2013 Federal election - Rudd sets date as 7th September

[Bully]

snake in the grass Bill shorten is doing a tv interview on sky at the moment. Ah my good friend, your time is running out

[Roxy the Rat Girl]

You wrongly assume I dont have facts - go and ask your union

So if you have the facts why not just share them with us?

[Jimmy_041]

If you're a member of a union, why dont you just go and ask them?
If you're not, then its not a problem, is it?

[Roxy the Rat Girl]

My results:

Political Compass:

Economic Left/Right: -4.75
Social Libertarian/Authoritarian: -4.31

On the other site, my economic freedom index is 5, and my social freedom index is 6.5.

My results
Economic Left/Right: - 4.25
Social Libertarian/Authoritarian: - 3.13

Thats somewhere close to Psyber's result I think.

[Roxy the Rat Girl]

If you're a member of a union, why dont you just go and ask them?
If you're not, then its not a problem, is it?

So you don't have the facts then

[Roxy the Rat Girl]

I actually got ALP!...

Must have been broken.

[Jimmy_041]

If you're a member of a union, why dont you just go and ask them?
If you're not, then its not a problem, is it?

So you don't have the facts then

Yep, just sat here and thought it up whilst watching the footy

[Roxy the Rat Girl]

So why not enlighten us. You made a statement which has been questioned so why not back it up if you are able. Failure to do so only reinforces that you don't have the facts you claim to have, and that your statement that unions benefit from work place agreements is in deed a fabrication as with some of your past posts.

[Jimmy_041]

No it doesn't.
Go and ask your union or check their annual report and look at their P&L for revenue. It's not that difficult to do.
Much easier than sitting there and slinging off that others are imagining things.
DYOR

[Psyber]

I note that, with the Gonski reforms happening if the ALP are re-elected AND if they can get more states to sign up to it, this is being regarded as a way for the ALP election campaign to be run on government money, rather than the ALP's funds, via the "better education" advertisements that have started appearing.

I suspect that even if the ALP did win, Gonski would fall over and the "recalcitrant" states be blamed for not signing up.
I appears many states are concerned the plan, as it stands, requires the states to chip in more than they can afford in their already damaged budgets before seeing any federal money.
But, I guess, "sweeteners" may be added to get a few more to sign up nearer election day.

[Roxy the Rat Girl]

Jimmy doesn't have the facts

[Jimmy_041]

Roxy is lazy

BTW, just for clarification, I'm not saying they are doing anything illegal, I'm just saying they get revenue from sources other than member contributions.
Some of those can be suppliers of services.

[Roxy the Rat Girl]

Roxy is lazy

BTW, just for clarification, I'm not saying they are doing anything illegal, I'm just saying they get revenue from sources other than member contributions.
Some of those can be suppliers of services.

Quite correct, I'm as lazy as a bear in hibernation. I don't doubt unions derive a significant portion of their funds from service provision, and that negotiation of EBAs would form a part of this. I would imagine that unions would charge non-members a fee to assist in the negotiation of their EBA and why not, the RAA do this when non-members break down and call for assistance. A union rep should be well schooled in industrial relations law and policy and therefore one would expect them to be a beneficial ally when negotiating an EBA.

It would be interesting to see a graph of union membership over time to see if there is a correlation to different governments?

[Grahaml]

Roxy is lazy

BTW, just for clarification, I'm not saying they are doing anything illegal, I'm just saying they get revenue from sources other than member contributions.
Some of those can be suppliers of services.

I don't have any issue with unions deriving funds form multiple sources, it's just smart. But that's not the point I raised initially. It was basically that members pay the unions to act on their behalf. Unions aren't "helping" workers so much as providing a service. Business are the ones who pay the workers so in my view, they do more and benefit more from a strong and satisfied workforce.

In times gone by when one business would in a sense own a whole town they could exploit individuals and even their whole workforce because the workers had no protections, information or power as individuals. Unions had a MASSIVE say in changing all that but now workers have great individual rights, an ability to access information on what they can do and a lot of power as individuals. In keeping with the moving of the times, I think Labor need to reduce their ties with unions and find a new way to provide a strong alternative to the Liberals or face someone else replacing them.

The worry in the meantime is poor oppositions too often lead to poor governments. Latham sucked and we got a WorkChoices bill that had good ideas but poor ideas that killed it. Nelson sucked and we went down the path of spending up in a panic. You can see the difference it makes with Abbott being a very effective opposition leader as (IMHO) the government has had to tighten things up. Only trouble is they made a few serious errors largely before the last election that have left it hamstrung.

[Roxy the Rat Girl]

Following from my last post; I couldn't find anything that showed the political party holding government correlated against union membership but I did find this from the ABS which clearly indicates that since 1992, regardless of which party was in office, union membership has steadily declined. the reference is http://www.abs.gov.au/ausstats/abs@.nsf/Lookup/6310.0main+features3August%202011

Trade union membership has generally declined since 1992. From August 1992 to August 2011, the proportion of those who were trade union members in their main job has fallen from 43% to 18% for employees who were males and 35% to 18% for females.

There was, however, a small rise in trade union membership during the Global Financial Crisis (GFC) period (2008-2009). This was largely driven by an increase in the proportion of male employees who were trade union members which was 19% in August 2008 and 20% in August 2009.

Union.png (16.51 KiB) Viewed 366 times

[wycbloods]

You made the claim so I wrongly assumed you had some facts to back that up.

You wrongly assume I dont have facts - go and ask your union

I'm more certain now you don't have facts. I'd like to know what you deem 'a fortune' and how that is derived from EBA's.

[Gozu]

Labor's Martin Ferguson has announced he'll be retiring at the upcoming election.

[dedja]

Brings a tear to the eye ...

[Sojourner]

Why does it appear that the Liberals do not have the courage to bring on the no confidence motion? Would not the independents voting for the government be more ammunition for the Liberals to defeat them in the election?

[Psyber]

Why does it appear that the Liberals do not have the courage to bring on the no confidence motion?
Would not the independents voting for the government be more ammunition for the Liberals to defeat them in the election?

I think Tony Abbott is staying well away from the "wrecker" label the ALP are trying to make stick.
Why take the risk of giving them the hook to hang it on again with the election so close.
Especially so, since the Greens and independents will back the PM anyway, even if it is only to prolong their political lives another month or so.