Kim Beazley promised, if elected, the scrapping of Australian Workplace Agreements (AWG) during a speech to the NSW State Labor Conference yesterday.
This move ranks with the stupidity of Mark Latham's promise to "bring the troops home from Iraq before Christmas." That comment allowed the Government to portray Labor as a "bunch of quitters," a position that weighed heavily on the population despite their dislike of our involvement there.
Will they ever learn?
To the punters, many of whom are union averse, Beazley's promise will seem like he's handing control of IR to the unions. The government and employer groups have already started to push this line.
There's no doubt that a large percentage of the population are worried about the 'Work Choices' legislation. However, many people are working under AWGs made before 'Work Choices' abolished the 'no disadvantage' rule and are quite content doing so. What they want is the 'no disadvantage' rule reinstated. Beazley would have been much more sensible in stating that they'd remove the worst excesses of 'Work Choices,' and allow workers the option to engage a union if that's what they want.
There's nothing wrong with the practice of allowing parties to negotiate more flexible work arrangements. The system just needs safeguards in place to prevent unskilled workers from being exploited.
Beazley has given the government a free kick with this badly thought out announcement.
Later: Beazley was on The 7.30 Report tonight and he made a good fist of explaining his position. Although I still think his announcement plays into the hands of the government, he did give a good account of his party's position.
KERRY O'BRIEN: Well let me ask you that Mr Beazley. You've asked the Government's record on productivity, but what is your fail-safe formula for improving productivity? Going back to the policies of the previous Labor government?KIM BEAZLEY: Look, the productivity that we gained in this country by going over to a system of enterprise-based agreements, moving away from the centralised wage-fixing system to that, but still collective agreements, is what produced the productivity boosts.
KERRY O'BRIEN: And that, in your mind, is the end of labour market reform?
KIM BEAZLEY: No, that is not the main, necessarily the only - I should say - not necessarily the only factor underpinning productivity. The other factors are innovation and skills. And the fact that productivity has gone off the boil over the last few years under this Government - in that first tranche, if you like, of industrial relations that you talked about - has got everything to do about the Government dropping the ball on things like innovation and skills. Productivity is not only about how the workforce works, it's about what the businessmen invests in and it's about the character of the workforce and the state of its skills. So there's nothing in Howard's legislation which does anything about those things, but insofar as industrial relations impacts on it, it is the collective agreements that produce the productivity outcomes. It's as simple as that.
It's worth reading in its entirety, but the bit above does spell out the difference between the government's and Labor's positions. Labor wants to increase productivity by improving processes, work practises and training, while the government wants the same effect by cutting costs at the employees' expense.
Beazley will have to do a lot more of this to counter the Government's scare campaign.
