Industrial Reversion?

The last federal election was essentially a referendum on industrial reform in Australia.  The Liberal Party attempted to fix a centurty and a half of lazy work culture epitomized by the phrase "she'll be right, mate".

Until these changes were passed, it was notoriously difficult to fire full-time employees, and wages in many sectors were normalised and inflexible.  Since the implementation of Work Choices, employers have been better able to maintain a high-quality workforce which is better matched to productivity goals.

You see, until this was implemented, workarounds were required to pay workers according to their output, meaning that most employers simply chose not to.  Everyone with the same job title was paid pretty much the same wage, regardless of their ability or desire to produce.

While uniformity is nice from a socialist point of view, a normalised pay scale doesn't allow you to reward those who generate higher output, nor does it allow you to cater to workers whose lives are in flux.  To compensate good workers, employers created elaborate bonus systems (which can't be factored into the employee's next home loan application) instead of just raising their salary.  Conversely, employers were forced to hound less motivated employees and make their life a living hell in order to squeeze their salary's worth out of them.

Individual workplace agreements allow more flexibility from everyone's point of view.  There's no need to look for a reason to fire someone just because their productivity is low.  If they're more comfortable at a relaxed pace, or if their life is impeding their ability to focus, then why not let them work that way?  Of course, their pay would be commensurate with their output, but there's no injustice there at all.  In fact, all it does is get their boss off their back.  Making two dozen personal calls a day is no longer a big issue as long as the worker is matching the employer's expected results.

Forcing everyone to fit the same mould, in a society with highly variable lifestyles, belief systems and family pressures is a long way from ideal.  This needs to be recognised by the industrial relations system, rather than ignored in lieu of some arbitrarily prescribed notion of fairness and baseline uniformity.

Unfortunately Australian workplace culture has laziness interwoven deeply into its fibre.  Everyone who visits this country always praises us for being so laid back and carefree, and that's an attitude we're often quite happy to take to work as well.  As evidenced by the backlash at Work Choices, Australian workers have a keen understanding of their own shortcomings.  There was mass panic at the introduction of workplace reform only because we know we've been getting away with doing as little as possible at work for far too long.

High-output diligent workers know their value to a company.  When someone says "lazy people are going to be paid less" their gut-reaction is "about damned time".  As a nation our overwhelming reaction was "holy shit, I'm boned".  That alone suggests that workplace reform was well overdue.

It was always going to be unpopular, but the union propaganda made it worse.  To protect their own role, unions exaggerated the reach of the new reforms, which when actually implemented by some unscrupulous business owners, resulted in legal action against them.

Though clearly some adjustment was required, it became clear to those who were interested enough to research beyond the television advertising campaigns, that Work Choices was not the end of the world that unions and the Labor party were claiming it to be.

Of course nobody ever saw any of the good news, just actors pretending to lose their jobs on TV.

If you're a good worker, why would your boss fire you?  Who would he then replace you with?  Wouldn't he have to fire them too?  Doesn't this mean he's wasting time and money on hiring and training? -- This basic concept seemed to elude the blue collar populace.  Coupled with unending propaganda, it became clear that no facts, explanations or reasoning would ever change the minds of the drones whose laid back slow-motion work day was at risk.

Enter Kevin Rudd, the champion of the Aussie way of life which has for so long impeded our progress on the world stage.  With a simple promise to roll-back Work Choices, he won the favour of every uninterested and unproductive half-arsed employee in the country, whose home is being paid off in-part by the small percentage of driven and focused people who are unencumbered by notions of entitlement.  Hooray for the lowest common denominator, for their vote counts as much as anyone else's, unlike their contribution to society.

Of course the voters want to be able to have their cake and eat it too.  Leadership is about making difficult and unpopular decisions and standing by them.  Two politicians I respect for having done that, are coincidentally both Liberals.  John Howard was given his marching orders over Work Choices, while Jeff Kennett was booted over school consolidation in Victoria.  Both were badly needed but highly unpopular decisions.

I won't fault Rudd for campaigning on the Work Choices issue, but I'll mourn this country's lost opportunities for advancement if he hobbles the industrial relations system in a way which impacts on people's ability to forge their own lifestyle.  I'll be pissed off if his changes shackle small business to their lazy workers once again.

If he isn't smart enough to recognise how valuable reform was, then my vote for him will have been misplaced.  I sincerely hope that his changes to Work Choices will be largely cosmetic.  The morons who voted for him on that basis alone wouldn't know the difference anyway.