28 May 2012, 280512, 3Q Ep 13, actu, business lobby, casual workers, Jackie Woods, penalty rates
Jackie Woods says the bosses’ enthusiasm for casual workers is self interest at work.
Australia’s business lobby has donned its loose cotton pants and signed up for yoga. And like many fitness enthusiasts, they can’t stop talking about it. It’s flexibility, flexibility, flexibility.
Profits down, or just not high enough? Penalty rates getting on your nerves? Productivity sluggish? For big business, workplace ‘flexibility’ is the cure-all.
The employer-driven agenda to increase workplace flexibility has led to a rise in casual work arrangements in Australia, a sleeper issue catapulted into the headlines by the ACTU campaign on insecure work.
This has led to some extraordinary claims from business about the social benefits of casual work that follow a few predictable lines of argument.
Read more at the Drum
#politicotragicmediawankersphere, Campaigning, Facebook, Jackie Woods, Social Media, Twitter
US Ambassador Jeffrey Bleich was first up, and with him his security detail – two clean-cut, serious, suited dudes scanning the room during Bleich’s presentation on the Obama presidential campaign’s pioneering use of social media.
The dudes didn’t have much to worry about with this crowd, the only real and present dangers being excessively snarky tweets or a tussle over an ipad charger.
The Media 140 ‘Oz Politics’ conference at Old Parliament House last week brought together Twitter commentators, activists, journalists, academics and politicians, collectively known as the #politicotragicmediawankersphere.