Petition for the rights we need to win

Please email us your support for this petition, with the details of your union affiliation, and download the petition (as pdf) and circulate it in your union or workplace.

PETITION FOR THE RIGHTS WE NEED TO WIN

WE THE UNDERSIGNED call on all the leaders, organisations, and activists in the labour movement to join us in a campaign for the essential workers' rights denied or left without mention in current ALP policy.

We will campaign especially for the following planks of the policy adopted by the ACTU congress of October 2006:

* A legal right to strike, and repeal of sections 45D and E (from 1977) of the Trade Practices Act, which ban “secondary” or solidarity action.
* Pattern bargaining (or multi-employer collective bargaining) should be legal for all industries. Strike action in pursuit of pattern or industry-wide bargaining must therefore also be legal.
* Union representation in bargaining as a right for every individual worker, regardless of whether his or her fellow-workers are too scared to claim that right.
* Legal rights of access to workplaces, to workers, and to documents for union * Employers should be legally obliged to take part in collective bargaining, and can escape collective bargaining only when the union can find no index – no petition, no mass meeting, nothing – that the majority of workers want collective bargaining.
* Unfair dismissal laws that apply to all workers equally.

We will also campaign for the full and rapid implementation by an ALP government of planks included in the policy of the April 2007 conference such as the abolition of AWAs and of the ABCC.

Read more!

April 2007 ALP policy compared with the ACTU's demands

The general heading "IR policy" covers two distinct areas.

One, protection for workers' conditions which they can claim or enforce by resort to public enforcement agencies or tribunals. Two, rights (embodied in law) for workers to organise, to be represented, and to take industrial action so that they can themselves claim or enforce better conditions at work.
Both are desirable. Even where a trade-union movement is extremely strong, some workers at the fringes of the economy will be unorganised, and it is advantageous to have laws which extend to them the conditions won by stronger groups of workers. Socialists were debating this as far back as the mid-19th century, arguing (including against some trade unionists, who thought it better to rely exclusively on enforcement by industrial militancy) that it was vital to demand that working hours be limited by law and not just by different workplace agreements.
But protection for workers' conditions via courts and tribunals is no substitute for the right of workers to organise to make and enforce our own claims. In Franco's fascist Spain the laws made it quite difficult for employers to declare redundancies; but independent unions had to organise underground.
The Liberal/ National government's Work Choices and BCII legislation has attacked both publicly-enforced workers' protections, and workers' rights to organise. In response the ACTU, in October 2006, adopted a wide-ranging set of demands for both protections and rights to organise.
In April 2007, Labor leader Kevin Rudd presented an industrial relations policy to Labor conference, and the union representatives there unanimously voted for it as an acceptable advance towards the ACTU's demands.
Rudd's policy falls very far short of allowing workers an effective right to organise and to take industrial action. In the other realm, of legal protections for workers' conditions guaranteed "from above", by the state, it is deficient, but much less so. Maybe that is why many leaders think it to be, in Paul Keating's words, "as good as it gets". But the whole experience of the working class under capitalism, and the whole nature of capitalism, tells us that protections "from above" are not sufficient without the right to organise "from below", and indeed require vigilant and lively organisation "from below" even to be enforced.

THE RIGHT TO STRIKE

ACTU policy asserts the right to strike. It insists that "legally protected industrial action should be available... without the need for a secret ballot", though of course "unions should not take action unless it has been democratically endorsed". It calls for the repeal of sections 45D and E of the Trades Practices Act, which ban "secondary" boycotts.
Rudd would restrict the right to strike probably more than it has ever been restricted in a universal-suffrage democracy. Industrial would be legal only during the bargaining period of an enterprise agreement; only for demands related to the agreement; only after an externally-conducted secret ballot; and never if it was "in support of an industry-wide agreement".
It would be illegal to respond with industrial action to bosses' attacks during the term of an agreement. It would be illegal to conduct solidarity or political strikes. It would even be illegal for better-placed workers in an industry to take action to improve conditions across the whole industry, including the more weakly-placed workers within that industry.
Even if industrial action is legal in Rudd's very restrictive terms, it can be made illegal. "Fair Work Australia will have the power to end the industrial action", even before it starts, if it "is causing or may cause" - notice, may cause - "significant harm to the wider economy".
It would be unlawful to compel employers to pay workers for days on strike. It would be quite lawful, however, to lock out workers taking industrial action, even, presumably, if it is only a work to rule or an overtime ban.
Under Rudd's proposals, enterprise agreements can run for four years (the ACTU proposes a maximum of three years). Thus, workers would be deprived of any legal right to resist or protest against what the boss does for as long as four years at a time.

THE RIGHT TO ORGANISE

The ACTU policy includes a substantial section on the right to organise. Learning from experience in the USA, it stipulates "a fast-track mechanism" for redress against victimisation of union activists, with "interim orders" to restore them to their jobs pending hearings. It calls for prohibitions on employers to offer inducements to deter workers from joining a union.
It requires rights of access to workers and to work sites for union delegates and union organisers. It requires bosses to give union delegates time and facilities to carry out their jobs, and to give them information.
None of that is in Rudd's text. There is only a sentence which reads: "It will be unlawful for anyone to try to stop a working person exercising this free choice by threats, pressure, discrimination, or victimisation".
And, in the context, Rudd may intend that sentence as the basis for legislation against picketing, or against unions expelling scabs, the "free choice" being "whether or not to join... a union, or participate in collective activities".
ACTU: "Employers should have a statutory duty to recognise and deal with a union representative acting on behalf of a member... Union members should have a general right to representation in discussions with their employer [on the whole range of issues]... The right of union members to representation should not be conditional upon the level of union membership at the workplace".
Drawing on US experience again, the ACTU correctly insists that union representation is a right for each individual worker, even if all his or her workmates are too scared to join the union; and, in order to break those other workers' fear, the union must have the right to be recognised by the employer - and not just at enterprise agreement bargaining time - and show its ability to defend workers as soon as it has the smallest foothold in the workplace.
Rudd: where there is collective bargaining on an enterprise agreement, "employees who are union members will be able to be represented by a union that is eligible to represent them". That's all.

COLLECTIVE BARGAINING

The ACTU proposes "a general obligation on all parties to bargain in good faith". The legislation "should expressly require the Commission to make good faith bargaining orders where a majority of employees support the collective bargaining process". The making of such orders should be "mandatory" - basically, compulsory for the Commission if the union can show any reasonable evidence (petition, mass meetings, whatever) of majority support in the workplace for bargaining. In all cases, the "party which is opposed to the collective bargaining process... should bear the onus of demonstrating why the Commission should not make an... order" to require good-faith bargaining.
Rudd's formula where bosses refuse collective bargaining? Fair Work Australia may (or may not) choose to determine the level of support for collective bargaining among the employees. It can decide how it does that. If FWA decides that there is majority support, then the "employer will be required bargain collectively..." The onus would be on those who support collective bargaining to prove their case, and even if they could, it would not be obligatory for the FWA to heed them.
Rudd's formula greatly weakens the pressure on bosses to bargain.
The ACTU stipulates "the ability for parties to engage freely in 'pattern bargaining', that is, to pursue common claims and outcomes in two or more single business agreements". It says that multi-employer bargaining should be allowed, and in some conditions (rather vaguely described) the Commission may compel employers to do multi-employer bargaining. Rudd says only that "Fair Work Australia may facilitate [?] multi-employer collective bargaining for low-paid employeees..." It may or it may not, and the employers may not choose to be "facilitated". Bottom line, for Rudd: no "industrial action in support of an industry-wide agreement" will be legal.
The ACTU policy specifically rules out "greenfield agreements" signed by unions with employers for a new workplace before there are any workers on site. Rudd's text specifically rules them in.

LEGISLATED MINIMUM STANDARDS FOR ALL WORKERS

* "A right to information and consultation in the workplace"
The ACTU stipulates this right, and spells out detailed requirements for bosses to give workers and unions information on company strategy and planning and the company's financial position; and to provide for at least two meetings to consult on these, in paid working time. Rudd's "minimum standards" include an item on "Information in the Workplace", but it requires bosses only to give new starters a standard leaflet about their rights and entitlements.
* "A statutory guarantee that workers' entitlements will be paid in the event of company failure"
The ACTU calls for this. Rudd offers nothing.
* Working week
Both ACTU and Rudd call for a 38 hour week. At first glance Rudd's formula even looks stronger: "Under Labor, the standard working week for a full-time employee will be 38 hours". The ACTU: "An average of 38 hours in ordinary time each week" (which leaves the option of, for example, some weeks being 76 hours and some zero hours, so long as they average out at the end of the year). However, any strength of Rudd's formula is immediately removed by the next clause: "Employees may be required to work additional hours". So, your working week is 38 hours, but... it could be more. Rudd adds that we "cannot be required to work unreasonable additional hours", but without definition of what might be "unreasonable" and who decides.
* Annual leave
Both ACTU and Rudd stipulate four weeks. The ACTU stipulates a fifth week for regular shift workers. Rudd, no. Both stipulate public holidays, with slight variations in detail.
* Parental/carers' leave
Both ACTU and Rudd stipulate 24 months parental leave. Rudd goes into more detail: the 24 months' unpaid leave can be shared between two parents. (Single parents only get 12 months). ACTU stipulates "right for parents of pre-school children to part-time work". Rudd leaves a large get-out clause for employers: "the right for parents to request flexible work arrangements until their child reaches school age. Employers will only be able to refuse... on reasonable business grounds". Both ACTU and Rudd stipulate ten days' paid personal/ carers' leave per year.
* Redundancy notice and pay
Both ACTU and Rudd stipulate this. Rudd lists more details, but would disqualify anyone in a workplace of fewer than 15 employees from any redundancy pay at all.
Rudd lists paid jury service leave as one of his ten "minimum standards", while ACTU refers to it as something established through "other legislation". Rudd also proposes a process of establishing a uniform national system of long service leave entitlements.

AWARDS

The ACTU calls for "no limits on the matters to be contained in awards". Rudd would limit awards to only ten (named) further items.

TRANSFER OF UNDERTAKINGS

ACTU wants a law to require bosses taking over a going business to respect the awards and agreements already in place there. Nothing from Rudd on this.

INDEPENDENT CONTRACTORS/ LABOUR HIRE

The ACTU calls for the repeal of the Independent Contractors Act 2006, and for legislation to guarantee workers employed as "independent contractors" the same rights and conditions as regular employees. It advocates that the Commission should have powers to deem some workers, employed as "sham" independent contractors, in fact to have employee status. It also states that an enterprise agreement or award "should apply to all workers performing the same work at [an] enterprise, including labour hire employees".
Rudd's text gives no commitments at all on these issues.

UNFAIR DISMISSAL

ACTU calls for all workers to have redress for unfair dismissal. Rudd would limit it to workers employed for six months or more, or twelve months or more if the employer has fewer than 15 employees. Rudd also says that reinstatement can be refused if it "is not in the interests of the employer's business". He also says, ominously, that "Labor will ensure that errors of a procedural... nature do not automatically result in the finding that a dismissal is unfair". Labor will write a Fair Dismissal Code, and if a small employer has complied with the Code (presumably, given warnings and so on), then the dismissal will be a fair dismissal. So, if the boss has gone through the formal procedures, the dismissal is fair, come what may; and even if he hasn't, his "errors of a procedural nature" won't necessarily matter.

STATE INDUSTRIAL RELATIONS SYSTEMS

The Rudd policy would abolish state industrial relations systems except for State government and local government employees - direct employees, that is, not workers providing State or local government services on a contracted-out basis.
The ACTU policy supports "provisions... enabling parties to opt to be bound by State industrial relations laws rather than the national legislation". There is no socialist principle, of course, for preferring State industrial relations systems to a federal system. But some unions find the possibility of switching to and fro between federal and State jurisdictions to be a considerable tactical advantage. They would lose that advantage.

ABCC

ACTU calls for the abolition of the ABCC and the straightforward repeal of the Building and Construction Industry Improvement Act.
Rudd's text appears to go along with these ideas. "Labor does not believe in separate industrial rules and regulations for different industries". But it also suggests an ABCC-lite: "Fair Work Australia's inspectorate will have specialist divisions that can focus on persistent or pervasive unlawful behaviour in particular industries or sectors. The first divisions established will be for the building industry and hospitality industry".
Since the ALP conference, Rudd has stated that he will continue the ABCC - a police-state institution - until 2010!

AIRC AND FAIR WORK AUSTRALIA

ACTU calls for the restoration of the Australian Industrial Relations Commisssion to its former scope, and the abolition of the OEA, the Fair Pay Commission, and the ABCC.
Rudd's text suggests the abolition of those new bodies set up by recent governments, which take away some of the AIRC's former scope, but proposes to replace the AIRC outright with a new body called Fair Work Australia.
The exact powers of Fair Work Australia - other than disbarring industrial action, as noted above! - are not clear. But it is indicated that it will not have powers to arbitrate in industrial disputes unless the bosses wish it to. "Where agreement cannot be reached, bargaining participants... can jointly request Fair Work Australia help them reach agreeement, or jointly request Fair Work Australia determine particular matters". In other words, Fair Work Australia cannot conciliate or arbitrate unless the employer joins the union in a request to FWA to do so.
The ACTU, by contrast, reckons that the Commission should have powers of "last resort arbitration", which can be invoked without the boss's agreement.

Martin Thomas

Read more!

The rights we need to win

The ACTU congress in Melbourne on 25-26 October 2006 adopted a strong policy for workers' rights as its alternative to John Howard's "Work Choices" and Building and Construction Industry Improvement Act.
The ACTU policy includes:
➀ Union recognition as a right for every individual worker, regardless of whether his or her fellow-workers are too scared to claim that right.
➁ Rapid procedures to allow workers unfairly sacked, especially for union activities, to win reinstatement.
➂ Legal rights of access to workplaces, to workers, and to documents for union delegates and union officials.
➃ A legal right to strike, and repeal of sections 45 D and E (from 1977) of the Trades Practices Act, which ban "secondary" or solidarity action.
➄ The straightforward "repeal of the... Building and Construction Industry Improvement Act 2005 [which] renders almost all forms of industrial action in the building industry unlawful".
➅ Employers should be legally obliged to take part in collective bargaining, and can escape collective bargaining only when the union can find no index - no petition, no mass meeting, no petition, nothing - that the majority of workers want collective bargaining.
➆ A strong "safety net" through minimum wages and conditions, and through awards. No limit on the matters to be contained in awards.
➇ Pattern bargaining - banned by Work Choices - should be legal, and indeed in some cases may be mandated by the Industrial Relations Commission.
Check out the details at http://www.actu.asn.au/downloads/files/policy.pdf.

This policy should be discussed fully, and in detail, throughout the labour movement and among those committed to civil rights. Otherwise we will not know what we are aiming for when we protest at Howard's laws. We could end up winning and yet losing. We could eventually get Howard's laws repealed, but replaced by laws which still cripple effective trade-union action.
Provision to make employers take part in collective bargaining if 50%-plus-one of workers want it is not enough. Nor is a simple reversion to the old system, before Howard, where compulsory conciliation and arbitration was the legal norm and bedrock.
The first three provisos above - union representation as a right for every worker; prompt redress for unfair dismissal; a right of access for union organisers, and protection against victimisation for union delegates - are all vital for unions to be able to organise under hostile managements. Without them, it can be almost impossible to get past first base.
In formal terms, George W Bush's USA has laws which mandate collective bargaining and require union recognition when a proven majority of the workforce want it.
But a union has to get enough proven support to gain a ballot, keep its support together during a probably long wait for the ballot, and win the ballot in order to get recognition. Even if it jumps all those hurdles, the laws requiring employers to do collective bargaining in good faith are so toothless that bosses can and do regularly flout them with impunity.

In practice, so an ACTU investigation reports: "In the US... unions achieve certification in as few as 45 to 50 per cent of cases where a ballot is held. Further, in a third of cases where the union is recognised, a collective agreement is never made... This is despite the fact that unions do not initiate a vote until 60-70 per cent of employees have signed an authorisation card indicating their support for the union to represent them in collective bargaining..."
Unions often lose the ballots when they already have 60% or 70% support signed up. Why? Because the employer is free to victimise unionists, bludgeon workers with threats and disinformation campaigns, and recruit new workers less likely to vote for the union.
The British law of 1999, also based on "collective bargaining if 50%-plus-one want it", is a bit different. Union-busting is lower-key there. But the results are not good.
The average density of union representation, and the percentage of workplaces having union representation, have declined, despite a relatively large increase in recent years in public service jobs which already have higher rates of union representation than the private sector.

In France, the right to strike is a constitutional right of each individual worker. We need something approximating that in Australia. No-one takes strike action lightly. But union organisation can never be effective without the fallback right to mobilise the collective strength of the workforce against the power of the employer, which will always be greater than the power of any individual, unorganised worker.
The right to take solidarity action is vital if the stronger sections of the labour movement are to be able to help protect the weaker and more vulnerable.

Read more!

Defeat this police-state law for construction workers!

The Howard government's Building and Construction Industry Improvement (BCII) Act, legislated in late 2005 but made retrospective to March 2005, bans almost all industrial action in the construction industry.
All the fierce restrictions of the Work Choices legislation also apply to construction workers. But they also face further, more drastic, policing, under special laws which apply only to building and construction.
Under the Act, all industrial action, even a brief stop-work meeting, is "guilty until proven innocent". It is unlawful unless it is one of three exceptions:
* Protected action for a new enterprise agreement; or
* Action for health and safety where each individual worker taking action can prove that his or her individual safety was at risk, and that the employer had not offered him or her safe alternative work (it is down to the worker to prove the work unsafe, not to the employer to prove it safe); or (don't laugh!)
* Action authorised in advance and in writing by the employer.
Individual workers taking industrial action face fines of up to $22,000. Unions face fines of up to $110,000.
Action which is "protected" under state industrial relations legislation is "unlawful" under the BCII Act unless it is also protected under Work Choices. Action over an enterprise agreement before the expiry of the agreement is "unlawful", even if it is over an issue not covered in the agreement. It is "unlawful" even to demand payment of strike days, or removal of rogue subcontractors, or rejection of AWAs, let alone to take action on those issues.
The BCII Act sets up a special police force for the industry - the ABCC, mostly staffed by former police officers. The ABCC “investigates” and prosecutes breaches of the BCII Act and the Workplace Relations Act. In dealing with workers "accused" of industrial action, it has powers greater than the regular police have, even when they are dealing with charges of murder or rape.
Workers or union officials hauled before the ABCC have no right to silence - no right to refuse to answer questions, even where it might incriminate them, and even where it is against the public interest for them to speak. Unions must notify the ABCC of everyday activities, such as going on site or serving notices on employers. Employers must notify the ABCC of union activities. Failure to do what the ABCC instructs brings fines or a six-month jail sentence.
The ABCC can instruct workers not to tell anyone other than their lawyer what has been said in an ABCC interview. And the ABCC can refuse workers the right to have the lawyer of their choice at an ABCC interview. According to a Federal Court ruling in October 2006, the ABCC can exclude a lawyer from an interview on the grounds that he or she is acting for another worker in the same case, and so knows about the other evidence. In ordinary criminal proceedings, it is commonplace for lawyers to act for several people accused in the same case. The same decision found that the ABCC could require an undertaking not to disclose what had been said at interview.
The ABCC has been known to carry out covert surveillance, such as tape-recording interviewees without their knowledge or consent.
Already 107 construction workers on the Perth to Mandura rail project face fines of up to $28,600 under this legislation - $22,000 for taking industrial action over the sacking of their health and safety rep, and $6,600 for not complying with ABCC instructions. Their union could face further penalties.
Check out the latest on http://www.cfmeuwa.com/cfmeuwa/supportthe107.
Most construction employers, and especially the small subcontractors who account for most of the employment in the industry, will not want to go for drastic and lengthy court cases over short stoppages, let alone over stop-work meetings. Knowing that, the Howard government has taken the matter out of the hands of the individual employer. The ABCC can investigate and prosecute whether the employer likes it or not.
The BCII Act has no parallel in other industries in Australia, not even under John Howard's Work Choices legislation. It has no parallel in any industry in any more-or-less democratic country. The only possible near-parallel is where governments have made illegal all strikes by workers in what they judge to be "essential services" (Germany, Italy, Greece, Argentina, South Africa, South Korea, and Spain, in different ways), and legislated for binding arbitration instead.
There is certainly no parallel to the ABCC elsewhere. The Howard government has launched this special attack on the construction industry for one reason, and one reason alone: that in recent years construction workers have been the most confident and combative workers in Australia. Construction workers are the group most likely to take the bold solidarity action which could defeat the Howard government's legislation across the board. The Howard government has imposed the ABCC handcuffs on construction workers primarily to stop them taking action to help the other, more vulnerable groups of workers who will be the first to be hit by AWAs and the loss of basic conditions.
The legislation will also be used to worsen conditions and wages in the construction industry itself. In November 2006 the Howard government more-or-less banned common-law agreements containing such items as prompt dispute settlement procedures involving union delegates, rights for paid leave to attend union-provided health and safety training, or internal review of dismissal decisions. It changed the Building Industry Code to deny companies with such arrangements access to federal government funded construction work.
This legislation is not easy to defeat or to circumvent. Already it has led to a drastic drop in the level of strike action in the construction industry. But it can be defeated. Strikers can be penalised, but penalising mass "community pickets" will be much harder. The ABCC can make the courts fine, or even jail, 107 workers. If 1,070,000, or even 107,000, workers defied it, all standing in solidarity, the ABCC would not be able to jail or fine them all.
To move towards that sort of mass action, we can start today with a strong and energetic political campaign, exposing the legislation, supporting those penalised by it, and demanding that the Australian Labor Party commit itself to the full repeal of the Howard government legislation and its replacement by laws including an effective right to strike for all workers, a right to union representation for every individual worker, and an effective right of access to workplaces for union organisers.

Read more!

Some myths surrounding WorkChoices

A fact sheet

Productivity
The claim: Individual contracts lead to higher productivity, so WC strengthens the economy.
The facts:
Labour productivity growth fell in New Zealand after the law changed in 1991 to promote individual contracts and abolish awards and tribunals.
Labour productivity growth under the Workplace Relations Act slowed to 2.2% in the most recent growth cycle, below the rate of 2.6%achieved under the traditional award system of the 1960s & 1970s.
Studies show that union collective bargaining leads to productivity at least as high as non-union individual contracting, sometimes higher.
Claims about productivity often refer to 'workplace agreements', treating individual contracts and collective bargaining as if they are the same thing, when in reality they are opposites.i
Wages and conditions - AWAs
The claim: Workers on AWAs earn 13% more than workers on certified agreements, and 100% more than workers on award rates.
The facts:
Those (weekly earnings) figures are distorted because they lump part-time and full-time workers together, and include high paid senior managers on AWAs
The same figures show the weekly earnings of people on AWAs falling by 11% between 2002 & 2004.
Hourly earnings of non-managerial employees give a much clearer indication of the impact of AWAs on ordinary workers. They show workers on AWAs earn 2% less than those on registered collective agreements. Women are 11% worse off under AWAs, casuals are 15% worse off and permanent-part-time workers are 25% worse off under AWAs than under registered collective agreements.ii
The only data since WC show that all AWAs excluded at least one ‘protected’ award condition; 16% excluded all ‘protected’ award conditions; 64% excluded leave loading; 63% excluded penalty rates; 52% excluded shiftwork loading; 31% modified overtime pay; 29% modified rest breaks; 27% modified public holiday payments.iii
Wages – average hourly earnings
The claim: Average earnings are growing by 4.1%, showing the success of WC
The facts:
With inflation at 4.0%, the 4.1% growth in the labour cost index is almost a real wage freeze iv
Out of 8 million employees, only 0.2% had signed non-union agreements or AWAs under WC by the time of the average earnings survey.v Most of the wage increase was due to arrangements that pre-dated WC, including union-negotiated collective agreements.
While skill shortages have led to real wages growth (according to the labour cost index) in some industries (mining, utilities, construction), half of workers are in industries where real hourly wages fell over the past 12 months (eg hospitality, retail, communications, cultural services, manufacturing) vi
Average weekly ordinary time earnings of full-time adult workers rose by only 3.5% in the year to May 2006, representing a fall in real wages. Average weekly total full-time earnings rose by only 2.8%.vii
Since WC, union collective agreements have delivered wages growth of 4.4%, but non-union agreements promoted by WC have only delivered 3.6% (a real wage fall).viii Some 22% of AWAs provide for no wage increase at all during the life of the agreement, which can last up to five years.ix
Employment
The claim: WC has led to over 100,000 new jobs, by abolishing job-destroying unfair dismissal laws.
The facts:
Employment growth from April-August 2006, of 1.69%, is barely higher than employment growth of 1.52% from April-August 1994, when the unfair dismissal laws were introduced.x

Last updated 29 September 2006. Irfactsheet@yahoo.com.au

SOURCES:
1.David Peetz, Brave New Workplace: How Individual Contracts are Changing Our Jobs, Allen & Unwin, Sydney, 2006, pp62-74; David Peetz, ‘Hollow shells: The alleged link between individual contracting and productivity’, Journal of Australian Political Economy, 56, December 2005, pp32-55.
2.ABS Cat. No. 6306.0, May 2004; Peetz, Brave New Workplace, pp98-102.
3.evidence by P McIlwain, Employment Advocate, to Senate Estimates Committee, Hansard, Employment Workplace Relations and Education Committee, 29 April 2006, pp98-99.
4.ABS Cat Nos 6345.0, June quarter 2006; 6401.0, June 2006.
5.Office of the Employment Advocate, Workplace agreements quarterly fact sheet, April-June 2006.
6.ABS Cat Nos 6345.0, June quarter 2006; 6401.0, June 2006; 6310.0, August 2005.
7.ABS Cat No 6302.0, May 2006.
8.Department of Employment and Workplace Relations, Wage Trends in Enterprise Bargaining, June quarter 2006.
9.evidence by P McIlwain, Employment Advocate, to Senate Estimates Committee, Hansard, Employment Workplace Relations and Education Committee, 29 April 2006, p100.
10.ABS Cat No 6203.0, August 2006.

Read more!

WCRC inaugural public meeting, 14 September 2006

On September 14 at the Irish Club, a hugely sucessful meeting was held by the recently formed Workers’ and Civil Rights Coalition (WCRC).

The meeting was held under the banner of ‘Win Back Your Rights’. This has been in response to the enormous onslaught against trade union, civil and political rights by the Howard government. In particular the meeting was focused on building trade union and community opposition to the reactionary Work Choices legislation, which leaves Australian workers with less rights than all other workers in the developed Western world.

The meeting was chaired by Melissa White, elected Secretary of the WCRC and an Industrial Officer with Queensland Public Service Union. Ms White explained the broad make-up of the WCRC and that the WCRC would be in the forefront of standing by all workers and trade unions in their opposition to Work Choices. Ms White congratulated the Electrical Trades Union on their national decision not to pay fines enacted upon the union and its officials by the Federal Government’s anti-union legislation. Ms White then introduced Professor David Peetz, the first of the meeting’s three main speakers.

Prof Peetz in his contribution tore apart the federal government’s ideological position that Work Choices improved productivity by making employment relations an individual affair. Through the use of the government’s own statistics, Prof Peetz proved that union collective agreements not only deliver far better outcomes for workers, but they actually produce more productive outcomes than the much touted Australian Workplace Agreements (AWA). Prof Peetz’s devastating critique along with an entertaining presentation and wry sense of humour was exceptionally well received by the audience.

The second speaker was the newly elected National Secretary of the Construction and General Division of the CFMEU, the dominant union in construction in Australia. Dave Noonan spoke about the human cost of Work Choices and the fact that the union is also dealing with a shadowy new tribunal, the ABCC, who compel workers and union officials to speak in their interrogations.

The third speaker was Julian Burnside QC. Julian gave a broad overview of the erosion of rights in Australia in the last dozen years, ranging from madatory detention in refugee policy, the never-ending imprisonment of David Hicks in Guatanamo Bay, the deportation of the American activist, Scott Parkin, by the Attorney-General without the advancing of any allegations against him, the erosion of industrial and legal rights with the amendments to the Workplace Relations Act, and urged everyone to get behind their unions.

The WCRC hopes to hold similar events in the future.

Read more!

WCRC: history and objectives

GENESIS OF THE WORKERS’ AND CIVIL RIGHTS COALITION 2006


HISTORY – WORKERS’ RIGHTS COALITION 1995

The Workers’ Rights Coalition was formed in 1995 as a direct result of the Goss state government’s attempt to strip working people in Queensland of their common law rights to seek redress from negligent employers for injuries sustained at work.

A large coalition of community groups, including trade unions, community groups, medical and legal groups and churches united in a concerted fashion and the Workers’ Rights Coalition played a significant role in retaining common law access for injured workers.

In 1996, the Borbidge state government attempted once again to deny injured workers their fundamental rights. The Workers’ Rights Coalition fought repeated attempts by the Industrial Relations Minister at the time, Santo Santoro, to gut workers’ compensation in Queensland and was instrumental in defeating the key “impairment threshold” recommendation of the Kennedy Commission that would have denied common law rights to most injured workers.

To this end, the Workers’ Rights Coalition produced and distributed over one million leaflets, ran television and radio advertisements and played an important part in the political activity of marginal seats. The Workers’ Rights Coalition lobbied state Labor parliamentarians and independents in obtaining guarantees that, upon their election, they would ensure injured workers’ rights would be recognised. Thus, the Workers’ Rights Coalition played a not insignificant role in the defeat of the Borbidge state government.

THE PRESENT – WORKERS’ AND CIVIL RIGHTS COALITION

In 2006, we are reforming the Workers’ Rights Coalition under the new name of the “Workers’ and Civil Rights Coalition” for two principal reasons.

To fight for the repeal of the ‘WorkChoices’ legislation: specifically, to fight against the unprecedented attack on the industrial conditions of our working lives that form part of the current federal Government’s dual agenda to (a) create a low wage, low condition economy and to (b) undermine the collectivity and solidarity that has characterised the Australian workforce.

To fight against the derisive regard in which the civil rights of the working people in Australia are held by the current federal Government, by certain state institutions and by corporations generally.

OBJECTIVES

Our aims and objectives include:

(1) To highlight the erosion of industrial and civil rights in every available forum that the Workers’ and Civil Rights Coalition is able to seek out;

(2) To develop a broad-based and ongoing community campaign involving unions, professional bodies, community groups, academics and like-minded individuals: specifically, to unite with those people who share the view that ‘WorkChoices’ needs to be overturned and who wish to campaign, contrary to the intentions behind ‘WorkChoices’, for (a) improvements in wages and conditions to the level of the best enterprise conditions and for a living wage for the low paid and for non-workers; and to (b) promote and rebuild the collectivity and solidarity that have characterised the Australian workforce at other times;

(3) To develop an educative campaign for the public via the hosting of public meetings, seminars, rallies undertaken in conjunction with other groups and the production of leaflets and booklets as required;

(4) To build union and community support for workers who picket their places of employment when such workers are threatened or affected by industrial fines or law suits, the introduction of individual contracts into their workplaces, lockouts, the closure of their workplaces, or gaol for refusing to submit to the inquisitorial powers of government agencies. Specifically, we believe that a general trade union commitment to defy industrial fines would be a powerful stand and a way to prepare for direct action when the occasion arises. For that reason, we encourage people not to pay industrial fines. We collectively commit to stand by any trade unionist or trade union faced, as a result of prosecution under the new industrial relations legislation, with seizure of assets or wages or with jail. We will support trade unionists refusing to pay fines arising from this unjust legislation.

(5) To develop a campaign that firmly stands on the side of injured workers and their families to (a) ensure the accessibility of WorkCover benefits without loss of income; (b) ensure that all injured workers and members of the community have full access to common law rights when an enterprise is negligent; and prevent the imposition of a Commonwealth compensation system on Queensland employees

We explain this point further: Working people and their families also suffer catastrophic injuries and illnesses well away from the workplace in going about their normal lives. Insurance companies scored a stunning victory over consumers with a massive campaign in 2002 that resulted in huge premium hikes to the community group sector. Both state and federal governments caved in to every demand from insurers and their corporate allies. The result is that (a) insurance company profits have soared by billions every year since the ‘reforms’; (b) many worker and most consumer injury compensation claims have been eliminated; (c) reckless policy holders are given wide exemptions from accountability; (d) workers’ and consumers’ rights have been permanently diminished; (e) insurers continue to prey on lawsuit fears and huge premium hikes remain unchecked; (f) victims injured through no fault of their own must in most cases meet their own expenses, suffer loss of income and are often thrown on the Centrelink scrapheap; and (g) taxpayers subsidise negligent and reckless behaviour through Medicare, through Centrelink payments and through public hospital treatment of innocent victims.

Read more!