TAFE teachers and nurses may be caught by IR agenda

by Diane Hague

It has become depressingly clear that the NSW Government may not willing to move to protect state government employees from the Howard Government's WorkChoices legislation when it becomes law.

Nurses are likely to come under the federal jurisdiction and TAFE teachers may also be caught.

The provisions of the Federal Government's workplace relations legislation are designed to cover all employees of 'constitutional corporations'. This would of course cover most workers in the private sector but not so many in the public sector. However, the TAFE Commission is a corporation. Whether it is a "Constitutional corporation" remains legally unclear. If Prime Minister John Howard succeeds in pushing the legislation through Parliament this year, then the awards covering all TAFE employees including TAFE teachers may be taken over by the Federal industrial relations system in 2006 when it is expected that the legislation will commence. There are proposed transitional arrangements where existing award conditions are maintained for three years but, until Federation examines the legislation, it is all still conjecture.

Nurses in NSW are in a similar predicament. NSW Nurses Association General Secretary Brett Holmes has said on the Association's website their legal advice is that all the NSW nursing awards, including those covering public hospitals, private hospitals and aged care facilities, will be overtaken by the Federal Government's proposed changes.

Mr Holmes said: "In recent years the NSW Industrial Relations Commission has played a key role in re-establishing nursing as an attractive career option by providing nurses, including public hospital and aged care nurses, with substantial pay rises and improved working conditions.

"These much needed improvements would have been hard, if not impossible, to get under the current federal industrial relations system, let alone under the even more restrictive industrial relations laws the Howard Government is now proposing to introduce."

To show their dissatisfaction with the Federal Government's proposals and their support for their state awards, the Nurses Association held a vigil outside the NSW Industrial Relations Commission on October 27.

So the future for TAFE members and for nurses looks federal and that is a very depressing thought. However, TAFE members can be assured that the Federation is not going to abandon the TAFE sector but will fight to ensure that hard won working conditions will not be abandoned.

Diane Hague is the Administration Officer (Media and Communications).

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Last Modified: 15 Nov 2005