Call For Wage Justice for All -not just women.

Call to Ditch the Deadwood in Government & The Poverty Industry

The current Equal Pay (for women) scandal making waves for the next 90 seconds in Australia’s fickle mainstream media is a further sordid chapter in the short Prime Ministerial career of PM Julia Gillard. Empress Julia’s short reign has been notable for two things; her predisposition to treat voters workers and Australia’s marginalised people with utter contempt -and her notable first act as Prime Minister.. running off to appease corporate conglomorates Rio Tinto, BHP Billiton and Xstrata.

  Flowing from Gillards statement a mere fortnight after the 2010 Federal election to the effect that “all election promises are off the table “- a statement which would have seen her jailed if a representative at any level in Holland it should come as no surprise that Gillard would arbitrarily rescind any deal -including one which had the poential to positively deliver for her natural female constituency.We see no reason on this earth for a reasonable person or government to reject the notion of Equal Pay -but not only for women. Left out in the cold by this potential deal are exploited youth, farm rural and low wage workers and -significantly – indigenous wageslaves forced to work for as little as $4 per hour in Jenny Macklins infamous Northern Territory Intervention experiment.

  Reading the comments of Ms Sally McManus of the Australian Services Union, I note with some amusement her expectation that clients will support her unions call for strike action-that we would have some empathy with them. The Australian Services Union represents the unfortunately named “community sector” whose various government , NGO entities and staff are seen (with some rare exceptions) as a self promoting self serving sector who drive government policy without any but the most superficial consultation at client level-where such consultation occurs at all. The inevitable result is raft upon raft of Poverty Industry -Marginalisation Government Sector driven government policy delivering expensive (for taxpayers) policies which have proven over time to be a succession of systemic failures. Amazingly, despite these failures, Governments both Liberal and Labor have adhered to the same failed formulae and consulted with the same failed authorities on marginalisation solutions,with the same almost inevitable outcomes.

   We note that the Australian Services Union represents the same workers who are responsible for devising and implementing the federal and State government policies which persecute and disenfranchise marginalised people. The Australian Services Union were silent even when the Howard Government and its Mission Australia CEO cohort rolled out the onerous, NGO serving furphy of “mutual obligation”, which the Rudd Gillard Labor Government kept in place.  Under this onerous legislation, Welfare claimants can be required to undertake voluntary work -for businesses such as Mission Australia or Uniting Care -businesses with incomes in the hundreds of millions of dollars per annum which masquerade as charities. Also represented are some (but not all) of the wageslavery sector Job Network service providers which specialise in delivering unsustainable waged workers to businesses requiring wageslaves to drive the excessive profits to which Australian corporates have become accustomed. ASU workers are also responsible for formulating and implementing the organisational policies which become NCOSS / ACOSS platforms -and eventually government policy. Policy which detrimentally affects our Australian and Sydney homeless communities. Policy which in fact drives homelessness and increases marginalisation by enabling the continuance of wageslavery.

   Also represented in the sector under discussion are the staff of NSW Communities (DOCs) and Federally Jenny Macklins repressive, human rights violating FHASCIA department -and their surrogate NGOs. We are on record and stand by our previous assertions relating to those dealing with Families Children and Aboriginal “Services”, that these workers must know full well the inevitable detriments they foist upon their hapless victims -the self same people whom they profess to work to protect. We will NOT support any pay rises whatsoever in this sector. We will not support anything less than the complete termination of all employment and contractual engagements by this collection of organisations and self serving people who use marginaised people as tokens to collect taxpayers dollars with.   

  So please understand our mirth at the temerity of Ms McManus’s suggestion that we might have some affinity with her Unions cause-when they have demonstrated a willingness to collaborate on delivering continued repression to Australia’s most marginalised.

 Prime Minister Gillard needs also to avail herself of the opportunity to weed the truly non-performing staff and NGOs from the feeding frenzy of sharks which is Todays Australian poverty industry-taxpayers,as Gillard points out,cannot afford the luxury of supporting the inefficient.

  The dilemma for us,though is that as Fair people we must support a call for Fair Pay, for Pay Equality..but not only Fair Pay for women. Lets not stop there.Lets look at pay equality across race age and sex delineations and have, simply equal pay for equal work-irrespective of “Award”. By doing so in one fell swoop, we would head off Julia Gillards next refuge which ,given her background in industrial relations law,would be to set up a totally new “Greenfields” sector-in reality a completely new wardrobe of shirts to cloak the same dirty neocon operators who masquerade as charities while robbing us,and their workers blind while professing to act in our interests.