Thread: Spotlight

in the late 70's and early eighties the engineering trades in brisbane were decimated by senator buttons policies. 38 workshops on the north side of brissie were shut in 4 years...

i am a fitter and turner by trade and i was retrenched 6 times in three years....

I dont really know what to say to all that, except that good old John Howard has introduced something else without really thinking about how it will effect the average Australian, something which i would like to think was his job.

When i first started teaching and the first lot of pay disputes that i went to started they did a comparison of how the government looks after their own but shafts everyone else. In 1976 a teacher was earning as much as a parlimentry back bencher, who ever sees them doing anything, now they earn over $100000 a year and the eaverage teacher earns $40000 less than this. I know compared to others teachers do pretty well and this isnt a bitch about teachers not getting paid enough its just an example of how the government works. Their wages go up incrementally with inflation and other things like that but teachers, and probably everyone else in this country have to cop bugger all. Matt

It is a complicated subject. There are many things that are bad about the current government but then look at the alternatives and what we had before.
One subject that really annoys me is the idea of companies importing foreign workers to cover so called skill shortages. I am a carpenter/builder and from what I see trades people are finally getting paid reasonable money. The government says there is a skill shortage so will let in skilled workers from overseas and we will all get less money due to less demand and some people pricing jobs stupidly in order to keep working. You can see this effect here in Melbourne when the city construction work slows down and there is a big influx of workers trying to move back into the domestic market.
Luckily I have 3 regular customers and am somewhat insulated from most of fluctuations.

There’s a big reason here in Perth for Spotlight screwing it’s workers nationwide. It’s called the Convention Centre which Spotlight won the hospitality contract for a couple of years ago and it isn’t working out for them.
Apparently they stand to lose around 20 million bucks over 10 years or so.

Trouble was all the bits which made heaps of money like the car parking were all sold off to others but they must have missed that when falling over themselves to get on what they thought was a good earner.

So they want the taxpayer to prop them up and they’ve been told this ain’t going to happen so they screw the workers to make the bottom line look better.

I bet the top end executives won’t suffer and I also suspect that their mates in Parliament will be pulling out all the stops to assist them in many ways which won’t be made public!

Governments everywhere have made things very difficult for many manufacturing businesses to operate with their so called “free trade” agreements or tariff lowering policies which are loaded on the side of whomever is going to do the best for them career wise after politics.

They’re always overseas signing agreements with the UN or EU or anyone else they want to get on the right side of, irrespective of what the electorate thinks which is why the country is being overloaded with refugees from all over the world and cheap labour is going to make it difficult for workers to maintain wages or conditions.

Everybody knows that whenever little Johnny or other pollies are spouting about making Australia more competitive with Asia, they’re referring only to the workers not to their own wages and their fully funded by the taxpayer, indexed superannuation which will keep them in clover for the rest of their evil lives!

I dislike and distrust all pollies of any party, colour or creed.
Alan.

Hmm this is one of those potentially loaded subjects, and opinions like ********s we all have one dependant on where we are, our views, perceptions, upbringings etc etc. Personally I have no qualms with the Howard government, aside from all the rhetoric, they have improved the overall quality of life for Australians. Labour is definately not an alternative by any means. Yes I concur that a $0.02 an hr payrise is a joke but it is a choice to work there on that rate. As with any occupation, bar a mental/physical disability and even then that doesnt stop many, with equal health and intelligence we choose what we do for a job. In a country like ours we are lucky that we have unlimited opportunity. Visit a 3rd world country and you will find out pretty quickly just how lucky we are.

I do run a business and employ 50 odd people, if I pay peanuts I get monkeys so my staff if they are on salary earn over and above the award, if they are in sales they have excellent incentives 2-5 times more than salaried ( office jobs). Which is the most popular job?? Salaried, why? Because in my experience is that many people dont want the stresses involved with a sales job or the uncertainty, very much like running your own business. But by taking on that risk there is potential for a higher payoff. Salaried is the same old same old, security of regular income etc etc. And I have no qualms with that, horses for course. If you like sweeping streets for a living and a tinnie in the arvo and life is grand, kudo's to you. If however you arent happy with ones own situation, do something about it.

I was made redundant many years ago, 3 wks before my wedding, IR laws had nothing to do with that, in fact I think they are great, nothing worse than having to go through a heap of crap to get rid of someone having a lend. Yes there has been some overzealousness in the beginning of the introduction, but statistically bugger all compared to the amount of businesses in Aust. Why because the average business owner is like the average employee, they understand to grow as a business it has to be win win. And if you dont like it find something else to do. Tough but hard and have done it myself with family and commitments.

On a final note, read a book called " Made in America" it is the stories of immigrants who have come from 3rd world countries, war torn, made incredible efforts to get to a place where they could realise their dreams. The people in the book are now all multi millionaires, a couple from Vietnam slept on hessian sacks for 2 years in their cousins bakery to save enough $$ to buy the bakery, then opened up a chain of stores. Im all for Australia, love Australians, but sometimes they just dont see what they really have, whereas many that come from perhaps less fortunate countries do and take full advantage of it and kudos to them. If someone wants the nice house, boat, control whatever, then get out and do it . Thats my piece

Regards

Stevo

Originally Posted by drivesafe

Hi amtravic1, I’ve been both employed in government jobs and for most of my working life now, I’ve also been self employed. Never been on the dole and I’ve been lucky enough to have only being unemployed fo two days.

But when it comes to picking and choosing jobs, things are not that easy for many people when they have a family to support and debts to pay.

These are the people that little johnny is counting on to make sure that those who can pick and choose, don’t have that many options available to them so that eventually they too will have take anything they can get.

Just have a look at the way little johnny has mad it easy for scum bag companies to circumvent the immigration laws and are bringing in foreign labour on the pretext that they couldn’t fill jobs with local labour, even though these same companies never advertised the jobs here in the first place.

Howard is hell bent on forcing every working person in Australia to work for a bowl of rice a day.

Cheers.

But you would have to agree that a great percentage of the population dont want a job, they are quiet happy to be on some sort of benefit or other that are so easy to get.We advertise jobs at work and regularly get no applicants even though this area has one of the highest unemployment rates.And I'm not talking highly skilled positions, just labourers, plant operators etc. And its local Government, a job for life, and no one wants it, and meanwhile they can still get the dole even though a job was advertised in their hometown.There is an apathy sweeping the nation, people dont want to get ahead, they just dont care.

Hi crump, in some cases, this may be so, but as unemployment is running at 6% or there abouts, that’s hardly a “ great percentage of the population “ but I also think that work for the dole should be introduced so that the rest of the working community can get something for the taxes they have paid to finance the dole.

Originally Posted by crump

But you would have to agree that a great percentage of the population dont want a job, they are quiet happy to be on some sort of benefit or other that are so easy to get.We advertise jobs at work and regularly get no applicants even though this area has one of the highest unemployment rates.And I'm not talking highly skilled positions, just labourers, plant operators etc. And its local Government, a job for life, and no one wants it, and meanwhile they can still get the dole even though a job was advertised in their hometown.There is an apathy sweeping the nation, people dont want to get ahead, they just dont care.

I understand this point of view and agree with it. There is always a but and here it is, My brother works as long a hours as I do although only 8 hr days and earns less than 1/2 what I earn. Granted his is a relatively easy job, but he is hugely knowledgable in his field. My point is, he would be just as well off on the dole seeing as he has 4 kids. He does not want to be on the dole and works for peanuts, why because of self esteem. There are a lot of people like him. Granted he could earn more money easily if he headed way out west, but why should he and his family have to leave their home. Australia needs to wake up and ensure evn people on the bottom rung of society who are still hard workers earn substantially more than the dole over all. There are a lot of bludgers who are a drain on society and these are the ones we need to cull out. Without being racist it is endemic in certain pockets of our communities. I seriously agree with some of the work for the dole schemes, but not at the expense of real jobs. There are plenty of charity or non profit organisations that could use workers, but they must be made to actually contribute, not just turn up or ignore their obligations. Just like community service. Waht a joke.
Enough of my ranting.
I can not personally complain as the company I work for pay me well. Just a shame to see a lot of hard working people battling on low incomes.