The Forum > Article Comments > Assault on Australian workers' conditions > Comments
Assault on Australian workers' conditions : Comments
By Jim McDonald, published 3/3/2006Australian workers face a future of job insecurity, loss of penalties, low pay and poor working conditions.
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Posted by Realist, Saturday, 4 March 2006 9:09:52 AM
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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. Posted by billie, Saturday, 4 March 2006 1:53:18 PM
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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. Posted by MikeM, Saturday, 4 March 2006 2:20:30 PM
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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. Posted by SHONGA, Saturday, 4 March 2006 3:09:12 PM
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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 Posted by billie, Saturday, 4 March 2006 3:21:19 PM
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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? Posted by Arjay, Saturday, 4 March 2006 8:14:27 PM
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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