this post was submitted on 27 Aug 2024
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[–] Gorgritch_umie_killa@aussie.zone 20 points 2 months ago (3 children)

"The government is not for turning and nor is the Australian public — they want to see this industry cleaned up," he said. (Aparently Albanese said this)

Do we have a Labor government or Thatcher?? Not sure whether putting the Construction part of the CFMEU into administration or not is the right decision. But aligning yourself with historic union busting figures? Albanese is insane to think this is good politics.

Good to here Max Chandler Mather out there again showing some solidarity.

[–] Aradina@lemmy.ml 11 points 2 months ago (2 children)

Not sure whether putting the Construction part of the CFMEU into administration or not is the right decision.

Even IF the CFMEU is fucked, this is massive overreach, imo. Even if we take the claims at total face value, do they want criminals to not have jobs that pay the bills? Because that's how you get crime. No one is getting into cooking meth for the funsies.

That combined with the alignment with union busters makes it pretty clear that this is an attempt to roll back worker conditions.

[–] Taleya@aussie.zone 7 points 2 months ago (2 children)

yup, and oh look, they recently gave us the carrot of "right to disconnect" as if it was something we previously didn't fucking have

[–] Gorgritch_umie_killa@aussie.zone 4 points 2 months ago (1 children)

To a degree the right to disconnect is like working from home, those policies affect white collar far more than blue collar, or min wage service workers, etc.

So in my mind it makes sense that, that reform went through without much issue. Everybody is on the side of the middle clas white collar worker it seems.

Its noticeable how much media time work from home has got since COVID over just about every other issue impacting workers. Maybe its because journalists identify more with it, maybe other classes of workers haven't the power to effect change, and influence national conversations.

[–] Taleya@aussie.zone 3 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Really? Because the first place my mind goes to is service workers. Not answering a call wanting to get them in off shift, and not facing penalty for it.

White collar workers would not be penalised for not responding out of work hours, it's a lawsuit waiting to happen

[–] Gorgritch_umie_killa@aussie.zone 2 points 2 months ago

Yep, true, they're good points.

[–] Zagorath@aussie.zone 2 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Eh, I think strictly codifying a law that basically exists but is potentially vague can be a good thing. This makes it absolutely undeniable that you have the right to disconnect from work, where previously you’d have to kind of work it out and employers might try to argue exceptions.

It’s like minimum passing laws for cyclists. A car going past a cyclist at 90 cm is obviously dangerous and irresponsible driving and any reasonable person would say it’s a chargeable offence for that reason. But in practice it very rarely got prosecuted, and even when it was it didn’t always succeed, because motornormative society defaults to saying the cyclist must be wrong. With a hard and fast rule that passing at less than 1 metre breaks the law, nobody can quibble about subjective matters like whether it’s dangerous or reckless.

[–] Taleya@aussie.zone 2 points 2 months ago (1 children)

As a regular cyclist, your analogy is giving me zero faith in lawful application

[–] Zagorath@aussie.zone 1 points 2 months ago

Ha! Yeah that’s fair. But the problem in that case is with the police refusing to do their job. Under the new laws, if it does go to court, a conviction is pretty much guaranteed. Unlike poor Richard Pollett, whose killer got off scott free on charges of "dangerous operation of a vehicle" prior to the minimum passing laws.

[–] TinyBreak@aussie.zone 3 points 2 months ago (2 children)

Even IF the CFMEU is fucked, this is massive overreach, imo. Even if we take the claims at total face value, do they want criminals to not have jobs that pay the bills? Because that’s how you get crime. No one is getting into cooking meth for the funsies.

So what are we supposed to do here? Let the union clean itself up? We've been making that joke a very long time.

[–] Gorgritch_umie_killa@aussie.zone 6 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Don't disagree. But Max-Chandler's comparison with banking, and religious institutions kind of makes that a hard argument to make.

Why are we suddenly seeing such hard and fast political reaction against the unions when theft, collusion, and some of the worst criminal behaviour imagineable, has been committed and Governments have taken a slow approach, and in other cases not seemed to pull their finger out at all.

I think its the comparison and rhetoric that really smells here, because lets be honest, administration isn't shutting down the union, some people will lose their jobs, but the representation of workers will probably be maintained... in this present case.

[–] Zagorath@aussie.zone 1 points 2 months ago (2 children)

Ooh, got a link to Max’s comments on it?

[–] Gorgritch_umie_killa@aussie.zone 1 points 2 months ago

Its actually a snip from the '7:30' interview the ABC embedded in the article page linked. I missed it the first time i read through it.

[–] Gorgritch_umie_killa@aussie.zone 1 points 2 months ago

This should be it on iview as well, https://iview.abc.net.au/show/7-30/series/0/video/SEGS2024104277434

Also noticed this one from Adam Bandt, i haven't watched it, but it might add context,

https://iview.abc.net.au/show/7-30/series/0/video/SEGS2024104288422

[–] Zagorath@aussie.zone 2 points 2 months ago

I’d suggest that if there’s dirty behaviour that needs to be cleaned up, that would be a matter for the police. Not for the government to pass a bespoke bill disregarding the judiciary process for.

[–] oahi@aussie.zone 10 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Good to here Max Chandler Mather out there again showing some solidarity.

agreed. Is Ferguson always like this? Max did well not getting pushed around.

[–] eureka@aussie.zone 9 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (1 children)

Seriously, watching that interview is a little painful with all the interrupting to try and railroad the conversation, and attaching weird attacks and assertions to make loaded questions, or rather, framing a claim as a question. I haven't seen it so bad outside of Faux News in the US.

Glad to hear Max got a quick mention of the Green Bans of the BLF in.

[–] Gorgritch_umie_killa@aussie.zone 2 points 2 months ago

The interviewer seemed to have a line she was trying to follow, and Max Chandler-Mather wasn't having a bar of it.

Max Chandler-Mather's CFMEU rally antics have given Labor a political weapon to wield against the Greens By David Speers

This article from David Spears, i think, explains Ferguson's line of questioning. Basically the ABC have drawn an optics comparison between that and Tony Abbott's ditch the witch protest speech. And yeah there is similarity.

In both cases though, was it worth the media being distracted over the signs and forgetting the issues at hand?

[–] Comment105@lemm.ee 0 points 2 months ago

You don't need good politics in Australia.

It is not a Democracy.

[–] rcbrk@lemmy.ml 12 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Yet another moment since Labor's re-election where I think "Ooh, Albo's going mask-off!".

Please let's have minority governments, our electoral and political system is ideal for it!

[–] spiffmeister@aussie.zone 7 points 2 months ago

The house might look good in a sort of greeny-teal shade

[–] Aussiemandeus@aussie.zone 12 points 2 months ago

I've missed this I ln it's entirety somehow, I used to be a CFMEU member and this isn't the first time unsanctioned protests will cause massive hardship yo Australian families because they have inconvenienced the government .

Unions are the only reason we get paid ok and aren't marches into our deaths every day for some billionair who sees us as renewable

[–] RedditWanderer@lemmy.world 4 points 2 months ago

Funny how this isn't seen as a consequence of their actions by politicians. They want people to get angry at the workers and ignore it's their policies/actions that cause these things to happen.

[–] slickgoat@lemmy.world 2 points 2 months ago

We were all sold down the river by the Hawk-Keating government. Strikes are NOT supposed to be sanctioned by employers and government. It's the worker's right to withdraw labour. No wonder we get to eat shit at the end of a stick.

[–] auzy@lemmy.world 1 points 2 months ago

CFMEU on-site have always been bullies.

I know people who put stickers on their hard hats to avoid getting bullied

They're not really about the workers honestly.

I got told off onsite by CFMEU for the stupidest things, that were clearly just them swinging their dicks around so I knew they were in charge