandon their traditional objections to adult training in skilled trades. [More…]
Have studies been undertaken into the reaction of the public service unions to the Australian Government taking a lead in extending part-time work opportunities and granting permanent status to part-time employees. [More…]
However, some unions have not abandoned their traditional objections to adult training in skilled trades. [More…]
I am hopeful that as the application of NEAT develops, suitable arrangements will be made to accommodate the attitudes of these unions. [More…]
Two days later, after contact had been made with the trade unions of the country, he recanted that statement and said: [More…]
We in the Labor movement believe in the right of trade unions to seek higher wages through proper bargaining processes. [More…]
In times of inflation we know very well that the unions would not have accepted that and the level of industrial disputes, which is always high in a period of inflation, would be doubled if the Opposition were the Government. [More…]
The Treasury approach is based on sound- at least they were sound- Keynesian principles, that is, if we reduce purchasing power we reduce demand and therefore we make it more difficult for employers to raise prices, we make employers resist union demands more and we create unemployment and a bad environment for unions to seek further wage increases. [More…]
Some relate to the peculiarities of the labour market- the changing nature of the labour market Others are explained by political factors, the political argument being that business and unions are becoming increasingly aware of the fact that governments simply cannot maintain restrictive policies for too long because they have to face elections and as a result they are prepared to ride out the rough times. [More…]
Companies increase prices when demand is slackening and unions seek wage increases when there is growing unemployment, all this because they know that the situation cannot go on for too long. [More…]
I suppose in this context it is worth mentioning France which has recently agreed with the unions in that country to raise unemployment benefits to 90 per cent of a worker’s wage. [More…]
I have no time to go into detail on this matter but very briefly these measures involve the agreements with unions through a social contract, getting indexation of wages, the prices justification system and so on and if things get really tough using our tax powers in the way that has been talked about by academic economists in the Press and very recently by the Prime Minister (Mr Whitlam). [More…]
I have been amazed that in the campaign for wage indexation the President of the Australian Council of Trade Unions, who is not a strong man but merely responds to the forces behind him, has not referred to and made a major campaign of the failure of the consumer index, on which indexation is proposed to be based, to reflect the real cost for the wage and salary earners he purports to represent. [More…]
They could be distributed to people such as those whom I have mentioned in the universities in Adelaide and, indeed, other universities and among employer groups and employee groups such as the Australian Council of Trade Unions, so that a greater cross-fertilisation of ideas could occur and so that the formulation of policy in this most important area of all will be the result of the work of a wider group of people than those who are at the moment advising in this area. [More…]
People wonder why industry does not have confidence and what sort of a future the unions, the work force and industry itself might have. [More…]
That is only the tip of the iceberg in relation to the volume of funds being provided in support of this Government from the communist controlled unions. [More…]
-Much has been said tonight about the confrontations between residents and road authorities and the confrontations between trade unions and road authorities. [More…]
The idea of resident action groups and trade unions filling responsibility vacuums is not new. [More…]
He said that the Minister for Transport always confers with the communist trade unions to see whether they will give him permission to issue a single voyage permit. [More…]
The second notation is that the Australian Council of Trade Unions has been notified of the application. [More…]
He advises the unions of my decision. [More…]
It has antagonised unions and, incidentally, the unions have not been unco-operative. [More…]
The way Evans Deakin has antagonised unions into unnecessary stoppages is an absolute and utter disgrace. [More…]
Firstly, it had the advantage of disciplining unions, because if there is a large army of people waiting for a job at the factory door it is less likely that those inside the factory will want to change their jobs, it is less likely that they will want to go on strike and, indeed, it is less likely that they will even fight and stick up for their rights. [More…]
He then comes out with the novel suggestion that the President of the Australian Council of Trade Unions is standing over me or delivering an ultimatum to me. [More…]
This movement is a very difficult body to lead in Australia because there are about 300 unions in Australia and only about one third of them belongs to the ACTU. [More…]
There have been significant pressures from quite a wide variety of people- trade unions, academics, students, lawyers, civil liberties groups, aid groups, for example- and these have all been making an impression on the Australian Government to protest to the Indonesian Government over the continued detention without trial of people charged with involvement in the 1965 attempted coup and the recent trials of intellectuals who were arrested after the January riots in Djakarta to which I have just referred. [More…]
It has antagonised unions and, incidentally, the unions have not been unco-operative. [More…]
Deakin has antagonised unions into unnecessary stoppages is an absolute and utter disgrace. [More…]
It will be recalled that one of the conditions for our acceptance of the construction of the present drilling rig was that all unions concerned would be parties to a registered industrial agreement. [More…]
It is little wonder that the President of the Australian Council of Trade Unions, Mr Hawke, who is also the Federal President of the Australian Labor Party, is travelling around the country and saying that the Labor Government is on the skids. [More…]
I do not intend to answer union bashing by becoming an employer basher because I have, throughout my life as a representative of trade unions and of the Labor Party, met many fine people who represent employers. [More…]
In their jobs they are tough, dedicated people- just as tough and just as dedicated as those who take on the role of representing trade unions. [More…]
In 1972 these unions took a decision to constitute the one amalgamated union. [More…]
They do not understand the ramifications of having a multiplicity of unions in the industrial relations field. [More…]
When in 1972 the move was made to amalgamate there were 8 formal objections from other unions of no specific political nature. [More…]
They were unions representing all political philosophiesleft wing, right wing and middle of the road. [More…]
Each of these 3 unions which went to make up the Amalgamated Metalworkers Union in 1972-74 were, of course, substantial organisations in their own right. [More…]
A very significant feature of the administration of this union which makes it perhaps the most efficient of all trade unions in Australia- this was news to me when I made inquiries about it- is that every quarter every one of the 183,000 members receives a card from his union which tells him his financial position in the union, his section of the membership in the union, his classification, the time of the next monthly meeting of the union, the name of the branch secretary and also the business which will be conducted at that meeting. [More…]
A mine workers’ retirement scheme emerged from negotiations between the unions and mining companies to cover mine workers employed in the metalliferous mining industry at Broken Hill. [More…]
The mining unions originally sought compulsory retirement of mine workers at 60 years of age. [More…]
Among the large number of people who came to Canberra for these discussions were representatives from all levels of industry, from the unions through to the producers, the cattle producers, councils, exporters, wool brokers and the beef agents themselves. [More…]
Then we have the incredible statement by the Special Minister of State (Mr Lionel Bowen), who is sitting at the table now, in his second reading speech that the Government was not necessarily wedded to all that is in the report and that it would want to hear the views of trade unions, of housewives and of organisations. [More…]
trade unions, employers, welfare organisations and interested community group have not had an opportunity of presenting their views ‘. [More…]
I mention next the trade unions. [More…]
I have here a letter sent to Mr Souter, the Secretary of the Australian Council of Trade Unions, by Mr Reynolds of the Labor Council of New South Wales. [More…]
Many unions have been able to exert pressure, industrial and otherwise, to get 100 per cent payments, but other people in those States and Territories are not covered by 100 per cent payments. [More…]
Secondly, what are we to make of Senator Wheeldon ‘s assurances to the Executive of the Australian Council of Trade Unions? [More…]
Among those bodies which will be interested mainly are the trade unions. [More…]
Very often the trade unions interfere in matters in which they are not competent and where they have not got authority, but in this Bill the trade unions have a very real function and a very real part. [More…]
The trade unions just have not understood because, in its haste, the Government is rushing this Bill through without adequately considering what is involved in it. [More…]
Let us leave it on the table for a while to enable the interested bodies, particularly the trade unions, to have a chance of putting forward their views. [More…]
This is a field in which it is very appropriate and proper that the views of the trade unions should be listened to. [More…]
Of course there has been some reluctance on the part of some people already engaged in the industry and I do not in any way blame the building unions for their apprehension on this matter. [More…]
The people who sit on the other side of this chamber and their colleagues in Victoria, because none of them supported the propositions that were consistently put forward by the Labor Party and the Australian Council of Trade Unions calling on the people whom honourable members opposite represent to apprentice carpenters, plumbers, electrical mechanics in order to relieve the pressures on the labour market. [More…]
Master Builders Association, the Housing Industry Association and the building unions in conjunction with the Victorian Trades Hall Council and the steps that are necessary to be taken within the ambit of the projected Housing Corporation, he would know that it will bring about the sorts of things to which we have made reference and that it will show in a practical way the blocks of land available in Victoria. [More…]
It is called the Jackson Committee and it is chaired by the General Manager and Director of Colonial Sugar Refining Co. Ltd, one of the biggest private companies in this country, working along with very highly placed persons in Government, academics and representatives of the Australian Council of Trade Unions. [More…]
People outside the Parliament such as the President of the Australian Labor Party and those in the communist organised unions and their fellow travellers, have also played a significant part in damaging private industry and the general economic and manufacturing scene. [More…]
Once the true position did surface the Minister for Overseas Trade (Dr J. F. Cairns) and the Minister for Manufacturing Industry (Mr Enderby) to their credit set to work to stop the rot They held conferences with representatives of the Australian Council of Trade Unions and the Australian textile industries. [More…]
When one thinks that the trade unions which support the Government are always calling for support of the small man one may well ask: What are we doing about the small man? [More…]
We are writing this letter because, unlike the Trade Unions, we have no other means, between elections, of making our views known to the Government. [More…]
In fact, I have been involved in discussions with the President of the Australian Council of Trade Unions- who happens to be the same person- on a number of occasions and I am very familiar with these proposals. [More…]
We assured the ACTU that we would give very full consideration to what has been submitted to us by the unions and by the ACTU. [More…]
Everyone will realise that the cooperation between the Government and the unions is a vital matter in the implementation of economic policy today. [More…]
The regional council was expected to involve representatives of the Australian, State and local governments, trade unions and employer groups, welfare consumer groups and non-government bodies associated with social welfare. [More…]
The industrial movement, including the Australian Council of Trade Unions and other industrial authorities, would have to be encouraged to accept responsibility in the area of adult training. [More…]
The honourable member for Wannon says that the trade unions object to this scheme; they object to certain aspects of it. [More…]
We have got to organise it; we can organise it in a proper way, and the Opposition will learn to realise that what is inherent in this scheme is inherent in what is necessary to develop a proper industrial concept and to ensure that there is maximum co-operation between the Government and the trade unions and the employers. [More…]
Are representatives of the Hospital and Health Services Commission and the Australian Council of Trade Unions negotiating with the management of the Chevron Hotel in Melbourne for the purchase of that hotel as a trade union centre and a Commonwealth health centre? [More…]
The Hospital and Health Services Commission and the Australian Council of Trade Unions are in close and cordial co-operation in discussions with the Alfred Hospital on this matter. [More…]
He started his speech by having a sideswipe at the unions. [More…]
On Tuesday of the week after next the Caucus committee of which I am the secretary will be meeting with representatives of the unions which have members in the OTC and the telecommunications side of the PMG. [More…]
Having read through that document, having spoken about it with other people and now having spoken about it with representatives of the trade unions that are involved in this field, I find that it has many fallacies in it and that it seeks to put forward a point of view that is not altogether acceptable to people who take a responsible view on the matter. [More…]
The Board will normally include members of the public, the trade unions, the business community and voluntary organisations, in addition to public servants. [More…]
I now feel that occasions may arise for members of the committee of that fund, who include several officials of the maritime unions, to communicate with me in my capacity as trustee. [More…]
As regards industrial disputes, the matter has had the attention of the Minister for Labor and Immigration and where appropriate direct representations have been made to the unions involved with the aim of minimising the disruption to wheat shipments. [More…]
I am in touch at present with the Joint Coal Board and also the appropriate mining unions to see what can be done in the way of a substantial increase in the labour force in the coal industry. [More…]
This Government did nothing until the unemployment figures became so bad that the trade unions threatened to withdraw their support from the Party. [More…]
The Government has done nothing until the unions have threatened them. [More…]
At the weekend we were even treated to the spectacle of the Prime Minister of this country going to the home of the President of the Australian Council of Trade Unions. [More…]
This Minister who claims to have a close liaison with the trade unions and who says that he can manage the trade union movement ought to resign. [More…]
The Minister for the Media, who is a member of the other place, said that the other class of person to go long would be those who may possibly have some affinity with trade unions. [More…]
I refer to the minutes of a meeting held between the Air Transport Group and the unions affected by the cuts. [More…]
The Prime Minister (Mr Whitlam) said: ‘We are a government of the unions. [More…]
We know the unions. [More…]
-Has the attention of the Prime Minister been drawn to reports of high praise for Tuesday’s economic statement from the Presidents of the Australian Council of Trade Unions and the Institute of Applied Economic and Social Research and many business leaders? [More…]
The Government welcomes the statement of the President of the Australian Council of Trade Unions reported yesterday that the Government proposal was a very genuine and dinkum attempt to begin a system of effective cost of living adjustments by means of the tax reduction for the December quarter of 1 974 and by means of automatic wage indexation in the immediate following quarter. [More…]
Credit unions will continue to be taxed on income other than interest on loans to members, e.g., from rents and ‘outside’ investment of funds not immediately required for their normal lending operations. [More…]
My point is that the Minister has given Mr Fitzgibbon and the WWF and other unions the right to hold up ships at the port and to claim indemnity payments. [More…]
It seems to me that there is a fanbit of collusion between the communistcontrolled Waterside Workers Federation, the communistcontrolled maritime unions and the Russians to try to break down efforts by other shipping companies which try to trade on the Australian coast while the Russians are free to do as they will. [More…]
It would be very much easier to be confident of it if the 4 Liberal and Country Party States which have said that they will oppose wage indexation in the Arbitration Commission were in fact to cooperate with the Australian Government and with employee organisations, including the Australian Council of Trade Unions, the Australian Council of Salaried and Professional Associations and the Council of Commonwealth Public Service Organisations, in obtaining that very great improvement in our wage-fixing structures. [More…]
When the term was brought back into circulation earlier this year, I regarded it as a diplomatic fig-leaf to cover up the fact that the Labor Party would not dare force another statutory incomes policy down the throats of the unions. [More…]
Indeed, excess demand would lead to ever-accelerating inflation, even if the unions themselves were to vanish from the face of the earth. [More…]
The direct effect of trade unions is not, as is popularly believed, to cause a continuing inflation. [More…]
How far this slowdown is reflected in smaller rises in money incomes and prices, and how far in increased unemployment, will depend on the extent to which trade unions resist the forces of the labour market and price their members out of jobs. [More…]
Consultation with Trade Unions [More…]
The Bill introduces a requirement for the wool Corporation to consult with the trade unions concerned before taking action likely to affect the conditions of employment or the demand for labour in the wool industry. [More…]
The Corporation already follows a usual practice of consultation with unions on relevant matters but the amendment now formally requires such consultation. [More…]
The various teachers unions have taken this matter up with the State Department of Education but so far with very little success. [More…]
Higher duties on John Citizen’s drinks and cigarettes at the very time when the major thrust of the Government’s policy, as propounded by the Prime Minister last week, is to seal the social compact with the unions. [More…]
The office of Prime Minister has never been more demeaned than it was the other day when the Prime Minister went to call upon the President of the Australian Council of Trade Unions to get his instructions. [More…]
Many trades employees fall into this category, employees who are represented by powerful trade unions. [More…]
At this point it is nothing to do with the rate at which particular people or particular unions might load or unload ships. [More…]
There has been tension between the Transport Workers Union and the North Australian Branch of the Waterside Workers Federation in the port of Darwin and it would be an unhappy circumstance if the Minister’s amendment was to re-awake that tension and cause industrial difficulties of a kind that have been present in the past as a result of a demarcation dispute largely between 2 unions. [More…]
In addition I hope that the Minister has not forgotten that in recent legislation in which he had the utmost co-operation from the Opposition in this House and in the Senate, legislation that was passed in relation to the Moore v. Doyle situation and which has been dear to his heart, although perhaps it should have been delayed until the Minister had reported back to the House on certain matters, power was given to the Arbitration Commission to demarcate in an industrial dispute between 2 unions. [More…]
Demand inflation has recently steadily given way to cost inflation as trade unions have striven to maintain and increase their real incomes in the face of past and anticipated inflation. [More…]
They share the view of the President of the Australian Council of Trade Unions and of the Prime Minister (Mr Whitlam). [More…]
We have the president of the Australian Council of Trade Unions predicting the worst depression in Australia since the thirties. [More…]
Honourable members opposite in Government have a predeliction for saying time and again: ‘We have representatives of the housewives association, of the employers associations and of trade unions on a certain body. [More…]
Many humourous points were scored against that operation by the unions opposing this action. [More…]
This disruption will happen because the Minister is in conspiracy with the left wing unions which wish to dominate these activities. [More…]
The wording of the Bill has been the subject of consideration by the Australian Council of Trade Unions, the Waterside Workers Federation of Australia and other unions. [More…]
I have been critical previously of the unions and all other organisations that have struck on various occasions. [More…]
We are able to give to the various unions associated with that industry an assurance of a continuity of employment. [More…]
Having satisfied the unions, we will have to look at the coal loading equipment at the various harbours of Australia. [More…]
I would say that it will be a matter for the coal industry itself to negotiate with the representatives of the various unions as to the benefits that will be received. [More…]
Is the honourable gentleman aware that, in the context of that continuing refusal to confirm the position of the honourable member for Melbourne Ports as Federal Treasurer, the President of the Australian Labor Party and the President of the Australian Council of Trade Unions is reported as having demanded that the Prime Minister make a statement on the future of the Treasurer? [More…]
There is, first of all, the breaking of pairs in the Senate; secondly, the lies which were told about the date on which Senator Gair’s resignation was effective; thirdly, the Prime Minister’s statement in this House about the insignificance of communist penetration into the trade unions when he must have known that he was saying something which was untrue and that he was saying it with a deliberate intent to mislead the House and the country; fourthly, only a few days ago his denial of his own statements about the Government’s tariff policy, in relation to which he was proved to be wrong by the existence of a tape recording; fifthly, the major matter of deceiving not only the House but also attempting to deceive the country by the false things he said, knowing them to be false, in the election campaign of May; and sixthly- it is a small matter- the little meanness of an attack the Prime Minister made on some academics knowing that what he said was untrue. [More…]
Mr Anthony’s question related to communist influence in trade unions. [More…]
Subsequently, I and the honourable member for Gippsland (Mr Nixon) read into Hansard lists of names of open communists in key positions in key unions. [More…]
The unions included the Amalgamated Metal Workers Union of Australia and the maritime unions. [More…]
Whether the communists are in control of the unions is a matter of grave political consequence. [More…]
Take the Minister for Labor and Immigration (Mr Clyde Cameron), an outstanding orator with great knowledge of industrial relations, forthright with unions and employers, who in every way gives an inspiring example of what should be done by Ministers of integrity and honesty. [More…]
I quoted from copies of minutes of a meeting between the air transport group and the unions concerned. [More…]
The Minister for Transport and his colleagues will, of course, take into account the views represented to him by the unions, by the local communities and by the industry. [More…]
But it cannot be stressed enough that we need to get away from the wishy-washy sort of approach that the Government is taking towards this particular policy at the moment, the patches and pieces approach to changing this and to changing that, with all the reversals of decisions that we have seen in recent months from the Government, Caucus and the Australian Council of Trade Unions. [More…]
It has gradually dawned on the Government that wage demands, which it militantly supported in the early days of its taking office by having the Public Service as a pacesetter and by allowing some of its Ministers, people who ought to be responsible in government, to encourage militant trade unions to use their muscle in their wage demands, are one of the reasons why this Bill is before us. [More…]
Mr Hawke ‘s understanding of micro-economics has been aided by his exposure to the manufacturing industry unions who understand only too well the drastic consequences of the Government’s policies. [More…]
They blame the multinationals, the Press, big business, the nervous Nellies of the Caucus, world wide inflation, the Senate, the State Premiers- especially at the moment the Queensland Premier- the unions, the airline pilots, the Caucus and the weather. [More…]
The Government had the opportunity before the Budget was brought down to have that conference which was so badly needed with unions and industry to provide a chance to make some sort of a contract, but it threw it away. [More…]
There was an opportunity to say to the unions, ‘We are prepared to do many things, for example, to alleviate pressure in the area in welfare and to help with other areas if you will moderate your demands’ but it threw it away and it will not come again as easily as it did before. [More…]
The Government has put forward the view that it is trying to enter into some social contract with unions. [More…]
After all, trade unions in Australia are registered, with restrictions and constraints placed upon their activities, but not so political parties in this Bill. [More…]
The spectacle of the Prime Minister of this country knocking on the door of the residence of the President of the Australian Council of Trade Unions to get his instructions lowered the dignity of that office immensely. [More…]
Then the Government encouraged people in the unions to act outside the Australian Conciliation and Arbitration Commission, to put their claims by strong arm action and to put pressure on employers- to say: ‘Give us better conditions and more wages’. [More…]
According to this morning’s Press the Australian Council of Trade Unions and all union members are concerned about individual industries that have been belted and at unemployment being as high as it has ever been in history. [More…]
He has blamed big business, he has blamed the Press, he has blamed the unions, he has blamed the Caucus, he has blamed his own Cabinet, he has blamed the nervous Nellies, he has blamed the Senate, he has blamed worldwide forces, he has blamed the State governments. [More…]
We see our defence Services running downhill and the trade unions having a greater influence on Government decisions. [More…]
We have met with Mr Hawke and with other members of the Executive of the Australian Council of Trade Unions as we have met with many other trade union leaders, both formally and informally, during the course of the last 20 months. [More…]
This is essentially a good principle and without the application of this principle any government would find that it would be in a position in which it would not in any way be able to receive or expect the co-operation of workers or unions in any policy directed at the stability of the economy. [More…]
We reject, as I suspect will a number of trade unions, the Government’s formula of flat rate increases for all income levels above average weekly earnings. [More…]
Evidence of this is that while unions exert a special influence on the Labor Government to achieve accelerations in wage and salary movements, pensioners are no nearer to achieving a pension equal to the promised 25 per cent of average weekly earnings than they were when this Government took over the reins of office. [More…]
Various economic studies have been conducted which indicate that this much slower rate of growth of take-home pay has been an important factor in determining unions’ wage claims and also in increasing union militancy, in other words, the determination with which they pursue wage claims. [More…]
The most important of these analyses is an English study which has been produced in the form of a book entitled ‘Do Trade Unions Cause Inflation?’ [More…]
In other words, with conditions of substantial unemployment which are increasingly pervading the industrial world at the moment, unions have continued to pursue wage claims, but with a determination that would not in the past have existed but which now exists because their bargaining powers are being reduced by unemployment. [More…]
But if in present circumstances taxes are increased, and if the authors of this book are right, what happens is that the unions will have a tendency to pursue higher wage claims to get the rate of growth in their after-tax pay that they wanted to achieve. [More…]
But the unions know that in this measure the Government has shown no lead or need for restraint. [More…]
If the Government does not know it now its supporters will soon find out when they address meetings of the trade unions over the Christmas recess because they will impress nobody with the ballyhoo that we have heard so often from them in this House. [More…]
Credit Unions [More…]
Clause 6 proposes that interest received by credit unions on loans made to its members be exempted from taxation. [More…]
Credit unions, of course, are basically agents acting on behalf of their members. [More…]
The exemption will have the effect of reducing considerably the amount of tax payable by qualifying credit unions. [More…]
He will certainly be remembered by the credit union movement in Australia for the action which is now being taken in this Bill to exempt credit unions from income tax on interest derived from loans to their members. [More…]
This exemption will apply to assessments of credit unions in respect of the income derived during the year of income which commenced on 1 July 1973 and in subsequent income years. [More…]
The liability to tax of credit unions has been a vexed question for many years. [More…]
Credit unions have taken all legal steps possible to have the matter determined. [More…]
In view of the legal decisions in all those cases which went against the credit unions, it has been necessary finally to determine the issue by legislation, and that the Government is now doing. [More…]
On behalf of the credit union movement I would like to convey to the Treasurer the thanks of all credit union members and their appreciation for his taking of this worthwhile step, which will enable credit unions to apply any surplus arising from dealings with their own members for the benefit of their own members. [More…]
The Bill also proposes the removal of income tax in respect of interest paid on loans by credit unions. [More…]
I think great credit must be given here to the honourable member for Banks for the very tenacious manner and for what I can only say was the almost stubborn manner in which he pressed the Government time and again- he did so in committees and even pressed the Treasurer himself- to bring about this very important reform in relation to credit unions. [More…]
It will be a very considerable benefit to the credit unions. [More…]
The credit unions could not get anywhere with the previous Government. [More…]
Credit unions are to be given some benefits. [More…]
Despite what has been said from the other side of the House today, I am one who has been in favour of giving proper respect to credit unions and giving them concessions of the kind proposed. [More…]
Recently in Sydney people were thrown into confusion and great chaos arose at peak hours when a minor dispute arose involving workers in the transport unions. [More…]
365 (Hansard, 30 July 1974 page 831), did he state in opening the Industrial Peace Conference that an in-depth study is under way in his Department to compile and assess material relating to household expenditure so that this kind of information can be made available to employers, unions and the commission for national wage cases. [More…]
We have communicated with the States, with the various sections of the building industry and with the trade unions and we are in the process of establishing, with the aid of all those people, a national group and a group at the level of every State, and in the Australian Capital Territory and in the Northern Territory. [More…]
The amendment proposed by the Opposition will continue the requirement for the Corporation to consult with trade unions on changes in conditions of employment and the like. [More…]
There are the research and marketing organisations, and of course the trade unions, which are actively engaged in the industry. [More…]
I got to know the technical people, the buyers, the brokers, the unions involved and all the people associated with the industry. [More…]
Other provisions in the Bill deal with consultation with the unions. [More…]
If anything, I am more convinced than ever that their main purpose in life is bashing unions. [More…]
If ever the unhappy day comes when they become the government again the unions will learn to their sorrow just how hard members of the Opposition will bash them. [More…]
Reciprocating relationships between each Service and the civilian community, the Public Service, other services, the Government, the Parliament, the trade unions, etc., as perceived and evaluated by members. [More…]
I am sure that when the interests and needs of the people in the countries we are talking about are taken into account we can expect that Australian unions will understand the situation and will be prepared to co-operate provided there are proper safeguards. [More…]
He went on to say that the trade unions accept that situation. [More…]
However we judge it, whether on the activities of the trade union movement, whether on criticisms of the Government such as those by Cliff Dolan of the Electoral Trade Unions of Australia or on industrial disputes, there is clearly a situation which the trade union movement does not accept and will not accept under the policies of this Government. [More…]
But in other areas the President of the Australian Council of Trade Unions, Mr Hawke, has said that the Government must cut back imports to protect jobs, otherwise imported goods will be left on the wharves forever to rot. [More…]
The Prime Minister attacked unions for ‘screwing the public’. [More…]
I hardly think the present Government can blame trade unions in Britain, France, Japan or the United States of America for what the Government has more recently called the unreasonable wage claims of Australian trade unions. [More…]
Trade unions have their own health funds. [More…]
The program will aim at providing informatioin which will assist in the development of government policy and which will be useful to unions, employers, academics and others who are involved in the industrial relations field. [More…]
Apparently the Opposition does not want to consult with the trade unions. [More…]
We accept that the trade unions should be represented on the Corporation. [More…]
You have to negotiate with the unions on the basis that you are going to concede these different points. [More…]
I have no doubt that the manufacturing, industrial and craft unions will share the view which has been expressed by the Opposition today. [More…]
We will see the finish of those funds operated by trade unions and employees in factories. [More…]
We have formed an expert committee representing industry, government and the trade unions to advise us on policies for manufacturing industries. [More…]
For 20 years unions had been arguing for the re-introduction of wage indexation. [More…]
He has blamed Caucus, Cabinet, the President of the Australian Council of Trade Unions, and the executive of the Australian Council of Trade Unions. [More…]
He has blamed the unions. [More…]
One of the things that was mentioned was the appointment of an expert committee representing industry and the trade unions to advise the Government on policies for manufacturing industry. [More…]
1 presume that the honourable member means to refer to the Royal Commission into Alleged Payments to Maritime Unions. [More…]
that the unions give their full co-operation in carrying into effect any reorganisation, re-rostering, retraining or recruitment of new labor that is called for in the transitional period to the shortened work week; [More…]
that the unions give undertakings that there will be, in the transitional period and otherwise, no threat of industrial action and no resort to industrial action in respect of any industrial disputes that arise over reorganisation, re-rostering, retraining or recruitment of new labor due to the award of the shortened work week; [More…]
that the Commission is given unequivocal and credible assurances by the unions that overtime will not be sought by employees over and above the levels of regular overtime now worked and that, if it is so required by the employer respondents, a reduction of present levels of overtime, if any, will be suffered and tolerated. [More…]
Have the appropriate unions been informed of the results of the survey. [More…]
If not, will he inform the appropriate unions of the results of the survey. [More…]
It is expected that the unions will give their views when the final results of the survey are made available to them. [More…]
Three booklets- ‘Australia’, ‘Employment in Australia’, and ‘Wages, Prices and Taxes in Australia’- give information on such matters as hours of work, pay scales, industrial arbitration, annual leave, workers’ compensation, unemployment and sickness benefits and trade unions. [More…]
In fact, if the unions could not be brought to heel with 400 000 unemployed, honourable members opposite would let unemployment reach 500 000 because that is their way of dealing with trade union militancy. [More…]
In the United States the level of unemployment has reached 8.2 per cent and according to the predictions of Mr Meany, the head of the unions in the United States, before very long the level of unemployment in America will be 10 per cent. [More…]
But they both support indexation as a means of achieving wage restraint, although the President of the Labor Party and President of the Australian Council of Trade Unions has said that the ACTU has no role in this, that it is a matter for the individual unions concerned. [More…]
The white collar unions have decided to fight the Government’s indexation proposals, as have all the significant left wing unions throughout Australia. [More…]
One of the things Opposition speakers have said is, of course, that they will sit down with the trade unions- if ever the Opposition comes back to government- to solve the problems. [More…]
There is no significant enthusiasm on behalf of the trade unions to sit down with the Liberal and Country Parties. [More…]
Members of the Opposition speak about their attitudes to the trade unions and the working class. [More…]
The trade unions are not interested in sitting down with the Opposition because they cannot trust it. [More…]
We talk to the trade unions. [More…]
I conclude with the remark that the trade unions and the working people do not trust the Opposition parties. [More…]
What do the trade unions now think of that? [More…]
I must say on behalf of the Government that it is a bitter disappointment to me that the Senate saw fit to reject the 6 clauses dealing with amalgamations because one of the things that is plaguing industrial relations today is the demarcation dispute which arises as a result of having too many unions and which cause employers to be the innocent sufferers and by-standers in these stupid inane disputes over which union shall cover which particular occupation. [More…]
This tragedy- and it is nothing less than a tragedy in industrial relations- will never be resolved until the Parliament alters the Act in such a way as to make it easier for the unions to amalgamate and thereby to reduce the number of unions. [More…]
That act of wanton obstruction, of attempted destruction, has not deterred the Government in its endeavours to achieve the enactment of the important industrial relations measures for which that Bill provided- the removal of the barrier set up by the joint Liberal-Country Pary Government to prevent amalgamations of unions registered under the Conciliation and Arbitration Act. [More…]
Although the number of trade unions in Australia has been slowly declin-ing-375 in 1956 to 305 in 1972 and to 294 at the end of 1973- the figures still show a large number of separate unions representing small groups of employees. [More…]
This gentleman comes from a country where the number of trade unions has been limited to a number that makes the number we have look absolutely ridiculous. [More…]
The official figures show that, of the 305 unions in existence in 1972, 158 had less than 1000 members; another 82 of the unions had between 1000 and 5000 members; 28 of the unions had between 5000 and 20 000 members; 23 had between 20 000 and 50 000 members; and only 14 unions in a country of our size with a population of 13 million people had a membership of over 50 000. [More…]
The figures show also that, of the 294 unions at the end of 1973, 226 had a membership of fewer than 5000 members and 103 unions had a membership of fewer than 500 members. [More…]
Demarcation disputes concerned with protecting the revenue and membership of a union threatened with loss of coverage by encroachments of other unions are a common occurrence in this country. [More…]
Too much time is lost through disputes over which unions should handle a certain job. [More…]
The cost of libraries and research staff- essential for good quality industrial leadership- is frequently beyond the resources of small unions. [More…]
Even the cost of assembling the members and officials in conference is too much for some unions frequently to bear. [More…]
The formation of larger unions will provide a significant part ofthe answer to these problems. [More…]
We have too many unions with too few members. [More…]
We have too many inefficient unions. [More…]
We need in Australia today fewer and more efficient unions. [More…]
Well, the concept of industry unions is something that I personally support strongly. [More…]
But it will be a long time before Australia moves to the position where it will accept industrial unions as the honourable member has mentioned. [More…]
Employers want fewer and more efficient unions. [More…]
They do not want 303 unions, some of them small and inefficient but very obstructive; they want fewer unions. [More…]
Mr Polites, the spokesman for the National Employers Association wants to see fewer and more efficient unions. [More…]
After all, the employers derive considerable benefits from the formation of larger unions. [More…]
Frequently several unions are parties to a single award or agreement, as is the case in the metal industries or in the Australian Post Office, where something like 24 separate unions operate to cover the various people employed in the PostmasterGeneral ‘s Department alone. [More…]
Amalgamation of organisations will operate in this situation not only to reduce the number of unions parties to single awards and agreements but also to limit the number of awards and agreements applying within single establishments. [More…]
Negotiation and agreement on industrial matters would also be facilitated if the employer had to deal with only one or two unions instead of, as is often the case today with larger employers, with a number going into double figures, each one operating under different rules and procedures and not necessarily common policies. [More…]
I remember the honourable member for Balaclava (Mr Macphee), when he was the leading light in the Chamber of Manufactures, telling me that on one occasion he had had to sit down at a table and talk with the officials of 14 different unions about an award to cover one industry. [More…]
One needs to look no further than government instrumentalities to get an idea of the number of unions one employer has to deal with. [More…]
Workers in the Sydney Mail Exchange are covered in the one building by no less than 20 unions. [More…]
The work force of Trans- Australia Airlines is covered by no fewer than 26 unions. [More…]
The men and women employed by the Commonwealth Railways, a small enterprise by railway standards, belong to 14 different unions. [More…]
It is no wonder that in February 1972, before the introduction of the legislation which erected the present barriers to amalgamation, the then president of the Metal Trades Industry Association issued a Press statement stating that he would be informing Mr Lynch, my predecessor, the then Minister for Labour and National Service, that the MTIA would be opposed to any action by the then Government which sought to prevent the amalgamation of 3 metal unions which was in progress. [More…]
Specifically mentioned were the reduction in the number of unions with which the MTIA and its members would have to deal and the elimination of costly demarcation disputes in which the real sufferer is the helpless employer, who has to sit on the sidelines watching his industry go down the drain while the members of 2 unions fight over who will do what job. [More…]
Because your Senator Greenwood, acting on instructions from the National Civic Council and Mr Santamaria, who seems to dominate Senator Greenwood’s thinking on everything, was the one who wanted to prevent the amalgamation of those 3 metal unions. [More…]
But it was able effectively to prevent the amalgamation of the building workers unions, which at that time had both completed secret ballots of their members to arrange for the amalgamation of the plasterers union with the Building Workers Industrial Union. [More…]
The benefits to unions, employees and employers already mentioned that would flow from fewer and larger unions would go a long way towards a more efficient industrial relations system, one which would be conducive to a substantial improvement in industrial relations. [More…]
More specifically, in the longer term a relatively small number of unions could effect a reduction in the number and frequency of wage claims and, I think it is reasonable to suggest, a consequent moderation in the rate of wage increases. [More…]
With nearly 300 unions, our industrial relations area is in a state of constant ferment, with unions making claims, negotiating agreements or undertaking arbitral proceedings to bring their members’ conditions up to parity with or to improve upon wage rates obtained by other unions. [More…]
Wage claims are made in such numbers and with such frequency that it is extremely difficult for union officials or anyone else to know whether a union’s claim will maintain the members’ wage position relative to that ofthe members of other unions or will comprise the initial bid in a new round of wage increases. [More…]
For instance there are some 300 unions in Australia. [More…]
It could facilitate the functioning of the arbitration system and relations generally between employers and unions if this number of unions decreases . [More…]
Their fear was too unreasonable to permit any consideration of the enormous benefits to unions, the enormous benefits to employers and the enormous benefits to the community that could flow from amalgamations of unions. [More…]
They feared that larger unions might also be more militant, using their industrial strength in reprehensible ways. [More…]
The Australian Workers Union is one of the 2 largest unions and few would disagree with its reputation for conducting its industrial affairs in a moderate manner. [More…]
On the other hand, that same fear blinded its holders to the fact that comparatively small unions with members employed in carrying out functions whose continued operation is vital for the economic or social wellbeing of the community can exercise industrial strength out of proportion to their numbers. [More…]
In West Germany there are only 16 unions covering the whole of the unions in a country with 6 1 million people. [More…]
The 1974 statement on Employment and Industrial Relations Policy endorsed by both the Country Party and the Liberal Party said: the multiplicity of unions and the spread of certain unions through many industries make the task of consultation and negotiation more difficult with problems of one union unnecessarily flowing to others. [More…]
Unions are recognised to play essential roles in shaping the economic and social life of the community. [More…]
In 1904 it was natural that unions looked to the Court of Conciliation and Arbitration for protection. [More…]
It is understandable that in the circumstances pertaining in the first half of this century unions may have developed a habit of looking to the Court. [More…]
Unions now have self respect and the respect of others. [More…]
Their members are often well educated- in the case of some unions, extremely well educated. [More…]
Another example, this time in the field with which we are now particularly concerned- industrial relations -is that unions are asserting, and it is becoming generally accepted, that where capital and labour are co-operating in an enterprise, there are legitimate interests of employees entitling them to a voice in the management of that enterprise at least to the extent that those interests are involved. [More…]
One of the purposes of the provisions proposed by this Bill is to encourage those officials to democratise the decision making processes in their unions in relation to proposed agreements concerning the members’ conditions of employment. [More…]
The remaining 3 provisions mentioned go no further than is necessary to permit employers and unions themselves to determine the form of the relationship they want. [More…]
To be effective in reducing industrial unrest it is essential that employers and unions should be able to negotiate with reasonable certainty that whatever agreement they reach will stand. [More…]
During this time the Government, the companies and the unions will continuously review the position and examine how best to adjust to the circumstances prevailing at the end of the 90 day period. [More…]
I feel that we must pay tribute to the work done by the civil emergency service in Port Augusta supported by people from the local service clubs, unions, churches and other organisations, as well as by people in the other towns and cities of the area. [More…]
The tensions created by such unions are well known as are the legal discriminations which then existed against de facto spouses and the children of de facto unions. [More…]
Broadly, statements are issued to all Members and Senators, Media Organisations, Government Departments, Political Party Organisations, relevant Trade Unions, Business Organisations and individuals from whom requests are received. [More…]
Therefore I called a meeting of all interested parties- the oil companies, the shipping companies, that is, genuine Australian shipping companies whose ownership has a large Australian content, and the unions involved in the maritime industry- and outlined the facts to them. [More…]
I mentioned 2 members of Parliament who went to the industrial court, one of whom was a consistent attacker of the trade unions in this Parliament and almost the equal in his hatred for them of the honourable member for Mackellar. [More…]
the provision of land, housing and other accommodation, the provision of goods and services and the right to join trade unions and employment [More…]
The ALP, I think, has a relatively small membership, but most of its funds have been available to it from trade unions within which the membership pays dues and in many cases pays into special funds for special purposes. [More…]
-The trade unions contribute to the Australian Labor Party. [More…]
The document does not list the unions, it just uses the general term. [More…]
But to get back to this point, if we force political parties to provide lists of who has donated to their campaigns and small businesses, or not so small businesses, are on that list, we could well reach the stage in this day and age when some of the more militant extremist trade unions could say: ‘If you give to the Liberal [More…]
It applies equally to the Australian Labor Party in that donations made by trade unions or business people to the ALP must also be disclosed. [More…]
We have heard infinite talk about the wealthy trade unions behind the Labor Party. [More…]
In the wheat industry future markets have been jeopardised by bowing to the maritime unions and to those who would prefer the communist philosophy to any other by saying that we cannot sell to Chile, our fifth or sixth best market. [More…]
I wish to speak in this debate because I have expressed on many occasions my strong belief in the amalgamations of both unions and employer organisations. [More…]
I think one point which has been overlooked in the debate on this Bill is that the Conciliation and Arbitration Act applies equally to employer organisations and to trade unions. [More…]
I most strongly support the concept of amalgamation of both trade unions and employer organisations. [More…]
In doing so, however, the rights of members of unions and employer organisations must be fully protected. [More…]
This Bill places undue power in the hands of the committee of management of the unions. [More…]
There is a provision under the rules of the AMWU and of aU unions which are registered under the Act for a secret postal ballot. [More…]
If the Minister had one atom of concern for rank and file control over trade union affairs and less concern for the internecine power struggle within the AWU, his old union, and for trying to pay off past debts, he would let these amendments through and let the rank and file members have an influence, and a real influence, in the affairs of their own unions. [More…]
He is now again bringing in legislation concerning the amalgamation of trade unions, and to be debated separately another Bill concerning the certification and cancellation of certified agreements. [More…]
But in the legislation concerning amalgamations are provisions which reduce rank and file influence almost to nil and gives major control in the hands of large and powerful unions and significant control in the committees of management of the trade unions themselves. [More…]
Under the provisions of the proposed legislation, unions may conduct ballots in their own way, or 250 members or 5 per cent of the membership, whichever is the lesser, can apply for a Registrarcontrolled ballot. [More…]
The objections should not be restricted just to objections that affect the eligibility conditions of trade unions. [More…]
That does open up opportunities for the larger and more powerful unions to subject the smaller organisations, the smaller trade unions, to takeover tactics which would be just as vigorous and just as ruthless as any takeover tactics that might have occurred in the commercial field between a large company against a smaller company. [More…]
One of the arguments that he and the Prime Minister (Mr Whitlam) have been using over a significant period of time is that since so much of our industrial disputation is concerned with demarcation areas we have to have an amalgamation of trade unions to end the demarcation disputes. [More…]
If they did amalgamate with unions such as the Federal Transport Workers or Waterside Workers, they could then use their industrial strength to force their will upon other unions in all sections of industry, and this would lead to more demarcation disputes. [More…]
The unions who would be vulnerable if this happened would be all unions in the metal industries who currently have as members tool storemen, etc. [More…]
The Minister ought to know- obviously he does know but he chooses to ignore it- that 70 per cent of trade union memberships is already to be found in 33 unions. [More…]
When amalgamations have occurred, they have in fact been between large unions, not between the smaller unions, many of which want to maintain their own identity, even if the Minister thinks that is wrong and even recognising, as I and he would, that being too small means that it is very difficult to supply the secretarial services and the research staff that are necessary for the best service. [More…]
But if unions can be too small, they can also be too large to provide the best service to their members. [More…]
If the Minister wishes to suggest that there is an analogy between companies and unions and that there ought to be an equivalent circumstance, I think he would do well to examine his own argument. [More…]
I suggest that a majority of unions at the present time, as a result of changes to the Conciliation and Arbitration Act that the Minister has already introduced, do not have rules that are up to date with the present provisions. [More…]
The Minister would well know, and the President of the Australian Labor Party and of the Australian Council of Trade Unions would well know, that there is a significant minority of members of the trade union movement who do not hold that view. [More…]
The honourable member, who has just resumed his seat, seems to have almost a passion in his dislike for trade unions. [More…]
To pretend that such advertisements and their purpose would remain a great mystery to the people who are members of unions is to do them a disservice and a discredit. [More…]
If he had as much knowledge about trade unions as he pretends to have he would know that, even though star nights are provided for in the rules, in fact the court controlled ballots were controlled according to normal electoral practices and not according to the Rules of the AEU. [More…]
He also seems to think of separate unions as being some sort of entities in isolation. [More…]
I speak of the trades and labour councils in the various States which, in turn, become the constituent bodies of the Australian Council of Trade Unions. [More…]
Through those organisations resources are provided for each of the unions. [More…]
Without the benefit of this Parliament or the members sitting in it, machinery exists within them for the resolution of disputes that arise between unions. [More…]
The honourable member seemed to accuse the Minister of failing to do something about which I know the Minister is very meticulous, that is, consulting the trade unions. [More…]
The Minister spends a great deal of his time consulting the trade unions, among others. [More…]
The trade unions know this and take advantage of it. [More…]
In this way he has become the best informed person in Australia on the activities within individual unions. [More…]
I refer to the trade unions and the members thereof. [More…]
Honourable members opposite, of course, would like to take a far more pious position than that and would like to decree from a position of power what shall happen to those who are ordinary members of ordinary trade unions. [More…]
I suppose, to be realistic about it, many of the unions because of their size probably do have a far greater power or a potentially greater power than they have ever in fact put into effect. [More…]
So, the contention that the provisions of the Bill will cause the smaller unions to lose their identity, which they would want to maintain, is completely without substance. [More…]
But there is provision for the unions to amalgamate if the members so desire. [More…]
The legislation that was brought in by the last Minister for Labour- I think he was called the Minister for Labour and National Service at that time and I am pleased to see that the present Minister refused to accept that dreadful title - and steam-rollered through this House and the Senate contained provisions which made it virtually impossible for trade unions to amalgamate. [More…]
In other words, there is no compulsory ballot in trade unions. [More…]
If it is the desire of the honourable member for Wannon to drive members of unions to that position- I sometimes doubt his motives for wanting to do that- it is quite clear from past experience of the manipulation by some unscrupulous people that that will not work. [More…]
The provisions in the Bill are far more acceptable to the trade unions- we must remember that the members of the trade unions are the people who are affected by this legislation- than those which exist at the moment. [More…]
It is because there has been consultation with the unions and an honest endeavour to ensure that each of the unions and the members of the unions have every available right to them to protect themselves and to put their point of view, that the BUI has been drafted. [More…]
This measure has been brought forward by the Minister after close and careful consultation with the people who are involved- the trade unions. [More…]
The honourable member for Burke said that it is virtually impossible under present conditions for unions to amalgamate. [More…]
If the members of the unions were keen enough about amalgamation I believe that they would be able to amalgamate without all the difficulties that he has propounded. [More…]
Large unions are amalgamating, as I think the honourable member for Wannon said, and the smaller unions are not taking advantage of the conditions which are available to them to amalgamate. [More…]
There are a large number of members in a small percentage of the unions. [More…]
If it is taking place in respect of some unions why can it not take place in respect of others? [More…]
The Minister for Labor and Immigration, in his second reading speech, said that the number of trade unions in Australia has been slowly declining. [More…]
The figures given by the Minister in his second reading speech show a large number of separate unions representing small groups of employees. [More…]
The question one has to consider is the right of those employees to have their own particular unions if so desired. [More…]
I shall refer to the figures given by the Minister- I am sure he would not argue with those- with regard to the size of unions. [More…]
He referred to the number of trade unions in 1972; I do not know whether he did not have the figures for 1973. [More…]
In 1972 there were 305 unions in existence, 158 of which had fewer than 1 000 members. [More…]
Those unions, if they desired, would surely be able to have a better opportunity to provide for themselves some amalgamation if they were in favour of it. [More…]
The Minister stated further in his second reading speech that another 82 of the unions had between 1 000 and 5 000 members; 28 between 5 000 and 20 000 members; and 23 between 20 000 and 50 000 members. [More…]
Only 14 unions had a membership of more than 50 000. [More…]
No one denies the need for and the great value of the trade unions and what they have done for the working people over the years. [More…]
What I do argue though is that one of the faults in the development of the trade union movement has been the tendency for a small militant minority to force their opinions on the great majority of trade unions. [More…]
I am not convinced that the amalgamation of unions will not promote and expand that particular tactic. [More…]
I find it hard to believe that, if unions were keen enough on amalgamation, they could not get 5 1 per cent of their members to record a vote. [More…]
The Opposition wants to know that the members of the unions have expressed their opinion. [More…]
Why cannot the same system be used in relation to unions? [More…]
Why is the Government so anxious to make conditions for amalgamation to suit the militant minority of the trade unions and trade union leaders? [More…]
If they had greater power through amalgamation of unions they would dominate this Government even more. [More…]
The Government is very keen on the amalgamation of unions. [More…]
I think that the unions themselves could very carefully examine the benefits and the disadvantages of amalgamation before accepting the Government’s view. [More…]
I do not think amalgamation should be forced on the unions by allowing a few people to have a greater say in the affairs of the unions than they are entitled to. [More…]
I think the unions themselves should look at this matter very carefully before they find themselves in a position where they can be pushed about by big-name union officials. [More…]
All we want to see is that those union members have a democratic right to say what their trade unions are going to do. [More…]
We do not want to see the members of unions in a position where they can be dominated by a few people in their own unions. [More…]
This Government claimed it would have no real trouble in industrial matters because it was going to look after the trade unions. [More…]
I believe there are circumstances when the amalgamation of unions- I believe there are quite a number of exceptions- would be an advantage. [More…]
I believe that, in the main, when larger trade unions do amalgamate it leads to greater arrogance on the part of the union leaders, who have enough power now. [More…]
I suggest that those ordinary working people- I use the phrase used by the Minister- may not now be as keen on amalgamated unions as they were. [More…]
This Government’s policy has not benefited the unions that have amalgamated to the extent that was proposed or had been suggested. [More…]
If there are restrictions and problems relating to getting this expression of opinion from the unions, I say that it is up to this Government to provide the avenue whereby an opinion from 5 1 per cent of those unionists can be provided without any interception of ballot papers and without any other problems. [More…]
I am just simply amazed to see supporters of the Government come in here and talk, as we have heard in this debate, about what is going on in the unions and the trouble that they are having in getting this expression of opinion. [More…]
I believe that the great problem is that the unionists themselves have a good deal of disinterest in the affairs of the unions because they do not get the opportunity to express their opinion. [More…]
As a result there is a great deal of apathy among the rank and file members of unions. [More…]
It is quite obvious from the published statements of the most important white collar unions in Australia that they do not accept the Minister’s proposals for wage indexation, nor indeed does the Australian Council of Trade Unions. [More…]
There is no great virtue in the proposals for amalgamation of unions that he brings before the House. [More…]
What the honourable member did not point out is that there is no requirement that there be sent to all members of the amalgamating unions a case for and against the amalgamation. [More…]
There is one other aspect which I think ought to be brought to the attention of the House, and that is the consequences of allowing the greater concentration of union power into fewer and fewer unions because this is what inevitably will happen if this Bill is passed. [More…]
As has already been pointed out in this debate, 70 per cent of the membership of unions in Australia is within only 33 unions. [More…]
Obviously what will happen if amalgamation becomes easier is that the big unions will amalgamate into even bigger unions and increasingly there will be fewer unions with immense membership and fantastic incomes running into millions of dollars far beyond their ordinary needs for administration and to serve the industrial interests of their members. [More…]
When we hear members of this Government, particularly members such as the Minister, making an outcry against monopoly power of corporations within commerce and industry in Australia it is little wonder that the public cannot understand why this Government is not concerned about the increasing monopoly power of unions within Australia. [More…]
I think it is high time that debate within Australia on this subject is lifted to a much higher level so that the attention of the community is directed to it, and when proposals are put forward by either party for spreading the umbrella of the law over unions as well as corporations the true social purpose of those proposals can be seen and it will be appreciated that those proposals will be for the benefit of the community as a whole and will not be simply an instrument or a weapon, nor could they be labelled as such, for union bashing. [More…]
2], was passed by this House by the tactics of the Government- it supported the large and the powerful against the rank and file membership of the unions- so too in this Bill we find another contradiction but of a different character. [More…]
But what the Minister seems not to have realised is that the instructions he gave to the Government’s counsel in the wage indexation case before the Arbitration Commission fly in complete and utter defiance of the principles proposed in this legislation because one of the Australian Government’s employees stated quite plainly before the Arbitration Commission: ‘This is what must happen and if unions do not agree with this the Commission must deny their claims’. [More…]
The Minister really must try to get into his mind some consistent objective in relation to industrial relations because all he succeeds in doing is confusing not only his own supporters in the Australian Council of Trade Unions but also the great bulk of the union movement. [More…]
That may be one of the reasons why the ACTU said that wage restraint, which would seem at one part to have been an integral part of the Government’s case in relation to wage indexation, was not in its handbook and that it was a matter for the individual unions themselves to determine. [More…]
The Unions claim wage indexation. [More…]
The white collar unions have told him the same thing. [More…]
The decision that the ACTU came to in relation to wage indexation, the determination that there could be no restraint on the part of any trade union, the determination of the white collar unions to press forward and to oppose the indexation proposals are all ample evidence of the Minister’s tragic wilfulness and determination to go his own way despite the advice of the ACTU and despite the pre-eminent advice of his own Department. [More…]
But this Minister in particular operates by remote control but not by the ALP trade unions. [More…]
If he were controlled by the ALP trade unions I would not mind it as much as his being controlled by the ones who do in fact control him because at least the ALP trade unions are democrats. [More…]
It must be given its own way of consulting with the rank and file because unions differ so greatly. [More…]
It is one example of the Minister’s intransigence that he seeks to continue with this all-embracing rule for all unions no matter what the particular circumstances of the union might be. [More…]
The ACTU, he said, was in favour of consultative negotiations but did not attempt to direct unions on how these should bc conducted. [More…]
The reason for this is that there are pressures which are being exerted continuously on members of the ALP but they are being exerted by the elite and this elite is a small coterie which is based more particularly in certain unions and more particularly within metropolitan branches. [More…]
This led to hostility and ill feeling among maritime unions. [More…]
As Australia has one of the highest savings rates in the world, and banking legislation which already gives the Government considerable control over liquidity as well as Government loan raising, the Opposition believes that the establishment of the NIF will merely divert existing savings from the well established banking institutions, building societies, unit trusts, credit unions and superannuation funds, and will do nothing to create or develop additional savings from the community. [More…]
There are some 300 registered trade unions in Austrafia- more than in any country in the world. [More…]
Approximately 150 unions are registered with the Australian Conciliation and Arbitration Commission; 117 of them have branches registered in one or more or all of the 4 States which have a separate system of registration. [More…]
There were very significant contributions by the Defence Force, repair gangs whose equipment included equipment lent by various State authorities and the trade unions’ Darwin volunteer aid program. [More…]
My unions will advise me as to whether Chile should get any wheat.’ [More…]
It is true also that many of the leaders of these businesses and factories, and the leaders of unions involved as well, have made representations to me as their local member. [More…]
If it was a Bill which suggested that trade unions should be brought under the same control as is now being suggested for companies there would be a tremendous yell. [More…]
I saw a number of honourable gentlemen on the opposite side nodding when I said that occupational groups whether they be trade unions, professional associations or employers’ associations, often of necessity are obliged to put thenown interests first rather than the wider social interest. [More…]
If the Attorney-General refers by analogy to other associations of professional people, is he suggesting for a moment that in future a member of the Australian Conciliation and Arbitration Commission should attend the meetings of the interstate executive of the Australian Council of Trade Unions? [More…]
The Corporation will provide the focal point for the Government’s plan to have trade unions, and possibly the ACTU operate terminating building societies. [More…]
It is essential to include building unions. [More…]
They have obtained the co-operation of Australian building unions to overcome the difficulties that were created by the sheer neglect of Liberal-Country Party governments in the past. [More…]
For a generation building trade unions were telling Liberal-Country Party governments that a shortage of skilled tradesmen would occur because those governments were allowing a policy to develop whereby sufficient men were not being trained. [More…]
It has taken this Minister for Housing and Construction and the current Minister for Labor and Immigration to get the co-operation of those unions and the employers to train and retrain people in the industry. [More…]
The remarks were made after Sir Frank Packer had decreed that on no account was Bob Hawke to appear on Channel 9, Bob Hawke who, in his capacity as President of the Australian Council of Trade Unions and of the Australian Labor Party, represents two of the largest groups of people in this country. [More…]
If such action was proposed by private enterprise, the trade unions involved would retaliate very quickly. [More…]
It is one of going for the big bash, increasing fines imposed on unions, going back to the halcyon days, as it sees it, of pre- 1969 when it could drag unions up before the Industrial Court, fine them and generally adopt draconian measures to create pessures against wage earners. [More…]
I ask the Treasurer: Has the Australian Council of Trade Unions seriously jeopardised the Government’s wage indexation proposal? [More…]
I would imagine that the relationship we would have if the Opposition happened to be the government would be changed into what I would call the ‘Fraser method of confrontation’- back to the penal powers; trade union leaders in gaol; imposing fines upon trade unions. [More…]
Indexation could be effective only if the unions and the workers in general were satisfied that claims beyond indexation for cost of living reasons or for other reasons, with certain exceptions, should not be made. [More…]
It is the very environment in which the trade unions, which have been a little but only a little reserved in recent days, will see the opportunity to push further their wage claims. [More…]
We now know that their idea relating to indexation has been an abysmal failure because the trade unions will not play the game, as has been made clear by the new general secretary of the Amalgamated Metal Workers Union today, and as well by various other union officials. [More…]
This much needs to be said on the side of the unions- the Prime Minister will not say it so let me say it: It was the Government’s policies in 1973, the massive expansion in Government spending plus the pace setting increases in salaries and conditions in the Public Service, and the open encouragement of large bargaining settlements and, I concede, seeing the honourable member for Gellibrand (Mr Willis) sitting opposite me, some impact from high world commodity prices, that fuelled inflation in 1 973-74. [More…]
Let that be said in justice to the unions. [More…]
It was settled, so we thought, through conference with the employers and the unions. [More…]
The unions, I would strongly advise, should test the strength of the amendment made to the Act in 1973. [More…]
The institution of marriage is not impaired because bad unions can be ended. [More…]
In fact one of the main aims of our unique conciliation and arbitration machinery is to encourage and protect the development of trade unions as social institutions. [More…]
Some 53 per cent of wage and salary earners in public and private employment belong to unions. [More…]
The workforce is now better educated and unions are having an increasing impact on society. [More…]
We have too many unions and union fees are too low. [More…]
We need fewer and more efficient unions. [More…]
The internal resources of unions are small. [More…]
Thus the conduct of courses cannot be a joint responsibility of unions and employers. [More…]
Under the chairmanship of the permanent head of my Department, it comprises 3 representatives of the Australian Council of Trade Unions, one each from the other peak union councils- the Australian Council of Salaried and Professional Associations and the Council of Commonwealth Public Service Organisationsand a representative of each State Labor Council. [More…]
The Australian Council will be chaired by the Secretary of the Department of Labor and Immigration or another officer of the Department appointed by the Minister, and it will be constituted by the Director of the Australian Trade Union Training College, 3 representatives of the Australian Council for Trade Unions, one representative from each of the Australian Council of Salaried and Professional Associations and the Council of Commonwealth Public Service Organisations and one representative each from the 6 State Labor Councils. [More…]
I have spoken to members of the trade unions represented in the rail systems throughout Australia. [More…]
None of them vote for the Country Party and they are all members of their respective trade unions. [More…]
The unions accept as a fact that there is no single cause for the complete fall off between 1955 and 1975 in the work force once employed in the rail system in Australia. [More…]
The unions accept that. [More…]
The trade unions, in this case the Australian Federated Union of Locomotive Enginemen and the Australian Railways Union, the main railway unions of Australia, also have been completely cooperative in putting forward their views as to how the system ought to operate in this country. [More…]
There is no doubt about where the unions stand on this issue. [More…]
Quite recently the unions took up the matter with the Commonwealth Railways Commissioner and also with the Minister, and I certainly hope that the Minister will look into this matter to see whether something can be done about these houses. [More…]
In effect, if the Minister had endeavoured to uphold the arbitration system and control the activities of unions in their restless search for higher and ever higher wages the recorded deficit of this undertaking under his control would have been only 50 per cent of what it actually was. [More…]
If the latter, and having in mind the seriousness of inflation, will he approach the President of the Australian Council of Trade Unions, Mr Hawke, with a view to seeking the co-operation of the ACTU in a major national drive for wage moderation in which the ACTU would use its influence on its constituent parts? [More…]
The consultative group comprises representatives of the peak Councils of staff associations and unions with members in the Australian Public Service. [More…]
There is evidence that trade unions and persons acting on behalf of trade unions have interfered with other persons in the circumstances contemplated by the amendment, and the Opposition sees good reason for its inclusion. [More…]
This in itself has an immediate appeal but is there not a parallel here with the unions who insist on wages and job conditions that virtually price them out of a job? [More…]
1 emphasise that the policies were evolved after a very fruitful series of discussions between the Government, the unions and the industry. [More…]
The latter two parties- the unions and the industryhaving seen a policy that was likely to work, have carried out that policy to the letter. [More…]
That body, through its unions, has been prompted and invited to take an interest in Festival City Broadcasters. [More…]
Through a number of unions it has at the present time a 20 per cent or 25 per cent interest in Festival City Broadcasters, which has made an application for the new licence that is to be awarded to Adelaide. [More…]
In fact the unions concerned are individual unions organised by me. [More…]
On 2 1 March 1975 the Melbourne ‘Herald’ carried the headline: ‘Unions uneasy about Fraser’. [More…]
On 23 January the ‘West Australian’ carried the headline: ‘Challenge by Fraser to unions’. [More…]
A newspaper article, referring to the preamble to the proposals of the Leader of the Opposition, states: ‘There is overwhelming evidence around Australia,’ it claims, ‘that employers will not initiate any action that could lead to penalties on unions ‘. [More…]
The article goes on to state: ‘Further, there is the feeling that the commission is awarding what it considers the unions will accept and not what it thinks is appropriate. ‘ [More…]
Members of the Liberal Party want compulsory voting in trade union elections but they throw their hands up in horror when there is any suggestion that there ought to be compulsory membership of unions. [More…]
It is true that the present scheme is anxiously awaited by 250 000 government employees and that it will act as a model for superannuation in Australia as a whole for employees in private employment and for trade unions in their superannuation proposals. [More…]
But he protested against that and he said that a more acceptable approach, from his point of view, would have been for the Treasury representative on the Reserve Bank or the President of the Australian Council of Trade Unions, [More…]
Trade unions, teacher organisations, employer organisations, government bodies, etc., felt it worth while to make submissions to that Committee. [More…]
I hope trade unions’ attitudes will change, and I say that as a Labor man. [More…]
Further, we saw a situation in which the export of the seasonal crop of navel oranges to New Zealand was thwarted by our own unions. [More…]
As the Professor points out, the Committee believes that the membership of the Advisory Council should consist of an independent Chairman, the Statistician, 2 members of the Statisticians Conference- the body of all the Deputy Statisticians in Australia- a member appointed from within local government, 3 members from industry, commerce and finance, 3 members from employee unions, associations or councils, a member from a primary producing section of society, a member appointed from organised consumer interests, a member appointed from non-official social welfare organisations, somebody with statistical knowledge from within civil liberties organisations, somebody with a capacity for research in economic and social sciences, and another member with knowledge in research on communications, sciences and technologies. [More…]
The members of the Committee, apart from Professor Crisp, were Dr Brogan, who is adviser to the Prime Minister (Mr Whitlam), Mr Brown, who is the representative of the Associated Chambers of Manufactures of Australia, Mr Jolly from the Australian Council of Trade Unions and Professor Wallace, who is Professor of Information Science at Monash University. [More…]
I think this has to be understood in the community- by workers and the leaders of unions. [More…]
This is the growing authoritarian attitude of some socialist left and autocratic trade unions and the resort to violence and strikes to achieve their industrial purposes. [More…]
This would be the first step to genuinely assimilate the trade unions into the mainstream of Australian political, economic, social and industrial life. [More…]
There was moderation by governments and trade unions. [More…]
We would establish close communications with employees and the trade union movement so that there can be a continuing dialogue and discussion, and reestablish in a statutory form the National Labour Advisory Council that the Minister for Labor and Immigration (Mr Clyde Cameron) abolished, thus cutting off proper tripartite communications between government, management and the Australian Council of Trade Unions. [More…]
We would look for and encourage in the President of the Australian Council of Trade Unions- the other Oxford graduate- a leadership role- a role of national responsibility which would be in the best interests of the trade union movement and of Australia. [More…]
Recurring balance of payments crises and the moderation of trade unions maintained adequate restraint by government and in our community at large. [More…]
It looks as though the Government will be very brave and strong, and a great defender of the public interest, when it is dealing with flight crew officers, but will it demonstrate equal concern and determination to protect the public interest when it is confronted by financially and numerically powerful unions? [More…]
By its actions in the wider cases before the Commission we will be able to judge whether this legislation really marks a new acceptance by the Government of its national responsibilities or whether it is just a bit of window-dressing, another example of double standards to be applied to a small section of the workforce when the really important economic decisions in matters affecting the nation as a whole will undoubtedly involve numerically large and financially powerful unions. [More…]
I participated in trade union conferences and congresses of the Australian Council of Trade Unions which unanimously rejected those provisions and opposed them. [More…]
Some of those appeals have been successful and trade unions which vigorously opposed the introduction of appeals were subsequently pleased to use those provisions. [More…]
Frankly, I do not think that he or other members of this Parliament who advocate wage restraint as such appreciate the full implication of the term or really mean wage restraint in the way that trade unions accept it. [More…]
In assessing the industry involved, I think we should also look at the union concerned- the Airline Pilots Federation of Australia- which in some ways is different from other unions but certainly is an industrial body intent upon assisting its members. [More…]
As honourable members are aware, this is a scheme whereby the Housing Loans Insurance Corporation provides insurance cover to lending institutions including banks, building societies, credit unions, and other organisations. [More…]
To assist in that purpose, we support the concept of a National Council of Trade Union Education whose task it would be to develop special relationships with the appropriate educational institutions to see that the content of courses specifically met the needs of trade unions. [More…]
The Opposition believes that under no circumstances should public money be used to run courses for single unions. [More…]
Of course, many unions now run their own courses at their own expense and, while the principle of this is perfectly sound, it is unfortunate that some of the courses are largely devoted to ideological indoctrination. [More…]
Still speaking of trade union training programs, he says: it has had, and will continue to have, a radicalising effect on the unions . [More…]
This will inevitably lead to an increasingly introspective attitude in the union movement and who, apart from the left wing militant unions, believe that that will be an improvement. [More…]
That would mean comparing facilities for trade union training with facilities for training officers of employer organisations who are, after all, the opposite numbers of trade unions in the industrial relations area. [More…]
The facts are that the trade unions and trade union confederations now wield tremendous power in the community. [More…]
Many trade unions have greater resources and facilities than employer associations, and in almost aU cases of confrontation between a trade union and an enterprise, it is the community, the public interest, which suffers from any imbalance of power. [More…]
Trade unions are becoming increasingly involved in welfare services for their members, in credit unions and in travel schemes. [More…]
There is another area where this Authority can make a substantial contribution and that is in the field of raising the consciousness of the rank and file members of the unions. [More…]
If more and more trade union members were aware of what their unions are doing and what their elected officials are doing, I think the performance of the unions as a whole would improve substantially. [More…]
I think that is wrong, because the only assumption that is being made in this Bill is that there is a useful role and a very important role for trade unions and trade unionists to play in the community. [More…]
Without getting involved in an across-the-House debate, I think it is important that there should be a variety of roles for the unions to play in the field of education and training and I think it is important to ensure that the Authority takes as neutral a role as possible in the circumstances. [More…]
Whilst the Opposition says that the Authority might be too ideological, there are some unions who might say that the authority is not nearly ideological enough. [More…]
Firstly, on the subject of an ideological bias all the member for Corangamite was doing was warning that in the eyes of some people the Trade Union Training Authority might have an ideological bias because some of those trade unions which have been conducting their own programs most clearly have had an ideological bias. [More…]
of that definition states that trade union training means educational, technical and practical training for members of trade unions in any other fields approved by the Australian Council. [More…]
We also need to make sure that fundamental industrial law is taught, that industrial psychology is at least touched upon and introduced and that management principles will enable union secretaries and other officials to run their unions as a business in the interests of thenmembers also will be taught. [More…]
It is not merely enough, as we all know here, for trade unions to be getting increased money amounts in wages. [More…]
It is one we would applaud, irrespective of whether paid educational leave becomes mandatory, when the concept of paid educational leave becomes sufficiently universal on a voluntary basis; sufficiently widespread that it is appropriate for the employers and government as well as for the trade unions to be in charge of the administration of the program of paid educational leave. [More…]
The unions have never in the past been able to take their proper place in society, but under this Government and as a result of actions taken by the present Minister for Labor and Immigration the unions will certainly get the recognition to which they are entitled in this society. [More…]
The unions themselves are part and parcel of our arbitration system. [More…]
When the first Conciliation and Arbitration Act was passed in 1904, the place of the union was recognised in that Act, and I think that there was a recognition of the need to try to bring unions into the arbitration system and also to encourage people to become members of unions because for our arbitration and conciliation system to function it is essential that people be encouraged to join unions. [More…]
Depite the more liberal approaches of the 2 previous speakers on the Opposition side, the honourable member for Balaclava (Mr Macphee) and the honourable member for Corangamite (Mr Street), I cannot say that the Liberal and Country Party record in this field in the past has been one which would give the trade unions much cause to be very pleased with the attitudes adopted by those parties. [More…]
In the 1960s we did see the use of the big stick, the imposition of fines and so forth to try to coerce unions into doing something which the rank and file were not prepared to do. [More…]
The unions did resist this and as we are all aware there was quite a lot of industrial disputation at that time, but finally the confrontation did come in 1969 when I think that the then Liberal Government realised that it was going to get nowhere by using the big stick against the unions. [More…]
The unions either accepted what was brought down or they took the consequences. [More…]
A lot is made of the fact that sometimes unions are controlled by their officials and there is not much rank and file participation. [More…]
Some unions also have been interested in trade union education. [More…]
But there are problems with some unions because, as the Minister mentioned in his second reading speech, there are over 300 unions in Australia and most of them are very small. [More…]
Of course, there are some larger unions, and I refer to the union that was mentioned in this House a few times today, the Amalgamated Metal Workers Union. [More…]
Since the amalgamation of the various metal unions the AMWU has become a fairly large union and because it is fairly large it probably has greater resources and can make much more use of those resources. [More…]
I took the trouble to find out what some of its courses are about and I mention a few: The history of the trade union movement, organisational structure and how the union is run, decision making process from the shop floor upwards, duties and responsibilities of the officials and members, negotiating techniques and the development of arguments and the presentation of cases, public speaking, relationship between the unions and the community -I think that is a very important matter- workmen ‘s compensation, with emphasis, of course, on the procedures to be adopted in relation to that. [More…]
I mentioned earlier that one of the problems involved if we are to make full use of this educational scheme is the prolific number of unions we have in Australia- over 300 unionswith their small financial resources. [More…]
It is a big advance for Australian trade unionists- one of which I am sure they will take every advantage and one which will allow the trade unions to take their rightful place in Australian society. [More…]
I applaud the previous speaker, the honourable member for Grey (Mr Wallis), who, with some practical experience, was able to indicate to the House the channels through which trade union officials usually emerge to positions of responsibility within their unions. [More…]
Thus the conduct of courses cannot be a joint responsibility of unions and leaders. [More…]
Trade unions obviously need re-equipping, on account of the disastrous and soul destroying tactics they adopt at the present time, to meet the challenge of the coming decades. [More…]
The coming decades will require the trade unions to grapple with the problems of rapid socio-economic changes. [More…]
Too many strikes and disputes are caused by a breakdown in communication between workers and their bosses, between workers and their union, and between unions and the bosses. [More…]
At least it has now recognised that the trade unions of this country are an integral pan of the whole economic structure and an important and integral part of our society. [More…]
Since 1970 the 8-day residential school has been run by the 3 peak union councils- the Australian Council of Trade Unions, the Australian Council of Salaried and Professional Associations and the Council of Commonwealth Public Service Organisations. [More…]
Approximately 140 students have taken part in each of the schools which, more recently, have offered 4 courses for full time and part time officers and officials from a wide range of unions. [More…]
The financial resources of the trade unions are severely limited and must, as a first priority, be applied to the solution of the immediate bread and butter issues in which the members are involved. [More…]
Trade unions have come to be regarded as more than just the custodians of wage claims and working conditions of their members. [More…]
Let us look at the history of our present trade unions. [More…]
Because every action by organised groups such as government, industry, trade and commerce affects the community, an unorganised group, the trade unions, has filled the gap by providing the organisation so sorely needed. [More…]
By no stretch of the imagination can anybody say that trade unions are unimportant. [More…]
We all know that the actions of trade unions affect the community as much as the organisations already mentioned. [More…]
That is not so in the case of the latter group, the unions. [More…]
Undoubtedly we will hear about the power of the unions being misused. [More…]
The power of the unions will be misused only when there are those who are not given the opportunity to understand what their proper role and function is. [More…]
But certainly the honourable member for Darling Downs spent his time in pretending that the rank and file members of the trade unions are stood over by their leaders, are completely unaware of what is going on in their unions and are not very interested. [More…]
In fact, trade union members do keep themselves informed and the unions keep their members informed. [More…]
That shows that in some unions at least there is no antipathy to having courses run or organised as part of a larger tertiary institution. [More…]
I do not say this involves a majority, but some unions would have preferred that the training be undertaken in the manner which I have indicated would be the preferred choice of the Opposition: But we support in principle what has been done. [More…]
This would leave the control of the curricula clearly in the hands of those who have an intimate knowledge of the needs of trade union training but at the same time would broaden the basis of the council in a way which I believe the Australian Council of Trade Unions and other members of the council will not find offensive. [More…]
capable of advancing and developing an understanding of the functions and objectives of trade unions in Australian society; or [More…]
capable of advancing and developing knowledge and skills in fields connected with the powers and functions of trade unions or the powers, functions and duties of officers or officials of trade unions; and [More…]
educational, technical and practical training for members of trade unions in any other fields approved by the Australian Council; [More…]
Secondly, the trade unions are here to stay and no legislation introduced into this or into any other Parliament is likely to alter that fact. [More…]
I for one have always voiced my opposition to government interference in trade unions. [More…]
So for the time being, and I think it will be permanent so far as the trade unions are concerned, they do not want to attend training or schools with other than trade union or wage and salary representatives. [More…]
Their requirements are quite different from those of the one to 8-week courses such as those prepared by trade unions or the Australian Council of Trade Unions education office. [More…]
the justice of public money being spent in the interests of labour and the unions as it is presently spent in the interest of capital and management. [More…]
He goes on to say in relation to unions in particularhe speaks of the special needs of the trade unionists which I accept because I think they are very apt comments: [More…]
In an article published in the ‘Journal of Industrial Relations’ we see an indication of the sorts of programs that the Australian Council of Trade Unions, its branches and affiliated unions see as being necessary. [More…]
The definition of ‘trade union training’ as contained in clause 3 (b) of the definitions section of the Bill defines it to include: educational, technical and practical training for members of trade unions in any other fields approved by the Australian Council; [More…]
I think it is important that the Council should have the benefit of wider experience if it is to offer more than has ben indicated in the summary which was developed by the Australian Council of Trade Unions and which was recorded in the article in the ‘Journal of Industrial Relations’ from which I quoted. [More…]
He ignored the fact that a number of individual unions did in fact ask Government representatives at various stages to introduce such a scheme. [More…]
For his information, several other unions do likewise. [More…]
The Minister for Labour and Immigration (Mr Clyde Cameron) has quite rightly pointed out in his second reading speech that 53 per cent of the wage and salary earners in Australia belong to trade unions. [More…]
I would like to point out to the House, however, that in other countries- particularly socialist European countries- such as Sweden and Britian as well as Canada and the United States the trend has in fact been for large trade unions to fund their own forms of education. [More…]
Other unions that are less influential than the TLO also spend substantial amounts. [More…]
The Canadian Labor Congress also has scholarships to attend such courses offered by Labor unions, industry and governments. [More…]
Scholarships are also made available for poorer unions to send students there, and tuition and other educational expenses at the Centre are paid for by the AFL-CIO. [More…]
In my opinion unions in Australia should make a more substantial contribution than they probably have in the past towards improving the educational standards of their members. [More…]
However, in this particular case it has been suggested that the unions should not have to pay anything and that the Treasury shall carry the entire cost. [More…]
Be that as it may, one of the major problems we must face with this question is the danger that the trade unions will become too centralised in the sense that if all courses are to be run through this Authority, there is a very real danger, of which no doubt the Minister for Labor and Immigration (Mr Clyde Cameron) is aware, that if certain ideological sections of the community set out to gain control of this Authority, and in particular control of its syllabus, the implications for the settlement of industrial disputes in Australia is very serious indeed. [More…]
He also stated that union education without doubt had had and will continue to have a radicalising effect on the unions. [More…]
3 members appointed by the Minister on the nomination of the Australian Council of Trade Unions; [More…]
1 ) to (4) On 23 January I made a statement which read in part: ‘As a result of broad ranging talks which I have held with trade union leaders, I am now convinced that if wage indexation is re-introduced unions will make no future wage demands based on rising prices but will confine their demands to increases based on increased productivity, technological change and related matters. ‘ [More…]
However, if the ACTU was not prepared to accept the conditions set out in paragraphs 1 to 4 above the Government would support a decision of the Commission to approve wage indexation in principle, but to introduce it on an award-by-award basis upon the receipt of suitable undertakings from individual unions. [More…]
The Government’s weakness- its failure to take a strong stand in the national interest- has given the green light for the militant trade unions to challenge the authority of the Australian Conciliation and Arbitration Commission. [More…]
Let the Minister recall the words of the present President of the Australian Council of Trade Unions in 1972 when he said that because of the then prevailing level of unemployment members of the then Administration were either fools or knaves. [More…]
At any time in between if unions can show that an anomaly exists or has grown up as a consequence of changed circumstances, which will be quite rare, the unions should have the right to go before the Commission and if they are able to establish their case for a work value increase or for a catch-up claim they ought to be given it and they will be given it by the Commission. [More…]
That unions eliminate the cost-of-living factor from all future wage claims with a reserved right to review possible distortions of relativities in two years’ time. [More…]
Given the unions’ response asked for by the Commission inflation will no longer be fed by a wage cost spiral based upon expectational demands. [More…]
If the insurance industry continues this practice of hidden pressure on employers, the unions should look closely at past redundancy and at payments made to those people by companies such as the AMP. [More…]
Does the decision mean that unions have to go to the Conciliation and Arbitration Commission to obtain indexation and that they must abide by the conditions laid down by the Commission in order to get it? [More…]
The honourable member asked whether unions have to apply. [More…]
The 3.6 per cent increase for the March quarter will go to all unions and will be applied in full to all wages, regardless of level. [More…]
We believe that, if the unions do not miss this golden opportunity to have wages settled by an orderly process, a scientific means by which no one will receive any less and no one will receive a cent more than the amount he is entitled to receive as a result of price movements, this will make a major contribution towards dealing with the inflationary spiral. [More…]
I hope that other unions will come to see the necessity for this sort of thing. [More…]
In the meantime, until other unions see the necessity for adult training, this Government will have no hesitation and no alternative but to recruit skilled tradesmen from overseas to bridge the gap that now exists. [More…]
As far as this country is concerned, with a person going abroad and entering into what appears to be a polygamous union no great difficulty arises, but I venture to suggest that where a person comes from abroad where polygamous unions are permitted very grave problems can arise, particularly having regard to the fact that in recent years Australia has embarked upon what one may describe- I trust not offensivelyas a pluralistic society in terms of race. [More…]
Take the case of a Mohammedan who comes to Australia from a country where polygamous unions are permitted and he dies in this country as the result of a car accident. [More…]
But I am concerned with respect to a person coming from a country where polygamous unions are permitted, because it could very seriously disturb the federal structure here in Australia. [More…]
These are specified in section 4 of the Bill and include such fees as subscriptions to student organisations, sports unions, accommodation and other non-academic charges. [More…]
These are specified in clauses 3 and 4 of the Bill, and include such fees as subscriptions to student organisations, sports unions, accommodation and other nonacademic charges. [More…]
Trade unions, of course, will put pressure on employers to use the Australian Government Insurance Corporation and not the private insurance companies. [More…]
The Australian Council of Trade Unions intended to go into partnership with the General Mutual Insurance Co. Ltd. [More…]
I invite his attention to the proposal of the Australian Council of Trade Unions Executive, as reported this morning, to press the Government to nationalise the oil industry. [More…]
When this Government can spend millions of dollars on the Regional Employment Development scheme and on other projects, bow to the pressure of the trade unions and grant shorter working hours for people, let the Minister tell the farmers that they should not appeal for help to carry them through these difficult circumstances. [More…]
Unions would feel freer than ever to place bans on exports, such as they have done on wheat sales to Chile at a time when world wheat prices have dropped by one-third. [More…]
Amongst other things, the article goes on to make reference to a suggestion that in Australia a group of communist controlled unions had proved that they were stronger than the Australian Council of Trades Union and Federal and State governments. [More…]
The same sorts of techniques as were used in the unions to divide the Labor movement have been developed to infiltrate the Country Party. [More…]
I am also arranging for detailed discussions with the Australian Council of Trade Unions and officers of railway unions to establish methods of consultation and liaison which ensure all railwaymen and women are fully informed on the progress of the transfer. [More…]
The constitution and charter of each Council will be developed in consultation with the unions and expressed in the by-laws of each Commission. [More…]
This was a deliberate economic ploy by the LiberalCountry Party Government of the day to create a pool of unemployed in order to put the unions in their place and, as the then Government saw it, to cure inflation. [More…]
Stoppages by craft unions in the same period numbered twenty-one for the loss of 845 man-hours. [More…]
I read somewhere of one well known trade unionist, George Slater, making caustic comments about the activities of other trade unions. [More…]
One thing is clear: However assiduously the proposed new Commissions apply themselves to the task of streamlining their administration, they will not be able to attain a higher level of efficiency without better co-operation from the trade unions. [More…]
The Australian Government published a booklet setting out the details of the new scheme which has been widely distributed and widely studied- studied by private superannuation people, by all the Australian government unions and federations and by most members, I would suggest, of the Australian Public Service. [More…]
These schemes, and matters relating to superannuation, are extremely complex but the Opposition has had the advantage of advice from many persons within the public and private sectors, including discussions with government employee unions. [More…]
The Government had in the previous months, a policy of encouraging unions and the Public Service to be a pacesetter, to set a new standard of determination of wage demands far in excess of the capacity of the economy to accept them. [More…]
This created some problems for the South Australian employers but both the State and the Australian governments were able to approach the major unions involved, the matter was thrashed out and agreement was reached not only on the question of the conditions of employment and whether employees under the State. [More…]
Railways workers in Tasmania, in conjunction with the Australian Railways Unions have consulted with the Minister for Transport (Mr Charles Jones) on this issue and they are completely satisfied that the conditions on which the Australian Government takes over the railways will not jeopardise their position at all. [More…]
As I have indicated, this enables unions to pick off employers one by one and to force them to concede to quite unreasonable demands because the employers, for their part, are subservient to the interests of the overseas shipping companies whose main concern is not the costs imposed on Australian consumers and exporters but to keep their ships moving. [More…]
Maybe all the unions should be brought into one area. [More…]
It proved in the end to be a noisy, disruptive and serious embarrassment to Mr Egerton, the State President in Queensland of the Labor Party, and also to Mr Hawke, the Federal President of the Labor Party and President of the Australian Council of Trade Unions. [More…]
Finally, will the Minister use his good offices with the Australian Council of Trade Unions to ensure that a decision the Council made a few years ago to exempt Tasmanian trade from industrial disputes is implemented in view of the fact that we in Tasmania do not enjoy the alternative forms of interstate transport- road and rail? [More…]
The honourable member asked me whether I would use my good offices with the Australian Council of Trade Unions. [More…]
I have asked him to take this matter up with the maritime unions with a view to them giving an exemption to Tasmania so that we can get rid of this back-log and ensure that the movement of goods out of that island can take place. [More…]
I thank the honourable member for Sydney for the excellent suggestion that brochures be issued to all trade unions throughout Australia, explaining to their members the facilities that shortly will be available to trade unionists in the line of trade union training. [More…]
It is true that I sent out many letters to trade unions and to members of the Public Service, telling them that in my view the cost of the scheme would be astronomical if it were applied to everybody in the community. [More…]
I understand that there is a 48-hour strike at present by the maritime unions whose members are refusing to load Australian National Line ships, again making it harder for industry to survive in Tasmania. [More…]
Because of his close relationship with the President of the Australian Council of Trade Unions, he promised a reduction in industrial unrest. [More…]
I understand also that it is the view of the President of the Australian Council of Trade Unions- I apologise to him if I do him an injusticethat on present policies, as I think he has already publicly stated, inflation and unemployment will go much higher. [More…]
The Government has known every time it has encouraged trade unions to ask for a higher wage or for a more significant return that because of the impact of the progressive tax scale a larger part of the total income of the country automatically goes into the hands of the Government. [More…]
Therefore the trade unions’ efforts to maintain their position and their standard of living under the impact of the progressive tax scale are essentially self-defeating. [More…]
I immediately contacted the then Minister for Manufacturing Industry and made arrangements for his personal assistant, Mr John Iromonger and Mr Noel Scrivener of the Department of Manufacturing Industry to go to Tasmania for discussions with the management and unions of APPM at their Burnie and Wesley Vale plants. [More…]
These officers completed a report which formed the basis of discussions held in Melbourne one week later, on Friday 20 December, at a conference convened by the Acting Prime Minister, Dr Cairns, and attended by representatives of APPM, the unions and myself. [More…]
The other 3 mills could run at only 75 per cent production with no retrenchments, providing the various trade unions co-operated and accepted the principle of work sharing on the basis of 3 weeks on and one week off. [More…]
In Burnie 9 unions out of the 11 unions involved agreed to accept work sharing. [More…]
Thus, approximately 2000 employees at Burnie are working on the basis of 3 weeks on and one week off for a 2-month period after which discussions will again be held between the unions and the management and the position will be reviewed. [More…]
Approximately 200 unionists in the other 2 unions involved rejected the work sharing principle and 6 retrenchments have taken place. [More…]
With the co-operation of all unions, work sharing is a possibility. [More…]
However, if some unions refuse there will have to be some retrenchments from within their ranks. [More…]
If, overall, work sharing fails, it is inevitable that one machine will close and retrenchments will be spread equitably between the members of the unions involved. [More…]
I commend those unions which have accepted the work sharing principle in an attempt to see that at least the majority of the people in the mill are kept in production and kept in employment until such time as conditions return to normal and APPM gets back to full production in Burnie, Ballarat in Victoria, Shoalhaven and Wesley Vale. [More…]
There was never any confidence on the part of the management or the trade unions engaged in shipbuilding that there was a secure future. [More…]
What I and others like me are concerned about is that ultimately this Government intends to use the Superior Court to rule on all manner of matters such as discrimination, environment, children, women, motor accidents, the stock exchange, corporations and trade unions. [More…]
The various parties wear labels, the Labor Party being the Party of big unions, the Liberal Party the Party of big business, and the National Country Party representing big farmers. [More…]
Too often, I do not think any political party realises that much of this country’s economy is based on small enterprise, small farms and a myriad of small unions and that all these people are not sufficiently represented politically. [More…]
I do not believe that there would be many unions in Australia that would tolerate workers carrying out their duties in offices such as the offices which members of this Parliament occupy. [More…]
He took office with the printing unions in 195 1 and continued to hold office for 17 years. [More…]
During this time he helped bring about the amalgamation of the major printing unions in Australia in 1966 when the Printing and Kindred Industries Union was formed. [More…]
What about the unions representing blue collar workers and also pensioner organisations which are complaining so much about these proposals? [More…]
When one speaks with the officers of the various white collar unions that speak for public servants on these matters one finds that they are almost united and speak with almost one voice on one aspect of this matter; that is, that if the amendments in the form that they have come to us from the Senate were to be accepted their acceptance would cause an even greater amount of inequity and place an even greater financial burden on public servants than the present scheme casts upon them- the present scheme that the Government knows to be wrong and wants to change and that the Opposition knows to be wrong but, speaking with 2 voices, finds a reason for opposing. [More…]
I, along with other members of the Opposition, have received submissions which, I might say, have been in the main very courteously and helpfully put by leaders of the Public Service unions throughout Australia. [More…]
If there is one argument in the whole debate on this superannuation scheme that has not been answered by the Government and that in my belief has not been effectively answered by the leaders of the Public Service unions in Australia it is the argument that if the benefits provided under this scheme were to be matched by the private sector an intolerable financial burden, particularly in the light of present economic difficulties, would be placed upon the private sector. [More…]
I could just as easily point out- I know it to be true- that some of the honourable members who sit opposite are still privately opposed to this scheme and that so are some blue collar unions. [More…]
The President of the Australian Council of Trade Unions, Mr Hawke, made it plain that he believes unemployment will rise as a result of the Budget. [More…]
Facilities can be made available at election times and several unions can get together and pay for an advertisement without the cash passing through any Labor Party account or that of an honourable member. [More…]
There is a complete difference in the relationship and political activities of unions in Australia from those which exist in the United States. [More…]
I think it is regrettable, though perhaps it is changing, that the trade unions in the main are strongly on one side of the fence. [More…]
The trade unions never hide their contributions. [More…]
As the system stands at the moment the trade unions are the only organisations which disclose their donations. [More…]
Obviously trade unions do not provide funds to their traditional opponents, the conservative forces of this country. [More…]
But what is happening in the trade unions is something that is most vile and improper. [More…]
Honourable members know the kind of propaganda which goes on in trade unions day in, day out, propaganda such as: ‘You must support the Labor Party even if you think it is wrong; we are trade unionists, we must support our Party, the Labor Party’. [More…]
This is the corruption- the political corruption- that occurs in unions that are using union money to further causes to which many unionists are opposed. [More…]
The British trade unions have brought Great Britain to her knees. [More…]
Just as the German people fell for the Nazis and the Hitler lie- the big repeated he- so even the Australian electorate will fall if it gets propaganda only from one side, if it has this incubus always of the trade unions which are able to get money from their opponents and from people who are unionists, who are opposed to the Labor Party but who are not allowed to work at their trade unless they join the union and pay its dues. [More…]
The unions use that money ostensibly for industrial purposes, but actually, as all honourable members know- every honourable member on the other side of the House knows this very well- every year those millions of dollars are being used all the time in a continuous campaign of the big he to distort and to corrupt the views of the Australian people. [More…]
I ask the House to look at this simple fact: Trade unions in Australia, or at least those trade unions which are registered under the Conciliation and Arbitration Act, are severely and strictly regulated by law. [More…]
Each year the trade unions are required to file returns with the Commonwealth Industrial Registrar. [More…]
I say this to honourable members opposite: You are obsessed with what trade unions can or cannot do. [More…]
There has been a lot of discussion here today which has stressed the fact that unions levy themselves to provide funds for the Australian Labor Party. [More…]
I have a particular advantage in this matter because I have been on the executive of 3 unions. [More…]
Has the Prime Minister’s attention been drawn to the statement by Mr Hawke, his colleague and successor as the Leader of the Opposition, and President of the Australian Council of Trade Unions, on television on Tuesday evening in which he said that the Budget involved an increase in unemployment? [More…]
Mr Hawke, the President of the Australian Labor Party and President of the Australian Council of Trade Unions, along with union delegates from other democratic countries, moved an amendment requiring that all those seeking admission to the ILO should agree to abide by the rules and principles of the ILO. [More…]
But since the introduction of this Bill we have received an interim report from the Royal Commission Into Alleged Payments to Maritime Unions conducted by Mr Justice Sweeney. [More…]
This is a group of unions concerned with maritime matters and affiliated with the Western Australia [More…]
Matters involved in the Royal Commission into Alleged Payments to Maritime Unions that Mr Justice Sweeney is presently conducting have prompted the Opposition to move an amendment during the Committee stage of the debate. [More…]
This Bill will make it possible to bring to justice people who commit crimes against their own unions or organisations but who, at the moment, are outside the authority of State jurisdiction. [More…]
I refer to the unions which are registered under the Conciliation and Arbitration Act. [More…]
The Government is endeavouring, I believe, to remedy a situation which has caused concern for some time for so many unions and so many organisations which have been the victims of stealth and misappropriation over the years. [More…]
It is for the protection of the property of the unions in this particular case. [More…]
The title of the Bill is to achieve the protection of the property of unions and to make it a crime for people to steal from unions. [More…]
In other words, the Opposition is seeking to make it an offence to enrich unions, not to steal from unions. [More…]
The Bills do specify that they can charge certain types of fees, that is, those that are not fees in respect of tuition but rather fees and charges for university student unions, sporting associations and the like. [More…]
Under these circumstances, what do we think of a government which is trying to imperil the future of Australia by crawling to the left wing and the communists who control its own left wing in the unions? [More…]
Information concerning the conference was sent to over 7000 individuals and groups, including women’s organisations, political parties, trade unions and members of Parliament. [More…]
The Government has said to those trade unions whose members are employees of the South Australian Railways: ‘These are the conditions in the South Australian Railways and these are the conditions in the Australian National Railways. [More…]
In my lifetime I have seen many transfers of employees which have involved trade unions as well as rearrangement as a result of amalgamations. [More…]
Tell that to the blokes in your unions and to other people around Australia. [More…]
The Leader of the Opposition was going to encourage the trade unions to do this, that and the other. [More…]
Secondly, nothing has been done or said to indicate that the Government has been prepared to face up to the problems of industrial turmoil and excessive wage claims by some unions which create hardships for trade unions and for others alike. [More…]
The concept of income tax indexation and the recommendations of the Committee of Inquiry into Inflation and Taxation, appointed by this Government and chaired by Professor Mathews- a representative of the Australian Council of Trade Unions is on the Committeehave been rejected by this Government. [More…]
The Mathews Committee report is of great importance because the Australian Council of Trade Unions representative is a signatory to it. [More…]
The measures that the Treasurer proposed overwhelmingly meet the criteria for sound economic management which have been laid down over many months not only by the Government and its economic advisers but also by Opposition spokesmen, university economists, industry, unions and the media. [More…]
It remains to be seen whether the Opposition spokesmen, university economists, the business interests, the unions and the media who all involved themselves in the Budget-making process will now involve themselves equally in the process of making this Budget a success. [More…]
Is there any less that Australians should expect from the universities, industry, the unions or the media? [More…]
But it needs the goodwill and co-operation of the nationand that includes the unions- to do so. [More…]
In one of the worst replies I have ever heard in this House the Minister raved about unions and what they were doing to the ANL, as though they were the causes of all of Tasmania’s troubles. [More…]
The Federal Minister for Transport, Mr Jones, says strikes by maritime unions are the main cause behind the 40 per cent increase in Australian National Line freight rates. [More…]
The Minister and the Labor Party made an agreement with the unions, and told Tasmania .that they had made an agreement, that strikes would not be allowed to interfere with Tasmanian trade. [More…]
As to this, it was the Labor Government which said that it would be able to get on with the unions, yet since this Government came into office we have had the greatest period of industrial unrest in Australia’s history. [More…]
The irony of the situation is that the present rate of money or real wages could easily be maintained without inflation if only we could get rid of the unreasonable restrictions on productivity which we see all around us imposed by industrial action through the trade unions. [More…]
Too often we seem to think that the economic world of Australia is composed of big business, big unions and big government. [More…]
Despite warnings from virtually every sector in the economy and every organ of opinion including the Australian Council of Trade Unions and left wing economists such as Mr Wheelwright, the Government has pursued its own pet theories to the detriment of the private sector and therefore the economy as a whole. [More…]
To pacify industry and the unions in the short term, the Government makes concessions, such as its submissions on wage indexation and its platitudes about the role of the private sector. [More…]
It is at least consistent with the other examples of bad economics which litter this Government’s record- Commonwealth Public Service pace setting, general expectations of all unions, 25 per cent tariff cuts, revaluation and the Prices Justification Tribunal. [More…]
All of the economic advice which the Government received, including that from the Australian Council of Trade Unions, said that incentives were required for both individuals and companies, but the give and take nature of the Budget has guaranteed that the Budget will not achieve these necessary objectives. [More…]
In the first place, those who are responsible for unreasonable wage demands are putting themselves in the position of lulling their industry and putting the members of their unions out of work. [More…]
It seems to me that the types of people who lead these unions are not really interested in work at all, they just want trouble. [More…]
We hear much about wage-push inflation and the unreasonable demands of trade unions, but world authorities have a different opinion about what causes inflation. [More…]
We point out to unions that if they use too much industrial muscle to get pay increases to enable their members to escape the rigours of inflation, this will be done at the expense of those weaker than their members, those young people whom the Aus.tralian Government sets out to protect. [More…]
Its consequences depend, more than anything else and more than in any previous Australian Budget, on the confidence and the expectations of businessmen, trade unions- especially their members- and of ordinary consumers, lobbyists and journalists. [More…]
It is unfair of the Opposition, if it really believes in trying to fix the economy of this country, which I suggest is in the interests of members from both sides of the House, to goad the unions into asking for higher wage increases by telling them that they are not getting tax indexation because, to a large extent, they are getting tax indexation. [More…]
This is of secondary importance as far as the Opposition is concerned, but if the level of unemployment does increase by some 150,000 over the present figure- it certainly looks as though it will, and the President of the Australian Labor Party and of the Australian Council of Trade Unions has suggested that it could- what will the increase mean to the Budget? [More…]
Perhaps the Prime Minister is prepared completely to disregard the views of the major employee organisation, the Australian Council of Trade Unions, and the major employer organisations which have called for the implementation of the Committee’s report. [More…]
It has been dominated by the left wing trade unions and has been as putty in their hands. [More…]
In addition, Mr Hawke, the President of the Australian Council of Trade Unions, has predicted that despite this Budget- or perhaps because of it- by early 1976 the number of unemployed wa have reached 500 000 people, a horrifying 8 per cent of the work force. [More…]
Long before receiving that message I had raised the matter verbally with Mr Souter, the Secretary of the Australian Council of Trade Unions. [More…]
It asked the Prime Minister whether he was concerned about the attitude of the President of the Australian Council of Trade Unions. [More…]
However, this view, although sensible on economic grounds, might not be accepted by the Australian Conciliation and Arbitration Commission or major trade unions. [More…]
I would like also to mention Mr Justice Sweeney’s interim report on alleged payments to trade unions because this also is important to Tasmania. [More…]
I am afraid I have to deplore the fact that trade unions seem to be coming into these areas, especially when this is considered with the statement of the Minister for Transport (Mr Charles Jones) that the reason for the increase in ANL freight rates was industrial disputes by maritime unions. [More…]
Inflation was off, wage demands became rampant, and some militant trade unions were using their union muscle to force over-award payments in some cases aided and abetted by Ministers and other members of the Government Party. [More…]
The Government has endeavoured to exhibit restraint in the Budget as part of its call to the unions to act with restraint. [More…]
No wonder the Australian Council of Trade Unions, the trade unions and the employees of this country are concerned. [More…]
The President of the Australian Council of Trade Unions and President of the Australian Labor Party organisation- the same man, Mr Hawke- does not enjoy being at variance with the Australian Labor Party when it is in power, but he sees the weaknesses and the unrealities which exist in the implementation of policies of the present Government. [More…]
There is some resistance in some craft unions to the retraining of adults. [More…]
Was there any mention of profitsharing agreements in his discussions with the Secretary of the Australian Council of Trade Unions? [More…]
One would have thought that having come under constant attack from the union movement for having created unprecedentedly high unemployment the Government would have made some effort to implement policies on which the unions put high priority. [More…]
Ignoring the unions’ No. [More…]
Against all the advice from all quarters, including the unions concerned, the Government will try to form another company to make 4- cylinder engines in South Australia. [More…]
In fact, the trade union movement is based on the premise that individual unions will not take strike action without consulting the central trade union body if a proposed strike action would affect the livelihood or the employment of other trade unionists. [More…]
I believe that there is a heavy responsibility on trade union leadership today, more so than at any time in the last decade, to act responsibly in the national interest and in the long term interest of the members of trade unions. [More…]
There are 3 reasons why this statement is so much nonsense: First, it is of doubtful validity whether the Government can lay such a condition on the Commission; second, the unions will not accept it; and third, the Commission cannot possibly accept it. [More…]
The understanding with the Australian Council of Trade Unions- I trust that the Government did have some sort of understanding in this area for consultation and some meeting of minds between Government and the unions is essential for progress in this area- the understanding was that in return for the ACTU using its good offices to encourage compliance with the wage indexation guidelines, the Government would initiate tax indexation. [More…]
They have made themselves unpopular with a number of trade unions which they profess to represent. [More…]
Our plans are positive plans and not arguable propositions which cannot predict with any certainty that the Conciliation and Arbitration Commission and the unions will accept that indirect taxes should be excluded from the consumer price index. [More…]
Already the drums of the Postal Commission are rumbling that a rise in the price of an ordinary postage stamp to 20c will not be unreasonable because of the amount of money that that Commission will lose if unions do not cooperate. [More…]
Trade unions, many of which are irresponsible, are the fourth arm of government in Australia since December 1972. [More…]
1 would venture to suggest that that is not an accurate figure as Mr Hawke and other members of the Australian Council of Trade Unions have already pointed out on various occasions because of the way the Government has played with the statistics. [More…]
We hear it from the Australian Labor Party, from the unions and from the socialists. [More…]
His ideas now are being picked up by unions and business in the United States, and are being adopted in the financing of the ownership of the capital of the company by employees. [More…]
-In the short time at my disposal I wish to make a couple of references to the type of hypocrisy which we have just heard from a once parasite on the trade union movement, who made a lot of money in living off the unions and who now talks glibly about private welfare. [More…]
It is worth noting also that this is the policy of the Australian Council of Trade Unions and the trade union movement. [More…]
The Government went to the people in December 1972 as the friend of the unions. [More…]
It professed to have a contract with the unions; it professed to be able to deal and negotiate with the unions. [More…]
In 1974, after a couple of years of the Labor Administration- the friend of the unions- 6.3 billion man days were lost due to strikes. [More…]
It has been said by spokesmen for the Australian Council of Trade Unions- I would agree with the proposition- that tax indexation is a necessary prerequisite if wage indexation is to be a goer. [More…]
In the short run, with the addition of school leavers and the phasing out of unemployment relief programs, even the President of the Australian Council of Trade Unions admits, unemployment could reach five hundred thousand. [More…]
We believe that immediate negotiations should commence with the Australian Council of Trade Unions and other major industrial groups. [More…]
Now, I am sure that the working men and women of Australia- those who are members of unions, those who are notappreciate what is happening to their country through the deliberate policy of inflation of the present Government. [More…]
The Government is supposed to represent manufacturing industry and the vehicle workers unions of Australia. [More…]
We would give full support to the inclusion in awards and agreements of the dispute settling procedures which were agreed to by the Australian Council of Trade Unions and employers in 1970. [More…]
In it are some of the most remarkable pieces of proposed legislation that one could imagine and when the Australian Council of Trade Unions Congress meets next week it might well have a hard look at the alternative to the present Government to see what it is in for. [More…]
They want consequences for certain unfair practices of employees and unions. [More…]
Honourable members opposite would seek to push trade unions outside the system of conciliation and arbitration. [More…]
But when this Government seeks to establish such a wages policy which will be just and fair to all sections of the community, honourable members opposite are seeking to destroy it at this very critical time- at the very time when the case has finished and judgment is awaited with interest and when the trade unions are arguing about whether or not they will accept indexation in its totality. [More…]
It would shackle the unions. [More…]
Some unions are pressing for wage increases outside indexation guidelines. [More…]
There is also a very genuine and substantial concern about over-award payments by some trade unions- indeed all those unions which have members who receive substantial overaward payments. [More…]
Of course the unions will make claims for wage increases outside the indexation increases so that over-award payments will keep pace with inflation too. [More…]
There is also undoubtedly some action by trade unions to get bigger pay increases to increase their share of the cake. [More…]
Let me assure the honourable gentlemen that within a week consultations were held- quiet, constructive consultations, I might add, without the issuance of Press statements and the grabbing of headlineswith the President of the Australian Council of Trade Unions and the Minister for Labor and Immigration (Senator James McClelland). [More…]
They have said: ‘It was not the fault of the leaders of the unions. [More…]
The President of the Australian Council of Trade Unions seems to think that there will be something of the order of 500 000 unemployed. [More…]
When the unions ask us what they should do, what shall we say to them? [More…]
Is the Prime Minister satisfied that complete justice has been done to the Australian Council of Trade Unions in the finding of the Royal Commission on Petroleum that the ACTU deliberately deceived the Government about the price it was paying for crude oil? [More…]
The Committee was chaired by Professor Mathews of the Australian National University and its membership included Mr R. A. Jolly of the Australian Council of Trade Unions and other worthy citizens. [More…]
Why would the unions want to use arbitration after what the Opposition would have attempted to do twice- throw the Government elected for a 3-year term out of office? [More…]
And the Opposition would then go to the unions and say: ‘Yes, do the right thing’. [More…]
The unions would laugh in the faces of members of the Opposition. [More…]
I ask the Prime Minister Does it trouble him as a matter of elementary justice that all the sworn testamentary and documentary evidence which was presented to the Royal Commission on Petroleum and which could have exonerated Mr Souter and the Australian Council of Trade Unions of the charge of deliberate deceit of the Government was entirely overlooked by the royal commission in its report? [More…]
Does the Prime Minister still believe that complete justice has been done to the Australian Council of Trade Unions in the finding of the royal commission that ACTU-Solo Enterprises Pty Ltd deliberately deceived the Government? [More…]
Is the Prime Minister satisfied that Mr Hawke as Chairman and Managing Director of ACTUSolo and President of the Federal Executive of the Australian Council of Trade Unions which unanimously endorsed Mr Souter ‘s action, was completely unaware of the nature of the deal both when it was made and when he launched the discount petrol venture as Chairman and Managing Director of ACTU-Solo? [More…]
Will he tell the House of his discussions with the President of the Australian Council of Trade Unions and his colleague, the Minister for Minerals and Energy? [More…]
In raising this point one is not trying to say that nothing that the Government does or that employers or trade unions in Australia do matters because of what has happened in the rest of the world. [More…]
The Australian Council of Trade Unions is accused of having bought Australian crude claiming that it was paying only $2.10 or $2.50 when it was- in fact paying $5.10. [More…]
In this planning process, it will be particularly important to involve those who know the special needs involved- the relevant unions, the ship owners, the fishing industry- as well as educationists. [More…]
These are being inserted to provide for the new certificate structure which the Department of Transport has been developing over recent months in full co-operation with all the unions concerned, with owners, and State marine authorities. [More…]
The failure of the Government to take account of doubts expressed by the Secretary and the President of the Australian Council of Trade Unions about the findings of the Royal Commission on Petroleum in relation to the contract between Allied Petrochemicals Pry Ltd and ACTU-Solo Enterprises Pry Ltd for the supply of crude oil. [More…]
The Opposition raises as a matter of public importance the statements by Mr Harold Souter, Secretary of the Australian Council of Trade Unions, and Mr Hawke, President of the ACTU, which call into question the findings of the Royal Commission on Petroleum in relation to the contract by Allied Petrochemicals Pty Ltd to supply crude oil to ACTU-Solo Enterprises Pty Ltd. [More…]
He has been supported by Mr Hawke and others of the Australian Council of Trade Unions executive. [More…]
There would have been no benefit to anyone in Australia, to anyone in the Australian Council of Trade Unions or anybody in general. [More…]
With no reserve savings to fall back on, with no one in government willing to hear the migrant cause, with trade unions happy to take union dues but contemptuous and insensitive to migrant problems, it is no wonder that ethnic people in Australia are feeling more and more that they have been cheated by this Labor Government, and cheated they have been. [More…]
I believe that there must be restraint by the unions. [More…]
The trade unions must show greater restraint than they are showing. [More…]
This Government is synonymous with the trade unions, and we all know the way in which they are ruining this country today. [More…]
The Government allowed, aided and abetted the unions to make increasing demands for higher and higher wages and shorter working hours. [More…]
-Unions and individual wage earners have fought for years to increase their earnings so that they might improve their standard of living. [More…]
I have instructed my Department that trade unions, consumer groups, academics and everybody else who can be persuaded to take an interest in science should be given copies of speeches I make. [More…]
I do not know about trade unions. [More…]
It is a political red herring to talk about trade unions at a time when we are trying to get some form of protection to help the ordinary consumer. [More…]
It comes through trade unions, which here have disruptive strikes which of course are not permitted in the communist countries. [More…]
If this trend continues and is compounded by anarchy by unions with no thought for the industry then this trend will accelerate. [More…]
Now the Australian Council of Trade Unions is putting a ban on the export of uranium. [More…]
We hope and expect that this change will be especially welcome to trade union leaders and the members of their unions. [More…]
Independent trade unions are non-existent and the courageous voices of those who spoke up in those early years to remind their countrymen of the plight of the tens of thousands of political prisoners and their families are scarcely ever heard in public. [More…]
On the tenth anniversary of the coup, the counter-coup, the massacres and the mass incarcerations in Indonesia I believe it is my responsibility as an individual member of Parliament to join the occasional voices from Australian universities and student organisations, churches, trade unions, lawyers associations, and so on which have been heard as have similar voices from other countries. [More…]
They can look forward to wage increases being adjusted from time to time in accordance with the movement in the consumer price index and are not concerned that unions will be seeking to claim in anticipation of what they may guess to be the likely increase in the cost of living. [More…]
His next proposal was that his faithful friend Tony Street would be Minister for Labor and his first task would be to take the unions on in the courts to teach them a lesson. [More…]
At today’s meeting between the Maritime College interdepartmental committee and the merchant marine industry, that is the unions and the employers, there was a general acceptance that Launceston is a feasible site for an effective Maritime College and that the unions and the employers will co-operate in the further planning of the College. [More…]
Although the Opposition supports the principle that the provisions of the Navigation Act should apply to such off-shore industry vessels, especially as we are advised that the most prospective areas for further discovery of oil and gas in Australia lie off-shore, I think the House should be aware that the policies being pursued by certain trade unions are creating chaos in sections of the off-shore industry. [More…]
We have seen reports in recent weeks of welders being paid more than $30,000 a year and of the unions waging strike action against contractors on trumped up excuses which have had no relevance to wage justice or the legitimate working conditions and requirements of the men engaged in this work. [More…]
It would be a help if the Government could use its newly acquired powers over vessels engaged in off-shore industry to curb these flagrant abuses which the left wing unions are making in this industry. [More…]
If the activities of the militant unions continue future oil supplies from Bass Strait will be threatened and the vital energy needs of this country will be placed at risk. [More…]
One of the main obstacles to bringing about a significant Australian shipping industry is the attitude of the maritime unions in Australia. [More…]
I believe that, by their exorbitant and sometimes outlandish demands, the Australian maritime unions have made it impossible for this country to develop a large and strong shipping industry. [More…]
However, I also believe that, while the maritime unions are the direct cause of this situation, there are larger considerations which lie behind their actions. [More…]
Let the unions make no mistake about this. [More…]
We have had enough of Labor Larrikinism It also took place on the Senate side of the building last week with the President of the Australian Council of Trade Unions. [More…]
-Did the Treasurer have discussions with the President of the Australian Council of Trade Unions on 16 July before the Budget? [More…]
I would not be sure on what date members of the Cabinet had discussions with the Australian Council of Trade Unions. [More…]
Professional men and strong trade unions adjust their incomes upwards just as fast as or faster than prices. [More…]
We will initiate immediate negotiations with the Australian Council of Trade Unions and other major industrial groups towards this end. [More…]
A briefing was given to the President of the Australian Council of Trade Unions as such on the afternoon of Budget day between about 1 p.m. and 3.30 p.m. by an officer of my personal staff who had been involved in the preparation of the Budget Speech and documents and had been a member of the working party which had worked up and presented the details of the new personal tax scheme. [More…]
One thing that concerned me greatly in the preparation of the Budget before its presentation was that because we had to resort to a number of measures involving indirect tax charges which could easily be interpreted as an anti-worker or as an anti-wage earner impost, and as we introduced in that Budget the most radical reform of personal taxation for 50 years in itself, on the surface, perhaps seeming to be a complex exercise I believed it absolutely essential that the spokesman on behalf of the trade unions who that night, after the Budget was delivered, would be asked to comment on its nature should be fully informed, that he should not have an inadequate appreciation of the strategy of the Budget and its contents. [More…]
We are told that it was necessary to get the support of the President of the Australian Council of Trade Unions. [More…]
1) Do the guidelines for radio station 3ZZ state that the station should not be used by political parties or trade unions. [More…]
Let me come to the pith of the reason for my arranging this detailed briefing of the President of the Australian Council of Trade Unions. [More…]
These are the people opposite who are proposing that there should be cooperation between the President of the ACTU, the ACTU, the more than 100 trade unions affiliated with the ACTU, the more than 1.6 million workers in unions affiliated with the ACTU and then go on to indulge in this offensive behaviour. [More…]
James McClelland) deserves commendation for the success he has been achieving in establishing a better working relationship with the unions and therefore - [More…]
Yet this Treasurer was prepared to bow to one of the political powers that is his master and that is the President of the Australian Council of Trade Unions. [More…]
To what extent has the man who was secretary of the Australian Council of Trade Unions been made a scapegoat of the whole affair? [More…]
I know that the New South Wales Minister for Housing has begun an unusual liaison with one of the building trades unions and I know that he intends to see the Minister about raising more funds. [More…]
I find it remarkable that the Leader of the Opposition, in his speech to this Parliament on the Budget, should have laid stress on the need for wage restraint if there was to be an economic recovery, if the private sector was to get on to its feet, and that he should have topped this assertion off with a claim that success could be achieved only through co-operation with the President of the Australian Council of Trade Unions and with the ACTU, and that then both he and the Deputy Leader of the Opposition should have presented statements in this Parliament which clearly implied that in their view the President of the ACTU was a crook. [More…]
I endorse what my colleague the Treasurer has said yesterday and today about the briefing given to the President of the Australian Council of Trade Unions on the afternoon of the day on which the Budget was delivered. [More…]
Unions and the Australian Labor Party a special early afternoon briefing without the security of the lock-up? [More…]
I do not retreat at all from what I have done in arranging the pre-Budget briefing for the President of the Australian Council of Trade Unions. [More…]
Prompted by the number of different buses being purchased under the urban public transport improvement program and the substantial delays in the delivery of these buses, the Department of Transport along with State and private operators and unions, have examined the possibility of development of a standard bus specification. [More…]
There are 101 things that could be thrown in to illustrate the effect that this Government and its colleagues in the unions are having on this great industry that in 1975 is still important to Australia and which must be allowed to continue to be important to Australia. [More…]
Is there any provision in the Conciliation and Arbitration Act which requires trade unions to have secret ballots in respect of industrial disputes? [More…]
The last time he went there he said that unions were not made up of one big red blob. [More…]
These days the political drive at Captains Flat is spearheaded by a gentleman called Tommy Kerr, a man who has a striking facial resemblance to Bob Hawke and who defends Captains Flat with the same vigour that his counterpart employs to defend the Australian Council of Trade Unions. [More…]
The Mathews Committee was established by this Government last November; it included a leading member of the Australian Council of Trade Unions; it reported in May and its findings were endorsed in effect by the ACTU. [More…]
The President of the Australian Council of Trade Unions has described the royal commission in somewhat harsh terms. [More…]
What action has the Government taken to rectify the banning by certain unions of shipments of wheat to Chile? [More…]
As a result of the overthrow of that Government the maritime unions imposed restrictions on the” loading of commodities for Chile. [More…]
But after an approach from the Australian Wheat Board, which pointed “out that the contracts for the 1973-74 harvest had in fact been made with the government that had been overthrown, the maritime unions then allowed the wheat to be sent to Chile and the 1973-74 harvest contracts were honoured. [More…]
At the- end of last year a lot of negotiations took place between the Australian Wheat Board, the Government, the maritime unions and the President of the Australian Council of Trade Unions’ with respect to the 1974-75 harvest. [More…]
As a result the unions decided to review their position. [More…]
In other words, there was some suggestion with justification that sweetheart agreements were being made and that employers were prepared willingly to enter into agreements with trade unions on the basis that it is better to increase the cost of the product than to take the consequences of an industrial dispute. [More…]
Whether the Opposition likes it or not, trade unions have shown a remarkably responsible approach in recent months subsequent to the appeal by the Prime Minister and the actions taken by this Government. [More…]
I think those who want to make union bashing more selective ought at least to give some credit to the fact that in this country at this time of economic crisis trade unions have adopted a far more responsible approach as a result of the exhortations of this Government than has been evident at any time I can remember since the war. [More…]
We have the highest interest rates in our history and in spite of the closest of close relationships with that redoubtable President of the Australian Council of Trade Unions, massive industrial unrest. [More…]
Its action in opposing the full 6.4 per cent increase in wages claimed by the unions in the recent national wage case was universally interpreted as a breach of an election promise. [More…]
The trade unions, the national employers organisations, State governments of all political persuasions, the Press and the general public were all taken by surprise because the Government’s commitment to the support of wage indexation seemed to be so unequivocal. [More…]
In regard to industrial relations, there would most certainly have been a tremendous increase in industrial disputation as unions sought to overcome a cut in real wages, because what it meant was not just slowing down the rate of real wage increase but cutting real wages. [More…]
The Government argued for a cut in real wages, that is in the value of what a wage will buy, of 3.2 per cent, and the unions would most certainly have reacted very strongly to that. [More…]
Unions would have known that they could not count on the Arbitration Commission any more to maintain real wages, so they would have sought to protect their members by going for anticipatory wage claims as they did in 1974, so creating further inflation. [More…]
That would certainly have been the reasoning of unions. [More…]
Its actions in opposing full indexation, knowing the likely reaction of the unions, is consistent with a policy of taking the unions on. [More…]
The unions have steadfastly refused it on every occasion. [More…]
The only difference is that the unions with the industrial muscle would get a lot more than the 6.4 per cent and the workers with no muscle, who in many cases are those who need a wage increase most would get nothing at all. [More…]
He pointed out to the advocate for the Australian Council of Trade Unions, and I quote from the transcript: [More…]
Indeed, I am this day engaged in discussion with the Australian Council of Trade Unions to try to arrive at proper procedures for entering into consultative arrangements and I hope to find a favourable response from the ACTU to my approaches. [More…]
The unions, in the whole question of wage indexation, have shown their credibility and sincerity right from the outset. [More…]
Although not in the best interests of the unions and their members, the unions forewent any claim for wage rises at that time because they had accepted the principle that they would be compensated for increases in costs in the community. [More…]
In those circumstances there is no trust of the Government by the Australian Council of Trade Unions. [More…]
All it will do is move the trade unions into an area where they will forget about going to the Conciliation and Arbitration Commission to seek any rise. [More…]
That in turn will bring about an inequity in the whole society where unions which are dealing with companies that perhaps are not so profitable, or unions that perhaps do not have so much muscle will find that their members will start to lag. [More…]
The trade union movement, as expressed by the Australian Council of Trade Unions and its august President, has made it clear that that is a situation it really does not want to see. [More…]
If they were to contain that area, they would find that the trade unions in Australia would play their role. [More…]
I ask honourable members to listen to what Paul Johnson, someone who can hardly be described as a friend of the trade unions, thinks of Mr Fraser ‘s beginning. [More…]
He also said that there would be no industrial legislation introduced in the first session of Parliament unless the unions were consulted; that the Prices Justification Tribunal would be retained; and that the ownership of a home would be made easier and the interest burden on existing owners would be lessened. [More…]
Too often the trade unions which are there to represent the interests of employees are themselves large and impersonal bodies which are unable to look at the interests and the needs of individual members within their ranks. [More…]
I refer to attitudes on the part of managements as well as on the part of unions. [More…]
But as well as changed attitudes on the part of many managements we need to see changed attitudes in the part of many union managements because it is in many of the trade unions that we find some of the most restrictive trade practices, if I can put it in those words. [More…]
Therefore I believe that we need a better system of consultation between unions, employers and government authorities concerned with industrial relations matters. [More…]
It is intended to bring together the employer bodies, the unions and representatives of government in a tripartite organisation that can talk out the ground rules by which industrial disputes can be solved. [More…]
I suggest that the centres of power from which the people of this nation must be protected are two- the major one big government, the second one big monopolistic unions. [More…]
As a former executive member of a union I have a great deal of respect for the true, proper role of unions in this nation. [More…]
I ask the Treasurer (Mr Lynch) to do all he can to encourage the dialogue between the Governmentin this case the Treasury- on the one hand and the economic academic world, with business, with trade unions, with financial journalists and wherever there is informed thought and informed advice on the other hand. [More…]
Even in that atmosphere unions are still prepared to push management to take decisions such as the one taken in Cootamundra last week. [More…]
While unions have an important and a proper place in the partnership I believe, and unionists should realise, they must be careful not to abuse the responsibility and the power that they undoubtedly have. [More…]
This is never the case with most trade unions. [More…]
Not only do we have those enormous national and multi-national corporations that dominate the economy but also we have extremely powerful unions which have grown to allow the worker to obtain his share of income that that system generates. [More…]
If the trade unions had not grown and become militant and strong in those circumstances- they could because there was something like full employment- the workers’ standard would have declined. [More…]
So we have powerful business corporations and powerful unions. [More…]
Whatever way we look at progress in this respect, it means we must think of a system that has three great power blocs- the private corporations, national and international, the powerful unions and the powerful Public Service. [More…]
The threat to freedom lies in the 3 powerful complexes that are developing, the complexes of the multi-national and national corporations, of the powerful trade unions and the powerful State bureaucracy whether it be in Canberra, Melbourne, Sydney or anywhere else. [More…]
The trade union training program is essential for a better understanding by rank and file trade unionists and by trade union official of the way in which the economy functions; it is essential to a better understanding of how to manage the affairs of their unions, which is a business when all is said and done. [More…]
About 75 per cent of persons employed in Australia are employed by the private sector- a point made repeatedly by the President of the Australian Labor Party and of the Australian Council of Trade Unions. [More…]
Choices will be made but they will be choices made by statesmen and leaders, not men who were mere tools of the communist led trade unions. [More…]
We will give them the machinery to control their own unions rather than be controlled by self-elected communist leaders. [More…]
The election of democratically minded Labor men will make unions progressive and trustworthy again. [More…]
The trade unions want leaders, not saboteurs. [More…]
They want men fostered by those unions which have an almost unlimited capacity to seek the good things in our society. [More…]
They have to oppose such unions as the Amalgamated Metal Workers Union, which led by Laurie Carmichael, will have a $10m fee income to spend on activities such as the gestapo tactics employed by certain trade unions in the last election, unions which stood over men demanding money and ordering them to leave their jobs to attend meetings addressed by the former Prime Minister. [More…]
One honourable member made some brief remarks about the proposal that secret ballots should be introduced for the election of office bearers in trade unions. [More…]
The Government looks to business and trade unions both to act responsibly in the national interest. [More…]
The trade union movement and particularly the Australian Council of Trade Unions must be concerned with jobs and productivity. [More…]
If France can work out a national plan for good housekeeping, for common sense in national affairs, surely we can now work one out between industry, the unions and the people for, as a nation, we are all interdependent. [More…]
I point out that the policy of the previous Government was very badly received by a wide range of people, not just by the airlines, as one would expect, who have to find the money, but also by the unions involved in the airline industry and by the aviation Press. [More…]
To indicate to the House that the views expressed are not just the views of commercial vested interests I shall quote from a report prepared by the unions involved in the airline industry. [More…]
The unions are as follows: the Australian Licensed Aircraft Engineers Association, the Australian Federation of Air Pilots, the Federated Clerks Union of Australia- that is a bunch of silvertails if I have ever heard of one!the Airline Hostesses Association, the Australasian Airline Flight Engineers Association and the Flight Stewards Association of Australia. [More…]
That, I suggest, is a most reasonable statement of the situation from the unions involved in the industry. [More…]
Everything that went wrong was always someone else’s fault- the Senate, the States, the unions, the multinational companies, the Central Intelligence Agency. [More…]
I opposed all of the increases that were sought by the unions representing the clerical and administrative grades. [More…]
I opposed the increase that was sought in 1974 and I opposed the subsequent increases which the Public Service unions were trying to get. [More…]
If this government allows the present system to continue under which the monetary gap widens as it is now widening between the clerical and administrative grades compared to the tradesmen and technical and professional grades, it should blame itself and not blame the blue collar unions if it has industrial trouble on its hands. [More…]
It was headed by Professor Mathews, and included Mr Jolly of the Australian Council of Trade Unions, and other worthy citizens. [More…]
With the encouragement of a misguided Government, trade unions have been vigorously pursuing a policy of pricing workers out of jobs. [More…]
All abuses of monopoly power must be curbed, whether they are abuses by companies or abuses of monopoly power by unions. [More…]
It is particularly disturbing that the abuse of monopoly power by unions does not seem to be subject to the provisions of this Act but that the activities of corporations and companies are. [More…]
I draw attention to the report by the Trade Practices Commission that it is powerless to deal with unions which engage in illegal trading activities. [More…]
The bulk of the Federal unions have their offices in New South Wales. [More…]
I am aware that the building industry, not only in New South Wales but elsewhere in Australia, has been put in a very serious situation by the irresponsible actions of certain unions which have brought some multi-million dollar projects to a halt, thus costing many thousands of Australians their jobs. [More…]
With this in mind we are proposing to establish a foundation as a vehicle to promote and foster a continuing program to build and widen mutual contacts at all levels- business, academic, cultural, scientific, trade unions. [More…]
Royal Commission on Alleged Payments to Maritime Unions [More…]
Is the Minister aware that following amendments to the Conciliation and Arbitration Act last year people have been enrolled in a number of federal unions for whom those unions can obtain no award or determination or make no representation to the Conciliation and Arbitration Commission. [More…]
In relation to the particular question asked by the honourable member, I am aware that certain unions and their officials have been placed in a very difficult position by the current situation. [More…]
If he is so aware, can he inform the House what role the Government can play and has played in resolving the disputes between unions and wool brokers which appear to be the cause of the delay? [More…]
However, it is unfortunate that neither those who are members of the Australian Labor Party in this Parliament nor those who are members of some of the trade unions and who nominally are the supporters of that Party are concerned about those problems outside. [More…]
We all know that the unions fund the Labor Party. [More…]
If organisations were forced to disclose the sources of those funds one can imagine the rampant action that would be taken against them by left wing dominated unions. [More…]
I am not talking about the good and true rank and file members of those unions but about their militant leaders who care nothing about the general good of the people in those unions. [More…]
As the honourable gentleman will know, one of the reasons why we have committed ourselves to the adoption of the Mathews Committee report- a commitment which has been supported by the Australian Council of Trade Unions but not by the Australian Labor Party - [More…]
On 30 October 1975, following representations by a number of contributors and some Public Service unions, my colleague, the honourable member for Curtin (Mr Garland), on behalf of the then Opposition announced a compromise solution involving three major changes in the Superannuation Bill 1975. [More…]
The chances that the Liberal-National Country Party Government will be able to gain the support of the unions for wage restraint have been almost irrevocably impaired because of its deceit and stupidity at the last national wage case. [More…]
The unions had indicated that as long as the figure was less than one per cent they would not sue for the increase; it had to be more than one per cent in a quarter. [More…]
I have had the advantage of talking to Mr Cameron, whom I blame in large part for sooling on the PublicService to put in excess wage demands and sooling on other trade unions too. [More…]
We know that pensioners cannot withhold their labour and that they do not have access to powerful bodies like chambers of manufactures, chambers of commerce, sectarian bodies or trade unions. [More…]
However in the Hunter electorate at least the pensioners are pretty well organised because of the great training they had in the mining unions when they were employed. [More…]
They cannot withhold their labour and they have no products to withhold but they are sincere in doing all they can to get the strong unions in the region to press the Government not to remove the $40 funeral benefit. [More…]
There are a couple of problems in respect of the specifics of that situation, not the least of which was some suggestion that there is a necessity for an alteration to the Trade Practices Act so that unions could be controlled. [More…]
I understand that an amendment is proposed which will allow trade unions to be controlled under legislation relating to the Trade Practices Commission. [More…]
Finally, and necessarily briefly, I refer to a matter of great concern to my electorate and to all Australians, that is the abuse of power wielded by some unions. [More…]
There is little doubt that unions have a positive role to play in our Australian society. [More…]
However, it is equally true to say that there are a number of unions in this country which are controlled by individuals whose aim is not to benefit members of their unions but rather to use their position for their own purposes. [More…]
Rather, it is going to require encouragement from all sectors of our community to ensure that reponsible members of the unions stands for executive positions and, further, to encourage unionists to exercise their right to vote. [More…]
At the present time our greatest task is to ensure responsibility from the unions. [More…]
They are ever present in the actions of the more militant communist controlled unions in this country. [More…]
With the composition of the Federal Executive of the Australian Council of Trade Unions so heavily loaded in favour of the communists and the hard core left wing- there is not much difference -the Labor Party is virtually under the control of the communists. [More…]
For example, maintenance of a 40-hour week as part of an overall plan to reduce inflation and restore economic sanity is complete anathema to the communist led unions. [More…]
I have a quote here from a well known former member of the Labor Party, now a senator, Senator Harradine, who talks about communist actions in the trade unions. [More…]
One of the myths on which Labor was elected in 1972 was that it had a special relationship with the unions. [More…]
Look at the record of the past Labor Governmenta government under the control of the unions, many of them communist led. [More…]
The biggest unions get the most votes. [More…]
I wonder which are the biggest unions in South Australia and I wonder who controls them. [More…]
With interest rates as they are and industrial relations in the unions as they are, and without confidence, how many private developers are going to build flats and home units? [More…]
In the various States it works from the offices of a number of communist led unions. [More…]
It is a careful scheme organised by the Communist Party, communist and left wing led unions and student organisations, left wing aid agencies and a handful of hard core Fretilin activists in Australia. [More…]
I believe that the attitude of the Queensland contractors and the people who work for them is an act of statesmanship which it would do well for trade unions and trade union leaders to follow. [More…]
There is an arbitration system, widely accepted and widely respected, and it will not continue to be held in that position if trade unions and corporations do not abide by its decisions. [More…]
Is it a fact too that Mr Justice Moore has convened conferences and has been aware of salary increases to various employees in particular branches of the metal industry to give effect to the clear case and claim by the metal unions for a catch-up claim in wages? [More…]
Vast sections of the wool industry will become unviable if the latest demands of the unions in relation to the wages and conditions of shearers are implemented, or even if half of them are implemented. [More…]
If there is one threat in our society internally that we have to face it is the lack of freedom that is ever encroaching upon the individual because of big business, big trade unions and big government. [More…]
The same would apply against trade unions which might blatantly be intimidating service station proprietors. [More…]
In one instance at least- that involving the Storemen and Packers Union and the wool bale dispute- it is in clear breach of an agreement which was signed by the Australian Council of Trade Unions, to which the ACTU was a party, and to which the union, brokers and other people were also parties. [More…]
However, when read in conjunction with other outbursts by the Government on industrial matters, the statement is seen as an insidious attempt to prevent unions from fighting for the rights of their members. [More…]
The awards were never updated because once the award rate fell behind the minimum wage some of the unions concerned saw no point in having the award rates updated. [More…]
We are looking at ways by which a continuing consultation might take place between trade unions, exporters and producers on a range of matters affecting primary industries and not peculiarly the export of live cattle. [More…]
In June 1974 the IAC submitted its report, which was received without very much favour by anybody concerned with the car industry- the trade unions the manufacturers and/or the Governmentbecause one of its recommendations was that 15 000 people in the manufacturing sector of the automobile industry work force would have to be retrenched and find work in other industries. [More…]
It is a little contradictory that we have reverted to the Labor plan of 85 per cent, when one considers the work that was done between 1972 and 1975 and the consultations that took place between the Government, the trade unions, the manufacturers, the component industry and everybody else. [More…]
I was told on the telephone this morning by a union representative that the Opposition had been instructed specifically not to move amendments because the unions want these Bills and this scheme to be carried. [More…]
I do not disparage him personally, however, I point out that the Opposition’s attitude is seen in terms of opposition on behalf of unions, not in terms of the community or of this being a Treasury measure. [More…]
Throughout that period there have been lengthy and detailed negotiations with Public Service unions involved, both individually and jointly. [More…]
There are 22 such unions, incidentally. [More…]
It contains many desirable features for Government employees and I believe it strikes a just balance between the demands of Public Service unions and individual Government employees on the one hand, and the cost to the taxpayer and the community on the other hand. [More…]
That of course will be the next claim, if it has not started already, by some of the unions. [More…]
A lot of discussion went on, not in Parliament but in the Labor Party and the Liberal-National Country Parties in July-September last year, initiated, I believe, by the Public Service unions- and all credit to them for that. [More…]
The unions have been very realistic. [More…]
The unions accepted the proposition of the previous Government, which is contained in this Bill, that the period of service required for maximum benefits be extended from 20 years to 30 years. [More…]
Just as the unions accepted that change, they were realistic enough to expect that they had to accept some other changes. [More…]
The unions were prepared to recognise that nationally the age of retirement is 65 years. [More…]
The former Government would not under any circumstances accept the amendments, even though in due course the trade unions did. [More…]
It would have been possible to have had consultations between the unions, the then Government and the then Opposition and to have arrived at this legislation and to have had it in force one year earlier than it will not be in force. [More…]
It is a tribute to the Minister, to the Treasury and to the unions and, if I may add, to the honourable member for Curtin who worked very hard on the subject for a long time. [More…]
I think the honourable member for Hume (Mr Lusher) said that the unions were prepared to accept the superannuation scheme now before the House. [More…]
Previously the unions were not prepared to accept such a scheme. [More…]
They were right behind the Labor Party in trying to push the initial Bill through the Parliament The unions are accepting the present proposal. [More…]
If the honourable member spoke to the unions he would find that they are not happy with this scheme because of the many anomalies in it and the disadvantages of it when compared with the Labor Party ‘s proposal and also with the existing scheme in some respects. [More…]
On the one hand the Government has been pressured by the Commonwealth Public Service unions to agree to the provisions of the Bill. [More…]
I note that no provision in this Bill allows the investment of the funds of the trust in credit unions. [More…]
Credit unions, particularly in the Commonwealth Public Service, have done a tremendous amount of good for their members and I ask that the Government give consideration to allowing the investment of the superannuation funds- the contributors’ funds- in credit unions. [More…]
The Labor Opposition is supporting this Bill in principle basically because it is the wish of the combined Public Service unions that this Bill be brought to fruition as quickly as possible and also to prevent hardship to a large number of Commonwealth public servants who are presently paying over-large superannuation contributions. [More…]
However I stress that the Commonwealth Public Service unions should be consulted before the regulations are prescribed. [More…]
Presumably this matter will be determined by regulation in which case the Commonwealth Public Service unions, which are the representatives of the old contributors- the money belongs to the contributors- should be consulted before any firm decisions are made in the gazettal of the regulations. [More…]
It has the approval of the Public Service unions. [More…]
I know the attitude of the unions in this. [More…]
That agreement was signed by the Australian Council of Trade Unions and other parties to it. [More…]
There is a shortage of rental accommodation in this country but, because of the way in which the unions operate at the moment, an investor never knows whether he is going to get his flat development finished. [More…]
Discussions were held with the unions involved and, in general, there was a measure of understanding and perhaps reluctant agreement that, while our proposal did not represent the ideal, it was a fair and just scheme and a real improvement on the current scheme. [More…]
The proposals, which have the blessing of most of the Public Service unions, in the long term will cost the Australian public some $2,000m less than the scheme introduced last year by the Labor Party. [More…]
The Australian public can only agree that it is a good scheme when it commands the agreement of most of the Public Service unions and public servants themselves and costs so much less. [More…]
All sections of the industry- the manufacturers, the component manufacturers, and the trade unions- appreciated greatly the manner in which the previous Labor Administration opened its doors for a complete and open dialogue on the future of the industry. [More…]
-Has the Minister for Employment and Industrial Relations heard the view attributed to the President of the Australian Council of Trade Unions that he is satisfied with the present system of election of trade union leaders? [More…]
I am further informed that, as the House would know, under section 170 of the Conciliation and Arbitration Act unions can request a ballot to be conducted by the Commonwealth Electoral Office at public expense and that the average percentage of votes cast in elections conducted under section 170 is of the order of 40 per cent. [More…]
Is it a fact that on Monday of this week the Industrial Registrar convened a meeting of officials of unions which have not yet altered their rules to meet the statutory requirement that as from November of this year a full-time union officer entitled to vote as a member of the management committee of the organisation shall be directly elected by the membership of the union? [More…]
We have given an undertaking to employer organisations and the unions which have made representations on this point that in considering amendments to the Conciliation and Arbitration Act we will take into account the representations they have made. [More…]
We will put to it some simple little proposals about freedom of conscience and religious practice, freedom of the right to work, freedom to join trade unions, the freedom of trade unionists to strike, the freedom of trade unionists to publish periodicals and other work, freedom of learning, freedom to be free of religious persecution, freedom from being Debarred from public office because of religious beliefs’. [More…]
And those most directly involved are our members and the members of the other unions in the industry. [More…]
I am absolutely shattered to think that the members of the Labor Party and the trade unions do not have a single member present on their benches. [More…]
If I take a pragmatic view, I hope the House will excuse me> I believe that the trade unions and the directors of the motor industry realise that our costs of production are now far too high and are our real worry. [More…]
I agree with the unions on this point because it is open to question whether it is possible to keep full employment for everybody if more motor manufacturers try to enter a field which is already diminishing. [More…]
One of the good things that had been mentioned by the industrial leaders and the unions is the suggestion that sales tax be varied to assist the motor industry? [More…]
The unions have to take exceptional care to be certain that their policies within the industry are in the interests of the Australian nation and all those who work in, belong to and take part in the motor industry of the nation. [More…]
With the mushroom growth of credit unions which are doing a wonderful job for people who invest in them, the Minister has adopted a sensible, practical business approach by removing the restrictions on credit unions and by extending the umbrella to cover all credit unions as being savings bodies in which deposits are accepted as qualifying under the provisions of the new arrangements. [More…]
The legislation also makes it a criminal offence to contribute to a party or a candidate except directly and requires that all campaign contributions exceeding $100 must be disclosed whether from the individuals, corporations, unions, other organisations, associations or governments. [More…]
The chief tasks of such a staff are to provide the members of its parliamentary group with investigative and secretarial services and to maintain contact with the general public, national and municipal authorities, trade unions and other influential organisations. [More…]
We do not have a responsibility to the companies and the trade unions. [More…]
The balance sheets of the unions show every donation that is made and every levy which is struck and whose proceeds might go to the Australian Labor Party or to any other political party that is to their liking. [More…]
The moment they speak for States, for unions or for a section of education they will prejudice the acceptance, if not the integrity, of their advice. [More…]
Students are demanding free subscriptions to unions, student representative councils and even sports unions; they are requiring free child minding facilities; and so it goes on. [More…]
At that time I said that I had received representations from both unions and employer organisations for some form of collegiate voting to be maintained. [More…]
It seems to me to be far more feasible for the unions to work in conjunction with the Government. [More…]
The leaders of some of the unions actually have been pricing their own members out of work. [More…]
There will be an amendment to the Act so that the unions will be subject to the Act. [More…]
Many of the militant unions, the communistcontrolled unions in New South Wales which want to disrupt the State of New South Wales, its industry and the progress of that State, have been told to keep quiet until after 1 May. [More…]
That is the reason that many militant unions in New South Wales have been told to hold off until after Saturday’s election- to help the Labor Party in the election in New South Wales. [More…]
The deputation from Whyalla resulted from what I think was a pretty responsible attitude taken by the trade unions in Whyalla which were organising protest meetings about what the future held for the industry in that town but decided to call off stoppages. [More…]
It was representative of all sections in the Whyalla district- the trade unions, the town council, the local business people and the small contractors around the town who supply building materials and so forth to the shipyard. [More…]
This amendment balances a similar requirement for consultation with trade unions which is already included in the Act. [More…]
It was not long after that report was adopted that we became aware of the concern within the industry, not the least from the trade unions which were being vitally affected by the decisions. [More…]
Caucus sub-committees heard from representatives of industry and unions, Ministers received delegations and officials were pressed to take action. [More…]
It was attended by representatives of the Australian Council of Trade Unions and of the industry. [More…]
They look upon conferences with unions and industry as merely a means of informing themselves of what goes on, so that they make decisions, rather than a forum where views put forward should be respected and acted upon. [More…]
What we need is the immediate calling together of all the affected parties- the unions and employers alike- and the holding of a calm and rational discussion that results in the reaching of a firm decision on where the industry is going. [More…]
Following that decision to cut tariffs by 25 per cent, some 38 000 registered unionists of the 2 major unions in that field lost their jobs A further 12 000 people, who were not members of those unions and who were in the fringe areas, also lost their jobs. [More…]
The following salient points arising out of the international study to which I have referred are worthy of consideration by government, industry and even unions and the Opposition. [More…]
There are problems with the unions associated with the abattoirs. [More…]
Certainly it is a problem that we have to overcome, hopefully with reasonable consultation between governments and unions. [More…]
Some of these unions, as will be seen from the list have held back. [More…]
In the main, they were extreme right wing unions whose officers were afraid to face a direct vote of their rank and file. [More…]
In the main they were unions dominated by the National Civic Council. [More…]
In the main they were unions that confidently predicted that they would be able to get from this Government the right to continue with an anti-democratic control of their unions. [More…]
They knew that if they could defeat the then Government they would have the power to get their own way and to prevent the rank and file of their unions from having a direct say in the election of office holders. [More…]
Why are they afraid to let the rank and file of their unions have a direct vote for the election of the office holders of their union? [More…]
They cannot argue that the conducting of these extra elections will cost the small unions money that they cannot afford to pay because, I repeat, my 1973 Bill provided that all officially conducted ballots would be paid for completely by the Government. [More…]
I never knew any rank and file member that I approached to refuse to sign a petition for an officially conducted ballot and I do not believe that there is very much difference between the rank and file members of the AWU and the rank and file members of most other unions. [More…]
But, of course, by the same rule it will lose votes for the Government now that those who voted for it in the belief that they were going to get the democratic direct voice of the rank and file know that they are going to get only an indirect voice and that handfuls of men calling themselves the management committees of unions will elect each other to the most important full time positions at the federal level. [More…]
-The unfair part about the Government’s proposal is that those unions which sought to comply with the Act which this Parliament passed in 1973, which required that the right of the rank and file to elect its own office holders should be sacrosanct and which brought their rules in line with the requirements of the Act are now being put in the position of being worse off than those unions which sought to delay their compliance with the [More…]
The Miscellaneous Workers Union, the Electrical Trades Union and the Amalgamated Metal Workers Union, to name but three of the largest unions but by no means the only ones who had previously been using the collegiate system for the election of office holders, complied with the requirements of the Act and are now in the position that the officials will be stuck with the rank and file system of electing officers unless they are able to persuade the rank and file to give up their right to directly elect their officers. [More…]
Does this mean that the Government will pay the same regard to objections from unions to all the other things that it proposes? [More…]
He must not be misled by what allegedly occurred at the Arbitration Committee of the Australian Council of Trade Unions. [More…]
It is an unashamed betrayal of all those who believed that the Prime Minister and the Liberal Party stood for rank and file control of trade unions. [More…]
Nothing that the Government says again at an election will ever be believed by those people who on this occasion were silly enough to believe that when the Government said it believed in democratic control of trade unions it did believe in it, because the reintroduction of the collegiate system proves beyond all doubt that it does not believe in union democracy. [More…]
I have had countless trade unions making representations to me. [More…]
We live in a strange period of morality when that kind of Cabinet submission can be given to a man in the Press gallery and circulated to the President of the Australian Council of Trade Unions and to the honourable member for Hindmarsh. [More…]
Will he inform Mr Hawke, the President of the Australian Council of Trade Unions, of the statesmanlike and strong support by Mr Len Murray, the General Secretary of the British Trade Union Conference, and ask Mr Hawke whether he will, in Australia’s interest, take a similar national and statesmanlike approach to that problem too? [More…]
The latter piece of legislation was introduced when the Government adopted arrangements agreed to by representatives of employers, unions and the Government in the National Stevedoring Industry Conference set up in 1965 under the chairmanship of A. E. Woodward Q.C. [More…]
Participants were the Australian Council of Trade Unions, the Association of Employers of Waterside Labour, the Waterside Workers Federation, the Australian Stevedoring Industry Authority and the Department of Labour and National Service. [More…]
I have already forewarned the Director of the Authority, the Australian Council of Trade Unions and the relevant unions of the course the Government intends to adopt and I have outlined the steps that will be taken as to the future of the staff. [More…]
These include: Application to them of the Government program dealing with assistance to redundant employees in Commonwealth departments and agencies and including discussions with both employers and unions as to the totality of the arrangements to apply; a special section of the Department will be devoted to co-ordinating the operations of the Commonwealth Employment Service in an exercise designed to provide maximum assistance aimed at locating the staff concerned in suitable alternative employment; and raising with employers in the industry the steps that they might take to offer to staff presently employed by the Authority new employment opportunities. [More…]
The seeds for the inflation we are experiencing at the moment were sown in the Labor support for the wage demands by the Public Service more than 2 years ago- demands that have flowed through to other trade unions in Australia. [More…]
Has he seen the reported statements attributed to the President of the Australian Council of Trade Unions, Mr Bob Hawke, that the Government has agreed not to proceed with its proposals to legislate for the conduct of all union elections by the Australian Electoral Office? [More…]
We propose to introduce legislation which will provide for secret postal ballots in all organisations, and of course this already is the case in a number of unions and employer bodies. [More…]
I would expect a positive response from both the union movement and the employers to the Prime Minister’s proposals put last night for discussions on the economy including the question of wages policy and that a similar constructive and flexible approach will be shown by the representatives of unions and employers who we trust will take advantage of that invitation and attend discussions in the near future. [More…]
Not only are the honourable gentleman’s sentiments admirable in this respect but also it ought to be noted that for quite some time it has been the policy of the Australian Council of Trade Unions to achieve indexation of taxation. [More…]
So were the Liberal Party’s other threats and cutbacks- cutbacks in the Children’s Commission, cuts in foreign aid, threats to the Australian Broadcasting Commission, higher pharmaceutical charges, reductions in drug supplies for the chronically ill, the abandonment of the housing corporation with its help for low income families, the abolition of funeral benefits for pensioners, penal clauses against unions, a campaign of harassment and intimidation of those on the dole and restoration of radio and television licence fees. [More…]
How can any government which attacks Medibank seriously appeal to employees to moderate their wage demands or expect unions to co-operate m furthering economic recovery? [More…]
I want to say as a person coming from a small State that I believe it would be devastating to the small States of Australia if the collegiate system of voting in trade unions was taken away. [More…]
Whilst I do not claim any expertise in the field, I will support to the hilt the Minister for Labor and Industrial Relations (Mr Street) in his endeavour to ensure that those unions which wish to have access to the collegiate system are given that right. [More…]
Secondly there are those who want to see certain right-wing unions in this country taken over by the communists. [More…]
It is quite clear that the President of the Australian Council of Trade Unions will not seek to sell it. [More…]
The honourable member for Lilley was greatly concerned about what the President of the Australian Council of Trade Unions said about wage indexation last night following the address to the nation by the Prime Minister (Mr Malcolm Fraser). [More…]
It contained representatives of management, trade unions and the men off the floor of the workshop. [More…]
There is a need for the shipbuilding industry to get away from the multiplicity of trade unions. [More…]
Jack Egerton and I were successful in Queensland in getting one industrial agreement which covered all the trade unions. [More…]
There is no reason why unions such as the Federated Ironworkers’ Association of Australia, the Federated Ship Painters and Dockers Union of Australia, the Federated Storemen and Packers Union of Australia. [More…]
The Liberal and Country parties have done aU they can to hinder and stop the amalgamation of trade unions, which is to the advantage of the industry in question. [More…]
I have tried to show, and I believe I have shown, that although there are many members in the Labor Party who are opposed to communism, although there are many people in the Labor Party who are neutral on that matter, nevertheless inside there is a small controlling communist core which works through the trade unions and conducts a reign of terror over the members of the Labor Party because it controls their pre-selection. [More…]
I am sure that he should not also complain about members of the trade unions marching in the streets to show that things are bad as far as workers are concerned. [More…]
Thus the two key organisations involved in the industry- the employers and the unions- recommended that the industry be freed of government involvement. [More…]
On the basis of the submission made to Mr Northrop it will not please the many interested groups which sought an increased government role, but perhaps this depends on the ability of the employers and the unions to reach satisfactory solutions to the major industry problems mentioned by the Minister in his second reading speech. [More…]
There is one other matter which could still be of concern to those interested parties who called for a statutory authority in this country even if the employers and the unions can reach satisfactory agreements on means by which to overcome the industry’s problems. [More…]
He has already told the unions concerned that discussions on these matters will take place once this Bill has been passed. [More…]
that the general question of who controls the Navy, cither the Government or the unions, is a matter of immense public importance. [More…]
Has the Australian Council of Trade Unions agreed to co-operate with the Government in its attack on inflation? [More…]
Following my address to the nation last Monday night there were considerable communications with the President of the Australian Council of Trade Unions involving the Minister for Employment and Industrial Relations and myself. [More…]
As a result, 3 days have in fact been set aside for talks between the Government and the Australian Council of Trade Unions- 7 June, which I think is the date when the President of the ACTU comes back from the International Labour Organisation Conference, and the following Friday and Saturday. [More…]
It is the Government’s view that those modifications will better enable the Government’s objective of secret ballots in unions to be achieved and therefore it seemed sensible h> adopt the proposals and modifications put to us. [More…]
The people in the industry and the unions concerned have been doing that sort of thing ever since the new plan was implemented. [More…]
The acceptable forms for the new scheme will be the same as for the present scheme- savings bank accounts; fixed deposits with banks; shares or deposits in registered building societies or credit unions; and payments on land on which the home is to be built, deposits paid for the acquisition of the home, and payments for the construction of the home. [More…]
It does appear to me that, if we leave these dates certain in this way, we will open investors to all sorts of industrial blackmail from trade unions. [More…]
Unless he does so, there will be blackmail by trade unions demanding extra wages or improved conditions as a prerequisite to completing the plant. [More…]
The trade unions will say to the owner: ‘Look, unless you pay us these exorbitant wages and meet these exorbitant demands! [More…]
But if the amendment is not made to the Bill, then the blackmail from the unions will arise. [More…]
The Government is committed to genuine consultations with employers and trade unions on its industrial legislation. [More…]
I have consulted with the peak trade union organisations, the Australian Council of Trade Unions, the Australian Council for Salaried and Professional Associations and the Council of Australian Government Employee Organisations, and the National Employers Policy Committee, representing the employers, on the Government’s proposals. [More…]
During my discussions with the unions they expressed very strong opposition to the proposal that the Electoral Office should conduct all elections. [More…]
At the same time the Government has appreciated the real concern expressed by the unions and has sought to meet their objections, consistent with its policy objectives. [More…]
However, in the light of the views which were expressed, particularly by the unions, it has opted for a maximum term of 4 years. [More…]
I indicated at the outset that the Government is committed to genuine and constructive consultations with employers and trade unions on its industrial legislation. [More…]
5 ) All staff and all unions represented among the Defence Service Homes staff have been informed of the study of alternative administrative arrangements and have been assured that they will be consulted in relation to the outcome of the study. [More…]
If that is the platform from which some left wing unions would seek to muster a cause I would hardly think it is a popular one with their own members. [More…]
I have seen Press reports indicating that certain unions are apparently intent on taking upon themselves the process of industrial action against the changes which I announced in my economic statement in this House last Thursday. [More…]
Big and powerful unions are as dominant in the determination of wages as big and powerful corporations are dominant in the determination of prices. [More…]
We would have sat down with the unions of this country and explained that initially this productivity increase must go to the business sector to allow an increase of return to that sector. [More…]
We welcome the forthcoming talks between the Government and the unions. [More…]
There is little doubt that a social compact with the unions is required, but it can be achieved only in the right atmosphere. [More…]
I make a further point about these talks between government and unions. [More…]
For instance, to illustrate my point in the union area only, it is not good enough merely to include the executive of the Australian Council of Trade Unions. [More…]
So this is Labor’s scenario: Create consumer confidence and allow governments to spend more even at the expense of an increased deficit- with this will come increased production- and make a social compact with the unions to allow the increased productivity initially to stimulate investment in order to sustain the economic recovery and thus reduce unemployment. [More…]
In the Australian of 24 May we see in the heading to an article that Mr Hawke, as the chief of the Australian Council of Trade Unions, said that the statements are very acceptable. [More…]
I believe that we achieve more than that, because under the present provisions, particularly with regard to the indexation of wages and income tax supplementary to an increase in wages and child endowment increases, we have established the proper basis on which we can now approach the trade union movement in order to ensure that the unions are persuaded to come to the party and agree to an incomes policy and, more particularly, a responsible wages policy. [More…]
I believe that there are more leaders in the trade union movement generally with common sense and goodwill than one would gather from the actions and statements of the Australian Metalworkers’ Union, the transport union and the building unions. [More…]
However, if these proposals are to be fully effective there will need to be a responsible attitude to profits by business organisations and employers generally as well as a responsible attitude to wage demands by unions. [More…]
The second objective is to provide the basis on which to reach agreement with the unions regarding wage moderation- again to try to reduce inflation. [More…]
Another factor I refer to is the second objective of the package; that is, providing a basis upon which the Government can get co-operation with the unions to reduce the rate of increase of money wages. [More…]
There is nothing in the package which gives the unions reason to say to their members: ‘Let us co-operate with the Government. [More…]
The unions will not get reduced taxes from this package. [More…]
In the United States of America and in the United Kingdom, where attempts have been made to get trade union co-operation, the governments have gone out of their way to make big tax cuts and have tried to give the unions something to hang on to. [More…]
They have said to the unions: ‘You can get what you have lost back another way’. [More…]
Medibank is something which unions appreciated and wanted and they are upset about the attacks on it which have been launched by this Government. [More…]
-Is the Minister for Employment and Industrial Relations aware of Press reports relating to the final report by the Commission of Inquiry into Alleged Payments to Maritime Unions? [More…]
Will he table that report today and will the Government take a strong line to ensure the implementation of legislation, if none is currently applicable, to enforce repayment of the moneys fraudulently obtained by some members of some maritime unions and to impose criminal sanctions on such persons? [More…]
My colleague, the Minister for Administrative Services, yesterday tabled in the Senate the final report of the Commission of Inquiry into Alleged Payments to Maritime Unions. [More…]
The Royal Commission was established, as honourable members will remember, in September 1974 to investigate certain payments to maritime unions and the investigation was conducted by Mr Justice Sweeney. [More…]
The significant findings of the Royal Commission include one that indemnity payments were made to maritime unions and another that some of the money paid should be refunded, and it was recommended that payments made by one company should be paid to a charity. [More…]
Another point made was that the payments were not in support of Australian Council of Trade Unions policy. [More…]
The recommendations made by Mr Justice Sweeney will involve my colleagues the Attorney-General and the Minister for Transport, as well as my own Department in regard particularly to accounting practices of unions and financial reports to union members. [More…]
Could the right honourable gentleman ensure that the Queensland railway unions become aware of this fact before they make any further disastrous attempts to impose their uninformed minority opinions - [More…]
For the information of honourable members I present the final report of the Commission of Inquiry into Alleged Payments to Maritime Unions. [More…]
The scene for this so-called package has been set, with protracted stagnation, further cost increases- they will be accentuated by beef price increases- industrial conflict as the unions realise the way in which this tax indexation gimmick has been put across in an effort to deceive them, prolonged high unemployment, no worthwhile advance in productive output. [More…]
Not only is he committing himself to this course, but also he is doing it on the disgraceful premise of a package that is designed to soften up the unions for a wage pause- in fact, a cut in real wages. [More…]
The President of the Australian Council of Trade Unions, Mr Hawke, has given the Government’s latest policy measures cautious approval. [More…]
All the South Australian Minister and the affected unions could get was a telegram of acknowledgment. [More…]
The unions require more if an industrial dispute is to be avoided. [More…]
I believe that tax indexation is an indication of the good faith of the Government in going to the unions and employees throughout the Commonwealth and saying: ‘We have done our part. [More…]
Because of the way in which the consumer price index is calculated at the present time, because of the way in which the Arbitration Commission regards the CPI and certainly because of the way in which the trade unions will regard the CPI even if the Arbitration Commission came to a different decision, we will get an increase at the end of the December quarter this year of 3 per cent plus whatever else we are going to get at that time, depending on inflation. [More…]
The unions will ask for that as a contribution, firstly on the CPI and secondly from employers, as we have seen already today. [More…]
The Government says that in this way it will control the unions’ demands for wage increases. [More…]
A crash rolling stock program through the transport policy will give a boost to employment and lead to a better relationship between the unions and the Government, which have to work for a better Australia and unity in New South Wales. [More…]
Which are the unions involved? [More…]
Honourable members should note the fundamental importance of those unions to the economy and realise that they and others can hold up Australia- and not just Victoriawhenever they want to. [More…]
A little later- this will be great news for the Australian Council of Trade Unions- the article stated: [More…]
I do not think there has been much discussion in this debate in relation to the unions, but I am appalled at the reports of recent days, since the announcement of these important changes to the Medibank scheme, of the attitude of the unions of Australia. [More…]
Frankly, if we see strike action by the unions over this issue I think it is time for a head-on confrontation with them. [More…]
We have seen disruption by unions over trivial matters in the past. [More…]
The report in yesterday’s Australian was indeed apt, in particular the cartoon which shows the Leader of the Opposition (Mr E. G. Whitlam) asking: ‘With unions like this who needs an Opposition?’ [More…]
I sincerely hope that the unions show restraint in this area and we do not see union action over this matter. [More…]
The first thrust of the economic planning of the present Government is to win the trust of the trade unions in respect of wage claims. [More…]
The trade unions have very good reason not to trust this Government. [More…]
The trade unions are now asking employers to include in their industrial conditions the payment of the 2.5 per cent Medibank levy. [More…]
It is legitimate action which has been taken by many of the major trade unions. [More…]
Some of the unions involved include the Vehicle Builders Union which is negotiating a new agreement and the Amalgamated Metal Workers Union which is also negotiating several new agreements throughout Australia. [More…]
As I have said, the trade unions have a legitimate argument when they say: ‘We are not going to accept 2.5 per cent of our salary being chopped off or cut oft our living standards’. [More…]
Our constantly reiterated strategy has been to bring government spending under control, to free resources to the private sector and to individuals, to pursue a responsible monetary policy with clearly announced goals and to generate a climate of national responsibility in which wage and salary restraint will be possible and in which both business and unions will act with a principal regard for the national interest. [More…]
The unions have become tolerant and cooperative. [More…]
This will call for a maximum effort from all sectors of the community, a willingness on the part of trade unions to respond to Government overtures directed towards accord and increased prospects for employees to derive a fair share from such prosperity as the Government’s policies may attain. [More…]
Nevertheless success in the war against inflation depends on the co-operation of governments, workers, employers, the arbitration machinery and above all the trade unions. [More…]
Sensible unions will see what they can do to stop strikes and delays and unseemly wage demands. [More…]
The left wing unions- the honourable member for Port Adelaide (Mr Young) would know a bit more about them than I do- and those under straight out communist control can be relied upon for only one thing, and that is using any political pretext to cause dissension and trouble throughout industry. [More…]
For a long time now, ever since the Whybrow and Co. case, there have been many instances of case law which have indicated that one of the great weaknesses in industrial relations has been the fact that unions have to serve logs of claims on employers that would keep them within ambit during the currency of the proposed award; that is to say, if there is a possibility that during the currency of the award there will be a rapid increase in wages or there will be a change in working conditions or standard hours or annual leave, the union has to make certain that the log of claims that it serves will be anticipating at least the standard of wages and working conditions which might ultimately come about before the award expires. [More…]
This means that unions, in accordance with the case law as it now stands, have to serve claims which contain seemingly extravagant demands in relation to wages and working hours and working conditions, otherwise they would have to go to the expense of reserving all of the employers bound by that particular award. [More…]
Just before I was sacked as Minister for Labor and Immigration I was working on a regulation that would allow substituted service for logs of claims so that unions could make claims that were more realistic, by servicing, say, the association of the employers concerned only and that copies of the log of claims could then be published in the Government Gazette. [More…]
I appeal to the Minister for Employment and Industrial Relations to give very serious consideration to the regulation I was considering during the first half of last year; that is to say, issue a regulation which will authorise unions to service by substituted service on employers instead of having to serve all of the employers, as is now the case. [More…]
The trouble has been that because the High Court’s ruling has made unions keep within the ambit of the original log of claims before subsequent variations to the award can be tolerated or entertained by the Commission, unions have had to anticipate in advance; they have had to set claims that were quite unrealistic. [More…]
The Minister can strike a very important blow for sensible industrial relations if he will take up where I left off, consider issuing regulations which will make it possible to serve logs of claims on, say, a nominal number of respondents- perhaps the original association of employers which is appropriate to cover the employers that you wish to cover by the log of claims- and then allow the unions by substituted service to cover the rest of the employers by notification through the Government Gazette. [More…]
The heading of the article in this morning’s Australian was: ‘TV unions join forces to fight for local content’. [More…]
The article went on to say that the television producers and entertainment unions will be joining forces next week to try to force the Australian Broadcasting Control Board to increase Australian program percentages on commercial television. [More…]
But really it is about time that the unions and the Australian Broadcasting Control Board, and indeed some of the advisers to the present Minister for Post and Telecommunications (Mr Eric Robinson), whose portfolio covers the electronic media, took stock of the whole situation regarding commercial television and especially took stock of what is described by that much bandied phrase ‘Australian content’. [More…]
I believe also that it is up to the unions to look at their own house. [More…]
Earlier in this adjournment debate the honourable member for Hindmarsh (Mr Clyde Cameron) raised an issue relating to the cost to unions of serving logs of claims on respondents to awards. [More…]
The honourable member suggested that these costs were so high that unions endeavoured to incur the costs as seldom as possible and therefore had to pitch their claims a long way ahead into the future, trying to gauge what working conditions and wages might be at some considerable time into the future. [More…]
The honourable member has suggested that perhaps another way could be found to serve logs of claims which would avoid this cost, avoid the necessity for unions to make such a large demand at any one time and so reduce the expectations in the minds of union members. [More…]
As I understand him he suggested that logs of claims might be served by way of substitute service by being published in the Commonwealth Gazette, that because this would be a great deal cheaper unions would be able to serve logs of claims without incurring those huge costs, that they would be willing to do it more often and would therefore moderate the sorts of claims that were made. [More…]
I refer to the final report of the Commission of Inquiry into Alleged Payments to Maritime Unions. [More…]
-The report of the Commission of Inquiry into Alleged Payments to Maritime Unions, which was chaired by Mr Justice Sweeney, was tabled recently in both the Senate and this place. [More…]
As the Australian Council of Trade Unions acknowledged in its case, departure from full indexation could be warranted in exceptional and compelling circumstances. [More…]
What I am saying is that in this day and age of large unions determining wages and large corporations determining prices it is counterproductive to think that we can get an economy like ours moving again in this way after the drastic slump brought about almost entirely by world conditions. [More…]
I believe that by sitting down and discussing these matters properly with the unions we will get the greater productivity transferred to the business sector and thus a greater investment for that greater sustained growth. [More…]
It is a decision of the highest level of authority, of the highest level of common sense, and designed to be in the best interests of the unions and the Australian people. [More…]
I know that there will be trouble with the Maoists, the Stalinists and others in the builders union, and that there will be trouble with the transport union and the metal trades unions. [More…]
The Wool Industry Amendment Bill had a requirement that the Wool Corporation consult with the trade unions concerend before taking any action that was likely to affect the conditions of employment or the demand for labour in the wool industry. [More…]
This proposed amendment now includes a requirement to consult with employer organisations in addition to trade unions. [More…]
I think it is generally accepted that conditions of employment are matters for the unions, the employers and the conciliation and arbitration procedures that have been set up to deal with them. [More…]
Section 20A can be interpreted by the corporation to mean a process of consultation with relevant unions, wool brokers and buyers on the activities of the corporation. [More…]
This is relevant to the handling of the wool for the buyers and to the unions concerned. [More…]
Apart from this process of regular consultation there are from time to time ad hoc meetings between the joint wool selling organisation, which is a part of the corporation, and the unions, the buyers and the brokers. [More…]
Section 20A translates itself in practice into one whereby the corporation keeps unions and employers informed of its plans and activities. [More…]
The Minister for Employment and Industrial Relations (Mr Street) in his second reading speech informed us that the Government did not intend to proclaim the legislation, other than in respect of the quite minor aspect of providing for the appointment of an additional judge to the Industrial Court, pending discussions with the Australian Council of Trade Unions on the state of the economy, and on wages policy in particular. [More…]
But the fact that the Government is demanding that this legislation be debated and passed through the Parliament before those discussions are held surely must be taken as evidence that it holds little hope of reaching any substantial agreement with the unions on wages policy. [More…]
Accordingly, the fact that the legislation is being pushed through now can only lead us to assume that the Government is quite pessimistic about reaching such agreement with the unionsand well might it be pessimistic. [More…]
It is difficult to believe that this decision could provide a basis for agreement on wages between the Government and unions though that may not have been possible had the plateau been set at a higher level, say, at the level of average weekly earnings which are about $165 a week. [More…]
Nor is there much chance that the Government’s recently announced fiscal measures would encourage the unions to accept reduced real wages. [More…]
It is difficult to see therefore that there is much chance of agreement with the unions arising from the scheduled discussions. [More…]
Indeed, the Australian Council of Trade Unions Executive has already described the fiscal measures as unacceptable and as having an anti-working class bias. [More…]
In those circumstances the Government intends by this legislation to attempt to impose its will on the unions and the Commission by substantially increasing its role and influence in the wage determination process. [More…]
The Government apparently would then rely on unemployment and /or restoration of penalties on unions to ensure that wage increases granted outside the Commission’s guidelines did not restore wages to their previous level. [More…]
Everyone knows that this legislation is aimed at trade unions in general and some trade unions in particular, and especially one trade union, the Amalgamated Metal Workers Union. [More…]
Of course absentee voting is by postal ballot so the legislation currently requires all unions which hold secret ballots by the use of polling booths also to make provision for secret postal voting for those who want to vote absentee. [More…]
There has been an increasing trend for unions to seek such elections in recent years. [More…]
So it is beyond doubt that there is increasing usage of this form of election by unions over recent years. [More…]
They have made many unions consider holding such elections through the Industrial Registrar because in this type of election the Government pays the cost of holding the election. [More…]
However, the Government appears to have made 2 concessions: One is to allow those unions whose rules provide for a form of voting that is likely to achieve a higher participation rate than a secret postal ballot to retain that form of voting. [More…]
It is interesting to note that all of those unions achieving a high participation rate of voting are left wing unions. [More…]
The Government has made the further concession to the Australian Council of Trade Unions that the unions could run their own ballots as long at they remained secret postal ballots. [More…]
It would therefore have been possible, it seemed to us, for unions to conduct elections simply by running a postal ballot in which all who wanted to vote would apply to the returning officer for a form in much the same way as absentee voting is conducted under the current Act. [More…]
In these days when we talk increasingly of a social contract in industrial relations, of arriving at some general agreement between government and trade unions on what should be the general level of wage increases in the community, of what could be the total package in terms of things like taxation measures, tax indexation, wage increases and various economic measures that might be introduced, it is even more necessary that the Conciliation and Arbitration Commission should be required to take into account matters of direct relevance to the economy. [More…]
Under these provisions the unions will have a choice. [More…]
The Government, through the Minister for Employment and Industrial Relations (Mr Street), is committed to genuine and constructive consultations with employers and trade unions on its industrial legislation. [More…]
Further measures are planned by the Government to ensure the fullest possible participation by members of unions and employer organisations in the election of their office bearers. [More…]
As a result of the Government’s initiatives, the Australian Council of Trade Unions has agreed to take part in wide-ranging discussions with the Government on the state of the economy, with particular emphasis on wages policies. [More…]
I believe that the measures that the Government is introducing take account of the situation that may be faced by particular unions in particular circumstances. [More…]
They are flexible provisions which can take account of the environment in which people work and the industries in which unions operate. [More…]
So there might be difficulties in many unions in the proposition that direct voting in fact allows the rank and file members to have a meaningful say. [More…]
I am happy to leave it up to the unions to decide which system they want, but I do believe that a form of collegiate voting, as it is called, ought to be open to unions to apply if they so wish. [More…]
But I think the option should be there in any future legislation that we introduce for unions to conduct their elections by a collegiate voting system. [More…]
I preface my question, which is directed to the Minister for Employment and Industrial Relations, by referring to the decision of the Arbitration Commission last week to adopt one of the Government’s options in implementing a system of wage indexation based upon the plateau of Average Award Rates for adult males- a principle in line with the application of the Australian Council of Trade Unions in the parent case in 1 974. [More…]
-The honourable member for Hindmarsh is quite correct in saying that the decision of the Full Bench on the national wage case last week followed closely the submissions of the Australian Council of Trade Unions in 1974. [More…]
The power under clause 13(3) to exempt will undoubtedly apply to such unions as the Waterside Workers Federation. [More…]
It seems to me that the cost of the secret postal ballots will eventually become prohibitive on the trade unions and that, in essence, we will reach the situation where the unions themselves will ask for the Commonwealth to take over the cost by providing a court controlled ballot system in practically every case. [More…]
I hope he Will accept as a fact of life that it is desirable, if possible, that unions be permitted to make a decision in respect to their form of balloting rather than be coerced. [More…]
I compliment the Minister- I adopt what the honourable member for Hotham (Mr Chipp) said about the Minister’s work, and in fact I respectfully suggest that he is considerably over-worked- that instead of taking a stock whip to the unions he has said that we will have a trial period of 2 years. [More…]
From this compromise and others I believe may well emerge a social compact, if I may use that phrase which is not viewed very favourably in this country, of co-operation at a tripartite level between government, employers and unions. [More…]
I believe that the cost of secret ballot by post in some of the larger unions would be probably $150,000 to $200,000 per election. [More…]
I believe that the cost of secret postal ballots will become prohibitive for unions and that eventually, rather than by coercion, by cooperation we will have reached a position in which the unions will have asked the Court to take control of their elections. [More…]
I say quite frankly and openly that whilst this matter has caused me considerable trouble, I believe that unions which possess at present the collegiate system of voting should be given the right and the protection of this Government to continue their system of collegiate voting. [More…]
I put as a natural extension of the federalist philosophy which I adopt the argument that, in my opinion at any rate, if the collegiate system is taken away the smaller States can say goodbye to any chance of having an effective role to play in the election of federal office bearers of their unions. [More…]
I contend, with respect, that where the collegiate system has been utilised by many unions in this countrywhether honourable members opposite agree with it or not- it would be wrong for this Government to legislate in any way, shape or form, to take it away. [More…]
There are certain circumstances in which the Commission can deregister now, but all applications for deregistration of unions ought to be a matter for the Commission. [More…]
It is ironic that the Government which now sits on the Treasury benches was elected to government because it told the Australian people, and in particular the 5 250 000 employees in the work force: ‘If you vote for us we will hand control of the unions back to the members. [More…]
It says that unions that did not already have the collegiate system in any form as of 1973 would never be allowed to introduce it. [More…]
I have never heard the Government say that those unions which do not have the collegiate system will, by the legislation it proposes, be permitted to have it. [More…]
Where we differ is that under the Labor Party’s platform and under the Labor Party’s legislation those unions which had the collegiate system as at that date were to be given 3 years in which to bring their rules into line with the legislation. [More…]
The legislation did not require unions which had the collegiate system as at that date to abolish the collegiate system in respect of all positions. [More…]
The legislation makes it clear that unions that had the collegiate system then had the right to continue the collegiate system ad infinitum except that those federal positions within the union that were full time jobs and the holder of which was a member of the management committee of the organisation, had to go to the rank and file for election. [More…]
The unions do not have to alter their rules in respect of the part-time positions. [More…]
There is no doubt that the only unions of which I know that are pressing for the abolition of right of the rank and file to have a direct voice in the election of their full time federal positions are the Federated Clerks Unions of Australia, the Shop Assistants - [More…]
-I was most interested a moment ago to hear the honourable member for Hindmarsh (Mr Clyde Cameron) compare the position in the trade unions with the election of members of Parliament. [More…]
We have come to the position now where many of the unions have become monstrously big. [More…]
Yet they want to say that, whether unions want it or not, willy-nilly they should not, in their view, have the opportunity of dividing up their electorate as we divide up the electorates of Australia into separate electorates when we elect members of this, the House of the people. [More…]
My honourable friend will know that there has been in Australia a quite illegitimate link between the trade unions and the political party of the Australian Labor Party in this Parliament. [More…]
It cannot possibly be said that there is a democratic system of control of unions when there is a little circle of friends- a cosy little club- which meet together as a council, which for the. [More…]
I am totally persuaded that the several tiered collegiate system, which some unions of the extreme right and also of the extreme left are operating and manipulating for the purposes of particular individuals, is very bad and’ it has to go. [More…]
That, of course, is true, but last year only 29 unions out of a total of some 150 registered under the Conciliation and Arbitration Act availed themselves of that opportunity to have their elections conducted at no cost to them. [More…]
I remind the honourable member that the Commission’s action in setting the plateau at average award rates in fact followed the Australian Council of Trade Unions submission of 1974. [More…]
The conservative political forces in Australia have come a long way in that they now recognise the existence of trade unions. [More…]
Something which I think is certain to happen is that there will be pressure from trade unions, particularly in the context of an indexation system which is reducing real wages, to have those real wages restored. [More…]
Yet the Government steadfastly refuses to allow the Commission to examine the Treasury officials who prepare the Government’s case on the effects of the unions’ claims on the economy. [More…]
When the Australian Council of Trade Unions sought to have Treasury officials put into the witness box to be cross-examined by the unions and to be questioned by members of the Bench on the accuracy of the statements that they were making in relation to the economy, the Bench felt that it was unable to accede to the request. [More…]
I believe that the very first time the Commission grants the Minister leave to intervene the Australian Council of Trade Unions might very well lodge an action in the High Court to challenge the validity of the Commission so acting. [More…]
It is obvious, surely, that if the Government does that the dispute that was originally settled by the agreement or the consent award will flare up again and it will force the employers to suffer another long drawn out strike or it will force unions to stay away from the Commission. [More…]
There is no obligation upon unions to go to the Commission to get their industrial agreements certified. [More…]
There is no obligation for unions to go to the Commission for a variation of the award by consent. [More…]
Most of the unions have enough industrial muscle to enforce their agreements without the benefits of certification or ratification by the Commission. [More…]
All that the Government will succeed in doing is to force the unions outside the ambit of the Arbitration Commission’s purview and weaken the status of the Commission. [More…]
The Australian Council of Trade Unions has never asked that the portion of the total wage that is affected by wage indexation should be increased as a consequence of any price movement. [More…]
I believe for that reason that the guidelines ought to be relaxed so that unions can negotiate settlements over and above the average award rates where there is a case for the correction of an anomaly based upon any such grounds, and the Minister ought to face up to the fact that this is something that has to be done. [More…]
These people have accepted what the trade unions now say, which is that those receiving between the adult male rate of $125 a week and average weekly earnings have taken a drop in their real wage. [More…]
Although we do not deny the right of the Commonwealth Government to be represented by counsel in Full Bench proceedings, although I personally think it is not particularly desirable, we think we should not extend that procedure which would put the Commonwealth Government in an advantageous position compared to the position of the employers and the unions. [More…]
Mr Chairman, you will remember that originally the Government proposed that all ballots should be court controlled, but the trade unions asked, and the Government conceded their point, that where they wanted to they could conduct their own ballots. [More…]
If, on the other hand, the Opposition hopes for corrupt ballots in the unions, it will oppose this amendment. [More…]
I could well understand that the Government might not want to push an amendment of this character if the trade unions refused to agree to it. [More…]
It is trying to work in cooperation with the trade unions. [More…]
So I think that, if the trade unions at the present moment were to say through the Opposition that they were opposed to this amendment, perhaps the Government would not want to press it. [More…]
If they support it, they will be in the position of having clean hands and clean consciences and of being able to say: ‘Not only do we want the trade unions to conduct their own ballots but also we want the trade unions to conduct them in a clean way’. [More…]
But there have been cases of corruption, and these have been particularly bad in the very large unions. [More…]
We have made the point that the unions should be eligible to conduct their own postal ballots. [More…]
The amendment should not, he thinks, be pressed unless the trade unions accept it. [More…]
If he will go around, as I have no doubt he does go around from time to time, among people who take pan as members in elections of trade unions, he will discover that in the rank and file there is very often a suspicion of corruption. [More…]
The Minister said: ‘I have made a compact with the trade unions for 2 years. [More…]
I am not going to do anything without the consent of the trade unions in this regard ‘. [More…]
My friends in the Opposition should surely see that if the trade unions are honest and if they want this proposal accepted- if they are honest, they would want it- it should be supported. [More…]
He says: ‘I have perhaps unthinkingly made a compact with the trade unions without asking for scrutineers. [More…]
Unless the trade unions and their representatives in this Parliament will help me I cannot go beyond that. [More…]
I do not want to provoke any strife on this matter because I want to be cooperative with the unions’. [More…]
I want to point out- I think this should be on the record of the Parliament- that this proposal for postal ballots, if unions generally accept the provision that elections be conducted by the Commonwealth Electoral Officer, will cost the Commonwealth government something like $1.5m a year on the estimates that the Minister for Employment and Industrial Relations (Mr Street) has put forward in a submission to Cabinet. [More…]
In the last few years there has been an increasing tendency for trade unions to adopt court controlled ballots for reasons which I think have much to do with the increasing cost of conducting elections themselves. [More…]
The unions can please themselves whether they have the election conducted by the Australian Electoral Office or do it themselves. [More…]
The point is that this kind of election was increasingly the kind of election which unions were adopting anyway. [More…]
In fact, in the last year or so unions which intended to conduct elections in this way decided not to do so because they did not want to look as though they were being forced into doing so by the Government. [More…]
As I have pointed out, the unions were moving rapidly in this direction anyway. [More…]
Generally speaking the trend for court controlled ballots was developing and the Government is simply doing no more than forcing some few unions which did not want to conduct ballots in this manner into doing so. [More…]
Because of the nature of the legislation we have introduced, some unions will- be catered for under section 170. [More…]
Some unions presumably will elect to conduct their own ballots. [More…]
It is quite true, as the honourable member for Gellibrand has said, that there has been an increasing tendency for unions to use the provisions of section 170. [More…]
The legislation as now drafted gives unions a clear choice as to how they want their elections conducted- whether by the Electoral Office at public expense or by themselves at their own expense. [More…]
So the unions have a clear choice and it is up to them which system they choose to use. [More…]
The honourable member for Denison (Mr Hodgman), talking of the unions, asked: ‘Why should they not have the right to determine whether they want the collegiate system?’ [More…]
Confusion will also arise where unions registered under State jurisidictions cover generally the same occupations as do Federal unions which have a much wider franchise than the voting procedures of the State union. [More…]
In relation to what the Government sees as a exercise in taming the unions, it is my view, having been a participant in union ballots conducted both by returning officers of the union and by the Australian Electoral Office, that what the Government has set out to do will not be achieved. [More…]
If this provision will mean greater activity in trade unions by more people, then we will welcome it. [More…]
The ballots of the most militant unions in this land are unchallenged; so what honourable members opposite talk about is a lot of nonsense. [More…]
The Government claims it is concerned about having trade unions represented by the people who really represent the unionists. [More…]
I hope that the leadership of trade unions will look beyond any short term personal benefits that might arise by caving in to the Government at the present time because the Government does not intend to have this legislation proclaimed. [More…]
I criticise the Government very strongly for the utter and complete hypocrisy of threatening trade unions with having clean ballots, but saying at the same time that if the leadership caves in it will not insist on clean ballots. [More…]
The point that I query is the honourable member for Hindmarsh ‘s comments in relation to State and Federal unions and members being members either of one union or of another. [More…]
The honourable member for Hindmarsh (Mr Clyde Cameron) referred to the fact that last year 29 unions applied for ballots to be conducted under section 170. [More…]
He made the point that, as 3 years is not an unusual term of office, therefore approximately 50 unions a year are involved in elections. [More…]
I merely make the point that not all unions fill all their offices in the one year. [More…]
Nevertheless, I will make inquiries to find out what percentage of unions holding elections in that year asked for them to be conducted under section 170. [More…]
As a matter of fact, for the 29 unions referred to earlier the average return of ballot papers was just under 40 per cent. [More…]
As a first step, we are seeking to list the problems related to this industry in the agenda of matters that could be discussed with the Australian Council of Trade Unions and see what efforts might be made and what undertakings might be entered into to help lower costs, increase productivity and establish the circumstance in which a viable industry in Australia could continue. [More…]
There can be no guarantee of it at this stage, because the extent of the change would need to be significant, but this may well be an opportunity where firm commitments entered into by the unions concerned, backed by the Australian Council of Trade Unions, would enable a significant and important Australian industry to be saved. [More…]
It also refers to the activities of some trade unions relating to bans on the sale of discount petrol. [More…]
I would not blame the unions for one minute for taking that sort of action. [More…]
Let us look at the effects of this in terms of tax claw-back and the result it will have on the gross claim the unions will make for increased wages to offset the cost of Medibank and private health insurance. [More…]
Unions now are aware of the fiscal drag effect, as it is called, or the tax claw-back that takes place when they obtain a salary increase. [More…]
Tomorrow I shall be in Brisbane addressing a protest rally organised by the maritime unions on the matter of Medibank, its future and this assault upon it by the.Government. [More…]
There are many reasons for this which are due to the history of relations with the maritime unions. [More…]
One cause is that we have 7 maritime unions to deal with and that makes it difficult to get sensible economics in crew manning. [More…]
Unions and employers as well as professional associations that are involved have all stressed the inadequacy of existing facilities, and tonight speakers have done the same thing. [More…]
Can he say when his Government proposes to hold discussions with the Australian Council of Trade Unions and the shipbuilders? [More…]
I thought the honourable gentleman would have been aware that discussions with the Australian Council of Trade Unions had already been organised for next week. [More…]
People will now be able to save with credit unions and reap whatever benefits the scheme can bring. [More…]
If you were to meet the Master Builders Association, or the Housing Industry Association or the building unions, all of which groups I see from time to time and asked them: ‘What is the worst thing you can do for the housing industry? ‘ [More…]
The motives of the militant left wing unions are obvious. [More…]
The Australian Conservation Foundation obviously believes that it is using the militant unions for its own ends, but in fact it is the other way round. [More…]
The other point I want to make relates to clause 6 of the Bill which concerns credit unions. [More…]
As I understand it clause 6 removes the restrictions which were previously applied in respect of savings in credit unions for the purpose of housing. [More…]
I am referring to the restrictions in terms of the amount of activity of the credit unions, the interest rate at which they made their loans available and so on. [More…]
Does clause 6 mean that the loans which are available from credit unions and which they consummate themselves without other embargoes or conditions will apply for the purpose of the home savings grant? [More…]
One of the most quickly growing sectors of the Australian finance industry has been credit unions. [More…]
I notice that a new publication brought out by the Commonwealth Statistician last month dealing with credit unions’ assets, liabilities, income and expenditure, reference number 5.59, states that during 1974-75 an amount of $537m was involved in loans from credit unions. [More…]
The loans from credit unions in New South Wales to members represented well over 50 per cent of the Australian total. [More…]
Therefore, if the restrictions on savings from credit unions are to be removed completely, that would act as a disproportionate stimulus to New South Wales, which is a large credit union State. [More…]
I ask the Minister for Repatriation a question: Do all those loans from credit unions mentioned in the statistical bulletin to which I have referred, without other restriction as to interests rates and to the proportion of activity of credit union loans for housing etc., qualify, or could they all qualify, were they applied by a member of a credit union for housing purposes or were the savings on which the loans were made applied to housing purposes? [More…]
I end by saying that I am delighted to see that credit unions are to be included in the scheme. [More…]
Then the honourable member for Lilley asked about the problem with regard to credit unions. [More…]
Under the current scheme only savings with approved credit unions are acceptable. [More…]
Loans made by credit unions have nothing to do with the grant. [More…]
relies totally on imported fuel, and in the past supplies have been subject to the vagaries of the supplier, the delivering companies, or industrial action by unions involved in the production or delivery of these fuels. [More…]
On how many occasions has the Government coordination committee on employment and industrial relations intervened in negotiations on employment conditions between unions and Telecom Australia, the Overseas [More…]
On how many occasions were the original agreements between the Commissions and the unions altered and in what manner. [More…]
Since 13 December 1973 there have been no occasions on which the Government Co-ordination Committee on Employment and Industrial Relations has intervened in negotiations between unions and the Commissions mentioned. [More…]
I ask: Will the Minister inform the House whether he has brought to the attention of the President of the Australian Council of Trade Unions and other trade union officials the fact that there is a nexus between wage costs and job opportunities? [More…]
Coming now to the main part of the honourable member’s question, yes, I have stressed to the President of the Australian Council of Trade Unions and indeed to other union leaders- other Ministers have joined me in those expressions of concern- the nexus between wage costs and job opportunities. [More…]
Has the Prime Minister seen reports that the President of the Australian Council of Trade Unions, Mr Hawke, has taken out health cover with Medibank Private, rather than through the private health fund with which he was previously insured? [More…]
I am delighted that the President of the Australian Council of Trade Unions and President of the Australian Labor Party, and maybe one day a member of this House, has taken advantage of the opportunity provided by the Government to demonstrate to all Australians that Medibank is alive and well, ready to do business with Mr Hawke and many other people, and ready to compete with the private funds to help keep the cost of health insurance down. [More…]
All unions went out on strike on 12 July. [More…]
All unions went on strike because of the smell of chemicals. [More…]
The few who are running the unions are forcing others to go out on strike. [More…]
The Government brought out a scheme as an amendment to Medibank and then there were strong representations from Mr Hawke and the Australian Council of Trade Unions to change it. [More…]
Not only will it provoke industrial unrest in the community as wage and salary earners realise how their disposable income has been substantially reduced week by week from 1 October as a result of the special tax for Medibank being imposed on them, but also trade unions will try to offset its effect on the living standards of their members. [More…]
In the case of the celling amount of $300 a year- a contribution of nearly $6 a week- this will represent the unions seeking an increase in wages of about $9 a week which will be required before tax to offset the effect of the Medibank levy. [More…]
Even the Australian Council of Trade Unions and the real leader of the debate against the Government in this matter, Mr Hawke, agree that there should be a levy. [More…]
However, for a number of years there has been a realisation by the unions that some rationalisation would assist the industry, with unions and employers agreeing to come to some suitable arrangements. [More…]
Is the Minister for Employment and Industrial Relations aware of reported action by certain unions against individual unionists for working in accordance with the terms and conditions of their employment during the so-called Medibank strike? [More…]
Unions have been highly selective and discriminatory in their actions. [More…]
But other unions or branches of them have taken action. [More…]
I stress the question of branches because not all the unions that I am about to name now have taken action against their members at the federal level; some have done so at individual branch levels. [More…]
Unions in that category are the Amalgamated Metal Workers Union, the Australian Postal and Telecommunications Union, the Vehicle Builders Employees Federation, .the Australian Workers Union and the Federated. [More…]
There may be other unions, but these unions or branches of them have taken or have threatened to take action against their members. [More…]
The Government views this matter so seriously that I am seeking urgent talks with the Australian Council of Trade Unions on this question. [More…]
The President of the ACTU, Mr Hawke, has stated publicly that he does not agree with unions taking action to fine their members in this way. [More…]
I am hopeful that Mr Hawke and the ACTU will use their influence and good offices to get these unions or the branches of them concerned to call off this action against their members. [More…]
All of them are issues on which the views of the industries and the unions alike should be sought. [More…]
This Parliament’s grave concern at the action of certain trade unions now disciplining or threatening to discipline union members who exercised their right to work in accordance with their awards on July 1 2, 1 976. [More…]
-A number of members of this House have had drawn to their attention instances in which certain trade unions are now disciplining union members who exercised their right to work on 12 July this year; that is, the day of the Medibank strike- the national stoppage. [More…]
I believe in people joining their unions and playing a part in them. [More…]
Council of Trade Unions were such that it supported a national strike on a political issue. [More…]
For that reason I say quite categorically that I am fully in support of the action of the unions. [More…]
The Australian Council of Trade Unions Executive support for the strike was unanimous. [More…]
One weakness was the breakdown of communication between the leadership of some unions and their rank and file. [More…]
What does it propose to do if the unions decide that they will ban the export of uranium to all countries? [More…]
But, to succeed in an operation of this kind, trade unionists must distinguish between the ordinary employer and employee disputes affecting only a few unions at most and those issues that are national in character. [More…]
The reason for the unity and strength of the West German trade union movement lies in the fact that there is a total of only 16 unions in a population of more than 60 million. [More…]
One of those unions has more members than all of the 303 unions in Australia put together. [More…]
A reason for the great strength of the trade union movement in Sweden is that the unions are bound together by the powerful LO Federation, which has the necessary clout to make binding decisions for all its affiliates. [More…]
The ACTU will generate the power to speak with one voice and to speak for all the unions that are affiliated with it. [More…]
Mr Pat Clancy, the president of the other communist party- the Socialist Party of Australiawho is also national secretary of the Building Workers’ Industrial Union and a member of the Australian Council of Trade Unions’ interstate executive, was reported in the communist Tribune on 9 June of this year as saying: [More…]
In an answer to a question in this House on 19 August the Minister for Employment and Industrial Relations (Mr Street) named unions in which there were these alleged difficulties. [More…]
If that is not an industrial matter, if the pay of workers is not an industrial matter so far as the unions are concernedneither of the previous speakers did explain to me how that can be termed a political matterthen I suppose all trade union matters are political, all matters that affect trade unionists are industrial. [More…]
I remind honourable members opposite that the Commonwealth Conciliation and Arbitration Act insists that all rules of all unions be vetted and ratified by the Registrar of the Conciliation and Arbitration Commission. [More…]
Unions can only prepare the rules, and before they become law they must satisfy the Registrar. [More…]
So do not leave the false impression with the people listening to this debate that unions write their own rules without restriction. [More…]
Yet this Government denies unions the right to abide by their own rules. [More…]
They would like tame-cat unions. [More…]
They would like unions to do exactly what honourable members opposite in their own conservative way want done. [More…]
The Government has gone a step further because the unions then used initiative and approached companies on the question of assisting workers in paying the health insurance levy. [More…]
The unions have no confidence in it and I believe that they support it only for political purposes. [More…]
It is a shattered and demoralised Opposition which sits behind a leader who is only wanning a seat for the leader of the Australian Council of Trade Unions, Mr Hawke. [More…]
On the question of industrial relations, we have heard honourable members opposite- the reactionaries when they were in Opposition, the reactionaries when they are in government- say that we could never have amalgamation of unions. [More…]
They say that big unions would be too strong and that governments would not be able to handle them. [More…]
They fought against amalgamation of unions. [More…]
When the Australian Labor Party put forward the proposal in this Parliament that there ought to be industry unions in such industries as the shipbuilding industry, the Liberal Party fought against amalgamation of unions. [More…]
The shipbuilding industry is a classic case of the trade unions’ capacity to destroy their own industry. [More…]
If the unions want the industry they have got to be pan of it and stop these unnecessary stoppages. [More…]
There might not be any shipbuilding unions if past and present industrial disputes continued . [More…]
Larrikinism by the unions had alienated some Labor MPs who had in the past supported Government assistance for the industry. [More…]
They said if this is the way unions are going to go on what is the use of us putting in 20-odd million dollars in subsidies to maintain the industry. [More…]
He was right to warn the unions that they were destroying the industry, because that is what they are doing. [More…]
However, despite approaches to the responsible Ministers in the Government by all sections of the industry- the shipbuilders, the unions and other interested bodies- the Government has decided that it is not prepared to take the necessary steps to ensure that this vital industry will continue to function in Australia. [More…]
Both the Minister for Transport and the Minister for Industry and Commerce (Senator Cotton) have been most blatant in heaping all the blame for the decisions they have made on the unions and on the Labor Party. [More…]
There have been no major disputes involving the major unions in the industry. [More…]
I refer to the issue of demarcation, an issue that has been recognised by responsible trade union leaders in the industry for many years, one that has been the subject of discussion between unions for a very long time. [More…]
Following a number of initiatives taken by the previous Labor Government, there was a new and surprisingly durable accord between managements and unions in the industry. [More…]
The Government has to admit that there has been progress in this field, because a number of unions which formerly were separate are now under the one organisation. [More…]
Whilst the historical practices and jealousies of the craft unions die hard, it is a fact that in both the major centres discussions with management have been going on regarding flexibilities between the various trades. [More…]
Honourable members opposite are adding to the fear and panic being created by the Left wing unions in Australia. [More…]
Furthermore, the Prime Minister (Mr Malcolm Fraser) said earlier this year that if the unions could come to some sort of productivity agreement the Government would consider placing orders in Australian yards. [More…]
The industry is riddled with demarcation disputes, not only between unions but between men in the unions. [More…]
The current attitude of the Opposition and unions is akin to that of a drowning man flailing his arms and trying to take everybody in sight underneath the sea with him. [More…]
The unions are banning new ships; they are to strike tomorrow. [More…]
The unions have caused the collapse of talks between management and labour that were to take place tomorrow. [More…]
There is an argument between the communist unions and the right wing unions. [More…]
One can only assume that the left wing unions have called the tune for the Opposition here today and have asked the Opposition to bring forward this matter of public importance for discussion. [More…]
He referred to left wing unions and right wing unions. [More…]
Let me say to honourable members opposite that they did nothing to assist amalgamation of unions. [More…]
They frustrated our legislation in the Senate and set up legislation whereby it was almost impossible for unions to amalgamate. [More…]
The Government created a situation whereby demarcation, resulting from a diversity of unions, could not be rectified. [More…]
There is need for teamwork and leadership by business, management, unions, governmentsboth Federal and State- and by the Opposition but we will not get it from the Opposition. [More…]
They are particularly bitter about the actions of the unions which are holding up primary produce exports at the moment. [More…]
Talking of sugar, I was shocked to find last week that one of the sugar mills in my area has stopped work because of a demarcation dispute between 2 unions about who should drive a new locomotive on a cane train. [More…]
All the evidence to date throws a lot of doubt- at least in the minds of the unions- on the impartiality of the Government in determining that fundamental part of the equation. [More…]
The next step in this insidious scheme is to smash the trade unions of this country. [More…]
Perhaps not every trade union is at risk because the tame cat unions will be allowed to continue to show the rest of the world that our people have freedom to join industrial organisations. [More…]
The unions that do their job and improve the lot of their members will be smashed beyond repair by the cynical increase of the numbers of unemployed in our community. [More…]
Apart from this inhuman approach to the smashing of trade unions and reduction of living standards, we should look even further at the side effects of such medication. [More…]
I do not doubt that there were some stirrers on both sides- the management and the unions- and I do not doubt that we have a few stirrers in this House. [More…]
Instead of racing down the road of direct and deliberate confrontation with the trade union movement the Prime Minister should call together the unions, management and the Government and put the cards on the table. [More…]
If there is to be some reallocation of resources for the good of this country the unions- the workers- - would co-operate. [More…]
We did not see the unions coming out as they are now and saying the unemployment is disastrous, as they are in my own area. [More…]
He is also president of the Australian Labor Party and president of the Australian Council of Trade Unions. [More…]
Wage indexation, as implemented by the Full Bench of the Australian Conciliation and Arbitration Commission, achieves in part the objectives agreed to by unions and government in the United Kingdom. [More…]
The unholy alliance between local manufacturers who can seek additional tariff protection and unions who want to use such protection for unreasonable wage demands is significant. [More…]
That submission, hidden by BHP, was there all the time, while delegations were being met by Ministers of this Government, while representations were being received and meetings were being held by unions associated with the industry and while anxiety and heartbreak was developing for the tens of thousands of people who will be affected when the shipyards are closed down. [More…]
I believe that the operators must also become involved with community groups such as unions to provide these package tours at cheaper rates within Australia. [More…]
This time the scapegoat is going to be the unions. [More…]
Their new bogy is the unions. [More…]
Whilst the western miners of New South Wales have the highest rate of output per man now in Australia, I exhort the rank and file unionists to take a keen interest in the federation and the unions’ policies to ensure that equity and common sense prevails at all times. [More…]
Early in February 1976 I was challenged by the western district mining unions to state my position in regard to our Government’s stand against full wage indexation- at that time, a proposed increase of 6.4 per cent in wages. [More…]
In fact, it is now interesting to hear the President of the Australian Council of Trade Unions, Mr Hawke- who also is the head of the Labor Party- and the New South Wales Premier, Mr Wran, exhorting the same theme of wages restraint. [More…]
I believe that the majority of the rank and file of the mining unions agree with this concept but, unfortunately, they are being led by certain union leaders for their own particular political gains. [More…]
This can be achieved only by co-operation between the various mining unions and the coal owners. [More…]
If more members of trade unions attended their meetings it would reduce the opportunity for well organised minority groups to manipulate the majority of the members. [More…]
But have the unions now become largely counter productive? [More…]
Strikes, such as the container dispute involving rolling strikes by several unions on the waterfront, the 48-hour State Electricity Commission strike in Victoria, and the Medibank strike, have cost Australia millions of dollars in lost production, lost wages and lost jobs. [More…]
Why did the Government not sustain the beginnings of an offer of a social contract which tax indexation and the family allowance schemes provided, and attempt to collaborate with the unions in maintaining the social wage and achieving industrial peace? [More…]
It is impossible for the unions to co-operate with a government that does not keep its word- a government which not only attempts to force wages down but also slowly reduces services or introduces charges such as the Medibank levy for existing services. [More…]
The bludgeoning LiberalNational Country Party Government approach to wages and the unions is consistent with the manner in which the Prime Minister obtained leadership of his Party and the style he used to force an election. [More…]
I pledge myself to build more and more bridges with all levels of the trade union movement- not just summit conferences between Australian Council of Trade Unions executives and Federal Cabinets but real communications with Trades Hall delegates, with those at shop steward level. [More…]
When we try to get these valuable Australian exports away we find that the unions which control the shipping at our various seaports go out on strike. [More…]
We have to pay demurrage, and we lose markets and lose business because of the action of the unions. [More…]
I suppose they would have to kick in to Labor campaign funds, otherwise the unions would strike on them and we would all be in trouble. [More…]
I have noticed that I have company- some would describe it as good company- in that regard because I understand that Mr Hawke, the President of the Australian Council of Trade Unions, has followed my course of action and urged them to go back to normal work and to allow the proper arbitral procedures to take place. [More…]
This is the second sitting week in a row in which we have started proceedings after question time by an honourable member from the Government side getting up to attack the unions for being irresponsible and being responsible for the state of the economy. [More…]
It was part of a social contract that we of the Australian Labor Party were able to achieve with the unions and to persuade the Arbitration Commission to adopt. [More…]
This Government achieved office saying that it would support wage indexation, but it then breached faith with the people of this country and the unions. [More…]
So we say that there has been a total breach of faith with the people and the trade unions on the matter of wage indexation. [More…]
It is first and foremost to put to the Australian people- I have in mind in particular the rank and file of Australian unions, if not their leaders- this fundamental truth: It is the big wage rise of the employed man that costs the unemployed man his job. [More…]
Together with the unlocking of accumulated savings, that is the basis for an increase in real consumption which the Government and the Opposition, as well as the unions, recognise as an essential component in economic recovery. [More…]
Its recommendation was supported by the Australian Council of Trade Unions, but the previous Government did not see fit to implement the measure. [More…]
No one knows, certainly no one in this House- if they do know they have not expressed it- certainly not the Commission and certainly not the Australian Council of Trade Unions, what the Government is going to say at the next wage hearing. [More…]
When the present Government challenged us in November and December of last year to prove that we had better industrial relations with the trade unions as a result of our working with them, we pointed out the great difficulties that existed in that area. [More…]
Then in paragraph 4 of the statement delivered by the Minister, the Government says that it is the unions which are keeping people out of work. [More…]
Trade unions do not employ people; they do not hire and fire. [More…]
Instead of making accusations against the trade unions, the Government ought to look at the impact of its own policies, because the Metal Industries Association can give one clear illustration of how 4000 people have been lost from that sector of employment. [More…]
But every day we have to put up with this routine in the national Parliament of Liberal and National Country Party spokesmen condemning the trade unions. [More…]
The Prime Minister is chasing industry out of Australia, not the trade unions. [More…]
It is not the trade unions that should be condemned. [More…]
However, the legitimate question which can be asked is: Who are the unions really supporting if they do not support this policy? [More…]
It has been accepted by the Trade Union Congress which is the equivalent in the UK of the Australian Council of Trade Unions. [More…]
There was widespread community criticism of and the unions were naturally antagonised by, the Government’s failure to honour the election promise of support for wage indexation. [More…]
Fourthly, youth unemployment was one of the matters of particular concern to the Government that was discussed at the conferences held recently between the Government and trade unions on the one hand and the Government and employers on the other. [More…]
I would like to see investigated a scheme of subsidising employers who might employ the unemployed, and I would like the co-operation of the unions in that regard. [More…]
The manner in which the campaign to reduce real wages is being mounted is industrially provocative and will bring a sharp defensive reaction from white and blue collar associations and unions. [More…]
The rate of wage claims dipped in the last 12 to 18 months because the previous Government established a social compact with the unions and it worked. [More…]
I believe that the general good is better served by the introduction of the recommendations of the Mathews Committee of inquiry into inflation and taxationproposals which correspond with the indexation of personal income tax and which bear the imprimatur of the Australian Council of Trade Unions. [More…]
It is worth noting that a couple of days ago the President of the Australian Council of Trade Unions affirmed on behalf of the trade union movement, in a way in which nobody opposite in this House could ever do, that the union movement had supported too many strikes. [More…]
-Has the attention of the Minister for Environment, Housing and Community Development been drawn to the claim by the Executive Director of the Master Builders Association, which is supported by the building unions and associated industries, that only by committing an extra $350m can the Australian and New South Wales Governments save the New South Wales building industry from total bankruptcy? [More…]
There are so many areas where unions are taking it upon themselves to make decisions- many of them nothing more than political decisions- by placing limitations and bans or by striking, and thus preventing Australia from being a continuing exporter of goods. [More…]
I refer also to the action of the maritime unions in Western Australia. [More…]
There has been a ban by the Australian Council of Trade Unions on trade with South Africa. [More…]
The time is approaching when the Australian public will have to think very seriously about how much more it is going to take of the trade unions trying to run this country instead of its being run by the democratically elected government. [More…]
Last February in answer to my question on the seventh anniversary of the Industrial Court judgment in Moore v. Doyle which stressed the urgency of Federal and State legislation to reduce demarcation issues between Federal and State unions- in that case the transport workers unions- he stated that the Federal legislation passed after Mr Justice Sweeney’s report depended on complementary or similar State legislation, and he went on to say that the matter was raised at almost every conference of Ministers for labour and that he himself would be looking at ways to deal with it with State Ministers. [More…]
The most dangerous element emerging in the continuing fight against inflation is the Government’s antagonistic policy towards the unions and its moves towards the abandonment of indexation. [More…]
Wage indexation and cooperation with the unions brings order to the economy while the use of selective government expenditure of the type which this Bill makes available can ensure that faint signs of recovery are strengthened. [More…]
I share Treasury’s caution in this regard because I think it is asking too much of the Australian Council of Trade Unions and the Conciliation and Arbitration Commission to do better than to appear to be maintaining the real value of existing wage levels. [More…]
Many of those who are unemployed have not been members of active unions and so union leaders in other employment categories do not always accept the adage which was enunciated by the honourable member for Melbourne Ports (Mr Crean) that one man’s pay rise is another man’s job. [More…]
The pressure for the payment of the Medibank levy by some militant unions upon employers with limited capacity to resist at present provides an illustration of how the general level of wages may rise beyond the guidelines of the Conciliation and Arbitration Commission and to the detriment of the employment situation. [More…]
There has been an incredible attack on the fundamental principles of our conciliation and arbitration system to such an extent that there is a goading of industrial organisations into taking action that I believe is the that last action that the unions or their members wish to take. [More…]
The people of Australia and the trade unions of Australia must be vastly disturbed to see the statement by the Leader of the Opposition, if I may repeat it, that he would do it all again. [More…]
In circumstances where the political affiliation of the leadership of so many of Australia’s unions has already been suspect, it seems incredible that one of the areas that is being affected is the other market of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. [More…]
There was a promise that the Conciliation and Arbitration Bill would not be proclaimed before discussions with the Australian Council of Trade Unions. [More…]
It must be conceded that labour, the unions in the United Kingdom, did not arrive at that attitude without considerable trauma. [More…]
It must convey a message to the members of the trade unions in this country of the seriousness of the situation which confronted the United Kingdom and which must inevitably afflict this country if some measures are not adopted to withstand its evil influence. [More…]
The unions must recognise that they have a major contribution to make to the economic wellbeing of this country. [More…]
Certain unions, because of demarcation disputes, left the concrete running in university buildings, including university hospital buildings, so it all had to be chopped out. [More…]
Mr Jolly of the Australian Council of Trade Unions was a member of the body that made some of the recommendations. [More…]
After all, governments and not unions are responsible for the economy. [More…]
Now in office it seeks to explain its failures as being the result of external trading factors and the unions. [More…]
A number of unions did not support wage indexation at the time. [More…]
Despite the fact that indexation has generally been accepted by the unions the Government is now trying to water it down and in the last few applications which have been before the Commission it has put its proposal in an effort to ensure that the real wages of the employees in this country will be reduced. [More…]
I am sure that if the Government succeeds in abolishing the wages indexation concept the people in the unions will not take it lying down. [More…]
The sooner unions realise this the better. [More…]
Many unions will find it difficult in those conditions to offset the real reduction in wages stemming from partial wage indexation. [More…]
When those unions in a strong bargaining position- there are still quite a few, despite the recession- make a breakthrough they will spur others to follow. [More…]
The Australian Council of Trade Unions has made it clear that it will give wage indexation one more chance despite the fact that real wages have been cut in the last 2 national wage decisions. [More…]
But if the Australian Conciliation and Arbitration Commission continues to implement the Government’s wage policy, then the ACTU will be compelled to advise unions to seek the restoration of real wages through direct negotiations with employers. [More…]
Of course this Government will then castigate the unions for not abiding by orderly wage fixing procedures, as indeed it did earlier this week; but it will be the Government that will be primarily responsible for having destroyed the orderly procedure of full wage indexation, which procedure was working well until the Government broke its election promise to support it and advocated instead a totally different concept of partial indexation. [More…]
Knowing the Government’s attitude of supporting the unions at any cost, some trade unions- not all- felt free to pursue any wage claims that they chose. [More…]
They worked hard to get the unions to accept the social contract on the basis that the government would do the right thing in respect of prices. [More…]
However, I do not believe that it is tenable for the Government merely to blame the left wing and militant unions for the failure to achieve the degree of moderation required. [More…]
Of course, if honourable members opposite approached the trade unions with such a proposal, I think they would get the order of the boot. [More…]
As a result, we are building up a very valuable store of mutual trust and respect with the communications unions which, ultimately, will bring benefit to the whole community. [More…]
Both actions involve the imposition of black bans by unions. [More…]
Of their own volition they are adamantly opposed to joining a union because they wish to have no truck with the growing involvement of unions in political matters. [More…]
I can understand his feelings because he was once an advocate for the Australian Council of Trade Unions. [More…]
We will, in spite of the irresponsible left wing extremists in some unions and universities, ensure that all Australians prosper. [More…]
There are still some spluttering and convulsings from the vipers in the Labor movement but I hope that the responsible members of both the trade unions and the Parliamentary Labor Party will close ranks, rid themselves of those who would destroy the Australian way of life and reform themselves for the benefit of trade unions and Australia. [More…]
Day after day the spokesmen for the Australian Parliamentary Labor Party revealed to the country why they were judged to be wanting and day by day the extreme left wing unions demonstrate to Australia that they do not care for their rank and file and the people of the country at all. [More…]
I would, as my contribution to the Budget debate, endorse the Budget, entreat the Opposition and unions to fulfil their proper roles by rejecting the extremists in their ranks and endorse for immediate implementation recommendation 180 of the Royal Commission on Australian Government Administration on early retirement. [More…]
Unions may organise effectively and push up wages and salaries and thereby exercise some power, but if those wages and salaries rise too much or too fast the result will be a recession and unemployment, and workers will become unwilling to support the unions for increases in wages as they did before. [More…]
It can be no surprise that it is the main aim of workers, and of unions, to get more money in higher wages and salaries just as it is the aim of capitalists to get more money in profits and in other ways. [More…]
Unless workers and unions go behind merely more money as an aim, they remain fully within the capitalist hegemony. [More…]
I have no doubt whatever that management is at times as much at fault in industrial disputes as are the unions, but management is precluded from the use of force or violence in preventing a strike. [More…]
The statements go on to mention the responsibilities of unions. [More…]
What I am here to do is to remind members of the Opposition that as their pre-selection is determined by unions in most cases, they have some responsibility to the Australian people, and that is all that the Governor of South Australia meant to convey by his remarks. [More…]
-Does the Minister for Employment and Industrial Relations recall my asking him earlier this session a question in relation to the rights of trade unionists who were fined by their unions for working during the Medibank strike? [More…]
It is of no good continually haranguing us with the statement that we were in government and were to blame for everything that happened or, if it was not our fault, it was the fault of the trade unions. [More…]
The Australian Labor Party, the Australian Council of Trade Unions and the Government agreed that Medibank had to be partly funded by means other than income tax. [More…]
Under the proposal of the Australian Council of Trade Unions and the Australian Labor Party, 85 per cent of the families which now are insured for hospital-only cover would be worse off and 90 per cent of the single individuals would be worse off. [More…]
-The honourable member for Capricornia (Mr Carige) surprised me not so much by making a confused speech in which he confused not only the Bills but also the relative positions of the Australian Councils of Trade Unions and the Australian Labor Party but by making the speech he did when he is a Queenslander. [More…]
-The history of this issue goes back a long way- some 10 years- to when an agreement was reached between the parties, including the Australian Council of Trade Unions, on the maximum weight of wool bales, which was established in modern terminology at 204 kilograms. [More…]
Imagine what sorts of effects this will have on the Australian Council of Trade Unions and the whole trade union movement when they next apply to the Conciliation and Arbitration Commission for wage justice. [More…]
A submission was even made by the Australian Council of Trade Unions. [More…]
Today in the springtime I thought of A Spring Song and the announcement by the Leader of the Australian Council of Trade Unions that he was not going to enter Federal Parliament after all. [More…]
Although the Australian Government has very sensibly re-established our diplomatic relations with Chile to their normal level by appointing a new ambassador, our trade with that country is being disrupted by the action of communist minorities in certain trade unions, particularly the maritime and waterfront unions which have placed a black ban on all trade with Chile, a black ban I might add which has never been placed on trade with other communist dictatorships. [More…]
That telegram says in very plain terms in the last part that these unions will stand by any trade unionist who may be penalised or sought to be penalised by any union other than his own in relation to nuclear ships visiting the port of Hobart. [More…]
That the delegates of unions notified the Premier the Honourable W. A. Neilson and the Prime Minister of this decision. [More…]
However, if contracts are signed for live sheep, I hope we will not have unnecessary interference with the export of that type of meat as we have had in the past from some unions. [More…]
We know that the President of the Australian Council of Trade Unions has been suggested as a leader, but he cannot get a guernsey. [More…]
The strategy of holding down wages by holding over unions and people in the work force the prospect of unemployment is a particularly sick policy, when many of the people whom it will affect most are school leavers who will go onto the labour market without having known what it is like to earn wages. [More…]
I am concerned about the situation, which seems to be becoming dominant in our economy, in which we have some unions whose main aims seem to be to work towards the destruction of our economy rather than towards its recovery. [More…]
This is based on the fact that a number of unions have used their collective powers to enable them to obtain wages which they would not have been able to obtain in a perfectly competitive market. [More…]
However, it we look to what are considered by some union leaders to be their aims, we see that these may in fact differ from the aims of their members, and thus the role of some of the unions similarly differs from the strategy which should properly and reasonably be followed by those unions. [More…]
Clear support for that argument is shown in the refusal of the members of many unions to support the Medibank strike, which was clearly a political strike. [More…]
I said earlier that I considered that political strikes, in which the aims of the leaders of some of the unions differ from those of their union members, constituted one of the factors hampering our efforts to beat inflation. [More…]
Those unions decrease our production and cause a fall in our standard of living from the level at which it could have been. [More…]
He can do that by encouraging nonunionists to join the union or by widening the base of his union to include- or steal- members from other unions. [More…]
Thus we have often seen in-fighting between unions trying to enlarge their union’s work responsibilities and so increase their membership to the disadvantage of other unions. [More…]
Trade unions in Australia are diverse in character and range from the small local independent association to the large national organisations. [More…]
According to the Australian Bureau of Statistics, the annual trade union collections show that there were some 280 reporting unions at the end of 1975. [More…]
A small number of the unions reported fewer than 20 members, whilst the largest reported more than 140 000 members. [More…]
In 1975 there was a preponderance of comparatively small unions. [More…]
Thus a number of unions are registered in the States, many of those unions being relatively small organisations operating only within their particular States. [More…]
That, of course, has implications for amalgamations, and it indicates the prevalence of the traditional craft unions in Australia. [More…]
It is worth nothing that in Germany there are some 16 unions compared with our 280 unions. [More…]
I understand that there are some 16 unions in the Whyalla shipyard. [More…]
As I have said, that is about the same number of unions in the whole of Germany. [More…]
Despite the huge cost increases incurred in demarcation disputes within that shipyard, the unions continue to bicker to the extent that now all the jobs of their members are at risk. [More…]
How can the leaders of those unions say they have benefited their members by continual infighting, so that now all members risk losing their jobs? [More…]
The farcical nature of the politicking which goes on with some of the unions involved in that industry was made amply clear when some of those unions sent members to protest in this House. [More…]
The answer, of course, to these demarcation disputes, which are strangling Australia’s life blood and throwing workers out of their jobs, is to have amalgamation of industry unions. [More…]
I understand that it has been the policy of the Australian Council of Trade Unions since the 1920s to encourage amalgamation of industry unions. [More…]
It is Liberal Party policy and ACTU policy to encourage amalgamation of industry unions in order to assist in avoiding this type of dispute. [More…]
Demarcation disputes concerned with protecting the revenue and membership of a union threatened with loss of coverage by encroachments of other unions are a common occurrence in this country. [More…]
Too much time is lost through disputes over which unions should handle a certain job. [More…]
It is my duty to point out to the few unions which are causing the trouble in the Australian community at present that they are causing an enormous amount of pressure to be brought upon persons like me from those who have no such control over their income. [More…]
I expect this pressure to continue to increase if these thoughtless unions continue to increase their efforts to self-destruct. [More…]
However, it is getting to the stage where in the exercise of our responsibility to protect the Australian society from these unAustralian attacks from radical unions, we could well be forced into this position. [More…]
The easiest way to remedy the problem is in the hands of the unions. [More…]
-Before the suspension of the sitting I was urging union members to take an active role in the election of officers in their own unions. [More…]
Two other major matters hitting the people of Indi very hard and hitting all Australia hard are the high cost structure of the country and the associated actions of communist controlled unions which are dedicated to forcing up our cost structure all the time until they- that is the members of the Communist Party- attain their ultimate objective of wrecking our economy and destroying our society and freedoms. [More…]
Will the trade unions allow me to do this? [More…]
I would be particularly interested to know whether the Australian Council of Trade Unions has reacted to the Prime Minister’s offer to place 2 orders for Australian National Line ships at Whyalla and Newcastle if certain conditions are met, and whether the Prime Minister considers Mr Wran’s statements or actions have been helpful in regard to his offer. [More…]
He undertook to convey it to the unions concerned. [More…]
Mr Wran, having done that, seemed to withdraw from Newcastle to Sydney and not really want to have much more to do about it, other than trying to get the matter transferred to the auspices of the Australian Council of Trade Unions. [More…]
Apart from some statements that the Government would not make any firm plans on the future of the industry until such time as it had talked to the Australian Council of Trade Unions and the State governments, the Government has left up in the air the people who work in the industry and their dependants. [More…]
I have said publicly, and the Prime Minister (Mr Malcolm Fraser) has confirmed it, that we are awaiting proposals from the Australian Council of Trade Unions before the Government takes any further decision on the issue. [More…]
We must have a wide range of people, such as there was on the Jackson Committee- people from the private sector, from the State governments, from the unions and from academia- going out to the country, receiving submissions about what should be our national objectives and making recommendations to the government. [More…]
The honourable gentleman will be aware that we await a submission from the Australian Council of Trade Unions on the subject. [More…]
I am advised that the new procedures are being carried out in conformity with the legislation which, as honourable gentlemen will recall, requires unions to conduct secret postal ballots. [More…]
The information I have is that in 1 974 only 20 unions availed themselves of the provision that was then in the Act, but not as a mandatory requirement, which allowed the Electoral Office to conduct secret postal ballots on their behalf. [More…]
I have in fact had requests from unionists the the dates of forthcoming ballots for trade unions be notified publicly as far as possible in advance of the elections actually being held. [More…]
Therefore the Government will be putting down a regulation which will enable the Industrial Registrar to require trade unions to notify the Registrar of their next forthcoming ballot. [More…]
Irrespective of whether it is true, in future will the Government submit, in accordance with the Freedom of Association Convention operating under the ILO, all proposals it has in regard to trade unions in order to ensure that such a conflict is avoided? [More…]
It has sought to persuade the Conciliation and Arbitration Commission, in the face of opposition from the Australian Council of Trade Unions and Opposition spokesmen, that the adjustment of wages and salaries ought to be in a form which assists the low income earner. [More…]
I do not want to criticise the unions unreasonably. [More…]
Effective economic policies implemented by Mr Somare ‘s Government, including a firm policy of wage restraint agreed on with the trade unions, have cut the inflation rate in Papua New [More…]
It is regrettable that some Australian trade unions have not shown the same common sense for their own long term good and that of the community. [More…]
When will the unions connected with the petroleum industry get some sense and stop this irresponsible strike action which is paralysing industry in New South Wales? [More…]
It is high time that some responsible people took hold of these unions and gave service to New South Wales to stop the paralysing effect of such strikes. [More…]
from information both written and verbal received from a wide range of employers and professional associations, trade unions, educational and training institutions, Government Departments, authorities and instrumentalities (both Commonwealth and State) and banking institutions; [More…]
-There have been various conversations with the President of the Australian Council of Trade Unions. [More…]
Any policies in those areas should be ones of gradualism and aimed at maintaining a social compact with the unions, which have been remarkably restrained in wage claims in the last 18 months but are now becoming restive in the face of Government provocation. [More…]
As the unions and the employers have warned, consumer demand, instead of being encouraged, is being discouraged. [More…]
The representatives from the Australian Council of Trade Unions will be appearing before the Australian Arbitration Court at the next hearing for a national wage increase as the leading representatives of employees in Australia and will be still asking for full wage indexation. [More…]
If the Court continues to give decisions allied with the submissions of the Government, one can predict also that many of the unions with sufficient industrial muscle will have to go outside the Court to protect the real wages of their members. [More…]
I agree with the unions and the representatives of employee organisations. [More…]
No doubt, Government supporters would say: ‘The unions must enter into a contract. [More…]
The strong unions will go outside the Court and maintain their real wages with their industrial muscle. [More…]
Perhaps the Government would prefer a few strong unions to go outside the Court to maintain the real wages of their members while all the others are left far behind. [More…]
He finds it uncomfortable that prior to the last general election, tax indexation was adopted as a policy of the Australian Council of Trade Unions. [More…]
But what he failed to say at the same time was that Opposition spokesmen, the Australian Council of Trade Unions and other spokesmen for the Labor Opposition would have us bring no migrants to this country. [More…]
Its first instinct is to bash the unions; its second is to smear intellectuals. [More…]
For example, never should we be guided by the ill-informed comments of the president of the Australian Council of Trade Unions, Mr Hawke, who would not know the difference between castor oil and engine oil until he drank them. [More…]
We hope that workers who belong to the various meat unions will accept the fact that it is only by maintaining these selling opportunities that producers are likely to be able to remain financial. [More…]
The unions that presently exist are there to a very large extent to represent those people who are presently employed. [More…]
Action by the Trades and Labour Council and unions in the Telfer dispute, for example, amount to sheer industrial larrikinism. [More…]
Organised industrial militancy is causing immense harm to Australia and its people, and the only way to defeat it is for more moderate and sensible people within the unions to assert themselves and gain control. [More…]
This opposition is being extended by the Friends of the Earth and of course by the left wing unions. [More…]
It is therefore important for Australia that government, management and the unions work together to set national goals on those matters. [More…]
Industry includes employees and their representatives, the unions. [More…]
I will not have time to deal with that, but it is important that we set up a mechanism which adequately enables industry and government- I use the word ‘industry’ in the sense of including unions- to exchange economic intelligence which will be crucial to the healthy development of those parts of manufacturing which can be internationally competitive and export oriented and which will be based on Australian talents, skills and resources. [More…]
Moreover, the machinery for consultation should be serviced by a secretariat staffed by a balanced mixture of persons drawn from management and unions as well as from appropriate government departments and agencies. [More…]
If the machinery for consultation is serviced only by public servants, management and unions will be at an extreme disadvantage and will become rubber stamps for the ideas of persons of goodwill for Australia but persons who rarely have experience of how industry really functions. [More…]
Had they done their job properlytheir influence in Cabinet has not been insignificant; it has been very significant- and represented the people who they presume to represent as well as the officials of trade unions whom they never cease to berate in this chamber have done their job, the farmers of Australia would be in a much better position today. [More…]
So I ask honourable members in the chamber to judge for themselves who has the better leadership- the farmers through the National Country Party or the trade unions through their organisations? [More…]
I think all of us ought to recognise that we need very much in Australia a strong and viable manufacturing industry, and that there needs to be co-operation between unions, government and management in working out policies for manufacturing industry. [More…]
The proposed humanitarian barge organised by church groups, trade unions and concerned individuals was told that it would be prevented from going to East Timor. [More…]
It has gained widespread acceptance by both unions and business. [More…]
The unions of Australia came to their aid. [More…]
Is it any wonder that today a great many farmers are looking at their lot and comparing it most enviously with that of other people in society, particularly those who belong to militant trade unions who have won their rewards at the expense of the farmers out in the bush, who are doing all the hard work. [More…]
On the other hand, if farmers are to be dependent on what the market place will pay for the fruits of their labour, so should everyone else in society, including the President of the Australian Council of Trade Unions. [More…]
He knows he could break every rule to get someone else in, but he cannot do anything to get the President of the Australian Labor Party and the President of the Australian Council of Trade Unions in. [More…]
Cameron hits out at US ‘hawk’ unions. [More…]
The Minister for Labor (Mr Cameron) yesterday attacked American unions for their threatened retaliatory ban on Australian shipping. [More…]
Here I refer to management, business, unions and farmers. [More…]
I believe that there has to be some effort to resist the industrial demands made from time to time by teacher unions further to decrease this ratio and to spend more money on more teachers who teach for fewer hours per week. [More…]
I would like to discuss tonight relations between unions and management, the need for a greater intake of migrant workers in the Australian work force and the communication gap that exists between those groups. [More…]
In September last when the Prime Minister (Mr Malcolm Fraser) used his speech at the opening of the new Broken Hill Pty Co. Ltd steelmill to threaten action against unions, no doubt he delighted the company executives and industrialists who were present. [More…]
There is another widespread myth which says that Australian unions are strike happy and that this is the cause of our mediocre industrial performance. [More…]
Does the Conciliation and Arbitration Act provide that fines and penalties imposed by unions by reason of the fact that a man works in accordance with his award are an offence? [More…]
When trade unions go before a tribunal seeking wage indexation a decision is made on the last quarter. [More…]
Public opinion would be assisted if there were a gigantic strike on the wharves or other unions were on strike and productivity were going down. [More…]
The most important problem for the Minister for Employment and Industrial Relations is to establish machinery for retraining, machinery which should be governed by a tripartite council consisting of representatives of the Department of Employment and Industrial Relations, unions and employers. [More…]
Likewise, the concept of adult apprenticeship and other re-training programs must be launched by the Government after the closest possible consultation with unions and employer organisations. [More…]
The unions always have always opposed adult apprenticeships for reasons related to job security. [More…]
I believe that honourable members on both sides of this chamber would agree that the Minister has taken over one of the most difficult portfolios in the Ministry and, by his diligence and conscientious performance, he has won the confidence of both the trade unions and the employers throughout this country. [More…]
We want unions to be truly representative of their members. [More…]
We want unions that can do the right thing and that can improve the wages and working conditions of their members. [More…]
So if the honourable member is saying that we do not care about unions, I can assure him that there is something in the Budget to prove that we do care. [More…]
As the honourable member for Barton has said, members of the dockyard unions are here today in a responsible manner and are not causing any problems. [More…]
The irony is that strong economic recovery, with its attendant productivity lift, would be a potent force reducing cost pressures- particularly when allied with a sound working relationship between management and unions- as highlighted in the improved performance recently achieved by Japan, Germany and the United States of America. [More…]
Is it the Leader of the Opposition, the honourable member for Adelaide, the honourable member for Oxley, the Australian Labor Party or the gentleman who presently leads the Australian Council of Trade Unions? [More…]
-There are plenty of unions there. [More…]
We see today the blackmail that is being exerted by means of the monopoly power of the trade unions over the Postal Commission through the unions being able to hold up the mails of the country. [More…]
In view of the current uncertainty on the issue, neither the Department nor the Interim ACT Schools Authority has discussed possible copyright liability with teachers’ unions in the Territories. [More…]
In addition, a submission has been received from Mr Hawke for the Australian Council of Trade Unions- a submission about which my colleague the Minister for Transport casts one or two mild doubts. [More…]
A submission also has been received from Mr Wran of New South Wales, but I think that Mr Wran has not replied directly to the particular proposition that was put and that he very willingly undertook to convey to the unions in Newcastle. [More…]
To all this, the only response we have had in this Parliament from the Minister was that in his opinion the submission from the Australian Council of Trade Unions was light weight. [More…]
The Australian Council of Trade Unions, when confronted with the decision by this Government to close the shipyards not only passed a very lengthy resolution reflecting its concern for the working people, the skills to be lost, the depressed social standards under which the people in these areas would be; it also gave notice that the Government could be provoking a gigantic industrial conflict. [More…]
I think it is important to state the attitude of the unions in the State dockyards. [More…]
Party which fought furiously to stop the amalgamation of trade unions. [More…]
This matter of public importance cuts across the program and procedures that have been laid down between the Premier of New South Wales, the President of the Australian Council of Trade Unions, the Premier of South Australia, and the Government. [More…]
To force a reduction in real wages, it has to defuse the militant unions. [More…]
There has been the offer by the State Premiers, Mr Wran and Mr Dunstan, and there also has been a submission by the Australian Council of Trade Unions which the Minister for Transport (Mr Nixon) rather insultingly referred to as being a bit lightweight. [More…]
‘The unions have done everything they can. [More…]
We have said that we will consider the submissions from the Australian Council of Trade Unions and from both the South Australian and the New South Wales governments and will draw the threads together to make a decision. [More…]
Even though referendums have rarely given answers to problems in Australia, I should have thought that any prospect of a referendum being held had been immediately knocked on the head by the President of the Australian Labor Party, the President of the Australian Council of Trade Unions and the member of the Board of the Reserve Bank, Mr Hawke, who, in his usual way of making sure that the Labor Party is fully united on every matter, immediately came out in full opposition to the Leader of the Opposition on that point. [More…]
During recent months and over a protracted period of 2 Governments, the activities of the Industries Assistance Commission have been a source of considerable concern to substantial proportions of manufacturing industry, in the latter period to trade unions and, I think now, to most sections of the community. [More…]
All members of the Parliament are, I am sure, committed to democratic control of trade unions and employer organisations. [More…]
When I previously discussed the question of collegiate voting with the unions last May, the President of the Australian Council of Trade Unions, Mr Hawke, pointed out that there is a division of opinion within the trade union movement on this issue and that he could not put a monolithic trade union view on the matter. [More…]
With the passage of this legislation, organisations, whether of employers or unions, will of course no longer have to comply with the current requirement of amending their rules to provide for direct elections for officers. [More…]
Has the Minister seen recent Press reports that the Leader of the Opposition encouraged trade unions to engage in political strikes? [More…]
Unions are an important part of Australia’s social and economic life. [More…]
Industry will say, trade unions will say and everybody outside the Parliament will say that the decision was wrong. [More…]
In view of the submissions to the Government on the Australian shipbuilding industry by the Premiers of New South Wales and South Australia and also by the Australian Council of Trade Unions, is the Prime Minister now in a position to inform the House of the measures the Government is prepared to take to ensure the continuation of this vital industry? [More…]
-The Bill now before the House seeks to amend the Conciliation and Arbitration Act in respect of the method of election of officers of registered organisations; that is, trade unions and employer organisations. [More…]
The Minister is going to a very considerable length to see that union officials are properly elected- democratically elected- by their unions. [More…]
But they almost made a mess of that by introducing a Bill earlier this year which failed to define a postal ballot and this would have required little alteration of election procedures by such unions as the Amalgamated Metalworkers Union despite the fact that the election of the AMWU president was once again trotted out as justification for the action being taken. [More…]
If we are to believe the Prime Minister, the Deputy Prime Minister, the Minister for Employment and Industrial Relations (Mr Street) and various other Government spokesmen, this action would set left wing officials of unions trembling in their boots. [More…]
Some of the unions most left wing had for years employed a system of compulsory voting by all members at union elections. [More…]
Some large right wing unions were aghast at the prospect of having an election by the whole rank and file for their full time officials. [More…]
This is demonstrated by the fact that when the industrial registrar called to his office members of those unions which had not amended their rules to meet the 1973 requirements- about the middle of this year- the Federal president of the Federated Clerks Union of Australia, Mr Maynes, asserted that he did not believe that it would be necessary to amend his rules because the Government would amend the Act to allow the retention of the collegiate system. [More…]
From what I have said up to this point I do not mean to imply that all unions affected by the 1973 legislation were overjoyed.. Quite a few expressed hostility but most of them eventually came around to acceptance and changed their rules. [More…]
They include such notable left wing unions as the Federated Miscellaneous Workers Union of Australia, the Australian Building and Construction Workers’ Federation- it has now reregisteredand the Federated Liquor and Allied Industries Employees’ Union of Australia. [More…]
Of course, other unions which are not notably left wing have also changed their rules. [More…]
But some of them have not and they are not all right wing unions. [More…]
Nonetheless, it is difficult to conclude other than that the Government has been greatly influenced in bringing down this legislation by the National Civic Council controlled unions such as the Federated Clerks Union and the Shop, Distributive and Allied Employees Association in which unions the collegiate system enables a minority group to establish control. [More…]
To me it is crystal clear that this Government has ‘done a deal’ with the Santamaria/National Civic Council group and has ‘sold-out’ thousands of Australian unionists who saw, in the pre-election industrial promises of this Government, an opportunity to place their own acceptance or rejection on whom would be the Federal Officials of a number of Australian trade unions. [More…]
Thirdly, the collegiate system is capable of enabling and is used to enable minority groups to control important unions such as the Federated Clerks Union. [More…]
A further unsavoury aspect of this legislation which should also be mentioned is the change in the definition of ‘office ‘ which will enable unions to appoint persons to positions in the union which are similar to elected positions. [More…]
In our opinion, it does not accord in any way with the principle of democratic control of unions. [More…]
What a contrast this creates with the Government’s assertions during last year’s election campaign that it would provide for the democratic control of unions. [More…]
Earlier this year the Government promised the Australian Council of Trade Unions, the Australian Council of Salaried and Professional Associations and the Council of Australian Government Employee Organisations that it would consult them in relation to any legislation it intended to introduce to change the 1973 legislation. [More…]
In summary, then, the Opposition rejects this legislation because it considers that the collegiate system which the legislation will allow deprives union members of the right to have a direct say in the election of union officials and is capable of being used, and is in fact used, to enable minority groups in unions to control those unions. [More…]
This Government’s action in moving to retain that system makes a mockery of its high sounding rhetoric about its determination to ensure democratic control of unions. [More…]
The Government has been revealed as being much more concerned about protecting ultra right wing groups in key unions and saving employer organisations the embarrassment of direct voting for their officials than it has been about ensuring that democracy prevails in the election of officers of organisations. [More…]
All he talked about was how power could be manipulated by a few top officials within trade unions, how the balance of power could be swung from Left or Right. [More…]
In determining a climate in which trade unions should operate, in my opinion it is of paramount importance that we consider the needs of the trade unionist, the rank and file chap who works on the shop floor. [More…]
I do not believe that in this consideration any thought should be given at all to the power base of those people who have no better ambition in mind than to use trade unions for political purposes or simply to manipulate for power. [More…]
We have seen a period in which the extreme Left of the trade union movement and the political structure has been able to win positions of influence within certain trade unions. [More…]
Through their various structures these people have taken control of the Executive of the Australian Council of Trade Unions, albeit their numbers are extremely small. [More…]
The extremists of the Left- those associated with the Communist Party- have used the electoral system of the various trade unions to win positions of influence within those leaderships. [More…]
This has now caused extremists of the right wing and in particular those who are associated with the National Civic Council, as was pointed out by the honourable member for Gellibrand, to try to use the electoral system of the trade union movement to win control of certain trade unions for the extreme right wing. [More…]
We need to do much more to influence a greater number of people to be actively involved in the activities of their unions. [More…]
To my knowledge, there are no rules of unions that do that either. [More…]
It is a little curious for the honourable member to talk about unions not doing things for people. [More…]
All members of the Parliament are, I am sure, committed to democratic control of trade unions and employer organisations. [More…]
I do not know whether the Government suddenly has been imbued with the American presidential system because it is that time of the year; but we in the Australian Labor Party- we spell this out very loudly in our policy- firmly believe that there should be full rank and file participation in the affairs of unions. [More…]
Does he think that people are elected as officials of unions simply because they stand for election? [More…]
He should know that people are elected as officials of trade unions because of their known capacity, a capacity that is known by the members of the union. [More…]
I have pointed out to the House already that the colleges of all unions, without exception, are not equally representative of the States. [More…]
The Minister, if he has as much concern for the affairs of trade unions as the honourable member for Wilmot would have us believe he has, ought to be talking about members and not about organisations or officers of unions. [More…]
The contents of this Bill revolve purely and simply around the whole question of whether there is to be democratic election of people in trade unions. [More…]
The other day I was reading a copy of Hansard in which an honourable member was recorded as saying by way of interjection that there were no Liberal Party members acting as officials of trade unions. [More…]
This Government piously says that it does not mind having unions. [More…]
It should add that it would rather have unions such as there are in Malaysia and Singapore, unions which have had their teeth drawn. [More…]
The only unions in the Government’s view with which it would agree are those which in turn agree with the attitude of the Government and of employers. [More…]
Those who then come to power in the unions are second hand and come not through the honest straightforward ballot as we know union ballots are now but through a system which can be manipulated. [More…]
It in turn is made up of delegates from the branches and affiliated unions of the Labor Party. [More…]
People who are pre-selected for public office are selected from the State convention which is made up of delegates from the branches and affiliated unions. [More…]
It is definitely the case that in many large unions where we are trying to implement a direct voting system it is enormously difficult for members of the union to have sufficient knowledge of the likely candidates to be able to cast a meaningful vote. [More…]
A collegiate system with adequate safeguards contained in it would allow such unions to have a more democratic system of election of union officials than would a direct system. [More…]
The Government by this amendment is now allowing officers of unions to avoid having to be elected to the college. [More…]
They can just be added to the elected members of the college, as they are now in the Federated Clerks Union, the Shop, Distributive and Allied Employees Association and other unions which have a collegiate system. [More…]
The amendment will enable all unions to adopt this approach if they so wish. [More…]
I think it is the most astonishing thing of all time to come from this Government which went to the people and had as one of its biggest planks that it was going to democratise trade unions and ensure that union officials were elected in a way which meant that they had to face their members, which said that it would arm every union member with a ballot paper. [More…]
It is important to note that in Australia we have at present, according to some figures I have, 280 trade unions with a huge membership. [More…]
Fortunately it is a reduction on the figure for 1956 when we had 375 trade unions with lower membership numbers than we have today. [More…]
What eventually is required in this country is a rationalisation to ensure that we get to a system of industry based unions and a much more streamlined method of selecting the various personnel. [More…]
The present system of craft unions is not serving the union movement or the country as well as it should. [More…]
In my recent visit to the Newcastle State Dockyards I was told, and all parties seemed to agree that it was not a very good idea, that 5 unions had to agree before a handrail could be built around a ship. [More…]
In Germany they have an effective, integrated union structure, but the United Kingdom still has more than 300 separate unions. [More…]
Surely the answer to the complaints of the Labor Party is this: There is the option for unions to decide on the system they want. [More…]
For my part, I totally repudiate any of these gross suggestions that these amendments have been moved to influence individual situations in unions or, worse still, to influence a court case. [More…]
I doubt that the Committee has ever been treated to a more ill-informed dissertation on what trade unions and this amendment are all about than we have just heard from the honourable member for St George (Mr Neil). [More…]
Preserve Democracy in Trade Unions by guaranteeing the right of all members to participate in rank and file ballots for officials and Committees of Management. [More…]
He said that there are too many trade -unions. [More…]
There are too many trade unions in Australia, and there are any number of trade unionists who will agree with that. [More…]
But when the Labor Party, during its term of office, endeavoured to amend the Conciliation and Arbitration Act, who was it who frustrated that attempt to make it easier for unions to amalgamate? [More…]
They said that they did not want unions to amalgamate. [More…]
Now we have a new breed of Liberal member in the House who tells us that unions should amalgamate. [More…]
They know in their hearts that if somebody is going to stand for a senior position in any organisation in Australia, quite apart from the trade unions, he does not pick himself up off the floor and nominate. [More…]
It is a great pity that the Government has decided to use its brutal weight of numbers in this place and in another place to thrust this provision upon trade unions without any consultation at all between the Minister and the trade unions. [More…]
This provision is being thrust upon the rank and file members of unions. [More…]
I believe that the one-tier college system of electing office bearers to unions is the correct system to use; but I have grave reservations about the amendment moved by the Minister for Employment and Industrial Relations (Mr Street). [More…]
I believe that that is not the sort of democracy which should be introduced into trade unions. [More…]
The unions have been preparing to change their registered rules to provide for a direct rank and file ballot where that was not in force prior to the Bill which was introduced by the honourable member for Hindmarsh (Mr Clyde Cameron) 3 years ago. [More…]
Now the Government has changed its mind and we have the audacity of the Minister coming in here and telling us that the reason he is doing this, the reason he has found it so important to introduce an amendment at half past five which no one else in the world had seen, was that the provision as it stands in the Bill might affect the efficiency of the unions. [More…]
Which unions? [More…]
No unions were told of what was to occur. [More…]
The patron saint of conscription told us about justice and the trade unions. [More…]
It is not those of us who have had experience in trade unions who are asking for a collegiate system. [More…]
It is not those of us who have spent our lives working in trade unions who are saying: ‘Let a small group at the top run the unions’. [More…]
Are we not seeking legislation which will give the rank and file control of the unions? [More…]
What the Government is doing by this legislation- it is a wonder that the National Country Party did not think of it- is jerrymandering trade union ballots by allowing unions themselves to determine how a college is made up. [More…]
The Government should not point the finger of accusation at the Labor Party, at the trade unions or at anybody outside this Parliament when that situation occurs. [More…]
What the Government is doing through this proposal is saying to the trade unions: ‘Do whatever you like. [More…]
The Government now has provided to those controlling trade unions a system under which they cannot be put out of power. [More…]
I ask the Government to withdraw this amendment, to refer it to the Government members employment and industrial relations committee for consideration and to come back to this chamber with something sensible so that the unions may know what will happen as a result of this Government’s actions. [More…]
In total, the opposition of honourable members opposite has resolved into a cheap, nasty and quite cowardly attack on the officials of certain trade unions, including the Federated Clerks Union and John Patrick Maynes. [More…]
The only people who can gain if these amendments are not carried are those who have been running minority subversive movements in trade unions for more years than I have been alive. [More…]
There cannot be a more sensible and more democratic system for those trade unions which prefer that method of operation. [More…]
We on this side of the Committee have tried to provide an opportunity for those trade unions which prefer this system, which have used it for a number of years and which have used it successfully. [More…]
It is Opposition members who are trying to destroy this system that we seek to give those trade unions by enshrining it in the industrial law of this country. [More…]
The amendment sets out to legalise the collegiate system of voting for union elections and to force unions to tidy up within a 2-year period their rules for voting in union elections. [More…]
The purpose of those amendments was simply to weed out all those devils who were masquerading as humans in the left wing unions. [More…]
The secret ballot has existed in almost all major unions since the 1940s. [More…]
Even before the earlier amendment all unions that registered with the Commonwealth Conciliation and Arbitration Commission were subject to secret ballots which were overseen by the Commonwealth Electoral Office. [More…]
I was associated with one of the largest trade unions in this country. [More…]
Some unions objected to the Cameron regulations. [More…]
They were the unions that elected their top office bearers by the collegiate system. [More…]
Honourable members opposite are so inclined to talk about unions, but not one of them has ever been a member of a union. [More…]
The unions support what is now proposed, although it is true that at one stage the unions were asking for almost the very reverse. [More…]
But we looked at the matter from all angles, and we know that we cannot please all the unions. [More…]
On Wednesday 22 May 1974 the Executive of the Australian Council of Trade Unions criticised the Cameron amendments on the grounds that the trade union movement was never consulted about their introduction. [More…]
In the interim the members of each of the former unions would be represented on the governing councils of the union through the collegiate system. [More…]
Unions have on many occasions remained silent while their membership has churned out heavily biased material designed to jeopardise the advancement of organised labour goals, particularly during the crucial days of some election campaigns. [More…]
Perhaps a greater sense on the part of unions of the arbitrary nature of the powers of proprietors and of the stifling structure of the private media may serve to galvanise the union movement into some kind of organised campaign to break the iron grip these few executives have upon public opinion. [More…]
A combined unions committee has been set up with the [More…]
The clerks and the journalists have elected not to participate in the combined unions committee. [More…]
It is regrettable that the unions refused to allow this booklet to be circulated to their members. [More…]
Then on 27 October the combined unions’ committee made a request for outside assistance. [More…]
They asked other unions to try to black ban the Sydney Morning Herald and other newspapers and to cut off supplies to them. [More…]
No help was given because the Maritime Services Board had intimated to John Fairfax Ltd that it proposed to charge the company $ 1,000 a day demurrage for the newsprint which the unions refused to load. [More…]
matter was referred to the Full Bench and on 2 November, a couple of days ago, the Full Bench again directed the unions to hold a mass meeting on 4 November- I understand it has been postponed for a day- to return to work and to continue negotiations on redundancy. [More…]
What do the people in the trade unions think of this? [More…]
John Smith in the unions very often knows that if he will not obey his union boss when he is directed to do something illegal which he himself does not want to do that union boss has the power to victimise him, and to victimise him abominably. [More…]
The position cannot continue where the whole machinery of government and our economy and the fabric of our social life can be brought to a stop as a result of unions defying the court and demanding that union members continue to do something illegal. [More…]
A mass meeting is to be held tomorrow at which the unions are to consider the recommendation of the Australian Industrial Court that they should go back to work and that the dispute should be concluded in the sense that they would hold over consideration of 3 of their 4 claims until the national wage case decision is handed down. [More…]
The unions will also consider the proposition that there be continuing negotiation on the fourth point which is concerned with a guarantee that there be no redundancies in the John Fairfax organisation through technological changes. [More…]
In those circumstances this matter has been raised in this House by the honourable member for Mackellar as a means of attacking the unions and accusing them of being various things. [More…]
The honourable member for Capricornia (Mr Carige) is already worried about a situation concerning Queensland Alumina Ltd. Contracts are up for negotiation between the company and the unions. [More…]
They have placed in danger a dispute that has arisen after 19 months of negotiation between the unions and John Fairfax Limited, the newspaper company. [More…]
Members of the unions involved are meeting tomorrow in an endeavour to resolve a problem that is recognised by everybody as being serious. [More…]
Prior to agreements expiring negotiations are held between the unions and the management in order to draw up another agreement for another 2 years. [More…]
Yesterday we debated a matter concerning unions. [More…]
The honourable member for Farrer has claimed that the executives of the unions are pushing their members around and telling them what to do and how to do it. [More…]
Members of the trade unions are quite happy to come together tomorrow to make their decisions on what they should do and how they should do it. [More…]
The honourable gentleman has in Canberra representatives of the unions in the district and the Trades and Labour Council and I hope to see them after question time. [More…]
I suggest that we leave aside- it might be considered political- the question of whether the owners of the souls of the current members of the Opposition are the trade unions which take advantage of blackmail in killing works. [More…]
The unions always strike in the middle of a glut. [More…]
There has not been a spring in Adelaide during the last few years when the unions have not gone out because it is spring and because the farmers’ stock is coming in at that time of the year. [More…]
Unions have been let run wild and the situation is now where they are dictating not just industrial policy but foreign policy, defence policy and a whole host of other things that are not properly within the concept of bona fide trade unionism. [More…]
I am very much opposed to the blatant political actions that some unions are involving their members in and to the detriment of the members. [More…]
Honourable members Opposite are so inclined to talk about unions but not one of them has ever been a member of a union. [More…]
I believe that it is the Liberal Party which can best represent the ordinary rank and file trade union member in Australia, not these people who abuse their role in the trade unions for blatant political reasons. [More…]
Let us look at the pressure that the unions managed to exert on the radio and television industry through the Minister for the Media. [More…]
The Royal Commission on Alleged Payments to Maritime Unions, 1974-40 days; 1975-53 days. [More…]
Neither is the problem one which the Commonwealth Government can solve alone- State governments, employers and the unions concerned may also need to be prepared to act in a co-operative and constructive way. [More…]
As the honourable member would be aware, following long and detailed discussions with the unions involved satisfactory redundancy arrangements were arrived at for the members of the staff of the Authority. [More…]
Once I have made the parliamentary statement that I mentioned a moment ago I intend to confer again with the unions concerned on such issues as the honourable gentleman has raised. [More…]
For the first time unions on the island were registered, teaching was standardised so that Asians can now receive the same schooling that was previously available only to Europeans, and educational standards have been brought into line with the level of excellence currently obtaining in the Commonwealth Teaching Service. [More…]
Will the Prime Minister take action complementary to that taken by the Victorian Government by stopping work on all possible federal building contracts until the members of construction unions force their leaders to come to their senses and stop trying to usurp the role of the elected Government? [More…]
The legislation introduced by the Government makes it essential for elected officials of unions to be elected by secret postal ballot - [More…]
This legislation will ensure that the views of the rank and file members of trade unions can get through and be felt - [More…]
This is due in part to a slight reduction in the number of tourists visiting the Australian Capital Territory, but is due mainly to the quite impossible wage rates that unions extracted from a compliant Administration during the Whitlam years. [More…]
The unions that control the production of coal and the coal fired power stations at Yallourn will have less political power in Victoria once a natural gas station is built. [More…]
That is why those unions, amongst others, have sought to prevent the station being built- so that the base of their political power in controlling Victoria’s power supplies can be maintained. [More…]
However, the Prime Minister’s justification for not doing so was that this would break the grip of certain trade unions in the area on the power supplies of the State. [More…]
I can now tell the House that a total redundancy arrangement has been settled with the unions concerned. [More…]
I have already reminded honourable members that a redundancy agreement exists with the unions and the provisions of this are designed to protect the staff of the Authority in the event that the Authority may be abolished. [More…]
I am very conscious of this and I propose to have early discussions with the unions whose members are employed by the Authority in an effort to allay any uncertainties and to confirm the arrangements that already exist with the unions. [More…]
This was sought by the unions, and is also a practice followed by many maritime nations. [More…]
They are deposits with savings banks, except savings bank cheque accounts; fixed deposits with trading banks; deposits and shares with building societies; deposits with credit unions; and moneys paid towards the purchase of land or the construction of a home. [More…]
It is pointless just to refer to transport as being important, to complain about transport and blame the unions for the problems in regard to it. [More…]
I do not think he was here when I commented earlier, but I will repeat it for his benefit, that to make sure that transport does get the kind of money that is needed I wish he would use on his Cabinet colleagues some of that vigour and inflammatory approach which he uses on unions. [More…]
The vacuum at the heart of the Fraser-Lynch strategy, the panic and desperation evident in their latest decision, is a matter of the gravest concern for the Australian people, for employers, for trade unions, for consumers, for the business community. [More…]
The Government has blamed the unions; it has blamed foreign investors. [More…]
Throughout the last few months it has been progressively the previous Labor Government, the unions, the Conciliation and Arbitration Commission, and last night the Government’s Public Service advisers which have apparently been the excuse and have been made the scapegoats for Liberal-National Country Party failures. [More…]
We have more of the same wrong policies- cutting Government spending, confronting the unions, creating industrial disharmony, further credit squeezes and higher interest rates- continuing to be perpetrated. [More…]
To protect his political flanks he has now aligned himself irrevocably with the left wing extremists of the Labor Party and the trade unions. [More…]
In 1976 he criticised the Government’s decision and states that the trade unions would demand greater wage increases. [More…]
I believe that in taking these stands we have the support of the Australian people and of the great bulk of rank and file trade unionists, We would be shown to have the support of rank and file trade unionists if they were only given the opportunity freely to express their views and not have their decisions pre-empted as their decisions were preempted by the Premier of New South Wales and the President of the Australian Council of Trade Unions in respect of shipbuilding a few days ago. [More…]
All Australians can rest content that their own Federal Department of Health, after consultation with federal and State government departments, trade unions, trades and labour councils, the Australian Council of Trade Unions and mining companies, has developed the world’s most stringent code to govern the mining and milling of our uranium. [More…]
My Party has joined with many concerned groups in the community- trade unions, Aboriginal people, church groups, women’s groups, environmentalists and groups of citizens concerned with the preservation of democractic rights- in condemning the haste of the Government in making its 11 November statement, its disregard of the final recommendation of the Fox report and its general stance on the issue of uranium mining development. [More…]
It has acted now to crush the union bans on uranium exports as part of its overall attack on the unions. [More…]
Trade unions have stated that they will prevent the resumption of uranium exports until public discussion has taken place and the people decide on the issue. [More…]
Trade unions have a role to play. [More…]
I have had considerable experience with the union movement and there are at least 6 unions involved in the Mary Kathleen operations. [More…]
The 6 unions involved there have said that if those officials attempted to get on the lease they would block the highway. [More…]
I think it is an opportune time to reflect on what Mr Southey had to say in his letter, in view of the attacks that have been made on the trade unions involved in working for the media and the attacks that are now being undertaken by this Government on the Australian Broadcasting Commission-thc only link in the media throughout Australia that it cannot conclusively control. [More…]
We have also pointed out in response to those who have said that the indemnity was harsh that it is entirely in the hands of the trade unions concerned whether that indemnity clause would be invoked. [More…]
There were dispute settling procedures which, as I understand it, were agreeable to the unions and to the Government. [More…]
It is to my very great regret, therefore, that once Mr Wran issued the contract to Mr Hawke and to the trade unions, it immediately became a matter for discussion and dispute. [More…]
I believe this is a classic example of trade union leaders pre-empting the decision of members of trade unions. [More…]
The President of the Australian Council of Trade Unions, Mr Hawke, went away from Canberra several months ago after consultation with the Prime Minister (Mr Malcolm Fraser) on the issue- I rely on my recollection of newspaper reports at the time- convinced that the Government would ensure that the increases in the cost of living arising from the Medibank levy and from compulsory private health insurance would be fed into the consumer price index and would be fully applied in the wage indexation process before the Conciliation and Arbitration Commission. [More…]
The only reason the Government has done so on this occasion is to try to whittle down the rate of increases in wages through the wage indexation system which would otherwise have applied, and justifiably applied, if the Government were to honour its obligations and the commitments that it had given to the trade unions. [More…]
Sixty per cent of Australian families would be worse off under the plan submitted by the Australian Council of Trade Unions, which proposed a 1.6 per cent levy without a ceiling. [More…]
I think the Government, the Australian Labor Party and the Australian Council of Trade Unions were agreed on that principle. [More…]
-I ask the Prime Minister whether he has seen reports that the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation is once again to infiltrate and spy upon trade unions m Australia. [More…]
My question, which is directed to you, Mr Speaker, refers to your action in writing a series of articles in the Melbourne Herald under the column heading of ‘Billy Mackie’, the latest of which was published last Tuesday and is headed ‘Confrontation: Why the Government must win over the Unions’. [More…]
I regard the question of unions in our society as one upon which persons ought to have a view and, if they do have a view, they ought to express it. [More…]
The fact is that a devaluation, provided the unions are prepared to co-operate in achieving wage restraint, will result in more work for companies manufacturing for the Australian market. [More…]
No matter whether you are an importer or an exporter or just an ordinary person going to the supermarket to buy your goods your standard of living is affected by the behaviour of the waterside unions. [More…]
Yet the Australian public allows a union or an employer but particularly unions- I think I am being fair here- to make an agreement today, have it arbitrated on and the very next day or week break it. [More…]
Many people are talking about confrontation with the unions and saying that unemployment will make the Phillip’s curve come into play; because of unemployment the unions will be meek and mild and this is the time to really hit them. [More…]
I ask those honourable members particularly on this side of the House who are saying: ‘Now is the time to take on the unions’, to think again of the consequences of a national stoppage. [More…]
The Commission virtually is giving these automatic increases to members of unions. [More…]
Therefore, I believe that any provocative act by employers or government would encourage even union leaders of moderate unions- this is human nature and I am not condoning it but I am saying that it would happen- and give them an excuse to say: ‘Right, we will take you on’. [More…]
I believe that any sort of move to get tough with the unions has to be thought out very carefully or we might find ourselves, for a variety of reasons, with a national stoppage which, at this stage of our economy, would virtually cripple Australia. [More…]
To me and to many other Australians, if not to those who are already expert in waterfront affairs, the figures have shown that there are factors in the employer area of the waterfront which are just as deserving of criticism as is the area of the employees or the unions. [More…]
I believe that it is very important, because of these revelations, that any new arrangements which the Government introduces for the waterfront should control the unfair practices of employers as well as and as much as the unions or the employees if we are to have a cost efficient and effective waterfront for the benefit of all Australians. [More…]
The spin-off in not reducing the tariffs is, as we have seen demonstrated in the House this week, the belief that the Government by some magic wand will be able to convince the Conciliation and Arbitration Commission and the Australian Council of Trade Unions that everybody should ignore the increased inflation rate which will occur in Australia because of devaluation and with no action being taken or tariffs. [More…]
Now we see that amendments are brought in to try, in some way, to have the representatives of the trade unions and the white collar organisations believe that the Government has not gone back on its word, following the election, not to abolish the Prices Justification Tribunal. [More…]
Immediately after the election the Prime Minister found it convenient to bargain and barter with the Australian Council of Trade Unions on the basis that wage indexation would survive and that the Prices Justification Tribunal would survive. [More…]
Those consultations occurred both at a Minister to President of the Australian Council of Trade Unions level and at a research officer-officials of the ACTU level. [More…]
Further, in general, unions prefer to have the last on, first off principle applied in cases where retrenchment is necessary. [More…]
There is a need for arrangements that will enable parliamentarians to relate to the bureaucrats and other opinion makers and leaders of industry, commerce and trade unions. [More…]
According to this Government the unions are responsible for everything bad and for everything that goes wrong. [More…]
Two areas come to mind in which the Government is spear-heading its assault on the trade unions. [More…]
Instead of being honest about the matter the Government does the opposite to the Mafia, which it closely resembles, and makes the unions an offer they cannot possibly accept. [More…]
It then blames the unions for being irresponsible in not accepting the offer. [More…]
It is appropriate to raise this matter in this place because the Draconian measures taken by the Victorian Government against the trade unions have been enthusiastically applauded by this Government’s leaders. [More…]
Let us look at what the unions have done in Victoria over the Newport issue. [More…]
Certainly they have maintained bans on the building of this power station, but they have done so for good and cogent reasons which have been supported by men of science and others in the community who have been led to say: ‘Thank God for the unions because they are the only thing standing between the community and potential disaster’. [More…]
The unions did not take their decision lightly. [More…]
By a majority vote the unions came down on the side of maintaining the bans. [More…]
The unions have asked for a wide-ranging inquiry into Victoria’s power requirements and an examination of alternative sites for the power station. [More…]
The hysterical reaction of the Hamer Government to the continuation of the unions’ ban on the building of the Newport power station demonstrates that its professed concern for the people of that State is hypocritical. [More…]
This Government selfrighteously says that the unions have acted contrary to the interests of the people of Victoria and that it gets back to the simple question of who is running the State. [More…]
The unions are saying in the first instance that the power station is not required at the proposed Newport site; that it should be built elsewhere. [More…]
Because it would pollute Melbourne and deplete the natural gas resources of the State its construction was banned by the trade unions. [More…]
If the alternatives I have put and others are in contention then the inquiry requested by the Victorian unions would determine the best course of action. [More…]
That is the sane position and if this Government and other watchdogs of conservatism and reaction in this country would stop baying their demented chorus of hatred against unions we might get somewhere. [More…]
It is destroying the Australian economy and trying to batter the Australian unions into submission. [More…]
From the time that this Government took office we have sought to establish effective working relations with the peak union councils and the Australian Council of Trade Unions in particular, certainly to a greater extent than his Government did when it was in office, and to a greater extent then any government has done for many years. [More…]
About this time last year we held discussions with Mr Hawke for the unions and Mr Polites for the employers on the establishment of a national labor consultative council. [More…]
We have consulted with unions and employers on industrial legislation before it has been introduced this year. [More…]
Major discussions were held between the Government and the unions last May which lasted about 2 days. [More…]
I doubt that any government in Australia has been prepared to participate in such a way in face to face discussions with unions at such a high level over such an extended period of time. [More…]
That applies whether it is unions, employers, or interested groups of various kinds. [More…]
It is open to unions and to every group in the community to express and to seek to promote views which they hold on any particular matter which is of direct interest to their members. [More…]
It is not for unions or any other group to use their industrial or other power to prohibit the implementation of decisions which the Government has undertaken. [More…]
The company concerned has indicated its willingness to have the outstanding claims arbitrated; but the unions have always refused to do this. [More…]
They concentrated on a few unions, such as the Amalgamated Metal Workers Union, and said that the leaders were unrepresentative of their unions because they were elected by a very small proportion of the membership. [More…]
For instance, approximately 0.02 per cent of the membership now can elect the officials of unions which decide to adopt the collegiate system. [More…]
Then the Government has blamed the unions for the destruction of particular industries, particularly the ship building industry. [More…]
In fact over the past year or so the unions have gone a long way towards eliminating strikes and stoppages in the shipbuilding industry. [More…]
Again the Government is using the unions as an excuse for problems that it has in that industry. [More…]
In fact the actions of the unions in placing bans on Newport have not resulted from the actions of a few. [More…]
They have been the result of the action of a majority of delegates to the Trades Hall Council in Melbourne, not some small unrepresentative group of militants but a majority of the unionsjust a majority admittedly, but a majority. [More…]
The Prime Minister (Mr Malcolm Fraser) and the Minister for Employment and Industrial Relations have said that the motivation of the unions is political. [More…]
The unions’ motivation in this dispute has been utterly altruistic. [More…]
If we look at the environmental issues just briefly we can see why the unions are so concerned. [More…]
Then it said that if the unions did not let the project go ahead $100m would be wasted. [More…]
The fact is that the Newport power station dispute is only representative of what is a developing trend in this country and the rest of the western capitalist world- that unions are increasingly concerned not only with straight industrial issues such as wages and conditions of employment but workers, through their unions, are becoming increasingly concerned about what they do with their labour. [More…]
It goes totally against the evolving role of unions and extends beyond their conventional industrial issues. [More…]
The answer to all this is to extend the role of unions to allow them to be involved in the planning process. [More…]
What about the millions of people in Australia who do not belong to trade unions but who dutifully live by the democratic system which they understand and which they respect? [More…]
Does the Opposition seriously suggest that the Government, for some extraordinary reason, is presenting itself as a campaigner against the rights of the trade unions? [More…]
In this week’s Bulletin there is an article on a book entitled Inside Australia’s Top 100 Trade Unions. [More…]
The Deputy Leader of the Opposition spoke about mass action by trade unions. [More…]
These are a direct Federal Government responsibility; but problems in housing, like so many other aspects of life and other responsibilities of government, can be solved only by the Federal Government acting in co-operation with the other tiers of government, the community, private enterprise and the trade unions. [More…]
Deposits with savings banks- except savings bank cheque accounts- fixed deposits with trading banks, deposits and shares with building societies, deposits with credit unions, money paid towards the purchase of land or the construction of a home are eligible and acceptable forms of savings for a person wishing to be involved in this scheme. [More…]
Credit unions were totally excluded to start with but afterwards there was some modification of that condition. [More…]
It is perhaps one of the worst unions in Australia in this regard. [More…]
I wonder how honourable members opposite will be able to keep up this lie that we bash the unions when we are prepared to take humane measures such as this. [More…]
It is fair to say that neither governments of any persuasion nor management, nor unions, have actually sat down to tackle those problems. [More…]
He was elected from 30 candidates nominated from all ABC unions. [More…]
These figures show plainly that a very large number of trade unions are opting to take advantage of the opportunities provided by the Government’s legislation to have their elections conducted by the Commonwealth Electoral Office, in which case they are paid for by the Commonwealth. [More…]
Regulations are being drafted so that there will be a requirement on trade unions to place on notification with the Industrial Registrar when their elections are due. [More…]
It ought also to be noted that this legislation does not apply to trade unions only. [More…]
In that case the legislation does not involve trade unions only but it involves also employer organisations. [More…]
It is quite plain that a very large number of trade unions are using this legislation and the opportunities provided by it and are liking it. [More…]
Australia desperately needs rigorous and enlightened economic management, free from doctrinaire obsessions, with reductions in the public sector outlays and attacks on trade unions. [More…]
Much has been said about the trade unions. [More…]
It is fair to say that the rank and file of the trade unions have recognised that if those who are currently in employment can minimise their wage demands then those who are unemployed will have a greater chance of gaining a job. [More…]
Bash the unions, pressure organised labour and hold down wages, in desperation, to save themselves at the next election. [More…]
The honourable member for Blaxland (Mr Keating) a moment ago said that what will happen is that there will be an onslaught against the unions, that we will resort to bashing the unions. [More…]
The Prime Minister (Mr Malcolm Fraser) when talking about the general trends in industrial relations said that we want to have communications with the unions. [More…]
No one suggests that he goes out of the Reserve Bank board meetings and reports to the executive or the congress of the Australian Council of Trade Unions on what has transpired at those Board meetings. [More…]
He was elected from more than 30 candidates from all the ABC unions. [More…]
To people connected with the trade unions who believe that it is good to hand out additional massive doses of protection, I say that nothing will save their jobs if the inflation rate, coming as a result of devaluation, is not reined in. [More…]
The first people who will be found on the Government’s doorstep tomorrow will be the industry leaders, the trade unions and Premiers of those States that have those massive industries. [More…]
More than 20 years ago members of trade unions were receiving severance pay. [More…]
Obviously, as Bob Hawke has pointed out on a number of occasions on behalf of the trade unions, if indexation is destroyed at the Arbitration Commission we will go back to the old system under which the strongest unions can get the increases they desire and the unorganised workers- the other 30 per cent or 40 per cent of the work force which is not organised into associations or trade unions- will miss out. [More…]
Perhaps it would prefer some of the strong unions to be able to bargain their way out of the problems while a substantial number of wage and salary earners stay as they are. [More…]
All the blame is apportioned to the trade unions for receiving those increases in salaries. [More…]
But why the Government blames the trade unions more than it is prepared to blame industry astounds me. [More…]
It was not just a case of the trade unions going out on long strikes or industrial struggles to achieve it. [More…]
So 1974 was a particularly important year as far as industrial relations were concerned, but it was not the fault of the unions that those wage increases were handed out. [More…]
The union movement in Australia is a very important part of our social and economic structure, and the conditions and wages which apply for our fellow Australians, determined as a result of negotiations between the unions and the Conciliation and Arbitration Commission, have created a climate in which, quite frankly, Australia is the envy of the world. [More…]
These boycotts have been used by some trade unions in this country to dictate the business arrangements of independent businessmen. [More…]
Australia, as will the trade unions, what this Government is about. [More…]
What a terrible legacy for the Australian Labor Party that pretended to support people in trade unions who work in the factories of Australia [More…]
Shipowners say also that there are too many unions and that they act irresponsibly. [More…]
The maritime unions do not agree with these statements. [More…]
Nevertheless industrial attitudes between owners and unions require a strong effort, which the Commission believes only the Commonwealth Government can make, to bring both sides to a better working relationship. [More…]
In the case of the new amendment, proposed new section 59B which will be written into the Act, trade unions are able to get over the problem of limitation by reason of their industrial strength. [More…]
Where the unions have strength they can get away with it; but where they have not, such as in the case I quoted or in the case of the fisherman, there is nobody to fight for them. [More…]
I understand the Centre has endeavoured to have Unions take up these, and other issues of concern to working women, and has also attempted to make working women more aware of such issues and to raise them with their Unions. [More…]
1 ) In what unions and branches of unions has the Registrar received a request, under Section 1 70 of the Conciliation and Arbitration Act, that a union election be conducted by the Registrar or the Commonwealth Electoral Office with a view to preventing irregularities in each year since January 1955 to January 1976. [More…]
Granted the Government’s decisions on Medibank and devaluation, its antagonistic attitudes towards the unions and, indeed, the way it usurped power itself 14 months ago, have made economic management in 1977 a very difficult proposition, but there is a way out. [More…]
In Australia unions and business leaders- this is reported in the Australian Financial Review of 14 January- have reached ‘an astonishing degree of consensus’ on the fact that the Government is mismanaging the economy. [More…]
All we see is confrontation with the trade union movement, both white and blue collar unions, in order to reduce living standards of the workers in 1977 in the same way as they were reduced in 1976 by the Fraser Government. [More…]
The shadow Treasurer and other Opposition speakers upbraid the Government and say that this is an attack on employees, that it is a proposal to cut real wages, that it is an exercise in immorality, as the head of the Labor Party, the President of the Australian Council of Trade Unions, Bob Hawke, said recently. [More…]
As part of that policy the Government is now arming itself with a far more extensive array of powers to suppress the incomes and the rights of the wage and salary earners and their trade unions than any Government has ever contemplated in the history of this country. [More…]
The proposal to establish an industrial relations bureau and the legislation now before the House in relation to the Trade Practices Act, which in fact would cover about 95 per cent of trade union activity, are the most extensive powers that any government has ever sought to control unions and employees in this country or restrict their rights to organise. [More…]
1 ) Is it a fact, as reported, that the Government is using ASIO to provide surveillance over Australian trade unions. [More…]
He will come into contact with former unions and members of unions with which he was previously associated. [More…]
These men constantly brow beat unions and use all their influence to reduce the real wages of their employees, while awarding themselves handsome pay rises. [More…]
Does the Treasurer’s statement on Tuesday that the Government intends to press very strongly indeed for a maximum measure of wage restraint indicate that the Government will now ignore this agreement with the unions and will oppose any increase in award wages to compensate wage earners for the imposition of the Medibank levy? [More…]
There should be an opportunity for higher returns going to cattle owners this year but that will depend on whether the buyers are prepared to pass the returns back and on whether the meat unions are prepared to keep the abattoirs working at full capacity which they will have to do to meet our prospective sales. [More…]
I will be very interested to see what attitude the President of the Australian Council of Trade Unions publicly takes to that legislation, given the professed concern of the Party he leads for legislation to ensure effective competition. [More…]
Finally, in looking at what members of the Labor Party have had to say, I remind the House that the President of the Australian Council of Trade Unions had very little to say about the December 1975 index, apart from calling for its full flow-on through wages. [More…]
They have come from the Opposition, from the Australian Council of Trade Unions and from business people who have stopped to think about the ramifications of such a clumsy attempt at union bashing. [More…]
Nor is it true to say that unions support the Australian Labor Party on all occasions or endorse all its policy pronouncements. [More…]
The second string to the Government’s bow is its attempt to camouflage its incompetence in handling the economy and to blame the trade unions for everything that goes wrong. [More…]
The people of Australia will applaud this move to have restrictive practices of unions come within the Trade Practices Act. [More…]
I believe that Australians are sick and tired of the restrictive practices of trade unions. [More…]
I believe in trade unions and support their behaviour if it is responsible. [More…]
It is true that unions grew up within the capitalist system, admittedly and properly, to counter abuses in the capitalist system as a defence mechanism, but they have gone far too far. [More…]
The unions have refused to recognise the limits of their historical role. [More…]
What has happened is that unions have entered the field of endeavour for which parliamentarians should properly be responsible. [More…]
For the honourable member for Port Adelaide to say that the Government will confront the unions and that we are on a collision course and for the President of the Australian Council of Trade Unions to say last week that he would refer such matters as the measures in this Bill and the measures concerning the industrial relations bureau to the International Labour Organisation is a load of rubbish. [More…]
Everyone has the right to form and to join trade unions for the protection of his interests. [More…]
In January 1977 an Age poll showed that 65 per cent of voters thought trade unions should not involve themselves in issues other than members’ wages and conditions. [More…]
A gallup poll in December 1976 showed that 80 per cent of Australians thought unions should not be entitled to strike or impose bans on political and social issues as distinct from industrial issues. [More…]
For honourable members opposite to say that the people do not want the trade practices of the unions to be under control shows that they are the prisoners of the trade union movement- I will tell the House about that shortly. [More…]
The abuses can be on the one hand the abuses of management, of corporations and of industry, but society has to be protected against the abuses, on the other hand, of monopoly power as carried on by trade unions. [More…]
All people are consumers whether they belong to trade unions or not. [More…]
This Act must protect the consumer against the unlawful activities of business and the unlawful activities of unions. [More…]
In his book Legal Immunities of Labour Unions he says: [More…]
The substantially general privileges and immunities of labor unions and their members and officials to commit wrongs to person and property, to interfere with the use of highways, to break contracts, to deprive individuals of the means of earning a livelihood, to control the activities of the individual workers and their local organisations by national organisations centrally and arbitrarily administered beyond the reach of state laws, and to misuse trust funds-things which no one else can do with impunity. [More…]
Labor unions have created special problems in the government sector. [More…]
At the weekend the Prime Minister (Mr Malcolm Fraser) adequately dealt with Mr Hawke’s complete conflict of interests as President of the Australian Council of Trade Unions on the one hand and Federal President of the Australian Labor Party on the other. [More…]
To begin with, labor unions have acquired over the years, de jure or de facto, numerous important immunities and privileges which go far beyond anything accorded to business or other private associations. [More…]
If unions and their leaders were held financially responsible for damages caused by breach of contracts, illegal strikes, intimidation and violence, considerable moderation in wage bargains could be expected. [More…]
Any confrontation will be the work of those union officials who want to bring down the private enterprise system, because they must know as all Australians recognise that the vast majority of people in this country want responsible trade unions of course, but that the excesses of unionism must be rejected. [More…]
-Before the suspension of the sitting for dinner I had shown how excessive monopoly behaviour of trade unions, like the excesses of monopoly power of the private sector of capital and business, must be subject to the trade practices legislation. [More…]
I am pleased to have the opportunity to follow the honourable member for Higgins (Mr Shipton) because it is quite clear from his address to this House this evening that the subject on which he spent most of the time available to him- trade unions- is a subject of which he has abysmal ignorance. [More…]
He represents an area that does not support those who believe in trade unions, although there are, of course, people in his electorate who do not vote for him and they are the people who do support the trade unions; they probably comprise the intelligent sector of his electorate. [More…]
Because he comes from the Establishment he can see things only in the hierarchical structure and it has not yet reached his mentality that the people who take the decisions relating to trade unions are the members. [More…]
Trade unions are democratic organisations, not like the political party to which the honourable member belongs and not like the other functions with which he associates. [More…]
The decision is taken by the members of the unions and this is why people do band together: They are not instructed to do things; they come together of their own volition. [More…]
He said trade unions were all right. [More…]
He means the Federated Clerks Union of Australia, the Australian Society of Carpenters and Joiners and all of those unions that are nice and respectable and will not to anything to upset the Establishment. [More…]
I want to speak on the same subject in regard to the Bill but before I leave the remarks of the honourable member I think it ought to be said that he spoke about the field of endeavour being exceeded by unions and then he went on to mention the Medibank levy. [More…]
The honourable member conceded that unions had a legitimate right to defend the incomes of their members. [More…]
The honourable member for Parramatta (Mr Ruddock) raised the question of unions being specifically excluded. [More…]
Australia is probably unique in the world for its legislation dealing with trade unions and industrial organisations. [More…]
I am not a lawyer- thanks be to Him abovebut it is obvious to anybody that trade unions do not fall within that definition of corporations. [More…]
Let me warn them against taking punitive action against the trade unions. [More…]
It placed penalties against unions. [More…]
I just wanted to lay to rest this business that the unions must not stand above the law. [More…]
The Australian people endorsed this Government and its policy proposals because they did not want those boycotts; they did not want that sort of malicious conduct from people like the honourable member for Burke, who spoke before me in this debate and who made it clear that the unions want to be able to hold other people to ransom, that they want to be able to deal in a harsh and unconscionable way with other people’s property and the rights of the individual. [More…]
It could be that penalties would apply specifically to trade unions as well as to employees. [More…]
Thus unions whose members engaged in action which contravened proposed new section 45D would be liable, under section 76, to a fine of up to $250,000 plus injunction proceedings, plus action for loss or damage by the affected corporation. [More…]
He said that the effect of the amendments would be to subject both companies and trade unions which engaged in a particular form of anti-competitive conduct to the same rules. [More…]
In England where the industrial torts operated they affected unions up until 1906 when the English Government saw fit to legislate to prevent such common law applying to unions. [More…]
The Trade Disputes Act 1906 has applied ever since and was strengthened in the mid 1970s to ensure that industrial torts do not apply to unions. [More…]
The alternative is that the Government is composed of knaves because it is indulging in action which will bring about in this country an industrial confrontation which simply must occur if the unions are to preserve their rights to act collectively and to take any form of industrial action. [More…]
It could also be that pan of the Government’s logic is that this legislation will be thrown in as part of the array of measures that it will use against unions in the post-wage indexation era which its wages policy will bring about. [More…]
At times when business became too big it developed its own bureaucracy and the bureaucracy of big business, big unions or big government often militate against the rights of individuals. [More…]
The honourable member harped, whinged and grizzled about the fact that the trade unions are subject to the penalties but he failed to inform the listening public at large that exactly the same penalties apply to corporations which breach very similar provisions. [More…]
Following on the words of Paul Johnson, who castigated the trade union movement and described its extremist leaders as robber barons, let us ask ourselves what practical examples have arisen in recent times to warrant this equal treatment under this legislation of trade unions and employer groups. [More…]
We concede the claim of the trade unions to be able to withhold labour. [More…]
The unions are attempting to run this country. [More…]
All we get is Mr Wran in New South Wales window dressing and bleating about the bread manufacturers when half the problem comes from the unions. [More…]
In addition to the amendments which I have proposed to section 45D, I see no reason in principle why the trade unions should not as far as possible be subject to the same law as other corporations. [More…]
I think that over a period it would be possible, if it were carefully done, to have trade unions incorporated- not in the hybrid way as at present when they hide behind all sons of legal technicalities, but incorporated as fully as possible under the same legislation as corporations. [More…]
The trade unions and their mouthpieces in this chamber talk about threats. [More…]
It remains true, and I believe it would be accepted by the responsible members of the Opposition, that trade unions are expected by the people of Australia to act in the national interest. [More…]
However, the Government recognises- I think most Australians do- that the trade unions are subject to that syndrome which has become fairly well known over recent years and which is known in the colloquial expression: ‘Bless you, Jack. [More…]
The honourable member for Port Adelaide talked also about criticisms of trade unions and the Labor Party. [More…]
He said that the trade unions and the Labor Party were separate in a very real sense. [More…]
I put it to the honourable member for Port Adelaide that he must have absolute contempt for the Australian people if he really believes that the great majority of them accept the view that when the President of his Party takes off his Labor Party cap and puts on his Australian Council of Trade Unions President’s cap he becomes a different man. [More…]
The honourable member for Burke (Mr Keith Johnson) talked at great length about the trade unions being democratic. [More…]
He talked about the right of people to band together to protect their interests, and he said that is how trade unions operated. [More…]
I am prepared to accept in the terms of the law that trade unions are not corporations, but what I am not prepared to accept, and what I do not believe the majority of the people of Australia are prepared to accept, is that trade unions are bodies which, at the expense of the national interest, may further their own selfinterests. [More…]
In fact, there are in the industrial world many disputes known as demarcation disputes, because, as I understand it, the ‘Bless you Jack; I am all right’ syndrome begins to operate and we find large trade unions endeavouring to deal with smaller trade unions, to take them over and to deny them their right to be exactly what the honourable member for Burke suggested they ought to be. [More…]
If this is the attitude of the Trade Practices Commission, it seems to me that the more rational line of conduct for those who would speak for the trade union membership would be for them to take the view that no decision should be made on the hindering or prevention of the supply of goods or services by an employer or corporation until the picture is clear in the minds of all those people who are part and parcel at least of the trade unions. [More…]
This could be applied to actions by the trade unions in their legitimate activity of trying to better the industrial conditions of their members. [More…]
Unions could be before the industrial court, they could fall within the ambit of the trade practices legislation, or they could also be before a State court on an injunction and faced with possible damages. [More…]
The unions are opposed to the legislation. [More…]
In the 1971 Act, introduced by the previous Liberal-Country Party Government, section 36 pointed the way to some control over black bans and collusive practices against industries by groups of persons such as unions. [More…]
There is concern that the executives of the unions have too much power. [More…]
But let honourable members opposite at least take this thought home tonight: They support privilege in the unions. [More…]
It is at last good enough for the Leader of the Opposition and for the President of the Australian Labor Party and President of the Australian Council of Trade Unions. [More…]
My question, which is addressed to the Prime Minister, refers to his Government’s decision to increase vastly its powers to restrict the industrial activities of employees and their trade unions through its proposed introduction of the industrial relations bureau, its reported intention to increase substantially the penalties provided in the Conciliation and Arbitration Act and its trade practices legislation which would make many employees and probably their unions liable to injunctions, civil actions for damages and massive penalties. [More…]
Is it the case that the Government regards such legislation as essential to its announced aim of slashing real wages this year, or is it simply that it is seeking to provoke a confrontation with the unions and thereby distract public attention from its abysmal economic performance? [More…]
Yet the announced policy of the Australian Council of Trade Unions, and now I presume of the Opposition, is as a result of seeking total full indexation to bring about a continuation of just the sort of situation that they themselves created. [More…]
The trade unions will set about making out a case in relation to the 2.8 per cent increase which resulted from the devaluation. [More…]
We achieved those distinctions with the support of the socialist Labor Party, with the support of left wing unions which want to see how much thenworkers can get by doing as little as possible. [More…]
Assertions have been made in this place and in the Press that the protected industries, by virtue of their protection, have made sweetheart agreements with the trade unions. [More…]
I turn to the area in which sweetheart agreements have been made with the trade unions. [More…]
If the wages that are demanded by certain unions are paid and if the terms and conditions that are put forward are accepted, those industries would have to close because they could not afford to pay. [More…]
I was saying that one of the great things about that part of the legislation to which I was referring, namely, proposed new section 4Sd, is that it will protect the workers against some of the worst excesses of some of the worst people in the trade unions. [More…]
But, when people band together, as they sometimes do in powerful unions, and partially withdraw their services and thereby prejudice the jobs of a great number of people across a wide area, they have gone too far. [More…]
But so often it has been the case that other people, apart from the few with vested interests in unions, have had their livelihoods prejudiced. [More…]
I am reminded of the situation which exists in Japan, where I understand the union officials have a much greater awareness of the fact that the people who work in unions are part of the wheel of society. [More…]
They come from the big monopolistic unions. [More…]
I will be telling my constituents about it no matter which way they voted at the last election because one of the questions that I have been asked by people so often in my electorate in the past year is: ‘Why do you not somehow stop the unions prejudicing our jobs?’ [More…]
At least a body of legal opinion believes that proposed section 45D could in fact be used as a major punitive clause against a union taking legitimate actionaction which any person other than a person who is totally devoid of a sense of responsibility would accept that the union is entitled to takeand could result in a suit of prosecution of a nature which would make it impossible for small unions, and there are small unions, to operate. [More…]
The legislation may not make it impossible for larger unions to operate as they have access to a greater level of funds. [More…]
-The Minister for Business and Consumer Affairs (Mr Howard) and the Government are to be complimented for bringing forward a Bill as important as this one and for allowing the public, the trade unions, the Opposition and members of this House to have the opportunity to read it and to discuss it among themselves. [More…]
The honourable member for Eden-Monaro (Mr Sainsbury) spoke about the unions getting funds from the big monopolist unions. [More…]
What big monopolist unions? [More…]
The unions are made up only of small working class people such as myself. [More…]
When unions take industrial action to put pressure on an employer in defence of the rights of trade unionists they will have to be conscious not only of the sections of the Conciliation and Arbitration Act but also of the sections of the Trade Practices Act, particularly proposed section 45D. [More…]
This section will have the effect of rendering unworkable the system of industrial relations as it is known to most unions and unionists. [More…]
Was the reason the fact that if it was introduced into the Commonwealth Conciliation and Arbitration Act it could not be enforced on the great body of trade unions which are covered by State industrial legislation, or was there some other reason? [More…]
This most suspicious piece of legislation will certainly plunge the country into industrial confrontation, because if the unions accept it without some kind of battle they will forfeit aU rights to act as trade unions. [More…]
Government speakers blame the unions for inflation. [More…]
Speaker after speaker on the other side attacked the trade unions and talked about strikes. [More…]
Honourable members opposite suggest that every strike is the fault of the unions, that unionists must like going home without pay, that they must like living without money. [More…]
I remember when wage indexation was first discussed and the Government was saying that the unions must accept package deals. [More…]
Lo and behold, it was not long before the Government wanted to water down wage indexation when the unions started to accept it. [More…]
But let me remind honourable members opposite that the Broken Hill mining companies negotiate round table agreements with unions. [More…]
The Minister for Employment and Industrial Relations (Mr Street) should be inviting a member of the Barrier Industrial Council over to help him solve some of his industrial problems instead of criticising unions in this House. [More…]
When the people get sick of the Government blaming everything on the previous Government, it thinks that the best way out is to make an attack on the trade unions. [More…]
The terms of reference of the Trade Practices Review Committee, or the Swanson Committee as it is known, included that proposal, and the unions have had the same opportunity as everybody else in the community to consider what changes may be made and to make submissions to that Committee and to the Government. [More…]
We all are aware that on 25 February this year an opportunity will be given to the union movement to discuss the legislation and there will be a meeting between the Government and the Australian Council of Trade Unions on the matter. [More…]
Obviously the unions still have a chance to put submissions on this question before the Government. [More…]
Trade unions will be able to do all the sorts of things that they were able to do before but there will be particular things which have developed in the trade union movement which the Government and the community in general considers to be to the detriment of the normal operations of the community and economy which will not be permitted under this legislation. [More…]
If other unions took the approach that was taken by those in Broken Hill in so many instances, I think the industrial relations scene in Australia would be far the better for that education. [More…]
Unions which behave responsibly do not have any cause for concern under this legislation but those which seek to act in such a way as to impose a restraint of trade must be expected to come within the provisions of the legislation in the same way as the employers do, as private enterprise in general does and should continue to do and as the Government itself will do under this legislation. [More…]
The public has expressed the view that the unions have tended to go far beyond the bounds of what the people are prepared to accept as being the normal and proper functions of the trade union movement. [More…]
Governments need sympathy and understanding in order to develop a satisfactory industrial climate between the trade unions and government, and not repressive, union bashing legislation and stupid, unthinking, shallow speeches such as those which we have heard from the Government side today. [More…]
I am somewhat astonished that the debate on a trade practices Bill has turned into a discussion on trade unions. [More…]
Trade practices law has been in force in the United States since about 1890 and in the United Kingdom somewhat latterly, but always trade unions have been excluded from its ambit. [More…]
It is astonishing that at the moment, apart from the Minister for Business and Consumer Affairs (Mr Howard), there are only 2 honourable members on the Government side of the chamber, when during the whole of the debate honourable members opposite have been bashing trade unions. [More…]
unions are specifically excluded from the ambit of trade practices. [More…]
Trade unions, after all, are organisations of people within particular industries to protect themselves from the organisation of capital, if you like, and economic power and so on. [More…]
Trade unions are organised to protect the individual worker against the rapacity of organised capital. [More…]
I repeat, the law in the United States and the law in the United Kingdom, upon which we model ourselves, exempts trade unions from the operation of trade practices law. [More…]
It can make this legislation as restrictive as it wants to and as rapacious as it needs to; but we have a Conciliation and Arbitration Act which is supposed to regulate the operations of trade unions. [More…]
Trade unions are not trade practising organisations. [More…]
Honourable members may accept the Galbraith thesis about countervailing power- that the 2 great powers in the community are capitalism on the one side and the trade unions on the other- but that is not what trade practices regulations are about. [More…]
In the 2 countries with which we compare ourselves, I hope honestly- that is, the United States and the United Kingdom- trade unions are exempted from the operations of trade practices regulations. [More…]
For some obscure reason, which the Minister has not explained, he has sought to bring trade unions within this legislation. [More…]
Trade unions have power, and thank God they do. [More…]
In what respect are trade unions brought within the ambit of trade practices? [More…]
In what respect are trade unions regarded as being perpetrators of trade practices? [More…]
I can understand their not liking trade unions. [More…]
I hope there is an acknowledgment that trade unions are a necessary part of the division of economic power in the community. [More…]
If honourable members wish to compare our country with Bulgaria, China, Portugal, or somewhere else, let us hear it; but in both the United States and the United Kingdom trade unions do not come within the ambit of trade practices regulation. [More…]
-Exactly, they hate unions. [More…]
But they have to acknowledge the existence of unions. [More…]
With great respect to the Minister, I ask: Why is it sought here, unlike in the 2 major countries with which we like to compare ourselves- the United States and the United Kingdom- to bring trade unions within the ambit of restrictive trade practices regulation? [More…]
If the honourable member thinks that unions are in the same league or even on the same level as big business, let him say so; but that is not really the case in respect of restrictive trade practices regulation. [More…]
If the Government thinks that unions do the same, it can amend the Conciliation and Arbitration Act. [More…]
But 2 animals that are not recognisable together are being mixed together when unions are brought within the ambit or restrictive trade practices regulation. [More…]
I think this is what we have sought to point out during this debate; but all we have heard is the bashing of unions. [More…]
If honourable members opposite want to say that they do not like unions, this is fair enough. [More…]
But they have to live with unions. [More…]
All honourable members opposite do is to intrude unions into the area. [More…]
They have specifically exempted trade unions from the ambit of trade practice regulations. [More…]
Trade unions are an essential part of the Australian economy. [More…]
I accept the fact that the honourable gentleman probably does not know much about trade unions He probably knows a lot about trade organisations. [More…]
It is an attempt to deal with trade unions. [More…]
I am convinced, as are my parliamentary colleagues in the Aus.tralian Labor Party, that this is a snide attempt by a formerly respected Minister, the Minister for .Business and Consumer Affairs (Mr Howard), to curb the trade unions of this country. [More…]
Much has been said about trade unions in this debate. [More…]
The younger members of the Government ought to go to Latin America and have a look at the living conditions of the people which have been created as a result of trade unions being battered into the ground. [More…]
The revolution in Cuba was brought about as a result of the trade unions being battered into the ground. [More…]
The coup in Chile was brought about as a result of the trade unions being battered into the ground. [More…]
The military coups in many of the countries of Latin America, including Brazil, were brought about as a result of the trade unions not being allowed to function properly or to have corrected capitalist injustices. [More…]
Honourable members opposite condemn the trade unions for their actions, but they never condemn the actions of big business such as the brewery monopolies. [More…]
-I will not take as long as I ought to in this debate, but I want to say something about the trade practices legislation as a means of bashing the trade unions. [More…]
That distortion of Justice was corrected by the House of Commons in 1906- not by a House of Commons dominated by communists or even by Ramsay MacDonald ‘s socialists but a House of Commons dominated by people from the Reform Club of England, the Liberals, the Lloyd Georges, who saw the travesty of forcing unionists and trade unions to pay damages to an employer against whom they were engaged in a legitimate industrial dispute. [More…]
From 1906 the law of England prohibited any action against unions or unionists for damages caused as a consequence of industrial disputes. [More…]
The Wilson Government, to its eternal credit, altered the law again after the Rookes v. Barnard decision, to restore the rights of unions to use the boycott and the strike weapon to get a fair crack of the whip in an adversary situation with employers. [More…]
Even the Heath Conservative Government did not attempt to apply the law of torts to unions which were engaged in the kind of industrial disputes about which we are talking now. [More…]
This brings us to the famous Donovan Royal Commission, which was held not many years ago, which brought down a unanimous finding, which was tabled in the House of Commons, stating that it is utterly impossible to use the law of torts as a means of preventing unions from exercising their right to strike. [More…]
If it attempts to bring in the trade practices legislation as an indirect means of the application of the law of torts to unions and unionists who are engaged in an adversary industry situation with employers, the Government is surely going to face the biggest industrial confrontation that it has ever seen. [More…]
It is not going to take place with the workers who are unskilled or with those unions which have a large unskilled membership. [More…]
I know that the Government’s secret strategy is to pull on a dispute with the maritime unions. [More…]
Yes, I want the unions to close the wharves before they allow this legislation to go on the statute books. [More…]
He may talk about the enormous power of the unions, and certainly we respect him but does he imagine that so many people on the Government benches were returned to power without the support of vast numbers of people in the trade unions? [More…]
My own view is that if unions contract with an employer that contract should be subject to the common law. [More…]
But he knows very well, and so does the honourable member for Melbourne Ports (Mr Crean), that by English history he has got out of the English common law and he has got out of the common law of Australia because unions are classified as friendly societies and therefore the employers cannot bring an action against them in contract. [More…]
Neither do I believe the treasury bench is seeking a confrontation with the unions at this critical time. [More…]
Therefore, please do not accuse us of trying to bash the unions in any way. [More…]
But I do not believe union members want a confrontation with the Government; neither do I believe the Prime Minister (Mr Malcolm Fraser) wants a confrontation with the unions. [More…]
He called for all the grand bans of the unions. [More…]
Why does the President of the Australian Council of Trade Unions start saying that there will be- how many- one million unemployed by the end of the year? [More…]
The Opposition can have the unions. [More…]
Nobody in the trade unions need worry about what the Opposition is saying for political reasons. [More…]
I met business leaders, members of the Legislative Assembly, local authorities, unions and all interested organisations. [More…]
The Public Service unions involved want to work overtime. [More…]
There is a dispute currently between the Public Service Board and the Public Service unions. [More…]
Has the honourable gentleman seen reports of a statement by the President of the Australian Council of Trade Unions describing the rise of 6 per cent in the consumer price index as disastrous? [More…]
At the same time as consultations were being held with the States, discussions took place with the private insurance industry, employer organisations, trade unions, the medical and legal professions, welfare organisations and motorists’ organisations. [More…]
Australian Council of Trade Unions [More…]
We find the unions seeking not only maintenance of the excessively high level of real wages but also further adjustments for previous price movements. [More…]
The great mistake that the Australian Conciliation and Arbitration Commission made in the first national wage case in May 1974 was this: If the Commission had then introduced wage indexation on the basis of automatic adjustment every quarter with a plateau at the average award rate as the Australian Council of Trades Unions then asked for- the ACTU ‘s claim was a little higher, $7 a week higher than the Goverment was asking for- and also had taken care to see that industries like the metal industries were given a proper starting point for the new indexation system we would not now be in the position we are in. [More…]
We have conflicts between employer and employee, between governments and trade unions, between the Commonwealth government and State governments, between technologists and artisans, between young people and their parents and between country and city, to name but a few. [More…]
The President of the Australian Council of Trade Unions, Mr Hawke, recently returned from Japan and made some scurrilous claims which, in my opinion, need to be refuted. [More…]
I believe that the Government must convince our trading partners that the unions are not going to destroy our trading capacity. [More…]
Mr Hawke conferred with the President of the Confederation of Japanese Automotive Workers Unions, as indeed did our Party. [More…]
He did not talk about the harmonious relations that exist between companies and labour unions. [More…]
He did not talk about the concern of unions for the financial and competitive position of their companies. [More…]
He did not talk about how unions voluntarily forego their bonuses in order to assist their employers and their companies in the event of difficult circumstances, such as those which were created during the strike of the Storemen and Packers Union of Australia which withheld wool supplies for mills in Japan, which nearly closed some mills, and which, of course, put what are supposed to be its own colleagues out of work in Japan. [More…]
He did not talk about the policy of Japanese companies of life time employment- a very good, sound mutual relationship between labour unions and company management- and the near absence of industrial strikes, demarcation disputes or bans, let alone employees having a day off when the weather gets too hot. [More…]
Mr Hawke accused the Australian Government of using the unions as a smokescreen and a scapegoat. [More…]
It is interesting to note, in relation to the Reserve Bank’s call for moderation in wages policy, that the President of the Australian Council of Trade Unions and President of the Australian Labor Party, Mr Hawke, is a member of the Reserve Bank Board. [More…]
I believe there is evidence to sustain my belief that at this time in our nation’s history there is a great opportunity for the major political parties, ibr management and for unions in particular to reach a consensus that the future welfare of our citizens will depend to a large extent on giving them the opportunity to work and thereby to live productive and useful lives. [More…]
As has been clearly pointed out by previous speakers, the unskilled workers in particular were priced out of employment through the policies of the Australian Council of Trade Unions and the previous Labor Government. [More…]
During the election campaign the Labor Party had argued that its trade union links would enable it to negotiate more effectively with militant unions, but in Mr Whitlam ‘s first year strikes proliferated and 2 634 000 working days were lost- a 3 1 per cent increase over the previous year. [More…]
The consumers have a different attitude again and the unions also have some variation of the proposal as put forward. [More…]
There will be confrontation with the unions about the industrial bureau and the like and pressure applied to reduce the real level of wages. [More…]
If the people of this country, if governments and if unions and all the other social groups in the community want economic recovery, each has a responsibility to work for that objective. [More…]
I find little difference between the bureaucracies that are contained in large companies and the bureaucracies that are contained in unions. [More…]
The problem that Australia is facing is, I believe, the result of a bartering that is being conducted by the big three in Australiabig government, big business and big unions. [More…]
That will not happen while the bureaucracies of government, business or unions constantly try to use people to do nothing more than extend their power game. [More…]
We find that one of the main offenders in this insidious move to have monopoly situations imposed on petrol resellers and on the oil industry is a gentleman very well known to this House and much mentioned, namely, Mr Hawke, the President of the Australian Council of Trade Unions. [More…]
I would remind the honourable member for Corio that we also have big unions. [More…]
We certainly have heard plenty about the big unions in this place. [More…]
The Queen mentioned in her opening address that the Government has certain legislation in hand to correct the monopolising power of big unions and the way they are able to extend and impinge upon the rights and freedoms of their members. [More…]
I believe that these amendments will do no more than bring the trade unions under the control of law. [More…]
We are conscious of the fact that trade unions are up in arms about this move. [More…]
Why are the trade unions so frightened of the industrial relations bureau? [More…]
What we have to do, contrary perhaps to what the honourable member for Corio might believe, is to break down the monopolising power of big government, big business and big unions. [More…]
It was interesting to hear the honourable member for Wilmot (Mr Burr) equating big government and big business with big unions. [More…]
They allow some ratbags to come here from overseas and run their unions. [More…]
There is not a great deal of independence shown by some of the members of the unions with which those 2 gentlemen are associated. [More…]
It will destroy once and for all the right of the trade unions to organise their own affairs and to work fearlessly for the welfare of their union members. [More…]
In return the trade unions acted with restraint and patience in a time of economic difficulty and the British Government made concessions which recognise the great burdens borne by those workers. [More…]
It has begun a violent and carefully timed attack on the Australian work force and on the trade unions which guard its rights. [More…]
This Government has been working to open the way for the unwarranted intrusion of an industrial police force into the trade unions. [More…]
The Prime Minister has instructed the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation to resume its interference with the individual liberties and human rights of trade unions and trade unionists. [More…]
However, I consider that the unions have the same function as the cattlemen’s associations- that is to get the best price for their members’ labour that they can. [More…]
It was defeated in the courts purely because the employers thought that it was a manner in which they could prevent the then Australian Council of Trade Unions advocate from taking all of the test cases and spreading those cases over such a broad field that it would be impossible for any one person to prepare or consider the cases. [More…]
Strangely enough, the ones who have gained the most from the decision to bring in a total wage concept are the unions. [More…]
Not for a moment am I attempting to play lightly with the industrial requirements for which the unions would ask. [More…]
This is despite the fact that the Labor Party provided the Government with a frank and honest reassessment of the scheme, recognising its strengths and weaknesses, admitting that there were areas for improvement and offering complete cooperation with the Government and the trade unions if the scheme was brought back. [More…]
The unions have pushed claims that the economy cannot support. [More…]
However, the unions realised that the game was up. [More…]
The honourable member for Hindmarsh (Mr Clyde Cameron) tried to say the other day that if amendments were made to the Trade Practices Act and if there were any sort of conflict this country would be brought to its heels by unions which would turn off switches and plunge this country into darkness. [More…]
Tax indexation is a proper and most overdue reform, although what the Government really should have done was trade some of it off against an agreement with the unions for wage restraint. [More…]
Most of them do not have trade unions; or, if they have, they are tame cat unions set up by the government. [More…]
The wage earners, the unions and the business people who are in a position to invest today must use this opportunity wisely and well if we are to prosper in Australia as the Queen in her Speech said we have the opportunity to do. [More…]
I am aware that the 2 unions to which the honourable member referred have for some time been engaged in discussions relating to possible amalgamation. [More…]
It includes the leader of the Australian Council of Trade Unions, Mr Hawke, the Secretary of the ACTU, academics, the Minister as Chairman, and people from manufacturing industry. [More…]
The point that the Minister makes, the point that the Australian Population and Immigration Council makes- and on APIC were the President of the Australian Council of Trade Unions, Mr Hawke, and the Secretary of the ACTU, Mr Souter- is that if we do not get these people into Australia we will not be going anywhere. [More…]
Under the rules of some unions- one large union that I know of- the membership year commences on 1 August in a particular year and the ballot for offices is held between then and 3 1 December of that year, but the financial year of the union does not end until, say, May of the following year. [More…]
Do the regulations already published make provision for the Registrar to be informed of the opening and closing dates for nominations and for the publication of those dates in the case of unions whose rules do not specify opening and closing dates? [More…]
It is true that there can be some unions- indeed, I understand that there is at least one- whose rules provide for the sort of timetable that the honourable member has indicated. [More…]
We have not been tough enough with the bludgers or the strike-prone unions. [More…]
Finally, it embarks on a union-bashing campaign, in a desperate attempt to prove that somehow this Government’s weird economic policies are not the reason for the worsening economic situation but rather it is all the fault of the unions. [More…]
Where is the Government’s White Paper on manufacturing industry that it trumpeted so loudly a year agothe White Paper that was supposed to set out a framework of co-operation between industry, government and the unions in getting Australian manufacturing industry into a basis of growth and profitability? [More…]
As I have said, apparently he puts different values on their actions compared with the values and responsibilities he tries to place on leaders of unions. [More…]
All it has been able to do is bring about confrontation with the unions, confrontation from which in many cases the Government has had to back down. [More…]
This goes back to the time of Sir Stanley Bruce when a conservative Prime Minister was going to wield the big stick as far as the unions were concerned. [More…]
I know there are some men on the other side who adopt a very reasonable attitude as regards unions in general, but this Government has its fair share of union bashers sitting on the other side of this House. [More…]
When the Liberal Government starts talking about introducing legislation to do something about trade unions and so on the unions have no cause whatsoever to trust that legislation because on very few occasions has this sort of legislation been in the interests of the unions themselves or in the interests of the members of the unions. [More…]
Again this was an occasion when the Liberal Government did try to get tough with the unions on an issue on which it had very little valid grounds and when the unions stood up to the Government it was not the unions that backed down; it was the LiberalCountry Party Government that backed down. [More…]
The Government has had opportunities over the last few years when it could have come to some arrangement with the unions in trying to iron out some of the problems. [More…]
I can remember that before ever I came into the Parliament discussions took place between the unions in an effort to cease the demarcation disputes that were taking place in that industry. [More…]
Interest rates are devastating, especially to the young, and yet no attempt at real, sensible and sensitive discussions between the Prime Minister and the President of the Australian Council of Trade Unions has been made. [More…]
The Labor Party is dominated by the vested interests of trade unions. [More…]
So when people say to me, ‘Let us cut taxes in a deal with the Commission and the unions’, that is a proposal not without great merit. [More…]
Instead, we have a conservative government which chooses confrontation with unions, with worker bashing and with doing its best to reduce the living standards of millions of Australian wage and salary earners. [More…]
Had they been in office for two more years the economic mess of this country, the inflation rate in this country and the unemployment rate in this country would have been the figures which the President of the Australian Council of Trade Unions, Mr Hawke, had predicted, of 700 000 people out of work and an inflation rate of about 30 per cent. [More…]
Trade unions asked for it and I am sure that honourable members on this side of the chamber will recollect the praise that the Government received from the trade union movement as a whole when taxation indexation was introduced. [More…]
The same person today is supporting his colleagues in the Australian Council of Trade Unions who are pressing for further wage increases. [More…]
I am suggesting that Government supporters now have to forget about criticising the unions for not increasing production and perhaps for going on strike and forget about begging the private enterprise moguls to do something about the situation. [More…]
-Is the Minister for Primary Industry aware of the strike at the Hamilton container terminal, Brisbane, following a demarcation issue between various unions involving 2 Transport Workers Union members who were guaranteed similar work by the same company at a different nearby location? [More…]
What steps is the Government taking to thwart the activities of irresponsible trade union leaders, and what action has been taken to put real teeth into the legislation to allow these unions and their irresponsible leaders to be sued for damages by the beef producers and other workers on a basis similar to that by which irresponsible leaders and unions can be sued for damages under the Bjelke-Petersen legislation in Queensland? [More…]
Mr Curran is quoted in the book Inside Australia’s Top 100 Trade Unions, as saying: ‘We’ve been involved in political strikes in this Branch’ that is, the Victorian Branch- ‘I suppose because of the Marxist thought in the union. [More…]
But politics is part of unions’ province’! [More…]
Trade unions are being caught both ways in the inflation and unemployment crises. [More…]
Unions are also spending money on problems affecting members that caused no worry in a time of full employment. [More…]
The Committee wiil inform, and consult with, other Commonwealth and State Departments and organisations, the airlines and unions, local government authorities, community organisations and other interested parties. [More…]
He is acting in an expedient way because of pressure being put on him by either his federal colleagues or left-wing unions in South Australia. [More…]
All I can say is that this soft touch on the part of the Government is in distinct contrast with the bashing of unions in which the Government indulges so much. [More…]
Since shortly after federation Australia has had a system of conciliation and arbitration which was designed to settle, by peaceful means, industrial disputes between employers and unions- a system which has provided many advantages for employers, unions and the community. [More…]
It has provided the impetus for the growth of large and powerful trade unions. [More…]
It has given these unions a monopoly over membership in the industries and callings they cover against rival organisations. [More…]
It has thus placed unions in Australia in a very powerful position. [More…]
Many trade unions have recognised that the privileges granted to them by the community, and the protection that the Conciliation and Arbitration Act has afforded their members, also have placed an onus on them to behave in a reasonable manner and, in pursuing their industrial claims, to have regard not only for the interests of their particular members, but also, for the well-being of the community in which they operate and in which their members are citizens. [More…]
Regrettably, some unions have tended to disregard their responsibilities to the community and, indeed, to their own members. [More…]
Moreover, in relation to this particular issue, trade unionists who believed that it was wrong for their unions to call stoppages over a political decision and who refused to engage in industrial action caused by their unions were victimised by those unions. [More…]
It believes that every employee should have the right to join a union and it encourages employees not only to join unions but to participate fully in their affairs. [More…]
The Government does not accept that unions should have the right to seek to force self-employed persons and employers who work on the tools to become union members. [More…]
There is clearly a need to prevent a repetition of the actions taken by a few unions in relation to the Medibank stoppages last year when they sought to penalise members who refused to take part in what was a blatantly political strike and also sought to have employers discriminate against them. [More…]
Finally, these particular sections will prevent unions from attempting to force independent contractors and employers who work on the tools to be become members. [More…]
For this reason, and because of the fundamental importance of the legislation, it believes that there is a need for time to be given not only for the members of Parliament to give the proposed legislation their objective consideration, but also for the principal parties to industrial relations- the peak councils of the employer organisations and trade unions, individual trade unions and individual employers and, more importantly, the community at large- to examine the contents of the Bill and to be able to make their views known to the Government. [More…]
Secondly, we would have had to get over the problem that unions would not have loaded the ships. [More…]
What we must do also is to achieve community acceptance of our conclusions- acceptance by business and acceptance by unions but not, if I may say, by the extreme left-wing unions. [More…]
My colleague the Minister for Employment and Industrial Relations has been in touch with the President of the Australian Council of Trade Unions about these matters. [More…]
Quite obviously, if we get into a freeze situation with the unions as well as the employers accepting the general thrust of what is proposed - [More…]
Quite clearly, if the unions accept what is now before them, and it is open to acceptance, there is an opportunity for all Australians to benefit. [More…]
Over the past few weeks the union concerned has shown a complete disregard for the interests not only of many of its members but also of members of other unions who have had to be stood down as a result of its action. [More…]
As I understand it, the Australian Council of Trade Unions has, during the course of the last three or four years, agreed to place embargoes on strikes of this nature as they affect Tasmania. [More…]
I believe that there is a case for trade unions to be represented on ASTEC. [More…]
Nevertheless, the Government had to appear before the Conciliation and Arbitration Commission this morning as did the Australian Council of Trade Unions and other organisations. [More…]
Furthermore, the Government has now proposed that, in the event of a broad agreement being reached on the prices and incomes freeze question, a special group comprising representatives of employers, unions and the Prices Justification Tribunal will be formed to continue an on-going advisory function to the Government which will enable us to examine amendments to the Prices Justification Act where they are considered necessary. [More…]
I would have looked to the members of the Labor Party in this House- I say ‘would have’ because of what we have just heard- and to the unions to give the plan some opportunity to work, not because it will answer every question, but because it will help in dealing with our major problems. [More…]
The price-wage freeze does nothing to restore the lost value of wages, and that is of very real concern for the unions. [More…]
That is also a matter of considerable concern for unions to consider and a problem in relation to getting their agreement to a wage-price freeze. [More…]
So the wage earners and the unions would again be looking at a further reduction in real wages, particularly as the Government through the Prime Minister this afternoon and at question time is talking about the imposition of transitional arrangements, whatever that might mean and whatever details the Prime Minister might have in mind for them. [More…]
While the Government is seeking the cooperation of the unions it is threatening them with an array of penalties and disabilities such as amendments to the Trade Practices Act and the Conciliation and Arbitration Act, the inquiry into trade union training and so on. [More…]
The Australian Council of Trade Unions has called for a national conference to consider all these matters. [More…]
It is up to the unions and Labor governments to obtain the best possible conditions for workers, whether migrant or not; but that does not mean that the migrant workers, both male and female, would prefer not to come to this country rather than work in often unpleasant jobs. [More…]
I would only hope that the same resolution could be picked up by the members of the Opposition in this place and the members of the trade union movement- in particular their leadership, for I am quite sure that the average member of Australian trade unions has an entirely different attitude towards the voluntary freeze from that which is being expressed by some members of the trade union leadership. [More…]
Has the Government agreed to the national conference on the wage-price freeze which was proposed at the hearing of the Conciliation and Arbitration Commission yesterday by the Australian Council of Trade Unions, supported before the Commission by employers and several State governments and welcomed by the Bench itself? [More…]
It could not succeed without at least the objective and in principle support of the President of the Australian Labor Party and of the Australian Council of Trade Unions. [More…]
Employers generally have agreed with the Government about prices and unions are to meet representatives of the Government tomorrow to discuss wages. [More…]
and the unions are to meet representatives of the Government tomorrow to discuss wages. [More…]
We hope that an agreement will be achieved with the unions about wages.’ [More…]
In discussion today it became quite clear that the President of the Australian Council of Trade Unions wanted a national conference on a very much broader range of issues, not giving any commitment on what might come out of it one way or the other. [More…]
He is stating that if there are tax cuts fully equivalent to the increase in wages that would flow through from 100 per cent indexation- that is what it is saying- the ACTU on its part, but only then, would be prepared to convene a special federal unions conference to consider the forgoing of the March quarter application on that basis. [More…]
Quite plainly what Mr Hawke was proposing is that if there is a national conference and depending on the Government making certain commitment about tax cuts the ACTU would then consider calling a conference of its unions to decide what it would do as a result of that. [More…]
Most people out in the sticks believe that is a pretty fair exchange, but Mr Hawke and the peak unions do not. [More…]
Employers generally have agreed with the Government about prices and the Unions are to meet representatives of the Government tomorrow to discuss wages. [More…]
I ask the Prime Minister: Is it a fact that significant employer organisations have also indicated that they favour consideration of the tax cuts proposed by the Australian Council of Trade Unions? [More…]
I will look forward to hearing from those Premiers under the honourable gentleman’s influence or under the influence of the President of the Australian Council of Trade Unions and President of the Australian Labor Party, to find out by how much the Premiers of New South Wales, South Australia and Tasmania will be prepared in line with their advocacy of tax cuts to forgo revenue normally due to them. [More…]
The capacity for unions and employers to pause in regard to increases in cost in the freight area would have been welcomed by the community. [More…]
I was wondering today whether the comments made in Canberra by the President of the Australian Labor Party and President of the Australian Council of Trade Unions are those of real concern or whether they seek to disrupt or change the system. [More…]
The policy of the Australian Council of Trade Unions then said that in no circumstances would the ACTU agree to a wage freeze. [More…]
Did he offer compliance by the Australian Council of Trade Unions with a 3-month halt in incomes? [More…]
His sole magnanimous offer was to convene a special federal unions conference to consider- merely to consider- the forgoing of the March quarter application. [More…]
He absolutely refused to accept that in return for a halt in prices the unions should voluntarily agree to a 3-month pause in wage increases. [More…]
The unions had made it quite clear that they would not make any commitment even in the vaguest terms to the objective of the heads of government agreement. [More…]
AH heads of government were to approach the Australian Council of Trade Unions and other employee organisations to seek- I quote the agreement- a voluntary commitment to a 3 months freeze. [More…]
At the hearing yesterday the State governments, the unions and the employers, still anxious to pursue and explore the prospects of a voluntary agreement, agreed to take part in a national conference. [More…]
Yet this morning the Prime Minister asked unions to sign a carte blanche, to agree to one side of the bargain without a clue of what the other side involved. [More…]
By trying to stampede the unions into submitting to just such a situation, the Prime Minister has sabotaged the whole wage-price agreement which the Premiers signed a week ago. [More…]
The Conciliation and Arbitration Commission, the unions, the employers, the States offered him another chance yesterday. [More…]
How can a government appeal to unions for co-operation when it is pushing legislation through the Parliament to restrict their rights and freedoms in a way that no other democracy in the world has contemplated? [More…]
There will be no need to get any agreement from the unions because the unions have accepted indexation. [More…]
What we have seen in the last few days is a disgraceful attempt by the labour unions to avoid the responsibility for something that the people want to see put into operation. [More…]
The Australian Council of Trade Unions has been late in the day even in making any statements. [More…]
If the unions want tax cuts let them ensure that there is a responsible return to reasonable union activities in this country, and that the strikes, loss of production and other disruptive activities that we have been facing over the past few years are ended. [More…]
So far, the only suggestion from the Australian Council of Trade Unions, for example, is that there ought to be a Commonwealth tax cut, in return for which it would consider calling a further conference of its own. [More…]
In spite of the fact that we tried on a number of occasions to achieve either a commitment on behalf of organisations, or, if that was not possible, a personal commitment in principle in line with the objectives of the heads of government agreement, we were not able to obtain that commitment from members of the Australian Council of Trade Unions or from the majority of the other people at the discussion that took place yesterday. [More…]
-I ask the Prime Minister: In view of the fact that prices are determined by employers and wages are determined by the Commonwealth Conciliation and Arbitration Commission and employers, exactly how much say will trade unions have in the wage-price freeze? [More…]
Will the Federal Government approach the Conciliation and Arbitration Commission, and if so when, to try to preserve the wage-price halt agreed to last week by the heads of government and rejected yesterday by the Australian Council of Trade Unions and other official union bodies? [More…]
No consultation was had with either the Australian Council of Trade Unions or any body connected with that organisation. [More…]
However, to talk in terms of the absolute cost of protection as being $184m annually is just as dangerous as the unions stating that the $100m profit of the Broken Hill Pty Co. Ltd is too high. [More…]
For example, tomorrow I will be seeing a delegation of all the textile and rubber workers unions in New South Wales sponsored by the New South Wales Trades and Labour Council. [More…]
But in any case honourable members can rest assured that the Federal Department of Health, after consultation with Federal and State government departments, trade unions, trades and labour councils, the Australian Council of Trade Unions and mining Companies, has developed the world’s most stringent code to govern the mining and milling of uraniumshould the Government give permission for mining to commence- subject to receiving the second Fox report. [More…]
The pursuit in these areas is still on a voluntary basis and with support throughout the community-which is present; which is evident- that pause can still work despite the opposition of some gentlemen in the Opposition and despite the opposition of the Australian Council of Trade Unions. [More…]
One of the interesting things about the proposition of the Transport Workers Union- it may well explain the incapacity of the President of the Australian Labor Party and of the Australian Council of Trade Unions to embrace even the objectives and principles of the wage-price halt- is the President’s incapacity to do anything about it. [More…]
I think it is a condemnation of his leadership of the Australian Council of Trade Unions that 230 people are able to put at risk not only the services in the State of Victoria but obviously the jobs of tens of thousands of people in that State. [More…]
The really pertinent point made in the Deputy Leader of die Opposition’s statement is that the President of the Australian Council of Trade Unions is the principal political opponent of this Government. [More…]
It is using the President of the Labor Party, who also happens to be President of the Australian Council of Trade Unions, not in pursuit of a national interest, but in pursuit of a party sectional interest. [More…]
Mr Hawke has demonstrated his utter incapacity not only to represent those members in the trade union movement who vote for the Liberal Party or National Country Party- that is, about 40 per cent of them- but also to serve the interests of the trade union movement in a bipartisan manner and a manner that ought to befit the President of the Australian Council of Trade Unions. [More…]
My speech dealt with penal provisions of legislation directed against trade unions. [More…]
But that Premiers Conference was transformed by the throwing into the ring of the concept of a price-wage freeze by the Premier of Victoria, who called for a national conference of governments, trade unions and employer organisations to consider such a freeze. [More…]
There was no possibility of agreement unless the Government could assure the unions that there would be an effective price freeze. [More…]
How could the unions be expected to agree to a wage freeze when there was no guarantee that there would be an effective price freeze, which the Government has never been in a position to guarantee. [More…]
So in the period of the proposed wage freeze there would be substantial recorded price increases, which of course would make it more difficult for unions to accept the wage freeze. [More…]
So it was unlikely that the unions would accept any further real wage cuts such as would be involved in a price and wage freeze because of the non-adjustment for the March quarter, meaning that real wages would .be reduced until at least the March quarter figures were looked at by the Conciliation and Arbitration Commission in August when, after the freeze had ended, it considered them at the same time as it considered the June quarter figures. [More…]
The ACTU called for such a conference in a hearing before the Conciliation and Arbitration Commission a week ago and said that in such a conference consideration should be given to tax cuts as an offset to unions forgoing the March quarter increase so that there would not be a further fall in real after-tax wages. [More…]
Clearly that was a very important issue for the unions. [More…]
The Arbitration Commission commended the idea, but the Government dismissed it out of hand on the flimsy excuse that the unions would not agree in principle to a price-wage freeze. [More…]
The Government must have known that the unions could not agree in principle to something which was vague, ill-defined, and beset with considerable problems until those problems had been discussed and analysed. [More…]
He said on television last week that the unions can get wage increases outside the Arbitration Commission and therefore the fact that he is asking the Commission to freeze award wages does not mean that he is trying to impose a compulsory wage freeze. [More…]
In fact, in the oil industry dispute, as I am sure all honourable members are aware, the Government is pressuring the oil companies, and has been doing so for some time, not to concede one cent to the unions in the negotiations which have now broken down and led to the prolonged strike. [More…]
It is interested in confronting the unions, in slashing real wages, and in the process bringing about substantial industrial disputation, therefore justifying the industrial relations legislation which has already been introduced into this House, and the trade practices legislation, which if implemented, will have similar effects on the ability of the unions to take industrial action. [More…]
What was involved in that and what we must constantly remind ourselves of, despite the attempts of people such as the President of the Australian Council of Trade Unions to divert our attention from it, was the simple proposition that the Australian people understood that it was fair to have a price pause in return for a wage pause. [More…]
To the extent that the President of the Australian Council of Trade Unions, his colleagues and members of the Opposition have denigrated the cause of reaching agreement on a price-wage pause, they have denied themselves an opportunity of participating in a means of making sure that the agreement worked. [More…]
The leader of organised labour in Australia, the President of the Aus.tralian Council of Trade Unions, Mr Hawke, came to Canberra last week proposing a national conference on the issue of the freeze. [More…]
Now we have the kick-the-unions recovery. [More…]
It was Mr Hawke, the President of the Australian Council of Trade Unions. [More…]
He agreed at the Premiers’ Conference to contact business leaders and trade unions throughout Australia and to report back to the Premiers as to what happened. [More…]
He was speaking about trade union representatives on this occasion- to proceed without a national conference and a subsequent conference of trade unions and seek their agreement to a national conference on this matter. [More…]
What is it that the trade unions are after? [More…]
If all the heads of government throughout Australia can agree that such a proposal is necessary to bring about economic recovery why do the trade unions not want to talk about it? [More…]
This is what the trade unions are aU about. [More…]
That is what the trade unions do not want, and it is what honourable members opposite do not want. [More…]
I put it to the honourable member for Gellibrand: Why do the trade unions not want to respond to the law? [More…]
Quite obviously, Mr Hawke, and the Australian Council of Trade Unions are not prepared to do that. [More…]
Down through the decades, whatever ails the nation is the fault of the unions. [More…]
The unions have developed. [More…]
The point I make is one of great seriousness because the honourable member knows very well that a so-called gentleman’s agreement was entered into in 1971 whereby the Australian Council of Trade Unions guaranteed that Tasmania would be exempt from the disastrous transport strikes which have blighted our island for far too long. [More…]
The sooner we take the stock whip to unions which deliberately and unlawfully interfere with free trade and commerce between the States, the better. [More…]
In view of the fact that the only hope of implementing a price-wage freeze is by gaining the co-operation of the trade unions, and because of the fact that Mr Hawke, whatever his political colour or motives were, was at that time trying to mediate in the crippling Victorian petrol crisis, can the Prime Minister tell me in all seriousness why he chose yesterday to make his attacks and how those attacks will help to bring about closer relations between the Government and the trade union movement? [More…]
I think a number of people had failed to understand that the Government and the President of the Australian Council of Trade Unions were not closer together. [More…]
I think the honourable gentleman also needs to ask himself what kind of judgment he can put on a proposition which asks the President of the Australian Council of Trade Unions to embrace a policy which he and the ACTU have been firmly unwilling to embrace and which they have stated on a number of occasions that they will not accept. [More…]
Quite obviously we had had very considerable discussion with the President of the Australian Council of Trade Unions and, as a result of that discussion, there was not the slightest inclination either in the name of his organisation or on a personal basis to accept the objectives, even in principle, of a wage-price pause which had been accepted by all heads of government, including the 3 Labor Premiers. [More…]
I understand that the unions main claims relating to $5.70 a week increase in wages and payment by the employers of the Medibank levy were rejected. [More…]
It is also based on a system of industry unions which suits that country very well. [More…]
I believe that it would not be possible to carry out such a mandatory provision on all occasions in a country like Australia because some of the largest unions have a large number of itinerant workers. [More…]
This is something that needs to be dealt with in teachers colleges and in teachers unions- are openly intolerant of the expectations of migrant parents and believe that they should be ignored or destroyed, in the interests of the children. [More…]
I am not making criticism for the sake of criticism, but what worries me about the Government’s policy- and I am making a genuine query of what I think is undesirable- is this: I can understand the Government responding in this way because I think that a habit of mind has developed in teachers’ unions, in the media and in the State governments which would lead a government to defend itself. [More…]
Teachers’ unions and the media commentators- God bless them- who know no better will do exactly the same thing. [More…]
It might be considered good taste to blame the trade unions for the Government’s economic mismanagement or for unemployment but surely it is going too far for the Government to penalise a group of pensioners, some of whom fought for this country. [More…]
I believe that the Government should stop all this talk about federalism and stop bashing the trade unions and the unemployed and get down to doing something concrete for this group of unfortunate pensioners. [More…]
But the situation in New Zealand is a clear indictment of the despicable attitude adopted by the President of the Australian Council of Trade Unions and trade union leaders over the last few weeks. [More…]
However, the essential point is that the unions should have given the freeze in Australian a try instead of torpedoing it in the way they did. [More…]
If from the centre the unions were prepared to agree to a voluntary freeze, contrary to the fixed regulatory freezes in other countries, I believe that the proposal would have had a great deal of potential for success. [More…]
Now, when the Government is seeking as the receiver of the national economy to try to do something about the situation the unions have torpedoed the first consensus we have obtained probably in national history on a very important issue. [More…]
We have had one consensus since then and the unions have effectively torpedoed it to their everlasting shame. [More…]
Not only were Labor politicians attacked but so too were members of the trade union movement, including Mr Hawke, President of the Australian Council of Trade Unions, church leaders such as the Reverend Alan Walker and a number of bishops and archbishops and sincere people who joined probably their only political involvement ever in the anti-apartheid movement. [More…]
Discussions with the unions concerned have now been going on for nearly 2 years, and it is clearly time that the matter be finalised to enable the Commission to manage the total system directly. [More…]
For instance there are 24 unions and associations involved in the discussions, and 26 different awards covering State and Commonwealth employees. [More…]
The main provisions of this Bill result from agreements already reached with the unions. [More…]
I am confident that if we can continue to receive the co-operation of the States as well as that of the unions and employees improvements in operation and the level of deficit will occur. [More…]
I very much doubt that taxation concessions would win wage concessions in the current climate and under the current leadership of the trade unions. [More…]
Since taking office, the Prime Minister has pursued the trade unions of this country and blamed them for the country’s ills. [More…]
Even the President of the Australian Council of Trade Unions, Mr Hawke, was not consulted. [More…]
Therefore responsibility does exist in this area and there is not the irresponsibility talked of by the present Prime Minister (Mr Malcolm Fraser), who has a paranoic hatred of unions. [More…]
Too much of our resources are being spent on propping up inefficient industries and encouraging people to do their thing, like trade unions colleges teaching young insurgents how to strike while the taxpayer picks up the bill. [More…]
We saw the response of the Prime Minister (Mr Malcolm Fraser) to Mr Bob Hawke, the President of the Australian Council of Trade Unions, when he offered to consider the wage freeze in return for cuts in taxation. [More…]
The whole exercise needed the co-operation not only of the employers, who had certain motivation because they were going to get out of it stable wages, which they claim is very important to them and also stable costs which the government had promised, but also of the trade unions who had to have some guarantees that their position would be protected. [More…]
The trade unions were not consulted and were not brought into the discussion. [More…]
The wage-price freeze was said to be in existence on the day after it was announced but the trade unions were listed to talk to the Government about this matter a week later. [More…]
The call by the Conciliation and Arbitration Commission for a national conference, which was part of the submission to the Australian Council of Trade Unions, and the proposition of tax cuts in return for wage restraint were at least negotiable positions which should have been discussed. [More…]
The Victorian oil dispute, which the President of the Australian Council of Trade Unions was able to negotiate to a settlement and which most likely should have been settled a lot earlier by the same process, resulted not in any congratulations for the President for participating in and achieving a settlement of this dispute but straight out abuse from the Prime Minister and the Minister for Employment and Industrial Relations (Mr Street). [More…]
CIA ‘interfered in Australian unions’ [More…]
I have had discussions with the Labour Council of New South Wales and the unions. [More…]
From the outset I think it is important to make it clear to the members of this House that this latest move by the Government is not an isolated affront to the unions, but one of a series of recent manoeuvres to shackle and provoke the unions. [More…]
Since its beginning in June 1975 this important initiative of the former Labor Government has proven itself to be an effective means of assisting the unions and unionists to make the maximum use of their resources and to participate more effectively in the industrial relations field. [More…]
In contrast, prior to 1975 the total resources available for union training were negligible compared with those available for management training, and this was despite the fact that 53 per cent of wage and salary earners in public and private employment belonged to unions and that unions played such a key role in Australian society. [More…]
In March 1975 when my colleague the then Minister for Labor and Immigration, Mr Clyde Cameron, presented the Trade Union Training Authority Bill he emphasised in his second reading speech the importance of trade union training remaining the sole responsibility of unions. [More…]
Thus, the conduct of courses cannot be a joint responsibility of unions and employers. [More…]
For instance, how much say do unions have in the role of membership, staffing and curriculum at the Australian Graduate School of Management at the University of New South Wales? [More…]
The truth is that unions are not considered. [More…]
The Government’s wages policy is undermining the wage indexation system and thereby raising the problem of considerable industrial disputation as unions try to restore real wage levels by pursuing wage claims on individual employers. [More…]
The proposed amendments to the Conciliation and Arbitration Act are clearly designed to debilitate and shackle the unions. [More…]
The unions are doing a remarkable job in trying to keep peace in this country. [More…]
Unions will be considerably weakened in respect of maintaining and retaining membership by legislative encouragement of non-membership of unions and the prohibition of any action by them to recruit unwilling members. [More…]
I merely asked that the gentlemen’s agreement with the Australian Council of Trade Unions that Tasmania should be exempt from transport strikes should apply to this organisation, which as a matter of interest is not affiliated with the ACTU. [More…]
In his submission to the Arbitration Commission the advocate for the Australian Council of Trade Unions- his words are very clear- said: [More…]
The oil companies were told that they would be in serious trouble if they relented to pressure by the unions. [More…]
They are a small section of union leaders who are more concerned with promoting their own positions in the unions than they are with the benefit of the people whom they are supposed to represent. [More…]
I compliment the Deputy Leader of the Opposition (Mr Uren), who is sitting at the table at the moment, for saying that the trade unions are the real Opposition today. [More…]
We are witnessing at the moment what is a very serious campaign by all of the unions involved in the aviation industry. [More…]
People asked me on the weekend: ‘How much truth is there in this campaign being mounted by the unions?’ [More…]
Indirect sales tax cuts, as perhaps trade-offs with the trade unions in an effort to obtain a greater consensual support for a broad program of economic management, is another initiative which ought to be taken. [More…]
In talking about greater consensual support from the trade unions, it is relevant to refer to the ill-fated wages and prices freeze which was snapped up by the Prime Minister like an end of season sale bargain at a chain store. [More…]
The proposed legislation is also a breach of international conventions which guarantee trade unions freedom to organise and to engage in collective bargaining. [More…]
The Government’s strategy, of course, is to divert attention from its economic mismanagement and lack of social conscience by provoking the trade unions into industrial action to preserve their members’ interests. [More…]
Perhaps what the Prime Minister wants to see- I believe he wants to see it- is a confrontation with the unions leading to strikes and demonstrations, thus allowing him to seek reelection on a law and order platform rather than his Government’s economic mismanagement and self-interest. [More…]
Let it be remembered that the response of the honourable member for Oxley to that initiative was beaten in speed only by the response of the senior vicepresident of the Australian Council of Trade Unions, Mr Ralston, both of whom competed to be the first to condemn a proposal which at that time had the unanimous support of 3 marginally more successful Labor politicians- more successful than any of the honourable members opposite in this House. [More…]
The manipulation of unions, the financing of political parties, the deception over the CIA and the activities of foreign installations on our soil all affect Australia’s independence and sovereignty. [More…]
The five of these people met in 1951 at a private dinner party and discussed ways and means of taking over certain unions. [More…]
They can change the management of private business organisations, trade unions or other organisations by the use of funds or other methods. [More…]
I interpose that of course it is to alleviate price increases, in this case through wage increases, that the President of the Australian Council of Trade Unions joins with the Labor Opposition in calling for a national conference to get us all out of the present spiral of prices chasing costs chasing prices. [More…]
What has happened is that on the basis of a community expectation about profits, which is based on a lie, not only have there been excessive, unrealistic efforts by the unions to get such high levels of benefit that they have destroyed many corporations but also there was acceptance of that view by the government of the day when it set out to redistribute resources from the private sector to the public sector. [More…]
The task is a formidable one, given that there are 24 unions and associations involved in discussions which cover 26 different awards and about 600 wage classifications. [More…]
The replacement of the Public Service Arbitrator by the Conciliation and Arbitration Commission- a condition requested by the unions- is covered by clauses 10, 14 and 19. [More…]
The Government quite clearly is prepared to use the unions, and the transport unions in particular, to hold the rest of the nation to ransom for its own selfish political interests. [More…]
I think the strongest evidence of that at the moment is the vigorous campaign that is being waged by the aviation industry unions against the Minister for Transport, who is at the table. [More…]
It also bodes ill for the other transport unions in our nation. [More…]
As the honourable member for Shortland has said, 24 different unions were involved in the negotiations. [More…]
Many of the provisions of the legislation now before the House result from negotiations with staff and employees of the State railway systems and from agreements which have been reached with all the unions concerned in the arrangements. [More…]
We hope that this Bill is the culmination of those negotiations because during the last 2 years many discussions and agreements have taken place between the various unions and people involved. [More…]
We trust that this has met with the approval of the unions who would no doubt have examined this matter closely because some of the older by-laws are old fashioned and out-of-date and certainly needed bringing up-to-date. [More…]
This in itself could be a big step forward because there certainly have been problems in the operation of unions under the Public Service Arbitrator. [More…]
It is areas like that which the Government wishes to encourage individual management and unions to examine, rather than to adopt some symbolic notion of putting in a worker director when in fact that does not, of itself, improve communications between labour and management. [More…]
It is our view that this would not improve the communications between labour and management as such; in fact it could assist management in the sense that some members of the unions might understand better the problems of management. [More…]
Is he also aware of the Australian Council of Trade Unions’ resolution that union dues be raised to one per cent of average awards with the request that the target be realised as quickly as possible? [More…]
Does the Prime Minister appreciate that this means that to achieve this target at today’s rate of inflation, even within 5 years, many unions would have to increase their dues by over 21 per cent a year? [More…]
I think it is worth noting now that on the implementation of this ACTU resolution the larger unions will have an income of up to about $ 10m a year. [More…]
Under those circumstances, I think it is imperative that there be a clear understanding by all trade unionists of the way in which trade unions spend their funds. [More…]
We have the report of Mr Justice Sweeney on the maritime unions. [More…]
In that report it was recommended that there be annual reports and financial statements to members of unions so that those members could understand how their funds are being spent. [More…]
I know the honourable gentleman would prefer the Australian Council of Trade Unions to contribute to a move against inflation by changing that resolution and having union charges reduced. [More…]
I do not speak to denigrate in any way trade unions or trade unionism. [More…]
I have respect for the trade unions as an institution integral to our free society and as bodies that protect ordinary citizens of this country in many aspects of their work situation. [More…]
I speak, however, to draw attention to the activities of some individuals within trade unions who bring disrepute on the union movement and whose activities, if they continue, can only adversely affect our community. [More…]
Some unions have so broadened the scope of their activities that the stage has been reached where there is virtually no area of political, social or econmic life upon which they are not prepared to take direct action in support of their aims and views. [More…]
This is not to say that I believe it is wrong for unions to express views on matters affecting society or on the actions of government. [More…]
I can understand unions or individual unionists refusing to carry out some particular work on the grounds that they morally object to it and could not be a party to it. [More…]
This is essentially how some militant unions operate. [More…]
They not only withdraw their own labour but also, through threats, intimidation and arranging boycotts from other unions, ensure that others are unable to exercise freely their right to supply their own labour. [More…]
If I might digress for a moment, I marvel at the selective conscience of some unions. [More…]
Communist influence in many of our biggest and most important unions is strong. [More…]
The seamen, waterside workers, locomotive enginemen, the Federated Engine Drivers and Firemen’s Association, the building workers and building labourers also have communists in senior positions in their unions. [More…]
The falsity of the claim of the union militants is further exposed when one sees that many unions have expressed their opposition to political strikes. [More…]
Unions have a traditional industrial role and the strike weapon should not be used for political purposes and issues . [More…]
Political strikes constitute an attack on both the institution of trade unions as well as the democratic method of government. [More…]
Moderates are aware that their unions can exercise political power, even if they believe it incorrect to use the power in this direction. [More…]
Thirdly, a referendum expressing the desires of the people could be of use as a guideline for industrial courts when disciplinary actions are brought against unions. [More…]
I made it quite clear that I was in no way opposed to unions or to strike action in pursuit of legitimate industrial interests. [More…]
It is an opportunity for him and the fellow union bashers who sit with him to stand up and use the old, tired, worn-out phrases about political strikes, militant unions and communist union secretaries and to ignore all the time the fact that union leaders are elected by union members and, I might add, are elected to act in the best interests of those members, and without exception that is the case in Australia. [More…]
They are the wreckers, not the unions, not the members of the unions. [More…]
They bleat about there being no democracy in trade unions. [More…]
Has an example of no democracy in unions ever been placed before this House? [More…]
Honourable members opposite talk about domination of the rank and file members of unions by their leadership. [More…]
Those who sit opposite hate and never miss an opportunity to bash the unions. [More…]
Why do they fear the unions? [More…]
Subsequently the Victorian Premier, the South Australian ‘ Premier, the New South Wales Premier, the Australian Council of Trade Unions and all other peak union councils withdrew from giving it any support. [More…]
While many members of the railway unions apply themselves conscientiously and with considerable diligence to their jobs, there is a great cloud of despair hanging over the whole system. [More…]
-The Australian National Railways Amendment Bill before the House proposes a series of amendments to the Australian National Railways Act which take up the agreements that have been entered into at this point between the Australian National Railways Commission and the various trade unions with members employed by the Commission, together with a couple of other minor adjustments to the Act that probably should have been made with the 1975 amendments. [More…]
I am disappointed that at present there are still 24 unions in the Australian National Railways system. [More…]
I make an appeal to the trade unions to endeavour to reduce that number, to bring about amalgamations within the industry, because I believe it is to their advantage and to the advantage of the transport industry, the Australian National Railways and the railway system as a whole. [More…]
There are far too many trade unions in Australia today. [More…]
It took the various unions associated with what is now the Amalgamated Metal Workers and Shipwrights Union years of agitation within those unions to bring about amalgamation. [More…]
It never seemed to get any closer and then all of a sudden it clicked and the amalgamation of a number of unions has taken effect. [More…]
I think this is a great advantage to industry and to the unions. [More…]
The other matter I raise in respect to that is that the unions and the South Australian Government have not yet seen the draft by-laws. [More…]
-Consideration of that matter has been deferred and will be put together with general matters in respect of the common code for agreement with the unions. [More…]
I cannot give the assurance because the matter is under discussion between the unions and the Commission at this point and I do not want to pre-empt what might come out of their discussions. [More…]
But if there is concern within the unions themselves they will be able to raise the matter directly with the Commissioner during the course of the negotiations. [More…]
My question is addressed to the Prime Minister and concerns the Government’s acceptance of the proposal by the Australian Council of Trade Unions on the Government’s proposed amendments to the Conciliation and Arbitration Act. [More…]
If so, will the Prime Minister now explain to the House what he meant by his subsequent statement on 19 May that the Industrial Relations Bureau will be able to initiate prosecutions of unions? [More…]
As far as I am concerned, there is complete agreement between the Minister and myself on the matters that have been put to the President of the Australian Labor Party and President of the Australian Council of Trade Unions. [More…]
I am aware that the agreement sought by the 7 heads of government has not eventuated in the main because of the refusal of unions to accept the wage pause. [More…]
He would well know that it was the refusal by the President of the Australian Council of Trade Unions to accept even in principle the objective of a wage-price freeze that led to the non-calling of a conference to discuss details in relation to that matter. [More…]
The honourable member will be aware that prior to the announcement by the Government of its proposals regarding this legislation the President of the Australian Council of Trade Unions issued a statement saying that whilst the policy of the trade union movement was against penalties in the Conciliation and Arbitration Act, nevertheless it recognised that the existing Act did contain, in his words, ‘pains and penalties’. [More…]
I think most members of Parliament have received letters from Public Service unions and from individual members of the Public Service pointing out the extreme difficulties under which they are now working. [More…]
Immediately before the March wage indexation case the Prime Minister made a veiled offer of tax concessions if the unions were prepared to accept that there be no increases in wages. [More…]
Those matters are still being monitored and reviewed, to some extent at the behest of the Public Service unions concerned. [More…]
But in all other respects the Public Service unions concerned have not made complaints. [More…]
Over the years the Public Service unions have obtained such benefits for their members that the honourable member was able to cite the fact that something of the order of 10 per cent, I think it was, of the members of the Public Service were on leave at any one time. [More…]
Those sorts of benefits having been gained, the same Public Service unions then complain that the overheads are such that the Government is not justified in reducing the rate of growth in the Public Service. [More…]
From the outset we set out very clearly our position regarding Public Service ceilings and the capacity of Ministers to go to the Prime Minister (Mr Malcolm Fraser) and have that position reviewed according to needs and according to complaints which had been received from within the departments and the community generally, including Public Service unions. [More…]
Anybody would know that if trade unions are good for anything, the one thing they are good for is protecting employees against intimidation. [More…]
This will require a greater degree of consultation between the Commonwealth and the State governments and with the many centres of influence and decision making within the community, including management, the trade unions and consumers. [More…]
A major national conference will be convened at an early date at which governments, industries, trade unions, consumers and others will be invited to take part in presenting and discussing papers on new long term directions for manufacturing industry. [More…]
I hope the Government has taken the advice in the submission from the trade unions on that matter. [More…]
No doubt, a number of speakers from both sides of the House will express their views as I will myself later in my speech upon the involving of trade unions in the trade practices law. [More…]
Now they have been extended in a way which will greatly intensify the threat to the unions. [More…]
If the whole of the section is read, it becomes clear that the wording has been changed to apply the section and the consequent penalties to unions and, in particular, to union officers as representatives of their members. [More…]
It provides that unions and their officers are liable if two or more members of unions are involved. [More…]
If the old wording had been retained- I repeat it here, ‘an employee of a person’- it could be argued that the section did not prohibit unions from engaging in the conduct specified in concert with their members. [More…]
This argument would be valid because the prohibition extended only to an employee and unions were not employees. [More…]
Now the wording has been changed and the unions are liable. [More…]
Its protective value is illusory because it is the unions, not individual employees, which the section is designed to penalise. [More…]
There is no protection for the unions. [More…]
It has sought to shift liability from the individual employee to the unions. [More…]
There was a loophole in the original amendment because it was arguable whether or not unions were bodies corporate. [More…]
The new version of the Bill has resolved arguments about whether a union is or is not a body corporate by subjecting all unions to a $250,000 fine. [More…]
A major provision of the amendment to the Trade Practices Act is to include in it section 45D relating to secondary boycotts by unions. [More…]
Let me say at the outset that unions are a proper pan of the capitalist system. [More…]
Indeed, without unions it is hard to conceive how the Act could be worked. [More…]
Unions arc essential for a proper conciliation and arbitration system. [More…]
But in fact they are completely wrong because, as I have said, the trade union movement and the trade unions themselves are an essential and proper part of the capitalist system. [More…]
We are injecting the public interest into the legislation to counter abuses of power and position by the trade unions. [More…]
The trade unions have abused their power. [More…]
But the unions, in regard to abuses of power, are subject to no law at all and the honourable member knows that as well as I do. [More…]
The unions, by exerting power, have injured trade unionists. [More…]
They have injured members of trade unions, fellow workers, and they have in fact threatened the economic and political structure of society itself. [More…]
At present unions are exempt from civil laws or wrong doing. [More…]
An example of this is where unions cut off supplies of raw materials - [More…]
I was saying that an example of a boycott is where unions cut off supplies of raw materials to a firm in order to enforce the unionisation of that firm’s work force or to support the employees of that union in an industrial dispute. [More…]
Similarly, in relation to the ban on live cattle exports by some unions I believe that would be a secondary boycott to which this provision would apply. [More…]
Similarly, some activities by waterfront and shipping unions in relation to activity on the waterfront and on shipping around the Australian coast- I am thinking of their activity in relation to delaying ships- may also fall within this legislation. [More…]
Additionally, the liabilities of individuals for civil damages will be limited by a provision which deems unions to be responsible for the boycott activities of their members unless they establish that they took all reasonable steps to prevent the activity. [More…]
On 25 November 1975 the Women’s Trade Union Commission and the Queensland Women’s Trade Union Committee received grants of $40,000 and $500 respectively from the International Women’s Year allocation, to undertake activities which would assist women unionists and would work towards the elimination of discrimination against women in trade unions. [More…]
Distribution generally covered the following organisations: Employer organisations, Trade Unions, Social Security offices, Commonwealth Employment Service offices, police stations. [More…]
As we know, the terms of that contract were condemned by the Premier of New South Wales and by the President of the Australian Labor Party before there was even a chance for the matter to be properly, fairly and quietly put to the unions concerned in the Newcastle area. [More…]
Despite substantial changes to its proposed amendments in respect of actions by employees, the Government still seeks to control the activities of trade unions in certain respects through trade practices legislation. [More…]
The Government bases this legislation in respect of unions on the fact that the Swanson Committee recommended that there be legislation to cover secondary boycotts by employees as they had the effect of restricting competition. [More…]
Furthermore, the Swanson Committee did not even recommend that unions be brought under the Trade Practices Act. [More…]
Certainly it concluded that unions engaging in secondary boycotts should be made subject to legal restraint, but it made no recommendation as to whether that restraint should be exercised under the Trade Practices Act or the Conciliation and Arbitration Act. [More…]
In our view the fact that certain union action has the effect of restricting competition is no reason to include unions under trade practices legislation. [More…]
This legislation nominally seeks to control the activities of employees and unions in respect of secondary boycotts, which is a term that is not defined in the Bill. [More…]
The criticisms that we made of that Bill were never answered in this House, but subsequently the Government has had detailed discussions with the unions and we now have a considerably altered proposed section 45D before us which, I might say, is in no way approved by the unions. [More…]
Whether federally registered unions are bodies corporate for the purposes of this Act is not clear, but there is a good chance that that would be the case. [More…]
In Queensland, South Australia and Western Australia the State registered unions are clearly bodies corporate and likely to be considered as such for the purposes of this Act. [More…]
But even if a union can escape being roped in as ‘ a person ‘ the Bill still seeks to ensure that unions are ensnared by proposed sub-sections (5) and (6). [More…]
Now, however, unions are to be directly and specifically implicated in section 45D and if found liable will be faced with an horrific array of penalties involving $250,000 fines, injunctions and civil actions for damages. [More…]
As we read this proposed section now it is much more direct in its concern to catch unions than were the previous amendments but, on the other hand, less concerned to penalise individuals. [More…]
Thus up to approximately 10 per cent of industrial disputes, which are demarcation disputes- a very substantial element- are not protected from the trade practices legislation and unions engaging in them being involved with the possibility of massive fines and penalties under this legislation. [More…]
Doubtless, many honourable members opposite think it is a great idea to bash unions for these sorts of activities. [More…]
It appears to us to be the case that proposed sub-section (3), which contains the exclusionary provisions, provides no protection at all to unions as such. [More…]
So, it is clearly directed only to employees, not their unions. [More…]
Thus unions are left completely unprotected. [More…]
Unless the Government introduces an amendment in the Committee stage it will pass something which will mean unions will be totally unprotected against the trade practices legislation in respect of any industrial activity which has the effect of causing damage to a corporation. [More…]
The use of the word ‘purpose’ in the clause is highly selective to the disadvantage of trade unions. [More…]
Unions will also have an avenue open to them to avoid breach of the Act which was not available before, and that is through the process of authorisation procedures under proposed section 88 (7). [More…]
The legislation also seems to extend the liability of unions beyond the limits now set by the common law. [More…]
But in recent years there has been increasing use of common law actions against unions and it is my advice that actions which are now defendable at common law are likely to be in breach of the law if this legislation is passed. [More…]
Between those 2 sets of amendments other amendments have been floated to the trade unions. [More…]
Further, I mentioned that the Opposition’s main spokesman directed his attention exclusively to proposed section 45D and said that it provided severe implications for trade unions. [More…]
He relied heavily on the reference to actions by unions which interpretation of the new legislation would mean were disruptive and could be dealt with under the various subsections of section 45D on the basis of past record being directly related to union efforts for industrial gain. [More…]
Of course it has been, and the unions have not cared how they have gone about it. [More…]
Despite the crocodile tears of the honourable member for Gellibrand, who said that the legislation would have a drastic effect on the trade unions and that as a result of the actions of the Government there was not proper provision for adequate consultation with the unions about the legislation, he must admit on the facts that proposed section 45D provides a very evenhanded approach to this important and crucial aspect of trade practices in this country. [More…]
Boycotts by companies and by unions are treated equally, except that individuals involved in union disputes have protection against penalties and, in most cases, against civil damage. [More…]
Unfortunately the Government has presented us with a situation where there has been no cut-off point in the representations it has received from trade unions, business houses or consumer groups. [More…]
Let us not insist that in some way that they have been canvassed in the Swanson report, in the response by the Trade Practices Commission to that report or, in fact, in the submissions that have been made by interested parties, business houses, trade unions and consumer organisations, both to the Swanson Committee and to the Government subsequent to the publication of the Swanson Committee report. [More…]
I believe that the Government, when it confronted the trade unions about its first proposed section 45D, was able to give the trade unions 4 instances of the sort of conduct it thought was reprehensible and ought to be proscribed by that proposed section. [More…]
I realise that to the extent that it affects collective boycotts, it is to the advantage of certain organisations such as trade unions which could never be taken to be in competition with other organisations in the market place. [More…]
Both of these bodies had on them representatives of the Australian Council of Trade Unions and the national employers. [More…]
The Bill proposes that the Council comprise 1 6 members: The Minister for Employment and Industrial Relations, who shall be the Chairman; the Secretary of the Department of Employment and Industrial Relations; 1 member chosen by the Minister to represent public authorities as employers; 6 members nominated by the National Employers’ Policy Committee; 6 members nominated by the Australian Council of Trade Unions; and 1 member nominated by the Council of Australian Government Employee Organisations. [More…]
The unions are well aware that the economy is falling and failing and in particular does not need prolonged and bitter industrial warfare. [More…]
Only last week, we had the example of Mr Fraser hedging on an agreement made between his Government and the Australian Council of Trade Unions regarding the proposed amendments to the Conciliation and Arbitration Act. [More…]
He is quoted in the Press as having said that the Industrial Relations Bureau will be able independently to initiate prosecutions of unions and employers. [More…]
These amendments, in the form of the Trade Practices Amendment Bill 1977, particularly section 45d of that Bill and other industrially significant amendments such as 4b (1) and (2), represent a despicable attempt to impose on the Australian trade union movement restrictions on the freedom to take industrial action, which has historically been the right of the Australian work force, and which is guaranteed by International Labour Organisations conventions, ratified by the Australian Government, to unions and associations of workers throughout the free world. [More…]
In fact, and in law, proposed new section 45d would make any form of industrial activity illegal and punishable by massive fines on individual employees and unions, plus providing for separate actions in the courts for damages. [More…]
Secondly, any attempt to resort to action which free trade unions all over the world are able to use, could expose individuals and unions to fines imposed by the Federal Court of Australia of up to $50,000 for individuals and up to $250,000 for unions. [More…]
Fifthly, apart from crippling fines for the action, unions and their members would face damages cases by which employers or individuals could recover what they claimed to have lost in the dispute. [More…]
If this Bill is allowed to be passed without revision, then unions will be returned to the intolerable position they occupied in mid- 19th century England when they could in theory organise but were denied the power to use their organisation. [More…]
Quite simply the unions cannot afford to accept this legislation because it will mean a sellout of what the Australian trade union movement stands for and what it has fought for for over a century. [More…]
It is quite clear that Mr Apap had, in fact, banned deliveries to the Wills company because he could not get people employed by that company who were apparently members of the Shop Distributive and Allied Employees Association, the Federated Clerks Union and probably other unions to join his union. [More…]
It appears that because they were happy as members of those unions and did not want to join his union he considered that he would attempt to put G. and R. Wills out of business and therefore run those unionists who refused to join his union out of a job. [More…]
One can immediately see why executive members of some unions have publicly come out against this proposed section when the likes of Mr Apap, by what appears to be totally irresponsible action, apparently cause completely false information to be published and, further, through bans, withhold supplies to a business just because Mr Apap was trying to convince members of one union to leave and join his union. [More…]
He has built up quite a reputation in the short time he has been here as being highly critical of trade unions and their actions. [More…]
A simple reading of the clause will indicate that it is aimed at trade unions, although it does not use those words, and at members of them. [More…]
It has a wider application than to members of trade unions. [More…]
Certainly, it has taken out the penalties of $50,000 for individuals but it has left in the penalty for the unions of $250,000. [More…]
The unions do not want a confrontation but if the Prime Minister continues to push the unions into a corner by [More…]
Remarkably, despite this extreme provocation by the Prime Minister and his Government, the trade unions have displayed commendable restraint. [More…]
The unions have tolerated this despite the Prime Minister’s specific promise to maintain indexation. [More…]
The unions have also tolerated a substantial shift of national income from labour to the profits of private companies. [More…]
But rather than ease up on the unions the Fraser Government has chosen to step up its harassment of them. [More…]
It is obvious that the Government lacks popular support for its hard line on the unions, otherwise it would not be trying so desperately hard to promote industrial unrest. [More…]
It naturally opposes any move by State or Federal authorities to interfere with the present structure of student unions. [More…]
They seem to have behaved as though there has never been an industrial stoppage over a demarcation dispute, employment of non-unionists or the employment of people who have failed to observe a majority decision of the policy making bodies of their unions, people who in industrial circles are called scabs. [More…]
The person who has carried out the obligations of his union leadership has every right to refuse to work with such a person and he has every right to refuse to work with a freeloader or a ticket dodger, as some unions would call them. [More…]
This is why unions say that they should have the right to have secondary boycotts. [More…]
There would not be many unions which could stand more than five or six fines of $250,000, even if they sold up their properties. [More…]
Does the Government think the unions would be prepared to sell up all their properties and allow the Government to have all their assets? [More…]
It would not be unusual for anybody following or observing parliamentary proceedings to find that we on this side of the chamber have a lot to say about the roping in of the activities of trade unions into the Trade Practices Act. [More…]
As I said in the second reading debate the night before last, the Australian Council of Trade Unions, which the Government seems to have ignored, has decided that should anybody be caught in the net of section 45D and m the interpretation of the clause that is now under discussion, they will meet with the full support of the Australian trade union movement. [More…]
The then government no doubt felt at that time that because Clarrie 0*Shea was a professed member of one of the communist parties of that time the public would feel no sympathy for him and the trade unions would not gather around him. [More…]
It was not just the so-called left wing unions or militant unions which decided to take action in support of Clarrie O’Shea and against the decision of the present Governor-General to gaol him. [More…]
Action was taken by 95 per cent of all the unions that existed in Australia. [More…]
They decided that the action would be as unanimous and as spontaneous as possible in the Australian context so as to bring about a settlement whereby the unions would show that they would not comply with laws as harsh and as unreasonable as the laws that are now envisaged in relation to the Trade Practices Act. [More…]
The Government has removed that fine, but a fine of up to $250,000 can be imposed in relation to some of the hard-fought-for traditions of trade unions. [More…]
The unions will not comply with such a law. [More…]
It emerged as a result of some of the smaller and perhaps industrially weaker unions calling upon the people outside to give them some sort of assistance that would allow them to lift their wages and working conditions to a proper, respectable and acceptable standard. [More…]
Of course action will continue to be taken by trade unions. [More…]
We cannot have these sorts of actions being taken to assist the smaller unions or to assist people to improve their working conditions. [More…]
The honourable member for Port Adelaide and the honourable member for Hindmarsh (Mr Clyde Cameron) spoke much of the confrontation situation that this legislation is going to bring about between the unions and the Government or, as I would rather say, the people of Australia. [More…]
Proposed section 45 D (5) puts enormous vicarious responsibility on the unions. [More…]
It is an interesting concept that under trade practices legislation, founded on the issue that the Government now has some constitutional power to deal with corporations and therefore that unions become part and parcel of the corporation power, the Government has decided to bring in this confrontation legislation. [More…]
But he does not seem to have much doubt now because he thinks he can deal with unions under the same power. [More…]
But when it comes to the unions which, in the main, are deemed not to be corporations and which have no interest except in their labour, they will be penalised under the same power. [More…]
As the Australian Council of Trade Unions said, the changes that have taken place concerning the Trade Practices Commission and the Prices Justification Tribunal do in certain respects expose the double standards adopted by this Government in relation to both sides of the business world- the employers and the employees. [More…]
Nevertheless we will continue, at the completion of the discussion on this Bill, to vote against it because not only do we object to specific items of change but also we object as strongly as possible to the inclusion of the provision which now attempts, by the interpretation which has been given to it in the House, to cover secondary boycotts and the role of trade unions. [More…]
Monopoly power can exist on behalf of corporations as it exists on behalf of unions. [More…]
A proposal was circulated to provide a basis for discussion with organisations representative of the Australian meat and livestock industries and in early November 1976 wide ranging consultations were held with more than 50 representatives of major industry organisations, unions and consumers. [More…]
It could well include representatives of livestock producers, exporters, meatworks, meat packers, meat processors, livestock agents, meat unions, transport unions and others associated as well as consumers. [More…]
I am able to say that in recent months I have had discussions with Hawker de Havilland, the Commonwealth Aircraft Corporation, the Australian Council of Trade Unions and the other peak councils which are concerned. [More…]
I said at the second reading stage that we regard the definition of ‘employee’ as being substantially adverse to the ability of trade unions to encompass persons who may well wish to be members of trade unions but who would have been unable to be so, particularly in the States of Victoria and Tasmania, if the Government had proceeded with this new definition. [More…]
They are not just to deal with unions because unions exist as such and they are not just to deal with people because people happen to be members of unions. [More…]
The fact that the national Parliament has power to create trade unions does not mean that it may pass any law it likes in relation to them. [More…]
Clause 5 would be invalid to the extent that it deals with refusal to join unions and refusal to take part in industrial action. [More…]
The Government has said that its intention in introducing the legislation is, as it puts it, to look after the rights of individuals in unions. [More…]
The fact that unions must register their rules with the Conciliation and Arbitration Commission is in itself a protection for the members. [More…]
All that has ever been said by unions when they enrol members- this has been substantiated by decisions of the courts over the years- is: ‘Look at the benefits that you enjoy, the wages that you collect, the leave provisions and all the rest of the things that have been won by people acting in concert with one another’. [More…]
I do not know whether he wants us to cease registering rules of unions or whether he is pleased that we have rules of unions but he does not wish to see members of the unions abide by those rules. [More…]
He made it very clear that the trade union movement- that is the organisation- is opposed to this matter because it thinks that it will weaken the trade union movement financially; that it will affect its membership numerically; that it will destroy the bargaining power of the unions and that it will create dissention. [More…]
We recognise that unions are organisations because that is how we refer to them in the Bill and in the Act. [More…]
He should forget about the time when there were no unions to which he would care to take us back, when the individual was at the mercy of those who had power. [More…]
The provisions are not designed in any way to be a stick with which to beat the unions over the head. [More…]
When it comes to the matter of catching trade unions, any action by a group of trade unionists will catch the whole union. [More…]
The fact is that since 1969 the whole process of penalising unions for breaches of bans clauses has been in abeyance. [More…]
They thought it was totally unfair, and indeed its operation had been very adverse to the trade union movement and had involved unions in very heavy fines during the previous decade and a half. [More…]
The Bureau would have been involved full scale in the business of seeking penal action against trade unions in this country. [More…]
Are unions to be all the time obligated to go to the High Court in order to keep telling this Government where it has made the mistake? [More…]
The more practical position I am putting is this: Does the Government expect the unions to do what it seeks or does it expect to have confrontation? [More…]
If we are to have an orderly society, it ought to be built on the basis that we in this national Parliament recognise that trade unions exist, we want to promote goodwill in industry, we want to encourage the means by which we can settle disputes, we want to provide the means for the settlement of those disputes and we want to encourage the organisation of representative bodies of employers and employees. [More…]
This has meant in the past that the Inspectorate has not sought to prosecute employees or unions for breaches of the Act. [More…]
This would mean in effect that not only would there be a duty on a body such as the Bureau, which will take the place of the Inspectorate to be repealed by clause 1 8, but also that the Bureau would have the power, obligation and duty to launch prosecutions against unions for breaches of bans clauses. [More…]
Trade Unions, the Council of Australian Government Employee Organisations and the Government, and a breach of the statement made by the Minister on 17 May when he said that the Bureau would have the same powers as the Inspectorate- no more and no less- and that the processes would be the same. [More…]
The fact is that by the abolition of the Inspectorate and the abolition of ministerial control factor we are giving the Bureau far more power than the Inspectorate had thus creating a quite different situation and, as I said, breaching the agreement the Government reached with the unions. [More…]
He would then be able to tell the Director of the Bureau to prosecute the unions, to send them to gaol and to fine them $500 a day every time they commit a breach of the bans clause. [More…]
I repeat the words used by the honourable member for Gellibrand and the honourable member for Hindmarsh: This provision is a breach of the agreement with the unions. [More…]
The Minister now seems to be hell bent on not keeping to the agreement reached with the unions. [More…]
I refer to the statement I made prior to the resumption of the second reading debate today wherein I quoted from the Australian Council of Trade Unions statement of 11 May about adhering to principle. [More…]
The Minister for Employment and Industrial Relations (Mr Street) said in his agreement with the unions that the Bureau would have the same powers as the Arbitration Inspectorate and that it would utilise the same processes. [More…]
Successive Ministers for Labour have seen fit to instruct the Inspectorate not to take action against employees and unions for various breaches. [More…]
That is completely against the agreement reached by the Minister with the unions. [More…]
In our view the fact that there has been this breach and that the unions will see it as a serious breach means in effect that the Government will have a massive industrial relations problem on its hands. [More…]
The agreement will be virtually torn up and we will be back to the situation where the Australian Council of Trade Unions on 4 May threatened massive economic dislocation of the country if the Government went ahead with these measures. [More…]
Let us reflect that on Tuesday 17 May, 5 senior Ministers of the Fraser Government met with the President of the Australian Council of Trade Unions, Mr Hawke, and agreed to accept his proposals that the Government establish the Industrial Relations Bureau without increasing existing powers and legal obligations under the Conciliation and Arbitration Act and that the National Labour Advisory Council be reconstituted on a statutory basis. [More…]
Two days after this agreement had been reached, and imminent industrial warfare had been averted, at least for the time being, the Prime Minister (Mr Malcolm Fraser) made statements about the proposed role of the Industrial Relations Bureau which immediately placed the fragile agreement between the Government and the unions in jeopardy. [More…]
Commenting on the intended powers of the Industrial Relations Bureau the Prime Minister stated that the IRB would still be able independently to initiate prosecutions of unions and employers. [More…]
These comments were notoriously contrary to the assurances on the IRB’s powers which were given by Mr Street and the other senior Cabinet Ministers just 2 days beforehand and which formed the basis for the trade unions decision to accept the IRB legislation. [More…]
Then, on the same day, another senior Government Minister, a man well known to share the Prime Minister’s rigid and despotic anti-union sentiments- the Minister for Primary Industry, Mr Sinclair- was reported to have stated that legislation to be brought before Parliament in the next week- that is today- would extend the protection available against trade union excesses and that the trade unions had accepted these new procedures and constraints. [More…]
No doubt the unions are now wondering why in the first place they ever trusted the Fraser Government to keep an agreement. [More…]
With the overwhelming support of the trade union movement he had made a genuine attempt to avoid a bitter and disastrous confrontation between the unions and the Government. [More…]
In this light the Government’s current hard line and oppressive approach to the unions seems hardly warranted or desirable. [More…]
I hope that when the time comes he will carry out the promise he made to the President of the Australian Council of Trade Unions. [More…]
The Act makes it clear that trade unions have to keep proper records of their financial transactions. [More…]
If I were the Minister I would say to my inspectorate if it was handling the matter: ‘Not only do I want you to get right after this particular union but also I want you to get the best counsel you can, take the union to the Industrial Court and tell the court to impose the maximum penalty in order that its decision will be a deterrent against other unions breaking the Act in the same way’. [More…]
In my second reading speech I stated the Government’s view that there was a need for time to be given not only for members of Parliament to give the proposed legislation their objective consideration but also for the principal parties to industrial relations- the peak councils of the employer organisations and trade unions, individual trade unions and employers and the community at large- to examine the contents of the Bill and to be able to make their views known to the Government. [More…]
I subsequently invited representatives of the national employers and, through the Australian Council of Trade Unions, representatives of peak union councils to meet with me separately to discuss the Bill. [More…]
The unions indicated their strong opposition to many of the Government’s proposed amendments. [More…]
However, at the end of the discussions, the Australian Council of Trade Unions, with the support of the Council of Australian Government Employee Organisations, provided me with a written statement which included: we put two propositions for the earnest consideration of the Government. [More…]
The Government has given very serious consideration to the views and proposals put by both unions and employers. [More…]
In the light of the positive response to this statement by the conference of federal unions convened by the ACTU, and the national employers’ views, the Government now proposes that the current Bill provide, together with some machinery amendments, simply for the establishment of an industrial relations bureau. [More…]
A Bill to establish a reconstituted national tripartite consultative council has already been introduced into this House and I will be proceeding to move the necessary amendments to the Conciliation and Arbitration Amendment Bill 1977 to give effect to the agreement reached with unions and employers for the establishment of an Industrial Relations Bureau. [More…]
We oppose the Conciliation and Arbitration Amendment Bill because we regard it, in its original form- in the form in which it is now before the House- as a totally repugnant piece of legislation that is aimed at reducing the unions in this country to a state of industrial impotence. [More…]
After this Bill was first put before the Parliament it was considered by the Executive of the Australian Council of Trade Unions and that body passed a resolution threatening massive dislocation of the economic life of the nation if this legislation were proceeded with. [More…]
We also have had the introduction of legislation designed drastically to affect the operations of trade unions, namely the Trade Practices Amendment Bill. [More…]
Though that legislation has been changed many times, in the form in which it has now passed through the House of Representatives it is still a very severe inhibition upon the ability of trade unions to operate. [More…]
It will cover a very substantial amount of industrial activity and lay unions open to very substantial penalties indeed. [More…]
In that situation the unions were then faced with a Bill to amend the Conciliation and Arbitration Act that in many respects would have reduced them to a state of total impotence. [More…]
In brief, the legislation would have had the effect upon unions of weakening them numerically and financially, of fostering dissension within their ranks, of destroying their bargaining power and of subjecting them to harassment and interference by an industrial police force. [More…]
Firstly, in relation to weakening the unions numerically and financially by facilitating and encouraging non-unionism, it was going to do this by allowing conscientious objection to being a union member to be claimed by an employee for any reason. [More…]
That would have meant in the case of weak unions in particular a very substantial possibility that they would have lost a vast number of their membership. [More…]
They were making sure there was an inducement and encouragement for people to get out of unions and they also prohibited some persons from being members of unions. [More…]
Of course, if the numerical strength of unions was to be weakened, so too was their financial strength. [More…]
The second important way in which this Bill sought to undermine trade unions was in relation to weakening the solidarity of unions through encouraging dissident members to undermine union action. [More…]
The third way in which the Bill sought to attack the unions was by emasculating their bargaining strength in industrial disputes. [More…]
First, it did it by providing the Bureau with the power to notify the registrar of the contravention of a bans clause in an award thereby initiating procedures by which unions may be fined for engaging in strikes or other industrial action. [More…]
What the Government was doing through this provision was changing the process so that the government agency, the Industrial Relations Bureau, would be able to recommence the process of imposing penalties on unions for engaging in industrial action. [More…]
May I say in relation to those penal clauses for breach of a bans clause, that in the period 1957 to 1969, which was the key period in which they were effective, the unions were fined more than $280,000 in this country plus costs which would have amounted to a similar sum, whilst the employees were fined just over $2,000. [More…]
He would not have been obliged- he still will not be obliged by the amended Bill- to have regard to objectives laid down in the current Act such as promoting goodwill in industry, encouraging conciliation, providing for the means of settling disputes or encouraging the organisation of employees into trade unions. [More…]
It was opposed not only by the unions and the Australian Labor Party, but also by the employers. [More…]
For example, where a firm does not take action against unions under the present legislation due to the fear of union reprisals, it is unlikely to welcome IRB action which will provoke the same union reaction. [More…]
The Government is facing the prospect of a boycott by Federal Public Service unions over the move to establish an Industrial Relations Bureau. [More…]
The Bureau, like the Inspectorate, will have the power to prosecute unions for breach of a bans clause and to prosecute employees for breaches of the Act such as incitement to strike. [More…]
The unions will surely regard that as a breach of the agreement, and I do not know where that leaves us. [More…]
We object to the Bureau, whether the agreement is complied with entirely or not, but I hope that if the Government is not going to scrap the Bureau it will at least make sure that the Bureau is subject to the same powers and processes which it agreed with the unions in the first place would be the case. [More…]
It is a breach of the agreement reached between the unions and the Government. [More…]
The President of the Australian Council of Trade Unions, Mr Hawke, has effectively cut the ground from under the Opposition’s feet by reaching the agreement with the Government that he has. [More…]
The honourable member for Gellibrand did not discuss the agreement with the ACTU until the last few minutes of his speech, but he did say that the unions and the employers were totally opposed to the legislation introduced into this House by the Minister a few weeks ago. [More…]
I think that to most of us who have talked to representatives of unions and employers that is palpably untrue. [More…]
We have a situation in which, if a large union or group of unions is ranged against one of the smaller to medium sized businesses, the balance of economic and industrial power is very strongly on the side of the trade unions. [More…]
Therefore, trade unions have immense power which can be used for good or ill. [More…]
Trade unions today are recognised as organisations in our community with an accepted role to play in industrial affairs and even in national affairs. [More…]
However, whilst that implies that trade unions and trade unionists have rights protected by the law, it also implies that they have responsibilities and obligations. [More…]
The second trend which I think is of concern and which ought to be looked at in connection with this debate is the growth in the size of trade unions and their involvement in a wider range of issues than purely industrial issues. [More…]
Consequently solidarity often will be missing, particularly where unions engage in activity which goes beyond the purely industrial issues. [More…]
This points up the fact that, because of the size of unions and their involvement in an increasing range of non-industrial areas, individual rights can be in jeopardy and they need further protection than is provided under existing legislation. [More…]
Because of the agreement with the trade unions which the Minister for Employment and Industrial Relations has reached on behalf of the Government, the Government will proceed with the establishment of the Industrial Relations Bureau but will defer consideration of other aspects of the legislation as introduced some weeks ago. [More…]
Firstly, let me compliment the President of the Australian Council of Trade Unions for recognising the Government’s determination to legislate in this area and therefore dropping his previous blanket opposition to the legislation. [More…]
As I mentioned earlier, in this respect he clearly acted more as President of the Australian Council of Trade Unions than as President of the Australian Labor Party. [More…]
Individuals have been disadvantaged by the way in which some trade unions have used their powers irresponsibly. [More…]
Who would have thought a few years ago that we would have seen the day when a special conference of Federal unions would have agreed by almost a 20 to 1 majority that they would offer no objection to the present pains, penalties and processes of the existing Act? [More…]
So if the 1 964 General Motors-Holden’s Pty Ltd strike had been a lock-out instead of a strike- iri other words, if General Motors had locked out the number of workers who were involved in that dispute for the number of days that that dispute lasted- the total penalty imposed upon General Motors under the existing Act, to which the unions say they have no objection, would have been a total fine of about $9,000. [More…]
But if the penalties to which the unions say they will offer no objection had been imposed upon each employee of General Motors for each day that that dispute lasted, the aggregate fines would have been $220m. [More…]
The present Act that we are describing- the present Act to which the unions say they will have no objection- does not allow a member of a union executive or any union official to incite a person to go on strike or to involve himself in even a go-slow strike, no matter how justified the action might be. [More…]
6 members nominated by the Australian Council of Trade Unions: and [More…]
5 members nominated by the Australian Council of Trade Unions: [More…]
Some organisations affiliated with ACSPA are affiliated to the Australian Council of Trade Unions and some are affiliated to CAGEO, the Council of Australian Government Employee Organisations. [More…]
During the consultations of 1 1 May which led up to the statement of the Australian Council of Trade Unions on that date, the ACSPA representatives at the consultations indicated that, although their constitution did not allow them to bind their organisation to acceptance of the ACTU proposals, they had broad support for the proposals. [More…]
Is it a fact that dealers in New South Wales are contemplating aligning themselves with oil industry unions in an attempt to remove discriminatory pricing in the oil industry? [More…]
State governments, unions and the industry itself all have a part to play. [More…]
The Prime Minister has blamed the President of the Australian Council of Trade Unions, Mr Hawke; he has blamed the Premier of South Australia, Mr Dunstan. [More…]
At the hearing on 19 April the State governments, the unions and the employers, still anxious to explore the prospects of a voluntary agreement, agreed to take part in a national conference. [More…]
It was not just trying to hoodwink the unions; it was trying to browbeat the Commission. [More…]
These are not rabid militant left wing unions; they are the conservative unions in our society whose members are, in the main, the better paid members of the workforce. [More…]
These unions are waging a very serious campaign against this Government. [More…]
There is something wrong when the Minister cannot see fit to respond to the wide campaign being waged by the unions because the air travelling public needs to be reassured that safety standards are being maintained or that changes are being made to the standards themselves. [More…]
Members of the air traffic controllers union,’ a union that is not affiliated with the Australian Council of Trade Unions or the Australian Labor Party, voted by way of secret ballot against the recommendations of their own executive to go on strike. [More…]
If an agreement could be reached for the trade unions to accept wage restraint in exchange for a reduction in taxes, there might be no increase in inflationary pressures as a result of the increased Government borrowings, and no increase in rates of interest. [More…]
The unions, in the light of this experience, would have to suspect that the Government would not keep its ends of the bargain because, I repeat, the Government has deceived the Commission on this occasion. [More…]
The indexation of wages, which has been the catchcry of the ALP and the trade unions for the past 2 years, is something that I believe the average person in the street is looking at very definitely and very hard at the moment. [More…]
We accept that the trade unions should be represented on the Corporation. [More…]
By the time it had finished negotiating with the unions it was a worthless exercise as regards the returns flowing to that factory and to the producer. [More…]
In the Wool Industry Act the Minister has powers in relation to the composition of the Australian Wool Corporation under sections 8 and 13; the appointment of a deputy chairman under section 11; the granting of leave under section 15; vacation of and removal from office and resignation under sections 16, 17 and 18; the functions conferred by the Act under section 20; consultation with trade unions under section 20A; borrowing under sections 26, 27 and 28; the market support fund under section 2 8 A; reimbursements under sections 3 1 and 32; and profits and losses in relation to wool marketing under section 33. [More…]
The Opposition seeks an assurance that both trade unions and consumers will be represented on the AMIC. [More…]
They certainly would include the trade unions. [More…]
I had in mind the Australian Meat Industry Employees Union and the Meat Inspectors Union as 2 illustrations of unions which I would expect to have representation on the AMIC. [More…]
Is the Minister for Business and Consumer Affairs aware of an Australia-wide campaign being waged by various building unions to force builders of modular homes to employ their workers under an award which relates to on site builders rather than the awards applicable to employees in a factory situation as is the case with employees building modular homes? [More…]
In particular it condemns Mr Hawke, the President of the Australian Council of Trade Unions who, it says: . [More…]
The forces that intrude on basic human rights can of course be the very forces that serve the individual in other respects- the Public Service, large corporations, trade unions and the like. [More…]
It is essential that members of my Party have access to those reports, because when the Minister and the Government bring in substantive legislation in the spring session we would like to have had the advantage of studying the report during the winter recess to make ourselves familiar with it and to confer with the Waterside Workers Federation of Australia and other waterfront unions- I understand that there is already agreement on it- on the basis of the report. [More…]
I was rather alarmed to hear the honourable member for Blaxland (Mr Keating), who is a shadow Minister and who spoke second for the Opposition in the debate, carrying on as he did in an earlier debate and threatening, blackmailing and trying to assert that things will not happen unless the Opposition in this Parliament and the unions outside of this Parliament agree. [More…]
subject to a suitable manning productivity understanding with the maritime unions, and Australian flag policy for a proportion of overseas trade; [More…]
Mr I. S. M. Millburn, President, Association of Central Credit Unions [More…]
Minister after Minister is reported in the Press as blaming the unions for the plight of the nation. [More…]
As all this seemed to be running rather counter to the Government’s developing union bash campaign we on this side of the House were interested to see which view would predominatewould the Government ignore these figures except when placating foreigners whom it wanted to invest here and pursue its union denigration campaign or would it change course, stop blaming the unions and emphasise its record in reducing industrial disputation? [More…]
Thus the Prime Minister (Mr Malcolm Fraser) has twice in the last 2 weeks managed to accuse the unions of wrecking the chances of economic recovery and in the course of the same speech to boast about the substantial diminution in the level of industrial disputation. [More…]
Unable to abandon the ideologically appealing approach to blaming the unions it simply continues that line whilst also emphasising a totally contrary argument. [More…]
Other Ministers are either totally disregarding the decline in industrial disputation, as is the case with the Minister for Primary Industry, and bashing unions with increasing vigour or, in the case of the Minister for Employment and Industrial Relations, a heavy emphasis is being placed on the figures to show what a good job he is doing. [More…]
The Federal Government should stop bashing the unions and the British, a leader of the beef industry said yesterday. [More…]
The article goes on to make the point that the German manager in Britain sees poor management, inadequate investment and insensitive industrial relations as the cause of the so-called British disease; not the British workers or their unions. [More…]
I think the Government’s campaign of denigrating unions because of strikes totally misses the point. [More…]
Trade unions and management should abandon thenpresent obsolete institutional arrangements and learn from countries where industrial relations are harmonious. [More…]
Mr Johnson said the same structures and practices of trade unions existed in Australia and there was no reason why we should be immune to the developments that have afflicted England. [More…]
Neither in this country nor anywhere else - he was speaking of Britain- have trade unions been able to increase the share of wages and total national income. [More…]
It is designed to create tame cat unions so that they are easy prey for the people who support this Government. [More…]
As the largest migrant group, it is not surprising that British migrants have risen in prominence m many areas of Australian activity- in the professions, industry and commerce, politics, the academic world, the arts, sport, employer organisations, trade unions and the Public Service. [More…]
Will the Minister consult with his Department, unions, vehicle manufacturers and automobile organisations to establish what information could be useful as a result of these surveys of drivers. [More…]
My Department consults with unions and vehicle manufacturers and at times with automobile organisations regarding suitablity and performance of vehicles, including drivers’ views on these matters. [More…]
Despite the fact that this matter has been to arbitration, the unions continue with their limitations and bans. [More…]
Will he agree to the calling of a meeting of industry leaders and the trade unions involved in the industry to discuss the future of the industry and any structural adjustment programs that may be required to buffer the effect of the increase in the price of petrol in this country? [More…]
However, there have been for some companies and in some States far more interruptions than I believe necessary or desirable and certainly far more than are in the best interests of the trade and the members of unions which have been active in imposing bans. [More…]
It goes back to April this year when the building industry unions made claims for a $30 a week wage increase, a 35-hour week and some other concessions. [More…]
Various building unions have pursued these claims through strike action since, I think, June. [More…]
Everyone in the community, people on both sides of the House, people in the bureaucracy, people in management and the trade unions, and people elsewhere must bear responsibility for failing to see the underlying structural changes that were going on within industry. [More…]
In this regard the trade unions have an obligation to overcome some of their previous prejudices about adult training, especially in some of the metal trades areas where there is a screaming shortage of skills. [More…]
While noting that there is a reasonably high degree of technological efficiency in the three industries, arrange for the Minister for Productivity to enter into immediate discussions with representatives of the textiles, clothing and footwear sectors, and with the appropriate unions, to determine the potential scope and commitment to a program of productivity improvement. [More…]
Naturally, members of the Australian Railways Union and other affiliated unions took a pretty dim view of this. [More…]
It is very refreshing to hear him speaking tonight in glowing terms of unions. [More…]
On every other occasion on which he has spoken in this House about trade unions he has referred to them as mainland industrial gangsters. [More…]
People should not be shifting from one foot to another like an ice skater trying to get from one place to another and, as it suits them, calling trade unions mainland industrial gangsters, and then on another occasion standing in this House to praise and applaud the Australian Railways Union. [More…]
I am pleased that the honourable member for Denison did that because the Australian Railways Union, like the other 360-odd unions in Australia, is a responsible body. [More…]
I am glad that the honourable member for Denison now agrees that there is responsibility in the trade union movement and that the trade unions themselves are responsible people. [More…]
I look forward to his support for those unions that are taking action in respect of questions that affect their members and all people in the community generally. [More…]
The unions in the city, the town council and various organisations expressed their concern for the future of the city because the shipbuilding industry was the backbone of the city and was the industry upon which Whyalla grew. [More…]
These include the Federal Government, the New South Wales Government because Newcastle is involved, the South Australian Government because Whyalla is involved and the Australian Council of Trade Unions because one cannot come to any arrangement unless the employees in industry also have a fair say in what is going on. [More…]
I do not need to remind honourable members that the Australian community has been subjected to great inconvenience and hardship through the industrial actions of some government employees and their trade unions. [More…]
Certainly it recognises that the very great majority of government employees and their unions have acted, and do act, responsibly. [More…]
The fact is, as I understand it, that the postal unions have been in discussions with Australia Post for well over a year. [More…]
The Government has introduced this legislation at a dme when the postal and telecommunications unions have recommended that all bans be lifted. [More…]
That is why presumably today the employees at Redfern rejected the recommendation of Commissioner Sweeney and the recommendation of their unions that they should lift the bans there and that there be negotiations with Australia Post for a week or so to see whether an appropriate form of rosters can be worked out. [More…]
Is there any argument that it is reasonable to expect commissions, unions, employers and employees to accept those guidelines? [More…]
The honourable member for Hindmarsh alleged that the Government was attempting to bring on a confrontation with the unions. [More…]
It was solved by the President of the Australian Labor Party and President of the Australian Council of Trade Unions who intervened when he did not have to. [More…]
Certainly it recognises that the very great majority of government employees and their unions have acted, and do act, responsibly. [More…]
I support the honourable member for Hotham in saying that it is about time honourable members on the opposite side of this chamber came to grips with the situation they face and decided whether they are going to represent the people of Australia or are going to be lackeys to the communist-led unions. [More…]
I remind him that only today the members of the postal unions at the Redfern Mail Exchange voted to continue their ban indefinitely, whilst the members of the same unions in Hobart and Melbourne voted for a 7-day cooling off period. [More…]
If that is the sort of unity to which the honourable member for Kingsford-Smith (Mr Lionel Bowen) referred, I fail to accept that there is unity within those unions. [More…]
People are trying to stir up this section of the unions in order to pursue their own political ambitions. [More…]
We have had the seemingly unending experience of a few people within selected trade unions being able to isolate Tasmania completely with disruptions in transport and communications between our State and the mainland. [More…]
In my opinion, it is high dme that Australia, this Government and the people of this country stood up to the trade unions and said: ‘We are not prepared to tolerate any more. [More…]
Too often we hear, particularly from honourable members opposite, that because we stand up and say that the militant unions are nothing more than industrial gangsters we are union bashing. [More…]
The sort of buffoonery and ratbaggery that goes on in this place and by representatives of what were unions is quite beyond me. [More…]
That was to get the country running and to stand up to unions. [More…]
This measure was drafted when the air traffic controllers, who are not affiliated with the Australian Council of Trade Unions, took industrial action in order to have their position resolved. [More…]
Australia say that the Government should bash the unions; but they have forgotten that we have in Australia a work force of 6 million people, most of whom belong to unions and most of whom have wives and children. [More…]
They knew that they could not win an election on economic issues so they thought that they would give the unions a bit of a roughing up and a bash. [More…]
Nobody in this chamber is young enough not to remember the Germany of the 1930s, the rise of fascism in Germany, the rise of the National Socialist Party, the rise of Hitler and the bashing down of the unions. [More…]
The trade unions got on top in those two cases. [More…]
They have been continually asked by the public ‘When are you going to do something about the unions?’ [More…]
The unions say that they will treat the Government as a bottomless pit. [More…]
One of the reasons that it is important to introduce this type of legislation is that the trade unions have made a mockery of the present stand-down provisions in the law. [More…]
Then the unions suddenly decide in the usual classic tradition of some of their ilk- it is one step back or two forward and one back- that they will take a step backwards. [More…]
The whole problem has arisen because the unions are getting too strong comparative to other sections of the community. [More…]
The unions have spent so much time Austrafia bashing that they are deliberately assisting in bringing this country to its knees. [More…]
We ought to talk about unions which indulge in public bashing and Australia bashing. [More…]
I am talking about the leaders of those unions, not the ordinary worker. [More…]
It is time- we are bringing in legislation to produce this situation- that the unions were democratised from within. [More…]
It should go on record that members do control their unions. [More…]
Why should not the unions unite? [More…]
I point out that the conference of the Australian Council of Trade Unions in 3 weeks time will be discussing this matter. [More…]
Prior to the establishment of the Postal and Telecommunications Commissions, it was agreed with unions and staff associations that officers of the then Postmaster-General’s Department should not suffer reduced promotional opportunities as a consequence of being allocated to the service of one or other of the commissions. [More…]
Within the Federal jurisdiction, we know that there has to be a reference of such a matter to the rank and file members of unions and there has to be a vote of 50 per cent of the members of the union. [More…]
Those who speak about amalgamations of unions so glibly without reference to the rank and file membership will have cause to ponder the significance of their suggestions and their proposals in the years ahead. [More…]
There will be other effects not only within the Australian Council of Trade Unions. [More…]
Some BWIU men Will subsequently be part of an AWU delegation to the Australian Council of Trade Unions. [More…]
Above aU, without retreating from the proposition for one second we say that when amalgamations in unions occur the men in the unions which are amalgamated should have a say. [More…]
In the amalgamation of unions into a body which subsequently wil have assets of $5m and an income of $ 1.5m there was no rank or file say whatsoever. [More…]
If the honourable gentleman can wheel in anybody who can put up some kind of opposition to delay the consolidation of unions, he certainly will take that course whilst, on the other hand, he wil go on complaining that the trade union movement is fragmented to the disadvantage of the Australian people. [More…]
It Will be a good thing when there are fewer unions in Australia. [More…]
In countries like West Germany, where the population is in excess of 50 million people, there are fewer than 20 unions, whilst in this country we have in excess of 300 unions. [More…]
There is a good case to be made out for industry unions. [More…]
I suppose that if they had it he would get among some kind of ribald mob with the intention of diverting them from the desirable objective of consolidating fragmented unions. [More…]
It is time we had some support for governments which put up progressive legislation which facilitates the amalgamation of unions, as the Wran Government is doing in New South Wales. [More…]
As the President of the Australian Council of Trade Unions has said: [More…]
As one who was associated with it for many years in an advocacy sense and in appearing before it I think I am in a position to say that it certainly is a basically impartial tribunal although I think it perhaps has a tendency to lean, if anything, against the interests of the unions. [More…]
The Australian Council of Trade Unions updated that material to 1976-77 and showed that the gap would disappear in 1977-78 even with full wage indexation being applied. [More…]
Another exhibit in the case put by the Australian Council of Trade Unions showed that the ratio of female earnings to male earnings had moved from 58 per cent in September 1973 to 66 per cent in June 1977. [More…]
This conclusion has been made the more difficult by certain unions openly stating that they are seeking to destroy the package and taking action in an attempt to bring this about. [More…]
One of the stalwarts of the Australian Labor Party for a lifetime, one who saw the writing on the wallsome of the younger members opposite have not seen it yet- is Sir John Egerton who recently in an article in the Bulletin had this to say in relation to unions: [More…]
This does not necessarily mean a substantially greater personal effort but improved continuity of work and a realisation that protection of new employment avenues is the most telling contribution unions can make. [More…]
Unions are dedicated for their own political reasons. [More…]
I stress that I am not referring to all unions but to those militant unions which are led by a minority, by communists. [More…]
Certain travel organisations are attached to credit unions and trade unions and, quite admirably, they are providing overseas travel at a much cheaper rate. [More…]
Despite the squeals from Labor supporters in the left wing teachers’ unions, spending on education will increase by 9.8 percent. [More…]
Matters have come to a pretty serious state in this country when developments of the nature of Norwich Park cannot get off the ground because of the selfish activities of some unions. [More…]
I have seen those reports and I think I have also heard the President of the Australian Council of Trade Unions using the information. [More…]
It is entirely the result of industrial action by building unions, and in particular by the Builders Labourers Federation. [More…]
As a first step the Government will establish the existing ‘Code of Practice on Radiation Protection in the Mining and Milling of Radioactive Ores’ completed in 1975 after extensive consultation with industry, trade unions and Government instrumentalities, both Federal and State. [More…]
One important element of the Code relating to radiation protection in the mining and milling of radioactive ores has already been prepared by the Commonwealth Department of Health in consultation with other Commonwealth and State authorities and with industry and trade unions. [More…]
The draft Code was circulated for comment to 94 recipients made up of appropriate Australian and State government departments and authorities, uranium mining and exploration companies and mining associations, and relevant trade unions and trade union councils. [More…]
A total occupational health program, provided by the Department of Health, in conjunction with the mining companies, unions and other relevant agencies, will be carried out. [More…]
As honourable members would be aware, when the previous Government decided in 1975 to set up the two Commissions- the Australian Postal Commission and the Australian Telecommunications Commission- there was an agreement between the unions and the Government that officers of those commissions would be able to transfer from one commission to another in the first 5 years. [More…]
Since then the unions and the Commissions have got together and, whilst a number of appeals have been disallowed, seven appeals have been successful. [More…]
I say to the honourable member for Denison with all the courtesy that I can muster that now he can understand why some of our waterside unions have taken action to restrict the shipment of certain goods to Indonesia. [More…]
He has set himself a target of sharply changing the balance of power in our society by diminishing the power of the unions and setting out to redistribute the national wealth up the salary scale to those who he believes are the productive members of society. [More…]
It is difficult to believe other than that the Government decided to base uranium mining on the Atomic Energy Act because of the measures that this would give to it to enable it to take action against unions and people who might be trying to obstruct uranium mining. [More…]
The recent Australian Council of Trade Unions executive decision on uranium also shows how hopelessly divided the Labor movement is over the issue. [More…]
It would be very difficult not to see the reports of anything that the President of the Australian Council of Trade Unions does because he seeks to make himself very evident in everything that he does. [More…]
Then I suppose at the executive meeting of the Australian Council of Trade Unions he suddenly became somebody else and did not have to support Labor Party policy. [More…]
The first relates to what the Australian Council of Trade Unions has said in relation to uranium. [More…]
It should be noted that one of the people is Mr Robert Hawke, the president of the Australian Council of Trade Unions and, no doubt, a would-be colleague of the honourable member for Port Adelaide. [More…]
We ought to be in a position to provide information to employers, trade unions and industrial tribunals on matters relating to industrial relations. [More…]
As we all know, he is also President of the Australian Council of Trade Unions. [More…]
He changes from the hat of the Australian Labor Party to the hat of the Australian Council of Trade Unions. [More…]
If the major figure who has bought into the argument on uranium has a loyalty to his unionists will jump when the radical left wing unions crack the whip- I am not a union basher; quite the reverse- then the rest of the nation will ask: ‘Who rules this country? [More…]
Look at the number of communist unionists and communist led unions who are in it. [More…]
One knows the extent to which communist influence in the trade unions and elsewhere sways the thinking of the Opposition. [More…]
I want to refer now to the proposal of the Australian Council of Trade Unions. [More…]
Of course, we know the attitude that the President of the Labor Party and the President of the Australian Council of Trade Unions, Mr Hawke, took on this question. [More…]
I suggest that threats by the executive of the Australian Council of Trade Unions to ban uranium development if there is not a referendum can only encourage them. [More…]
I think it is sheer hypocrisy on Mr Hawke ‘s part to try to create confrontation between government and trade unions. [More…]
A point was made very ably last night by one of the better debaters in the Opposition when he made some comments about the President of the Australian Labor Party and the President of the Australian Council of Trade Unions. [More…]
I want to refer now to the proposal of the Australian Council of Trade Unions. [More…]
He came to this country to assist FILEF, an organisation which might be likened to the Australian Council of Trade Unions. [More…]
He has sought, by appealing to my discretion, by seeking through the High Court to restrain me from applying the law to him, by misrepresenting his activities in Australia to people of goodwill in the community and by orchestrating appeals from members of parliament of a certain persuasion and by enlisting representatives of the community and of left-wing trade unions to sign petitions on his behalf, to restrain me from applying to him the rules that apply to many thousands of other prohibited immigrants. [More…]
I refer to reports such as that on social policy and problems of the work force prepared under a social security research grant by the Australian Council of Trade Unions, and reports to the Government from the Commissioner for Community Relations, Mr Grassby. [More…]
The two roles of the President of the Australian Labor Party and the Australian Council of Trade Unions are also in question. [More…]
The Government certainly has done a lot to assist big business but what has it done for the average Australian, except to take away thousands of jobs, to cut back on educational opportunities, to reduce health services, to levy for Medibank and to place the blame for the resulting economic mess on the trade unions? [More…]
I was at a fascinating meeting a few weeks ago with all the militant teachers unions in Melbourne. [More…]
The employees’ representative is a person selected after consultation by the Minister for Primary Industry with representatives of the appropriate trade unions. [More…]
The employees’ representative is appointed by the Minister for Primary Industry after consultation with representatives of the appropriate trade unions. [More…]
It also shows that in the United Kingdom responsible unions, having a considerable number of facts available to them, having a very large number of their members dependent upon energy from nuclear supplies, recognise that countries of Europe need uranium for the development of nuclear energy for peaceful purposes. [More…]
I hope very much that the Australian Council of Trade Unions and the delegates there gathered will take into account what their brothers in Britain have decided and determined on these particular matters, bearing in mind the fact that in Britain jobs are dependent upon uranium. [More…]
B. Sweeney to conduct a royal commission into alleged payments to maritime unions. [More…]
It had been alleged that the unions were receiving moneys by way of extortion obtained from shipping companies under threat of holding up shipping. [More…]
1 now ask the honourable gentleman: Did the Commissioner recommend certain amendments to the Conciliation and Arbitration Act and/or the regulations under the Act concerning the financial records of registered unions? [More…]
The Executive of the Australian Council of Trade Unions has announced its recommendations. [More…]
Worse than this, since making its notorious decision to give the green light to uranium mining and export, the Government has proceeded to cloud the uranium issue with irrelevant issues such as ‘law and order’ or ‘who is governing the country, the unions or the Government?’ [More…]
The Government is actively provoking demonstrators and unions in the hope that outright conflict will take place so that public attention will be taken away from the real issue, namely, whether or not the Australian people should be given a say in the decision about the rnining and export of uranium. [More…]
Demonstrators and unions are not the evil trouble makers that the Prime Minister (Mr Malcolm Fraser) and Mr Bjelke-Petersen would have people believe. [More…]
The Australian Council of Trade Unions, representing nearly 2 million Australian workers, and the demonstrators, representing a cross section of Australia’s population, are just concerned bodies of people desperately trying to protect a basic Australian principle which is seriously at risk at the present moment. [More…]
In those countries the trade unions do not stop stuff being shipped. [More…]
So I say to the trade unions and to the people taking part in these demonstrations: There is one way to get rid of this Government; do not fall for the trap that Fraser has lined up for them, which is what they are doing now. [More…]
I know that some of the unions would certainly like to get involved in mining so that they could broaden the base of employment opportunities in industry in South Australia. [More…]
Finally, does he have any grounds for expecting that the Australian Council of Trade Unions will adopt the same responsible attitude as has the British Trades Union Congress towards this matter in the interests of all Australians? [More…]
The Australian Council of Trade Unions could learn a great deal from the responsibility exhibited by the British Trades Union Congress. [More…]
It is the unions’ fault because something else happened. [More…]
But that was not the policy that came out of the previous Australian Labor Party Conference and that is not the policy which is emanating from the Australian Council of Trade Unions Congress which is currently in session in Sydney. [More…]
The appropriate telecommunications unions are concerned for, as the Minister has correctly said, this new equipment will be easier to install and easier to maintain also and in the long term it will affect a little thing called employment. [More…]
Other bans are used to support restrictive work practices by Australian unions. [More…]
The Waterside Workers Federation of Australia and maritime unions have imposed these bans in protest against the political complexion of the Chilean Government and its policies. [More…]
In 1974 the Australian Council of Trade Unions Executive endorsed the bans. [More…]
However, following approaches by the Australian Wheat Board and Chilean interests, in February of this year the ACTU resolved to recommend that Australian maritime and waterfront unions lift the bans on the Chilean wheat trade. [More…]
The unions concerned refused to accept that recommendation and have continued the bans. [More…]
I am further informed that the specification of the ships is such as would meet the exacting requirements of Australian maritime unions. [More…]
Now Australian unions are to black ban those vessels. [More…]
I move onto the other type of ban I have mentioned, that is, action designed to support restrictive and protective practices by certain unions. [More…]
Action of this nature by a few Australian unions is damaging [More…]
-The honourable member for Casey (Mr Falconer) in his usual dignified way launched a vicious verbal assault on Australian trade unions. [More…]
I honestly believe that had it not been for the strength and unity of Australian trade unions the overall population of Australia today would not be enjoying its present standard of living. [More…]
The honourable member indicated that he was strongly opposed to the maritime unions taking action against the handling of Indonesian ships. [More…]
I think his speech would have been more balanced had he added to those remarks that the Australian trade union movement, and particularly the maritime unions, have been consistent all the way down the Une with Indonesia. [More…]
The honourable member for Casey failed to mention on which side he came down when he spoke about the maritime unions of Australia refusing to load and man the Jeparit when it was taking munitions to that awful, dirty war in Vietnam not so many years ago and which today the whole world frowns on. [More…]
Were the actions of the unions wrong then? [More…]
He blames the unions, although the Statistician yesterday released figures which show that the number of industrial disputes in June was fewer than it has been for 6 years. [More…]
The Arbitration Commission was a socially useful whipping-boy for governments, employers and unions, a Deputy President of the Commission said last night. [More…]
Here I have in mind particularly the need for the development of industry unions rather than the fragmented union structure we now have. [More…]
They came about as a consequence of agreements made between the unions and the private employers. [More…]
The Government side of the House places the blame for everything on the unions and the workers. [More…]
In that document the definition of trade unions states: [More…]
According to the document from which I read the membership of unions in December 1976 was 1,950,600 males and 841,300 females, and total of 2,791,900. [More…]
In 1 976 63 per cent of males and 47 per cent of females in the work force were in trade unions, the total number of persons in the work force in trade unions being 57 per cent. [More…]
If there is anything wrong with our trade unions it is caused by the apathy of many unionists who are not active unionists, but more particularly it is caused by non-unionists in our work force, not by the importation of any ethnic disease. [More…]
How many unions have taken advantage of the Government’s offer to conduct secret ballots for union elections through the Australian Electoral Office. [More…]
How many unions have chosen to conduct their own ballots. [More…]
How are ballots, which unions conduct themselves, supervised. [More…]
-There are two aspects at which one should look when examining the referendum issue: Firstly, the suggestion of a referendum has been put forward by the Australian Council of Trade Unions, in a threatening and challenging way, to a government exercising its right to make a decision on a very important issue. [More…]
I spoke on behalf of the Australian Government, after having talked with my colleague the Minister for Employment and Industrial Relations; on behalf of all Australian States, for all labour Ministers had met on this question and had indicated a common view, on behalf of Australian workers, a viewpoint having been expressed by the President of the Australian Council of Trade Unions on this matter indicating concern; and on behalf of employers, Mr Polites having put a view. [More…]
It blames the unions first and foremost. [More…]
The unions have become the Government’s No. [More…]
Minister after Minister spends his time outside this House raving about the antics of the unions and their supposed destruction of the country. [More…]
Even though the average level now is well below that for any year up to 1968, the Government keeps ranting about unions being the cause of this country’s economic problems. [More…]
Quite clearly the Government is just scapegoating- using the unions as a basis for trying to avoid responsibility for the economic mess it has created. [More…]
The Government’s attack is levelled not only against the unions, although they are the Government’s principal target; it has placed a fair bit of the responsibility for the mess with the Conciliation and Arbitration Commission. [More…]
As I said, at other times the Treasurer has placed a substantial amount of responsibility with the unions, but this time it was with the Conciliation and Arbitration Commission. [More…]
It would have provided generous subsidies if it had got the very rninimum of guarantees from the unions that there would be no industrial strife. [More…]
We have not encouraged unions to pursue extravagant wage claims which the economy could not possibly sustain. [More…]
In fact, he was a little concerned that I should even mention the State from which he came because builders are concerned about retaliation from unions such as the Australian Builders Labourers Federation. [More…]
In the 1976 elections the major interest group contributors and their contributions were as follows: American Medical profession, $ 1.79m; dairy committees, $ 1.36m; labour unions, $lm; maritime-related unions, $900,000; auto workers, $800,000; coal, oil and natural gas interests, $800,000; National Association of Realtors, $600,000; financial institutions, $500,000; and American dental associations, $400,000. [More…]
That union provided $25,000 to the Labor Party on the basis that if the Labor Party gained power, which it did, no action would be taken against the unions under the existing arbitration rules and regulations. [More…]
But Government supporters chide us on this side of the House by saying that the unions make contributions to our campaign funds. [More…]
-Or the trade unions, as my friends from Wimmera and Darling Downs said. [More…]
It seems that the Labor Party is totally ignoring the provision already in the Commonwealth Electoral Act which requires candidates, political parties, bodies such as trade unions, associations and persons who have expended sums in connection with an election to file a return on expenditure. [More…]
What happens to the levies paid to unions? [More…]
The Labor Party collects these funds from the unions. [More…]
People must contribute to the unions. [More…]
Very many people in the unions who do not express publicly their objection do object. [More…]
Let them look particularly at how it gets funds from compulsory contributions to unions. [More…]
The Government talks about package deals it has given to the unions. [More…]
It said: ‘We have a package deal for the unions’, but it took all the jobs away. [More…]
the methods of election of office bearers of trade unions registered or recognised under any law of the Commonwealth, and [More…]
Unions are taking advantage of section 170 of the Conciliation and Arbitration Act which enables elections conducted by the industrial registrar or the Commonwealth Electoral Office to be conducted at no cost to the union. [More…]
As yet, I think it is too early to assess with any accuracy the extent of acceptance of officially conducted ballots since the legislation came into effect, because not all unions nave been required by their rules to have elections conducted. [More…]
There were extensive discussions with the unions concerned over this matter before the contract was let and the view of the Federated Liquor and Allied Industries Employees Union of Australia was put in these terms: [More…]
Honourable members opposite yesterday said that the trade unions make donations. [More…]
They are often in a position to manipulate members of trade unions who would wish to disown their leaders but are unable to do so because of intimidation, trickery and other underhand methods. [More…]
In the past few years we have seen a growth in the incidence of violence amongst trade unions. [More…]
Do these unions think they can run the foreign policy of this country? [More…]
The unions made threats and sought to use blackmail over the uranium issue. [More…]
We have to democratise the unions and made the bosses responsible to their membership, we have to remove the totalitarian aspects of the leadership that presently exist and all these other problems that have been occurring. [More…]
The time is long overdue for us to take steps to ensure that violence within unions is stamped out. [More…]
The honourable member for St George advocates the most violent police action against unions, in common with his attitude towards most things. [More…]
The air traffic controllers adopted that procedure, and they are not affiliated with the Australian Labor Party or the Australian Council of Trade Unions. [More…]
Does he realise that trade unions are national and have members working in every part of the country? [More…]
So, to say that the trade unions are irresponsible and are being forced out on strike, obviously is quite incorrect. [More…]
I have illustrated to the nation that the trade unions are not irresponsible in terms of working days lost through unnecessary industrial stoppages. [More…]
Rather than talk about unemployment being increased because of the actions of trade unions in the construction industry, they simply should turn to the Budget introduced in the Parliament this year. [More…]
-And then it blames the unions, as my colleague has said. [More…]
The Minister seems to take great delight in blaming trade unions for all the problems of primary industry, but again he has failed to repeat the statements he made to the Retailers Annual Convention in Sydney when he blamed ineffective management for many of the problems faced by primary industry. [More…]
Speaking at a Press Conference earlier this month in which he announced the decision of the Executive of the Australian Council of Trade Unions to call a referendum, Mr Hawke said: [More…]
The Government has dallied until it got the decision from the Australian Council of Trade Unions. [More…]
He should tell the people in Adelaide that the workers in Germany, the unions in Britain and the unions in America are forming up against the reactors that are now working. [More…]
Fancy the Australian unions being the only unions in the world that are against the exporting of atomic energy. [More…]
The Australian unions want to stop this nation exporting the uranium which the whole of the world wants. [More…]
I am not sure whether it is the Leader of the Labor Party who talks to the President of the Council of Trade Unions with one cap on or vice versa; but, when we hear people who hold responsible positions talking in terms of violence in the streets, demonstrations and things like that, it makes us realise that there is a measure of irresponsibility. [More…]
In addition to that we need to develop new groups, new communities, new unions, new parties which consist of people who are able to be committed to one another in loyalty, honesty, responsibility and trust. [More…]
Leading this group of militant trade unions are people who are aligned with the Communist Party of Australia and other communist factions. [More…]
No longer is the community prepared to put up with those people who want to hide behind the umbrella of genuine organisations such as trade unions which have been established for many years for quite genuine reasons- to represent the working people of Australia. [More…]
The honourable member for Wilmot (Mr Burr) is well known for his attitude towards the trade unions of Australia and even more so for his attitude towards the Communist Party of Australia. [More…]
He made the allegation and the accusation that the trade unions of Australia were responsible for the problems this country faces. [More…]
Is he saying to this House and through this House to the nation that people who belong to trade unions are not ordinary decent people? [More…]
Trade unions in fact are defined simply as being collections of people with a common goal. [More…]
If the honourable member is critical of people for belonging to trade unions, let me remind him that he is in concert with other people in this chamber who come together with a collective point of view and who in fact put that point of view. [More…]
Why then does the honourable member pursue the point of view that there is something evil about trade unions? [More…]
He is prepared to put down organised labour in the community, the trade unions in the community which have leaders who are democratically elected, irrespective of their political views. [More…]
Six weeks later he was telling this House that under no circumstances would the Government consider tax concessions as a trade-off for the unions withdrawing their claim for a wage rise based on indexation. [More…]
I am not talking so much about the unions, although there is a problem in that area now. [More…]
I ask the Minister for Post and Telecommunications whether it is a fact that the bans imposed by unions on the issue of CB radio licences have been lifted. [More…]
The Prime Minister has attacked the unions. [More…]
At a time when the people expected that the Labor Party, of all parties, could possibly work with the unions, we saw a record level of industrial disputationsthe greatest number that this nation has ever seen. [More…]
The Australian Council of Trade Unions has led to speculation about an election by calling for a moratorium and laying down a time by which we are to give a definite answer as to whether we will call a referendum on the uranium issue. [More…]
We require co-operation from the unions and the Opposition. [More…]
I rise tonight to discuss some of the relevant and pertinent facts about one of Australia’s most disruptive unions, which is filled with officials who have a high degree of expertise in telling lies to the Australian community. [More…]
However, under the Committee ‘s terms of reference it is to inform and consult with, as appropriate other Commonwealth and State departments and organisations; the airlines and unions; and local government authorities, community organisations and other interested parties. [More…]
Quite frankly, I predict that unemployment will increase greatly, as it has already as a result of strikes, if the indexation guidelines are broken as a result of the activities of the unions in Victoria. [More…]
But beyond this, the Government has failed to give to the trade union rank and file protection against victimisation by the thugs within their own unions. [More…]
My differences with the Liberal Party on these issues of trade unions and communism, important though they may be, are differences of emphasis rather than principle. [More…]
I have referred to the denial by the unions of the ability of Australian livestock producers to export cattle. [More…]
The honourable member for Werriwa (Mr E. G. Whitlam), the Leader of the Opposition, when asked about unions last Monday on a PM program said: [More…]
I support the Prime Minister (Mr Malcolm Fraser) in the answer which he gave to a question today on this issue and I support the Victorian Government in moves to de-register these unions in the La Trobe Valley. [More…]
So honourable members should not come in here blustering and carrying on about unions being in contact with Moscow and all this absolute nonsense about which Charlie Court talked. [More…]
Mr Bjelke-Petersen has threatened that if Utah and its construction sub-contractor Fluor of America make concessions to the unions, he will take it as an indication that Utah is not paying sufficient in State levies and royalties. [More…]
The Queensland Government is strongly backing Utah, seemingly to promote an election issue over militant unions. [More…]
All it does is deplore the actions of trade unions. [More…]
The Australian Council of Trade Unions is desperately trying to resolve this issue. [More…]
It has the unions before it today. [More…]
The unions support wage indexation, but they say that this Government has breached its promise to the Australian people about the way wage indexation should apply. [More…]
The major group that is destroying the Australian way of life is the extremist unions which my colleague the honourable member for Higgins mentioned in his address this afternoon. [More…]
It is absurd that the Australian Council of Trade Unions and the Victorian Trades Hall Council should have allowed a committee of militant shop stewards to incite direct action in support of a log of claims contrary to the trade union movement’s own rules and best interests. [More…]
Many of the people who formed the trade unions in this country were sent here, exiled from their country because they went on strike in their own country. [More…]
Why do honourable members opposite think unions are formed? [More…]
The Government might say: ‘Let the unions with the most muscle go out and get what they can, but those workers who are not organised into trade unions or who are poorly organised perhaps will not do nearly as well’. [More…]
They make all sorts of abuse about left wing unions. [More…]
Today the Prime Minister (Mr Malcolm Fraser) spoke about deregistering left wing unions. [More…]
The Government will not defeat the trade unions by daily abuse in the Parliament where they cannot reply. [More…]
It will erode Aboriginal societies through the sexual unions of white men and Aboriginal women which mining will bring to that region. [More…]
He is a former executive member of the Australian Council of Trade Unions. [More…]
As a result it would not be possible to indicate which major Federal unions are conducting their own ballots until the full cycle of elections extending over 3-4 years in most instances is complete. [More…]
The unions agreed to the contract. [More…]
What is needed in this country is very close and urgent consultation between the people who have the technology and the inventiveness, and also some capital, and the employees and the unions so that a new co-operative effort can be worked out whereby we put into production a good Australian car which perhaps would be a nonpollutant and which would use less petroleum than do the cars produced at the present time. [More…]
I thought that he was not going to take a sideswipe at the trade unions during the course of his address, but he did not disappoint me. [More…]
If there is to be any injury done to the building and construction industry in this country the honourable member should be looking not at the trade unions but at the present Government because the Bill that is before us now provides $390m to the States for housing. [More…]
In the United Kingdom there has been an alarming tendency for a small number of large corporations to control a greater proportion of production because it is far easier for government and unions to influence a small number of large corporations than it is to influence a larger number of small businesses. [More…]
It is, of course, far easier for Government and unions to influence a small number of large corporations. [More…]
If the conditions about which the honourable member complains were in evidence, this is a very damning indictment of those organisations, particularly of the unions which allege that they look after their members. [More…]
As the honourable member would know, a great number of migrants are members of unions. [More…]
Those larger economic enterprises have found themselves to be much more vulnerable to control both by the central government and by British trade unions. [More…]
They dealt with the matter of the injection of capital into the industry, industrial relations, the rationalisation of the industry and the establishment of a committee of all the interested bodies- the Australian Council of Trade Unions, the State Government, the Commonwealth Government and shipyard management- to work out feasibility plans on the retention of the yards. [More…]
The Government was enormously disappointed with the Australian Council of Trade Unions when it stood out of that tripartite consultative mechanism for 18 months. [More…]
That dispute concerns people who virtually are outside the control of the officials of their own unions. [More…]
It is well known that this dispute is run by the shop stewards and is not fully supported by the Victorian branches or the federal branches of the unions. [More…]
I would hope that this is a time when leaders of the trade unions directly involved and the Australian Council of Trade Unions would use their own best judgment to protect the arbitration procedures of this country; to protect the Commonwealth Conciliation and Arbitration Commission which does stand as the third and impartial umpire in relation to these matters and which is capable of making a judgment between employers and employees in a way that is fair and protects justice and the national interest- the public interest. [More…]
I hope that the Trades Hall Council in Victoria and the Australian Council of Trade Unions will exert the great influence that they undoubtedly can have for the proper order and good government of the State of Victoria and the Commonwealth. [More…]
Perhaps our misfortune in being so isolated by distance from those large customs unions of Europe on one side of the world and the Americas on the other side of the world can be to our good fortune for we are relatively closer to the awakening Asia, particularly the ASEAN countries. [More…]
The Council would be made up of people from the business community, from the world of trade unions, both employers and employees, as well as from government, State as well as Federal, and also from scholars from universities. [More…]
Now at 70 years of age the honourable member for Mackellar is telling my party, the Australian Labor Party, the unions, and the industrial movement, where they are wrong. [More…]
It is said that because some other countries have no unions and they can get people to work for nothing in darkness, in slime and in filth we have to pass all our manufacturing industry to them. [More…]
What I am saying is that honourable members opposite go to great lengths to bash unions or to attempt to bludgeon them into submission, but when it comes to the Prices Justification Tribunal putting the corporations under the hammer and putting them to the test the money is cut. [More…]
Knowing that that has been a common Australian failing and that we are all notoriously short term thinkers, whether in management or in the unions or in different political parties, the honourable member should recall that it was the Labor Government which introduced an acrosstheboard tariff cut of 25 per cent when it knew very well that there was not available to it appropriate training and retraining programs to take up the people who would become unemployed as a result. [More…]
I agree with the remarks of the honourable member for Lang regarding the need for Australians, whether they be in government, in management or in the unions, to fulfil the potential of the country by co-operation rather than by confrontation. [More…]
There have been discussions and negotiations with the unions involved and the Australian Council of Trade Unions, but to date there has been no settlement of that issue. [More…]
Why does he not say to Mr Hawke, to the Federal Australian Labor Party and to the Australian Council of Trade Unions that whether or not there is a moratorium, those contracts will be honoured? [More…]
It is interesting to note that only 27 per cent of Australians believe that unions should have the right to strike to get wage increases outside the Conciliation and Arbitration Commission. [More…]
Only 27 per cent of Australians said that all members should have to stop work if the unions go on strike. [More…]
These provisions are based on the recommendations of the Royal Commission under the chairmanship of Mr Justice Sweeney into Alleged Payments to Maritime Unions conducted during the office of the previous government. [More…]
It is a response to emergent trends in the social role of trade unions, or in the roles which they seek to assume, which has led to changes in the behaviour of trade unions as institutions. [More…]
It is obvious that unions have moved a long way from being small craft organisations with limited aspirations concerned mainly with ensuring fair wages and working conditions for their members. [More…]
Unions have grown greatly in size and are in a position to influence powerfully, by concerted action, the economic wellbeing of the community. [More…]
It is paramount that unions recognise their obligations and the legitimate interests of the Austraiian community. [More…]
A certain common purpose must be shared by the members of a union, but as the objectives of unions broaden this becomes less and less likely. [More…]
The Medibank strike of last year, a political not an industrial issue, will live long in the memories of many whose unions tried to discipline them for non-participation or who, under duress, took industrial action against their personal convictions. [More…]
I have already made general reference to the manner in which unions can erode the industrial rights of individuals. [More…]
A number of cases in which infringements of the rights of individuals by trade unions have occurred have received attention in recent months. [More…]
Non-employees will be able to join a State branch of an organisation of employees only where, and to the extent that, State industrial arbitration legislation authorises non-employees to be members of State unions. [More…]
Unions insofar as it related to accounting practices and financial reporting in organisations. [More…]
During my meeting with the unions on 11 May, the ACTU handed me a document setting out its position in relation to the agreement subsequently reached. [More…]
However the unions have said that unless all abattoirs are working to capacity they will actively endeavour to prohibit such a trade. [More…]
I am alarmed at statements reported to have been made by the President of the Australian Council of Trade Unions, Mr Hawke, which clearly place him in contempt of the Conciliation and Arbitration Commission. [More…]
They ‘ve got an industrial dispute and if it was true that the unions case was incoherent, they are still charged with the responsibility of settling the dispute. [More…]
Again, Bob Hawke, with the calling of the meeting today of the unions affiliated with theAustralian Council of Trade Unions and the shop stewards, has been the vehicle by which there will be another inquiry into a work value case in regard to the Latrobe Valley. [More…]
Processes were under way for establishing complete agreement among all unions with members employed in the SEC before the log was submitted by the VTHC to the SEC on behalf of all these unions. [More…]
Two meetings of representatives of the SEC unions were held at the VTHC in May, at which discussion was necessarily protracted because of complex award matters involved. [More…]
Apart from the fact that S. Armstrong’s committee is representative of only 11 of the unions with members employed in the SEC, shop stewards committees, which operate under an ACTU charter, have no constitutional authority to either engage in this type of industrial activity or pursue matters affecting wage rates or award conditions. [More…]
The FEDFA, together with the other unions with members in SEC employ, has endeavoured to act responsibly by maintaining a position within the framework of the VTHC campaign. [More…]
What has financial accounting for unions to do with the SEC dispute? [More…]
It is totally opposed by the unions. [More…]
Last May when similar legislation- not exactly the same, but similar legislation- was put before this Parliament the resolution of the Australian Council of Trade Unions executive was that if it were passed into law there would be massive economic dislocation in this country. [More…]
So the unions’ attitude to this kind of legislation is well known. [More…]
The Government knows that the unions will resist completely this kind of legislation and it knows that, by introducing it, it is raising the prospect of industrial confrontation. [More…]
Rather, it is waving an enormous stick at the unions and threatening to undermine their position in many ways. [More…]
It was vigorously opposed by the unions- not just bv the ACTU but by the Australian Council for Salaried and Professional Associations and also by the Council of Australian Government Employee Organisations. [More…]
The legislation which is before the House, although considered by the unions in the National Labour Consultative Council and although some amendments were made, is still strongly opposed by the unions. [More…]
The Government’s insistence on continuing with this legislation could well lead to unions pulling out of the National Labour Consultative Council. [More…]
As I said, the unions agreed to go into the NLCC with the aim of achieving agreed changes to the Act. [More…]
What has happened is that there has been consultation in the sense that the unions have been shown what the Government intends to do; some minor changes have been made to the Government’s proposals; then the legislation has been put before the House. [More…]
It in fact will be an industrial police force, which will be there to impose a whole array of pains and penalties upon the unions if that legislation is enacted. [More…]
That is what the Bureau will be there for; not to make sure that the unions have their rights enforced, as an ombudsman is supposed to do. [More…]
So we will be right back to the pre- 1969 days when unions were taken through the industrial court and fined for breaches of bans clauses. [More…]
It could seek deregistration of unions. [More…]
So the Bureau will play the role of seeking time after time the suspension of unions, union officials or members. [More…]
From that industrial action so widely defined- just doing work in a way different from the way in which it is normally performed or a work to rule or anything like that- flow a lot of very important implications for unions. [More…]
The only way in which it can work is if the unions are so frightened of deregistration that they would give in on the expectation that they would be deregistered if they undertook certain action. [More…]
If the Government thinks the Federal Court of Australia will be allowed to take over the trade union movement, suspend its officials, direct its funds, direct the operations of the unions and the union movement will quietly accept that, the Government has another think coming. [More…]
It means that unions can be virtually wiped out by that kind of provision. [More…]
If there is any imbalance in the system as it operates in Australia today, it certainly operates in favour of unions and employees. [More…]
This applies, I should say, equally to employer organisations as it does to unions. [More…]
No doubt we will be hearing later from the other side that this legislation is directed against the unions. [More…]
This legislation applies equally to employer organisations as it does to unions. [More…]
The second principle is that unions in Australia I am talking now specifically about unions and not employer organisations- are in a very privileged position. [More…]
That system of registration gives unions a large number of very considerable advantages. [More…]
The unions have the advantage, for instance, under section 47 of the Act of obtaining preference for their members. [More…]
That is one enormous advantage to unions which are registered under the Act. [More…]
That is an enormous and very valuable advantage to unions which are registered under the Act. [More…]
Hence, if advantages of these sorts are to be given to unions which apply for preference or which obtain this exclusive right of representation, that system must operate in such a way that those who are not members of the organisation are not prejudiced. [More…]
They do not want people to be joining unions because the union provides a benefit, because the union is so good that it attracts people voluntarily to join it; they want people to be obliged to join compulsorily. [More…]
They want to bludgeon non-unionists into joining unions. [More…]
Because unions are in a privileged position once they are registered, because of preference and because of the right of exclusive representation, this system must be given balance. [More…]
It must be a system which gives rights also to those who do not want to join unions and who object to joining unions on the grounds of conscientious objection. [More…]
Not only should there be some preservation of the rights of people who do not want to join unions but likewise there must be a recognition that people who are members of the organisation have rights. [More…]
The third principle is this: If unions- again I am talking solely about unions on this occasion- do not act responsibly, if they do not use the machinery which is available to them under the Act, they must face the reality of deregistration. [More…]
It is now clear, as it was to me several months ago, that the Australian Council of Trade Unions, the Council of Australian Government Employee Organisations and the special conference of the federal unions were led up the garden path when they were conned into saying that they would accept existing penalties and processes of the Conciliation and Arbitration Act m return for the abandonment of the more obnoxious provisions of the original Bill. [More…]
Why have not we read a word in the newspapers about this from representatives of the unions on the NLCC? [More…]
So far as I am aware, the ACTU and CAGEO representatives have not held a meeting of the constituent unions since their last meeting with the Government’s NLCC eight days ago. [More…]
I do not know whether the peak unions accept the principle of allowing union rules to be made by regulation. [More…]
It means that we have taken the first step towards giving the Government the right to make a set of uniform rules that will apply to all unions that wish to remain registered with the Commonwealth Conciliation and Arbitration Commission. [More…]
I do not know what sort of opposition was expressed by the unions at the last meeting of the NLCC to the proposal that the court can order that an elected official shall refrain from holding himself out as being so elected. [More…]
We have at least 250 more unions than we ought to have for a population of 14 million people. [More…]
After I had passed in the House of Representatives in 1973 a Bill to make it possible for the 303 unions we now have to amalgamate with greater expedition, the Liberal and National Country Party senators not only rejected the proposal but also on that occasion refused to give the Bill a second reading. [More…]
They are indefensible; but the solution to them must lie in easier amalgamation resulting in fewer and more efficient unions. [More…]
The Government talks about the democratic right of union members to control the policies and affairs of their unions and blames the communists for forcing members to go on strike against their will. [More…]
Only ten unions are involved in the dispute in the Latrobe Valley. [More…]
We should look at the untold misery that is being caused to members of all the other unions throughout the State who are being affected by that dispute. [More…]
I have been a trade unionist and I know that the real aims of all varieties of communists, whether they be the Moscow variety or the dim sim variety, in the trade unions are to have permanent industrial chaos. [More…]
That is the sort of difficulty that individual unionists are facing, and that has been the hallmark of communist-controlled unions over the years. [More…]
The only period I can recall when the communists in the trade unions were on the run was in the early 1950s when the Labor Party itself joined in the fight to drive them from the trade unions, the trades hall councils and the Australian Council of Trade Unions. [More…]
That is the only way in which they will be driven again from the unions. [More…]
Everyone on this side of the House knows that all unions are not communist. [More…]
I hope that no one gets the impression because I have strong views about this matter that I make a declaration that every single union in this country is a communist controlled union, that ipso facto all unions are bad and that we should have nothing to do with them. [More…]
I am not suggesting that for a moment Everyone on this side of the House knows that all unions are not communist and that decent trade unionism is as essential to our present structure of civilisation as is any other social institution. [More…]
We know that if the present communist penetration of the key unions goes on, the whole structure is likely to crumble. [More…]
Sir John Egerton says that this particular union’s awards do not compare favourably with those of unions which do similar work. [More…]
We also know that the key unions in this country, such as the Waterside Workers Federation, the Seamen’s Union, the railway unions, the miners, the Building Workers Industrial Union and the Builders Labourers Federation are communist controlled or strongly communist influenced. [More…]
They are the key unions in this country. [More…]
In a list of the 25 major unions in this country we see that 230 key positions are held by members of the Communist Party and 150 fulltime positions are held by members of the Communist Party. [More…]
The whole purpose of this Bill is not to destroy the Communist Party- would that it were possible to do such a thing- but it is designed specifically as the beginning of a number of major industrial steps to give rights and freedom to the individuals within those unions so that they will have the full protection of the law when and if they decide to stand up and seek office in the interests of other members of those unions. [More…]
The Bill seeks to make unions, and union officials in particular, observe the law - [More…]
That is the very reason why we have unions. [More…]
We know that, but they are also caused because of the multitude of unions that we have. [More…]
He made an endeavour to make it easier for unions to amalgamate. [More…]
The honourable member for Swan kept talking about the decent unions in the community. [More…]
Is it the honourable member for Swan, the Minister for Employment and Industrial Relations (Mr Street) or the Prime Minister (Mr Malcolm Fraser) who is to decide who are the decent unions in the community? [More…]
Will we come to a situation where only those unions that please the Government will be permitted to continue in existence? [More…]
The resolution of industrial disputes is such a serious matter that it requires the combined intelligence and goodwill of all concernedgovernment, Conciliation and Arbitration Commission and unions. [More…]
It is not the bloodyminded hawks who sit behind the Minister, because they do not care as long as the legislation destroys the unions and gives them a free hand to use their own organisations to exploit the community without let or hindrance. [More…]
As with each piece of legislation introduced dealing with industry, there is always provision for action against unions. [More…]
There has been great play about the question of secret ballots in unions. [More…]
Most of the unions, if not all, use this provision. [More…]
The Bill then refers to the personal rights of people to join or not to join unions. [More…]
The man is still without employment because he still declined, having been persuaded by those who have a hatred of unions- that man I do not believe does have a hatred of unions- to face up to his responsibility as an employee in an establishment and take out his union membership. [More…]
That is given to us as an argument why unions should not exist and why they should not be permitted to take action around things that this Government cares to call political strikes. [More…]
Furthermore, because of the effect of union power on all aspects of life in this country, there is a need for greater accountability by the unions to the public at large. [More…]
Some States already have such a provision for unions within their power. [More…]
These statements of account of the unions must be audited and filed. [More…]
We already have documentation in this country of such payments, with the maritime unions a couple of years ago. [More…]
I referred earlier to another aspect of the legislation, and that is that because the unions influence the everyday activities of nearly all Australians at present, usually to their disadvantage, there is a genuine public interest in whatever a union may do. [More…]
I believe this letter is an important document which shows to the people of Australia the true situation within unions and between unions. [More…]
Processes were under way for establishing complete agreement among all unions with members employed in the SEC before the log was submitted by the VTHC to the SEC on behalf of all these unions. [More…]
Two meetings of representatives of the SEC unions were held at the VTHC in May, at which discussion was necessarily protracted because of complex award matters involved. [More…]
Apart from the fact that S. Armstrong’s committee is representative of only 11 of the unions with members employed in the SEC, shop stewards committees, which operate under an ACTU charter, have no consitutional authority to either engage in this type of industrial activity or pursue matters affecting wage rates or award conditions. [More…]
The FEDFA, together with the other unions with members in SEC employ, has endeavoured to act responsibly by maintaining a position within the framework of the VTHC campaign. [More…]
To my mind this reinforces certain comments made about the power of the shop stewards, the usurping of constituted trade union authority, the British disease in this country, and articles written by Paul Johnson, that leading Labor Party intellectual in the United Kingdom, who contributed to the New Statesman on the new tyranny of the trade unions. [More…]
There are decent men in the Trades Hall Council in Victoria and the President of the Australian Council of Trade Unions already negotiating. [More…]
The men in the Latrobe Valley have been disadvantaged- and this has been pointed out by other speakers on this side of the Housebecause there are too many unions in that area. [More…]
The unions have adopted an ad hoc approach in which one union gets a benefit and the other unions do not. [More…]
An impediment to the long term solution of disputes of this type is the number of unions in the country. [More…]
Germany, which has a population of 80 million people, has IS trade unions Australia, with a population of 13 million people, has over 311 trade unions. [More…]
Disputes will not be resolved if unions are treated in this way. [More…]
But the Australian Council of Trade Unions and the peak councils rejected the policy and the philosophy inherent in the Government’s proposition. [More…]
It is paramount that unions recognise their obligations and the legitimate interest of the Australian community. [More…]
In effect he said that the Government has an absolute right to ensure that the unions recognise their obligations. [More…]
Day after day they took unions into the industrial court, and under sections 109 and 1 1 1 had them fined and finally having a trade union official gaoled. [More…]
So far as trade unions are concerned, once the Government destroys that conciliatory section of the Act and puts in the hands of the employers the right to neglect and reject any area of conciliation, the end result will be confrontation. [More…]
The Government is putting into legalism what it tries to do by standing over trade unions for the purpose of creating a political gimmick that is so blatant it is a joke and will never convince the electorate that the Government is fair dinkum. [More…]
What the Government has done is to confront the unions deliberately. [More…]
Because of the action of the Victorian Trades Hall Council, those payments were merged with special payments relating to trade unions as a whole. [More…]
The Commission could not deal with the Latrobe matter unless it dealt with the other unions as well. [More…]
Power has corrupted too many of the trade unions. [More…]
If we do not take action to bring trade unions within the established law, I believe that parliamentary democracy will be at stake. [More…]
There was the problem of Mackie in Mount Isa and other unions including Public Service unions that had to be faced. [More…]
The second point I want to make relates to deregistration of unions under section 143. [More…]
These problems have to be handled quickly and in such a way as to ensure that the trade unions are brought within the new province of law and order. [More…]
On almost all occasions on which Mr Hawke appears, he speaks as President of the Australian Council of Trade Unions. [More…]
Moreover, because these Employment Discrimination Committees were established by the Commonwealth, with the full support of all the States, there were no problems involving jurisdiction and no demarcation disputes, while the participation of non-governmental representatives, nominated by the employers and the unions, enabled the Committees to resolve complaints of discrimination which they received in a way which may not have been possible if their membership had been restricted to the governmental level. [More…]
That in the opinion of this House the Australian people have a right to know more about the underhand methods by which communist agitators manipulate trade unions with the object of disrupting the Australian economy; [More…]
Whether communist textbooks prescribe that members should resort to trickery and deceit within trade unions and should use the pretence of industrial issues to achieve communist purposes; [More…]
The extent to which the success of communist tactics in trade unions depends upon concealment of the identity of key communist operatives, organisations and associations; and [More…]
Means of combating communist operations in trade unions. [More…]
That came from a government which has set upon a course of deliberate confrontation and provocation throughout its term- a government which deliberately prolonged the air traffic controllers strike, which rushed through in a single day the Commonwealth Employees (Employment Provisions) Act, overturning arrangements which have existed for 70 years, and which moved to deregister unions involved in the Victorian power dispute in the middle of discussions between the Australian Council of Trade Unions and the unions. [More…]
The commitment on employment and industrial relations was that office bearers of all trade unions and all employer organisations registered under the Conciliation and Arbitration Act would be elected under Electoral Office supervision by secret ballot. [More…]
That promise has not been quite fulfilled, but a fairness in election for all unions has been introduced by this Government so that those people who make up the silent majority have an opportunity now of having a voice in the affairs of trade unions. [More…]
It is a great shame that within the last weeks and months a number of trade unions have not been acting on the directions of their members. [More…]
‘We will work positively in co-operation with trade unions’. [More…]
The Minister for Employment and Industrial Relations (Mr Street) has been most patient, most discerning and most co-operative with unions, particularly in the establishment of the National Labour Consultative Council. [More…]
There has been absolutely no desire, not only on the part of the Government but on the part of any member of the Government, to rationalise relationships with the trade unions. [More…]
With all the huff and puff that has gone on in this Parliament and the Victorian Parliament the dispute in the Latrobe Valley has been settled by negotiation led by the President of the Australian Council of Trade Unions in defiance of the threats that have come out of the parliaments. [More…]
The Minister for Employment and Industrial Relations was not invited to make a speech but the Minister for Transport (Mr Nixon)- the Minister for Transport, mind you- went along and made a speech for 40 minutes about industrial relations, how bad the unions are and who is governing the country. [More…]
What about their colleagues in the trade unions? [More…]
It is paramount that unions recognise their obligations to and the legitimate interests of the Australian community. [More…]
Even the Australian Council of Trade Unions recognised the special position of Tasmania in 1971 when the ACTU executive declared that the jobs of Tasmanian workers depend on regular, reliable and adequate shipping services and that in respect of any shipping strike the participants are to give consideration to the particular position of Tasmania ‘s economy and to take such steps as are practicable and required to cause the least disruption. [More…]
For years and years now General Secretary Frank Mitchell and President Edgar Williams have been responsible for allowing one of the finest unions in Australia to detenorate into a disgraceful shambles with some of the worst awards in Australia and an utter comtempt for the democratic rights of the union membership. [More…]
Mitchell and Williams used this difference in the charges that the two different unions fixed for their fees and imposed upon their members as a subterfuge for charging Oliver with misconduct and called upon him to show cause why he should not be expelled. [More…]
The record of some of the unaffiliated unions has not been as impressive. [More…]
If it does that, the procommunist Left will get control of the Federal Executive of the Australian Council of Trade Unions. [More…]
I have talked to unions. [More…]
In fact the people who are featherbedded are the union bosses who are not subject to control and who get away with murder in the unions, in many respects. [More…]
I would like to see trade unions incorporated fully, in the same way as registered clubs in New South Wales are incorporated fully, so that they will be subject to the various Acts to which company directors are subject. [More…]
It would clear out the unions in a very healthy way. [More…]
It has been traditional- it has been a universally accepted principle in this country for years- that apprentices shall not be compelled to join trade unions and shall not be compelled to go on strike. [More…]
But on the other hand perhaps it is not surprising that Mr Hawke, as President of the Australian Council of Trade Unions, is sensitive about more effective ASIO operations. [More…]
Mr Justice Hope in his report on this area of subversion said: … the two main communist parties, the Communist Party of Australia and the Socialist Party of Australia, have strong influence in some unions. [More…]
One of the things that will be most interesting is to know how many communist unions are supporting the [More…]
Everyone shall have the right to freedom of association with others, including the right to form and join trade unions for the protection of his interests. [More…]
A considerable part of those proceedings of course was in private conference between the State Electricity Commission and the unions concerned. [More…]
The decision of this Bench was that no wage increases were warranted on the grounds which the unions had put forward. [More…]
One therefore faces the problem of finding a way in which to restructure the industry without bringing on a direct confrontation between the unions, on the one side, and the Government, on the other. [More…]
Those in the Government and the Labor Party, in the Broken Hill Pty Co. Ltd, in the Australian Shippers Council and in the trades unions- I include myself amongst them, now as a federal memberwho may have wished to see a national corporation as favoured in the Foster report or the nationalisation of stevedoring, can thank the Authority for the backlash of industry opinion that has resulted in the National Stevedoring Industry Conference deciding to recommend firstly the abolition of the Australian Stevedoring Industry Authority; secondly, the restoration of the industry to full private control; and thirdly, the withdrawal of the Government as a body having a meaningful presence in the industry. [More…]
That is to attack unions. [More…]
Without exception the theme is that most leaders of major unions are left wingers, communists or fools all intent on stirring up industrial confrontation, all intent on causing trouble in industry. [More…]
I find it very strange to listen to these attacks on trade unions. [More…]
In the long term there is a need for unions in the stevedoring industry to amalgamate. [More…]
In the stevedoring industry, just as in other industries, there is a need for unions to combine for greater efficiency and to achieve better results for their members. [More…]
The Minister for Employment and Industrial Relations and the Government have worked very hard in a most dedicated way during this Government’s period in office for all those people involved in the stevedoring industry- the employers and the unions. [More…]
As the proposals are supported by the industry and by the unions we are not opposing them. [More…]
I refer to a comment in the Age of 19 August 1976 in an article by Tony Thomas which referred to a strong attack by the Minister for Transport on the waterfront unions made in Federal Parliament on the previous day. [More…]
In this game it seems that on the other side of the House there are no holds barred and that what happens does not matter because the unions can always be blamed. [More…]
I might say that it is extremely difficult sometimes in the face of the information that comes from honourable members opposite and the abuse that comes from honourable members opposite towards trade unions to persevere in that land of task. [More…]
I make a plea on behalf of the industry and on behalf of the consumers that the Government, in its last couple of days at least, leaves the unions alone and sets about trying to develop a spirit of goodwill in reducing charges and achieving a higher rate of efficiency. [More…]
The honourable member for Wilmot (Mr Burr) made a very pertinent comment, I think, when he drew atention to the fact that both the employers and the unions involved in the industry opted for private enterprise in the industry. [More…]
The plain fact is that the unions prefer it, whether or not the Opposition likes it. [More…]
In November 1975 a meeting of Australian maritime unions resolved in favour of a ban on the handling of Indonesian flag vessels and on war materials bound for Indonesia, in protest against Indonesian involvement in East Timor. [More…]
The Australian Council of Trade Unions Executive in February 1976 passed a resolution endorsing the ban, which is still in effect. [More…]
ensure that community stations are autonomous in their operations, have sufficient freedom to develop new and innovative forms of programming and reflect the social, political or cultural interests of geographical areas, ethnic groups or non-profit institutions such as co-operative societies, trade unions or educational bodies; [More…]
It was not because of the behaviour of Australia’s labour unions: it was not because Australia was in a particularly vulnerable position . [More…]
Maybe we will have to grant some indulgences in the sale of lamb and get into arguments with the unions about whether it is sold live or dead. [More…]
I preface my question to the Minister for Employment and Industrial Relations by reminding him and the House that among the provisions of the Conciliation and Arbitration Act which take great care to ensure that members of unions are able to participate effectively in the affairs of their unions are three sections: Section 133, which gives to all financial members of the union the right to vote; section 152, which requires that union secretaries keep a correct account of union ticket butts; and section 170 A, which requires union secretaries to supply to the Commonwealth Electoral Office full particulars of all butts which they have in their possession. [More…]
It is another example of what I have referred to on many occasions, both inside and outside this House- of attacks, by the National Country Party more particularly than by the Liberal Party, on the trade union movement, and particularly the unions involved in the transport industry, as a substitute for a political argument. [More…]
It is the old story of bashing the unions. [More…]
There may be some substance in some of the problems to which attention is drawn but that is not the way in which to go about it Bashing the transport unions costs the consumers of this country money; it costs the workers their wages, it costs companies a loss of profits, and it damages our trading reputation. [More…]
Instead of that, the Premier of Queensland is using the Seamen’s Union and the other five maritime unions to try to create a political issue out of this matter for the State election. [More…]
Because we in government do not take very lightly to this sort of behaviour by the militant unions we are accused of union bashing. [More…]
From reports I have received from within the industry and from the unions, I doubt whether the relationship between the Department of Transport and the industry has ever been at a lower level than it is at present. [More…]
What elections have been held in trade unions registered under the Conciliation and Arbitration Act since 31 December 1975. [More…]
The major areas of difference are with respect to the involvement of trade unions and the election of workers directors. [More…]
I have not seen a statement of the legislative policy of the South Australian Government but if the South Australian Minister says that the major differences between the two parties relate to worker directors and the role of trade unions, I believe that would be the position. [More…]
All that the Government really creates is the impression that it believes a high level of unemployment is desirable since it ‘keeps the unions quiet’. [More…]
These are chaired by the State Directors of my Department and comprise representatives of employers, trade unions and the State Governments to encourage employers to take on additional young people. [More…]
The matter of trade unions obviously is very high in the mind of the Government. [More…]
The Government has tried over the last two years to introduce legislation to destroy the trade unions. [More…]
It fears the trade unions. [More…]
There can be no stronger organisation of people in this country for the protection of democracy than the trade unions- the great trade unions with their long history, their long traditions of democracy in this country. [More…]
Prime Minister, I think that you ought to have a talk to the Minister for Employment and Industrial Relations because I have a letter here from a very influential person telling me that the Minister is being a little too soft on the unions, Prime Minister’. [More…]
Did any members of the Opposition rush to the Russian Embassy and say: ‘I say, trade unions and all the rest of it; you are actually putting into outer space nuclear-powered satellites without our knowing ‘. [More…]
I am ceaselessly amazed at the hypocrisy of Labor supporters who talk about the funding of political parties because whilst it might be reasonable that there should be some sensible look at the whole problem, it is blatantly obvious from what the honourable member for Port Adelaide (Mr Young) and other Opposition supporters have said on many occasions here that all they are seeking to do by devious means is to have a situation whereby one day they can outlaw, in effect, all or substantial donations to the Liberal and National Country Parties, entrench their own economic conscription from Labor unions, their own theft from ordinary Australian people that they impose compulsorily, institutionalise it even further, raid the coffers of the Treasuries to get an extra subsidy for their own policies of socialism to take over the remaining parts of the economy or whatever they can get hold of and then entrench themselves even further. [More…]
Tonight I want to draw the attention of the House to another matter relating to trade unions which is causing absolute outrage and is a scandal amongst the constituents in St George. [More…]
An increasing complexity in decision making, involving a likely shift of power away from elected parliaments/governments towards groups commanding various locations’, or ‘situses’, in society- for example, technocrats, public servants, multinationals, banks, trades unions and universities. [More…]
Whilst it is fair enough for people engaged in trade unions to represent their members and put forward proposals for increased wages and advanced working conditions, they must also realise that their members cannot have improved conditions unless there is prosperity in the industries in which they work. [More…]
It is always someone else’s fault- Whitlam’s fault, the unions’ fault, the consumers’ fault, the investors’ fault, the Labor Premiers’ fault, anyone’s fault except Fraser’s fault. [More…]
Such a conference would involve representatives of both industry and unions sitting down together and working out how, to mutual benefit, they can gain advantage by increased production, can achieve working hours that are more congenial and surroundings that are conducive to a better application to the mutual task. [More…]
On the contrary, they indicate that the unemployed and the militant or even defensive trade unions are not numbered amongst the Australians for whom the Government has concern. [More…]
This situation is very appropriate to the Japanese context because Japan has a history of company-based labour unions, and a negotiated contract can therefore be worked out between the company and the labour union within that company. [More…]
It may be appropriate in some companies but it will not be acceptable to some company managements and indeed it will not be acceptable to some employees and trade unions. [More…]
From the reports I have”1 read of the attitudes of industry organisations and trade unions I am led to believe that there is now a stand-off situation in the consideration of the Bullock report which recommended on the appointment of worker directors. [More…]
If one is to talk about job enlargement, giving people a wider range of activities and a wider area of involvement in their work place, one can conceivably run into demarcation disputes between individual unions within the same plant. [More…]
After 1953-1954, Special Branch files assumed a new dimension of intense interest in (Labor) political opinions and (Labor) trade unions. [More…]
It involves, first, the maintenance, and extension if necessary, of unemployment, partly as an end in itself, because the Government genuinely holds the view that if there is a high enough unemployment figure this will in fact reduce the level of inflation, and partly as a method of holding down wage claims, and thus disciplining the unions. [More…]
Request Government refusal to grant export permits to any company accepting a reduction in present contractual agreements at present until after conference with Commonwealth Government and mining unions liaison committee. [More…]
This concern was expressed by organisations such as the Whyalla Combined Unions Council, the City Corporation and other bodies. [More…]
This morning I read an article in the Australian headed: ‘Sinclair attacks unions over funds for Labor’ and an article in the Sydney Morning Herald headed: ‘Scrutiny of work right increasing’. [More…]
He says: ‘Give the trade unions a good kick’. [More…]
We must treat those figures with some care because in those days the unions rather than the statisticians were obliged to report on how many people were unemployed. [More…]
It may well have been that for political reasons the unions decided to inflate the figures or to muck around with them. [More…]
They are countries where the government of the day can generally control the populace and where effective trade unions have been defeated and in some cases crushed. [More…]
The only reason why unions are keeping fairly quiet about this matter is because they are not going too well financially. [More…]
It is the responsibility of big business; it is the responsiblity of trade unions; it is the responsibility of the media and of parliamentarians. [More…]
I have been critical of the trade unions on a number of occasions, and I will continue to be critical when I believe that that is justified. [More…]
I believe that the moderate trade unionist is beginning to realise that there are too many extremists in trade unions and that there are too many men who are interested only in themselves and not in the trade union movement as a whole. [More…]
I think that the Labor Party will have to examine itself and the unions to see what it can do about the situation. [More…]
This is a responsibility which has to be borne equally by all governments, both State and Federal, employers, trade unions and all of the people who are working together or who should be working together. [More…]
It astounds me that the industrial unions of this country allow the clerks, the typists and the multitude of other people- I understand almost 1,000 people are employed here apart from parliamentarians- to work in the conditions under which they do work. [More…]
We mean talented people in government, State as well as Federal, in the academic spheres, in business, and in the trade unions coming up with some objectives as to where we should be aiming. [More…]
But that is the very proposition which is arguable, especially so if the objective of economic efficiency is pursued too fiercely by way of reducing tariffs without adequate consultation and communication with industry- I mean both sides, unions as well as employers- and without appropriate adjustment and retaining facilities and programs and, very importantly, without appropriate incentives for expansion in other ways and in other areas, that is, without the ‘positives’ for encouraging expansion in other markets or in other lines of activity in order to take up resources, expecially labour, that may become surplus. [More…]
I believe there are very few industries and unions which do not understand, recognise and even welcome the need for structural adjustment. [More…]
I raise this question not only in relation to the 1977 campaign, but also in relation to attacks that have been made on the trade unions by the Deputy Leader of the National Country Party, the Minister for Primary Industry (Mr Sinclair) only last week. [More…]
The Deputy Leader of the National Country Party took time out during the week to attack the trade unions for making political donations. [More…]
The trade unions are the only group in this country which make public the fact that they have made a political donation. [More…]
The amounts being donated are of such proportions that they ought to be made public in the public interest, the same way as donations from the trade unions are made public. [More…]
It visited other countries; it talked to business; it talked to trade unions; it talked to individuals. [More…]
Some unions in the United Kingdom were opposed to the implementation of a system of state aid to political parties and some supported it. [More…]
A much smaller amount of money is raised in Australia at the moment by the Labor Party from the trade unions than was the case previously. [More…]
The trade unions are in no position to make major donations to any political party. [More…]
But of course it did not because they did not have enough brains to understand economic policy and the trade unions of the Left, the extremists got them. [More…]
I hope that that aspect is brought home to individual members of the trade unions on whose behalf their principals purport to be currently negotiating. [More…]
The proposals put to the Commission by the Australian Council of Trade Unions have really been totally rejected. [More…]
While not singling out the unions, the power strike in Victoria’s Latrobe Valley at the end of last year must be counted as a prime example of forgetting that we are all part of Australia and must work in the best interests of all Australians. [More…]
How much justification do unions have now to move within the system? [More…]
It will rue the day because surely to God it will be stood up in an argument with the unions and be called upon to say why it now finds itself outside the parameters of its charter, that is, to reslolve industrial disputes that extend beyond the borders of one State. [More…]
If he were to go to any of the housing industry conferences, be they conferences of permanent building societies, terminating building societies, the real estate industry or the building unions, he would find that the same feeling of serious concern in evidence. [More…]
Similarly, we should be paying more attention to the organisation of trade unions in Australia. [More…]
At present we have some 300 trade unions. [More…]
Nations like Germany and Japan, with work forces many times the size of ours, have 25 to 30 trade unions. [More…]
I would like to see a strong move towards industry unions in Australia, and a major reduction in the number of unions. [More…]
It will require considerable initiative by the private sector, and trade unions and considerable support from government. [More…]
If there were any faltering in our surge towards the new boom, it was the fault of the Labor Party, the trade unions, the dole bludgers, women who wanted to work, importers, the European Economic Community, Japan and the United States, the lavatory attendant at Parliament House and the Easter Bunny- everyone, it seems, but the Prime Minister and the Liberal-National Country Party coalition. [More…]
This particular project was helped by a grant from the British Trade Union Congress and the International Federation of Free Trade Unions. [More…]
I emphasise that a successful industry policy can come about only through discussions between all interested bodies- governments and Oppositions, both Federal and State, industrialists, unions and consumers. [More…]
During the period since 1 July 1975 we have been working with the governments of South Australia and Tasmania, as well as with representatives of unions and railway management, to finalise a number of detailed operational and industrial issues. [More…]
Let me refer first of all to the uranium decision of the Australian Council of Trade Unions. [More…]
That is a challenge for governments, industries, the unions and the whole nation alike. [More…]
It is no less the responsibility of unions. [More…]
I am not union bashing when I say that everybody- government, unions, working men and employers- must take a proper share in the responsibilities of making this country go. [More…]
Now it is up to everybody else, including the unions, to pull their weight. [More…]
In Canberra at present the Building Workers Industrial Union, which is a major building industry union, is in the process of blackmailing quite a number of Australian working people and sub-contractors in the building industry by forcing them against their will to join unions. [More…]
Some of the people from Queanbeyan in my electorate and people from the electorates in the Australian Capital Territory are being forced because of the actions of these unions to pay fees or leave sites in Canberra at present. [More…]
The situation is that the unions, by heavy handed blackmail tactics, are forcing themselves on major employers who are being forced to buckle under because the employers cannot afford, in the competitive environment of the building industry, to close down the job for a protracted period while litigation takes place. [More…]
They are finding that it is probably better to go along with the unions and ask sub-contractors to have their employees join the unions. [More…]
I understand however that Mr Driver is then able in those circumstance to call out other unions. [More…]
As I said, the unions hold the whip hand because of the terrible costs involved to the major contractors. [More…]
The provisions of the Bill have been developed after detailed discussions between the Australian Government, the Tasmanian and South Australian governments and the relevant unions. [More…]
Even though the Minister has his own views about the wisdom of having a national railway system, it is to the credit of the officers of the Department of Transport that, in spite of the complexities involved in the amalgamation of those three rail systems and the added complexity of the number of awards and the number of unions involved, we are now debating this Bill and hopefully concluding arrangements for the future of the employees under the expanded Commission. [More…]
It is very significant, and it will come as a surprise to many honourable members opposite, that we in fact have had closer contact with railwaymen in Tasmania than the State Labor Government members of parliament have, even though the unions connected with the railways are affiliated with the Australian Labor Party. [More…]
I have spoken to members of the Administrative and Clerical Officers Association, the Australian Federated Union of Locomotive Enginemen, the Australian Workers Union and other unions and found that they are still concerned about a number of matters. [More…]
In early 1951, when this fact was discovered, an arrangement was reached between the unions and the then Minister that the year in the provision of the by-law would be changed from 1944 to 1951 and furlough would be excluded. [More…]
As a result of the discussions which took place between the unions and the management at that time, it was arranged with the Treasurer that by administrative arrangement any employee who joined between 7 October 1944 and 1951 would have the right to choose whether he wished his long service leave under the Furlough Act or the by-law. [More…]
He watched and heard those same people over a period of several years say in this House and elsewhere that one man’s increase in pay was another man’s job, and that it was not possible for the economy to be maintained in a viable state if the unions were to follow the policies that they were pursuing while the Labor Government was in office. [More…]
-The Minister for Employment and Industrial Relations has been engaged over the last few days in discussions with the unions, with the President of the Australian Council of Trade Unions and with leaders of farmers’ and graziers’ organisations in an attempt to seek a proper resolution of a matter which is of very grave and serious consequence. [More…]
The Bill now before the House reflects discussions with Public Service unions and goes a long way towards sorting out the anomalies and the problems that have emerged during the period of the scheme’s operation. [More…]
But what do the workers in these unions in South Australia do? [More…]
We have a situation now in which the unions claim that because of a possible loss of work by slaughtermen they will strike. [More…]
The unions eventually backed down as they ought to do in this case. [More…]
1 ) and (2) Qantas Airways Limited does not hold records of the unions to which its employees may belong. [More…]
The table below shows the unions/associations which cover employment categories in Qantas Airways Limited and the number of employees who could be eligible to join each. [More…]
1 ) To which unions, Federal and State, do employees of the Australian National Railways belong. [More…]
I ) and (2 ) The Australian National Railways does not hold records of the unions to which its employees may belong. [More…]
The table below shows the unions/associations which cover employment categories in the Australian National Railways and the number of employees who could be eligible to join each. [More…]
There are no State unions/associations involved. [More…]
The interesting point that arises is that, although the Deputy Prime Minister and the Premier of Western Australia have been trumpeting about a commitment by the Japanese to a 48 per cent or 50 per cent share of the Japanese market- the Premier has been prepared to say only that it is approximately 48 per cent to 50 per cent of the share, which suggests that there may even be a decline in the amount that we have historically supplied- this is exactly the same undertaking that the President of the Australian Council of Trade Unions was able to extract from the Japanese over a year ago. [More…]
1 ) and (2) Trans-Australia Airlines does not hold records of the unions to which its employees may belong. [More…]
The table below shows the unions/associations which cover employment categories in Trans-Australia Airlines and the number of employees who could be eligible to join each. [More…]
There are no State unions/associations involved. [More…]
1 ) To which unions, Federal and State, do employees of the Australian National Line belong. [More…]
I ) and (2) The Australian National Line does not hold records of the unions to which its employees may belong. [More…]
The table below shows the unions/associations which cover employment categories in the Australian National Line and the number of employees who could be eligible to join each. [More…]
There are no State unions/associatons involved. [More…]
With the joint support of both employers and unions at the top policy level, an Alcoholism in Industry Program, co-ordinated by the Australian Foundation on Alcoholism and Drug Dependence has been funded under the Program and is an excellent example of the Government s response to community group initiatives in identifying and meeting a particular need. [More…]
A resolution adopted by the Australian Council of Trade Unions Executive at its wages policy meeting in Melbourne as recently as 20 March this year is a clear example of those people with jobs wanting wage increases at the expense of the unemployed. [More…]
The resolution which encouraged ACTU affiliated unions to seek wage increases over and above those awarded by the Conciliation and Arbitration Commission would, if acted upon by the unions, inhibit economic recovery and reduce the capacity of the economy to create new jobs. [More…]
It is obvious that those unions in a position to push for wage increases will continue to do so, with no concern whatever for any unemployment they may create amongst less fortunate workers. [More…]
In fact, his only reply was not to face the proposals that we made but to use the sterile argument which is used again and again that, firstly, unemployment is all the result of inflation; secondly, that the Labor Party in government was responsible for inflation; and, thirdly, that the unions, with their wage pressures, are responsible. [More…]
One would have hoped that, when the Attorney-General (Senator Durack) was dealing with that matter in the Senate, he could have put on record that the word ‘business’ did not include trade unions as such. [More…]
I refer to the suggestion in regard to the definition of a business under proposed new section 7a not including trade unions. [More…]
Unlike the Deputy Leader of the Opposition, I am not going to express an opinion as to whether this legislation applies to the records of trade unions. [More…]
To be quite frank, as a matter of principle I have no firm view one way or another as to whether it ought to apply to the records of trade unions. [More…]
Employees at the munitions and the aircraft and guided weapons establishments belong to the following unions. [More…]
1 ) To which unions, Federal and State, do employees of the Naval Dockyards belong and how many employees belong to each union. [More…]
) To which unions, Federal and State, do employees of other Defence establishments and laboratories belong and how many employees belong to each union. [More…]
Initial drafting by the appropriate Commonwealth department, for example, Department of Health for health codes, Department of Transport for transport codes, Department of Environment, Housing and Community Development for general environment protection codes; consultation on the proposed draft code with relevant State and Territory Ministers; the release, where appropriate, of the draft code for public comment, particularly by industry and trade unions; consideration of the draft code by relevant advisory councils such as the Australian Ionising Radiation Advisory Council; final consideration within the Government and submission to the Governor-General; the provision of an order in writing by the Governor-General approving the code; tabling of the order approving the code of practice in both Houses of Parliament. [More…]
In this context I am sure honourable members will be pleased to know that one important code of practice on radiation protection in the mining and milling of radioactive ores has already been prepared by the Commonwealth Department of Health in consultation with other Commonwealth and State authorities, industry and trade unions. [More…]
The actual individuals to be members of the Uranium Advisory Council have not yet been settled, but the Government has agreed that the Council should include representation from the following groups: The Austraiian religious community; the Aboriginal community; a national voluntary environmental organisation; the Northern Territory community; the Australian Council of Trade Unions; a person with experience in energy matters; the [More…]
Honourable members will be aware that the Australian Council of Trade Unions determined that affiliated unions should make labour available to facilitate the honouring of existing contracts from Mary Kathleen and the Lucas [More…]
If one goes through the list one sees mentioned the Australian religious community, the Aboriginal community, a national voluntary environmental organisation, the Northern Territory community, the Australian Council of Trade Unions, a person with experience in energy matters, the Australian uranium industry, a nuclear scientist, a medical practitioner or health physicist, an environmentalist with experience in natural resource development, an economist with experience in natural resource development, an expert in national and international affairs or law. [More…]
Is the Minister for Primary Industry aware of statements in the media this morning by a Mr Graham McCamley, President of the Cattlemen’s Union of Australia, calling action by sheep producers in South Australia and Western Australia, reckless and irresponsible and berating graziers and their organisations for antagonising the unions? [More…]
However, apparently the honourable member and some of the unions he supports have not been very concerned about the employment security of people of an area in which a continuing spate of strikes has prevented the use of Australia’s export capacity and to a degree undermined our reputation as a reliable supplier. [More…]
By encouraging the growth of industries dependent on high tariffs, lacking the scale of production and technological base necessary to compete against import competition, Australia is now faced with only a series of difficult policy options, and has a Government that is determined to avoid all of them by simply blaming the unions and their members for literally every problem that this country is facing. [More…]
The industrial relations situation in Australia will, no doubt, worsen as the unions react to substantial declines in real wage levels. [More…]
Using other more justifiable methods of calculation other people have reduced that ten per cent real wage overhang to five per cent in the case of the Flinders Institute, three per cent in the case of the Melbourne Institute of Applied Economic and Social Research, and a three per cent underhang in the case of the Australian Council of Trade Unions. [More…]
In the words of my leader the Right Honourable J. D. Anthony, these men have had a gutful of the unions. [More…]
But rural Australia has been aggrieved by the irresponsibility of trade unions whose members could not make the right choice between the loss to them on the one hand of $2m a year in the short term compared with a loss of $200 m to $300m a year to the sheep producers which represents a fall in live sheep exports of 56 per cent, sheep prices of 45 per cent and carcass prices of 1 2 per cent. [More…]
This will mean more support for buses, and less for road construction; more responsibility for planning transport to meet local needs should be devolved to local government since the most practical and democratic approach to co-ordination is local; greater emphasis should be placed on getting value for money, both in the financial regimes for the public sector industries and in the framework for decision-taking on particular schemes and services; there should be a more systematic and open involvement of people, Parliament, transport operators and unions in the continuing debate on transport and the formulation of policy; and this should be promoted by the [More…]
It was prepared in association with the Australian Council of Trade Unions and it draws upon the most modern scientific advice available and ensures that uranium mining in Australia will be undertaken in accordance with the strictest code that has ever been applied. [More…]
Many members, not only of the Vehicle Builders Union, the Metal Workers Union and other blue collar unions operating in this field, will be affected. [More…]
Similar missions visited the Philippines and South America in 1 974 and criteria for the countries visited have also been established by Central Trades Committees which have representatives of the unions and employer organisations in the trades concerned as well as a representative of the Government. [More…]
In respect of trade between Australia and Chile, which has been the subject of industrial action by members of the maritime unions since mid 1 974, the ACTU advised me formally on 17 April that the ban on trade has been lifted. [More…]
The principal unions involved in the bans affecting trade with Indonesia and Chile were the Waterside Workers Federation and the Australian Seamen’s Union. [More…]
Should unions opposed to the establishment of a mine at Ranger not be deterred by the possible use of these powers, the Atomic Energy Act itself allows that a person authorised by the Minister may enter a mine site, as stated in section 41, ‘with such workmen and other persons as he thinks fit. ‘ [More…]
By conducting uranium mining under the provisions of the Atomic Energy Act the Government has the power to deny ordinary industrial rights to workers and unions associated with the mining, handling and transportation of uranium. [More…]
It includes the situation where workers or unions desire to boycott any part of the project either directly or by a secondary boycott. [More…]
Under the provisions of the Act many of the decisions of the Trades and Labor Council and the Austraiian Council of Trade Unions would be illegal and subject to the previously mentioned penalties. [More…]
It can be used against any section of society, including workers and unions, whenever the Government feels it necessary to use the iron hand rather than the kid glove to clear the way for uranium mining and exporting. [More…]
The Opposition would like to see this brought out into the open and trade unions, environmental bodies and other groups given the opportunity to put something forward for inclusion in these codes. [More…]
This delegation will include members of the unions involved, producers and exporters. [More…]
It can be seen that the main problems of the car industry are beyond the control of workers or unions within the industry and even the companies are restricted in what action they can take. [More…]
On that Council there are representatives of the Government, the manufacturers, the components industry and the unions. [More…]
I believe that fundamentally unions have a very important part to play. [More…]
Although he cannot give the number of employees by Unions in the Defence establishments and laboratories other than the Naval Dockyards (Hansard, 7 April 1978, page 1253), can he give the unions to which they belong, as the Minister for Productivity did for the munitions, aircraft and guided weapons establishments (Hansard, 6 April 1978, page 1202), or the unions which cover their employment categories, as the Minister for Transport did for Qantas, Australian National Railways (Hansard, 4 April 1978, page 975), Trans-Australia Airlines (Hansard, 5 April 1978, page 1074), and the Australian National Line (Hansard, 5 April 1978, page 1075). [More…]
Employees in Defence establishments and laboratories other than Naval Dockyards, could belong to the unions and associations listed below. [More…]
What the Deputy Arbitrator did was to order both unions and their members to cease the imposition of the bans. [More…]
The unions took the matter to the High Court which held that the Deputy Arbitrator in fact had power to grant a right of appeal and that, as the other orders were made on the erroneous assumption that he lacked jurisdiction to deal with the unions’ claim, they could not be allowed to stand. [More…]
If they do not accept the minor premise then the major premise ought to have been abolished, giving the opportunity for political parties, trade unions, churches, ethnic minorities, universities and commercial interests to set up their own low-cost television and radio channels and aim at a particular segment of the potential audience. [More…]
One of the matters put to us by trade unionists just a couple of nights ago was that there should be assistance with training or retraining We put it to the unions that they in turn might be able to make that easier by supporting a move for adult qualifications for tradesmen, which is something that the trade union movement has not always grasped with a great degree of enthusiasm. [More…]
At this very moment officers of the Commonwealth are in consultation with the company and with the trade unions at Chrysler. [More…]
To a large extent factions in trade unions are born out of the very nature of a free trade union movement. [More…]
Thus free trade unions as such are enormously important in the make-up of Australian society. [More…]
We would be deluding ourselves if we believed there was a recipe for legislating factions within trade unions or, as in this case, using factions as an excuse to further what we consider to be a bad principle. [More…]
The Working Women’s Charter Conference of the Australian Council of Trade Unions called for affiliates involved in traditionally male preserves to encourage women to move into trade and technical training in those areas. [More…]
I repeat what I said earlier, that this scheme worked out in conjuction with the State governments, employers and the unions has already resulted in a substantial increase in the apprentice intake. [More…]
It is odd that the Leader of the Opposition also expressed concern about, and has chosen to defend, the claim of the metal trades unions for a $24 a week wage increase and a large range of other benefits. [More…]
I pointed out that the unions by and large had adhered to the indexation system in spite of the fact that - [More…]
Firstly let me deal with the industrial dispute which occurred in Port Kembla over the last few days and which, as my colleague has pointed out, was solved not by the Federal Government but by the unions concerned and by the Premier of New South Wales. [More…]
Urged by his own Party and the Labour Opposition, the unions and the Confederation of British Industry, Heath reflated. [More…]
Are we to believe that the unions and the industry operators are all dishonest people and that the Minister alone is telling the truth? [More…]
I am trying to reinforce what has been said by the aviation industry operators and by the unions involved. [More…]
This unfortunate situation has arisen through the tactics of maritime unions, particularly the Waterside Workers’ Federation, which has adopted a policy of stoppages and goslows on the waterfront at various times since the negotiations with the waterside workers new award broke down on 31 March when settlement by arbitration was refused. [More…]
We would ensure that all significant sectors of the economy, including the unions, were closely consulted and involved in the planning process. [More…]
Such expertise would need to include expertise and experience in various segments of economic activity, so it would be essential for such a department to recruit people from areas of business, the unions and rural organisations. [More…]
It is within the context of that sort of recommendation that the present Government has created these groups which have a capacity for economic input to allow forward planning of the economy, not to be done in an authoritarian and dictatorial way by the Government but in consultation with the people who will be affected by it, that is the business community and the unions. [More…]
What the Vernon Committee wanted was an independent body made up of government, unions and business, and for this body to be outside the bureaucratic structure. [More…]
This is important, bearing in mind that industrial relations involves both employers and unions. [More…]
Added to this, such areas as paid educational leave concern the employers no less than the unions. [More…]
On the one hand it is important that the trade unions are able to participate effectively in the formulation of policy and programs and have confidence in the Authority’s activities. [More…]
The unions involved in the recent dispute can in no way be looked upon as a group of militants attempting to usurp the role of Government. [More…]
The fact that the unions involved were prepared to take this dispute to the point of stand-down requires some further analysis. [More…]
The unions took the view that applications for promotion or transfer from serving officers should be considered before the recruitment campaign was launched outside the Service. [More…]
Despite the fact that the unions took their case to arbitration and established the validity of their claims, the Minister, who was quite incorrect in many of his utterances- if time permits I can establish this contention- is now going to disregard the fact that unions were right. [More…]
He is simply saying that even if the unions were right the Government’s will is still going to prevail because it will change the law to suit itself even in respect of unreasonable concepts. [More…]
The honourable member for Port Adelaide (Mr Young), in his usual role as the defender of the unions, and he does it very well, spoke out very strongly in opposition to the Bill. [More…]
He knows quite well, as does the honourable member for Port Adelaide, that in the case of the Amalgamated Metal Workers Union, the Australian Workers Union and other unions, any person affected by a strike can be stood down through lack of work if necessary. [More…]
It is all right for private enterprise, it is all right for the unions outside- [More…]
Nobody in this country has tried to work more closely with the unions to bring about a good relationship between employees and employers than the Minister for Employment and Industrial Relations. [More…]
There are many people on both sides of the House and in union and employer organisations who sometimes ask why the Minister does not use the big hammer on the unions, but he always prefers to conciliate and arbitrate for a better overall result. [More…]
This is accepted under the Conciliation and Arbitration Act by all trade unions throughout the country. [More…]
I totally support the Minister who has always worked very closely with the unions. [More…]
He is prepared not only to speak up when he is in favour of something the unions want but also to stand up for what he knows is right when it may not be entirely what they want. [More…]
In effect it is taking away the right of the unions to appeal in a similar case to this one using the same process that was followed here. [More…]
It was put to the unions at that stage. [More…]
That caused a great deal of disruption, which honourable members know about, but eventually the unions ended up accepting what had originally been put to them. [More…]
How many unions are now registered under the Conciliation and Arbitration Act and how many of them still have branches registered in one or more of the four States which have separate systems of registration (Hansard, 25 February 1975, page 638). [More…]
Blame and abuse are hurled at Mr Bob Hawke and the Australian Council of Trade Unions although he and the ACTU have more than once ironed out major disruptive stoppages, sometimes with ugly and dangerous possibilities, which the Government sought only to foment by provocative, ill-informed comments from a distance. [More…]
That means that there would be 100,000 families on the government housing commissions’ lists and at least 200,000 families looking for loans from banks, credit unions and building societies to build their own private dwellings. [More…]
Also, in accordance with the recommendation of the Review, trade unions will be eligible for special project grants to improve migrants’ knowledge of and participation in union affairs. [More…]
To this end the Committee has proposed increased communication, consultation and personnel exchanges in the areas of business, trade unions, agriculture, science and technology, culture and general tourism and has recommended that more attention should be paid in Australia to the training, in both language and culture, of personnel in both business and government involved in dealing with Japan. [More…]
I am well aware of the very great concern of the honourable member for Kennedy who has spoken to me on a number of occasions and made representations on behalf of the unions and those people involved with the Duchess deposit just outside of Mount Isa. [More…]
Indeed, the non-union members of the Executive Board can now outvote the union members because the Chairman, who will be appointed by the Minister without any obligation to consult the unions, has both a deliberative and a casting vote. [More…]
I have already referred to the unsatisfactory representation of trade unions and the Board. [More…]
Apparently the Minister or his Department have given the trade unions the impression that the new National Director may not be located at the headquarters of TUTA, that is at the Clyde Cameron College in Albury-Wodonga. [More…]
Many speakers welcomed the breadth of that definition and urged that trade union training should not only encompass the technical questions and procedures of industrial law but also be concerned with the history of the movement, and its structure, and such matters as labour economics and the wide range of national issues relevant to trade unions and their members. [More…]
I understand that about 200 different unions have already been involved in courses, and that includes all the significant unions, regardless of their political views or their industrial policies. [More…]
Unions have not only accepted the need for training but also in consultation with TUTA officers many unions are now developing internal schemes of training provided by themselves without public funds, as complementary to TUTA’s work. [More…]
Moreover many unions are now planning their training work to make the fullest use of the available resources. [More…]
For example, some unions have taken decisions to send each new officer or official to TUTA’s courses, and others have decided, over a period, to enrol each member of the union’s council or governing committee to TUTA courses. [More…]
Those who know anything about trade unions and trade union training, will realise what an enormous breakthrough this represents. [More…]
They are worried that the Government’s actions may upset the confidence that unions have in TUTA and so reduce its effectiveness. [More…]
None of these employers will thank the Government if the Minister’s proposals reduce TUTA’s attractiveness to unions or employers. [More…]
It is in this industry that TUTA’s success in attracting the support of both employers and unions is most outstanding. [More…]
Employers in these industries have recognised as much as unions the need for the training of union delegates, located so far from the trades halls and union offices in the capital cities. [More…]
Clearly such courses can only be conducted in these locations through the agreement of the employer and the unions, in co-operation with TUTA. [More…]
The understanding of procedures and the confidence built up in local delegates and supervisors have resulted in many differences between unions and supervisors being settled before anyone has had to be called in. [More…]
Another company has provided financial assistance to enable TUTA to develop materials for teaching non-English speaking migrant unionists and for unions with migrant workers. [More…]
In its early years the Authority had been dominated by the trade unions. [More…]
Though trade unions may complain that they are losing control of TUTA, the view of the Government is taken in the light of the substantial funds being provided. [More…]
The various state branches of the Australian Council of Trade Unions will doubtless feel that they have lost some autonomy in the restructuring of TUTA. [More…]
So already we have deep community involvement in the training of people and apparently this is accepted by the honourable member for Franklin except for when it comes to training people in one particular profession or calling which happens to be related to trade unions. [More…]
There has been no agreement to this proposal by any of the peak councils in Australia- the Australian Council of Trade Unions, the Council of [More…]
Five members of the Australian Council of Trade Unions are to sit on the Australian Council, and the Minister must be given 10 names. [More…]
I remind the Minister- I cannot warn him of anything; nobody can- that this Bill does not have the support of the progressive trade unions in Australia. [More…]
He said that the Government was not in touch with the trade unions on this matter of trade union training and that in fact there had been no complaints about the efficiency of the administration of the Trade Union Training Authority. [More…]
All I can say is that members of the Opposition obviously are people not in touch with the trade unions on this issue. [More…]
In certain States a particular group in the trade union movement would take control of the Council in that State and, rightly or wrongly, other trade unions in that State would believe that the courses were being run by union groups hostile to their interests. [More…]
On the other hand, in Tasmania, left wing union officials would say: ‘Look, the courses in this State are being run by dreadful people like Harradine and Tony Macken, that right wing lawyer who advises some right wing unions, and we wouldn’t send any of our people along to courses being run by people like that ‘. [More…]
He also said that all significant unions have been involved in the TUTA. [More…]
As I have pointed out, it may be true that all significant unions in one State or another have been involved, but certainly within individual States there is a great deal of suspicion on the part of significant unions about the groups that they believe are in charge of the Authority in their State. [More…]
I think it is important for people at the grass roots level of trade unions to be able to develop their confidence, to be able to develop their knowledge of trade union operations and to develop a technique in conducting basic negotiations with management on things like the allocation of overtime-simple matters like that, that arise on a regular basis in many industrial concerns. [More…]
In fact many industrial relations probelms arise, I believe, because foremen and supervisors do not have a proper knowledge of the workings of trade unions. [More…]
Frankly, they are often badly treated by both employers and trade unions alike. [More…]
They do not deal very basically with the structure of trade unions in this country and the structure of our conciliation and arbitration system and how it works. [More…]
Yes, joint courses, with both trade unions and employer representatives involved. [More…]
Of course the other courses which those institutions were set up to provide had the first priority and trade unions and trade union organisations wanting to offer training courses had to fit in with the requirements of those other institutions. [More…]
In short, it was a call to the trade unionists of Australia to participate, on their own volition, in a scheme designed to increase their level of competence in organising the activities of their unions in a manner conducive to the improvement of working conditions and the more efficient working of industrial relations in Australia. [More…]
Those 3,877 unionists represented 125 unions, according to the report, or some 44 per cent of the total number of trade unions within Australia as at December 1976. [More…]
This will undoubtedly diminish the tensions and frustrations between the two parties (unions and management) and contribute to the more efficient avoidance and resolution of industrial conflict. [More…]
In his original speech on TUTA, Clyde Cameron spoke of ‘The development of trade unions as social institutions’. [More…]
The original Act sought to enhance and promote the status of unions as integral and effective elements of an increasingly complex social and industrial society. [More…]
To achieve these aims it was absolutely necessary that trade unions insist upon themselves organising trade union training in a manner compatible with the aspirations of the trade union movement. [More…]
There is obviously a huge fear in the ranks of the Government that if unions run their own training programs they will produce militant unionists dedicated to the overthrow of capitalism. [More…]
In combating this mistaken notion of the type of union training propagated by TUTA it is necessary to remind such critics that it is insulting to treat unions and unionists as if they were appendages of the employers and the Government and must be supervised at every step. [More…]
Honourable members opposite may like to know that according to the TUTA annual report for 1975-76, the first year of its operations, representatives of unions such as the Amalgamated Metal Workers and Sheet Metal Workers Union, the Building Workers Industrial Union of Australia, the Federated Engine Drivers and Firemen’s Association of Australia, the Ship Painters and Dockers Union, the Miners’ Federation, the Seamen’s Union and the Waterside Workers Federation of Australia attended TUTA courses throughout Australia. [More…]
The willing participation of these and other unions will not be as much in evidence, I fear, in future years now that the Government is proceeding to attack the autonomy of the movement by deliberately weakening the power of the unions to control their own training programs through TUTA. [More…]
Of the 16 members of the Australian Council 1 1 are direct union representatives- three from the Australian Council of Trade Unions, one from the Australian Council of Salaried and Professional Associations, one from the Council of Australian Government Employee Organisations and six from State Trades and Labour Councils. [More…]
Secondly, in regard to the Executive Board it is proposed to have eight members, four of whom will represent unions. [More…]
That is scarcely a proposal in which the trade unionists and the trade unions of Australia could have confidence. [More…]
Similarly, it is proposed to have 14 persons on the Australian Council, five from the ACTU, one from ACSPA and one from CAGEO-that is seven from the unions- all to be appointed by the Minister from short lists. [More…]
There will be a loss of interest in TUTA, at a time when the underlying hostility towards TUTA is lessening in many unions which traditionally had undertaken full responsibility for the training of their own delegates and shop stewards. [More…]
The certain effect of this legislation will be to drive unions and unionists away from an organisation which is so obviously run by government bureaucrats. [More…]
The unions will not have a bar of such a set-up, and who will blame them? [More…]
I can well understand that those who have hitherto relied on their own industrial experience and on the forms and machinery of their own unions, such as the shop stewards of the Australian Metal Workers and Shipwrights Union and the job delegates of the Waterside Workers Federation- an organisation with which I have had some little experiencewill be even more disposed than they were before not to participate in an organisation which so obviously is influenced by employers and by the coalition Government. [More…]
There is a need to amalgamate smaller craft unions and multiple industry unions into single industry organisations and a need to make all union officials completely responsible to their own rank and file, both by election and during their term of office. [More…]
We can be assured that the people who are now attempting to assassinate TUTA by attempting to make it a creature of government policy, will oppose these reforms that I have enunciated and any other progressive forms that the unions may seek to implement if those reforms are thought likely to strengthen the ability of unions to battle for workers. [More…]
He was previously education officer with the Australian Council of Trade Unions, having been appointed there in 1970. [More…]
Surely the justice of public money being spent in the interests of farm leaders, as it is presently spent in the interests of capital, management, labour and trade unions, cannot be denied. [More…]
I shall always be grateful to the permanent head of the Department, Dr Ian Sharpe, as he then was, for proposing that the college be named after me and for the fact that it was Bob Hawke, the President of the Australian Council of Trade Unions, who, seconded the resolution. [More…]
The Minister has tried to support what the trade unions want. [More…]
The peak unions, the trades and labour councils did not ask for it, nor did the employers ask for it. [More…]
It is no use anybody saying that the peak unions and the trades and labour councils are seeking to politicise TUTA. [More…]
The very act of pushing the Minister into proposing something that the employers, the unions, the Minister and the Committee of Inquiry did not ask for, but which was contained in the last minute submission that the NCC put in to the Committee of Inquiry, is the last straw. [More…]
I once had a meeting with trade unionists at which Peter Matthews was present and when Harold Souter found out that Matthews had been here to talk to me about introducing a system of trade union training he telephoned me to tell me in no uncertain manner that Matthews had no authority to speak for the Australian Council of Trade Unions on trade union training. [More…]
Not only is it insisting on a stacked executive committee with the casting vote of its appointed chairman deciding every issue; it is adding insult to injury by demanding that the trade unions send it a panel of names of double the number required to be represented on the council or executive body, so that it can hand pick the trade unionists it would like to see on those bodies. [More…]
I point out to the honourable member for Casey (Mr Falconer) who had some individual blowing in his ear about how worried that person was about what was happening at the college that in fact the details in relation to the unions which have been in attendance indicate that some 89 unions have been involved, and that is more unions than are affiliated with the Labor Party in the State of Victoria. [More…]
They are unions which go right across the political spectrum. [More…]
The confidence of trade unions in the authority’s activities could be weakened by employer representation on Councils for Union Training and for this reason we should not recommend such representation. [More…]
capable of advancing and developing an understanding of the functions and objectives of trade unions in Australian society; [More…]
It is narrow and almost spiteful to say that we have to amend the definition section so that the Trade Union Training Authority must now concentrate on educational, technical or practical training, capable of advancing and developing an understanding of the functions and objectives of trade unions or officials of trade unions. [More…]
Certainly if the unions felt strongly about these issues they would attend such meetings. [More…]
He too made reference to the list method of selection but went on to say that the lists could result in there being on the councils people whom the unions no longer wanted to represent them. [More…]
No longer will the preferred representatives of the unions even be assured of membership on the Board. [More…]
There may be some unions which prefer a docile membership. [More…]
Practically all the unionists who I know who have attended trade union training courses have come back to their unions better equipped to participate, and to encourage others to participate in their unions ‘ activities. [More…]
However, with the proposed change to the legislation I really wonder whether that sort of relationship will be able to be continued, and whether the sort of involvement that unions have encouraged in TUTA will be able to continue. [More…]
Is the Government trying to present us with a view that people outside the work force know more about the labour force than the trade unions themselves? [More…]
The term ‘members of trade unions ‘ has disappeared. [More…]
By omitting the definition of ‘trade union training’ and substituting the following definition: “trade union training” means technical or practical training capable of advancing and developing knowledge and skills in fields connected with the powers and functions of trade unions or the powers, functions and duties of officers or officials of trade unions; ‘. [More…]
Unions, appointed by the Minister after consultation with the Australian Council of Trade Unions. [More…]
In his second reading speech the Minister said that he will ask for 10 nominations from the Australian Council of Trade Unions with five positions to be filled. [More…]
The whole thrust of the training program was concentrated on important negotiating skills, teaching people to write letters, to administer trade unions and how to be better shop floor representatives. [More…]
I think the answer is that the Government knows that a lot of unions will not support the Authority under this sort of administration. [More…]
Liaison from rime to time with Medical Advisory Panel and with Management and Medical and other Sections of the Commission, with staff associations and unions concerned and with other institutions. [More…]
They were broadcasters, actors, writers, film makers, producers, trade unions, representatives of home and school associations, co-operatives, advertisers, churches, welfare and voluntary groups, students- but all members of the public. [More…]
If the novel is tough on the multinational companies, it is equally severe on the trade unions. [More…]
May I say that the Committee received full reports from the unions whose members will be working in the proposed new facilities and they also very strongly supported the proposed work. [More…]
In fact, it has not been the unions which have torn holes in the Government arguments so much as the Bench itself. [More…]
Markets have been lost to the Australian community because trade unions have refused us access to markets which otherwise would have been ours. [More…]
Everyone has the right to form and to join trade unions for the protection of his interests. [More…]
The AMA must be one of the strongest unions in Australia if not the world. [More…]
If a deputation from the trade union movement asks for wage justice the National Country Party and the Liberal Party say a few words about what is going on and claim that the unions are breaking the country, but they do not stand up to the AMA. [More…]
They have to be developed on the basis of close consultation between the trade union movement, particularly the Australian Council of Trade Unions, and the appropriate employers who are interested in structural change; they must be developed on the basis that there are markets for the products; and they also ought to be export oriented. [More…]
Criticism is often made of industrial action by sea-going unions to secure a greater participation by Australian manned ships in our export and import trades. [More…]
I am confident that the manning scales could be further reduced by negotiation if consensus could be developed between government, the unions and shipowners on an expanding role for Australian ships in our trades. [More…]
What the unions are after is the money, the fast buck. [More…]
I understand that other unions could be involved and I have reports that the Amalgamated Society of Joiners and Carpenters is involved. [More…]
I ask the rank and file to exercise the opportunity this Government has given them, under our secret ballot legislation, to get rid of these sorts of officials that give unions a bad name. [More…]
Some Federal and State awards prescribe preference in engagement for members of unions which are parties to these awards; some provide that if a non-union member is engaged he shall become a member of the union within a prescribed period; and many have no preference provisions of any kind, so that, in some employing establishments and industries, certain employment categories may be governed by preference provisions while the same categories in other establishments or industries are not so covered. [More…]
1 ) The decision in principle to close the Australian Services Canteens Organisation was to be announced after the staff had been informed, and after the unions which represented staff members, had been consulted. [More…]
The unit would be demonstrated to senior department officers, industry representatives and unions at Melbourne Airport on Thursday. [More…]
A meeting chaired by Mr Schofield was then held with Mr Powell and other representatives of the aviation unions to discuss matters relating to air safety. [More…]
A report of the unions involved in this instance mentions that Mr Powell and the Chairman emphasised that ‘cost was the most paramount concern of the Department and that all other factors must be subjugated to overall cost restraint’. [More…]
I discovered during recent discussions in a number of countries that Australia has lost a significant proportion of its export markets as a direct result of the disruptive activities of our waterfront and maritime unions. [More…]
The activities of these unions have caused Australia to be an unreliable supplier of goods, particularly with regard to meeting delivery deadlines; so other suppliers have been obtained. [More…]
The capacity for Australia to develop and expand its export markets on the basis of the assistance that is being provided by the Government directly depends on a responsible attitude being adopted by our waterfront and maritime unions. [More…]
If delivery dates are not met as a result of militant activity by those unions our customer countries will turn to other suppliers as they have done already as a result of the activities of those unions. [More…]
A briefing was given to the President of the Australian Council of Trade Unions as such on the afternoon of Budget day between about 1 p.m. and 3.30 p.m. by an officer of my personal staff who had been involved in the preparation of the Budget Speech and documents and had been a member of the working party . [More…]
I would like to refer the House to the irresponsible action that has been proposed and taken by a number of trade unions in response to the Budget brought down earlier this week by the Government. [More…]
The unions say: ‘We are not going to accept that Budget’. [More…]
The union movement, and particularly those unions that are communist-dominated, already have started a process of rolling strikes to subvert the Government’s policy, to prevent a recovery being brought about by this Budget and to disrupt economic recovery in Australia. [More…]
Perhaps I should make a distinction here because I do not believe that subversion and disruption to industry is the response from all trade unions. [More…]
If we look at the trade unions in which these actions are being brought about we note with monotonous regularity that their administrations are dominated by people who are associated with various factions of the Communist Party. [More…]
I am not saying that the trade union movement as a whole is irresponsible but I do claim that those unions that have communist dominated leadership are purposely setting out to subvert the economy of Australia. [More…]
It is a great shame for these people that the people of Australia are perceptive enough to identify what they are all about and were perceptive enough last December to see that these communist dominated left wing unions are purposely subverting Australia, as a result of which the Government parties were returned with their majority in this House. [More…]
In every case, the advocates for the Australian Council of Trade Unions have had to produce evidence to show the Bench that there were - [More…]
We could do this through an economic council made up of representatives from business, the trade unions and the national and State governments. [More…]
Overseas newspapers, government officials and the leaders of trade unions in other countries have said that they cannot understand how any trade union group would encourage strikes or demonstrations over a budget. [More…]
But we would be looking to something more- and better- than that, in consultation with the unions. [More…]
As the organised strength of the lower and middle income workers, trade unions have an obligation to exercise their civic responsibilities. [More…]
The standard of living of the Australian people depends upon the strong demands of the trade unions for improved conditions in social services, education, housing and a host of other areas. [More…]
Trade unions initiate the demands, and they need an Australian Labor Party government to implement them. [More…]
It might be useful if I were to remind the House that last Friday I chaired a meeting in Sydney attended by growers, exporters, representatives of the government departments concerned and the Australian Council of Trade Unions, which considered Mr Miller’s report and also the report of the tripartite mission to the Middle East on developing our carcass and package meat trade in that area. [More…]
Productivity is a word that is bandied around a great deal in debate about Australian manufacturing industry and it usually ends up with businessmen abusing the unions, the Australian workers, about their lack of productivity. [More…]
One obvious advantage in Japanese industrial relations over Australian industrial relations lies in the smaller but stronger number of unions. [More…]
When the present honourable member for Hindmarsh was Minister for Labour and Immigration legislation was introduced to facilitate the amalgamation of unions. [More…]
Despite the overwhelming view of all those who have studied the problems of demarcation disputes in Australia that there was a need for fewer unions, the Liberal-National Country parties blocked that legislation in the Senate. [More…]
The Japanese, who like the West Germans, have unions based on industries rather than crafts, are bemused by our union system. [More…]
If this Government had any real desire to pick Australia up off its present economic slide, it would stop abusing Australian workers, trade unions, the Labor Party and the Conciliation and Arbitration Commission and start on the long but rewarding job of modernising and rationalising Australian manufacturing industry and industrial relations. [More…]
I challenge any honourable member opposite to walk out of this chamber tonight and ring Laurie Short of the Federated Ironworkers Association, Norm Gallagher of the Builders ‘ Labourers Federation, Pat Clancy from the Building Workers Industrial Union or any of the secretaries of the unions which have been deregistered and ask him what deregistering a union proves. [More…]
Telecom has a consultative council comprising 10 representatives of the unions and seven representatives of management. [More…]
Now the Minister for Employment and Industrial Relations (Mr Street) stands up here and blasphemes the organisations, gets stuck into the unions, and pushes them into the position in which they find themselves today. [More…]
Despite the facade put up by the Prime Minister in stating the reasons for this dispute what the unions are arguing about is the need for development upwards from the lower grades, by being given the opportunity to obtain the necessary training, and to progress through the structure in the Department itself. [More…]
The unions have been more than tolerant. [More…]
That the exchange maintenance centres be given a trial period of operation during which they be the subject of an investigation and report by two independent experts nominated- one by Telecom and one by the unions who are represented on the Consultative Council. [More…]
Once a dispute reaches a fairly serious stage, the Government rushes into the House with an inflammatory statement, gives the Opposition little notice, if any, of that statement, and then brings on a debate in which it tubthumps, criticises and blames the unions entirely. [More…]
We have been told by the Prime Minister that the unions should accept arbitration; that we have this tradition of arbitration in this country and that we should all abide by arbitration, accept the umpire’s decision and so on. [More…]
The Government simply is being utterly hypocritical in its call for the unions to accept arbitration. [More…]
This Government says that unions should accept arbitration when it sees that as being a desirable process for it, the Government; but when it does not suit the Government it says that the arbitration system is not doing its job and denounces it for all it is worth. [More…]
It is about time the Minister got off his behind and did something about the employment effect instead of just sitting here condemning the unions and being sanctimonious about the whole matter. [More…]
The Government should not go on introducing technology, knowing that all these tensions will develop, and then expect the unions to cop it. [More…]
Clearly the unions will be very upset by a massive change in the organisation for which their members work. [More…]
What is obviously needed if the Government is at all concerned about the matter is for it to sit down with the unions and to discuss the whole problem as it applies to Telecom and as it applies nationally. [More…]
Some unions irresponsibly go outside the wage indexation guidelines to use their industrial muscle to get wage increases, which will ensure that unemployment in Australia remains a problem, even though those people with secure jobs may feel that they can go outside the wage indexation guidelines to get more money. [More…]
I am not sure whether trade unions are purposely ignorant of the correlation between high wages and unemployment or whether they are just too flaming greedy to acknowledge that what they are doing is pushing more and more people on to the dole queue. [More…]
More and more unions are demanding more and more money. [More…]
The trade unions have not learnt their lesson, nor have the members of the Opposition in this chamber. [More…]
Is it that they simply want to guard and protect those people who have the most, those greedy people in the trade unions who want more and more and who are not the least bit concerned about the numbers of unemployed? [More…]
Looking as far back in history as the years of the World Depression it is fair to remind Australians, particularly members of the Labor Party, that in 1937, when unemployment levels were higher than 10 per cent of the work force, the trade unions sought a prosperity loading from the arbitration court of the day. [More…]
They listen to the arguments of the various State governments and the unions. [More…]
It is the fault of the unions and the Arbitration Commission. ‘ [More…]
The President of the Australian Council of Trade Unions has called for a national meeting of all parties concerned- the employers, the unions and the Government, for what it is worth- for the purpose of setting guidelines. [More…]
She said that when she applied for a certificate three weeks ago she told the Industrial Registrar that her specific objection was to those unions which used strikes to disrupt vital industries. [More…]
Miss Biggs went on to say that it was made clear to her that a certificate would not be issued unless she opposed all unions. [More…]
I was virtually forced to say what I didn’t really believethat all unions, and the concept of unionism, are bad. [More…]
I believe that at the present time there are enough problems in the industrial relations area facing employers, unions and the Government without creating ground for this sort of industrial confrontation. [More…]
She objects to particular unions. [More…]
-In the couple of minutes that are available to me, I participate in the discussion that has taken place tonight about the rights of people to join and not to join unions. [More…]
I think that all unions recognise that there are people in the community who hold very deep religious beliefs about not joining trade unions. [More…]
But it is astounding that Government members spend a lot of time talking about one or two people who are glorying in publicity for not joining a trade union but never mention the millions of people who are members of trade unions. [More…]
Will the Government take up the suggestion of Mr Benjamin and call together unions and potential manufacturers of InterScan to encourage co-operation on this project; if not, why not. [More…]
Yet the Government has so far repudiated the call by the Premier of New South Wales and by the President of the Australian Council of Trade Unions, Mr Hawke, for a national inquiry. [More…]
I was particularly impressed with an interview I had with Mr Peter Nolan of the Australian Council of Trade Unions. [More…]
This is an extremely short-sighted policy which has raised a lot of opposition from the trade unions in the area, from the local council, from the chambers of commerce and, of course from the parents of those children who are coming onto the labour market this year. [More…]
It is desirable that people join unions from conviction rather than from legal compulsion but, not surprisingly, most trade unions insist on full coverage within their area of work. [More…]
A national strike has developed because of the foolish action of Seatainers and Liner Services Ltd in standing down 500 Melbourne waterside workers as a result of a dispute by members of other unions. [More…]
If the honourable member is really concerned about this trade, he ought to be doing a little more work with the trade unions which probably are jeopardising this trade more than any other single factor. [More…]
I have been disgusted to find that the calls by Premier Wran of New South Wales, by the President of the Australian Council of Trade Unions, Mr Hawke, and so many others for a heads of government conference- a dialogue anyway- on this grave problem of unemployment have been rejected. [More…]
Whether it will depends largely on the actions of employers and trade unions. [More…]
This is a choice which trade unions and their members in particular should think about very seriously. [More…]
The Opposition consists of a group of people who claim that they have a degree of communication with the unions. [More…]
In fact, if the Unions’ excessive demands in these matters had been successful, we would today need a wheelbarrow to take home the pay packet as a reward for doing no work. [More…]
When the pre-Budget discussions are taking place, the Government calls on representatives of the Australian Council of Trade Unions to discuss what the Budget strategy might be. [More…]
The Public Service unions, to their credit, want efficiency. [More…]
Is the Minister aware that the Australian Council of Trade Unions in a joint arrangement with Jetset Tours (Australia) Pty Ltd is proposing to launch a major program whereby members of the ACTU and affiliated unions will be offered what are alleged to be travel subsidies for international travel? [More…]
There is already considerable contact and work being done with industry and with unions to implement and to take advantage of technological change which is available in the community. [More…]
Northern Territory politicians, employers and unions have asked that a consumer price index be compiled for Darwin. [More…]
They were brought about the activities of the trade union movement itself- the Australian Council of Trade Unions. [More…]
As honourable gentlemen will be aware, the Government is examining the impact of technology through the Department of Productivity and through tripartite committees involving Government departments, unions and management in a number of sensitive industries. [More…]
I suppose it is not only political groups or trade unions which find it difficult to get a worthwhile number of people along to branch meetings on cold winter evenings, but also grower associations, and this is very much a problem which is exercising the minds of many growers in South Australia. [More…]
The company advises me that it would welcome an opportunity to meet with Mr Street to explain its position and to draw his attention to the difficulties faced by the manufacturing sector as a result of being caught between the conflicting objectives of government policies, the Arbitration and Conciliation Commission, the P J T, the unions and the company’s basic objective of conducting a financially viable business. [More…]
The company advises me that it would welcome an opportunity to meet the Minister, Mr Street, to explain its position and to draw his attention to the difficulties faced by the manufacturing industry as a result of being caught between the conflicting objectives of government policies, the Conciliation and Arbitration Commission and the Prices Justification Tribunal, the unions and the company’s basic objective of conducting a financially viable business. [More…]
The management of the eight companies concerned, the unions and my department are working in a day by day study of the structural problems of the industry. [More…]
The eight people in management, the eight companies and the trade unions involved can see what shifts there are in the market forces, what shifts there are in the need for new technology, new systems of work, new plant layout, new location and even new corporate restructuring. [More…]
Many other people, including Mr Hawke of the Australian Council of Trade Unions, are defamed in these broadcasts in a similar way. [More…]
I think that Department has much to offer and I hope that the more widely its activities are understood the more widely industry and the trade unions will understand that there are real gains to management, labour and jobs through the development of new technology and productivity improvement in Australia. [More…]
He was also the first Vice-President of the Australian Council of Trade Unions. [More…]
He is also on the record in the NorthernTerritory News of 28 September admitting that he lied to the Northern Land Council regarding a statement by the President of the Australian Council of Trade Unions, Mr Bob Hawke, in order to convince the Council that it would not get trade union support. [More…]
This committee is chaired by the Leader of the Opposition (Mr Hayden) and, I understand, by the President of the Labor Party, Mr Batt, and was formerly chaired by the Leader of the Opposition and the President of the Australian Council of Trade Unions and former President of the Labor Party, Mr Hawke. [More…]
We know that they have produced a discussion paper under the chairmanship of their own leader, and formerly under the chairmanship of the leader of the Australian Council of Trade Unions. [More…]
Most jobs which trade unions cover are out there in the private sector. [More…]
The unions involved, that is, the Australian Public Service Unions, the Administrative and Clerical Officers Association and the Federated Clerks Union, have joined us in that demand. [More…]
Such a concept has already been put into practice by some unions. [More…]
Five different unions are acting together in that area. [More…]
I find it difficult to comprehend or believe that the President of the Australian Council of Trade Unions would involve himself in a kickback arrangement with foreign owned airlines. [More…]
I have a table of the locations of members of the organisation and the unions to which they belong. [More…]
Yesterday the top industrial relations body, the National Labour Consultative Council, was abandoned as a result of the storm trooper mentality of the Minister for Transport (Mr Nixon) towards trade unions. [More…]
He personally directed a member of his Department, together with the Commonwealth Police, to raid a travel agency with which the Australian Council of Trade Unions is associated. [More…]
It is not just trade unions which attend the NLCC. [More…]
As has been pointed out by the Managing Director of ACTU Jetset, no fewer than six million people, who are members of trade unions and other associations and their families, have these services available to them. [More…]
What better scapegoat than the Australian Council of Trade Unions. [More…]
Whenever this Government is in trouble it seeks to blame the trade unions. [More…]
It is significant that just two or three weeks ago the Government set up a committee of six Ministers around the Minister for Employment and Industrial Relations because a certain segment of the Cabinet, not of insignificant influence on its decisions, including all the senior Ministers of the National Country Party, believes that on every single question that affects the work force this Government has to be tough with the trade unions. [More…]
The employer representatives at the NLCC were appalled at the action taken by the Government on Saturday that led to the breakdown of their meeting with the unions. [More…]
The unions in this case are being far more sensible than this Government has ever demonstrated it is capable of being. [More…]
It is that the President of the Australian Council of Trade Unions so badly overreacted at the National Labour Consultative Council meeting on Monday; that he used his position as the President of the ACTU to inject commercial matters of personal interest, and stormed out of the meeting- not quietly, but after having notified the Press of his intention. [More…]
To represent a reduction in air fares as a threat to democracy and to paint the President of the Australian Council of Trade Unions as being dishonest and hypocritcal are issues for which he will have to answer to the community. [More…]
It would seem to me from the comments made by members of the Opposition that inherent in the matter raised for discussion is the fact that if the Australian Council of Trade Unions is not allowed to do certain things and is not allowed to proceed down a certain line of action industrial problems will follow. [More…]
Party yields to the demands of unions of this country concerning an illegal action that the unions or their spokesmen wish to carry out; otherwise there will be trouble. [More…]
This Government is determined to introduce low cost air fares that will benefit all Australians without discrimination, including all members of unions and all people who are not in unions. [More…]
I understand that the Australian Council of Trade Unions and the Council of Australian Government Employee Organisations have been pressing the Public Service Board on the institutions of new grievance processes as recommended by the Coombs Royal Commission. [More…]
This was said by me to support my advice to the council that if the council rejected the negotiated Ranger agreement they would not necessarily be supported by all unions. [More…]
Many members of trade unions and their families in this country will be able to enjoy overseas travel because of the initiative and industry of Mr R. J. Hawke and the organisation of which he is the head- the Australian Council of Trade Unions. [More…]
Even worse still, it is alleged, on the basis of no evidence, that the funds of various trade unions are being plundered to provide the discount for those travelling through the ACTU scheme. [More…]
Such opportunities should not be available only to members of a particular trade union, a particular association of trade unions, a political party or indeed any other specific group of people. [More…]
The Government has switched to another tack of blaming the Australian Council of Trade Unions for that not being implemented. [More…]
It refers to the so-called walkout by the President of the Australian Council of Trade Unions, Mr Hawke, and other union representatives from a meeting of the National Labor Consultative Council following the action of the Department of Transport against ACTU Jetset Travel Service Pty Ltd. Can the Minister inform the House what link, if any, there is between Mr Hawke ‘s position as President of the ACTU and his involvement in ACTU Jetset? [More…]
If the money is coming through some other arrangement, for example through a foreign owned airline, when Mr Hawke, as the President of the Australian Council of Trade Unions, should have regard for the 10,000 Australian employees of the Australian airline, I think that there are many questions that he needs to answer. [More…]
What discussions have taken place between the Australian National Railways Commission and the unions involved- unions whose members will be seriously affected by such a decision? [More…]
As pan of that review, I have held consultations with a broad cross-section of the community, including the trade unions and business, and have examined submissions made to me by interested persons and organisations including consumer groups. [More…]
Representations received ranged from suggestions that the PJT be abolished to views expressed by the unions that the PJT be retained essentially in its present form. [More…]
I hope that he will rally, particularly through trade unions and other consumer groups, to condemn the Government not only for what it has done in the past in emasculating the PJT but for what it is doing today in putting another nail in the Tribunal’s coffin. [More…]
The organisation of tripartite discussions between unions, management and government in the footwear, clothing, textile, forging, tyre, tanning and white goods industries is proof of the Government’s application in practical terms to the solving of the structural, technological and other problems facing these industries. [More…]
employee versus employer; unions against the rest of Australia- I believe that this Budget will set the basis for the greatest advance ever in our life style and our standard of living. [More…]
If there had been complete cooperation, the workers and the unions over the years- indeed, over the centuries- would not have had to strive as hard as they had to strive in order to obtain paid annual leave, to obtain paid sick leave and to maintain an earning rate which would enable them to purchase the goods that they make. [More…]
1 -that this is to be a regular news letter to unions and to industry. [More…]
Productivity improvement is a concept not generally understood by employers, employees, the unions or the community. [More…]
He says that employers do not understand it, the employees do not understand it, the unions do not understand it and the community does not understand it. [More…]
Governments, management and unions, pre-occupied with short-term solutions to problems in industry - [More…]
I am not sure that that is altogether true; I am not sure that unions are as interested in the problems of industry as they are in ensuring that the employees in industry receive a fair share of their contribution towards productivity- have given productivity improvement little attention as a means of solving medium and long-term problems. [More…]
There must be recognition in trade unions of the fact that they would have more members as a result of a reduction of penalty rates in the terms of the award. [More…]
However unions and local, State and Federal governments can assist in many of the ways that I have mentioned. [More…]
All partiesgovernment, the industry and the unions- need to sit down to talk about this severe problem to see whether there is some way that we can overcome the problems that penalty rates are posing to the industry. [More…]
The trade unions are co-operating with the ship owners. [More…]
Agreement has been reached between the trade unions and the shipping industry. [More…]
I believe the ship owners have been told that if they buy ships the Australian unions will man those ships under conditions applicable on the ships of other countries. [More…]
9 ) How many of the relevant trade unions have been consulted and on what occasions. [More…]
All relevant trade unions, six in all, were represented at a meeting on 25 May. [More…]
I think it is a great pity that the President of the Australian Council of Trade Unions is casting doubt on trade union participation, although I note that at the moment he is speaking for the ACTU, and the Victorian Trades Hall might well take another attitude in relation to this. [More…]
I believe that is a pity because there is no doubt that the Australian Council of Trade Unions, without the grandstanding, has an important contribution to make to matters of this kind. [More…]
The role of the Department and how it is undertaking its task, through tripartite consultations between trade unions, management and government, will be up for discussion and explanation to see whether, as a result, it can be improved. [More…]
Austraiian Labor Party and of trade unions in Australia in not supporting uranium development in this country. [More…]
This was said by me to support my advice to the council that if the council rejected the negotiated Ranger agreement they would not necessarily be supported by all unions. [More…]
I quote from another part of his evidence regarding trade unions which reads: [More…]
The bulk of telegrams that have been received are from trade unions not affiliated with the most powerful trade union group in Australia- the Australian Council of Trade Unions. [More…]
ACTU affiliated unions throughout the country have telegrammed support to the Northern Land Council. [More…]
The Queensland branch of the ALP not only is dominated by a small clique of left wing trade unions but also those people are unrepresentative of the rank and file Labor members in the Australian community in general. [More…]
Instead of a fifty-fifty structure between trade unions and members for election of delegates to the State Conference and quarterly State Council meetings, it has been recommended that representation will be 60 per cent trade unionists and 40 per cent branch members. [More…]
Under these arrangements the new State Council which replaces the Queensland Central Executive will be even more dominated by trade unions than it is at present. [More…]
-It was interesting to hear the honourable member for Mitchell (Mr Cadman), mention the amalgamation of unions. [More…]
The union he was condemning, the Amalgamated Metal Workers and Shipwrights Union, is an amalgamation of about five different unions. [More…]
Having said something on education generally, I feel that we have to look very closelyparticularly the unions and the employers together- at the field of technical education. [More…]
I think it is about time that unions, employers and employer organisations got down and had a very hard look at whether technical training or a method for people to go into the work force is best served by our system of apprenticeships. [More…]
It is our labour-intensive industries that are in the most trouble today, yet the Marxist leadership of the extreme left Amalgamated Metal Workers and Shipwrights Unions promotes it as an economic solution. [More…]
Our fourth objective should be to encourage membership of industrial organisations, particularly trade unions. [More…]
The Government has taken the position that there is a public interest above and quite apart from the immediate private interests of the parties concerned, whether trade unions or employers. [More…]
When he finished with them it was the fault of the trade unions. [More…]
This code was developed by a committee from concerned government departments, from the Australian Council of Trade Unions, from the Council of Australian Government Employee Organisations and from inspectors of State labour departments. [More…]
The one which is of most immediate concern and which, I think, principally worries the honourable member, is a strike by about 140 members, I am informed, of various unions, including the Federated Clerks Union, the Transport Workers Union, the Storemen and Packers Union and the Amalgamated Metal Workers and Shipwrights Union, at the Caltex Banksmeadow terminal over a claim for $10 a week relating to depreciation of motor vehicles. [More…]
For example, the recent strike at the Clyde refinery on 18 September last came after Commissioner Neil had issued a statement from the previously held work value conference asking unions to produce more evidence as to why they should receive wage rises based on so-called significant changes in work value. [More…]
I will not stand in this House and say that all strikes have been caused because of irascible unions. [More…]
But in this particular industry in the last few months, what we have seen has been an almost co-ordinated approach by members of various unions to sabotage the future welfare of the entire Australian people. [More…]
The honourable member says this is not a Federal matter- called on the ACTU and Federal officials of the unions involved to end the Banksmeadow strike. [More…]
There has been an arrangement between a small number of unionists from different unions, who are not elected or recognised members of the executives of those unions, to disrupt and destroy the system. [More…]
There has been a rolling dispute between unions and different companies and the disruptive effective has been planned and dramatic. [More…]
There must be some effort on the part of the New South Wales Government because the community is sick and tired of people who stand still on these matters; unions which abuse their position; employers who do not play ball with their employees; and governments which ignore dramatic and serious circumstances that affect the economic recovery of this nation. [More…]
That legislation provided for the deregistration of unions. [More…]
I took the trouble to speak to some people in the Transport Workers Union today and I understand that despite company promises, as ruled by Justice Ludeke, that the senior officials would negotiate with the unions this week, such negotiations did not in fact occur and that actually the company reneged on that arrangement. [More…]
He then goes on to complain that the legal system is presently struggling ineffectually against the actual business morality of the day and against pressures for shoddy workmanship and avoidance of responsibility for production and the like, which apparently come from the trade unions. [More…]
To take it a little further, I have even sungunder appropriate circumstances- the Internationale with the President of the Australian Council of Trade Unions. [More…]
Organisations such as the Whyalla Combined Unions Council, the local council, the chambers of commerce and other interested people and organisations in the city of Whyalla arranged for deputations to come to Canberra to see whether they could get the Federal Government to do something to retrieve the position of the shipbuilding industry. [More…]
One of the matters that was of great concern to a number of the unions covering the employees at Whyalla was that if a person suffered some injury while an employee of the shipyard, such as a damaged kneecap or some loss of hearing or anything that left that person with a physical handicap, when that person applied for a job at the steelworks, after having been put off from the shipyards, that person was denied a job because of that injury. [More…]
But the last Labor Government cut off almost all communication with trade unions other than those extreme left wing unions which have had and continue to have such a large influence on the operations of the Labor Government. [More…]
I can assure the honourable member that discussions are going on right now between the Public Service Board and Public Service unions- the Council of Australian Government Employee Organisations, the Australian Council of Salaried and Professional Associations, amongst others- to see that the redeployment of Medibank staff is done fairly and equitably and that those who can be placed in employment in the Public Service will find positions. [More…]
When I became a member of the Committee I was convinced that there was an argument that we should be talking to the unions about penalty rates. [More…]
I was going to use a crude expression, but I will just say that we are spitting into the wind if we think that the trade unions are going to accept lower wages for one section of the Australian work force. [More…]
The Committee records its regret at the lack of cooperation received from the Australian Council of Trade Unions which declined to make a submission. [More…]
The Committee, either through the secretariat, the previous Chairman or the present Chairman, approached the Australian Council of Trade Unions on no fewer than four occasions. [More…]
It is up to the people in the unions and on the employers side to decide, through the conciliation and arbitration machinery, the wage rates and working conditions which should apply. [More…]
The provisions deeming trade unions to have engaged in the boycott also remain applicable and individuals remain not subject to the pecuniary penalties of the Act for a contravention of the amended section. [More…]
Secondly, we are concerned that the Government’s inequitable wages policy is undermining the system of orderly wage fixation in this country by destroying the confidence of the trade unions in the Conciliation and Arbitration Commission and the wage indexation system. [More…]
That is a view shared seemingly by the President of the Australian Council of Trade Unions, who served on the Reserve Bank Board while at the same time being President of the Australia Labor Party. [More…]
I regard the attitude of the Labor Party and the unions in the area of wages policy as being extremely selfish. [More…]
For example, from the survey it was perfectly plain that there is an enormous gap between the views of union leaders and members of unions. [More…]
When we committed ourselves to tax indexation in response to the Hayden Budget of 1975, the then Government was silent about whether tax indexation was the policy of the Whitlam Government, despite the fact that tax indexation was then the policy of the Australian Council of Trade Unions. [More…]
The Government initiated an internal inquiry in which the unions were unable to make representations or to examine the evidence, if any. [More…]
Why did Government not support the Australian Council of Trade Unions maternity leave case, if it is genuine in its concern for working women? [More…]
As the Australian Council of Trade Unions has pointed out. [More…]
Firstly, I would like to take the view of the shop assistants and trade unions. [More…]
Will the Government now call a national conference with broad terms of reference to investigate the economic and social implications of post-industrialism, and invite submissions from all political parties, the trade unions, business interests and the public generally. [More…]
It is not even a demarcation dispute in the normal sense between two unions as to the members of which union should have the right to perform certain work. [More…]
It was settled because of the influence of Mr Hawke of the Austraiian Council of Trade Unions and others. [More…]
I suspect that the control of the unions over the fuel situation as exercised by members of the Seamens Union of Australia, the refinery workers, the transport workers, and the clerks in the industry- they have all been going on strike- is, as the honourable member for Franklin (Mr Goodluck) has so often said, a conspiracy. [More…]
Any employer knows, as a result of statements made by the Australian Council of Trade Unions, and of warnings issued in this House, that if writs are issued which threaten unions with penalties of $250,000 and which threaten decent Australian unionists with having their houses taken away from them they will produce a massive confrontation. [More…]
It is a fact that an examination of these awards will show that a great many of them are the result of consent agreements between the employers and the union or unions involved. [More…]
If the adverse effects on the creation of new jobs are to be overcome, the unions in particular and the employers will need to adopt a more flexible approach to dealing with this problem than they have in the past. [More…]
If the unions are genuinely concerned about the unemployment problem, they can show their concern. [More…]
If we are to have any combined attack on these problems I ask members of the Opposition to assist by talking some sense into employees and unions about these awards. [More…]
It had sought to negotiate with the trade unions a wage increase through the coming period of not more than S per cent. [More…]
A number of trade unions were opposed to the idea; a number of major trade unions were in support of the idea. [More…]
I refer now to the attitude of the Australian Council of Trade Unions, the business sector and the community generally to annual and long service leave. [More…]
This attitude is found in the Press, the Public Service, the Parliaments, and in educational institutions and trade unions. [More…]
Surely, after the difficulties Australia has had in trying to solve the problems created by not having universal educational qualifications, universal rail gauges, universal traffic signs and laws and in having an industrial movement which is confounded by State and Federal unions and State and Federal awards, we should have learnt that we are one nation with a common bond and - [More…]
With two years behind us there is a general understanding by those who are working with the Department of Productivity that it has done a great deal to help people in management, unions and governments to think more deeply about the nature of change and their longer-term responses to it. [More…]
Whilst those in industry and the unions who are working with us appreciate very clearly what we are doing, there is a need for much wider understanding in the community of these long-term issues. [More…]
In many of our programs, therefore, we have approached problem solving on a tripartite basis- involving government, management and and the unions. [More…]
Our faith in this innovative approach has been vindicated by experience: Unions and management are seeking to explore matters of mutual self interest. [More…]
The Department’s approach has been to seek the co-operative involvement of all concerned in the industries- the industry associations and employers, the trade unions, and representatives of the Governments- both Commonwealth and State- and of government agencies such as the Commonwealth Scientific Industrial Research Organisation. [More…]
I chair that committee and would like to pay tribute to the most constructive attitude taken by all its members, whether representing the public sector or the private sector, unions, managements or government. [More…]
If the imposition of penalties could solve industrial disputes in Australia, there would be no industrial disputes because we have applied to trade unions a wide ranging group of penalties that does not exist in any other part of the world. [More…]
It is because they have departments of industrial relations, they have people who are expert in the carrying out of industrial relations, they have people who understand the trade unions and who are dealing with the trade unions every day, and they think it is in the interests of this country not to stop industry. [More…]
The purpose of the proposed amendment is obviously to facilitate proceedings against unions, their officials and members. [More…]
It was not necessary merely to provide extra avenues for proceedings against unions, their officials and members. [More…]
Does the Government think that if it takes action against the meat workers union all the unions involved in the stevedoring industry will capitulate, go down on their hands and knees and say: Malcolm, we are sorry. [More…]
The unions have made a decision as a result of the last Australian Council of Trade Unions Congress that they will not stand by and watch unions penalised under this section of the Trade Practices Act. [More…]
The honourable member for Casey, in all his wisdom, said that unions have a right to defend the wages and working conditions of their members. [More…]
The honourable member defends the right of unions to defend the working conditions and the pay rates of their members. [More…]
Under the Constitution the Australian Government’s power in industrial matters lies in conciliation, not in thumping unions. [More…]
As the honourable member for Port Adelaide said, the Australian Council of Trade Unions has taken a consolidated decision on this matter. [More…]
Not individual unions but every trade union in Australia affiliated with the ACTU has pledged itself to oppose this part of the legislation wherever it rears its ugly head. [More…]
To have any interference by the unions in the export of these products causes this nation and the people who live in it great concern. [More…]
-Once again we see this anti-Australian Government seeking to attack the trade unions. [More…]
2) 1978 is the same sort of anti-union legislation as the Conciliation and Arbitration Amendment Bill of last year which set up the useless and inflammatory Industrial Relations Bureau and which also provided for the deregistration of trade unions, the fining of trade unionists and the freezing of their lawful funds and property. [More…]
It was this legislation which, as the President of the Australian Council of Trade Unions, Mr Hawke, said only today, led the International Labour Organisation in Geneva just one week ago soundly to condemn this Government and this Prime Minister (Mr Malcolm Fraser) as being authoritarian and prone to using the same repressive tactics against the legitimate labour movement as the Pinochet movement in Chile. [More…]
In December 1976 the present Treasurer (Mr Howard) attempted to introduce legislation that would have fined trade unions $250,000 for hindering or preventing the supply of goods or services by the employer to a corporation if the hindering or preventing of supply would have a substantially adverse effect on the business of the corporation. [More…]
At that time the Government dropped its proposal to fine individual trade unionists up to $50,000 but it pressed ahead with proposed fines of up to $250,000 for unions which took uncompetitive action against business and which engaged in secondary boycotts. [More…]
He replied, I think quite fairly: We in the unions do not intend to be subject to any law or any laws of contract’. [More…]
That is the exact reason why this Liberal Government has decided in its best wisdom to protect the rank and file members of the unions against the tyrannical power of a few- not all-union leaders who choose, not for the benefit of their workers but for the benefit of themselves, very often deliberately to throw this country into complete confusion. [More…]
I can say only that unless we can get some common sense and ask the unions to act responsibly and to accept that it is necessary for contracts in major industries today to be subject to the normal laws such as those which exist in the United States we will have absolutely no hope of improving the country’s economic position. [More…]
If honourable members and unions want to be outside the law, then I am sorry, but there is no help and no hope for them. [More…]
The whole question here is that the legislation is designed to prohibit persons from engaging in certain conduct for the purpose and having the effect of preventing or substantially hindering overseas and interstate trade or commerce, and it refers specifically to the unions concerned. [More…]
However, this Government has endeavoured to get the Commission to do its dirty work, to be another arm of government, to be a controller or a regulator of the economy, and to take out the big stick where necessary to keep the unions submissive. [More…]
It moved into another field for the purpose of bleeding the unions white and once again keeping them submissive. [More…]
This Government is prepared to use bludgers, pimps, scabs, anybody it can get its hands on, to do its dirty work and to set up the unions on that basis. [More…]
I might add that the Government does not even practise the courtesy of going through the procedures by serving the unions in a proper way. [More…]
The dispute is not going to be settled unless the Government takes this type of legislation out of the area where it can be used as a bludgeon to batter unions into submission. [More…]
This legislation will provide a lot of justification for a confrontation with the Government by unions. [More…]
There will be more power to the unions’ arm if and when it is required. [More…]
If the unions are fined $250,000 or if the Government takes the next step and gaols a union official it will be on and that will be on the heads of the people who have supported this legislation. [More…]
And in the Victorian power dispute, it was our move to deregister the unions involved that led to the strikers returning to work. [More…]
It was solved with the good sense and ability of the Australian Council of Trade Unions and other organisations in the Victorian establishment. [More…]
In that case conscientious objection to unions was used as a basis for a dispute. [More…]
Let the unions run their own affairs ‘, you yelled. [More…]
B. Sweeney as a Royal Commissioner to look into certain allegations concerning some seafaring unions. [More…]
The Government is gravely concerned by the public declaration of officials of one of the unions alleged to be involved that the ACTU decision would be defied’. [More…]
He called for the reports to be presented promptly; but he did not recommend changes in the existing procedures of those unions which already made reasonable provisions to supply financial information to their membership and which permitted proper examination of that information prior to its adoption by the general meeting. [More…]
He even recommended that where unions used their official journals to publish the financial reports there was no need for any further publication. [More…]
Let the unions run their own affairs’, you yelled. [More…]
I believe that the rank and file should have enforceable rights to effectively control their unions’ policies and paid servants. [More…]
He went on to defend the collegiate system for the election of union officials and condemned direct rank and file elections on the ground that they would ‘ultimately hand moderate unions over to the Communist-extreme-left coalition, behind the camouflage of an ALP ticket’. [More…]
That Platform pledged that ‘Labor will also ensure a system of democratic control of all unions, allowing the fullest participation by members in their union affairs, a system of participatory democracy’. [More…]
They distrusted both management and unions and saw them as working in collusion to oppress them and to use their labour. [More…]
Workers stated in the survey that they wanted better training, consultation with management and unions and to be involved in safety and health matters of their factories in their own languages. [More…]
If health and safety of such a diverse work force is to be improved, all workers must be involved with their unions and management. [More…]
Unions should be encouraged to contact non-English speaking migrant workers in their own languages about awards, rights and conditions, safety and health legislation and about how unions work. [More…]
Management, unions and government departments should use migrant self-help agencies and involve such ethnic welfare and community agencies in the development of safety and health initiatives on the job. [More…]
Unions and workers must have access to safety records, accident records, and work conditions. [More…]
In fact one of their unions, the Australian Medical Association, in its 1978 policy statement, emphatically advises against it. [More…]
If the unions took action because of this, the Trade Practices Act would be invoked forthwith. [More…]
In particular, health and environmental issues were discussed by Woodsreef, the New South Wales Department of Decentralisation and Development, EHCD, the Division of Thoracic Medicine of Royal Prince Alfred Hospital, James Hardie, members of the medical professions, and representatives of unions. [More…]
Hence it will allow scope for reduced working hours, job sharing, permanent part time work and other benefits for which trade unions in Australia have been striving. [More…]
As well as producing output for user organisations, the Taxation Office and the Australian Government Retirement Benefits Office, the service also produces output listing payees, entitlements or deductions for despatch to banks, credit unions, insurance companies, building societies, health funds, et cetera, as authorised by payees. [More…]
That this House invites the Federal Government in cooperation with the Premiers and the parliaments of the States to appoint a royal commission to examine the employer organisations, the trade unions and the wages and award systems in Australia and make recommendations in the national interest. [More…]
All the constituent parties in the industry covering the vehicle builders, the component manufactures and the trade unions have been involved in a general dialogue about export complementation during the second half of last year. [More…]
It means that this year is a critical year and it means also that unions must act with the kind of restraint and responsibility which the Leader of the Opposition (Mr Hayden) has asked for. [More…]
I am pleased to hear from the Deputy Leader of the Opposition that he is conscious of the trading possibilities in the Middle East, but the most important thing of all is to get the unions to cooperate so there are no disruptions to regular trade. [More…]
I might also say that the unions have also come into these campaigns. [More…]
Unemployment was blamed on the unions; inflation was blamed on wages and the Conciliation and Arbitration Commission, and presumably housewives too. [More…]
That is why the peak unions are concerned that matters of this nature be reported back to the officers directly involved before a report is made by the permanent head of department A to the Auditor-General, who would then prepare his efficiency report. [More…]
I take on board the comment of the peak unions and their concern about this matter. [More…]
It is another case about which the peak public service unions would be very concerned if there were any thought that a type of rough justice were handed out. [More…]
They attack the unions and the pensioners. [More…]
I reject the New South Wales Minister’s blame for the difficulty that he finds himself in with the unions in New South Wales over rationalisation proposals for the New South Wales Government’s psychiatric and geriatric homes. [More…]
I think it is up to the Minister to face up to his responsibilities in talking with the unions concerned and other people who may be concerned as a result of the New South Wales Government’s rationalisation proposals. [More…]
We welcome statements such as that made by the President of the Australian Council of Trade Unions. [More…]
This recognition holds out real prospects for the constructive, cooperative approach as between Government, trade unions and industry, which is fundamental to a real and lasting increase in employment opportunities. [More…]
Progress in this field may require a genuine partnership between an imaginative Government and cooperative trade unions in which the safely employed citizens of Australia- especially in their capacity as organised employees- are willing to make sacrifices for the minority who are unemployed or whose employment is less secure. [More…]
The trade unions have very considerable monopoly powers. [More…]
I will not have time to do that by any means, but let me mention some of the classical quotes of the 1975 election campaign like ‘we will maintain Medibank’, ‘the Government will support wage indexation’ and ‘we will work positively in cooperation with the trade unions’. [More…]
I should like to refer to some of the statements that have been made recently by Mr Hawke, the President of the Australian Council of Trade Unions, and Mr Neil Batt, the newly elected President of the Australian Labor Party at a seminar on computers. [More…]
Vehicle builders, component suppliers, trade unions and other interested parties will have a full opportunity to express their views on these issues at the IAC’s inquiry before decisions are taken by the Government. [More…]
It seems to me that the power of the proMoscow left wing in the unions of Australia to dictate communist policy to the parliamentary wing of the trade union movement, the Australian Labor Party, has been seen on the floor of this Parliament today. [More…]
In this morning’s newspaper there is a report of a meeting held in Melbourne between General Motors-Holden’s and the unions at which, as the unions have said, the unions asked the questions but received no answers. [More…]
What assistance was given by the Australian Government to delegates to the International Organisation of Consumer Unions Conference in London in 1 978. [More…]
and (3) Assistance was provided to the Chairman of the National Consumers Affairs Advisory Council, Professor D. J. Harland to participate in the 9th World Congress of the International Organisation of Consumer Unions held in London, July 1978. [More…]
The industrial action to which the airlines are being subjected at the present time springs from claims made by certain ground staff unions for wage increases, which in turn can be traced back to a Full Bench decision of the Commonwealth Conciliation and Arbitration Commission in the middle of last year and a later decision by Mr Commissioner Deverall. [More…]
This approach has been confirmed by the Australian Council of Trade Unions, the Australian Automobile Chamber of Commerce and the Australian Automobile Association. [More…]
Firstly, Labor- I am now referring to the industrial wing as well as the political wing of the labour movement; in other words, the Australian Labor Party and the unions- recognises only too well the vital necessity to strike a balance between the need to maintain a labour intensive industry with high technology and the rights of consumers to the best and cheapest cars. [More…]
It is agreed in all quarters- all sections of the industry as well as the Australian trade unions involved- that the world car concept is inevitable. [More…]
The trade unions have not been adequately consulted. [More…]
Why is the Government not prepared to talk to the trade unions about the problems, instead of accepting the complementation scheme dictated by General Motors-Holden’s Ltd? [More…]
He must be torn between representing GMH, component manufacturers and Australian Motor Industries Ltd, which does not stand to make so much from the deal, in his electorate, and the unions to which he has to answer. [More…]
It is this IAC inquiry which of course is now of great importance to all those interested in the automotive industry- vehicle builders, trade unions, component manufacturers and consumer groups. [More…]
There has been an arrangement between the unions and the employers for a long time. [More…]
The unions are entitled to be heard on this question. [More…]
The international complementation plan put forward by the General Motors Corporation in Australia has been hastily agreed to by the Fraser Government without adequate information to assess its short-term and long-term impact on the vehicle and related industries and the Australian economy generally, without appropriate consultation with the trade unions and the businessmen in industry and without the extraction of any guarantees from that company for the future. [More…]
I hope that the unions involved in this dispute will recognise that there are proper procedures for the hearing of this dispute. [More…]
I hope that the unions recognise this and at least do not disrupt the Australian travelling public any more than they have to this point. [More…]
In my statement outlining those changes, I referred to the opportunity that had been given for views to be put to the Government on this matter and to the consultations I had held with the trade unions, business and other sections of the community before the Government took its decision. [More…]
But I think it would be of interest to the honourable member for Port Adelaide to point out the substance of this proposal recommended by the National Training Council, which comprises unions, employers and Government members. [More…]
Other members of the Study Group were Sir Brian Inglis, Chairman of the Government’s Australian Manufacturing Council and Managing Director of Ford Australia; Mr R. J. L. Hawke, President of the Australian Council of Trade Unions; and Mr N. S. Currie, Secretary of the Department of Industry and Commerce. [More…]
Labor is constantly reviewing its policies, looking at new ones, speaking with people in industry- I emphasise the words ‘speaking with’- speaking with people in commerce, in primary industry and not forgetting the trade unions. [More…]
Can he indicate also whether submissions made by Public Service unions in relation to the Compensation (Commonwealth Government Employees) Act are being considered by the Government? [More…]
One can understand that unions fear that migrants may take the jobs of their members. [More…]
I believe that the expressed opposition to migration from the unions is quite often the view of the executive rather than of the union members themselves. [More…]
The acceptance of indexation by the trade union movement of this country had been premised on the understanding that a body such as the PJT effectively placed companies in a position of public accountability which paralleled unions’ requirements to justify their members’ wage levels before the Conciliation and Arbitration Commission. [More…]
The trade unions are unlikely now to accept that their wages should be determined in significant part by arbitration while firms are free to set prices without reference to any public authority. [More…]
Perhaps the Minister sees the threat of such a government-instigated inquiry as a secondary offensive instrument against trade unions which have successfully negotiated wage agreements. [More…]
I also challenge the Minister to stand by his statement to this House that the trade unions, in their discussions on the fate of the PJT, expressed the view that the PJT should be retained only in its present form. [More…]
I suggest that the unions were not even happy about the PJT in its present form. [More…]
He should have bargained wages against prices, using an effective PJT as a lever to ply unions with his wages policy. [More…]
How can he reconcile the two unless, of course, it is his intention to antagonise wage earners and their unions. [More…]
It is directly related to the pressure that has been put upon industry and upon the manufacturing sector by the militant trade unions. [More…]
On the other hand, the Tribunal is actively supported by the trade unions and workers generally who see it as providing some equity in the community, counterbalancing the rigid wage controls to which wage earners are subject. [More…]
In between these attitudes there is the basic apathy to the Tribunal amongst the broader business community, which feels it provides some legitimacy to its activity, mollifies the unions and affects only a few large firms in any case. [More…]
Several of those whose training is complete have been placed in industry and my Department has agreed with the relevant Unions and the Department of Employment and Youth Affairs to an extension of the training period to allow further efforts to be made in assisting with the placement of the remainder. [More…]
One would think that a party which is supposed to espouse the interests of the working people, particularly the coal mining unions, would have been acting in a way which would have developed that industry. [More…]
Of course, we remember only too well the reaction from the coal mining unions to this export levy. [More…]
I only hope that the various unions involved with mining in this country take note of that fact and that when they go to the ballot box in 1980 they will thoroughly reject the Labor Party. [More…]
There would be an inevitable expenditure of large amounts of taxpayers’ money to meet the claims of unions for increased wages. [More…]
A tripartite policy for Government, Management and Unions for dealing with asbestos induced diseases, and for reducing the future risks of asbestos to health. [More…]
Mr M. H. Bone, a former DirectorGeneral of the Department of Further Education in South Australia; Mr C. O. Dolan, the National Secretary of the Electrical Trades Union, Senior Vice-President of the Australian Council of Trade Unions, a member of the Tertiary Education Commission and a member of the National Training Council; Dr A. M. Fraser, the Director of the Queensland Institute of [More…]
The more instances of productivity bargaining that emerge, the greater the risk that expectations will build up and concessions will be extended to other groups regardless of the capacity of the economy to sustain those concessions, or the ability of the individual enterprises or unions to achieve or to offer the required productivity improvement. [More…]
It can be expected that unions covering some 17,000 workers in electricity distributing councils in New South Wales will press for a flow-on of the 3 7 ‘A hour week. [More…]
I refer not just to the decisions of governments, unions or employers. [More…]
It is an estimate of the unions involved in the electricity industry that over 75 per cent of all employees who work in that industry throughout Australia work fewer than 40 hours a week. [More…]
As a consequence, undoubtedly there was some degree of acceptance of the position by the unions concerned. [More…]
It can be overcome only if the Government’s policy, recognised in part by the President of the Australian Council of Trade Unions, Mr Hawke, is pursued. [More…]
In his speech today the Minister for Industrial Relations (Mr Street) clearly pointed out that the unions in New South Wales have sought to gain for themselves the benefits of increased productivity and not to share these benefits with people in other areas who, because they are efficient, cannot contribute to further productivity gains. [More…]
The line of the Australian Council of Trade Unions- which I believe is a fairly reasonable approach- has been undermined by this response. [More…]
The reason South Australia was able to do that was because of the productivity agreement with the unions in which the unions promised there would be a reduction in work bans or an improvement in working methods which would enable productivity to be improved and there would therefore be no increase in labour costs per hour of work. [More…]
A similar situation is applying in New South Wales where there has been, as has been said by previous speakers on this side, an agreement by the unions to change work practices in respect of maintenance work and shifts thereby enabling the New South Wales Government to provide a more efficient electricity service. [More…]
As in the past, this decision, taken at the political level, will lead to a flow-on, a push from other unions, for a shorter working week. [More…]
I refer to Neville Wran, Q.C., who appeared in 1973 for the unions on whose behalf he is now acting. [More…]
As the legal representative for the unions concerned he put the same arguments for a shorter working week but he failed to convince the Industrial Commission of New South Wales that the power industry should as a separate case be granted what was then sought- a 35 hour week. [More…]
In 1970 the 35-hour week issue came into prominence with statements by the Australian Council of Trade Unions and in turn the New South Wales Trades and Labour Council that the union movement would seek a 3 5 -hour week in certain industries, including the power industry, as a spearhead for the introduction of a 35-hour week generally. [More…]
The definition of a de facto relationship in compensation cases has been worrying a number of unions. [More…]
As a general rule we would believe that, where work bans and limitations are used by trade unions in the pursuit of wage claims, stand down clauses should be sought forthwith and not after a considerable time lag as has generally been the case in the past, and where stand down clauses are in awards they ought to be applied forthwith and not after some considerable time as has generally been the case in the past. [More…]
In other words, there is no effort on the part of the Government to prevent matters from being heard before the Commonwealth Conciliation and Arbitration Commission and through its various procedures, but we do object and will oppose with all the vigour that we can command unions’ using industrial measures, work bans and limitations as a first step in the negotiating process. [More…]
It is obviously in a position where many people, many unions and departments come to it with their hands held out asking for it to make decisions which will help them. [More…]
Who is representing the Australian Council of Trade Unions? [More…]
Can the Minister advise the House as to the present situation in these disputes and what action the Commissions are planning to take against Australian Postal and Telecommunications unions employees who refuse to carry out their normal duties? [More…]
Not unnaturally in those circumstances the Grain Elevators Board, which is the bulk handling authority in New South Wales, has attempted to maintain a strong line against approaches that have been made by members of the trade unions who handle wheat for the Grain Elevators Board for increased pay and for changes in their terms and conditions. [More…]
The unions should then have the opportunity to approach the appropriate tribunal for an order to allow a person to continue to be employed even though he is not working. [More…]
At present what happens is that the members of many unions make a habit of striking or stopping work on a Friday. [More…]
It is a simple blackmail tactic in respect of which the unions involved have to be brought to heel, and the way to do it, as far as the provisions of awards are concerned, is to reverse the position as to stand-down clauses. [More…]
Let us bring the unions to heel with a dose of competition. [More…]
This goes to the heart of the problem; that is, unions taking industrial action of one kind or another prior to or during a hearing of their claims by the responsible tribunal. [More…]
Furthermore it will be submitting to the Commission that it not proceed to hear the unions ‘ arguments while direct industrial action is continuing or order a secret ballot to determine union members’ attitudes to the industrial action being pursued where that is considered appropriate. [More…]
The Government will encourage State governments involved or affected, other employer interests affected and other unions whose members may be affected and other unions whose members may be affected by the industrial action to lend their support to return to normal work. [More…]
It must be demonstrated to the unions that their cause will not be advanced by industrial disruption. [More…]
But now the Government is frantic because inflation is not falling, it is again on the way up, and the unions are going to be demanding threemonthly hearings, and quite rightly. [More…]
-The honourable member for Isaacs is free to make reference to industrial disruption, but I require him not to be specific and not to identify the particular personalities or unions concerned. [More…]
The Government will not tolerate- the community will not tolerate- the situation in which as a first step in the bargaining process trade unions inconvenience and harm the public- in this case including hospital patients, families and small children. [More…]
I will go through a little of the background of the development of trade unions. [More…]
No one would dispute that the organisation of labour into trade unions enabled working people to gain many great benefits which have flowed through to the standard of living that we all enjoy in Australia today. [More…]
I suggest that what the Minister did in his statement was to assert the public interest, to ensure that the Government’s views on the public interest are clearly stated, to ensure that the Government’s views on the way industrial relations ought to be conducted in this country are made known and that the activities of certain unions that take advantage of their strategic position in the economy to wield undue influence is properly brought to heel. [More…]
Not the unions. [More…]
Although the employers resisted the claim before the Commission, the Government, which is not worth two bob- not the trade unions- now wants to knock the decision over. [More…]
Either he does not know or he does not want to know- I suspect the latter- what happens in trade unions. [More…]
Government members talk about the deregistration of the two unions. [More…]
The honourable member gave a history of the trade union movement and said that at some time or another there was great justification for the existence of trade unions and the organisation of the work force. [More…]
It had nothing to do with the unions. [More…]
Apparently he is dedicated to the belief that industrial disruption is the right way to approach the aspirations of the unions in certain matters, but he tried to cover that up by saying that there is provision for arbitration and conciliation. [More…]
If that provision exists, why are the unions failing to use that avenue properly to determine what they want and to abide by a proper decision when it is made? [More…]
The unions are not doing that these days. [More…]
The Minister for Industrial Relations has said that the hean of the problem is that the unions are taking industrial action of one kind or another prior to or during a hearing of their claims by a responsible tribunal. [More…]
The issue is being forced, and forced very determinedly, by those unions which are failing to use the proper procedures that are open for them so to use. [More…]
I commend the Minister and those on the treasury benches who are supporting him for taking this very positive action to ensure that there is recognition of the problem and that a situation is created where that recognition can be carried through in an effective manner in the interests of the members of trade unions in particular, of the industries in which there are difficulties, and of the wider community, which after all is vitally important. [More…]
We have seen the President of the Australian Council of Trade Unions, Mr Hawke, in the last 24 hours attempt to deny the facts. [More…]
It ill becomes him to try to pretend that he and others in the ACTU and the unions involved did not know that this was the risk that they would run while ever this kind of disruption was entertained. [More…]
They know very well that the Government announced months ago that it would take this action if the unions proceeded to press their claims in the way that they were doing and to put at risk the interests of this country. [More…]
Certainly, it provided for the deregistration in certain circumstances of unions that were out on strike. [More…]
What he was really saying was that over the last three years unions have substantially complied with the guidelines of the Commonwealth Conciliation and Arbitration Commission with regard to wages. [More…]
In response to that the International Air Transport Association, which has among its members many unions and different organisations throughout the world, called on its member organisations to support them, and because the Transport Workers Union did so it was villified by this Government. [More…]
In the absence of such a scheme, why is there such opposition to the unions running their own scheme? [More…]
The unions should be going one step further and running it themselves. [More…]
In that circumstance they would be taking the real decisions; they would not be made by the Bank of New South Wales as investment adviser but by the unions. [More…]
They fear the collective power of the unions. [More…]
If the unions are running a major superannuation fund and if $2,000 billion or $3,000 billion a year in workers superannuation funds is available for investment, they are entitled to make some investment decisions. [More…]
Will it then roast trade unions in the community and in the electorates because they tried to get wage increases outside the guidelines, as did the Transport Workers Union. [More…]
The arbitration system will not work if the unions are deregistered and the arbitration system will not work if the unions decide to get out of the arbitration system. [More…]
Unions cannot readily get out of the arbitration system. [More…]
It could very well be that the unions might welcome deregistration because, if they begin to see that there is nothing for them in the arbitration system, they will have no terror of being deregistered. [More…]
If one reads the history books one finds that, when the Conciliation and Arbitration Act was introduced in 1904, the Government of the day had to evolve all kinds of inducements to get the unions to register. [More…]
In 1904 the unions did not flock into the arbitration system in droves; they had to be cajoled in, coaxed in. [More…]
The unions will continue to direct their members. [More…]
What we could do is create the catalyst which will make all the other unions see the folly of remaining in an arbitration system which is lopsided against the interests of organised labour. [More…]
Any union which did that would stand branded as a scavenger against unions which were fighting for what the rest of the trade union movement regards as a legitimate case. [More…]
The honourable member for Canberra may talk how he will about suggestions that the world is better off if there are no unions and such like, but the fact is that, whether there are 1,600 people, 160,000 people or 16 million people, the problems of this society are just as complex as those of any other. [More…]
The facts are that our problem is not the unions; we have you. [More…]
Even on the Newport power station resolution, the powerful union leader, Mr Ken Carr, stated emphatically that a number of unions will continue to maintain bans despite the passing of the resolution. [More…]
Since the interim report was tabled, I have also established the Travel and Tourist Industry Advisory Council, which comprises representatives of a broad cross-section of industry, consumers, trade unions and two parliamentarians. [More…]
It is to be done for political purposes by companies and people who intend to wage a campaign against the trade unions on the question of penalty rates. [More…]
Penalty rates are a hard won condition which the trade unions have achieved and which they are not going to give up lightly. [More…]
They know nothing of the formation of unions. [More…]
I refer now to the formation of unions. [More…]
The formation of unions seems to be the only way the Government can allow a system to prevail where those people who want to be organised can be organised to protect their own positions. [More…]
He also referred to the fact that some time ago, this Parliament legislated to require annual accounting of unions to their members, and the auditing of those accounts. [More…]
As soon as it has, and the necessary procedures have been followed, the regulations will be promulgated and the Act proclaimed- this on a date that will enable unions and industrial organisations generally, of both employers and employees, to comply with the new requirements of the Act. [More…]
in co-operation with shipping unions, initiate discussions with foreign shipping lines trading regularly with Australia to encourage them to have a proportion of their ship maintenance and repair work undertaken in Australia. [More…]
Is the Minister aware of Press reports this morning that negotiations were about to commence between building employers and building unions, and later reports that these negotiations had broken down, with the Builders Labourers Federation imposing work bans on building sites in Victoria and South Australia? [More…]
The third instance- given is of interest also because of the Minister’s reference to the extension of the conciliation system to unions other than those unions directly involved in the stevedoring industry where some disputes have arisen. [More…]
Although there has been some disputation and argument between the Waterside Workers Federation and other unions which come into contact with it in relation to work that is done in or around the stevedoring industry, the extension of the conciliation procedures as set up by Mr Justice Robinson may be of some assistance. [More…]
The Minister would be aware, as the Parliament should be aware, that a number of unions have, on occasions, sat down to try to sort out whether, in fact, amalgamation may overcome these problems. [More…]
One hopes that in the foreseeable future arrangements can be made between the unions which will avoid the sorts of disputes which have occurred in the past and which have lead to a great deal of disorder in industrial relations. [More…]
These disputes are of no great benefit to the employees involved in them and they should be overcome by negotiation between the unions. [More…]
Perhaps this direct availability of a conciliator for the ports throughout Australia could also be extended to those unions which are involved in such work. [More…]
rejects the Government’s determination to place the blame for its economic failures on wage earners, trade unions and the Conciliation and Arbitration Commission, and [More…]
Also, the President of the Australian Council for Trade Unions has agreed that any submissions which are made by the trade union movement should now show some concern for those who are unemployed. [More…]
The unions’ capacity to demand higher wages was imposing an upward pressure on prices. [More…]
That possibility was not available to Australia because of our trade barriers and our unions. [More…]
Talking in purely political terms one would ask who would represent the trade unions and some of the outside organisations. [More…]
If we talk about somebody from the trade unions who is qualified in this area we could consider Bob Hawke who is a member of the board of the Reserve Bank. [More…]
rejects the Government’s determination to place the blame for its economic failures on wage earners, trade unions and the Conciliation and Arbitration Commission, and [More…]
3000; (c) Secretary, Australian Council of Trade Unions; (d) 30.8.78-29.8.83. [More…]
Subsequently, unions in other States sought to incorporate this increase. [More…]
The Federal Government will be approaching the Full Bench this afternoon seeking an adjournment of the national wage case unless the Australian Council of Trade Unions is successful in getting the threatened strike action called off. [More…]
This morning in Melbourne, the President of the Australian Council of Trade Unions, Mr Bob Hawke, and the principal employer spokesman, Mr George Polites, joined me in launching a slim but significant booklet entitled ‘Employee Participation: A Broad View’. [More…]
This booklet sets out for the first time in Australia on a national level an agreed view on employee participation policy by employers, unions and government. [More…]
Employers and unions sat down with government to discuss their mutual problems. [More…]
The co-operation and consensus between employers, unions and government, evidenced by the book launching this morning and the dinner last night, means that those objectives are closer to becoming realities rather than merely being cliches. [More…]
As a member of the Footwear Industry Advisory Council, I have attended a number of meetings and have noted the growing co-operation between the unions and the employers, with help from the Government, in those tripartite discussions. [More…]
Time and again the Prime Minister (Mr Malcolm Fraser) has indicated that the Government will take a very stern attitude to what it regards as sweetheart industrial agreements reached between employers on the one hand and unions on the other. [More…]
The Government and certain people in the Australian tourist industry should stop trying to stir up trouble in the trade unions which represent workers in that industry and should get on with the job of selling the industry. [More…]
It is a fact that an existing decision of the High Court requires unions, unless they are to make logs of claims excessively often, to put claims in those terms. [More…]
The 1978 amendments deny the ordinary industrial rights of workers and the unions associated with the mining, handling and transportation of uranium. [More…]
Under the extremely repressive provisions of the Atomic Energy Act and the associated Approved Defence Projects Protection Act, the Government has the power to deny ordinary industrial rights to the workers and unions involved in the mining, handling and transportation of uranium. [More…]
-The first point I make is that since it took over the functions of the old Arbitration Inspectorate, the Industrial Relations Bureau, as part of its normal day-to-day ongoing functions, has been carrying out thousands of inspections of a routine kind, and has been giving advice to companies, individual employers, unions and unionists on their rights in relation to industrial legislation, the observance of organisations ‘ rules and things of that kind. [More…]
That decision was made after discussions were held over 12 months with all sectors of the industry, including the manufacturers and the unions. [More…]
This was sought by the unions, and is also a practice followed by many maritime nations. [More…]
We have received notification after notification of the attitude of the unions that represent Commonwealth employees. [More…]
The Government is acting in complete contradiction of both what the unions have said and what the members will accept. [More…]
The same night he went on national television and condemned the trade unions for industrial action and accused them of seeking to destroy economic recovery. [More…]
Discussion and negotiation with Public Service unions have resulted in improvements to the 1976 Bill, particularly with respect to the right of appeal against some of its provisions. [More…]
It is important to note that it also conforms closely with what some unions have wanted in excess staff situations- for example, in the Health Insurance Commission. [More…]
The Minister took money off the unions for years and he sent them down the drain; so much for maintaining the principle of permanent career service recruitment. [More…]
It is these provisions which the Public Service unions have criticised. [More…]
As I understand it, the unions have no quarrel with that provision. [More…]
We said in our second reading amendment that there were good grounds put forward as to why this Government ought to go back to the drawing board and discuss with the unions involved as to the ways and means around the impasse that has been reached between the employee organisations on this clause and the Government. [More…]
As far as the unions are concerned, to this Government consultation means telling the unions what will happen without any attempt being made to reach a conclusion which is acceptable to both parties. [More…]
If the Government were sincere about trying to overcome the problems inherent in this Bill, it could have sat down with the unions. [More…]
The Minister has talked about his involvement in industrial matters taken on behalf of unions. [More…]
If that is the case, and I would like the Minister to clear this up immediately, there is a lot of misapprehension within the Government’s back benches, the media and the unions who think that this severance benefit of two months’ pay for each year between age 55 and age 60 would be payable to all those retired under the Bill. [More…]
The Minister should clarify that because there is a difference between his statement in his second reading speech about what is included in the Bill and the general understanding of the Government, the public and the unions on this matter. [More…]
One of the difficulties that the Opposition must have is to reflect the views of the rank and file membership of the Public Service unions. [More…]
Much of the rhetoric expressed by members of the Opposition on this issue is not supported by some of their State colleagues or by the rank and file of many of the unions and organisations concerned. [More…]
In the same year the Prime Minister legislated to establish, the Industrial Relations Bureau- the Government’s panzer unit- for assaults against unions. [More…]
In the same year the Conciliation and Arbitration Amendment Bill was brought through the Parliament proposing deregistration of unions. [More…]
Last year while the Australian Council, of Trade Unions was seeking to resolve an air traffic controllers dispute the Prime Minister personally was endeavouring to inflame and aggravate the situation. [More…]
We would do so in consultation with Public Service unions., just as, in consultation with those unions, we would explore the Royal Commission findings in relation to motivation, rewards and penalties. [More…]
Similarly in relation to the Coombs Royal Commission findings concerning grievances, rights and duties, it would be our intention to explore the implications of these in association with the Public Service unions and other affected groups, bodies and people to bring about genuine reform. [More…]
We would explore with unions the creation of statutory councils within departments and authorities. [More…]
No doubt this is why all the major Public Service unions are opposing the Bill in its present form and are demanding that it be redrafted. [More…]
So-called discussions took place between the Government, the Public Service Board and the unions. [More…]
It still excludes unions and employees from decisions affecting them on redeployment and redundancies. [More…]
I share the objections of the Public Service unions to clause 7 (b) (iti) which provides that a person may be redeployed or made redundant, since clause 19 would also then apply, ‘for any other prescribed reason’. [More…]
An assurance that this provision would be invoked only in consultation with the unions and for reasons such as loss of a driver’s licence and so on cannot be accepted. [More…]
I make this one proviso: I cannot accept any view from the Public Service unions which might enshrine permanent heads or First Division public servants as being above or superior to elected government. [More…]
It should talk with the unions to see whether it can iron out the problems. [More…]
On 4 November 1976 in Melbourne the Board, CAGEO, the Australian Council of Trade Unions, the Australian Council of Salaried and Professional Associations and the Council of Professional Associations were involved in discussions. [More…]
After second thoughts about the matter and following some pressure from unions and other interested bodies the ANR changed its mind and finished up taking on 32 apprentices for the year 1979. [More…]
Over the past nine years the composition of the finance sector has changed, with the fastest rate of growth occurring in the finance companies, merchant banks, building societies and credit unions. [More…]
The Australian Council of Trade Unions might ask for the facts in relation to employment. [More…]
As has been pointed out by my friend, the honourable member for Perth, that is also the view of the President of the Australian Council of Trade Unions, Mr Bob Hawke. [More…]
Tentative agreement has been reached with some of the unions. [More…]
Of course, that slotted in very nicely with the position of other spokesmen who have spoken on behalf of the Government and who have, in turn, blamed the operation of western capitalism, the trade unions or any other person in this society. [More…]
Not all members of the unions potentially involved will be happy with the idea, especially in the depressed state of the construction industry. [More…]
Australian Council of Trade Unions: [More…]
What is the extent of compliance today with the strike call directed to public servants by some of the Public Service unions? [More…]
If that is no longer the case so far as the unions are concerned, what is now the justification for permanency of employment? [More…]
They are not affiliated with the Australian Council of Trade Unions. [More…]
This Government was elected on the promise that it would be able to deal with the unions in a proper way. [More…]
This Government has done nothing but confront the unions, disrupt this nation’s economy and cause damage to a large number of people. [More…]
It has no power or mandate to pass legislation that will injure people, impose fines or deregister unions. [More…]
It might be that it is a diversionary process for the Prime Minister, whose policies are in economic disarray, to blame the unions. [More…]
We can well understand some of the concern of the unions when they look at the broken promises of this man on, for example, wage indexation. [More…]
I remind the House in talking about conciliation and arbitration that the trade unions have rights and duties. [More…]
If the unions care to refer to the profits of companies they certainly have got something going for them because it will be noted that the profits of shareholders has increased from 9.6 per cent in 1975-76 to 1 1.3 per cent. [More…]
The unions see the profits of big companies going through the roof. [More…]
We have also established that secondary boycotts imposed by unions will draw the same kinds of penalties as secondary boycotts which are imposed by companies. [More…]
For example, during the whole of the three years of the Labor Government’s term of office, there was no formal tripartite machinery for discussion between government, employers and unions. [More…]
It is a forum at the national level where governments, employers and unions can meet to discuss industrial matters of common concern. [More…]
We have actively sought trade union involvement and participation in matters in which the unions have a direct concern. [More…]
We have been active in consultation with unions on significant issues such as the training of our workforce and on uranium mining in Australia. [More…]
-The Government’s industrial relations policy depends upon bludgeoning unions and workers into submission rather than relying upon compromise and the establishment of justice in the industrial area. [More…]
This obnoxious legislation gives power to the Industrial Relations Bureau to summon trade unions and individual union members before the industrial division of the Federal Court of Australia. [More…]
It gives that court power to penalise unions, employees and employers for a number of reasons. [More…]
It provides, in section 15, power to suspend members of trade unions, officials of trade unions, to deregister trade unions and to freeze the funds of trade unions. [More…]
This obnoxious trade practices legislation, which was implemented in 1977 and tidied up in 1978, provides for heavy penalties against trade unions and trade unionists who impose so-called secondary boycotts. [More…]
That is what is being said around the unions in Melbourne. [More…]
Unless the legislation is changed, it will leave only unions open to prosecution under the sections of the legislation allegedly aimed at protecting the rights of individuals against actions by unions and employers. [More…]
Australian unions have a reputation for being militant and strike prone . [More…]
The Prime Minister then added that the Australian record on strikes was much better than that of the United Kingdom, yet he still attacks unions, individual union members and wage and salary earners generally. [More…]
The Government opposes any flow-on of the 4 per cent rise in the consumer price index at the current national wage case and then whinges when unions have the audacity to act outside the Conciliation and Arbitration Commission to maintain their living standards. [More…]
This is the reason why workers and trade unions are not content to sit back and accept what this Government hands out to them. [More…]
-The is no doubt in my mind that the raising of this subject as a matter of public importance is a political ploy on behalf of the left wing and communist unions. [More…]
It is being acted out in this Parliament today using the Deputy Leader of the Opposition (Mr Lionel Bowen) and the honourable member for Cunningham (Mr West) as nothing more than mouthpieces for the communist unions. [More…]
The spokesmen for the Labor Party on this occasion are the Deputy Leader of the Opposition and the honourable member for Cunningham, both of whom act as spokesmen in this place for the Left and the communist unions. [More…]
The people of Australia need to understand clearly that this debate today is a political ploy on behalf of the communist and left wing unions of Australia. [More…]
The left wing unions are trying at the moment to have the Industrial Relations Bureau in Australia disbanded. [More…]
I think we need to understand why those unions want the Bureau disbanded. [More…]
The Australian Labor Party and the left wing unions failed to bring out the fact that, as a result of the inspections, over $ 1 m extra has been paid to Australian workers. [More…]
The Labor Party does not want those facts brought out because it wants to get rid of the Industrial Relations Bureau and it wants to get rid of any constraint that might be exercised over actions of the left wing unions. [More…]
Members of the Labor Party did not tell us that the IRB is charged also with the responsibility of over-viewing union rules and union actions and that it can take action in the courts to protect the interests of the community and to protect the interests of workers because of the overbearing action of these unions. [More…]
That is what the unions are desperately trying to avoid telling us. [More…]
In particular, the left wing and the communist unions do not want anybodyany organisation or group- overviewing their actions. [More…]
It is to that end that we will continue to mount our industrial relations policy, regardless of what puppet spokesmen from the Opposition or the left wing unions might care to say. [More…]
It is interesting to note the political tactics that are being employed by the communist unions at the moment. [More…]
A recent election within the AMWSU for the position of national organiser has really put fear into the hearts of the left wing unions, the communist-led unions and Labor Party supporters of the Left. [More…]
Naturally, that put all sorts of fears into people such as Mr Halfpenny, Mr Carmichael and others within that and other communist-led unions. [More…]
They know full well that under the policies that have been brought in by this Government to allow for free and open election of office bearers within unions, if there is an overwhelming participation by union members the communist-led organisers and officials in those unions will be tossed out of office. [More…]
It is because of the fear within the communist-led unions that this political ploy has been used in the House today. [More…]
It is part of a nationwide and long-term campaign by the unions to protect the communist influence within those unions. [More…]
Apart from the cuts foreshadowed by the Treasurer, the Government has campaigned strongly against student unions, undermining their effectiveness in lobbying Parliament for a civilised share of the nation’s resources to be channelled into education. [More…]
Have the unions concerned in fact broken an agreement that management at the yard would determine overtime levels on a basis of need? [More…]
Apart from the cuts foreshadowed in Thursday night’s mini-Budget, the Government has waged a bitter campaign against student unions in an attempt to undermine their effectiveness in lobbying Parliament for a reasonable share of the nation’s resources to be directed toward education. [More…]
We would also need an industrial promotion organisation made up of the private sector, unions and government with a charter to develop and offer incentives to enhance some natural advantages enjoyed by Canberra. [More…]
Members of other unions at that establishment who were stood down as a result ofthe dispute will however, be paid unemployment benefit subject to the usual conditions. [More…]
It has been pleasing to see at meetings of the Textiles and Apparel Industry Advisory Council the way in which unions, management, manufacturing industry, consumer advocates, the retailers of Australia and the public servants involved in business and consumer affairs, industry and commerce and productivity all work together to try to achieve the best situation for all Australians. [More…]
I am very pleased that at all opening ceremonies for the ‘Export Now’ program, which has been taken up by all the relevant State governments, including the Northern Territory, there has been an excellent round-up of people from industry, commerce, trade unions and the public at large. [More…]
As the law stood, the 30 June cut-off date for the 40 per cent investment allowance put unions in a very strong bargaining position to hold businesses to ransom in the period immediately leading up to that date. [More…]
That person is Mr Hawke, the President of the Australian Council of Trade Unions. [More…]
I fully support these programs and have given approval for my Department to have discussions with employers, unions and State authorities on the introduction of pilot programs for metal trades in those localities where they are most needed. [More…]
It should protect employment in the industry but also it puts the onus of restructuring on both the managements and the unions. [More…]
The survey was conducted among companies, industry association and trade unions. [More…]
I am aware of the critical situation which is developing in the vehicle industry in Australia as a result of action taken by unions at W. H. Wylie and Company Pty Ltd in Adelaide. [More…]
Some action has been taken by the Government and perhaps the unions have over-reacted to it in playing their role on the NLCC. [More…]
I think that the Minister showed statesmanship in bringing around a table representatives of unions, employers and the Government. [More…]
I was very disturbed at the decision of the Australian Council of Trade Unions and the Council of Australian Government Employee Organisations not to participate in meetings of the NLCC because of the proclaiming of the Commonwealth Employees (Employment Provisions) Act. [More…]
I think that it needs to be taken into account by those who are appointed to the NLCC, the employers, the unions and the Government that there should be a common desire to go into that forum and talk about problems and to make it work. [More…]
As the honourable member for Port Adelaide correctly pointed out, people around this country are asking why there is so much industrial disruption and why there is confrontation among employers, unions and government. [More…]
Mr Deputy Speaker, I put the view to you that better direction needs to be given by the leaders of this country- by the leaders of trade unions, industry and government. [More…]
The leaders in the country- regardless of whether they are in unions, industry or government- tend to take the view that for the sake of political expediency or individual monetary gain they should adopt a role in which they are gladiators and try to hammer each other into the ground. [More…]
That attitude causes people in the community to lose confidence in the system, in the leaders, in the governments, in the parliaments, in the trade unions and in the industries in which they work. [More…]
But it is no good for him to say: ‘Yes, there should be consultation’ in one breath and then in the next breath to support a motion that the Australian Council of Trade Unions and the Council of Australian Government Employee Organisations not participate in NLCC discussions. [More…]
The same situation applies to the leaders in trade unions, employers’ groups and government. [More…]
There should be consultation that gives a lead at that level to people in the community so that they can plan and be confident that decisions coming from unions, industry or government can be respected and followed by the community at large. [More…]
It was a forum set up for the senior people of industry, trade unions and government to sit round a table to talk. [More…]
I support the honourable member for Port Adelaide in saying that it is a body that should be given much greater recognition by the Government, unions, employers and the community at large because it is a body in which that sort of consultation can take place. [More…]
It might be all very well for domestic consumption, as the honourable member for Wilmot put it to us, that the Labor Party is associated with the unions and therefore the Labor Party must be held responsible for the industrial disputes that exist. [More…]
It is the Government which foments industrial disputes in this country because the unions have nothing to gain out of industrial disputes. [More…]
The unions have no vested interest in creating industrial disputes. [More…]
They like to turn their wrath upon the unions and place everything at the heels of the trade union movement. [More…]
It seems to be his colleague, the Minister for Employment and Youth Affairs (Mr Viner), who has a lot to say about trade unions. [More…]
It is hardly to be wondered at that the trade union movement is not going to be snowed and it is hardly to be wondered at that the trade unions did refuse to sit around the table while the Government was in such an intransigent mood. [More…]
During each of its meetings since 1974 the Safety Review Committee has met representatives of trade unions and staff associations to allow these representatives to discuss any safety related matters with the Committee. [More…]
The Leader of the Opposition, the President of the Australian Council of Trade Unions and the Deputy Leader of the Opposition have over the past few months tried to implant in the minds of the Australian community the idea that its living standards have been reduced under this Government. [More…]
As in all cases where ministerial discretion replaces fixed statutes, vigilance by the Parliament, the industry and the trade unions will be necessary to safeguard against the potential existing for abuse of ministerial power. [More…]
I am pleased to note that the Minister considered the views of the maritime trade unions in this respect. [More…]
They have put their money where their mouths are by putting vessels with Australian crews into the trade and the maritime unions have joined them in respect of manning scales. [More…]
Our national policy towards Australian shipping and overseas trade should not be based on the objective of knocking maritime unions because they do not like conservative governments. [More…]
The intervention of the Prime Minister by saying, in effect, that he would close down existing unions which operate in that area, that he would establish a new one and then insist that all workers join that single union was an instance of his crass misunderstanding of the issues involved in that dispute. [More…]
A gratifying feature of this Bill and the other legislation is that it will give effect to a call by sea-going unions for shipowners to be prevented from limiting liability for claims by crew members serving under Commonwealth articles. [More…]
I know that the seagoing unions have contended that they have been disadvantaged for quite some time. [More…]
The six maritime unions do not readily acknowledge that what is proposed is the best idea. [More…]
I feel that in relation to these matters he has had more co-operation from the unions than he has had from some of the States. [More…]
I would not be surprised if he has had more co-operation from the unions than he has had from some of the important components of the shipping industry- the entrepreneurs or the shipowners as one might choose to call them. [More…]
The Minister’s minimum manning concept is rejected by both unions and shipowners. [More…]
All the maritime unions and shipowners, apart from the Australian National Line, are opposed to any change. [More…]
I turn to industrial relations and mention only one example; the removal of all penalties against the trade unions but retention of the penalties against employers. [More…]
The Government also has sanctioned higher doctors’ fees to come into force on 1 November- concessions to doctors and confrontations for unions. [More…]
Calculations by the Australian Council of Trade Unions show that the average income earner, in the period since 1975 to the conclusion of the last financial year, would have needed an increase in his wage of $17 a week, before tax, merely to hold the real living standard that he had enjoyed in 1975. [More…]
I remind the House that a distinguished member of the Reserve Bank of Australia is the leader of the Australian Council of Trade Unions, Mr Hawke. [More…]
Just as the honourable member for Gellibrand (Mr Willis) has exposed the Government’s tax hoax in this Budget, Mr Bob Hawke, the President of the Australian Council of Trade Unions, exposed the insanity of knocking another $7 a week off the average wage. [More…]
They certainly have stopped any hope of any sort of discussion or deal with the unions about wage restraint. [More…]
We are sometimes told that it is the unions. [More…]
It had been opposed, predictably, by the Left, local government, education and welfare lobbies and unions, and also by politicians of both sides, by the Press and by big business. [More…]
Australian Government Employee Organisations and other unions concerned with the Commonwealth Public Service, that this amount be indexed so that instead of having to wait on legislation to be passed employees can benefit as movements take place. [More…]
Many other matters have been taken up by the unions including, as I have mentioned before, the lump sum payment in the event of the death of an employee. [More…]
This will be the time when we can do more for every single section of the community and not concentrate on the privileged position of members of the trade unions. [More…]
Almost every night the people of this country see on their television screens the Leader of the Opposition and his so-called mate, the President of the Australian Council of Trade Unions, telling them that their living standards are falling. [More…]
Blame the unions, blame the public servants, blame Eric Risstrom’. [More…]
This Government that promised to support wage indexation when it came to power has done nothing to fulfil that promise, but in fact since it first came to power in 1975 it has consistently opposed every action brought in the Commonwealth Conciliation and Arbitration Commission by the Australian Council of Trade Unions to get full indexation for workers, to enable them to keep up with the increase in the cost of living. [More…]
-I have seen reports of an address which shortly preceded the cruelly selfish Australian Council of Trade Unions wages policy to which I referred a moment or two ago. [More…]
I find it incredible that the President of the Australian Council of Trade Unions should direct the trade union movement to ignore the proper industrial relations processes. [More…]
I notice that Mr Hawke has also said that while, in his words, the unions have offered consultation, the Government has offered nothing but confrontation. [More…]
The direction to the unions to increase industrial disruption shows just how far the leadership of the trade union movement is from community thinking. [More…]
As far as the trade unions are concerned, wage increases are apparently to come before economic recovery, the interests of the unemployed and the commercial and social life of this nation. [More…]
Members of the Labor Party here in the Parliament say Don’t mine uranium’ and Labor Party supporters say ‘Don’t mine uranium’, yet we have it very clearly on the record that the Australian Council of Trade Unions disagrees with that policy. [More…]
We are told that a united policy is being expressed today but I read in the newspapers at the weekend that the Australian Council of Trade Unions has some different views about what Australia’s energy policy should be with regard to uranium exploitation in this country. [More…]
He called it a cruelly selfish wages policy of the Australian Council of Trade Unions. [More…]
Even to the casual listener it is obvious that most strikes in Australia are not caused by wage demands but are caused by matters such as management behaviour, inter-union rivalries- this Government does not support the amalgamation of unions and so stands in the way of union amalgamation which would cut out demarcation disputes- and safety matters. [More…]
Yet this Government, for its own domestic and political purposes, likes to promote the line that all of the difficulties in Australia are brought about by the industrial action of these militant trade unions. [More…]
The Labor Party wants an institution to spy on transnational, to provide the information to unions here and overseas. [More…]
It already has been rejected by the 700 delegates who assembled at the Dallas Brooks Hall in Melbourne yesterday and today at the Australian Council of Trade Unions Congress. [More…]
The futility of this Government in not looking seriously at the question of national superannuation is being exploited by individual trade unions who are saying to their employers that one of the ways in which they will involve themselves in productivity gains is by setting up company trade union superannuation funds. [More…]
Let me state quite categorically in relation to wages in this country, as the Prime Minister wants a very simple explanation, that since 1953 the Australian Labor Party and the Australian Council of Trade Unions have supported cost of living flow on or indexation, if honourable members like to call it that. [More…]
One may talk about tax dodgers and unions, but the real question has not been answered: What is this Government’s policy to tackle and reduce the problem of unemployment? [More…]
What are the President of the Australian Council of Trade Unions and Labor Party policy saying today? [More…]
I would like the honourable member for Wills (Mr Bryant) to note that I am commending the unions concerned for their assurance of support in maintaining good industrial relations at Vickers Cockatoo Dockyard and their offer to assist the company in recruiting expert staff in order that that naval vessel can be completed at the earliest opportunity. [More…]
The Australian Council of Trade Unions made a statement regarding the construction of the Durance class naval vessel at the Vickers Cockatoo dockyard. [More…]
We have seen this Government introduce all sorts of repressive legislation against the public servants and their unions in Canberra and this has further demoralised them. [More…]
and (8) The comments of the Combined Maritime Unions Committee reported in the Daily Commercial News on 5 June 1979 have been noted. [More…]
-Is the Minister for Industry and Commerce aware of the details of the most recent presidential address by the President of the Australian Council of Trade Unions? [More…]
I thank the honourable gentleman for the question because there is no doubt whatsoever that the proposal of the Australian Council of Trade Unions for large wage increases would be disastrous for Australian industry at a time when it is striving to increase its competitiveness in international markets. [More…]
The decision of the Congress of the Australian Council of Trade Unions was to seek an immediate 8 per cent increase in wages. [More…]
Do not blame me, blame the unions and the white collar organisations.’ [More…]
The Government confrontation with unions that existed prior to 2 December 1972 was resumed by the Prime Minister in his personal abuse of the President of the Australian Council of Trade Unions yesterday. [More…]
They blame the unions, member nations of the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries, international conditions, the doctors, the States, or anyone and anything in order to cover up their own incompetence and mismanagement of our economy. [More…]
Certain trade unions in this country have always adopted an anti-migrant stance and migrants have not been able to develop themselves through the unions. [More…]
unions cannot be required to accept wage restraints unless those restraints are applied for the benefit of the whole community . [More…]
Therefore, it is understandable that within the wheat industry and country areas of Australia bitter resentment is building up against the unions, which are causing a delay in payments to the industry and causing additional costs. [More…]
They have to take seasonal risks and price risks and they work exceedingly hard only to find that selfish people in unions have no consideration for their fellow Australian or for the national economy when they carry on in the way they are. [More…]
When the nation is wanting to improve its export performance, when we all have aspirations for a better way of life and when we want to do more for the unemployed in this country, a few unions in critical positions are causing these terrible delays. [More…]
Unless more reason is shown by these unions and the present situation ceases I hate to think what the eventual reaction of the country people will be. [More…]
That Government was an active participant in dividing the community as it encouraged trade unions to pursue massive wage increases often through industrial action. [More…]
The National Labour Consultative Council has been established as a fundamental part of the Government ‘s policy of encouraging effective consultation and communication between government, employers and trade unions. [More…]
While employers and unions have their responsibilities, the Government recognises that it has its own responsibility to protect the public interest. [More…]
As will become clear, the basic proposition which runs through the Labor Party’s platform is that the trade unions should be placed virtually above and beyond the law. [More…]
From its beginnings, one of the principal aims of conciliation and arbitration was to legitimise the role of trade unions. [More…]
Consequently, the trade unions were given certain privileges under the law which carried with them specific responsibilities. [More…]
The Labor Party, by persisting with the archaic belief that trade unions should still be granted extraordinary additional privileges, has isolated itself from the views of the community, including a large proportion of trade union members. [More…]
The words ‘and lockouts’ were taken out, meaning that while unions would be free to engage in strike action without penalty, employers would be penalised for retaliating by engaging in a lockout. [More…]
Very significantly, the Labor Party’s policy goes beyond unions taking action simply over pay and conditions. [More…]
An ALP government would recognise that the legitimate role of the trade unions is not limited to legally defined industrial matters’. [More…]
Labor does not accept Parliament as the proper place for voicing its concerns and opinions, but has deferred to the unions in acknowledging that they can strike on any issue at all and force their views on the Australian public. [More…]
The Labor Party has also given a commitment to recognise ‘the rights of unions to regulate their own affairs in a democratic way free from Government and judicial interference’. [More…]
While the Labor Party mouths platitudes about democracy in trade unions, it has denied an ALP government any way of putting it into practice. [More…]
A further example of the Labor Party’s hands off attitude to trade unions is its policy to ‘encourage the membership of registered organisations through the provision of preference to unionists in the taking of leave and … in their engagement and promotion and their retention in cases of retrenchment’. [More…]
Under a Labor Government, unions would be positively encouraged to trample over the rights of individual workers with a genuine conscientious objection to union membership or to engaging in industrial action. [More…]
Furthermore, the Labor Party would exempt unions from the provisions of the Trade Practices Act. [More…]
Its approach is to say that employers should be subject to regulation, but unions should not. [More…]
Labor Party, unions should be free to take whatever action they choose on whatever issues they choose. [More…]
The Labor Party would place unions above the laws everyone else is expected to observe. [More…]
Its policies are a direct inducement to the trade unions to operate outside our system of conciliation and arbitration. [More…]
The uncertainty as to whether and to what extent employees will receive a wage increase has influenced some unions to take industrial action for wage increases outside the wage indexation guidelines. [More…]
The reaction of the Australian Council of Trade Unions and the Australian Labor Party was to condemn the Government’s proposals out of hand without attempting to give them any serious consideration. [More…]
This clearly is a minimum on which the unions with industrial muscle would be free to build to get even larger wage increases. [More…]
According to the ACTU, employers and the Government should abide by decisions of the Conciliation and Arbitration Commission, while unions should be free to pursue any wage claims they want, over and above increases awarded by the Commission. [More…]
Furthermore, the ACTU has encouraged unions to threaten or use industrial disruption to line their own pockets. [More…]
Yet, on 18 February this year, he said: ‘For their part, the unions must accept that the economy cannot bear unreasonable wage claims’. [More…]
Instead, it has now supinely added wages policy to its ‘hands off the unions’ list. [More…]
The Labor Party may try to claim that if elected this policy gives it the opportunity to seek some kind of social contract with the trade unions. [More…]
What kind of contract, and how large the wage increases would need to be to buy off the unions, are questions Labor is not particularly keen to answer at the moment, and of course, it cannot. [More…]
We believe that if Government, employers and unions are willing to place the national interest first, there is no reason why all parties cannot cooperate to get the most out of what the Australian economy has to offer. [More…]
It is clear that, because of the Australian Council of Trade Unions Congress which is being conducted in Melbourne during this week, the Government finds it convenient for the Minister to make a statement. [More…]
This Minister cannot say on one hand that we have a crisis because John Halfpenny made a speech at the Australian Council of Trade Unions Congress and tell us on the other hand that industrial relations have improved. [More…]
There is nothing in this statement tonight that tells us that the unions have to take one attitude because the Government is taking a similar attitude on prices. [More…]
The Australian Council of Trade Unions has come in for its fair share of comment in this statement. [More…]
There is a good deal of sympathy for the actions of the unions. [More…]
The Government was not invited to the Australian Council of Trade Unions Congress. [More…]
The honourable member also said that the Government accuses the Labor Party of standing up for the trade unions and the wage and salary earners of this country and not for the employers. [More…]
What we are really accusing the Opposition of is not that it does not stand up Ibr the trade unions- that is not true; we would be quite happy to accuse it of that- but that it is not really standing up for the proper interests of wage and salary earners in this country. [More…]
The sell-out to the Left in Adelaide was followed by Mr Hawke ‘s sell-out at the Australian Council of Trade Unions Congress this week. [More…]
On that last score, let me make it clear for the record- I do not want there to be any misunderstanding- that Australian Council of Trade Unions policy or a particular trade union policy is not ALP policy. [More…]
There is frequently a great deal of difference on policy between the ACTU or individual unions on the one hand and the Labor Party on the other hand. [More…]
The unions have a responsibility to look after the best interests of their members; we have a responsibility to discharge our duties to the Australian community. [More…]
Now the Minister, as is the wont of members of the Government, says that unions are responsible for inflation. [More…]
Now the unions are supposed to be unruly. [More…]
But the unions are blamed for being unruly. [More…]
The Minister for Industrial Relations (Mr Street) asserted that the Government had made a reasonable offer to the unions on the matter of wage policy. [More…]
In a civilised and orderly industrial relations situation the Government recognises the importance of having responsible trade unions and having them responsibly managed for the benefit of the members of those unions. [More…]
They also know that it will and can do nothing to protect individuals, individual unionists, from being dominated by particular trade unions and the stand-over tactics that some of them engage in. [More…]
The recognition of the rights of unions to regulate their own affairs in a democratic way, free - [More…]
There would be no hope under that policy, if implemented, for individuals to seek redress from the courts against injustices perpetrated by their trade unions. [More…]
Exempt unions from provisions of the Trade Practices Act. [More…]
It means nothing more or less than an open invitation for black bans, secondary boycotts, picketing or any other unfair and restrictive activities that trade unions may wish to engage in. [More…]
Listen to this- that the legitimate role of the trade unions is not limited to legally defined industrial matters. [More…]
Under the Labor Party policy trade unions are not only to be immune from the judicial process but also will be able to engage in activities which are not industrial activities anyway. [More…]
Securing the immunity of unions and their members from action for tort in respect of torts alleged to have been committed . [More…]
That is the substantive provision- to make trade unions immune from the law. [More…]
In its anxiety to capitalise on what it sees as the politically populuar tactic of indulging in union bashing at the time of the Australian Council of Trade Unions Congress, this Government has abandoned all standards of decency. [More…]
Understandably the trade unions are not going to accept that proposition. [More…]
That is why we got this tough decision from the Australian Council of Trade Unions. [More…]
What else are the trade unions to do? [More…]
Quite clearly the unions would reject the proposal out of hand, and they did. [More…]
I think that he is the one who is being unthinking and pigheaded to expect the unions to adopt such an unreasonable proposal involving continuous reductions in the real living standards and wages of their members. [More…]
In arguing for the acceptance of that proposal, he claimed that the certainty of adjustment- that is the way in which he saw it- would remove pressure for unions to go outside the system by taking industrial action. [More…]
If by some miracle the Government could achieve economic recovery it would simply mean that the unions would then seek wage increases and the Government have to clamp down again. [More…]
A cooperative prices and incomes policy could be devised with the trade unions. [More…]
If we cast our minds back only a few months to the actions of the unions of this country in so many facets of industrial relations it is not difficult at all to understand the assertion made by the Minister in his statement to the House. [More…]
The submissions made to the Conciliation and Arbitration Commission by the Government and by the employers are in sharp contrast to the approach of the unions, and the Government and employers have made a clear case in this regard. [More…]
I refer to the determination of the Commission which called on the unions to lift their bans. [More…]
I hope that as a consequence of the debate and the contributions made to it, we will see, on the part of the unions that have some real recognition of the facts of the situation, a more realistic approach and that the militants- men such as Halfpenny, who has been mentioned in this debate tonight, and so many others- will not be seen as the leaders of the ACTU. [More…]
The community, the unions and the Government members know that conciliation is usually accepted because it is negotiated; it is a consensus view in the long term. [More…]
It knew that that would provoke the unions, which it did. [More…]
What about the changes to the Conciliation and Arbitration Act by which the Government made it virtually impossible for trade unions to amalgamate? [More…]
The members of this Government are very plausible rogues, but do they know that now there are unions talking about amalgamation in order to bring about more efficiency, fewer demarcation disputes, fewer stoppages and fewer strikes? [More…]
That is why those unions want to amalgamate. [More…]
The textile and footwear unions are talking about amalgamation. [More…]
For the information of honourable members opposite- I think they ought to know this and understand it well- it has been estimated by the officials of those unions that it will take them 8 years to amalgamate. [More…]
It practises democracy nowhere, but it uses the phrase democracy in unions’. [More…]
The Government is not talking about democracy but about individuals within trade unions taking unilateral decisions. [More…]
What it wants to bring about in trade unions under the guise of democracy is of course anarchy. [More…]
The Government may talk about the unions engaging in action outside the field of wages and incomes and in areas that are not traditionally theirs. [More…]
He put forward the wages policy which the Government wants the unions, employers and the Conciliation and Arbitration Commission to consider. [More…]
I thought that that was quite extraordinary: He would deny the membership of unions a say in what should happen with respect to union amalgamations. [More…]
Honourable members will recall that the honourable member for Diamond Valley raised the proposal by the ALP to exempt unions from actions in tort. [More…]
But I think we all accept that the trade union movement, through the Australian Council of Trade Unions and its official organs, has a great deal of influence on the ALP. [More…]
Under our conciliation and arbitration system trade unions have privileges under the law to represent their members before the Conciliation and Arbitration Commission and gain for them certain benefits. [More…]
The Conference committed the ALP to give trade unions some extraordinary privileges by way of immunity from laws which other people would have to obey. [More…]
The ALP platform provides for the right of” workers to ‘organise in democratic trade unions’- no one objects to that- ‘and to collectively bargain and to exercise the right to strike in the course of such activities immune from any pains and penalties directed against unions and unionists’. [More…]
That is quite a blanket statement- ‘immune from any pains and penalties directed against unions and unionists’. [More…]
It means that, no matter what activity a union is engaged in, if it is engaged in during an industrial dispute unions and unionists would be exempt from any pains and penalties. [More…]
Clearly, the ALP would remove penalties against trade unions for that sort of action but it is interesting to note that the [More…]
I agree with that, but that the same sort of penalty ought to be applied to unionists and unions if they engage in illegitimate activity. [More…]
The Labor Party has also given a commitment to recognise ‘the rights of unions to regulate their own affairs in a democratic way free from government and judicial interference’. [More…]
Let me give a further example of the Labor Party’s attitude to trade unions. [More…]
The Labor Party would exempt unions from the provisions of the Trade Practices Act. [More…]
Why should it be possible for unions to get away with that very same sort of behaviour? [More…]
Responsible unions do not want to engage in such activities. [More…]
I invite honourable members to compare the Liberal-National Country Government record in setting up a framework for the orderly conduct of industrial relations in this country with the decisions arising out of the ALP Federal Conference which would set up a one-sided system that would disadvantage not only the employers and business people but also the moderate unions that do not want to engage in improper conduct and the vast majority of individual unionists who are concerned about their standard of living, who want to get on with the job and earn their wage. [More…]
We have implemented provisions which have prohibited intimidatory fines by unions on their members for exercising their right to work. [More…]
This Government has taken action to ensure that unions cannot take that type of intimidatory action against individual members. [More…]
We have also introduced provisions to ensure that unions give adequate notice to their members of impending elections. [More…]
When workers formed trade unions to get better conditions, the common law, aided by Parliamentary enactment, said that the unions were unlawful combinations and their leaders were sent to prison. [More…]
It is still the position at common law that all trade unions are unlawful as conspiracies in restraint of trade. [More…]
Now that development of uranium mining has commenced at Nabarlek, Jabiru and Yeelirrie and operations have recommenced at Mary Kathleen in Queensland, what would be the cost in terms of jobs if the Australian Council of Trade Unions and Australian Labor Party policy banning uranium mining were implemented? [More…]
One does not need to quote the building unions with respect to the impact of the policies of this Government, particularly its most recent Budget, on housing as it is constructed in this country. [More…]
It just would not be true to say that all unions would act in a democratic way, free from judicial interference. [More…]
As against this, the two main communist parties, the Communist Party of Australia and the Socialist Party of Australia, have strong influence in some unions. [More…]
Since taking office in 1975, this Government has been very active in passing a series of measures which restrict or reduce the economic and political freedom of the individual, restrict the legitimate action of trade unions, suppress information or access to information and limit the freedom of travel to and from Australia. [More…]
We do know that ASIO spent a good deal of time snooping around trade unions trying to find out what unionists were doing but so far as actual, active, serious work in security is concerned in relation to subversion, real or apparent, and trying to deal with terrorism ASIO has no track record at all. [More…]
The third area concerning which difficulties arise in respect of the communication of intelligence is that of trade unions. [More…]
ASIO does not, and properly does not, surveil employer organizations or trade unions as such. [More…]
However, the surveillance by ASIO or left-wing radical organizations judged to be subversive or potentially subversive, and of the members of those organizations, has led to ASIO obtaining intelligence concerning the activities of trade unions which are controlled by members of those organizations or which the members of those organizations seek to control. [More…]
I noticed that in the recent Australian Council of Trade Unions congress this practice by employers was condemned. [More…]
Nobody and no organisation in the United States was immune from the CIA: Not labour unions, not youth and student groups, not the media, not the professionals- the journalists, the lawyers and doctors- not the business organisations, not the politicians nor the political parties. [More…]
Australian Council of Trade Unions. [More…]
We do not believe, as the Australian Council of Trade Unions does not believe, that the Government should be providing a direct wage subsidy to employers in those circumstances. [More…]
Officers of my Department are travelling from State to State talking with State governments, industry people and the trade unions. [More…]
We are canvassing the reaction of industry, trade unions and State governments as to whether we ought to sign these codes. [More…]
Representatives of the Australian Council of Trade Unions and the Council of Australian Government Employee Organisations did not attend that meeting. [More…]
Many unions, or sections of them, are strategically placed to interfere with the provisions of goods and services to the community. [More…]
After 1953/4, Special Branch files assumed a new dimension of intense interest of Labor opinion and Labor trade unions. [More…]
Back in the old days of the 1 890s trade unions had to be formed to get some rights for the workers and back in the Industrial Revolution in the early 1 820s something had to be done to get children out of the mines. [More…]
This is quite important because within the decisions of the conference in Adelaide were a number of resolutions which related to the legal position of trade unions and trade unionists. [More…]
I am not drawing a long bow here in any respect because the principal Opposition party passed at its Adelaide conference a number of resolutions which would remove trade unions and trade unionists from legal restraint. [More…]
In particular, I do not think that it is wise to accept this amendment, in view of the decisions of the Australian Labor Party Conference in Adelaide which sought to remove the trade union movement and members of unions from judicial restraint. [More…]
I do not want the Opposition to think that we are always concerned with the problems of just the trade unions or the very extreme elements in the trade unions. [More…]
The other area of concern, as other honourable members have pointed out, is with respect to trade unions- for example, where the Transport Workers Union of Australia held up the supply of petrol or the operations of Garden Island Dockyard so that a ship could not be fitted out. [More…]
There has been discussion about the actions of the trade unions and about the use of the word unlawful’. [More…]
If one also looks at the section of Mr Justice Hope’s report as to trade unions one will see that it states: [More…]
ASIO does not, and properly does not, surveil employer organisations or trade unions as such. [More…]
However, the surveillance by ASIO of left-wing radical organisations judged to be subversive or potentially subversive, and of the members of those organisations, has led to ASIO obtaining intelligence concerning the activities of trade unions which are controlled by members of those organisations or which the members of those organisations seek to control. [More…]
It states that it may be fair enough to collect intelligence on the activities of people within trade unions, but I do not think that our amendment conflicts in any way with what Mr Justice Hope said about the communication of intelligence about trade unions or with what ASIO said when it put up some definition of subversion to the Royal Commission. [More…]
The honourable member for Mackellar (Mr Carlton) is anxious that there be some sort of judicial control because of some resolution that the trade unions should not be subject to judicial proceedings. [More…]
According to Mr Justice Hope, the trade unions are performing very creditably indeed, thank you very much. [More…]
He made the point that ASIO does not, and properly does not, survey employer organisations or trade unions as such. [More…]
Trade unions usually have meetings. [More…]
The trade unions can be subject to discipline in the courts. [More…]
Government members have spent all their time on this matter belting the unions. [More…]
Most of those who lost their lives in violent action were unionists, yet the Government has this dreadful fixation- I will not use the word paranoic- what is wrong with unions. [More…]
We are aware of the fact that the former president of the Australian Labor Party, who is hoping to become a member of this House, tried to convince the Australian Council of Trade Unions that it ought to support the Government in its policies for the production of uranium; but he failed. [More…]
Those people should heed the warning given at that time by the then President of the Australian Council of Trade Unions, Albert Monk, who said: [More…]
This is true whether we deal with political parties, the parliamentary process, trade unions or business. [More…]
At that time the union leaders told him that they rejected this, that the common sense of the unions could be relied upon to restrain wild inflation, and that any element of regimentation was unacceptable in peacetime. [More…]
Even Milton Friedman, the high priest of the monetarists, said quite categorically when he was here that trade unions do not cause inflation. [More…]
Even Milton Friedman concedes that trade unions do not cause inflation. [More…]
Mr Hawke, the President of the Australian Council of Trade Unions, stands head and shoulders above the Leader of the Opposition (Mr Hayden) and his Labor Party colleagues in his realistic and pragmatic approach to uranium mining in Australia. [More…]
The unions involved in the mining of uranium cannot afford to ban it and the men concerned would simply leave their unions if any attempt was made to close down the mines. [More…]
Also the Government’s policy of confrontation with the unions has produced a continuous strike situation. [More…]
At every national wage case hearing it has gone before the Conciliation and Arbitration Commission and opposed the attempts of the Australian Council of Trade Unions and individual unions to get wage parity. [More…]
I rise in the adournment debate this evening to raise two matters and to make some protest about the way in which Government members- in particular, Ministers- attack unions in this chamber. [More…]
This afternoon we heard the Minister for Housing and Construction (Mr Groom) say that there had been an attack on the sub-contracting system by members of the BWIU and other building trade unions. [More…]
The situation clearly is that the unions themselves are not condemning the sub-contracting system; on the contrary, they are defending the subcontractors in that area for the purpose of maintaining a level that is at least equivalent to the minimum prescribed award rates. [More…]
The whole basis of the submissions by the builders, the unions and the great majority of contractors has been along those lines. [More…]
The first is that at the Australian Labor Party biennial conference in Adelaide a once great party, which had the admiration of many Australians in the past but over which the trade unions had a mortgage, sold out the Left. [More…]
The major piece of policy in relation to the trade unions that was decided at that conference was simply that the trade unions should be free of all government and judicial interference. [More…]
They have set the trade unions above the law. [More…]
That particularly applies to trade unionsIn the recent past we have seen, according to very in-depth recent studies, that violence, while not yet commonplace within the union movement, tends to be an increasing part of the trade union scene. [More…]
We all know that for many years past building unions have done their best to sabotage the building industry. [More…]
The unions are trying to abolish the entire subcontract system and, by a centralised enforced system - [More…]
By a centralised enforced system, the unions are attempting to get rid of all subcontractors in the building industry and to ensure that the prime contractor has to treat every single person under him who has anything to do with the job as an employee. [More…]
The unions will then be free to order stoppages, to go on strike and to enforce their sabotage and blackmail throughout the entire building industry. [More…]
In recent years the unions have been able to destroy much of the development in Sydney and Melbourne, particularly in relation to large office blocks and other similar projects. [More…]
In Western Australia the unions brought in piece rate claims. [More…]
It is extremely important to note that the unions tried to get their way in the industrial commission and they failed. [More…]
Mr Justice Alley of the Australian Conciliation and Arbitration Commission has already said that the unions have sought to get the Commission to do indirectly what it has no power to do directly, namely, prescribe conditions on matters which do not pertain to the relationship between employers and employees. [More…]
The Australian Labor Party and the unions oppose independence, freedom and small business. [More…]
The unions are trying to attack the very basis of a great Australian industry. [More…]
I conclude my remarks by reminding honourable members of what happened at the Australian Council of Trade Unions Congress. [More…]
The Trade Unions would be immune from any penalties, but the penalties would still apply to the employers. [More…]
There would be no judicial interference with the trade unions. [More…]
The inquiry is conducted by a person who is not under any challenge from any side, whether it be the housing industry or the trade unions. [More…]
The unions have gone before the inquiry. [More…]
The unions are not against the contract system but they are against body hire. [More…]
They are accusing the Trade Union Movement and the Labor Government, of seeking to restrict the freedom of the individual, besides claiming that the unions are out to abolish the contract system in the cottage industry. [More…]
The position of the uade unions in the building industry is that they are not opposed to the contract system within the cottage industry, but they are seeking to have amendments made to the New South Wales Industrial Arbitration Act, which will give legal protection to the contract workers from those unscrupulous builders and developers who are grossly exploiting them. [More…]
If the Government were serious about the matter it would do two things: The Minister would make a statement so that we could debate the matter and the Government would go before the inquiry, if it had sufficient evidence, to refute the allegations that have been made by the unions. [More…]
No one in this country is going to allow a system of employing people, or body hire as it is now termed, in which people are paid far less than the award wages which have been won by the unions in the particular industry. [More…]
I do not know whether he inadvertently failed to refer to the rule of law and the need for the trade unions to be brought under it or whether he acceded to the accusations made by the honourable member for St George that the left wing of the Labor movement has taken over control of the Australian Labor Party and was simply not prepared to buck the left wing of the Labor movement by accusing it in this place of being above the law. [More…]
An important section of the resolutions that the honourable member for St George pointed out is that an ALP government would recognise the rights of unions to regulate their own affairs in a democratic way free from government and judicial interference. [More…]
I remind the honourable member for Port Adelaide that ‘free from judicial interference’ must and can only be interpreted as placing the unions above the law. [More…]
What sort of actions that anybody else in the community can term only as criminal actions is it prepared to allow unions to get away with? [More…]
That is the sort of action for which the honourable member for Port Adelaide and other members of the ALP would exempt the unions from any form of judicial action. [More…]
Mr Terry Gordon, Federal Secretary of the Painters and Dockers Union- I am sure most of us are familiar with some of the actions of that particular union- in giving evidence before Commissioner Sweeney when he was inquiring into allegations of illegal payments paid to maritime unions said: ‘We catch and kill our own’. [More…]
That is the sort of action in relation to which the ALP is very purposely choosing to put the unions above the law. [More…]
Mr Lance Sharkey, who in his day was a well-known communist leader, in his book The Trade Unions in 1942 had this to say: [More…]
giving a lead on all problems of the trade unions and lead the fight for the economic demands of the workers; in short, be the best fighters on the job and during strike periods. [More…]
That is the sort of law that the Government wants to perpetrate on the unions in this country. [More…]
The Government wants to bring the unions within the area of common law. [More…]
It wants to apply the common law to unions. [More…]
It wants to produce tame cat unions. [More…]
It wants to stand over those who, in very difficult circumstances, do their best to represent the people who form the unions. [More…]
Because of this damning evidence the Housing Industry Association and the Master Builders Association are now making outrageous statements attacking the building unions and distorting the evidence presented in the inquiry. [More…]
The real position is that housing costs will not alter at all as a result of the unions’ submissions unless the State Industrial Commission decides that the rates paid are less than the total value of the remuneration paid to an award worker, which is in conformity with the law as stated under section 88F of the Industrial Arbitration Act. [More…]
As far as the law is concerned, all the Government wants to do is stand over the unions and bring workers to their knees. [More…]
Unfortunately, his common sense did not flow into the Australian Council of Trade Unions Congress that has just been concluded. [More…]
It was that Congress which very purposely passed a resolution to the effect that the wage earners in this country should be entitled to automatic cost of living increases and also that their unions should have the right, on top of that, to have collective bargaining with their employers. [More…]
Policies adopted by government and by trade unions need to recognise that people leaving school at the age of 17 years need to be given a proper period of training before they can contribute in any meaningful way to the productivity of the firm that is employing them. [More…]
I advocate strongly to the trade unions and to government that we should revert to the policy of paying junior rates to young people up to the age of 2 1 years. [More…]
There have been representations over the last few years from unions representing meatworkers indicating concern over the risks to their members from the handling of cattle infected with Brucella abortus [More…]
Let us see what happened in the United Kingdom when, for a number of years, the trade unions in that country accepted the social contract offered by the Labor Government. [More…]
The trade unions practised wage restraint, but the result was utter disaster. [More…]
The unions have continued to try to get wage increases but the wage increases have been less than would be necessary for full indexation. [More…]
I ask the trade unions whether they really understand what they are doing. [More…]
Do they know how wrong it is that a great export industry, a great income earner, can be held up because of a demarcation issue between two unions on some simple procedure? [More…]
I inform the trade unions that rural Australia will be contained no longer. [More…]
Quite bluntly, we have had a ‘gutfull’ of irresponsible trade unions. [More…]
Forty-eight special project grants with total expenditure of $150,000 were made in 1978- 79 to encourage self-help among ethnic groups and to help trade unions in providing welfare services to migrant members. [More…]
When we come to the 48 special project grants, which were offered to encourage self help among ethnic groups and to help trade unions in providing welfare services to migrants, with a total expenditure of $ 1 50,000, this sounds good. [More…]
What is its policy which was decided at the Australian Council of Trade Unions Congress and the Labor Party Conference in Adelaide and which binds every single member of the Parliamentary Labor Party in this House, all of whom took the socialist pledge? [More…]
They have provided a policy that will make the unions immune from any penalties and yet keep penalties on the employers. [More…]
Their policy provides that there will be no what they call judicial interference in the affairs of trade unions. [More…]
In other words, trade unions will be above the law. [More…]
For ‘tolerance’ we have seen divisiveness, confrontation, denigration of the unempoyed youth and denigration of trade unions and employees. [More…]
I have no hesitation and my colleague the Minister for Education (Senator Carrick) has no hesitation in pursuing this policy, as we will, in conjunction and discussion with the States, industry and the unions. [More…]
This Government is simply content to blame either the unions or the young unemployed for this problem. [More…]
The legislation has been brought in without the Australian Council of Trade Unions and the Council of Australian [More…]
The Minister admitted to this at the meeting of the NLCC at which the trade unions were not present. [More…]
The Government is taking away from the Commission its traditional role and giving itself the power, behind the cloak of the Governor-General in Executive Council, to determine the question of deregistration of unions. [More…]
Some unions in this country have 160,000 members. [More…]
That is the reason why the measure was pushed through the National Labour Consultative Council when the unions were not present. [More…]
No one in this House or in this nation should lose sight of one of the resolutions of the Australian Labor Party conference at Adelaide earlier this year to the effect that an Australian Labor Party government would recognise the rights of unions to regulate their affairs in a democratic way free from government and judicial interference. [More…]
The reason why the honourable member for Port Adelaide is so opposed to this legislation is that his party believes that trade unions should be above the law. [More…]
He seemed to lay at the feet of the Minister for Industrial Relations (Mr Street) all of the blame for the failure of the trade unions to attend that meeting. [More…]
On two occasions, the Minister wrote to the Australian Council of Trade Unions and to the Council of Australian Government Employee Organisations inviting them- in fact, appealing to them- to participate in the NLCC discussions for the reason that he was proposing amendments to the Conciliation and Arbitration Act. [More…]
It was certainly not because of any failure on the part of the Minister; he did everything in his power to ensure that the trade unions would be represented. [More…]
He invited, and appealed to, the trade unions to come to those meetings. [More…]
Can the Minister be blamed because the unions did not attend? [More…]
What we have seen over recent years in this country is a disgraceful exhibition by a minority of militant trade unions. [More…]
The employers, quite rightly and knowing that they had grounds for appeal, appealed to a Full Bench, causing the unions to go out on strike. [More…]
I remind members on the opposite side that we accept our constitutional responsibilities to make laws for good government and good conduct of this country and regardless of what members of the Australian Council of Trade Unions, the trade union movement generally and members on the opposite side of this House say, we will not shirk those responsibilities. [More…]
What government, acting responsibly, could allow unions to take that sort of irresponsible action and not respond to it? [More…]
The Conciliation and Arbitration Amendment Bill is just another saga in the ever-continuing philosophy of the Government to set upon the unions, to destroy the mouthpiece of millions of workers in this country and to make the tamecat organisations about which Ben Chifley talked a matter of course. [More…]
They failed because the unions refused to pay the fines, and they will refuse to pay the fines in the future. [More…]
Lo and behold, when the matter finally went before the Full Bench- not because the unions wanted the dispute to go there but because, through considerations of public interest, the unions were reaching a stage in the dispute when they had to move a little to gain a little- the Full Bench decided that it was an anomaly to have a $20 difference between the amount being paid to Telecom workers and the amount being paid to workers in like classifications in private enterprise. [More…]
When it suits the Government it introduces legislation of this nature for the express purpose of attempting to cajole the unions and the Commission into giving effect to its policies. [More…]
Perhaps time did not permit him to deal with one of the most important aspects of the Bill, namely, the question of deregistration of unions. [More…]
Proposed new section 143 A, which is sought to be inserted into the Act, will give to the Governor-General a wide range of powers which may be exercised against unions which take industrial action which has a substantial adverse effect on the safety, health or welfare of the community. [More…]
If the Minister still intends to hold the bludgeon over the head of the unions, what recourse do the unions have? [More…]
The Minister has a responsibility to the people of Australia, to the Parliament, and to the unions to explain precisely what this provision means. [More…]
That council was set up precisely for the purpose of consultation between Government, the unions and the employers. [More…]
The honourable member for Port Adelaide suggested that the Labor Party is more closely involved with the unions and is therefore in a better position to look after industrial relations in this country. [More…]
Certainly they want unions and they want unions to represent them and to look after their interests as long as these actions are reasonable. [More…]
It lasted for 10 weeks and we saw exports thrown to the wind by the unions in Western Australia. [More…]
Export trade was under threat of being lost permanently because of the actions of these unions. [More…]
Industrial disputation is starting to increase in Australia and I believe we have to give the people within the unions the right to be heard. [More…]
If one looks at the track record of this Government in industrial relations one finds that in October 1977 the amendments to the Commonwealth Conciliation and Arbitration Act, otherwise known as the Industrial Relations Bureau legislation, introduced measures providing for the deregistration of a union, the seizing of union property and funds, fines on officers and rank and file trade unionists, suspension from office of union officers and the debarring of members of unions from standing for election to any position, full or part time. [More…]
It provided for a fine of $250,000 for unions engaging in so-called secondary boycotts. [More…]
The Queensland essential services legislation, which obviously is condoned by this Government, provides for the emasculation of unions, the encouragement of scab labour against unions, the sacking of employees who go on strike. [More…]
It provides for the imposition of massive fines, the deregistration of unions, the refusal of compensation to workers and the prohibition of employer-employee agreements based upon negotiation and conciliation. [More…]
Look at the wages of the Governor-General, the person who is to be allowed, in the name of this Government, to deregister trade unions when this legislation becomes law. [More…]
It has used arguments about excessive wage overhang and noncompliance with the guidelines by the unions. [More…]
In 1 979 it is seeking to use him again to sack unions. [More…]
Has he forgotten that confrontation began months ago, that this nation has been held up to ransom by the most blatant actions of milltant trade unions and that we have seen the employer, the public and the community at large - [More…]
Today Australia has learnt with dismay of a further decision by the Telecom unions which threatens once again the telecommunications network of this country. [More…]
We know of the recent plea by the President of the Australian Council of Trade Unions, Mr Hawke, and the dismal failure that he experienced at the last ACTU Congress. [More…]
He has not followed the line of the unions themselves through threats or through a series of actions which interfere with the processes of trade and commerce in this country. [More…]
We know that industrial muscle in recent years has gained momentum far beyond the recognised and proper bases upon which trade unions are a vital part of the community. [More…]
None of us opposes trade unions. [More…]
The recognition of the rights of unions to regulate their own affairs in a democratic way free from government and judicial interference and at the same time expanding the role of the Industrial Registrar in advising on matters relating to rules so that unions will have access to information and independent advice which will allow them - [More…]
They will judge it on its policy which says that ‘the unions in Australia will run wild and do as they like; there will be no government interference, no government moderation; the government will stand back from that situation and let them run riot’. [More…]
The left wing unions said: ‘We will not wear that’. [More…]
He said: ‘I am not going to be up there and cop it from everybody as President of the Australian Council of Trade Unions. [More…]
Its supporters have said: ‘We will let the unions run riot and we are not prepared to step in and act on behalf of Australian citizens’. [More…]
Let them look to the newspaper article whose headline reads: Wran blasts unions for undermining jobs’. [More…]
The article refers to Mr Wran’s addressing shipbuilding unions and people in Newcastle and states: [More…]
There is no thought for moderate unions and the families of moderate unionists. [More…]
I did not call the Council together, but on every occasion on which I sought to amend the Conciliation and Arbitration Act I sent copies of the proposed Bill to the judiciary, the unions and the employers before it was brought into this House. [More…]
Let me tell the House, because it appears that nobody on the other side seems to have noticed, that section 2 of the Conciliation and Arbitration Act- I will paraphrase it- says that the chief objects of the Act are to encourage the prevention and settlement of industrial disputes by means of conciliation and to encourage the registration of unions under the provisions of the Act. [More…]
The irony of the whole matter is that once the unions get into the arbitration system under the law as it now is, they are locked into it; they cannot get out. [More…]
Deregistration will remain the only alternative that the unions will have open to them. [More…]
Australia’s system of conciliation and arbitration cannot work without the co-operation of the trade unions. [More…]
How can the system work if it does not have trade unions registered, if the only organisations which are registered with the arbitration system are the employers? [More…]
The employers will be made to suffer; the unions will be made to suffer; the community at large will be made to suffer just because the Government thinks that by enacting this legislation it may create the political climate for being elected again. [More…]
He criticised me for seeking to give unions immunity from actions for torts arising out of strike action. [More…]
The maintenance unions were on strike at the time and this caused the meat workers to go home for the day. [More…]
That would be totally objectionable to all the parties that go before the Commission, not just to the trade unions who may be upset by some of the decisions that may be given as a result of this clause. [More…]
The $8 a week to $14 a week granted by Deverall is what is being sought by most unions in Australia today. [More…]
I believe that members of the Commission, the employers and the trade unions are opposed to this clause. [More…]
He then said that neither employers nor unions support it. [More…]
The unions did not take advantage of that opportunity. [More…]
-Clause 4 of this amending legislation goes to the very hean of the problem which we face in the Australian community- the disruptive activity of irresponsible trade unions. [More…]
In the industrial relations scene in recent times we have seen a significant shift in power towards the unions, especially union leadership, and away from employers and government. [More…]
It seeks the protection of the law when it is to the advantage of the unions but seeks to escape from the provisions of the law when that law is to the disadvantage of the unions. [More…]
Many constituents have personally complained to me about the disruption that they experience through the activities of trade unions. [More…]
Its aim is to ensure that militant trade unions do not get privileges to which they are not entitled. [More…]
I think it is worth reiterating the need for workers and grassroots members of unions to involve themselves actively in the affairs of their unions to ensure that the leadership accurately reflects their views and takes action appropriate to their wishes. [More…]
Of course, the unions always fight tooth and nail against having stand-down clauses inserted. [More…]
Whenever the employers go to the Commission, the unions put up every sort of tactic. [More…]
The great, traditional trade unionists always understood that the trade unions developed in order to assist employees in certain circumstances where the employees were prepared to go on strike. [More…]
It is the union funds- the $ 18m or similar huge amounts that the largest unions in Australia have locked away, and one remembers the good legislation that the Government has introduced in regard to disclosure- which should be used to provide the wherewithal for employees who go out on strike, and not the employers funds or the profits that keep the business going and consequently provide employment, and not the taxpayers’ funds because it is the taxpayer who is the ultimate employer where the public sector is concerned. [More…]
One day in this country wives will get a vote in union office elections so that they can come in and help kick out the left wing and communist leaders of the trade unions through the ballot box. [More…]
Overwhelmingly these unions subscribe to conciliation and arbitration. [More…]
The honourable member for Hindmarsh should know that in 1965 when I introduced the Bill relating to the deregistration of the waterfront unions, I put in a clause exactly identical with this clause. [More…]
We again were going to introduce a similar Bill in 1972 and the trade unions decided not to proceed with their tactics. [More…]
Had they looked up the law or sought some advice from the Parliamentary Library they would not have made themselves appear- I will not use the word ‘fools’- to be totally devoid of knowledge of constitutional law and totally devoid of any knowledge of what was done in 1965 relating to deregistration of unions. [More…]
-Clause 16, which relates to the deregistration of unions, is a very sensible attempt to introduce more flexibility into industrial relations. [More…]
But alas, threats of industrial militancy are now such that the Government has no choice but to act in this way providing an alternative route in seeking deregistration of unions. [More…]
The honourable member for Port Adelaide (Mr Young) accused the Government of taking away from the Australian Conciliation and Arbitration Commission its traditional role and of giving itself the power, behind the cloak of the Governor-General and the Executive Council, to determine the question of deregistration of unions. [More…]
He also claimed that under this clause the Government can lay down the standards for the operation and behaviour of trade unions. [More…]
We should remember the voting power that the trade unions have directly in the Labor Party machine, their direct control over party office bearers and over party parliamentary pre-selections. [More…]
A number of trade unions in Western Australia have already been fined and a number are facing charges. [More…]
We have had the spectacle of a national strike because unionists have been arrested without warning and subsequently fined for having attended a meeting of their trade unions. [More…]
The trade unions are entitled to confront this Government; they are entitled to call further national strikes if this repressive legislation remains. [More…]
A discussion was held between Australian Council of Trade Unions representatives, the Prime Minister and representatives of the Western Australian Government about the problems with the law. [More…]
There were further discussions last week between the Minister for Industrial Relations (Mr Street) and the Australian Council of Trade Unions on what should be done. [More…]
Everyone shall have the right of freedom of association with others, including the right to form and join trade unions for the protection of his interests. [More…]
He held a Press conference to abuse the unions because they were seeking an adjournment of the case. [More…]
When he was complaining about the situation in Western Australia he also failed to mention that the responsible unions have not supported the left wing unions in that State. [More…]
Mr Ivan Sands, the head of the moderate group of trade unions, secretariat in the Pilbara, has said that all these confrontations are to use his words, ‘completely contrived’. [More…]
The unions had not sought permission and therefore the police had not given permission and therefore for all intents and purposes the unions have been in breach of laws similar to those that apply in the Labor States. [More…]
The Western Australian left wing unions have torn the Pilbara asunder on industrial matters. [More…]
Certainly this Government has a responsibility in this respect and will not stand by allowing this blackmail by the unions to continue. [More…]
I should have said 1965 - when I introduced the Bill relating to the deregistration of the waterfront unions, I put in a clause exactly identical with this clause. [More…]
In the same article there are comments from other union officers that they have had no trouble with Vietnamese or refugee members of their unions. [More…]
Will he now instruct the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet and the Minister for Industrial Relations to withdraw the much criticised legislation and consult with the full Commission and the Australian Council of Trade Unions? [More…]
At that conference the Labor Party abrogated any responsibility of government; it said that unions should be able to conduct their affairs free of government or judicial interference. [More…]
As a result anomalies were created, expectations were raised among certain powerful unions and the community was forced to suffer a great deal from the industrial disruption which followed. [More…]
I point out that the Government also sought to consult with national representatives of employers and trade unions on this proposed legislation. [More…]
When they get nothing but silence, they might ask the trade unions why they did not put any views at all. [More…]
The unions advised me that they would not be attending. [More…]
I wrote back to the unions on 26 [More…]
But, for its part, all the Opposition can contribute is a number of misleading statements designed to obscure the Government’s objective and to hide its own irresponsible and discredited policies of ‘hands off the unions’ and the highest wages for those with the most muscle’. [More…]
Quite apart from the procedural amendments which I have described, another part of the legislationthis was referred to briefly by the Leader of the Opposition- provides for accelerated deregistration procedures for unions or sections of unions whose actions are substantially adversely affecting the safety, health or welfare of the community. [More…]
I asked him whether he had sent copies to the Australian Council of Trade Unions, the Australian Council of Salaried and Professional Associations, the Council of Australian Government Employee Organisations and the employers. [More…]
It occurs under the same speech in which the Minister complains that some unions have failed to bring their disputes to the commission and have ‘rejected the proper processes for settling their disputes’. [More…]
One of the key practices of totalitarian and authoritarian regimes is to dissolve trade unions and to put puppets in their place. [More…]
What he does not like is any action of this Parliament to decide that we should reinforce the Conciliation and Arbitration Act to protect the members of smaller unions and give job security. [More…]
I might add that a short while ago the President of the Australian Council of Trade Unions contacted me, seeking further consultations on the legislation before it is finally passed through the Parliament. [More…]
I put it to the Minister that other people con- !cerned with employment, for example, the peak i councils and the unions in particular whose , members stand to lose jobs that are now available to them, must surely be included in any j project committee or any body determining what should be recommended in the future. [More…]
The unions involved which made submissions to the group have firm estimates of the number of people under threat. [More…]
After paying a lot of lip service to the principle of reducing the number of unions- I have some reservations on this, though I realise I am in a minority, probably on both sides of the Housethe Government is saying to people that they are worse off if they belong to a large union than if they belong to a small union. [More…]
The Bill provides for a wide definition of trade unions. [More…]
Even deregistered unions would be covered under this legislation. [More…]
I can assure the House that the unions are not going to make their records available to members of the Government so that the Government can find out who are members of the union. [More…]
What happens to people who are in two unions- those who may belong to a professional association as well as a union. [More…]
The unions are doing their best to salvage something out of the changes that are taking place as far as technology is concerned, but all they have been able to salvage is the right to see that none of their present members is dismissed from employment. [More…]
The unions are not able to guarantee that the jobs available in industry today will be there in the future for the children who come out of the educational institutions. [More…]
The Government, together with management, recognises this no less than the unions, or the employee, or the operator in a commercial office or in a bank or retail establishment, or the Opposition. [More…]
They do not go on strike and they do not join unions. [More…]
Governments, parties, unions, employers and other interest groups must share the blame which largely arises because we tend to be pre-occupied here with immediate, short term concerns and postpone examination of the more serious long term problems. [More…]
However, members of other unions who are stood down and who are not involved in the dispute at the Uniroyal plant in Adelaide will receive the unemployment benefit. [More…]
Members within those unions do not necessarily attend- and in the case of the AWU they do not attend at all- meetings of members covered by other sections of the union. [More…]
They have, in fact, an amalgamation of a number of small unions. [More…]
It feels that unions are unpopular and it feels that unemployment benefit recipients are unpopular. [More…]
So it feels free to legislate in order to punish people for being members of unions or for taking industrial action. [More…]
Surely it has been obvious to this country for many years that the tactic of the trade unions is no longer to have the old form of strike, to call out the union. [More…]
Unions are going out on strike. [More…]
There is a responsibility for the rank and file members of the unions. [More…]
Unions extract an enormous amount annually in fees from their members and put that money into coffers so they can pay Australian Labor Party campaign funds, as well as use it for other nefarious purposes. [More…]
In collecting this money surely the unions have a responsibility to look after their members. [More…]
The taxpayer, the average Australian citizen, is well aware that for too long the unions have been trying to run a double game in this country. [More…]
The only point I would like to make in relation to clause 35 is that this Government pays a lot of lip service to the proposition that unions should be amalgamated. [More…]
It says that we should have large unions, unions covering whole industries, that we should have Federal unions instead of State unions and that that would prevent some of the industrial conflict. [More…]
But a member of a large unionthis Government encourages the amalgamation of unions to form large unions- is covered by this legislation. [More…]
Take a member of the Australian Workers Union or any of the other large unions in this country. [More…]
Yet in another case, in the case of the unions, it introduces much discretion. [More…]
It strikes me as being quite ridiculous that this Government would impose these sorts of penalties on union members, particularly on members of large unions, and at the same time claim that it encourages large unions. [More…]
The second is that when we talk about the solidarity of unions, responsibility for sponsorship or support of a strike by a trade union must be accepted equally by all members of that union. [More…]
It is amazing that the Government is prepared to take the broadest and most centralist possible view of its power when it comes to trade unions. [More…]
So there is one law for the corporate area and one law for the trade unions. [More…]
One can conceive that many more people will be needed in the Department of Social Security should we have a spate of industrial disputes leading to the standdown of numbers of people and it becomes necessary to identify what unions they are members of. [More…]
Will the field officers ask the Industrial Registrar to give them a list of the members of all unions in Australia? [More…]
To make the position worse, the person who is to be denied unemployment benefit can have been working with people who will be paid unemployment benefit because they are not members of the unions involved in the industrial dispute in some other plant in some other city in some other State. [More…]
The honourable member for Bendigo (Mr Bourchier) made quite clear what his position on this is when he said that since the unions contribute to the Labor Party any union member should cop whatever consequences are necessary. [More…]
No doubt the next move of the Government would, be firstly, to effect standdowns and then, secondly, to deny the unemployment benefit to those people and their families along with members of other unions who may be affected by a strike or disputation. [More…]
I would have worked towards the real long term answer, and that is to create industry unions. [More…]
When some unions come out and try to say that the real answer to these small interminable demarcation disputes is to set up an industry union covering a whole industry, honourable members opposite oppose it simply because they do not wish to see unions becoming powerful. [More…]
But when a number of unions want to get together and form their own cartel to protect the interests of their own members, honourable members opposite oppose it. [More…]
What steps has his Department taken to better assure the safety of Australian passengers in the light of incidents at Sydney Airport in June 1978 and in the light of criticism of present medical facilities made by the Doctors’ Reform Society and transport unions. [More…]
Is he aware that this task force has been formed as the result of the combined initiative of educationists, employers, trade unions, youth organisations and other relevant bodies in the Ballarat region? [More…]
Is he aware that there are possibilities of involving the Commonwealth Government in having one registration of trade unions? [More…]
The intransigent attitude of the unions led the commissioner hearing the case to issue an order restraining them from taking any strike action. [More…]
Other members were Mr C. O. Dolan, Senior Vice-President, Australian Council of Trade Unions; Mr R. G. Fry, Chief Executive and National Director, Metal Trades Industry Association of Australia; Mr T. B. Prescott, proprietor, T. B. Prescott & Co., Motor Engineers; Mr R. H. Wallace, Director of Technical and Further Education, Queensland; and Mr A. M. Coulthard, Secretary, National Training Council. [More…]
This particular point cannot be ignored by anyone who is interested in the future supply of trade skills and particularly by the States, industry and the unions. [More…]
I think that a lot of members of trade unions in this country have already considered whether the emphasis should not be on a 35-hour week across the board but rather that, if less hours are to be worked in industry in this country, some of the hours which are taken off the working week ought to be put towards training and retraining of our present work force. [More…]
All authorities in these other countries had representatives of employers and trade unions on their controlling boards. [More…]
If this argument really means that a higher deficit would raise economic activity and thereby facilitate higher wages because of greater bargaining power for the unions, such an argument applies whether the stimulus comes from the public or the private sector. [More…]
A campaign among management, unions and workers in a wide cross-section of industries: to improve quality, design, productivity and marketing so as to enhance Australian competitiveness on both local and overseas markets. [More…]
In due course the documents will be widely distributed through State and Territory health authorities, employer associations and trade unions. [More…]
Governments are concerned primarily in representing consumer interests, and consumers are becoming better organised and more vocal as time goes on, just as unions in past decades have become more organised and more vocal in representing the work force. [More…]
In view of arrangements currently under way to up-grade my Department’s computer capability, consideration is being given to the possibility of paying pensions fortnightly to accounts in banks, building societies and credit unions. [More…]
I refer to the evidence that was given to the United States Senate comittee of inquiry by Mr George Meany on behalf of the American trade unions wherein he gave evidence that between 1966 and 1971 American multinational companies exported over 900,000 jobs, which had previously existed in American industry, to the low wage areas of Asia, South Korea, Taiwan and Indonesia. [More…]
In fact, if it had not been for the French Left, which included the French communist party and unions from the French Left, he would not have been released at all. [More…]
It has no independent trade unions and it has no organisations independent of the State. [More…]
Not only has Senator Watson in the other place, as it is fancifully called, made public comment on this, as have other people, but no less a person than the President of the Australian Council of Trade Unions, Mr Bob Hawke, has also made comment. [More…]
The Australian Council of Trade Unions and the Federal unions have made extensive submissions to me in that regard, as well as the employers and the oil industry itself. [More…]
It is interesting to note that at yesterday’s hearing the federal unions, particularly the Transport Workers Union and the Australian Workers Union, made it quite clear that they wanted an absolute assurance that any joint sitting arrangements would not interfere with their rights and their operations and would not adversely affect their members involved in other refineries throughout Australia. [More…]
The Australian Council of Trade Unions supports the federal unions’ view and sees the need for further consultation. [More…]
I wish to quote from an article by Judith O’Neill, who is a social welfare research officer for the Australian Council of Trade Unions. [More…]
It does not believe the community would accept the Australian Council of Trade Unions setting awards for rural workers but if the AWB is to set the domestic price of wheat for stockfeed and industrial use, the methods need to be seen to be fair and to have the force of law. [More…]
I think that everyone knows where the main problem lies in this regard- with excessive wage demands by the unions and rising prices adversely affecting our competitiveness. [More…]
It would endorse a free for all for the unions, and that would mean unchecked wage demands. [More…]
It would endorse political strikes and put unions above the law. [More…]
It would induce unions to operate outside our system of conciliation and arbitration. [More…]
Beyond this it wants to give trade unions a free range to wreak industrial havoc in the pursuit of sectional interests. [More…]
It calls for wages to be indexed by the full value of the CPI increases, plus productivity increases, plus anything else unions can win by unrestricted use of industrial muscle. [More…]
In regard to the modernisation of facilities, as these proposals are developed consultation with the unions will take place in accordance with the guidelines on technological change. [More…]
The Government is having expressed to it by the unions and others in the community some worries about the project. [More…]
However, the Government also believes that its responsibilities to the public and to individuals make it imperative that it use all its available powers to encourage trade unions and employers to work within the established framework and, where necessary, to take strong measures to ensure that they do. [More…]
It is striking, for example, that clause 19 of the Australian National University Amendment Bill and clause 5 of the Canberra College of Advanced Education Amendment Bill provide that membership of student unions should not be compulsory. [More…]
This is an extraordinary example of a piece of legislation which is both superfluous and offensive, because the existing rules of the Australian National University provide that membership of student unions should not be compulsory. [More…]
The criticism of the AUS, and it is criticism that might have had a good deal more validity two or three years ago and is less valid now, is that it did not have enough people actively involved in student unions and in voting for the Australian Union of Students. [More…]
We will cut out compulsory membership of student unions’. [More…]
As a general principle, I believe that there ought to be a nationwide coalition of student unions. [More…]
It is within the students ‘ unions to rectify the matter. [More…]
To give a political analogy, it is as though the Fraser Government decided that it could not win a free election in 1980 against the Australian Labor Party and that the best way to secure its political future would be to pass legislation prohibiting trade unions from making financial contributions to the Labor Party, but by exclusion encouraging trade unions to provide political sustenance to other smaller left wing parties to the extreme. [More…]
major unions and telecommunications users groups). [More…]
Telecom Consultative Council, which meets twice a year and consists of senior Telecom management and officials of major unions; consultative arrangements with individual unions for a wide range of activities have been developed. [More…]
3572 concerning a meeting of the Public Service Board, the Australian Development Assistance Bureau, the Department of Foreign Affairs and certain unions to discuss staffing of the Australian Development Assistance Bureau (Hansard, 24 May 1979, pages 2,413-4), will he now (a) request the Public Service Board to release to the unions represented at the relevant meetings copies of the minutes of those meetings where undertakings were alleged to have been made by the Board to supply the unions with reports of the Joint Review Committee into Staffing of the Australian Development Assistance Bureau and (b) release to public service unions copies of the joint review committee’s report. [More…]
1 ) (a) The Public Service Board has informed me that a copy of the record of proceedings of the meetings held on 18 October 1978, 30 November 1978, and 30 January 1979 between officers of the Public Service Board, the Australian Development Assistance Bureau, the Department of Foreign Affairs and certain unions was included in submissions tabled by Board Officers during the proceedings before the Full Bench of the Conciliation and Arbitration Commission relating to the Commonwealth Employees (Redeployment and Retirement) Act 1979. [More…]
Unions have access to these documents which are now a matter of public record. [More…]
b) I do not propose to request the Public Service Board to release the Joint Review Committee’s report to the public service unions. [More…]
The Public Service Board has informed me that the record of the meeting of 18 October 1978 indicates that unions were advised that the possibility of releasing to the staff-side the report of the joint review com mittee, or extracts from it, would be examined. [More…]
The unions were advised of this by letter on 3 November 1978 and again at a meeting on 30 November 1978. [More…]
Recently in the House I had the opportunity to inform honourable members that one of the features of the settlement was that the Australian Council of Trade Unions and the Waterside Workers Federation proposed to sign an agreement the terms of which, if I recall them accurately, are that there will be no stoppages of work on any issue of wages or conditions which were the subject matters of these negotiations. [More…]
So far, on the national scene, we have had the co-operation of all the significant sections of the housing industry, including the Australian Council of Trade Unions, the Master Builders Association, the Housing Industry Association and the significant lending institutions. [More…]
We see it further in actions of the executive of the Australian Council of Trade Unions. [More…]