Proper rights for Australian workers who are unfairly dismissed;

A strong safety net of minimum awards and conditions;

An independent umpire to ensure fair wages and conditions, and to settle disputes;

The right for employees to bargain collectively for decent wages and conditions;

The right of workers to reject individual contracts which cut pay and conditions, and undermine collective bargaining and union representation; and

The right to join a union and be represented by a union.

And what worker would disagree with these policies?

Labor will establish an Unfair Dismissal Tribunal within the Industrial Relations Commission, which would "balance the interests of employers and employees".

Agreements

So far so good, but it is also a matter of what is not being said and what has gone before which is not being repudiated.

It was the Hawke/Keating Labor Governments (1983-1996) which initiated the Accord and adopted "economic rationalist" policies that started the process of privatisation and the whittling away of awards. They introduced the system of certified agreements and enterprise flexibility agreements where workers traded off many hard-won conditions and jobs to fund wage rises. In many instances employers made a profit out of the trade-offs with savings far outweighing the cost of the wage rises. It was the Hawke and Keating Governments that abandoned any concept of workers and trade unions struggling for their rights and conditions and proposed that workers could make progress by sitting around the table with their allegedly "reasonable" employers. This led, in fact, to the loss of many conditions and rights and the beginning of a catastrophic decline in trade union membership.

Beazley seems to stand by these agreements which focus on productivity bargaining and "balanced" relations between employers and employees.

He calls for a wage system "which considers the impact of such adjustments on fairness, unemployment, inflation, productivity and living standards".

Labor will reinstate a system that does not give employers "any incentives to reduce wages or take away entitlements". Just how this will be done is not explained. Never before in the history of capitalism has any government dissuaded employers from wanting to take away conditions and entitlements or reduce wages.

Kim Beazley savagely attacked Howard’s one-sided, pro-employer agenda but failed to give unqualified support to the working class. Employers and employees are treated in an even-handed fashion, a balancing act that does not reflect the realities of the class struggle that workers are confronted with on a daily basis.

Emphasis on employees, not trade unions

Labor proposes a system where the primary responsibility for resolving disputes rests with the parties to the dispute — the employer and the employees, or whoever they choose to represent them.

But 20 years ago Labor was much more definite and talked in terms of trade unions, workers and employers. Now, the use of the terms "workers" and "trade unions" has been replaced by references to "employees".

In 1986, the Labor platform stated: "Trade unions have a vital role to play in the Australian social fabric. Trade unions have been and remain an instrument of social change and progress in Australia …."

In Beazley’s speech and other recent Labor documents the term "workers" has vanished and trade unions are played down. Unions have a right to exist and employees have a right to join them but in collective bargaining "employees may have representation" by a union. Trade unions are not presented as having a "vital role".

There is nothing in his speech to suggest workers will be encouraged to join unions or should join them. The possibility of unions being involved is not ruled out but it is not primary in the position that Beazley has taken.

He remains silent on the rights of trade unions, and on the most important question of the right to strike, there is not a single word.

Awards

Kim Beazley is virtually silent on awards which previously legally guaranteed wages, working conditions, public holidays, sick leave, annual leave, safety rights and many other conditions. They were always much more than a "safety net". However, awards have been successively rolled back by both Labor and Liberal Governments (who also stripped them) and the objective is the complete destruction of awards and their replacement by individual contracts and very limited enterprise agreements.

Beazley talks of flexibility and says "If you want more flexibility, the system must allow employers and employees to enter into agreements covering whatever suits their own interests" — leaving open the possibility of restoring some of the now prohibited provisions.

"I will give employers and employees real flexibility to negotiate and agree on whatever terms and conditions they want in their agreements". What role in all this is there for trade unions? What means does he offer to force employers to accept them?

Individual work contracts

Beazley says workers will have the right "to reject individual contracts which cut pay and conditions …". This suggests they will not be abolished. In theory they have this right now. How will this promise be achieved in practice? His language is open to any interpretation regarding individual contracts. There is no clear commitment to re-establish a system of awards as the centre piece of a future industrial set-up.

In fact, his speech while promising a number of things that workers and trade unions would like to hear is perhaps most significant for what it does not say.

Industrial action

One of the most serious aspects of the current legislation is the virtual outlawing of all forms of industrial action and the creation of impossible hurdles before any industrial action will be regarded as legal.

Beazley does point to several provisions where employers or unions or union representatives can be fined $33,000 but he does not address the many other fines and the ability of employers and others to sue workers and their unions for unspecified damages that could amount to millions of dollars.

There are a host of other questions that remain unanswered:

Will the Office of Employment Advocate and the use of industrial police be abolished?

What will happen to the Australian Building and Construction Commission which is policing and hounding building workers and their union at present?

What will be done to assist unions reduce and halt the casualisation of the workforce?

What is Labor’s policy on reducing working hours?

What is to be done to guarantee minimum hours of work or a right to full-time work?

What is Labor’s position on the use of contractors;

Will it be possible to have collective agreements across enterprises and whole industries?

What rights of entry will there be for trade unions?

These are just some of the many important questions that are not raised or answered in Beazley’s speech.

He has indicated that in the coming months Labor will release a policy blueprint. Prior to the previous election the ALP did not release any documents that answered these questions or spell out in detail Labor’s policies.

It is important that a campaign be launched by the trade unions and the whole labour movement to develop policies that defend workers, which see trade unions as having a central, key role in the struggle for workers’ rights and conditions, which put the interests of workers first. Such policies should unequivocally protect the rights of trade unions and workers to take industrial action.

But time is short. The ACTU Congress to be held later this year provides an opportunity for the whole trade union movement to formulate policies while calling on the Labor Party to adopt them as its policies when in government. Failure to do so would only confirm that Kim Beazley’s fighting words are not fully backed by commitment when in government.

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