This is one of those rare occasions when I hope John Howard is right about industrial relations policy: In a speech to a Perth business audience yesterday, the Prime Minister said “the choice is a very stark one”. “If we are defeated at the end of the year, if the Labor Party wins, then the [...]
The Howard Government’s union-busting ABCC released a report (pdf) today claiming that smashing unions is good for the economy. Needless to say, The Australian ran hard with the story, giving it the front page, an opinion piece (“analysis”), and the editorial. The report was prepared by Econtech, a firm that is heavily invested in the [...]
You’ll remember that around the time WorkChoices was introduced, the Prime Minister refused to say that nobody would be worse off. He tried to argue that this was because it is unwise to make general guarantees of that sort, but his opponents said it was because he knew workers would suffer under the new laws. [...]
John Robertson is under fire for making the perfectly reasonable promise that the union movement would keep campaigning in workers’ interests even if Kevin Rudd wins the election. Dean Mighell was expelled from the ALP for using ETU members’ venacular when discussing the (legal) bargaining tactics he has used to win higher than expected pay [...]
As you might expect, the Government has been ramping up a campaign about so-called “dirty tricks” being employed by the unions. First John Howard slammed an ACTU document as “a dirty tricks manual”, but couldn’t explain how unions phoning or visiting their members is a problem. Howard’s complaint to the electoral commission went nowhere, as [...]
The Government’s primary attack on Labor’s policy is that Rudd and Gillard are making it up as they go along, with the underlying implication that the big bad unions will walk over Rudd and Gillard. The Australian has joined in that attack by running a series of articles making false claims about the policy. In [...]
The only thing holding Greg Combet back from parliament was the prospect of an ugly fight over his replacement as secretary of the ACTU. The two contenders were Jeff Lawrence (from the Labor Left) and John Robertson (from the Right). Robertson appeared to have picked up some support, but when the biggest Right-wing union announced [...]
There’s a pattern emerging in the criticism of Labor’s IR policy. The critics are driven by vested interests and partisan loyalty to the Liberal Party. First, we’ve got the major media critic, the News Ltd group of newspapers (especially The Australian). Why would they be such vocal barrackers for WorkChoices? Because the company uses AWAs [...]
Put this in your diary: the ABC’s new drama, Bastard Boys, will screen in two parts at 8:30pm on Sunday, 13 May and Monday, 14 May. The show tells the story of the War on the Waterfront, in which the Howard Government ganged up with a stevedoring company to try to smash the Maritime Workers [...]
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 [...]
