Howard's plan: smash unions
Is it the industrial relations system that Howard is out to smash, or is it the industrial power of unions? "It seems incredible that we would see a hundred years of a fair system that has underpinned one of the richest economies in the world [changed] because business says it doesn’t have enough power. I don’t think any Australian is going to accept that" said ACTU President Sharan Burrow in response to the Howard Governments next plans for industrial relations. Howard's new proposals build on Peter Reith's Workplace Relations Act (WRA), which already undermines and penalises basic unionism...