What do you get when you cross a Labour government and a recession? Unions coming out of the woodwork. Their bullying tactics act to serve their particular interest group(s) at the expense of the rest of the nation. The belief that they increase wages over the long run is completely misguided and is one of the greatest fallacies that we've failed to deal with (adequately) for centuries. Wages are determined by productivity -- artificially propping up wages above the market level by embracing short-sighted antisocial policies brought about through intimidation or coercion (i.e. government support) will only serve to increase unemployment.

As Barack Obama's top aide Rahm Emanuel recently put it,

"You never want a serious crisis to go to waste. It's an opportunity to do things you could not do before."

He was implying of course that a crisis is the perfect time to increase the size of government. Likewise, unions take this opportunity to further restrict competition in their own sector of the labour market to raise wage rates. Unions don't allow competition from non-union workers and have a generally limited number of places or strict requirements for entry. For the people who don't join the unions (whether it's their choice or they are rejected), they must look elsewhere or remain unemployed. This will increase the supply of labour in the un-unionised sectors driving down wages and/or increasing unemployment. The unions, however, don't care what happens to these people -- their only interest is in serving their own, selfish interests, reducing the wealth of the nation as a whole.

Master Builders Association (MBA) executive director John Miller says the Government should slash planning red tape so that Canberra's schools can benefit from the Commonwealth stimulus package.

The Greens and the Liberals oppose the plan, but Mr Miller says it is necessary to cut planning red tape to ensure the territory meets Commonwealth deadlines and schools don't miss out.

"The Government's hell bent on making sure that we can actually get this work rolling out the door," he said.

"This is the situation, it's use it or lose it, we just can't afford to lose this work in an economic environment where we're potentially facing redundancies, particularly in the building construction industry."

He says the move would also help avoid job losses in the building industry. -- Source

Unions function through 'emotional economics', tugging on the heartstrings of the people and always portraying themselves as the victims. Take the above as an example: no matter what the situation, they're always seeking to "avoid job losses" in their respective industry. All this does is keep labour occupied in unproductive, wasteful sectors of the economy. If labour is artificially held in these industries all it does is slow down the development of more productive industries by increasing the price of labour. In effect, everyone else is subsidising these people.

One-hundred and seventy Victorian workers at a protective clothing supplier face an uncertain future after the appointment of administrators.

Staff of Melba Industries, which makes clothing for the Country Fire Authority and the Metropolitan Fire and Emergency Services Board (MFB), are being briefed by the administrators.

Melba Industries has 120 staff in Geelong and 50 in Thomastown.

The company also supplies protective clothing for the armed services and components for the car industry.

The administrators say they will be seeking government help to keep the company afloat. -- Source

The government should not keep this company afloat. Their failure is obviously a result of a misallocation of resources during the recent boom -- their business model appeared to be profitable thanks to easy credit bought on by government and the RBA (interest rates below market rates) when in fact it wasn't. It needs to 'die' and free up the capital for other entrepreneurs. We have to avoid 'emotional economics' at all costs -- all it does is hurt the very people they're trying to protect, Australians.