Re-establishing the Australian Building and Construction Commission, cutting penalty rates, privatising NSW electricity, and tightening controls on industrial action, are positions Martin Ferguson has supported in recent years. For a 40-year veteran of the labour movement, including serving as President of the Australian Council of Trade Unions and as a Minister in the Rudd Labor Government, they are controversial stands.<\/p>\n
In an interview with Workplace Review<\/a> <\/em>(Spring 2015, Volume 6 Part 3<\/a>), \u00c2\u00a0Ferguson frames his positions in terms of supporting the enhancement of productivity, competitiveness, and jobs creation in an \u00e2\u20ac\u0153economy in transition\u00e2\u20ac\u009d following the end of the resources boom. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153We need to keep costs down,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d he says, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153and that includes wages.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n In the interview, Ferguson confronts head-on criticisms from within the labour movement about the positions he has taken. This proud son of a Labor family dynasty, also talks about his early life and the influences and experiences that shaped him. He is clearly secure in his beliefs. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153There is no revolution or paradise around the corner,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d he says. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153It is all about achieving pragmatic things.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n The interview with Martin Ferguson is also now available<\/a> on\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0Legal Insight<\/em><\/a>, a \u00c2\u00a0Thomson Reuters\u00c2\u00a0online space for legal professionals to discover intelligent information and best practice. It provides discussion and insights on current industry trends and aims to share and build knowledge, encourage conversation and most importantly, provide real time solutions to every day questions.<\/p>\n Thomson Reuters’ journals articles are available on request by\u00c2\u00a0completing the Individual Article Sale<\/a>\u00c2\u00a0order form\u00c2\u00a0and emailing it to\u00c2\u00a0tlranz.journal.orders@thomsonreuters.com<\/a>, or click\u00c2\u00a0here<\/a>\u00c2\u00a0for more information on how to\u00c2\u00a0subscribe to or purchase our journals content.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Re-establishing the Australian Building and Construction Commission, cutting penalty rates, privatising NSW electricity, and tightening controls on industrial action, are positions Martin Ferguson has supported in recent years. For a 40-year veteran of the labour movement, including serving as President of the Australian Council of Trade Unions and as a Minister in the Rudd Labor […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":19,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[38,161],"tags":[2327,6925,1936,7332],"class_list":["post-8178","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-journals","category-workplace-review","tag-australian-building-and-construction-commission","tag-martin-ferguson","tag-penalty-rates","tag-privatising-nsw-electricity"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.thomsonreuters.com.au\/journals\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8178","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.thomsonreuters.com.au\/journals\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.thomsonreuters.com.au\/journals\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.thomsonreuters.com.au\/journals\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/19"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.thomsonreuters.com.au\/journals\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8178"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/sites.thomsonreuters.com.au\/journals\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8178\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.thomsonreuters.com.au\/journals\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8178"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.thomsonreuters.com.au\/journals\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8178"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.thomsonreuters.com.au\/journals\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8178"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}