A Direct Response to the Coalition’s Policy to Stuff Workers

On Wednesday, the LNP announced their IR policy to Improve your employer’s ability to exploit you. Well that wasn’t exactly the name but it is the strategy, and that’s what I’ll expand on in this post. If you want to feel the cold hand of Voldemort on your soul then you can read the original policy document here and make up your own mind.

The policy document, at 38 pages, is pretty light on for detail, which probably assists it to achieve two contradictory aims. First, to signal to business bosses how the Coalition will assist them with wringing more profit out of the employment relationship. Second, to signal to workers that most of their main conditions will be protected – they can safely turf the federal Labor government. It does this through displacing the exploitative elements of the employment relationship onto the union-member/worker relationship, this allows the document to paint a picture where workers overall will be better off because the Coalition will safeguard their statutory rights, and allow them to smoke in peace without having to worry about a “dodgy union boss” turning up. Have a look at the number of times the words “union” and “worker/s” are mentioned in specific context (disclaimer: I’ve done this after one count – my numbers will be substantially correct but a couple of the numbers might be a bit off):

Mentions of of the word “union”:

• (In the context of) Union right of entry: 40 (there is some weird repressed shit going on here with the sheer number of times “entry” is mentioned alone – 27 by the way)
• Union bosses: 5
• Interfering in the relationship between workers and bosses: 4
• Union officials bullying workers and employers: 6
• Holding up, setting back new projects and more generally endangering the economy: 13
• Demanding exorbitant conditions: 4
• In the context of corruption and fraud: 10

Mentions of the words  ”worker/s”:

• The right to flexibility: 16
• Being protected from unions and/or conduct of union officials: 21
• Giving workers a better deal/being better off overall: 23
• Coalition government/laws protecting/looking after workers generally: 14
• Business creating opportunities for workers: 7

Overall, the document paints workers as victims,  who can sometimes be conned into misguided action by unions, but in the main need a Coalition government to look after them and protect them from fraudulent unions. On the one hand, the Coalition will do this by making sure they are protected from fraudulent union conduct, “union bosses” coming to talk to them in the workplace and bullying from union officials. On the other, the Coalition will increase parental leave and give some underpaid workers the interest on underpayments.

On a side note, there are exactly zero mentions of the taking away of fundamental civil liberties such as the right to silence through the reinstatement of the Australian Building and Construction Commission. Individual rights are apparently fundamental but only in so far as they don’t impinge on the right of Daniel Grollo to make as much profit as possible from the business he was born into.

This policy document is entirely consistent with the Coalition strategy I’ve outlined in a previous post. This document can be viewed as part of the opening gambit where the managerial wingnuts express solidarity with workers (even the preponderance of the term workers as opposed to employees is itself evidence of a shift) and their right to have well-run and transparent unions. This is all prep work for an inquiry or Royal Commission into union governance, which will then lay the groundwork for a full-frontal assault on worker rights in a second or third term Coalition government using the findings of the Productivity Commission (you know once the pesky union movement is politically and industrially hamstrung into irrelevance).

This strategy is pure genius in the circumstances. But the circumstances it is born into is one of ideological weakness. The IR nut-jobs lost the debate – the whole neoliberal idea that ‘deregulating’ (read regulating in favour of the State/capital) the labour market will lead to some sort of equilibrium where everyone is better off has been thoroughly discredited. The vast mass of Australians know that if you remove their working rights you’re simply lowering their entire quality of life, and their ability to support their families. The timing of the policy’s release itself reveals this weakness. The Coalition wanted to get this out early to try and neutralise the charge it would lower wages and conditions for most Australians, and give it enough time to shape the debate to one about the conduct of a few union officials. As such, this is a document that is born in the twilight between the hegemonic ascendancy of neoliberal thought and the dawn light of the social justice fightback.

The only response to the Coalition policy is to go on the counter attack, we don’t stay on the defensive but run into the struggle. It is only when we appreciate the weak starting point from the Coalition’s gambit to attack workers’ rights that the broader union movement can begin to piece together a coherent response.  You respond to weakness with strength and courage.

As far as this goes, it is worth noting that the only part of the document where the worker/employer v outside union dichotomy breaks down is the part that deals with bargaining and strike action. There the language becomes one of protecting employers from the “exorbitant claims” of workers and ensuring that bargaining considers matters around “productivity”. That the Coalition wouldn’t approve of strike action is so obvious that it’s significance is easily missed. In order for the Coalition to achieve two aims that are in tension with one another (that is facilitating greater profit from the employment relationship and telling workers they will be looked after) in needs to portray Australian workers as a passive component of the marketplace. Any hint of Australian workers as active agents of change and the two aims would tear the policy document asunder.

Thus, two elements of any coherent and comprehensive response to the Coalition IR policy have to be:

(1) Responding to any Royal Commission into unions not by running but demanding a full-blown inquiry into corruption into the corporate sector, politicians and other agents of power. We can see a hint of this when Ged Kearney, ACTU President, responsed to the Coalition policy on Friday when she wrote, “Mr Abbott’s desperation in clutching onto the handful of undesirables instead of acknowledging the masses of good is hypocritical and misleading. There are hundreds of corporate fraud cases…”

(2) Doing everything we can to assist workers develop into active agents of change.

VB get your hands off #AnzacDay

A big shout out to VB’s owner and multinational corporation, SABMiller, for lecturing the rest of us on patriotism and civic duty. I have a great respect for the, oftentimes needless, suffering of previous generations without having to have this corporate entity tell me, and everyone else, how to behave on ANZAC Day. I felt quite upset at seeing an image of a wounded soldier being exploited as part of a sophisticated promotional campaign for VB.

Make no mistake, this ad is about positioning the VB brand as uniquely patriotic – creating neurological linkages between the mythology of the ‘ANZAC’, a respected public military figure in the form of Peter Cosgrove, those institutions charitably supporting veterans in the form of the RSL and Legacy, and the beer VB. This is done in the guise of the Raise a Glass Appeal, which conveniently sounds like you can’t respect war dead without drinking VB. After all, if you’re not raising a glass of VB aren’t you basically pissing on the war memorial? Seriously though, according to the promotional website for the appeal the campaign itself has raised $5 million AUD since 2009. That’s seriously small peanuts for a global entity who’s group revenue for 2012 was US$31, 388 million or if you look at it another way it’s 0.004% of annual group revenue in any given year (assuming dollar parity). Overall, a great investment for brand recognition. It’s even better if you guilt regular Australians to donate for you, while you spend the money on advertising. Cha-ching.

You might just say, isn’t that run of the mill corporate behaviour? So what if a global corporation decides on a promotional strategy that involves a bit of money going to those who need it most? Well, the primary way veterans and their families are assisted is through the State paying for the associated physical, mental and social costs of serving in armed combat. To do that requires a healthy tax-intake. And SABMiller is a notorious global tax cheat. It doesn’t pay its fair share of the profits it makes globally.

VB’s parent company avoids millions in taxes each year in taxes in India and Africa by routing profits through a network of tax-havens around the world. Sure, it’s not like governments in developing nations require tax revenue to properly fund services that do stuff like provide basic healthcare or primary school education. Check out the full ActionAid report here.

The kicker to all of this is that SABMiller, a company originally of South African origin, learned this tax avoidance strategy as a way of avoiding apartheid sanctions. Yep, you read that right – SABMiller relocated its intangible assets to the Netherlands to both avoid apartheid sanctions and expand into foreign markets.

Despite it being a few years since the release of the ActionAid report, SABMiller hasn’t changed its ways. It has its own list of excuses, such as;

• claiming the sales taxes ordinary people pay off their own bat as part of SABMiller’s own tax contribution
• we’re not breaking the law, we’re following the regulations and guidelines in the countries we operate in
• it depends on what you mean by ‘avoid’ – we’re just doing what other corporations do

SABMiller; get out of my face, get over your excuses and pay your taxes.

5 reasons for the great disconnect

No, I’m not talking about broadband vs. #fraudband policy making in Australia (as much as I theoretically appreciate the concept of fast internet).

But rather the disconnect between two parallel conversations – our political/business elites talking to each other and talking over the top of the rest of us, while the rest of us aren’t listening. What we have are two discourses – distinct and foreign to each other. In Australia, we have a solidly social democratic majority. It is a majority who believes most of the benefits of economic reforms from the 1980s and onwards have flowed to corporations. It is a majority who believe in substantial government economic intervention, and who still don’t support (nearly 20 years later) the privatisation of Qantas, Commonwealth Bank and Telstra. It is a majority who support increasing taxes for big corporations. Check out Pollytics for the polling data.

What is to be done?

I feel I’m living in a moment where people all around me are waiting. Looking for a choice – attempting to come to a decision. In or out. Left or right. The choices are flowing past and through us, temporarily there to grab. Yet still we grow ever bluer; fearful that whatever choice we make will be “The Wrong One”. But as we wait the crisis grows closer.

The ground crumbles beneath…

A little idea to take on the ‘Big Society’

We need to face the fact that its statistically likely we’ll have a Coalition government by the end of the year. My strategic interest lies not in a the simple choice between the Coalition, and an alternative that’s ‘not the Coalition’. Rather, it’s in the strategy and form in which the progressive fight back can occur, one which when it inevitably recedes leaves a bedrock of a more empowered and engaged populace.

Italians deliver a big F–k you to the political establishment

Is Beppe Grillo the messiah,  or just a very naughty boy? His 5 Star Movement (5SM) swept the Italian elections earlier in the week taking 25% of the vote. This result is a stunning rebuke to the once mighty Italian left – 5SM is not really born of the Left – rather it is the intellectual property of one man – Grillo. These articles from writers far more knowledgeable on the political situation in Italy are useful contextual reading (Dr Tad here and Giovanni Tiso here). Rather, what I want to delve into is 5SM’s support base, how it is organised and what the implications are for the industrial-political situation in Australia.

#Ausvotes for Thrift Shop

This song is great. That Thrift Shop was recently voted number 1 on Triple J’s Hottest 100 shows how it has tapped into a collective mood. It taps into a space that a lot of people in Australia share. Macklemore & Ryan Lewis have created a pretty accurate snapshot of a generation coming into a world with no security, an unsettled future and a lot of debt. With only $20 in your pocket and an uncertain tomorrow what else are you going to do but find some kick arse clothes from the op shop and party? Revel tonight because the present is all we have. When a new day is due to bring pain, it might as well be self-inflicted.

2013 is time for us to grow up

Growing up, I never felt like I belonged anywhere. I lived my childhood shifting between worlds, in a permanent state of visiting.

I lived with my single mother who looked after me on a mixture of the single parent’s pension, whatever casual job was at hand and maintenance payments from my father. She sustained herself with cigarettes and cheap wine. We moved a lot around Melbourne’s north-east. A suburb and a street was never a community, just a place where I’d be staying and an audience for potential embarrassment. When the show was over, it was time to move on.

My 10 Predictions for 2013 (sort of)

This time last year I came out with my 10 predictions for 2012 and I’m proud to say that my accuracy rate was 0/10. And because I estimate that I get about as many hits as The Australian (yes, it’s that low), this would easily make me the most accurate pundit in Australia today.

So here’s my new list for 2013, once again in the form of a retrospective:

A small thought for 2013

I read this post from @Dr_Tad this morning, and thought the closing quote from Gramsci particularly insightful:

The active politician is a creator, an initiator; but he neither creates from nothing nor does he move in the turbid void of his own desires and dreams. He bases himself on effective reality, but what is this effective reality? Is it something static and immobile, or is it not rather a relation of forces in continuous motion and shift of equilibrium? If one applies one’s will to the creation of a new equilibrium among the forces which really exist and are operative basing oneself on the particular force which one believes to be progressive and strengthening it to help it to victory—he still moves on the terrain of effective reality, but does so in order to dominate and transcend it (or to contribute to this). What ‘ought to be’ is therefore concrete; indeed it is the only realistic and historicist interpretation of reality, it alone is history in the making and philosophy in the making, it alone is politics. (Gramsci, Selections From The Prison Notebooks, p. 172)