The Howard Government is barren of new ideas. Sorry had to.

As for this silly line that Unions shouldn't be listened to because they haven't got the membership like they use to.
Should church leaders be ignored because less people go to church?
How many Australians are actually members of the liberal party?

One of the biggest problems in work choices is. People can be paid more or less the someone else while doing the same job. Now we would like to think that was based on performance be this is reality. A single mum of four will not have the same bargaining power as a single man with no kids. So who will push more during barging time.

So vote work choices out vote fairness in, vote Labour

I think there's a lot of merit in the diverse positions in the IR debate.

From the point of view of the active and the industrious, unions are a hindrance and a pain, while from the point of view of the ordinary (i.e. passive) worker, unions are good value because they can do things that the majority of workers would never be capable of doing as individuals. So it's hardly surprising that, in a diverse economy, there are a range of a priori views and opinions as well as a posteriori effects when policies are finally decided upon and enacted.

The way for the economy to move forward with fairness is for the most extreme proponents in the debate to either voluntarily compromise with each other or plane the sharp edges off each other by continuing the way they are. One or the other will eventually happen and, when it does, overall we'll be better off. As Thomas Friedman might say, we'll be getting to a "flat-earth" state in the sense that the playing field will be flattened. There's no doubt this is slowly happeneing and the opportunities for everyone will be so much better as a result.

Julia's Pinkish fairy floss. Unions became unpopular when all their efforts were turned towards keeping themselves in their nice jobs.
Give me a list of real working men or women on the Labor's front bench,which one or two of them ever passed an apprenticeship for a real trade?
Apart from pop idols or screen stars, lawyers, union bosses, where are the workers?
Many of the Australian states suffering under Labor would dread the thought of a Federal Labor to add to the woes.

keith

I think you will find it was The Courier Mail that said people on $250,000 were battlers. Not Kevin Rudd.

Just like tear up AWAS and mass sackings, the Liberal Party and News Limited do not let the facts get in the way of a good headline.

What Rudd said was the he has been told that even some families on $200,000 a year faced challenges and would not spend money on water tanks, solar panels ect. That is why his loan scheme includes families earning up to $250,000.

ABC 612 Radio had the decency to acknowledge they were wrong in response to my complaint.

keith will you too accept you were wrong.

Julia, your bleeding humanitarian heart for the downtrodden is "speared" with the 'fairness' of the already fully employed and with the UNFAIRNESS of the partly employed and unemployed. As employers under your re-regulatory industrial laws digged out from their 1970's grave, will hardly have an incentive to employ those who have no jobs.

See an article on your Leader in Nemesis-http://www.con.observationdeck.org

ruawake,

Thanks for the comment - I was not aware there was a "Labor Conference Watch" website. I was not referring to anything that appears on it. I note, however, that a number of senior union officials have expressley asserted that bargaining fees will be available as content (possibly relying on the Gillard comment you quote) and Julia Gillard has declined to correct them on this (although she has corrected other matters).

I appreciate that a bargaining fee is said to be a charge made for the negotiation of a workplace agreement. However, its application, each and every time it has come to the attention of the relevant tribunals in the past, is its propensity for use as a tool to increase union membership. If it were genuinely a fee-for-service, it would either be charged to non-union members at a rate far lower than union membership fees (reflecting that negotiations are only a part of the services union members recieve from their unions), or charged to all employees regardless of union memebrship status. Neither is the case.

The present situation is different. No employee or employer can be forced to pay a bargaining fee to a "bargaining agent" whom they have not individually decided to appoint to act on their behalf. As for employers, if they believe they are not being served by their employer-association, they simply resign, and cannot be required to pay it any "bargaining fee".

In Julia Gillard's world, employees who make a positive decision *not* to be represented by a union in negotiations would nevertheless be required to pay a bargaining fee (or, of course, save money by joining the union instead). That may well be regarded as an OK thing, but don't pretend it will lead to the exercise of a genuine choice whether to join or not join a union.

Regards, Zetetist.