Showing posts with label unions. Show all posts
Showing posts with label unions. Show all posts

Australian Politics is Skewed to the Right - The Poor Vote for Them!

Politics: Malcolm Turnbull favors is own class.
Malcom Turnbull is hitting at the lower working class and the poor - blaming them for their situation. Though Australia appears to be a relatively "level" society, this is not the case. There is the same inequality here as in other Western countries.
Malcolm Turnbull laughing
Increasing the cost of university places hits poor families. His children have been spoon-fed from the honey jar all their lives. The Prime Minister does not know what poverty is. The arrogance of the man when he says the states will pay the full cost of public schools while the federal government will subsidize private schools. It is obvious who he really cares about - the well-off.

Increasing job finding training for the long-term unemployed is treating the effect not the cause. Unless the unemployed get better work skills they will remain on the dole. This is not their fault. Where are the poor going to get the money to pay for TAFE training now the government is charging for it? There is a shortage of skilled workers. There is always a glut of unskilled people looking for jobs. They chase the few vacant places in the fixed market.

Giving tax cuts to high earners was a real "kick in the guts" for the poor. It astounds me how the Australian public can vote a right-wing party into government when it does nothing for them. Tony Abbott would fit nicely into the British Conservative Party. He is an out and out Tory! He is not even a true Australian - born in London.
 Politics by Ty Buchanan 
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Improving National Productivity Will Not Be Easy

There is a problem with the call for improvement in productivity. Those calling for it will not be the ones working harder. The experiment was tried in the 1970s when many UK factories moved in the time and motion guys and started timing machinists.

Unions and workers saw them coming, however. Before they even got going unions tied management down with a new contract that guaranteed workers would not be put on a lower rate if the business ran out of orders. They would be paid at the previous month's average rate when walking around doing very little.  This was done to make sure employees would not lose income due to them working harder. Furthermore, when foremen, leading hands and motion "experts" started milling around a machine workers knew what was about to happen. An older naturally slower machinists was soon moved in and lathe speeds were reduced.  Considering the motion timers had never seen capstan lathes before this was an easy trick.

It took several years before management caught on to what was going on. Ultimately, workers did work harder. They moved up the machinist grades A, B, C and D. Thus improving their pay per task. Obviously, they speeded up machines and produced more per hour to increase overall income.

In the long run businesses failed to make a profit. Paying employees to work harder then continuing to pay them at the same rate when work ran out was plainly stupid. A country needs easy dismissal laws to make a more flexible workforce, a nervous workforce in fear of being sacked.

It must be remembered that a monitored worker must be watched by someone.  Extra staff like a separate time and motion division was a costly burden. Every new product made for new tasks. Time and motion was working harder than anyone.

BHP Billiton CEO Andrew Mackenzie is banking on a Coalition win in the next election to change industrial relations laws. Let us hope he is right because business needs a boost. Changing a country's working culture is very difficult though. Pumping money into timing employees raises costs. And workers will duck and weave to block any change forced on them.
  
Source: Based on Wellworthy Engineering, a factory in Ringwood, Hampshire, England.

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