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The official IR reform thread! (1 Viewer)

erawamai

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Generator said:
Govt denies IR changes will hurt families

Everyone else is wrong, of course. Still, today there was a concession of sorts... Within one of today's hearings, a Liberal Senator agreed with Bill Shorten that parts of the amendment are not as clear as they could be (The World Today, and I'll post the link to the relevant report later today).
Thats an interesting think for pru to say. She started out as very pro howard but seems to have turned against him in recent years.

Where there not some silly rumours about John Howard having an affair with Pru...or something like that? OR was it Latham having an affair with Pru Gowards daughter. Ah unsubstantiated gossip.
 

Generator

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Not-That-Bright said:
This is so silly, it is in countries with lower industrial relations standards that birth rates increase.
Huh, NTB? From what you just post, I cannot help but think that a simple rephrasing of that comment would be "in countries with fewer rights for women in the workplace, birthrates tend to be higher".

Also, lower standards? I thought that the government was 'cutting back on regulation', not lowering standards? I am of the opinion that they are lowering the bar, but such a display of honesty from one generally supportive of the Government's agenda in this field is a bit of a surprise.

No matter what the Minister may say, Pru Goward's comments cannot be dismissed at a whim.
 
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leetom

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Workplace stoush a test of attention span
Wednesday November 16, 2005
COMMENT
By Laurie Oakes
National Nine News political correspondent


Kim Beazley is very clear about what will happen to John Howard's new industrial laws if Labor wins the next federal election. During the union-organised national day of protest, he told workers attending the Brisbane rally: "My first act as prime minister of this nation will be to stand on the steps of parliament and rip these laws up — gone. These extreme laws are headed straight for the bin — which is where they belong. And then what I'm going to do is to sit down and write a law and put it through that protects the rights of every Australian in the workplace. That's what's going to happen then."

Sounds good. Kimbo showing some ticker. Making a stand on behalf of Labor's traditional base — the workers. Establishing some product differentiation between Labor and the Coalition. The only problem is that it's almost certainly a hollow promise.

When it became clear after last year's election that the Coalition had gained a surprise majority in the senate, Labor's then Upper House leader, John Faulkner, studied the figures — and then, grim-faced, told clerk of the senate, Harry Evans, "This is a six-year sentence".

Even if Labor returns to government at the 2007 poll, the overwhelming likelihood is that the coalition will keep control of the senate for at least three years after that. And without a senate majority, Prime Minister Beazley would not be able to repeal or amend Howard's IR legislation. Nor would he be able to put through a new law protecting workers' rights.

But at the moment, Beazley is not looking further ahead than the election itself. His focus is getting into office, and he believes Howard's radical reshaping of the IR system is a potential winner for Labor. Certainly, the current community concern about the new laws that the government is ramming through parliament give him reason for optimism. The key question is whether voters will still be fearful when the laws are actually in place and have been operating for more than a year.

Howard thinks not. He expects a repeat of what happened with the GST. Once the new tax was in place, Australians adjusted quickly and Labor's scare campaign collapsed. When the new IR laws are in place, the Prime Minister says, the sky will not fall in and, after a while, people will wonder what the fuss was all about. If he's right, the issue will not change votes come the election.

Beazley agrees that the sky will not fall in. He says the government's IR takeover is a "slow burn" issue. In other words, he believes there'll be a gradual accumulation of evidence that the new laws hurt workers. He's relying on voters becoming more and more aware of problems as the election approaches.

Union leaders understand that, somehow, the issue has to be kept alive up to the election, and they are working on ways to ensure that happens. Both ACTU secretary Greg Combet and president Sharan Burrow have said they expect unions will refuse to pay fines under the new laws, for example. Such defiance will be punishable by a jail sentence. The theory is that the sight of union officials being thrown into the clink for representing the workers will serve to keep voter concern on the boil.
The last paragraph is particularly interesting. Will dedicated unionists really be prepared to risk time in the slammer in order to advance their cause? It seems as though that will be their only course of action as the social fallout resulting from the reform implementation will most probably be of a ''slow burning'' quality, as Beazley describes it and will not be fully felt until it has been in place for a number of years.
 

Not-That-Bright

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Huh, NTB? From what you just said, I cannot help but think that another way of saying that is "in countries with fewer rights for women in the workplace, birthrates tend to be higher".

Also, lower standards? I thought that the government was 'cutting back on regulation', not lowering standards? That aside, I'm thankful for the display of honesty.

No matter what the Minister may say, Pru Goward's comments cannot be dismissed at a whim.
Well the argument is based around the fact that under Howards changes there will be lower working standards... the claim is that then women will not be able to give birth. However if we look at the case studies of countries which actually do have completely de-regulated industrial relations systems then we do not see that problem.

The last paragraph is particularly interesting. Will dedicated unionists really be prepared to risk time in the slammer in order to advance their cause? It seems as though that will be their only course of action as the social fallout resulting from the reform implementation will most probably be of a ''slow burning'' quality, as Beazley describes it and will not be fully felt until it has been in place for a number of years.
If people still have equal / greater workplace standards by the time of the election... then I doubt these laws will count for much at all.
 

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Out of curiosity, has anyone here had experience in bargaining for certain working conditions or any above the award entitlements?
 

loquasagacious

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I've worked under an AWA, however that was simply the way it was take it (and the job) or leave it (and the job). That said overall it was quite fair, there were no penalty rates but the hourly rate was higher and it addressed more specifically the issues of the industry than the relevant award.

In general workers preferred it to the award they had been on previously and there were no qualms about holding the employer to conditions set in the AWA.
 

Generator

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But without the current no-disadvantage test... However, I guess that given the attention span of today's society, in time nobody will even remember the relevant award.

Undue haste
 

Generator

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John Howard's industrial revolution

KEVIN ANDREWS: I think it is the beginning of the power being returned to the hands of ordinary workers in Australia, rather than people saying "We're just going to go along with whatever the union bosses tell us to do."
"I agree, let us listen to the bosses alone for a change!"

SARAH FERGUSON: Steve Archer's wages and conditions were set not by the union but by a private contractor supplying workers to Sydney Water. Here there are two classes of workers - those on the union award and contract workers like Steve. As the union men leave, they are replaced by contract men. And the reason is simple - those on the union award get better conditions and better pay.

STEVE ARCHER: I've spoken with Sydney Water people that do do this job and there's something in the order of around about $170 a week difference, for the same job.

SARAH FERGUSON: How do you feel about the fact that you're paid so much less to do the same difficult work?

STEVE ARCHER: I think it's pretty self-explanatory, isn't it? Yeah, why can't we be paid the same? This is the question.

SARAH FERGUSON: Critics call it "the race to the bottom". So will the workplace end up with millions of Steves?

JOHN HOWARD: I'm not going to even try and answer the Steve example because I don't know all the details.

SARAH FERGUSON: What is to stop, though, people in those industries that are governed only by price, where people bid against one another to provide services at the cheapest cost, what is to stop them bringing the wages down and down and down? JOHN HOWARD: They can't go down and down. I mean, that is the language of an industrial relations system that has no statutory minima. That is not our system. It's a quite inaccurate depiction of our system.

SARAH FERGUSON: They can go down, can they not?

JOHN HOWARD: It is an inaccurate depiction of our system to say it's about going down and down. We have a minimum. You can't go below that.

SARAH FERGUSON: But you accept that people can be driven down below the point at which they're at now?

JOHN HOWARD: Well, the question of whether somebody can be driven down from the point at which they are at now, that is an observation that can be made of any industrial relations system. The worst situation to be in, of course, is to lose your job.
It all comes back to the idea that a job is better than no job. Though that may well be true, is a job with working conditions akin to those of the 1800 (an over exaggeration, I know) something that we as a society should be considering today? Aren't we beyond that? Why must the rights gained through years of struggle be dismissed so easily under the guise of increasing productivity?


SARAH FERGUSON: For all the noise in Parliament, the real opposition to the Government's changes is here, in the low-key persona of ACTU Secretary Greg Combet.
That cannot be disputed.

BRENDAN: Basically it is a term of getting the job - "If you want this job, sign this paper." It's a term of employment. If you don't sign this, you don't get the job, basically. So if you need the job...

GREG COMBET: The Government says that you must have been happy, though, to sign that. So why are you unhappy about it?

BRENDAN: Not happy with the conditions, but happy that I got a job.

BOB HAWKE: What opportunity has a young kid, boy or girl, going for employment, being presented with a fait accompli contract? What opportunity have they got? And what can happen now is that all these things that have become part of the Australian way of life - the concept of public holidays, paid public holidays, the concept that if you work over normal hours you will get penalties for overtime - all those rights are going to be taken away.

JOHN HOWARD: The problem for Australia now is not that we've got too many workers, but that we have too few. And the market conditions are going to remain, in my opinion, very strongly in favour of employees, very strongly.

BOB HAWKE: And you believe in fairies at the bottom of the garden too?
Hahaha

---

Call for IR amendments likely: Murray
 
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loquasagacious

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It was good to see somebody finally address the 'facist liberal howard lover' socialist alliance argument...

Gittens piece was also quite interesting and importantly - even handed.
 

Sarah

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loquasagacious said:
It was good to see somebody finally address the 'facist liberal howard lover' socialist alliance argument...

Gittens piece was also quite interesting and importantly - even handed.
Read the Gittens article. Do u really think it's even handed? Seemed to be more critical of the reforms if anything. I know it's difficult to find evidence to support the govt's view but surely there are some benefits to the reforms.
 

leetom

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Sarah said:
Read the Gittens article. Do u really think it's even handed? Seemed to be more critical of the reforms if anything. I know it's difficult to find evidence to support the govt's view but surely there are some benefits to the reforms.
Can you cite any? Calling them fascist is extreme, but any apparent benefits are are ambiguous at best. The Government has nothing more than its unsubstantiated 'fairer, higher wages and greater productivity' mantra. All Andrews can refer too when being grilled is the Government's record, which while impressive, does not automatically mean Howard's workplace reform can be trusted to do as is promised. Reliance purely on 'the record' actually exposes the Government and its total lack of justification for the reforms.

Ross Gittens said:
In other words, there's no overall gain to the economy, just a transfer of income from one part of the economy (workers) to another part (employers).
That made me stop and think for a moment. Forgive my simple non-economist interpretation, but indeed, it makes sense that existing wealth would merely be transferred from workers back to bosses. If workers are left with less money, they then have less to spend with, and when people stop spending that is usually bad for the economy, isn't it?
 

loquasagacious

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Sarah said:
Read the Gittens article. Do u really think it's even handed? Seemed to be more critical of the reforms if anything. I know it's difficult to find evidence to support the govt's view but surely there are some benefits to the reforms.
I was merely indicating that Gittens was far more even-handed than the majority of those who oppose the laws.

Oh and NTB I agree.
 
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These reforms are an ideological push, which I agree totally with.

The Government's huge failure with this issue is not pushing a massive reform to social welfare in line with liberal values.

Most economists support social welfare to clean up the market's mess.

Our industrial relations system was designed to take part of the social welfare burden. Stripping that away, without modernising our social welfare system to accomodate the changes is just plain silly.
 

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leetom said:
Can you cite any? Calling them fascist is extreme, but any apparent benefits are are ambiguous at best. The Government has nothing more than its unsubstantiated 'fairer, higher wages and greater productivity' mantra. All Andrews can refer too when being grilled is the Government's record, which while impressive, does not automatically mean Howard's workplace reform can be trusted to do as is promised. Reliance purely on 'the record' actually exposes the Government and its total lack of justification for the reforms.

That made me stop and think for a moment. Forgive my simple non-economist interpretation, but indeed, it makes sense that existing wealth would merely be transferred from workers back to bosses. If workers are left with less money, they then have less to spend with, and when people stop spending that is usually bad for the economy, isn't it?
Oh i misunderstood Losquasagious. His later post cleared things up
 

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A few days too late, but anyway...

WORK IN PROGRESS

Weak, PM, weak

The five-day week is dead, says the Prime Minister, and our industrial relations system has to change with it.

That will come as news to his own office, which is only contactable by the public - you guessed it - five days a week, from Monday to Friday. Radar contacted the PM (on a weekday) to find out whether the hours would be extended or changed after the new IR laws are passed. Johnnie's staffer promised to call back and let us know, but never did.

Richard Cooke
Source: http://radar.smh.com.au/archives/2005/11/post_29.html
 

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