Combet says knowledge the key to protecting rights

Greg Combet talks to delegates.

by Kerri Carr

Ignorance is John Howard's ally, Australian Council of Trade Unions Secretary Greg Combet told annual conference on July 4.

Mr Combet described the Howard Government's industrial relations agenda and urged delegates to continue to inform people about key elements of the proposed changes to industrial relations laws.

"It might be self-evident but [it] is extremely important to talk to others in the workplace about the issues and to cooperate, join together, maintain strong collective bargaining strengths and ensure that every single person understands that at the end of the day if they're presented with one of these individual contracts, they know why not to sign it," Mr Combet said.

"Every person in this room, and every person who is an activist in the union movement around the country has to be able to make the argument as to why collective bargaining is important, why people must remain committed to it and why individual contracts broadly undermine peoples' rights."

"Ignorance is John Howard's ally. Knowledge and information is our ally. We must work very hard on that," Mr Combet said.

He said it was very important to appreciate just how significantly these changes would affect the workplace in Australia, the rights of every Australian employee and "consequently change Australian culture in very significant ways".

Mr Combet said nearly four million workers would be affected by the Howard Government's plan to remove protection from being unfairly dismissed by the employer if you are employed in a company with less than 100 staff.

"That's a significant assault, I think, on working peoples' job security, and importantly their financial security," Mr Combet said.

"For working people and working families the security of your employment is completely fundamental to the financial security of yourself and your family and to be placed into a position where you can be unfairly terminated with no remedy at all is an important change in workplaces throughout the country.

"It won't stop at businesses with less than 100 people because what we can expect to happen is that governments and private companies who are large companies will restructure their operations to ensure that they have business units separately incorporated with less than 100 people to avail themselves of this change," Mr Combet added.

He said individual contracts "or Australian Workplace Agreements as the government innocently...calls them" are the "principle threat to workplace organisation and the protection of peoples' take home pay and their employment conditions".

Mr Combet said only five minimum standards would be required.

"What on earth have people done to deserve this? Not one thing."

"What's up for grabs is your overtime pay, your rostered days off, potentially, all of your allowances, your annual leave loading, your casual loading, your weekend penalty rates, your public holiday penalty rates, your public holidays, your shift penalty rates, and the list goes on, increments to your pay structure, pay increases based upon years of experience, skill based pay increases, legal rights to training that might be contained in your award, work and family rights, the right to be consulted about roster changes, the right to negotiate a roster whatsoever, all of the conditions that stand outside the five minima will be up for grabs in the law of the jungle," he said.

"We will see living standard decline, we will see a widening of inequality in our society...we will see the rapid growth of a North American-style working poor."

"When people do know what is being proposed here and how it's going to affect their working rights, they are appalled," Mr Combet added.

He said the Federal Government's assertions about the effects of the proposed changes to industrial laws were "being justified on the grounds of a bogus economic argument".

Mr Combet said the Government was saying that abolishing unfair dismissal protection would create 70,000 jobs, that individual contracts would lead to a productivity boom and massive increases in real wages would arise from this.

"There is not one element of economic evidence to support that assertion," he said.

"You might drive down costs, which is really what its about, but as to building teamwork, lifting skills, productive potential, making people feel good about coming to work and contributing in the workplace, it doesn't work that way. In fact, the evidence is strongly to the contrary.

"Giving people a sense of teamwork, allowing them to join together and freely associate in the workplace, to bargain, providing an across the board approach to skills acquisition, career opportunities, letting people cooperate and coalesce their ideas, that has a far more positive effect on the productive potential of the workforce and the economy."

"These arguments are a sham, they are mere assertions there is no evidence to support them," Mr Combet added.

The attack on workers' rights was a challenge the union movement must rise to meet, Mr Combet said.

"The anger that I have personally is anger that I hope everyone feels because we will need that motivation to fight this fight," he said.

"We are not going to have Australian people treated in this way. What on earth have people done to deserve this? Not one thing.

"People do not deserve this and it is our responsibility in the labour movement to fight it because we have strong values, we believe in fairness, we believe in making a proper argument for change. We believe in a strong economy but we believe in a fair distribution of wealth, we believe in treating people with dignity and we believe in fighting for what we think is right, and when our cause is just we are a very strong force."

Mr Combet said trade unions had faced challenges in the past and met those challenges, including the campaign for justice for workers injured by asbestos.

"We can do it in those instances, we can win waterfront disputes, we can win wonderful gains in people's pay and employment conditions in collective bargaining efforts in many industries across the country. My word, we can win what we truly believe in, in a campaign like this," Mr Combet added.

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Last Modified: 15 Nov 2005