Greg Barns has chosen to highlight Unions Tasmania chief Lyn Fitzgerald's defence of the Butler payout in today's Mercury (16/8).(no link posted)
Unfortunately, Barns chooses to praise rather than berate Ms Fitzgerald for asserting that the $650,000 payout was reasonable given the circumstances. I say unfortunately because Ms Fitzgerald has defended the payout on the basisthat it was for termination, a defence which ignores the inconvenient fact that Butler actually resigned.
This is not the first time that Ms Fitzgerald has used her position as Tasmania's number one workers' advocate to defend the political interests of the ALP, often at the expense of the very workers she represents. Her public defence of a payout for resignation that's worth 20 years' salary to the average Unions Tasmania member is a case in point.
There is nothing to be gained for workers from her defence, but jeez the ALP must have been pleased to hear the workers' rep supporting their position amidst an almost universal barrage of criticism.
Ms Fitzgerald's prioritisation of the ALP over and above the best interests of her members was also evident in the eulogy frenzy that followed Jim Bacon's death, during which she praised the late premier as "an advocate for workers' compensation".
But history indicates that Jim Bacon's government implemented the current workers' compensation system, a system widely criticised as being grossly unfair to workers and one that protects negligent employers from being sued by injured workers.
Ms Fitzgerald herself has previously criticised this system for penalising injured workers, but apparently the system's champion is an "advocate for worker's compensation".
When oh when will those in the ALP separate their representative responsibilities from the fate of their personal political parties?
I know it can't be easy, but when public support for the ALP from a representative organisation goes directly against the interests of that organisation's members, its time to start querying just who is receiving representation...
Members ... or the Tasmanian ALP?
No wonder union membership is declining.
The writer known as Jason Lovell is a former student of Herr, Kirkpatrick and Felmingham. He now works as a contractor to the Tasmanian Government and several Government Business Enterprises and lives on 20 acres in the Derwent Valley.
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Thursday, August 19, 2004