Comments on: The rally that did workers more harm than WorkChoices

By: Club Troppo » Wednesday’s Missing Link

Club Troppo » Wednesday’s Missing Link — Wed, 06 Dec 2006 00:36:01 +0000

[...] More evidence of Work Choices wage cuts - Trevor Cormack

By: Sacha

Sacha — Mon, 04 Dec 2006 01:51:12 +0000

My position on IR is that people should be able to negotiate a collective agreement with their employer if that’s what they want to do. If people don’t want to do it, that’s fine too.

By: Sacha

Sacha — Mon, 04 Dec 2006 01:49:55 +0000

Yes - it’s only people who care about properly researched policies who would be annoyed by the lack of them! And I bet there aren’t many of them!

By: Boris

Boris — Sat, 02 Dec 2006 14:19:57 +0000

ALP’s nuclear policy is one of their oddest policies, which has hardly any parallels anywhere among the left, say, in Europe. However, across the board parties have little insentive to go to serious research on policies, since seriously researched policies are unlikely to make a difference with voters. That’s the harsh reality of politics.

By: Sacha Blumen

Sacha Blumen — Sat, 02 Dec 2006 07:38:58 +0000

Something I’ve learnt is that people in politics don’t necessarily apply scepticism when thinking about things - people often use “accepted wisdom”.

It’d be good if more careful evidence-based thinking was used - an example of this is the ALP’s policy on nuclear power, which seems to be informed by fear. (I’m not in favour of any particular policy there as I don’t know enough about it, but I’m in favour of actually looking at reality and dealing with that.)

By: Boris

Boris — Sat, 02 Dec 2006 05:58:14 +0000

“I don

By: Andrew Norton

Andrew Norton — Sat, 02 Dec 2006 03:44:12 +0000

Boris - For the most part, progress is made incrementally, so the fact that the gains may not be huge is not an argument against reform in itself, only if the costs exceed the gains. I think the unfair dismissal laws were being rorted and were a disincentive to employment, and on balance worth getting rid of. As I have noted, the collective bargaining provisions probably need improving - and there is something rather ridiculous in having thousands of identical ‘individual’ contracts (needless paperwork for a start, which was one reason universities resisted having the government foist AWAs on them).

I don’t think you can understand WorkChoices apart from the long-running battles between the Liberal Party and the unions. Many key politicians formed their views in the context of a union movement that was far more irresponsible and destructive than unions today. ‘Ideology’ probably exaggerates the intellectual coherence in all this.

By: Boris

Boris — Sat, 02 Dec 2006 03:07:52 +0000

Andrew, you have spent considerable time arguing that the Work choices legislation have little negative effect on people. This may be so, but then how about David’s point that it may also indicate that it would have little effect… period? If so, why bother about this at all? Do you see tangible benefits further down the line perhaps? Or was it indeed just an ideological obsession? Or do you see it as a small step in the right direction?

By: David Rubie

David Rubie — Fri, 01 Dec 2006 21:59:24 +0000

Andrew Norton wrote:
“…are you for or against?”

Against - but not opposed to changes per se. If the changes had been reasonably thought out and beneficial I would have thought it was long overdue. A homogenised system was certainly needed - state awards seem like an anachronism to me. This set of laws reminds me a lot of the gay marriage debacle - lots of noise about nothing, give a kicking to those “who deserve it” in the unions and prop up those well meaning employers across the country etc. I am deeply opposed to the changes to collective bargaining though. I’ve seen the studies that purport to show individuals get a better deal, but this is removal of a freedom, and the freedom to collective bargain was very important in the past (look at the raw deal some of the 457 visa workers were getting - there are still exploitative employers out there).

By: Andrew Norton

Andrew Norton — Fri, 01 Dec 2006 20:21:59 +0000

“Perception of legal factors counts for just as much as actual legal factors, ”

That would seem to be the case if we look at the macro polls on IR laws, are you for or against? But at the micro level things seem different - if for example we consider job security (link above) it is hard to find legal factors such as casual employment having an influence. Many fewer people say they will be negatively affected by WorkChoices than say they are against it, consistent perhaps with their legal position having changed slightly, but their actual position not at all, because the law was providing protections they did not need anyway.

I think there will be some benefits in WorkChoices in job creation - though these are hard to quantify - but a high political price is being paid. Though I would not worry about ‘union cooperation’ - that hasn’t been necessary for a long time.