From The Age this morning http://www.theage.com.au/news/national/managers-strip-worker-rights/2007/09/12/1189276809758.html

"Average pay for workers in liquor stores, fast-food businesses, bakeries, restaurants and supermarkets dropped by between 2 and 18 per cent as a result of the 339 new agreements studied in Victoria, NSW and Queensland. But the worst-affected workers lost more than a third of their salaries through agreements that were legal."

"The study has, for the first time, calculated the real-world pay rates for workers in retail and hospitality who are moved from award rates to new non-union collective agreements, by modelling how standard rosters in these industry interacted with the new pay rates. They found most people were worse off, with part-time, casual and weekend workers hardest hit.

A casual worker in a liquor store doing 12 hours on Thursday, Saturday and Sunday could lose up to 38 per cent of pay, or $114.27 a week. A permanent full-timer working some weekends and overtime could lose up to $145 a week, or 20 per cent of salary."

Work Choices affects people I know like this all the time.

Also privatisation has meant people get bombarded with calls to change telephone operator, electricity retailer, gas retailer, internet provider. That's why people worry living living conditions are being eroded.

Tourist operators have noticed the average length of stay in holiday resorts is 4 days, 20 years ago every one booked 7 day holidays.

Yabby I think I have said this before it takes 3 years to train for a trade after you can find an employer to take you on so when the major employers refuse to invest in training of course you get a shortage of skilled labour.

Yabby, firstly, where did I argue that I considered life tough
"because it takes (me) an hour to cash their medibank rebate cheque"?

You were perfectly well aware that 'an hour' (in fact 'well over an hour') of my own time was just a small part of the larger picture that I was trying to depict.

I very conservatively estimated was that it took 'well over an hour' in terms of actual time taken and the overall disruption to my day to accomplish all of the following: fill out the form, staple the receipt to the envelope, address the envelope, find and affix stamp, walk to and from post box, and then after the cheque arrives, walk to the bank, wait in the queue, bank the cheque and walk home.

Now, Yabby, do you or do you not agree with the adage that "time is money"?

Why do you refuse to acknowledge the obvious stupidity of changing a system that used to be effortless and almost totally automated to the current one in which at least almost as much time as which the money is worth has to be wasted in order to retrieve that money?

That you have chosen to misrepresent my argument in order to trivialise it and attempt to ridicule myself confirms that you are not interested in honest discussion.

I think that if you ended your participation in this forum you would do other participants a great favour.

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Rhian wrote: "Two weeks to fill out an application! Heck, what kind of jobs are you chasing?"

Yes Rhian, it can, and has, taken me two weeks or longer to apply for one job.

However, before I continue, are you at least prepared to acknowledge that inordinate amounts of time are spent on all sides both applying for and processing jobs as compared with, say, 10 or 20 years ago?

I see the above response as one from someone who will not make the effort to understand the circumstances of others whose plans in life have not gone as smoothly as your own seem to have.

(tobecontiuned)

(continuedfromabove)

My resume is not full of the outstanding academic credentials and professional achievements that seems to be mandatory in just about every job description these days. As my record has been chequered, it has often been a very difficult exercise to sit down and try to massage my own record into a job application which will catch and hold the attention of employment agents amongst dozens of other job applications.

Given the number of things that have gone wrong in my own professional career, I would maintain, mostly through circumstances beyond my own control, having to confront this in the process of writing job applications has actually driven me to depression on a number of past occasions.

Anyhow, this forum is not the place to discuss my personal circumstances or the personal circumstances of other participants.

We should accept that even people with fallibilities and less than perfect records should still have a write to secure, stimulating and decently-paid jobs without first being required to go through the harrowing and demeaning ordeal that applying for a job has become for many these days.

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Thank you, Ginx. You can be assured that you're not the only one here that takes exception to the insulting condescension that has been employed in a seeming attempt to confuse this discussion.

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In regard to Rhian's objections to 'gratuitous' digs at neoliberalism (aka economic 'rationalism'), I think it is almost impossible to exaggerate the harm that that ideology has caused and how malevolent and unconscionable and greedy many of its proponents truly are.

Everyone should rush out and but a copy of Naomi Klein's "Shock Doctrine" (see http://www.naomiklein.org/shock-doctrine/reviews/shock-wave-troopers) which is due to be released in Australia any day now. It shows how neo-liberals are practised at the art of expoliting both natural and man-made catastropohes in order to force adoption of their policies aimed at stealing from the less powerful and giving to the rich.

These disasters include the Tsunami of December 2004 and Hurricane Katrina.

I also commend George Monbiot's "How did we get inot this mess?" at http://www.monbiot.com/archives/2007/08/28/how-did-we-get-into-this-mess/

Daggett

Yes, job applications take longer now than they used to. Still, 2 weeks?

Accusing Yabby of misrepresenting others’ arguments is rather hypocritical, given the systematic way you have misrepresented his/hers and mine.

You say “this forum is not the place to discuss my personal circumstances or the personal circumstances of other participants”. I agree. Yet you also say that my own “plans in life” seem to have gone “smoothly”, when I have given you no information whatsoever about my personal life. You construct images of your opponents from your own prejudices, and then subject your creations to ad hominem abuse. Again, the mark of an ideologue.

I don’t object to criticism of “economic rationalism”, I object to criticism of anything done by name-calling alone. I’d object equally if he used the term “Nazi” or “Stalinist,” not because I approve of these ideologies, but because it’s puerile abuse. Breward gave no explanation of what he thinks “economic rationalism” is, why it’s wrong, and why it’s a suitable label for the behaviour he described. He took it for granted that merely labelling something “economic rationalism”, without explanation, was sufficient to damn it. That’s why I used the term “gratuitous”, meaning “without reason, cause, or justification” (Macquarie Dictionary).

Fir the record (again):

I don’t believe, and have not said, that everyone is better off than they used to be, or that no-one faces economic hardship or exploitation. Nor do I believe that people who are struggling or whose living standards are falling are lying, lazy, guilty, “hallucinating” or “imagining” they’re worse off.

I do believe there is persuasive evidence that this is not the experience of most Australians.

There is a huge difference between the compassion which is the appropriate response to the stories of people like Haygirl, and the critical reasoning and evaluation of evidence appropriate to answering a question such as whether living standards IN GENERAL are falling

Ginx may prefer personal experience to data and reason when considering this question. I don’t.

"fill out the form, staple the receipt to the envelope, address the envelope, find and affix stamp, walk to and from post box, and then after the cheque arrives, walk to the bank, wait in the queue, bank the cheque and walk home."

You are free to try and shoot the messenger! I never claim to be
a diplomat. I make points of reason about which you are
free to argue. Shooting the messenger simply tells me that you
don't have any good arguments.

As to what takes you an hour, takes me about 30 seconds. Most
good surgeries have computers to fill out the forms, patients sign
on the dotted line. They even post them for us in bulk, so savings
all round. My only chore is to open an envelope on arrival and include
the cheque with other cheques, which are all banked together next
time I go banking. Voila, all very simple.

It seems to me that alot of the complainers, harking back for the
"good old days", don't see the big picture. Keating was right,
we were heading for being a banana republic, riding on the sheeps
back. The sheep collapsed as expected. The "good old days"
of inefficient manufacturing, cosy agreements to featherbed everyone
at the expense of very few efficient industries, simply had to end.
They were dragging the few efficient ones down. If Australia had
not faced this reality at the time, we would now be a banana republic.
Keating, Costello, Rudd etc, all understand that, but many Aussies
still don't.

Britain faced a similar problem. Derugulation of their economy has
taken then from the bottom of the G7(now G8) to no 2 in GDP terms.
Perhaps less manufacturing jobs, but challenging NY as the major
banking centre and far more profitable.

But of course many individuals will focus on their little patch,
some complaining how bad things are, rather then understand the
big picture and adapt to a changing world.

Yes Plumbers, Brick-layers, Developers and road builders, all in demand.
And the people that use the new roads and live in the new houses also need jobs, so lets create new short-term construction projects to employ them also, so the cycle continues, reliant on exponential increase of population.

We are consuming a thousand years worth of wealth in a matter of months.
We are killing species, some of which are 400 million years old.

Real wealth is not employment.
Real wealth is affordable land and housing.
You pay 10 average yearly incomes for a house that used to cost 2 average yearly incomes.

Growth not population.
Costellos' economics belongs in an ancient nineteen-fifties textbook, along with plans to build nuclear powered cars, and grow wheat on the moon.

If you believe Australia is not over populated, then you are more brainwashed than a fanatic terrorist.

You are being ripped-off by people with a vested interest in selling off your country, diluting your wealth, and stealing your future.

P.S
Don't forget to only flush after a number 2
And stop watering your lawn.