Business bluster
Thursday May 10, 2007
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AIG Chief Heather Ridout - supports the Howard Government's radical IR laws
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Few things have been as simultaneously entertaining and disturbing as the business community’s response to the ALP’s proposed IR changes should it be elected to form Government towards the end of this year.
Shortly after the ALP’s National Conference at the end of April, the media appendages of Australia’s rich and powerful began screaming and booing in response to the proposals.
Indeed, the sheer number of articles attacking the proposed changes has been something to behold.
President of the Business Council of Australia (the lobby group that acts on behalf of Australia’s top 100 companies) Michael Chaney. Chaney bemoaned that Labor’s changes would constitute a “massive re-regulation of employer-employee relations which would turn the clock back on productivity and growth''.
What Chaney failed to mention was that the Howard Government’s laws stretch to over 1000 pages, including an impressive list of things workers (including those in Market Research) and employers are not allowed to discuss at the workplace for fear of incurring a sizeable fine.
Meanwhile, the BCA’s claim that any changes to Howard’s laws would reduce productivity and growth (one echoed by Heather Ridout, the chief of the Australian Industry Group (AIG) — another employer lobby) is simply false.
The reality is there is no evidence that the Federal Government’s Individual Contracts (AWAs) result in higher productivity compared to Collective Agreements.
Indeed, if productivity increases are the first test of an economic reform, the Howard Government’s laws have been a failure.
Australia’s labour productivity fell between March and December 2006. Meanwhile, productivity in the Mining Industry — the poster-child for the alleged success of the Howard Government’s laws — has been declining for the last four years.
So, if things won’t be as dire under the ALP as what the business community insists, what will happen?
The biggest change will be that workers will have the right to a Collective Agreement.
Figures released by the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) earlier this year show workers on Collective Agreements earn higher average hourly wages than workers in Individual Contracts (including in the Mining Industry) while also working fewer average hours a week.
These figures point to the real reason the business community is in such a huff about the ALP’s preference for Collective Bargaining — Union Agreements pay workers more, which big business doesn’t like because it eats into their profits.
In fact, complaints from big business should be all the confirmation ordinary workers need that a new Federal Government and a new IR system will help working people.
Last modified 2007-05-11 11:34 AM
