WORKERS UNITED: COLLECTIVE AGREEMENTS (CAs)
With the undermining and gutting of awards, Certified Agreements
(CAs) are basically the only form of collective coverage left open
to unions to maintain and improve workers' wages and conditions.
Reith's legislation gives employers a number of new big sticks to
prevent union involvement in collective bargaining and to sabotage
CAs.
Workers may still be represented by their union in meeting and
conferring with their employer about a particular agreement, if
they are not too intimidated and have the confidence to make a
written request.
Employers could offer an agreement to some workers, and not to
others and then, having got their "agreement", take it to the
Registrar at the Workplace Relations Commission for certification
without a public hearing.
There would be no requirement to notify the union during the
negotiation period, and the union would have no power to veto the
agreement.
An employer could negotiate as many agreements as it likes with
different groups of workers. Each agreement could have completely
different wage rates and conditions.
In addition employers would be permitted to sign up workers on
individual employment contracts, regardless of the existence of any
agreements.
Individual contracts override Certified Agreements.
It would be illegal to include in an agreement provisions excluding
individual contracts from a workplace or to do anything that might
inhibit the signing of individual contracts.
Transfer of business
The Commission is given the power to waive the requirement that
where business (e.g. a new $1 shell company, or contracting out) is
transferred to a different company, the new employer is not be
bound by the Agreement.
Decentralisation
The undermining of awards and the focus on enterprise bargaining
has already cost unions and workers dearly.
Those unions with thousands of workplaces to cover do not have the
staff or financial means to re-negotiate agreements in every
workplace every two or three years, let alone monitor them and
ensure employers are carrying out their obligations.
In the past a union would serve one log of claims on hundreds or
Šthousands of employers in an industry and run a national campaign
in support of its demands. Any industrial action would have been
centrally co-ordinated, across a number of workplaces, possibly
covering a whole industry or service nationwide.
Such a campaign would usually result in a wage rise and
improvements in conditions that would be included in the
appropriate award and apply to all workers covered by that award.
Decentralisation through reliance on enterprise agreements has
tended to fragment the struggle.
It has also stretched the resources of unions to the point where
they can pay little attention to the day to day problems being
suffered by workers. It means that unions have fewer resources to
recruit, to build and organise, compounding all the other pressures
that the Workplace Relations Act has brought on unions, such as the
greater use of civil courts.
"Pattern bargaining"
Faced with these problems, some unions adopted an approach known as
"pattern bargaining", whereby their campaigns and demands were co-
ordinated and similar or identical agreements made with a number of
employers with common expiry dates. In this way the unity of all
the workers in an industry was maintained.
For example, in the metal industry unions are pursuing a common
expiry date as agreements are renewed.
This would enable them to campaign together and take "protected
action" at the same time when their agreements came up for renewal.
Reith's "second wave" legislation outlaws "pattern bargaining", a
reflection of the Government's determination to prevent industry-
wide solidarity between workers across workplaces or even within a
workplace.
Solidarity action by workers in one workplace in support of workers
in another workplace or the same workplace is not "protected" and
is, consequently, illegal if Reith's legislation is adopted.
If there were several Certified Agreements in a workplace with
different expiry dates, it could lead to a situation where one
group continues to work while another group whose Agreement has
expired attempts to take "protected action". NNo doubt this is what
Reith has in mind. Anything to divide workers and prevent united
action.
Outlawing pattern bargaining also makes it more difficult to obtain
uniform wage rates based on skill and experience. It does make it
easier for employers to pit workers against each other as they
compete for jobs.
Š
******************************************************************
AWARD SAFETY NET SHRINKS
In Reith's first wave, awards were stripped back to 20 "allowable
award matters". Rostered days off, rest periods, occupational
health and safety provisions, amenities, limits on maximum hours or
the spread of hours, restrictions on the use of casual and contract
labour, consultation over workplace change, and many more important
conditions were all stripped from awards.
In the second wave Reith plans to completely remove four of the 20
allowable award matters that remained and reduce in scope or
partially delete nine other matters, to leave only seven of the 20
matters intact!
Superannuation, long service leave, bonuses and tallies (used in
meat industry), some public holidays, union picnic days, notice of
termination, recording the hours employees work, training and
education provisions, accident make-up pay, transfer to a different
type of employment, maximum or minimum hours a regular part-time
employee can work, long service leave, and paid leave for jury
service will NNOT be allowable in awards.
Redundancy rules such as "last on first off" are strictly
prohibited from inclusion in awards. Preference to unionists in
hiring workers was completely outlawed in the "first wave", -- not
just removed from awards.
And that's not all. The few matters that remain, mainly concerning
leave and wages, are to be slashed back to provide a minimum for
the lowest paid.
Kiss goodbye incremental scales, skill-based classification
structures and some allowances. Unions will have to campaign to
have these matters incorporated in collective agreements with
employers if they are to be retained.
Awards will become a skeleton of their past, when they provided
comprehensive and legally enforceable coverage of wages and
conditions for workers across an industry or occupation.
When awards prevailed, industry or enterprise agreements were
"over and above" the Award.
According to Reith, awards will "act as a safety net providing
basic minimum wages and conditions of employment in respect of
appropriate allowable award matters to help address the needs of
the low paid".
Blackmail
The system of "safety net" wage rises will continue but future wage
rises will not be paid until the relevant existing award has been
Šsubjected to a second round of stripping.
The aim is to make awards so inadequate that workers will be
tempted by individual contracts.
But the Government and its Employment Advocate are having a great
deal of difficulty selling individual contracts.
After two years of operation only 55,548 workers (out of a
workforce of around eight million) had been signed up on individual
employment contracts despite the millions of dollars being spent on
advertising.
That figure represents 1,436 employers. One third of those signing
were managerial, administrative and professional staff. In the
longer term the Government hopes to see what remains of the award
system whither away and die, "leaving workers with no legally
enforceable protection" from the most ruthless exploitation of
employers.
*****************************************************************
WORKERS DIVIDED: INDIVIDUAL CONTRACTS (AWAs)
The system of Individual Contracts which has been encouraged under
the Howard Government's Workplace Relations Act offers employers
more power over individual workers than they have ever dreamed
about.
The so-called "no disadvantage test" that was to ensure Individual
Contracts did not undermine basic minimum standards has turned out
to be a farce.
NNow Reith wants to formalise this by adding to the Act a specific
clause allowing the Employment Advocate to approve a Contract
"which does not pass the [no disadvantage] test where it would not
be contrary to the public interest to do so".
Never mind if it is contrary to the worker's interests!
One typical individual contract in the retail sector says that "The
ordinary hours may be worked over any day of the week, Monday to
Sunday inclusive, and shall be arranged by the employer to meet
business requirements".
The worker has to be on call 24 hours a day, seven days a week to
respond to a request to work 12-hour shifts as directed.
After five hours straight the worker is entitled to a 20 minute
meal break, but "must maintain customer service" during that break!
Failure to work as directed and when directed, can result in
dismissal. So can being more than five minutes late more than once.
Under this particular contract the specific wage rate to be paid is
not specified, it is up to the boss!
Š
The whole system is open to victimisation, intimidation and
discrimination. It leaves women in particular, extremely vulnerable
to sexual harassment and discrimination. It creates insecurity and
disrupts family life.
The aim of Individual Contracts is to slash wages and take back all
the conditions that workers united in their trade unions have won
over the last 150 years of struggle.
Individual Contracts enable employers to deal with workers on a one
to one basis, instead of on a collective basis.
The individual worker is powerless in the face of an employer who
determines how you work and whether you have a job or not.
The "second wave" legislation enables employers to discriminate
against workers on whatever grounds they like -- sex, race,
religion, age, union membership, concern about safety, politics,
health. Anti-discrimination legislation is rendered meaningless as
the contracts are secret and the legislation specifically make it
legal to pay different rates of pay for the same work.
Individual Contracts provide employers with a weapon to keep
workers divided and weak to be bludgeoned into accepting slave like
conditions.
The "second wave" legislation gives bosses open slather:
* Individual Contracts can coexist with certified agreements. So,
even if a union has fought a mighty battle and won a Certified
Agreement, the employer can still pick off vulnerable workers one
by one and secretly sign them up on Individual Contracts;
* the wages and working conditions in an Individual Contract can
be (would be) below those in the Certified Agreement it is
replacing, even though other workers in the same workplace are
still covered by the Certified Agreement;
* in employer can pick and choose who is invited (or told) to sign
an Individual Contract;
* each Individual Contract could be quite different to others;
* Individual Contracts would come into force as soon as the worker
signed on the dotted line. The employer would then have 60 days in
which to present the contract for approval by the Employment
Advocate.
* in the unlikely event that the Employment Advocate rejected the
Contract, the worker would have to pursue outstanding entitlements
in the very expensive civil courts at his own expense -- or forget
it.
Individual Contracts constitute the main threat to the union
Šmovement. Without their union, without the ability to collectively
bargain, workers are powerless.
******************************************************************
UNDER THE PRESENT WORKPLACE RELATIONS ACT THERE ARE THREE
DIFFERENT FORMS BY WHICH WAGES AND CONDITIONS ARE SET OUT:
1. AWARDS: provide a bare minimum legally enforceable "safety net"
based on 20 "allowable matters" for workers who are not covered by
a Certified Agreement or Individual Contract. The award wage rates
of low paid workers are periodically increased by the Industrial
Relations Commission in response to claims made by the Australian
Council of Trade Unions.
2. CERTIFIED AGREEMENTS (or enterprise agreements): are collective
agreements made with or without trade union participation which
cover a workplace or company.
3. INDIVIDUAL CONTRACTS (Australian Workplace Agreements): secret
individual employment contracts between individual workers and
their employer.
Certified Agreements and Individual Contracts do not have to meet
the award safety net conditions. Agreements and contracts are
subjected to the NO DISADVANTAGE TEST. If properly applied their
contents should not, "on balance", result in a reduction in the
overall terms and conditions of an employee when compared with the
award. However, in practice this has proved to be a farce.
END OF PAGE 2
The Guardian 65 Campbell Street, Surry Hills. 2010
Australia.
Email: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Website: http://www.peg.apc.org/~guardian
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