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Message started by whiteknight on Feb 9th, 2019 at 6:00am

Title: Wider Strikes Are Needed To Restore Balance
Post by whiteknight on Feb 9th, 2019 at 6:00am
Wider strikes are needed to restore balance, says McManus   :)
February 8, 2019
Sydney Morning Herald
 

The union movement will push a Labor government to ensure that workers can take industry-wide strike action as part of a promised revamp of bargaining laws.

Labor has promised to take a policy to allow bargaining in certain sector across a number of employers – a practise known as pattern bargaining – to the next election but has declined to spell out if it will allow strikes as part of that reform.


Australian Council of Trade Unions (ACTU) national secretary Sally McManus said on Friday that any such policy would need to include the ability for workers to take strike action in support of their demands.

Employers have warned that the move could see a return to the industrial strife seen in the last century when whole industries were wracked by strikes but Ms McManus said the move was needed to reflect changes in the economy which had made single enterprise bargaining much less effective.


Ms McManus said that Labor had recognised that situation and that another method of setting wages and conditions was needed beyond sector-wide awards and business-specific agreements.

"There needs to be other options, they need to be available when enterprise bargaining isn't available," she told the Melbourne Press Club on Friday, adding that examples could include long supply chains where wages were set a long way up a commercial chain from the individual worker.

    If you don't have strikes as part of your bargaining tools, you're in a much weaker bargaining position.
    Sally McManus

"Industrial action has to be available for multi [business] bargaining just as it is available for enterprise bargaining. If you don't have strikes as part of your bargaining tools, you're in a much weaker bargaining position."

As part of that, strikes would be needed as a "last resort", she said.

"No-one wants to take strike action and usually even just having it as a right means there's more likely to be agreements made and agreements [made] without having to [walk out]."

Strikes are not permitted as part of the award-setting process.

Ms McManus dismissed government criticism as a scare campaign, saying other developed countries which had multi-enterprise bargaining did not have any greater rate of strikes.

She dismissed concerns from the government and business leaders about the potential for disruption.

"It's not the 1970s ... we've got a totally different labour market, we're open to the world," she said.

"It won't got back to those days, it just won't."

Industrial Relations Minister Kelly O'Dwyer said the union push for strike action as part of pattern bargaining would disrupt the economy.

"Industry-wide strikes have the potential to cripple large parts of Australia's economy, reducing growth and costing jobs," Ms O'Dwyer said.

Title: Re: Wider Strikes Are Needed To Restore Balance
Post by Ye Grappler on Feb 9th, 2019 at 6:03am
Workplace agreements have failed to do the job..... time for some of the 'flexibility' to return to the other side ..... it's not a one way street, you know... petty Fascism is passe` these days.... and someone who works for a living isn't a vassal of the state or of the employer.... but has equal rights.

Title: Re: Wider Strikes Are Needed To Restore Balance
Post by PZ547 on Feb 9th, 2019 at 6:21am
.
Hard to believe that in 2019, with recent history accessible

that a Labor candidate would be out there spruiking a return to strike action

considering the mainly useless foreign labour mobs rattling the gates to be let in

Far be it for Shorten to be assuring unemployed, underemployed Aussies that he'll be doing something to stem the millions of foreigners desperate to take the few jobs left

no, true to form, he's already going on about strike action

when there aren't enough employed or union members for it to matter

wasn't Morrison in Vanuatu last week, arranging to bring them over to work?  Been to Vanuatu?  Exactly what type of skilled labour is he intending to bring to our shores to fill the non-existent 'labour shortage'?

No WAY will either of those traitorous clowns get my vote

and Shorten should be stuffed and mounted as an example of what destroyed this country under Labor

Title: Re: Wider Strikes Are Needed To Restore Balance
Post by Pedro Curevo on Feb 9th, 2019 at 7:06am
Considering the pendulum has swung too far to favour the employer under the coalition with its anti strike laws a balance needs to be made.

Norway is a good example of collective bargaining, their economy has not gone down the plug hole and is flourishing with consumer spending.

LNP trickle down economic thinking is backward.

Title: Re: Wider Strikes Are Needed To Restore Balance
Post by John Smith on Feb 9th, 2019 at 8:54am
giving all the power to the employers hasn't worked. last decade has seen tremendous growth, and employees haven't seen a cent of it. 

Trickle down is a myth designed to fool the mentally challenged, such as the right wingers.

Title: Re: Wider Strikes Are Needed To Restore Balance
Post by Ajax on Feb 9th, 2019 at 10:30am
Its the politicians fault for bowing the knee to the oligarchy.

Lets remind these f@rkers who elects them and why they are there at the coming election.


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