wage growth is a no brainer.

if a worker makes himself "more valuable", then he goes to the boss and says "i am more valuable" and the boss acknowledges this fact and a higher wage is applied commensurate with the increased value of the worker.

now if you are "fat steve ' from the CFMEU and you think you should get a wage rise

because
because
well just because !!!!

then you are a bloody moron 

With wage growth on the blink, it's time to restore union bargaining power   

27 July 2018
Sydney Morning Herald


Can you believe that many economists were disappointed by this week’s news from the Australian Bureau of Statistics that consumer prices rose by only 2.1 per cent over the year to June?

Why would anyone wish inflation was higher than it is? Well, not because there’s anything intrinsically terrific about fast-rising prices, but because of what a slow rate of increase tells us about the state of the economy.


Workers are stuck in a low-wage growth environment.


It’s usually a symptom of weak growth in economic activity and, in particular, of weak growth in wages. Prices and wages have a chicken-and-egg relationship. By far the most important factor that pushes up prices is rising wages.

But, as measured by the bureau’s wage price index, wages rose by just 2.1 per cent over the year to March, roughly keeping up with prices, but not getting ahead of them.

We’re used to wages growing each year by 1 per cent-plus faster than prices, but such “real” growth hasn’t happened for the past four years or so (which probably explains why so many people are complaining about the high “cost of living” even when price rises are so small).


It’s important to understand that wages can grow faster than prices without that causing higher inflation, provided there is sufficient improvement in workers’ productivity – output per hour worked – to cover the real increase.

Of late we’ve had that productivity improvement, but all the benefit of it has stayed with business profits, rather than being shared between capital and labour by means of increases in real wages.

I’ve said it before and I’ll keep saying it until it’s no longer relevant: the economy won’t be back to healthy growth until we’re back to healthy growth in real wages. That’s for two reasons.

First, in a capitalist economy like ours, the “social contract” between the capitalists and the rest of us says that the people without much capital get their reward mainly via higher real wages leading to higher living standards.


Consumer spending has slowed because of the lack of real wage growth.


Second, consumer spending accounts for more than half the demand for goods and services in the economy; consumer spending is done from households’ income, and by far the greatest source of household income is wages.

So, as a general proposition, if wages aren’t growing in real terms, there won’t be much real growth in household income and, in that case, there won’t be much real growth in consumer spending. And the less enthusiastic we are about buying their stuff, the less keen businesses will be to invest in expansion.

Get it? Of all the drivers of economic growth, by far the most important is real wage growth. If your economy’s real wage growth’s on the blink, you’ve got a problem. You won’t get far.

Economists used to believe that real wage growth in line with trend improvement in the productivity of labour was built into the equilibrating mechanism of a capitalist economy. A chap called Alfred Marshall first came up with that idea.


But with each further quarter of weak price and wage increase it’s becoming clearer it was a product of industrial relations laws that boosted workers’ economic power by helping them form unions and bargain collectively with employers.

As has happened in most rich countries, our governments, Labor and Coalition, have been “reforming” our wage-fixing process since the early 1990s by reducing union rights and encouraging workers to bargain as individuals rather than groups.

Trouble is, governments have been weakening legislative support for workers and their unions at just the time that powerful natural economic forces – globalisation and greater trade between rich and poor countries, “skill-biased” technological change, the shift from manufacturing to services – have been weakening the bargaining power of labour.   

Whoops. In hindsight, maybe not such a smart “reform”. My guess is it won’t be long before governments decide they need to promote real wage growth by restoring legislative support for unions and collective bargaining.With wage growth on the blink, it's time to restore union bargaining power

My Jove the GetUp! inspired propaganda parrot Blackday is in full flight as he squawks the anti-Australian Union propaganda.


Aussies have been propagandized for generations and many still lack understanding of concepts such as a free market, deregulation & wages resulting from productivity.

John Howard came out today criticizing Turnbull for not doing more to remove the imposts on the labour market & the Australian economy by union nonsense.

I'd expect push-back from right & left against that very suggestion.

Heavens the anti-Australian union propaganda parrot BlackDay is cornered and turning snarly.

Now Australia's greatest ever PM explains the danger of the redundant hostile unions' sabotage and extortion.




John Howard calls for action on 'unfinished' industrial relations reform
by David Marin-Guzman Aug 8 2018 at 11:34 AM Updated Aug 8 2018 at 11:34 AM


John Howard addresses AMMA's Centenary Gala Dinner, attended by senior Turnbull ministers. YOUTUBE

John Howard has called on the Turnbull government to take action on workplace reform and resist the steady re-regulation of the labour market, at a dinner attended by senior government ministers.

The former prime minister told a closed event celebrating the centenary of the Australian Mines and Metals Association last Wednesday that the country had gone backwards on industrial relations and that the Turnbull government was not doing enough to fix it.

While he "saluted" the Coalition's restoration of the Australian Building and Construction Commission, he warned "many of the other changes brought in by the [Rudd and Gillard] Labor government have not been addressed".

"It's almost as if the collective political community in this country is now scared to talk about industrial relations reform," he said.


Unionists protest outside the AMMA centenary dinner on August 1. Supplied

"But there will be a time when this country will have to turn to the industrial relations agenda.

"There will be a time when much of the re-regulation we've seen over the last few years will begin to grate.

"There will be a time when we will have to resist the attempts of many in the community to impose still further regulation and strangle the activities of our entrepreneurs."

The Melbourne dinner was attended by Attorney General Christian Porter, Minister for Financial Services Kelly O'Dwyer and Minister for Resources Matt Canavan as well as Liberal backbenchers Tim Wilson and former industrial relations minister Eric Abetz.

Victorian unions protested against the event at the time, erecting giant inflatables including a cigar-chomping, moneybag-clutching "Fat Cat".

IR 'unfinished business'
The speech comes as Labor and the Australian Council of Trade Unions are pushing an ambitious industrial relations agenda before the next federal election and unions are calling for a return to industry-wide bargaining.

However, the Turnbull government has so far laid low on workplace reform outside of confronting the militant construction union and regulating internal union activities.

Mr Howard told the dinner that by the time he was defeated in 2007, his government had created the economic climate for low strike levels, 3.9 per cent unemployment and steady real wage growth "in part because of our commitment to industrial relations reform".

He said the economy had now achieved "a trade off between subdued real wage rises against higher unemployment" but warned that could not continue for long.

"The reality is if wage rises remain subdued or non-existent you do produce what can only be called a very grumpy and discontented, irritable middle class who see the value of their wages remain subdued and although their job security may be higher, that is in a sense taken for granted."

The speech praised the waterfront reforms achieved in the Patrick dispute with the maritime union in 1998. Mr Howard said they were the result of a government which had "the courage to bring about reform" and an employer who was "willing to put his hand in the flame".

He said the country needed a "a freer, more open industrial relations system" and that "reforming our workplace system is always unfinished business".

"Unfortunately there is a lot more to be done now because of the re-regulation that has undertaken by a number of governments, particularly the Rudd government and the Gillard government," he said.

"It's rather like being engaged in a never-ending foot race - you never get to the finishing line but you know if you stop running your competitors are going to surge past you."

https://www.afr.com/news/policy/industrial-relations/john-howard-calls-for-actio...

Maybe jimmy could get a job on your farm aquascoot, and work for $2 an hour.   

Proud to be union.   

whiteknight wrote on Aug 10^th, 2018 at 8:31am:



proud to be cheered over the cliff by the shop steward ??