stoush.net

Interesting comparison.
To be honest, I think the most telling thing is that the so-called Liberal Party seems to have totally abandoned any concept of their own ‘freedom of contract’. Why shouldn’t workers and bosses be able to agree on anything they please, unionist provisions included?
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Oh, and don’t worry, should there be anything questionable ever for the Government, rest assured the Reports won’t get read, and they’ll be filed away in the round shreddy filing cabinet.

Yes, because what we need is MORE regulation of labour market conditions.

How original, comparing John Howard to Hitler.

when a valid comparison can be made, why not? after all, the left has been compared to stalin more than a few times…

the point is that there is a genuine and properly explained resemblance between the policy and political actions of one to the other.

it also bears similarities to stalinist command and control management of workplaces - incredibly centralised regulation of what can and cannot be agreed to, harsh punishment for asking for the wrong thing… it’s pretty authoritarian and seemingly arbitrary - you aren’t allowed to freely agree to whatever the minister/OEA decides is prohibited.

ever heard of thoughtcrime? orwell would have had a field day with this! you’re all on your own, you’re all paid too much, you’re not allowed to ask for that…

solitude is togetherness!
poverty is wealth!
prescription is freedom!

No, you have it the wrong way around. The Industrial Relations Commission is Hitler, and John Howard is the Allies.

I don’t get it. Since when did the Industrial Relations Commission invade Poland?

Seriously, The Industrial Relations Commission is an independent third party of judges (appointed by the Government of the day) that either the employer or employee refers disputes for settlement by either mediation or arbitration, as well as the place where awards and enterprise agreements are certified and given their legal enforceability.

What is interesting is that some syndicalist and revolutionary socialist unionist folks that I spoke to believed the Industrial Relations Commission is the ‘bosses court’ that sides with the boss whenever a dispute is placed before them, with any wins for employees and unions being crumbs that keep workers and unions enthralled in the shackles of the arbitration system. In my personal view the Howard Government’s clear favouratism of former employer representatives as their appointments to the IRC gives this some weight. Of course the previous Labor Government heavily favoured former union officials in their appointments, so it does cut both ways.

I doubt that there will be any long term similiarity from the IR to Hitler’s workplace. From memory Hitler’s workplace was actually pretty decent for the workers, though not for anyone else. He looked after the workers fine enough as long as they were German “Anglos”. This is not to compare it with the wartime conditions or the slave labour, just to what the reference was.

Personally I think when Howard’s laws take over, the commen man will be fucked, no discrimination based on race at all.

Just another way to keep the Celt down.

Sorry about your comment being sent to the queue, DF, I’ve now marked it as entirely legitimate and non-spam.
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You may all now continue the increasingly ludicrous historical comparisons.
May I suggest Nick Minchin as Himmler (round glasses), BHP Billiton as the Imperial Japanese Army, Phillip Ruddock as Uncle Joe Stalin, Mark Latham as General Patton (on a bad day in Sicily), the Australian Democrats as the Vichy Government, and Kevin Rudd as Marlene Dietrich?

Alex:

“At Melbourne University Student Union, the Award we have recently signed with the NTEU may now be illegal under the new laws, as it includes provisions to allow payroll deductions for Union dues”.

This clause has been void since about 2004 mate. Whoever advises your student mob and the nteu needs to be sued for negligence. You cannot have clauses like that in agreements/awards thanks to the High Court decision in Electrolux. Your whole Award is now likely unenforceable.

As for your comment that Union ‘leaders’ such as Greg Combet have said they wont pay the fines. Of course they wont, Combet wont cop a fine for negotiating an Agreement. He simply does not do it. Combet loves to trump himself up but he aint in the firing line. As is always the case, its the people on the shop floor who are really in the firing line not some show pony based in melbourne.

How original, comparing John Howard to Hitler.

I’m sorry… Did I?

I was commenting on state intervention into labour relations and the workplace. I’d also note that Stalin’s regime had a very similar situation to Nazi Germany, although the factory bosses in Germany were private business, while all factories and businesses in Russia were owned by the state.

In any case, let’s talk about the systems, not the people.

This clause has been void since about 2004 mate. Whoever advises your student mob and the nteu needs to be sued for negligence. You cannot have clauses like that in agreements/awards thanks to the High Court decision in Electrolux. Your whole Award is now likely unenforceable.

I’m inclined to believe our lawyers, rather than an anonymous blog commenter.

Alex White “I’m sorry, did I?

I was commenting on state intervention into Labour relations…”

Are you on the pipe? You gave a news quote about the “Howard government” IR process and than outlined Hitler’s siezure of power in comparison. I did not see any reference to a hundred more valid comparisons.

I did not see any reference to a hundred more valid comparisons.

I’m not reading about about “100 more valid camparisons”. I am however reading The Dictators.

I’m certainly not saying that Nazi Germany is anyway comparable to Howard’s Australia.

In any case, the issue of this level of state control and regulation into the minutiae of workplace relations is, to say the least, concerning and grossly unnecessary.

Alex….a bit of a quote for you:

[227] I am not persuaded that clause 46 of the Agreement is a matter which pertains to the relationship between the employer and employees bound by the Agreement . The High Court’s judgments in Portus and Alcan are directly on point and should be followed. If a provision prescribing a bargaining agent’s fee cannot be included in a certified agreement on the basis of the reasoning in these cases then clearly a provision that the employer deduct union dues from an employee’s wages and remit them to the union cannot be included.

This was a recent decision of the AIRC in KL Ballantyne. The High Court in Electrolux confirmed Portus and Alcan. The quote comes from a decision made by VP Ross who came from the ACTU so he is hardly likely to whack Unions for the fun of it.

Now that I have seen your response, I do not think it was the lawyers who did not understand how it worked but rather it was you! Do you control this Union? If so, they should send you to an IR course.

That doesn’t prevent payroll deductions per se does it though larrylaffer? Can employees still pay their couple of dollars a fortnight if they want to, without an EBA clause saying they can?
Incidentally the NTEU are very foolish if they’re insisting on promoting payroll deductions to their members. If things keep going in (oh) about three years’ time there’ll be almost no full-time or permanent part-time university employees left, save management and tradies. It’ll be rolling ten-week contracts from full professors on down, and it’s going to be pretty hard to work out the payroll deductions when the casuals don’t know how much they’ll be paid from week to week.
And they still don’t encourage casuals to join at my uni.
Palm, meet forehead.
[slap]

actually, while electrolux doesn’t prevent payroll deductions, it does create precedent that will prevail if the agreement is challenged in the commission. Portus determined that payroll deductions were not part of the employment relationship - that they were akin to the relationship between a financial agent and an organisation. So if the employer decides that they don’t like what the union is trying to do, they can spend lotsa motsa and overthrow the agreement purely because of the payroll deductions clause. If the employer is so obviously against the thing, they are clearly not going to allow payroll deduction to continue. So union dues will have to be organised out of the employee’s bank account at the employee’s cost.

On a lazy Sunday afternoon, I was sadly, undertaking a bit of a review of the soon to commence Workchoices Act. In my review, I stumbled across this provision:

“Section 828 - No imprisonment in default.
In spite of the provisions of any other law, a court may not direct that a person shall serve a sentence of imprisonment in default of the payment of a fine or other pecuniary penalty imposed under this Act or the BCII Act”.

So Combet, in trumpetting the fact that he wont pay the fines has presumably done so, knowing that he wont go to the jail even if, as unlikely as it is, he cops a fine.

Not sending people to Jail for not paying these fines is smart. It does not create martyrs and silently bankrupts those that do not pay in a less than public manner. Bankrupting the enemy is of course a large part of the Howard Government plan. They do not care if Unionists are not in Jail because presumably they estimate that the movement is so weak that industrial action and mass civil disobediance is unlikely (Even if they could pull something like this off, its unlikely the leadership of the various Unions would try it). Therefore, the only weapon that the Unions have is their financial resources and this, they presume, will be destroyed with fines and bankruptcy proceedings. We live in interesting times…..

Wait a minute… if the Act prevents people from going to jail for fine defaulting, what ultimate penalty is there for doing it?
Govt: “Pay us $30,000”
Union: “No”
Govt: “Oh please”

Oh, I was looking forward to Laffer’s response to that one.