Enterprise and Commerce Minister, Max Bradford today slammed the Alliance's collective bargaining policy as grossly unfair and undemocratic.

"Like Labour's policy, the Alliance policy is compulsory unionism in drag.

“They are offering a Clayton's choice: join the union, join the contract, and pay for it; or don't join the union, still be bound by the contract and pay for it anyway.

"It is completely undemocratic as the unionised minority would be able to impose their views and costs on the majority of the workforce," Mr Bradford said.

"Employers wouldn’t be able to negotiate with their non-unionised staff if the area of work is covered by a contract claim made by the union.”

Mr Bradford said that requirements for good faith bargaining would also put unions in the driver's seat as employers would have to jump through numerous hoops to prove their good faith to unions.

"For example, employers would have to open their books to unions and provide any information the union required for bargaining purposes. This could undermine commercial confidentiality,” Mr Bradford said.

"It's one-size-fits-all bargaining. Firms and employees wouldn’t be trusted to strike collective deals that are appropriate to their circumstances- only the union would be able to.

"Firms would have to pay what their competitors pay. Where unions sought multi-employer contracts, employers and employees could be forced into industrial disputes that had nothing to do with them,” Mr Bradford said

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Gordon Campbell: On the Sony cyber attack

Given the layers of meta-irony involved, the saga of the Sony cyber attack seemed at the outset more like a snarky European art film than a popcorn entry at the multiplex.

Yet now with (a) President Barack Obama weighing in on the side of artistic freedom and calling for the US to make a ‘proportionate response’quickly followed by (b) North Korea’s entire Internet service going down, and with both these events being followed by (c) Sony deciding to backtrack and release The Interview film that had made it a target for the dastardly North Koreans in the first place, then ay caramba…the whole world will now be watching how this affair pans out. More>>