Good idea Caveman, but the reason the laborites/unions protest in the streets, etc, is usually because they are the uneducated people within society whom depend on everything staying constant or decreasing (ie productivity levels) with the exception of benefits increasing (remuneration and equivilent benefits).
They strive to achieve more personal benefit with lesser effort. They use catch-phrases and keywords such as 'aussie battlers', 'fairness', 'fair-share' in a bid to distribute wealth from productive people to non-productive people.
The unions breed off this band of lazyiness, in that they understand there will always be a group of Australians that will never aspire (mostly by choice), and therefore implicitly support the overall degradation of efficiency of Australian workplaces, all in the short-term cause of increasing their own self-interests of profiting from members. Members are usually unaware that their unions really do not support them, but only support cases which directly increase the growth of their membership base.
Unfortunately our current federal government also subscribes to this logic. They rely heavily upon the union movement for funding to ensure their government is re-elected, irrespective of whether they have good policy for the Australian people or not. Again, another strong example of self-interest. The labor party, just like the unions, only govern for themselves, not their constituents.
True representative unionism, whereby the interests of both the employer and employee is honoured is rare, but welcome. This provides the productivity increases required, and also compensatory arrangements for employees. This would allow Australia to become more competitive against our foreign competitors, enable wage increases, increase government revenue via new taxation receipts and complete the circle to provide an increase to the overall standard of living. Unfortunately Australia does not have such unionism.
Australia, via the Gillard government, does not have forward policy or direction.
Australia is currently "closed for business" -- a policy-free zone.
