The Guardian 25 July, 2007
New report confirms
AWAs cut pay & exclude unions
A new report by Professors David Peetz of Griffith University and Alison Preston of Curtin University shows Howard Government’s AWAs are being used to cut pay and avoid unions. The report for the government, released last week shows that typical Australian workers on AWA individual contracts earn 16 percent less than their counterparts on collective agreements. The new study is yet further proof that the Howard Government’s AWAs are being used to drive down workers’ wages and conditions, to exclude trade unions and prevent them bargain collectively.
The study found a major pay gap between workers on AWA individual contracts and those on collective agreements. Australia-wide, people employed on AWA individual contracts were paid a median of $20.50 an hour — $4 an hour less than workers on median collective agreement earnings. That amounts to a loss of more than $150 per week for a full-time worker.
The AWA pay gap is worse for women than it is for men, with female median AWA earnings almost 19 per cent lower than that for women on collective agreements.
The study also cited a survey of AWAs registered under the WorkChoices IR laws last year that found most AWAs abolished or reduced so-called “protected" award conditions:
Around 90% of AWAs abolished or reduced penalty rates.
88% of AWAs abolished or “modified" overtime rates.
89% abolished or “modified" shift-work loadings.
82% abolished or “modified" public holiday pay.
83% abolished or “modified" rest breaks.
The study found that AWAs paid on average well below Collective Agreements in the manufacturing industry, construction, transport and storage, health and community services, property and business services and the "personal and other services" industries. It found that where the wages gap between AWAs and Collective Agreements was narrow, this was in pockets where AWA individual contracts were being used by employers to avoid negotiation with unions.
It also found the wages gap for workers on AWAs versus those on Collective Agreements is wider among small businesses than it is for larger businesses and that any “flexibility" benefits that exist from the use of AWAs are not enough to offset the reduction in workers’ wages.
For the government and its employer patrons this is confirmation that AWAs are achieving their goals. For workers, not that any new evidence was necessary, it confirms that the Howard Government must go and individual employment contracts must be abolished.