The Howard Government is wondering why it is on the nose, let me tell them why.
It is on the nose because it focuses on monetary motivation, it assumes money is the only motivation for people. All of us do many things every day without money being the reason. Money is a not a motivator, it in effect, enables us to; buy food, drink, clothing and shelter. To some extent it satisfies some social and psychological needs. But any pay rise, as most will recognise, is absorbed into our spending within six weeks and so is not a motivation but a help to fund the new sofa, and then we are back to looking for more to meet our needs.
True motivation often comes from inside us. We do things because we enjoy doing it; our work makes us feel good about ourselves. We improve productivity because we want to.If individuals perceive the pay arrangements to be controlling in the sense of reducing the extent to which we can determine our actions, the outside control inhibits our intrinsic motivation. External intervention increases intrinsic motivation if the person involved perceives it to be supportive, provides recognition and allows them to assume responsibility. In this case, self-esteem and self-determination are fostered.Monetary rewards are more undermining than other material rewards, whereas praise and social approval are more likely to be interpreted as supportive rather than controlling. But when intrinsic motivation is undermined, we're likely to substitute quantity for quality, learn less about complex tasks and be less creative.If you want people to become more mercenary, if you don't care about ethical standards, if you want them busily thinking up ways to manipulate the performance measures (you've mandated for them) while ignoring any aspect not covered by those measures, that's the way to do it.
The Prime Minister talks about the real wage growth since this government has been in office, and it is true. But the statistics he gives out are only half of the story.
When manufacturing industry collapsed in the early 1980s after years protection, the union movement took a deliberate decision to lift profit share by foregoing wage rises, to the extent that real wages declined by 14% by 1996.The workers lifted the profit share of the employers in order to be able to see a regeneration of the Australian economy. In return they got the ‘social wage’. It included things like Medicare, Education, Superannuation levies and the like, and it also included very substantial tax cuts as part of the social wage, with a deal done with the union movement to ensure Australian industry recovered.Politicians who think everything turns on money will loose the support of workers in the long run.All of the above supports research that shows union members will fight 30% harder to gain conditions than for a pay rise. Workers will be 30% more likely to attend meetings if the agenda is about conditions rather than about money.
The “Liberals” forget the facts, when they pretend that the Industrial Arbitration Commission of this country is a mere instrument of economics. From the very beginning one hundred and three years ago, it has been an agency of something much more important and that is, industrial equity, a "fair go all round" or, as many would now describe it, human rights.
If you undermine unions, if you undermine democracy in the workplace, then you undermine democracy in the nation overall. First destroy the unions, and then you destroy democracy. That is when you can introduce your dictatorship, your secret police, your sedition laws and political detention centers.Work Choices ignores the fact that long term shift work, reduces worker life span by up to ten years. Most shift workers will return to day work if shift loadings are removed.
Work Choices ignores the fact that overtime is mandated by state industrial laws, in that it is the state laws that spell out the mandated maximum daily, weekly or monthly ordinary hours of work.
The facts are that workers and employers are prohibited from making a contract, verbal, written, explicit or implied to trade off state industrial laws. The outcome is, that because the parties cannot extend the ordinary hours of work, a separate arrangement must be made to pay for the overtime worked out side the state IR Law mandatory limitations.
This arrangement applies to all employees, whether they are staff on common (Judge made) law
contracts or awards made by Industrial tribunals.
Work Choices is an attack on working conditions that will cause workers to finally say no, to handing what little control of their lives left to others who simply see workers as a commodity to be used or discarded in the pursuit of the mighty dollar.
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