Charter of Contractual Fairness
On 1 July we launched our Charter of Contractual Fairness

We have heavily drawn the principles of contract fairness from the new consumer unfair contract protections laws. If it's fair for consumers, it's fair for small business people - the self-employed and independent contractors.

We are currently writing to Australian corporations asking them to commit to contract fairness in their dealings with small business people.
Election Face-off 2010
The federal election was held on on 21 August 2010. ICA was active in assessing the policies of the ALP and the Coalition. Here's our comparative summary of the parties' policies just before the election.
Tax burden: UK versus Australia
Just as the UK is moving toward more sensible small business (contractor) tax laws, in Australia we're having to defend the progress we've made.
Laughing lawyers
You'll be amazed by the 'slips' that some lawyers make in court.
Failure to fix unfair business contracts
ICA says "extend unfair contract protections for consumers to small business".

New laws:
Legislation #1 (March 2010)
Legislation #2 (June 2010)

Here's our summary of the situation.
How the legislation defines unfair contract terms.
Why small business people should have TPA protections from unfair contracts.
Industry/Retail super funds must come out
The Cooper Review into superannuation says the big funds are not disclosing enough and must be forced to do so. This is vital. See Chapter 4.

Here's why workers' money is at risk if disclosure is not enforced.
Look after your retirement
The Cooper Review of superannuation says Self Managed Super Funds are good and need little change to existing arrangements. This is welcome. See Chapter 8.

The Report also seems to have stopped the attack against SMSF's.
Stand Up for Your (Contract) Rights!
We're monitoring contracts in general and promoting good contracts in particular. For example:
Another bad contract (Jun 2010)
One of the worst contracts we've seen (Jan 2010)
'Tom' versus DEEWR (Nov 2009)
But a positive development from government
Ken Phillips comments
And some interesting discussions
Problems with Phoenix companies
Two ICA members' tell their stories
ATO information on reporting suspect activity.

Govt's attempts to do something:
ICA comment

Newspaper comment:
The Australian
The Age/Sydney Morning Herald
Business Spectator

What 'Tom' thinks
What 'Jim' thinks
Stop Sham Contracts!
ICA supports the prevention of sham contracts. We monitor what's happening with them:
One person's story
Successful FWO prosecution (Dec 2009)
Info from Fair Work Ombudsman (July 2009)
First sham contract prosecution: ICA summary
Make a complaint to FWO
Business Spectator article
Read the debate
Watching Global Economies
Watching the USA
The US economy appears to be in recession. At the very least, we're getting very mixed signals about what's happening. Click here for a rundown on some of the best links we've found.
Watching China
China has just passed Japan as the world's second largest economy. It could become the largest global economy by 2030. We're maintaining a watching brief on the Chinese economy here.
Watching Goldman Sachs
Rolling Stone magazine has blown the lid on Goldman Sachs:
Article 1 [July 2009]
Article 2 [April 2010]
Article 3 [May 2010]
Central Banks on Debt
Since mid-May, central banks have been worried about sovereign debt. Click here for a list of useful links and summaries.
What the Pessimists said (January 2010)
We've brought together some pessimistic views about economics and likely economic trends in 2010:
US toxic loans
'US as sick as Greece'
Ken Phillips's summary
An 'IMF' perspective
Predicting 2010
Government debt a giant ponzi scheme?


Click to enlarge.

Ken Phillips on the debt equation

Understanding "Us": Self-employed People
ICA is committed to quality research to understand self-employed people.

6 July 2010: We released a unique research report made possible by an unusual collaborative effort. The report shatters many preconceived beliefs about 'us'; small and micro-business people. We believe it has global implications.

Main points and commentary
Summary
Full report.

20 July 2010: Here's further research from Flying Solo:
Report Summary; Full report and from Kelly Services: Report. And here's a comparative chart of our own.

Australian military aircraft (JSF). Bad deal?
Australia's decision to buy the Joint Strike Fighter (JSF) as the backbone of our air defence is under attack. Is this a bad procurement and contract management stuff-up? We've summarised the arguments and included some useful videos.

We Oppose Workplace Bullying
ICA opposes attempts by construction unions to bully their way on to work sites. Here are the issues from 2010:
Overview
Union violence on Westgate
Unions make threats

Self-employed protection from Australian unions

9 June 2010


There's nothing wrong with unions. In fact, there's a lot of positives with unions. What is wrong with unions is when they act like bullies!

There have been two important recent announcements covering protections from union bully tactics.

  • The first is to do with a decision from the industrial relations commission (FWA). It has declared that union enterprise agreements cannot be forced on to outsourced suppliers. This affects self-employed people in particular.

  • The second is the decision of the Federal government not to reappoint Mr John Lloyd as the commissioner for the Australian Building and Construction Commission. Few people realise how important John Lloyd has been in protecting self-employed workers in the commercial construction industry from intense bullying, and even violence.
Here are the details:

Protection from being forced into a union agreement

 For a long time, unions have used a particular tactic to try and force union agreements and membership. It's a legal scam that works like this:

When a union creates an agreement at one company, it has inserted into the agreement a clause that says that if the company uses outsourced people for work, the outsourced people must also have an agreement with the union. By controlling agreements in one major company in an industry sector, the union is able to 'cascade' the same agreement to numerous other small companies and, ultimately, to self-employed people throughout the industry. Through this, they force uncompetitive conditions on self-employed people whether they want it or not.

This has been a strong union tactic, particularly in the commercial construction sector, but it's been used in manufacturing as well. The people most affected have been the small tradie subcontractors. Imagine being a brickie with an apprentice and that to work on a construction site you have to have a union agreement yourself! It's really a form of extortion.

The Howard government's Work Choices laws outlawed this generally, and was reinforced with special additional laws in the commercial construction sector. Rudd's 'Fair Work' laws seemed to make this activity illegal as well, but it was unclear. Now a decision by the industrial relations commission (Fair Work Australia) has declared that such clauses in agreements are 'not permitted' (that is, are illegal).

In other words, a union cannot put into a workplace agreement at one company a clause that forces 'outsourced' suppliers---(eg) plumbers, electricians etc---to have a union agreement as well.

There will probably be more legal wrangling over this, which is what always happens with industrial relations law. However, this decision was by a Full Bench of the FWA, which means that it's fairly solid.

Here's the link to the case.

Protection from thugs in commercial construction

Union thuggery in commercial construction has been a feature of the industry for many decades. In 2002, the federal government commissioned a Royal Commission to investigate. The final report exposed the extent of the thuggery in the industry, and made recommendations as to how to enforce the rule of law in the industry.

Chief amongst the recommendations was the setting up of a special authority to police the industry. The Australian Building and Construction Commission (ABCC) was modelled along the lines of the Australian Consumer and Competition Commission (ACCC).

The ABCC began operating in late 2005. The scale of their success is enormous, with a massive drop in industrial disputes occurring on commercial construction sites.

What's rarely realised, however, is the extent to which the ABCC has actively sought to protect the thousands of individual independent contractors, the subbies, the brickies and so on, who work in the industry. One brickie we met, a 58-year-old Austrian immigrant, told us that he'd spent his entire life working in the industry under a cloud of fear. With the ABCC active on the ground, that fear had been lifted.

But the job continues. A 24-year-old welder told us of his constant fear when working on the Westgate Bridge project in 2009. Daily, he was told by union heavies to 'watch his back' and 'it's a long way to fall into the Yarra mate'! He left the lucrative work in late 2009, unable any longer to tolerate the intimidation. During 2010, the ABCC is in the process of bringing successful action against lawlessness on the bridge project.

What's also rarely realised is that the ABCC has a special brief to protect and look after the interests of construction independent contractors. Further, the head of the ABCC, John Lloyd, had a long and firm history of standing up for independent contractors when he was a senior bureaucrat in the public service. John was the federal government's representative at the International Labour Organisation in 2003 in the battle there to defend the rights of self-employed people.

Now the Rudd government proposes to close down the ABCC. The only thing stopping them is the opposition to this from the Abbott opposition and Senator Steve Fielding in the Senate. Rudd's ABCC destruction legislation cannot pass if Senator Fielding continues to vote against it.

The government's determination to close down the ABCC directly threatens the ability of self-employed people in the commercial construction sector to go about their work in peace and with safety.

The government has now decided effectively to sack John Lloyd by not reappointing him for a second term as the head of the ABCC.

The Rudd government is doing whatever it can to weaken the ABCC and the protections given to self-employed people in commercial construction.