The Sydney Morning Herald http://www.smh.com.au/news/9905/07/text/national13.html Reith pushes commission to the sideline Date: 07/05/99 STORIES by HELEN TRINCA,Workplace Reporter The Federal Government will introduce a new system of privatised mediation in industrial disputes under a workplace overhaul which will significantly sideline the Australian Industrial Relations Commission. The changes, which the Minister for Workplace Relations, Mr Reith, said were "essentially evolutionary", represent a further gutting of the commission's role in overseeing the nation's relatively new system of collective and individual agreements. It will now compete with private mediators in most conciliation work. Unions will be hemmed in further by the introduction of compulsory secret ballots before strike action, and officials will be barred from entering work sites without a written invitation from a union member employed on site. The changes will face a tough time in the Senate, with the Democrats, who will hold the balance of power from mid-year, already pledging to vote against some aspects if they are not amended. The party's industrial relations spokesman, Senator Andrew Murray, said Mr Reith would face "a very high burden of proof" to show why measures rejected by the Senate three years ago should be introduced. "We are the champions of the commission and its independence and we would like to see it increased, not diminished," he said. The ACTU president, Ms Jennie George, threatened a High Court challenge if the legislation was passed, but the Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry said the changes did not go far enough. The proposed changes, to be introduced in the winter session of Parliament, include: * Reducing the commission's power to conciliate in disputes. The parties would be able to hire private mediators if they wished. If they chose the commission they would have to pay for the service.The commission would only conciliate in award, safety net, demarcation and unfair dismissal issues and after the termination of a bargaining period. * The commission would be renamed the Australian Workplace Relations Commission, and new appointments of commissioners would be for fixed terms of up to seven years. * Individual workplace agreements would no longer have to be referred to the commission if the Employment Advocate was worried they failed the "no-disadvantage" test, which ensures no worker is worse off on a contract than under an award. However, the advocate would have power simply to ask the parties to modify them. * There would be no need for formal hearings by the commission before registering collective agreements and it would be encouraged to adopt this as the normal course. * Issues including superannuation and long-service leave would be removed from award coverage and commission protection. As well, jury service, union picnic days and trade union training leave would be cut from awards. A long road, but minister will relish every step The changes announced yesterday confirm that Peter Reith, the arch pragmatist of Coalition politics, is not prepared for half measures when it comes to the workplace. The Minister for Workplace Relations has not proceeded to his most radical plan - to put industrial relations on a new constitutional basis by bringing it under corporations law. Yet. But the changes - if they get past the Democrats - will mean the effective end of the industrial architecture we have had for almost a century. The industrial relations commission we have had in one form or another since 1904 could have survived the shift from centralised to collective bargaining by carving out a new role for itself as mediator. But Mr Reith's decision to bring in a parallel stream of privatised mediators - and to charge fees for the AIRC service anyway - signals that he is not much interested in hanging onto the old machinery, which the Coalition has for so long considered part of the problem, rather than part of the solution. The commission will have yet another name change, but it becomes increasingly irrelevant. Like the commission, unions are curtailed. Secret ballots before protected strikes can be held is hard to argue with on democratic grounds but it will slow the process and remove unions' limited power to hold snap strikes. The ballots may be counterproductive. The British experience found they led to fewer strikes but of much longer duration. The Government is also strengthening the power of employers in forcing employees back to work from illegal strikes. Business has felt cheated by these s127 orders, finding that they have not been issued and enforced rapidly enough to minimise damage to operations. Reith's move to give Supreme Courts the power to enforce s127 orders gives employers rapid access to the civil courts, which are seen as tougher on unions than the AIRC or the Federal Court. These reforms have some way to go. Just as in 1996, when Mr Reith spent many hours persuading the then Democrats leader, Senator Cheryl Kernot, to agree to a compromise package which became the Workplace Relations Act, he is in for some long negotiations again. But that is unlikely to do him any harm with his constituency. 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