Jobs go down the drain and rich get richer

Vanguard August 2012 p. 3
Jim H

The annual OECD Employment Outlook, published in July, reported that underemployment in Australia is well above the OECD average, with 875,000 workers, that is, 7.2% of the workforce, wanting more work than they are getting.

This is a gross understatement. Evidence from the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) and other sources suggests that about a third of the workforce is in part-time and casual employment. Most want more work. Most do not get enough working hours to maintain a decent standard of living.

New jobs figures are going downhill. An increasing adult population means that the numbers on paper are even worse in real life. With 341,000 new adults in the last 18 months, only 27,000 new (mostly part time) jobs came into existence. In June alone 14,000 more became unemployed.

Unemployment and underemployment are both on the rise. In the short term, at least, a growing number of workers are being forced to take early annual leave or put into shorter working hours in existing jobs. Further evidence of the trend is that the total hours of work are falling. This is a glimpse of the real human cost.

Despite its serious limitations, the OECD statement does underline that unemployment is a serious issue that demands a proper answer. Genuine political leadership in the interests of the working people of this country has to take this on board as a priority. But true to their colours, the Coalition and Labor Party do not. It is not what they are about. In today’s political climate, more people than perhaps ever before are seeing that the concern of this lot is crawling servitude to the multimillionaires owning the biggest banks, mining concerns and other corporations operating in Australia. This few, many of them enjoying the high life in New York and London, call the shots. They are running Australia. The Coalition and Labor are in their pocket. 

Ultimately the OECD has similar credentials. So it goes on to claim that underemployment is better than unemployment because it provides people with opportunities and that this is really a good thing for Australia. The OECD report pretends that by being given flexibility in work and lifestyle, the underemployed are actually in a lucky and privileged position, where they can choose to do whatever they want to. No honest person could be taken in by this garbage.

For workers, the bad news is not only jobs. A larger proportion of the total income of Australia is going into the pockets of the very richest. The OECD report recognises this. In addition, it correctly points to the loss of bargaining power of workers as a major cause. It could have added that this in itself is the product of capitalist economic crisis and the predatory nature of the system. But this is too close to the bone for them.

The share of national income going into the pockets of workers fell by 8.9% between 1990 and 2007.

Calculations by economist and Labor MP Andrew Leigh show that - even after tax accountants had done their best - the top 1% of earners declared 8.9% of all taxable income in Australia, up from 4.6% in 1981-82.

Since the crisis came out into the open in 2008, the upward drift of national income is beginning to look more like steady flow.

Here are a few more facts:

• The top 0.1% of adults (17,500 people) earned at least $650,823 each - 3% of Australia's income.
• The top 1% (175,000 people) earned at least $194,365, and almost 9% of all income.

It cannot go on. Not only because of the hardship visited on many individuals, but also because it can only lead to deepening economic crisis.

In defending their collective interests, workers have no other choice but to use their organisational strength and militant determination to defend existing jobs and demand genuine action to create new and proper jobs. Not only this. Workers have no choice but to take up the demand the changing share of national income be reversed – that the rich be made to pay. While these demands must be taken to the reactionary politicians, of whichever persuasion, time and time again, experience shows that they are unlikely to move. This is especially so in the current economic climate. Victories have to be won through action on the ground.