These days, the economy is run for the benefit of business, not the rest of us.

Picture below is from here.

More shocks with the reporting of some epic results following on the easing of work rights and obligations - this time connected to the 457 visas under which workers are sponsored to work in Australia by employers.  This time it is the 'enlightened' non-feminist firm Thiess which is a subsidiary/partner of its 'enlightened' non-feminist corporate colleague Leightons.  Please note that Leighton Holdings is now known as the CIMIC Group. Those familiar with the old Leightons Holding board will remember year after year of all male boards - but now they have moved on to the token female.  BTW, please note Miss Eagle does not agree with 'the goal' supported by the Workplace Gender Equality Agency (WGEA) and the Australian Institute of Company Directors (AICD) of 30% of boards to be female. 

The Sex Discrimination Act has been in place since 1984.  Introduction of such legislation was part of Australia's obligation when ratifying the United Nations' Convention to Eliminate Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW).  More than 30 years has gone by and corporations are only being pressed for 30% female representation!  But then WGEA - and its predecessors with other nomenclature - has always been a featherduster organisation.  And look where its so-called "carrot and stick" approach has got women.

In 2010 the then EOWA awarded Thiess an EOWA Award as an employer of choice for women.  This was at the time when there were all sorts of shenaningans going on at the site of the Wonthaggi desalination plant construction.  As for women lauding Thiess .... who? Professional women? Women further down the food chain?  With such undemanding standards, will Thiess Services and CIMIC Group end up employers of choice for women?  I don't think there is an award for providing sound workplace practices for migrant workers.  Clearly, if there was an award, I would expect Thiess Services to find themselves ineligible.  I think we could rely on the Electrical Trades Union to see to that. 

Complaints have been around for a long, long time.  Please see these listed in 2013. 

If you want too tickle your funny bone with a sardonic laugh or three, please read this from April last year. Note the panel for this review - a review which had its mind made up long before it began.  It had its goal clearly in view.  Now we are seeing the results of it.

Please note the ministerial responsibility in the review - it is that well known wife of fish, Senator Michaelia Cash.  These days she is the Assistant Minister for Border Protection (the portfolio for being cruel to refugees and asylum seekers, particularly women and their children) and Minister Assisting the Prime Minister for Women. Australia does not have a Minister who only handles the portfolio of women's affairs because of its significance. And, of course, a woman cannot be expected to handle such a portfolio responsibly.  It is essential that the Prime Minister, Tony Abbott - who day-by-day has his credibility leaking as badly as a run down people-smuggling boat - gives significance to the portfolio.  Seems to be that gone are the days when significant women handled this portfolio with great success and benefit to those whom the portfolio served.

What we have found aired to us in recent weeks is that large numbers of men and women in the Australian workforce - particularly if they come from overseas on a 417 working holiday visa or a 457 employer sponsored visa - are treated shoddily.  The Liberal-National Parties currently in government in Australia, together with their corporate mates, are trashing Australia's reputation for fairness and equity.  Australia is becoming yet another rip-off station on the international circuit.

Such practices disadvantage ordinary Australians. How?

1. Can we really trust employers, as a group,  if they say they cannot fill their jobs with Australian employees?  Not all employers using 417s and 457s are bad employers.  However, when major corporations act like Thiess they bring everyone into disrepute.

2.  The enthusiasm with which the Abbott Government and their corporate cronies have adopted the concept - or some of the concept - of overseas working visas is part of an overall objective of driving down wages in Australia, particularly for unskilled or semi-skilled work.  And remember we don't yet know what Australia has signed up to in the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement. 

3. Currently, Australian government agencies are not working for all Australians.  As a peep into the WGEA shows, no pressure is being brought to bear on recalcitrant employers and yet, as we saw in last year's Budget, the Abbott Government is prepared to place enormous financial and family pressures on Australian workers. 

4. Is Australia producing a new breed of refugees as people flee from us because of the evil and gross indecency of many employment practices in this country?

As you can see below, Networkers, I have included a reading list.  It's a bit of a mixed bag - but it will give you an idea of some of the stuff that is around and a lot of this stuff will have been inserted in the minds of politicians by professional lobbyists.  The last on the list is from one of my favourite economic commentators, Ross Gittins. I conclude this article with A Taste of Gittins from his article which I have included below:

To me the main drawback is not so much that employers may not try hard enough to find local workers to fill jobs, or that the availability of this external supply may limit to some extent the rise in skilled wages, but that it reduces employers' incentive go to the bother of training young workers. 

Still, we mustn't forget that, these days, 

the economy is run for the benefit of business, not the rest of us.

Further reading

Visa holders and migrant workers - workplace rights and entitlements

Compete to prosper

The evidence is tacking up that Australians will earn lower wages in the years ahead

Australian oil and gas workers earning less which may give industry competitive edge

Minimum Wage Review 2014 - Australian Retailers Assocation submission

Immigration to Australia

How Australia's supply of labour is changing

What are you buying? How did it get to you? Whose hands has it passed through?

Australian Unions The temporary visa program is broken and facilitates the gross exploitation of migrant workers, a view confirmed by the Four Corners program that aired last night. Urgent action must be taken by the Federal Government to clamp down and regulate the entire temporary visa and labour hire system and remove rogue operators. There should be an immediate halt to any expansion of the temporary work visa program until the full outcome of the Senate Inquiry is known. National Union of Workers http://www.actu.org.au/actu-media/media-releases/2015/temporary-visa-program-front-for-slave-labour

Hooray! Australia is now on a par with Saudi Arabia for forced returns of migrants. C'mon let's celebrate!

At left: An Ethiopian worker argues with a member of the Saudi security forces as he waits with his countrymen to be repatriated in Manfouha, southern Riyadh (Reuters).  Picture from International Business Times

I wonder if Tony Abbott and Scott Morrison are offering themselves a toast of some bubbly stuff.  They have something to celebrate.  They have placed Australia - with their tow backs and life-boat forced aboards - on a par with that great bastion of human rights, Saudi Arabia.



The material below comes from the Editor's Note in the January 17, 2014 Newsletter of the Migration Policy Institute - Migration Information Source.  

Editor's Note

Saudia Arabia's campaign to remove irregular migrants, which has resulted in nearly 1 million people leaving the country since last year, continues. More than 2,000 Somali migrants were repatriated to Mogadishu earlier this week.

Ethiopia, Yemen, and Somalia are among the countries struggling to absorb the returnees. The International Organization for Migration, which has been providing emergency medical assistance, food, and reintegration allowances to some of the irregular migrants, estimated earlier this month that more than 151,000 Ethiopians have been returned from Saudi Arabia. Yemeni officials estimate 300,000 to 400,000 Yemenis were expelled from Saudi Arabia last year, with thousands dropped off in a single day at a crossing along the countries' shared border. Saudi Arabia also has removed large numbers of migrant workers from Egypt, India, Sudan, and other countries.

The returns are imposing a double strain on the economies of the migrants' countries of origin. In addition to facing the return of these workers and the need to integrate them into labor markets, the countries now must do without the remittances that they sent home. Saudi Arabia is the world's third-largest source of remittances, behind the United States and Russian Federation, with official outflows estimated at $29.4 billion in 2012. By some estimates, the crackdown could result in a one-quarter reduction in remittances from Saudi Arabia.

The Saudi campaign, which has drawn reports of abuses against migrants and also resulted in a violent clash, is part of a broader effort to create new job openings for Saudi nationals and to remake the country's labor market; it is also viewed as an effort to stave off the unrest that has hit elsewhere in the Middle East. The country's population of 29.2 million included about 9 million non-Saudis in 2012.

The crackdown came on the heels of a 2013 amnesty during which 4 million workers rectified visa infringements and obtained work permits, and nearly 1 million Bangladeshis, Filipinos, Indians, Nepalis, Pakistanis, and others left the country. (The Indian government estimates more than 141,000 of its nationals took advantage of the Saudi amnesty.) When the amnesty, declared in March 2013, ended that November, the removals campaign began with workplace raids and other enforcement operations.

While the Saudi government reports the campaign has created greater employment opportunities for Saudi nationals, providing jobs to date for more than 254,000 Saudis, there are suggestions that the economic impact on certain sectors in the kingdom may not be entirely positive, at least in the near term.

The Migration Information Source team
source@migrationpolicy.org

Gina Rinehart and Guest Workers : Roger Corbett, #Walmart and Guest workers : FIFO and DIDO

The topic of Guest Workers is giving many - but not all - Australians pause for thought these days.   Things have come to a head with government approval of the request of Australia's and the world's richest woman,. Gina Rinehart, to employ 1700 foreign guest workers  at her $6.5 billion Roy Hill iron ore mine in Western Australia.  Employers report difficulties in recruiting staff for jobs associated with Australia's mining boom. Would-be Australian employees report difficulties in getting jobs associated with Australia's mining boom.  

Picture from here
More and more we are seeing and hearing of employees who are treated like a piece of machinery, automatons even.  Mining companies once built communities such as Mount Isa in North West Queensland.  Now there are the infamies of FIFO and hot-bedding.  Across mining communities from Western Australia across to Queensland, reports are coming of drunkenness, violence and anti-social behaviour from workers who are employed on a FIFO basis and have no connection to the local community.  In former times in isolated mining communities, leisure activities from sports to little theatre groups and libraries have blossomed.  That's not so much the case any more.  The predominantly male FIFO workforce tends to be isolated in many ways from the surrounding community (if there is one) and yet impacts adversely on local facilities like the local hospital.  


It is clear that the resources boom is not a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow for everyone - and some people appear to be deliberately excluded from going anywhere near the pot of gold. 


And now Gina - and others beside - wants guest workers.  Needless to say, these workers will be isolated from the Australian community and questions are asked about wages, conditions, and workplace safety.  Questions are also being asked about whether trade union representatives will have access to the mine site and the guest workers to verify wages, conditions, and workplace safety issues on site.  

~~~

Into all this, I want to bring to the attention of Networkers to the situation of guestworkers employed in the seafood industry in Louisiana, USA.  You may wonder what this situation has to do with Australia.  It has much to do with Australia. 85% of the product of this particular seafood company goes to Walmart. Walmart has been connected, over the years,  to a vast array of workplace injustices across the USA and in China. And there is an Australian connection. 


This blog keeps a watching brief on Roger Corbett.  Roger Corbett is one of the most influential businessmen in Australia.  I would go so far as to say he could be the most influential person in Australia through his strategically acquired directorships.  He knows the prices, the economics of every significant part of our economy up front and first hand - whether its the price households pay for food; the price farmers get for their beef; how much Australians spend on alcohol and poker machines; and the pharmaceuticals Australians use.  Over and above all this, he is privy - through his role on the Board of the Reserve Bank of Australia - to economic information at the highest level.  He also sits on the board of Walmart.


I have yet to see or hear any media interview or article which queries the conflicts of some of Corbett's activities. 


Corbett chairs the Salvation Army Eastern Territory Advisory Board.  He also chairs the board of ALH Group Pty Limited. ALH is 75% owned by Woolworths Limited - one half of Australia's major food and variety retail duopoly (Coles being the other half) of which Roger Corbett was once CEO.  


ALH is noteworthy for being Australia's largest takeaway liquor retailer and it also own more hotels and poker machines than any other person or corporation in Australia. Now this mix of pubs, pokies and Salvos puzzles many people.  The Salvos claim they have discussed this with Roger Corbett and he has given an explanation to them and they say they are satisfied with this.  However, the Salvos won't tell anyone what the explanation is.  And so it is a mystery to the rest of us who find the two positions at odds with each other - unless, for the Salvos as well as for Roger Corbett, it is not about the poor and the downtrodden and the oppressed but about money and prestige.

And back to Walmart with its long history of workplace injustices - and we find that Roger Corbett now sits on a board which is connected to, what many people would define as, slave labour.  The guest workers at C.J. Seafoods in Louisiana are asking the following:

Walmart needs to meet with us immediately, and to show its suppliers that it won't tolerate forced labor. We’re demanding that Walmart:
1. Cancel its contract with C.J.’s Seafood to show that it won't profit from forced labor in Louisiana.
2. Sit down with us, the striking workers, immediately as a first step toward a real investigation -- rather than a cover-up.
3. Sign the NGA's Guestworker Dignity Standards to prevent forced labor and guarantee civil and labor rights for guestworkers across the Walmart supply chain. 

What will you do about this situation, Roger Corbett?

Walk by on the other side?

Hide behind your corporate dignity?

Further reading:

Unemployed sidelined in debate over guest workers

Why using foreign workers is only importing problems by Paul Howes

An 'open letter' to Paul Howes on guest workers

Furore over Rinehart's guest workers

Flying into a mining flashpoint

Homeless on 100K: the boom digs into mining towns

Miners - Alcohol - FIFO and DIDO

The Ultimate Sign The Commodity Boom Has Gone Overboard In Australia

Inquiry looks at 'cancer of  bush'

FIFO enquiry must examine health issues 

Dark side of the mining boom

Perth glassing could dash hopes for mining career

The FIFO debate

Standing Committee on Regional Australia - Fly-in fly-out work practices

Related articles

• Site gives Aussies first bite at mine gigs

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• Boom needs guest workers

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• Miners challenged on fly-in fly-out

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• Guest worker upset begets job board so Australians see positions first

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• Fly-in-fly-out trends

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• Workers for Wal-Mart Supplier Forced Into Slave Labor

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• Move to WA? We're not that desperate

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• Why is Gina importing workers direct? Because we won't go there

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• Rinehart increases Fairfax stake again

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• Aussie workers should be first: unions

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• Gillard moves to quell foreign worker row

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• Gillard hits back over foreign worker backlash

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• Australian mining community outraged by government's decision to grant first ever right to hire foreign workers

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• PM promises to protect Australian jobs

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• Foreign workers to benefit from Australia's mining boom

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Joe Hockey and Filial Piety: working up the LibNats shopping list

Click to enlarge

Picture comes from here - please read a sons views of filial piety in practice

I recall a time back in the 1970s when a friend invited me to a Liberal Party barbecue in a Queensland regional city.  My friend explained the sort of economic thinking that was around in the Liberal Party at the time and has come to fruition across the world; is part of the gospel (oops! wrong word - gospel means good news) of libertarian think tanks such as the CIS and the IPA.  The propaganda was, is simple.  If a country, say India, makes better sandshoes at a better price than we can match, we should let them do it and we will do something else that we are good at.  A simple dollar and cents equation with a bit of a hat tip to expertise.

This thinking has spread across the world - recently I have eaten rice bubbles which turned out to be Made in Egypt (didn't like them - preferred the Kellogg's variety to which I have become habituated); pizzas sold dirt cheap through NQR that come from Germany; and of course there are the omni-present labels saying Made in China .... although I did come across Made in Bangladesh the other day.  I buy basmati rice from Pakistan.  Now there are some overseas countries I don't mind buying from - Bangladesh and Pakistan need the trade and the jobs.  And so does Australia.

In the simplistic factoids of the conservative political parties and the libertarian think tanks, everything is reduced to price.  In cavalier fashion they dismiss arguments such as social impact; skills building and retention; and self-sufficiency.  Certainly, the human dignity which fairly paid work provides doesn't rate a mention.  Barriers must come down and we must allow ourselves to be invaded by price cutting built on the back of slave labour or, at least, conditions akin to slave labour in places like China and India.

And what has been the result of all that wishful thinking?

Check the links below for the glowing (NOT) report on working life in Asian countries.  Even in these bad stories, some people feel that life has improved for them - but that is because they have come off a low, harsh and extremely cruel base.

Meantime, in Australia work is being abolished and off-shored to cheap labour markets in Asia.  Australia is prostrating itself before China and India to cut up our country.  But then if we have no respect for ourselves and our country, I suppose this is only to be expected.

Now we have Joe Hockey pontificating about Asian "filial piety".    Filial piety is a Confucianism concept. It also explains why so much of Chinese thoughtfulness begins and ends with the family and does not extend to the nation as a whole, to systemic means of consideration for each other.  Australia has two distinct types of spiritual heritage. The First Nations constructed for themselves a reciprocal society - a society of rights and obligations. In Joe Hockey's pontificating parlance, this construct could be regarded as one of entitlement ... because people relied on the operation of reciprocity. The reciprocal societies of the First Nations have sustained them for sixty milennia.  

Then 200+ years ago, white settlers brought their western European Christianity to Australia.  They key commandment of this culture is to do unto others as you would have them do unto you.  Christianity gives the broadest of definitions to helping your neighbour.  Neighbours are not close relatives or friends, they are not those you choose to like or associate with.  Neighbours include the other, the outcast, the different.  A sense of entitlement is not encouraged.  It is simply that duty to God includes a duty to other human beings.  Now Hockey had a good Jesuitical education - as have Abbott and Joyce.  It is amazing the statements that issue forth from them which are demeaning of others; are vindictive and vengeful  and defaming; and don't exhibit an iota of Christian love, respect and fellow-feeling.  I reckon the Jesuits had better get back to the drawing-board!

Of course, there is a reason Joe has spoken out - and he was so brave wasn't he doing it in far away London!  There is a political shopping list being compiled by the conservative parties of Australia prior to the 2013 Federal Election which, they believe, is theirs for the taking.  Here are some front runners on the shopping list:

• Abolish Federal mining taxes - and treat Gina Rinehart, Twiggy Forest & Clive Palmer nicely
• Cut taxes for high income earners and corporates
• Cut Carbon Pricing
• Abolish Fair Work
• Take on the unions - Patricks -v- MUA revisited across a number of fronts
• Wind back environmental  priorities
• Give irrigators the Water Act they really, truly want and lust after
• Please provide suggestions for adding to the list

Things we can't expect the LibNats to do:

• Provide an improved childcare system
• Introduce a means test for the aged pension so that the wealthy can't get it
• Introduce a means test for child care assistance so that wealthy can't get it
• Please provide suggestions for adding to the list

Further reading:
Hockeynomics eats our safety net
We're 'entitled' to be outraged, Mr Hockey

Beyond codes of conduct: addressing labor rights problems in China

China Labor Watch

Labor in China: Working   conditions, wages and  stress

Walmart appoints Australian as China boss

Child labour in India

Indian 'slave' children 

Labour in India

Pakistan  exporters seek to improve labor conditions while unions struggles for basic rights

End forced labor in Vietnam

Hong Kong: ten years on and no improvement in sight

Workers  protest against overwork, bad conditions (Taipei, Taiwan)

Hired on sufferance: China's migrant workers in Singapore

Migrant worker sit-in makes waves in Singapore

Nike faces new worker abuse claims in Indonesia

Human trafficking - Iindonesia

The plight of the Burmese in Thailand

Internationally recognised core  labour standards  in Thailand

Related articles

• Hockey calls for review of all welfare payments