Rudd takes axe to Work Choices (2 Viewers)

[ZabZu]

i personally despise unions and believe them to create an anti-competitive, socialist, and monopolistic environment.
its disgusting

It depends on the individual union. Of course there are some left wing unions in Australia that are socialist and who want to see the end of capitalism. However, most unions do not believe in socialism and they believe the best way to advance their members lives is to see a profitable business. If the union is very active on a workplace level it can raise workers problems to management. It gives the worker has more of a voice. This would increase worker morale and can increase productivity.

However, in reality many unions are useless and some agreements are negotiated by union officials who give to much to employers (eg removal of penalty rates).

There's nothing more scary than the unions. They'll stuff our economy, simple as that.

You obviously have no idea what happened last time Labor was elected in the 1980s. There was an agreement between the Hawke Labor govt and the ACTU called the Accord. The unions agreed not to strike and allowed real wages to decline (increase in inflation greater than wage increase). That helped keep inflation low. That occured when union membership was 50% of the workforce, in 2007 its 20%.