The inconvenient truth of work is that one doesn’t have a job unless our employer is successful. Of course it is well accepted Australia’s wealth was created from the sweat of many a worker; and it is also equally true to suggest it would not have been created without investment risk from an employer.
Yet it seems this concept is missed within the Government’s Fair Work Australia legislation currently under review in the Senate. This bill is based upon the concept that employees have rights (which they clearly do, but only when work is offered) but the bill fails to recognise the concept that work is created by an employer, and employee rights are reduced in order for employers to manage their investment.
Under new workplace law, the Government is telling the risk-taking employer: “We don’t trust you to treat your employees well and we shall have our union mates check on you whenever they like.”
The assumption the Minister and the labour movement make is Australia still has mass employment workplaces with master/servant mentalities where management tries to wring every last piece of respect and effort from a worker. In reality, mass employers disappeared as industries were exported overseas.
The clear majority of workplaces in Australia are small or micro businesses and can’t be successful under a master/servant employment arrangement. It is a false premise to suggest employers mistreat their most important assets. This shows scant respect for the engine room of the economy being small business.
When John Howard introduced workplace agreements during his first term, employees were for the first time able to negotiate their own work arrangements. During that time Australia had significant growth in new business start ups, which in turn led to increased employment opportunities.
Employers create jobs – not governments or unions. During this time, unions began to become irrelevant and union membership halved because the days of confrontation were long exported along with the industries and jobs sick of the restriction placed upon an employer to manage their investment.
The Howard government won four elections promising to disband the corrupt “go away money” regime (more commonly called unfair dismissal), which is simply unaffordable for a small business. To prevent being exposed to unfair dismissal claims by serial claimants, small business employers stopped creating work opportunities and casualised their work force. Unfair dismissal and the subsequent work force casualisation diminished the security of employment for workers.
WorkChoices threatened people’s basic sense of job security – a sense of security ignored by the Howard government. This fear allowed the unions to once again have a purpose and voice, which ultimately led to Howard’s downfall.
The most fundamentally flawed propaganda campaign was washed over the community during the last few years creating a belief we are back in the master/servant era and the words “workplace agreement” became the words of political hate. Nothing could have been further from the truth. But the union movement saw the opportunity – as Howard overextended his power – to reclaim their own slab of power.
So now it is payback time for the union movement’s support with electioneering and the Rudd Government has delivered significantly. The Fair Work Australia bill takes us back to pre-Keating; it takes us back to where unions have right of entry to breach privacy and freedom of association laws; it takes us back to confrontation; it takes us back to pattern bargaining and other revenue raises for the union movement… but most importantly it takes us back to unemployment.
With the threat of industrial litigation about to come back, the equal and opposite reaction is less job opportunities. Right now we have the lowest unemployment rate for decades; new entry for small businesses are at the highest levels for decades; we have young people in demand to join the workforce. Why would you want to change a system creating those opportunities?
A study of the Fair Work Australia bill provides the evidence of a return to the master/servant thinking; it provides evidence of reducing an employer’s right to manage a workforce fairly and with privacy; it provides overwhelming evidence of an increase in union power; and it provides a guide to how employment opportunities will diminish.
As union power increases so do employer costs, compliance and worry. In the long run this bill will place reservation within a future investor thinking about entering the market as an employer. The Senate can provide a balance of fairness to the legislation and as the technicians of the Parliament they must accept this responsibility.
Richard Evans is the executive director of the Australian Retailers Association.
Patrick Stafford is a freelance journalist and a former deputy editor of SmartCompany.
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