May 2007 Archives

From Mike Carlton in Saturday's SMH ...

Bastard Boys, the ABC's drama about the 1998 waterfront war, has aroused the entirely predictable fury of the ABC-haters. Their attack has been two-pronged. One, to sneer that the show was a turgid melodrama and a waste of money. Two, to screech that the whole thing was a nefarious left-wing conspiracy to damage the Howard Government in this election year.

Me, I thought it was terrific. On a technical level, it was elegantly directed and shot: for one thing, it takes high cinematographic art to light an entire dockyard at night. The script hummed along, with appropriate moments of tension and light relief. Writers and actors did a masterful job of capturing the authentic cadences of Australian dialogue.

Having spent some time covering that brawl between Patrick and the Maritime Union, I'm also prepared to say that, allowing for reasonable dramatic licence, Bastard Boys got the story about right. If anything, the Howard Government escaped rather lightly.

I too thought the ABCs production was an excellent depiction that caught the nuances fairly accurately. It certainly captured the irony of the union winning the conspiracy court battle at every stage through to the high court, only to lose the war when they had to bend and provide realistic workplace reforms.

Shows of this calibre prove the value of an independent ABC.

Petrol excise, Medicare safety-net, David Hicks, now Work Choices. John Howard is a master at successfully defusing unpopular election year issues. This particular example demolishes his "I make tough choices even if they're unpopular" persona (more here about that), but the real question is whether the new measures will make a difference when the weakest in society apply for a job.

The "Safety Net" is more about perceptions than substance. There's three aspects of the new regulations that fall short in providing any long term protection.

The first is the arbitrary wage / salary level under which the new laws become effective. At $75k, the new regulations cover a large section of the workforce. Without indexation, this amount will erode over time, and more employees in the middle income bracket will find themselves outside "the net." This government is reluctant to alter threshold levels once set, as shown by the Medicare surcharge example.

Secondly, the "no disadvantage" test allows non-monitory offsets to compensate for lost conditions. A particular "offset" will have differing values to different employees. Unless the value of the offset can be easily calculated, I can see employees being coerced to accept dubious "benefits" in lieu of cash.

Thirdly, the "no disadvantage test" doesn't apply to companies that are under financial difficulties. Some clever accounting may be all that's needed to prevent the application of the "no disadvantage test" for new employees.

The changes will take the heat off the government and stymie Labor when it comes to IR. Combined with a giveaway budget, it may be all that's needed to give the government momentum during the run up to the election.

However, there's one last, important issue.

The new regulations aren't retrospective. If you've already been sold a dud AWA, bad luck! Don't be surprised if the government's taken to task on this and there's yet another change to Work Choices in the next few weeks.

The mining industry has hinted at a compromise regarding their objections to Labor's recently introduced IR policy ...

There are signs the mining industry and the Labor Party could find some common ground in the stand-off over industrial relations.

Opposition workplace relations spokeswoman Julia Gillard insists Australian Workplace Agreements (AWAs) will be scrapped if Labor wins office but the Mines and Metals Association (MMA) says it is important to keep AWAs because of the flexibility they offer.

MMA chief executive Steve Knott says the association would be prepared to accept a return to the 'no disadvantage test' if Labor agreed to keep AWAs.

The miners elaborated their position on the ABC's PM program tonight ...

STEVE KNOTT: We've said all along that if [Labor] had something that gave us similar benefits to what we've got now, we'd look at it. Even if they returned to the old no-disadvantage test that was in place 12 months ago, which was a global test based on a comparison with the award, we'd be comfortable with that.

But of course the people in the mining industry are way, way, way over and above the award rates. So the old no-disadvantage test that was in place pre-WorkChoices wouldn't bother the resources sector one iota.

Being a pragmatist, I don't think this an unreasonable ask. Defusing this issue would make Labor's journey to government a lot easier. With the mining lobby on side, they could concentrate on the much easier task of pointing out the real inequities of Work Choices.

It was inevitable that the industry lobby would start loudly complaining about Labor's IR policy once details started to emerge. After all, the government's revamped AWA framework under Work Choices put all the power in the employers' hands when dealing with unskilled and disadvantaged workers. They were never going to let that go without a fight.

Perhaps Labor would have been better not to state they'd abolish AWAs. As suggested elsewhere, it may have been more sensible to just reintroduce the 'no disadvantage' test, as was the situation before Work Choices. Labor could have developed an even handed policy that allowed employees to decide which type of agreement they want and whether unions should be involved. The days of the old IR system have gone forever, for better or for worse.

That being said, the arguments put forward by the mining industry for the retention of AWAs is nonsense. Labor's proposed changes to the IR system is not a threat to the rampent mining boom. There's a labour shortage, the mining companies need employees and are willing to pay high wages and provide good working conditions to get them. This hasn't changed through mining booms over the past 30 years, regardless of whether the workers were under collective agreements or individual contracts.

Employer criticisms are not going to end soon, and Labor needs to fight hard to sell their policy. For a start, they should emphasise that employers organise themselves into associations to strengthen their bargaining position, while pointing out the same group's hypocritical stance of preventing employees from doing the same thing.

They should emphasise the difference between in demand workers in boom industries and those with less saleable skills who are the real victims of "Work Choices."

They should remind the electorate that good times don't last forever, and that employees working under AWAs have most to lose in a downturn.

They need to keep hammering the government about their refusal to release any information about the makeup of new AWA agreements.

Finally, they'll have to hope that the hostility regarding Work Choices in the eastern states more than offsets votes lost in Western Australia. It could be a close run thing.