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Recently a body called the ‘Six hour Day & Labour Day Committee’ had an $85 a head dinner at NSW Parliament. These notables, under the stewardship of ALP patriarch ‘Johnno’ Johnson MLC reckon they’ve been meeting since 1855 to celebrate the increasingly historical progress their predecessors made on the matter of working hours. How’s the committee’s progress towards its longstanding goal? Is it still waiting for a government that can finally bring in a six hour day? Can’t it influence the Carr Labor Government? Can’t it kick off a NSW Trades Labour Council push to substantially and progressively reduce hours in a standard work week? Are these ALPers of no standing? We’ve had ALP governments at Federal & State levels for much of the time since we got a 38 hour week in 1981. We had an ACTU-Hawke/Keating government Accord for 13 years. Yet unemployment, underemploy-ment, over-work, casualisation & job insecurity blew out - right under the noses of these ALP ‘mates’ in govern-ment and in union, who claim to represent workers and were in a position to do something. France now has a 35 hour week & 5 weeks annual leave – as law from 1st January 2000! Norway’s unions won six weeks leave in May this year & Chinese workers an extra week’s holiday. Italy gets a 35 hour week and Taiwan a 42 hour week (from 48) on 1st January 2001. Mr Carr had a chance to build on this momentum while the world’s eyes were on Australia. He could have reaffirmed Labor’s commitment to working people. He could have declared an extra fortnight’s paid holiday for NSW workers to celebrate the Olympics and new millennium. Instead, many of us used part of our current 4 weeks leave to fit into Olympic needs. It is not too late for Mr Carr. He can still make 6 weeks annual paid leave the new century’s norm. He too, can make a 7 hour day law for NSW workers by 1st January 2001. He can commit to a 6 hour day by 2005. He can support a 25 hour week goal as a world standard by 2010. He can play a role in transforming the global economy so it’s based on justice & sustainability, rather than inequity & exploitation. The only pathway to sustainability is through labour’s emancipation; & at its core is the progressive reduction of work hours, to match and balance humanity’s continued enhancement of its productive, creative, transformative powers. It lets us share work & free time as equitably as possible, among an enlightened world labour force, in free association, in a just & sustainable, cooperative world economy; rather than feed a hierarchy of exploitation, waste, consumption and excess, including creation of pools or gulags of those excess to current economic needs, who are starved of work and resources. The world economy protects its ruling interests by maintaining global terror through a trillion dollar arms industry, with a strong, vicious trade in fuel, drugs & slaves & by destroying & degrading nature. It destroys the very ecosphere which humanity must share with all other life. Only the world’s workers, acting together can stop this! The ALP platform ‘allows’ shorter hours in an enterprise bargaining framework. But enterprise bargaining weakens those very workers who are unorganized, casualised or fear the threat of periods of unemployment – often the young and women. French unions - helped by the unemployed, the Greens & the Reds – got Jospin’s socialists to enact a 35 hour law. Why can’t the ACTU push the ALP to lower work hours? ALP holds office, & has industrial & legislative powers, right now in NSW, Victoria, Queensland and Tasmania. It hopes to gain more soon. Australian history shows it was the unions who pushed Labor governments to pass 44 & 40 hour weeks. Why not now? Not all the ALP union leaders can be tied to the prospect of a seat in parliament! The ACTU ‘supports’ unions getting ‘reasonable’ hours, or a 36 hour week in ‘appropriate’ industries if they can! It will ask unionists to ‘check’ the ‘three!? major parties’ economic policies before voting next election! At this rate – while the ALP in the unions fudges for the ALP in government - the ‘three’ major parties for workers will soon be red, green & progressive! The ALP is a party of no vision for labour! It is run by suits who believe what is good for business is good for the economy & pleasing business is what it’s all about. ALP is said now to get 4 times more electoral funding from corporations than unions! No wonder they only hope to manage while business rules!
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