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The Forum > Article Comments > Employees enter a new era of rights > Comments

Employees enter a new era of rights : Comments

By Sharan Burrow, published 9/7/2009

Sharan Burrow pronounces the last rites on Work Choices

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*The risks come with the territory, and neither governments nor workers are obliged to screw themselves in order to help employers scrape a few more pennies together.*

Nobody was talking of being obliged to do anything. But if so
many bells as whistles are enforced by law, that employing
people means its not worth taking a risk, then people won't do it.

Not to worry Sancho, there is a solution at hand. The Govt can
just borrow more and more money, for more and more employment
schemes and the wheel will have come full circle. Your kids and
grandkids can pay it all off one day, along with the interest on
interest etc.
Posted by Yabby, Thursday, 9 July 2009 8:55:07 PM
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So the new IR regime has taken us back to the Whitlam era or further rpg?

Forgive my mirth, if only that were true. Many in the union movement consider that this is simply replacing workchoices with workchoices lite.

Rehctub, I share your concern that small business may not be expanding in the near future but that has nothing at all to do with the new IR and is a topic for another thread.

Put simply, if an employer simply “can’t afford” to pay the legislated minimum wage then that employer should not be in business! The wage freeze for the most disadvantaged workers in our economy will do nothing to protect their jobs or anyone else’s. The problem is not a cost one, it’s a demand deficiency one.

I’m not sure I fully understand your last question. Are you asking why employers cannot just sack their staff whenever someone turns up offering to do the job more cheaply?
Posted by Fozz, Thursday, 9 July 2009 9:22:32 PM
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Foxy, my concern with IR laws has nothing to do with pay conditions, more so, I have grave concerns for the re-introduction of 'unfair dismisal'.

I traded through the last round and know first hand the effects it can have.

You see, most small business people are simple minded, often less educated and once the 'red tape' becomes to hard they simply go back into their shells.

With regards to my last question, yes this is exactly what I am saying. Why can it be that a staff member can pick or choose their employer, at will, yet an employer can't pick or choose their staff at will?

I was of the opinion we were all searching for a 'fair deal'.

Currently I have several customers (concreters, chippies, fabricators, brickies, roofers, who are now sitting at home waiting/hoping, for the phone to ring. Sometimes they only work one day in two weeks.

Now given that some of these are under thirty years of age, this is all new to them and they don't know where to turn.

At a time where most workers job security is on shakey ground, now is not the time to make it harder for employers to employ.
Posted by rehctub, Friday, 10 July 2009 7:07:37 AM
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sancho: Dickens wrote fiction, it is 2009.

Yes unions helped improve conditions, is anyone denying that? That's a strawman argument, please try harder.

"After Australians comprehensively rejected WorkChoices", oh that was in the "landslide of 2007" election where the ALP won with what 52% of the vote, yep, quite comprehensive. Sounds like a big old dose of ALP spin been swallowed there.

"People start businesses because they want to maximise their profit", shows you have no idea why people start businesses, this is from the "bosses are evil" school of thought, class war rubbish.

People start businesses because they think they can make it work, make a reasonable living, feed their families and pay their mortgage without going broke, they take risks to do it. When the business is a success, and many fail, all the hangers on arrive wanting to share in the proceeds, who didn't want to share any risk.

Successful businesses deserve to be able to make a reasonable profit, without being threatened by unions.

fozz: "Put simply, if an employer simply “can’t afford” to pay the legislated minimum wage then that employer should not be in business!" No, again you don't understand how business works, they simply will have less employees doing harder work and the business will not grow. The unions are self defeating in this way.
Posted by odo, Friday, 10 July 2009 7:39:16 AM
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"Why can it be that a staff member can pick or choose their employer, at will, yet an employer can't pick or choose their staff at will?"

Oh Rehctub, please be careful. You're challenging the basic double standard that the union movement is based on: All choice and protection for the employee, but not for the employer
Posted by BN, Friday, 10 July 2009 9:20:49 AM
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Sharon Burrow led a campaign against Workchoices, and now believes that legislation alone will fix the problems afflicting workers and their conditions. This is an interesting article, and we all should be grateful that we had a change of government. The last lot were truly woeful. However Sharon should not think that all the credit for her win, is due to the Workchoices campaign. When Kevin Rudd was able to persuade the Labor Party to get a leader who was not shy about his middle name, Christian, and like it or not, the result we should have had in 2004, was achieved in 2007.

The systemic corruption of Australian life begins and ends with the Liberal Party, but a lot of Labor supporters are in fact closet Liberals, and like the corruption introduced by Menzies, continued by Askin and Fraser. Workchoices should never have survived the High Court challenge. It was and remains illegal, but the challenge in the High Court was mismanaged, and it was beaten 5 to 2. Properly argued, it could have fixed the problem permanently, and what Labor has undone, can be redone by a future Liberal Government if the underlying problem is not fixed.

When the Liberals wanted to arbitrarily fine workers $100,000 for union activity, they would have been ruled out of order, by any properly constituted Ch III Constitution court. Note the lack of a capital letter on court. An arbitrary Court was what caused terror to fill the hearts of unionists. The end of the fair go, for workers and employers came with Fraser, who followed Askin in the destruction of courts, and the transfer of all executive power to the Cabinet.

The key word is arbitrary, and since 1640, arbitrary Courts were banned, because they are Satanic, not Christian. The International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights uses the word arbitrary, in article 17, but because the Courts arbitrarily override the laws made by the Parliament of the Commonwealth, when it suits the rich, even the newspapers are intimidated. We need a dose of honesty from the Labor Party
Posted by Peter the Believer, Friday, 10 July 2009 2:05:47 PM
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