Going further, there are few classes of organisation that have so blatantly preyed on the most vulnerable in our community as the trade unions. Their motives are generally very base indeed. To be fair, safety issues are an exception. There is a degree of unintended irony in some of Trevor’s comments about the ABCC; the trade unions are the most ideologically driven bodies in Australia. Even more so than what passes for the Liberal Party these days.

BBB

I don’t know, Trevor; and if I told you in the current political climate I’d probably get arrested.

Wat I don’t understand is: if it’s OK to criticise goverments and business, why is it never OK to criticise unions? At all? For anything, no matter what? Isn’t it rich to simply dismiss the Cole Commission out of hand for its ideology, while excusing all union activity because (you believe) their motives are pure? I don’t see how you can defend Kevin bloody Reynolds or 90% of all the paid parasites who get around in their dinky little ComeFuckMeUnion polo shirts. In trade unionism, as with other areas of human activity, there is a gap between lofty intentions and actual practice: the sooner trade unionists realise this, the better they will be able to arrest the decay of this curate’s egg.

That said, I would love to see an inquiry as an aggregation of coronial inquests into those who die on building sites, put a few rules in place etc. I’m surprised the ABCC hasn’t done this. I’m surprised the cashed-up union hasn’t done this. I’m stunned if I’m the first person who’s thought of it.

The record on civil matters is pretty bad, too.

The Cole Commission and the ABCC are ideologically-driven union-busting exercises. The most serious issue facing the industry is safety, but they don’t care if a few people die as long as there are some anti-union headlines from time to time.

Just because I’m disorganised doesn’t mean that you’re the one to organise me.

Nobody has claimed that the factors in the Royal Commission that gave rise to the ABCC have been addressed, and just as well. The first sentence in my earlier posts stands.

It has been assumed, at least since WW2 that such arrangements are a necessary (although of course, not sufficient), condition of liberal democratic society.

It is an intersting sign of the confident, booming and exciting times, that employers in a number of dangerous industries are becoming increasingly confident and open about ‘pricing’ safety risk, and simply passing on the cost of the risk to the final consumer. The laws increasingly discourage approaching the inherent risks of certain occupations through other more democratic and conservative means, and even if it didn’t, the growing confidence in general impunity for the powerful means it doesn’t much matter.

Attending the funerals of people killed at work, is just the same as attending the funerals of anyone who has died before their time, but there is an extra something to the occasion, each time relatives and friends know some accountant and politician and some nerd in some think tank decidied their husband/son/sister/brother life was worth an additional 0.00001% reduction in costs.

Yet another way of screwing the worker.

Yes that was it Kymbos, and the writer of the article said exactly the same thing about the detrimental effect on the credibility of whoever accepted the tender.

I remember thinking that whoever won the tender would not be banking on their credibility in future. Doesn’t sound like this mob had much to begin with.

You’re right, of course, that the 93-94 accounts are not the best data to use. If you want to have a crack at the most recent figures, you can find them here. I’m no statistician, but my workings have it under 30%.

Because it is their members that are most likely to feel the results of an accident .

Duh another beer anyone ?.

Evan, I did not suggest that organised labour should have no input into safety matters, or any other matters. I did ask why organised labour should have the majority say.

Doesn’t surprise me. Nor does the Government Gazette’s slavish response.

As for OH&S in workplaces, Steve at the Pub has obviously been spending a bit too much time at the pub and too little at work if he reckons that organised labour should have no input on industrial safety matters.

I used to be involved in OHS prosecution work for a certain Government and Unions, together with industry employer groups, were regarded as key stakeholders in industrial safety issues and regularly consulted in regards to broad policy matters.

I must say, in the entire 7 or so years I was doing such work, I never once saw or heard any Employer group suggest that enforcement (prosecution) of defaulting employers was a good idea.

They were all for consultation, tea and biscuits and a nice chat, whenever some poor bastard was crushed by a crane, run-down by a forklift, electrocuted, smashed by a falling scaffold (or whatever) at work.

They were also dead keen on “voluntary codes of practise” and self-assessment in regards to compliance.

The Unions, on the other hand, were all for enforcement and prosecution action whenever an accident occurred. They also favoured mandatory codes of practise and independent risk assessment and certification procedures.

If the employers had had their way, it would have been harsh words, followed by a response of: “Sorry Guv’nor, we’ll try not to kill anyone on the job again.”

Seems to me that the Unions were the sensible ones.

Anyway Steve, it’s your shout and I’ll have a schooner of New, thanks.

Not being an expert on ABS data, I’m not sure why we should be using the 1993-94 national accounts for labour’s current contribution to non-residential construction input costs. Is it possible that labour’s share has risen over the last 13 years and that Econtech’s ‘assumption’ is based on actual data supplied by construction companies?

Cheers
BBB

Perhaps I should have made it clearer that the ESC report was commissioned by the CFMEU, but I did link to it at the CFMEU website, so that’s a bit of a hint.

In any case, as you’ve noted, the real focus of my post is the dodgy content of the Econtech report. The criticisms of its methodology have been on the table since 2003, but it hasn’t done anything to fix it or explain why Toner is wrong. And it still doesn’t explain why the ABS figures are wrong, either.