A recent episode of Channel 9′s drama McLeod’s Daughters showed how AWAs are introduced as take-it-or-leave it contracts that cut pay and conditions. The script was apparently inspired by the real-life case of Bill Schultze, an Adelaide teenager who was pressured to sign an AWA by BP — it cut his pay by $2/hour, supposedly [...]
The Government’s primary attack on Labor’s policy is that Rudd and Gillard are making it up as they go along, with the underlying implication that the big bad unions will walk over Rudd and Gillard. The Australian has joined in that attack by running a series of articles making false claims about the policy. In [...]
Labor’s new industrial relations policy, Forward with Fairness, includes a commitment to abolish AWAs in favour of collective agreements. The policy is very good: Collective enterprise agreement making and democracy will be the heart of Labor’s industrial relations system. Collective bargaining allows balanced, cooperative arrangements that foster improved productivity across a business and provide the [...]
Another day, another IR expert supporting Labor’s IR plan. This time it’s the director of the University of Sydney’s Workplace Research Centre, Dr John Buchanan: What ALP policy does stop is employers using individual contracts to undermine collective agreements and unions. This is a basic principle of labour law in all Western democracies and recognised [...]
In the last few days there have been two columns about AWAs that deserve a wide audience. The first was from Josh Bornstein, an industrial relations lawyer, who points out that “individual contract” is a misnomer: Frydenberg’s rhetoric concerning AWAs and “individual choice” is intellectually bankrupt. In practice, individual contracts such as AWAs are an [...]
This Hinze cartoon sums up the Government’s new so-called “fairness test” beautifully. An interview on The World Today explained that this is “more rhetoric than substance”: EMMA ALBERICI: The Government is selling its changes to WorkChoices as a strengthening of the safety net but has stopped short of telling workers they’ll be no worse off [...]
This is a guest post by Chris White. He hass worked for the AWU and LHMU, and is a former Secretary of the UTLC of SA. He is now a Canberra based labour law researcher. He is an ALP member. Union history includes that of struggle to protect striking workers from unjust penal powers. Workers [...]
The only thing holding Greg Combet back from parliament was the prospect of an ugly fight over his replacement as secretary of the ACTU. The two contenders were Jeff Lawrence (from the Labor Left) and John Robertson (from the Right). Robertson appeared to have picked up some support, but when the biggest Right-wing union announced [...]
There’s a pattern emerging in the criticism of Labor’s IR policy. The critics are driven by vested interests and partisan loyalty to the Liberal Party. First, we’ve got the major media critic, the News Ltd group of newspapers (especially The Australian). Why would they be such vocal barrackers for WorkChoices? Because the company uses AWAs [...]
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