IR Laws

[Scotty]

Gottliebsen from Business Spectator thinks there is a very large problem that could be brewing in relation to this Labor government, power for unions, small contractors and IR laws in this country. If the likes of Shorten gets his way, this government could take Australia back decades in terms of IR reform and giving power to unions.

http://www.businessspectator.com.au...shorten-pd20100929-9QTQW?OpenDocument&src=kgb

Once in power, the new government's deal with the Greens saw Julia Gillard quickly reverse her carbon tax policy while the cabinet reshuffle saw Nick Sherry, who was a strong advocate of decimating independent contracting, shifted to small business, and Bill Shorten given Sherry's old job of Assistant Treasurer.

Together Sherry and Shorten could operate to achieve the union agenda to destroy independent contracting. This agenda is helped because two staunch supporters of independent contractors, former finance minister Lindsay Tanner and former small business minister Craig Emerson, are now out of the fray. Tanner has retired from politics and Emerson has been moved to the trade portfolio.

Suddenly the silencers are off. The unions wanted independent contractors' blood and whereas in the election campaign attacking independent contractors had not been part of ALP policy, now it clearly is.

Abbott was fooled by this, and he has three years to learn from his mistake.

However, although Bill Shorten is one of the most talented people in the parliament, if he delivers Abbott the top job in three years' time by decimating independent contracting, then his political career will be in ruins.

 

[Ruggo]

Sounds like propoganda to me. Better head for the hills as those evil unions are on the charge again.

 

[Scotty]

Sounds like propoganda to me. Better head for the hills as those evil unions are on the charge again.

I guess you are one of those that think all unions have only their members best interests at heart?

 

[The_Brown_Hornet]

I think the last sentence in Gottliebsen's article is the crucial one. If Shorten is in any way responsible for a dimunition of independent contractors in Australia, the electoral consequences will be severe. We have a *lot* of them in Australia.

 

[Ruggo]

I guess you are one of those that think all unions have only their members best interests at heart?

Not at all. My views on industrial relations are that both sides go too far. Look no further than the demise of the Howard Govt on how Australians view industrial relations.

 

[Scotty]

Agree that Howard went too far, and only managed to do so because he had the power in the senate. Gillard, by all reports had some very good IR laws ready to go to parliament before the unions got to her and forced changes to put the balance back in the wrong direction. She worked hard to achieve the right balance, and believe she had it but rolled as soon as there was some pressure on her. In hindsight this was a sign of things to come!

So we can't assume that the likes of Shorten will do the right thing for this country, which is to leave small contracting as it is, even though this ultimately might be the best thing for his political career. The question will be if he has the guts to stand up to the pressure from the unions or not?

And isn't it ironic that Nick Sherry, the one that mooted these changes to start with is now the minister for small business? As a small business owner, I hope this also isn't a sign of things to come.

http://www.smartcompany.com.au/poli...istry-and-we-ve-got-his-special-briefing.html

 

[The_Brown_Hornet]

Howard's IR laws were reckless IMHO and he should have moderated them, but I'd hate to see a return to the bad old days of IR strife in this country. Balance is important in these things I reckon.

 

[Ruggo]

I agree on balance. I also think it is wrong to think Shorten will do the wrong thing as well. Time will tell and only time will give us the measure to assess his performance. In the current parliament, nobody has enough power to do anything radical. That can only be a good thing in regards to industrial relations.

The catch with unions is that you have the good ones and the bad ones. For example you have the SDA wich is not worth a loaf of shit. You stand a better chance of getting cheap movie tickets out of them than you do dilligant representation in the workplace. On the other hand, you have the AEU which are worth their weight in gold.

 

[Scotty]

Then there are a few that are worth their weight in lead.

Bullets that is.

 

[Bowside]

I think hes just trying to scare people to be honest, but I agree that IR laws need balance. In small buisness you really can afford to carry anyone in the same way large companies/government departments can, the profit margins are just so small after tax. Laws need to be workable without affecting the workers rights, and they need to provide a safety net so when it all turns to shit the workers are looked after.

 

[chief]

Independent Contracts have a place in this country. But Unions still should hold a major place as well. Ultimately it's about balance, and Work Choices was far from the balance that I would like to see. I do not agree with the Right Wing approach on Industrial Relations but I do understand some of the fundamentals such as an implementation of removing unfair dismissal for small business.

Shorten certainly won't remove independent contracts, as I understand a lot of Labor Party members were not all that fond of how left this government has been on its stance when it comes to IR Laws.

 

[ACT Crusader]

The advertising campaign by the ACTU during the 07 election campaign was very effective. It played into peoples emotions beautifully about people being "ripped off". But the advertising or the mantra from the ALP during the campaign never really explained what WorkChoices was. Most people were left thinking it was one of or a combination of "individual contracts that were bad", "I could lose my job tomorrow", "I had to do everything the big bad boss tells me", "I'm being ripped off"

Firstly I can speak from research I have undertaken that IR laws are not the main reason why people get ripped off or done over, its unscrupulous employers. People are getting ripped off under agreements/contracts today under the Fair Work Act.

Is it individual contracts that are "evil", well unions can't be a party to them so yes they go against everything a union stands for in terms of their collective bargaining approach. Unions have conducted extensive research on the benefits of collective bargaining and how it delivers greater productivity to employers and benefits to employees. But for every union research paper there is an employer body with arguments that 3rd party intervention (ie union) in bargaining that shifts away from direct emplyer/employee negotiation is the way to ensure industrial harmony and minimise the risk of industrial action

The main problem with WorkChoices was the removal of the no-disadvantage test. The Howard Government announced that they wanted to "rationalise" Awards. This followed their "simplification" attempt. Many Awards are quite archaic and have terms and conditions in them that are not relevant to most modern workplaces. The problem they had was that trying to do something in this space is very difficult and politically risky. So they shoved that to the side and decided to introduce the Australian Fairpay and Conditions Standard, a statutory minima of 5 entitlements that every employee was entitled to. This opened the door to potential instances where a workplace agreement only had to have these 5 statutory conditions. Couple this with the removal of the no-disadvantage test (ie the test that collective and individual agreements were measured against the relevant industry award) and you had the potential for people to receive entitlements below the current Award.

The Howard Govt realised they had gone to far with this and then introduced the "Fairness Test" midway during their term. This re-introduced the relevant Award to the picture and all the Award based conditions.

There were a number of other changes made under WorkChoices, but if you want to know, many of those have been retained in some form under the Fair Work Act. Lots of stuff around industrial action has remained, the Gillard Govt hasn't got rid of the ABCC as they promised and whilst unfair dismissal laws have changed, the net effect has been minimal because there are still provisions in the Fair Work Act that recognises operational reasons for dismissal.

As you can see that's taken a lengthy post to explain just a couple of points, and that's the point really when it came to that 2007 election, IR is still very emotive in Australia and there is still this antagonistic approach of us vs them, so to win the debate (and ultimately the election) make it emotional!! Have the woman holding the kid on the phone to the boss telling her she's goneski, or the big brash boss holding a paper under the poor little employee saying "sign this" etc etc. Take the emotion away then we can get into the detail (I know the detail isn't very marketable for political hacks), but until that happens peoples fears (ie BIG BAD BOOGEY MAN UNION or Big Bad Boss with an AWA) wil be played like a guitar.

 

[Gnostic]

It is interesting seeing the Strikes across France in response to the raising of the retirement age from 60 to 62. I wonder how they would feel if it was 67 or even 70 as I predict will happen in Oz within the next 10 or so years.

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/new...l-blockade-bites/story-fn3dxity-1225939680684

How long before the Western World sees a working class that never sees retirement. The current average age of death for a male in Oz is what 73? If we see a further increase in the retirement age it is feasible we will see a decline in the lifespan of males which could fulfill this. Given the fact that very few women perform physically hard labour with its commensurate risks their lifespan is unlikely to be adversely effected.

 

[The_Brown_Hornet]

Actually Gnostic, it's 79 for males in Australia and 84 for females.

http://www.aihw.gov.au/mortality/life_expectancy/compares.cfm

We're in the top 15 in both categories. Social security has kicked in at the age of 65 for around a century here and hasn't shifted. And yet our life expectancy has jumped from 55 and 58 (male and female respectively) to where it is now in a little over 100 years.

http://www.aihw.gov.au/mortality/life_expectancy/trends.cfm

I think raising the pension age is reasonable given all that. It won't stop people from whinging about it though.

 

[Gnostic]

Hornet (hence why I put the ? mark over age) it is inevitable with an aging population that the "retirement" age be moved again to 70 with the aging population. That isn't just the Pension age but the Super Guarentee Age also. You will be able to access any contribution over the 9% (soon to be 12%) compulsory super but that portion will be "preserved" until the retirement age, except under certain conditions and then servere Tax penalties will be payable. As for Social Benefits/Government Pensions there are already moves to means test access to these and in future those tests will include the value of the family home so that any person with assets will be excluded from these benefits. An interesting point here is that the Government of Bob Menzies post WW2 campaigned and was elected with a policy of increasing the Income Tax rate by 10% (from memory) to pay for an Aged Pension. In those days of populate or perish they obviously could not see a time when we have a massively aging population and a baby boomer generation who retired early and spent the inheritance on travel etc and then took the pension at the end of their cash.

My point is that there are serious social issues with the raising of the "retirement" age.

It is interesting that the French are protesting the raising of the age from 60 to 62 in contrast to what we have accepted here.

 

[The_Brown_Hornet]

So where's the problem? All of what you described above will go a long way towards dealing with the problem here.

Western Europe on the other hand has big problems. They have sold the concept of the cradle to grave welfare state (not arguing for or against it), but are now having difficulties funding it. The money has to come from somewhere and some countries are coming to the realisation that with their ageing/declining population, it's going to get more difficult. The French are also some of the more militant people in the world too They love a good strike.

 

[Gnostic]

The issue is Hornet, those who do the Labour component of work in Western society will be required to stay there until they die of it, the very thing that saw the rise of the Labour/Union movement post Industrial Revolution. It is one thing to sit on one's ass all day long in an office or even in another service industry and another to do hard physical work.

 

[The_Brown_Hornet]

That's overstating it by quite a margin Gnostic. I've got plenty of friends and family in the manual trades and every single one of them has a plan when it comes to their retirement. In every case, they know their bodies will give up on them if they don't. But all of this discounts the enormous advances in workplace safety and remedial medicine that have and continue to take place. It's not as if the aged pension will be going away. We just shouldn't count on it being 100% of our income. We certainly won't be able to unless the measures you mentioned upthread are taken.

You also make it sound like we live in the era of William Blake's dark satanic mills. We most certainly do not. Many of the more dangerous jobs in the private sector in Australia today are among the highest paid. There's a reason for that.

 

[Scotty]

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/bus...n-wages-breakout/story-e6frg9hx-1225940399281

Fears of wage breakouts due to the NBN. This little quote made me laugh:

"Unions are committed to productive and co-operative industrial relations, and the ABCC is irrelevant. Employers are simply jumping at shadows," Australian Council of Trade Unions secretary Jeff Lawrence said.

 

[Scotty]

Unions want the ABCC scrapped so that they can have an even stronger hold on the construction industry, and it appears that Gillard is keen to give them a hand as well.

The Australian Building and Construction Commission "is doing a very important and effective job", he said. Unions want the ABCC scrapped, while the Gillard government's plans to water down the commission's powers were stopped by the Senate.

He said the ABCC had a "critical role" in maintaining a "sense of normality and predictability", a comment echoed by Abigroup's managing director, David Jurd, who said, "you won't find a constructor that doesn't tell you it is crucial to maintain a strong cop on the beat".

A spokesman for Workplace Relations Minister Chris Evans said the government would keep a "strong regulator" under its plans to replace the ABCC with a new body and would reintroduce its legislation to do this "as an early priority".

"With the current Labor government, there is pressure on for more union-friendly agreements. You would hate to see any pressures like that come on to the private sector," said one senior executive, who declined to be named.