Two important words:

'Choose' - as in, you can have your time off OR you can have your cash. Do you honestly think that this will remain a choice under the new system? When they have the legal backing to say "don't like it - there's the door!"

'Should' - as in, what is supposed to happen but may not.... when you are allowing the top end of town to decide how fair they feel like being after they consult their profit margins I think 'should' is entirely too wishy washy.

We are talking about people's lives here!!

I don't want to see a return to the class system and that's what this is ALL about....soon those who have more principle than to work for half of what they used to, or thought they could find better conditions elsewhere (we all know trying to find a non-greedy rich person is like trying to find a needle in a haystack! so that's not going to happen.... and to give them the credit of logic - why pay more?) will be the ones cleaning the toilets of the rich for board and lodging.

Howard has been asked to give an assurance that workers will not be worse off - it makes him squirm and he can't in good conscience answer. When we're talking about HOWARDS' conscience - that says a lot....

Real Enterprising!

Unfair dismissal. What is the evidence that unfairly dismissed workers are clogging the system,costing money and unfairly the flexibility of the firm. Mr. Hendy there must be some evidence on this topic. Are there many appeals that are turned down? Is not fairness supposedly one of the hallmark of an educated democratic citizen in Australia i.e. Australian?

John howard and peter hendy seem to forget that our industrial relations system evolved over a number of decades to suit the needs of industry and workers. current conditions were either negotiated or arbitrated by independant umpires that sought to obtain a balance between needs of workers, employers and the public interest.
The system proposed by howard suggest that there is no role for the public interest in the contract between a worker and the employer.
They forget that the arbitration system had an important role to play in stabilising labour conditions during times of full employment.

Under the current system with the deepening skills shortage we are going to see rising labour unit costs. Companies that can simply flow the costs on to their customers or other businesses will do so. This in turn will have a negative impact on the economy.

During award restructuring there was a known pay increase coming, companies could not hide from it and it was up to the industry to and enterprise to ensure they achieved productivity gains with the assistance of the arbitration commission.

Under the proposed system some employers can choose the easy and lazy way out by not looking for changes and avoid making any wage increases. This is why labour productivity is not increasing as fast as it did during the centralized wage fixing system. Employers can effectively hide from wage increases and not embrace change, thus stagnating. In New Zealand during their enterprise/individual contract experiment labour productivity was 14% behind the growth in Australia's labour productivity, I would suggest because some employers could simply hide from facing claims for wage increases and hide from change/reform.

Who is protecting the public interest under Howard's system?

I'm glad to see that everyone commenting here is damning what Peter Hendy has said. I'd like to add two other shortcomings.

His belief that there are the employers, the employees and the unions is flawed. He thinks they are seperate entities and that unions act independently. The employees are the Union! Without the employees the Union means nothing. Nor does the employer for that matter. It is the employees who have the democratic vote to elect council, delegates, officials and executive. How can they be seperate?

Also he says that unfair dismissal laws will still be effective. They won't. Without Union support the average employee will not be able to afford a representation to the IRC, on his or her own. He is dreaming!

It seems that our Govt listens more to industry, the OECD, and countries with ever-growing foreign debt, than to the views of it's citizens.

ciao

Peter Hendy is a classic example of a union leader. He represents a union of employers. And like many union leaders, he has no idea about what is in reality in the best interests of his members.

If Mr Hendy had bothered to consult his lawyers, and if his lawyers told him the facts, he would realise that unfair dismissal is a cheap and efficient remedy for both parties.

But if unfair dismissal is done away with, employees will be forced to use far more difficult remedies which are more expensive for employers. And there are plenty of bored personal injury lawyers in Sydney and Melbourne who will happily represent employees on a speculative basis, especially given that in many of these remedies the court has the power to order employers to pay workers' legal fees (such a power rarely exists in the unfair dismissal remedy).

If you believed all the above comments you would observe that paranoia is reigning supreme. Everyone is afraid of change - as if it is all negative.

try to apply some logic to all the arm waving emotionalism being displayed.

If an employer decides he wants to save money by no longer giving salary increases how long will his work force stay with him when his competition is paying more? And by the way - his competition is probably growing faster and therefore creating more jobs.

On the other hand if you are the bludger at the bottom end of the productivity scale maybe you don't deserve the same pay scale as the person turning out twice as many widgets per hour.

An employer needs the flexibility to offer more creative pay packets to reward top performers. With the current award system the employers creativity is hobbled by the unions demand that what is given to one is given to all - wether they all deserve it or not.

I have always worked under an individual workplace agreement and it has always served me well, both here in Oz and in the US. My contract always stated that the more successful I was at meeting or exceeding key performance measurements the greater my salary increase and the greater my annual bonus. The bludgers or unmotivated found jobs better attuned to their work ethic while the high performers helped the company grow and succeed