Labor shafts those they were meant to help

During the last federal election, our prime minister reached out to the youth of this nation, he was presented as young and hip, the cool guy, on Youtube and the internet. His campaign was received favorably in the nations various touchy-feely women's magazines and I'm sure he and his lackeys received the bulk of the young and the female vote.

As many of you will know, when it concerns the left, those they purport to help will somehow get the shaft. I don't know if they do this intentionally or it's simply because most things leftist's touch or meddle with turn to crap, but that's what is most likely to happen here as well.
Gerard Henderson - ......Last week, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development released "Jobs for Youth: Australia", which focused on the impact of the global financial crisis on youth employment. ......But the report contains a warning about possible adverse effects on employment due to the junking of the Howard government's Work Choices legislation and the introduction of Labor's Fair Work legislation.

......Youth and adult unemployment is increasing - primarily due to international economic events. But the OECD is concerned that [Labor's] industrial relations reforms might make a bad situation worse. It speaks the unfashionable truth here: "The gradual decentralisation [Introduced by old Labor and carried on by the Conservatives] of wage-setting arrangements since the early 1990s, with the introduction of individual contracts [the Australian Workplace Agreements] … is likely to have increased the labour market competitiveness of low-skilled youth".

......The OECD is not uncritical of Work Choices [Introduced by the previous Conservative government] but it has a warning for Rudd and Gillard. It believes "care should be taken to avoid discouraging bargaining at the workplace level and pricing low-skilled youth out of entry-level jobs". It is particularly concerned about young women. ......Unfair dismissal legislation is a particular disincentive to small businesses considering jobs for young men and women - young people do not have work experience.
This legislation is being pushed by the left who are in charge of this country. The left here and elsewhere simply won't get that, the harder you make it for business to fire people, the fewer people they will actually hire. I hear of more and more people who are getting the chop. I hear business owners telling us they are letting people go and don't plan to hire the same number of people if things pick up again because of this governments unfair dismissal legislation.

But back during the campaign, there was a concerted effort, even in the media, to keep painting the previous Conservatives Work Choices policy as leading to many losing their jobs or working for peanuts and under terrible conditions. Well, now people are finding out that they're still being fired or working for less. Oh and that overtime rates, your fancy 'rights' at work and weekend penalties all count for squat if you don't actually have a job. But wait, apparently the above OECD report is only scratching the surface.
The Australian - ......An extra 34,000 teenagers have become unemployed over the past year, lifting teenage joblessness to 141,400 or 16.4 per cent. The prospect it will rise well over 20 per cent underlines last week’s warning from the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development that rolling back John Howard’s Work Choices will make it harder for young Australians to get a foothold in the job market. ......The OECD clearly hasn’t looked at the Fast Food Industry Award that the IRC will impose from the start of 2010.

It hasn’t picked up the threat to the youth-employment business model of the fast food industry, from franchise chains such as McDonald’s, Pizza Hut, KFC, Domino’s, Subway and Eagle Boys Pizza to thousands of small business takeaway food outlets. Since the 1970s this sector has evolved on the edges of the federal award system, based on casual employment and minimal or no evening or weekend penalty rates.

But the IRC’s award “modernisation” would force it to pay part-time student workers the sort of high casual loadings and penalty rates that it seeks to standardise across the workforce. This would reverse the labour market liberalisation that allowed the jobless rate for those aged under 25 to fall to three-decade lows of 8.7percent by the end of the latest boom. As the OECD notes, Howard’s individual work contracts - or Australian Workplace Agreements - are “likely to have increased the labour market competitiveness of low-skilled youth”.

But these individual contracts are being abolished just as the recession hits young Australians the hardest. Many will be seeking work for the first time just as business decides that the new unfair dismissal rules make it riskier to hire young people with no employment history. And those young people with jobs are likely to be the first to be laid off during the downturn.
The sad thing is that, as Gerard Henderson notes, much of the media that helped their fellow lefties into power are unwilling to let the youth of this nation know of this. You won't hear questions being raised on the evening news or the kinds of media the youth listen to. They'll have to figure it out the hard way when they're struggling to find work.

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