Wednesday, December 01, 2004

It’s déjà vu all over again

Once again I see John Howard but I hear the voice of the Maggatollah Thatcher. Curb the unions! Enforce secret ballots! Weaken or do away with unfair dismissal laws! Ban pattern bargaining! Outlaw the closed shop! Give management the freedom to manage and enterprise will blossom!

Am I missing something here? On the one hand people are complaining – and rightly – that employers are demanding more and more of our (unpaid) time, that work and life are seriously out of balance, that we have no choice but to work till we drop or else, that once you hit 50 no-one will employ you, that none of us will have a decent pension when and if we finally do retire. On the other hand everyone’s lining up to clobber the unions.

Hello, people, reality check time.

It was the unions that put an end to excessive working hours and thus allowed people to have leisure and family time.

It was the unions that made sure that if you had to work more than the basic number of hours in a day, at least you got paid for it.

It was the unions that made it possible for people – except those working in radio and television of course :-) - could go on holiday with some money in their pockets and the guarantee of a job to come back to.

It was the unions that made sure that people couldn’t be dismissed without proper thought or consideration for their futures and their families.

It was the unions that made sure people weren’t thrown on the scrapheap at 50 and left to starve.

The list goes on……..

Listen up people – there is a direct connection between the horrible working conditions you now have to endure to be allowed to earn a crust, and the weakened state of trade unions.

Individuals have no chance against the economic and social power of employers: unions supplied the essential balance that made sure people weren’t just ground up to suit the convenience of business.

Your life is out of balance because the employer-employee relationship is out of balance. And the only way to redress that balance is for employees to be organized in some way, otherwise we just get picked off one by one.

The biggest single domestic social challenge is indeed to reform the unions, not so that they have less power, but so that they can once again become an effective counterbalance – and so we can all get our lives back.

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