Issue No 105 | 03 August 2001 | |
Notice Board View entire latest issue
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Paradise Lost � Insurers Kill Workers' Camp Entitlements Betrayal at Centre of Car Crisis Piggins Pledges Support for Building Workers Legal Win for Wharfie Widows Unions Call for Dropping of Greenpeace Charges Jubilee Marches On Despite G8 Debt Fatigue Cleaner Sacked For Visiting Aging Parents Overseas Bracks Plans Curbs on Assembly Rights Big Gain for Weight Loss Workers Qld Wage Increases Welcomed Protecting Children, Protecting Jobs Child Labour Fine on McDonald's Call for Colombian Inquiry Into Murders Activist Notebook |
Industrial Treachery Trust the Mad Monk to go over the top. As the impacts of industrial action at Tri-Star cause the inevitable ripple through the economy, Tony Abbott leads with the chin, accusing the workers of "industrial treachery". Their crime? To take pre-emptive action to secure their entitlements after their employer - recently sold in a fire sale to a shell company refused to extend an existing arrangement to insure their redundancy payments. Abbott's loose tongue is as legendary as it is predicable. As always, he's way off beam. What is being played out is the direct result of failures of macroeconomic that have created a gulf of mistrust between capital and labour. The TriStar dispute is a direct result of Howard Government's failings on three levels: to protect workers entitlements, create a workable industrial relations framework and to intervene as an honest broker in disputes that effect the national interest. . The issue of workers entitlements has been a running sore. The Howard Government has attempted to apply a band-aid but the bleeding won't stop. Under the current system, stripping a company of assets like accrued entitlements makes good business sense. With stories of workers being ripped off becoming so common, they're hardly even newsworthy anymore, who can blame the Tri-Star workers from saying "enough is enough". The current dispute has been worsened because Australia no longer has a workable industrial relations system. Howard passed laws to weaken the power of IRC to settle disputes and brought in the protected bargaining period where industrial action is intensified. Unions representing the TriStar workers are being accused of pattern bargaining - but it is the company that is refusing to negotiate at the behest of the Australian Industry group. It's the bosses doing the pattern bargaining! And then there's the altogether unconstructive role the government has played. Instead of getting the parties together and resolving a dispute that could harm the national interest: you have the likes of Abbott and Minchin on the sidelines barracking and heckling. It reminds me of a good line from Bob McMullan when he had the IR portfolio "Peter Reith is the Minister against Industrial Relations". Abbott has taken on reith's mantle with gusto. And of course the problems have been exacerbated by the Just in Time inventory system - that has decimated the warehousing industry in the name of short-term profits. Another American management technique that looks good on paper until its exposed to the vagaries of the real world. The reality is that the Australian vehicle industry is being hurt by a structural failure in the Australian economy - the failure to create a climate of trust between capital and labour. It's the crowning achievement of five year's of divisive and ideologically-driven rule. Yes, there has been industrial treachery in this land. But it aint coming from TriStar. Peter Lewis |
Grant Belchamber: Unions And The Third Way | Combat Cubano | Neale Towart's Labour Review | When I'm 64 |
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