12 April, 2006

The new aussie IR laws

I'm quite concerned about these new laws. I'm not a liberal voter anyway and can't stand little Johnny Howard, but these laws seem to be focusing on the employers rights and appear to give nothing to the workers, but uncertainty. I've been searching for something that summarises the new laws and this New Zealand paper's article does it pretty well - and hey, it was easy to find ;)

We've already seen media reports of companies terminating jobs and then offering the workers the same jobs with less pay and benefits. The cynic in me, says this is little Johnny's idea of 'more jobs'... The scary thing is, I've seen news reports of the company I work for letting workers go and then rehiring them as contractors. Now I don't think that will happen in my area but I really feel for these people. J used to work as a contractor and honestly some of the conditions sucked!

I know we've had it pretty good here and there are probably areas that need some adjusting, but honestly I don't think these laws are going to be good for Australia in the long run. I really think it will end up punishing the poorer section of Australian workers. I'm sure it will be great for little Johnny's rich buddies but they don't exactly need the protection, now do they?

What the fsking hell was Australia thinking, to give that lot control of the senate???

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