An 80th Anniversary Message from Campbell Newman – Welcome to Germany 1933

Posted on November 30, 2013 by CanucksBanter

November 16, 2013 http://archiebutterfly.wordpress.com

NOTE: Campbell Kevin Thomas Newman is an Australian politician and the 38th and current Premier of Queensland since 26 March 2012. His government in Queensland’s parliament passed a contentious industrial relation law on November 27, 2913 “but Queensland Council of Unions (QCU) president John Battams says the government’s urgency and lack of consultation has been breathtaking” and “the legislation is designed to instil fear in public servants and strip them of their workplace rights.”, according to ninemsn.

“They will have no rights whatsoever, the government will have total control over them,” he told AAP.

The following is a satirical comment on the passing of the contentious legislation, that the author believes bears a striking resemblance to Nazi Germany 1933.

With the Harper government and provincial governments in Canada declaring war on unions, the comment is thought provoking and sobering. Cheers.

When the great man Hitler came to power in Germany in 1933 one of the first things on his agenda was taking out the pinko commies and destroying the unions. He figured it would shut up any dissent and please his rich donors, and he was right. 80 years ago he gave the nod to the boys in black and brown and in shades of our boys in Mappoon they went in and smashed up all the trade union offices in the country, arrested all the union officials and made quite a few of them disappear if you know what I mean. And good riddance to them too. If only we had the same luxury we would fix this joint in a blink.

After they’d sorted the union bosses the Nazi state took over the role of looking after the interests of the working class, and a bloody good job they did too. They sorted out the gays and the gypsies and the Jehovah’s Witnesses (shut up JP) and the Jews and everyone else they didn’t like or who didn’t vote for them. And it worked – the economy was booming, business was making money, confidence was high. And then those bloody lefties Churchill and Roosevelt got involved and stuffed the whole thing up. Idiots.

But don’t you worry about that because Hitler knew what the go was and so does Can Do Campbell Newman, and we’ve decided to mark the 80th anniversary of the attack on unions by launching our very own barrage on the unions here in Nazi Queensland. Yes my loyal subjects, we’ve just introduced a bill into State Parliament that crushes the unions with the stroke of a pen. We’ve seen off the bikies and now wer’re going to see of those Labor loving fat cat bastards (What’s that? I earn 5 times as much as a union boss? Manassa Mauler – grab that man, throw a leather jacket on him and send him to the star chamber).

Yes Queensland rejoice, because no budding Labor hack union official or fat cat boss will ever again set foot in your workplace to bother you with nonsense about fair wages and conditions, or collective agreements, or strike action ever again because just like Uncle Adolf we’ve taken over the role of looking after the working class, and have we got some good news for you.

First off, you don’t have to worry about whether you’re going to Straddy at Xmas this year or saving your holidays to visit mum in Thargomindah in July, because your employer’s going to decide for you when you take your leave. Yep, you just sit back and concentrate on the job at hand and your boss will give you a fortnight’s notice and off on holidays you’ll go. It’ll take all the worry out of your hands and I bet that’s a bloody relief. And if it’s not, well I am sure you all appreciate that the boss pays the wages so unless you want us to stamp a Mongol tattoo on your forehead I’m sure you’ll simply do as you are told.

We’ve cut the red-tape around redundancy payments and made them easier for you to understand by simply trimming away the fat. Now you’ll have less money to count when we ask you to pursue a different career path, and because you’re getting paid less you’ll pay less tax, and no-one likes to pay tax. And if anyone tries to tell you your redundancy pay is less than the Fair Work Act minimum standard, well you just tell them that we do things differently up here and ask them if they are bloody two-headed Tasmanian or something.

You see up here we’re smarter than the average wombat, and Queenslanders know that if you’ve been bludging on the public purse for 9 years in the Department of Transport then you deserve to get 3 weeks less pay than you used to, and this productivity improvement will mean that instead of sitting around watching daytime TV for three months youll get off your ass and find another job. And that’s what public service redundancies are about – jobs, jobs, jobs.

And speaking of jobs, we hear that they’re looking for cleaners at the airport so take the tip and join the job queue outside Qantas at 4 o’clock tomorrow morning. They’re running 3 month unpaid job trials to assess your suitability so bring a mop and your own cleaning products.

And in the future don’t bother to go looking for help from those slugs who bludge off your union fees, because we’ve made it illegal for your boss to consult with Vicious Lawless Associations about workplace changes or involve them in any way in the decision-making process. Shoot, we’ve made it illegal for your boss to even tell the unionbastards that they are going to make any changes, and the whippersnapper will have your employer up against the wall if the jelly-legged cowards even try to slip the union any documents or information about the jobs they plan to cut.

Employment security’s also out the window. We can’t run this state properly if people aren’t running around in fear so it’s now illegal to mention job security in awards, contracts or agreements. It’s also illegal to talk about contracting out your jobs or services – that’s the bosses prerogative and they can do whatever the hell they like, and if your job is outsourced to Sri Lanka well you should be happy that you’re contributing to the war on terror and the evil axis, because we have to give the soldiers something to do when the’re not raping the wives or killing the kids of suspected terrorists don’t we?

We were working on a plan to send the union bosses over to Columbo just so the troops can keep their hand in, but we’ve hit a snag because they keep banging on about turning our boats back, but I’ll talk to Scotty and I’m sure he’ll work something out. We’ll let you know at the weekly briefing if we feel like it, otherwise we’ll just let you know that for reasons of national security we can’t let you know and I’m sure you won’t mind because you’re sick of hearing about brown bastards in boats anyway.

We’ve also taken the red tape off restrictions to when you can and can’t work and because we know you’re keen to put in 24/7 rostering will now be your bosses sole decision, just like it should be, and if you can’t work Tuesday nights because you’re a single mum and you can’t get a babysitter then maybe you should have a good hard look at yourself in the mirror at Centrelink in Tweed Heads because there’s no jobs here in Queensland for the likes of you.

And we know you don’t like the red-tape wrapped around the award, minimum conditions and all that crap, so we’re changing them too, and we’ve set it up so that the people who run this bloody state – that’s Jarrod and I – can tell those imbecile industrial commissioners exactly what they can and can’t put in the awards. In fact we’re probably going to write the bloody awards for them, because those buggers are just like the judges and if it’s not written down then they can’t be trusted to interpret the law the way we mean it to be. These bastards get up my nose they just sit their in their ivory towers and nitpick over whether arguing over the meaning of words and suffering up our laws. What a bloody waste of time. is, was, is going to be – they’re bloody bikies so just lock them up you twits.

While we’re on the subject, I’m thinking about cutting the red-tape big-time and getting rid of the law books altogether. We’ll just put our legislation up on Wikipedia, and if any half smart cocaine-snorting bleeding heart lefty lawyer finds a loophole Jarrod can just do an edit on his smartphone and Bob’s your uncle, problem fixed. And if any of those whineing academic posers on the bench try to make you pay more tax by giving you a pay rise, and let me make it clear more pay for you bludgers is not part of our fiscal strategy, then we’ll edit that out too with one big DELETE because only we get more money, and I’m sure you agree we bloody deserve it for having to put up with you lot.

But I’m sure you’ll be pleased to know that we’ve sorted out the problem with the teenage thugs who are on the path to becoming bikies by taking away all their employment rights. If they want to play the selfie-taking, we’re only young once card then these school-based apprentices and trainees, who couldn’t get their noses out of their iphones long enough to understand their rights anyway, can go and kiss my ass and if they’ve got a problem at work well that’s there problem and if they want to get smart about it we’ve got boot camps ready and waiting to sort their punk attitudes out.

And there’s no discrimination anymore in this State unless you’re young, disabled or an apprentice. We’re going to pay that lot less so if you think about it you’re actually getting a relative pay increase without it costing us a cent. How good’s that hey? We tried to cut the pay of these gay-marriage seeking homos too but the problem is that since we took the scalpel to their equal rights laws they’ve been difficult to spot because they’ve taken off their pink jackets and covered up their rainbow tattoos and the limp wristed Leo’s are hiding among normal Queenslanders like Jarrod and Tim and me.

We’ll find them though because I’ve called up the Doctor, the Rabbi and the Right to Life GP to form an advisory panel to the government to sort it out. While they’re up here I’m going to get them to do a review of our funding of Family Planning clinics too because the bloody things cost a fortune and these bloody women just need to keep their legs together and we wouldn’t have a problem would we?

But I digress. Now if like most slack-ass employees your collective agreement includes a whole lot of company policies then we’ve cut the red-tape and made things easier for you to understand by stripping them all out. So now you can forget all that rubbish about your boss feeling you up in lunchroom or making you work 27 shifts in a row being against policy, because Queensland only has one policy these days and that is to screw you down as tight as we can so that we can give more money to business. It’s a good policy and it’s the Reich policy and I’m sure you will agree.

So folks, thanks for coming to listen in your 10 minutes lunch break – yes we did think about cutting lunch out all together to give you the privilege of increasing productivity but then you’d be going to the toilet on the bosses time and we’re not having any of that – now shoot off and shackle yourselves to your desks again because Jarrod and I have got a bunch of badass Bandido’s to worry about and we need to take off to lunch at the Pier to discuss it over a few crabs and coldies.

But just before we go I’d like to take the pleasure of announcing that to mark today’s 80th anniversary law changes we have adopted a new motto for Queensland, and it’s a ripper.

Work Will Set You Free.

And ain’t that the truth. Adolf would be proud of you all.

Now piss off and get back to work!

And don’t fall over the boxes in the doorway on your way out because accident pay’s for bludgers and we’ve made that illegal too.

Turning Back the Clock 50 Years: Bill C-4 and federal workers

Posted on November 23, 2013 by CanucksBanter

Larry Rousseau Regional Executive Vice President, Public Service Alliance of Canada

Posted: 11/23/2013 7:39 am http://www.huffingtonpost.ca

Stuffed into the 309-page Conservative budget implementation act, Bill C-4, that was tabled last month, are a slew of drastic changes to the federal labour relations system, which will affect the health and safety provisions, human rights protections, and collective bargaining rights of federal workers. As its number suggests, Bill C-4 is truly explosive.

On the health and safety front, the government is changing the Canada Labour Code to limit the rights of workers to refuse unsafe work, and also doing away with independent health and safety officers, relegating their responsibilities to political appointees of “the Minister.”

Meanwhile, another part of the bill will alter the Public Service Labour Relations Act (PSRLA) to prevent federal public service workers from accessing the Canadian Human Rights Commission and Tribunal over workplace discrimination complaints. Workers facing discrimination will instead have to file their complaint directly with their employer, which would have the power to promptly dismiss it for “being trivial, frivolous, vexatious or made in bad faith.”

Bill C-4 also guts public service collective bargaining by further modifying the PSLRA to allow the government to unilaterally determine which workers are essential and therefore forbidden from striking, without recourse to third party review. (At present, when the government and the union disagree on who is essential, either party can refer the matter to the Public Service Labour Relations Board, which ensures that neither side can exaggerate their assessment of who is essential or non-essential, a sensible system that has worked well over the years.)

Furthermore, Bill C-4 denies unions the right to refer a dispute to arbitration, unless more than 80% of workers are deemed essential. This means that the government would be able to declare 79% of workers in a bargaining group as essential, deny arbitration, and then force the remaining 21% minority to strike, in a classic attempt to divide and conquer workers in a given bargaining unit.
Arnold Heeney, the renowned Canadian diplomat and civil servant who led the Preparatory Committee on Collective Bargaining in the Public Service way back in 1963, noted in his memoirs that prior to free collective bargaining “there was great and growing dissatisfaction among government employees generally with the arbitrary and paternalistic system which continued to prevail…” As a consequence of this dissatisfaction and the stunning 1965 wildcat strike by postal workers, the government under Lester B. Pearson was forced to pass in 1967 the Public Service Staff Relations Act, which first codified the right to free collective bargaining as well as the right of public service unions to choose between strikes and third party arbitration to resolve disputes. And as Heeney further observed, though a number of politicians and labour leaders at the time predicted an explosion in the frequency of strikes, “the majority of civil servants chose the former route” of arbitration to resolve their disputes with government.

Indeed, the historical record has shown that major public service strikes have remained rather infrequent, but that the right of recourse to a strike has been critical to balancing the overwhelming power held by the government over public service workers. After all, the government not only has inherent power as the employer, it also has the power to set the rules of the game through legislation.

Yet today, we find ourselves with a government intent on turning back the clock almost 50 years by attempting to rig the labour relations playing field to the point where public service workers will be thrown back to that “arbitrary and paternalistic system” Heeney wrote about. And it would seem, of course, that the government couldn’t care less that the proposed changes to the PSLRA will effectively undermine the right to free collective bargaining under the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, which was affirmed by the Supreme Court in 2007.

Together, the dangerous, undemocratic and retrograde changes contained in Bill C-4 will directly impact some 800,000 Canadian workers subject to the Canada Labour Code in industries as diverse as rail, air, broadcasting, telecommunications and fisheries, in addition to well over 200,000 federal public service workers who fall under the PSLRA–approximately a million people in total.

Yet, the Conservatives have moved to limit debate in Parliament in an attempt to ram the bill through in the next couple of weeks. In fact, it has now emerged that labour changes in the bill were drafted secretly, without consulting law professors or labour-management experts (and certainly without consulting any of the unions representing federal workers).

It’s hard to imagine a reason for the callous health and safety changes, which needlessly endanger workers, but it’s clearly evident why the Conservatives are frustrating the collective bargaining process currently spelled out in the PSLRA.

Led by Treasury Board President Tony Clement, they have spent the last two years repeatedly attacking the pay and benefits of federal public service workers, claiming that these are out of line with the private sector. They say these workers, who deliver important quality public services like Old Age Security and food inspection to Canadians, are paid too much, but ignore that the Parliamentary Budget Officer recently reported that in the last decade–the latter part of which was shaped by the Conservative agenda–wages of federal workers have mostly just kept up with inflation. They also absurdly claim at every opportunity that federal public service workers take over 18 days of sick leave each year, again ignoring research from Statistics Canada demonstrating that this is simply not true.

The repetition of such claims–false as they are–serves the goal of creating a political atmosphere conducive to squeezing out from federal public service workers non-monetary benefits they negotiated over previous decades, often in lieu of their requests for raises that were said to be unaffordable, and therefore rejected, in the context of deficits during the Mulroney years, followed by pressures of debt repayment during the Chrétien years.

We’ve been down this road before. Just this past year, the government repeatedly overreached and tried to undermine free collective bargaining with public service workers only to be forced back to the table following action by unions. It did it with technical inspectors, whose many bargaining positions were later validated by a Public Interest Commission. It did it with foreign service officers, who then won a bad faith bargaining decision. And it did it with border services officers, who also won a court injunction against a forced vote. Bill C-4 undoubtedly presents an unprecedented assault on workers and the middle class, aimed at rewriting the very rules of the game. However, one at a time, the abusive sections of this law will be defeated.

Follow Larry Rousseau on Twitter: www.twitter.com/larryrousseau

Attack on workers buried in massive budget bill

Posted on November 22, 2013 by CanucksBanter

Nov 21, 2013 11:49 AM http://cupe.ca

CUPE is urging the federal government to have open and public debates on proposed changes to Canada’s labour laws instead of burying the policy changes in its latest omnibus budget bill.

Bill C-4 has been introduced by the Harper Conservatives as an implementation bill for the 2013/14 federal budget. Within the bill, there are dramatic changes to who can and who can’t go on strike in the federal public service. The bill also proposes changes to health and safety laws for federal workers, and workers in federally regulated sectors – such as telecommunications, air transportation, and workers on First Nation reserves.

In a letter to Prime Minister Stephen Harper, CUPE calls for the withdrawal of all changes that impact workers’ right to strike and changes that threaten the health and safety of workers and all Canadians.

Read CUPE’s letter to Prime Minister Stephen Harper

Health & Safety At Work Under Threat With Harper Government Bill C-4: The Budget Implementation Act

Posted on November 21, 2013 by CanucksBanter

The lives of almost one million Canadian workers will be placed in danger as a result of cynical amendments that the Conservative government is making to the Canada Labour Code. Buried deep in the government’s latest budget bill tabled on October 22 are amendments to the health and safety provisions of the Code that have nothing to do with balancing the budget, and everything to do with putting workers’ lives at risk. Watch this video to learn more on how you can help stop this.

Unions plan public fight over federal labour reforms

Posted on November 21, 2013 by CanucksBanter

Canadian Labour Congress says Ottawa ‘declared war’ by pushing changes without consultation

By Trinh Theresa Do, CBC News Posted: Nov 21, 2013 5:00 AM ET

Tony Clement says the labour reforms will "bring savings, streamline practices and bring them in line with other jurisdictions"

Tony Clement says the labour reforms will “bring savings, streamline practices and bring them in line with other jurisdictions”

Tony Clement on public service right to strike 9:51

‘Government had declared war on us’

Yussuff said this offensive strategy will become the “new normal” unless policy changes are reversed.

“I think the government had declared war on us,” he said. “We didn’t start any of these measures — the government itself has done so. I think it’s fair for us to respond to their actions.”

If passed, Bill C-4 would make sweeping changes to a number of labour laws, including the Canada Labour Code and Public Service Labour Relations Act.

Among other things, it would streamline collective bargaining by allowing the government to determine which services are essential and make it illegal for those workers to strike. In situations where 80 per cent or more of workers in a bargaining unit are designated essential, the only dispute resolution method is arbitration.

In a statement sent to CBC News, Treasury Board president Tony Clement said the Public Service Labour Relations Act is being amended to ensure that the public service is modern and affordable.

“The proposed amendments will bring savings, streamline practices and bring them in line with other jurisdictions. Our government will sit at a bargaining table on behalf of the taxpayer where the rules are fair and balanced.”

Unions were not consulted in the drafting of the reforms. Labour leaders have since tried to meet with Clement to present counter-proposals, with little success.

Robyn Benson of the Public Service Alliance of Canada recently had a meeting with Clement during which she proposed he withdraw changes from the budget bill to allow for more consultation.

She wrote on her blog afterwards, “He stated bluntly that he had no intention of consulting with us, and that he wanted all his changes in place for the next round of collective bargaining — in fact, by Christmas.”

In response, Clement tweeted, “That’s also the meeting where you claimed co-governance with Parliament. Takes ‘union boss’ to a whole new level.”

Andrew Phillip Chernoff

The Outer Limits To The Inner Depths

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