Need some Industrial Relations changes information!

[foreigncorrespondent]

I need to know what right someone has for an unfair dismissal claim. This person has NOT signed an AWA, and where she works is a non union place.

Basically it is my mum. She has bee working for this rather small beach side suburb company for three years now. My mum and the only other woman on the floor are the best workers this company have. However the company owner is beginning to show signs that he might be trying to find a way to give my mum and this other woman the sack. If this was to happen it would be an unfair dismissal, simply because unless the company goes belly up they have absolutely no reason whatsoever to let either of the two go. So with all the IR changes neither of us know exactly what rights anyone has anymore, could someone give me the actual low down.

Where I am working I am actually better off in a lot of ways simply because I had no choice and have to sign a bloody AWA, but at least I know my rights, and know the company cannot just sack me without just cause.

Thanks in advance.

[PinkUnicorn]

1. Try AIRC or WageLine

As a first step I would try the Australian Industrial Relations comission - Termination of Employment and the FAQ form here.

You also have WageLine - a phone service for general phone inquiries

[foreigncorrespondent]

2. Thanks, so much!!!

I will look at AIRC tonight whe I get home from work, and if need call WageLIne when I have my next weekday off.

[Matilda]

3. Talking of I.R. laws ...

The bloodless Nick Minchin wants to introduce more "reforms" into I.R. law, even though he
acknowledges that most Australians are against those already pushed through.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/200603/s1586313.htm

Just wondering what else they can do?

Ban meal breaks?
Abolish paid annual leave?
Rotate workers on a 24-hour schedule?
Bring back child labour?

The heartlessness of these people is breathtaking.

I wish your mum the best of luck, and hope she's wrong in her suspicions.

[PinkUnicorn]

4. Say hello

Say hello to the Nicholls Society, formed in 86 with this pack of Toorak Tractor coyboys.

Peter Costello: Co-founder of the Society and drafted its constitution

John Stone: Stock broker and former Treasury secretary.

Hugh Morgan: Mining millionaire and future head of the Business Council of Australia (BCA). Morgan came to the Society as a fundamentalist Christian who had written a quasi-theological paper that contended the "divine right" of miners trumped any claims of Aboriginal spirituality.

Ray Evans: Western Mining executive and fanatic. He still claims that unions, strikes and the industrial relations "edifice" stem from Marxist theory that "legitimises trade union violence", the fact that unions and strikes were around before Karl Marx was even born.

Charles Copeman: Peko-Wallsend CEO who cut his business teeth with Rio Tinto in London. Railed against the willingness of Australian companies to "go along with unions" and served three years as president of the Australian Mines and Metals Association. Copeman orchestrated the Robe River dispute.

David Trebeck: A "consultant" to multi-national ACIL and lobbyist for the National Farmers Federation (NFF). Trebeck would play a lead role in the 1998 plot to sack Australian wharfies.

Geoff Carmody: A "senior consultant" to ACIL, Carmody had been a bureaucrat with Treasury, and the International Monetary Fund.
Sir John Kerr: Former IR lawyer, judge, governor general.

Wayne Gilbert: Master-minded Joe Bjelke-Petersen's victory over the ETU in a vicious dispute that led to the mass sacking of unionised workers and the privatisation of electricity in southern Queensland.

Ian MacLachlan: NFF president, and boss of his family's pastoral empire who moonlighted as a director of several public companies, including Elders IXL.

Dr Gerard Henderson: Henderson runs the Sydney Institute and his contributions to various newspapers have earned him a reputation as one of Australia's most boring columnists.

John Hyde: Director of the Australian Institute of Public Policy.

[Matilda]

5. THAT Peter Costello?

I didn't know he was a founder of the H.R. Nicholls Society. You learn something new every day.

[gemini_liberal]

6. Mr. "It won't be so bad when he takes over."

Shows how far to the right the Libs are going when he is seen as a moderate...

Sure he may be better than Howard, but Satan himself would probably be able to achieve that too

[PinkUnicorn]

7. Yep

The four founders were...

John Stone - former secretary of the Treasury
Peter Costello - still a melbourne barrister at that point
Barrie Purvis - director of the Australian Wool Selling Brokers' Employers' Federation
Ray Evans - XO of Western Mining, now president

What is slightly more interesting is that the more recent 'Lavoisier Group' (anti-global warming, Anti Kyoto, let-industry-strip-and-burn-nut-group) shares the same address as the Nicholls Society and quite a few of the prominent memebers (Evans is Secretary for example).

[Matilda]

8. You've got your finger on the pulse!

I don't know the Lavoisier Group - do you have links to info?

[PinkUnicorn]

9. No prob

Lavoisier Group official site Here

An age article from 2004 about them here

Sourcewatch extract here

Summary by Professor John Quiggin of the Australian Research Council, here

[Matilda]

10. Thanks for those!

Didn't check the threads yesterday, but I'll do some reading later today.

[Matilda]

11. Meanwhile, back in the real world,

global warming is racing ahead.

From another DU thread:

http://news.independent.co.uk/environment/article351135.ece

Global warming worries me much more than terrorism. If there is a terror attack, we all individually
have an even chance of not being hit, but nobody's going to escape the effects of a warmer planet.
Not even Peter Costello.