Housing affordability improves as rates, prices fall

You have hit the nail on the head. The number one reason why Australia is so unproductive is that labour costs are too high and our workers are far too unproductive. Instead of concentrating on the work at hand, they concentrate on when the next sickie should be and when the next tea break is. Instead of being grateful for having a job, the Australian worker possesses a sense of entitlement for massive wages and benefits.

First of all workers aren't unproductive because labour costs are too high. Your point seems to be that Australia is unproductive because our workers are lazy. High labour costs would equal hard to be competitive, not unproductive.

And did you just write 'instead of being grateful for having a job'? You sound like the Glencore bloke who said Australia should be grateful for allowing his company to come and dig out minerals and make billions in profit. He said Australia should be like the Congo and welcome him and basically not have any restrictions. It's really quite arrogant.

But your 'workers are lazy' opens a whole Pandora's Box of arguments to which I have an example from the other direction, just to temper the debate. I work for a large multinational company and the MD has told me on a number of occasions that the cost of labour in Australia is just too high. (They 'only' make $90m profit within Australia.)

I agree that wages are high here, compared to China, SE Asia, US and many other places, but thats the rub - apart from Australia having a high cost of living in line with our wages, globalisation has opened up cheap labour markets so that companies can maximise their profits by taking things offshore. But when they have to produce things onshore, there are complaints - seems like many companies have a sense of entitlement (for dirt cheap labour and no benefits) just like you suggest Aussie workers do in the opposite.

This is one of the structural shifts happening in our economy right now - how to find a balance between labour costs and being competitive on the world stage.

Back to my workplace though. It isnt unionised. They used to be unionised, militantly so, and this led to workers effectively taking the **** like 'China' mentions above. After they were all sacked and paid out for unfair dismissal the company has bullied and harassed the new workers for about a decade. In contract negotiations they gave workers 6 weeks to nut out a deal and then rang each worker individually and threatened to sack them if they did not sign. The majority of workers are married with kids and have big mortgages so they did. One employee didn't sign and tried to organise Union involvement in negotiations and he was sacked and paid out. I've only been their 2 years and over 10 employees have been sacked in that time - each one that has taken them on for unfair dismissal has won. We've been told that the company budgets for it.

On top of that physical and verbal harrassment was rife. Threats to dock wages, abusing workers, threats to fire them etc. Are the workers unproductive now? Not at all, most are scared shitless for their job. We only have a skeleton staffing in an extremely dangerous industry and we can work up to 70 hour weeks. There are no overtime rates (infact my rate when I work more than 38 hours drops by 15%), no penalty rates, workers are forced to take annual leave on public holidays and talking about joining a union will get you fired. Sure, the flat rate is tremendous but overall has nothing when compared to other companies in the industry. It took a year and 2 major accidents for the company to hire some new casual labour, and even then they hired a few but sacked a few more.

I believe there is a place for unionism in all industries if only to protect the rights of the worker. Unions get demonised in the News Ltd press but have an in depth look at places like QANTAS and realise that given the opportunity companies will take the **** in as much as an extreme way as poor unionism does at the other end of the scale.

tab
 
First of all workers aren't unproductive because labour costs are too high. Your point seems to be that Australia is unproductive because our workers are lazy. High labour costs would equal hard to be competitive, not unproductive.

And did you just write 'instead of being grateful for having a job'? You sound like the Glencore bloke who said Australia should be grateful for allowing his company to come and dig out minerals and make billions in profit. He said Australia should be like the Congo and welcome him and basically not have any restrictions. It's really quite arrogant.

But your 'workers are lazy' opens a whole Pandora's Box of arguments to which I have an example from the other direction, just to temper the debate. I work for a large multinational company and the MD has told me on a number of occasions that the cost of labour in Australia is just too high. (They 'only' make $90m profit within Australia.)

I agree that wages are high here, compared to China, SE Asia, US and many other places, but thats the rub - apart from Australia having a high cost of living in line with our wages, globalisation has opened up cheap labour markets so that companies can maximise their profits by taking things offshore. But when they have to produce things onshore, there are complaints - seems like many companies have a sense of entitlement (for dirt cheap labour and no benefits) just like you suggest Aussie workers do in the opposite.

This is one of the structural shifts happening in our economy right now - how to find a balance between labour costs and being competitive on the world stage.

Back to my workplace though. It isnt unionised. They used to be unionised, militantly so, and this led to workers effectively taking the **** like 'China' mentions above. After they were all sacked and paid out for unfair dismissal the company has bullied and harassed the new workers for about a decade. In contract negotiations they gave workers 6 weeks to nut out a deal and then rang each worker individually and threatened to sack them if they did not sign. The majority of workers are married with kids and have big mortgages so they did. One employee didn't sign and tried to organise Union involvement in negotiations and he was sacked and paid out. I've only been their 2 years and over 10 employees have been sacked in that time - each one that has taken them on for unfair dismissal has won. We've been told that the company budgets for it.

On top of that physical and verbal harrassment was rife. Threats to dock wages, abusing workers, threats to fire them etc. Are the workers unproductive now? Not at all, most are scared shitless for their job. We only have a skeleton staffing in an extremely dangerous industry and we can work up to 70 hour weeks. There are no overtime rates (infact my rate when I work more than 38 hours drops by 15%), no penalty rates, workers are forced to take annual leave on public holidays and talking about joining a union will get you fired. Sure, the flat rate is tremendous but overall has nothing when compared to other companies in the industry. It took a year and 2 major accidents for the company to hire some new casual labour, and even then they hired a few but sacked a few more.

I believe there is a place for unionism in all industries if only to protect the rights of the worker. Unions get demonised in the News Ltd press but have an in depth look at places like QANTAS and realise that given the opportunity companies will take the **** in as much as an extreme way as poor unionism does at the other end of the scale.

tab

Australian business has a leadership problem, not a workers problem. We tend to plan for the next reporting cycle rather than the next economic cycle, see training, development and R&D as something the government should pay for, and, if things get difficult, expect the government to sort it.

The decline in productivity relative to peers is a management challenge first and foremost.
 
I would argue that regulatory uncertainty is another big factor beyond the money aspect. Let's not forget that 6 years ago we had the Workplace Relations Act. Then we had Workchoices in 2006/07, ostensibly good for employers. Then we have the Fair Work Act in 2008 which brought about all this militant union action. Now it is expected that Tony Abbott will do some more fiddling with the FWA to stop the union action that is causing such bad headlines. So that's 4 major changes in the space of 6 years - how is any business supposed to plan for this?
 
Then we have the Fair Work Act in 2008 which brought about all this militant union action.

What is 'all this militant union action'? Pilots wearing the wrong colour tie and a few hours of strikes here and there? I don't see why spread strikes. I don't see strikes like the 70's and early 80's.

Unions are far more cooperative than they ever have been...
 
What is 'all this militant union action'? Pilots wearing the wrong colour tie and a few hours of strikes here and there? I don't see why spread strikes. I don't see strikes like the 70's and early 80's.

Unions are far more cooperative than they ever have been...

Nurses, Qantas...have you forgotten? You cannot compare to the 70s/80s because we had very different laws back then. For example, secondary boycotts were used extensively in the 80s but were recently banned.
 
Nurses, Qantas...have you forgotten? You cannot compare to the 70s/80s because we had very different laws back then. For example, secondary boycotts were used extensively in the 80s but were recently banned.

Nurses - had some small strike action in one area. Was there widespread disruption to nursing care?

Qantas - pilots wore the wrong colour ties. Other Qantas staff went on strike for a few hours here and there, no more disruption than a holding pattern.

Did either achieve great gains?

'militant union action' has not been seen in oz for a decade at least.
 
Overall, the unionist culture has a lot to answer for in terms of limited labour competitiveness. Workcover, paid tea breaks, sick leave, parental leave, leave for death of aunt mildred's third cousin, leave for blue rainbow day are all part and parcel of why it is difficult to business in australia.
 
Overall, the unionist culture has a lot to answer for in terms of limited labour competitiveness. Workcover, paid tea breaks, sick leave, parental leave, leave for death of aunt mildred's third cousin, leave for blue rainbow day are all part and parcel of why it is difficult to business in australia.

Yeah. Workers compensation and sick leave are an outrage.

Seriously, where do you get this stuff?
 
Hey Token Funder,
Can we be friends in real life? I have never disagreed with anything I've read that you've written.
 
Yeah. Workers compensation and sick leave are an outrage.

Seriously, where do you get this stuff?

How many staff do you employ TF?

Sick leave is far too open to abuse here, and is abused. I am lucky atm; my boys are very dedicated, but it's not always the way it goes.

If it wasn't, then companies wouldn't have to introduce a "no-sick leave day either side of a public holiday w'end without a doctor's certificate" policy.

This current fin year my Workers' Compensation bill was $2400, and I've never had a claim. This is based on wages for 2 employees, and a wage for both my wife and I.
 
Wait until you have an employee killed on the job and find out how much that will cost you.

Don't even think it. No-one wants any injuries at the workplace.

Not saying we don't need it; was just illustrating how it is a very significant part of a cost of labour, and a real factor in the lack of competitiveness in manufacturing in Aus.

I don't manufacture anything, but I know that the associated costs of labour other than the wage itself cost an opportunity to employ at least another person in my business. I get asked by kids for apprenticeships all the time - no hope of that happening.

It (Workcover/Worksafe or whatever you want to call it) will never go away; will only increase, so for those who reckon Aus can become more competitive...

How do they propose that? What aspects of workers' hard-fought-for concessions are they willing to give up to achieve it again?

I can't imagine anyone giving up anything willingly.
 
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Nurses, Qantas...have you forgotten? You cannot compare to the 70s/80s because we had very different laws back then. For example, secondary boycotts were used extensively in the 80s but were recently banned.

Geez, don't even talk about QANTAS. It's dying a slow, methodical death with much of the playbook nicked from RyanAir. Joyce (AerLingus, then Ansett, then CEO Qantas) has modelled Jetstar on the Irish air innovator. In doing so he has ploughed a decent amount of money and equipment (ie new planes etc) into the budget airline. Poor old Qantas gets the older, more inefficient fleet and the tag of being an unprofitable drain on resources.

It's all a big game, played out in the press.

Jetstar workers also get paid much less than Qantas, and many have been waiting to agree to new EBA's for 18 months. Add to that international crews manning domestic flights and maintenance heading offshore and the writing is on the wall.

I don't know what the answer is here. Whichever way, it is increasingly hard to be competitive. Perhaps Token Funder is right in saying it is a leadership and vision problem that we have. Or perhaps Australia needs a German style reform process of wages and IR laws?

Sure, Qantas employees have decent wages and benefits but I don't think that is the main problem. As a whole the qantas group still makes many millions in profit. IMHO Joyce wants to promote 'efficiency' and cost cutting Irish Style by taking on the weakened unions and this is shown up in well designed moves that portray employees in a poor light.
 
How many staff do you employ TF?

Sick leave is far too open to abuse here, and is abused. I am lucky atm; my boys are very dedicated, but it's not always the way it goes.

If it wasn't, then companies wouldn't have to introduce a "no-sick leave day either side of a public holiday w'end without a doctor's certificate" policy.

This current fin year my Workers' Compensation bill was $2400, and I've never had a claim. This is based on wages for 2 employees, and a wage for both my wife and I.

About 300, give or take.

Sick leave is open to abuse, as, of course, is just about everything else. In my experience, issues around abuse of sick leave, unfair dismissal cases, high staff turnover and the like are invariably a management problem.

Some staff will invariably be a problem which is why you should recruit carefully and use a probationary period.

I'd hazard a guess that the fact you don't have major problems in your shop is as much down to your management skills as it is to the dedication of your staff. The latter rarely exists absent the former.
 
About 300, give or take.

I'd hazard a guess that the fact you don't have major problems in your shop is as much down to your management skills as it is to the dedication of your staff. The latter rarely exists absent the former.
300! there's a few head aches for ya! :D Well done for sustaining that level.

Some staff will invariably be a problem which is why you should recruit carefully and use a probationary period.
In our industry that is not a luxury anymore; it is hard to get many applicants at all that are local, properly trained and with relative experience, so you end up having to take the best of what's available and hope for the best. I got lucky with these last two. They get paid well above award and get pretty much whatever time they need for personal stuff when and if it comes up.

The last time I advertised for a position, I got a swarm of guys from OS wanting to fill their 20 hours required for the basic TAFE Certificate, and a number applying from OS looking to secure a Visa.

Now; I have no probs with anyone from OS, but almost every one had virtually no English (which they need in order to talk to customers and suppliers when ordering parts and explaining car issues etc), very minimal experience and in some cases questionable job histories.

I just haven't got the available time, or staff available or funds to have someone leave their work and nurse them through any sort of "settling in" period at our place; they need to be able to hit the ground running and provide solid work productivity per hour (also why we have no apprentices), or I'll go broke.

Sick leave is open to abuse, as, of course, is just about everything else. In my experience, issues around abuse of sick leave, unfair dismissal cases, high staff turnover and the like are invariably a management problem.
I have observed this over the years at various places I've visited and worked too. Management who lead the team from behind do better (with staff) than those who drag the team from the front with a rope.
 
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Qantas also subsidises Jet Star at a corporate level with interest free loans.

Its a no brainer that Qantas loses money and Jetstar is a money spinner.
 
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