20 Oct 2011 (Bloomberg)
The Federal government should keep out of disputes about wages and job security that have disrupted Qantas Airways Ltd. flights and BHP Billiton Ltd. mining, the nation’s top union leader said.
“I think it would be ill-advised for anyone to intervene,” Ged Kearney, president of the Australian Council of Trade Unions, said in an Oct. 18 telephone interview. “At some stage, there has to be a negotiated outcome.”
The ACTU, which helped the Labor government win power in 2007, plans to focus on job security over the next two to five years as companies consider moving positions overseas to pare costs, Kearney said. The number of Australian working days lost in industrial disputes tripled in the quarter ended June as wages trailed China-stoked commodity prices and corporate profits.
“There is a feeling among workers, asking, ‘Why can’t we participate in this boom? Why can’t we have a bigger share?’” said Rick Kuhn, a political analyst at the Australian National University in Canberra. “The benefits of the boom, mainly in resources, is being garnered by a thin layer of society.”
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