Editorial
The Cowra Clause
The plight of the Cowra meatworkers is a fitting illustration of the way the new industrial laws will fundamentally shift the balance of relations in the Australian workplace.

Behind the sackings, spin and hand-wringing from the federal government was WorkChoices in all its naked glory - embodied in the treatment of the abattoir workers.

Think about it, workers sacked so they could be rehired on lower rates of pay, losing their rights to challenge the fairness of the dismissalon the grounds that the sackings were for 'operational reasons'.

While the combined pressure of unions, media and a very twitchy government convinced the company to back down, the weight of legal opinion is that the sackings would have held up in court; that the onlything the employer did wrong was to pull the trigger too quickly.

more: http://workers.labor.net.au/302/editorial_editorial.html