The AMWU will be highlighting the need for better management to address declining productivity, and demanding policies that encourage increased local content in both public and private sector projects at the Future Jobs Forum in Parliament House, today.

Dave Oliver, AMWU National Secretary, will today tell the forum that while unions are not calling to mandate local content on private sector projects, the resource sector should increase their use of Australian products or stop telling the community that they are ‘buying Australian’ when they are not.

“The mining industry’s ads claim the community is benefitting, but the figures we are seeing show as little as 10% local content when it used to be at least 50%. So we are saying ‘open your books, fill out Australian participation plans’.”

The AMWU and AWU have released a joint paper for the jobs forum which addresses this issue and also the real productivity debate.

“Employer groups and Coalition figures have recently been spruiking a return to IR policies which lower workers’ rights, under the cover of ‘productivity’ and ‘flexibility’, but ABS figures show multi-factor productivity fell by 0.3% each year during the cycle from 2004 to 2008, coinciding with the introduction of WorkChoices.”

The last major report into Australian management, Manufacturing Matters in Australia: Just how productive are we? in 2009, showed that management skills had fallen behind.

“This report found that ‘the top 27% of Indian and Chinese manufacturers are better managed than half of Australian manufacturing firms’ ,” said Mr Oliver.

“The biggest productivity gains could be made by focussing on improving the skills of managers, not cutting wages.”

“That’s the debate business and the Government need to be focussing their energy on today. Unions look forward to getting back to these issues and delivering real productivity that benefits both workers and businesses.”

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