WorkChoices is radical; and that’s a good thing

The main reason why unions are doing so well in their campaign against WorkChoices is because they are appealing to long-held conservative values.

This conservatism is not primarily economic, but rather based on deeply held cultural and moral precepts.

First, there is the structure of the working week, the nature of public holidays and the connection with traditional ideas of the family.  Then there is the idea that a stable society is heavily dependent upon security in employment.  Further, there is the paternalistic notion that individuals are incapable of determining their own work contracts and need someone older and wiser to do this for them.  Each of these ideas is profoundly conservative.

WorkChoices dramatically upsets and reshapes these cultural values.

WorkChoices gives workers and employers the right to eliminate pay loadings on public holidays, on weekends and on shift work.  What is supposed to happen is that average hourly rates are increased to compensate for loss of "loaded" rates.  Workers are paid less on weekends, but receive more midweek.  Weekly pay stays the same, but the hourly structures alter.  Until now, the industrial relations system largely stopped this happening.  Why?

Pay rate loadings were originally introduced as a disincentive to businesses operating on weekends, public holidays and outside "9 to 5" hours, and to compensate workers for working in these periods.  It reinforced the structure of a society where work, leisure, family and religious norms aligned with the Christian ethic.  In Australia, the man worked from 9am to 5pm, children went to school from 9am to 3-30pm, the family gathered at night for dinner, football was played and watched on Saturday, Sunday was for church and the family roast, and public holidays followed the Christian calendar.  So dominant was this lifestyle pattern that it became entrenched as a fundamental conservative value underpinning family, church, community and state.  And labour awards under the old industrial relations system were deliberately structured to bolster this.

But Australian society has changed.  Public holidays still follow the Christian calendar, but churches know that they must function in a secular society.  Religious beliefs are diverse.  People want shopping and hospitality services at any time.  Sport is watched and played on any day of the week.  Schools run before- and after-school programmes to accommodate parenting needs.

The old industrial relations system, however, was unable to adapt to these changed norms.  Awards and industrial agreements maintained pay loadings but under the notion of workers "rights" rather than workers "imposition".  Labour law, rigid and inflexible, enforced subservience to older values.

Few people understand the extremes to which the system would go to enforce the outdated cultural norms.  Fewer than ten years ago, a shearer in Queensland was jailed for daring to shear sheep on a Sunday, defying the shearers’ award in doing so.  Assaults against non-compliant workers, vandalism of their vehicles, and destruction and sabotage of businesses’ plant and machinery have been common, even recently.  The system had a heavy totalitarian element to it, all in the cause of enforcing older conservative values.

Another example where WorkChoices defies Australian tradition lies in its practical commitment to belief in the power of the individual.

Labour tradition has long held the view that individuals do not have the intelligence, wit, inclination, education or capacity to negotiate their own work contracts.  To "protect" individuals from their own incapacity, the collective (unions) negotiated contracts through the industrial relations processes.  This was enforced rigorously.  Any individual who did not conform to the required collective behaviour threatened the collective, and ultimately themselves, and had to be disciplined.  This occurred through legal sanction, intimidation, bullying and sometimes physical abuse of defiant workers.

In reality, the industrial relations system imposed the worst aspects of the tyranny of the collective, and it did so in the name of enforcing conservative values.  In many respects it is the uglier side of the Australian mateship ethos.  It continues to operate as a core cultural value — at least in the union movement.

The unwillingness to acknowledge the capacity of the individual at work has, however, been challenged in the last two decades.  This is demonstrated by the rise in the self-employed, independent contractor sector, which now stands at some 28 per cent of the private-sector workforce.  These 1.9 million Australians have demonstrated that they believe they have the capacity to negotiate their own contracts.  The take-up of Australian Workplace Agreements also reflects this.

Many workers now believe that, with the right tools and a suitable legal framework, they can negotiate their own work contracts.  They do this primarily to make work fit more readily with their lifestyles.  Under individual contracts, pay is not normally the big-ticket item of negotiation.  Rather, what really matters are changes to work hours to fit in with child care and other lifestyle needs.

Of course, the unions claim that this phenomenon is a sham and an employer "con".  Like many other defenders of old conservative values, they are doing little more than simply denying that people are capable of managing their own work affairs and ignoring the obvious fact that society has changed.

Another conservative position under attack by WorkChoices is the idea that security in employment is essential to a stable society.  This argument suggests, for example, that if people don’t have a secure job (presumably for life if they want it), they can’t get a bank loan or may lose their house if they lose their job.  This creates a vulnerable, unstable society.

Fear of losing income is, of course, a sensible prudential concern for everyone.  But most people now realise that jobs are only secure if firms are making good profits.

Job permanency has been replaced by the realisation that what is important is continuity of income.  This is not necessarily achieved by a single job with one employer.  In fact, nowadays, that can be a risky strategy.  What’s necessary is to be entrepreneurial in the approach to work.  People need always to be alert to the next job;  and that includes the 61 per cent of the workforce who have a permanent job.

Sometimes multiple contracts and casual jobs are a safer way to create continuity of income.  The possible mix of work and jobs has now become vast and represents a new "norm".  Society has changed, as have the individuals which comprise it.  Lifestyles are now a significant mix of many influences, with the ideas of family, community, state and stability being somewhat different from the past.

In making changes under WorkChoices, the Howard Government has not created a new work environment.  Instead, it has simply pushed labour law to catch up with a changed society.  Yes, the Government has depowered the institutions that ran the old system:  the unions and industrial relations commissions.  Yes, it has assaulted powerful conservative values.  But even if these values are no longer universally held, they still resonate in the imagination as values to be respected.

Unions say that workers need the protective umbrellas of permanent employment, a union, and a rigid, paternal, industrial relations system.

In creating WorkChoices the Howard government has focused its sales pitch on economic arguments — that, basically, WorkChoices means more jobs.  However, the cultural debate has been left almost exclusively to unions, giving them an unchallenged run in this area.

With the Rudd Opposition now lining up with unions on key policy planks, the next federal election will place central cultural values before the community.  The union/Rudd team offers a strong appeal to conservatism.  In 2007, the ALP is the conservative party.

Heavy Metalism and Liberalism

"But the fact is unless you are a politician, shut up.  What do they [musicians] know about politics?  (With a southern accent)  Oh well I'm gonna vote for a guy that gonna raise taxes on the fucking rich.  You stupid twat.  You are in the upper income bracket in America, you are gonna get taxed.  And when small business owners get taxed, jobs are lost".

-- Dave Mustaine, frontman of Megadeth, Heavy Metal spokesperson for sound taxation policy (apparently).

Heavy Metal is a curious music.  Largely dismissed as nothing more than distorted drivel, it remains a black smudge on the grandiose landscape of musical culture.  It is seen as immature by many, repulsive by a few, and just downright horrible by most.  All of these judgements are in their own way correct.  There is nothing creatively or musically remarkable about the genre -- with one exception.  In a time when popular music appears strongly aligned with the Left, Heavy Metal finds itself as a hotbed of classical liberals.  Some things in life, it would seem, just don't make sense.

LEFTISM IN POPULAR MUSIC

In 2004, then Presidential-aspirant Howard Dean graced the cover of popular music's seminal journal, Rolling Stone.  "The next few weeks will determine whether or not the year's most extraordinary political story has legs", began the article.  "Unlike most politicians, who work hard to seem like your best friend, Dean ... projects a refreshing quality of seeming not to really care if you like him".  Rolling Stone was more accurate than it thought, and Dean bombed out of the presidential candidacy accordingly.  Likewise, the Australian edition of Rolling Stone would interview Mark Latham and Peter Garrett during the last Federal election.  The Age would write, "Opposition Leader Mark Latham's appearance on the cover of this month's Rolling Stone ... is another reminder that rock can be a powerful platform for politicians".  Latham would go on to lose the Federal election and quit politics altogether.

It is not that Rolling Stone has a remarkable ability in getting it wrong on almost everything -- although this is definitely a point worth exploring on another day -- but it is that a leftist culture seems to pervade the popular music establishment.  In 2004, three compilation albums were released, Rock Against Bush, Vols 1 & 2, and the Australian equivalent, Rock Against Howard.  Both were equally as effective in the sense that they both equally failed.  What was more significant, however, and somewhat disappointing, was the number of popular musicians who offered their services to the project.  In the United States, anti-Bush sentiment would eventually culminate in a nation-wide tour, aptly titled "Vote For Change".

HEAVY METAL AND INDIVIDUALISM

But while soft-rocker Bruce Springsteen and grunge-rockers Pearl Jam toured the nation trying to convince voters of their political righteousness, others chose to stay at home, unimpressed.  "If you're listening to a rock star in order to get your information on who to vote for, you're a bigger moron than they are", insists Alice Cooper.  "Why are we rock stars?  Because we're morons.  We sleep all day, we play music at night and very rarely do we sit around reading the Washington Journal".

Megadeth vocalist Dave Mustaine had similar sentiments:  "The fact that people would vote based on who a celebrity endorses is just stupid.  Don't vote for Bush because I'm voting for him.  Don't vote for Kerry because you hate me".  Lars Ulrich, drummer of the most commercially successful Heavy Metal act ever, Metallica, would comment, "We're one of the last remaining full-on bands.  We don't use the band as a vehicle for individual political statements".

These honest, self-effacing statements are a surprising feature of the Heavy Metal genre.  But this is not the whole story -- this most unlikely of genres exhibits elements of individualist or liberal political thought.

Jeffrey Arnett's Metalheads:  Heavy Metal Music and Adolescent Alienation, is a study that attempts to discover the appeal of Heavy Metal music, particularly to teenagers.  The results points to a strong correlation between Heavy Metal and individualism:

The belief system that underlies heavy metal songs has its roots in American individualism.  In heavy metal songs, the right of the individual to do whatever he or she pleases is enshrined among the highest values.  Self-fulfillment and self-expression are held high whereas self-restraint and self-denial are scorned as the values of the timid, the dull, and the humorless.

Ayn Rand would be proud of Arnett's conclusion.  And there is ample evidence to support Arnett's claim.

In 1974, the world welcomed Rush, a Canadian progressive rock trio that would draw its inspiration from Ayn Rand's philosophy to produce an immense catalogue of songs that detailed the virtues of individualism and the evils of collectivisation.  The opening track from their sophomore effort Fly By Night is titled "Anthem", obviously drawn from Rand's own novel, which contains the lyrics:

Well, I know they've always told you

Selfishness was wrong

Yet it was for me, not you, I came to write this song

Rush would go on to become one of the most influential musical acts of their time, the most notable Heavy Metal band to cite their influence being Metallica.

The theme of self-empowerment equipped with a "Carpe Diem" mantra can be found in countless Heavy Metal songs.  Although individualism should be a prominent focus when looking at Heavy Metal, critics of the genre identified a much more sinister protagonist as the centre of lyrical discussion.

MILTON TO MAIDEN

In the Spring of 1985, the Parents' Music Resource Centre (PMRC) was formed with the intention of protecting America's youth from music that was deemed inappropriate and harmful.  The PMRC would produce a list of 15 songs that promoted or glorified violence, sex, drugs and the devil.  Heavy Metal featured prominently, and indeed, most songs from the list actually were offensive, albeit tunes that only a minority of listeners would hear (the market for extreme vulgarity isn't terribly large).  Perhaps the most interesting inclusion was the Twisted Sister song "We're Not Gonna Take It", a song more concerned about retaining individual liberty than beating up your next door neighbour.

In response to the public perception that Heavy Metal was bringing violence and satanic glorification into the family home, a Christian Metal band emerged on the scene:  Stryper.  "So many bands give the devil all the glory -- it's hard to understand", sings Michael Sweet in the song "From Wrong to Right".

But does the devil get all the glory?  John Milton received similar criticism for his portrayal of Satan in Paradise Lost.  William Blake would famously write that Milton was "of the Devil's party without knowing it".  Likewise, British rockers Iron Maiden would find themselves at the receiving end of attacks by several Christian groups, following their 1982 release The Number of the Beast.  "They obviously hadn't read the lyrics", says bassist Steve Harris.  "They just wanted to believe all that rubbish about us being Satanists".  Perhaps if the Christian pressure groups had continued to listen to the Maiden catalogue, they may have been surprised to find several songs supporting Christianity, such as fan favourites "Sign of the Cross" and "Judgement of Heaven".  For the literary folk, Iron Maiden's 14-minute epic "Rime of the Ancient Mariner", a rock version of the Coleridge poem, is equally as fascinating.

The influence of literature in Heavy Metal is perhaps another indicator of the values encompassed in the genre.  Though not conservative in a political sense, many Heavy Metal artists appear to be drawn towards topics that encourage fundamental Western values.

INDIVIDUALISM IN NICHE GENRES

Individualist and liberal thought is not restricted to Heavy Metal, of course.  Many niche genres, dismissed for their sonic or lyrical abrasiveness by popular media and culture, can feature artists who extol these values.  Punk rock may be forever connected with the Sex Pistols "Anarchy in the UK", or the Joy Division's neo-nazi motif, but much "anarchism" in punk music is actually misinterpreted libertarianism.

The hardcore punk band Corporate Avenger advocate "personal responsibility and compassion for others".  The title track from their album Taxes are Stealing contains the lyrics:

The IRS was not there the other day when I was unloading truck after truck into that hot fucking warehouse

The IRS was not there the other day when I was pulling weeds in the fucking hot sun

The IRS was not there when I needed money to pay my bills, but they sure as fuck were there on Friday to take almost half my pay again and again and again and again!

Hardcore Punk bands can be offensive -- a staple of the genre is the strength of their venom -- but it would be a mistake to assume that they are always pushing hard-Left values upon their audience.  The contribution of these bands to liberal or conservative political support does not deserve to be dismissed because of their niche appeal.  Similarly, in the elusive genre of Heavy Metal, the fundamental values of individualism, liberty and freedom are being promoted by the very groups that are slammed for defying such values.  As Noel Coward wrote, "Strange how potent cheap music is".

Self-Reliance and the Self-Employment Revolution

THE OLD INDUSTRIAL RELATIONS SYSTEM

The condition of Australia's old industrial relations system has dominated the policy debate following the 2004 federal election.  There has been argument about such things as setting the minimum wage, the role of the AIRC, and the number of allowable matters in industrial awards.

The discussion, however, has largely missed the point.  Most of the players in the industrial relations system have been so caught up in the old way of doing things that the transformation of work in Australia has been ignored.  The "industrial relations club" remains fixated on models of the employment relationship that are out-of-date.

Our current structure of industrial relations -- relying on awards, arbitration and conciliation -- is literally a product of the nineteenth century.  The central assumption of that structure -- that the interests of employers and employees are fundamentally different -- is also a basic assumption of Karl Marx, another long-discredited product of the nineteenth century.

To ensure Australia's continued prosperity into the twenty-first century, we require a system which encourages creativity, rewards initiative, and responds to the needs of individuals and families.  The existing system meets none of these criteria.

What is occurring in Australia is nothing less than a transformation of how we work.  The traditional employer/ employee relationship is becoming less relevant as an increasing number of individuals are rejecting the restrictions of an inappropriate industrial relations system.  Individuals are choosing to work for themselves to gain the benefits of the choice and flexibility that self-employment provides.  The consequences of this transformation for the economy, for society, and for our political parties will be dramatic.

HOW THE WORLD HAS CHANGED

The trend to self-employment will accelerate in coming decades.  Five major reasons explain this change.

First, the nature of the Australian economy will continue to develop with knowledge-intensive and service industries assuming a more important position.  These industries already have a high proportion of self-employed workers.

Second, as the population gains the higher levels of education required for the jobs of the future, the number of self-employed will increase, as better educated workers are more likely to choose self-employment.

Third, older workers are more comfortable becoming self-employed than are younger workers, and the effects of this will become apparent as the population ages.

Fourth, individuals are demanding choice over their working arrangements, as they are in every other aspect of their lives, and self-employment provides this.

Fifth, individuals are more willing to assume responsibility for the decisions that affect their lives and their families.  Outside the family, deciding the course of his employment is perhaps the biggest decision an individual can make.

The phenomena just described raise issues beyond the scope of industrial relations, and they are the focus of a new research project of mine entitled A Self-Reliant Society.  Other issues to be considered during the project include such matters as the extent to which individuals and families are seeking greater control over their financial assets, and what the consequences of this might be.

This article is one of the first outcomes of the A Self-Reliant Society project.  Specifically this article examines:

• the number of people self-employed;
• the growth of self-employment;  and
• the political consequences of self-employment.

HOW MANY PEOPLE ARE SELF-EMPLOYED?

There is no simple answer to this question.  The idea that people might not be either "employees" or "employers", but could be "self-employed" is relatively new.  The development of measures of self-employment, therefore, have lagged behind traditional indicators such as the number of people who are unemployed, or who are union members, or who are not in workforce at all.

There are actually at least three different measures of the number of self-employed.  The census conducted by the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) every five years asks people to identify their employment status.  The ABS also conducts a monthly labour force survey (from which the unemployment statistics are derived).  The figures for the self-employed vary between the census and the survey because one attempts to be comprehensive while the other is only a sample of the population.  A significant problem with both the census and the survey is that people who work as owner-managers of incorporated enterprises and who would regard themselves as self-employed, are classed as employees because they are employed by the business, even though they would regard themselves as self-employed.

To overcome these issues, in 1998 in a separate survey, the ABS started counting owner-managers as self-employed.  This survey is held every three years and the most recent data available are from 2001.  In that year, there were at least 1.75 million Australians who were self-employed.  This compares with the figure of 1.67 million self-employed recorded in 1998.  (The results of the 2004 survey will be released later this year).

Although census and survey data from the ABS underestimate the extent of self-employment, they are useful.  This is because they allow trends to be measured over time, and because the census records information, including data about where individuals live and differences between electorates, can be analysed.

THE GROWTH OF SELF-EMPLOYMENT

The attention that trade unions and their leaders receive from the media and governments (both Coalition and Labor) is not reflected in the size of their membership.  By contrast, the self-employed are a silent but growing group getting on with the job.  As has been known since at least the 1990s, the proportion of union members in the workforce has been steadily declining, but the related phenomenon of the growth of self-employment has been practically ignored.

When the number of trade union members in the private sector is compared with the number of self-employed, what is occurring is made very obvious.  And when it is remembered that the figures for the self-employed, (Chart 1) are taken from an ABS survey that underestimates self-employment, the effect is even more striking.

The political consequences of self-employment

While the ALP remains wedded to the union movement and the old industrial relations system, the nature of work in its own electorates is changing to embrace self-employment.  Using data from the ABS censuses conducted in 1981 and the most recent census of 2001 and breaking down the rate of self-employment to individual electorates, it can be easily seen that the rate of self-employment grew most in ALP electorates.  In 1981, 10.1 per cent of workers in ALP electorates were self-employed, and in 2001 this figure was 14.3 per cent, an increase of over 40 per cent.  By contrast, in Coalition electorates, where the percentage of self-employed is higher, the rate of growth of self-employment was not as great, rising from 18.6 per cent to 20.3 per cent, which is a change of around 10 per cent (Chart 2).  (As mentioned, ABS census figures understate the extent of self-employment and the actual incidence of self-employment in both ALP and Coalition electorates is much higher).

What this means is that there are now many ALP electorates in which self-employed workers outnumber union members.  As yet, the Labor Party has not woken up to the fact that if it is to regain government, it must at the very least consider the needs of this growing constituency.

Chart 3 shows the percentage of self-employed workers across all types of ALP and Coalition electorates in 2001.  An analysis of individual electorates reveals that there are many electorates which have a much higher percentage of self-employed workers than the average.  More than one-third of ALP electorates had a workforce in which 15 per cent or more of those working were self-employed, and in some electorates this percentage rose to around 20 per cent.

As ALP electorates become more marginal, the percentage of self-employed workers increases.  Similarly, the safer Coalition seats tend to have a higher percentage of self-employed.

Conclusion

The relationship between self-employment and voting intention is, of course, not simple, and many other factors determine an individual's political choice at elections.  But what this analysis does show is that neither side of politics can afford to ignore the growing number of self-employed.  Because the self-employed are by their nature independent, they haven't been collectively represented -- nor have they sought to be.  They have stood aside from the battles between employers and employees because they are neither.

At the level of national policy, the full impact of the self-employment revolution has yet to be recognised.  To an increasing number of Australian workers the "old-speak" of industrial relations is irrelevant.  The challenge for all governments and political parties is to think in new ways about employment and recognise that the growth in self-employment is the inevitable consequence of the economic and social conditions of the late twentieth century.  There is no likelihood of the trend being reversed.