Head of "Fair pay" commission experienced in screwing workers

[Djinn]

The Head of the Howard Government's "Fair Pay" Commission was previously the Director of Australian Derivatives Exchange, which went into administration in 2001.

The adminstrator Steve Parbury said at the time that ADX may have been insolvent for some months before it went into administration.

The government states this episode shows he knows business?? well it shows he knows how to fuck one up and leave workers waiting for a long time to receive their entitlements.

This is also the man that beleives the Harvester decision was a mistake, because the landmark living wage case didn't take into account a business' ability to pay and believes in paying the lowest wage anyone will work for is a better economic model.

Other countries, notably the United States, also faced the dilemma of developing beyond a highly productive primary sector. In the US case, they were also keen to grow their population through immigration, although not for defence reasons. The key difference between such cases and our own is that other countries did not try to divorce wages from the low levels of productivity characteristic of high-employment manufacturing industry. Employers in the sweatshops of lower Manhattan were not obliged to raise wages to 'fair and reasonable' levels. While this is no doubt partly responsible for the wider dispersion of wages in countries like the United States compared with Australia, growth of manufacturing industry in the United States did not require the systematic intervention from government which became the hallmark of attempts to nurture manufacturing in Australia.

so he acknowledges this leads to a "wider dispersion of wages" otherwise known as the increasing and repugnant income gap, but still beleives that this is the way forward?

another choice Harperism?

So you see it isn’t just about what’s fair for those who are in work. It is also about what’s fair for those who are unemployed. I’m wanting to put the emphasis on the word ‘fair’.

in other words paying people living wages while some are unemployed is unfair, it's better to lower the wages so everyone has a job (the connection between lower wages and reduction in unemployment being highly speculative) even if that job doesn't actually allow them to feed their kids and pay a mortgage.

This man (or more accurately the man pulling his strings) is a total disaster for Australian workers, we can all look forward to living in a US style economy wherein most people can get a job, but that job (and even adding on a second job they may get) isn't enough to keep them, if you havn't read Nickel and Dimed I suggest you do - it's what we have to look forward to.

[foreigncorrespondent]

1. I'd believe it, mate!

This week alone I have heard of several cases in the security industry where their pay (which is pittence to begin with) had dropped down a few dollars.

My last job I was earning $15.30 per hour. And that my friend was casual rates. Most jobs in the security industry are casual. There are people out there who are working security earning between $12 and $14 an hour now.