Construction company Thiess has sacked four workers who rejected a deal which would have forced them to take annual leave if machinery broke down and stripped them of rostered days off in exchange for a one per cent pay rise.
The company told the workers at they were being laid off because of a downturn of work, however, it has since emerged that workers from a nearby site are being trained to take over.
Under new work laws which come into effect on I July 2009, Thiess will be obligated to undertake good faith negotiations with workers and their chosen representatives. Until then Thiess is under no obligation to undertake good faith negotiations.
It is clear from their actions Theiss is trying to push through their substandard agreement before the new work laws take effect.
The CFMEU (Construction Union) strongly condemns Thiess’s attempts to bully workers into accepting a substandard agreement. The CFMEU is calling on Thiess to reinstate the workers who have been sacked and to enter into good faith negotiations with the workers and their representatives.
The union is also calling on the federal government to intervene to stop substandard agreements such as this one from going ahead before the changes to work laws.
What you can do to help:
Call Thiess general manager Doug Moss and politely ask for the Rhodes workers to be reinstated and for the company to enter good faith negotiations:
Phone: 02 9881 9700 Email: feedback@thiess.com.au
Call the federal member John Murphy and ask the government to intervene to stop substandard agreements:
Phone: 02 9745 4433 Email John.Murphy.MP@aph.gov.au
Thursday, 25 June 2009
ABCC: Laying bare Labor’s pro-employer position
Anna Pha
“This bill is a specifically targeted legislative measure to address the unlawful conduct of unions”, former Workplace Relations Minister Kevin Andrews told Parliament in his second reading speech on March 9, 2005. He was speaking in support of the Building and Construction Industry Improvement Bill 2005 (BCII Bill), the most draconian and repressive of the Howard government’s anti-union laws. The BCII Act established the notorious secretive building industry police force, the Australian Building and Construction Commission (ABCC), with its unprecedented coercive interrogatory powers and punitive provisions, including jail sentences for workers.
“I am … disappointed that there are still pockets of the industry where people think they are above the law, where people engage in intimidation and violence,” said the current Workplace Relations Minister Julia Gillard last week in her second reading speech on changes to the BCII Act. The Rudd Labor government is not repealing the BCII Act but amending it. Labor is not abolishing the ABCC but transferring it to its Fair Work Australia umbrella with a few modifications.
Gillard echoed the Coalition’s anti-union sentiments and targeting of unions, repeating earlier threats “to keep a strong cop on the beat for the benefit of the industry and the economy”. The benefit to industry is higher profits. It is not for the benefit of workers. No mention is made of the need to protect their health and safety or democratic rights.
Gillard’s speech laid bare her pro-employer outlook and the total contempt she holds for militant unions defending the lives, wages, working conditions and other entitlements of workers in one of the one of the most dangerous industries in Australia. The original BCII Act did nothing to address the 50 or more deaths and thousands of serious injuries on building sites every year. Nor does Gillard’s Transition to Fair Work Bill.
Coercive interrogatory powers
The ABCC was given unprecedented coercive powers to interrogate innocent workers and union officials. Failure to turn up for an interrogation session or refusal to inform on fellow workers and repeat what they said at a union meeting carries an obligatory six-month jail sentence. The interrogation might be a hundred or more kilometres from where the worker lives, but the worker must pay all costs, including for loss of work, to attend.
Under the BCII Act building workers and union officials face individual fines of $28,600 a day, unions $110,000 a day as well as millions of dollars of uncapped damages claims from employers for “unlawful” conduct. Even in the case of action to protect health and safety they face the threat of these penalties.
Basic, internationally recognised legal norms were overturned such as the right to remain silent and right to a lawyer of your own choosing. The onus of proof was turned on its head, the compulsory interrogations were secret and the warrants not issued by a court but by the ABCC itself. The Act denied innocent building workers and union officials who might know something the basic democratic rights that are afforded those accused of serious crimes or acts of terror.
Attack on building unions
“It is a bill with one objective: to erode the hard-won rights of building construction workers and, in some instances, to hand back exclusive unfettered power to a small number of ruthless employers who have no regard to the health and safety, and wages and conditions of their employees,” Labor MP and former ACTU president Martin Ferguson said during the debate on the bill in 2005.
“I suggest to the House that this government has never been about cleaning up the building industry. Its real goal has been, and always will be, to smash the union movement and hand power back to employers who have no regard for the welfare of building workers and their families,” he said pointing to the objectives of the bill.
At the time, Labor MPs opposed the concept of a separate industrial relations jurisdiction for a specific industry. Labor Senator Penny Wong, now a minister, said, “It is far better to have a sensible regulatory system across a number of industries.”
Transfer not abolition
The Rudd Labor government’s Transition to Fair Work Bill, if passed, will transfer the ABCC and most of the draconian provisions of the old Act to its new Fair Work Australia umbrella.
From February 1, 2010, the ABBC will become the Office of the Fair Work Building Industry Inspectorate and the ABCC Commissioner will be renamed as its Director. Compulsory interrogations are now called “examinations”! The process of compulsory interrogations has been modified to provide some “safeguards”:
The Director will have to apply to a presidential member of the Administrative Appeals Tribunal for an examination notice to be issued before interrogation can proceed.
Interrogations will be recorded and a copy of them and other investigatory materials will be sent to the Commonwealth Ombudsman who will review the activities of the Director following an investigation.
Building workers will now have the right to a lawyer of their own choice at interrogations and will not be bound to secrecy following the interrogation.
Building workers may apply to have their costs in attending an examination refunded.
Building workers will be subjected to the same (lower) fines as other workers for breaches of the Fair Work Act.
The court will have the option of fining as well as or instead of jailing a worker who fails to attend an interrogation or answer questions.
Senator Wong had proposed this as an amendment to the original Bill in 2005, saying “imprisonment has the potential to make a martyr of the person who deifies a warrant. It may be that in some cases a high financial penalty is more of a burden on an individual than simply a short term of imprisonment.” The Howard government knocked it back. The Rudd government is running with it now.
Worst features remain
These so-called safeguards leave intact the key provisions and intent of the Howard legislation:
The right to strike or take any other form of action remains unlawful and subject to fines and multi-million dollar damages actions. The right of entry remains severely restricted, inhibiting unions from carrying out their functions.
The amendments still target one group of workers and their unions for harsher treatment and denial of rights. The ABCC’s record confirms that it is not interested in nor intended to address the unlawful behaviour of employers.
The coercive interrogation process remains intact. Minister Gillard said last week, “It is understandable that workers in the building industry resent being subject to an interrogation process that does not apply to other workers, designed to extract from them information for use in penalty proceedings against their workmates and/or union.… I am satisfied there is still such a level of industrial unlawfulness in the building and construction industry, especially in Victoria and Western Australia, that it would be inadvisable not to empower the [Director of the Building Inspectorate] to undertake compulsory interrogation. The reality is that, without such a power, some types of contravention would be almost impossible to prove.”
The Minister stands condemned by her own words: “information for use in penalty proceedings against their workmates and/or union” and “without such a power, some types of contravention would be almost impossible to prove”. It needs to be repeated, the alleged “unlawful” conduct is legitimate trade union activity. The target remains the unions.
The amendments are even more divisive than the old Act, making provision for the “coercive interrogation powers” – to use the minister’s own words – to be “switched off” in relation to a specific project. They would be turned back on in the event of “industrial unlawfulness” – meaning industrial action by workers and their trade unions.
“These arrangements provide the industry with the opportunity to demonstrate that the requisite lawful culture is in place and the opportunity for the law-abiding majority to not be tarred with the same brush as the unlawful rogue elements,” Gillard said, echoing the very language used by the Liberal-National Coalition.
The process of gaining an examination notice is flawed. The Director does not have to justify the nature of the investigation, only that someone might be able to assist with information being sought. The Building Inspectorate will be able to continue its snooping and intimidatory activities.
Act now
Within Labor ranks there is strong opposition to the Rudd/Gillard legislation. A few MPs have had the courage to speak out against the bill. They must now be given the support and have the courage to vote it down. It is important that as many unions and their members and other organisations and individuals write to their MPs and Senators, calling on them to oppose the legislation.
Ask them which side they are on. Are they prepared to stand up and be counted? If they are, they will have the full support of the trade union movement and community at large.
Time is running out. The Labor government is attempting to rush through the legislation before the ALP national conference at the end of July.
Write also to the Australian Greens Senators, indicating your support for their principled stand against the legislation. This bill must be defeated.
“This bill is a specifically targeted legislative measure to address the unlawful conduct of unions”, former Workplace Relations Minister Kevin Andrews told Parliament in his second reading speech on March 9, 2005. He was speaking in support of the Building and Construction Industry Improvement Bill 2005 (BCII Bill), the most draconian and repressive of the Howard government’s anti-union laws. The BCII Act established the notorious secretive building industry police force, the Australian Building and Construction Commission (ABCC), with its unprecedented coercive interrogatory powers and punitive provisions, including jail sentences for workers.
“I am … disappointed that there are still pockets of the industry where people think they are above the law, where people engage in intimidation and violence,” said the current Workplace Relations Minister Julia Gillard last week in her second reading speech on changes to the BCII Act. The Rudd Labor government is not repealing the BCII Act but amending it. Labor is not abolishing the ABCC but transferring it to its Fair Work Australia umbrella with a few modifications.
Gillard echoed the Coalition’s anti-union sentiments and targeting of unions, repeating earlier threats “to keep a strong cop on the beat for the benefit of the industry and the economy”. The benefit to industry is higher profits. It is not for the benefit of workers. No mention is made of the need to protect their health and safety or democratic rights.
Gillard’s speech laid bare her pro-employer outlook and the total contempt she holds for militant unions defending the lives, wages, working conditions and other entitlements of workers in one of the one of the most dangerous industries in Australia. The original BCII Act did nothing to address the 50 or more deaths and thousands of serious injuries on building sites every year. Nor does Gillard’s Transition to Fair Work Bill.
Coercive interrogatory powers
The ABCC was given unprecedented coercive powers to interrogate innocent workers and union officials. Failure to turn up for an interrogation session or refusal to inform on fellow workers and repeat what they said at a union meeting carries an obligatory six-month jail sentence. The interrogation might be a hundred or more kilometres from where the worker lives, but the worker must pay all costs, including for loss of work, to attend.
Under the BCII Act building workers and union officials face individual fines of $28,600 a day, unions $110,000 a day as well as millions of dollars of uncapped damages claims from employers for “unlawful” conduct. Even in the case of action to protect health and safety they face the threat of these penalties.
Basic, internationally recognised legal norms were overturned such as the right to remain silent and right to a lawyer of your own choosing. The onus of proof was turned on its head, the compulsory interrogations were secret and the warrants not issued by a court but by the ABCC itself. The Act denied innocent building workers and union officials who might know something the basic democratic rights that are afforded those accused of serious crimes or acts of terror.
Attack on building unions
“It is a bill with one objective: to erode the hard-won rights of building construction workers and, in some instances, to hand back exclusive unfettered power to a small number of ruthless employers who have no regard to the health and safety, and wages and conditions of their employees,” Labor MP and former ACTU president Martin Ferguson said during the debate on the bill in 2005.
“I suggest to the House that this government has never been about cleaning up the building industry. Its real goal has been, and always will be, to smash the union movement and hand power back to employers who have no regard for the welfare of building workers and their families,” he said pointing to the objectives of the bill.
At the time, Labor MPs opposed the concept of a separate industrial relations jurisdiction for a specific industry. Labor Senator Penny Wong, now a minister, said, “It is far better to have a sensible regulatory system across a number of industries.”
Transfer not abolition
The Rudd Labor government’s Transition to Fair Work Bill, if passed, will transfer the ABCC and most of the draconian provisions of the old Act to its new Fair Work Australia umbrella.
From February 1, 2010, the ABBC will become the Office of the Fair Work Building Industry Inspectorate and the ABCC Commissioner will be renamed as its Director. Compulsory interrogations are now called “examinations”! The process of compulsory interrogations has been modified to provide some “safeguards”:
The Director will have to apply to a presidential member of the Administrative Appeals Tribunal for an examination notice to be issued before interrogation can proceed.
Interrogations will be recorded and a copy of them and other investigatory materials will be sent to the Commonwealth Ombudsman who will review the activities of the Director following an investigation.
Building workers will now have the right to a lawyer of their own choice at interrogations and will not be bound to secrecy following the interrogation.
Building workers may apply to have their costs in attending an examination refunded.
Building workers will be subjected to the same (lower) fines as other workers for breaches of the Fair Work Act.
The court will have the option of fining as well as or instead of jailing a worker who fails to attend an interrogation or answer questions.
Senator Wong had proposed this as an amendment to the original Bill in 2005, saying “imprisonment has the potential to make a martyr of the person who deifies a warrant. It may be that in some cases a high financial penalty is more of a burden on an individual than simply a short term of imprisonment.” The Howard government knocked it back. The Rudd government is running with it now.
Worst features remain
These so-called safeguards leave intact the key provisions and intent of the Howard legislation:
The right to strike or take any other form of action remains unlawful and subject to fines and multi-million dollar damages actions. The right of entry remains severely restricted, inhibiting unions from carrying out their functions.
The amendments still target one group of workers and their unions for harsher treatment and denial of rights. The ABCC’s record confirms that it is not interested in nor intended to address the unlawful behaviour of employers.
The coercive interrogation process remains intact. Minister Gillard said last week, “It is understandable that workers in the building industry resent being subject to an interrogation process that does not apply to other workers, designed to extract from them information for use in penalty proceedings against their workmates and/or union.… I am satisfied there is still such a level of industrial unlawfulness in the building and construction industry, especially in Victoria and Western Australia, that it would be inadvisable not to empower the [Director of the Building Inspectorate] to undertake compulsory interrogation. The reality is that, without such a power, some types of contravention would be almost impossible to prove.”
The Minister stands condemned by her own words: “information for use in penalty proceedings against their workmates and/or union” and “without such a power, some types of contravention would be almost impossible to prove”. It needs to be repeated, the alleged “unlawful” conduct is legitimate trade union activity. The target remains the unions.
The amendments are even more divisive than the old Act, making provision for the “coercive interrogation powers” – to use the minister’s own words – to be “switched off” in relation to a specific project. They would be turned back on in the event of “industrial unlawfulness” – meaning industrial action by workers and their trade unions.
“These arrangements provide the industry with the opportunity to demonstrate that the requisite lawful culture is in place and the opportunity for the law-abiding majority to not be tarred with the same brush as the unlawful rogue elements,” Gillard said, echoing the very language used by the Liberal-National Coalition.
The process of gaining an examination notice is flawed. The Director does not have to justify the nature of the investigation, only that someone might be able to assist with information being sought. The Building Inspectorate will be able to continue its snooping and intimidatory activities.
Act now
Within Labor ranks there is strong opposition to the Rudd/Gillard legislation. A few MPs have had the courage to speak out against the bill. They must now be given the support and have the courage to vote it down. It is important that as many unions and their members and other organisations and individuals write to their MPs and Senators, calling on them to oppose the legislation.
Ask them which side they are on. Are they prepared to stand up and be counted? If they are, they will have the full support of the trade union movement and community at large.
Time is running out. The Labor government is attempting to rush through the legislation before the ALP national conference at the end of July.
Write also to the Australian Greens Senators, indicating your support for their principled stand against the legislation. This bill must be defeated.
Tuesday, 16 June 2009
Industrial Relations for the Future
Warren Smith CPA CC Chair and Secretary of MUA Sydney Branch speaks at the launch of the party’s industrial relations booklet called “Industrial Relations for the future” on Friday June 12 at the CFMEU Hall Lidcombe. The other speakers from the Trade Union movement were Peter McClelland, State President CFMEU, Colin Drane AMWU organiser and convenor of the Power to the People – an anti-privatisation community/union group. Also in the picture is Tony Oldfield CPA Sydney District Secretary who organised and coordinated the whole event. The launch was a big success with a good attendance of people from many sectors.
Message on the ABCC is clear
Abolish the anti-union body NOW!
Anna Pha
The message is loud and clear. The witch hunt and jailing of innocent workers for failing to attend compulsory interrogation sessions when summonsed by the special building and construction industry police force, the Australian Building and Construction Commission (ABCC) is not on. Nor is the singling out of one group of workers and the denial of their basic legal and other democratic rights acceptable. The demand of the trade union movement to Deputy Prime Minister and Workplace Relations Minister Julia Gillard is “It’s not on Julia! Abolish the Australian Building and Construction Commission NOW”.
The trade union movement is organising a large march and protest demanding the abolition of the ABCC outside the ALP national conference in Sydney on July 31.
The government has responded by trotting out former trade union leaders – now MPs – to defend the retention of the ABCC in its new guise as a special division of the so-called Fair Work Australia legislation. It now plans to rush its laws through Parliament before the national ALP conference, where it faces being rolled by angry party members and trade union delegates. Its actions are contrary to ALP policy adopted at the 2007 national conference. Prime minister Kevin Rudd has made it clear that he has no intention of abiding by conference decisions.
Unanimous opposition
Delegates to the ACTU Congress in Brisbane on June 2-4 were unanimous in their call for the abolition of the ABCC. Their pleas fell on pro-employer ears. Gillard and Rudd remain as determined as ever to hold onto the Howard government’s most repressive anti-union measure which criminalises and imposes heavy penalties on basic trade union activity.
When Gillard took the platform at the ACTU Congress, almost every one of the 500 delegates wore the yellow campaign T-shirt calling for the abolition of the ABCC. They listened politely as she told them they should be “pounding the pavements” in support of the Fair Work Act and forget about getting anything more out of the Labor government. But when she tried to defend the retention of the ABCC’s powers and functions with references to violent, lawless thugs wearing balaclavas, patience ran out, and the booing began.
Her reception was in sharp contrast to that of construction worker Ark Tribe. He received three standing ovations. Ark is a rigger who was working on a site at Flinders University in South Australia in May 2008 when a dispute arose over serious safety breaches by the construction company.
The ABCC visited the site only after the dispute had been resolved. There was no sign of the ABCC when the company locked its workforce out. It was the union that called in the government watchdog SafeWork SA which issued prohibition notices and forced the company to rectify its serious breaches.
Instead of pursuing the employer who put workers’ lives at risk, the ABCC went after its workforce questioning them one by one about who said what about safety issues. Ark, a rank and file member of the Construction Division of the CFMEU, now stands accused by the ABCC of failing to attend a compulsory interrogation by that body. Employers who kill workers may receive a fine. If found guilty, Ark faces a six-month jail sentence.
The ABCC has a track record of chasing workers and turning a blind eye to illegal behaviour by employers.
Ark is the second construction worker to face the courts over allegedly failing to answer questions and to not report in detail on union meetings or what fellow workers may have said in private discussions. The first worker to face such charges was Noel Washington in Victoria. His charges were dropped following a highly successful campaign by the trade union movement.
Ark appeared before the Magistrates Court in Elizabeth on June 9. He made a grand entry into the court, walking down an isle of unionists and other supporters wearing the yellow campaign t-shirt. The court adjourned the matter until August 11, safely after the ALP national conference.
The ACTU Congress unanimously pledged its support and called for the abolition of the ABCC and the unjust laws that underpin it. Fair Work Australia – with the retention of Howard’s most draconian anti-union institution – is looking more like “Unfair Work Australia”.
Rotten apples
Since the ACTU Congress, right-wing secretary of the shop employees union, Joe de Bruyn has broken ranks and supported the government’s position, claiming the government has no mandate to abolish the ABCC. Where was his protest over the government’s 20-30 percent hike in military spending in the budget? There was no mandate for that either.
Former ACTU presidents Martin Ferguson and Simon Crean, former ACTU secretary Greg Combet, and the extreme right-wing former secretary of the Australian Workers’ Union, Bill Shorten, Richard Marles and Mark Butler – all former union leaders – have shored up their front bench careers under the Rudd/Gillard team by giving the nod to the ABCC’s paint over.
Greg Combet stunned many of his union colleagues, telling them to be “pragmatic”, bed down and not fight for new laws.
The newly promoted right-wing Employment Participation Minister Mark Arbib tried to justify the laws saying, “There is a small group of rotten apples and we need to ensure there is a cop on the beat to stop any outbreaks.”
Outbreaks of what? The only “outbreaks” that the ABCC is interested in is punishing unionists with $22,000 a day fines for taking action to protect workers’ rights – their health and safety, entitlements and working conditions. The ABCC spends millions of dollars taking action to keep elected union officials off work sites, away from their members, and court actions aimed at bankrupting building and construction unions.
There are rotten apples – the corrupt and unscrupulous construction companies that exploit and endanger the lives of workers. The ABCC is not chasing them. That is not its purpose. Its focus is on ordinary innocent workers and trade unions attempting to do their work and counter the short-cuts and rip-offs that companies take to boost profits.
To his credit, former union secretary Senator Doug Cameron has had the guts to speak out strongly against the treatment of building workers as terrorists or criminals, but it seems he will fall in line and vote for the bill.
Gillard continues to repeat her derogatory claims that it is necessary to keep “a tough cop on the beat”, implying that building and construction workers are some species apart that do not deserve the same democratic rights as the rest of the population.
Funding for the ABCC was increased by $3.2 million to $32.8 million in 2008-09 and the May budget provided further increases with it rising to $35 million in 2011-2012! This is one item that should be deleted now.
The construction companies should be pleased that their millions in donations to Labor’s coffers were well invested, a sentiment not shared within trade union ranks.
Unionists are also wondering what happens when their officials, including some leading lights of the Left, enter parliament. They become tied and bound to the right-wing who have a tight grip on the parliamentary party. They may not always agree with decisions but soon learn not to breach “caucus loyalty”. Some succumb quickly to ministerial ambitions or doing what is necessary to hold onto their seat. A few naively think that they can make things better from within while a number never had a genuine commitment to the working class.
The question of trade unions standing their own, independent candidates has been raised. Some union leaders are querying their affiliation to the ALP, wondering whether they could do more for their members as a politically independent force.
The Communist Party of Australia strongly supports the independence of trade unions and the standing of left and progressive candidates by unions and community organisations. There are also other electoral options. The Australian Greens have sound industrial relations policies and have stood by their principles in Parliament, opposing WorkChoices and the ABCC. The Communist Alliance has been registered by the Australian Electoral Commission and will be standing candidates in the next federal election with a platform supporting working class interests, including trade union and workers’ rights.
For further information on the trade union campaign to abolish the ABCC visit: www.rightsonsite.org.au. Follow the links and send a message to Ark.
Sunday, 14 June 2009
MUA calls for urgent change to handle future freight task
Australia would face an impossible task to meet a national freight target tipped to double by 2020 and triple by 2050, without making a new national shipping policy an urgent priority.
“The prediction is that post 2020 coastal shipping will experience significant coastal shipping growth with the need for greater use of efficient and low-carbon methods of transport but the establishment of a competitive Australian shipping industry must begin right now,” said Paddy Crumlin, national secretary of the Maritime Union of Australia (MUA).
Speaking at the Natship09 conference in Sydney last week, Mr Crumlin launched a new platform for the revitalisation of shipping, Time for a Sea Change in Australian Shipping, calling for the federal government to adopt a comprehensive package of regulatory reforms and fiscal support without delay.
The Minister for Transport Anthony Albanese recognised the need for revitalising shipping by commissioning an inquiry into coastal shipping. Mr Crumlin was part of a Shipping Policy Advisory Group appointed by the Minister to turn the inquiry’s recommendations into a new national shipping policy.
“Time for a Sea Change is probably the most important initiative adopted by the MUA. Shipping is a vital part of an integrated national freight solution and can be a great contributor to the economy,” Mr Crumlin said.
Key recommendations that the MUA is looking for the Government to act on include:
The promotion of Australian flagged and crewed ships in the domestic transport sector;
Effective tax incentives for the industry to invest in new ships;
Training for new seafarers to fill the skills shortage including a national maritime skills strategy;
Tighter regulations for coastal shipping to promote transparency and fairness of competition and guard against labour exploitation and tax avoidance by international operators;
A tonnage tax common in major shipping nations where shipping makes an essential economic contribution;
PAYE Tax reform for Australian crew on international voyages;
A Shipping Industry Taskforce to see policy is converted into action.
“Seafarers have and will continue to deliver flexible labour relations arrangements and crewing to ensure commercial success and productivity,” Mr Crumlin said.
ALP no future for workers
ALP no future for workers
Anna Pha
Delegates at the triennial Congress of the Australian Council of Trade Unions (ACTU) in Brisbane from June 2-4 were in for a rude shock when Workplace Relations Minister Julia Gillard addressed them. Gillard treated delegates and the unions they represent with utter contempt, telling them there would be no more reforms to the industrial relations system and that they were not welcome in the corridors of Parliament. Adding insult to injury, she attempted to justify the continuation of the work of the Australian Building and Construction Commission (ABCC) under another name, implying workers in that industry are violent, balaclava-wearing thugs.
On July 1, “we will be able to proudly say to each other we have cleansed the stain of WorkChoices from the history or modern Australia”, she told delegates. July 1 is the date that Labor’s Fair Work Act comes into operation. The Act removes WorkChoices from the books, but not all of the Howard government’s other repressive laws. The Act and earlier legislation to phase out Australian Workplace Agreements (individual employment contracts) fall far short of providing basic trade union rights and restoring a centralised system for negotiating and protecting wages and working conditions.
Trade unions are particularly angry that the ABCC, the repressive, secretive building industry police force, will be transferred to the new Fair Work Australia umbrella with a few largely cosmetic changes.
The ABCC has been as busy as ever under Labor, pursuing trade unions and officials in the courts and workers on the job, as evidenced by the most recent allegations against a construction worker in South Australia. Ark Tribe was due to go before the Magistrate’s Court in Adelaide as The Guardian went to press for allegedly failing to attend interrogation by the ABCC. If found guilty Arc faces a six-month jail sentence (see story below).
In his speech on the first day of Congress ACTU secretary Jeff Lawrence told delegates: “In recent years we have achieved a lot but there is so much more to do. Unionists and activists should be proud.”
“We have fought a hard fight….
“Unions must continue to campaign to improve the rights of workers and their families.”
Lawrence outlined the achievements so far under Labor and went on to say: “I believe that further improvements to IR legislation and workers’ rights are necessary, and that it is our job to make sure they are on the federal government’s agenda for the remainder of this term, and into their next.
“Improvements to workers’ rights should ALWAYS be on a Labor government’s agenda,” Lawrence said, and went on to list a number of actions required from government. Amongst these important demands, was “equal rights for construction workers”. This, Lawrence said, “is our number one industrial issue.”
“We cannot allow laws to continue that can jail a unionist for refusing to discuss a union meeting. Or fine workers $22,000 for taking industrial action,” Lawrence warned.
Gillard in her address to Congress responded to such concerns: “I read that some are asking what next in relation to further legislative reform.
“My reply is to ask, what now? … What will this Congress [do] to ensure Australia working people enjoy the full benefits of the new Fair Work system?
“Pacing the corridors of Parliament House in Canberra is no substitute for pounding the pavements bringing the Fair Work Act to life for working people. The future of Australian trade unionism will not be determined by further lobbying in Canberra, it will be determined by bringing Fair Work to working people in their workplaces,” said Gillard.
In other words, “Nick off, make what you can out of what we have given you, that’s all you are getting from us”.
Gillard’s contempt did not stop there. She raised the question of the ABCC, and shamelessly attempted to justify the transfer of its functions to a new body under Fair Work Australia. The Act setting up the ABCC was arguably the most repressive of all the anti-worker, anti-union pieces of the Howard government legislation.
“Like me, I am sure you were appalled to read of dangerous car chases across Melbourne City involving carloads of balaclava wearing people, criminal damage to vehicles resulting in arrests, threats of physical violence and intimidation of individuals, including damage to a private residence,” Gillard said.
“Balaclavas, violence and intimidation must be unreservedly condemned as wrong by every unionist, every ALP member, every decent Australian.
“And the Rudd Labor government will do everything necessary to ensure that we do not see this appalling conduct again.”
What has that got to do with the thousands of hardworking, law abiding building and construction workers around Australia? They are no different to workers in any other industry. Yet, they have been singled out and subjected to a form of collective punishment for the alleged behaviour of a handful of workers. They are not balaclava-wearing, violent thugs who can be dealt with by the police and courts.
Their only “crime”, in the eyes of the government and employers, is that they are unionised, militant and not afraid to stand up for their rights and protect the health and safety of workers in an industry with an appalling rate of workplace-related deaths and injuries and employers who run off with their entitlements.
The real criminals are the employers who cheat workers of wages and other entitlements and take the short cuts that cost lives. This is not the focus of the ABCC, nor was it ever intended to be. It is not the focus of the Rudd/Gillard government with its plans to keep the industry police force and its powers of interrogation of innocent workers.
Another source of union anger is the government’s failure to consult with the movement. It had no place on the Henry Taxation Review panel which recommended the raising of the pension eligibility age to 67. The employers are represented by Heather Ridout from the Australian Industry Group. Heather Ridout, in particular, seems to have a chair at almost every policy discussion table with the government, but workers are denied a voice.
The Rudd government is not pursuing the tripartite ,“togetherness” model of the Hawke/Keating days where the ACTU had a voice at the government table alongside the employers. The extent to which this really gave the ACTU more power and influenced policy direction is questionable. In practice, the ACTU became bound to government policy and the conveyor and enforcer of government decisions. This was particularly the case in regard to restraining wages, accepting Labor’s program of privatisations, economic deregulation, and decentralisation of wages and working conditions, etc.
PM Kevin Rudd addressed the Congress dinner at the Brisbane Convention Centre. He concluded his long speech by saying, “we value our partnership with the Australian trade union movement” in developing and implementing its reforms.
“As Australians, we’re all in this together.
“In this together – as business and unions; as communities right across our vast land,” Rudd said.
Not all delegates were convinced about partnership or togetherness with Rudd or Gillard.
Gillard’s blunt rebuttal of demands for further reforms made it clear to the movement that its future does not lie with being tied to Labor.
In his address to Congress Jeff Lawrence, which preceded Gillard’s contribution, raised the question of the union movement’s relationship to the Labor government.
“On our relationship with the Labor government, I assert that we must be strong and we must be independent…
“We must continue to vigorously engage with the government and to be activist in our outlook and to campaign and lead the debate for what is right.
“We have differences of view with Labor on a number of issues, including OHS and the ABCC and we must continue to strongly prosecute our case on behalf of our members…
“If we are to succeed however in ensuring our voice is heard by government we must be unified and disciplined in our approach”, Lawrence said. “We must never retreat from the need for growth and activism.”
The ACTU secretary spoke about the importance of building the trade union movement and building consensus around a new union agenda. “We cannot forget our strength comes from the workplace and our delegates.”
When militant action was replaced by sitting around the table during the Hawke days, the trade union movement was seriously weakened. Employers upped their attack on the working class and trade unions. Trade union membership declined, working conditions went backwards and real wages fell. The Howard government followed with its anti-union offensive.
The power of the trade union movement lies in its work on the ground, its level of organisation, its unity and preparedness to take action, and on retaining an independent position that puts the interests of its members first.
Anna Pha
Delegates at the triennial Congress of the Australian Council of Trade Unions (ACTU) in Brisbane from June 2-4 were in for a rude shock when Workplace Relations Minister Julia Gillard addressed them. Gillard treated delegates and the unions they represent with utter contempt, telling them there would be no more reforms to the industrial relations system and that they were not welcome in the corridors of Parliament. Adding insult to injury, she attempted to justify the continuation of the work of the Australian Building and Construction Commission (ABCC) under another name, implying workers in that industry are violent, balaclava-wearing thugs.
On July 1, “we will be able to proudly say to each other we have cleansed the stain of WorkChoices from the history or modern Australia”, she told delegates. July 1 is the date that Labor’s Fair Work Act comes into operation. The Act removes WorkChoices from the books, but not all of the Howard government’s other repressive laws. The Act and earlier legislation to phase out Australian Workplace Agreements (individual employment contracts) fall far short of providing basic trade union rights and restoring a centralised system for negotiating and protecting wages and working conditions.
Trade unions are particularly angry that the ABCC, the repressive, secretive building industry police force, will be transferred to the new Fair Work Australia umbrella with a few largely cosmetic changes.
The ABCC has been as busy as ever under Labor, pursuing trade unions and officials in the courts and workers on the job, as evidenced by the most recent allegations against a construction worker in South Australia. Ark Tribe was due to go before the Magistrate’s Court in Adelaide as The Guardian went to press for allegedly failing to attend interrogation by the ABCC. If found guilty Arc faces a six-month jail sentence (see story below).
In his speech on the first day of Congress ACTU secretary Jeff Lawrence told delegates: “In recent years we have achieved a lot but there is so much more to do. Unionists and activists should be proud.”
“We have fought a hard fight….
“Unions must continue to campaign to improve the rights of workers and their families.”
Lawrence outlined the achievements so far under Labor and went on to say: “I believe that further improvements to IR legislation and workers’ rights are necessary, and that it is our job to make sure they are on the federal government’s agenda for the remainder of this term, and into their next.
“Improvements to workers’ rights should ALWAYS be on a Labor government’s agenda,” Lawrence said, and went on to list a number of actions required from government. Amongst these important demands, was “equal rights for construction workers”. This, Lawrence said, “is our number one industrial issue.”
“We cannot allow laws to continue that can jail a unionist for refusing to discuss a union meeting. Or fine workers $22,000 for taking industrial action,” Lawrence warned.
Gillard in her address to Congress responded to such concerns: “I read that some are asking what next in relation to further legislative reform.
“My reply is to ask, what now? … What will this Congress [do] to ensure Australia working people enjoy the full benefits of the new Fair Work system?
“Pacing the corridors of Parliament House in Canberra is no substitute for pounding the pavements bringing the Fair Work Act to life for working people. The future of Australian trade unionism will not be determined by further lobbying in Canberra, it will be determined by bringing Fair Work to working people in their workplaces,” said Gillard.
In other words, “Nick off, make what you can out of what we have given you, that’s all you are getting from us”.
Gillard’s contempt did not stop there. She raised the question of the ABCC, and shamelessly attempted to justify the transfer of its functions to a new body under Fair Work Australia. The Act setting up the ABCC was arguably the most repressive of all the anti-worker, anti-union pieces of the Howard government legislation.
“Like me, I am sure you were appalled to read of dangerous car chases across Melbourne City involving carloads of balaclava wearing people, criminal damage to vehicles resulting in arrests, threats of physical violence and intimidation of individuals, including damage to a private residence,” Gillard said.
“Balaclavas, violence and intimidation must be unreservedly condemned as wrong by every unionist, every ALP member, every decent Australian.
“And the Rudd Labor government will do everything necessary to ensure that we do not see this appalling conduct again.”
What has that got to do with the thousands of hardworking, law abiding building and construction workers around Australia? They are no different to workers in any other industry. Yet, they have been singled out and subjected to a form of collective punishment for the alleged behaviour of a handful of workers. They are not balaclava-wearing, violent thugs who can be dealt with by the police and courts.
Their only “crime”, in the eyes of the government and employers, is that they are unionised, militant and not afraid to stand up for their rights and protect the health and safety of workers in an industry with an appalling rate of workplace-related deaths and injuries and employers who run off with their entitlements.
The real criminals are the employers who cheat workers of wages and other entitlements and take the short cuts that cost lives. This is not the focus of the ABCC, nor was it ever intended to be. It is not the focus of the Rudd/Gillard government with its plans to keep the industry police force and its powers of interrogation of innocent workers.
Another source of union anger is the government’s failure to consult with the movement. It had no place on the Henry Taxation Review panel which recommended the raising of the pension eligibility age to 67. The employers are represented by Heather Ridout from the Australian Industry Group. Heather Ridout, in particular, seems to have a chair at almost every policy discussion table with the government, but workers are denied a voice.
The Rudd government is not pursuing the tripartite ,“togetherness” model of the Hawke/Keating days where the ACTU had a voice at the government table alongside the employers. The extent to which this really gave the ACTU more power and influenced policy direction is questionable. In practice, the ACTU became bound to government policy and the conveyor and enforcer of government decisions. This was particularly the case in regard to restraining wages, accepting Labor’s program of privatisations, economic deregulation, and decentralisation of wages and working conditions, etc.
PM Kevin Rudd addressed the Congress dinner at the Brisbane Convention Centre. He concluded his long speech by saying, “we value our partnership with the Australian trade union movement” in developing and implementing its reforms.
“As Australians, we’re all in this together.
“In this together – as business and unions; as communities right across our vast land,” Rudd said.
Not all delegates were convinced about partnership or togetherness with Rudd or Gillard.
Gillard’s blunt rebuttal of demands for further reforms made it clear to the movement that its future does not lie with being tied to Labor.
In his address to Congress Jeff Lawrence, which preceded Gillard’s contribution, raised the question of the union movement’s relationship to the Labor government.
“On our relationship with the Labor government, I assert that we must be strong and we must be independent…
“We must continue to vigorously engage with the government and to be activist in our outlook and to campaign and lead the debate for what is right.
“We have differences of view with Labor on a number of issues, including OHS and the ABCC and we must continue to strongly prosecute our case on behalf of our members…
“If we are to succeed however in ensuring our voice is heard by government we must be unified and disciplined in our approach”, Lawrence said. “We must never retreat from the need for growth and activism.”
The ACTU secretary spoke about the importance of building the trade union movement and building consensus around a new union agenda. “We cannot forget our strength comes from the workplace and our delegates.”
When militant action was replaced by sitting around the table during the Hawke days, the trade union movement was seriously weakened. Employers upped their attack on the working class and trade unions. Trade union membership declined, working conditions went backwards and real wages fell. The Howard government followed with its anti-union offensive.
The power of the trade union movement lies in its work on the ground, its level of organisation, its unity and preparedness to take action, and on retaining an independent position that puts the interests of its members first.
Monday, 8 June 2009
Public Launch - Industrial Relations for the Future
A Communist Party IR Policy
Speakers:
Peter McClelland - State President CFMEU
Colin Drane - AMWU Official and Convenor Power to the People
Warren Smith - CPA CC Chairperson and MUA Sydney Branch Secretary
Friday 12th June, 6:00PM
CFMEU building 12 Railway Parade, Lidcombe
Supper and drinks available
For information please contact
Tony Oldfield on 0449 211 970 or
CPA office on 02 9699 8844
Speakers:
Peter McClelland - State President CFMEU
Colin Drane - AMWU Official and Convenor Power to the People
Warren Smith - CPA CC Chairperson and MUA Sydney Branch Secretary
Friday 12th June, 6:00PM
CFMEU building 12 Railway Parade, Lidcombe
Supper and drinks available
For information please contact
Tony Oldfield on 0449 211 970 or
CPA office on 02 9699 8844
Sunday, 7 June 2009
Big tasks – Difficult times
ACTU Congress
Big tasks – Difficult times
Anna Pha
More than 500 trade union representatives from around Australia are meeting in Brisbane this week for the 2009 triennial National Congress of the Australian Council of Trade Unions (ACTU). It is the first Congress since the defeat of the ultra-conservative Howard Coalition government in 2007, a defeat in which the trade union movement, in alliance with the wider community, played such a critical role. The Congress is being held at a time of serious economic crisis and rising unemployment, made more difficult by the punitive and draconian restrictions imposed by the former Howard government’s WorkChoices legislation, which remains largely in place.
The face of trade unionism and conditions under which unions operate has been transformed over the past 20 years. During the Howard years, in particular, trade unions suffered a hammering with waves of anti-union laws imposing the most punitive and restrictive of regimes denying trade unions, their officials and individual workers basic rights: policies that are in breach in of International Labour Organisation conventions signed by Australia.
There has been a dramatic decline in the level of trade unionism to its lowest level for over 60 year. The process of determining wages and working conditions has been decentralised. The focus has shifted from comprehensive centralised union awards to enterprise agreements and individual contracts. Non-union agreements and individual contracts (Australian Workplace Agreements – AWAs) were strongly promoted by the Howard government. Awards that previously provided comprehensive coverage of wages and conditions were gutted and rendered almost meaningless.
Decentralised bargaining
The right to strike and take other forms of industrial action, the right of trade unions officials to enter a workplace, the right to recruit, and other fundamental trade union rights were removed. The Australian Building and Construction Industry Improvement Act with its building industry police force (ABCC) went even further by denying a section of the workforce other fundamental democratic rights not even denied suspected terrorists or criminals. The ABCC has spied on, hounded, interrogated and taken to the courts individual workers, union officials and building unions. The ABCC remains intact with all of its powers and the punitive provisions that accompany them.
Labor was elected with promises to repeal WorkChoices, modernise the award system, legalise pattern bargaining, transfer the ABCC to its new Fair Work Australia industrial relations umbrella and other measures to create “fairer” workplaces.
The Rudd Labor government passed legislation to phase out AWAs and then more recently its Fair Work Bill, which comes into operation on July 1. The Industrial Relations Commission is in the process of stripping, merging and writing new “modern awards”. In no way will these restore awards to their former role providing a centralised system for determining wages and conditions across industries and occupations.
The Fair Work Bill provides for a new system of “good faith bargaining”, which is essentially a system of voluntary conciliation and arbitration, with the Commission having certain powers to step in. Employers will be obliged to negotiate, but not reach agreement with trade unions. There are no guarantees that it will be trade unions at the negotiating table. The legislation is vaguely worded, and unions will only know what it really means when it has been tested in practice or in the courts. It could well prove to be a job creation initiative for the legal profession.
Pattern bargaining – where enterprise agreements with common demands and outcomes are negotiated across workplaces – remain essentially outlawed. The government has not restored the rights of trade unions to centralised negotiations for industry-wide agreements. This considerably weakens their capacity to defend workers’ interests, particularly in workplaces where the union is industrially weak or has no representation.
Even with the most generous interpretation, Labor’s industrial relations laws fall far short of the expectations of the Your Rights @ Work groups that united trade unions and the community in struggle to defeat the Howard government.
Trade union rights
Minister Julia Gillard has no intention of abolishing the ABCC. In fact, its inclusion under the Fair Work Australia umbrella suggests that its fascistic provisions could be extended to other industries where workers and their trade unions are considered too militant for the employers’ and government’s liking.
The right to strike and take other forms of industrial action remain in practice just as illegal as under Howard. The right to take “protected action” – meaning unions and workers will not be sued for damages or fined by the courts – is limited to a very short period during the negotiation of a new enterprise agreement. Even these provisions are subject to cancellation by the Commission.
Actions in defence of conditions being breached by an employer, following the victimisation, sacking or the death of a worker, in support of other workers’ struggles such as not crossing a picket line, remain illegal. Political, environmental and international solidarity actions are also illegal – punishable by heavy fines and damages cases amounting to millions of dollars. Employers, with their huge resources behind them, have taken to using the courts as an economic weapon to drain union funds.
Individual workers are powerless, their strength lies in their unity, in their ability to collectively bargain and take united action in defence of their interests. Without the ability to take united action the source of their power is drained. That was the aim of WorkChoices; to render trade unions powerless and ineffective, and to eventually destroy the trade union movement as a whole.
The Howard government failed in its objective to destroy the trade union movement but it has had some successes in seriously weakening the movement’s capacity to fight and prevent the introduction of individual contracts, the ongoing casualisation of the workforce and the assault on wages and employer theft of working conditions.
Gillard has indicated that she has no intention of further legislating in these areas. Any further reforms will have to be wrung from the Rudd government through struggle, and by rebuilding the community campaign.
This raises serious questions for Congress as to the direction of the future struggle for trade union rights and the relationship of trade unions to the Australian Labor Party. Howard has gone, Labor is in. Where next? Should trade unions consider standing candidates, forming alliances with or supporting candidates that support the trade union movements such as the Australian Greens and the Communist Alliance?
Jobs and entitlements
There are many other pressing industrial issues facing delegates this week. These include wages and working conditions, forms of work, the protection of workers’ entitlements and job protection.
Trade unions have co-operated with employers facing economic difficulties by making sacrifices and agreeing to wage reductions and shorter hours of work to avoid sackings. Some bosses have unscrupulously exploited the current climate of job insecurity to impose wage cuts and longer hours and unpaid overtime. In the highly casualised sectors employers have been able to sack workers freely, leaving them high and dry with few job prospects and no entitlements.
Once the recovery sets in, the trade union movement faces a big struggle to fight the inevitable demands of government and employers to restrain wages and deny workers a return to their former working conditions. Wage rises, in particular for those on low and middle incomes, are essential for the restoration of living standards and as a stimulus to the economy to assist in the recovery. Wage rises enable people to buy more, they increase demand for goods and services, which in turn generates the recovery. It is no use increasing production if no one has the money to purchase what is produced.
Amongst the many other important items being considered by Congress are tax and social security. The below-subsistence unemployment benefit of $225 for a single person affects all workers, not just those who lose their jobs. It strengthens the hand of employers offering low paid work under appalling conditions, especially during periods of high unemployment, and thus exerts a downward pressure on the wages of those with jobs.
The question of workers’ entitlements is another big issue which is far from being resolved, despite the many trade union campaigns and attempts to protect them. Companies go belly up, the banks head the list of creditors and workers miss out again and again. Directors are still free to siphon off funds to other companies before they go bust, so cheating workers of their entitlements. The law does not stop them then doing the same thing again and again to other groups of workers.
Rebuilding the trade union movement
A number of factors including industry restructuring, anti-union laws and attempts at social peace with employers and the promotion of individualism have contributed to decline in trade union membership levels – now at around 15 percent of the workforce in the private sector – down from a 60 percent high some 40-50 years ago.
The need to rebuild a strong, militant united trade union movement has never been more urgent. The Howard government, with the assistance of the corporate sector whose interests it served, did a great deal with promises of “choice not to be union” and attacks on trade unions as “interfering third parties” to dissuade young people and others from becoming union members.
The Howard government waged an all out ideological war to blur class consciousness, to present class struggle as dead and convince workers that employers had their interests at heart. Of course nothing is further from the truth as anyone working in a factory, hotel, café, call centre, on the docks, a construction site, down a mine, or stacking shelves in a supermarket knows.
One of the crucial tasks ahead is recruit, recruit and organise.
The class struggle is not dead. Nor is trade unionism. The struggle will continue, and during such difficult and insecure economic times as these, it becomes even more important to protect workers’ rights and jobs and rebuild the trade union movement.
Big tasks – Difficult times
Anna Pha
More than 500 trade union representatives from around Australia are meeting in Brisbane this week for the 2009 triennial National Congress of the Australian Council of Trade Unions (ACTU). It is the first Congress since the defeat of the ultra-conservative Howard Coalition government in 2007, a defeat in which the trade union movement, in alliance with the wider community, played such a critical role. The Congress is being held at a time of serious economic crisis and rising unemployment, made more difficult by the punitive and draconian restrictions imposed by the former Howard government’s WorkChoices legislation, which remains largely in place.
The face of trade unionism and conditions under which unions operate has been transformed over the past 20 years. During the Howard years, in particular, trade unions suffered a hammering with waves of anti-union laws imposing the most punitive and restrictive of regimes denying trade unions, their officials and individual workers basic rights: policies that are in breach in of International Labour Organisation conventions signed by Australia.
There has been a dramatic decline in the level of trade unionism to its lowest level for over 60 year. The process of determining wages and working conditions has been decentralised. The focus has shifted from comprehensive centralised union awards to enterprise agreements and individual contracts. Non-union agreements and individual contracts (Australian Workplace Agreements – AWAs) were strongly promoted by the Howard government. Awards that previously provided comprehensive coverage of wages and conditions were gutted and rendered almost meaningless.
Decentralised bargaining
The right to strike and take other forms of industrial action, the right of trade unions officials to enter a workplace, the right to recruit, and other fundamental trade union rights were removed. The Australian Building and Construction Industry Improvement Act with its building industry police force (ABCC) went even further by denying a section of the workforce other fundamental democratic rights not even denied suspected terrorists or criminals. The ABCC has spied on, hounded, interrogated and taken to the courts individual workers, union officials and building unions. The ABCC remains intact with all of its powers and the punitive provisions that accompany them.
Labor was elected with promises to repeal WorkChoices, modernise the award system, legalise pattern bargaining, transfer the ABCC to its new Fair Work Australia industrial relations umbrella and other measures to create “fairer” workplaces.
The Rudd Labor government passed legislation to phase out AWAs and then more recently its Fair Work Bill, which comes into operation on July 1. The Industrial Relations Commission is in the process of stripping, merging and writing new “modern awards”. In no way will these restore awards to their former role providing a centralised system for determining wages and conditions across industries and occupations.
The Fair Work Bill provides for a new system of “good faith bargaining”, which is essentially a system of voluntary conciliation and arbitration, with the Commission having certain powers to step in. Employers will be obliged to negotiate, but not reach agreement with trade unions. There are no guarantees that it will be trade unions at the negotiating table. The legislation is vaguely worded, and unions will only know what it really means when it has been tested in practice or in the courts. It could well prove to be a job creation initiative for the legal profession.
Pattern bargaining – where enterprise agreements with common demands and outcomes are negotiated across workplaces – remain essentially outlawed. The government has not restored the rights of trade unions to centralised negotiations for industry-wide agreements. This considerably weakens their capacity to defend workers’ interests, particularly in workplaces where the union is industrially weak or has no representation.
Even with the most generous interpretation, Labor’s industrial relations laws fall far short of the expectations of the Your Rights @ Work groups that united trade unions and the community in struggle to defeat the Howard government.
Trade union rights
Minister Julia Gillard has no intention of abolishing the ABCC. In fact, its inclusion under the Fair Work Australia umbrella suggests that its fascistic provisions could be extended to other industries where workers and their trade unions are considered too militant for the employers’ and government’s liking.
The right to strike and take other forms of industrial action remain in practice just as illegal as under Howard. The right to take “protected action” – meaning unions and workers will not be sued for damages or fined by the courts – is limited to a very short period during the negotiation of a new enterprise agreement. Even these provisions are subject to cancellation by the Commission.
Actions in defence of conditions being breached by an employer, following the victimisation, sacking or the death of a worker, in support of other workers’ struggles such as not crossing a picket line, remain illegal. Political, environmental and international solidarity actions are also illegal – punishable by heavy fines and damages cases amounting to millions of dollars. Employers, with their huge resources behind them, have taken to using the courts as an economic weapon to drain union funds.
Individual workers are powerless, their strength lies in their unity, in their ability to collectively bargain and take united action in defence of their interests. Without the ability to take united action the source of their power is drained. That was the aim of WorkChoices; to render trade unions powerless and ineffective, and to eventually destroy the trade union movement as a whole.
The Howard government failed in its objective to destroy the trade union movement but it has had some successes in seriously weakening the movement’s capacity to fight and prevent the introduction of individual contracts, the ongoing casualisation of the workforce and the assault on wages and employer theft of working conditions.
Gillard has indicated that she has no intention of further legislating in these areas. Any further reforms will have to be wrung from the Rudd government through struggle, and by rebuilding the community campaign.
This raises serious questions for Congress as to the direction of the future struggle for trade union rights and the relationship of trade unions to the Australian Labor Party. Howard has gone, Labor is in. Where next? Should trade unions consider standing candidates, forming alliances with or supporting candidates that support the trade union movements such as the Australian Greens and the Communist Alliance?
Jobs and entitlements
There are many other pressing industrial issues facing delegates this week. These include wages and working conditions, forms of work, the protection of workers’ entitlements and job protection.
Trade unions have co-operated with employers facing economic difficulties by making sacrifices and agreeing to wage reductions and shorter hours of work to avoid sackings. Some bosses have unscrupulously exploited the current climate of job insecurity to impose wage cuts and longer hours and unpaid overtime. In the highly casualised sectors employers have been able to sack workers freely, leaving them high and dry with few job prospects and no entitlements.
Once the recovery sets in, the trade union movement faces a big struggle to fight the inevitable demands of government and employers to restrain wages and deny workers a return to their former working conditions. Wage rises, in particular for those on low and middle incomes, are essential for the restoration of living standards and as a stimulus to the economy to assist in the recovery. Wage rises enable people to buy more, they increase demand for goods and services, which in turn generates the recovery. It is no use increasing production if no one has the money to purchase what is produced.
Amongst the many other important items being considered by Congress are tax and social security. The below-subsistence unemployment benefit of $225 for a single person affects all workers, not just those who lose their jobs. It strengthens the hand of employers offering low paid work under appalling conditions, especially during periods of high unemployment, and thus exerts a downward pressure on the wages of those with jobs.
The question of workers’ entitlements is another big issue which is far from being resolved, despite the many trade union campaigns and attempts to protect them. Companies go belly up, the banks head the list of creditors and workers miss out again and again. Directors are still free to siphon off funds to other companies before they go bust, so cheating workers of their entitlements. The law does not stop them then doing the same thing again and again to other groups of workers.
Rebuilding the trade union movement
A number of factors including industry restructuring, anti-union laws and attempts at social peace with employers and the promotion of individualism have contributed to decline in trade union membership levels – now at around 15 percent of the workforce in the private sector – down from a 60 percent high some 40-50 years ago.
The need to rebuild a strong, militant united trade union movement has never been more urgent. The Howard government, with the assistance of the corporate sector whose interests it served, did a great deal with promises of “choice not to be union” and attacks on trade unions as “interfering third parties” to dissuade young people and others from becoming union members.
The Howard government waged an all out ideological war to blur class consciousness, to present class struggle as dead and convince workers that employers had their interests at heart. Of course nothing is further from the truth as anyone working in a factory, hotel, café, call centre, on the docks, a construction site, down a mine, or stacking shelves in a supermarket knows.
One of the crucial tasks ahead is recruit, recruit and organise.
The class struggle is not dead. Nor is trade unionism. The struggle will continue, and during such difficult and insecure economic times as these, it becomes even more important to protect workers’ rights and jobs and rebuild the trade union movement.
Subscribe to:
Comments (Atom)
