Some of you guys must have missed the basis of Industrial legislation in this Country that was in place for well over 100 years prior to Little johnny and WorkChoices.
Have a read of what Henry Bourne Higgins who was the second President of the Commonwealth Court of Conciliation and Arbitration wrote many moons ago.
He described the unregulated industrial relations environment of the 19th Century as the " rude and barbarous process of strike and lockout" which were replaced by a "new province for law and order", namely the system of compulsory conciliation and arbitration.
One only has to read the "Harvester Case" which was the precident for the basis of fair and reasonable rumuneration " the normal needs of an average employee ,regarded as a human being in a civilised community. In other words the Aussie concept of a fair days pay for a fair days work which led ultimately to the formation of the Australian Industrial Relations Commission.
WorkChoices was the culmination and essence of greed distilled from the
fervent minds of people such as Dixon and "big business" in general. One only has to read anything from the HR Nicholls society to get a glimpse of the Liberal Party and big business mindset under Howard.
Howard and big business wanted WorkChoices for the simple reason of "supply and demand". As the numbers of people in western society ages so to will the number of eligible workers decline. A bit of a conundrum for the hard line capitalists. That was the whole point of WorkChoices ,to nutralise the ability of workers to collectively bargain their position thereby nullifying any negotiating advantage going into the future.
Smacks of a return to the unregulated industrial relations environment of the 19th century that HB Higgins wrote about. That would have been the so called progress we would have gotten under Howard.
Last edited by blow.n.gasket; 18th May 2009 at 11:37.