WorkChoices amendments a sop

By Maree O’Halloran

As predicted, the Federal Government's WorkChoices bill passed the Senate ideologically intact. The Coalition used its numbers to control the Senate Inquiry and the subsequent debate.

The amendments to the bill were minor in nature, no more than tinkering at the edge of the bill. The amendments were arranged by the Coalition to maintain the illusion of debate and compromise in the public domain. In the words of Employment and Workplace Relations Minister Kevin Andrews, the amendments do not "undermine the intent and integrity of the bill" (media release, November 30). In summary, amendments:

• put some more protections around the 38 hour week to ensure workers are not paid less
• protect existing award provisions about the timing of the payment of wages
• clarify who can issue medical certificates
• allow an employee who has "reasonable grounds" to refuse to work on a public holiday
• ensure award provisions for outworkers
• stop companies restructuring to groups of less than 100 employees (and then avoid the unfair dismissal regime)
• make some minor changes to the technical details of Australian Workplace Agreements
• allow 'greenfield' agreements (where the employer makes an agreement with him or herself) to last for five years rather than three.

The primary aim of the "WorkChoices" legislation is to increase the bargaining power of employers relative to employees. This aim is achieved by giving primacy to individual contracts, allowing award protections to whither, lessening job security and trying to restrict union activity.

As Ross Gittins said in the Sydney Morning Herald on November 21:

"Just a few examples of the bill's lack of even-handedness: although it outlaws pattern bargaining by unions, it does nothing to prevent employers presenting individual workers with identical Australian workplace agreements to sign.

"Could anything be more calculated to weaken unionised workers' bargaining power? But that's not all. The right to strike has been greatly curtailed. It's made explicit that strikes outside the bargaining period are not protected against legal actions for damages but strikes during the bargaining period will take several weeks to approve via officially supervised secret ballots.

"It will be easier for employers to sue for damages caused by unprotected strikes, and protected strikes won't be as protected as they are now. It will be easier to get the Industrial Relations Commission to terminate the bargaining period if third parties are threatened with significant harm or to suspend it if someone things a cooling-off period desirable.

"And it's now possible for the minister to terminate the bargaining period where strikes affect essential services or are likely to cause significant damage to the economy.

"Then there's the 'prohibited content' that may not be included in agreements -- with the minister free to add to the list -- and quite onerous restrictions on unions' ability to recruit and enter the workplace.

"It's not at all clear this single-minded attempt to discourage collective bargaining (and hamstring unions in the process) will lead to increased employment, increased productivity or higher wages.

"Grossly unequal bargaining power is a form of market failure. And when the law permits employers to drive a harder bargain and lower wage costs (say, because workers are no longer able to set a higher reservation price for work on weekends, public holidays or at other unsociable times) you get higher profits but no gain in productivity (which is a real not a monetary concept: output per unit of input).

"In other words, there's no overall gain to the economy, just a transfer of income from one part of the economy (workers) to another part (employers).

"It may even be the economy is left worse off because efforts to cut wages costs can be a substitute for efforts to raise the productivity of labour by increased training or the provision of better machines."

Ross Gittins concludes his article by stating that "the dominant motive for much of the content of WorkChoices is to strike a blow against the Liberals' class enemies".

The response to such legislation must be for Federation to continue all aspects of campaigning, including industrial action where warranted.

Maree O'Halloran is the President.

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December 2005 contents