Andrew Norton has been posting on evidence from polling of the possible electoral impact of Workchoices. He’s got a reasonably nuanced view, but tends to think on balance that its effect might not be terribly strong.
I’m inclined to agree with Fred Argy in comments on Andrew’s post that the impact of the perceived negative effects of WorkChoices is likely to be compounded both through knowledge of negative effects on one’s friends, family or associates (in particular concerns raised that AWAs are hitting teenage employees in retail and hospitality hard) and through more generalised assessments of their fairness overall.
To some degree this is countered by a continuing strong labour market (at least for those who are already well placed to exploit it) and from a reluctance of large white collar employers to take full advantage of the Choices they have – the main exception being the Commonwealth Bank.
Rudd Labor’s strategy on IR – which appears to be a combination of embedding it in a wider range of concerns about fairness and families and a suggested move to distance the ALP from the ACTU by allowing individual common law contracts to supplement collective agreements – appears to be a reflection of these factors. It may also represent a decline in the belief within the federal ALP that WorkChoices is the main weapon in their electoral armoury.
In this context, the parallel campaign run by the ACTU – including paid organisers in Coalition seats as well as the headline advertising campaign – will make for interesting electoral times. Perhaps the ALP can fight on a broader front to overturn the Government’s electoral advantages on other economic issues because a well organised and funded campaign will highlight WorkChoices specifically.
But, overall, I think there’s a lot of merit in the argument made in The Courier-Mail recently by political scientists Peter Van Onselen and Wayne Errington. They argue that if Rudd and Gillard de-emphasise IR, they’ll be making a serious strategic mistake.
The question is, will voters buy what Rudd is selling? If voters remain relaxed and comfortable with the leadership of Howard, they won’t warm to suggestions he is incapable of tackling future challenges. After all, the electorate charged Howard with the responsibility of tackling future problems on four previous occasions – 1996, 1998, 2001 and 2004.
However, if Howard’s management of his fourth term has caused disquiet in discrete policy areas, Rudd’s mud will stick. It is here that WorkChoices becomes central to the political year ahead. The Opposition has been ahead of the Government in the polls for most of 2006 primarily because of voter concerns over Howard’s industrial relations reforms. AWB and Iraq although messy and unpopular, aren’t vote changers. Industrial relations is.
Even the well-off have reservations about WorkChoices – they worry about the deal their children will get as they enter the workforce. Howard argues reforms are necessary to sustain economic growth. Rudd is questioning how they will affect the social fabric of the nation, ground Howard has dominated for over a decade.
Beazley promised he would rip up the legislation. Presumably Rudd will do the same. Voters aren’t interested in the ideological struggle between Howard and the ACTU. But they do like the idea of WorkChoices biting the dust and that would mean Howard goes as well.
Rudd has used his honeymoon period to define himself in areas other than industrial relations. This, in conjunction with his experience at the apex of Queensland government as Wayne Goss’s chief-of-staff, will help present him as a man of substance across a range of issues. However, Rudd needs to move back to the fertile ground of IR in 2007 if he wants to beat Howard at the election.
Otherwise he won’t have sufficiently stirred up sentiments for a change of government.
This is the biggest challenge for Rudd. Moving to the right and neutralising government wedges may make Labor appear safe and electable. But to counter the “devil you know� factor, differences also need emphasis. There’s a double-edged sword for Rudd Labor in wrapping WorkChoices up in the “bridge too far� rhetoric. It might blunt the strength of the most powerful weapon Labor has to wield.
Update: I forgot to mention that Michael Costello has a different take on the polling from Andrew, and that Terry Sweetman’s column in the Courier-Mail on Labor values is also worth reading.
This issue is tailor-made for the Labor party…they can point to gross unfairness of them being sacked without ANY notice…TWICE!
Naturally should they not bring this ‘ Elephant-in-the-room’ up at all then no honest worker need pay these frauds and dillitantes the slightest attention.
Peter van Onselen is not just an academic, he has been one of Mr Debnam’s spruikers/spin doctors in articles in the Herald and at onlineopinion.com . His giving gratuitious advice to Mr Rudd should be regarded with suspicion even if it looks like good advice.
There is a pdf article on the Morgan Polls website( under “papers”) which argues that Australia’s unemployment rate is really about 2 million. The greater part of this 2 million are in effect long term unemployed and are aware that they could be forced by the terms of Workchoices to work for very bad conditions.It is a sizeable demographic quite different from the teenagers who take part time or casual work.
Mr Howard still thinks these two million are his battlers which they are but they don’t like him anymore.
I’m aware that Dr Van Onselen is himself a conservative and (I’m open to being corrected if I’m wrong) a former Liberal Party staffer. All the more reason, I’d have thought, that his views on the weight Labor should give to WorkChoices are worth listening to. Given that he personally probably opposes a Labor style IR policy.
Have a look at Sweetman’s article.
His argument is that, regardless of the electoral appeal or otherwise of an anti-WorkChoices stance (and I think he’s been unduly spooked by the Shanahan spin), Labor owes it to its supporters to run a strong campaign highlighting the fundamental issues of workplace justice and the right to collective bargaining.
From my own perspective, I’d be very disappointed indeed if Labor went wonky on IR.
And if they win, a strong mandate on the ripping up of WorkChoices is necessary – as they’ll face a Senate they don’t control.
Beazley promised that. Will Rudd?
Or will it all get lost in its subsumption under New Labor/values speak…
I think the best analyses of the US midterms show that those who tried to out-Republican the Republicans had less influence on the result than those who articulated a strong Democratic position.
Just sayin…
Mark, you mentioned “concerns raised that AWAs are hitting teenage employees in retail and hospitality hard”. Are there any stats to support the proposition that a large percentage of the teenage workforce is, in fact, suffering because of WorkChoices?
I’ve seen some anecdotal stories here and there; TT or ACA have run the odd story about someone who had a dictatorial employer trying to force them on to an AWA they didn’t like.
But it seems to me that the ALP or ACTU will have to be able to point to stats that show widespread cutting of wages or tightening of workplace conditions since March 2006 to be able to make effective political capital out of WC.
And I think this would have to apply to adult employees too, not just teenagers. Teenagers have lots of options to them, no mortgage or children (usually), and they can and do change jobs easily, or return to study if they feel like it. So people in general might think: who cares if the odd employer tries to put teenagers on a nasty AWA? The kids can just walk and do something else.
If the ALP wins the next election, I would be VERY surprised if they “rip up” workchoices.
They may change many of the details, & even rename it.
But they will not return to the previous system. Centeralised federal control of the IR system will be too appealing to them.
Very true – but the High Court’s endorsement of federal IR control will in fact make it easier to rip up Workchoices and replace it with whatever they please.
I believe that there is huge number of people who are in effect long term unemployed who do not know what a workplace is like or who have forgotten about it.The Howard government is addicted to its success in getting the population used to anything by the use of spin in TV campaigns.Remember the tedium of the GST and Medicare TV ads? I feel certain that Howard’s spin maestri have the Workchoices government-paid-for stuff already on the drawing board and aimed at the already mentioned 2 million, a demographic too depressed to question how a new tax on everything could unchain their collective heart.Workchoices is inevitably an issue at the next electiion and perhaps all Dr Peter van Onselen is saying is “bring it on now” while it can still be paid for out of Govt coffers and suck funds out of the ACTU for whatever it needs to do in reply.Right wingers don’t do altruism because it looks like weakness and I’m sure Dr Onselen is no different.
Speaking of the mid term elections- the senate looked unwinnable for the Dems but it happened and could well happen here-you should not be so pessamistic.
Recently on the 7.30 report Julia Gillard indicated that Workchoices would get the bum’s rush and since it is her baby why not believe her? It is Mr Rudd’s wife who has some of the long term unemployed on her books at “Work Directions” which is concerned with, as I understand it, employment for the disabled and which with government subsidies is a good little money earner. A fair paraphrase of Mr Howard’s usual first words when Workchoices comes up in conversation is “these people will at least get a job whereas before employers could not afford them”.There is the makings of a wedge here between Mr Rudd and wife and Mr Rudd and Ms Gillard .All Labour need to do with this one is to allow Ms Gillard and Senator Wong to handle the issue.Mr Rudd could and should go on defining the Labor big picture as he sees it- compassion, fairness etc, stuff you and I take for granted, and keep away from the potential wedge.
“Working for the Man” by Roy Orbison would be a good one for a government sponsored saturation campaign on Workchoices.Damn, its stuck in my head for the rest of the day.I hope it goes away before I next front the polling booth.
The issue hasn’t much traction with the electorate because, as Mark rightly points out, employers aren’t using the legislation to its full extent. I think this if for three reasons …
1. Many large organisations’ employees are covered and protected by existing EBAs that don’t run out until after the next election;
2. The unions are on the lookout for employer excesses and have successfully drawn attention to companies that have used the law to finger their employees, and;
3. There’s an understanding in employer organisations that the new rules have the potential to unseat the government if used carelessly. They’re not keen to throw away the gains they’ve made.
The challenge for the Labor opposition is to get the electorate to think of what will happen after the next election if Howard wins.
Paulus, I’m thinking of the comments made by the Victorian Workplace Rights Advocate last year, and a response by an industry association representative from retail that they were moving to try and get rid of penalty rates from the industry – similar comments have been made by representatives of hoteliers.
orion, after hearing Peter Van Onselen’s expose, at a Griffith University seminar, of the Howard government’s questionable use of public money to fund the Liberal Party’s data collection on voters and voter profiling, I am satisfied that now he is anything but a Coalition shill, whatever jobs he might have had in the past.
I had to go to my Websters for that word Paul Norton. I said he was a right winger not a (slang) “person posing as a purchaser or gambler to decoy onlookers into participating”.Pray tell what was the seminar about?
Was it something to do with the lack of wisdom for political parties taking advice from computer filtered data from credit card purchases , Medicare records,government middle class welfare records, GST records even etc etc when there are a nice bunch of academics inclined to the Right who could do a better job for just the normal consultants fee?
The reality of Workchoices is not Wal-Mart (who or what is Wal-Mart to do with it?)
It is the Commonwealth Bank.
There has not been a blanket refusal to sign by the 5,000 or so CBA staff who have been offered an AWA.
Despite lots of money spent, TV ads (& some notable falsified claims) from the trade union movement, & lots said by the ALP, a glove is yet to be laid on Workchoices.
Come election day will the 5,000 CBA staff on an AWA want to see the end of that AWA & a return to their previous award? THIS is the looming problem for those who oppose Workchoices by hook or by crook.
I have been subject to a barrage of ACTU propaganda about Workchoices, however it is exactly that. Fiction dressed up as fact or selective information.
Reality is, except for overweight & underperforming union reps, workchoices is more good for people than it is bad.
Steve at the pub I did not see any reference to Wal Mart but I can tell you that there are some consequences of the Workchoices law which I have been able to observe.Because companies with less than 100 workers can sack them without any real fear of serious consequences they can get rid of their HR officer.They can use on line agencies to do their recruiting for them since if someone is hired who is not suitable they can be sacked easily.I know of two instances where HR officers were sacked only to be employed by on line recruiters straight after Workchoices came in .Just now on the RN 4.00pm news there was a report that there had been an increase in web based advertised jobs but not in newspapers.Since NSW is in recession along with Tasmania and there are reports that boom jobs are slowing down in the west I see this as simply a consequence of the Workchoices law.
The Workchoices laws also are made to make workers fearful for their job security but as tony points out the full force of Workchoices is being held back pre election .
“Reality is, except for overweight & underperforming union reps, workchoices is more good for people than it is bad.”
Looks like a load of dribble to me.
I’d be interested to know if Steve at the Pub is actually on an AWA, and has actually benefitted by being so relative to any alternative collective agreement. If not, I’d be interested in his evidence for his purported “Reality”.
Tailored individual AWA’s are a massive generator of paperwork, and a waste of everybody’s time, effort and money. The government line that they allow above-collective-agreement rewards for outstanding performance is a furphy, since collective agreements can do so too. Mine does, while guaranteeing a bottom line below which work conditions cannot descend, which AWA’s do not do.
The AWA’s that we’ve heard about in the media so far avoid the inefficiency of being genuine individual agreements in that they seem to be mass-produced generic documents that reduce conditions and tempt workers to sign away their holiday, sick leave, overtime etc provisions that they actually need for their health and sanity. Hardly good for anyone except bean counters looking at the short-term bottom line, and class supremacists who get their rocks off showing the proles who is boss.
Then, there is the way that AWA’s are defined so as to lock you in and make it difficult to change back to a collectively negotiated agreement. And the way that they are shrouded in privacy and secrecy requirements, which make it impossible to compare different individuals’ positions and do anything about gender equity, disabled equity, etc.
People have worked and fought hard over the decades for the good aspects of modern workplaces, and it is pitiful to see how easy we can slide back into serfdom, with some folks even cheering while we slide. Why do they hate their workmates so?
The other aspect of the new IR laws that is truly shocking is the government’s giving itself the power to ban agreements from including various items (eg giving unions a formal role in negotiations), and to micromanage workplaces by stepping in and fining employers and employees who break those rules. If both sides are willing, why should they be stopped from putting whatever they want in a contract? Goes against the whole spirit of Liberalism, I’d have thought. But as with most things Howardite, the bottom line is Total Control From The Top.