Wobbles,

There is no report I know of that Paul Keating ever said that. The original remark, "If you want a friend, get a dog", is attributed to Carl Icahn, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carl_Icahn

The meme subsequently featured in the movie, "Wall Street". Gordon "greed is good" Gecko said, "If you want a friend [on Wall Street], get a dog", http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0094291/quotes

The people the movie is about are, indeed, overwhelmingly on individual contracts but I'm not sure that you can equate greedy millionaires on Wall Street with Domestic TV installers.

MikeM, I didn’t intend to credit Keating as the author of that quote but he’s just the first one I remembered hearing it from and it stuck. I have heard and read variations from many sources since.

I was trying to illustrate the sentiment that businesses should realise that they will not get the same degree of company loyalty from a Contractor than from an employee.

Naturally, the importance of that loyalty depends on the attitude and requirements of the company, but in the instance of some sort of crisis, an “all hands on deck” approach may not be achievable if Contractors are not available when required.

I have seen at least one company that exploited Contractors so badly and gained such a bad reputation among them that it finds it difficult to get workers at all.

I certainly didn’t intend to equate TV installers with Wall Street millionaires.

Does any one else see the inconsistency in the federal government coming down like a ton of bricks on the Cowra Abbattoir for sacking 29 workers and asking them to reapply for 20 jobs.

From memory isn't that what Victorian government departments have made employees do repeatedly since 1992?

wobbles,

I don't deny that sometimes contractors are exploited sorely and on the other hand, sometimes contractors exploit their employers.

But that is true of salaried employees too.

I was involved in a situation where a large company outsourced its information technology. After an initial period of difficulty, both organisations bought into shared objectives and values. It became a really productive arrangement. (Regrettably, the company was bought by another one that didn't see the value in the arrangement, and dissolved it when it was really getting into its stride.)

One of the big lessons from this experience is that managing contractors is a specific skill, a skill that few companies have - and a painful skill to learn by trial and error. Contracting out to a service providing company is also not the same thing as the idiotic idea of contracting out to every one of your employees, right down to individual security guards and cleaners.

You almost have to ask what Kevin Andrews was smoking.

The same is true of outsourcing to corporations and of public/private partnerships. Early movers or incompetent managers are almost bound to fail.

The Howard government's stripping away trade union role in employee-employer negotiations will expose a lot of people to situations in which they have no experience.

Some harsh lessons will be learned.

The Cowra Abbattoir incident that billie mentions is a cosmic joke. I'm not an expert on employment law (in fact right now nobody is expert on the 2000 pages of legislation and regulations that have just come into force), but it seems that the government didn't understand the effect of its own legislation. It is engaged in a desperate damage limitation exercise.

According to tonight's news, the sackings have been retracted, but the government won't say whether they were actually legal.

MikeM,
You make some excellent points.
I get the feeling that we have both had similar experiences.

Contracting isn't all bad in all cases, but it may prove to be a potential time-bomb for employers in years to come.

I wonder how much of the skills shortage can be attributed to redundees leaving their former industries for something easier and not reincarnating themselves as Contractors.

I also don't think Andrews is smoking the wrong stuff. I suspect something in that hair dye he uses may be leeching into his brain.

Bob
This all sounds great (maybe),so why are our politicians in Canberra not fighting to be employed under these conditions?
Parliament operates on a very outdated system and the behaviour at question time would not be tolerated in any other "workplace" in the country.
If parliament operated under the super efficient contract system then maybe parliament house would only need to be opened for a few weeks each year.