[lbo-talk] Industrial Relations Reform in Australia....

[Mike Ballard]

A proletarian has no security.  Industrial Relations Reform in Australia will
mean even less  in the way of security than before.  In Australia a so-called
"safety net" still exists for the proletarian who is without an employer to buy
the worker's skills.   When you fall from the trapeze of wage-slavery, you fall
down.  That's the gravity of unemployment.  You fall down.  You lose.  But,
with the safety net, you don't lose your life. Under the Liberal/National Party
Coalition, the proletarians suffered blow after blow to their safety net.  It's
blowing around pretty hard these days, pretty much in tatters, compared to
before.  When you go to what is known as Centrelink for unemployment benefits,
you have to have been fired from your job, to qualify for money, otherwise you
have to wait for varying allotted times AND you HAVE to take work found for you
by Centrelink--work like, mowing the lawns of churches, doing odd jobs for
non-profits and the like for the lowest wages possible.  If you don't take
these jobs, you don't get Centrelink benefits either.  You can't quit your job
and expect Centrelink to pay you benefits, unless you were treated unfairly. 
Part of the Howard Government's new Industrial Relations Reform deals with
eliminating "unfair dismissal laws".  Australia, under the Liberals, becomes
more like a mirror image of America.

The Howard Government is spending millions in media ads these days, trying to
calm the geese who lay the golden egg--the workers who produce THE ECONOMY. 
They are saying that workers have nothing to worry about--no worries---their
rights will still be protected by law.  Who will benefit from these laws is
another question.  There are a  lot of "ifs" in these laws.  For example, most
of these laws are contigent on a person having full time employment already and
now, that full-time employment will be contingent on the worker signing an
individual "workplace agreement" with the corporation the worker is to be
employed by.  What will be in the agreement?  More pay and vacation for the
worker?  More control over the worker's life?  By whom?  The worker?  You'd
have to be Pollyana to believe that a buyer would agree to a higher price, if
that buyer could get the same commodity for a lower price.  And that's what
wages are....prices.  And that's who the employing class are....buyers.  And
guess what the proletarian will have to agree to, if the proletarian doesn't
want to agree to what the employer is proposing?  It takes two to tango and
agree, you know.  Sure, as Howard says, the worker doesn't have to agree with
the employer's proposals for wages and working conditions.  The worker can go
elsewhere.  The worker is a seller and this is a seller's market--so sayeth
John Howard and his Coalition lickspittles.  And what will the worker live on
while waiting for a buyer who will pay higher wages?  Centrelink payments.  The
safety net.  Of course, this is guarenteed by law.  And by law, that worker
will have to take the first job offered.  That is the agreement that the worker
is agreeing to by asking Centrelink for financial help. 

All in all, Industrial Relations Reform is designed to give the employing class
more power over their wage-slaves.  A proletarian has no security.

Regards from down under,
Mike B) 

Read "The Perthian Brickburner" here:
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