Oh no – I’m straying into politics. I actually subscribe to the feeds of a few Australian political parties to keep me across their various polices (I always intend to be an informed voter). I was reading this release written by Senator Murray and was inspired to write a blog entry.

When I was growing up I was exposed to lots of different political views - and even got involved in the republic debate at one point in time, but overal I would say that I leaned to the left of politics.

As I’ve gotten older I think I’ve approached the center, and on some issues even cross over to the right, but I think overall I tend to be pretty fair when it comes to social justice issues.

Now that the government has a majority in the lower house and the senate its pushing through legislation that supports its position on workplace relations. Naturally those on the left side of politics are doing the only thing they can in a minority and fight a very public PR campaign.

If you watch any television at all it would have been hard to miss the ACTU advertisements with Aussie battlers fearing for their jobs. The release from the Democrats seems to do a reasonable job of discussing the issue and setting their position (great – someone with an opinion), assuming the statistics they quote are accurate and relevant.

I have to wonder however whether a really important point is being missed. Until recently I saw the employee/employer relationship as an us vs. them kind of thing, but now I see that really employees and employers are both the same – they are traders.

When we perform work for our employers we are trading our time, skills or both in exchange for monetary reward (anything else is a bonus). That actually puts employees in the vendor relationship, and the beautiful thing about being a vendor is you can choose who you sell your services to – and what conditions you put on that sale.

Employers, like any customer are going to try and get the best deal out of you as possible, and like customers, some are reasonable, some are not – thats life, but you should always remember that you have a choice.

I guess is the point that Nicola (my wife) and I disagree on. The opposing argument is that there are some people out there that don’t have a choice – they can’t get a job anywhere else or the cost of changing jobs is real financial hardship.

To be honest I feel for people in that situation, but ultimately I always end up seeing employees as traders, and if you are having trouble shifting your product then you need to improve it. I think that perhaps the only people that are truely trapped are those that are skill poor AND time poor, everyone else can trade out of their current situation without major changes in their life.

Anyway – back to the policies of the Democrats. I think I agree that the rule should be one size fits all, but I think we might disagree on what that law should be, but I know I wouldn’t want to trade with an employer that treats me inappropriately.