AIG job application

Dear Mr Willox,

AI Group job application for PR toady

I would like to apply to the Australian Industry Group (AIG) for the position of casual PR toady on any day of any month you like.

I will work public holidays and my kids will too. Split night shifts are welcome.

As the CEO of AIG, your ideas for casualising the Australian workforce appealed to me. I am happy to undercut the hourly rate for casuals (in lieu of all benefits) because I want a job.

I understand that AIG's policies consist solely of proposals to improve the profitability of companies through business welfare, rather than actually improving economic performance. Being a casual employee, I know a lot about welfare.

I will avoid mentioning sham contracting in the construction industry and I completely understand why AIG won't agree to legislation to enforce weekend penalty rates. Weekends are for sissies.

I applaud AIG's push to cut kids penalty rates for weekend work in the fast food industry. Lets attack the chimney sweeps next.

I totally agree with you that flexibility of workers is exactly the same as flexibility for workers and those who disagree are socialist grammarians. It seems that all AIG's talk about "flexibility" in IR relates to the downward variety, the kind that reduces pay and conditions for employees.

It sounds a bit like WorkChoices but we can rebrand that. Lets call it 'flexichoices' and get fitness guru Michelle Bridges to demonstrate how a business can run with 90 percent casuals by doing squats and knee bends. The fitness industry is a stellar example of how we can completely eradicate the rights of employees.

Some might think it unseemly when AIG staff don party hats every time the Gillard Government primary vote drops below 30 per cent, but I agree that it's important to keep up staff morale. Party hats are cheap.

Even though AIG is managing the $15.7 million Australian Government's Corporate Champions project to retain and hire older workers, it has no internal policies on the employment and retention of people aged 50 and over. I'm happy to write you some grand motherhood statements to gloss over that fact.

As you know, some of your mates in the recruitment industry have colluded with employers to ensure that only bubbly, young, dynamic and enthusiastic people get jobs. Older people need not apply. As I am young, bubbly and my Dad is on the board of BHP, I am a stand out candidate.

AIG's push for Queensland to privatise its electricity assets is marvelous. Even though I am a PR toady, I feel it is my duty to give you a fact, even though you may not like it. South Australia's power industry was privatized some years ago. A two-person household used to pay about $350 for a winter power bill. Using the same amount of power, we now pay $830.

I suggest we tell the media that this was due to the Carbon Tax rather than gold plating the infrastructure and greed.

I applaud AIG's roll out of the Government's national workforce literacy policy. The report, which consisted of more roundtables that Camelot, was a cracking 130 page read. I wonder why no Aboriginal employers were used. There's no shortage of them in SA, NT and Queensland you know.

Of course the loudest lamentation about the lack of literacy and numeracy is heard from school kids from SCEGGS or Wesley as they cruise home in Mum's SAAB. They are missing out on the ineffable pleasure of reading Judith Sloan in The Australian. We need to fix that.

I haven't heard AIG name and shame Australia's largest companies who are knee deep in anti-competitive behavior. We could start with a couple of banks that the Government propped up during the GFC - unless they're mates of yours.

I commend AIG on recognizing that we're knee deep in psychopaths in corporate Australia, who are terrorizing staff on a daily basis. Why is it that AIG never comes up with a proposal of its own on how to rid the workplace of these nutters rather than knocking back the Government's ideas? I'm happy to write you some motherhood statements.

I will ensure all of your prognostications and whining are plastered over every newspaper in the country. I will ensure every dodgy independent survey I commission totally undermines sensible debate on the Carbon Tax, IR and productivity.

I can start Sunday night.

Yours insecurely,

Malcolm King