Unions — actively endorsing a flood of cheap labour? [by Andrew Phillips]

By Andrew Phillips, 14th July 2007

Few could deny the need for the presence of a responsible union movement in today’s industrial climate. Indeed, with both major parties fawning to the whims of large multinationals in order to secure their next round of election donations and the poor hapless Australian worker left defenceless, the time for a decent Pro-Australian workers’ movement has never been more pressing.

This being the case, one really has to wonder at the motivation by one union in particular ( and please note I am a member of a union) — the Shearers and Rural Workers’ Union, or to be more precise the motivation of that movement’s leaders.

The leadership of the S-RWU have recently urged their membership to protest at the recent deferral of their pay rise (of some $10 per week) by quitting their positions in our nation’s primary sector and running off to the mines.

Our nation’s farmers have been under the hammer from all quarters. Faced with deregulation of their industries, threatened by cheap imports, lowered quarantine regulations and the subsequent threat of introduced diseases, a less than sympathetic pseudo-conservative government and hostile Opposition, our farmers have also had to deal with the recent drought and lowering of water allocations.

However, this all seems to be of no consequence to our internationalist union bosses who think nothing of calling to their members to uproot their families from regional towns and leave our nation’s food producers to look elsewhere for labour.

Bleating loud and hard like a Boer goat buck during mating season, these wannabe Labor candidates regurgitate their irrelevant and archaic class war slogans while giving little thought to the true consequences of their advice. Of course, it doesn’t really matter anyway — if they can only look as belligerent as possible they might well gain candidacy in a winnable seat and secure a lifestyle of which their working class brethren can only dream, with the bonus they need only mix with the “lower classes” 6 months prior to an election.

One can only wonder at the motivation behind such a bizarre call for a union’s membership to quit employment, especially over $10 per week. Assuming the workers do quit their jobs, from where do our self-indulgent internationalist union leaders think their wages will come? How will they justify their own existence if they have no membership?

Have these class warriors considered the effect on regional towns should there be a mass exodus of labour to Western Australian mines or up to Roxby Downs? The closure of small businesses and services, not to mention playing into the hands of South Australia’s Premier Mike “all spin and no substance” Rann with his grand plan of closing down as many regional schools as possible and creating his handful of so-called “Super Schools”.

Furthermore, why have these union bosses expressed the desire to see those members who choose to remain on the land and residing in the regional centres they and their families love, lose their jobs permanently? The deferral of this wage rise is only for 12 months, yet the union is pushing for farmers (who also have families to feed and hefty bank debts to service, not to mention a business to rebuild following the drought) to bear yet another financial burden when they are least able to afford it! No, in their bloody-minded pursuit of money, these people would prefer to see the business that employs their member go under forever rather than give them 12 months grace to rebuild.

The final consideration (for the time being) in this matter is the issue of labour. Should Australian workers heed the call of our altruistic internationalist union leaders to uproot our families and head for the mines, where the towns are paved with gold and the surrounding countryside flows with milk and honey (God knows, our union leaders wouldn’t lie — would they?) we would be faced with one of two scenarios.

First, our nation’s primary producers decide the whole thing is too bloody hard, sell up to some Managed Investment Scheme which turns our country’s farmland into a giant woodlot for the newly-erected water-wasting pulp mill to be built down the road and our food is imported en masse from some Third World country with dubious health and sanitary requirements (not an attractive proposition, but I’m somewhat fussy regarding what I eat).

Secondly, our farmers continue to realise that their vocation is indeed a national service and decide to fight on and keep the family farm going. Unfortunately, our wannabe class war loving, nation-hating future ALP candidates have driven away all the Australian workers to go dig up iron, coal and uranium for the Chinese…….

That leaves but one option — imported labour. Cheap, compliant, Third World labour — working on Australian farms, in the associated industries, changing the very identity of the regional centres that lie at the heart of our national identity.

Perhaps this is the real motivation behind what seems initially as a declaration of suicidal intent by our union leaders. They are all internationalists, this we know well. By driving our workers up to the mines, it opens the flood gates to labour imported from the Third World and the great raft of associated government sponsored “industry” that goes along with it.

I mentioned earlier the need for our union leaders to justify their existence once all the Aussies had consigned themselves to the pit for the welfare of the expanding Chinese economy. Imagine the great range of issues our unions could whinge and whine about following the great influx of African, Arab and Asian labour into the regional centres?

One can see it now. Our employers aren’t providing Halal meat and prayer mats for the newly-arrived immigrants. The farmers haven’t set aside appropriate times and funding for English lessons. It’s cruel for the farmer to make the non English speaking immigrant get up so early in the morning as it interferes with the traditional family routine the children experienced back home…..

God spare us……..

Of course, working people are entitled to a decent wage and I certainly would not be foolish enough to declare our farm workers do not work hard and are not entitled to a payrise (which will be eaten by financial institution fees and charges), but in this case there is no point in killing the proverbial goose that lays the golden egg for a mere $10 per week.

No, it is in the interest of the Australian worker and the nation as a whole that our farmers are granted this period of grace in order to secure the continuity of their business, the position of Australian workers on the land and the welfare of Australian regional centres across the country.

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