Society/Culture Unionism is holding Australia back

Schism

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Aug 21, 2007
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unions were a very necessary step in the evolution of the work place but their job, method and relevance finished in the 60s. Workers have no chance if they think criminal organisations, with zero ethics and with zero care for workers is the solution. Adding to that union's metholodology simply won't work with modern communication, modern surveillance, globalisation and less trade barriers.

Workers should appreciate joining a union is a breach of trust. It's like marrying a girl and finding out she's invited the family to live with you and letting the family decide what's best for the relationship. It doesn't work at home ad it doesn't work in the work place either.


The importance of health, happiness and well being in the work place is extremely important, in fact I would say a priority. Modern work places shouldn't rely on a "top down" approach to any issue including health, happiness and well being. These issues should be lead by both employees and employers. 99% of bosses would love to know their workers are happy and healthy and better still 100% of bosses would love it that workers self manage and regulate (it means less work and less confrontation).

If your place of work isn't happy and healthy, just ask yourself what needs to change and how would you implement it?

lol this guy is a classic. I got a hearty giggle from that.
 

Schism

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Flip it around....have you tried helping your boss create a healthier and happier work environment. If so, how?

you know i'm in civil construction, right? Healthy and happy is not what bosses want. They want stuff built, s**t excavated, and paperwork filled out, and they want it done yesterday, because the client wants it done yesterday, because its costing them money every day.

I tell the odd rude joke on site, i guess that contributes to a healthy and happy aura or vibe or whatever it is you're talking about
 
You are very naïve to believe workers can trust employers to look after the "health, happiness and well-being of the employee", worker need unions to ensure their rights, conditions etc, and this has only happened after centuries of struggle.

I am not naive, I think you misread my post of skimmed over it.

My third paragraph said: "I think unions have their place in order to represent worker rights in terms of the conditions of employment, because employers neglect their responsibilities as employers and often treat workers as a liability instead of the asset they are."

I said we don't need unions because they do not represent the interests of workers in general, it is just protectionism for the workers currently employed and members of the union already. Unions are the biggest hinderance for young kids who can't find work because they force employers to pay the same rate as an experienced worker and it makes them unattractive to employers. This impacts the competition for employment, the pathway to employment and gaining experience has been harmed by unionism.

What I said towards the end of my post was that our present system is ****ed up and it needs to change, employers aren't invested enough in the wellbeing of their employees and don't give a s**t in helping them to grow not just as workers but as people. Good employers are, but those are few and far between. There is nothing written in stone that we have to adopt or maintain the existing system. If people weren't so stupid in general and weren't utterly focused on themselves then we would constantly improve the system for the betterment of society, both present and especially for the future. We do the bare minimum to sustain a functional society. Nobody is invested in making significant improvement in terms of how our society functions and our political and education systems are the primary barriers.

If anything the unions now are weaker than they were, politics has taken a big lurch to the right, the left is weak and pretty much in disarray.

Some unions are still powerful in the industries that still pay wages. Unions have lost a significant amount of their political influence largely because 3/4 of adults in Australia are now middle class, most adults do not have to worry about putting food on the table, clothes on their back or a roof over their head. In most industries there is a shortage of skilled workers and we have to constantly import foreign workers to meet our needs. If the LNP weren't utterly incompetent it would be almost impossible to see Labor take office in our current environment. To get votes, the Labor party has drifted right and the LNP has drifted left to both seem attractive to the middle class. There is almost no discernable difference between either party, they are all just clowns masquerading as public servants who in reality are just people driven by self interest and a delusion of power.

Our nation is an Asylum in which the mentally ill patients are running the joint, there is a very fine line between the moral and personal value of the type of person that becomes a CEO or politician and those of a psychopath. There was a recent research in the USA where 1 in 5 CEOs had clinically significant levels of psychopathic traits, roughly the same number as prisoners. These are the type of people who we elect as leaders of our political parties and run the nation.

Indeed a bigger threat to our well being is the rise of Fascism this century, I expect Russia and China to continue their journey toward becoming classic Fascist states, the 'nasty' right is becoming influential in the European democracies and then in the US there is a possibility of President Trump. Unions are the least of our problems.

Fascism looks attractive to the average person when the alternative is an Orwellian authoritarian far left political ideology thrust onto the people. People who fear the uprising of another Hitler in Europe have no qualms about creating a Stalin or Mao, by comparison, Hitler was a light-weight when it came to brutality and the body count, I would suggest if you tallied up the far left vs far right from WWI onwards, the far right would barely register as a blip compared to the far left.
 
you know i'm in civil construction, right? Healthy and happy is not what bosses want. They want stuff built, s**t excavated, and paperwork filled out, and they want it done yesterday, because the client wants it done yesterday, because its costing them money every day.

I tell the odd rude joke on site, i guess that contributes to a healthy and happy aura or vibe or whatever it is you're talking about

I guess I'm suggesting that the us vs them mentality is over.

Just like yourself, your boss and colleagues feel pressure and sometimes lose sight of what is really important.

There are times where happiness has to be parked due to the importance of a task but if this is too regular, then there is a problem.

Rather than blame the boss or point the finger at his inadequate management skills....help him. Talk about the issue, come up with ideas (rather than problems) etc.


An example is my wife who is in financial accounting at an iron ore company. People were being sacked left right and centre but kept her job despite being paid 50% more than her peers. She asked the boss why she wasn't retrenched and the response was "you keep the team happy".

All she does is bring in food, make up the desk for the birthday person to a theme and invite people out of the office for lunch etc.

her boss is a power Russian woman who works like a trooper but never smiled (just an unfortunate trait). She's only 35 but risen ten years ahead of schedule. She, like a Nathan Buckley, couldn't appreciate how the team felt and just demanded more.

My wife on the other hand is an Asian version of legally blonde, a combination of smiles and power woman. Her mantra is work hard when it's on but not turn up because hours simply dictate. She has no issue with 12-14 hour days but takes 3 months a year off in lieu.

Her approach has been recognised with the Russian following suit with the culture, the whole team is super tight despite the upheaval and the wife now on a fast track management role.


In short waiting for change isn't like waiting for a bus. It doesn't just arrive, you have to create it.
 

Schism

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I guess I'm suggesting that the us vs them mentality is over.

Just like yourself, your boss and colleagues feel pressure and sometimes lose sight of what is really important.

There are times where happiness has to be parked due to the importance of a task but if this is too regular, then there is a problem.

Rather than blame the boss or point the finger at his inadequate management skills....help him. Talk about the issue, come up with ideas (rather than problems) etc.


An example is my wife who is in financial accounting at an iron ore company. People were being sacked left right and centre but kept her job despite being paid 50% more than her peers. She asked the boss why she wasn't retrenched and the response was "you keep the team happy".

All she does is bring in food, make up the desk for the birthday person to a theme and invite people out of the office for lunch etc.

her boss is a power Russian woman who works like a trooper but never smiled (just an unfortunate trait). She's only 35 but risen ten years ahead of schedule. She, like a Nathan Buckley, couldn't appreciate how the team felt and just demanded more.

My wife on the other hand is an Asian version of legally blonde, a combination of smiles and power woman. Her mantra is work hard when it's on but not turn up because hours simply dictate. She has no issue with 12-14 hour days but takes 3 months a year off in lieu.

Her approach has been recognised with the Russian following suit with the culture, the whole team is super tight despite the upheaval and the wife now on a fast track management role.


In short waiting for change isn't like waiting for a bus. It doesn't just arrive, you have to create it.

Who DOESN'T work 12-14 hour days these days?

I worked 12 hours a night 6 nights a week for 3 of my 8 years at holdens, with almost no time off as we worked through shutdowns. Your wife is nothing special, sorry bro
 
Who DOESN'T work 12-14 hour days these days?

I worked 12 hours a night 6 nights a week for 3 of my 8 years at holdens, with almost no time off as we worked through shutdowns. Your wife is nothing special, sorry bro

What did you do about the issue?
 

VineyIsLORD

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Who DOESN'T work 12-14 hour days these days?

I worked 12 hours a night 6 nights a week for 3 of my 8 years at holdens, with almost no time off as we worked through shutdowns. Your wife is nothing special, sorry bro

I don't but my workplace is unionised.

Used to pull 14 hour days in my former life. Guess what the union representation was like there?
 
Who DOESN'T work 12-14 hour days these days?

I worked 12 hours a night 6 nights a week for 3 of my 8 years at holdens, with almost no time off as we worked through shutdowns. Your wife is nothing special, sorry bro

Ftr

The takeaway wasn't the hours worked but how initiative is rewarded

You can rely on a union who will take their kick back or drive things yourself. Different solutions will work in different places but at least try.
 

DemonTim

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Who DOESN'T work 12-14 hour days these days?

I worked 12 hours a night 6 nights a week for 3 of my 8 years at holdens, with almost no time off as we worked through shutdowns. Your wife is nothing special, sorry bro
According to stats, most people
Average actual hours worked per week in all jobs have generally decreased over the past 32 years, from approximately 35.5 hours in early-1978 to approximately 33 hours in 2010. Hours worked peaked in 1979, which roughly coincided with full-time employment peaking at around 86% of employed people (which occurred in January 1979). From this high, average actual weekly hours worked fell during the early-1980s economic downturn, driven by a sharp fall in the hours worked of full-time employed persons. Since then, hours worked have, in general, decreased: from 1984 to 2000, average actual weekly hours worked per employed person remained between 34 and 35 hours. Average actual weekly hours worked then trended down after 2000, falling below 34 hours. A rapid increase in hours worked occured between mid- and end-2007, just before the economic downturn of 2008-09. Since the economic downturn there have been further falls in average hours.
 

frenchfri12

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A simple quick solution to so many of the problems we have with unions would be to ban cross-industry unions. Building Company A can have their own union, and Building Company B can have their own union, but no CMFEU to act as the union for both. This (properly enforced) would solve so many problems, as individual companies would be too small in general to have any outside union be able to profit from corruption.
 
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Unions definitely have a place in the certain workplaces and industries where 'dirty' and dangerous work is involved. I work at one of those sites and our employer would in an instant screw us over in terms of rostering, hours, safety, pay, maintenance etc if allowed free reign. I'm actually quite happy to be paying $1,700 a year in fees to them.
 

Schism

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i worked at Xstrata copper refinery in Townsville for a while, doing a job we called "clearing shorts". I doubt many union haters or just many people in general have any idea just how putrid and dangerous a job can be. You're not really qualified to even have a say on unions, companies or OH&S until you've done a job like that Xstrata job. Apart from a couple of leading hands who had been there a couple years because they no longer had to actually do the grunt work, that job had a turnover of about 1-2 months. Anyone who thinks they're a hard man should have a go at it. I doubt the job even exists anymore.

I've not met a woman that i think can do it. Then again, even welding on the front crossmember and IRS lines in the metal fab plants at Holden was off-limits to women, and those lines weren't THAT heavy duty

I think most of you on here live in a fantasy world, you actually have no idea what hard work is. especially the ones who think large companies would do the right thing by employees if there were no unions

hard work is not sitting in an office, or anything remotely related to admin, office work, etc etc. I don't care how many hours you do.
 
Unions definitely have a place in the certain workplaces and industries where 'dirty' and dangerous work is involved. I work at one of those sites and our employer would in an instant screw us over in terms of rostering, hours, safety, pay, maintenance etc if allowed free reign. I'm actually quite happy to be paying $1,700 a year in fees to them.

Employers don't have free reign though, that is largely thanks to the unions but they are largely redundant now. We have the Fair Work Commission which is an independent body with the power and authority to regulate and enforce provisions relating to minimum wages, employment conditions, enterprise bargaining, industrial action, dispute resolution and termination of employment.

You could just abolition the unions and expand the FWC to be better able to deal with general employee gripes.

In terms of minimum wage, money doesn't just grow on trees, it has to come from somewhere. Who is going to pay increases to it? Most people assume it comes from the business owners, invariably it doesn't. A business needs to be able to make a certain amount of money, or profit, to be more viable than just leaving your investment in the bank or some other form of investment. Depending on the risk you need to be making a certain percentile return on investment otherwise it is pointless investing in and running that business.

So what happens when the minimum wage goes up? They pass that cost to the consumer and that is felt across the board, everything from a loaf of bread, a bottle of milk to your luxury items is now more expensive and the value of the money and it's purchasing power impacts the value of everything and impacts the value of the currency in different nations.

In 1975 the average full time earnings was $7,618, it is now more than $72,000. That is awesome, right? But the average house in Sydney cost $28,000 in 1975, it is now $995,000, more than 35x what it was. The average loaf of bread was $0.24 in 1975, it is now about $3, approximately 12.5x. So how great is that 9.5x increase in average earnings?

If just giving everyone more money was a perfect solution, why not make the minimum wage $1m per year? Everyone can earn a million dollars a year no matter how bad the job was. It just makes inflation spiral out of control until the currency has no value at all. That is what is happening with the minimum wage, at a slower rate, it is a perceptively small annual change, but cumulative it is significant. We are in effect deliberately altering the value of our currency and anyone who is not significantly above the median earning range will find they are slipping backwards.

It is not as big a crux for older people who are well established but if the trend continues then it will be diabolic for future generations.
 
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I think unionism is definitely placing Australia in a pecarious position. It's all well and good giving great wages and conditions during booms, but there is always a cost to that. The inflated wages we all receive in in Australia gives us an excellent standard of living for now, but it's at the cost of our manufacturing industry.

At the end of the day the unions should be a mechanism to provide a better balance of power between workers and companies. There are instances where a large union can railroad a small company that the balance has gone too far in the favour of the worker, and having no unions can lead to the balance of power being too far in the favour of a large company.
 

CLUBMEDhurst

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Employers don't have free reign though, that is largely thanks to the unions but they are largely redundant now. We have the Fair Work Commission which is an independent body with the power and authority to regulate and enforce provisions relating to minimum wages, employment conditions, enterprise bargaining, industrial action, dispute resolution and termination of employment.

.

Cool. I'll just cease my union membership (which has just negotiated an EBA). As if psych nurses need a union, you know they're never assaulted and having to manage increasingly large caseloads of mentally unwell clients. As if the unions could assist with this.

You live in dream land, Pal. Unions are needed now more than ever. Have you not noticed the creeping casualisation of the workforce? Or are you only concerned with those that are tertiary educated?
 

Watchyourwaite

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Like feminism, unions were once very important. But aren't needed any more.
I get a contract I sign it and I get paid.
Unions are just for people who don't like to work. You can always pick the union rep in the staff room. Long haired guy always on sick leave.
 

Watchyourwaite

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Which would make it unlikely that they'd be in the staff room. You're lying again, aren't you?
More stalking.

Where have I lied?

Let me be clearer for you.
The person is on sick leave a lot more often than any one else.
At least one day per week. Normally a Monday or a Friday.
 

Watchyourwaite

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Your evidence is convincing.
What evidence. Are we in court?

I bet your the male nurse union rep.
Why dont you put up more stickers and complain about being expected to work for your salary.
 
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