From today’s Crikey email:
Both the Prime Minister and Joe Hockey have rushed to deny that the NSW election result had anything to do with WorkChoices. Hockey has apparently attributed the Liberals’ poor performance to the power of negative advertising, begging the question of why advertising targeting WorkChoices would work at all, if there weren’t highly negative community perceptions of it to start with.
It’s commonplace to observe that there is little publicly available data on the impact of WorkChoices. In his 7.30 Report debate with Julia Gillard on 14 February, Hockey claimed that it would be too cumbersome a task for the Office of the Employee Advocate to analyse the effects of AWAs signed.
Tomorrow, WorkChoices will have been in operation for a year. The Victorian Government has just released new research examining the evidence that does exist on its impact. The full report, compiled by Professor David Peetz of Griffith University, can be downloaded here [link to pdf].
The report emphasises that aside from the unavailability of much data, many of the effects of WorkChoices will take some time to flow through the system. But it is possible to isolate the effects on particular groups of employees. Wages have been declining for employees in retail and hospitality, and in the lowest paid occupations in the private sector more generally. Peetz ascribes much of this decline to the loss of penalty rates in these industries, which were already among the lowest paid.
Survey evidence suggests that the gender pay gap has widened considerably, and particularly in the private sector. Women and casual employees (often overlapping categories) are the biggest losers under WorkChoices.
Data which includes AWAs signed before WorkChoices came into effect (thus presenting a rosier picture of AWAs than would now be the case) suggests that the disadvantage women and workers in non-standard employment face on individual as opposed to collective agreements is not limited to workers in low wage industries or casuals. Female full time employees are 8% worse off on AWAs than on collective agreements, and permanent part time employees and casuals are both 17% worse off. These figures take into account both additional hours worked and lower pay rates per hour.
The report emphasises that Australia currently has both low unemployment and many labour market shortages. Nevertheless, the wages share of GDP is “at a nearly 35 year low”.
The general thrust of the report is to emphasise the negative impact of WorkChoices on those already disadvantaged in the labour market, and to suggest that the legislation is doing what it was designed to do – restraining wages growth in a tight labour market and enabling corporate profits to continue to soar.
No doubt Peetz’s study will be met with the same ad hominem attacks previously dished out with reference to his research from Costello and Hockey. But polling during the NSW election found that 30% of respondents knew someone personally whose conditions and/or wages had suffered through WorkChoices.
If the Federal Government is inclined to dismiss the importance of industrial relations on the NSW election, they’re free to do so, but there’s no doubt that they will be held to account one way or another in the federal election. And with economic management supposedly being Howard’s trump card, he might ponder as to whether voters who’ve taken a direct hip pocket hit themselves, or know someone else who has, will be sanguine about the ostensible “economic reform” benefits of WorkChoices.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/200703/s1881474.htm
The Prime Minister is really losing his touch if he thinks this will work with the voters.
How many times has Howard been criticised for damaging Australia’s international reputation? Every time someone criticises him like this, I’m sure he has sat back and laughed, knowing that the average Australian’s attitude would be “Who cares what foreigners think? It’s our country, not theirs.”.
And now he thinks he can win support for WorkChoices by saying it’s what foreigners want us to do?
Actually it’s doubly dumb because it reinforces the whole Labor theme of “do we just want to be a quarry for China and a beach for Japan?” – a lot of voters suspect WorkChoices is closely linked to offshoring well paying jobs.
David Jackmanson
Not only that, but the “our international reputation will be rooned” set never ever provides even a scintilla of evidence of this alleged diminished reputation. Where are these people? Gaza? the ghettoes of Paris? Riyad? Harare?
From all my own travels, observations, and readings Australia has never been more highly regarded internationally. We are seen as having guts, determination, brains, chutzpah, and do not give a tinker’s cuss about this imaginary “international community!”
Kim
That theme died out with Ted Wheelwright in the late 1970s.
I would make that tripply dumb, since he seems to think a lot of voters are not tired of economic reform of this sort.
Quadruply dumb because people are waking up to the fact (witness the blatant alliance between the government and big business and its mouthpieces) that economic reform in this instance effectively means a free for all for corporates at the expense of their workers.
NB:
Hockey was unconvincing in QT this afternoon being unable to explain why workchoices was good for all given the above attitude which he says is not able to compare apples with apples.
He can feel the goodness of Workchoices in his water and that is the real test apparently, no scientific testing required.
When the Government is struggling to explain such a simple concept why don’t they just release the figures and be done with it it. They are looking dumber and more shifty by the day.
We even had the laughable claim by Howard that the Liberals have the workers welfare at heart and the states should increase the pay of nurses. It appears he is going to try to pick worthy classes of people who deserve payrises now to play off against the unworthy.
Oh Dear! It appears that it is not only the wonders of Workchoices that Hockey has to explain but also his family trust. I do love to see a resignation a week from the frontbench so don’t disappoint me this week Howard.
Kim:
Quintuply dumb ….. because on the last few flights I had out of Australia, there were heaps of Australian professionals and skilled tradies fleeing all the boundless wealth of Australia’s glorious economic future – and their destinations and jobs were surprising.
So exacerbating the “skills shortage” was all part of the grand economic strategy, was it? Yeah. Right,
L-O-L
“The report emphasises that Australia currently has both low unemployment and many labour market shortages. Nevertheless, the wages share of GDP is â??at a nearly 35 year lowâ??.”
This is exactly what you would expect as an economy picks up more and more of the marginal workers that have been unemployed, particularly discouraged women previously. Also as it grows, specific skills shortages show up, as specific sectors reach full and overemployment, particularly mining which is largely mens work. Increasing self employment and subcontracting can increase the capital share of GDP as well here.
There is only one answer to low skill, low returns for workers and that’s to read the sign of the times and upskill into higher demand areas. Takes time for the market signals to work though. The other nonsense we have to appreciate about unions is, we can’t all join the one big union and all get a big fat pay rise. Therein lies the rubbish in the collective bargaining agenda. Collective bargaining is essentially colluding to raise prices, which everyone can see so clearly in others, but not in themselves naturally enough. Collective bargaining oesn’t work if we all collude at once.
Howard coming to the rescue and answering questions aimed at Hockey was interesting this afternoon. Does it mean that Howard has lost faith in him or is he going into the election as a one man band – the only one with the answers. Something wierd is happening with this Workchoices thing that is bringing the Government unhinged bigtime.
Sometimes it’s moments like these you can see where Howard without Hair is coming from with his unfair dismissals and Workchoices.
http://www.news.com.au/story/0,23599,21449929-1702,00.html
Obby believe that and you would believe anything.
It has to be the silliest article written this week. I thought you were rapt that there are no unfair dismissals anymore and now you want us to believe that something which the High Court has struck down is going to be successful?
Fairies at the bottom of the Garden stuff straight from the Liberal Party dirty tricks department I’d suggest.
Collective bargaining oesn’t work if we all collude at once.
Mark:
Mark,
that is only part of the problem. I have observed a family friend take on her employer over underpayment. This dispute went on for 4 years. Due to the stress of it all, she ended up with a stroke and a nervous breakdown. Her employer was belligerent. Even with the union helping, she never got what was coming to her, and it was strange watching her legal team NOT being able to come to grips with her work position according to law. It is not a very helpful system to the individual, and taking on an emplyer can cost a fortune in legal fees.
Mark:
WorkChoices was destined to fail and be horribly counter-productive right from the outset; it was typical of policies dreamed up by those protected from the realities of life and work and earning money.
Nobody even thought about possible adverse long-term effects on productivity and profitability. WorkChoices is a bit like going on a wild spending spree with a credit card and never imagining that the bills will have to be paid.
Nobody bothered to think about the wider consequences of bullying welfare-recipients and employees …. whilst going soft on out-and-out social parasites [that wasn't supposed to happen, was it!!].
Nobody looked at what would be the obvious outcomes of making all the obligations fall on the employees and the welfare-recipients alone whilst doing nothing, absolutely nothing, to crack down on employers who are far too fussy and allowed to discriminate against job-seekers on the basis of age, place-of-residence ["postcoding"], non-mainstream qualifications, false assumptions about previous occupation, etc. WorkChoices might have worked if it had been some sort of genuine reform and if there had been at least some attempt at fairness and encouraging efficiency.
The ones who have been really hurt by WorkChoices are not the dole-bludgers, layabouts and druggies, not at all
The ones who have been really hurt by WorkChoices are all the former “Aspirational Voters” who have seen their own standard of living and their own life-style get worse; who have seen their own children and neighbours – and if they have been made redundant, themselves – treated very unfairly by WorkChoices. They will no longer believe all the wonderous spin about WorkChoices because they have felt the harsh reality itself ….. and come a federal election, it is they who will have their revenge for this betrayal.
No I don’t believe she’ll be successful steve, nor do I think she should be but that’s the whole point. Workchoices is all about unfettered choice, or rather some modest headway in that direction. I don’t want to work with you any longer boss (the most commonly occurring situation) or your services are no longer required.
Workchoices is not and never will be responsible for decreasing or increasing an individual’s overall remuneration. Productivity, global labour supply and the demand for a worker’s output are responsible for that. We can see that in mining vs hospitality returns to labour. Unions cannot alter that, nor continue to keep blacksmiths employed in the age of horseless carriages.
On Pge 12 of todays Advertiser we have under the headline “Changes for bosses to hire and fire” by State political reporter Greg Kelton
“Major changes to the operations of the public service- including giving chief executives the right to hire and fire- are being considered by the Rann Govt.
Reducing the rights of public servants to appeal decisions relating to their employment are also believed to be under review.
…….
The public sector changes are being driven by the Govt Reform Commission, headed by ex-Qld Premier Wayne Goss.”
Fancy that and they’re not even consulting the PSA union types who are a bit miffed. I wonder why not eh?
The shorter Rann Labor govt- When the Howard govt does these things it’s those disastrous, draconian Workchoices, but when we and our mates do, it’s necessary and sensible reform. Riiiiiiight!
Could the answer be that under workchoices there has been a high Court decision confirming that that is now the way the work world operates.
You have clearly identified the problem but what can be done about it apart from turfing the people who instituted such a ludicrous regime?
Allow me to assure Messrs Howard, Hockey, Nelson and the rest of the crew that while some seats (Vaucluse) may have swung to the Liberals over WorkChoices, in the last two weeks of the campaigns I worked on we did nothing but bag Debnam over the IR issue. These seats were classic mortgage-belt, federal-election-deciding areas. And in 2 weeks a 3-point tracking poll deficit became a 2 or 3-popint win. So a 6 point turnaround, just by repeating Debnam’s promise to ‘hand NSW’s workplace powers over to Canberra”.
Fact – the people who decide federal elections are very anti WorkChoices.
Unfortunately for you and your mates obs, employees in this country are also citizens, and unlike widgets whose allocation and market price have little effect in the world of politics on their own account (you know, being inert and without human personality), the factor of production known as ‘labour’, can and does vote, in this country.
That is the problem with the whole ‘program’, and why the whole boiling is so contingent upon convincing people that having their wages conditions and employment security dependent upon abstractions like the ‘market price for your labour’, and ‘overall demand’ makes people’s little hearts sink. It’s one thing to feel a ‘wealth effect’ from an asset boom. It’s quite another to be told that unless you command sufficient of those assets, you may well find yourself holding not just the baby, but an increasingly expensive and unsaleable bathtub as well, when the music stops.
Your hero Howard knows this ‘quintessential’ truth better than many of his acolytes, which is why he will take it upon himself to carry the politcal ‘water’ of this politically very ‘courageous’ mess of pottage.
It will bury him.
“You have clearly identified the problem but what can be done about it apart from turfing the people who instituted such a ludicrous regime?”
Put in Howard with Hair I suppose
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,20867,21452720-601,00.html
I gotta admit steve, Howard without Hair has a real tough fight on his hands nowadays.
It’s sad to see someone who hung around too long. He’s a lame duck making very stupid decisions now. Some people just never know when they are past their use by date and Howard’s errors are starting to drag him down.
Everyone:
So many former Aspirational Voters have now been harmed by WorkChoices [ which has bugger-all to do with efficiency and global competitiveness ] and by similar ratbag, airy-fairy policies that federal election will be a disaster for the Liberals.
So ….. instead of wasting a lot of time, effort and money, and annoying the voters even further …… why don’t the Liberals recognize the reality of the situation, shove John Howard and his pals out, then get stuck into hard-nosed negotiations with their Labor Party opposite-numbers about formal amalgamation of the two parties.
This is 2007 and the Australian Labor Party has a rock-solid reputation of being the true conservative and pro-business force in Australian politics – and with a rock-solid reputation for keeping workers on the job and for cracking-down on excessive welfare too – whereas in 2007, all Howard’s Liberal’s can do is tootle their failed, counter-productive excuses for policies and programs.
The Liberals have either to get with the strength …. or sink into political oblivion.
SCHADENFREUDE – has a ready application to ratty in this context, IMO
Everyone:
Let’s face it. WorkChoices is nothing but the mirror-image of Dole-Bludging.
It’s nothing but a type of government welfare for lazy and incompetent business operators and their managers; the ones who are too thick-and-stupid to attract and retain productive employees; the ones who are molly-coddled againt all the discomforts of having to do business in a normal competitive wenvironment.
It’s real banana-republic stuff ….. and we don’t need that sort of quasi-socialist nonsense in Australia, ever.