PR push tries to hide industrial reality

By Barry Johnson

The Howard Government is conducting a $20 million publicity campaign to convince the Australian people that its proposed changes to Australia's industrial relations laws and system is in their best interests. This publicity campaign is being challenged in the High Court of Australia by the ACTU on the basis that the expenditure has no parliamentary authorisation.

Big business and its pressure groups like the Business Council of Australia and the Australian Chamber of Commerce have long sought changes to industrial laws in favour of employers at the expense of working people and their families.

The details of the Howard Government's legislation have been hidden from view while the Government is out there spending tax payers' money to convince them to trust that all will be revealed and everyone will be better off.

It should not escape anyone's notice that Prime Minister John Howard has started hitting the airwaves in an attempt to rescue his poor performing Ministers and their workplace agenda. But not even John Howard will guarantee that Australians won't be worse off and he has not been able to detail how entitlements and conditions won't be lost or removed either in whole or in part.

Underpinning the whole change agenda are individual workplace agreements. Australian workers are already being forced onto Australian Workplace Agreements (AWAs), which are already being used by employers to slash wage rates, eliminate overtime payments, abolish weekend rates and over-ride established conditions and holiday entitlements.

Government advertising says workers on AWA's currently earn 13 percent more than workers in certified agreements and 100 percent more than workers on award rates. Sounds unbelievable? It is. The Australian Bureau of Statistics report released on July 12 shows the majority of workers on AWA's are worse off than those on collective agreements.

And why are unfair dismissal laws called that? The answer is obvious. But the Howard Government is now using the terminology "unlawful termination". These things are not the same. Furthermore, Peter Costello has let the proverbial cat loose when he envisaged the current protections would be removed for all workers in the future.

I haven't even the space to discuss the Orwellian titled "Australian Fair Pay Commission" or the false promise of a no-disadvantage test, but it is appropriate to remind public education teachers that the Howard agenda is already being faced in the TAFE system with federal funding being linked to the implementation of the Howard industrial change agenda. And the leader of the State Opposition, John Brogden, has made it clear that when in Government he will cede all of the state's residual industrial relations powers to the Federal Government.

The recent publicity around the trading off of holidays for pay, or the loss of public holidays or the loss of meal breaks seems serious enough. What should be of greater concern to all workers is that collective bargaining is being by-passed. The International Labour Organisation's conventions on the rights of workers to collectively bargain through their union are being ignored.

Ask the Boeing workers at Williamtown RAAF Base about how comfortable they feel about AWAs. Or ask the Commonwealth public servants in Kevin Andrews' own Department about their views on AWAs. They have opted for collective bargaining.

The current prosperity in Australia, the relatively low full time unemployment rates and low inflation have all been achieved within the current regulated system. There is no obvious need to change this system except that is what big business wants and what John Howard is ideologically driven to achieve. The Howard Government has not won the publicity battle.

Barry Johnson is General Secretary.

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