This post will have nothing to do with Melbourne, but rather just a random collection of thoughts that have been going through my head over the last 24 hours.
First and foremost, I've learnt something over the last four days or so - there is no substitute for a good newspaper. I can just sense Andrew raising a huff about this when he reads this, but the main thing I'm missing while in Melbourne is that I haven't found a chance to pick up a paper, buy a coffee, and sit down and read about the news in the world. I know that there's plenty of sites that give me news, whether global or local (Well, probably not local, but Australia-based, at least). There's a difference, though, between reading the news, and enjoying the news. You can read the news from an LCD monitor, but it takes a good paper, and a nice flat white to be able to enjoy it.
Right now, I'm missing that, unfortunately.
The next thing that's been going through my mind is Kevin Rudd's new workplace policy's (Apologies for the News.com link). I've been reading through the general gist of the article and, so far, the two main points that have stood out for me are unfair dismissal laws, and also proposed laws regarding industrial action. In regards to the unfair dismissal laws, unfortunately, I just can't say whether I think Rudd's laws are a good idea or not. In regards to unfair dismissal laws not applying to new employees of a company for 6 months, I'm not actually too adverse to that, believe it or not. Consider that most companies usually hire on employees for a probation period of three months regardless, so another three on top of this, while not being ideal, is not a doomsday prediction either.
It's interesting to note, however, that Rudd's still scrapping AWA agreements all together. To quote a piece Rudd wrote for the Labor eHerald, "Our laws will abolish AWAs – and we will do so without apology." Presumably, this means that Rudd is of the opinion that there is no element of the Australian workforce that can benefit from AWAs, or, if there is, it is not a sizable enough percentage to warrant the existence of AWAs. The alternative that I can see is that, while there is a sizable portion of the workforce who could benefit from AWAs, it's just too difficult to implement a system that will ensure that individual bargaining is not forced upon workers. Given that the Bureau of Statistics reported in 2003 that approximately 18% of the working population had Bachelor's Degrees or higher, I don't think Rudd would honestly put the working conditions of 1 in 5 Australians in the 'too hard' basket.
I am of the opinion (And I think most of you are too) that people should be allowed to negotiate individual working conditions, if that's their choice. If they want to engage in collective bargaining, that's understandable too - I am all in favor of workers joining together to provide greater bargaining power against a vastly better resourced employer. I just also think that individual bargaining should also be allowed, if the employee wants it. Embarrassingly enough, I'm not sure how much, if any, leeway exists for individual bargaining under a government that's banned AWAs. I'll try and find out by my next blog post - I just wanted to throw a contentious idea out to you all, and get some discussion going.
Lastly, but definitely not least(ly), can someone please deny an ugly rumor I've heard going around - is it true that the Mall's Balls have gone walkabout? Please, Andrew, Alice, Kate, Jono, Daniel, anyone, say it ain't so!
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4 comments:
Don't know anything about the balls situation - but then, some of us don't get up every day and enjoy The Advertiser like you do, George (zing!).
Good thoughts on IR. It's a tricky issue. With regards to your question about whether individual workers are able to negotiate their own agreements, this is my understanding (could be wrong, corrections appreciated):
Pre WorkChoices, people could still negotiate their own agreements, depending on the position they were applying for. Eg, executives (and white collar employees in general) were always able to dicker about salary, benefits etc. BUT, if the relevant union had negotiated an award for your job, the boss couldn't pay you any less than the award amount. Since most awards apply to blue-collar jobs, the boss wasn't likely to pay you more than the award, either. He'd just hire someone else who'd work for the award.
So if we go back to a pre-WorkChoices situation, people will still be free to bargain individually, but there'll be that minimum threshold of the award rate to stop employers screwing over workers.
That's my understanding of it, anyway. Go TinTin!
Pfft, I read The Australian thank you very much... :P It's just that I don't really have the opportunity to pop into the city on my own, and grab a nice coffee and read before work, for example. If that makes sense...
Good answer on the IR stuff, I'll check it out when I get back home. It doesn't seem right that all individual bargaining would go out the window, and I doubt Rudd would be silly enough to institute something like that, but I'll do a little more checking into the issue when I get home.
For now, thanks for the viewpoint!
BTW, Tintin gets a pretty good pickup line in Alice's generator thing :)
The malls balls are gone but they will be back when they've been refurbished.
Regarding unfair dismissal laws, the distinction was made on Lateline between unfair and unlawful dismissal. In the six (or nine?) month period, the unfair dismissal laws don't apply but the unlawful dismissal laws do. So I could fire George without giving him any warnings or proper notice, but I still couldn't fire him for being a pregnant black woman.
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