INTRODUCTION
The trade union movement is facing the most serious anti-worker,
anti-union laws since the introduction, more than 90 years ago, of
the Conciliation and Arbitration Court system in which unions were
accepted as playing a central role with guaranteed rights.
The Howard/Reith Government's "second wave" of industrial
legislation seeks to turn the clock back by 150 years to the dark
days of the master-servant relationship, by attacking workers' wages
and conditions and preventing workers from collectively bargaining
in their trade unions. The aim of the Government and employers is
to put every worker on an individual work contract, thereby turning
the clock back to the time when workers had no rights. In this special
four-page lift-out ANNA PHA, editor of "The Guardian", outlines
some of the key features of the legislation and what it would mean
for workers if Reith's Bill becomes law.
Copies are available for distribution.
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STOP REITH'S "SECOND WAVE"
The wages, working conditions and right to organise of millions of
workers will be savaged if the Federal Government's "second wave"
of industrial legislation is passed. The rule of law would be
replaced by the diktat of bosses if Workplace Relations Minister
Peter Reith gets his way. Reith's "second wave" legislation not
only gives employers more powers to stand over workers but attempts
to cripple trade unions and prevent workers organising and
struggling collectively to defend their wages and conditions.
This legislation CAN and MUST be defeated by the united actions of
workers organised in their trade unions together with all other
progressive and democratic community groups and individuals.
Workers worse off
When electioneering, Howard declared: "No worker will be worse
off". This was a shameful and deliberate lie!
Millions of workers and their families have become "worse off" as
awards were stripped back to 20 "allowable matters".
Gains achieved over decades have been ripped off workers. Instead
of a steady job there is casualisation and job insecurity.
Rio Tinto, Patrick Stevedores and other big corporations have
pushed Peter Reith's laws to their limits in their anti-worker
drive.
* The sacked Oakdale workers are $6.3 million worse off. Many other
workers have lost their entitlements.
Š* Rio Tinto callously dumped 115 men and their families on the
scrap heap after announcing a $34 million profit at Hunter Valley
No 1 mine.
* Wharfies were subjected to the trauma of balaclava clad private
security thugs with dogs, removing them from their jobs in the
middle of the night.
* Penalty rates for shift and weekend work have been abolished on
many jobs and workers are clocking up long hours of unpaid
overtime.
* And while some are forced to work longer hours, others who want a
full-time job, are forced to take part-time work.
There is no work at all for the 700,000 unemployed.
All this and more thanks to Reith's "first wave".
Bosses gained new powers to intensify the exploitation of workers
by imposing secret individual contracts and shutting trade unions
out of negotiations.
The right to take industrial action without being sued by employers
for damages was limited to "protected action" during enterprise
bargaining periods. "Protected action" didn't protect workers from
dismissal.
Now, the Howard Government and its big business patrons want to
make workers even worse off.
That's the job of the "Workplace Relations Legislation Amendment
(More Jobs, Better Pay) Bill 1999''. Reith starts his lies in the
name of the Bill! It should have been called the ``No Unions, Lower
Pay, Fewer Jobs Bill'', because that's what it is.
The Government is out to destroy the centralised Award system which
protected workers' rights and conditions for almost 100 years.
Reith wants to leave individual workers at the mercy of profit-
hungry employers without the support of their fellow workers or
trade union.
Reith's laws breach international conventions
The International Labour Organisation -- a body of trade union,
government and employer representatives found Reith's "first wave"
laws contravened international conventions (laws) which give
workers Freedom of Association and the right to Collective
Bargaining.
The right to join and form trade unions and to bargain collectively
are further cut in Reith's "second wave".
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Š
REITH'S AGENDA
Reith's aim is a world without unions, a world without regulations
or any other obstruction to the profit-making of the big
corporations. He wants what he calls "an internationally
competitive workplace relations system" -- a deregulated labour
market with cheap, compliant labour competing with workers in low
wage countries for crumbs.
"And never forget which side we're on. We're on the side of making
profits. We're on the side of people owning private capital", Reith
told a business lunch in Perth.
Reith is not on the side of workers.
The Federal Government's economic policies are centred around
making Australia a place for transnational corporations (TNCs) to
freely come and go, do what they like, regardless of what they do
to Australian workers.
It is pushing the economic rationalist agenda, lifting tariffs and
other forms of industry and job protection, deregulating the
financial markets of the speculators, removing restrictions on
foreign investment, privatising like mad, locking Australia into
the World Trade Organisation and implementing the disastrous
policies of the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund.
Tax changes: bad news for workers
Treasurer Peter Costello's so-called tax "reforms" are part of that
process -- the GST, the removal of capital gains taxes and the
reduction of taxes on company profits.
These measures all do one thing -- they rip money out of workers'
pockets and line the coffers of the big corporations as workers pay
more taxes and the big corporations pay much less.
Their objective is to transform Australia into the world's best
profit-generating haven for the TNCs. Reith's industrial relations
laws are part of this aim.
In the eyes of the TNCs and other employers, trade unions,
collective bargaining, industrial action, awards and anything else
which protects workers' rights and entitlements, are barriers to
the maximisation of profits.
Every dollar a worker receives is one less dollar in profits.
Reith has described his government's "second wave" industrial
relations legislation as "the next evolutionary change" an
indication that there is more to come if the "second wave" is
passed by Parliament.
"First Wave
Š
Reith's Workplace Relations Act, passed in 1996, was based on the
replacement of the Conciliation and Arbitration system with its
recognition of trade unions in a system in which employers deal
with each worker individually, and without trade union
representation.
"Second wave"
The "second wave" consists of four Bills, all currently before
Parliament. The first removes superannuation from awards.
The second allows employers to sack workers without giving any
reason and without any recourse to unfair dismissal appeals in
workplaces where there are less than 15 employees.
The third Bill makes it legal for employers to slash the already
low wages of many young workers by introducing a youth wage where
one does not already exist.
The fourth, and the major Bill, is the dishonestly named "Workplace
Relations Legislation Amendment (More Jobs, Better Pay) Bill 1999".
The Bill has many far-reaching and draconian provisions to
dismantle what remaining protection and entitlements workers have.
If passed by Parliament it would open the way to the next step in
Reith's "evolutionary process" -- towards the complete abolition of
any legal rights for workers and their trade unions to organise and
fight for their rights, conditions and jobs in the conflict between
labour and capital.
*****************************************************************
REITH'S "SECOND WAVE" AT A GLANCE
* Awards, already stripped back to 20 "allowable matters" in the
"first wave", to be further stripped.
* Individual contracts (AWAs) to come into force "before they are
approved" by the Employment Advocate.
* Secret individual contracts could be introduced when a collective
(union negotiated) Certified Agreement is already in force. The
individual Contract would override the Certified Agreement.
* Secret, non-union individual employment contracts (AWAs), not
required to meet Award standards.
* Employers could offer different "agreements" to different groups
of workers or individual workers in the same workplace.
* Non-union Certified Agreements could override conditions already
established in awards.
Š* Compulsory secret ballots before "protected" industrial action
takes place and the Commission given the power to end "protected
action" after 14 days.
* Solidarity and political strikes and all other union actions
except "protected action" outlawed.
* A system of Commission orders and court injunctions to halt
industrial action and impose penalties for any "unprotected action"
and "allow employers to sue workers and unions for damages".
* When business is transferred to a new employer the new employer
would not necessarily be bound by the existing Certified Agreement.
* Commission obliged to issue orders to stop non-protected action
within 48 hours of an employer request.
* The Employment Advocate, better known as the Industrial Gestapo,
could rubber-stamp individual contracts and send its blood hounds
out to workplaces to quiz workers and union delegates to compile
"evidence" against unions and individual workers.
* Illegal for more than 60 percent of workers or a class of
workers in a workplace to belong to the same trade union.
* Union officials to obtain a written "invitation" from a member
before being allowed to enter a workplace.
* Powers of the Industrial Relations Commission to be further
curbed in relation to settling disputes but increased when it comes
to stopping strikes.
END OF PAGE 1
The Guardian 65 Campbell Street, Surry Hills. 2010
Australia.
Email: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Website: http://www.peg.apc.org/~guardian
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