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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

His giving gratuitious advice to Mr Rudd should be regarded with suspicion even if it looks like good advice.

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…

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.