I'm an employer. The main reason I try to keep full-time staff to a minimum is the ridiculous anti-dismissal legislation. I can't afford to have an unsatisfactory employee working for me, and I can't afford the hassle and expense of sacking them if they are unsatisfactory. It's as simple as that. You can whine all you like about evil employers who use workers then sack them on a whim for no reason. Believe me good workers are hard to find, when you've got one you do all you can to keep them.

Hopefully the Howard government will repeal this damaging legislation when it controls the Senate. We'll put on 2 more full time positions immediately.

bozzie do you think that employers should be able to sack workers at any time of any reason?

Totally agree Bozzie.The other big fly in the ointment is workers comp.Whenever a claim is made the employer not only pays the premium but within a few years has to cover the payout also.They call this insurance?It's a win, win for insurance companies.The Carr Govt.has just sacked all the paristic lawyers by drastically reducing payouts,yet insurance companies are still savaging employers.This can't be good for employment or business.I think employers need to get together and create their own scheme of workers insurance.We could stop the rorting of the system by lawyers,insurance companies and workers.Workers should be paid a lot more but the parisites always want their cut for no effort.There is a better, fairer way that will benefit both workers and employers.

In reply to Kenny - employing someone is not the same as adopting them for life. There are thousands of divorce applications every year by people who promised til death us do part . . . why should a company have better integrity than an individual?

For "flexibility" read "disposability" in relation to work place reform: no one has yet expelained to me how passage of the unfair dismissal package of legislation will be a boon to employment - I can see it being a boon in some respects to employers - but equally there is a down side - high turn over of staff means high costs - unless of course concepts of training, safe work parctice and the like are un loaded with the introduction of "flexibiltiy".

I have asked a few proponents of this ease of dismissal = more employment but have got no where; I have written else where that it is a bit like GST = no more black economy. That mantra was put out there, never questioned and, like fairies at the bottom of the garden and WMDs it proved to be a lie.

The nexus between disposable employees and employment growth is predicated on the assumption that a worker can move from retail, to fruit picking, to call centre work, to table service to ..... seamlessly. In the new order of flexibiltiy the untrained work force is always on the move and, paradoxically, this moving target is easily picked of by employers seeking cheap labour. Essentially the nation is expected to go "on the wallaby" again; indeed the Mad Monk Abbot expressed just this view several years ago - if you cant find work here, go soem where else, he was quoted as saying.

Work place reform is esential but should not be based on the need for profitability at the expense of those who do the work.

Kenny, the only reason employers sack workers is if they aren't performing. When you get a good employee you do all you can to hold onto them!
You sack employees for things like stealing, poor work performance (only after sustained attempts to get them to lift)and other things to do with office harmony etc. Why would you just sack someone for no reason? It's not just employers who have obligations. Surely it's an obligation of an employee to actually perform.