Tony Abbott got himself into a bit of trouble during the election campaign by claiming that all those old fashioned protections stripped away by WorkChoices were unimportant anyway – because the best protection was giving the boss the finger and looking for a new job. That, of course, assumes that there wasn’t pattern bargaining going on by employers in particular industries where large numbers of AWAs were being offered – such as retail, cleaning and hospitality – and therefore that your boss might have a competitor who’d actually pay you a decent wage.
But anyway, Abbott’s bright idea may be about to be turned around on the Coalition.
Tony may not have the people skills he claims, but if recent reports are to be believed, he and Joe Hockey have more political skills than most of their front bench colleagues. Lenore Taylor reported in the Financial Review that shadow cabinet was split three ways on Gillard’s transitional bill. Bishop’s illogical stance – somehow pre 2006 AWAs are excellent and Australians didn’t vote against them, but… were conned by union bosses and deceitful scare campaigns or whatever – is well known. Abbott and Hockey backed the “just accept reality�? position – which is really the only one that makes any political sense. Nelson is said to have supported Bishop.
It’s intriguing, though, that Andrew Robb and Greg Hunt were apparently supporting a third alternative – amending the legislation so that ITEAs (interim transitional employment arrangements) last for five instead of two years.
In other words, people currently on AWAs would be stuck with them til at least 2013 instead of 2010.
It’s very difficult to see the politics behind this position. Perhaps it’s intended to keep Bishop’s hardliners happy at the same time as claiming that Labor’s mandate on AWAs has been restricted. Or maybe it’s designed to appeal to the “consultative�? style of leadership so beloved of Nick Minchin by papering over the cracks between two essentially irreconcilable options.
But it’s too clever by half. Tony Abbott was probably aware that labour mobility (people changing jobs, occupations or employers) is running at a very high rate, as any cursory inspection of the relevant ABS data would tell you. It’s hardly surprising in tight labour market conditions. If your AWA really sucked, you’d have every incentive to jump ship for another employer, who won’t be able to offer you a new AWA. AWAs, remember, are contracts between individuals and their employer, not attached to particular jobs or positions. So the Robb/Hunt option is probably meaningless.
This factor also explains why Labor and the unions aren’t really all that worried about keeping current AWAs in place for a couple of years. Of course, if employment went south, say because the Reserve Bank ratcheted up interest rates too high or too fast, workers wouldn’t be too happy with the Libs if they were locked into five year agreements without (in many instances) provisions for wage increases.
The most likely hypothesis is that very few people on the Liberal frontbench understand the very complex legislation and regulations that comprise WorkChoices. Joe Hockey, after all, never appeared to. So there’s another good reason why the divided Libs should make up their mind to accept Labor’s mandate. Abbott and Hockey are right that Labor will wear the responsibility if it goes belly up. The last thing the Libs want to do this stage is use their Senate majority to go on governing – in effect. Unlike the apology, this is one area of policy where it’s better to be safe than sorry.
Cross-posted at PollieGraph.
I have to disagree with the author. There is nothing illogical about saying the pre-2006 AWA’s were excellent (for employees, despite some employers swearing by them,there was no point in them for an employer). I never understood the point of the pre-workchoices AWA’s.
Workchoices (renamed) is here to stay, the new Govt is not going to return us to the unwieldy & cumbersome bureaucratic nightmare of the award system. Hooray!
Retaining existing AWA’s presents a unique problem: New hires, working alongside existing (AWA hires) are going to be resentful of the different pay & conditions of the existing hires. Due to the turnover rate in my industry, I expect the longest the problem will last is 2 years.
Some of those “old - fashioned” protections such as penalty rates and shift allowances constituted as much as a third (in some cases possibly more) of the take home pay of some workers.
When Hockey came to my little town to support the local MP who had been challenged by local unions to a workchoices debate, he blithely dismissed a telecommunications worker who stood up and related his story about having had his pay cut by 20%. I was in that hall that day and Hockey was lucky to leave physically unharmed, I can tell you.
I sure breathed a sigh of relief on election night.
Gday Steve at the pub.
I understand what you are saying about pre-workchoices AWA’s being fairly pointless for employers. If they were excellent for employees though, that begs the question: why, after almost a decade was the takeup of them so miniscule in comparison to other kinds of agreements?
I don’t think too many things could rate as a more unweildy and cumbersome bureaucratic nightmare than workchoices itself.
I take it that your name and avatar are indicating that your industry is the hotel and liquor industry? Are you saying that workers currently employed under workchoices AWA’s are recieving better pay and conditions than those working to other agreements and that this might cause jelousy among staff?
Say helloooooo to mr. Double Dissolution.
The Robb/Hunt option: they want the Workchoices albatross hanging around their necks until 2013
Yeah, they seem to have forgotten entirely there’s a double dissolution option.
It reminds me of Balfour’s statement in 1906 that the Tory party would continue to guide the destiny of Britain from the House of Lords, despite their electoral repudiation. That, of course, ended up with the House of Lords’ veto powers being taken away. Fortunately our constitution provides for referring disputes between the two houses to the people.
Would they really want to force us back to the polls defending WorkChoices and go to an election with Nelson as leader?
Hahahahaha!
You’re right, Kim, a Liberal Party headed by Nelson trying to defend WorkChoices would find themselves in even deeper trouble. The Australian people kicked Howard out for his policies and I’m sure they’d be prepared to kick Nelson out for Howard’s policies, too. Nelson is a weak leader and doesn’t command the same fear that Howard was able to instill in his backbenchers. Disunity is death and the current Liberal Party is in a terrible state for it.
[Disunity is death and the current Liberal Party is in a terrible state for it.]
As the WA branch are currently exhibiting
In some ways, it might do them some good to have an election this year and lose even bigger.
They might finally get the message!
I doubt that Nelson would still be leader if the Libs prompted a double dissolution, but the possible alternatives would have just as hard a job selling Work Choices.
However, I think the longest they can delay the legislation will be until the Senate changes over. I’d be surprised if the incoming Senate would block it.
[However, I think the longest they can delay the legislation will be until the Senate changes over. I’d be surprised if the incoming Senate would block it.]
Apparently Nick X and Family Farce want to retain AWA’s
Yeah
the Greens don’t hold the BOP unfortunately
Western Australia is such a strange land when it comes to the Liberal Party. At the 2007 federal election they managed to get three Senators elected on full quotas. There’s clearly a lot of support for the sort of behaviour we’re seeing from the WA Liberals.
[Western Australia is such a strange land when it comes to the Liberal Party. At the 2007 federal election they managed to get three Senators elected on full quotas. There’s clearly a lot of support for the sort of behaviour we’re seeing from the WA Liberals.]
Or the fact that The West and 6PR just say the magic words Brian Burke, and it’s like “Boo”
Steve @ the pub:
I hear you saying that there’s no point to AWAs for an employer, and I am frankly astounded. After being slugged with pay rates below award rate, no breaks, no overtime for working public holidays and weekends, (further) reduced pay for a “training” period (no training actually took place) and being forced to work Good Friday through Easter Sunday on less than $14/hour, I decided that that employer (who has since shut down) didn’t really want to have people working in his restaurant, and therefore quit.
Don’t tell me, Mr. Ivory Tower Guy, that AWAs gained no benefit for employers. They are the reason that I will NEVER vote for the Liberal Party again (I did in 2001 (9/11 had an impact), and again in 2004 (Latham - brrr) - too young to vote in 1998), come hell or high water.
To all others (regarding behaviour of WA Libs):
Frank Calabrese has it just about right. Brian Burke is THE bogeyman in WA. For some reason, Noel Chrichton-Browne just doesn’t cut the ice - it must be his lack of sunglasses and Panama hats.
Frank & Mathew,
Or more likely that the AWAs and other policies of the previous government were popular in WA. The demand for labour here is such that AWAs worked, greatly increasing the pay packets of many of the people on them.
WA was the only state to vote for the coalition. It was for a much better reason than 6PR - the simple fact is that this state, and the workers here, did well out of the previous policies.
Er.. Matthew Cole, perhaps you should go back & read my post again… really.
Flynnboy, gday. You are a new friend to this site? I am indeed in the pub trade. I have twice on this site asked for ideas on what to include in an AWA, the best response was sneering. The posters here blew their chance, & their credibility.
Workchoices had many flaws (enough to get a government voted out) but it was a step in the right direction. Anything which removes the pile of red tape & compliance which is the award system has to be an improvement.
Workchoices is quite simple, compared to the award system. At the workplace we are/were subjected to six different awards or subsets of. This caused examples such as sisters working alongside each other on a Saturday, one on regular pay, the other on time & a half. They didn’t understand why it had to be so, & neither did I. Especially when one has to take an unpaid break & the other need not.
Without going into minute detail, Workchoices allowed them to simplify the award system into one pay scale for all staff, & simplify it to “an hour worked = an hour paid”. Which meant an 8 hour day at work = 8 hours pay. Most awards were structured so that 8 hours at the workplace = 6 hours worked maximum and 6 hours paid, (due to award restrictions on meals & breaks etc etc.)
In other words Steve, unless you increased the pay rate to take lost meal breaks into account, the AWA cut your workers’ conditions and pay in real terms.
That’s what everyone said about them all along.
“the simple fact is that this state, and the workers here, did well out of the previous policies”
Was it the policies that they benefited from or was it the demand for labour? Would they have still benefited if AWAs had never existed?
Liam.. er… there wasn’t a lot of pay increase with an AWA. For most it was simply more convenient working hours, or being able to work a straight shift.
However, I don’t follow your maths. If a person draws 6 hours pay, (say $10 per hour) that is $60, & the pay for 8 hours would be $80.
Extended breaks are unpaid. The idea of an AWA is to simplify things, not to replicate in other ways the complexity of an award.
In other words Liam, my staff on AWAs were paid more, worked more convenient hours, and were able to work when they wished.
In other words, the award system was making their working life harder, and giving them less pay.
I am NOT going to pay someone who is not on an AWA as highly as someone who is not.
Nor is someone who is not on an AWA going to be able to enjoy the benefits which apply to someone who is on an AWA.
This is definitely going to lead to distress. However the law does not allow new hires to enjoy the benefits.
Workchoices, despite the russian propaganda to the contrary, wasn’t all bad, and was quite popular with staff here.
My heart bleeds, Steve.
If you want to pay your staff more, by all means, pay them more, the award doesn’t hinder you, nor will any post-WorkChoices system. In fact, why don’t you come to a workplace enterprise bargaining agreement with your staff? They get paid more, you get the conditions you want, the pay scales make sense, everyone wins.
If you want to cut down on their breaks—and tell me with a straight face that any of your staff ‘volunteered’ to work an eight hour through-shift—then undermine the award honestly, the way AWAs were designed to, and don’t pretend it’s to make their lives easier.
Liam, you are believing too much russian propaganda.
Breaks or otherwise are not the main concern. The main concern is the complexity of the award system. Particularly when we are subject to so many parallell awards, all with differing clauses. Nobody understands them fully, and why should we have to?
Anything which scraps this is good news. A workplace enterprise bargaining agreement, or any other form of simplifying things is a relief. What you describe is exactly what Workchoices delivered to us. Staff get paid more, the complexities of the award system no longer have to be kow-towed to and more people are happy.
However, unless the restrictions of the award system go, higher pay, or more simpler pay, is not possible. The restrictions (erronously called “conditions”) of an award are inbuilt into the pay structure.
I have no problem with paying people less, and working them less.
Liam, I can look you and anybody else in the eye & say my staff mostly prefer to work 8 hours straight. Many of them work 9 or 10 hour days, and sometimes 7 days each week for weeks on end.
The staff also will look you in the eye & say likewise. Difficult as it may be for some (not suggesting you are one) to accept, there do exist people who possess a work ethic.
Even those without a work ethic mostly understand the “no work - no pay” equation, and opt to work. Or they have the option of not working 8 hours, however the lack of 8 hours pay usually changes their mind.
That’s flat out untrue, Steve. There’s *nothing* stopping you from paying whatever simpler or higher rate of pay you please—as long as it doesn’t undercut the award.
There’s also nothing stopping you signing individual certified agreements—as long as they don’t undercut the award.
I have no problems with employers trying to game the system in their favour, as long as they’re honest enough to say they’re doing it for their benefit, not their employees’.
Liam, *sigh*, there is a lot more to an award than simply a pay scale.
If you wish Liam, I can post a synopsis of the differences between working to several awards or working to one AWA (or for the pedantic, collective agreement or whatever fancy name anyone wishes to bestow)
I’ll be interested to hear why you can’t pay above award rates on anything but an AWA, as you claimed, Steve.
There’s never been anything preventing anyone paying above award rates.
Indeed, and I often pay above award. People who work hard, or give consistently good performance, get paid above the award, often quite a lot above it. These are usually the people who are prepared to hop in & work whenever there is an opportunity, thus some bar staff at my place can & do earn circa $70,000 p.a. which isn’t bad considering they are fully kept.
However what would be the benefit in paying above award for a run-of-the-mill employee?
There is benefit to me (and collaterally to the employee also) in scrapping many award provisions, allowing not only extra pay (usually by rolling complex add-ons into one simple hourly rate), but also more a more desirable work experience.
As a not of trivia, I can also look you in the eye Liam, & say that the better staff here all wanted to remove sick leave provisions from permenant staff.
“There’s never been anything preventing anyone paying above award rates.”
Apart from their work ethics.
That’s about right Joe2, anyone with any sort of work ethic gets considerably more than the award rate.
My point exactly, steve. The only thing stopping you paying a consistently above-award simple rate is you, not the award.
Gday Steve. Yeah, I’m a newby here. I can understand that having multiple employees on multiple awards might be somewhat complicated and feel like a burden of red tape (both fair enough points) but my concern is that workchoices opened the door for an attack on workers pay and conditions.
Pre-workchoices AWA’s were bound by the no disadvantage test as you would already know and therefore could not undercut award minimums. Many award conditions could be removed but only in exchange for equal compensation. After nearly a decade, the takeup of these agreements was only around 5% of the workforce according to the Howard government and less according to those who say that many of these agreements presented statistically as being current had in fact, already expired.
But workchoices radically altered the nature of AWA’s, allowing them to override the award system and replace everything with just 5 basic conditions including the minimum wage. Many new AWA’s were quickly submitted and each and every one in a survey the office of employment advocate submitted to a senate estimates committee hearing had removed at least one “protected” award condtion. So great potential for abuse was there.
BTW when I said workchoices was cumbersome I meant that it is a gargantuan legal document, around two and a half thousand pages of law at last count I think. It is very prescriptive and has(had) far - reaching legal implications the outcomes of which would only be known after years of legal battles.
As for your staff, are you giving them longer hours on a lower rate of pay? This would help substantiate research that points to employers rarely employing a greater number of staff when award conditions are removed because it is often more convenient to simply make existing staff work longer for the single ordinary time rate.
Liam, I think the basic question is (and I’m not asking this rhetorically, I’m genuinely curious, ’cause I know b-all about industrial law) …
… under the award system, can employers and employees agree to remove award conditions they don’t want and don’t use — in exchange for a higher rate of pay?
If not, why not?
Fact remains that many people found “serfchoices” highly unpalatable, hence the demise of the now opposition. Seems to me that those in opposition are now refusing to accept the decision of the electorate.
I for one would be more than happy to see a DD on this matter, it may finally awaken the deluded to the fact that LABOR won the election, a situation that at the moment they are refusing to acknowledge.
Paulus, EBAs (now collective workplace agreements) must comply with minimum award conditions, such as sick leave and annual leave, although employees can trade off increases in some areas for no change in others.
The reason for the baseline conditions is that the Federal and State Governments want to prevent some employers forcing others to compete anti-socially; so that, for lack of a better example, we don’t all end up working as Steve’s staff do, seven days a week, ten hours a day, with no sick leave.
No, and yes.
The Howard government abolished “paid rates” awards back in 96 - which meant that all awards were by definition minima. There’s nothing necessarily wrong with that - it’s a reflection of the thinking that came in with Enterprise Bargaining that awards were to underpin bargaining and provide a safety net, not stipulate the full wages and conditions. In other words, flexibility has been built into the system since the mid 90s.
Awards aren’t necessarily rigid, anyway. It’s open to any party to an award (ie an employer or a union) to apply for an award variation. Many awards have now been considerably simplified - particularly in the state jurisdiction. Feet were dragged in the federal jurisdiction largely because the Libs wanted them to wither away, not be modernised. I was tangentially involved with the award review process in Qld, and it was all about promoting flexibility and removing rigidities.
The answer to the question differs as to whether you are talking about individual or collective bargaining. In the first instance, the distinction between Rudd and Howard is that you couldn’t do that. But remember that all the federal awards are to be reviewed, and that’s a tripartite process with heavy employer involvement. If you want to go down the collective bargaining route, you can insofar as the no disadvantage test is met. Thus there is an incentive for employers to bargain collectively rather than individually. So in a sense collective agreements can override awards, but only if there’s no detriment to the employee overall. The new laws will also allow for enterprise flexibility clauses in collective agreements which will allow tweaking of collectively agreed agreements for individual employees.
Sorry, crossed with Liam.
The New South Wales IR Dept has a pretty good guide and FAQ:
http://www.industrialrelations.nsw.gov.au/workplace/reform/default.html
It points out that one of the principles under the 1996 IR Act for approving EBAs is “public interest”. I think that’s fair enough.
It’s not just that it’s complicated and a red-tape burden, it is a common source of grievance for employees that they get different pay outcomes for work performed in identical circumstances because they are on different awards. It doesn’t make any sense to them. Larger employers can overcome this by negotiating collective agreements providing common conditions across their workforces (a product of the Keating IR reforms) but this is not practically available to smaller employers.
In Queensland, it was and is possible for employers of any size to negotiate enterprise awards in the state jurisdiction, and they existed long before enterprise bargaining, GregM. Of course, unions sometimes didn’t like it, but because the employees usually did, when I used to do this sort of thing, it wasn’t that hard to get them up. Julia Gillard could take a leaf out of our book profitably in this instance.
Why not, GregM? There’s nothing stopping any employer paying a consistently above-award rate, collective agreement or individual contract, or whatever.
If a business can afford to pay X wages for Y work on one award and X+1 wages for Y work on the other award, and if they want both workers, they can afford to pay X+1 wages to everyone, no matter what the awards say.
“It’s not just that it’s complicated and a red-tape burden, it is a common source of grievance for employees that they get different pay outcomes for work performed in identical circumstances because they are on different awards. It doesn’t make any sense to them.”
Spot on! I had to deal with this daily, it becomes aggravating when they assume it is my personal arbitrary choice to implement this.
The meaning of awards, in fact their very existence, is a concept beyond the understanding of quite a few people who work here.
Take my advice at 41, then, steve.
Luxury. We used to have to get out of the lake at three o’clock in the morning, clean the lake, eat a handful of hot gravel, go to work at the mill every day for tuppence a month, come home, and Dad would beat us around the head and neck with a broken bottle, if we were LUCKY!
Mark, am drafting an email to lawyers as we speak. What implications does this have for crossing state borders?
Trouble at the mill!
In my defence, GregM, Steve provides the joke, I just do the punchline.
steve, there, alas, I can’t help you, as I only used to do this stuff in the Qld system. And I’ve never really bothered to bone up on how the recent federal legislation affects or doesn’t affect things. Hence the free advice! But off the top of my head, if you are covered by the Qld jurisdiction already, it wouldn’t pose a problem. But I’d get that checked out.
BF Flynn @33: Totally agree with you. I did not understand the rationale for many of the aspects of workchoices. Particularly the removal of the no-disadvantage test, the (haha, who drafted this?) requirement for ALL to keep a timesheet, the allowing of lockouts but not strikes, etc etc. All in all it was enough to drive the population to change their vote. Indisputably a most unpopular piece of legislation.
Though a largely misunderstood one, many (Liam I am looking at you, should I be?) seem to be of the belief that Workchoices was one step removed from joining the white slave trade.
To answer your last question: Excepting those on piecework & those who choose to work extreme overtime, With an AWA nobody at my place on an hourly rate and working ordinary time is paid less than if they had worked the same length & the same hours under the award.
Mark, what is the possibility that the removal of unfair dismissal provisions could be used to override or circumvent anti-discrimination laws?
For example, it is illegal to terminate someone based soley on race, religion, sexuality, union membership etc. However, if the employer is not required to give a reason, how can they be held to account?
Does the employee then have to take them to court for unlawfull termination in an attempt to prove…………the unprovable?
How does this all work?
cheers
Please don’t take offence Steve, but what about when they work hours deemed to not be ordinary time under the award? Are they paid at a higher rate for those hours or has their rate of pay simply been increased to compensate?
BF Flynn, Overtime? (ie, hours in excess of 40 per week). All hours are paid at the same hourly rate (excepting a bonus payment for work on a public holiday). Persons who wish to work 80 hours per week are now free to do so, for the same hourly rate. Working in excess of 30 hours is not a condition of employment nor a compulsion.
Previously when paying under an award I did not allow overtime.
Can we hear from some of Steve’s employees. I’d like their take on the worker’s paradise they inhabit.
BFF at 51, the possibility is very high. There’s an analogous concept in anti-discrimination law between direct and indirect discrimination.
If I walk up to McDonalds and ask for a job, and say I want to work behind the counter, and they tell me they won’t hire me because the counter staff are all female and my job is flipping burgers (happened to a friend when we were in high school before there was any legislation!), it’s clearly discrimination based on gender.
But indirect discrimination is much more difficult to prove. If an employer asked female applicants if they planned to get pregnant, that’s direct discrimination. But if the employer formed the view that women would always run off and get pregnant and never hired any women, even if they were the best qualified for the job, it would be much more difficult (though possible) to prove if he never gave voice to that reasoning.
It’s also much more expensive and a much lengthier process to go to court over unlawful termination than it was to go to the commission over unfair dismissal.
So, the answer basically is yes.
How much would overtime have cost under the award?
One of the problems I have with whole package is that employers can make many things a condition of employment and compulsory. This may not seem as significant in a tight labour market but when it swings back to being an employers market, as it will inevitably do one day there will be many people who will find it hard to say no to all sorts of things. Even now, people at the lower end of the labour market are often not in much of a postion to truly bargain and rely upon the minimum safety net. Without it all they have is the employers good will - employers were required to stick to the award safety net or above but they are not required to dispense goodwill.
Well, it’s not even necessarily goodwill, BFF (at 56). Let’s take the industry my younger brother is employed in - bike shops. Not a well paid gig, but actually a highly skilled one as good bike mechanics are scarce, and having good employees is absolutely vital to customer satisfaction and reputation. But it’s quite possible to envisage, under different economic and labour supply conditions, one owner deciding to cut wages where there might only be (say) three or four shops in all of the Western suburbs or whatever. Because labour is a significant component of the price given the work that goes into assembling or repair, if that employer reduced the price to consumers accordingly, their competitors might have little choice however much goodwill they have but to follow suit because the industry itself is small and specialised and highly competitive, and the opportunity cost of a purchaser driving another few kilometres down the road for a cheaper bike isn’t a big deterrent.
Race to the bottom.
BFF, were you asking me what overtime would normally be paid at?
The answer ranges from “no extra” to “triple time”. Depending upon which award, & the circumstances of the overtime. There is no simple answer in an award to any particular situation, hence my displeasure at the award system.
OTOH, Mark - if the employees raised the big digit to the employer for stuffing them around and walked out that employer would have big difficulty in employing new staff as everyone in the industry would know what she did.
The shop goes out of business, and perhaps one of the mechanics has enough nous to open up a new one.
If the employees unionised and used collective bargaining to get higher wage rates it would force up the cost of fixing bikes - reducing the number of bikes fixed as people switch either to having a go themselves or just leaving them broken and then walking.
The bike shops go out of business.
The government then steps in to try to fix the problem and regulates in some way - perhaps trying to get more bike mechanics trained. TAFE offers a course in bicycle mechanics and has a class size of 30. After a year 30 bike mechanics are out looking for work - only to find that the actual demand is limited to a maximum of about 4 remaining bike shops - and all of those are closed shops. Their year in TAFE was wasted.
.
Surely, the best solution long term for all in the industry is to get out of the way and let them sort it out for themselves.
Err…no. Poor companies with lousy pay and conditions have the same chance of getting workers as others…particularly with semi-skilled and unskilled workers.
And Job Network clients get little or no choice. Mutual obligation does not extend to mandatory prudential, ethical and work practice checks on businesses. So any crook can place a job ad, employ workers and treat them poorly.
Yeah 19th Century employment conditions and slave wages ensure great productivity.
Remember the sort of employers who have enthusiastically embraced the new regime of poor pay and conditions. ASIC, the ATO and Workplace Relations are investigating them as we write.
Unlikely, AR.
If I know bosses, an employee who walks out, right or wrong, is more likely to get blackbanned. The bike shop owner would ring up any other employers he/she knew and tell them their side of the story. That’s the terrible punishment of Victorian novels—sacked without a reference.
I’ve never met a boss, either, who didn’t think his/her pay and conditions was fair and generous. I don’t expect I ever will.
steve at the pub, get over it, we won. WorkChoices is dead remember? Oh hang on, the Libs want AWA’s now. Perhaps it’s only half dead? Doesn’t really matter, WorkChoices, AWA’s, or anything else that remotely smells like WorkChoices = Liberals dead politically. Time to move on mate. Oh yeah, that’s another thing the Liberals are incapable of right now.
Heh, the reverse also happens, especially with small businesses. A friend of mine was unfairly sacked from one job, but word got around about the circumstances and essentially the business got blackbanned and went bankrupt not long after.
Employees will get screwed a bit whether or not you set strong minimum conditions. If there’s a downturn and employers are not able to reduce prices then chances are they’ll have to sack a bunch of people or go bankrupt. So for the employee it can be not so much a choice between keeping their current wage rate or taking a lower one, but one between taking a lower wage or not having a job. Again, in good times like today it doesn’t really matter as its easy to get another job, but in bad times they’ll probably be out of luck.
Smokey, I don’t get your point. Who is “we” & why am I not one of them?
If you are suggesting the award system is superior to the current system proposed by Miss Gillard (son of workchoices) then I believe you are quite mistaken.
However, as a partial prophylactic measure against a possible return of unfair dismissal laws I have taken measures to reduce staffing by about a dozen.
Some win for those dozen wasn’t it?
“However, as a partial prophylactic measure against a possible return of unfair dismissal laws I have taken measures to reduce staffing by about a dozen.”
WTF? Is that some kind of a George Bush type pre-emptive strike against a threat that isn’t really there? Blaming Labors new laws that haven’t even got off the ground yet and assuming that they will be bad is blindly following the Lib rhetoric that evidently life will end as we know it once AWA’s are gone. The Rudd IR policy as far as unions are concerned is the most far right of any Labor has ever put forward, yet we still get the blind sheep faithfully following Lib propaganda that it is bad.
As for firing people using the reason of “a possible return of unfair dismissal laws”, you show the true nature of yourself. Far from the workers paradise you claim to be running, you my friend and bosses like you, are the very reason why WorkChoices should be dismantled. That has to be one of the most unfair reasons for being sacked I’ve ever heard.
By “we” I meant fair minded people who wanted to see workers rights restored instead of being buffeted about by the whims of a boss who obviously didn’t care less about them.
Steve at the Pub, of course sacked dozen could tell their 10 best friends and their rellies etc, which could have the knock-on effect of you having to dispense with another dozen-or-so employees, because business might start slowing as word got around. Not forgetting that your other employees might decide to bugger off before you get a chance to stab THEM in the back.
In any business, your good name counts for a lot and punters will punish you if they reckon you’re a bastard.
Andrew(59), it would be great if it worked that way for everyone in the labour market but alas, it does not.
And I don’t think the bike mechanics year at TAFE would be wasted. It would be a skilled qualification that they could put toward something else if they were unable to secure employment at a bike shop.
So exactly what regulations are responsable for the skills crisis? It’s been running for quite a while now, the Howard government cut back on training numbers. Can’t be the fault of the market as the market would be perfect and self balancing if only pesky governments didn’t try to help( Not). Actually, you can’t blame employers for not taking on enough apprentices in these conditions - all that time and money spent training someone who might straightaway go and work for your competition as soon as they complete their their trade. Might be a tad more complex than simple supply and demand.
Jane: Dream on. A large supermarket here did everything to their staff except shoot them, the town was still trying to walk over the top of each other to get in there, going straight past the private supermarket owned by a kindly gent who does everything for his staff except take them on holiday.
Never mind dismissing staff, I have put people in jail, & had people severely beaten. Despite causing extreme resentment this has not yet translated into either physical harm to myself, or into reduced business.
Smokey: I shan’t respond to you unless you get the chip off your shoulder.
BFF, the cut to training began long before the Howard Government was elected. John Dawkins has much to answer for.
Heh heh, you might want to clarify what you mean by “had people severely beaten” or they might start calling you “Iron bar Steve Tuckey”.
A name like that would calm down the rough element no end. I couldn’t be so lucky.
It was a piece of cable, apparently BFF, but the nickname stuck.
If you’d like one, Steve, I could hereby dub thee “Hokey Pokey”—for letting one in, and waiting until they go out again.
Hokey Pokey isn’t sufficiently fearsome to strike doubt into the minds of the roughnecks.
Try again Liam.
I don’t know, Steve. Put some accordion music over your bottleshop speakers, wave you hands about with one foot in the air, see how you go.
After all, that’s what it’s all about.
Umm, Liam, where does my bottleshop fit into this?
I know what the Hokey Pokey is, but .. er.. performing it in the driveway isn’t likely to pass on a message of menace to the thuggocracy.. is it?
“Smokey: I shan’t respond to you unless you get the chip off your shoulder.”
Ugh, what a cop out.
My latest working experience for an “event personnel” company involved an award - so I believe - but I can’t believe that said award allows for this:
* Consistent start time on timesheets 30 minutes after I/we have been told to start and, indeed, are expected to start.
* A requirement for me/us to be present at site 15 minutes before our formal start time (remember, this is 30 mins earlier than what our timesheet says)
* A direction to NOT call regarding pay matters except between 9.30am and 2.30pm on Wednesdays. Three weeks after my first job, I’m yet to receive a payslip. I am often busy on Wednesdays (none of your business!).
FWIW, on each occasion I worked I crossed out the purported start times and put the “correct” ones. After waiting in the sun for an hour before Perth’s BDO, I left and txted the company, only to be immediately called and urged to return; “something” would be sorted out. We waited for nearly another 2.5 hours before some work for us was found.
Do you know which award you are supposed to be working to Youie?
I would contact the ACTU or the workplace ombudsman (sorry, I don’t have the numbers) but I believe the rights at work hotline run by the ACTU is still in operation.
The rights at work campaign hasn’t stopped just because there’s a Labor gov. It’s not taken for granted.
Youie, you can contact the Rights At Work about workplace issues here (phone or email):
http://www.rightsatwork.com.au/about/contact/
What you say does sound very strange to me.
Onya Smokey!
BTW, do you blog at “Oz political forums”?
Liam (72) yeah I heard that. “Union thugs” are to be despised but apparently somewhone who flogs someone else with a length of cable is fit to hold high office. To call that a double-standard would be the understatement of the century.
BFF, Wilson Tuckey didn’t just flog someone, he received a criminal conviction for it.
Yeah, I know Steve. He might make a good bouncer for you - but would he sign an AWA?
‘BTW, do you blog at “Oz political forumsâ€??’
BFF, Well if it’s this one you’re talking about, Yep that’s me
http://ozforums.com.au/
Yep, that’s you Smokey.
cheers