Australia should not buckle to China, we can win the war!!

Originally posted by wbddrss: ↑

this argument is all anecdotal.

I was talking to an asian , more than 10 years ago and he said when he lost his job to borg warner in sydney he was surprised at loss of income when he changed unions.

2. My brother in law use to work mines at helensburgh in Sydney in 70's . He said when he worked multiple shifts he would pull in before tax nearly a 1000 per week.

Wharfies , oil refinery operators, blah blah blah; all had well above avg wages. All due to unions.

in 78 as a lab assistant with a degree I was on 10k a year. Down the markets fork lift drivers were on 15k a year. All due to unions pushing up costs. Factories closed everywhere. My 10k was market driven.. The 15 k pa was due to unions putting wages up.

This I believe is anecdotal evidence that factory workers priced themselves out of international markets.

wbddrss

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While you have a point, it is also pointless. Factories in Australia did not close because unions drove up wages too high.
To compete with factories in China, Taiwan, Korea, Thailand etc Australian workers would have to accept salaries of $250 a month. That is simply not going to work in Australia.
But, and here is why your post it pointless, there are several other reasons why the factories would not have stayed in here regardless of wages.
Factories in these other countries are huge because they have a labor supply that can staff them. Many workers live on dormitories on site because the factories are so large it would be impossible for them to get to and from their shift if they lived in the burbs.
Australians, rightfully so demand a quality of life that these factories cannot supply. They want to have a family, buy a house and follow the football or whatever.
No city in Australia have that sort of labor supply that is flexible enough to staff these factories.
These factories are often subject to very loose environmental laws that if we accepted here would make our cities polluted cesspools.
Large multinationals set up off shore because of all these and other factors. Wages was just one of the reasons and making some Australians work for a pittance would not have saved the jobs.
It is always professional people who complain they are underpaid and think unionised labor is earning huge salaries that make the point that unions ruined the country. Wait until AI destroy professional jobs and you will hear another story.