While the Government says it wants to prevent industry-wide bargaining - known as pattern bargaining - by unions, it has established an office to help employers do it. Why?
In response Jonesy unilaterally says " "Why?" Could it be that jobs for workers are provided by employers and not by unions? "
AND yes that is elementary ....... but employers are not providers so much as buyers in the market to buy workers. Unions don't do that do they?
Unions are concerned in the selling side of things and if they are cut out of the market we have then created an artificial buyer's market with no balance of competing interests. i.e. Remove competition in order to be competitive is illogical. Such a unilateral model will only lead to a greater focus on short term capital productivity at the expense of labour productivity. There will be no need to improve labour productivity and in this process it is more than saying that unions are irrelevant because it assumes that all workers with their skills and talents count for little.
Whilst I have always supported the need for flexibility and continuing labour market reform it is always in the context of competing interests. Only through balance can there be long term gains. What we see with this government is what they term a generational opportunity to implement an extreme belief which is already manifested by skill shortages in crucial areas of the economy.
OH, it also becomes a generational opportunity for Commonwealth law to override State legislation.
