Howard's political suicide note

The following opinion piece by AWU National Secretary Bill Shorten was published in the Herald Sun newspaper on May 27, 2005

John Howard's industrial relations reforms announced yesterday have put his political life at risk.

By effectively authorising the mass sacking of workers in 99 per cent of Australian private sector businesses, he is creating a lever for forcing individual contracts onto at least 4.6 million unwilling employees.

Ironically, many of these workers are the so-called Howard's battlers.

But none of these cost cutting exercises by over-paid and over-promoted so-called human resources professionals will do anything to solve our country's major economic problems.

Many fair-minded people, from both non-Labor and Labor backgrounds, will be offended by Mr Howard's mean and tricky tactics.

Before the election he promised the changes would affect small businesses with only 15 or 20 workers.

Post-election he's forcing it on virtually every business with up to 100 employees.

For the 14 faceless men of the board of the Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry, last night would have been sweet celebration of a victory over all the Liberal MPs who supported Australia's historic democratic traditions and a fairer balance of power in our labour and other economic markets.

But then, the Liberal Party is funded by the authors of these unfair and greedy laws.

Mr Howard has caved in to his Party's fundraisers by destroying Australia's century-old system of wage justice -a system handled by the Australian Conciliation and Arbitration Commission.

Thousands of rural and regional workers represented by the Australian Workers' Union who I represent, now face real wage cuts as a result of Mr Howard's demolition of the legal framework of our nation's long tradition of a fair go.

The only logical reason why Mr Howard is removing wage-setting powers from the independent umpire is because it refused to accept his recommendations to cut the minimum wage by $2300 a year, or $44 a week.

If Mr Howard was serious about solving problems in the labour market then he would be doing something to invest in the future.

He could, for example, pursue productivity growth through infrastructure developments to lift the capacity restraints on so many of our industries.

He could move to prevent workers being ripped off by companies like James Hardie.

What does making it legal to sack virtually everyone for any reason do for our skills shortages, current account crisis or excessively debt-driven consumer demand? Why isn't John Howard acting decisively for the long-term economic interest by creating incentives for research and innovation, incentives we need for a smart and successful 21st century economy and society?

The politics of industrial relations are the politics of Howard's battlers, and I predict that the PM yesterday committed a massive blunder.

In every parliament since he came to office in 1996, Mr Howard has blamed Senate obstructionism for a failure to deliver for his big business backers.

Well, from July 1 his big excuse is gone.

Cutting people's wages, legalising the unfair dismissal of private sector workers in 99 per cent of workplaces so as to drive them on to unfair individual contracts will produce a reckoning at the ballot box.

My advice to all Australian workers in the face of this historic dismantling of the system of social justice in our country is simple: join a trade union.

But also this: next time you are offered an individual contract or the sack, think of John Howard's weasel words today.