155 thoughts on “May Day”

1. @munroe

   So, “Munroe” having decided that LP wouldn’t buy your preferred tosh you thought you’d come here and post one line flames at the blog host?

2. Yeah, munroe, I think I put it much better 🙂

3. @gregh
   Well perhaps I was too hard on Socrates gregh…..I see your point. I too am disillusioned with the inability of unions to counter increasing neoliberal ideologies like “the freedom to make contracts’ and increasing casualisation. As we get the lead into an election I feel there is one dirty word that will continue to do damage to the liberals and that is “workchoices.” Part of the problem with modern unions is that have not and do not often work for casuals …so in effect they try to save the benefits of their full and part time membership without noticing their own bloodloss.

4. Unions in the English speaking countries have been diverted from their real purpose for a long time, simply to satisfy a variety of non-union agendas, and that has severely weakened the union movement. In Australia, first, they were being diverted for many years by political crusaders who were trying to advance some extreme left political agendas, communism and so on, while ignoring the negative impact the activity had on the effectiveness of union’s ability to represent workers. This activity of disruption in support of their pet causes damaged the union movement’s reputation.

   More recently, although some of the latter types are still involved, too many of those involved in unions simply see them as a platform for networking and advancing their careers, and preparing their way for entry into politics. Because their objective is to advance their careers, and move into politics, there has been far to much ‘getting along to get along’, rather than focusing on union members interests. The unions relationship with the Labor party has been destructive. When Labor has been in power, unions have been too willing to do what is best for the party rather than what is best for their members. When Labor have been out, it has been the same story. Unions have been to willing to subordinate their members interests for fear of any imagined collateral damage on the Labor party. Unions have stood by and quietly let both Labor and the Coalition progressively dismantle their effectiveness. A pity because good unionism has so much to contribute.

5. Alice

   Yes gregh put better precisely what I was trying to say. I am all for profit sharing for workers as a general principle and especially unions fighting for the right of those who are lowly paid. I am not against all unions, only those who have failed to refocus their efforts on cases of genuine social injustice.

   But there should be reasonable limits to everything. If you follow the “workers deserve a profit share” line to extremes then you wind up defending the BCA saying that Corporate executives (still employees of the corproation) are justified in taking millions each as their share of the company profits. That is a bad argument. If some labor markets wind up as nothing more than employers and employees cutting a deal so they can both fleece the rest of us then they are both at fault. That is simply both sides spliting a monopoly profit. It is no better when the Waterside Workers Federation rips consumers off for their share of the pie than when Patrick Corrigan does it.

   Again, I would encourage those interested to read David Miller’s book Principles of Social Justice on this issue. He tries to get to the crux of what a just wage is for a job, and what principles you should use to decide it – whether effort, difficulty, risk, qualifiactions etc. (Incidentally Julian Lamont at UQ has also done a lot of reasearch on this topic.) Until unions realy understand what social justice is, then they won’t wind up achieving it. That is my concern.

6. Freelander

   We agree again! In my experience that was another of the problems I encountered with unions representing pulic servants – the worst declines in conditions occurred under the Goss Labor government. Sure enough, two of the organisers “representing us” later tried for Labor Party pre-selection. No wonder they didn’t fight for us. It was an obvious conflict of interest.

   Another thing that needs to be rethought is the extent to which unions fight capital owners. 70% of shares in Australia now are owned by super funds for worker’s retirement. Directors and CEOs are the “real enemy”, not shareholders, most of whom are indirectly workers anyway.

7. Just because we have had this rotten canard.

   Here are the actual wage rates for wharfside workers at a container depot, in this case Fremantle (2005) for 38hr week (excluding superannuation and allowances).

   Transport workers:

   Grade Week
   1 575.80
   2 599.80
   3 611.88
   4 629.91
   5 641.83
   6 653.89
   7 665.96
   8 695.75
   9 713.80
   10 743.79

   Metalworkers

   Grade
   C12 675.56
   C10 770.26
   C9 812.10
   C8 850.72

   No wage comes close to $100K+

   These were the wages signed-off by the respective unions.

   So where is there any evidence for Socrates ludicrous rightist nonsense that:

   the Waterside Workers Federation rips consumers off for their share of the pie

   Why shouldn’t any adult worker have a perfect legitimate right to these incomes.

8. And since Chris is throwing some actual data into the discussion, let me add that train drivers in Adelaide employed under the TransAdelaide Train Operations Certified Agreement 2005 enjoyed a wage of $681.35 per week as trainees as of 1/1/2007, rising to $1,114.10 as a senior driver. I assume there have been increases since then but the figures are difficult to reconcile with the assertion @44 that ‘suburban train drivers in Adelaide start at around $85K and the average is over $100K’. Perhaps the latter figures, if accurate (and no source is cited), simply reflect the fact that there is such a shortage of drivers that staff work absurd amounts of overtime, which is hardly the fault of the union. What do you suggest Socrates, that as hours increase the hourly rate should drop, to prevent workers receiving what you regard as excessive total earnings?

   I don’t doubt for a moment that many salaried staff in the private sector are exploited and made to work long hours for no reward. It is however a perverse conception of justice that concludes the appropriate response is to cut the wages of other workers.

9. There are a lot of reasons that unionism has been undermined. The Accords in the 80’s and nineties under Bob Hawke led to a real sense of complacency. There was no need to join a union and pay dues because the government and union leaders did it for you.

   The corporate nature of unions at the same time led to people becoming remote from organisers.

   Thirdly there were sustained attacks on unions from the start of the Howard years when young people saw that it could be a career limiting move to be associated with a union.

   Now young people are not replacing the baby boomers in unions as they retire because they do not identify with a workplace and look to other jobs to move to if they don’t like a job.

   In addition the hard fought wins of the past are taken for granted with annual leave etc. It was only that Workchoices undermined these that ensured that the government was changed. Political Parties can’t get people to join either and there is a real problem with commitment that costs cash.

   There are also the unreal expectations of unions where workers will quit as members because the union is powerless to prevent wholesale sackings.

   The lack of commitment to the greater social good and community is seen all around in houses that are being built with high fences and electronic gates to keep anyone out.

   Many people will want a union award because of the skills of the negotiators but want it free for themselves and probably wouldn’t consider themselves as bludgers – rather they would see themselves as clever at getting something for nothing. Others won’t join the union and then ask what has the union ever done for me?

   Workchoices was beaten because a lot of ordinary people gave up time that could have been spent at the movies or with the children, to talk to the everyday citizen about what was happening to the workforce.

   Unions do still have a lot of members but unless Generation X and Y step up and commit themselves to working for the greater good then old unionists will retire and leave them to lower wages and poorer conditions.

10. I certainly agree with JQ’s point that labour has “to go beyond national perspectives in responding to a globalised economy” and has been slow to do so. The globalisation of big business has also been one of the reasons labour’s bargaining postition has been severely weakened. Labour’s strength has always been sourced in achieving and maintaining solidarity. In a globalised world, to be effective, solidarity cannot stop at national borders.

11. @Jill Rush
    Jill – having worked in the uni sector for 13 years as a casual on a series of back to back and overlapping contracts, I have watched the use on contractual university labor on the academic side soar, whilst the admin side of employment has managed to retain its security and rights to permanent employment. I joined the union in early years but could not see any value in it for me. The union could not and did not prevent other casuals being discarded on a whim, some after many years. It could not prevent rising impositions for no extra remuneration on casual academics (extra marking, larger classes and acting as a delivery driver or exam supervisor when called on). The best it could manage over that entire time was to ensure casuals could access a desk and computer at work.

    Simply not worth the money. On the academic side universities have become the epitome of the “workchoices” employer (righter than right). As a result they fail to keep experienced teachers and researchers and have not kept pace with private sector wages and conditions in other comparable public positions or indeed the private sector (although it could be questioned now as to whether universities are public institutions anymore – they are not).
    This is a governance issue and the managements of many unis appear to have been appointed for their conservative inclinations and willingness to prostrate themselves on the alter of neoliberalism.
    The NTEU has been a failure in halting the decline and I quickly saw there was no value in joining for me. It is not the fault of those who dont join unions that union activity becomes ineffective. At every stage the union had a chance to lower its prices to reflect the value it is able to provide to different groups. A desk and computer access isnt worth the subscription fee over all those years. I have both.

12. @Freelander
    Freelander until governments globally recognise that freedom of financial capital enatils losses for everyone when the doors to tax havens shut in their faces, nothing short of crises like Greece will wake people up. The dow fell 23% yesterday because of it. The losers include labour and governments and shareholders and the winners are a narrow elite of directors and CEOs.

13. Ken

    I agree that many workers in other industries are exploited but that is my point – the relevant unions haven’t stopped it happening. So respect for unions has declined. But equally how does that justify above average wages for below average skill jobs? If you think that treatment of train drivers and wharfies is just, then what do you say to tens of thousands of police, teachers and nurses? The money for their wages doesn’t appear out of nowhere; the only way everyone in Australia could get that amount is if there is massive wage inflation, which would make everyone worse off. So sorry, but in a comparitive sense, it is still unjust.

    As for train drivers in Adelaide, I have worked with several and am confident of the figures I quoted. The figures you quoted are for trainees in 2005, similar to the out of date figures Chris quoted for Freemantle (also one of Australia’s most efficient ports – incomes at Melbourne and Sydney are very different).

    If you take that starting trainee wage of $681.35/week in 2005, that equates to $35,000 per year. Add super you get to $40K. Add wage inflation to 2010 you get over $50K. Add overtime and allowances and it is a lot more. I didn’t quote trainees, I talked about starting salaries for permanent train drivers which are more again, hence the $85K figure. By comparison, a university graduate in almost any other field starts on less ($60K max), having not been paid during three+ years of study and having incurred a HECS debt. Why should train drivers (or dock workers) get more than them?

    Besides, arguments about trainee and starter wages are as anecdotal as my quoting individuals I know. To get a realistic comparison we should be talking about averages for an occupation, both for total income and total hours worked. I have found it very hard to find averages for waterside (port) workers and train drivers as occupations, but that doesn’t mean they are low. You are lucky to ever see the jobs advertised. Spend time on a few railway blogs and see what figures people talk about as total incomes and you will soon see what I mean.

    All of this though is just a side issue to the basic point – there are huge groups of employees in the workforce that have received no effective representation from their unions in the past two decades, as reforms to “increase flexibility” have reduced conditions. Unions don’t have to admit this, but until they not only admit it, but do something to change it, they will continue to decline inrelevance. I am not saying that is a good thing – it stinks – but I can only hope they change.

14. Alice 10

    My wife is an academic and I know exactly what you mean. Her workload is ridiculous and wages so mediocre that she is planning to get out. Meanwhile the adminsitrators at Adelaide Uni now actually outnumber the academics (lecturers and tutors combined) and behave as a law unto themlselves. My job in a private consulting firm gives me more time to do research than she gets as a lecturer! Unfortunatly NTEU is one of the many examples I was thinking of for unions that have failed their members.

15. @Socrates

    This is impossible to follow. You were complaining about (imaginary) $100+ salaries in the context of some Melbourne ports dispute.

    When was this? 2010 salaries for train drivers could be around $85K but they are some of the most skilled and experienced workers in a rail system. They naturally receive higher than the average wage, particularly if they have trade unions. In 2010, you may find senior crane drivers controlling multi-million dollar construction cranes also receiving similar wages.

    Senior crane drivers and senior train drivers should get substantially more than young graduates just out of university/TAFE. Very few graduates get $60K, so again you must be inflating your imagination by including superannuation. Practically every new entrant into the public service these days is a graduate, and undertake jobs that do not have the same productivity as driving trains or operating cranes, nor require the same level of responsibility.

    You are not dealing with facts and data – you are just casting political dispersions. Once these issues are dealt with properly the intellectual basis of such rightwing dogma crumbles into dust.

16. I find it difficult to have any sympathy for the Greeks. Their problems stem from their unwillingness to pay their taxes which has been expressed by punishing any government that threatened to make them pay those taxes by dumping them. This culture of entitlement resulted in the falsified statistics used to get into the Euro in the first place. Now that one of their elected governments has finally been forced, by circumstances, to bring their borrowing paid party to an end, and impose drastic cuts, they are protesting and threatening to riot, and complaining about the reticence, of those they want to borrow from, to lend to them at very favorable rates. Seems hedge funds are taking advantage of the situation through destabilizing speculation. If the IMF and European authorities were braver and more skillful than they are (that is more like the HK monetary authority in ’97-98), they would be punishing those hedge funds by strategically timed interventions on the other side of the market. But that would be far too much to expect. The recent public pronouncement by Stiglitz has not helped the situation. If markets were rational Greece defaulting wouldn’t have an impact on the Euro or the affairs of the other PIIGS. But markets are not rational. Panics spread rapidly which is why ‘too big to fail’ is not the problem in financial markets, which are based on trust. The problems in these markets tends to be too confidence threatening to ignore. If government fails to step in to restore confidence, confidence collapses, which was the Lehmann story.

17. @Freelander

    I agree with much of what your say but not all of it.

    The phrase ‘markets are not rational’ has become popular in the sense of popping up in the press a lot. Its o.k. as a shorthand for saying, while individual market participants are rational in the sense of looking after their financial interests, the outcome is such that it makes no sense because all of them can be worse off. Not everybody might understand the phrase ‘markets are not rational’ as a shorthand expression and jump to the conclusion that individual market participlants are not rational.

    I agree with your statement about governments role in restoring ‘confidence’. You might agree with me, or not, when I say the function of such an action is to provide something akin to a binding agreement.

18. Ernestine, it all depends on your definition of ´rational´. While your formulation would not be controversial in most people´s minds, you might note that it applies equally well to government – ie, most officials are individually rational, but the incentives in the system cause their combined actions to have non-rational outcomes.

    Therefore, we need a better definition, otherwise it´s either redundant or tautological to say ¨markets are not rational¨.

    Freelander´s criterion (though I don´t know if it´s his only one) of panics is also insufficient. I can rationally panic, for example!

19. @Jarrah
    I wonder what economists think rational means. Is it along the lines of ‘people will try to achieve their goals’ or is it much stronger than that?

20. @Jarrah

    I can rationally panic, for example!

    Sorry, that would be paradoxical. Panic is by definition, not a procvess involving the careful weighing of costs, risks and benefits. While people who act on intuition in circumstances where significant doubt and limited time to make a decision makes “rule of thumb” or best guess a plausible response, people often describe this as “panicked” — but this is not necessarily so.

    One acts rationally, when one weighs all of the data one can assemble and process as carefully as the time-to-decision permits against the values and goals one seeks.

    OTOH, someone whose desire to deal with a perceived problem by making an early committal decision takes inadequate account of the resources of data and time they ought to have known were available is panicking.

21. Depends on the economist 😉

    I suppose one economistic way to define ‘rational’ is “responds to incentives with the intention of achieving a goal” (or “makes cost-benefit analyses”). Note this does not presuppose good or positive outcomes at any level, nor limit rationality to ‘reason’ in the philosophical sense – you can have many stimuli for making a decision, including emotions or subconscious urgings.

    That’s simultaneously a broad and a narrow definition. Not strictly useful, depending on the context, but that’s because it’s really a fraught area of philosophy, heavily dependent on one’s ontology, preconceptions, and tools of analysis.

    So discussions about rationality, predictability, and their relationship to public policy are rarely grounded in coherent metaphysics, but instead often simply cover for complaints about outcomes. Stockmarket drops quickly in value? Must be irrational. Smoking costs lots and shortens your life? Must be irrational. Many people acting to maximise their profit can lower overall social surplus? Must be irrational.

    I suggest everyone is careful when using these concepts, and that you all consider alternative ways of expressing yourselves rather than muddy the rhetorical waters with mushy lingo. That is all.

22. @Jarrah

    @Jarrah

    We humans are at our very best, partial in our insights. Those with the strongest claims to intellectual accomplishment and cultural worthiness (reason), IMO, move rapidly and accurately between specific pertinent data about the world and the macro-environment with which the data is connected, acting in ways that maximise the collective benefits per unit of cost and risk while ensuring that each side of the ledger is settled to maximise equity.

    That’s a pretty big ask in practice, because it’s sometimes hard to know what is pertinent, to use the right models to grasp how pertinent it is, and to account for the dynamic consequences of acting in one way or another, typically under the pressure of time. Some of the data entails judgements about the likely responses of others, who many of whom will have a quite different calculus driving their choices.

    This in turn makes what is strictly speaking “rational” at any moment, hard to specify. The stock market is an excellent example here. In the long run, dumping shares may turn out to be anything from disastrous to wise, but one has to make a choice, and if you hear that significant people are dumping, unless you can hang on indefinitely and believe the shares will recover in an acceptable time frame to an acceptable price, you pretty much have to dump as well, even though you know this will exaggerate the plunge. If you believe others will believe this you have to dump first to avoid loss.

    That’s a rational reason for doing something which ignores the fundamentals, precisely because our knowledge is partial.

23. Fran, I don’t think it is paradoxical, but it highlights some of the problems we will come up against when discussing rationality.

    Panic is the state of having a radical glandular adjustment of your thinking processes, not an abrogation of them. Adrenaline and other substances flood your system, but the brain and nervous system are always under the influence of these and others, it’s just a matter of degree. So in a sense, you enter a different mode of thinking, one dominated by a priority for immediate action, even at the expense of bypassing the slower, more accurate discovery-and-analysis sub-systems in your brain.

    Is this irrational? Sort of. If it makes you dive for cover without thinking about it when a bomb goes off, it’s obviously a better course of action than processing the danger signals fully and getting blown up. Then again, better for whom? For yourself, sure, but maybe you would have preferred to throw yourself over the bomb instead, to protect another – say your daughter. Which is rational in this case?

    (I hope you don’t think my hypothetical is dismissable as a lifeboat-ethics irrelevancy, because it isn’t meant that way. It’s just that we are talking about panic, so I need a panicky situation to talk about.)

    Trying not to reiterate my previous comment, I think I can safely say that people make decisions for all sorts of reasons, but act rationally most of the time. Moving that conclusion into the political-economic realm, we should therefore construct public policy assuming that a majority of the people, a majority of the time, will try to act in their best interests by weighing up their options, even if badly.

    It’s rational, don’t you think? 😉

24. “This in turn makes what is strictly speaking “rational” at any moment, hard to specify. ”

    Precisely my point, and precisely my caveat.

25. Alice’s comment, ten, had me in mind of what’s alleged to have happened with the ABC.
    To use a rough paraphrasing employing the Beach Boys “Surf City”,
    “ten bosses-
    for every-
    worker”

26. @Jarrah

    Just to concretise the point … some people have automatic buy and sell points set up for stock trading. A movement of more than a set amount either way in a given time automatically triggers a sale, regardless of “fundamentals”. Nobody wants to run the risk of devasation or of m,issing out on a surge. That’s “rational” in one sense but the action might be downright bonkers wrt the “fundamentals”.

    If unfounded rumours are causing a stock to crash and burn, this might be an excellent time to buy and vice versa. Of course if one imagines others behaving the same way, then following the herd makes a rough sense, even if it’s headed into a ravine.

27. One’s guesses about fundamentals have little to do with stock markets. One’s guesses about others’ guesses about fundamentals isn’t it either. It’s guesses about others’ guesses about others’ guesses that dictate bull or bear, all of which can be (but aren’t necessarily) related to fundamentals and second-order effects, not to mention phantasmagorical ‘patterns’ and ‘cycles’. In extremis, fundamentals are actually irrelevant. That still isn’t irrational.

28. @Jarrah

    Precisely. Of course, trading on “fundamentals” is often seen as rational policy.

29. @Jarrah

    In reply to your #18, taking into account your #21 and #23, I have very little left to say.

    The expression ‘the market behaves irrational’ is meaningless in Economics because the notion of rationality is defined with respect to individuals and not to institutional environments. The reference to institutional environment answers your query regarding ‘the government’.

    Given that ‘everybody’ is part of ‘the economy’ but not everybody is educated or even interested in the subject, and, furthermore, people who are educated in economics but work in specific segments of the economy sometimes create their own jargon, it is not surprising that communication problems ensue. I take it you understood my comment in the way it was intended, namely a gentle reminder that the expression ‘the market is irrational’ is at best a short hand jargon.

    It gets difficulty when people go off the rail and persist. Hence, I completely concur with your suggestion that they should be careful when using these economic concepts, and that they should consider alternative ways of expressing themselves rather than muddy the rhetorical waters with mushy lingo.

30. @Socrates
    Im in complete agreement with that Socrates – NTEU.

31. @paul walter
    Paul – that does not surprise me at all re ABC. The trouble is neoliberalism did nothing but appoint beancounters en masse to public institutions to see how they could squeeze the real contributors out….like unis and academics being outnumbered by administrators, like hospitals being taken over by administrators, like the ABC being well…you get the picture. Its a fast road to elimination of public services isnt it? (one brief moment of joy comes to mind…when they kill the service utterly with administrative top heaviness …even the administrators will lose their job!!!).

32. My definition of rationionality is is Rudd wants to win the election he will mandate that people can use their employer paid super to pay off their home mortgages…

33. er thats “rationality” above. Mad if he doesnt do this…ad if he doesnt we will be swapping right versus ultra right every election until they get it right.

34. The latest in Greece make sympathy impossible.

35. The latest in Greece appears to be spreading to Potugal and Spain and apparently 12 million more foreclosures of ALT A loans expected in 2011 in the US. I dont think its over. How can it be…the hot air is still there and the spin is back?.

36. @Alice
    While I understand your frustration at increasing workloads and reduced pay blaming an external union is a cop out. If casuals all joined the union they could then take over positions and run it to better suit the casuals.

    However if the fee paying unionist see that casuals are only a drain on their resources why would they put effort into that sector? I hear a lot of people talk about the union as if it should have more power than the employer. This is a fantasy.

    It takes critical mass to take on the employers and employees often seem to think that paying dues is all they have to do to counteract the employer’s power. It is not an easy task and fair weather casuals will never have the clout to do it. It is worth remembering that during the Howard years many laws were passed that were anti union including how union dues could be paid, workplace visitations by officials etc.

    As the unionists of the baby boomer era leave the workforce there will be many more staff thrown to the chill winds of individual contracts.

37. Chris 15

    In post 105 I did not say that waterside workers earned $100k during the Melbourne Ports dispute 10 years ago. I refered to their current average incomes in an earlier post when I mentioned $100k, and not some starting award rates for one of the cheapest ports in Australia in 2005, that of course will be far less. Also including super packages is normal practice in comparing incomes. I say again that both wharfies and train drivers are paid above average wages for low skilled jobs. You are proving my point about defending the indefensible.

    Both earn more (on average) than university lecturers too. Why don’t you ask Alice if she thinks they have more skill than academics and that that is fair?

    I only picked these two occupations because they were obvious (to me) examples to illustrate the general point. If all the union movement does is look after a few small groups who have a strong bargaining position, they are not a force for justice. They are of no help to the majority of working people. So they lose members. “Your Rights at Work” was a great campaign because it was aimed at the majority, not a small minority. More of the same is needed from unions.

    You still stick to an argument along the class lines JQ highlighted to begin with and assume as a critic I sprout “right wing dogma”. Rubbish. Last time I checked being concerned about social justice for the majority and the lowly paid was supposed to be a left wing concern. You won’t face the main point. Maybe unions give you a comfortable job, but most of the rest of us are not so fortunate. (I am tempted to ask what is the average wage of a union official as well, but I suppose they are all highly skilled professionals too).

38. Jill Rush 36

    You talk about casual academics as though they have a choice. They don’t. There are too many people chasing too few positions, and so management exploits the situation. I knew untenured contract (they are not really casual) academics at UQ that were members of NTEU. That wasn’t the problem. Similarly when I was a Qld public servant the majority of the workforce were members of the PSU or POA. It still did us no good.

39. After the ‘will of the people’ has been loudly expressed in Greece, what rational person would lend them money? With little evidence of any willingness to repay, those working on a rescue package must be seriously rethinking their position and whether any type of rescue would simply be foolish. Rather than bailing Greece out, if holding their bonds is a risk to the zone, then preparing to partially bail bond holders out, should be considered. But only for Euro banks and Euro citizens. This could be achieved by being prepared to buy those bonds, from at a deep discount when they fall are defaulted on. Only bonds that have been held for a reasonable time by Euro citizens or institutions should be brought at the deep discount to protect against an arbitraging and bailing out non-Euro citizens and institutions.

40. @Socrates

    I sprout “right wing dogma”.

    This should be spout. This is a common neologism/eggcorn. [/red pen]

41. Now that is a fair criticiam Fran 🙂

42. @Jill Rush
    Jill – I can see your frustration at the “fair weather casuals who dont have the clout to join the NTEU to give it ‘critical mass’

    But you are wrong – very wrong. Those fair weather casuals dont even have the clout to keep their own jobs. I left and now have a permanent part time jpob in the pruivate sector earning more with any of the hassle of being offered a continuous series of contracts – three months here – one year there – 6 months there and then another three months. Im over it. Unis exploit their labour largely – Id like to count the number of casual academics they employ now – who really has any security left except those in uniexec academe appointments. Its neoliberalism alright and as much as I feel for you wanting the critical mass…you have to ask yourself one pertinent question.
    Why hasnt the NTEUI been able to halt the decline inn academic work conditions over the past twelve to fifteen years. Why are Australian unis being rated by American (Moody’s or Standard and Poors??) unis who insist all arrive with phds in hand and pay for their own lengthy studies themselves in order to get a permanent job on a measly salary at lecturer A or B with no RAs on staff, with no tutors on staff to assist them????

    Yet the divide of those who gained permanency before we invited the yanks to “rate” Aussie unis mean some have security for life without bearing the onerousness of new hiring conditions.

    So the unis want cheap labour for the four or five years it takes to slug through a phd with no guarantees or responsibility or support provided.

    Cheap labour Jill and your union hasnt been able to prevent any of this. Im not the only one who has left the system. The union always had the choice to let casuals join for a token amount (or a price which reflected what they can and have not been able to do for casuals, whilst protecting the conditions of the already protected perhaps like yourself).

    Its a choice the NTEU made to sever one its own large and growing limbs. Its a choice the NTEU made to sacrifice critical mass Jill. It wasnt mine and Ive left, like others…because basically its a crappy measly insecure system and Im sick of living “project to project” “semester to semester’ “grant to grant” and the NTEU IMHO is totally useless if you want the honest truth.

43. @Socrates
    Agree Socrates.

44. In a sense NTEU illustrates the problem well. I don’t think it is an uncaring union but it is weak. Some occupations, via legislation or economic position, have stronger bargaining positions than others. Some fields can control the number of new entrants or there is legislation requiring those particular people to do a role. That gives greater bargaining power to those groups. If unions break up into a collection of separate tribes only fighting for their own then members of those with strong bargaining power will do well, while the rest of us go backwards. The outcome will have little to do with skill or pressure of work. That is exactly what has happened in the past two decades. Unless unions rethink their collective approach, and better acknowledge what is just, then the slide will continue.

45. “Why are Australian unis being rated by American (Moody’s or Standard and Poors??”

    Good question, Alice.

    There is a related one, namely, how are the ratings done.

    If you, Alice, or anybody else has the time, it may be useful to check out how the (in-)famous rating agencies reach their conclusion. In one case I found the rating agency stated that their rating was done on the assumption that the Federal Government would bail the university out if it were to default. In other words, the whole mess of building up future public debt (‘too big to fail’) all over again.

46. Alice, I have to agree that universities are behaving increasingly badly towards their academic staff. The short-term contracts, often offered only a short while before their commencement, are particularly awful. The ratcheting up of workloads is also bad.

    Why is this happening? Unlike you, I can’t accept an ideological bogeyman (“neoliberalism”) as the sole cause. Rather, it’s a peculiar, half-arsed situation resulting from several decades of fumbled “reform” in the tertiary education sector. The regulation is incoherent, being reduced in some areas but increased in others, some working against the intent of others, and of course price controls having large effects. Unis have had to respond by growing their share of full-fee international students, cutting costs by squeezing academics and reducing teaching staff, increasing class sizes, dropping less employer-friendly courses, and the all the rest. And now we have the proposed quotas adding to this complex scenario.

    And just a note on the NTEU – when once handed one of their leaflets, it had both spelling AND grammatical errors. Tsk.

47. @Socrates

    You are now misrepresenting yourself. You were not citing $100K+ to compare incomes, including superannuation, at current rates. You were claiming:

    the Waterside Workers Federation rips consumers off for their share of the pie

    How were you comparing incomes including superannuation? Where have you tried to do this? Why should anyone feel aghast at receiving superannuation? Why provoke unions on this basis?

    What rot. You were just channeling an old, old, rightwing canard at the same level as John Laws and other shock jocks – and with the same political agenda.

    Current rates under Patrick Stevedores Agreements signed in late 2008, for Award workers, range from $862 [Grade 2] to $1144.31 [Grade 6] for $35 hr.

    Top rates are paid to Senior managers, still less than $100+, but well under Australian Public Service rates for Commonwealth white-collar senior managers.

    There might be some strange agreement somewhere, maybe there is a dratf future 4-year agreement citing $100+ managerial rates for 2014, but why doesn’t Socrates cite it.

    Clearly we have been hit by a savage, ill-informed, right-wing attack on trade unions, totally based on misrepresentation and jingoism.

48. Not to make too fine a point, but $300,000 may also be less than $100,000 +

49. @Jarrah
    Well Jarrah ….on this we agree. I happen to think the NTEU pretty pathetic. Ive been contacted in the last month three times from academics at Professor level wanting a good RA because they have a tender doc due and a paper required by some govt agency (yes there is money in it for unis…grant money) but the poor professors are too busy and cant get good help.

    Too bad. All three were two or three or 6 month contracts. Yes – the hoursly rate is good for three days or whatever a week but you know something? I dont care – Ill work for half that in a permanent position all year round. Apparently the union is now fighting for RAs to be able to gain permanent positions. Too little too late as usual.

    The academics, whose name goes on the resraech can find the grants, but dont have the assistance they need to tender and submit?? Hello??

    I thought unis were after grants but you can only flog a tenured staff member so far without help.

    Let them work it out Jarrah. Thhe unis have lost the plot (ratings agencies…go get a 23 year old phd student from god knows where to help with the research and tender doc. Good luck with that. Most phd students dont survive the period of “paying their precious dues” and leave anyway…long before they have good research, tender doc and writing skills).

    To quote Clark Gable in Gone with the Wind, “frankly my dear, I dont give a damn”!

50. @Jarrah
    But hey Jarrah…I forgot to tell you this…Professors can appoint “permanent” admin assistants to deal with their emails or travel scheduling on 80K or 90K a year…..

    Go figure. I cant.