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The Rise of Casual Work Puts Us All at Risk

08.23

• Duncan Stuart

The rise of casual work has multiplied uncertainty, lowered wages, undermined conditions, and handed power to employers. 

Without addressing casualization, there is no hope of reversing the downward mobility facing millions of Australians today. Gorz may be right that as deindustrialization proceeded, the overall labour required by modern societies diminished. As a stopgap solution, casualization has left more of us underemployed — and with more time on our hands. But this is often a time filled with anxiety and dread, waiting to hear if we’ll have work in the coming week.
This is what defenders of casual work like Professor Mark Wooden miss. “But why would any workers accept such jobs if working conditions are as bad as portrayed by the critics?” he asks. After dismissing the explanation that casual workers have no choice, Wooden proposes another explanation: “. . . That casual jobs are mostly not bad jobs, or at least the workers taking those jobs don’t think so.”
Such is the insight of a professorial fellow who is, according to the University of Melbourne’s 2018 Enterprise Bargaining Agreement, entitled to a base salary of $187,654, generous superannuation, and ample leave.

In Australia, COVID-19 Has Exposed a Litany of Privatization Disasters

08.23

• Julian Potter

The coronavirus pandemic has preyed on weaknesses created by decades of austerity, confirming what socialists have consistently argued: privatization was a disaster. 

 

Privatization and austerity are “zombie economics” — dead ideas still walk among us. Far from being disruptive, innovative, and efficient, neoliberalism handed commonly owned social services over to a private bureaucracy of managers, duly protected by commercial-in-confidence laws, national security laws, and intellectual property.

When Fascism Almost Came to Australia

08.23

• Alex North

In Australia, as elsewhere, the 1930s saw the emergence of an armed, proto-fascist right who were united by their hatred of working-class politics.

And today, as Australia plunges into the worst depression since the 1930s, Scott Morrison’s Liberal government has closed Parliament and granted itself the right to rule effectively by edict. His immigration minister Peter Dutton has stated his view of “parliament as a disadvantage for governments.”
The hard-learned lesson is that the Australian labour movement cannot simply hope to “maintain the rage” until election day. It must always prepare itself for the counter-organization of the ruling class.

Donald Trump Slapped With Violation Notice By Twitter After Tweeting About Ballot Drop Boxes:  

Twitter slapped President Donald Trump with a violation notice on a tweet he sent out Sunday regarding ballot drop boxes for the upcoming election. The flag appeared about five hours after Trump ...

Fake News

 

CORONAVIRUS: IS THIS REALLY SO HARD?

Chris Mitchell: "Is an economic lockdown of [Victoria]... the right way to handle a virus that kills mainly the elderly...? Could Australia have saved its economy and more lives by a harder lockdown of aged care...  and advice to the over-70s not to gather socially outside their homes? All the while maintaining national social distancing...?"

1h ago 

Simpletons like Bolt keep asking this question without telling us just what it would take to execute. Well, lets take some realistic advice rather than Bolt's overly repetitive crap. Which it seems is now disguised rather than him chest-beating and declaring it is his own he's putting it on Chris Mitchell. Below is a link to a much wiser voice than Andrew Bolt's or Chris Mitchell's

This suggestion to protect the vulnerable is very easy to say, but the specifics are a lot more challenging. In fact, they are impossible. We cannot just live with this virus like this and not expect disasters on a scale that would make our current situation look mild.

Associate Professor Patrick Charles is a Melbourne-based infectious diseases physician.

Let the virus run but protect the vulnerable? This is how it is done

 

VICTORIA'S NEW INFECTIONS DOWN TO 116. DO 15 DEATHS COUNT?

Victoria's new infections today halved to just 116. For most Victorians, this will be the critical data - the great hope for the ending these devastating bans. I'm betting many will skip over the terrible death toll. Another 15 dead. I think people are increasingly absorbing the critical fact about the virus - and the better way to fight it.

3m ago 

Bolt has been put in his box so many times but he simply keeps being allowed out.  He's called for greater government control and when that happens he screams overreach. He claims the state of Victoria is a greater man-made economic disaster than if we were like Sweden. However, the facts prove he's wrong but Bolt makes these wild generalisations without comparisons. Sweden fared worse than Denmark and Norway which had total and short term lockdowns like Victoria with 6000 dead  rather than 250 and 600.

CORONAVIRUS: HOW THE MANIC 'DIVERSITY' CULT MADE US WEAK

COLUMN I would thank the lunatic Victorian government for making my critics look stupid, if it wasn’t that so many people have died. Two months ago I was savaged by the mob for saying this second wave of infections “exposes the stupidity of that multicultural slogan ‘diversity makes us stronger’”. Then the Government placed ads for coronavirus fighters...

38m ago 

Echoing the words and thoughts of Hitler who blamed the Internationalist Jews for Germany's economic disasters along with their support of the Godless Russia Andrew Bolt is an Assimilationist and a Eugenicist. He maintains a belief in a higher form of intelligence, probably because he could never cut the mustard when it came to education himself. He's argued the lower social metrics proved by science show that the Western Race and culture like Hitler's Aryan German was superior to Jews, Gipsies Gays and Africans. In Bolt's case, it's Muslims Africans Gays and Indigenous Australians. He leaves the Jews out because his connection to Hitler would then be too obvious. Nevertheless, he's a Nationalist ultra-right white Christian racist singing from Hitler's songbook.

 Andrew Bolt was raised in a migrant Dutch family and was tied to his mother apron strings.  He was socialised by a woman who hated being here. They, after all, came from Aalsmeer a town noted for its support of Hitler during WW2.  Rather than a formidable resistance, Aalsmeer was noted for its enthusiasm for hunting down and transporting Jews. Less than 16.5k survived of the 156k once Dutch Jewish population. A mass crime hidden until the 1980s and not talked of even today.

 One doesn't need to have a nuanced ear to realise where Andrew Bolt is coming from. He even admits to never feeling Australian until he was 35 and we largely agree he doesn't sound like one even today and he's 60..(ODT)

CORONAVIRUS IS MAKING BULLIES OF OUR POLLIES

COLUMN Our politicians! Here’s the Prime Minister now threatening to punish me if I don’t let him stick some new vaccine in my arm. Here’s the lethally incompetent Victorian Premier paying leftist stars to tell me to “follow the rules” he and they are breaking. There is a big picture here: of terrified voters being trained to obey arrogant governments.

19m ago 

Bolt claims he's not an extreme Libertarian. What's he sound like though when he says that? He sounds like a hypocrite. He works to News Corp and to rule and follows the cultural line. He supports the institutions that ensure social change is kept to a minimum and supports an established hierarchy maintained by inheritance and who you know rather than what. He simply disavows any notion of the common good only the common interests of competing groups. Politicians are good when they serve those interests and bad when they don't or try to dilute them.

"Terrified voters trained to obey" certainly wasn't the picture one got when Warringah threw Tony Abbott out of office. It seemed the voters that had the time, money, education and luxury to think we're the ones to get rid of a bullie pollie

CORONAVIRUS: SECOND WAVE IS LESS DEADLY

Interesting. The second wave of infections in Japan, France, the Netherlands,   Spain, the United States, Belgium and, less pronounced,  Germany, has not been matched by the same wave of deaths we saw with the first wave. Have we got better at treating the sick? Or in protecting the vulnerable? This is the information we should be told.

26m ago 

Here we go Bolt's diluting reality the USA is "less pronounced" Florida, Texas and states other than New York wouldn't agree with him. Not even "better managed" if one has a close look. People are responding to the advice of experts more instead of listening to opinionators like Andrew Bolt might be an answer. Less divided in their management beliefs. The realisation of a common good requires an approach other than privatisation which failed. The world has had a chance to compare success and failure and the differing outcomes of success. Currently, China is ahead of the pack as are most Socially Democratic countries. Why is Canada so much better than the USA? Denmark Norway Cuba. Why is Bolt heralding the success of countries  that are still struggling as being better?

END THESE KILLER BANS NOW

For critics who respond to my arguments by jeering, I'm no expert: "The University of Melbourne's vice-chancellor... Professor Duncan Maskell, an expert in infectious diseases...,  said Australia had to move beyond the lockdown phase of its response or risk experiencing even greater loss of life from poverty and suicide."  

38m ago 

It was announced just today that the effective unemployment rate was dropping from some 14.5% to 9.9%. Dan Andrews specifically said it was better to have a short lockdown rather than an extended one built on a herd immunity approach why? Because the experience of Sweden showed than economically Sweden showed a worse outcome over a long period than neighbouring Denmark and Norway did. Their economy suffered more and their deaths were ten to 20 times worse. China had strict controls over a short period and now have +3.5% GDP growth. The USA has been in chaos since Feb and has a predicted GDP of -10%.

It's well and good for Bolt to refer us to Maskell but you can be assured Bolt hasn't told the full story. As for can, there has been a greater loss from poverty and suicide than what Indigenous Australians experience in a country that was economically the best-harbouring citizens that experienced the worlds worst social metrics and having Andrew Bolt declaring it's their own fault.