Bruce has managed to insult the intelligence of every poster here with his "I'm alright, what's your problem" blinkered view.

Late last year I changed jobs from a large (public service department) to a small private business (less than 100) and now I find I am to be employed on a different basis than I would be had I stayed where I was.

I am currently happy with my job, but I am fully aware that the company for whom I work would not hesitate to 'slash & burn' if they are not making sufficient profits. Therefore I will be joining a union, because I know that as an individual I am not on an equal playing field with my employer.

I am a skilled and reliable worker but this means nothing to company owners who are profit driven and with the IR loaded in their favour, completely unaccountable. I may be skilled, reliable and hardworking but so are many other people. I am fully aware that I am dispensible.

Paranoid? Hardly. Realistic - have to be.

I issue this challenge to Peter Hendy.
I challenge him to answer these fundamental questions

Will a worker be able to refuse a direction to perform unsafe work?

If they do and work for someone with less than 100 employees will they be allowed to lodge a claim for reinstatement, if dismissed?

Will a worker be allowed to refuse an unlawful direction?

If they do and work for someone with less than 100 employees will they be allowed to lodge a claim for reinstatement, if dismissed?

If other readers like watching spin doctors squirm then wait for Peter Hendy's answers. I love watching innovative spin and I await with interest Peter Hendy's answer, that is of course if he is brave enough to answer.

There is a price for having cheap Chinese products on our shelves you know.Our balance of payments will continue to worsen if we don't compete and that means working longer for less which is what we have been doing over the last 15yrs as tarrifs have been lowered.

The alternative of raising tarrifs,keeping wages high will see us in a worse situation of high cost consumerables and being unable to keep with the latest technology.

The thing I don't like is big business and multi-nationals that condense wealth through the share market into fewer hands.This is a recipe for revolution.People must be paid enough to live beyond a subsistence level and profits need to go also back to workers and not just shareholders.

I think that unfair dismissal has been poorly administered and must go, however the worker must be paid beyond the level a subsistence existence.

Multi nationals should be forced to pay people in poor countries higher wages since we lose our jobs.They produce a pair of Nike's for $5.00 that we pay $150.00 for .Who is benefiting?The same pair of shoes may take $50.00 to produce in Australia but will still sell for $150.00.

It is a reality of whatever the market will bear.By creating more poor people in Australia multi nations are actually reducing the seize of their market.

If people cannot afford to consume the products they are consuming,then we are all losing out.Poverty always ends in destruction.

Speaking as an EmployER who has a business which depends for its very survival on being competitive... who has also worked for others, with a wife currently working in a factory, I'd like to add some thoughts.

The view from 'workers' perspective alone is inadequate, ranting about 'the poor workers getting hard done by' is incomplete. All of us HAVE to get the big picture, which is one of a complex mix of many factors which are in a state of continual flux.

The primary factors we must contend with are:

-Globalization, drawing more and more into the black hole of 'big is better' (this is bad in my opinion)

-Power hungry Union leaders who make unrealistic/unsustainable promises of conditions which will do nothing to maintain competitiveness in a vicious merciless dog eat dog world.
Which are more aimed at remaining 'relevant' than actually helping the country.

-A balance of competing interests between Employers/Employees, which seeks a flexible yet competitive (on a world scale) and rewarding for all sides. i.e. a rejection of 'Them/Us' and an embracing of "We're in this together"

I wish posters would try to leap OUT of their small circle of personal interest, and come to grips which these things, such that there actually WILL BE jobs for people on both ends of the scale in years to come.

The idea that all segments of our community (specially manufacturing) can sustain our lifestyle in the face of China is to be deluded.

Our 'lifestyle' came by and large from the empty short term promises of the 'we will retain power and relevance at any cost' Unionists of a left wing position.

Now, as the 'crunch' comes from such approaches, and factories lay off thousands and outsource manufacturing to China, IT and 'Back office Services'to India, (globalization) .... they are reaping what they sowed. And "WE" are paying the price of their self-serving folly.

If we don't adjust our attitudes to how things 'are', we will end up as a huge 'hole in the ground' which used to contain 'iron ore' into which we will all fall.

bd

Please explain how paying poverty level wages will make Australia prosper?

Please explain how lifting unfair dismissal laws will create more jobs? How many extra staff will you be hiring?

Please show proof that current dismissal laws were ruining our economy.

Please extrapolate just how producing goods at the same cost as in China will make us more competitive?

Please offer your prediction on the outcomes of court challenges that will occur when someone is unfairly dismissed who is in a position to fight back - funded by the dreaded unions perhaps.

Please explain how a single employee negotiating a workplace contract on his/her own is on equal footing to an employer?

BD I also speak from a perspective that encompasses the employer and nobody that I have read in this forum, has ‘ranted’ about the poor workers being hard done by. I have pointed out real circumstances in which a hard working employee will find themselves disadvantaged by the new IR regulations.

You say we need to reject the them/us position but ‘the employers’ need to do this first. You yourself perpetuate this divide by referring to ‘power hungry union leaders’ as part of the problem. Provide some examples where power hungry union leaders have been a problem in the past 10 years.

Furthermore, as the most powerful operatives in this debate, it is the responsibility of business and people like Peter Hendy to make this move first. They need to call for policies that will hold businesses and corporations to account for the negative results of their activities overseas and mitigate the increasing inequality of incomes.

As you say, we all need to get the big picture and perhaps you need to put your personal biases to one side in order to respond to the big picture issues. The point I make here is that you refuse to vote for the minority parties, the Greens and the Democrats who are the only parties who do have policies that will address the issue of globalisation and the growing inequality in Australia.

It is you who needs to leap out of your small circle of personal interest and come to grips with the problem that some workers *will* be worse off with the new IR regulations and why should they give up their standard of living to ensure that your business will survive?