Extract from The Guardian website:
When Joe Hockey says everyone in Australia must do the heavy lifting, is that everyone except politicians and executives?
There is a group of workers whose conditions far exceed the perks at
SPC Ardmona that were described by prime minister Tony Abbott as
“extremely generous” and nominated as a reason the Commonwealth refused
the company’s request for a co-investment grant.
Perks available to this lucky group include a round the world first class fare for themselves and their spouse, with accommodation and expenses, every year, as well as allowances to buy any books and publications they want and generous airfares and travel allowances with a very broad definition of the “work” they need to be doing to qualify. And, guess what, they get to determine a lot of the guidelines and rules for the perks themselves.
This group of workers is of course federal politicians. For the record, I think they earn and deserve their pay, and some of the allowances to which they are entitled. But billing the taxpayer for novels, history books, the Guinness Book of Records and biographies – including, in one case, six copies of former prime minister John Howard’s autobiography, Lazarus Rising – is surely a perk too far. And some of the reports MPs are required to write, detailing what they did on their study tours, don’t exactly suggest a hectic schedule.
Workplace relations minister Eric Abetz ridiculed SPC’s “shiny tin” allowance as an example of “conditions” that were “regrettably over-generous”.
With eyebrows arched in astonishment, he told ABC’s Insiders that “the shiny tin allowance for forklift drivers … was removed in 1991 when SPC Ardmona was in strife 20 years ago. Here we are 20 years later, the company allegedly in a bit of strife, and guess what – the shiny tin allowance has crept back into the enterprise bargaining agreement. And companies need to learn from their own history that they cannot keep on going down the same route time and time again and not learn the consequences of doing so.” This, he said, justified the government’s decision not to provide any assistance to SPC (which turned out to be a moot point since the company ended up getting $22m from the Victorian conservative government, which was apparently less concerned about the shiny tins.)
But according to Abetz’s own colleague, Dr Sharman Stone, the much discussed shiny tin allowance was, in fact, a 50 cent an hour bonus paid to forklift drivers who were skilled enough to stack unlabelled (i.e. shiny) fruit tins up to 9m high. It is open to debate whether this is over-generous or not, but one point of comparison might be that it would take such a forklift driver almost 3,500 hours to earn, in shiny tin allowance, what Senator Abetz claimed to pay for his newspapers in the second half of 2012.
The reason for making these comparisons is not to engage in the all too easy sport of bashing politicians, nor to argue against the need for efficient and productive workplaces.
It is simply to point out that when Joe Hockey tells us that “everyone in Australia must do the heavy lifting now” it is usually in relation to companies that are offering their workers the aforementioned “over-generous” wages and conditions.
And, similarly, the wages and conditions of ordinary workers are what is on the line when the government encourages the Fair Work Commission to consider the “softening economic environment and labour market” and the “impact of employment costs on employers’ decision to hire workers” when it reviews the modern awards system, or when the prime minister complains that over-the-top penalty rates make it hard to get a cup of coffee on a public holiday.
Less often discussed is whether, for example, executive remuneration should be part of the national “heavy lifting” effort.
The former government’s “two strikes” policy giving shareholders greater say over executive pay has worked to moderate some of the excesses. A study commissioned by the Australian Council for Superannuation Investors, released last September, found that in 2012 base pay for the nation’s top CEOs was steady, while bonuses rose by 4.8%, compared with 20% the previous year. But that still left the top 100 CEOs with, on average, base pay of $1.95m and an average bonus of $1.31m on top of that.
It would be much easier to win support for a national “heavy lifting” effort, to combat rising unemployment and get the economy through a period of very difficult change, if there was clear evidence that everyone – workers, executives, even politicians – were putting in a bit of the grunt.
Perks available to this lucky group include a round the world first class fare for themselves and their spouse, with accommodation and expenses, every year, as well as allowances to buy any books and publications they want and generous airfares and travel allowances with a very broad definition of the “work” they need to be doing to qualify. And, guess what, they get to determine a lot of the guidelines and rules for the perks themselves.
This group of workers is of course federal politicians. For the record, I think they earn and deserve their pay, and some of the allowances to which they are entitled. But billing the taxpayer for novels, history books, the Guinness Book of Records and biographies – including, in one case, six copies of former prime minister John Howard’s autobiography, Lazarus Rising – is surely a perk too far. And some of the reports MPs are required to write, detailing what they did on their study tours, don’t exactly suggest a hectic schedule.
Workplace relations minister Eric Abetz ridiculed SPC’s “shiny tin” allowance as an example of “conditions” that were “regrettably over-generous”.
With eyebrows arched in astonishment, he told ABC’s Insiders that “the shiny tin allowance for forklift drivers … was removed in 1991 when SPC Ardmona was in strife 20 years ago. Here we are 20 years later, the company allegedly in a bit of strife, and guess what – the shiny tin allowance has crept back into the enterprise bargaining agreement. And companies need to learn from their own history that they cannot keep on going down the same route time and time again and not learn the consequences of doing so.” This, he said, justified the government’s decision not to provide any assistance to SPC (which turned out to be a moot point since the company ended up getting $22m from the Victorian conservative government, which was apparently less concerned about the shiny tins.)
But according to Abetz’s own colleague, Dr Sharman Stone, the much discussed shiny tin allowance was, in fact, a 50 cent an hour bonus paid to forklift drivers who were skilled enough to stack unlabelled (i.e. shiny) fruit tins up to 9m high. It is open to debate whether this is over-generous or not, but one point of comparison might be that it would take such a forklift driver almost 3,500 hours to earn, in shiny tin allowance, what Senator Abetz claimed to pay for his newspapers in the second half of 2012.
The reason for making these comparisons is not to engage in the all too easy sport of bashing politicians, nor to argue against the need for efficient and productive workplaces.
It is simply to point out that when Joe Hockey tells us that “everyone in Australia must do the heavy lifting now” it is usually in relation to companies that are offering their workers the aforementioned “over-generous” wages and conditions.
And, similarly, the wages and conditions of ordinary workers are what is on the line when the government encourages the Fair Work Commission to consider the “softening economic environment and labour market” and the “impact of employment costs on employers’ decision to hire workers” when it reviews the modern awards system, or when the prime minister complains that over-the-top penalty rates make it hard to get a cup of coffee on a public holiday.
Less often discussed is whether, for example, executive remuneration should be part of the national “heavy lifting” effort.
The former government’s “two strikes” policy giving shareholders greater say over executive pay has worked to moderate some of the excesses. A study commissioned by the Australian Council for Superannuation Investors, released last September, found that in 2012 base pay for the nation’s top CEOs was steady, while bonuses rose by 4.8%, compared with 20% the previous year. But that still left the top 100 CEOs with, on average, base pay of $1.95m and an average bonus of $1.31m on top of that.
It would be much easier to win support for a national “heavy lifting” effort, to combat rising unemployment and get the economy through a period of very difficult change, if there was clear evidence that everyone – workers, executives, even politicians – were putting in a bit of the grunt.
No comments:
Post a Comment