07 November 2011 in Media
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Industrial disputes of national significance are akin to an all out war. The parties put aside rules of engagement, use whatever tactics are required to achieve victory and sadly cause significant collateral damage on innocent parties. The Qantas dispute is no different.
For months the unions involved in the industrial action against Qantas have been using every tactic in the book to cause disruption and damage to the company while trying to achieve their industrial aims. As far back as May this year the engineers union leader Steve Purvinas said it would be ‘wise for passengers to consider all their options when travelling’ because as his colleague at the TWU, Mick Pieri said in September ‘we’re at the start of a war’. The TWU was very open about their tactics in this war when in September their NSW Secretary Wayne Forno said that their members had ‘the power to make Qantas grind to a halt all over Australia’. These extreme threats brought no response from the Labor Government. Only when Purvinas repeated his travel warning on October 11 did a Labor Minister express concern about the union threats.
Yet following Qantas’ inevitable reaction to this industrial campaign on the afternoon of the 29th of October, a conga line of Labor Ministers and members lined up to belt the management of Qantas while at the same time suggesting that the unions were doing nothing other than wearing red ties. The Prime Minister called Qantas actions ‘extreme’, Bill Shorten said it was a ‘high handed ambush’ and that there was ‘no case for this radical over-reaction’ and the caucus secretary Nick Champion suggested in Parliament that the new Qantas symbol was the ‘angry leprechaun’, presumably as an attempt to poke fun at Mr Joyce’s Irish background.
This obvious bias shouldn’t be surprising given Labor members are the political face of the trade union bosses in the Federal Parliament.
Whilst the Labor Government constantly claims the so called Fair Work Act got the balance right as we now see playing out in workplaces across Australia, Labor introduced a system that guarantees unions a say over whatever happens in every workplace. The Prime Minister made an important point on the day Qantas announced its action when she said that the so-called Fair Work Act was operating as intended.
To think that this dispute is limited to Qantas is wrong. Some of Australia’s biggest employers from Toyota to BHP are facing rolling union campaigns and strikes. On top of this recent surveys of employers in the struggling manufacturing industry identify the so called Fair Work Act, with over 60 sections that increased union power as responsible for introducing barriers to productivity growth and labour flexibility.
Labor’s insulting response to criticisms of its union friendly laws has been to blame employers for not being smart enough and accuse others of wanting to return to WorkChoices.
Wrong. As former member of the Productivity Commission Judith Sloan observed recently the real impediments to greater workplace efficiency and therefore productivity growth have nothing to do with wages but everything to do with restrictions on the way in which workplaces can be managed. In the real world real wages can only rise in line with productivity.
The biggest threat to productivity is the dead hand of the Fair Work Act which is replete with examples of rules entrenching a union veto over changes in the workplace and throw hurdles in the way of productivity.
These include the so called good faith bargaining system, the flawed award flexibility arrangements, the restrictions on the engagement of contractors, the ability of unions to intervene even where agreements are supported by the majority of employees and the general protection provisions that are quickly becoming a lawyers’ picnic.
The Fair Work Act has given unions a veto over what happens in any workplace and between any employer and employee whether they have members there or not.
Australians demand the right to make their own decisions. Working smarter not harder and improving productivity means giving employers and employees the freedom to choose.
Labor’s workplace wind back is all about union power. Witness the decision this week to proceed with the plans to abolish the ABCC, the body that has helped prevent industrial war on our building sites for the best part of the last decade.
Sadly while Labor’s ‘fair’ laws operate we will see many more industrial wars.