"JP Morgan's link has a redundant symbol at the end which invalidates the link. Try:

http://www.ausstats.abs.gov.au/ausstats/subscriber.nsf/0/D0C52615006E2F2FCA25713E001838D7/$File/63100_aug%202005.pdf"

So why couldn't have you offered the link yourself Frank about 30 posts ago? Why do you expect other people to do your research for you?

Ditch I over-estimated the intelligence levels of many OLO posters and under-estimated their capacity and willingness to find out for themselves.

So here's some spoon-feeding about the continuing need for unions.

ABC News OnlIne 10 November 2007

"Figures from the Australian Workplace Authority show almost half of all Australian Workplace Agreements (AWAs) lodged with it since May have been rejected for not complying with the Federal Government's fairness test.

"The Workplace Authority's report for October shows more than 25,000 agreements submitted do not meet the minimum standards set out in the fairness test.

"...Opposition industrial relations spokeswoman Julia Gillard says..."This is a piece of legislation that supposedly tells employers that if they take some conditions away they're supposed to offer fair compensation but they don't have to offer full compensation," she said. "And then they don't ever tell employers what fair compensation might mean."

"She says the Howard Government's attempt to fix WorkChoices has degenerated into a "bureaucratic nightmare".

"This system doesn't work for empoyees, they can still be ripped off and it doesn't work for employers who end up with their employment agreements in a backlog of almost 150,000."

"But federal Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations, Joe Hockey, says the figures prove the fairness test is working.

"It's farcical that the trade union movement and the Labor Party are whingeing about an employment safety net and now the employment safety net is working they're still whingeing," he said.

"It's farcical that they are rubbishing a system that is providing real protection for workers."

"The ACTU says the authority has a backlog of 142,000 workplace agreements, waiting to be fully checked to ensure workers are receiving their correct wages and entitlements. The Workplace Authority has acknowledged there has been a delay in processing agreements lodged after the fairness test was announced in May."

Oops again. Apologies for the broken link and thanks to Frank for posting the correct URL :S

CJ Morgan

I owe you an abject apology. Wasn't JP Morgan a plutocrat in the US banking and finance industry?

If so, I've done you a great disservice with that Freudian slip. JP Morgan certainly would have been opposed to unions on the principle that anybody who got between him and a pile of money was unAmerican.

Here's another one for you Frank. Unions do not always achieve higher wages for their members. In fact the opposite can sometimes be the case. You won't see that on the union web site of course.

"Australia:
Union betrayals cut wages
By Terry Cook
14 January 1999

A report released this week by the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) reveals that over the past four years the wages and conditions of trade union members in many key industries have fallen below those of non-union workers.

The report shows that while the rate of pay for union workers in eight of the industries surveyed were marginally higher than their non-union counterparts the opposite was the case in nine other major industries. This revelation makes a mockery of any claim by the union leadership that workers can defend their interests through the unions, even in narrow economic terms."

From here. http://www.wsws.org/articles/1999/jan1999/wage-j14.shtml

I'm sure you'll find fault here as it doesn't support your beliefs, which only goes to show doesn't it, that we all have our examples to support whatever we want others to believe.

Hey Ditch

Thanks for the link. Can I trust it, though? After all:

(a) the data is relevant to 1998, nearly a decade old; and

(b) the Web Site is published by "World Socialist", that is, the International Committee of the Fourth International and we all know where they stand in relation to the ACTU, don't we?

and

(c) as someone said recently, just because something is put up on a website doesn't make it true. You have offered no evidence to support these points other than parroting World Socialist doctrine from their web site.

I think you should put up or shut up.