Joel Butler, are you still in the Knights of the Southern Cross?
ANd the Liberal Party?

As a Catholic, and you are too, how can you support legislation in the building industry that sets huge fines for workers who wish to defend wages, conditions and occupational health and safety?
Sute there is a history of abuses and excuses in that industry however this Federal Government has gone too far.
Simiarly, in the office workers environment, most are at the mercy of the boss with slitled and false quality and productivity measures that times everything many workers do, especially call centre and customer service work. Many enterprise agreements are done without a trade union and 'delegates meetings' in many workplaces are not union ones; they are boss inspired, driven and controlled.
Now whilst I agree that the socialist left is unreasonable in industrial relations if we remember as kids in the 1970s ( my vintage showing)how strikes were a dime a dozen and wage rises were big and inflation was high; today we have bosses making huge increases and the millionarires factories in finance sector controlling and getting excessive bonuses .
Joel your version of social doctrine is different to that of Catholic Tradition from the 1950s ( the true way).'conservative' Joel does NOT equate to TRADITION.
From Michael Webb, former KSC member.

Hedgehog “Col, keep pedalling. It is so pleasing to see that you are always in the minority in these posts.”

Oh I will “pedal” as much as it suits me.

Being in a minority is nothing unusual for me.

Whilst a democracy works on majorities, qualities of leadership, originality, inventiveness and many other virtues are scarce and found only in minorities.
(not that I claim any virtue in myself, such a promotion would cut across me sense of humility).

Doubtless you are happier in the majority, as they say, one shepherd, 1000 sheep.

As for “It gives hope for a decent Australian Society yet.”

Really? What would you know about decency?
Not that luddite socialist rubbish of equality for all.

Margaret Thatcher had something to say about that.

She said

“Let our children grow tall, and some taller than others if they have it in them to do so.”

She knew how the real world works, how the best is achieved, by those who can perform and being rewarded based on their performance.

You seem more interested in ensuring everyone is equally impoverished.

Oh I do not need to fool anyone, the foolish will fool themselves, as we see from your posts.

I have lived long enough and faced enough of the small minded ranters to know how to deal with you and that is to let you rant and vent, you do yourself more discredit that way.

tapp,

you argument that being "forced to accept" four weeks annual leave, as well as presumably, penalty rates, shift allowances, predictable hours, protection from unfair dismissal etc is hampering a workers freedom to choose a job lacking these things is foreign to me.

Being, as I said, a labourer myself, I have not spoken to anyone in my position who would willingly give these things up or exchange them for a few dollars more.

I know from firsthand experience that in the lower half of the labour market, the terms and conditions of employment are dictated by the employer, not negotiated bi-laterally. Unions help equalize this lopsided power equation.

And tapp, yes I am interested in your past, please tell me more.

In the 1990s New Zealand deregulated is labour force and their productivity rate fell whilst Australia's rose.

Time taken to build a new industry is quite considerable, it takes at least 6 years to build a new model car from initial design, through focus groups, prototypes, more focus groups, testing, tooling up then production.

If you need to build new capital plant the planning takes place 10 years ahead, my consulting engineer friends have a crystal ball on Australia's performance a decade out.

Now when we talk about social capital, skilling people up for a new industry that can easily take 15 to 20 years to train up the trainers, train up practitioners and then build up enough practitioners to have enough bodies to do the work, EG computers have been operating in Australia since 1959 but the first Programmer In Training courses were set up in 1969, by 1980 university courses in computer science had become standardised and by 1990 large companies wouldn't hire new people who did not have relevant formal qualifications.

I repeat that its not in Australia's interests to import skilled workers from overseas whilst not providing training facilities and environment to train up Australians. Over the years the unions have demanded that large employers employ a certain proportion of apprentices in their workforce.

And for those of you who enjoy seeing the stately old buildings of the 1880s in Melbourne and Sydney you owe a thankyou to the Builders Labourers Federation who stood up to developers and state governments to preserve those buildings in the mid 1970s.

col rouge,

Good on you for learning a new skill. We unskilled should all get off our backsides and book ourselves in for one of the vast array of skilled training opportunities that the Howard government has so wisely provided.

Of course, with us all in the skilled market, the general maintainence and basic production that society needs to function will have to fall to someone else. Perhaps we could import millions of cheap workers from the third world, to live and work as second class citizens. But then, having them living here might cause the same sort of problem we saw in France some time ago.

Maybe we could drastically raise the amount of visa 457,s on offer, but we'll call it unskilled visa 458 because as we all know, 457 holders are never used for unskilled work.

Any ideas?

And as for award condtitons costing employers money, tell me: where does one go to find a cost free business? Employers are aware of the cost of employing people, they still employ them.

As for you delusional conviction that you have actually grown taller than joe average, I would say that the cream rises to the top....... but scum floats as well.

Fozz you have very good points there it is disapointing that others cannot see what is really happening.

for those who wish change

email:swulrich@bigpond.net.au

This way you can make your own mind no catches