Labour Q&A with Terry Bell
A Fin24 user believes the focus of unions should be on job creation rather than on wage increases at all cost.
Malcolm Anderson, who describes himself as a retired entrepreneur of 40 years experience, writes:
Unionism is very necessary but I believe that the focus of the unions should be primarily on job creation and not just on wage increases at all cost.
There are many simple tasks that take place in a factory and unfortunately the entry level wage is too high and that forces automation of these tasks.
If the entry level wage was dropped to match the level of expertise of these tasks, thousands more would be employed, giving these people an opportunity to learn and progress to a higher wage category.
The union should be fighting for this.
Terry Bell responds:
Hi Malcolm,
You make some good points. However, so long as wages and conditions of employment are under attack, the prime role of unions has to be to protect the standard of living of members.
But a number of them have also put forward some very good suggestions about job creation and better and more efficient policies.
Unfortunately, sensible as some of these may seem - the Numsa ideas for industrial policy or the labour-based employment on government contracts - they are generally ignored by the powers that be. Little publicity is also given to the Job Creation Trust, financed by the combined labour movement and that has created thousands of jobs in disadvantaged communities. The trust was funded by union members donating one day's pay.
I do take issue with you on the question of higher pay being responsible for automation. Automation becomes cheaper as time goes by while the cost of living and, therefore, wages, increases.
Companies, which must operate on the basis of maximising profits, soon reach the point where machines take over.
I would also argue that our global technological advance has got to the point where a large part of humanity - in terms of a potential workforce in the current system - is probably redundant. So perhaps we need to look to more radical solutions that go beyond the present employer-employee relationship.
- Fin24
* Follow Terry on twitter @telbelsa.
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