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.

Cranky wrote "Kenny, the only reason employers sack workers is if they aren't performing"
What a load of rubbish , some people are sacked for poor performance and I believe they should be, but many employers were sacking people for many reasons other then their work performance. My brother was sacked from a job because he had got into a fight on the footy field with his supervisors son, and the son was not a employ of the company.

Got in a fight with the supervisors son... hmmm Sigmund Frued might have something to say about that.

The idea that an employer has to reform an employee who steals is a bit much. l dont really understand why employers get slugged with a carer and provider role just because they're paying someone's wage.

Government, as usual, is setting up the division, driving the wedge, manipulating folks into enabling the politicians social agenda.

actually the identity of the son was not know at time the fight involved most of both teams.

Another strategy for creating full-time work that I didn't include in the article is allowing full-time employees already working full-time hours to opt for additional leave, rather than increased pay. 'Flexibility' is a two-way street. I'm sure that the employers/co-workers out there have some experience of good workers deciding to leave simply because they were sick of working long hours, at the expense of their family's and relationship's wellbeing.

Good conditions, as well as good pay, are what entice good employees to perform. It seems that this should be part of the 'flexibility' debate (as well as an understanding that employee chrun as a result of 'burn out' imposes untold costs upon employers).

Allowing workers to 'down shift' without having to shift jobs would help create full-time employment, while also helping companies retian talent.

Bozzie ,we are wasting our venom.These wankers are still students and are carrying on about the rights of the worker!In small business in NSW at the moment we are scared shitless about employing anyone who doesn't have a perfect track record.This NSW Govt. has got to be the most incompetant, morally deficient Govt. in living memory.They wouldn't have a clue about business or what makes an economy work.They are in their death throes and like Keating will kill the NSW economy with their vindictive,impotent,idealistic bullshit.

Arjay, I agree that it's a minefield when you go to employ anybody these days - you have to get it right first time!

I also agree that good working conditions are imperative to retain good staff. We always try to be as flexible as possible to help people balance their home life and work. I've got a family too and I know what it's like.

Kenny, I don't know the circumstances about your brother so I can't comment. All I know is that if your brother worked for me and he was a good employee, I would have helped him bash up the supervisors son, just to keep him happy!

As with most laws, unfair dismissal has it good stories and bad, I don't belive the rules need to be completely dropped. Ajay I think you only have vemon as you are most like one of the snakes this law is in place to protect workers from. Bozzie you may value your work force but other don't. The Australian company that I worked from who also valued their employees was taken over by a multi national company with over 100,000 staff which treat them like cattle. removing this law may well increase employment but a what cost. Just like lowering the min wage would increase employment would it realy solve problems. We already have a problem with the so called working poor.

Tim, my main concern is that successive governments and their bureaucracies actually believe that they can help, by "implementing programmes". The irony is of course that these "initiatives" are paid for by businesses, who then have to wear the additional costs in implementing them. You quote one of the Senate recommendations:

"That the Federal Government introduce a national jobs strategy to promote permanent full-time employment opportunities and better targeted employment programs"

Mate, this is hot air. Big empty words. Promote opportunities? To whom? All the employers I know, including myself, would hire the entire Australian population if we could turn them into revenue and profit. Make-work programmes only exist in the public sector, with one exception - taxation. Allowing companies to plough more of their earnings back into the business is the single most effective way of increasing their ability to employ people.

Our money is spent on senate recommendations, which lead to committees, which lead to recommendations, which lead to legislation, which lead to more regulations which decrease our ability to make profits... and incidentally, decrease our ability to pay tax, it's a vicious circle. And don't get me started on that most iniquitous of taxes, Payroll Tax.

"That the Federal Government poverty proof the minimum wage by linking it to adequate standards of living (Recommendation 6)"

Any attempt to implement a safety-net will have adverse effects, mostly in the reduction of job availability. You simply can't legislate away the underemployed - they are there for a reason, which is that employers simply can't afford to have them any other way. Take this away, and hard-core unemployment will increase.

"That the Federal Government, in collaboration with State Governments encourage the expansion of labour-intensive private sector services in regional areas by improving education and training and other public infrastructure and/or providing tax concessions or other subsidies to encourage employers to relocate in regional areas (Recommendation 73)."

If you think this through, you will find that it is the most expensive option of them all - creating hew infrastructure simply to relocate jobs, is inappropriate in most situations. Strangely though, it works better for the public sector in terms of practicality, but I defy anyone to prove that it saves money for private sector employers in the long term.

I'd really love to be shown that I'm wrong, though. It's tough out there.

Kenny the working poor have been created by the lowering of tarrifs to create the so called "level playing field"I don't hire professionals.I'm at the bottom of the food chain.The diminishing manufacturing industry. Desperate people do desperate things and when survival comes into play morality goes out the window.We have now in NSW a situation where small business is prey for both Govt. and worker.Big business can please themselves since they have power over Govt.
Any worker will be looked favourably upon in unfair dismissal case even if neglience is proven by the employer.On average it is a $20,000 payout.Then we in NSW have the debacle of workers comp. whereby the employer pays not only the premium but in the event of a claim has to pay the full amount of the claim back to the insurer!

Before you start lecturing small business on the rights of the worker,try running one for 12mnths in NSW.These present Labor morons have got this state fucked.

Tim, one more quick comment on the futility of Government interference. I believe I read before the last election that small business is Australia's single largest employer group - you might like to correct me if I'm wrong on that, because I haven't been able to verify it. The previous Minister for [Tourism and] Small Business wouldn't have recognized one if it walked up to him and whacked him over the head with a piece of two-by-four, shouting "I am a small business". I'm not even sure there is such a post any longer, possibly because it is so hard to find any evidence that we ever did have one.

Typically, the last Minister went from university (Pres of Lib. club, IIRC) into a "major law firm", then into politics with Mr Fahey. I say typically, because actual experience of business at ANY level of politics is like hens' teeth. Probably as a result of this, they spend as little time as possible on the task - Joe Hockey was famous for being much happier having cocktails at the opening of a new luxury resort than talking to the owners of the local sandwich shop. No wonder he dropped it as soon as was politically expedient.

Nothing coming from government except a simpler and fairer tax system, and a great deal less interference (and I include "unfair dismissal" laws in that category) is of any use to small business.