>From in Rev, at: http://www.afr.com.au/content/990128/news/news1.html Competition the key to Reith's new IR agenda By Katharine Murphy The Federal Government has launched a radical new assault on anti-competitive union conduct, with a proposal to hand Australia's competition watchdog sweeping powers to scrutinise workplace agreements. The Government has called on the National Competition Council to make uncertified workplace deals -- which are shielded from competition law -- the subject of review on a case-by-case basis when their contents are "detrimental to the public interest". But the plan yesterday drew a strong attack from the ACTU, with the peak union council arguing any change would fundamentally undermine workers' collective bargaining rights and create new scope to sue organisations judged to be engaged in a restraint of trade. The Government's plan is revealed in a submission obtained by The Australian Financial Review which is part of an inquiry by the NCC into sections of trade-practices law which authorise anti-competitive conduct. The submission, prepared by the Department of Employment and Workplace Relations, argues that labour relations policy should be "tempered by the capacity for competing policy objectives to be considered" -- a move, which if accepted by the NCC, would create a revolutionary shift in Australia's industrial relations framework. Key elements of the Government proposal to apply two sets of laws to industrial relations regulation include: Introducing new powers for the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission to examine workplace agreements if interested parties, including the Minister for Workplace Relations, Mr Peter Reith, could mount a case that they contained anti-competitive elements. Creating a new test allowing the competition watchdog to weigh up whether the benefits of any uncertified workplace agreement outweighed the costs to the community. Giving the ACCC powers to award costs against "vexatious or frivolous applicants". The Government also suggested another option for the NCC would be to retain the current framework but "require industrial relations tribunals to have regard more broadly to competition issues". But the ACTU's assistant secretary, Mr Tim Pallas, said last night the change could give employers, such as Patrick Stevedores, new scope to argue for the scrapping of protected collective representation rights for waterside unions -- rights which would normally be classified as a restraint of trade. "If workers have rights, they are rights written large," he said. "You can't have the large print in the Workplace Relations Act giving the right, and the small print taking it away in the Trade Practices Act." Mr Pallas said if the Government succeeded in making the change, no workers could be certain their current right to take protected strike action would prevail if there was an arguable conflict with competition law. An added danger was that cases could be heard in "a highly charged political environment", with the Government seeking to pursue particular unions under the expanded reach of trade practices law. "Essentially what they are seeking is the removal of the exemption [from competition law] governing legitimate trade union and industrial relations activity," he said. The NCC last year issued a draft report which recommended the continuation of the exemption shielding employment arrangements from the Hilmer reforms. The Government's submission puts it at odds with its competition advisory body, which in November argued the status quo had a "number of clear benefits", including "maintaining the primacy of the industrial relations framework in labour market relations" and ensuring certainty for arrangements agreed between employers and employees. The Department of Employment and Workplace Relations rejected the NCC's core argument that labour law should be the exclusive arm of industrial regulation, arguing that the approach "inevitably limits the capacity to consider wider economic effects, even where serious harm may occur".
