Progressive Labour Party - Official Policy

Full EMPLOYMENT POLICY

PREAMBLE

• The Progressive Labour Party rejects current economic orthodoxy that treats as inevitable the regular recurrence of economic cycles of crises and depression and the persistently high levels of unemployment. However, the immediate issue is not cycles of crises, but continuing high levels of unemployment and under-employment long after the cyclical troughs have passed. We currently have a long-term structural problem, not just a cyclical phenomenon.
• In the long term the PLP sees the real solution to unemployment and underemployment problems, as democratic socialism - a system in which larger-scale industry is publicly owned and medium and small scale enterprises may be privately or co-operatively owned. The long term aim is to combine work structures such as national. regional and local government and community enterprises, co-operatives, collectives, work councils and social charters inside enterprises.
• The PLP approach to employment policy in the short to medium term draws on social democratic concepts. But the PLP wants to use the public sector not as a means of overcoming crises, but of shaping the whole economy in the image it chooses. The PLP wants to use the public sector as one step along the way to socialism, not just to prop up the capitalist economy.
• Unemployed and underemployed people face poverty and social dislocation. The longer the unemployment continues, chances of living a secure, happy and healthy lifestyle diminishes. Unemployment and underemployed is wasteful of human resources and destructive to the individuals who can find no useful ways of exercising their labour power.
• Increasingly work is being converted into forms of precarious employment. The unemployment rate is being reduced by the creation of jobs of a casual, temporary or part-time nature which gives workers a very marginal connection with the labour market. Such under-employment serves to reduce the official unemployment rate but often not the security of workers.
• Under-emloyment is looming as possibly a bigger problem in the years to come than unemployment, but it has not yet been placed on the political agendas of the mainstream political parties. Similarly, fixed-term contracts are becoming a feature of today's employment relationships, and the advent of labour-hire companies have turned workers into "self employed" business people unable to secure the conditions of their fellow workers in a standard employment relationship.

 

OBJECTIVES

Objective 1

A Guarantee of Full Employment and Security of Employment

• The PLP in government will work to ensure a level of no more than 2% unemployment exists, and long-term unemployment is eliminated;
• A guarantee of paid employment will be made for all those who want work, with regular full or part-time jobs provided, and the elimination of the dual labour force with the control and eventual abolition of casual and out work.

Objective 2

Standard Working Hours

• An immediate strategy to reduce the working week with the aim of a four day week during the first term of government, based on past productivity increases, and without any trade-offs;
• Incremental reductions would be made over time without loss of pay, by legislation along the French model providing for successive reductions of the number of weekly hours not incurring overtime payments;
• Future reductions in the standard working week without loss of pay in proportion to increases in the levelof productivity;

The Shorter Working Week Action Committee has pointed out that "A shorter work week with flexiblility for the employee and without loss of pay:

• creates new work opportunities,
• gives more leisure time to full time workers,
• allows us to more fully exercise our civic responsibilities,
• increases wages (hourly rates) for part timers,
• ensures that productivity leads to more freely creative time, not more unemployment,
• gives labour an incentive to improve practice,
• gives capital an incentive to innovate,
• puts people not profits at the centre of economics."

Objective 3

Work Sharing Schemes

• Measures will be taken, where possible, to redistribute work. Many in work are working increasingly longer hours while many others are unemployed or under-employed. Such measures will include:
• Facilitation of increased worker autonomy to control their own daily, weekly and annual working time in line with life cycle demands and individual circumstances. Job sharing would be facilitated;
• Ensuring non-discrimatory gender and ethnic balance in the provision of work sharing schemes.

Objective 4

Limitation of Overtime

• Compulsory overtime will be outlawed;
• Unpaid overtime will be outlawed and the employer concerned subject to heavy fines;
• A limit will be placed on permissible overtime, per employee, per month, to be steadily reduced over the course of time.

Objective 5

Elimination of long-term Unemployment

Objective 6

Abolition of Fixed-term Contract Work

Objective 7

Re-organisation of the Casual Work System

Objective 8

Replacement of Labour Hire Companies

Objective 9

The Expansion of Employment through an Enhamcement of the Social and Regional Infrastructure

Objective 10

Provision of Adequate Public Funds for the implementation of the PLP Full Employment Policy(See also PLP Financial Policy)

• The Reserve Bank shall have as its main aim the establishment and maintenance of full employment; [Also refer Finance policy]
• A regionally based development plan for the creation of new jobs;
• Establishing a regional publicly owned bank to provide venture capital at low interest for job-creation programs; [Also refer Finance policy]
• Develop a balanced national industrial plan which would foster the capital goods sector, i.e. the core engineering and equipment needs of the economy, as the foundation of an independent economy. Such a strategy could make Australia less reliant on export income and the import of capital goods while creating worthwhile employment;
• Publicly owned assets such as public transport systems, national parks, water treatment systems, environmental monitoring, land restoration, etc would be expanded and improved in those areas with low level provision and many new jobs created and maintained on an on-going basis;
• Direct job creation schemes traditionally utilised by councils and community or environmental organisations;
• Likewise on-going jobs would be created in an expanded network of community services, education and health services, ;
• Direct job creation schemes involving Aboriginal communities in community development projects would be fostered wherever possible;
• The provision of voluntarily undertaken Labour Market programmes to assist the long-term unemployed and youth unemployed into the workforce;
• A variety of jobs in all areas would be earmarked for the long-term unemployed.
• ** Pension on retirement at 60.

Objective 11

Encouragement of envirinmentally Friendly Work Creation

• Employment policy will be formed on an on-going basis in conjunction with environmental and industry policy and employment growth will be fostered in light of a development model favouring raising the standard of living via improvements in services and ecologically sustainable industries. Priority would be given to services which directly improve the natural environment and labour market programmes would also be so directed.

Objective 12

Encouragement of new and socially useful enterprises

• Support for cooperatives will be provided by means of low interest loans administered through a bureau also providing management and legal advice;
• Financial assistance to local and regional councils for the socially-useful employment and on-the-job training of local unemployed;
• Special concentration on rural and regional areas of high unemployment;
• The old New Enterprise Incentive Scheme available for employers would be expanded and a low interest loan scheme attached to it in order to assist the unemployed into employment (at award rates) and boost the very small business sector as an employment provider;
• Wage subsidy schemes involving private and public employers in order that the range of jobs on offer be maximised. The subsidies could be scaled in line with the period of unemployment. Conditions would apply to ensure workers were paid award wages and were not sacked at the end of the subsidised employment period. Preferences would be given to employers creating new jobs.

Objective 13

Protection of Australian Industry in order to savew/generate jobs and decrease reliance on imports

• Introduction of strategic tariffs and import controls for the protection of jobs and the balance of trade.
• Levy on major corporations which make mass layoffs;

Objective 14

The provision of adequate training for the unemployed

• Training and retraining would be provided where necessary in conjunction with the above programs. Training would be voluntary. However, a reciprocal agreement would be established between the unemployed and the government local or regional authority. The unemployed would no longer be required to jump the required hoops with no real prospect of a job at the end of them.
• The unemployed person would voluntarily enter into a contract to undergo suitable training and/or work experience on condition that a job will be made available as soon as they are ready for it.

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Adoption of Charter of Shorter Working Week Action Committee, as in Future Directions in Labour Politics, and the Unemployed Workers Charter, and append to this policy.

Appended:

Charter of of Shorter Working Week Action Committee

 

UNEMPLOYED WORKERS GROUP CHARTER
C/- 54 Hammett St, CURRAJONG Q 4812.
Ph: 07 4775 4370

The Unemployed Workers Group demands a just and equitable society. We are entitled to contribute to and share in the wealth of this country. We must speak out with one voice and make ourselves plainly seen and
loudly heard that we want nothing less.
WORK IS A RIGHT
Work is a fundamental human right. It is an essential part of human life and is a foundation of human society.
Work is central to the balanced development of a person’s self-esteem, intellect and positive social outlook.
Work provides the ability to contribute to the wealth of society and equally, returns economic security to the contributor. In essence, work shapes our very existence and our social relations with all people in society.

Acknowledging the influence of work on our daily lives, the Unemployed Workers Group believes that we are entitled to freely choose our employment and that work should provide a fair rate of pay and good working conditions.

WORK FOR ALL
Everyone has the right to work, to free choice of employment, to just and favourable conditions of work and protection against unemployment.
Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948)
Recognising the importance and value of work, the Unemployed Workers Group affirms, like the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, that work is an inalienable right – it is not a privilege and therefore, the Unemployed Workers Group strongly believes that the right to work should be enshrined in the Australian Constitution.

Work as a Constitutional right would legally bind all tiers of Government to strive for and maintain full employment for the benefit of all.

UNEMPLOYED WORKERS GROUP
WHAT WE STAND FOR
The Unemployed Workers Group has been founded by unemployed people as a direct result of the mass unemployment present in Australian society.

Freedom from want is an underlying philosophical principle of the Unemployed Workers Group – we believe no one should be without shelter and no one should go to bed hungry or cold.

For over a decade more than one and a half million Australians have been without work. Despite this intolerable situation, all Governments, at every level, have not been prepared to address the situation. Not only are Governments turning their backs on the situation, they are taking away the social rights of unemployed people. The Commonwealth Employment Service, funding for training programmes to assist unemployed people, and unemployment entitlements for youth have been axed in the name of cost cutting.

The Unemployed Workers Group recognises the stark reality that Australia’s No 1 social issue and what should be the top priority of all tiers of Government, will only be advanced by unemployed people themselves. By us, the unemployed, organising ourselves will we make an impact on the situation.

The Unemployed Workers Group believes that only an active organisation – by the unemployed, for the unemployed, can truly promote the interests of unemployed people – without fear or favour.

THE ROLE AND AIMS OF THE UNEMPLOYED WORKERS GROUP
· To protect the rights and advance the interests of the unemployed
· To advocate full employment and to lobby on employment issues
· To offer support for unemployed people
· To enshrine the right to work in the Australian Constitution
· To advocate a living wage or income for the unemployed to reflect the
economic reality of living
· To lobby for a Government commitment to apprenticeships and training
· To provide a forum for the unemployed to discuss issues of concern
· To offer a meeting place for the unemployed, both educationally and
socially
· To facilitate community involvement and education
· To be a contact point for employment.