industrial relations
Second Class Workers
Billionaire Harvey Normam chief wants to create a second class of worker - comprised of foreigners - with lower pay and fewer rights than domestic workers.
BILLIONAIRE retailer Gerry Harvey says Australia needs a two-tier wage system to allow employers to pay foreign guest workers less than locals.
The Harvey Norman boss said Australia’s prosperity was creating a labour shortage and endangering the nation’s competitiveness.
He said a growing number of Australian manufacturers were moving overseas, where cheap labour was plentiful.
He called on the Federal Government to allow foreign workers on fixed visas to form a second tier to the labour market.
“Australia doesn’t have cheap labour. Many overseas workers would be prepared to move here for a much better life and half the money Australians earn,” he said.
“When you get unemployment down to four per cent, to three per cent, to two per cent, business can’t get the labour.
“I’ve got horse studs and it’s difficult to get staff.
“Workers would rather work in the mines where they get paid twice as much.
“Fruit- picking companies are relying on backpackers.”
I’m sure we all feel sorry for Gerry and his understaffed horse-studs.
An open letter to Kevin Rudd and Julia Gillard from Michele O'Neil, Assistant National Secretary TCFU
Dear Kevin and Julia,
Don’t you get it?
I represent some of the lowest paid workers in the country. They sweat in backyard garages, shopfronts, and factories to make the clothes on your back. Some of our members have now faced three years without a pay increase. If they are still getting the minimum rates, and many are not, they take home about $460 each week. If they work at home as outworkers they likely get $3 to $5 an hour.
Yesterday one of the union’s officials described how after a call from a worker, she went to a factory and the employer made her sit for two hours in a small room. The boss said that if any worker wanted to see her they were welcome. He didn’t tell the workers the union was on site. He wouldn’t let the union notice advising workers that the union was coming, go up on the notice board. And he sat a supervisor at the door of the room. No worker came to the room.
A worker rang the union describing payment of $4 an hour. For us to inspect the time and wage book in the factory I have to name the worker, something she doesn’t want me to do as she says she’ll be bullied and sacked. She’s scared and asks me, “why cant you fix this without the boss knowing that I rang the union?” Under the Right of Entry Laws you’ve promised to keep, I cannot.
Earlier this year, one of my members was badly injured when the company under those same Right of Entry Laws, forced him to walk outside in the dark during a nightshift to a room 10 minutes away from where he worked to speak to his union. He fell and broke both his hands and doesn’t have good prospects of returning to work.
Last week we received two calls from women workers in tears because they were being forced to give up their rights by signing an AWA in order to keep their job. They signed the AWA because they were threatened. The same AWAs which you will now leave in place for five years. Under those Right of Entry laws, because all the workers are on AWAs, we have no right to enter that workplace or visit our members.
You know that television ad from the ‘Business Action’ coalition with 3 thuggish blokes turning off the power in a clothing factory? Did you believe it? Would you like to meet the women who work for this union trying to get into workplaces that exploit textile, clothing and footwear workers? You could listen to our stories about what really happens when we try to use ‘Right of Entry.’
My experience of violence and thuggery is of a company boss pulling a large chopping knife out of his draw and placing it on the desk between us as he explained that he didn’t employ any outworkers and that I should leave his factory now.
We like other unions, have spent our hard earned union members’ money on the ACTU’s campaign which has increased your chances of being elected. How do I keep explaining to them what a vote for you will mean? They can’t wait until 2010 for justice and fairness or rights – that’s like asking them to wait for another election. They need them and deserve them right now. Stand up for the members of my union or don’t expect us to stand up for you.
I invite you both to take a day to spend on the road with an official of my union visiting factories and sweatshops, so you can understand and reconsider today’s announcement.
In unity,
Michele O’Neil
Victorian State Secretary
National Assistant Secretary
Textile Clothing and Footwear Union of Australia (TCFUA)
The Oz: drawing conclusions without reading the data
The rubbish that comes out of The Australian’s editorials day after day should cease to amaze, but doesn’t. After all, the various attack dogs or attack dogs in training. But there are times like this morning where I can’t help but feel disbelief.
The editorial is arguing that this week’s Newspoll shows that Labor should be remaking its IR policy in ‘moderate, modern and reformist’ terms. Subtext: Stick it to the unions or else. This is the clear message that a drop in Labor’s primary vote is sending to the Opposition Leader. Apparently…
What more could the ALP want?
“If they’re shooting at you, you must be doing something right”
…Or so it would seem anyway for Labor at the moment. As any two-bit analyst would tell you, the last two weeks have been tough for Labor. And as they were all saying until the trio of the Morgan, Galaxy and Newspoll results came through – it must really be the end of the honeymoon this time.
Warn the other workers . . .
Rudd has the taste of our blood
(explanation forthcoming)