Hard Labour

Income inequality fell in Australia during the postwar period, and by 1979 inequality was at its lowest. Then neoliberal economics took hold, championed by leaders such as Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher. In Australia, economic liberalisation started under the Labor Hawke/Keating governments, and was accelerated under the Liberal Howard government, with its anti-union policies and increase in temporary foreign workers. Age journalist Ben Schneiders has broken major stories of employee underpayments involving some of the biggest names in business. While that reporting has rightly sent shockwaves through the community, it is the bigger picture of how we got here that is even more compelling. A whittling away of workers’ rights and the large-scale reduction in trade union membership have paved the way for systemic exploitation and underpayment. (Schneiders also exposes how some corrupt unions have colluded with big business to exploit their members.) Shareholder capitalism, demanding ever-bigger returns, continues to ruthlessly crush labour. As Schneiders shrewdly observes, we live in a democracy, but many a workplace is authoritarian. The work of restoring lost equality will take decades of activism and commitment. It’s hard to overstate how essential Schneiders’ book is to our understanding of how worker rights and wages have been steadily eroded over decades by both Labor and Liberal governments. *Hard Labour *is a vital and illuminating contribution to the equality debate that deserves a wide readership. Chris Saliba is the co-owner of North Melbourne Books.

Ben Schneiders is an investigative journalist at The Age. His reporting has exposed more than two dozen companies for wage underpayment, including some of the biggest names in corporate Australia. He is a Walkley Award-winning reporter and has won the industrial relations reporting award four times. He regularly reports on work, social issues, politics, and business.