The return of WorkChoices? Productivity Commission’s attack on workers’ rights

John Rainford fears The return of WorkChoices? Productivity Commission’s attack on workers’ rights.

Employer representatives and Abbott government ministers see the virtue of the inquiry as identifying impediments to jobs growth.

What this can only lead to is either a watering down of present minimum rates and conditions or their complete abolition in the name of creating jobs.

The idea that cutting the minimum wage and penalty rates will create jobs is a myth born of voodoo economics in the US, where the evidence is that higher minimum wages actually raise employment.

The only result of a lower minimum wage would be to cut employment opportunities and increase the number of working poor. It is nevertheless regularly rolled out as a favoured policy prescription by conservatives trapped in a time-warp of hatred for unions and the workers they represent.

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The laws of motion for Capitalism require the Capitalists to continually attack the wages and conditions of workers. It is only through the expropiation of the surplus value created by labour that the Capitalists are able to realise profit.

This increasing profit leads to the periodic crises in Capitalism in which the workers do not have enough money to buy all of the goods that their labour produce. This is the classic crisis of overproduction.

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Let's end this domestic violence epidemic

John Rainford writes Let's end this domestic violence epidemic.

The inquiry, which is to report by February next year, will be led by the Supreme Court judge Marcia Neave. It is required to focus on practical solutions to what has, so far, largely been an intractable problem.

But while the Victorian royal commission is a good start, violence against women is not confined to Victoria, or any other state for that matter. It is a national problem that accounts for 40% of police time, costs the national economy $14 billion each year and affects more than one million children.

But with Tony Abbott federal minster responsible for women's policies and programs, an announcement of a strategy dealing with it is unlikely to be made any time soon.

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Any oppressive society is enforced by violence at all levels of society. Voilence permeates the whole of society. It is in the home, in the work-place, on public transport, on the roads, everywhere.

We live in an economic and political system that solves problems through violence.

This is why we are involved in wars in Iraq, Syria, and Afghanistan. Any political solution was not acceptable to the ruling class. They had to demonstrate naked, raw power in order to intimidate all others.

This logic then flows through the rest of society. To get my own way, I have to take it. There is no negotiation. Even if there is negotiation, it has to be seen as a zero-sum game.

The Other is the enemy. They cannot never be a friend. This is the poison that is destroying humanity.

When humanity needs global action to avoid extinction, we are fighting over the scraps like rabid dogs.

Seeing the Other as a human being is hard because it requires that confront and overcome the conditioning we have undergone, and that we no longer conform to the norms of society.

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