Jim McDonald's timely article provides some food for thought and contradiction to John Howard's preposterous claim during his 10th anniversary celebrations that he is working for the benefit of ALL Australians.
There are more examples around the country of employers abuse of temporary employment visas for 'skilled' labour...nurses and boilermakers in the N.T.due to the lack of forward thinking of the Howard Government mismanagement of Tafe and apprenticeships.
There is a crying need in the Australian Workers movement to regroup and go on the offensive using the only weapon they have: Solidarity.
Let's not forget Reith and Howard's agenda to smash the Union Movement during the Patrick and Government attack on the Maritime Union and their continuing actions with their Industrial Relations legislation designed to further weaken Union strength and deprive young workers protection from exploitation.
For a start, the Australian Trade Union Movement has to review it's relationship with the Labor Party and the political left.
For too long the Labor Party has actively distanced itself from the Workers Movement despite assurances to the contrary. They have consistently failed to enunciate policy on major issues for fear of offending the swingers.
The result is a Howard Government continuing to implement anti-worker policies without restraint.

No-one wants to see ill-treatment of workers, but the industry I work in (IT) is absolutly driven by a cut-throat determination to reduce costs, and the shareholders and industry analysts expect cost reductions of x per cent per year.

In terms of labour the only way to realistically achieve this is to either import very cheap labour, or offshore your operations overseas. For example the equivalent package for a worker in Thailand doing the same job as a worker in Australia is 20%.

For an enterprise that means slashing your labour costs by 80%, which is a very easy answer for any business manager to look at.
Fact is we don't live in a socialist utopia. If Australia does maintain competitiveness with our trading partners, quite simply no-one will buy anything from us. Unemployment will grow, and jobs will simply disappear.

It sucks, but the only thing anyone can really do is accept that this is the case and try and structure their career around it.

To paraphrase Maracas,
Australian workers do not have a political party that represents them.

So many people consider themselves to be 'middle-class', whereas in reality there are merely working class with more 'effluence'.

As more and more 'workers' find their jobs in jeopardy, their 'real' wages declining and their conditions (holidays etc) eroded.

who yah gunna call? "strikebusters" ? the army ?

sorry, yer on yer own now !!

As an employer i still find it disturbing that we are bringing in overseas workers, who put little into our economy and funnel most of their wages overseas to the family.

Outsourcing is one thing, but when we have the people here all we need to do is find them, why do we need to bring in mostly lower skilled overeseas workers to make up numbers?

Why dont they go through rural and regional areas where there is high unemployment, and offer a pathway to employment and relocation.

This is the failing of the system for Australians which needs to be stopped. The people do not attempt to integrate to our culture and live in ghettos together, paying basic accomodation and food, therefore raping our country.

It is not their fault directly, but the government needs to put their foot on it. Dinmore Abbotoirs in QLD are hiring hundreds of chinese, yet skilled meatworkers in regional areas who are out of a job due to closures etc, miss the boat.

This does not do anything at all to stop the emergence of racism either.

The article merely restates what was self evident prior to the introduction of the new regime - in fact I think Mr Mc D has writtenprevious articles that have churned out similar information - but the message sadly is too little too late - even though the predictions and the analysis is correct:

The damage was done when people failed to see what Labor Market reform means to a very conservative government - the eupemisms of flexibiltiy, choice and the right to negotiate directly with the empoyer fooled most people - it sounded pretty cool, for some, until the detail was revealed - even before then most analysts predicted the downward pressure wages and conditions.

I also read with interest Peter Hendy comment on compassion and the unemployed - the argument is I guess a reduced wages bill will allow businesses to grow and employ more people - or a reduced wages bill will permit an employer to employ more people at the same cost -

The first asumption is essentially fallacious as most reports indicate gains made will simply returned to shareholders and certainly in the service industries there is nothing to suggest a reduced wagfes bill will do anything to expand the industry.

The second assumption is all well and good except that it is only a select group of employees whose wages and condiitons are being "pooled" to employ the unemployed - as implied by hendy's position if indeed that ever happens - it might be a different matter if Directors salaries and allowances together with CEO's salaries and stock option were under similar downward pressure to foster more employment or reduced to enable a company to offer more employment and increase production - but that aint the case.

This Bill was a Trojan Horse

Australian productivity is increasing. GDP continues to grow. So if, according to Jim McDonald's doomsday scenario workers are losing, someone else must be winning.

Who?

The research hasn't been done in Australia but it has in the US, documented by Dew-Becker and Gordon in "Where did the Productivity Growth Go?", http://faculty-web.at.northwestern.edu/economics/gordon/BPEA_Meetingdraft_Complete_051118.pdf

Paul Krugman in The New York Times last week summarised the message:

"[Most people believe] that the 20 percent or so of American workers who have the skills to take advantage of new technology and globalization are pulling away from the 80 percent who don't have these skills.

The truth is quite different. Highly educated workers have done better than those with less education, but a college degree has hardly been a ticket to big income gains. The 2006 Economic Report of the President tells us that the real earnings of college graduates actually fell more than 5 percent between 2000 and 2004. Over the longer stretch from 1975 to 2004 the average earnings of college graduates rose, but by less than 1 percent per year.

"So who are the winners from rising inequality? It's not the top 20 percent, or even the top 10 percent. The big gains have gone to a much smaller, much richer group than that...

"[Dew-Becker's and Gordon's] paper gives the details. Between 1972 and 2001 the wage and salary income of Americans at the 90th percentile of the income distribution rose only 34 percent, or about 1 percent per year. So being in the top 10 percent of the income distribution, like being a college graduate, wasn't a ticket to big income gains.

"But income at the 99th percentile rose 87 percent; income at the 99.9th percentile rose 181 percent; and income at the 99.99th percentile rose 497 percent. No, that's not a misprint."

The people who are eating our lunch are the corporate CEOs pulling in 5, 10, 15 million dollars a year. And for what?

For delivering ten or 20 times as much value to the economy as their predecessors 20 years ago?

MikeM,

Beacause CEOs are the cream of the crop, and X amount of shareholders and staff rely on his strategic direction to get paid wages and to protect and grow their investment. He gets paid it as they are a rare breed of individual able to absorb much pressure and be accountable for everything.

You pay peanuts you get monkeys. He just deals in bigger numbers than the next man, he gets paid for example 10 million as he may have attained or improved profits by many more times this amount. Just like some one getting paid 50k per year may be productive for 250k worth of work to a company. If he stuffs up he is gone, just like the next man.

Dont get mad get even, get a piece of the pie dont complain about it

As an ex-IT worker who is highly educated and has implemented some fundamental IT infrastructure on time and on budget I find it galling to be looking for work. Fortunately I understand numbers so I realise I am not alone, so I don't hide my head in shame - like many of my erstwhile colleagues I stridently support any one who wants to roll back the new Master Servant Act 2005 also known as work choices.

I am also a trained teacher so I have been checking the website that all Victorian government school vacancies must be advertised on. If we have 5.8% unemployment rate then a system that employs 100,000 teachers should have 5800 vacancies advertised. In any week this year I have not counted more that 120 teaching vacancies. There is NO shortage of teachers.

The Age yesterday had an article near the editorial pages which stated that the median adult income in Australia was $26,000. Tax office staff that I know confirm that this article gels with their experience of handling tax returns. The average wage of $56,000 ignores adults on pensions, living off savings and in part time work.

So what if those slobs are living on less than $26,000 they don't deserve any more and if they were smarter they would find themselves a job.
Those adults living on less than $26,000 can't afford to buy a new car, buy a house or pay rent, buy new clothes, buy a cappuccino, books, computer or new toys. These adults can't participate in the economy they just stare at the foreign workers with distaste as they steal their jobs.

So our manufacturers have lost customers unless they can export their product overseas. So realist if you aint exporting you are staring a diminishing market for your product.

Realist wrote:

"Beacause CEOs are the cream of the crop, and X amount of shareholders and staff rely on his strategic direction to get paid wages and to protect and grow their investment. He gets paid it as they are a rare breed of individual able to absorb much pressure and be accountable for everything.

You pay peanuts you get monkeys. He just deals in bigger numbers than the next man, he gets paid for example 10 million as he may have attained or improved profits by many more times this amount. Just like some one getting paid 50k per year may be productive for 250k worth of work to a company. If he stuffs up he is gone, just like the next man."

Is that so?

In "Supersize This: How CEO Pay Took Off While America's Middle Class Struggled", http://www.americanprogress.org/atf/cf/%7BE9245FE4-9A2B-43C7-A521-5D6FF2E06E03%7D/CEO_Pay_WEB_Final.pdf , you'll see on page 9 that ratio of US CEO pay to average worker pay was no more that 35:1 for the period 1965-1980, a period when Free World economies were buoyant, and well run corporations prospered.

Yet the ratio reached 300:1 in 2000 and for 2004 (the latest year on the graph) was 240.

When Michael Eisner ousted Michael Ovitz from Disney with a compensation package of $140 million for being fired, what on earth was the Disney Board thinking? That it would improve profits by many times this amount? http://money.cnn.com/2004/10/15/news/fortune500/ovitz/

I rest my case.

Realist,
A simplistic notion, don't get angry get even etc....if only life were so simple for most of us, a nice notion, difficult to attain.

For employees, especially semi skilled and low paid employees, there is little choice now, even less with the introduction of workchoices law. For example a labouer with learning difficulties, cannot decide to go to Uni and study law. A clerk is unlikely to be able to become a carpenter etc. So we are blackmailed { some by mortage, some by other means} into remaining in the job, at reduced wages and conditions. The majority of the Australian public are too apethetic and would not know what an award was. It is in fact a floor on wages and conditions, the minimum standard,a living wage, employers have always been able to reward great employees with over the award payments, however have never before been able to go through minimum standards, which is about to take a nasty change.

This law has the potential to cause another resession or worse, if people who are barely manageing to repay their mortage, go under a housing crisis could follow, with the resulting unemployment, and economic downturn. I don't expect the situation to change much before the next election to enable Bonsai to go to the next election saying "there you are the sky didn't fall in" but after the election it will be on for young and old.

Bonsai has always hated the average worker, and it is indicative of the apathy that lies will change a workers vote his way, however when the worker loses his "real" wage, that will be the time the Tory Government gets the flick, too little, too late as usual.

C.E.O's were General Managers in the 70's and were paid 4 times the average weekly earnings, now they are paid 63 times the average weekly earnings, an insult to working people with any sense of fairness. For any person to be paid $67,000 per week is absurd.Especially in light of the average workers having their pay and conditions forced down, by cruel government.

The article that says that the median Australian adult income is $26,000 by Andrew Leigh can be found at http://www.theage.com.au/news/opinion/only-rich-people-want-to-lower-the-top-tax-rate/2006/03/02/1141191789275.html

Also check out this article by Ross Gittins from Thursday's Age saying that although the Treasurer can afford to give tax breaks to the top tax rate because its only 3% of the tax payers he can't afford to let that trickle down because a $6 tax break for average workers can't be financed.
http://www.theage.com.au/news/ross-gittins/costello-caving-in-to-top-end-of-town--again/2006/02/28/1141095737350.html

Well we cannot have it both ways.We can't keep enjoying the fruits of the sweat of lowly paid workers from India and China without some sort of retribution.It is no longer viable to manufacture anything in Australia.Even all the custom made items will be eventually made either in China or India.Even many IT and specialists skills will be outsourced beyond our shores.This is the price of Globalisation.The die has been cast by the Hawke Govt a long time ago and seemingly there is no going back.If we cannot pay for our own consumption,eventually we we go broke.We are $400 billion in the red re balance of payments.This is half our annual GDP.

The thing I don't like,is that it plays right into the hands of the Multi-nationals.When a small business is forced to close here,a larger organisation with the capital can simply go to China ,get it produced 85% cheaper and make 300% profit and the consumer in Australia will pay almost the same price as the locally manufactured product.It restricts the capacity for ordinary Australians to rise from obscurity to wealth and this is what gives us hope.Without hope ,there is no motivation.

John Howard just the other waxed lyrical about working in his fathers garage in Sydney and how owning your own business in a Australia is something that should be encouraged.Well Govt red tape,taxes and regulation are doing the exact opposite.It further reduces our capacity to compete.

We are locked in a vicious circle of taxes and regulation to pay for the unemployable and stupid bureaucracy which in turn punishes private enterprise and they wonder why we can't compete.Just reducing basic wages is not the answer.This will only increase crime and further alienate uneducated people.

I don't think that any of the bureaucrats or think tanks really have any solutions.They just cross their fingers and hope "She'll be right mate.",while they count their flexi-days and watch their super grow.

There needs to be a lot more analysis about where we are going.Where is the opposition?

People here seem to be in agreement about the negative aspects of what is happening to ordinary people and especially to the people at the bottom, but many of you seem to believe the government and media propaganda that there is no alternative. Take a look at the Scandinavian countries in the CIA World Factbook, the UN Human Development figures, and elsewhere. Realist seems to think wealth won't be created without massive inequality, but Finland is number one on the World Economic Forum Competitiveness Index, even though the ratio of the income of the top 10% to that of the bottom 10% is only 5. It is 12.7 in Australia. The US Bureau of Labor Statistics publishes comparisons of unemployment rates for 9 countries, after correcting so that apples are compared with apples. There is very little difference between Sweden's unemployment rate and Australia's, and for some years Sweden's was lower.

The Nordic countries are just as good as the Anglosphere countries in creating wealth and jobs. They have stable populations and are streets ahead on social cohesion, environmental management, and the welfare of the people at the bottom. See the Jan. 11, 2005 column in the Guardian by George Monbiot (in Monbiot archive on the Web) for a really devastating comparison of the UK to Sweden in terms of poverty, illiteracy, social mobility and social inequality. Perhaps we should become part of the Danish Commonwealth?

contd.

The next question is what to do if you don't like what is happening and agree that a better way exists. There are obviously some very powerful groups profiting from the existing situation. Protests, well reasoned or otherwise, end up in the circular file or its electronic equivalent, apart from some token letters to the editor. Voting for the other major party just gives you more of the same. A politician who does offer a genuine alternative on some aspect of the globalist agenda is likely to be jailed on some pretext.

Nevertheless, the politicians can't force you to vote for them. If you don't like the ways the major parties are representing you, you can just put them both last, with the sitting member last of all. You can do the same with incumbent senators. The next local member will undoubtedly betray you as well, but you can put him last at the following election. Once the politicians see the gravy train leaving the station without large numbers of their colleagues, some beneficial change might start to occur.

My 15yo son's boss stated that he could not afford to pay public holiday rates. He put a document in front of my son to sign agreeing to this. My son was given no choice.

Two laws were broken
1. Kids under 18 need a parents consent to sign - this was never requested
2. In Qld. that agreement was not legal.

We don't want trouble for the boss, he employs our son, but we also don't want our son signing his rights away.

For 3 weeks my son had to do the work of 2 people as the boss couldn't find anyone. Was there any extra in my sons pay by way of saying thanks?...No! And yet the boss saved one persons salary on those days.

The boss paid exactly what my son was due. So why would a young kid sign away his rights when it is a one way street.

In the future this boss may have to give my son a reference... What happens if my son were to leave over not signing the document. What could the boss say when phoned for a reference?

Kids are at a great disadvantage when bosses use this new legislation bluffing around existing laws.

My son is never late, he is always enthusiastic (the boss said he is one of the best workers he's seen) and yet this is how kids can be treated.

The boss wanted my son to re-train in another area of the business for 6 hours with no pay for that time. So we checked up on that... that too is illegal.

Many bosses are getting kids to try out for 3 hours and not paying them. This too is illegal but the kids are still doing it.

In Qld. the boss is liable for those unpaid hours for up to six years... so when my son leaves we may make the claim. But again this will effect any references that boss gives in the future.

How does a young person deal with the boss on a reasonable footing?

Opinionated 2,
Your son has three choices as I see it:

1. Go along and be exploited as he is now.

2. Join a Union and fight with the help of the law, and don't use this boss as a future reference.

3. Ring the Dept of Industrial Relations, and ask for an Industrial Inspector to be sent around to your son's workplace to inspect the books, under current law. Do it quickly before workchoices takes effect. Get your son out of there whatever happens, and try for an industrial job, where people stand up for themselves, and stand together.

I am concerned that my daughter will face this crap when she is old enough to work, I hope to keep her in study for as long as possible.

If she works at 17 and faces this discrimination, she won't sign, as I didn't when faced with the same situation with an EBA which stated that employees had been in the bargining process, which was a lie that the other 2,000 employees signed up to but not me. I took them to the Industrial Relations Commission with the help of my Union and won back pay of over $1,000. They can be beaten, you need to be resolute.

Realist,
C.E.O's may be the cream of the crop however in my book with business looking to cut wages and overheads, it is unfathomable that C.E.O.'s whose pay makes up part of those wages and overheads are not under pressure to produce more for less like everyone else. Can you name me a trade or profession who have increased their remuneration from 4 times the average weekly earnings, to 63 times the a.w.e. since the 1970's.

Why are the costs involved with paying an employee 63 times what average workers are supposed to get {a little joke there} not taken into consideration, along with the rest of the workforce? When they were General Managers they were still the head of the organisation. It defies the laws of gravity that the rest should fall, whilst one employee remains supported to such an increadible level. No it is not envy, just plain old common sense.

Making a CEO poorer does not make anyone richer, nor does government regulation which discourages employment.

The best way of improving wages and conditions for working people – a ridiculously obnoxious term in itself – is by encouraging trade, commerce and investment through low taxation and minimal government interference.

The idea that the state can somehow create a perfect society through prescribing and proscribing behaviour is a furphy that just refuses to die. In the ‘80s it was industry policy and tariffs, in the noughties it is industrial relations.

The skills shortage is a cyclical problem: ten years of growth have left employers short of skilled workers. In 1996 no one was talking about a skills shortage! Bringing in migrants is simply a way of allowing production to continue to rise with demand and thus avoid inflation.

Comments in the article about unemployment highlight the inevitable problem with any social science: lack of a controlled-variable laboratory environment. Yes we’re bringing in foreign workers when there are Australian unemployed, but these Australian unemployed may be in a different state, not have appropriate skills or simply be unwilling to work for the pay offered. Not to mention that with its high minimum wages, generous welfare and highly-regulated economy, Australia is always going to have a reasonable level of unemployment.

The IR changes will not have too great an impact on any of these issues. Repeal the whole damn Act, then something may happen.

BotanyWhig the foreign workers are usually in the same cities as the unemployed Australians whose jobs they have taken. Check out all the Indian IT workers on St Kilda Road trams visiting client offices. 6 years ago the trams were full of [white] Aussies who are now unemployed or working at lower paid jobs in other areas.

Look, for example, at who does the low paid shifts at 7 Eleven, your local service station, car wash etc

Yes, I think we should look to Scandanavia as models for or society rather than Britain and the US.

Why won't anyone face the fact that in Australia we are living well beyond our means, and that there has to be a substantial cut in our standard of living. The only way we can compete with the new asian economies is to cut wages, which surely is better that having the jobs go overseas and leaving people here unemployed. If there are any diehards that want to bring back tariff protection, they should realise that overseas countries will not buy our products if we keep theirs out. The youngsters of today are going to be the first generation that will not live as well as their parents, mainly because of government policies over the last 40 years.

The solutions to our problem, which would take as many years to work as we spent creating them, are as follows:

1. At the moment it does not pay to save money. This needs to be corrected.

2. Similarly, there are excessive tax benefits for those who borrow. These should be reduced.

(note that the result of 1 and 2 over 40 years is 500 billion of foreign debt).

3. Reduction of welfare, so that wage reduction can be achieved while still leaving some incentive for working.

4. Suspension of immigration, except for a very small number of very skilled people.

I am aware that this is a very bleak solution to our problems. Unfortunately the alternative is worse. As we approach the end of the age of cheap oil we will have to tighten our belts and look back to the last 60 years as a golden age.

To end on a upbeat note, remember that in the turmoil and chaos to come, Australia is the only country with the four vital things. These are:

1. A surplus of food.

2. A surplus of energy.

3. A surplus of minerals.

4. Most important of all, a sea boundary.

History has proven that if you put too much control in one segment of the workforce/economy then corruption rises and usually someone suffers.

When the Unions had too much power businesses were put at jeopardy with wharf strikes etc.

Remember the reaosn Unions existed was that the rich had too much power and it was the little guys way of fighting back.

Like everything in life it is about balance. If a company like Telstra can put off 10,000 to 12,000 staff after the Senator Joyce had allegedly got the best deal for the bush then companies can do just about anything.

Very few of the CEO's start on the increasing sales side of the ledger... they usually decrease costs by sacking people. The thing that built this country was stable employment. That's right stable "full time" employment. It means you can borrow money, buy a houe, buy a boat, educate your kids.

With the push to more casual employment and work contracts a major protection for individuals is removed. I know a Liberal voter who as State Manager got sacked in a management shakeup... His Liberal views quickly changed that day!

We had many a discussion of how great his company was, and how secure he was. I warned him and then one day he was on the end of rationalisation. My advice to all who hold the market forces argument... Don't age! Your day of reckoning might be coming up soon.

We are dealing on a world scale here. CEO's will move to the next opportunity, with the next company, both here and overseas.

We must be comparable in order to attract the cream. Just like in any profession, those that are at the top of the rung get the most, those at the bottom get the least.

Yes its gone up, but that is life. If you cant get up to that level, dont winge. Conquer your own destiny. It upsets me that people are of a jealous nature, dont look over the fence, look at your own backyard and if you are unhappy with that, change it.

There are the doers and the dreamers. Usually those CEO's are doers, whilst many who fire shots at them are jealous dreamers. Why cant i have those things too? Go and do it. If you cant, get to the top of your own spectrum, whatever that may be.

And this comment "So we are blackmailed { some by mortage, some by other means} into remaining in the job, at reduced wages and conditions"

How is your employer using your mortgage as blackmail? Maybe you blackmail yourself with this as you are afraid of getting out of your comfort zone. Do you think your the only one out there with a mortgage and expenses? Risk v Return. You are choosing your destiny and you dont have to take anything. If you want to change, take the risk and if you want it bad enough, the universe combined with your perseverance will eventually reward you. This could be an important stepping stone or catalyst for change that may be very important in the scheme of your life. A great opportunity for you to do what your heart says.

Reducing conditions and wages are bad, but it takes 2 to tango, especially as you are intelligent and have the capacity to state your case, or find alternates.

Cmon folks, if it is to be it is up to me.

Realist,
I approach the C.E.O. subject not from jealousy, but from fairness, you say that lowering C.E.O.'s wages will not make anyone more wealthy, so why will lowering ordinary workers wages?

I am interested in your view, which is why I ask these questions, I have never been interested in reaching that level, however I fail to see why C.E.O's remuneration has increased from 4 to 63 times a.w.e in 30 years, when everyone else has not. Surely these things are relative, it adds costs to a business whether you pay the C.E.O. 4 X A.W.E OR 63 X A.W.E. or are you trying to say that if the C.E.O were offered $5 million instead of $10 million that he would not take the job? If that were so someone equally qualified would take it.

Or is it the case that business bids other employees rates down, while it bids C.E.O. rates upward, if so why? There appears to be no logic to me. The addittional cost of 63 employees in one still costs 63 employees. If there is a common sense explanation, please share.

With the emergence of new centres of wealth globally, the race for the best and brightest to run public companies is on a global scale and this is the market we must compare it to.

CEO's are in charge of millions/billions of dollars, their direction and success flows through to the security of all underneath them, and have perhaps thousands of people relying on them for their livelihood both as employees and shareholders.They cop the greif.

Therefore by comparing a CEO with an average worker, it is like comparing an orange with an apple. What has happenned in relation to CEO wages should be of little consequence to anyone beacause they play in a different ball game.

I suggest that CEO's in this day and age are accountable moreso than in the past, they go to Gaol moreso than in the past if they make mistakes, in this age they are scolded for it moreso than the past.

Therefore if their wages have gone up because CEO's are in global demand, they have added pressure and accountability, and they perform a role that requires the best of the best, good on them they deserve it.

I dont know about you, but if you pay peanuts you get monkeys, if i invest in a company i hope if they can budget it, they pay the CEO as much as possible, as this will attract the best of the CEO's.

They cannot, and should not, be compared to the 'average worker', it is like comparing holden commodores with ferrarri's and saying its wrong prices have gone up for ferraris when compared to commodores.

Like you and I, they have expenses and dealing with bigger numbers means they have larger expenses. If they make something successful they deserve it, i am delighted that when i get to the top of a PLC, wages are high. If you dont strive for getting to the top but yet you are not happy with CEO's paychecks, i suggest you ignore this fact. What other emotion is this than Jealosy Shonga? not meaning to antagonise.

When Australian industry was growing in the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s the CEO wage was not as great as it is today when compared to wages of the worker on the shop floor.

Australian industry isn't growing, in fact most sectors of the Australian economy are shrinking. So it begs the question why should Sol Trujillo be paid such enormous salary to head an organisation that is no longer world class, is losing value for its share holders, fighting with the major shareholder and alienating its customer base and shifting jobs from skilled Australians with kids, mortgages and school fees to pay to graduates in India.

And the reason why IT jobs are under the gun is because it was an un-unionised workforce and many small minds resented the salaries paid to IT workers. When the ATO shifted operations to India they were shocked to find their new programmers wouldn't work overnight to fix things - the fix could go in the next update in 3 months if the correct procedure was followed. Am reminded of the retiring Commonwealth Bank chief who said IT was a waste of money - if the CBA loses its computer systems for 48 hours its out of business and so are all its customers.

The globalisation of IT jobs isn't restricted to Australia. In the 1960's the programmers at NASA were white. by 1996 most workers in Silicon Valley were Chinese and
[reputedly] in Redmond, Washington [Microsoft] they were Indian. I met the 1960s programmers panhandling on Pier 21 in San Francisco.

Realist,
Also not wishing to antagonise, I understand your view, and I do support a higher rate of pay for undertaking more responsibility. I support a C.E.O being paid 10X an ordinary employee. What I find unfair is 63X. It is not jealousy, I do not have the strive to make it to a C.E.O's position, nor the education, however in any job I have ever held, I have always done my best, and have recieved my award wage for doing so, which I consider a fair day's work, for a fair day's pay.

I therefore am not, and never will work from a position of jealousy. I am content with my lot. I do however remember the time when C.E.O's were General Managers, they worked globally in the 70's, the company I worked for employed a General Manager who recieved $100,000 p.a., when I recieved $18,000p.a. I didn't have a problem with that, nor do I today. The GM had overseas trips, I was fortunate enough to be able to stay at home with my family, I consider myself lucky.

He was well rewarded for his ability, as he should have been, he was on less than 6X my wage, but had expenses thrown in and a company car. I do not begrudge anyone this remuneration. They have more education, more skills and they deserve what they were paid. The injustice for me appears in the form of hypocrisy, whereby these days a C.E.O. can lose a business $millions, then get kicked out, with a multi-million dollar settlement, and take up another job within weeks, again on $ millions p.a., it seems to many of us that they sack a thousand workers and then go for a personnel pay rise themselves, which in my eyes is sheer hypocrisy.

Perhaps we may agree to disagree, I am simply expressing my opinion.

Regards, Shaun

Good Point Shonga,

I can see your view. its good to discuss things without punches being thrown.

Have a good day.

By the way, education is a cornerstone, but if you are a powerful person you can get around it. i am sure you could.

Regards

Not much I can see us doing about ceo pays but how can Australians just take this Howard distruction of all workers rights?
Can we really think lowering the liveing standards of those already behind most of us is good?
If world trade demands the makeing of more working poor I question if its the way.
Apathy I could write much more about our apathy but I just can not be bothered.