“I think the problem that we’ve had is that people decided they didn’t really want to work so much anymore through COVID and that has had a massive issue on productivity. Tradies have definitely pulled back on productivity. They have been paid a lot to do not too much in the last few years and we need to see that change. We need to see unemployment rise. Unemployment has to jump 40-50% in my view. We need to see pain in the economy. We need to remind people that they work for the employer, not the other way around. There’s been a systematic change where employees feel the employer is extremely lucky to have them as opposed to the other way around. So it’s a dynamic that has to change. We’ve got to kill that attitude and that has to come through hurting the economy, which is what the whole global – the world – is trying to do. The governments around the world are trying to increase unemployment to get that to some sort of normality and we’re seeing it. I think every employer now is seeing it. I mean there is definitely massive layoffs going off. People may not be talking about it but people are definitely laying people off and we’re starting to see less arrogance in the employment market and that has to continue because that will cascade across the cost balance “
Comment: Those are the words of Australian multi-millionaire Tim Gurner at a recent at a “Property Summit” on 12 September. Since then, he has been raked over the coals for his words. He even issued an apology of sorts a few days later. I bet he only did that because he feared his words may be bad for his bottom line. I will join the many who consider him a self-important, arrogant ass. Not surprisingly there were also many of the arrogant ass class who applauded his remarks. In my opinion it is this class of bloodsucking parasites who are making life miserable for many and are giving capitalism a bad name.
Five years ago I wrote about the pioneering American labor union leader Samuel Gompers. At that time I lamented about the disappearing labor unions. Today they seem to making somewhat of a comeback. In his life’s work and in his writings, Gompers epitomized what is best about capitalism in a large society like America. I guess today he’s be considered too woke for many.
TTG
I’m probably one of the few who has actually listened to the President of the UAW for over an hour who has no skin in the game.
I listened to his whole speech. It made no sense. I now have zero respect for him or the UAW. They support a party that is flooding the country with illegal aliens and mandating EV’s that require marginal labor having way fewer parts. This is not rational thinking.
I don’t even know what to call it but the UAW will die on this hill choosing the wrong side. Same as Ukraine but I kinda get it. It looked smart at the time but the game has changed. The Uniparty is not going to save anyone but themselves. They don’t care about average Americans or Ukrainians. Only themselves and their family and friends.
Never heard of this gent. I assume economic circs in Oz are much different now than in the US. Maybe the Aussie economy is over stuffed with too much newly printed money like ours is or maybe something else is afoot. It has been many decades since I worked for someone else and today’s tech driven workplace was unheard of, but if my last employer said to ‘be here at work’…he would not have had to say ‘or be gone’. That was understood.
Whitewall,
Conditions of employment are nothing new and are quite normal. But the establishment of those conditions should be a two way street. Both parties are free to withhold employment or labor if agreements cannot be reached. If an employer wants to impose conditions AND avoid labor disputes, he can run his business without employers, be a one man shop. Labor can do the same, either abide by accepted conditions of employment or work for someone else or be self-employed.
TTG,
Quite true. I have always lived in NC, a right to work state so I never sought to learn the group (labor) mentality of employment. If hired, I had enough initiative to prove myself and my worth to the higher ups. It always worked for me. Neither my co-workers nor I were ‘pressed’ into service at our jobs. I came to figure out that most companies don’t get unionized unless they deserved it.
His remarks eerily resemble those uttered almost a hundred years ago.
By Andrew Mellon:
“Liquidate labor, liquidate stocks, liquidate farmers, liquidate real estate. It will purge the rottenness out of the system. High costs of living and high living will come down. People will work harder, live a more moral life. Values will be adjusted, and enterprising people will pick up the wrecks from less competent people.”
We’ve been building “more schools” since Gomper’s days. Now they join in lockdowns and marxist indoctrination. Was Gompers so ‘woke’ he knew there were more than 2 genders; that children as young as 5 could give consent to genital mutilation in the name of ‘affirmative care’? Curious minds would like to know.
The woke millionaire from down under is simply repeating the same mantra as WEF thought leader Yuval Noah Harari. Neither live in 15 minute cities (which they promote) nor do they own nothing. Which is probably why they are so unhappy with the non-(self)annointed ones.
Are 15 minute cities a variation on two minute eggs?
Joe Biden presented his plan to overcome the migrant border crisis :
✔️Expedited processing at the US border
✔️Expanding legal routes to citizenship
✔️Increasing the total number of working-age refugees arriving in the United States is good
✔️Americans should send their money to help sanctuary cities
✔️Accelerating the issuance of work permits to illegal immigrants.
Apparently, plans for re-election are over after all.
To the chamber of commerce, corporations, construction, retail whatever this is a bonus, more cheap labor more consumers more need for housing and shopping centers, without immigration mostly illegal the US population would be stagnant, stagnant population growth equals stagnant economic growth which is anathema to capitalism.
Trayvon! and George Floyd, and all like them, needed Immigration! It’s not like the American university system can turn out IT programmers. H1B will save the day from “stagnant” population growth. Just look at Africa, that continent has no stagnant population growth and their economy is ……
This is the same guy who made the avocado toast comment in 2017, well before COVID:
“When I was trying to buy my first home, I wasn’t buying smashed avocado for $19 and four coffees at $4 each. We’re at a point now where the expectations of younger people are very, very high.”
Honestly, Congress could help most Americans afford a home if it makes it illegal for foreign nationals to buy U.S. homes when they don’t even live here/pay taxes, and make it VERY hard for LLCs to do the same. The same could be said for Canada’s government.
As for myself, I’m doing my part to usher in the second Great Depression by looking for full-time remote work. No business apologized to our families when chasing profits led to factory shutdowns and moving jobs overseas. If they think I have a moral obligation to drive to work now they can go to hell.
Sone unions have a reason to exist. RR unions contribute to safety in a dangerous industry.
Industrial unions exist because of tradition and sheer people mass.
Public employee unions exist to get dues, protect the slugs and elect their lapdogs, Democrat politicians.
I have never been in a union.
I started out in 1966 at $100/week.
I retired in 2005 at $305K/ year.
I don’t have time to watch a video just for the purpose of condemning its subject. Is the Russo-Ukraine War still going on?
drifter,
You could read the quote below the video unless that’s also too taxing for you. And there’s a whole world of events going on besides the Russo-Ukraine war. Don’t worry. We’ll have more to say on that soon.
Gurner is just making the same plea as all plutocrats; ”people should be poor and starving so that they will do my bidding for pennies.”
Unfortunately the laws of supply and demand are immutable.
– In Australia, We have had forty years of denigration of trade training in favor of kids going instead getting useless tertiary qualifications. Technical (trade ) school pathways and networks were destroyed. The result? A huge shortage of young tradesmen.
Covid taught people that they could work from home and also the associated layoffs and early retirements convinced many that they didn’t need to worrk for the man. Example – airline pilots.
walrus,
“Example – airline pilots”
They were made an example of forced compliance by the mandatory vax or no flying, which is still the ‘rule’ today.
Employers would like those receiving Social Security to work to age 70.
Those same employers, though, give a blind eye to hiring a laid off 50 yr old!