Belly, I like to pay people as much as they can earn for the company. I know it can't work in very large companies, although it may work in divisions of them.

I always had a desired turnover figure on the notice board, & a percentage figure. These were achievable figures, not daydreams. The idea was that when the figure had been achieved for 3 consecutive months, all existing staff would get the percentage as a raise. I was included in this.

In the best year everyone who had been there all year had received a 20% pay increase.

This gave a great improvement in cooperation between office, factory & warehousing, as all pulled together. When I had taken over that company it had a dreadful "upstairs" "downstairs" mentality.

Very few ever left, other than any lazy new staff. The staff had a stake in the company being efficient, & they got rid of the less helpful very quickly.

We seldom had sick days. The system was just advise if you had a doctors appointment, or a sick kid, & take the time necessary. Provided the one involved could keep their work up to date, no record of this time was kept. It was only in a major problem that any of them used their sick leave.

This tended to give a happy workplace, but also happy share holders. The staff had a few dollars extra in their pocket, & they did their jobs so well, that they made more money for the company in the process.

I think that sounds like a workplace in which I would be happy making a contribution Hasbeen. I also agree that a company can only pay relative to the income produced by an employee for that relationship to be sustainable or to continue to be successful. I believe this is obvious.

A workplace that provided a 20 % pay increase to all in a year through collective effort, would abound in loyalty and voluntary productivity increases for an employer. I believe this is also obvious.

People are all different of course, and function best at their own level.

Leadership must do the job of providing a market for the products, and employee's concentrate on producing/selling the product or providing the service, in simplistic terms. The whole thing is a juggling act at best for those carrying the responsibility of leadership to get the thing right. Matching people and jobs, the hardest task ultimately for employers.

Remuneration, is obviously commensurate with the level at which an individual functions.
But along with ambition/power/remuneration comes responsibility.

On the other hand a working person aspires to be good at what they do in exchange for reward, particularly security and remuneration that preserves their living standards.

Again in simplistic terms the employer is responsible for providing the jobs and the employee's are responsible for doing them well. If an employer or more accurately a leadership figure in business is capable and willing of his/her responsibility, only then is he/she also worthy of the power/remuneration etc that leadership endows. Only then does capitalism actually work as a social instrument, in my opinion.

My main point about the situation here and now, is that we find ourselves in a confrontational industrial environment. The regulatory imbalance we see now, distorts our viewpoint of best practice in our industrial relationships. Qantas a fine example of this imbalance, with the company playing dirty and the union basically nobbled by its response options. The employee's have zero input into the decision making regarding the future of that business, with the management living in a tower mentality.

cont..

Unfortunately this matter will not be resolved unless the Gov't intervenes on behalf of the passengers as consumers in the end, because Qantas management can hold out forever without scrutiny, endlessly frustrating their employee's with a lack of commitment to their future, from their masters.

I promised my contributions had stopped, have contributed to this subject in another thread.
But here are my views.
Both sides are out of control.
The union leader who asked for sabotage is an idiot, and his membership will know it.
Both sides MUST GET dispute resolution in place by removing current leadership on both sides, not sacking just use others.
Look be honest! both sides are acting foolish, if we want to be honest.
I would LOVE the job of resolving this.
But think this week ends it! I think they will fall in to one another's arms.
So lets talk basics.
Both came to the table with needs and wishes.
Both used the media,and ANYTHING they could to pressure the other side
Both ,ALWAYS HAVE HAD A FALL BACK position.
MISS USE OF MEDIA, on both sides has blinded both to impacts.
That spokes woman!
Warrior princess? foolish, no less so than the idiot union leader.
She uses the media to taunt her opponents in to becoming hard to crack EVEN IF THEY WANT TO.
Out come full removal all threats all strike action ,will stand a result and agreement is close issue should never have gone this long
QUANTAS will achieve much more than unions but each warmly cuddles the other.

I don't think reasoned negotiation is possible now Belly. The companies/employers are over endowed with power, and the individual employee/consumer endowed with little or none. Even when those employee's endeavour to to negotiate, there is no legal or commercial reason for the company (in this case Qantas), to negotiate properly, fairly or actually, all they really have to do is exhaust negotiations and frustrate their staff until the dead end, which of course is their goal in the dispute in the first place. Their only strategy is to conduct a campaign to convince the passengers that they should blame the union for their inconvenience, whilst at the the same time exacerbating those inconveniences with lockouts etc and as you say Belly "a warrior princess (spin doctor) spokesperson".

The Union's only available strategy to counter this, is to call off strikes and turn up for work only to be locked out anyway, and have the passengers told to blame the union for the disruption or delays to their flights. You can't negotiate Belly when one side holds all the cards. You have too have your own chips to be in the game.

This is the post Howard industrial world Belly , confrontation is enshrined in law, commercial stealth is encouraged, the priority's of business now all but etched in our thought processes as paramount above all.

An example Belly, "if a company went bust prior too the Howard Era", their first obligation would have been the payment of wages owed to their employees.

In the post Howard era, if a company goes bust," it's first obligation is too it's creditors. This is determined by banks, auditors, receivers etc. The employee's today get to pick over the bones of what's left after all the commercial interests have taken their whack.

If a Union wanted to negotiate the rights of the employees in this situation regarded the slice of the bones, they are rendered irrelevant, theres nothing to negotiate, their members have no rights Belly.

thinker 2 all nearly all true.
But it was mid term, his last term Howard started to see workers paid after bankruptcy.
Labor installed it as law.
Read the history of the National textiles event, Howard's brother went broke or nearly.
Well both sides have been too confrontational.
Bur far from new, its Bob Hawk time.
Unions now can not win.
Quantas has lost much more than it planned.
Remove the goose and his warrior princess now, put them out of play.
Then sit down and talk.
This will take place.
Government, by now,will have behind the scenes made it clear it must end.
It will be over soon.