Defend union rights

Anna Pha

Trade unions are approaching a crucial juncture in their history. 
When in the late 1990s the then Workplace Relations Minister 
Peter Reith stripped workers' awards, taking away many hard won 
conditions, it was the opening shot in the Government's longer 
term plan to smash the union movement in this country. Reith, the 
man who brought hooded goons, guns and dogs onto Australia's 
waterfront, is gone. But the Government's objective remains.

It now intends to step up the pace. The employers and government 
are preparing for a massive offensive against workers and their 
unions.

With control of both Houses of Parliament from July 1 next year, 
the Howard Government will push through legislation to strip bare 
all enterprise bargaining agreements, leaving only minimal 
working conditions and wage rates.

When awards were stripped back to 20 so-called "allowable 
matters" by Reith, trade unions were forced to turn to enterprise 
bargaining agreements (EBAs) to retrieve as many of the lost 
award provisions as possible.

The task was made more difficult by restrictions placed on 
unions, including a clamp down on the right to take industrial 
action. Trade union resources were pushed beyond their limits and 
many workers, particularly in smaller or industrially weak 
workplaces, were left with only the minimal conditions of a 
stripped award.

The many award provisions that were removed included:flexitime; 
shift breaks; maximum hours of work; restrictions on the use and 
hours of work of casuals; accident pay; amenities; promotion 
systems; incremental wage rises; equal employment opportunity; 
closed shops; stop work meetings; workplace harassment; shop 
steward rights; preference to unionists; use of contractors; 
travelling time; superannuation; training and study leave; 
protective clothing.

These award provisions were not gifts from employers. They were 
won over decades and decades of struggle before being 
incorporated in legally binding and enforceable awards. These 
awards covered workers across a trade, occupation or industry, 
whether or not they were in union-organised workplaces.

In one stroke of the pen, workers and trade unions were forced to 
the negotiating table to negotiate back what so many workers took 
for granted. Many of the provisions have been incorporated in 
EBAs, while some, such as preference to unionists and closed 
shops, have been outlawed under the Workplace Relations Act.

Missed out

The Government is using the recent High Court decision in the 
Electrolux case (see The Guardian 12-09-04) as an excuse to 
introduce legislation that will strip EBAs back to only "matters 
that pertain to the employment relationship" in the workplace, 
i.e. EBAs must be confined strictly to matters between management 
and workers in each separate workplace. The Electrolux decision 
put in doubt the legal validity of many clauses in existing EBAs 
and even the legal validity of the EBAs themselves.

And although the Government claims it is legislating to validate 
EBAs, the stripping of awards is clearly in line with its policy 
aims.

Amongst the important workers' rights that Workplace Relations 
Minister Kevin Andrews plans to remove from EBAs are:

* The use of contractors and conditions covering contractors —

The deletion of restrictions on the use of contractors fits 
neatly with Howard's promotion of the use of contractors in 
workplaces. At present, particularly in the building industry 
where this practice is rife, employers are obliged to pay EBA 
rates and adhere to other EBA conditions (hours of work, etc). 
Howard wants an end to this, so that contractors can beat each 
other down by competing for work.

* The requirement of employers to pay into a particular 
superannuation fund or deduct union dues, etc —

When the "choice of superannuation" fund comes into force next 
year and every employee is required to indicate choice of fund, 
the employer will have a stronger hand to decide what workers 
"choose". As usual, when the Government says "choice" in practice 
it means no choice. Howard would love to destroy the union-
industry funds and let the big insurance sharks in.

* Right of entry, trade union training leave and other trade 
union rights —

Howard's aim is to de-unionise workplaces and force workers onto 
individual, non-union contracts (Australian Workplace 
Agreements). He is giving more funds to the Employment Advocate's 
Office which exists for this very purpose. The use of contract 
labour and encouragement of individual contracts also has the 
same aim.

* Training and study leave

A full list would include most of the items stripped from awards.

Some trade unions have decided to pursue new EBAs as quickly as 
possible, with "non-pertaining" (deemed invalid by Electrolux 
decision) matters transferred to common law agreements that would 
not be covered by the Workplace Relations Act.

For those unions in a strong enough position to do this, it might 
give their members some immediate protection. But in the longer 
term, it presents new difficulties. Alleged breaches of common 
law can lead to long, and very expensive, court cases, an outcome 
often (not always) avoided by the use of the Workplace Relations 
Commission.

It could also create a division in the union movement — those 
with stripped EBAs plus top-up common law protection; and those 
left with EBAs stripped to the bone.

Deregulation

In the longer term, even those who gained additional protection 
will find that extremely difficult to maintain if wages and 
working conditions of other workers are decimated.

One of the Government's and big employers' aims is to destroy the 
present industrial relations system and replace it with a totally 
deregulated system where individual workers (and "contractors") 
are pitted against employers under common law and corporations 
law.

Big business expects much more than the stripping of EBAs from 
the Howard Government.

"Introducing legislation which has previously been defeated by 
the Senate is fine as far as it goes, but this is an historic 
opportunity to effect a substantial deregulation and we would 
hope that the government would consider that", said former Deputy 
Treasurer Des Moore, now director of the right-wing Institute of 
Private Enterprise.

"The idea is to allow employers and employees to have much 
greater freedom to contract and negotiate the terms of 
employment", Moore continued.

The likes of anti-union corporate big wigs such as Len 
Buckeridge, Chris Corrigan and Hugh Morgan, are not wasting any 
time. Nor is the Howard Government. They too see a historic 
opportunity to destroy the trade unions, deregulate the labour 
market and deal with workers on an individual basis.

The only thing that can stop them is the collective strength of 
the union movement in struggle.