The unions should be smarter to survive

Comments on ABC report “Unions bury hatchet for 'Buy Australian' push” by Alexandra Kirk, 24/07/2009, http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2009/07/24/2634983.htm?section=justin

It is reported that “The nation's two biggest blue collar unions have not always got along, but they are burying the hatchet in a bid to save jobs in Australia's manufacturing industry, which has lost more than 70,000 positions in the past year.”

“The unions - one from the right, the other from the left - have bridged their ideological divide and will appear as a united front at next week's ALP national conference to maximise pressure on the Government to back their manufacturing strategy and to give priority to locally produced goods.”

The unions have done good and bad things over its history to date. But they should learn or evolve fast in the 21st century. They should embrace globalisation and improve and maximise the well beings of Australians through specialisation and trade according to Australian's comparative advantages. They should not live in the past and ignore the modern reality.

They say 76,000 jobs have lost out of industry over the past 12 months. But why don't they say how many have been saved due to higher than expected demand from China? Why Australia is having a much lower unemployment rate than most other OECD countries?

If Australian governments do what the unions ask, then other countries will retaliate. What will be the consequences of those actions and interactions? Did they say anything count that?

They should reasonable and rational.

If they want to last, they'd better be strategic and truly smarter than they are.