Deal With The Devil
Written By: Louie Gibson
Recently, Prime Minister of Australia Scott Morrison revealed the long awaited government plan regarding the housing situation of workers who have lost their jobs and/or had their hours reduced. After much anticipation from the Australian public, Morrison unsurprisingly revealed a plan as spineless as he is. Australians were told to sit down with their landlords and… negotiate! What else could be expected from a man who needed classes to show a common feeling like empathy? It is nothing more then a continuation of their neoliberal outlook of class collaboration. Before workers lost their jobs, we were told to negotiate with our bosses to secure better wages, now with one arm tied behind our backs we are expected to negotiate with landlords!
“An individual tenant has no leverage to bargain with a landlord just as an individual worker usually has no power to bargain with a boss”
Negotiation is something sold to us as being reasonable: two rational individuals making concessions to secure an outcome acceptable to both parties. Under capitalism, this fable, just like the myth of choice, completely ignores the unequal power relationship between landlord and tenants. The propaganda of negotiation and choice hides the reality of domination. An individual tenant has no leverage to bargain with a landlord just as an individual worker usually has no power to bargain with a boss. In the eyes of the rich, negotiation is nothing more than a cover to hide who really has the power. As a propaganda tool, it gives the weaker party a feeling as though they have some individual power when really all the chips are in the upper class’s corner. The history of arbitration dates back to the days of federation in Australia, where workers were expected to find a supposed middle ground between themselves and their employer in an arbitration court. Whether it is your workplace or your rental home, the landlord or employer controls the situation. What power to bargain do workers have when they are threatened with the likelihood of being sacked on the spot? What position is a worker who has been made unemployed recently in to negotiate with their landlord?. The fact is they are in no position to bargain.
“Either way, rent would have taken a massive chunk of the Centrelink payment and even if I organised some type of payment plan, I was eventually leading myself into a debt trap”
We spoke with one worker who had recently been stood down due to the coronavirus epidemic affecting their employer and this is what they had to say:
Q- So can you explain broadly what happened in your case?
A- “I was sacked with no notice from my job even though I was a part time employee, I was given six days worth of pay as I was rostered on three days a week and they needed to give me two weeks notice. Other then that I really had no other support as I was the only income earner in my household and now had no way of paying the bills let alone the rent that was due. I remember it was the same week that Scott Morrison was meant to be announcing his plan for people who had been made unemployed, but I let my real estate agent know that I’d be moving anyway.”
Q- Why is that? Why didn’t you wait for the PM’s announcement?
A- To be honest I didn’t have much hope in the government to provide anything like a rent amnesty or something like that.
Q- So what was the end result?
A- I watched the broadcast with a shred of hope but obviously the government didn’t pull through and because I got sacked before the Jobkeeper announcement I wasnt qualified for that apparently but I applied for centrelink anyway and I thought maybe I could pay my rent that way. Reality hit me in the face when I realised that no payments would come from Centrelink for another month at least due to a backlog. Either way, it (rent) would have taken a massive chunk of the Centrelink payment and even if I organised some type of payment plan, I was eventually leading myself into a debt trap.
True to our interviewee’s suspicions, nothing of quality was provided for the over 7.9 million Australians who rent their homes. They were told to sit down with their landlord and work out some sort of deal with what little they had left. What chance do tenants have? Lets look at the options for each side.
For tenants they have been provided with the guarantee that they will not be evicted during this time, however they must negotiate with their landlord generally through some sort of payment plan. If a tenant agrees to paying 70% of rent now, then they could pay off the remaining 30% when they find a new job. The average rental price in Australia is $436 per week. So tenants will need to pay, on average, $566 a week when the 30% is added after they find work. With the average wage of Australians being $779 a week after tax, what option will most Aussies have besides moving out of their home to avoid bankruptcy?
“Voting for the lesser evil does not eliminate evil: it normalises the lesser evil and sets the stage for even worse elements to triumph at the next election”
The landlord’s situation is unsurprisingly much more favourable. Regardless of the circumstances, the government has left them entitled to keep their weekly rent prices as they are. So they can either force the tenant into some sort of agreement, or simply allow the tenants to vacate the premise so the landlord can find another tenant who has no choice but to pay the exorbitant rent or live on the streets. It is blatantly obvious that the situation favours landlords.
Workers and all oppressed people must remember not to fall into the trap of canvassing for social democratic parties in the vain hope that, once elected, the ALP will fix everything. Painful experience has proven that this doesn’t work. Voting for the lesser evil does not eliminate evil: it normalises the lesser evil and sets the stage for even worse elements to triumph at the next election by riding a wave of disappointment and broken promises. We don’t need activity that merely acts as campaigning for the ALP, such as the ACTU’s Change the Rules campaign last year. It’s not enough to simply “put the Liberals last”.
Outreach and education in regards to the working class of Australia’s position within society, their eroding rights inside and outside their workplace and the need to fight back against all odds should be the highest priority. The only genuine solution to the problems of the working class is socialism.