Workers Online remembers those we have lost, and looks to a better future.

Editorial
Canaries in the Coalmine
It was one of the defining symbols of the industrial era and the tenuous nature of working life the bird in the cage whose expiration was a miner's early warning that things were not OK.

One hundred and fifty years later miners are still dying - an industry worth billions each year still failing to secure safe methods of extracting coal.

But beyond the Beaconsfield tragedy, morbidly coinciding with the international day of remembrance for workplace dead, is a growing pushby the business lobby to wind back safety laws.

more: http://workers.labor.net.au/304/editorial_editorial.html

The eight hour day turns 150 as WorkChoices turns Libs against Howard.

Editorial
Brand Spanking
It took the Easter Bunny, a couple of diplomatic crises and a bit of classic Howard wedge politics to shift industrial relations off the front pages, but if you think the story is over, forget it.

Yes, the more trigger-happy employers and their legal advisers appear to have been scared off for now, but the law is the law and employershave a history of exercising their rights. Just give them time.

There are a number of factors running in the union movement's favour as they begin the 18-month project to hold the Howard Government to account.

more: http://workers.labor.net.au/303/editorial_editorial.html

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