My co-authored article with John Quiggin on the IR changes is now published at Online Opinion.
Ross Gittins also has some interesting thoughts on IR to start the working week off.
Gittins argues that Howard, contrary to his own statements that his IR changes are non-negotiable, is in fact playing his usual game of trimming his sails to the talkback winds - citing the backdown from negotiable smokos and lunch breaks and a longer standard working week as evidence. Gittins asks a pointed question about the stated justifications on “detail”:
Mr Howard blamed the unavoidable delay in drafting an entirely new act for the “inevitable … hiatus period” in which misinterpretation of his intentions was possible. But that’s a weak excuse. The media, the interest groups and the public don’t get their information about government policy from reading parliamentary bills, they get it from governments’ announcements and supporting documents.
There was nothing to stop Mr Howard giving a lot more detail when he announced his plans in May - or, if cabinet hadn’t yet had time to decide those details, holding back the announcement until it had.
And even now, if the wicked unions are engaged in a quite unfounded scare campaign (an action to which Mr Howard would never stoop), there’s nothing to stop him getting the detail out now and killing the scare campaign stone dead.
The proposition that he can’t know what he intends to do until the legal drafters have completed their drafting is laughable.
Of course, when we reflect on the fact that bureaucrats were reportedly scrambling to finish the welfare to work measures a couple of days before the Budget, total incompetence in the policy process might appeal as an explanation to wielders of Occam’s Razor.
It would be ironic if the one issue on which Howard is allegedly a conviction politician were to disprove the contention that he has any strongly held beliefs on policy, apart from rewarding his constituencies and winning elections.
It’s also interesting to note how Peter Costello did himself no favours by going out on a limb to support the most radical interpretations of the legislation, and the Trotskyite permanent revolution in workplace relations we purportedly need. A charitable interpretation might be that Costello was out to impress the top end of town. A less charitable one might be that it’s another example of his tin political ear.
There is a very bizarre process going on, which is almost democratic in an odd sort of way. Any reasonable interpretation of the government’s stated objectives which would severely disadvantage workers can be pointed out by the ACTU, and the Howardians back down more often than not to preserve the integrity of their narrative about a “scare campaign”.
The reason, of course, why the process of “selling” the changes is so shaky is that no coherent case has been made for them. In contrast to the late 80s and early 90s, when academic studies, and much economic argument were mobilised by Enterprise Bargaining’s political, academic and business supporters, all we get is froth and assertion.
Could economic and business elites be out of touch, perhaps?
Bob Carr, apparently loosening up as he sheds the responsibilites of office, made a big call on the weekend: “The unions have won the battle over this - they’ve beaten even the Government’s $20 million advertising campaign …
I think Bob’s right on this one.
The elites could be over-reaching themselves, especially as the govt. has a senate majority now.
Hope so - and let it be a salutary lesson to all. Dont minge, organise!
I wouldnt say the unions have won, but what they have done is expose what an ill-prepared, slapdash, ideological kneejerk the whole semi-existant package is. The Right got lazy on this one, and now they’ve got serious problems selling it.
The two union grouping currently being targeted are the builders and academics. Id like to see us co-manage our campaigns to an extent - identifying common principles and rights. Great reform periods are always marked by alliances between segments of the middle and working class. This is what we’ve lacked in the this period of Howardian dominance. And I dare say contemporary anti-elitism is critical to that failure, and no accident of the culture wars
we have a lot of building on our campus, and when the NTEU had a strike a couple of years back, some CFMEU members turned up to support our picket. A great moment for all of us!
Hang on. I haven’t been following this issue of late; what’s Howard backed down from?
There will now be “ancillary conditions” as well as the five legislated conditions of employment - protecting things like annual leave, public holidays, and lunch and rest breaks. He’s also made it clear that the standard working week will remain at 38 hours (though overtime would be up for grabs - and penalty rates - one would imagine - so this might be fairly meaningless).
There are more backdowns, but it’s been moving very quickly and memory and time fail me at the moment.
Jim McDonald’s site contains just about every press story and press release, among many other things on IR should people wish to do some research.
I think John HOward is still a conviction politician on IR, and will be driven by his convictions on this.
But there are two important things to remember:
(1) IF there is one thing that drive Howard’s convictions more than his ideological obsession on IR, it’s his conviction about winning votes. In the end, that will always win out.
(2) There is a long way to go before the IR comes on for a Senate vote - probably 6 months. That is ample time for the debate to be reframed and a new set of lies told and sold. Given how deceitful the Govt’s newspaper adverts are, it’s a fair bet they haven’t even started figuring out the final steps in this political process yet.
As MArk has said about the latest ‘commitment’ regarding the 38 hour week, a lot of his promises will be fairly meaningless in reality. He will rely on a public that isn’t able to grasp all the detail and a press gallery that mostly won’t know or be interested in the detail, they will be too busy following the progress of the ‘contest’.
It’s FAR too early to say anybody has won the battle on this one.
Terry Lane had an interesting interview with John Buchanan from the School of Business at the University of Sydney on Sunday. Transcript here.
Buchanan was good. Tks Brian