shoni

Blog sites, news sites, opinion pages of newspapers, talk back radio and polls highlight the overwhelming public opposition to Howard’s Industrial Relations Laws. His ‘work choices’ advertising campaign has been vehemently criticised for using millions of dollars of tax payers money for propaganda. What’s more, the producers of the advertising campaign have been accused of misleading the people who appeared in the advertisements. The Age article ‘Hairdresser was misled on IR advert’ is the story of one young woman who appeared in the advertisements without realising they were to promote Howard’s new changes.

Another Age article, ‘IR changes are despicable attack’, reports that Bob Hawke has attacked the planned changes, describing them as wrong, unfair, un-Australian and immoral. The Australian Council of Trade Unions (ACTU) have organised a counter campaign ‘your rights at work’ and as part of this. We’ll be filming the national day of action (November 15, 2005), in Melbourne for a documentary I’m producing about the current Industrial Relations climate.

Not only do the proposed changes threaten the working conditions of employees but the very foundation of unions. Political, cultural and global shifts are changing the nature of work. Occurring simultaneously, is a trend of decreasing membership and participation in unions, particularly amongst young people. Most of my Australian friends who are young, educated, upwardly mobile are not engaged with the debate or members of unions. Perhaps this is because the issues are, to a large extent, outside our realm of experience. We haven’t had the fight that previous generations have had for fair working conditions. Consequently, some young people don’t know what a union is and others simply don’t care.

There has also been a significant shift from community to individual values and a culture where individual wealth and interest has become more important than that of the community. This has been reflected in government policy of privatising essential services such as health, education and telecommunications.

Given the current climate I believe that the survival of unions hinges on their ability to adapt to a work culture that is complex and global. This is critical if they are to become relevant to young Australians. Even the name ‘trade union’ no longer has relevance. Trade unions represent a diverse workforce. We no longer live in a culture where people are either blue collar or white collar and we haven’t for a long time. The days of militant trade unions are long gone.

MeetMarket 2006 is an AIDC and AFC initiative that provides an opportunity for selected teams to meet with international buyers. To enter an idea you need to complete an application form, a synopsis and log line and a one-minute pitch teaser. I’ve decided not to submit an application to Meetmarket, but I’m keen to prepare a one-minute pitch teaser for the documentary I’m producing, as well as my short film. I think that a teaser is a valuable pitching tool when approaching potential funding bodies. I think it’s also a good creative exercise to go through because it’s like a visual synopsis. It requires paring back your vision so that you can effectively capture the essence of the film in one minute or less. It would be particularly useful for my short film concept because visually I can show what has proved to be lengthy and complex to explain in just words.

Recently I went to hear Fiona O’Connel (Vision diVision Productions) speak about the process she went through to secure funding from the AFC for her short film The Road Ahead. When she was invited to attend an interview she took a DVD of visual and audio references that highlighted her vision for the film. Although the material was collated from films and music other than her own and that she didn’t have copyright clearances for, the DVD provided solid examples of how she would achieve the vision for her story.

I recently deliberated over whether to change my blogsite. I had been thinking about setting up a new blog because the quicktag tool bar was unreliable in the Safari browser. I use Safari because of its highly sophisticated RSS notification. Unfortunately Blogsome doesn’t support Safari and the quicktag tool bar for writing entries would often disappear and I would have to hand code formatting and links. The straw that broke the camel’s back was when my Blogsome blog was infiltrated with spambots. It was then I decided to jump boat and set up a blog with Blogspot (Blogger).

No sooner had I registered my new site with Blogspot I realised that it didn’t support trackback only backlink. Backlink only allows you to keep track of who’s been commenting on your site but doesn’t use pingback to inform others that you’re commenting on their blog. However, trackback can be a tool for spamming, which my Blogsome blog had also been affected by. Blogspot was attractive because it was easy to use, supported Safari, had inbuilt mechanisms for combating spam amongst other inbuilt features that were easy to use. So I debated whether to continue with Blogsome or Blogspot.

My blog was developed for my Masters of Media Production at RMIT University and it’s assessed on evidence of networked communication through trackbacks and weblinks. For this reason, I decided to persevere with Blogsome for the sake of trackback and somewhat reluctantly settled for Mozilla Firefox as my browser. I may re-visit this decision in the future depending on whether Firefox updates its RSS capacity and whether or not I continue to get spam through trackback.

One of the blog sites I looked at ‘Miles to go…’, outlined other advantages and disadvantages, with many comments.

I’m producing a documentary that highlights key events in Australia’s union movement that have impacted on women and how they participate in work. It culminates to question the future of the union movement in the context of global trends and the proposed local Industrial Relations changes. It aims to stimulate debate about how unions can maintain their relevance in a work culture that is rapidly evolving and increasingly fragmented.

The documentary will identify key turning points in Australia’s labour movement that have impacted on women and how they participate in work. For example women’s suffrage, WWII, eight hour day, and Equal Work for Equal Pay and the rise of and subsequent backlashes against feminism. The Australian Trade Union Archives is a good tool for researching labour history and many of the records are maintained at The University of Melbourne library.

The labour movement both locally and internationally face many similar challenges. The documentary will explore international parallels, comparing the changes the Howard government is making to other countries and highlighting challenges of a globalised economy.

The Take (directed by Avi Lewis) is a film that resonates with similar themes to my own. The documentary follows the organised labour movement of workers reclaiming their factories that were abandoned by their companies during Argentina’s economic collapse. It’s a heartening example how people when united, can overcome the consequences of corporate driven globalisation.

Another interesting film that has been a useful reference is The Life and Times of Rosie the Riveter (directed by Connie Fields), which tells the story of women workers in the US during WWII. ‘Thanks girls and goodbye’ (directed Margaret Roberts) is a documentary with a similar thread but is about Australian women.

I plan to interview five women, who work in different industries, and who are from different socio-economic and cultural backgrounds. I’m interested in featuring women from the manufacturing, healthcare, education, construction and service industries. I want to avoid stereotyping people who work in particular industries and will consciously look for women who can share their individual qualities, which distinguish them from people’s pre-conceived impressions. I’m looking to select women who can share experiences from working in industry as well as reflect on the broader culture of work including the future direction of the union movement.

Where possible the women will be filmed in their work setting. Material that is visually and aurally interesting will be used to highlight the industry in which the women work. The story arc will stem from the women’s stories as well as historical references and the current Industrial Relations debate. Each industry that is profiled through the women’s stories will be accompanied by material that places it the broader cultural framework. For example, a woman working in a textile-manufacturing factory may be contrasted with a busy shopping centre where people are purchasing the latest fashions.

The women’s stories will be supported and contrasted by the points of view of key public figures representing governments or unions. Current and archival footage of interviews, public speeches, televised campaigns, photographs, newspaper headlines and radio records will help construct the debate and provide the context for the women’s stories. The aim of the documentary is to be an education tool that stimulates debate and active engagement with the key issues as opposed to presenting conclusive opinions.

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