rehctub,

Our country "boomed" because of a surge in international demand for our resources - not because of Work Choices - just as the most recent recession was caused by an international financial collapse plus a decline in demand for the same resources. Work Choices had nothing to do with it. That was introduced during the closing stage of the Howard era and that was the reason most people voted the way they did.

If workers were being shafted under Work choices during the "good times", how much worse would things be now?

As for the 225%, how little would you be prepared to accept to do that sort of work?

This is what is known as an entitlement and would have been agreed to by the employer at a particular time.

It's actually built into the cost of the product being produced.

Do you really think that any money the employer saves by cutting it back to say, 200% would be passed onto the consumer?

If rechtub you look without bias at my last post, please do so.
You will see I believe in balance.
Not a workers heaven.
Not a bosses hell.
And let me be clear.
I will never run away from you.
I do not dislike you.
Do not understand you.
Can never support you.
But you are the reason I am me.
I see in you blind unfocused anti union.
Anti worker.
Anti Labor.
And bloke , in truth, I see the same refusal in you to see truth as I see in Malcolm Turnbull.
The silly oppose every thing.
The shouting, near screaming Gillard memorial halls rubbish.
The idiocy that tells you and your mob, if we say it often enough some will believe it.
Run away?
You do not know me! never, I have a weakness.
I like a debate but find it imposable to talk to people who close their minds and chant mindless rubbish.
Look at the time of my posts.
My day starts as early as yours butcher, no one does my work for me.
I provide a service for people who need it, some work for bosses who have closed minds and wallets.

rehctub,

re the oil rig workers: It seems to me that your reasoning is somewhat ideologically (party politics) skewed.
On one hand you're saying that the workers should be able to sell their labour for what the market can bear yet on the other it appears you object when that is what happens.

Three points, the oil companies pay those outrageous levels because they must to get continuity of workers. Think about it, would you go to a god forsaken place to work with the threat not having reasonable continuity of employment (if put off you'd be stuck) for say minimum wage plus 20%...get real.

Have you ever been on a rig? the work is generally hard, potentially dangerous conditions,did I mention the heat,wind, noise, boredom etc. They are ok to visit but... live? Contrary to your impressions it not a nice life.

As for the towns well Broome etc needs a certain type of person to live there (not a lot of alternative employment there).
Second, Companies wouldn't pay those figures if they could get away with not.

Thirdly, do you really believe that if big oil could pay standard wages would reduce the cost....pigs they would its call capitalism...you remember that sell it for the most they can get regardless of the end consumer and the mythical silent hand of balance.

UFD...well that's another case of two competing interests. As once a small business person the law was inconvenient. However as also as a victim of an unscrupulous boss, 30 years later I still suffer from his employment practices. It all depends on where you stand.

Employers aren’t there to just employ staff based on how much they can afford – it’s a matter of how few they can employ for the least possible cost.

Imagine I own a Widget factory. I employ 10 staff who each make 2 widgets per day. How do increase my profits?
If it was just a matter of production I could simply double my profits by doubling the number of staff but the market only needs 20 widgets per day and I can’t increase demand.
My only alternative is to cut costs and the easiest cost I can control is payroll.

With Work Choices I could sack half of my staff and get the 5 left to manufacture 4 widgets per day under threat of dismissal, by increasing the number of productive hours per day or offering incentives.

I will pay them more - but not 100% more - because I want that extra profit for myself. I can also cut their benefits or trade them for other incentives but the bottom line has to be that I am better off than I was before. The 5 left are financially better off too but may be working under more demanding and insecure conditions. Nobody cares about the 5 that I sacked.

Alternatively I could make my casual staff full-time employees and pay them at the (lower) full-time rate with the knowledge that I can sack them easily at any time. It also looks better for the national employment figures - turn McJobs into real jobs but with a bigger turnover.

Another popular option is that I just move my factory off-shore. Nothing personal here – business is business.

The irony of this approach is that I am increasing my profits by effectively cutting the purchasing power of my own customers so eventually I may need to cut the price of my widgets to maintain the same sales.

(continued)

(Continued)
Remember that minimum working conditions aren’t set by the best employers – they are set by the worst ones and those changes gave them a lot more leverage.

Work Choices was never about directly creating more employment. It was about giving more power to the employers by emasculating the Unions. It wasn’t about Work Place reform it was about Industrial Relations reform. It was more concerned with restoring the Master-Servant relationship and giving too much to one group at the expense of the other.

The current changes are about restoring fairness, not dismantling everybody’s rights and obligations. After years of dogs and balaclavas and ever-decreasing “allowable matters” it was time to restore some balance.

Some say the fairness changes go too far, some say not-far-enough. History will decide that.

Despite accusations of Union scare-mongering before the last election, there would not have been many people whose families had not been adversely affected by those laws in some way and the government paid the political price.

A real life story
Tomorrow I meet with workers, good hard honest workers.
Male and female, who have nearly got to the end of a project.
one that has taken 2 and a half years.
Weeks never less than 60 hours work, often far away from home and family.
In times of rain delays many gave up RDOs and that meant time with loved ones, for weeks.
After too much rain, these folks forced to yes forced to work RDOs
wanting that rain money for this coming Christmas without a job, have been forced, to take those RDO, because it rained.
I can not tell you how much it hurts.
but under an agreement useing Howard's work choices this firm has taken a basic entitlement away.
Because they can.
Today I had agreement, IT IS UNFAIR, from the people taking it away.
tomorow I have to be a shock absorber, it is my job to ask then not to do their block, not to stop any chance they have of getting another job in the construction industry.
Black lists exist, unfair biased not based on truth but unbeatable black lists.
I deliver tomorrow the dreadful news to people who will not have a job by months end.
Their claim is just, fair, but the cash is gone.
To my Friend up the thread, singing the praises of a union, these folk are served by another union.
One that is dieing in rural Australia.
One that has forced me to be mum dad and mate to their orphan members.
I will do my best tomorrow but rechtub workers bloke are Aussies too your customers too human too please do not use others sins against the movement or yesterday sins.
Unions There Is a Difference.