Heroes or villains? Inside the CFMEU

In the first of a two-part series, Working Life goes beyond the tabloid headlines to find out what makes the CFMEU tick.

The ugly truth about the FIFO way of life

GRANTED, it’s not common these days to look back at the Bjelke-Petersen era with nostalgia.

But Joh had the right idea on one thing. When granting mining licenses in his state, he made it conditional on mining companies building…

Textile workers left high and dry again

HISTORY is repeating itself with the owner of a northern Victorian fabric mill that has left 60 workers high and dry also involved in the infamous collapse of National Textiles more than a decade ago.

Maintain the rage, says Little Pattie

Patricia Amphlett remembers the towering legacy of the late…

Royal Commission’s rhetoric is hard to swallow

TONY Abbott’s Royal Commission into unions opened last week with the Commissioner, Dyson Heydon, anxious to assure unions that they would be treated fairly. But if that turns out to be the case it would be a marked change from the approach of the…

When ‘cool’ workplaces are very, very uncool

WE all want similar things from our workplace no matter what industry we’re in. We want decent pay, a fair boss and good people around us. If we’re lucky, we’d all love a few extras like flexible working hours or perhaps a gym on site.

This kind of lockout madness has to stop

ARE we seeing a new wave of lock out first, talk later aggression from employers?

Two lockouts in western Sydney in recent weeks have sparked concerns among unions of the emergence of a new brand of employer militancy, emboldened by…

‘Fictional’ history opens new front in war on workers

AT the Prime Minister’s Literary Awards on Monday night, the joint winner of the Australian History Award was Hal G. P. Colebatch for his book Australia’s Secret War: How Unionists Sabotaged our Troops in World War II.