By Jennifer Thompson
The Coalition government's Workplace Relations and Other Legislation Bill, soon to go to parliament, will contain all of the threats of the election campaign and more beside. Liberal industrial relations minister Peter Reith's "consultation" with employer groups and unions since the election has tipped the balance further toward bosses who don't want "interference" — especially from unions — in their employee relations and away from the legal protection for workers.
The proposed law aims to seriously undermine the union movement, which is already plagued by declining membership and a lack of members' faith in unions' commitment to advancing their wages and conditions.
This problem was further confirmed by a study commissioned by the NSW Labour Council, released on May 10. Its findings included that only 48% of workers would choose union membership, and that membership would drop in closed shops if they were outlawed. The Sydney Morning Herald's Brad Norington reported the finding that "union officials were considered to be more interested in their political careers and unions were too close to management".
The study came one day after the CFMEU national executive, responding to Labor leader Kim Beazley's reaffirmation of the virtue of a wage restraint policy, said the Prices and Incomes Accord between the ACTU and the Labor Party had led to erosion of union membership. At the outset of the Accord, when Labor came to government in 1983, membership was around the 52% mark, compared to today's 35% overall and 25% in the private sector.
The CFMEU executive called on the ACTU and the union movement to "soberly reflect on the damage caused to the trade union movement over the last 13 years and ensure that there is no repeat of the process which has the potential to put the political survival of the ALP before industrial interests of workers".
Minimum conditions
The main thrust of the Coalition policy is to reduce awards — the current safety net for enterprise agreements — to 20 conditions and to limit the Industrial Relations Commission's jurisdiction to this minimum set of conditions for collective union agreements only.
It proposes to replace the non-union enterprise flexibility agreements introduced in 1993 by Labor minister Laurie Brereton with non-union "Australian workplace agreements". These will be much more open to exploitation of workers and the spread of individual contracts.
The minimum awards against which the "no disadvantage test" for both certified union agreements and workplace agreements will be measured will be reduced to 20 very basic provisions, leaving many award conditions and payments other than the hourly rate and overtime to be negotiated at the enterprise, workplace or individual level. No mechanism for keeping the minimum pay rates up to date with the cost of living has been specified.
Importantly for a great many workers — 1.7 million, according to the ACTU — paid rates awards will be replaced by the minimum award. Where paid rates awards specified a pay scale corresponding to experience or level of training or qualifications, the minimum awards will specify a single minimum rate. Many of those affected are in the public sector — nurses, teachers, public servants — already under massive threat of job losses.
So far, the government's "no disadvantage" test for workplace agreements means only that the worker can't be left worse off in take home pay compared to the minimum specified in the minimum rates award. It is likely that the government plans to allow a loss of pay when paid rates awards become minimum rates. And even the weak provision can be invoked only after the agreement has been in operation for a "reasonable" period.
Intimidation
Since the "Australian workplace agreement" can apply to individual contracts or non-union enterprise agreements, is secret and not subject to outside scrutiny before it's agreed, bosses, particularly in small workplaces, are being handed a unique opportunity to exploit and intimidate workers. The AWA is looked at only if the worker requests it, and then by the Employment Advocate — which, unlike the IRC, has no power to enforce but recommends that the complaint be heard in court.
The government will be specifying that an AWA will be able to override a certified agreement, but not the other way around. Its initial AWA proposal contained no provision for legal strike activity, but it is now considering allowing a limited right to strike during the bargaining period.
As with certified agreements, there will be no legal right to strike during the period of the agreement's operation. The IRC's powers for dealing with "illegal" strike activity will be beefed up and financial penalties for breaching awards massively increased.
Union representation rights for certified agreements will also be curtailed: employers can veto workers' choice of union and the IRC is to enforce the existing provision for a single union to be recognised. These provisos sit oddly with the Coalition's much vaunted "freedom of association" rhetoric but are necessary for employers who fear that militant unions might gain coverage in their enterprises.
Other aspects of "freedom of association" are also designed to benefit bosses, not workers, including the end of union preference clauses, the outlawing of closed shops and provisions to set up unions based solely at the work site. Unions will not be able to go to workplaces unless requested by members there, making unionisation of non-union sites and contact with members more difficult.
Other concessions to employers include undermining the current unfair dismissal protection by requiring a $50 lodging fee by the sacked worker, applying the law only to legal corporations and basing compensation of unfairly sacked workers on the employer's ability to pay. Protection of equal pay principles will be taken away from over-award payments — currently the source of greatest inequality between women's and men's pay — and be applied to AWAs only when a complaint is made.