Category Archives: Unions

Ugly greed at Exxon Mobil and Esso

 By Ugly

Esso’s parent, The American Exxon Mobil, happens to be the sixth largest company in the world. It chooses to use its subsidiary in Australia for both a tax dodging and screwing workers, even though it has in its hands unimaginable wealth and is experiencing soaring profits, $7 billion for the last year.

Like many of its cohorts, the company uses the generous loopholes provided by the Australian government, to launder money and get away from paying its contribution into Australia’s taxation system.

For instance, loopholes allow the writing off interest borrowed from offshore subsidiaries, and Exxon Mobil has benefited by millions of dollars in this way, according to research by the University of Technology School of Accounting and campaign group GetUp.

The Federal Court recently ruled that the company had not paid $340 million in taxes during 2004 and 2008.

Tax avoidance is an important matter in this own right. It is also important, because it betrays the desire at the very top, to squeeze out the last drop, no matter what it cost others.

This is what lies behind efforts to drive down the wages and conditions of maintenance workers at the onshore at Longford plant and offshore facilities in Bass Strait. Using a contractor, wages have been cut by up to 30 percent and new family unfriendly rosters put in place.

A significant part of the wage cuts, comes through a reduction on loadings and the allowance paid to those who work offshore. Annual leave has been reduced as well.

The new roster turns away from the one week on, one week off system and is replaced with five weeks on and one week off.

Instead of lying down, the workers have refused to accept the changes and have been sacked for doing so.  Rather than give in, they have been waging ongoing  action and maintaining a picket on the Longford site.

Scabby, the mascot from the CUB was there. The connection? Here too management tried to use the same method to the same end.

CUB came unstuck and had to pull back and it is hoped that the same will happen here.

Esso took the matter to the court and Scabby was ordered off. Greedy the Fat Cat is now on the scene.

The battle continues unabated and the Esso workers are being recognised and winning increasing support around the country and they are being supported by their unions, the Australian Manufacturing Union, the Electrical Trades Union and the Australian Workers Union.

This is an important battle, because it is another test case that will have repercussions on the wages and conditions of the whole Australian workforce, by setting a precedent that allows conditions that have been hard fought for over the years to be torn up. The question is, can we afford for this to happen?

 

Scabby at Longford

Unions brought out Greedy the Fat Cat at a picket at Esso's Longford gas plant to mark its first Australian appearance.

Greedy the Fat cat

Howards foray into union rally was no accident

By Joe Montero

Former Prime Minister John Howard’s walks into a Sydney rally of union members and it’s an accident. Hardly. He is far to astute to do such a thing. In any case, it would be hard with a full security detail on tow.

This was a deliberate act, designed to achieve ends. It is not hard to speculate on Just what they might be.

John Howard was the man behind WorkChoices a few years ago. The scheme he presided over, to effectively marginalise unions and strip down rights in the workplace. WorkChoices is now being revisited by Turnbull and company. Howard has a personal stake in this. As it stands, he goes down in history as the man who was humiliated. Not only was WorkChoices defeated by the millions of Australians. He became one of only two prime ministers who lost his seat. This is a tremendous slap down, for someone who made no secret of wanting to be remembered as a great statesman. The resurrection of WorkChoices would, in a manner of speaking, also mean his resurrection.

There is also much more to it. John Howard has never been shy to interfere in the Turnbull government. He has done so more than once and is a backer of rival Tony Abbott. He has consistently criticised Turnbull’s for not moving far and fast enough, on industrial relations and other issues. He may well have sought to provoke an incident that could be used as a vehicle for upping the ante. Imagine the coverage, if he had been physically attacked.

And this leads us to the main outcome of Howard’s little stroll into the enemy camp. He has become the story. The reason why, tens of thousands of angry workers were in the streets, is no longer the news. Forgotten is the existence of laws and an apparatus to treat a group of Australians as third class citizens, the attack on hard won penalty rates and the overall war on workers that has been launched.

It shows that much of the big media is biased, undemocratic to its core and a conscious participant in this war against workers.  What tens of thousands of Australians had to say is far less important than what a former prime minister pulling a stunt. This says it all. Media impartiality and objectivity is a myth.

The good part is that the lot of them did not learn the lesson from the last time around. You start to hurt people too hard, you can’t stop them noticing. The truth seeps through. People react accordingly.

By openly siding with the most ruthless employers, Howard, Turnbull and the rest, have provided the union movement with the best opportunity to recover and build its influence. Our anti-worker heroes,  may even go so far as to light the match, on a new era of militancy across Australian society. As a bonus, the drop in the numbers accessing the tabloid media may take an even steeper downward dive.

 

Video from 7 News

1 Comment on “Howards foray into union rally was no accident”

  1. One of the biggest Maggots out there.

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