Relevelling the playing field.

Industrial relations in the real world.

It looks like Coates Hire may need to seek Fair Work's mandate to abandon negotiations on a new EBA and revert back to the award reducing wages, benefits and conditions dramatically.

Ridiculous hourly rates, unsustainable wage increases and extra holidays all make our labour uncompetitive on the world stage. We saw this with manufacturing, the car industry, fashion houses, call centres, tech support etc being offshored.

 

Hang on....this isnt just the sales people etc....this also affects highly skilled fitters, mechanics etc....

Even if coats hire wins and sends everyone back to the award wage...they may find it a teeensy bit difficult to find skilled tradies to work for them.

I agree that wages in this country can be a bit high....and a fully unionised Workforce would be a pain....but they'll need to find a middle ground regardless of the EBA negotiations or potential staff are likely to tell them to shove it.

 

And don't even start me on the fact that we are still bringing in many tens of thousand immigrants per year, and every end of school year we get something in the order of 160,000+ School leavers entering the workforce as well....to try and get a dwindling pool of quality (and full-time) jobs.

I've been banging on for ages about this; good to hear someone else bring it up....we are losing real jobs left right and centre due to - not just this - but "halcyon days" benefits that cannot (or won't) be removed, and increasingly difficult workplace regulations which are scaring Employers off from hiring full-time (and/or permanent) Staff....one anecdote; an Employee who is caught stealing from the Company is fired on the spot; but because he/she wasn't given the correct process of termination; can take the Boss to Fairwork, claim "unfair" dismissal, get reinstated and compensated....now; seriously?

True. You have to pay above award to get (and keep) the decent ones.

 

What about the migrants and school leavers who start businesses? People also make jobs...

 

Unions should be abolished

 

What are the statistics of school leavers who start businesses and employ staff?

pinkboy

 

We are always seeing a myriad of smaller businesses commencing which hire a few staff here and there, but there are also many small businesses (and particularly retail type shops) closing and or downsizing.

The big picture is a steady decrease in major employers and major industry manufacturers etc.

If it wasn't for the recent Melb and Sydney housing booms we'd be in deep doo-da.

Add to that the recent Budget of higher taxes, more spending, larger Renewable energy targets (which will increase business operating costs and decrease everyone's money for living/lifestyle), along with an even bigger increase of all of the above when Bill Shoiter gets into power in 2 years.

Of course; the biggest job creation sector is.....the Public Service!!
Most of our taxes are going towards funding this mob and the welfare bill.

 

I dunno....I think they have their place. Unions were invented for a damn good reason! Black lung anyone?

However the pendulum needs to swing both ways and I think it would be fair to say that in a lot of industries it has swung far too far in the unions favor.

 

Give it time... they may not start businesses straught away, but there will always be entrepreneural individuals coming through.

 

Oh, so not many school leavers become employers right away? They are usually more concerned with selfies, getting their licence and getting wet.

pinkboy

 

I agree with the sentiment, but not the absolute.

Unions have their place, they just need to be put back there!!!
Unions should be there to represent the best interests of their members. Unfortunately, they are now little more than a mechanism for political influence fed by the $ from industrial super funds.. and they merely represent the interests of the few at the top of the pecking order.

 

Sort of agree; good to see the Union rush in to help the workers keep their jobs at Hazelwood....

 

I'm a blue collar worker, standing in a factory right now whilst writing this, and I would have in the past agreed with you. but I have never worked in a place that was the size or scale that would need the union to intervene, I'm assuming here but neither have you? These big corporations you quite literally are just a number on a sheet of paper to the big guys. If I have ever had a problem in any of my previous places of work either safety or just being rather hard done by, I would quite happily go see the boss man and tell him you fix this up or I'm out the door, and generally stuff would be fixed. Try that at these big corps.

I dont believe they need to be abolished however some do need to be reigned in a bit.