Counter Revolution

Workers mobilse against full scale attack

Laws to force workers onto individual contracts give most employers the right to sack you on a whim, cut pay and job conditions, take away the workers courts and limit union access to the workplace. This is the new industrial relations regime that Prime Minister John Howard has bragged he will personally see put in place, come July.

On May 26, Howard announced his new industrial relations agenda, rolling back more than a century of worker rights - hard won rights fought out on the ground and in the industrial courts.

"This is the act of a reactionary government," said MUA National Secretary Paddy Crumlin. "They stooped to illegal, underhand tactics of thuggery, balaclavas and rottweilers in 1998, when they didn't boast absolute power, and we won in court. Now they are set to make bad laws; anti-Australian laws, anti-worker laws, laws to suit their aims, laws taking away workers' rights. They will make Australian families simply an afterthought of global capital. More than ever, we have to stick together and create a united front, both within the union and through national and global union networks. We've got a fighting history and we intend to protect our hard won rights and fight the laws that take them away."

John Howard's industrial regime is a counter-revolution. The PM claimed it was a recipe for a modern Australia, but the ideology dates from the British Thatcher years and back to the 19th century - before unions or workplace laws existed. Howard was mouthing most of the policy back in the seventies as opposition leader, and much of it is the handiwork of his now disgraced former workplace relations lieutenant Peter Reith and big business. Howard's dream is now set to be rubber stamped by the conservative dominated Senate. The laws are designed to force Australian workers into the global labour market and drive down wages and conditions.

Job security will go for all but a minority of unionised workers in key economic sectors.

One of the more sinister equations of Howard's law is the combination of individual contracts without unfair dismissal laws. It was tough to say no to an Australian Workplace Agreement before. For the majority it will now be impossible. There will be a simple ultimatum: Sign here or get the sack. All private companies with 100 workers or less are now exempt from unfair dismissal restrictions. Citing government figures, the Australian Council of Trade Unions estimates that this means workers in 99 per cent of private companies - 3.6 million men and women who comprise around two thirds of working Australians, will have no job security.

What's more, new legislation will remove the 'no disadvantage' clause. This means a worker can no longer act against being dudded by not being on an enterprise agreement or award. There is no benchmark for individual contracts. Worker rights such as rosters, the ability to refuse overtime or irregular hours so as to spend time with family or get involved in the local footie club, will all become things of the past.

MUA maintenance workers, tug and linesmen, even seafarers working on ships could be affected by changes to the unfair dismissal laws. But all MUA members will be affected one way or another.

Nothing put to parliament will favour working families. All is driven by the personalities in the Business Council of Australia, Australian Mines and Metals, Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry and their like.

Individual contracts now cover only 3-5 per cent of the workforce. About two thirds of Australia's nine million workers are employed in such businesses.

Mark Wooden, deputy director of the Melbourne Institute, predicts that big business will divide into groups of 100 employees to take advantage of the new sacking laws.

Howard has also announced the setting up of the Australian Fair Pay Commission to set minimum wages - one for all adult workers, one for junior workers and one for the disabled. The government is stripping the Australian Industrial Relations Commission of its power to set wages in favour of its own beast. Its board will be made up of employer and employee reps (not necessarily union) and economists, presumably Howard Government appointments.

"The Orwellian named Fair Pay Commission clearly aims to set Australian on the path to US-style wage poverty," said ACTU Secretary Greg Combet. "We know this because if, over the past eight years, the government's submission to the minimum wage case had prevailed, the minimum rate would be $44 per week, or $2288 a year, lower than its present $487.80 per week. And Workplace Relations Minister Kevin Andrews has said he thinks the national minimum wage should be $70 a week lower than this."

One thing is for sure, the umpire is now gone from the playing field. The commission won't even register collective agreements anymore. That will down to the Office of Employment Advocate, another Howard beast, which has been rubber stamping individual contracts for the past 10 years. Recently they have been outsourcing the approval of AWAs to industry partners (employer groups) whose income is based on how many AWAs they approve.

Howard is adamant that the Labor states offer no shelter for workers. He wants absolute control under his new regime. The state Labor Premiers have announced they will fight Canberra. But the federal government will try to blackmail them to hand over their rights or lose out on federal funding for water, drought relief, hospitals, education and other community essentials.

At risk are nearly 4 million workers or around half of the Australian workforce.

Other elements of the new regime include forcing secret ballots before strikes (while employers are free to lock out workers) and outlawing pattern bargaining, while providing standard individual contracts for business to download on the web, tougher penalties for industrial action and allowing employers to say if, when and where unions will be allowed in the workplace.

Awards are stripped back to 16 items (with the government arguing that superannuation, jury duty, termination notice and long service leave are already covered by other legislation). Employers will be free to negotiate away most of what's left.

The only guaranteed conditions will be the minimum wage, annual leave, personal leave, parental leave and maximum hours - all determined by Howard appointees and all set in law, not in awards.

Under the hammer are overtime, shift penalties, weekend rates and leave loadings, redundancy pay and public holiday loadings.

ACTU Secretary Greg Combet said Howard was delivering a kick in the guts for Australian workers.

Professor Andrew Stewart from Flinders University told ABC Radio's PM program that he believed strong unions would still be able to bargain collectively, but the vast majority of workers would be affected.

Nick Economou, senior politics lecturer at Monash University is among other commentators who have noted that it can't have escaped Howard that nobbling the unions might hobble the ALP.

Opposition spokesperson for industrial relations Stephen Smith said the new legislation was unfair on workers and unfair on Australian families, pointing out that when challenged the PM refused to fall back on his 1996 mantra that 'no worker would be worse off under a Howard Government.'

"No, because now that he's got all the power under the sun, he'll be as extreme and as unfair and as divisive as he can be. He's trying now to do the thing that he couldn't do when he had Peter Reith with his Alsatian dogs and balaclavas," said Smith "This is all about reducing the wages and conditions of Australian working families, it's about removing their entitlements and removing their rights in the workplace."

So brutal is the new policy that individuals within the ranks of the conservative Liberal party have spoken out. Like mandatory detention and keeping children in prisons, some of Howard's own party can not abide what is afoot.

WA Liberal leader Matt Birney described the planned changes as extreme and divisive.

"I'm concerned about the rights of Western Australian employees being trampled on, just as I'm concerned about the rights of Australian employers."

The union movement is prepared for battle and there is some optimism that this time Howard has gone too far.

Unions NSW secretary John Robertson said the severity of the new laws could lead to a recruitment drive as people rush to join unions for protection.

And Labor's Stephen Smith says that because the changes go to the heart of family living standards it could well be an election issue in 2007. "We can certainly win the next election on family living standards," he said.

Meanwhile the union movement is mobilising nationwide and the ACTU will be running a national TV and radio advertising blitz in coming weeks.