Solidarity

Last time I posted about the ACTU’s ad campaign, I couldn’t find a clip of the one called “Boys in the Boardroom”, but here it is:

This is very effective ad — it highlights the fact that WorkChoices encourages employers to use AWAs to cut labour costs, and compares those wage cuts to soaring executive salaries. The business lobby is sooking, and says it is considering a responsive ad campaign.

But the truth is, that’s just a pretext. The business lobby is considering an ad campaign because the Government is demanding one as a quid pro quo for the Employer Advisor Program. As Julia Gillard points out, there’s a lot of money involved:

We see today that $20 million of taxpayers’ money this year, will be spent, given to businesses and business organisations to peddle the Howard Government’s industrial relations laws to them. Now in exchange for giving business and business organisations this money, the Howard Government wants businesses to fund an advertising campaign to support the Government at the next election.

It’s basically a money-laundering scheme so that the Government can run anti-union ads without revealing the cost to the taxpayer. The Government showers cash on the business lobby, then expects it to be repaid in the form of a pro-WorkChoices advertising campaign.

Of course, there’s the very real prospect that the bosses’ ad campaign will backfire. Greg Combet says “in calling for big business to run TV ads, John Howard is openly admitting that the IR laws were made for big business”, and Tim Dunlop reckons the public will see it that way, too. The previous round of Government-sponsored pro-WorkChoices advertising was a spectacular failure, and there’s good reason to believe another round of ads would just be throwing good money after bad.