The Industrial Relations Thread

[Dragons]

Will they work?

You have got to be kidding, they aren't going to work for the people that actually do the work.

If people measure the greatest of a Prime Minister on his ability to deceive, manipulate and lie, then he will be our greatest Prime Minister.

I have massive issues with new legislation that was hidden from the voters, which after being elected he tries to rail road. I have massive problems with the abuse of his control of the upper and lower house.

The new IR laws do nothing but make workers worse off.

hear hear

[In-Cyde #1]

If the labour reforms work then yes he will, but if they dont then he will be given the shaft. Time will tell.

Too true Queenslander. Although everyone thought he was gone with GST.

These IR laws I believe will be 'storm in a tea-cup', as was all the lead up nonsense prior to the Introduction of GST.

Now if John Howard was really serious, he would increase the GST to 12.5% and eliminate Payroll Taxes. Then those who wish to spend the extra that comes in their pay packet will pay taxes via the GST. Perfect.

PS: Did you know that if you gave every person in the world an equal share of the money available in the world. Within months it would be back to where it was, because some of us are smart with money and most of us are not. I think I am one of the 'not'.

[DIEHARD]

It is time to decide what is more important to this nation, The profit or the people?

I know which side I am on. The people. They are this countries common denominator, the building blocks and the heart and soul of this nation. And I'll back them up no matter what.

I believe profit and people can work together in a mutually benefical relationship but you need to lay down rock solid parameters in order to protect people's quality of life and well being. Because entities in the seek of profit can and will utilise any means to maximise their dividend.

We can not be a slave to the shareholders of companies, that is no way to run a country, the only thing we should serve is the shareholders of the nation, the people.

[Queenslander]

IR laws pass Senate

PRIME Minister John Howard realised a 30-year political dream today when the Government's radical industrial changes passed their final hurdle.

Laws ushering in the biggest workplace shake-up in more than a century passed the Senate this evening after Nationals rebel Barnaby Joyce voted with the Government to back the legislation.
The legislation now goes back the House of Representatives next week for a final tick-off before becoming law.

The Government secured Senator Joyce's vote after it made a number of concessions, including changes so employees could not be forced to work on iconic holidays like Christmas Day.

The Opposition and minor parties ? left impotent in the face of the Government's Senate majority ? warned the changes would rob workers of their rights, hurt families and divide the nation.

Labor veteran John Faulkner called it the worst legislation Federal Parliament had ever seen.

"This is as bad as any piece of legislation we have seen in the history of the commonwealth of Australia," he told the Senate.
"It's divisive, it's extreme, it just stinks."

Mr Howard welcomed the passage of the laws as a solid foundation for the future strength of the Australian economy.

"This legislation will strengthen the Australian economy in the years ahead and because of that, it will good for jobs and it will be good for higher wages," he said.

Mr Howard rejected claims the laws were extreme or divisive.

"It's not extreme, it's not radical, it's not revolutionary, it's measured further change," he said.

Wild Canberra weather almost put a dampener on proceedings when the Senate was plunged into darkness during the final hours of debate. Light was restored after a few minutes.

Under the new laws, workers will move from a state to a single, federal system; small business won't be bound by unfair dismissal rules and the Australian Industrial Relations Commission will give the right to set minimum wages to a new Fair Pay Commission.

Labor warned it was a monumental day for Australian families, whose working lives would never be the same.

To applause from the unions filling the public galleries, Labor employment spokeswoman Penny Wong told the Senate that Mr Howard was giving Australia a nation of working poor, who would be robbed of entitlements and rights.

"What we are voting on now is a dream from an old man, a tired old dream that will turn into a nightmare for Australian families," Senator Wong said.

Unions accused the Government of turning its back on the working men and women of Australia.

ACTU president Sharan Burrow said working families would feel let down.

"This Government has not listened to them, has turned their backs on concerns and protections for working Australians," she said.

Australian Democrats industrial relations spokesman Andrew Murray said there was no economic rationale for the Government changes.

"This is un-Australian," he said.

"We think (the Government) is making not just an economic mistake, not just a social mistake but a political mistake."

Family First Senator Stephen Fielding said workers and their families would be worse off under the changes.

"The assumption that underpins this bill is that there is a level playing field between all employers and all employees but Family First does not believes this accords with reality," he said.

But the reforms were welcomed by big business.

Australia industry Group chief executive Heather Ridout said they were far reaching and would irrevocably change the conduct of workplace relations.

"The reforms are in sync with the needs of a modern economy and the structure of the emerging more diverse workforce," he said.
http://finance.news.com.au/story/0,1...-31037,00.html

[DIEHARD]

And so it begins, a new era where Australia goes down a road it never should have.

Let profit rule over people.

Blue skies for Qantas in new workplace laws

BUSINESS is forecasting financial windfalls from the Federal Government's industrial relations overhaul, with Qantas tipped as a key battleground - and a lucrative winner.

As the legislation was passed in the Senate yesterday, a global investment bank was predicting Qantas would reap big financial dividends by exploiting provisions that "significantly reduce labour costs in coming years".

Credit Suisse First Boston's rosy forecast is based on two controversial features of the bill.

The first is the ability - asserted by CS First Boston and others but denied by the Government - of firms to strip staff of their existing entitlements after one year by transferring them to other companies they control.

The other is the Government's ability to decree industries as essential services and, according to the bank, effectively spare them from industrial action.

Utilising both, argues CS First Boston, Qantas would have the upper hand in negotiations with unions, basically allowing it to push down labour costs to better compete with Asian and New Zealand rivals.

Qantas would not comment but its boss, Geoff Dixon, has set a $1.5 billion savings target over two years and has loudly championed the legislation, which was passed in the Senate after the inclusion of 337 Government amendments.

In mid-October, Mr Dixon said the changes would "give established, successful companies like Qantas greater flexibility".

The Government said yesterday that the CS First Boston analysis fundamentally misrepresented its workplace changes.

What the bank insisted was a "transmission of business" - the shifting of a large number of Qantas staff to the low-cost off-shoot, Jetstar - was in fact nothing but a transfer or secondment of staff, according to the office of the Workplace Relations Minister, Kevin Andrews.

And even if there were a transmission of business, the bank wrongly assumed that workers would be disadvantaged, because under the new system they would retain the higher pay and conditions for a maximum of only 12 months after the move, compared with the current open-ended arrangement.

"Under WorkChoices, conditions are transmitted for a guaranteed period; under current law, the Industrial Relations Commission can stop it," said one staffer.

The Government also accused CS First Boston of misunderstanding the essential services provision. If industrial action threatened life, safety, health or welfare or risked damage to the economy, and aviation was declared an emergency service, disputing parties would be pushed to arbitration.

But legal experts said Qantas was well placed to exploit "transmission" changes, a view articulated by a Flinders University law professor, Andrew Stewart, who said application of transmission rules would go beyond genuine business transfers.

CS First Boston says Qantas's profit will jump by a quarter if the airline matches Air New Zealand's unit labour costs.

Profit growth would be much bigger again if Qantas got labour costs to even 50 per cent above that of Emirates or Singapore Airlines.

Source: SMH.com.au

I wonder whose pockets the $1.5 billion will be stole from? That of the worker, I defy anyone who says this disgraceful legislation will make Australians better off. The contents of the laws are unjust to the core and the way it ws instituted was unjust to the core.

[Titans#1]

THE new Industrial Relations regime, pioneered in the far-off land of Oz, also came into effect in Fairy Tale Kingdom today.

The changes received mixed reaction from participants in a medium-level enterprise company negotiation.
Boss's daughter Snow White had a meeting with Vertically Challenged Mining Workers Union shop floor steward Grumpy in what many are seeing as a test case for the new IR regime in the class kindergarten classroom struggle.

"No more will it be once upon a time and a half story favoured by the unions," said Ms White, as she emerged from the meeting with Mr Grumpy.

"As part of the competitive need for greater overall efficiency all workers are to put in longer hours, have fewer meal breaks and fewer holidays and there will be no more striking in support of co-unionists in mining and construction such as the three little pigs," Ms White said.

"As a salary package trade-off I am prepared to increase the dwarf singing allowance. But, of course, I will expect a corresponding productivity increase in the number of hi-hos."

Ms White also announced that with the abolishment of unfairy dismissal law she regrettably had to let one of the employees go.
She, however, expressed a hope that the retrenched midget miner, Sleepy, would find a suitable position, probably a reclining one, with his previous employer the public sector.

Mr Grumpy meanwhile said that things in Fairy Tale Land had grown so Grimm that one of his members, Happy, was considering changing his name.

"All I got from Snow White today was a snow job," said Mr Grumpy, who admitted that despite his best negotiating efforts he had come up short.

Ms White had totally ignored an OH&S issue, Mr Grumpy claimed, where union medical officer Doc had advised of an increased health risk of working alongside non-union member Mr Sneezy.

"The new IR laws also prevented me from raising a workplace sexual harassment complaint made against Ms White by union member Bashful," Mr Grumpy said.

According to Mr Grumpy at the conclusion of negotiations he had told Ms White that it would be off to work he would go.

Ms White's alleged reaction was to menacingly hold out an unsigned individual contract with a pen, while saying "I wouldn't bet on that".

Meanwhile a union study claimed that the introduction of new IR laws in nearby Nurseryrhymeland had been nothing to sing about.

The drop in real wage take home pay meant that Old Mother Hubbard's dog had gone even more weeks without a bone.

Dropping incomes also meant in the sample home of Mr and Mrs Jack Sprat there was no longer either fat or lean and the couple was forced to live solely on gristle.

Meanwhile executive remuneration continued to soar such that the kings of industry were feasting on pies with almost twice the once standard ingredient of four and 20 blackbirds.

The union study concluded that under the new laws no worker could live happily ever after.

However, a spokesman for an employers lobby group said unions were still living in the land of make believe if they didn't realise that the final sentence in the union story was rapidly approaching.

That sentence simply was The End.

[Dakink]

Umm Titans#1 , Blah Blah Blah

Think I now know you are a through and through unionist sorry Labour party supporter... ;-)

[Queenslander]

Umm Titans#1 , Blah Blah Blah

Think I now know you are a through and through unionist sorry Labour party supporter... ;-)

Its actually from the news.com.au website, but like many stories about this subject so far its only make believe

[Titans#1]

Umm Titans#1 , Blah Blah Blah

Think I now know you are a through and through unionist sorry Labour party supporter... ;-)

Actually, this was written so the 'simple people' that vote for JH know what they are really doing to the country, isn't that right boys and girls?

:rotflmao: :rotflmao:

Disclaimer: Titans#1 does not believe that all people who vote for JH are 'simple'.

[Titans#1]

Date set for IR challenge
From: AAP
February 08, 2006
THE High Court will begin to hear the states' constitutional challenge to federal industrial laws in May.

Chief Justice Murray Gleeson today set aside five days from May 8 to hear the case.
The states are challenging the right of the Federal Government to use the corporations power in the constitution to take over their industrial relations systems.

Applications were made by the New South Wales, South Australia, Queensland and Western Australian governments and the Australian Workers Union.

The Victorian Government also indicated it would make a separate application.

A further directions hearing on the matter on March 9 is likely to determine if all the applications will be heard together

:fence: Bring it on...

[Queenslander]

The new IR reforms have come into play as of today.........has anybody got fired yet?

[Titans#1]

The new IR reforms have come into play as of today.........has anybody got fired yet?

Not sure.. My husband just started his 2 weeks holiday, will see if he has a job when he gets back lmao

[Smithy]

I am an employer and as much as I can see why everyone is worried,Lets face it. If you are a good honest worker, you really don't have anything to worry about.
I have had very ordinary employees who have made it a living hell for others. When I made up my mind that this person had to go, I found it nearly impossible to get rid of them. Other employees were quitting yet i couldn't get rid of this person. I hope the new IR laws will change this type of situation........

I think the scare tactics used by the Labour Gov were a bit over the top with the people facing the sack after saying they can't come in straight away......

JH has got this country in the best shape it is in since the last of the labour Gov. Whether you like him or not, this is true. Our economic debt has never been lower. Who do you want in there? Mark Latham or the like.

This is all I will say on the matter as I don't like to get started on politics especially on a footy forum site.
I ahve the read the ruloes to be abided by and have found that it's not quite like everyone thinks.

Just give it time. i think you will be plesantly suprised.

[Eel 33]

I am an employer and as much as I can see why everyone is worried,Lets face it. If you are a good honest worker, you really don't have anything to worry about.
I have had very ordinary employees who have made it a living hell for others. When I made up my mind that this person had to go, I found it nearly impossible to get rid of them. Other employees were quitting yet i couldn't get rid of this person. I hope the new IR laws will change this type of situation........

I think the scare tactics used by the Labour Gov were a bit over the top with the people facing the sack after saying they can't come in straight away......

JH has got this country in the best shape it is in since the last of the labour Gov. Whether you like him or not, this is true. Our economic debt has never been lower. Who do you want in there? Mark Latham or the like.

This is all I will say on the matter as I don't like to get started on politics especially on a footy forum site.
I ahve the read the ruloes to be abided by and have found that it's not quite like everyone thinks.

Just give it time. i think you will be plesantly suprised.

That's fine from an employers position. But a lot of ppl are worried because they work for big companies who are looking to squeeze as many ppl out as possible to increase profits for shareholders and their own wallets. The cutting out of entitlements is wrong, the removal of the right to strike is also wrong. I'm not going to sit here and bore you. I can see Smithy's view and appreciate it for what it is, but this whole situation is going to get worse before it gets better.

[Smithy]

I think it is just one of those things where not everyone is going to agree.
When it comes to things like this, someone is allways going to cop the raw end of the stick......I hope it happens to know one........
I am happy to read that atleast some people can respect anothers opinion.

I have never worked for a large company and have always been self employed since finishing my apprenticeship some 16 years ago. I guess this is why, maybe, I don't quite understand a lot of the fear people are facing.........
I wish you all the best....... eace: