The law of the jungle

The business community, most of the Abbott government and all the rest of the hard right are very pissed off by the Productivity Commission.

The Commission was to be their vanguard, a fearless spruiker of competition (on their behalf, of course), an uncompromising believer in economic efficiency at all costs, a ruthless extirpator of any form of regulation; and in almost of all of its previous career it has lived up to expectations, indeed often surpassed them.

In its demands that the free market should rule, some of its supporters hoped that it could become a blueprint for a total free rein – a return to feudalism.

But in its recent report on industrial relations, the Commission has suddenly gone all wimpish – positively moderate, in fact. The Commission not only thinks that the system is working pretty well, which is close to blasphemy for the big end of town, but notes that efficiency needs to be tempered with equity – fairness, for heaven’s sake.

It accepts the obvious truth that in any form of negotiation, the employer will always have more clout than the employee, and therefore, if the playing field is to be even remotely level, there must be a regulatory framework. 

This has not meant that it wants to leave things exactly as they are: it believes that the Fair Work Commission could do with a bit of revamping, and, more importantly, that attention should be given to changes to penalty rates (which it naturally calls “reforms”), and a return to a form of individual contract (the latter rather contradicting its strictures about the need for equity).

No matter what qualifications and reservations can be inserted in such contracts, the fact is that the employee alone can never hope for an even break, simply because he or she is the employee – in the end, the boss can always replace the workers, but the workers cannot so easily replace the boss. Unsurprisingly, the unions have threatened a campaign to rival the one against the hated WorkChoices, and equally unsurprisingly the gun-shy government has more or less capitulated in advance.

The penalty rates issue is a little more nuanced: after all, Sunday is no longer a sacred festival for most people; they would rather shop and go to the footy. So why should there be a difference between Saturday and Sunday rates?

Well, why indeed; but that does not mean that the Sunday rates have to be reduced. The reason that customers are out there is quite simply that they don’t have to work; for a majority of institutions – offices, most businesses, and importantly schools – the weekends are still very largely days off. And for those workers who are required to turn up, compensation is only fair and natural – they are losing the free time that is available to others.

The Commission acknowledges that, but wants to reduce a component of it. The employers would like to see that happen; it would be a start, at least, on the path to the law of the economic jungle, under which they would be let loose to pillage. After all, wasn’t that why the Productivity Commission was set up in the first place?