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Good on ya Little Johnny- free trade agreement with China.


Lawn mower maker to slash 65 jobs


A BRISBANE lawn mower factory will retrench 65 workers following a decision by Rover Mowers to move its manufacturing operations to China.

Parent company GWA International has announced it will switch its production line to China, saying the company was unable to compete with low cost imports.

The assembly line will shut on April 5 and staff would receive redundancy payments.

Administration and executive staff at the company's Eagle Farm office will be retained.

Australian Manufacturing Workers Union Queensland secretary Andrew Dettmer said the move came as a surprise and the union had sought a meeting with the company's managing director to discuss the decision.

However, he conceded the union's chances of convincing the company to try a different tactic were slim.

"I'd like to get an understanding of why the place is closing," he said.

"The only reason that has been advanced to us is a shortage of work.

"The point is you don't suddenly run out of work – it's something that happens for a while and there's been no information given to us."

Mr Dettmer said under the certified agreement with the company, management was required to keep the AMWU informed on major issues but the union had not been advised of the company's problems until the decision to move to China had been made.

"The first thing we got was a letter this week saying it was going to close and sack everybody – there was no warning at all," Mr Dettmer said.

Comment is being sought from the company

good we need more workers for the booming mining industry...

I work in the manufacturing industry and there is not one person at my work who does not realise that his/her job is all but gone in the next five years or so....

What are Labor going to do to stop this from happening in the future? What has the Beattie State Labor Government done to retain the factory here? Do they hand out the industrial dole in Qld?

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It is a difficult topic, as Im all for free trade but you do need a protection of some sort to be able to compete with countries that use slave labour.
Its ironic that the Liberals are the one's for free trade yet its the unions who support Labor being the one's that drive up wages and conditions which make the companies less competitive in a free trade atmosphere.
And yes, it does feel like this one should be in the Political Forum, I'll move it and leave a shadow.

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protectionism = communism

Don't like it, but as I said Im always in a quandry as it definately isn't a level playing field.
Mind you if they gave me a 5k discount for a Commodore SV6 I'd probably buy it in front of an Falcon XR6, they should have state tarrifs!

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PhilG wrote:

Wedgie wrote:protectionism = communism

No it's socialism, not communism. And anyway, what else can we do when the US are behaving (to use your example) like commies?

Yeah true, good point. I have pretty simplistic views that don't take the bigger picture into account in this area.

Even some of the developing countries have tarriffs. Wedgie, the only way we can compete with them, is if we all were willing to live with the same conditions as the "slaves" do, live in shacks with little or none of the comforts that we have become acustomed to, with no rights in the workplace (although little Johnny's doing his beat for that one already), to blame wages is bullshit, relatively, our wages were better in the 80's, if we want quality products, built in Australia, by Australians, we need tarriffs to compete with the cheap (and often nasty) imports.

Ian wrote:Even some of the developing countries have tarriffs. Wedgie, the only way we can compete with them, is if we all were willing to live with the same conditions as the "slaves" do, live in shacks with little or none of the comforts that we have become acustomed to, with no rights in the workplace (although little Johnny's doing his beat for that one already), to blame wages is bullshit, relatively, our wages were better in the 80's, if we want quality products, built in Australia, by Australians, we need tarriffs to compete with the cheap (and often nasty) imports.

Fair enough, but dunno about your last sentence as a lot of stuff from O/S even if it is cheaper is quite often of a better quality.

Some of the cheaper, and most of the more expensive import electrical products and power tools etc. are as good, if not better than locally made (if it's even still being made here) products, but there is also a lot that seems to have an inbuilt timer set to self destruct just after the warranty runs out.

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TroyGFC wrote:Good on ya Little Johnny- free trade agreement with China....Lawn mower maker to slash 65 jobs...

Actually it was the Hawke/Keating government that started the pattern of exporting manufacturing industry by slashing tariff barriers. It was not going to matter because we were going to become "The Clever Country".

The strategy came about because they set about convincing the public of their economic credibility before the election they won [in was it 1984?] by stressing their "accord" with the unions whereby the unions agreed not to ask for wage rises greater than CPI under the potential labour government. They then kept their supporters in big business onside by keeping wages down. They did this by dropping tariff barriers and letting cheaper manufactured goods into the country to artificially lower CPI. The Unions kept quiet because they are now big business too and have their own wages bills to keep down, and because they figured any Labor government was better than none - for them and their power and influence at least, even if not for the workers they allegedly represent.

A clever con - but look where it got us!

Similarly, Hawke and Keating decided Medicare was costing too much and that the cause of this was we had too many doctors who were therefore seeing patients more often than necessary to maintain income. So, they cut funding for training doctors. Now of course we have a doctor shortage and some 39% of the doctors in general practice are approaching retirement age.

Similarly, the run down in manufacturing in Australia resulted in companies cutting costs to survive, and training new workers was one of the first causualties. So now, we are also short of skilled tradesmen too.

Ian wrote:Some of the cheaper, and most of the more expensive import electrical products and power tools etc. are as good, if not better than locally made (if it's even still being made here) products, but there is also a lot that seems to have an inbuilt timer set to self destruct just after the warranty runs out.

HP have this down to a fine art - they must have a secret microchip/timer!

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PhilG wrote:

Psyber wrote:Actually it was the Hawke/Keating government that started the pattern of exporting manufacturing industry by slashing tariff barriers. It was not going to matter because we were going to become "The Clever Country".

Erm, you'll find that started with Whitlam - not Hawke/Keating, Psyber. What added to the issue was the floating of the dollar - which WAS Hawke/Keating. And that needed to happen because our dollar was way overvalued at the time.

More importantly, what has Howard done about it?

I rest my case!

Now come on Phil be fair. He's only had eleven years and he can't kiss Bushes arse any more than he already has.

regards,

REB

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PhilG wrote:

Psyber wrote:Actually it was the Hawke/Keating government that started the pattern of exporting manufacturing industry by slashing tariff barriers. It was not going to matter because we were going to become "The Clever Country".

Erm, you'll find that started with Whitlam - not Hawke/Keating, Psyber. What added to the issue was the floating of the dollar - which WAS Hawke/Keating. And that needed to happen because our dollar was way overvalued at the time.

More importantly, what has Howard done about it?

I rest my case!

I don't recall the Whitlam connection, but I'll take your word for it. Certainly tariff barriers were successively lowered under H/K. I'm not sure there is any real validity to PK's excuse about the over-valued status of our dollar. Poor economic management creates a situation that means people stop investing here and our dollar drops as a result, then it recovers as our economy does better and Australia looks like it is worth investing in again - as has happened recently.

Under PK investing in growing your business got too expensive due to interest rates and tax levels [especially after the "L...A...W... ones didn't happen], housing became too costly to invest in, and people in business bought tax deductions instead - like a car I sold at a 40% profit on what I'd paid for it 4 years earlier in late 1987 - just before everything collapsed.

The problem now is that the moment any federal government decides to restore tariff barriers the prices of the goods currently no longer made in Australia will rise dramatically, CPI figures will rise, wage demands will rise, and the hip-pocket nerve will kick in and that party will be out of office at the very next election. Pollies are aware the public has a short memory and they rely on it, but it also means they know they can't sell them the, "Look it will cost you now, but the country will be better off in the long run..." message. So of course Johnny Howard has not done anything about it and neither will anyone else. If we had cooperation between the major parties for the good of manufacturing in Australia, we might be able to creep the tariffs up slowly, but that sort of unified approach is unlikely, given our oppositional style of government.