Btw:

I have also often wondered why I bother to pay union fees. I was very concerned a few years ago at the level of collusion between Union reps and management. However, Unions seem to be the only option we have for some sort of collective bargaining and that's better than nothing.

Some of the things I would really like to see Unions working on - that may even be beneficial to employers:

1. Flexible work time: Like start work at any time between 7.00 am and 10.00 as long as we work 8 hours.
2. Ten or Twelve hour days - work 4 or 3 days per week.
3. Work from home some of the time (say one day per week) using computer link up and phone.
4. Children in the workplace (where possible).
5. Review of apprenticeship arrangements so that they are more accessible to young people and more worthwhile for employers.

In these matters, I am thinking primarily of the impact on family life - it would mean less cost of and demand for child care and it's better for children to be in the care and company of their parents rather than strangers. I think of rather than sacrificing all energy towards neo-liberal economic madness; that as a society we need to take a broader perspective.

Rehctub

You are free to close your business anytime and seek a job with an employer, thus you too will have the freedom to change employers for whatever reason - like better opportunities, moving to another locale, caring for family (any number of reasons people make changes).

NAH! I think you'd rather remain a boss, with employees tenured to YOU until such time YOU find someone else YOU prefer.

Not that I'm suggesting you are hypocritical or self-centred...

*I mention Sancho because I find his reference to Dickens entirely pertinent to the discussion*

Deary me Pynchme, I rated you brighter then that, clearly I was
wrong.

This whole stereotypical nonsense that employers must be rich and
evil, employees must be downtrodden little frail things, is a heap
of garbage!

I remind you that CEOs of companies, earning millions, are in fact
employees.

I remind you that when Rio train drivers in the Pilbara, earning
200k$ a year go on strike, they are not delicate little downtrodden
petals.

In fact if we go back to the history of the Pilbara, when the boys
wanted a few days off, they'd go on strike due to the colour of
the jelly in the canteen. I partly blame the Govt for that. If they
had legalised knockershops up there, there would have been no need to
head to the big smoke to spend their huge earnings.

Fact is that good employees are worth cherishing and paying extra,
for they make money for the business. Meantime an employee who
really does not want to be there, can do huge damage, in terms
of machinery etc.

If an employer can't sack a dud egg, his whole business can suffer
and be dragged down.

Fact is that the harder you make it to fire people, the less keen
employers will be to hire them. Multiply one little small business
by a million and its a lot of jobs at stake.

But best you kids learn the hard way, as small business reduces
employee numbers or insists on only part timers.

rehctub
I am talking the general period post 1986 marked by the de-registration of the corrupt BLF (namely Norm Gallagher) and moving into the 90s and into 2000s prior to the introduction of WC in 2006 which saw a quiet and relatively calm industrial relations landscape.

So why was WC seen as necessary during this period of relative calm? It had to come down to the interests of big business. Give a little take a mile type of syndrome - you cannot trust the big end of town to do the right thing or self-regulate ethics. Not possible - won't happen!

Too many workers under WC were forced to reduce their incomes and conditions particularly those in the already lower income spectrum.

The Workplace Ombudsman's office was inundated with complaints post WC and could not handle the workload as reported in the media during that time.

Pynchme,
Flexible work time: Like start work at any time between 7.00 am and 10.00 as long as we work 8 hours.

Yep, great idear. Now who is going to serve the customers between 7 and 10.

You are free to close your business anytime and seek a job with an employer

Yep, I did exactly that. Sold my business, created hardach for my loyal staff of 8, and later went to work for coles as a butcher.

I gave my staff just one days notice. Why, because they could have left at any time if they had wind of my forthcomming sale.

Beleive me, I didn;t feel good about it at all but my hands were tied.

While at coles I found that I was doing the work of three butchers, yet only getting paid the same amount as the rest of the drones. So, I went and bought another shop,but it proved to me that the slowest worker sets the pace and there is nothing coles could do about it. Why, beacuse they employed to many people and were subjected to UFD laws.

You have now placed many small businesses in the same boat.

Pelican. I'm just a tad curious - if the period from 86 to early 90's was so good, why then was there any need for unfair dismissal which came in in the early 90's? I mean, working conditions, for both employers and employees were almost like a 'fairy tale', so you say.

Another point you make.
WC was abloished and replaced with something like the 'fiar pay commision'. Now this brain child was introduced to help the low paid workers that you say were shafted by WC.

So Krud and the red mastif spent millions on the changes, went to the commision and GUESS WHAT!! NOTHING HAPPENED! They didn't get a pay rise to help combat the increase in living costs.

So your battlers that you tried to save have been shafted by their very own saviours!

Cricky - most jokes arn't that funny!

But hey, their your fools, not mine, so good luck.

rehctub the period I mentioned was up to the introduction of WC not just in the early 90s.

You are dead wrong if you think that ethical employment practices can only be managed by employers/owners without some sort of watchdog even if the watchdog is not always perfect.

Who said anything about fairytales that was your word not mine as unlike you I don't believe any system will ever be perfect some are just less perfect than others. And certainly the retrograde industrial relations stance of the previous draconian government is hardly worth your adoration.

May I suggest your own fairytale view of business and/or employers is worth some self reexamination.

Please do us all a favour and think about the plight of the little man sometime - those who do not have the power to negotiate these so called wonderful rights and conditions that WC promised.