Which side ar you on

Billy Brag once sang:

This government had an idea
And parliament made it law
It seems like it's illegal
To fight for the union any more

He then asked

Which side are you on, boys?
Which side are you on?

Well maybe someone should send a cd of the song to ALP leader Kevin Rudd because it’s clear from his latest policies announcement on industrial relations that he isn’t on the side of the unions or Australian workers.

By his own admittance, AWAs mean lower wages and fewer benefits for workers, but he then says that people will have to stay on them for up to five years. Now given that parliamentary terms are only three years in Australia , that means anyone who has signed an AWA in the last two years will still be on it at the time of the next election (2010). A liberal victory then would mean the reintroduction of AWAs and hey presto Labor’s promise to scrap AWAs turns out to be nothing of the sort.

The most frustrating thing about this is that scrapping AWAs and the Liberal’s work choices is a vote winner. Rudd isn’t doing this to win votes, he is doing it because just like Blair he is a representative of big business and not the workers.