Graham.
Odd that even the HR Nichols society has been on the ABC today berating these laws, along with everyone else. Of course you have a vested interest here, maximising your profits, on the back of some lowly paid workers.

How you people can sleep at night really defies belief, and it is your job to supply suitable labour for the jobs, are you saying that it is really you, who are incompetent, not the employees, it sounds that way to me.

Ok now that I have had my say, you may go back to your red and bickies.

If the IR reform was underpinned by skills training, on the job training and removal of HECS and other fees in relation to higher education, it would not be radical.
If Australia is "rolling in it" as this morning's editorials suggest, then it can afford training policies, a proper long term analysis of the quality of and appropriateness of shifting to immigrant skills and a moratorium on whether Australian citizens can constitutionally be written off by a short sightedness in Government that is one part spitefulness and 2 parts CPA bean counting.

The radicality here is that in 10 years Australia could become the next Fiji where:
* Indian workers in particular are sought after because ITS government provides the training Howard won't,
* Companies will find lame excuses to sack Aussies so they can get more Indians to bolster easy profits
*Indians will find equal opportunity in government as was done in Fiji
*We will lose our culture and the resentment will lead to political and social revolutions as is happening on a regular basis in Fiji.
* At least we'll still play cricket .. If they'll let us.

PS in 10 years time the architects of this Clayton's 'non radical' change will all be dead and buried. What do they care?

A hardly surprising summary from a well-known small business peddeler who has obviously never really had to negotiate from the powerless bargaining position most australian workers find themselves in. The fact is that these needless, over-complicated, blatantly employer biased reforms ARE going to change things for Australian workers. To think otherwise is to live in some utopian dream world where all bosses love their workers and Hitler was a saint. What crap. The real outcome is that employees no longer will have to be paid overtime or penalty rates (eg shift allowance). Measures to limit replacing full-time workers with casuals and contractors have been outlawed. Any reference to employee training is illegal. Industrial Action is effectively also illegal given the obviously excessive secret ballot requirements. And let us not even mention the fact that someone who has slogged their guts out for a business for 10 years can now be sacked the day before he would have got his long service leave due to the unfair dismissal changes.

No difference? What a joke. The fact is there is no possible justification for these changes and the only casualties will be already marginalised, low paid Australian employees

ACTU Media Release 27 March 2006

New ACTU polling shows the Australian public is overwhelmingly opposed to the Government's new IR laws.

New research conducted by the Australian Council of Trade Unions shows that the public are deeply opposed to the Howard Government's new IR laws, and that the community believe the laws show the Government is acting in the interests of big business over the rights of Australian working families.

The ACTU conducted the polling of 1,000 voters in 24 key coalition held marginal seats in late February, early March as part of the union movement's ongoing campaign against the new IR laws which commence today.

The research shows that less than one in four Australians support the laws, and that almost 70% believe that while the laws will benefit big corporations and CEOs they will hurt ordinary families.

Key findings include:

72% of voters support unfair dismissal laws that protect workers.

59% of voters believe that the Government's new IR laws alone are
a strong reason to vote against the Government at the next federal
election.

70% believe that individual contracts give too much power to the
employer.

68% agree that the new laws are strong evidence that John Howard
governs more for corporate Australian than for ordinary working
families.

60% agree that collective bargaining means better job security for
workers.

66% believe that the laws are a threat to every working family.

ACTU President Sharan Burrow said:

Today, Australian working families lose unfair dismissal laws, the strong award system, the safety net, the right to a minimum wage...
The public are asking why the Government would introduce laws that are so obviously designed to take working families wages and conditions backwards, and to remove basic rights for workers at the workplace.

Despite $50 million of Government advertising and a year of spin, the public is aware that the Government is introducing these laws to benefit big business at the expense of ordinary working families.

Haycroft - You are a short sighted idiot. Screw 80% of the population because business is too thick to work out the answer to pigeon holing 20%

People don't exist merely as a factor of production, to suit the whims of business. Pick up a history book and read about 'Freedom of Contract' during the 1890's. It lead to recession and almost revolution.

Your statement "For instance, given the choice, 99 out of 100 workers would take the cash value for sick pay and 100 out of 100 employers would jump at the opportunity to offer it" is absolute crap.

I can just imagine the workplace that denies sick leave to someone with the flu - just to have the whole workplace come down with this debiliating illness. Two weeks was the average that a human being is expected to be sick in any given year. But in your fairyland capitalist utopia, factors of production don't get viruses and disease.

Your grandchildren will be a generation of "Billy" of the original Workchoices Booklet fame. No penalty rates, no rest breaks, timed or no toilet breaks and no ability to withdraw their labour. Sign or don't work!

You are nothing but a unionists for spoilt fat cat unproductive and uncreative business. I doubt you would have produced any *thing* in your life. Your attitude disgusts me.

So the rich are trying to justify ripping off the poor to make themselves richer. These labor hire companies are a rort. They are designed to isolate the employer from its responsibilitis. They are formed as shelf companies and can close down and resurface on a whim. I know a young tradesperson who was being paid $22 ph by a labor hire mob. 2 years later after working interstate and gaining considerably more experience and knowledge, the same mob offered him $18 for the same job.
If India and poorer countries had a social security system the workers there would be getting a fairer wage. In India and Asia the rich are just rorting the poor. My Indian neighbours tell me that they moved here because even being rich in India does not mean safety. Life is so cheap over there. I suggest that if you are talking to an overseas call centre person you try to encourage them to join a union and fight for social security within their country.

Globalism of the workforce is simply global exploitation of the poor by the very rich.