Steve, thanks for those citations.

I guess OLO employers still want to believe that they got to where they are despite the regulation of labour markets and the collective brilliance and struggle of workers -working for the good of majority.

I have yet to see any evidence that a deregulated market will increase productivity and choice for workers.

My understanding is that productivity must rise faster than wages or companies will fail and recession could result.

In other words, workers produce more but do not receive a corresponding increase in wages - which is the kind of social and economic environment OLO employers are wanting.

Are they just greedy old men who don't give a dam about workers?

Yes.

Do they know this to be the truth about themselves?

Yes.

Do they give a dam?

No.

But they still want to stand with us and declare themselves to be fair minded, egalitarian, patriotic - but are similtaneously blind to how they have benefited from the social and democratic culture that unionism has delivered.

It just shows how conservative rugged individualism was an economic, social and cultural myth that they want to believe but have never really lived.

Having followed the unfolding of workchoices closely since its unveiling, I am seeing what I expected to see. Not mass sackings but the mass downgrading of take home pay and conditions, slowly but surely. Don't expect to see it on television(you won't-after the cowra abbatoir, the media quickly tired of the issue),but aussie wages and conditions are quietly eroding away.

Thousands of workers have so far been forced to accept AWA's that are inferior to their previous agreements, some of them vastly inferior. We are only six months in, after six years woking life in Australia will be very diffent to the way it is now for a lot of people. Quite a few aussies might not believe this, but then, quite a few kiwis didn't believe that much would change when the new zealand government introduced a very similar IR policy in 1992.

Does anyone not remember all tha jokes ciculating around years ago about how all the kiwis were over here? It wasn't a joke. Employment conditions deteriorated so far, not immediatly, but over eight years(the legislation was repealed in 2000) that the country's population actually fell as workers left in droves, and I know a number of them.

They confirmed the dreadful state of employment under such laws that forced them to leave, and what we can look forward to if they remain in place.

Mass sackings? Maybe not, but you can bet decent working conditions will grow scarcer as pay packets grow lighter.

Howard doesnt like Sol Trujillo, Col doesnt think Sol is worth the renumeration. How illuminating.
Col when will your posts comment on the article ?
Is it Govt. spin or not,when they assert the Union movement claimed that the introduction of WorkChoices, would lead to thousands being thrown out of work?
The author of the article Mass sackings? Bull (almost as simplistic as crap)suggests that it is a misleading stance.
What does sad Col say, and why?

On reading the last post by col, all I can say is I agree with hedgehog.

Relda “self-regulatory” means without governmental underpinning,
Self-regulatory means they manage themselves, untouched by the dead hand of government bureaucracy and often the organizations which are “self-regulatory” are asked for expert input to legislative planning or proposed changes.

The points you find “no fault with”

a, b, and c are all subjective assessments and not objective measures. Finding fault with something which has no benchmark or other objective standard is expected. It is like the well known observation, the problem with all three is, whilst the bureaucracy might find no fault with their decision, they are not the ones who have to live with the “faultless” outcomes. It is the Employers and Employees who do.

I would further note, in these days when some employers are paying labourers $85,000 pa, it does have a beneficial “trickle-on” effect on the incomes of all labouring and unskilled workers.

Likewise the 12 % unemployment statistics which labour produced in the 1980’s had a negative effect on everyone’s income and job-security.

Rainier, a system which produces outcomes without incurring the cost of a governing bureaucracy, is more efficient than one which relies on employing a governing bureaucracy, even if it is only in saving the public cost of generally mindless and unaccountable “fat-cat bureaucrats”.

As for “the collective brilliance and struggle of workers -working for the good of majority.”

What a hoot, I have never ever met any employee who struggles for “the good of the majority”.

Although I have met plenty of individuals who struggle to better their own lot and in the process give example to how the majority can similarly benefit – it is called using your head.

Hedgehog, labor / unions have been running a scare campaign, they see their vested interests / power threatened and are running scared. It was to be expected, the limited imagination of bullies leaves them to rely on such tactics.

Fozz – agreeing with hedgehog – good for you, I am still trying to work out what he is, in his quaint "down in the hedgerow" style, trying to say!

Col you should get out more.
Maybe then you will meet some people who do work for other people.
I used to think that Ian Hanke was the closest a human had come to gaining the qualities of a Cockroach, but Col's working on it.
Now Col, please provide the citation of any Labor Leader or Union official who claimed that mass sackings would be the immediate result of Workchoices introduction.