get reid of AWA in WA mining industry

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<hr>The new one is independant contractors. Lets make each employee a company and then they have to pay for their own Superannuation, Workers Comp and Public Liability insurance, etc, etc. What a joke.<hr></blockquote>If it wasnt for this option, I would be finding it very hard to afford a house. This option allowed me to earn very good money and pay cash for my block of land. People are smart enough to make their own decisions, a fact I think many unions dont understand.

in my expert humble opinion i reckon this resources boom has had a knock on effect all the way accross here to melbourne, seeing as though the local job market for tradies has had to up its wages to keep them here instead of them migrating for the super-money out west it means there are a hell of a lot more cashed up bogans floating around the outer suburbs with plenty of money to spend, and unlike their white collar cousins who seem to squirrel all their funds into investment properties and share portfolios, these C.U.Bs tend to spread the wealth, the knock on effect being that your humble taxi driver is making somewhere between $20-$35 an hour depending on what day of the week it is ferrying these uncouth newly wealthy working classes around..

Times are good for now, but who knows how long it'll last to the next bust...

seems easy to knock the unions right now when things are good, but wait until the bosses have an unemployed labour pool to draw upon when things aren't so good anymore and can pit the ragged trousered philantropists' against each other to see who will work longer for less, and there'll be nothing stopping them if we collectively let the union movement fade away now under the mistaking assumption that they're a thing of the past of no more relevance in this 'enlightened' day. Ha.
100 years of work and revolution to bring the working classes up from serfdom and so many people willing to throw it all away,,, fools!!

I feel like the guy walking down the street wearing a sandwich board saying 'The end of the world is nigh' but I have to agree with dbrother .....the bust is coming. Having lived in a mining town all my life I have see the ups and downs of a town tied to mining. Roughly I believe the cycle is about 7 years where this one has gone on slightly longer because of the India and China 'Asian Economical Miricales' and there need for base metals. In 1999 I owned my own retail business , gold was in decline and people where leaving the town in droves, one customer said "Kalgoorlie is finished" ,infact that week 19 people had defaulted on housing loans. Three years later the town was on the rise again and now its in full boom . All I get from conversations now is "This boom isnt going to end for 10 years".

Perth seems to be experiancing some of the biggest effects because of workers like Bazza. Workers with 100K+ incomes FIFO of Perth to remote minesite and have staggering morgages and debts which relie on there high paying jobs. Last year alone Perth domestic airport traffic increased 70% due to small charter companys flying workers to minesites. My worry is that if China go's POP as with all the previous 'Asian Economical Miricales' (Japan, Korea,Thailand) that the resource sector with go BANG dead in its tracks. This would leave the mining companies no choice to axe workers heavily and since there mostly contractors they have no obligations as the employer to find alternitive work.

Watching Shanghai stock market's record growth to may be hard to argue theres not a bubble growing.
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<hr>New figures released Thursday show China's economy grew 10.7 percent in 2006, the fastest rate in more than a decade. And its stock market is witnessing a record-breaking bull run. Murmurs of a bubble are growing, with foreign brokerages warning investors to stay away. But local investors are still pouring money in.<hr></blockquote>

Its going to be an interesting 2 years ahead and I hope I am wrong with my predictions of a major downturn in the mining industry.

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<hr>but wait until the bosses have an unemployed labour pool to draw upon when things aren't so good anymore and can pit the ragged trousered philantropists' against each other to see who will work longer for less, and there'll be nothing stopping them if we collectively let the union movement fade away now under the mistaking assumption that they're a thing of the past of no more relevance in this 'enlightened' day. Ha.<hr></blockquote>One thing that might stop that situation is the shortage of skilled tradesmen. The resources boom isnt the only thing driving up hourly rates for skilled people, its the fact that many school leavers are reluctant to get their hands dirty doing traditional trades related jobs. When they can park their butts in a chair and get similar money for less learning time, who`s to blame them...

I get 54 and all that.

#62 - a similar cycle works in the oil & gas industry - roughly 1.5 years going up, 1.5 years plateau, 1.5 years going down, 2 years trough
Each time it goes down, a lot of skilled workers leave the industry, many never to return, so on the upswings they end up paying silly wages to people with little experience.

It's not always directly dependent on commodity prices - the resources companies don't always reinvest their profits in a boom, at least not until shareholders notice that's there's nothing new in the pipeline.

This cycle has repeated again and again in my working lifetime, yet few "market analysts" or whatever ever acknowledge it - they just tell investors what they want to hear, or what everyone else from their MBA year is saying

#32 <blockquote>Quote
<hr>Well that sounds more like a particular workplace culture than union members per se.. <hr></blockquote>I thought pearlz explained to you that <blockquote>Quote
<hr>This applies to pretty much every union member I've dealt with in every industry I've worked for.<hr></blockquote> So why would you then say that it sounds like a workplace culture??? <blockquote>Quote
<hr>I used to have to meet with them quarterly and it was a waste of time <hr></blockquote>I dont think this is a work place culture thing Eli, Pearlsz has formed an opinion based on experience with unionised work places and people.

#32 above should be #38...

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<hr>The resources boom isnt the only thing driving up hourly rates for skilled people, its the fact that many school leavers are reluctant to get their hands dirty doing traditional trades related jobs. When they can park their butts in a chair and get similar money for less learning time, who`s to blame them... <hr></blockquote>

i doubt your average non-profesional desk jockey is making the $400 to $800 a day that the average freelance tradie is making, sure a good QC can charge $5000 a day (and i've got the invoice to proove it) but that too has taken a lot of learning to get there

Yeah, when youre talking contracting, as Bazza is doing, then yes lots of money to be made, lots more than a desk jockey. Take Pearlzs comment at #7, and you begin to see the point I was making.