The Guardian 13 December, 2006
Confirmed:
WorkChoices cuts conditions
AWAs lodged under the Howard Government’s WorkChoices legislation have reduced award conditions more than had been previously understood, according to a new analysis of Office of Employment Advocate (OEA) data by Griffith University IR Professor David Peetz.
The Office of the Employment Advocate stopped publishing information on AWAs after telling a Senate Estimates hearing in May that its survey of 250 agreements lodged under WorkChoices in April showed all of them excluded "legally protected" award conditions. Sixty-three percent excluded penalty rates, 52% shift loadings, 51% overtime, 46% public holiday pay and 40% rest breaks.
The OEA later provided some supplementary information on the AWAs in an answer to a question on notice from the estimates hearing.
Peetz said his analysis of the answers revealed that the "excluded" categories in those statistics counted only those AWAs that totally abolished the conditions, but not those that "modified" or reduced conditions.
Peetz told the Women and WorkChoices Roundtable in Brisbane last week that the full proportion of WorkChoices AWAs in the sample that cut overtime was 82% — made up of the 51% that "excluded" (completely abolished) overtime plus 31% that "modified" overtime — leaving only 18% of AWAs that did not change overtime.
Similarly the proportion of the surveyed AWAs that changed public holiday pay increased to 73% — being the 46% excluded plus 27% modified, with 27% unchanged.
The figure for rest breaks increased to 69%, made up of the 40% excluded plus 29% modified, with 31% unchanged.
A comparison of the same results with similar OEA data from 2002-03 shows that Work Choices AWAs cut conditions more than in earlier AWAs, Mr Peetz said. The rate at which overtime was being abolished by AWAs has doubled under WorkChoices, from 25% in the 2002/03 survey to 51% in the latest sample, he said.
The absorption of penalty rates increased from 54% to 63% of the Work Choices agreements.
The loss of annual leave loading increased from 41% of AWAs in 2002/03 to 64% under WorkChoices.
The abolition of shift loadings increased from 18% to 54% under WorkChoices.
The proportion of AWAs abolishing allowances increased from 41% to 48%.
Peetz said researchers need more information on AWAs including gender, occupation and industry data to properly interpret their impact — for example on recent falls in wages growth in retail and hospitality revealed in the Labour Price Index.
The decrease may imply a significant loss of penalty rates in the sectors, "but without proper information from the OEA it is not possible to confirm this", Peetz said.