Hutchison Ports is owned by the Hong Kong's CK Hutchison, worth about $HK433 billion on the Hong Kong stock exchange. It also owns half of Vodafone Australia, and the group proclaims itself a "renowned multinational conglomerate committed to innovation and technology" – if not tact and thoughtfulness. The union believes a plan called Phoenix Rising entails further automation of port services. Credit:Janie Barrett Chaired by Hong Kong's richest man, Li Ka-shing, the actions of its Australian offshoot suggests it aspires to live up to the caricature of a ruthless corporation. Companies might have rights, but its actions show this one doesn't have feelings. The workers' immediate picket might have been declared unlawful by Fair Work Australia, but not since Patrick brought the guard dogs to the wharves have striking stevedores elicited such public sympathy. It's so rude, for a start. Sacking by night-time text displays a gobsmackingly callous disregard for the livelihoods destroyed in the message sent at 11.30pm on Thursday.

"Your position will not be retained. There are no redeployment opportunities," the email said, before nominating the freshly discarded workers' last day of work. Because it was "a lot of information to take in" the company magnanimously told people they weren't required to come in – "effective immediately". "We will of course pay you your normal salary to your last date of employment." Such generosity of spirit evidenced by a multibillion-dollar company promising to meet its obligations. This is not what a July memo had promised staff when flagging redundancies as it scales back its move to break the Patrick-DP World duopoly on the wharves. "We would not in these circumstances simply ask people to leave immediately," it told workers, according to the Australian Financial Review. "Before any person is made redundant, we will meet with the affected person. We will give this person an opportunity to respond."

It knew then that was the least it could do and promised to do it. To not do it, and take surely the most cowardly option available, makes Hutchison's behaviour so reprehensible. Instances like this, rare as they are, evoke such sympathy because most of us depend almost entirely on our pay cheques to get by. Mortgaged to the hilt, school fees to pay, a desire to occasionally eat out in one of the world's most expensive countries, we know we should have three months' pay in cash tucked away for emergencies but it is a rare person who does. While most Australian workers are in secure jobs, the feeling of increased casual and part-time work – and more overtime for full-timers – coupled with an unemployment rate for adults of 6.1 per cent, and for those under 25 of about twice that, feeds into a national insecurity that for most people it isn't justified. Or as the prime minister of New Zealand, John Key, wondered to a reporter last month: "How come, generally speaking, Australians are a bit down in the mouth at the moment? And I think it's not an economic issue, it's a confidence issue."

Whatever the causes, the mood of the electorate is so tenuous, it's no wonder the Abbott government is so timid on industrial relations. Even last week's Productivity Commission's restrained report – well, restrained to everyone who doesn't rely on Sunday penalty rates – was met with the Prime Minister stressing it was a draft report "to" not "from" the government. No big moves this term on industrial relations is one promise his government seems determined to keep. Even if it wanted to move on employment regulation, and even if it had the ability to win over the Australian people on a single major issue of any controversy whatsoever, industrial reform is so hard because most of us are entirely dependent on our fortnightly pay. We don't want any further risk to the money coming in. We know we're just one, momentous decision by the boss away from a very different life. Tim Dick is a Sydney lawyer.