If you want a textbook example of the Turnbull Government’s contradictions, look no further than its attack on the union movement at the same time as it bemoans Australia’s record low wages growth.
Back in September, Treasurer Scott Morrison all but begged employers to pay their workers more:
Treasurer Scott Morrison has stepped up calls for employers to turn increasing profits into higher wages to help end the record run of flat wages growth.
And he has urged workers in profitable to also push for higher pay when they renegotiate their workplace awards.
Mr Morrison told the ABC’s Insiders program that as profits improve, so does the case for a pay rise…
“That’s a matter between them and their workers,” he when asked it bosses in profitable sectors needed to be more generous.
“But as their profits improve, then obviously the case for wage rises obviously builds and particularly when they’re putting people on”…
All the while the Government is trying its hardest to neuter the union movement via five ‘anti-union’ bills before the Senate. From The Australian:
The bills include proposed legislation designed to torpedo a planned merger between the Construction Forestry Mining and Energy Union and the Maritime Union of Australia.
Employment Minister Michaelia Cash is separately proposing tight regulatory controls on worker entitlement funds under a move that could deny unions $25 million a year…
“These are important bills designed to protect the interests of workers and ensure that the very significant amount of money that is managed on their behalf is also better protected,’’ he said.
“It is concerning the ACTU appears to be afraid of legislation that will clearly benefit Australian workers, including millions of union members.”
Back in July, Josh Bornstein, an employment and industrial relations lawyer and writer, penned an excellent article in Fairfax arguing that de-unionisation has stifled Australian wages:
A new consensus has emerged since the Global Financial Crisis that anaemic wages growth and increased income inequality is retarding economies and stoking political volatility in developed economies…
The collapse in bargaining power for workers… is reflected in the plight of Australian trade unions, which are languishing at their weakest point in their history. Only 14.5 per cent of employees belong to a trade union. In the private sector, that number sits at a shocking 10 per cent and falling. The tipping point passed long ago. Australian trade unions are fighting for their survival. That wage growth and employee share of GDP has hit record lows is no coincidence…
The decline in union density in Australia has been far more pronounced than in any other OECD country…
Unions have been seriously weakened by 30 years of constant political and legislative attacks. The last conservative prime minister not to establish a royal commission into trade unions was Billy McMahon (1971-1972). For decades, business lobby groups have permanently and successfully campaigned for legislative change that weakens unions…
In this era, workplace laws have been changed in two key ways. First, the laws have been deregulated to encourage employers to cut wages and de-unionise their workplaces. At the same time, unions have been subjected to complex regulation that restricts their ability to access workplaces, recruit members and to bargain for better wages and conditions. The laws have allowed employers unprecedented ability to cut labour costs, outmanoeuvre employees and their unions while at the same time inveigling unions into a kind of regulatory quicksand…
If the suppression of wage growth is to be overcome, our laws need to radically change. When unions are allowed to function, they operate as a check and balance on unfettered managerial prerogative at work and a force that moderates income and wealth inequality…
The contradictions of the Turnbull Government were noted by shadow employment minister, Brendan O’Connor, who told Scott Morrison via Twitter: “Morrison and (Malcolm Turbull) say they want higher wages while seeking to destroy workers’ unions. Funny if it wasn’t so serious.”
The Australian Institute’s chief economist, Richard Denniss, noted similar via Twitter last week in relation to the collapse in retail sales: “It’s…as if…the business community are suffering from their own success in crushing wage growth.”
Both are correct. The Turnbull Government can’t credibly bemoan low wages growth while systematically attempting to undermine them by undermining workers’ bargaining power.
