From the ABC Under the Government's proposed changes, companies with fewer than 100 employees would be exempt from unfair dismissal laws. But Mr Costello has told a business journal there is "no magic" in the figure and suggested exemptions for small and medium firms could be extended. Labor leader Kim Beazley has told Channel Nine it shows how far the Coalition wants to go in its overhaul of industrial relations. "They're letting the cat out of the bag on what their real intentions are," Mr Beazley said. "You're putting one set of deprivations of people's rights in the industrial relations system and then you put in another and so on.

From the ABC

Retailing group supports 2 cents an hour pay rise
The National Retailers Association is supporting a new workplace agreement offered by the haberdashery chain Spotlight.

The agreement replaces overtime, penalty rates and other employee benefits with a wage increase of two cents per hour.

The Federal Opposition raised concerns about the agreement in Parliament yesterday.

But the chief executive of the National Retailers Association, Patrick McKendry, says it is simply a starting point for employees to negotiate a better deal.

"What this agreement is about is saying, up until now we've set the ceiling, we've set the floor and you've simply copied the very prescriptive arrangements that have been put in place by a third party," he said.

"What this document represents is a starting point if you like, it's the way to commence a discussion about what the appropriate rates are."

The Federal Opposition says other Australian retail chains are getting ready to offer paltry pay rises in return for not paying overtime and penalty rates.

Labor's Stephen Smith says he expects Spotlight to be the first of many such agreements.

"Spotlight is doing what John Howard's policy allows it to do," he said.

Read more at the ABC

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Gus thinks this is obscene... Slavery is coming back with great IR strides.

see cartoon at head of this line of blogs and others that show our primal grocer as Mr Pharaoh himself flogging the masses...

Yes Gus ..... obsecene is the right word.

But the rodent's IR "Choices" & the predictable behaviour of commerce in response is a lesser obscenity than the apathy of the Australian electorate & its preparedness to continue to accept the erosion of its rights & hard won living standards.

Like their Amerikan cousins, the great selfish Australian mob pay no heed to abuses of human rights, whether commited at home or in far off places, nor the lies & deceptions continuously perpetrated against them & in their names by the "governing class" ..... both liberal & labor.

Maybe the continual looting of their pockets by the rodent is what it will take to get Australians off their carbohydrate-challenged arses & demand a return to policy values that will deliver equitable social outcomes to everyone & not just the pretty & privileged?

It sure as hell won't come about as a result of our current "values".

All dictators, regardless of the "model" of government that sustains their rorts, ultimately fall victim to hubris & eventually overreach  themselves.

Given little sneaky's apparent determination to "stay the course", he will surely suffer the same fate that befalls all those who pass their use-by date with those they are supposed to represent.

Yes John, hopefully this befalling will come before old age sets in the little rodent's arthritic joints... otherwise we'll be gone before he does... Rats!