The government and its Industrial Relations Minister Tony Burke is right to try to rush through its reform bill as quickly as possible. It’s not merely that Australian workers need more bargaining power as quickly as possible; it’s because in this country we’re unable to have a worthwhile industrial relations debate.
As Crikey has written before, much of that has to do with the way the media has uncritically accepted the framing of industrial relations debate pushed by Australian business, to the extent that the entire debate is conducted through the prism of what is good for business, not for workers, who have endured over the past decade eight years of wage stagnation and, now, a second year of large real wage falls.
Given many in the media either failed to report on or tried to downplay those years of wage stagnation, and many business apologists in outlets such as The Australian Financial Review continue to hype what is by any standards poor wages growth, it’s perhaps no surprise that the idea of an industrial relations debate that includes the perspective of Australian households should feel foreign.
Instead it’s dominated by the perspective of business and employer lobby groups, who have a largely uncritical media to run their talking points about the disaster that will inevitably follow anything but a shift to an even more pro-employer IR framework. The views of unions are treated as somehow illegitimate and self-interested in a way that lobbyists like AIGroup or the Chamber of Commerce and Industry aren’t.
The Reserve Bank, which has re-embraced neoliberal orthodoxy and now warns of a wage-price spiral, also gets some share of the credit for the skewed way wages growth is viewed in the media.
But unlike, for example, on climate change or the housing crisis, Labor in government not merely recognises there’s a crisis, but is prepared to take action — reflecting the fact that unions are the dominant source of political donations to the ALP. It’s a rare case of political donations from influential lobby groups, and the national interest, coinciding (though remember in other areas, such as climate action, key trade unions are opposed to action).
The industrial relations bill the government is trying to rush through will restore a degree of sectoral bargaining to the wage bargaining landscape. This will boost the power of workers and unions in trying to extract bigger pay rises from employers.
Yet the “debate”, such as it is, is entirely about the impact on business, as though the profit share of national income hadn’t reached new heights in recent quarters, or the wage share hadn’t collapsed to record lows. Ignore the poor outcomes occurring under current policy settings, and focus on the possible outcomes that might occur under policy change — if they affect well-organised and influential vested interests.
At no stage have either media commentators or the crossbenchers in the Senate or the independents in the House of Representatives asked about how Australian workers will get back to the level of real wages they had a decade ago, or how long that will take without significant IR reform. No one has thought to ask that question, because the IR debate is so skewed away from the interests of workers.
Many also appear possessed by the belief that there’s some IR nirvana achievable where workers and employers will sit down together, sing of peace and love, and agree on decent wage rises — that wages growth is possible without anyone getting hurt or even inconvenienced. Some have a distorted idea of the Hawke Accord years, when business and unions worked together for the good of the country — forgetting that the level of strikes throughout the ’80s was more than 10 times higher then than it has been over the past year.
Wages bargaining is a blood sport — one in which increasingly powerful corporations have had their boots on the throats of workers for a decade. Worrying that employers might get their shoes scuffed a little in removing them is an act of wilful ignorance.
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I am often amused by red faced people working them selves into a tizz about what might happen if the unions ever get any power again. Are they blind to the immense power of business being constantly weilded in the most cynical way against the interests of workers?
I’d love to see just one “journo” ask a “job creator”, ‘And how will this [i.e. the most recent act of selfish dickery] impact those who actually make your profits, the workers?’
I’m tired of minimum wage earners (and social welfare recipients) being blamed in advance for inflation if they get a tiny wage increase. What about the impact made by white collar workers in any of the financial sectors- young people I graduated with who bought high value housing in their first years in the workforce. My daughter looked at a graduate position that would pay $190 000.00. The issue is always about the distribution of income, why someone’s hour of work is worth literally 10 times more than another’s…..
It would be preferable to take David Pocock’s suggestion of taking time to get this bill right, but I do also get that a longer incubation period provides more time for a right-wing media to oppose the legislation to the point that it fails to get through. If we have reached a point where legislation has to be rushed through parliament prematurely to avoid mainstream media pushback, then what point does this media serve in a democracy? Where we can only get second rate legislation passed?
Labor can mitigate by taking those who they want their vote serious and assist with fully understanding the legislation – perhaps even temporarily assist with independent resources for them required to give it the appropriate scrutiny.
More and more it feels like we are settling back into a feudalism, but one where it’s the shareholders who should expect society geared towards their prosperity. Slap the label “meritocratic” on the process and hardly anyone seems to mind. Just as long as the shareholders are appeased and the poor are made to suffer.