
Issue No 19		25 June 1999

Trades Hall

Jennie George: Women and Reith's Second Wave

Women across Australia need to lobby hard to ensure that Peter Reith's new industrial laws are not implemented because they will profoundly disadvantage women workers. I ask all women to inform themselves of the changes and lobby their parliamentarians - especially in the Senate - to ensure they do not become law.

The Federal Government is proposing more industrial law changes following the introduction of the Workplace Relations Act in 1996. If implemented these willdisadvantage women workers.

Nobbling the Industrial Relations Commission

The Government wants to further limit the role of the Commission which has been fundamental to protecting the wages and conditions of Australian women.

Women have achieved working conditions through the Commission that are better than many enjoyed by women overseas. These include close to equal pay in award rates of pay, maternity and family leave entitlements and more recently equal remuneration for work of equal value.

The Government has already limited the Commission's powers to arbitrate to certain 'allowable matters'. It now wants to limit its powers to conciliate to those same matters.

This means the Commission could not be called upon to assist workers and their employers negotiate over conditions such as equal opportunity and sexual harassment.

The proposals also introduce a new user pay system of private mediation which would operate in competition with the Commission. Employers will be encouraged to bypass the Commission as a forum for resolving disputes.

The Government is also seeking to introduce limited seven year terms for Commission members. This has been rightly seen by former Commission members as a direct threat to the independence and integrity of the Commission.

It is critical to the Commission's authority that it is able to stand up and reject Government submissions in the many cases in which the Government intervenes but most importantly in national wage cases.

The Commission's discretionary powers over a whole range of issues, but in particular with respect to industrial action, would also be removed under the new proposals. This means the Commission's power to suggest common sense and practical resolutions to disputes will be curtailed.

These changes, if implemented, would undermine one of the great strengths of the Commission: its unrivalled authority as an independent, expert forum in which employers and workers can have confidence that it will deal fairly and effectively with all matters affecting workplace relations.

They will undermine the capacity of the Commission to deal effectively with wages and conditions of those workers who are dependent on the Commission rather than their own bargaining power, to win such improvements.

Awards - Withering on the Vine

Women are disproportionately dependent on awards for their wages and conditions. The ACTU estimates that fifty percent of women working part-time are dependent on awards - some 800,000 workers. We estimate that 20% of full-time women workers are similarly dependant - an additional 420,000 workers. This makes a total of 1,220,000 women dependent on awards.

The specific 'allowable matters' for awards relate largely to pay and leave issues. The Commission has also been able to make decisions regarding 'incidental matters' in respect to these issues. The new proposals seek to remove this power.

The Government is also seeking to remove long service leave, leave for jury service, superannuation, trade union training leave and union picnic days from awards.

It wants to require awards be stripped back to the minimum conditions before safety net rises can be paid to workers dependent on them. It also wants to make it harder to move from State awards to Federal Awards.

The overall impact of the changes would be to reduce the role of awards to the barest minimum conditions and force workers to rely upon enterprise bargaining or individual contracts for pay rises.

It is critical for women that awards continue to be relevant and as comprehensive as possible.

If awards clearly become a second rate, bare minimum system this will have a disastrous effect on women's wages compared to men's and on the conditions that women are required to work under compared to men's.

Leaving Market Forces To Prevail - Bargaining

The clear purpose of the changes proposed is to make bargaining the primary means of regulation of wages and working conditions.

The Government is seeking to entrench individual contracts as the pre-eminent form of employment relationship.

Women workers do not do as well in bargaining as men. This is because they work in industries that are not as industrially strong or as economically strategic.

Formal bargaining is strongest in the manufacturing, transport, communications and construction industries. It is weakest in the retail, hospitality and personal services industries.

ACIRRT research in NSW shows that only 4% of NSW women workers in workplaces with more than 20 employees have their pay and conditions regulated by NSW and Federal agreements.

ACIRRT research suggests that where women receive above award rates of pay it is at the employer's instigation. 23% of NSW women workers receive overawards unrelated to formal agreements.

While only a relatively small number of individual contracts (AWAs) have been made Australian-wide it is of some concern that a quarter of these involve intermediate clerical and sales and services workers. The Government now proposes to:

Allow AWAs to be implemented as soon as they are signed, rather than from the date of approval by the Employment Advocate (EA).

Remove the requirement that the employer must offer the same AWA to all comparable employees, thus allowing a discriminatory approach to offering agreements.

Remove the requirement that the EA refer an AWA to the Commission when unsure about whether or not it disadvantages employees.

Allow AWAs providing for total remuneration of more than $68,000 to be approved without any checking by the EA.

Allow AWAs to be made undercutting a collective certified agreement, even while the latter is in operation.

With respect to certified agreements the Government proposes the following:

Allow certified agreements to be approved in secret; that is without a formal hearing by the Commission.

Allow agreements to be made with any group of employees, rather than being required to cover all or a separate part of the enterprise. This will allow the employer to discriminate against particular workers, including women.

Other Changes

There are a range of other changes that will also impact detrimentally on women workers, including new provisions making legal industrial action effectively make it impossible. It is also proposed to limit the ability of unions to enter workplaces and represent their members by requiring members to personally invite them in on each occasion.

Further limitations on protections against unfair dismissal are proposed as is the permanent entrenchment of youth wages and making it easier for employers to disguise 'employees' as 'independent contractors'.

Conclusion

Australian women workers need a strong, independent and fearless Industrial Relations Commission. This is the body that has delivered for Australian women. We must protect and preserve its important role in our system of industrial relations. We must ensure it has the powers it needs to protect ordinary workers who rely upon it for their wages and conditions.

Australian women workers need a comprehensive and relevant award system. We need a fair and transparent and accountable system of bargaining on top of that award system.

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Issue 19 contents

Interview: Moore for the Battlers
NCOSS director Garry Moore gives the community sector's response to this week's State Budget

Unions: AWU's Bush Blitz
"This is AWU Country". That's the slogan for the Australian Workers Union as it launches its campaign to address the specific needs of workers throughout regional and rural Australia.

Indigenous: Nowhere to Run, Nowhere to Hide
A United Nations committee slams Australia on indigenous native title rights.

International: Unions Post-War Stand
The world labour group demands KFOR track war-crimes authors and says social dimension central to Balkan reconstruction.

History: How Swede It Was
Swedish seafarers play an important role in South Australia's maritime history.

Review: If He Had Only Listened To Me ...
If Michael Thompson had listened to me the current debate raging in the nation�s opinion pages about his book may not have been as hysterical.

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