Society/Culture Unionism is holding Australia back

[VineyIsLORD]

Employers are meant to pay more to attract and retain the best staff.

But whats the motivation to do so when you can hire foreign labour to do it for cheaper anyway?

 

[Scotland]

Return on investment.

Companies headhunt and pay big dollars to attract professionals, CEOs etc. because they see it in their best interests. Attract a partner or director from a big firm and you're getting someone who brings experience, clients and contacts. Hire a graduate (no need to look overseas) and you're getting someone who can do tasks.

Wesfarmers is the biggest non-govt employer in Australia. If Richard Goyder resigned tomorrow they'd be very particular about who they want to take over and would offer a salary in the millions. The majority of their 200,000 employees would just be paid in accordance with awards/EBAs, though. The only way they're going to start paying shelf stackers and checkout chicks at Coles $50/hr is if the govt says they have to or people start paying $10 for a bottle of milk or loaf of bread. At that level they're looking for bodies to do tasks, and there's a spectrum in between that and CEO level. Also one CEO on say $10m a year costs $10m. A pay rise of $1/hr for 200,000 costs $416m.

Australians tend to be funny about wages. Happy to demand a floor, never worried about a ceiling. Australian boilermakers, electricians etc. didn't suddenly become the best in the world, wages went up because the resource boom saw increased demand for their services. The boom has subsided but plenty still think they deserve 6 figures for getting out of bed.

We tend to go all 'dey took errr jerrrbs' about foreign labour/products too. We complain about contracts going offshore, being put through to call centres in the Philippines etc. while driving our Thailand built cars to Harvey Norman to pick up a Samsung TV and Apple iPhone before zipping through the McDonald's drive though on the way home to site on the couch made in China and book a flight to Bali on Air Asia because it's too expensive to holiday locally or use Qantas.