Pericles

On your argument, unions are necessasry where employers are incompetent (as you assert it, that is all governments). By the way, does that include the Howard Government which just might have been incompetent when devising WorkChoices?

So, are you asserting that all governments are hopeless employers and all private enterprises are competent? I would have thought that you were conceding that Darrell Lea and Spotless at least were examples of incompetent management. In the case of both Darrell Lea and Spotless you are simplistic in describing the resolution. In both cases the union movement orchestrated effective employee and consumer campaigns that put so much pressure on their bottom lines that they went back to square one for commercial reasons. AWAs gave them short-term gain but longer-term pain.

You can keep on chanting the mantra, "unions are past their use-by date", but while their are reactionary governments like Howard's around encouraging short-sighted employers to cut workers' conditions, your sloganeering will bear no relationship to industrial relations in the real world.

My son who is a manager of a large industrial enterprise agrees with you that Howard's IR policies are "as divisive and anti-business as they appear to be anti-worker". I think you both exaggerate about the anti-business angle - don't confuse the unintended outcomes of WorkChoices with the Government's spiteful ideological intent.

But in terms of practical business management, my son says it is quicker, cheaper and more efficient and effective to deal with the union delegates once a year than to go through the nonsense of negotiating hundreds of varying contracts and to repeat it every time his company hires another employee.

What's more, he argues that his workers are more more productive and more willing to compromise and cooperate when they are working to collegiate rules than when it's dog-eat-dog who-can-get-the-best-contract under WorkChoices.

Food for thought when the boss is praising the unions?

Pericles, you say: "Rules and regulations are simply a standard part of doing business" - well, yes, they are *today*, despite the never-ending protestations of economic libertarians and various vested interests. But they don't evolve naturally out of free market forces, rather they specifically work to allow the market to function in a manner that is beneficial to as many as the participants as possible. Further, so long as those rules and regulations are subject to the will of the government of the day, there will be a need for unions to ensure that misguided policies like WorkChoices don't become the norm.

Anyway, what you think about the place unions should or shouldn't have is really rather irrelevant - it's the workers that they represent who get to decide that.

Pericles I think your pool of knowledge on the issue is in a tea cup, lets forget unions.
Look closer at some bosses, soon I confront one who has refused to place new tyers on trucks with bald ones.
Who will not issue sunscreen to out door workers.
Who will not alow lunch breaks in 12 hour shifts.
Who sends men home, half way from depot to job, via phone! without pay!
Who has one IR policy for his casual workers, if they give me trouble I will not give them any more work.
My union, without blood will restore every right before I return to this forum, have no doubts fairness and honesty is not a thing this grubby boss understands, yet.
He will , no threat just this a well respected union will see it fixed or the major contractor will.
Consider such a boss, they exist in numbers right now how many times would that number grow without unions?

Pericles, you've set the cat amongst the pigeons. Unions are at least an advance on the old master and servant days and have done us all some good. But to hold on to the old ways in an ever changing business scene is nuts. Unions still work reasonably well in govt. and large company areas, but in small business they can be poison.

Relativity's and flow-ons across trades or skills without reference to locality, product and markets is just plain stupid. Imagine if pay and conditions in a boom industry in a boom state were applied nation wide eg a machinist in a WA mine v. a machinist in a Geelong car plant.

Not even the most ardent union droogie can deny that unions pre '83 were also responsible for holding back our standard of living in some instances.eg the waterfront.

The pro union mantra that doesn't recognize both sides of the story is just cant and dogma. The harm the BLF, then the BWIU did to themselves here in NSW is remarkable. Bribery, corruption, intimidation and bloody minded actions lead to their unpopularity.

In the words of Paul Keating 'the unions are just not much good at what they do these days', 'they've gone to seed', " It's dying on the vine.it's dying out of lack of passion.Its reason for existence,and general incompetence.'

Just to clarify though, Keating was criticising the unions for not doing their job well...not for being irrelevant. He's been far more vocal in critising the government for their attack on unions, pointing out that inflation has remained at ~2.5% for the last 16 years, which is hardly compatible with the idea that unions make irresponsible wage increase demands.

Here we go again. I don't mind defending things that I say, but I obviously can't defend things that I didn't say. FrankGol, for example.

>>So, are you asserting that all governments are hopeless employers and all private enterprises are competent?<<

No, I'm not. OK?

And, to be honest, I think your son's approach is lazy in the extreme.

>>my son says it is quicker, cheaper and more efficient and effective to deal with the union delegates once a year than to go through the nonsense of negotiating hundreds of varying contracts<<

It is a cop-out to delegate responsibility for the welfare of your staff to the unions. It is up to management to ensure that the right people are doing the right jobs, safely and competently, and that they are appropriately rewarded for doing so.

By treating employees like a herd of cattle, where one-size-fits-all, you actually diminish the accomplishments of the talented, and reward the laziness of the indigent. Every individual's terms and conditions should reflect their capabilities and their aspirations.

If management isn't doing this job, fire the management. Don't delegate it to the unions.

There is good management in the public service, just as there is bad management in the private sector. But the impediments to good management in the government sector are enormous.

Because it is impossible to be fired for incompetence, public sector management spends more of its time making work for itself in the form or reports, committees and conferences than looking after real people. Because there is no measurement of their efficiency or that of their staff, the scope for appalling decisions is enormous.

Because their importance is measured on the number of people that report to them, vast amounts of time are spent "justifying" the need to expand. As a result, the ratio of frontline staff - nurses, teachers, police - to back-office administration continues to decline.

In the private sector there is an absolute measure available at all times. It's called "staying in business". Unfortunately, this rarely crosses the minds of either government departments or union officials.