freediver wrote Yesterday at 2:35pm:
Quote:Do you agree that unions have only caused a small number of closed businesses
and most of the time it was excessive Govt. taxes and MBA dickheads that closed them down?
No.
I also think it is irrelevant.
Bobby, I suspect you are still confused about what I am saying. I am not saying that unions are the only cause of unemployment. Therefor, identifying other causes of unemployment is irrelevant. It does not make a rational counterargument. Unions still cause unemployment, whether they cause 0.01% of unemployment or 99.9% of unemployment. I have explained this several times to you. Do you understand it, or is it still too confusing to you, and you are just repeating yourself because you don't know what else to do?
It's relevant - can you name any companies that have closed down because of unions?
How many people have lost their jobs because of unions?
At least I rolled out the example of Philips for you.
I backed up what I said with some facts -
I deserve some brownie points for that don't I?
The days of the 1970s when unions brought the UK to its knees and
the waterfront trouble here in 1998 when Peter Reith was the IR minister have long gone.
Google AI:The 1998 Australian waterfront dispute, a pivotal industrial conflict during
Peter Reith’s tenure as Minister for Industrial Relations,
resulted in the dismissal of over 1,400 unionized workers by Patrick Stevedores,
who replaced them with a non-union workforce.
Although the Maritime Union of Australia (MUA) retained its presence on the waterfront, the dispute led to significant productivity reforms, including reduced redundancy packages, increased casualization, and the end of compulsory unionism, which fundamentally transformed Australia’s industrial relations landscape.
Reith’s handling of the crisis, which involved the controversial use of balaclava-clad security guards and an initial failed attempt to import trained personnel from Dubai, was defended by former Prime Minister John Howard as necessary for modernizing the inefficient port sector. Critics, including the International Transport Workers' Federation, argued the government conspired to break union power, a claim supported by later-released cabinet documents showing strategic planning to manage confrontation with the MUA. The conflict remains one of the most significant and contentious events in Australian labor history, marking a decisive shift toward employer-centric workplace laws.