Higgins decided a ‘fair and reasonable’ wage would provide the ‘normal needs of the average employee, regarded as a human being in a civilised community’.

I see nothing erroneous about his comment. Maybe Australia does need an official poverty line?

Mr Healy is correct on the agribusinesses.

In June 2002, Congress passed a farm bill that dramatically increased subsidies on large staple crops like lentils and peanuts, and reinstated subsidies that had previously been eliminated on crops like honey, wool and mohair. Overall the bill increases agricultural subsidies by 80 percent and will cost the government $180-$190 billion over ten years 1. Nationally in the USA, farm subsidies already total about $20billion a year–which doesn’t include the higher prices that consumers pay. Most of the money goes to the largest and wealthiest farmers, a secret that the Environment Working Group made public for the first time when, thanks to the Freedom of Information Act, it posted on its Website a listing of every farm subsidy received by every farmer since 1996.

1Laura D’Andrea Tyson, “The Farm Bill is a $200 Billion Disaster,” Business Week, June 3, 2002

In short its corporate welfare - get rid of that and subsidise some of the smaller farms so that they can compete with the bigger farms which means the bigger farms will have to sell off some business because its no longer protected by corporate welfare so they can continually make a profit which gives a well-managed small farm an opportunity to buy and compete competitively.

The same should apply to other businesses as well. I guess I really should have put that on the Identity Politics thread.

However I’m not addressing the welfare issues in context here so I shall stop there.

Are we concerned here with the reduction of minimum and award wages or the other benefits that go with them? Whilst I’m yet to see legislation, Howard has stated, its publicly available on Hansard something like the minimum wage will not be reduced but indexed to inflation. That sounds okay to me but I’m willing to listen to any objections.

For Kim “Pareto optimality is simply “A situation in which the utility (or welfare) of no one can be raised without reducing the utility (or welfare) of someone else.

Mark - give me an adequate definition of a Deakinite liberal and I’ll let you know…

I’m not sure we’re talking about the same blue-collar males. The areas where demand is high are for skilled manufacturing workers and tradespeople. The employment profile in unskilled manufacturing these days is largely female recent immigrants.

I have no problem per se with 50 year olds being taught basic computer literacy, but if this is the extent of the training provided, it fails to overcome other barriers to labour market entry.

The profile of graduates is much different from what it was 20 years ago, because the supply is much greater. It’s arguable that someone with a fairly ordinary pass degree in a generic field like Arts or Business who may have work experience in hospitality, services or retail is not a skilled worker in the absence of further training/vocational postgrad qualifications.

Sorry to be making such a fundamental point well down the thread, but your post has several errors and dubious assumptions.

“[P]reviously we produced poorly educated people who could get unskilled assembly line or labouring jobs, but those jobs no longer exist in the same numbers that they did”.

The 2005 job market for blue-collar males is the best it’s been since the 1970s. Conversely (and as pointed out by a commenter) it’s the worse - or something close to it - for white-collar males.

“Most of the unskilled jobs now are in the service industries - call centres, retail - where the preferred employees tend to be women with kids or young people”.

Call centres indeed employ lots of “young” people (under 40). Many of these are uni graduates. I suggest you call them “unskilled” at your own peril when you’re next on the line to one.

“But many who are long term unemployed are males in their late 30s, 40s and 50s, many with a low level of formal education, poor literacy and numeracy . . . [The JN is] things like basic computer courses for 50 year old blokes”

And the problem with a 50 y.o. being given basic computer literacy is? (My own experience of the JN is exactly the opposite, with most people within its reaches seeming already over-qualified).

“The problem with the current welfare to work thing does not lie in wage rates. It lies in the incentive structures which govern the Job network. Job network providers get a payment when people enter work and more if they stay there for at least twelve weeks. The way that they respond is to do nothing for people who have skills and are job ready - these people find jobs through their own efforts and the job network provider picks up 4 grand without having to lift a finger.”

Such wage subsidies haven’t existed for years (’tho there was talk of bringing them back in the recent budget). The way JN providers are been raking it in in recent years is (i) getting clients to sign “Preparing for Work Agreements” (which I assume earns them a healthy flat fee; I was signing several a month at one stage), and (ii) raking-off a % of the jobseeker’s (taxpayer-funded) “budget” - which is why you get JN providers giving clients mobile-phone/haircut/petrol vouchers, all over the shop. I’ve got plenty of the latter (thanks taxpayers!), but what I actually wanted was a f*ckin job - the obtaining of which for me is clearly well-down my JN provider’s list of priorities.

That’s a very good point, Mark, and I’m surprised no-one else picked it up. I’m with Fy on “On the unfair dismissal, I‚Äôm inclined to be optimistic that bosses won‚Äôt sack people for dumb reasons”.

But, if you accept that the basic-wage employee often has only one real card in a negotiation (withdrawl of labour, either by strike or by leaving) and the costs to their employer associated with that, and you support a direct relationship between employees & employers (ie with no third party involvement), then unless you support slavery you need to be providing/encouraging absolute “mobility”, including internationally. Which means throwing open the borders along with dropping the tariff barriers and removing other impediments.

Drop all the marginal tax rates at the same time, and let the boom begin!

The increases in labour productivity the report refers to derive precisely from its ability to drive down wages. Now, globalisation spruikers always fall back on free markets here, as if their own endeavours are pure enterprise. Yet they are critically dependent on the support and intervention of the state to enforce banking laws, property laws (including copyright) and personal safety laws, and to provide the educated workforce and the road system they need. So, given that dependence on the state, it’s legitimate that the state ensure that all citizens benefit fairly from the resulting commerce. That means fair wages and employment laws.

Other aspects of its price reductions are sometimes admirable, but sometimes represent the shifting of costs onto other parties such as suppliers and transport companies. In that, Wal-Mart operations resemble the operations of Coles and Woolworths here in Australia.

I also find it fascinating that McKinsey whinges about labour market regulation, but then advocates for greater regulation in South America, where small businesses enjoy benefits over multinationals.

Tim Dunlop has a cracker of a post on the philosophies behind the new IR “reforms” due to come into parliament once the Liberals seize control of the senate in July. In this post he spells out the dichotomous attitudes on IR policy between the left a…

I gather the following Yuppie professions are experiencing labour scarcity:

bricklayers

hairdressers

pipefitter-welders

miners

On the unfair dismissal, I’m inclined to be optimistic that bosses won’t sack people for dumb reasons, e.g. wearing berets to work, but don’t hold me to it.