The biggest narcotic a politician can offer the media is the semblance of 'cooperation' or 'bipartisanship'. Anything that taps into all those West Wing fantasies of a political class coming together, fulfilling their elite purpose in common cause, is crack to them.
To point this out is not cynicism. The cynicism lies in the way politicians manipulate a genuine desire for common ground and a media that constantly plays conflict and the promise of cooperation off against each other, allowing itself to be manipulated in this way
The idea that this government is likely to have anything of substance to offer the Union movement, or workers generally, and that they will go into negotiations with anything other than the interests of the business class at the front of their mind is remote, to say the least
The LNP were beaten on WorkChoices. But this hasn't stopped them chipping away at all the institutional supports that ensure workers have rights and powers in the labour relationship. Since Howard imploded, they have done everything they can to install WorkChoices by stealth.
Does anyone really think it's a coincidence or bad luck that the Fair Work Commission will pursue unions through the courts for late paperwork, but let employers who massively under pay staff off with a wrist slap? To name just one example.
This stuff is structural. Baked in.
This stuff is structural. Baked in.
"The master's tools will never dismantle the master's house." Audre Lorde
And from the minute this pandemic hit, business leaders, and their mouthpieces in the media, particularly News Ltd and the AFR, were out there insisting that we absolutely need to do all things they always say we need to do, from big tax cuts for them to 'simplifying' labour laws
Never let a good crisis go to waste.
If anyone thinks that PM's Press Club speech yesterday was anything but the latest foray into this familiar territory, the latest attempt to subdue an already broken and insecure workforce and secure the triumph of capital over labour, I have a bridge you might want to buy.
What better time to 'turn over a new leaf', to 'put down your weapons', to roll out the 'we-are-all-in-this-togethers' than when the Union movement at its lowest ebb and a massive recession is on the near horizon?
"I'm #ScottyFromMarketing and I'm here to help."
Sure thing.
"I'm #ScottyFromMarketing and I'm here to help."
Sure thing.
