The National Forum   Donate   Your Account   On Line Opinion   Forum   Blogs   Polling   About   
The Forum - On Line Opinion's article discussion area



Syndicate
RSS/XML


RSS 2.0

Main Articles General

Sign In      Register

The Forum > Article Comments > International Labour Organization finally faces reality > Comments

International Labour Organization finally faces reality : Comments

By Ken Phillips, published 29/9/2006

For the first time, the peak body of world-wide labour regulators accepted that labour regulations should not interfere in commercial transactions.

  1. Pages:
  2. 1
  3. 2
  4. 3
  5. All
What a sad sack apolagist for the exploitation of workers. Billy's Cleaning company. Mary's aged care. Freds Security. Employers-i think not.
A rose by any other name........
Posted by hedgehog, Friday, 29 September 2006 11:49:23 AM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
Hedgehog. Let's hear a reasoned argument detailing your concerns about the material in the paper instead of a name calling diatribe. This is supposed to be a forum where educated debate takes place.
Posted by VK3AUU, Friday, 29 September 2006 1:09:39 PM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
Ken seems to have overlooked the second part of the standard: "while at the same time ensuring that individuals in an employment relationship have the protection they are due".

Labour law should be about protecting the interests of workers, not promoting employers commercial interests.
Posted by rossco, Friday, 29 September 2006 1:11:25 PM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
For a brief period I worked in direct marketing - little more than door to door sales. In order to do this job, I had to become an independent contractor. It was a key part of the job, and you couldn't do it if you didn't have an ABN.

The salary of this job was entirely commission based - they work on a pyramid scheme of sorts, where the new entrants make sales, they get $50 or so for each person signed up (this particular mob was about convincing people to sign up to charities) and the group leader got $20 or so for each sale made by their plebians. The manager of that outlet of the organisation got a piece, and presumably, some went to world headquarters.

This ultimately, is the epitome of the free market system, though I can't help but wonder when are people going to realise that extreme free market ideology is just as flawed as communist practices when taken to the limits.

There is a natural order in all things, which sways like a pendulum. Economics, Politics, Animal populations, Demographics, you name it.

Now history has shown us that the government can't effectively take control of the market. It doesn't work, and the capitalist notion of greed is an essential requirement. Yippee for capitalism.

Now the central notion of the socialist argument is that capitalism leads to excessive accumulation of wealth into fewer hands.
They've been proven right - we're headed for extreme capitalism, where a handful can control billions - yet we're still loathe to accept that this is a problem with capitalism. Anyone who does is labelled a communist, or these days, accused of stifling trade.

It is when people acknowledge that capitalism has it's problems too, and they need addressing, that we will truly be "facing reality"
Posted by TurnRightThenLeft, Friday, 29 September 2006 1:27:53 PM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
VK3AUU, an educated debate does not need to be long and convaluted.
Just because someone writes a long article,trying to dress up a wolf in sheeps clothing doesnt mean it cant be countered by a brusque response. My point is clear enough. Calling working people 'Companies' doesnt make them so.The common law test of what and who is an employee still exposes the sham nature of many arrangements. The trucking industry is another prime example of the rort of dodging responsibility.
Posted by hedgehog, Friday, 29 September 2006 1:52:35 PM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
Let's step back for a moment.

The ILO is an agency of the United Nations. The UN - while being a necessary construct, in that if it didn't exist we would have to invent it - is about as relevant to our daily lives as the price of gasoline in Caracas (about 3.5c a litre, since you ask).

Of course, there are two constituencies who will be delighted that the ILO has decided finally to back capitalism. Governments like our own, who want to encourage the notion that weighting the scales in favour of employers is somehow going to protect our way of life. And governments in emerging countries, who need to drive up their own economies without the inconvenience of international restraint on their treatment of their workers.

The author alludes to the origins of the ILO, and suggests that circumstances have changed.

>>The ILO was formed in 1919 at the end of World War I, on a belief that the war was in part a consequence of conflict between labour and capital. This was an understandable view early last century.<<

I suggest that he takes a closer look at the tensions between the haves and the have-not economies of today's world, and asks whether we are quite so distanced from those root causes as he would like to believe. Because it was never as much about "class warfare", as about unfairness.

And that ain't changed a lot.
Posted by Pericles, Friday, 29 September 2006 2:32:41 PM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
When has the Howard government ever cared about the UN and it's organisations?

Independant Contractors, what a farce, if you do "work" for only one company you are not a contractor you are an employee. I don't care what the law says.

This is a mechanism to reduce costs, these costs are, overtime rates, penalty rates, holiday pay, sick leave, maternity leave, paternity leave, superannuation, payroll tax, workers compensation insurance, payroll records, etc etc.

What company would not jump at the chance? Why does our Government encourage it?
Posted by Steve Madden, Friday, 29 September 2006 3:36:53 PM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
Typical IPA rubbish, everything will be fine if only the pesky workers stopped wanting to be paid.
They should be begging to work for tea and sugar
Posted by j5o6hn, Friday, 29 September 2006 4:33:55 PM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
Ken Philips omits to mention his role with the dodgy front group, Independent Contractors of Australia. See

http://workers.labor.net.au/308/news5_meyer.html

http://workers.labor.net.au/319/news1_day.html
Posted by JH, Friday, 29 September 2006 8:06:23 PM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
Ken, you note correctly that “In short, the Queensland Act creates legal and economic nonsense and confusion. It distorts reality,” and that “In addition, no economy can succeed where certainty of commercial transaction is destroyed by either war, bad public policy or other causes. Where commercial uncertainty exists the opportunity to break poverty cycles and to achieve national and global economic equity is diminished.”

Welcome to the Alice-in-Wonderland state, where nothing is as it seems, and things are what Premier Beattie deems them to be. As an economic policy advisor in Queensland, I frequently stressed that (1) economic growth depends on private investors identifying and exploiting viable opportunities and that (2) the biggest disincentive to investment is sovereign risk, whereby the government arbitrarily changes the rules on which investment decisions are made. In the name of economic development, the Queensland government has, on the one hand, frequently provided discriminatory industry assistance on a “picking winners” basis (taxing viable firms to support non-viable firms), but on the other hand has frequently created sovereign risk, driving away potential investors. An example is inviting private sector investment in power stations, then rendering them non-viable by deciding to build further state-owned power stations which had not been on the agenda when private investment was sought
Posted by Faustino, Friday, 29 September 2006 8:45:21 PM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
Hmmm, another "less pay for more work' agenda. I note that Howard is already backing away from that dog.
Posted by aspro, Saturday, 30 September 2006 2:41:19 AM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
Most importantly the ILO has dropped the term "dependent contractor" and now states that:

1.A Worker is a generic term covering employees and independent contractors
2.An Employee is a particular form of legal relationship.
3.A dependent worker is an employee
4.An independent worker is an independent contractor.
Source: http://www.hrnicholls.com.au/nicholls/nichvo27/phillips2006.html

'In June 2006 the International Labour Organisation made a step in an historic, positive direction. Understanding the significance of
this step and following through with national and global policy alignment is the next challenge.'
'Communities increasingly do not define themselves in class warfare terms between workers and bosses [an untruth]. Issues that divide and unite communities are now more complex, diverse, unpredictable and fluid [a truth]. says Phillips.

So what we have here is an international global governance of Labour. Full Stop.

In Australia, if we follow the above two critiques fully, we see the creation of a two tiered social system. One level bureaucratic and
elite, the other peasant based and dis-enhanced by domestic drivel. Organs such as the ILO, and local affiliates such as the ACTU, will
be by default, your self-appointed bureaucratic representatives. To whom you will have either a social, or labour based contract. Full
stop.
They call it indentured labor. Its in Revelation 13:17.
Posted by Gadget, Saturday, 30 September 2006 1:31:30 PM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
I agree with turnleft turnright when he says “extreme free market ideology is just as flawed as communist practices when taken to extreme.”

The Capitalist and Communist systems are basically taken over by elite groups who seek to take a bigger share for themselves than they give the other people in their societies. The communist revolutionaries promise the people freedom from poverty whilst using them to win the revolution, then set themselves and their comrades up with the best of everything and the people are still as poor as ever.

The groups in capitalist societies who gain positions of power either political or big business power do exactly the same thing by making sure they set the rules and regulations to make sure that they maintain their power and financial gain over the rest of society.

This is basic human instinct to try and gain the biggest share of territorial wealth (the lion’s share) so to speak. The one saving grace for the people in Capitalists societies is that we have the vote and so to some extent the politicians must appear to be acting in our interests. But they often only pay lip service to assuage our suspicions whilst granting themselves big superannuations payouts.

The boys in the boardrooms in big business and global companies are just as bad. They have never minded using a bit of slave labour in third world countries. Paying them a pittance instead of what their labour is really worth. Oh but I forgot they are really helping these people aren’t they.

Contract labour is just one more of their rules and regulations set in place to favour them financially.

It was only about a hundred years ago that Grandaddy Rockafellow in America turned the guns on his workers for going on strike when he refused to give them more money to feed their families. Eleven workers were shot down that day. But we’re not like that any more are we? HUMAN NATURE DOESN’T CHANGE.

What the bosses are saying to the workers is we are not like that any more “trust us.’
Posted by sharkfin, Sunday, 1 October 2006 12:41:33 AM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
Indeed and Bravo sharkn.

To be fair to both sides of the debate, and to give it an academic focus, lets give the antagonists -the Communist-Capitalists- a terminology.

Lets term it 'Commy-Capitalism'.

That way we can attach a term to the apparatchicks/enforcers:

Lets call them Economic hardliners a name they deserve:

Lets call then 'Econo-Fascists'.

There, now ive done it. Ive opened up you eyes!

Da Da.
Posted by Gadget, Sunday, 1 October 2006 2:31:29 PM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
  1. Pages:
  2. 1
  3. 2
  4. 3
  5. All

About Us :: Search :: Discuss :: Feedback :: Legals :: Privacy