Management Thuggery

If I don't do it for peanuts some other monkey will
In an episode of McLeod’s Daughters the new owner of the truck stop sacks his mechanic and then immediately offers him another job on an Australian Workplace Agreement. The mechanic tells the owner where to stick it and his girlfriend protests: You can’t do that. The owner replies: I think you will find that I can. He then offers her the position. She refuses, at first, but then, in spite of knowing how taking the job undermines her boyfriend’s position, accepts the job, albeit on a limited basis, illustrating the vulnerability of workers to management thuggery.

John Howard objected to this, calling it biased, and another government spokesman said that the incident misrepresented government workplace relations policy (he dared not speak it’s name: Work Choices) saying that what the owner did would be illegal under the said policy. The implication being that, because it would be illegal, it wouldn’t happen, and therefore the incident in the episode was unfair to the government.

What’s with these people? Are they so far up their own fundament that they really do not know what’s going on; or do they think we’re stupid? Let me recount two incidents in Byron Shire, and give an account of a trend among some employers that the government ought to be worried about.

A twenty-something chef told me on day that he’s scored a job in charge of the kitchen at a fairly notable eatery in the shire. He was telling me about it because he know I would be able to tell him how to get an ABN. An ABN? I queried. Are you running the kitchen as your own business? No. He wasn’t running the business, but he was being paid as a contractor. Oh, a contractor, I returned. How much did you negotiate as an hourly rate? No. He didn’t negotiate anything. They offered him $10.00 an hour. $10.00 an hour! I shouted. Are you serious? Yes. He was serious. Maaaaate! I said. When you’re working as a contractor you’re supposed to negotiate a rate. You’ve got to pay yourself superannuation; take out your own work cover; and if you damage any equipment in the course of your work, you’re responsible for it. Oh, and by the way, you also get to pay your own tax out of your princely $10.00 an hour as well. He didn’t want to know. If he didn’t take what was on offer, someone else would.

The second example was a not-yet-twenty young tearaway who triumphantly announced that he’d escaped the dire prospect of learning how to find a job when his mate’s dad offered him work on his building site. You’ve got your green card, then? I queried. Nah! He said. I was told I didn’t need one, but I have to get an ABN. I patiently explained the problem to him. If Work Cover sprung a surprise inspection, his mate’s dad will be in big trouble; and so will he. Working with an ABN means he would be a contractor, not entitled to superannuation, responsible for his own Work Cover and insurance – and tax. I won’t be paying tax, he said. Everyone on the job gets cash. And when you get sprung by the tax department – what then? Shoulders shrugged; eyes glazed over.

I could recount scores of examples, especially if I pumped my very well informed contacts. I won’t claim these cases are typical. But they are not rare. And here’s the worst part. Employers who engage in such criminal practices (by no means all employers – just far too many of them) meet from time to time to discuss the growing number of ways they can rip off vulnerable people. No one keeps minutes of course. You’d have to wonder why, wouldn’t you.

The government would probably claim that no amount of legislation will stop criminals from being criminals, nor protect people who can’t be bothered looking after their own interests – that the examples I gave would happen regardless of what the law was; and that the overwhelming majority of employers would protect their own interests by never stooping to such vile extremes. So why it is necessary to introduce a “fairness test” to the industrial relations package formally known as Work Choices?