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Wednesday January 7, 2009

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Hinch Blog: Work Choices dead

Posted by: By Derryn Hinch, 3AW Drive | 25 November, 2008 - 4:29 PM

RELATED AUDIO: Gillard tackles new IR laws ... and Hinch

A few years ago Kim Beazley’s already large visage beamed down larger-than-life from billboards across the country showing what he would do the minute he replaced John Howard as Prime Minister.

In his paws was a copy of the Liberals Industrial Relations Work Choices policy and he was tearing it asunder.

Of course, Kim Beazley didn’t make it to the The Lodge. So he missed out on the paper-shredding mission. He was dumped by his party in favour of Kevin Rudd and yesterday 'Kev from Queensland' celebrated his first year in office.

Today, Day One of its second year in power, the Rudd Government got to really flex its muscles after the symbolic first year decision like saying Sorry and signing the Kyoto Protocol.

Today, with Prime Minister Rudd still in Peru doing Clint Eastwood impersonations in his poncho, Acting Prime Minister Julia Gillard introduced Labor’s new Fair Work Bill into Parliament.

It signalled the last rites for Work Choices the industrial relations revolution which John Howard hung his hat, and eventually his career and his Government, on. And along the way to try to convince you they were right they spent hundreds of millions of dollars on print advertisements, TV commercials and even fridge magnets and mouse pads.

The unions, on the other hand, gave Labor millions for their election campaign, and today they lined up to cash in on their investment. And it seems they are to be rewarded far beyond what Labor promised in election mode last year.

Unions will get back some of their old powers when it comes to negotiating workplace agreements even though only 15 per cent of the work force  are union members.

Some business groups are calling it a throwback to the Keating era but some of the powers being restored sound more like the Whitlam years.

Apparently unions will be given a seat at any bargaining table even if there is only one union member in a large company. I actually find that hard to believe.

What offends me more is the move to give unions access to company books – to the wage records of non-union members. So much for Rudd’s promises to change the privacy laws.

What right does a union have to even ask how much a non-union worker is getting paid? And how safe are your financial records if a union gets to sit in on all wage negotiations industry-wide?

Already they are pushing for big wage increases in a scary economic climate where unemployment is possibly going to hit 7.5 per cent. At a time when businesses are going to the wall.

It only gives credence to the argument that union bosses, who’ll never lose their own jobs, would rather have you in the union and out of work than in work and out of the union.

Are you happy with the shift?

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