Loose ends

I mentioned a few things in some previous blogs that I probably won't have time to fully elaborate on now, but I'll put them out there just so someone knows.

Back to the future - 1984: New Australian Industrial Reform (IR) legislation was passed recently which introduced the Australian Workplace Agreement (AWA). AWAs, as my limited understanding allows, are contracts that employees negotiate individually with their employers - and these AWAs are not bound by any notion of "standard wage" i.e. each person is free to use lower wages as leverage to secure a position should they so desire. This clearly undercuts the aims of Worker's Unions, which exist to negotiate a minimum standard for workers as far as pay and conditions go.

Under the new legislation, the fact that any one person has negotiated an AWA with their employer is meant to be confidential, and should any other person openly expose this fact they are liable to prosecution and imprisonment.

I can see how this is meant to protect both the employee and employer, but at the time this struck me as frighteningly Orwellian. I understand now also the furore in the media that blew about when the sedition laws were also proposed - together they suggested ominous things for civil liberties.