Salvation Army: IR laws exploit vulnerable

The proposed IR legislation gives the unemployed an opportunity to make themselves more attractive to an employer by committing themselves to an AWA that allows them to work 38 hours a week with no public holidays or week end loading. This allows the employer to reduce costs. However it exploits the vulnerable at the expense of the family minded employee who is not willing to trade these valuable days away without a significant financial benefit to the family.

As there are only 100,000 jobs on offer in Australia at the moment and officially 500,000 people looking for work (plus 800,000 on disability or child care pensions) there will be many people who will find these conditions attractive, even in these buoyant economic times; imagine what will happen when the unemployment situation gets worse.

For this reason the end result of these changes could be the moving of employment from those unwilling to sacrifice important time with their families to the desperate or those without family responsibilities. This is not a good move.

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