Stop Government's savage anti-worker Bills

by Anna Pha

On November 6 the new Minister for Workplace Relations, Kevin 
Andrews hit Parliament with a number of draconian, union-bashing 
Bills straight out of the filing cabinets of former Ministers 
Peter Reith and Tony Abbot. They will have extremely serious 
consequences for all workers if allowed to pass through 
Parliament. The Bills would virtually outlaw the right to strike, 
deny hundreds of thousands of workers award coverage, increase 
the powers of employers and encourage casualisation of the labour 
force.

One Bill specifically targets building and construction workers 
and their right to collective bargaining, strike action and union 
organisation. Another sets out to deny workers in "small 
businesses" protection from legally binding awards.

The Minister specifically targeted nurses, teachers, carers, aged 
care workers and childcare workers for attack in his second 
reading speech on the misnamed Better Bargaining Bill.

The Bill should be called the No Bargaining Bill or No Workers' 
Rights Bill.

The legislation imposes severe limitations on industrial action. 
It gives employers greater power to avoid negotiations with 
workers and their unions.

Making collective bargaining impossible

It would make it almost impossible for many workers and their 
trade unions to collectively bargain for better wages and 
conditions or to even defend existing provisions of enterprise 
agreements.

The Choice in Award Coverage Bill, which should be called the No 
Award Coverage Bill, seeks to deny workers employed in "small 
businesses" from any award or collective agreement protection 
whatsoever.

In effect, "choice" is left to employers to decide whether 
workers will have award coverage or not. The only choice workers 
have is to cop the boss's offer or out the door.

The Bill defines small business in terms of less than 20 
"employees" on the day that a union serves a log of claims.

It encourages the hiring of casual labour by excluding from its 
definition of an employee, cas-uals with less than 12 cumulative 
months on the job.

Liberal MP Don Randall during the second reading debate summed up 
its intent: "This is an excellent Bill which helps employers get 
a better deal".

Another Liberal MP Gregory Hunt also had an honest word to say 
about the Bill: "It is about being able to work together in a 
stable and harmonious environment where there are no union 
members and to thrive and flourish as a business".

The equally misnamed Building and Construction Industry 
Improvement Bill is based on recommendations of the Cole Royal 
Commission into the building industry.

The Bill sets out to stop collective bargaining across the 
industry or even across a whole building site.

It clearly defines lawful and unlawful industrial action with 
huge penalties for workers and potential loss of all their assets 
(homes, money in the bank, etc) if they take action regarded as 
unlawful.

It places severe restrictions on what is known as "protected" 
industrial action.

It will be illegal to take industrial action to defend workers' 
health and safety.

Contractors will be freed-up to de-unionise their workforces, 
undermine the wages and condit-ions that were won over decades by 
trade unions. When it comes to winning contracts, unionised 
companies adhering to award wages and conditions, will miss out. 
In this way employers will be penalised if they do not toe the 
Federal Government's anti-union line.

Unions' right of entry restricted

Unions will face heavy restrictions on the right of entry to 
service and recruit members but building police inspectors will 
gain massive powers to enter, interview workers, inspect 
documents, carry out investigations and prosecute workers and 
trade union officials.

Despite the most recent deaths in the industry there is not a 
single legislative provision to make employers liable for 
negligent and criminal action in a workplace, not a single 
concrete provision to ensure safer and healthier working 
conditions.

There is token recognition of unsafe working conditions and some 
additional highly paid bureaucrats will be appointed to at best 
monitor the situation.

There are altogether 12 vicious anti-trade union and anti-worker 
Bills currently before Parliament.

The other Bills include Protecting the Low Paid, and Fair 
Termination — which aim to do exactly the opposite of their 
title.

It is absolutely imperative that the union movement wage a 
massive campaign to defeat these Bills.

While Labor and the Greens are opposed to them, the pressure must 
be maintained to ensure that Labor and the Democrats do not 
negotiate any compromises and that the four Senate Independents, 
who hold the balance of power, are persuaded not to support this 
draconian, anti-trade union legislation.

* * *

How a Liberal sees Government Bill

So where do you draw the benchmark with what you pay? It is 
done by a negotiated agreement, and that is why casualisation is 
good. You can try out a number of employees until you actually 
get a good one. Quite often, many of them are young girls and 
mothers who just want a bit of work in the stable in order to get 
a bit of extra money. They do not want to be part of a regimented 
workforce and sign on to a contract; they are quite happy to be 
casual workers. That is one of the benefits that flexibility in 
the workplace relations laws of this country has given people a 
choice in working hours and terms and conditions, rather than 
having them mandated and shoved down their necks by union bosses, 
who are only serving their own purposes.