While the situation in Iraq continues to deteriorate, here at home the class war continues unabated.
Last week the so called "independent" umpire, the Industrial Relations Commission made a land mark ruling which would compel small businesses to make redundancy payments to sacked workers.
The Note Taker of Steel said that by implementing the IRC’s ruling, small businesses would have an "additional cost burden" placed on them. The IRC said that, the research supporting it’s decision showed that 70% of small business were profitable and "able to cope". Perhaps what both they and the government didn’t want to proclaim was the way large businesses, which make up the bulk of small businesses clientele, conduct their relations with small businesses.
In all of the small businesses I’ve worked for the worst payers were the large corporations who seemed to drag their feet when it came to paying bills. Most of the smaller clients – other small businesses - were much better payers. The real crisis facing small business comes from debtors who try and stretch out their payment to 60, 90 or even 120 days. Those small businesses that I’ve worked for did not have the capacity to draw on credit and so were constantly trying to match income to outgoings so that their debts could be met. In each case in those companies that I worked for cash flow and making sure employees knew where they stood was paramount. Only once can I remember an employer calling us together and in embarrassment, telling us (or rather asking if it was OK) that we be paid on the Monday of the following week rather than the Thursday. His explanation was that a large customer had only just paid a long standing debt and he needed to have the cheque cleared before he could pay us (this was in the days before electronic banking). As a group we had far more to say about the slack payer than our boss.
This business was one small cog in a larger industrial process and so our employer had to bear as much of the pain as we did. Sure he drove a better model car than most of us. Sure he lived in Castle Hill while we lived in Harris Park and Granville, but he was doing what he enjoyed and I must say he made us feel like we wanted to be there. There’s no class blindness here but a solidarity with a boss who was just as much hit upon by the ruling classes as his employees were.
The problem with the IRC and the government is they have both failed to name the real cause of the problem. A system that favours the rich, large corporations over the small, struggling private company. I bet the shareholding owners of the Commonwealth Bank never had to front a group of bank employees and say – "you’re fired". These shareholders allow the management THEY employ to hire "human resources" "consultants" who do their dirty work for them so they can "anonymously" hide behind the excuse of the management/shareholder divide.
Sure, there are small businesses that don’t look after their employees and sure there are small business people that rip off their employees and customers. But in my experience in the industrial and ‘entertainment’ scene they are in the minority. Retail and service industries may be another story.
It was with no surprise that the big business union, otherwise known as the Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry, made an interesting comment about the IRC decision. They said that small businesses "faced a $190 million a year bill for redundancy payments". This comment reveals that small businesses are aware of their liabilities and, in the main, prepared to meet them. While to most of us $190 million sounds like a huge amount, in the bigger picture it is only a small portion of the billions of dollars small businesses (collectively) turn over each year.
Over 40% of small businesses close down within two years of start up, so those who survive must be doing something right. I suggest that one of those things is looking after the people they employ and the customers they serve. The business press constantly crows about how confident small businesses are and how they are the "back bone" of the economy. The IRC ruling goes the extra mile and attempts to protect the employees of "rogue" businesses but it is only one half of the equation. The other half if business law and taxation.
Businesses can be set up and structured in many ways and the one thing they all have in common is to limit their "exposure" to tax liabilities and to similarly limit the ability of potential creditors to get at the cash should the business fold. As we’ve seen over the last few years such arrangements have helped many rich business people avoid paying their employees – who created the wealth in the first place – what is morally theirs. (Being related to the Prime Miniature helps to I suppose).
There is a class war going on and each time a decision is made that threatens those who currently hold the balance of power, they thunder down from on high with a collective shriek that "the sky will fall" if the "delicate" economic balance is disturbed. Large businesses are not evil in and of themselves any more than any other fiction is. The real evil lies in the hearts of those who focus solely on themselves and have no respect for the communities from which their wealth is created.
Johnny the Poodle has made a great thing out of Australia being the land of the "shareholder". Perhaps its time for the shareholders to start carrying out their obligations to those they, ultimately, employ and start to exercise their shareholding in an ethical and principled manner.
The PM’s vow to overturn, via legislation the right of employees to be compensated should they be laid off through no fault of their own, needs to be challenged and the class division this type of law sustains needs to be exposed and defeated. While it is right to maintain an opposition to the illegal invasion and occupation of Iraq, we should not loose sight of the war being waged against the working class here in our own towns and cities. Despair and hopelessness can kill just as dead as a coalition bullet. To the survivors the same questions linger. Why? and Why us?
PS. I just heard that great Australian patriot Rupert Murdoch make the following statement. When asked if the US should stay in Iraq and Australia with it he said yes. He also said "This country (Australia) has no alternative. It must stand with America". He also managed to squeeze in that in Iraq all the kids are going to school, that there is "100% more fresh water" and that the US economy is going gangbusters. He predicted that The Shrub will "walk it in". And they say I live in la la land (See www.abc.net.au/pm).