Defeat the "second wave" legislation

At its meeting last weekend, the Central Committee Executive of the 
Communist Party of Australia issued a statement calling for the defeat of 
the Coalition Government's anti-worker, anti-trade union, "second wave" 
industrial legislation. The statement said:

The Howard Government's second wave of industrial legislation presented by 
Peter Reith, Minister for Employment, Workplace Relations and Small 
Business would, if ever made law, take another long step towards the 
Government's objective of smashing any effective trade union movement in 
Australia.

The legislation violates the many guarantees and rights contained in the UN 
Declaration of Human Rights and ILO Conventions to which Australian 
Governments are committed.

The many clauses of the proposed legislation would 

* further strip awards of present conditions and entitlements;

* give employers the right to impose secret individual work contracts on 
workers which would override collectively negotiated certified agreements;

* strip the Workplace Relations Commission (renamed industrial Relations 
Commission — WRC) of many of its present powers and obligations and start 
the process of privatising industrial processes by making it possible for 
private mediators to compete with the Commission;

* impose "user pays" type costs for voluntary conciliation of industrial 
disputes;

* make it illegal for more than 60 per cent of workers performing the same 
kind of work at a workplace to belong to the same union. In such instances 
the union would be required by law to divest themselves of union members;

* further restrict the present right of workers to take strike or any other 
form of "protected" industrial action during a period of negotiations for 
an agreement;

* impose compulsory secret ballots approved by the WRC before "protected" 
strike action could be taken;

* union officials would need a written invitation from a member of the 
union before having the right to enter a workplace;

* continue the employment of the "Employment Advocate" appointed by Peter 
Reith's own department whose office is already acting as an industrial 
gestapo and are attempting to frame union job delegates and workers.

These are only some of the proposals contained in Reith's anti-worker and 
anti-trade union legislation.

It is vitally important that this legislation be rejected by the whole 
trade union movement and by Federal Parliament. It can be defeated in the 
Senate where the Coalition Parties do not have a majority. It is vital that 
the non-government Senators be lobbied to ensure that the unacceptable and 
undemocratic legislation is rejected.