BY ALEX BAINBRIDGE
HOBART — Two bills, passed into law at the end of 2000, reveal just how thoroughly former militant unionist Premier Jim Bacon has been tamed by business. The workers' compensation act and the industrial relations act have both drawn condemnation from unions and praise from employer bodies.
Unions Tasmania, formerly the Tasmanian Trades and Labor Council, gave the government a 4/10 mark for overall performance in a survey published in January, the lowest score given by any of the organisations polled. In December its secretary Lynne Fitzgerald told the Hobart Mercury "This is a government for the bosses at the detriment of the workers".
Although its details were only revealed on November 14, the workers' compensation bill was rushed through the upper house on November 30. The law erodes workers' common law rights, including regulations which allow a worker to sue their employer only if their injury is deemed to represent a body impairment of more than 30%.
Greg Cooper of the Australian Manufacturing Workers Union told Green Left Weekly that there had been no consultation with his union before the details were released and only one briefing session afterwards.
While some workers may receive more in cash settlements, others will be worse off. Incapacitated workers will receive 100% of their former income level for 13 weeks (instead of the present six weeks) but only 85% for the rest of the first year (instead of 90-95%). There are significant reductions in income levels after the first year.
The loss of common law provisions will hit blue collar workers particularly hard. Many injuries judged to result in less than 30% incapacity would still prohibit an industrial worker from returning to work.
The legislation also creates the anomalous situation whereby an injured member of the public can sue a business for negligence while a worker with the exact same injury cannot.
The Tasmanian Chamber of Commerce and Industry (TCCI) was enthusiastic about the legislation — it expects employers' premiums to be reduced from 3.1% of wages (one of the highest rates in the country) to 2.7% (one of the lowest).
To add insult to injury, Jim Bacon's government announced the legislation less than one week after a November state ALP conference had passed several resolutions opposing major changes to workers' compensation.
While the workers' compensation law was a clear sop to the bosses, Bacon's industrial relations law was supposedly delivering on a promise given prior to the 1998 state election which, if enacted in its original form, would have resulted in some improvements for unions.
The original plan included a "no disadvantage" test, which would ensure that workers shifting to enterprise agreements from awards would not be worse off, stipulations making it easier for unions to intervene in enterprise negotiations even when it has no members at a particular worksite and clauses compelling employers to deduct union fees from employees' wages.
As soon as the election was over, the TCCI launched a campaign against this "anti-business" law. It was eventually able to get the upper house to significantly amend the bill when it was presented on November 16, prompting a statement from Bacon's government describing the upper house as an "unaccountable group" in the "pockets of the privileged".
Within weeks, however, industrial relations minister Peter Patmore had agreed to accept the majority of the amendments, including the removal of the "no disadvantage" test.
In justifying this breach of an election promise, Patmore pointed to the two positive changes, on unfair dismissal and appeal rights, which were allowed to remain in the legislation. "Now, do I throw those out for the sake of hard-line ideology and bloody mindedness?", he asked himself rhetorically. "No I don't."