Another interesting feature of last night’s was a strong turnout of trade unionists, handing out balloons and footy-shaped brochures about the dangers for working life arising from the government’s proposed industrial relations reforms. The central theme was that unions had fought for the rights that gave us a decent balance between work and family, allowing us to do things like enjoy a football game, in contrast to the 24/7/365 flexible workplace being pushed upon us today. They seemed to get a pretty positive reaction, and it was a great idea for getting volunteers to turn out, given the opportunity to go to the footy afterwards.
This is a big and complex issue, of which I’ve only scratched the surface. But more soon, I hope.
John Quiggin 
Maybe if the unions got over balloons and advertisements, they might try to invite casuals into the fold, with heavily reduced fees.
After all, it is looking like the main form of employment.
Mind you, this was a mexican/victorian response. Jeff is the role model on I.R.
Depressing,indeed!
Slightly, reformed under Bracks. Just remember that the person who is pouring your tea is probably working for 10 dollars an hour in Victoria.
No holidays and on call.
Enjoy Australia.
A good idea would be to compare the NZ and AUS experience of “work place reform”, since the UK and US are too different to the Antipodes in both race and class for proper comparisons. I am fairly sure that the NZ experience would show that individual contracts have a negligible effect on improving productivity, income and employment outcomes.
The ALP needed to understand that good cultural policy needed to be Drier, favouring integration, not differentiation, in the organization of the state. Likewise the L/NP needs to understand that good industrial policy needs to be a bit Wetter, encouraging progressivity, not regressivity, in the organization of the firm.
Jack, a couple of the seventeen academics who commented on the proposals a couple of weeks ago focussed on the New Zealand experience.
Unions in this country have been bloody minded for to long. It is about time someone bored it up them. (sorry, what’s left of them)
Employers should be able to sack workers if they are useless, after all they can always go on the dole.
And so what if someone in Australia is on $10 an hour, people here get paid based on what skill level they have. They could be living somewhere worse- Some countries they might get $10 a month.
We don’t here you commies whinging about the real exploited workers, the ones in the third world. We note you are keen to exploit them by buying the cheap goods they produce.
“Employers should be able to sack workers if they are useless, after all they can always go on the dole.”
I note a flaw in your argument here…
Isn’t a fair working wage a virtuous circle? Doesn’t paying people a reasonable amount so that they’re not ‘working poor’ benefit everybody, including shareholders of major companies? Or is everyone too shortsighted about their near-term greed to understand this?
Graham,
The flaw is that small employers have been held to ransom for to long by a minority of employees that abuse the system. I have seen this first hand on many occasions.
In relation to small businesses that have limited assets the risks associated with employing somebody in my opinion far outweigh the benefits. Hence a proliferation of contractors.
Willful,
There is nothing wrong with a fair days work for a fair days pay, but
(1) a lot of the time a fair days work is not achieved and
(2) even if a fair days work for a fair days pay is achieved they would still be ‘working poor’.
Unfortunately the orange pamphlets were too badly designed to have much impact. They were too big so people were more inclined to lose them before they had a chance to read them. It would’ve been better if they could’ve been put into your back pocket. Only one of our pamphlets survived the journey home due to these difficulties, the rest employed dozens of people as cleaners.
Also the text was bad and the pictures of the AFL legends should have been of them in action rather than portraits. In short I would have gone for fewer pamphlets, but more expensive and effective, smaller as well.
But having all of those people in orange handing them out at the intersections was a good idea, I was impressed with that.
ps. could you please start refering the looming IR changes as Re-form rather than reform?
“Isn’t a fair working wage a virtuous circle? Doesn’t paying people a reasonable amount so that they’re not ‘working poor’ benefit everybody, including shareholders of major companies? Or is everyone too shortsighted about their near-term greed to understand this?”
No, it isn’t. Read this for example.
Why would we listen to the 17 academics?
I suspect not _one_ of them has built their own business from scratch or been faced with the problems a non-performing individual backed by ludicrous unfair dismissal laws can cause to a small business.
And academics by-and-large oppose capitalism for personal reasons, rather than on the basis of objective analysis, so even less reason to pay them any attention.
The reality of this is not poor hard-done-by working class small businessmen, but totally unreasonable aresholes who own a cafe or a fast-food shop and who demand starts at dreadful hours (for working parents), demand that staff buy their clothes at the outlet, or work unpaid overtime, and who love “training” periods (ie unpaid work).
econowit and TCFKAA should get out a bit.
Andrew,
No one is forced to work under the conditions you describe. If they don’t like them they can go on the dole and get rent assistance, free medical and all the other benefits this society offers.
Better still they could enroll in a Uni. course, become a perpetual student and live of research grants for the rest of their life.
Or they can get a job with a better employer. High employee turnover costs money for any business.
Wrongful dismissal doesn’t prevent your employer being a dick if he/she really wants to be.
“I suspect not one of them has built their own business from scratch”
Probably not, but so what? They’re academics, not business people. I’ll bet very few academic lawyers have ever argued a case before a court, very few academic engineers have ever built a bridge, and very few academic dentists have ever drilled a tooth.
Academics deal with ideas. That doesn’t make them wrong.
“or been faced with the problems a non-performing individual”
If any of them has ever been head of a department, I suspect they have, in spades.
“If they don’t like them they can go on the dole”
Not if they quit. You’ve got to wait a long time before you’re eligible.
Econwit,”get out a bit”.
You lack any understanding of wit or economics.
Indeed, a period on the dole would help.
Continuing education as well.
60 minutes simplicity and vilification of other parties does not help in reasonable debate.
Dave Ricardo,
“If any of them has ever been head of a department, I suspect they have, in spades.”
How does does dealing with a non-performing academic in your department teach you the “problems a non-performing individual backed by ludicrous unfair dismissal laws can cause to a small business.”?
Not many universities would be classified as small businesses. Non-performing academics are generally shuffled into make-work positions, drawing full salary. That is completely unaffordable for any small business, and most large ones. It is only really feasible when the taxpayer is footing the bill through confiscation.
And I’ll bet you are wrong. But not about the “17” that gave the thumbs-down to Howard’s IR reforms. The universities that do require their vocational academics to “get their hands dirty” are far healthier for it.
“The universities that do require their vocational academics to “get their hands dirtyâ€? are far healthier for it.”
Enlighten me. What universities require their academics to get their hands dirty? And I mean require, not encourage.
Apologies Econwit.
Hard day at office.
I got too personal and fell into your clever trap.
Please don’t call me a “commie”.
Only if you must…….
Might look bad on C.V.
“Hands dirty”, acedemic, required for this Position.
Love to see it in, Dailys.
Who get’s to make the judgement?
Peers or the new minister for Agriculture , Pete.
I believe Bond University Law School does (or at least it did). Most decent US Universities pay their faculty for 9 months of the year and expect them to make up the difference in grants and consulting. Of course, for most Australian Universities this would be unheard of, but then that’s part of the reason Australian Universities are pretty crap by world-standards.
It’s 10 months not 9 for US academics; getting a research grant is hardly the same as getting your hands dirty; and Australian academics are free to consult. Matter of fact, if memory serves, one of the 17, Ronald McCallum of Sydney University, is a consultant to one of the big law firms on workplace relations!
Its 9 months, not 10. Although you can usually choose to be paid in 10 installments.
1/17 – not bad.
You’ll find many more academics consulting with industry in the US than in Oz, primarily because of the culture that the policy breeds (which is closer to “interact with the real world”, rather than the ozzie version: “piss on the real world”).
Australian academics are free to consult, yes, but most do not come close to generating 1/4 of their salary from it.
My point was that “going on the dole” hasn’t been much of an option for the past decade going back into the Keating years. Not to mention that if you’ve been sacked for a particular reason, i.e. bludging, or you quit because “you just felt like it”, there can be up to a four week delay before you can start claiming it.
Also, I could’ve remarked on the cognitive dissonance regarding your calling others “commies” and then suggesting people should just go on the dole, but I thought that was obvious.
Sorry joe2,
I don’t purport to having any wit. Econwit is just a compound word made up of a Four letter word and wit. The only knowledge anyone needs regarding ‘the dismal science’ is; No two economists can agree on anything so they “debate on mass”.
Graham,
“going on the doleâ€? hasn’t been much of an option. Tell that to Homer Paxton and the hundreds of thousands like him. Something that isn’t much of an option seems to suck out a large portion of GDP.
How is it a display of cognitive dissonance stating the obvious, that bludgers go on the dole. I don’t condone it the commies do. I think it should be outlawed.
the commenter formerly known as anon said:
“… that’s part of the reason Australian Universities are pretty crap by world-standards.”
I wouldn’t say that Australian universities are crap. In fact, the Times Higher Education survey, which ranked universities at international level, has 8 Australian universities in the top 200 (if memory serves me well).
“1/17 – not bad”
1/17 that I could name off the top of my head. For all you know, it could be 17/17.
Ohhh you were being SARCASTIC! My bad.
8 in 200 is not a good statistic. It could be 193–200 [but hopefully better], in a relatively shallow pool of countries that fund advanced research.
And my original point still stands:
“I suspect not one of them has built their own business from scratch or been faced with the problems a non-performing individual backed by ludicrous unfair dismissal laws can cause to a small business.”
You may find that offensive, but academics sitting in their ivory towers telling the rest of us how IR reforms will “destroy the fabric of society” is offensive to me, particularly when those same academics have so little direct experience of the “fabric” of which they speak.
.
Econwit, going on the dole is not a free choice. There are externalities involved that push in that direction. That is also why it is to individual employers’ advantage to unload workers despite the fact that keeping them on would indubitably lead to greater benefits all round – those are the spillover benefits that don’t show through on firm by firm decisions.
PML,
Then based on that assumption going to work is not a free choice either. There are externalities involved that push in that direction.
Do we live in a society that dictates its terms and the individual has no control over their destiny?
Does ‘keeping on’ an individual whos primary function after eating and sleeping is to play XBox and smoke dope all day- ‘have greater benefits all round’?
Regardless of whether this individual is forced into the private sector by legislation, remunerated through social security payments, hiding in the public sector or academia- I fail to see how individuals of that kind can contribute any meaningful spillover benefits that don’t show through.
Econwit, is that really how you think before you vote? How will unfair dismissal laws protect someone who doesn’t have or want a job? Are they in the International Brotherhood of X-box Players?
Most people have jobs like chook-strangling and processing because they are recent migrants or are just not academically minded enough for suit jobs. They work, you pompous git, BECAUSE THEY WANT TO SUPPORT THEIR FAMILIES AND NOT GO ON THE DOLE AND BE A BLUDGER. Then when they ask the boss if they can start at 7:15 instead of 5 am and finish later so the kids aren’t home alone for hours in the dark, they get the sack (documented case).
If someone is underperforming you just have to give them a bloody written warning, not too challenging for a genius like you, and a chance to improve, and if they fail, you can happily give them the big A.
Wrong. “There is no set number of warnings that must be given to an employee about unsatisfactory performance or conduct.”
Most small employers can’t afford a lengthy warning process; can’t afford the potential dangers of sabotage from a disgruntled employee; and can’t afford the time required to defend themselves against a wrongful dismissal claim. So they just pay the employee off: leave now, make no claim, and you get 3 months salary. The current system is simply there to ensure the blackmail works.
Econwit, you’re beginning to catch on (assuming you meant “paid work”). Have a look at the underlying concepts involved in distributism and mutualism. If those conditions could be achieved, people would only ever work outside the household for occasional needs and for luxuries, or under state imposed or mediated constraints like the need to pay taxes (they would be merely mediated to the extent they were responses to needs imposed on the state by outside forces, like defence needs). Within a system approximating that, most needs would be met off balance sheet, as it were, using resources that were privately owned to meet private needs except on the comparatively rare occasions when that was not the optimal solution.
This has historical precedent, like the comments of outsiders that they couldn’t get the natives to do any work. It merely applies a specialised understanding of “work”. The natives were working, of course, only not in a cash economy with opportunities for profit to the colonialists. Solutions involved depriving the natives of resources (e.g. North America), taxes (e.g. Africa), or bringing in outside labour (e.g. Fiji).
Oh, the spillover benefits are things like:-
– having a pool of people to draw on for armed forces (not so common now, but common in history);
– people who function in the community and provide in reality what is now fictional, the support that people are thrown onto when they are pushed out of institutional care;
– people with informed and enabled leisure (not the same as unemployment on benefits), who can and do contribute to public life and learning and to private choices in market places that drive undistorted directions for innovation;
– economic stabilisation from the real balance effect rather than through state intervention.
All these and more can be discerned in other times and places, such as classical Greece. Once life options are restricted to state mediated ones, there is a gradual impoverishment.
Yes Sean,
The International Brotherhood of X-box Players does exist. They are a small minority of people who habitually exploit the unfair dismissal and workers compensation laws to obtain pay outs to maintain their life style. I have seen it actually occur on many occasions.
You are correct in stating that I am a pompous git, as is anyone who employs people in this semi socialist state that we live in.
PML,
People must ever watch against the danger which lurks for our personal liberty in the power of the state.
Those two concepts are interesting. I have never come across them before but I can relate to; “the problem with capitalism is that there are not enough capitalists”.
A contemporary model should be implemented along the lines of: “corporate socialism” with minimalist government regulation utilsing mutualist economic principles.
test
“Shane Paxton” I believe Econwit – I think the “Homer Paxton” to whom you refer is a regular poster here, though he may also be a dole bludger for all I know.
Thanks Paul I stand corrected. I did mean “Shane”.
My sincere apology to Homer Paxton.
Unfortunately I suffer from long and short term memory loss, due to a misspent youth.
Mr -10%
According to the Nielsen poll, John Howard’s personal approval rating has fallen 10% in one month and the ALP is sitting on a 2pp vote of 54%. 60% of voters polled oppose the IR changes. Newspoll has the parties at 50% each – a result even Dennis Shan…
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