The H.R. Nicholls Society
The H.R. Nicholls Society is an interesting research subject as the tentacles appear to never end. I?m reminded of a quote, "we may be paranoid, but are we paranoid enough". I cannot begin to encapsulate the scope of the Nicholls Society?s apparent influence. Described as "ultra right wing", "right wing union-busters", "the New Right?s think-tank", and even "as an ultra-right secret organisation with Masonic overtones?Its stated aim was to dismantle the Industrial Relations Arbitration system as a means of crushing union power".
http://www.abc.net.au/rn/talks/bbing...es/s255582.htm
Clearly, I had stumbled across a nest of vipers and my education was now in high gear. I recommend you take the time to follow the threads and read up on this organisation. The Society have just had their annual conference in Melbourne where they awarded former Industrial Relations Minister, Peter Reith, for his contribution to their mutual cause ? you will remember him from the Wharfie?s Dispute above. To suggest that these folks are seriously committed union-busters is an understatement ? they are zealots.
http://www.google.com/search?sourcei...cholls+society
During your reading you will happen across an article that is so relevant that I have included it in this post.
quote:THE IR AND LEGAL TEAM TO KILL THE UNION (Stephen Long, Australian Financial Review, 14th August 1998)
A young Melbourne lawyer dines out on the story of her tenure at the employment law practice of Freehill Hollingdale & Page. A senior partner quickly bailed up the new solicitor and asked, "Will you be attending tonight's meeting of the HR Nichols Society?"
"Erhum... no," the freshman replied, mumbling excuses but privately horrified at the thought of joining the right-wing anti-union lobby group against arbitration.
Few people were surprised to learn that Freehill Hollingdale & Page had devised Patrick Stevedores' strategy to bust the Maritime Union - although it shocked many, including Patrick's chairman, Mr Chris Corrigan, when the legal web unravelled so spectacularly in the courts.
Freehills is the big fish of Australia's employment law practices, dwarfing rivals with almost 60 lawyers and 14 partners nationwide. It boasts a client list that reads like a who's who of the nation's blue-chip companies - Telstra....
It is widely perceived as the HR Nichols Society of employment law firms, although that is a label its partners are at pains to deny.
"We aren't there to dictate ideology and approach" says the business manager of Freehills' national employee relations group, Mr Russell Allen.
Although its client base has a range of approaches to industrial relations, there are close synergies between Freehills and the tougher employers which have fought for managerial prerogative.
Freehills appears to be the firm of choice for employers which take a hard line. Telstra, for example, dumped Corrs Chambers Westgarth and hired Freehills when its present IR manager, Mr Rob Cartwright, took over and began pushing individual employment contracts and a tougher approach to unions.
Mr Tony Wood, a Freehills partner, is on full-time secondment to the telecommunications giant, replacing Corrs' partner and former Liberal IR minister Mr Ian Macphee.
Separate to this, a number of Freehills' alumni have become prominent in IR. The new head of the Australian Industrial Relations Commission, Mr Geoff Giudice [who was counsel for Telstra just prior to his appointment], is an ex-Freehills partner.
"Freehills are certainly the firm you go to when you don't want to compromise," says one Melbourne lawyer.
"Freehills don't mind being known as the headkickers, the lawyers who deliver for the big end of town" says another ex-Freehills solicitor.
But that reputation took a dent during this year's docks dispute. When Patrick Stevedores dumped its unionised workforce just before midnight on April 7 by terminating contracts with subsidiary companies employing the workers, its management appeared supremely confident that the strategy would survive any legal challenge.... Freehills was named a real loser in newspaper headlines, and suffered the ignominy of having Mr Corrigan question on national television the legal advice his company had received.
Freehills
Now I?m getting really interested! Who the hell are Freehills and why do keep bumping into them? HR Nicholls Society and Freehills ? apparently fitting like the proverbial iron hand in velvet glove. It seems that almost every big ?union-bust? I read about has Freehills mixed up in it. The Waterfront dispute, Telstra, Rio Tinto mining, Coca-Cola?hang on.
So I check out their website and it turns out they are just the sort of Legal Firm that Marty was talking about. Big write-up on their IR capability, all over Australia and Asia, "strategic planning in workplace reform" and "dispute management", lots of experience and a few ex-union officers ? just like Marty said.
http://www.freehills.com.au
From the overhead menu I select ?Expertise?, then ?Employee Relations?, then ?Industrial Relations?, to find myself able to go over to the right hand side menu and select ?Brochure Download?. I also download "Overview", "Credentials", and "Partner Profiles". I print it all out and now I?m reading about some of these guys bragging about the Pilots Dispute in ?89 ? they were on the side of the bad guys. Particularly some guy called ?John Cooper? (?Partner Profiles? then ?John Cooper?) who appears to have been a significant player against the pilots in ?89.
So now I have found the Law Firm that helped plan and execute the bust of the Australian Federation of Airline Pilots ? many of whom have since joined us in our unhappy Airline.
http://www.freehills.com.au/CA256AD9...REFUNID=~&mb=~
I have to admit that I was starting to question the coincidence when I went back up to the top right and clicked on ?Credentials?. Under the heading "Workplace Reform and strategic employee relations advice" I read through the list of boasted clients. From the list I recognised some really big union-bust attempts. Rio Tinto and Alcoa mining I remember were very nasty. Patricks Stevedores we have already looked at. I had heard Coca-Cola is renowned for dismal industrial relations ? aren?t our Company owners are mixed up with them? Oh, Pacific Century Cyberworks, that?s PCCW isn?t it, the phone people from Hong Kong ? does that mean that Freehills do busts in Hong Kong as well? Didn?t PCCW just chuck over 800 people out on the street? Isn?t that a former Swire Prince running that show - getting too close for comfort now?
And then I saw it, in that dreadful list was Cathay Pacific! I almost can?t believe it, but then I realise deep down I knew it all along ? I just didn?t want to face it.
http://www.freehills.com.au/CA256AD9...REFUNID=~&mb=~
Also in the "aviation players" category is Qantas. I remember that the ?kytherian? (Kythera is the ancient part of Cyprus peopled by Greece) came to us from Qantas where he was the Industrial Relations Manager. Eddington, Turnbull and Edward Scott are either Australian or have served down there for many years ? where else would they go for a consultant with experience?
I can?t get out of my head a paragraph I read about rumours of an Australian union-buster in the DDFO?s latest letter ? partly the reason I was looking there. He said something about it being "pure propaganda" and then some throwaway line about some inconsequential meeting with "a Professor of Industrial Relations from a University IN Western Australia". This paragraph seemed out of place at first and far too forced off hand for me ? I smelt a rodent. I entered the ?red herring? into my search engine and off I went.
Turns out the head of the Freehills ?Industrial Relations? practice is based in Perth, Western Australia. By happy coincidence, the University OF Western Australia has a Law School award sponsored by Freehills. A book by Freehills is published by the UWA press. All very normal stuff and what you would expect from one of the largest law firms in Australia and a large city university. Indeed, many of Freehills lawyers are graduates of UWA and some of them currently lecture at UWA and are even Board Members there ? I?m sure it?s nothing more sinister than that.
(Actually didn?t the DDFO work some junior years down in Australia ? where our CEO became his mentor? Pretty chummy all round by the sounds of things ? regular old boys network.)
For those of you patient enough to still be reading the end of this post I thank you. I would like to know more about this subject and I should think we all would. I have included some links below to help shortcut the research path and I hope they are of assistance. Should you find anything of similar interest in your surfing please take the trouble to share it with us.
My guess is that the Freehills site will soon lose the reference to our Airline and it will only live on in our memories ? both organic and computer ? so go visit the site sooner rather than later. Good luck.
The Condor