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17 January, 2001The highly unpopular Australian minister for workplace relations has been relieved of his portfolio, and working people are relieved too.
AUSTRALIA: It is hugely welcome news that Peter Reith is no longer workplace relations minister in the Australian government. In this election year, the conservative prime minister, John Howard, has finally realised perhaps what a liability Reith would be, considering his highly unpopular workplace policies.
Commenting on Reith's departure, the Australian Council of Trade Unions' president, Sharan Burrow, warned that working Australians would be looking for "more than a change of faces before they believe this government is capable of playing a balanced and constructive hand on workplace issues."
Among memories from the Reith tenure, and the undermining of his credentials, Australian workers and citizens as well as the entire international community will long remember the hired mercenaries with their balaclavas and attack dogs going after the MUA striking (and ultimately victorious) dock workers, or the dispute at Joy Manufacturing where the employer used every anti-union device of Reith's infamous Workplace Relations Act to (unsuccessfully) try to destroy the unions at the work site.
The unions are hoping the new holder of the workplace relations portfolio, Tony Abbott, will take a more even-handed approach towards workplace issues.
Commenting on Reith's departure, the Australian Council of Trade Unions' president, Sharan Burrow, warned that working Australians would be looking for "more than a change of faces before they believe this government is capable of playing a balanced and constructive hand on workplace issues."
Among memories from the Reith tenure, and the undermining of his credentials, Australian workers and citizens as well as the entire international community will long remember the hired mercenaries with their balaclavas and attack dogs going after the MUA striking (and ultimately victorious) dock workers, or the dispute at Joy Manufacturing where the employer used every anti-union device of Reith's infamous Workplace Relations Act to (unsuccessfully) try to destroy the unions at the work site.
The unions are hoping the new holder of the workplace relations portfolio, Tony Abbott, will take a more even-handed approach towards workplace issues.