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The Forum > Article Comments > Fair Work panders to unions > Comments

Fair Work panders to unions : Comments

By Des Moore, published 23/1/2009

Will Julia Gillard, the Dame of Fair Work, continue to assert that the Government has the right balance between unions and employers?

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Well Des still singing from the same song sheet,its all the unions fault,funny I did not know that the unions caused this mess, I thought it was people like you the unfettered free marketeers,no regulations kids in sweatshops no protection for the employee.
Your getting a bit like John Stone another tired old relic of a failed Govt who has found himself a sinecure writing articles and boring everyone to death
Posted by John Ryan, Friday, 23 January 2009 9:31:27 AM
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John Ryan has nailed it. Des Moore and John Stone are yesterday's men. Haven't had a new thought in thirty years.

Hey, Des, it's 2009. Turn the new century.
Posted by Spikey, Friday, 23 January 2009 12:40:56 PM
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The Rudd Government’s IR laws are less worker-friendly than those of the Menzies, Holt, McEwen, Gorton, McMahon and Fraser Coalition Governments. (Notice the missing name.)

Under the Menzies and Fraser Liberals, wages were determined by a centralised system. Under Rudd Labor, they are not.

Under the Menzies and Fraser Liberals, unions were free to strike without a secret ballot. Under Rudd Labor, they are not.

Under the Menzies and Fraser Liberals, union officials could enter worksites without permits. Under Rudd Labor, they may not.

Under the Menzies and Fraser Liberals, pattern-bargaining was permitted. Under Rudd Labor, it is not.

Under the Menzies and Fraser Liberals, work bans were legal without a requirement to dock four hours’ pay. Under Rudd Labor, they are not.

Under the Menzies and Fraser Liberals, lock-outs of workers by management were legal without a secret ballot of shareholders. Under Rudd Labor, they remain legal.
Posted by Chris C, Friday, 23 January 2009 1:43:13 PM
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Balance between the workers and employers is desirable but the problem lies with who defines or determines where the balance lies. Who determines how large the share of capital between these two opposing groups.

Corrupt, greedy and ineffective unions are bad in the same way that corrupt, greedy and ineffective employers are bad.

The positive thing about living in a democracy is that when governments push the envelope too far, such as with Work Choices, the people will revolt. When unions push too far (even the ALP deregistered the BLF) modern governments are not reticent about taking appropriate action.

It is because of the union movement that many people enjoy the working conditions of today.

The Workplace Ombudsman/Authority was so besieged by complaints after the onset of Work Choices that they could not cope with the deluge and were forced to hire inexperienced workers (like foreign backpackers) to man the phones. Remember the media reports of the time.

I think even the Howard government did not expect or realise how these laws would result in real reductions in employment conditions and thus standards of living for our lowest income earners. Those with the least power in the hospitality, retail, agricultural and cleaning sector.

To suggest that the Rudd government will give immense power back to the unions is laughable and is reminiscent of the fear mongering tactics of the last election. Such as the myth of job losses without workplace reform (whatever that means). Work Choices proved that lower wages and working conditions did not mean more jobs and there were only job rises in WA and QLD because of the mining sector.

On one hand we have unions saying Rudd isn't going far enough and employers saying Rudd isn't going far enough (the other way) means it probably is pretty balanced.
Posted by pelican, Friday, 23 January 2009 3:46:17 PM
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Mention in this article was made of the common law. The common law of employment is that workers must earn enough for their employer, to keep their job, and employers must pay enough to keep their employees. Any departure from that common law rule, results in unemployment, because employers go broke, and cannot pay any wages at all, and employees are disadvantaged if they cannot earn enough to make working worthwhile. Work has been described as the curse of the drinking class.

Unemployment benefit virtually sets a minimum wage. That is about $7 an hour tax free, and it is simply a survival ration, cunningly devised and paid fortnightly so people are desperate, for at least two days a fortnight. It puts a floor under rents, and ensures that at least 90 billion dollars is injected into the real economy every year. Under Black Jack McKeown, employers were protected from a lower minimum wage in foreign countries, could charge a fair price, and pay a fair wage. Instead of tariffs, we now have a punitive taxation regime on wage earners. Together with the abolition of tariffs, came a flood of unemployment, and instead of paying more for imported goods, we simply have to pay more tax. To pay tax we must produce.

Employers have resorted to capital improvements to replace labour with machines. A fully automated factory can compete with manual labour, to produce goods at a competitive price. Unfortunately these plants can also be built in low wage countries, and the technical expertise of the Chinese and Indians is legendary.

Perhaps the Commonwealth should start to consider that it is really impotent. It can tinker, and play games with the fundamentals, it can impose draconian penalties, but at the end of the day, the same old rules will govern. The Rule of Want, is the driving force of all human endeavour. We want and we pay. The common law recognized the Rule of Want, and employment has always obeyed it. The slewing of the law of want, beyond what an employer will stand, drives up unemployment
Posted by Peter the Believer, Saturday, 24 January 2009 9:24:17 AM
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The backlash against Work Choices is a knee-jerk fear-based reaction, rather than a well-thought out ECONOMICALLY based response. Political and social objectives have worked against common sense, in the rejection of Work Choices.
In this era of low union interference now coming to an end, real wages, and work conditions, have never been better. Unemployment has never been lower.
And now, precisely when the economy needs increased flexibility to encourage increased business confidence and employment, the government is determined to pursue a popularist pro-union policy that will destroy business ability to control employment costs.
It seems we have learned nothing from the boom years.
Fear, and greed, will put us back into an era of reduced opportunities, unwelcome regulation, reduced employment, higher costs and reduced business activity.
Power to the unions, indeed!
Posted by floatinglili, Saturday, 24 January 2009 1:09:06 PM
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If anything, both major parties have been pandering to business over the whole of the last 3 decades, ever since the end of Whitlam. From money to american automakers, to a soft partial rollback of Howards IR laws, where should I start. The big end of town has had policy to order, all served up on a silver platter. An insider mentioned that the BCA even had a hand in writing some Howard government federal budgets. Work is competitive and there are alternative options? Maybe for a few, but I recall being offered oppressive terms, on a take-it-or-leave-it basis, due to being a member of an undesirable cultural group and having never previously satisfied other 'gatekeepers of experience' ie employers to get work commensurate with skill and ability. Look, business will never have enough, give them an inch, they'll want a yard. Its just like Patricks, Cowra abattoir, Mudginberri Meatworks, Rio/Hamersley and Robe River.
Posted by Inner-Sydney based transsexual, indigent outcast progeny of merchant family, Saturday, 24 January 2009 2:38:18 PM
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There are unions for a reason and that is too stop slave labour.When australia and australians of an era past believed in australian jobs and there was stabilty on australian ground to start a family.As production moved oversea's so did the idea of a working strong australian family.Your a fool if you think australia could survive without home grown production becuase it cannot .The government can tell you lies. All the government does is tax the people and give grants to spagetti throwing artist's .I believe the Labor Party is going to bankrupt australia as the do not see the australian economy as a business that can reap the rewards of a smart home grown business.David
Posted by mattermotor, Sunday, 25 January 2009 4:47:14 PM
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I am always happy to read threads like this, the authors pain and lack of balance humors me.
Changes to IR in 1996, and workchoices got the balance very wrong.
Much more unbalanced and unfair that fair work seems to be, people like this author found nothing to complain about then.
Should the opposition remember it lost the last election, and that the government has a mandate for change, we will see no changes to fair work under a conservative government.
It for starters is a national scheme, something we needed years ago.
I predict however the senate, controlled as it is by single issue fools, will bring about a double dissolution by years end and Australia will have another chance to value workchoices vs fair work, bring it on.
Posted by Belly, Sunday, 25 January 2009 7:08:50 PM
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Australia day, yet it would seem some think every thing we celebrate is only for some.
Workers who are unionists, and those who have benefited from union actions but are not unionists, are Australians.
No less than the employers who are members of so very many self interested bosses unions.
Who lobby both sides of government shamelessly , in self interest.
Who give so very much to party's they see as being their party.
Union members are rarely Socialists, even more rarely Communist, more often than most know they vote conservative.
Yet the pay checks they take home often run the towns and villages across Australia, current fears of down turns are based on them not spending.
Why can a worker not claim fair wages for his/her work?
Rudd's scheme is balanced, it is not fair to unions, it never was going to be.
Pattern bargains is not unfair.
Like industry's would benefit from knowing competitors wages are the same as his.
Mr Rudd I voted for you, always will, no other party cares for workers, see workchoices.
But you never sat down the day before payday and asked the wife do we buy bread or milk with the last $2?
Wages are workers profits.
Todays crisis did not come via workers greed, how dare some forget that.
Posted by Belly, Monday, 26 January 2009 5:26:34 AM
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OF course the Krudd government and its legal proposals pander to union movement.

The unions own this labor government, bought and paid for with TV advertising ...

and the proof...

just look at the cabinet line up,

more union stooges than any other sub-group.
Posted by Col Rouge, Monday, 26 January 2009 9:22:05 AM
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des wrote "FWA constitutes a significant change that threatens to take Australia back to the day when decisions on employer-employee relations paid little heed to the economic situation facing employers"...

thats suicidal in the current and deteriorating economic climate...looks like its going to build into a world-class lasting storm...http://www.businessspectator.com.au/bs.nsf/Article/MAKE-AUSTRALIA-WORK-brThe-crisis-is-just-beginning-$pd20090126-NMSFP?OpenDocument&src=sph ... 50% super value gone...housing market most over-valued in world eg gold coast median-price is x5 the annual household income...

so anyone/organized-group acting in 'unbalanced self interest'...is actually acting against us the people and our ability to survive/adapt to the current/future situation...

funny huh?...what we always knew we should watch out for...prevent organized 'unbalanced-self-interest' acting without accountability...but we didnt/ignored...nor act againsty...now we all as a group funnelled into an predictable situation...which we all could have seen if we were knew/given/watched when the steps/events/acts to this point were being effected by you know who...if that makes sense...

hope we as common people realize why and how's to 'how the real world works' by applying logic and reason to significant events on the way to how we got here...and learn to act with 'street smart intelligence'...as effectively as the 'unbalanced-self-interest' to counter-balance...by watching and getting involved in those crucial areas of government/parliament/industry etc(at the individual level unbalanced acts are locally damaging...but at organized, particulary global level...sheeesh it can affect human survival)...to effect a 'sustainable balanced outcome'...

yeah...we all are in for it now...and I suggest we readjust our hopes and expectations of the future to the minimum...so to lessen the emotional effect of the expected future...you know, kicking out bu*%s...and drive it positively by roll up our sleeves, and act smarter...isolate the destructive, empower the creative...always watch locally/globally...
sam
Ps~'government' now needs to become an 'effective investor' to protect the economy/jobs...so no more money sink holes...but creates wealth...so let corporations going down do so...and buy them at lowest...then effective management...later sell non-essential industries for profit to benefit the people...
Posted by Sam said, Monday, 26 January 2009 9:33:32 AM
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Yes, But what about the labor states and their lost green unaffordable housing productivity. Is inflation the only answer while living in a shoebox to satisfy the left and their chattering class. The unions supported these insidious party positions which do not deliver for working families at all. see the resultant spoils on demographia.blogspot.com
Posted by Dallas, Monday, 26 January 2009 9:22:09 PM
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Government intervention in business will continue to:

- divide ordinary hard-working people unnecessarily

- cost more than it produces

- enshrine rigid bureaucracy in areas where flexibility is paramount, and

- limit the potential of the Australian economy

...so long as there is no-one in a position of political power who has ever run a business.

One lot is stuffed full of suburban lawyers.

The other lot is stuffed full of union hangers-on.

Result: business will continue to be... stuffed.
Posted by Pericles, Tuesday, 27 January 2009 7:52:33 AM
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Pericles has got it so right, in that one lot is stuffed full of suburban lawyers, trained to make troubles where none exists, and out to line their own pockets at every turn, at $350 an hour. The other lot is only half stuffed full of lawyers, Julia Gillard, Nicola Roxon,Joe Ludwig, Bob Debus, Peter Garrett, Bill Shorten, Lindsay Tanner and a number of others are legally trained. The Attorney General Robert McClelland is a typical suburban lawyer, whose first speech is worth reading. Go Here http://www.aph.gov.au/house/members/firstspeech.asp?id=JK6 Here Robert McClelland expresses all the right views on the Magna Carta but as Attorney general he appears to be somewhat awed as a suburban solicitor with the sophisticated graduates, employed by another suburban solicitor called Philip Ruddock.

If Robert McClelland was not a hostage to his staff, he would not have appointed Father Frank Brennan, to investigate a Bill of Rights. He would as it were come out, as Justice Kirby did when he admitted he was gay, and admit Labor made the Bill of Rights law in 1986. It is the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, and it destroys the suburban lawyers Sacred Cow, State Sovereignty. You cannot have State Sovereingty, all nine of them and a Commonwealth.

He would also come out and accept that the Commonwealth has a responsibility to govern, not lick the ass of State Governments. He would kick the asses of every Federal Court Judge,whose decisions contradict the sentiments he expressed in his first sppeech. Fair work is fair enough, so long as an employer can get a fair hearing in a fair court, not stacked with suburban lawyers, but with twelve of his fellow businessmen, as was the case before the suburban lawyers in the State Parliament in NSW abolished democracy and installed a Lawyers republic.
Posted by Peter the Believer, Tuesday, 27 January 2009 8:45:12 AM
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Much of what is included in "Fair Work" ensures that the unions get included in the negotiating process and far more access to site.

All of these changes increase the cost and risk to the employer of hiring employees, and as such create a disincentive for new employment. Work choices went too far, but the pendulum has now swung back past where it needs to be.

As a CEO said, "in a time of recession and shrinking employment, this is like treating dysentry with a laxitive."
Posted by Shadow Minister, Tuesday, 27 January 2009 10:34:15 AM
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I remember my dad was in a union once. The union and the employer agree to a pay deal, and about a month later, one of the union delegate was driving around in a BMW.

Anyone who think the Union work in the interest of their members is a dinosaur. If they were in the interest of the workers, they would have reduce the union fees. Instead they gave money to the ALP, so they will get "Fairer" work laws. IE laws which will give the union more money

Unions believe in close shop, not allow young people into industry like Ports, stopping people working in the middle of the day, strikes (ie blackmailing the employer). They do not care that they cost Australians thousands of jobs, and hurt both the workers and employers.

It is no wonder unemployment is on the up since Labor and the Unions took power
Posted by dovif2, Wednesday, 28 January 2009 3:58:35 PM
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If you guys want to look at what powerful unions does to economies, just look at Cryslers, GM and Ford in the US

The american car companies deals with some of the bigest, richest, most powerful unions in the world. Their products are substandard, cost more and are less efficient.

The whole industry was kept affloat by tariffs employed by the US government.

Now that the world is in a recession, the high cost the company bears had made them unprofitable. The company will go bankrupt, all staff will lose their job. a viable industry with a hundred years of tradition was destroyed because the union was too powerful.
Posted by dovif2, Wednesday, 28 January 2009 4:07:19 PM
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