Zactly so Grim.

Yabby as Grim said you entirely miss the point. Individual employees are in no position to bargain with management.

And meanwhile, Rechtub is still mouthing off about the "advantages", he perceives, that employees have over employers, yet is apparently unwilling to take the plunge himself and become a PAYG employee.

And I concur with Grim and Pynchme, Yabby you do miss the point: individual employees do not have parity with employers. Also, as I and others have pointed out, employment terms could also be arranged with a flexible and reasonable employer - BEFORE workchoices - a misnomer if ever there was one.

rehctub I am also using my words. The period up to the introduction of WC in 2006 is not the early 90s. The period of relative calm effectively started with the deregistration of the BLF (amongst other factos) and went from there.

A period of relative calm does not imply we ignore all other aspects of IR such as unfair dismissal. Or ignore legitimate workplace claims just because most employers are doing the right thing.

rehctub, for your interest in the case of spurious unfair dismissal claims the employer has the right to seek financial redress from the applicant. This is just one example:

http://www.mondaq.com/article.asp?articleid=83246

I can't see a problem with this and it would deter would-be applicants from placing ridiculous unfair dismissal claims. When I worked in HR we won two unfair dismissal cases because our record keeping was immaculate and detailed including copies of signed warnings. In one case a sick leave form was doctored and the case to dismiss was clear cut.

Where an employee is obviously in the wrong there are enough protections for employers even if the process might be inconvenient. But this is inevitable in the interests of protecting those least empowered - workers. Historically, when power is weighted too much in favour of the employer it has proved disastrous.

Equally so when unions are corrupted and hold corporations to ransom. The ideal system has to recognise fairness in considering the interests of employers and employees.

Grim, just because you seemingly lack the innovative entrepreneurial
skills to think of ways to compete with the big boys, does not mean
that others can't. The evidence shows that there are a myriad of
corner stores, right under the big boys noses, doing very well,
thank you. Friendly service, convenience, innovative products,
location etc, are just some of their methods.

Pymche, what you are implying is that as a business owner, you could
not be trusted to give your staff a fair deal. Neither did you
have the brains to understand that great employees are hard to find
and that it pays to look after them, let the dummies go and work
elsewhere.

The sorts of suggestions that you made, was exactly the flexibility
that I used to offer my staff, when I had up to 30 on the payroll,
at various times of the year. I told them the work that needed doing,
the budget for labour for doing it, they drew up their own rosters
to fit around kids, social lives etc. The result was that they loved working here,
which made for a productive business. No union award
could ever offer that kind of flexibility, a win-win for all.

That is exactly what work choices was all about. Only dumb employers
would screw their employees and be unreasonable. Over time, the
best would leave, as somebody else would offer them a job. Businesses
made up of the poorest employees, would go broke over time.

A well run business acknowledges that happy and productive staff are
the key to its success. That is exactly why companies like Google
have come from obscurity, to thrive as they do.

So keep unions there for people like yourselves, who seemingly need
your hands held, but don't hold up productive businesses and employees with
restrictive work conditions, like union awards.

So your employees loved working for you, despite the fact that you were offering less than the award wages and conditions, Yabby?

Grim, things were not structured around any awards, they were
structured around the needs of the business and the staff.

The business was quite seasonal and women with families
highly value part time work that can fit in with the
rest of their duties as mothers etc.

That can create great win-win outcomes all round, if
everyone is flexible.

In all those years, not one staff member ever mentioned
an award, for I'd say that what they were paid was quite
a bit higher then that. For instance when we did packouts,
everyone shared so much a kg and even their kids would
sometimes join in. Often it worked out that everyone landed
up with 25$ an hour or so, which 10 and more years ago, was
pretty good money. Even the kids got an equal share, at
the same rate as the adults, for they were doing the same
work.

Result the customers were happy, the staff were happy
and I was happy.