'Standing up and breaking laws'

MELBOURNE — On September 6, 50 people gathered at the Collingwood Town Hall to discuss the federal government's planned new workplace laws. Zana Bytheway, the director of Jobwatch; Michele O'Neil, the Victorian secretary of the Textile, Clothing and Footwear Union; and activist lawyer Marcus Clayton addressed the meeting.

Bytheway said that at least one-third of the phone calls received by Jobwatch relate to unfair dismissal claims and that a majority of Jobwatch's clients worked for businesses that employed less then 100 people. These workers, many of them from non-English speaking backgrounds, are already feeling the full brunt of the proposed scrapping of the unfair dismissal laws.

O'Neil said that it was necessary to turn the campaign against the new laws into "something real", and that an industrial campaign, alongside the community rallies, was essential. Such a campaign would involve "standing up and breaking laws", she said.

Kim Bullimore

From Green Left Weekly, September 14, 2005.

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From GLW issue 642