By James Smith
The Community and Public Sector Union (CPSU) on July 15 called on the federal government to "think again" on its proposed second wave workplace relations laws.
The CPSU is concerned that a new round of award stripping and moves to make employment conditions non-transferable will unfairly impact on women.
"In the commonwealth public sector, the government's outsourcing, privatisation and award stripping have already had a significant impact on the rights and conditions of women workers. Former Commonwealth Employment Service [CES] workers, for example, lost their right to paid maternity leave when their jobs went to Employment National", said Wendy Caird, CPSU national secretary.
Public sector employees won the right to 12 weeks' paid maternity leave through hard-fought campaigns. This entitlement has been retained by staff in partly privatised companies like Telstra that are not funded by government.
While private sector employers in industries such as banking, retail, vehicle building and television are introducing and extending maternity leave, Employment National is reversing the trend by reducing entitlements.
The federal government set up Employment National, a publicly owned job service provider, after it dismantled the CES. It competes for contracts with other providers in the private sector.
About half of Employment National's current staff transferred from the CES. Women who transferred to Employment National from the public service were guaranteed paid maternity leave by the government, and this entitlement is included in their Australian Workplace Agreements (AWAs), a form of individual contract.
Former CES employees were also promised a certified agreement when they transferred to Employment National but were forced to sign AWAs in the initial period. After more than 12 months, Employment National have failed to deliver its promised certified agreement.
In addition, Employment National has denied paid maternity leave to all other staff. Employment National AWAs signed prior to April are measured against the public service award (which includes 12 weeks' paid maternity leave) for the ""no disadvantage test. This test was the key part of John Howard's promise that no worker would be worse off under an agreement than under the award.
The Employment Advocate is not satisfied that Employment National AWAs for women pass the "no disadvantage test" if they do not include paid maternity leave.
In February, a full bench of the Industrial Relations Commission granted Employment National management's application for a new safety net award which significantly reduced conditions. These reductions included the loss of 12 weeks' paid maternity leave, reduced redundancy payments (maximum severance pay was reduced from 48 weeks to eight weeks), reduced long service leave and an increase in hours per week.
Employment National argued that it needed to reduce its safety net to compete with the private sector. The commission rejected union arguments and decided Employment National had a "special case" which justified reducing the safety net.
All new Employment National AWAs and new certified agreements will be measured against this new safety net award for the no disadvantage test, and the conditions are much worse than those in AWAs for staff who transferred from the CES.
Approximately 60% of all Employment National's staff are women. Employment National is denying paid maternity leave to all new staff.
These reductions are of great concern to all workers because the decision has set a precedent for other employers seeking to reduce safety net conditions.
"The next round of award stripping has paid maternity leave clearly in its sights, and without any award protection, this hard-won condition is unlikely to survive", warned Caird.
Statistics clearly show that women are worse off when they are forced to bargain outside of the protection of awards. For example, women protected by an award or agreed base rates of pay earn 91.6% of the male rate. In over-award payment areas, women earn only 48.2% of the male rate.
"Deregulation and no-frills awards are an attack on all workers' conditions, but for women, they threaten to overturn significant gains in pay equity. For CPSU members in particular, these attacks will also mean the loss of paid maternity leave", Caird said.
Disappointingly, the CPSU's main strategy to combat industrial relations minister Peter Reith's second wave of industrial attacks is to lobby the Australian Democrats through a letter writing campaign. This approach failed to defeat Reith's first wave of attacks. Workers can look forward to wave after wave of further reduced wages and conditions as long as union leaders insist on pursuing such a doomed strategy.