
Issue No 31		17 September 1999

News

Commission Tells AGC to Get Into the Nineties

A finance company's attempt to cover its workers with a non-union enterprise agreement has been blocked after it was revealed it was based on an award that had not been updated for a decade.

The deal covering staff at Westpac's finance company, AGC, was the result of a hotly contested ballot earlier this year. The Finance Sector Union campaigned against the deal on the basis it would undermine industry standards.

Now the Australian Industrial Relations Commission has agreed, ruling that the agreement used the wrong award as its reference point.

The FSU had argued that AGC should use the Westpac Enterprise Award as the benchmark for conditions - given that AGC employees did the same work as Westpac staff and even wore the same uniform.

Instead AGC had sought to base the agreement on the Clerks (Finance Companies) Award which had not been updated since 1990. An application by the Clerks Union to actually scrap the award altogether is currently before the Commission.

The Commission decision means that the AGC deal is likely to fail the "no disadvantage" - designed to ensure that non-union deals do not leave workers worse of than the relevant award.

FSU state secretary Geoff Derrick says the ruling should force AGC to negotiate a fairer deal with 1999 standards and conditions.

"We reckon it would be unfair for AGC to go about offering 1990 leasing arrangements to its clients in 1999, because they would be out of date if not unfair," Derrick says.

"By the same logic it should also be unfair to compare the 1999 AGC Agreement with a 1990 Award."

Leaked internal management documents indicate the company is in turmoil over the findings. They contain instructions to line management about what to tell staff, stating that the decision "makes no sense to us."

The leaked documents indicate that AGC will appeal the matter, rather than attempt to fix those aspects of the agreement that fail the test.

"We are calling on AGC to stop arguing the toss, and to put the promised improvements to AGC employees' conditions into place now," Derrick says.

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Issue 31 contents

Interview: Sadly Vindicated
Laborďż˝s foreign affairs spokesman Laurie Brereton has spent the past year warning that East Timor would explode without a UN peacekeeping force. Now heďż˝s had to watch his predictions come true.

International: In the Bunker
One of the last reporters to leave East Timor, Workers Online's HT Lee remembers the week that Dili burned.

Republic: Tarred With the Same Brush
Neville Wran asks why it is that the most fervant monarchists are also the most eager union-bashers.

Unions: Hard Labour
Prisoner educators argue more attention needs to be given to rehabilitation through teaching, but theyďż˝re facing an uphill battle to convince authorities.

History: Labour and Community
A history conference in Wollongong next month will look at the changing role for labour into the next century.

Review: Bobbin' Up - 40 Years On
Forty years after its first publicaton and several European translations Bobbin Up, a classic of industrial fiction, is coming home.

Satire: East Timor Poll Triumph: Support for Jakarta Up 21 Per Cent
The Indonesian Government has declared that it is pleased with the result of the independence referendum in which 21% of East Timorese voted in support of maintaining links with Indonesia.

» Asylum Call for Independence Supporters

» Nurses Collect Vital Medical Supplies

» Industrial Faction for Pre-Conference Caucus

» Lees Backs Freeloader Laws

» Outsourcing Decision - Banks Under the Gun

» Reith Forces Truckies to Speed

» He Talks the Talk - But Can He Walk the Walk?

» Commission Tells AGC to Get Into the Nineties

» Cost-Cutting Puts Clinical Waste in Landfill

» Prisons Reject Free Computers

» US Defence Giant Eyes Welfare Sector