Re: Opal machines to be turned off
  TP

The reference to "wage theft" reminds me of a Communist Party poster I saw
in Sydney some time ago: "Profits are stolen wages".

Profits are the wages of the entrepreneur. Without profits, there'd be no
business, thus no jobs and certainly no wages for anybody else.

Tony P

On Tuesday, 23 November 2021 at 11:48:55 UTC+11a...@... wrote:

> The different unions are a legacy of past times when the various public

> transport sectors were completely independent and uncoordinated. Private

> buses were administered by the old Department of Motor Transport,

> government buses by the Department of Road Transport and Tramways, later

> DGT. The RTBU is a legacy of the railways and tramways, thus a government

> employees union that is skilled in the art of squeezing extra benefits out

> of politicians who are terrified by the idea of strikes costing votes.

> Private bus operators, on the other hand, traditionally didn't tolerate

> bs.

> It's only in very recent times that the two sectors have been brought

> together. The unions are a legacy of the old system. The situation in NSW

> has brought the TWU and RTBU together in a united front. Other states and

> territories, except Brisbane City Council in Queensland, have only the TWU

> looking after bus drivers. The average private company has a dim view of

> any attempt to bring public service perks into their workplace as they

> don't have a bottomless well of taxpayer funding to draw upon. Yes, there

> should be common working conditions, but the private sector (with margins

> as tight as they are in public transport operational contracts) can't

> afford the inefficient lavishing that the public sector tolerates.

> Tensions

> result.

>

> Tony P

> What a load of boss-toady right wing crap. How outrageous that workers

> should use an industrial action tactic that doesn’t alienate the public,

> like this excellent campaign is doing, eh?

>

> What could be worse than a union that runs a competent campaign. If the

> privately employed bus drivers have had to put up with inferior working

> conditions because the union they were stuck with was ineffective, then

> that situation is well overdue for change.

>

> If the TWU wasn’t aligning with the RTBU guess where their membership

> would migrate to.

>

> What this reveals is the bludging, parasitic rent seekers of the “private”

> (but on the government tit) sector are really there for - to erode working

> conditions and rights, nothing else.

>

> These are not “perks”, they are hard won conditions fought for but a union

> that isn’t the passive and docile creature of the employers, like the TWU

> has obviously been in the past. If the TWU is finally waking up to the

> reality that if they want to maintain membership in this sector, then good

> for them. If the RTBU and TWU unite and campaign together then the bludging

> rent seeker parasites and the state government's ideological pogrom against

> decent working conditions in this sector will fail.

>

> If the private sector “can’t afford” the established and pre-existing

> working conditions it has no right to exist. Like all underpaying wage

> thief employers they don’t have a viable business. It would be interesting

> to compare what they pay the managers and executives compared to the actual

> workers, the productive people thy steal the value of their labour from.

>

> They could make some cuts there so the drivers get more.

>

> Tony.

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