Whatever I do these days I can't avoid the "Know where you stand" ads - they are on TV, they are in newspapers, they are everywhere. For a change there are no happy smiling faces (maybe they couldn't find anyone who was good enough an actor to pretend to be happy with the workplace relations laws). There are blackboards, white boards, loose sheets of paper and crumpled boxes with such informative phrases as "the workplace relations system", "rules and obligations", "required by law" and oblique promises that the "workplace ombudsman" will "investigate and prosecute" employers who breach the law. "Know where you stand" the ads urge.
So where do we stand? The ads say nothing about the content of the so called "rules and obligations" or what is "required by law". Obviously $4.1 million per week does not buy much informative value. But of course the government would not just waste $4.1 million - they must have something to tell us - right?
The search for real information takes me to the http://www.workplace.gov.au website. The ads in the online newspapers link straight to this site - it must be the repository of the important information that the government is trying to convey.
The site helpfully informs us that:
"On Saturday 19 May 2007, the Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations, the Hon Joe Hockey MP, announced a straight-forward advertising campaign to tell people how the workplace relations laws affect them and where they stand.
Read more about the workplace relations system.
For more information call the Workplace Infoline on 1300 363 264."
Hmm, advertising campaign to "tell people how the workplace relations laws affect them and where they stand"? I must have missed that information in the advertisements. Fortunately, the website contains electronic copies of the television, radio and newspaper advertisements. Another look at them confirms the obvious - they don't actually tell us anything about the content of any laws.
It is time to read further in an attempt to find out the promised information. However, the information on offer is only marginally more useful that the ads themselves.
Its first bit of advice "No one can be forced to sign an agreement". Really, you don't say?! An employer can't hold a gun to your head and force you to sign an agreement? They can of course sack you or not offer you a job, but you have the right to chose between signing an unfair agreement and selling Big Issue on the streets - don't you feel empowered already?
The next bit of advice is:
"…obligations include:
- Minimum wages
- Working hours
- Four weeks paid annual leave
- Ten days paid sick leave
- One year unpaid maternity leave."
A $4.1 million per week campaign to tell us about five obligations? What is the content of these obligations anyway? Does "working hours" obligation mean that an employer can't force you to work unpaid overtime? Of course not, just ignore that bit of mis-information. Does "four weeks paid annual leave" mean that the employer has to pay you a leave loading? No, wrong again. Thanks, Mr Hockey, we are all informed now.
Reading on one encounters the following:
"The Fairness Test applies to employees covered by an Australian Workplace Agreement and earning under $75 000 a year who have had protected award conditions removed or changed in an agreement" and "The Fairness Test also applies to all collective agreements which remove or change protected award conditions."
Hang on a second - the Fairness Test applies? How can it possibly "apply" if the legislation has not even been drafted yet? Has government advertising acquired the power to change the law without the legislation needing to pass through Parliament?
Having learned nothing from the website except that it is designed to withhold correct information, I decided to try a different tack - talking to a friend who works at the Workplace Authority (and who will remain anonymous, for obvious reasons).
"There are all these ads that tell you to call the Workplace Authority to find out where you stand" I tell my friend, "but what can the Authority tell us?".
The answer:
Because the Fairness Test legislation has not even been drafted, those answering the phone have been instructed not to give any particular information on the test (well, that's sensible) and have just been told to say general positive things about it.
Enough said, I think.
Thanks for reading
May 26th, 2007
Posted by
Unsilenced |
Howard government, Industrial relations, Political advertising |
one comment
It would be a mundane story. A company underpays its employees. It carries out an audit, discovers the underpayment and repays the arrears. Worse things happen every day - workers on AWAs lose some or all of their "protected" award conditions, employers sack sex-attack victims for assisting the police. The government passed legislation specifically to allow such things to happen.
Yes, it would be a boring story, if it wasn't an election year, if the government was not desperate for anything that could boost its falling popularity ratings and if the woman who owned the company was not married to the Leader of the Opposition, who has been successful in raising awareness of the fatal flaws in the government's industrial relations laws.
Unable to mount a successful defence to Labor's attack on WorkChoices or to convince the voters that being deprived of their rights is a good thing, the government and its supporters adopted the tried and true approach to defending the indefensible - divert attention by attacking an easy and convenient target.
Therese Rein is the convenient target. A successful business woman, she started her own recruitment business in 1989 and grew it from a one-person company to an international operation with over a thousand employees and more than 60 offices in Australia and overseas. She's the sort of woman that conservatives love to hate - not the traditional stay at home politician's wife, she's a Cherie Booth rather than a Janette Howard.
Such a role is hard to grasp for those whose social perceptions are still stuck firmly in the last century. Their difficulty was illustrated by the reaction to Rudd's statement that "This is the age of professional women who run their own companies, who have their own lives and are not simply appendages of middle-aged men". It was a reasonable response to the ridiculous suggestion that a mistake made by Rein's company somehow undermined Rudd's attack on government policy (if anything it points to the need for more regulation of employers' conduct). Rudd simply confirmed what most of us should already know - Therese Rein is not the same person as her husband, what she does is not a reflection of his policy and vice versa.
But conservative politicians and commentators were quick off the mark with some more twisted logic - Rudd "insulted" stay-at-home mums, they screamed. Peter Dutton (Assistant Treasurer) took charge. "That's an offence to all stay-at-home mums" he claimed, Rudd has just implied that they are all "worthless". It is not that Rudd was pointing out that Dutton and his ilk have are unable to escape the outdated assumptions that whatever Therese Rein did must have been approved by her husband. No, simply by stating that his wife is an independent human being Rudd must have been insulting every woman who is not a "professional woman".
The suggestion is of course arrant nonsense. It defies logic. Let me illustrate:
I have a pen. The pen is made of plastic. The pen does not have blue ink in it. If you have a pen, that is not made of plastic, does it mean that it does have blue ink in it? (did I hear "of course not, stop asking stupid questions?")
Let's apply the same logic to the present situation:
Mr Rudd has a wife. She is a business woman. She is not an appendage of her husband. If Mr Dutton has a wife, who is not a business woman, does it mean that she is an appendage of her husband?
But of course Howard and his supporters don't have to make sense, they don't have to be right and they don't have to be fair. These concepts are foreign to the politics of desperation. They just have to create a distraction. Make the voters think about something other than their rapidly vanishing rights, make them forget about the hundreds of millions of dollars the government has wasted to keep itself in power, make them think about something other than the lies the government has told and the promises it has broken. Attacking Rudd's wife is consistent with this approach - who cares if its a cheap shot. Who cares if it is unfair, bordering on sleazy. Twisting Rudd's words to suggest that he, rather than the stereotype-clinging conservatives, undervalues Australian women is an added benefit - who cares if it doesn't make any sense.
After all, there is no fairness test in pre-election politics.
May 26th, 2007
Posted by
Unsilenced |
Australian politics, Howard government, Industrial relations, Women, Rudd and Labor |
one comment
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