Govt's plan to scrap unions The following article was published in "The Guardian", newspaper of the Communist Party of Australia in its issue of Wednesday, April 14th, 1999. Contact address: 65 Campbell Street, Surry Hills. Sydney. 2010 Australia. Phone: (612) 9212 6855 Fax: (612) 9281 5795. Email: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Webpage: http://www.peg.apc.org/~guardian Subscription rates on request. ****************************** By Rohan Gowland In February, Workplace Relations Minister Peter Reith's secret strategy on employment was leaked to the media. It actually proved to be not about the unemployed, but about winding back the role of trade unions and turning workers into "more flexible" cheap labour. On March 24, Minister Reith for the first time publicly aired aspects of this latest plan to attack workers, in a speech to the National Press Club in Canberra. His speech put forward the case for transferring the power to set workers' wages and conditions from the Australian Industrial Relations Commission (AIRC) to Parliament, under the corporations power of the Constitution. This would involve the scrapping of the arbitration system with direct negotiation between employers and employees in its place. Unions are cut out of the picture. In Reith's leaked document, he said one of the strategy's aims was "reduced union power". In his speech, he argued that unions are unnecessary third parties that are not wanted by employers or employees -- claiming they get in the way of dispute resolution (rather than being the political force that brings about wage rises) and cause employers endless frustration and expense. ACTU President Jennie George responded, "Mr Reith's speech emphasises the removal of unions from the award-making process. The issue here is that currently awards are made and varied in response to union claims. Who is then going to make claims, such as seeking wage increases, if union access to the AIRC is limited?". But unions aren't the only problem to be removed, according to Reith. He also targets the award-making system. He argues that it is wrong for wages and conditions to be imposed on employers by an industry-wide award decision when those employers and their employees have not been in dispute and have nothing to do with the union. Reith took the example of the Shop Assistants' Union (SDA), saying that the union has sought improved wages and conditions for all workers in the industry, even if they are not members of the union. Reith sees this as a case of union interference that should be eliminated. "Almost all of these businesses would have employees who have chosen to have nothing to do with the union. Yet businesses and those employees ... might find themselves bound by new industry wide award regulation that the system presumes is good for them", said Reith. Shop assistants, like workers in the hospitality industry, are difficult to organise, particularly those working for small businesses. Job insecurity is high, decent wages and conditions are hard to attain for most of these workers. Many of the workers referred to by Reith have not joined the union and would not ask for a wage rise for fear of losing their job. The union movement and its gains under the award system is their protection. No wonder Reith is against awards and unions! "... the conciliation and arbitration power [of the AIRC] confers rights on third parties [unions] over and above the rights of actual employers and employees, ... forces extreme and artificial demands to be made on workplaces and adds layers of complexity and cost", says Reith. These "extreme and artificial demands" are basic award conditions like a minimum wage, safe working conditions, specified hours of work, limits on overtime, penalty rates and leave provisions -- all of which restrict the exploitation of workers and eat into company profits. Under Reith's plan, unions would not be able to negotiate for workers across an industry or in many individual workplaces. The emphasis would be on individual "workplaces", hence the use of the corporations power in the Constitution: wages and conditions would be determined at the company level with no central union involvement or external oversight or arbitration. And at the company level Reith would like to see employers dictating wages and conditions. You can imagine what this would do for wages and conditions! Wages and conditions could vary substantially between workplaces in the same industry as well as between industries. The industrially weaker enterprises putting downward pressure on the wages and conditions of all workers. "Our system must give primacy to the workplace, not institutions", said Reith. "Our 1996 Workplace Relations Act was a major forward shift in meeting this objective [the reduced role of unions and the AIRC], and our 1998 policy "More Jobs Better Pay" -- which we will be giving legislative effect to in a couple of months -- builds on those gains." When this takes place, we can expect a very reactionary "log of claims" to be served by Mr Reith against the whole trade union movement and the constitutional structures that facilitate collective bargaining. -- Leftlink - Australia's Broad Left Mailing List mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.alexia.net.au/~www/mhutton/index.html Sponsored by Melbourne's New International Bookshop Subscribe: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]?Body=subscribe%20leftlink Unsubscribe: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]?Body=unsubscribe%20leftlink
