Greg Jericho
"Last week there was a bit of news because various Liberal Party
backbenchers were openly talking about penalty rates. It started with Dan Tehan and by the end of the week there were about 10 Government MPs lining up to tell the media they think penalty rates need to go."
Well done, again, Greg Jericho, for a lucid piece.
Did anyone mention deja vous? I was active with GetUp in the Kevin07 campaign when the LNP version of IR Reform was supposedly put to sleep permanently. I was working at a factory in Sydney when the EBA was under negotiation and the AWU turned the Howard Government Attack on it's head.
When you talk about penalty rates you run up against the prima facie argument that an hour's work has the same economic value whether it is consumed on a weekend, public holiday, day of annual leave, sick day, or normal work day. This has credence when you put zero value on common goods, all of which have sociosociatal value (apologies for the abuse of language but coining a new term seemed appropriate). Politicians, indeed all salaried workers, are actually paid penalty rates- they are hidden in the fine print of the employment contract. As part of EBA negotiations average hours worked are calculated as the arithmetic mean of observed hours worked over the entire industry. If you then observe a figure for total economic value created in the same period, divide this number by your Arithmetic mean, and subtract an arbitrary percentage representing profit margin for the company, you then arrive at a fair and equitable hourly wage rate, which can be expanded into an annualised amount, paid as a salary, and everyone can get on with life under win-win conditions.
IR policy is a positive-sum game, under ALP policy. This LNP swill continues to attempt to play their traditional divisive, divide-and-conquer, games, all dressed up in harmless-looking, prima facie, rational-sounding, negative-sum game, clothing.
Beware the wolf. His sheeps'-clothing has now been removed.
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