Tuesday, April 18, 2006
John Howard tells another lie
A couple of weeks ago, its new “Work Choices” legislation came into effect, freeing thousands of workers from the stifling regulations that interfered with their freedom to work longer hours; freeing them to earn less on public holidays and to form an individualised bond of trust with their employer.
From now on, collective bargaining will be consigned to history; all workers will be free to negotiate an individual ‘Australian Workplace Agreement’ (AWA).
Life will better we have been told. While John Howard wasn't going to give any guarantees that no worker's wages would be cut, he was confident there would no no erosion of working conditions.
Disputing this, an internal email memo has leaked to the Australian Council of Trades Unions (ACTU), outlining a certain organisation's changes to its policy on self-certification of sickness. It was entitled "Howard breaks promise".
Its original policy read (summarised):
"Where a line manager has sufficient grounds to believe that employees are abusing sick leave, that line manager may request that a doctor’s certificate is produced for absences of one day or more."
Now this is fairly standard practice and is even currently written into Brisbane City Council’s latest Enterprise Bargaining Agreement. No reasonable employee would argue that such a policy is fair to them, and offers sufficient safeguards to an employer.
The email went on to state that all new AWAs will demand doctor’s certificate for absences of one day or more.
Self-certification is dead. Everyone must now drag yourself out of bed to visit a doctor on any one day they are ill. No sick note, no pay.
This new policy will eventually become standard practice for all employees on ABAs at this particular organisation. Within 2 years, all employee conditions will be covered by this agreement.
So when, on 10 November last year, Prime Minister John Howard said "Labor is putting around the line that you've got to get a doctor's certificate every day you are off sick, not true", he was in fact, lying. (SKY News, 10 Nov 2006.)
And when on the same day, his Workplace Minister, Kevin Andrews told Federal Parliament "... the ALP (Labor Party) and ACTU have been running another inaccurate scare campaign, arguing that under the Work Choices bill employees must provide a separate medical certificate for every day that they take off on sick leave. That is absolutely wrong." He too, was lying. (Federal Parliament 10 November 2005)
Ironically, the leaked email was not from an enterprise known for its poor working conditions (ie a retail giant or fast food restaurant), or from some small struggling new start-up company. Sadly from Kevin Andrews own government department.
I am not sure Mr Howard is "breaking a promise" as the ACTU press release accredits him, or even being 'economical with the truth' to use political cliché.
Where I come from, its called something else: 'lying'.
In an ideal world, there would be outrage. Two ministers have told bare faced whoppers to the media and to federal parliament.
Incisive TV and radio journalists should be chomping at the bit, eager to get their teeth into the them. Citizens would be throwing up the barricades around Parliament House.
Unfortunately, we do not live in this world. Instead, we reside in political dystopia, where we do not expect any reasonable standards of decency from our elected representatives.
We be expect them to lie, to be evasive, to hide the truth when given an opportunity and then to retire from their political career into a lucrative positions with the companies their government has signed million-dollar contracts with.
Our political leaders then take our indifference to their shoddy behaviour as carte blache to continue to act in a dispicable manner, thus perpetuating the political apathy.
When politicians take no pride in their behaviour, nobody does.
As long as we’re making money, working longer hours, buying bigger houses and more stuff, why give a stuff?
John Howard tells another lie
Posted by Living with Matilda at 1:18 PM
A couple of weeks ago, its new “Work Choices” legislation came into effect, freeing thousands of workers from the stifling regulations that interfered with their freedom to work longer hours; freeing them to earn less on public holidays and to form an individualised bond of trust with their employer.
From now on, collective bargaining will be consigned to history; all workers will be free to negotiate an individual ‘Australian Workplace Agreement’ (AWA).
Life will better we have been told. While John Howard wasn't going to give any guarantees that no worker's wages would be cut, he was confident there would no no erosion of working conditions.
Disputing this, an internal email memo has leaked to the Australian Council of Trades Unions (ACTU), outlining a certain organisation's changes to its policy on self-certification of sickness. It was entitled "Howard breaks promise".
Its original policy read (summarised):
"Where a line manager has sufficient grounds to believe that employees are abusing sick leave, that line manager may request that a doctor’s certificate is produced for absences of one day or more."
Now this is fairly standard practice and is even currently written into Brisbane City Council’s latest Enterprise Bargaining Agreement. No reasonable employee would argue that such a policy is fair to them, and offers sufficient safeguards to an employer.
The email went on to state that all new AWAs will demand doctor’s certificate for absences of one day or more.
Self-certification is dead. Everyone must now drag yourself out of bed to visit a doctor on any one day they are ill. No sick note, no pay.
This new policy will eventually become standard practice for all employees on ABAs at this particular organisation. Within 2 years, all employee conditions will be covered by this agreement.
So when, on 10 November last year, Prime Minister John Howard said "Labor is putting around the line that you've got to get a doctor's certificate every day you are off sick, not true", he was in fact, lying. (SKY News, 10 Nov 2006.)
And when on the same day, his Workplace Minister, Kevin Andrews told Federal Parliament "... the ALP (Labor Party) and ACTU have been running another inaccurate scare campaign, arguing that under the Work Choices bill employees must provide a separate medical certificate for every day that they take off on sick leave. That is absolutely wrong." He too, was lying. (Federal Parliament 10 November 2005)
Ironically, the leaked email was not from an enterprise known for its poor working conditions (ie a retail giant or fast food restaurant), or from some small struggling new start-up company. Sadly from Kevin Andrews own government department.
I am not sure Mr Howard is "breaking a promise" as the ACTU press release accredits him, or even being 'economical with the truth' to use political cliché.
Where I come from, its called something else: 'lying'.
In an ideal world, there would be outrage. Two ministers have told bare faced whoppers to the media and to federal parliament.
Incisive TV and radio journalists should be chomping at the bit, eager to get their teeth into the them. Citizens would be throwing up the barricades around Parliament House.
Unfortunately, we do not live in this world. Instead, we reside in political dystopia, where we do not expect any reasonable standards of decency from our elected representatives.
We be expect them to lie, to be evasive, to hide the truth when given an opportunity and then to retire from their political career into a lucrative positions with the companies their government has signed million-dollar contracts with.
Our political leaders then take our indifference to their shoddy behaviour as carte blache to continue to act in a dispicable manner, thus perpetuating the political apathy.
When politicians take no pride in their behaviour, nobody does.
As long as we’re making money, working longer hours, buying bigger houses and more stuff, why give a stuff?
Posted by Living with Matilda at 1:18 PM
Disclaimer:
| I am employed by Brisbane City Council. All views expressed in this blog are my own and in no way reflect the views of my employer. |
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