The IEU website (www.ieu.asn.au) carries regular updates of local and international news with a trade union flavour. IEU General Secretary John Quessy reproduces below some recent items
Labour Bites
OECD to monitor South Korea
The Trade Union Advisory Committee to the OECD (OECD-TUAC) and International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC) – the biggest labour union in the world – will visit South Korea to investigate the status of the Park Geun-hye Government‘s labour suppression, including misuse of its power to counter the recent Korail workers’ strike. The Park Government has disregarded recommendations and concerns expressed by several international organisations and refused to talk with the International Transport Workers’ Federation (ITF), which visited South Korea early this month.
OECD-TUAC General Secretary John Evans said: “We are strongly opposed to criminal punishment of workers and trade unions for what are deemed unlawful strikes. Otherwise the pressure for a new OECD Special Monitoring Process will increase”. (Source: The Hankyoreh)
Disabled workers fight Abbott Govt
Legal firm Maurice Blackburn will file a Federal Court action in a bid to stop 10,000 intellectually disabled employees at sheltered workshops signing away their legal rights to sue the government for back pay. Some of the employees involved in the case are paid less than $1 an hour.
The Abbott Government last week announced it would make a one-off payment in July to the underpaid employees. The amount was not specified, but those who agreed to the payment would waive rights to sue for potentially larger amounts.
The payment proposal followed a court decision in 2012 that found workers at sheltered workshops had been underpaid for several years, in breach of the Disability Discrimination Act.
Social Services Assistant Minister Mitch Fifield said that the one-off payment to sheltered workshop staff would “deliver certainty’’ for them and their families and carers, with minimal disruption. But Maurice Blackburn industrial relations head Josh Bornstein condemned the Government’s plan as immoral. (Source: The Age)
Eight for us and one for you
In the UK the University and College Union (UCU) has called a series of weekly two-hour strikes in an escalation of their action over pay in higher education.
General Secretary Sally Hunt has told members: “Your employers have decided to dig themselves in and refuse to move at all from the 1% pay offer they have now imposed on most staff in the sector. This is in spite of the fact we know they can afford to pay more than this.
“In a recent survey we showed the university sector is in good financial shape and is projecting growth in surpluses and reserves over the net few years. This has been achieved by holding down your pay and making sure you and your families take the consequences.
“Of course it’s one rule for us and quite another for those at the top, with the latest survey of vice chancellors’ and principals’ pay showing average increases of 8% while you are offered just 1%.
“We’ve chosen two-hour stoppages because whatever action we take at this point must be targeted, it must be effective and above all, it must be sustainable.” (Source: Union-News.co.uk)
The month in labour history
11-01-1831 Dozens of workers are convicted of machine breaking during the agricultural workers’ rebellion commonly known as the Swing Riots (UK)
31-01-1912 A general strike begins in Brisbane in support of thousands of tram workers sacked for wearing union badges. (AUS)
17-01-1915 The song ‘Solidarity Forever’ by Ralph Chaplin is first sung, on a hunger march through Chicago organised by Lucy Parsons. (USA)
15-01-1929 Birth of civil rights activist and labor movement supporter Martin Luther King, Jr (USA)
1-01-1966 The Canada Pension Plan, long fought-for by unions, comes into effect. (CAN)