BY SUE BOLTON
Usually, when federal minister for union-bashing Tony Abbott wants to introduce new legislation, he likes to boast. The problem with this, however, is that it allows opposition to his attacks to build up, pressuring senators to reject the legislation.
So now Abbott is trying a different approach. He's using the federal budget papers for 2003-04 to attempt to smuggle in an amendment to the workplace relations act that will have dire consequences for tens of thousands of workers.
Hidden in the section of the budget papers relating to higher education, titled "Our Universities: Backing Australia's Future", is the following paragraph:
"An amendment will be made to the Workplace Relations Act 1996 to amplify the power of the Australian Industrial Relations Commission to end protected industrial action, by requiring the AIRC to take particular account of the welfare of particular classes of people, that is, people who are clients of health, community services or education systems, including students."
At the stroke of a pen, without any public debate, the federal government wants to define the health, community services and education sectors as essential services, in order to justify removing the right of tens of thousands of these workers to take industrial action.
If the government was really so concerned about the vulnerable people who use the services of health and education workers, it would not be restricting access to these services and would provide adequate staffing and resources. Its sole motivation for restricting the industrial rights of these workers is to implement its anti-union agenda.
The government has had trouble convincing the Senate to pass amendments to the workplace relations act, to make it even more draconian. So, now Abbott is targeting health, education, community service and building workers for special legislation in a crude "divide and rule" tactic. He clearly hopes that the Senate will pass the legislation if it is only targeting some workers.
The budget papers also threaten that up to $400 million of funding for universities will be withheld unless universities succeed in forcing academic staff onto individual agreements.
Building workers
The government's budget also allocates $17 million to implementing the recommendations of the building industry royal commission. This will cover:
* The development of separate legislation to govern workplace relations in the construction industry, which will override the workplace relations act. This legislation will make secret ballots compulsory; ban pattern bargaining; limit protected industrial action; prohibit "discrimination" against contractors on the basis of whether or not they have a certified agreement with the union; proscribe secondary boycotts; restrict union officials right of entry; award damages for unprotected industrial action; and introduce a 'fit and proper person' test for union officials.
* The establishment of a new law enforcement agency for the industry, provisionally named the Australian Building and Construction Commission (ABCC), with the power to compel witnesses to testify, bring prosecutions and enforce judgements.
The budget also provides $6.9 million to extend the life of the Interim Building Industry task-force until June 30, 2004, when the ABCC will take over its role.
The budget papers also state: "the commonwealth should be prepared to accept some short term commercial pain, for the longer term benefits that would flow if it uses its purchasing power to drive real change at the site level on its own projects" therefore, "the government has announced that it will insist on the application of the National Code and Implementation Guidelines to all significant new projects which are fully or partly federally funded.
Legal action
One thing which has driven Abbott wild has been the refusal of some of the more militant unions in Victoria and Western Australia to abide by court orders instructing unions to end industrial action and return to work. The budget papers state that the government will take a "more active" role in bringing legal proceedings against those failing to comply.
They state that:
* the government will seek penalties for contempt of court where a union's defiance of a court order is "deliberate and willful"
* the government will amend the act to clarify, and increase penalties for, "contemptuous conduct" in relation to the AIRC.
* Less serious breaches of AIRC orders will result in government inspectors initiating action for civil penalties.
In a press release dated May 13, Abbott states that legal action will be initiated by the government even if the involved parties or the court decide not to. This will have a big impact. At the end of most industrial disputes, part of the agreement is usually that the employers drop all court action. Abbott is proposing that the government will pick it up, even if the employers agree to drop it.
Seven million dollars will be allocated from within the Department of Employment and Workplace Relations to create a special department unit to investigate and prosecute cases.
Unfair dismissal
The other major change in the budget is the government announcement that it intends to use the corporations' power of the constitution to override state law to move state award employees of corporations, the vast bulk of workers, to the federal system of unfair dismissal laws. This represents 75% of all employees.
The federal government has allocated an additional $16.8 million over four years to the AIRC for the increased workload which would result from the government's decision.
As a result of this shift, significant numbers of workers will lose all access to unfair dismissal laws, or will only be able to claim under very restrictive circumstances.
In a May 15 press release, NSW Labor Council secretary John Robertson said that the proposed changes would make it harder and more complex for people working under NSW awards to prove that they had been unfairly dismissed. "The commonwealth laws do not protect casual workers and contractors or the class of 'deemed employees' that include outworkers in the textile industry or transport workers." It therefore would be discriminatory because it wrote large sections of the workforce out of coverage.
The federal unfair dismissal system is more legalistic and expensive than the NSW system. Under the federal unfair dismissal system, the AIRC is only allowed to conciliate, and where that fails, it forces workers into taking formal federal court action, if they can afford it. However, under the NSW system, the IRC can make binding decisions when conciliation fails.
A NSW government analysis of the plan which was reported in the May 15 Daily Telegraph stated that under the federal system, workers would be prevented from challenging redundancy because, in theory, redundancies are made for "genuine operational reasons".
Employees of small businesses would lose the most from the shift, including a reduction in the maximum compensation for wrongful dismissal from six months pay to three months and an increase in the probation period (during which unfair dismissal does not apply) from three months to six months. Also, in the federal system, commissioners can dismiss cases "on the papers" without the worker putting their case.
Australian Democrats senator Andrew Murray indicated on ABC Radio's AM on May 20 that the Democrats would be likely to support the shift of workers from the state unfair dismissal system to the federal system.
From Green Left Weekly, May 28, 2003.
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