Editorial: A Sick Set of Laws
The Howard Government's inexorable push to strip workers' rights continues; despite the warnings of unions, churches, community groups, labour market economists and now, epidemiologists.

That's right - after much debate about how the changes will affect the Australian way of life; concerns have now been raised that they will be a threat to Australian life itself.

Drawing on the field of social epidemiology - that is the study of how social conditions affect public health - ACIRRT has painted a picture of a society where the gap between the life expectancy of the rich andthe poor will widen.

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http://workers.labor.net.au/287/

The Federal Government wants to take away most of your basic rights at work.

On 1 July 2005 the Federal Government took control of the Senate, giving it a majority in both houses of Parliament.

For the first time since he became Prime Minister, John Howard's government will be able to pass whatever laws it likes without checks or balances. This will continue until at least the next federal election in 2007.

One of the first things it will do with its new Senate power is take away most of your basic rights at work.

The Federal Government plans to:

1. Abolish unfair dismissal protection for workers employed in companies with less than 100 staff

The Government is attacking job security. It wants to:

• Abolish all unfair dismissal protection for people working in workplaces with less than 100 employees.

• Change workplace agreements - both individual and collective - so they no longer have to contain minimum award redundancy provisions.

• Take away the right of all workers in small businesses to get redundancy pay.

This means 99 per cent of private sector employers - around 4 million working people - will be able to sack their workers unfairly, not even giving them a reason for being sacked.

2. Allow employers to put workers on to individual contracts that cut take-home pay and reduce employment conditions to only 5 minimum standards

The Government wants more employees pushed on to its AWA individual contracts to allow employers to:

• Single out employees, forcing new working conditions on to them one at a time

• Undermine award and collective agreement conditions

• Have more control over your working hours and make more people casual

• Get rid of work rights like weekend, shift and public holiday rates; overtime; redundancy pay; allowances; and casual loadings

• Only have to provide workers with a minimum hourly rate of pay (currently $12.75), 8 days sick leave, 2 weeks annual leave (+2 weeks can be bought out), unpaid parental leave, and max weekly working hours

Workers who refuse to sign may fear being sacked.

3. Change the way minimum wages are set to make them lower

The Government wants minimum wages in Australia to be lower. The minimum wage is now $484 a week ($12.75 ph).

But the Howard Government has said minimum wages should be at least $50 a week lower than they are now.

The Howard Government wants:

• To stop the independent umpire - the Industrial Relations Commission - from setting minimum wage rates.

• Minimum wages to be set by a so-called "Fair Pay Commission" specially chosen by the Government to make sure wages stay low.

This will reduce the living standards for many people who are only just keeping their heads above water.

4. Replace the award safety net with just five minimum conditions

Most of the minimum pay rates and working conditions we take for granted are guaranteed in State or Federal awards, which also underpin workplace agreements.

The Government wants:

• To take away any requirement for agreements to be consistent with award rights

• Agreements to only satisfy five minimum conditions, which will be the same for all industries and all jobs. These standards would be a minimum hourly rate of pay (currently $12.75), 8 days sick leave, 2 weeks annual leave (+2 weeks can be bought out), unpaid parental leave and a maximum number of weekly working hours

• To remove protection for important rights like: limits on when you can be required to work, overtime pay, weekend or night work rates, work related allowances, annual leave loading, casual pay loading

5. Keep unions out of workplaces and reduce the capacity for workers to bargain collectively with their employer

The Government wants to make it harder for unions to protect and represent working people.

The Government wants to:

• Make it harder for unions to make workplace visits

• Make it harder for to legally take industrial action, like strikes, when negotiations break down

• Increase penalties for unions and workers

The Howard Government's plans will affect everyone's right to get help when they need it.

6. Reduce the powers of the independent Industrial Relations Commission

The Industrial Relations Commission is a unique Australian invention. This independent body has provided working people with decent work rights.

The Government wants to weaken the powers of the independent umpire in the workplace - the Industrial Relations Commission, by it from setting minimum wage rates or considering new award conditions. All it wants the Commission to do is fine unions and their members.

Taking away the role of the independent umpire is a recipe for more disputes and lower workplace standards.

Authorised by G Combet ACTU 393 Swanston Street Melbourne 3000

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Download - The Federal Government Wants To Take Away Most Of Your Basic Rights At Work [ doc ]

Editorial: Lord of the Lobster Legs
It was probably only shame that prompted the Prime Minister to draghimself away from a $250 per head fundraiser to meet with a group of emergency workers in Wollongong this week. But, this in itself may be adevelopment.

After all, this has to be one of the most shameless power plays in recent political history: a legislative assault on workers rights, backed by $100 million in wall to wall political advertising funded by
the very taxpayers who are about to be duded.

But when hundreds of Wollongong workers rallied outside the business lunch, the PM agreed to a rare meeting and invited a union delegation including a local police officer, a midwife and a fire fighter to probe him on the impact of his changes.

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http://workers.labor.net.au/286/editorial_editorial.html

ACTU 20 October 2005
More than 7000 people so far have flooded the Australian Governmentwith e-mails protesting their extreme new workplace laws, including almost 3000 emails from people overseas. The ACTU is now ramping up its current web-campaign with a new email protest campaign being released on the ACTU website today that calls for a broader and longer Senate Inquiry.<>Sharan Burrow, ACTU President, said:

"The first stage of the email campaign helped put pressure on the Government just to hold a Senate Inquiry into the changes. But now we find that the Inquiry the Government has agreed to will be done and dusted in less than two weeks. This will make it one of the shortest Senate Inquiries on record considering these are the biggest changes to Australia's workplace laws in 100 years.

It is an insult to those people and the millions of Australian workers and families whose basic rights will be affected by the laws that thebest the Government can do is a slap-dash Inquiry.

This is a clear sign that the Government is simply not listening to the Australian community.

The next stage of the ACTU email campaign, being launched today invites concerned workers and citizens to email a Coalition Senator and request they support a broader inquiry into the proposed new laws.

The ACTU's online campaign has ensured that information about the Australian Government's radical new laws has seeped around the world and shocked protests have come in from Norway to New Zealand, from theUSA to Taiwan and South Africa.

Wherever union supporters are we want them to know what is happening in Australia and we want them to help us to build global pressure againstthe Howard Government's industrial relations agenda.

"Australian companies selling Australian products overseas should be ready to explain under exactly what conditions their products wereproduced.

"They should be prepared to say proudly to consumers across the globe that their produce was the result of decent working conditions from acountry that gives its workers a fair go.

"In the USA union activists are particularly surprised by the ugly face of the Howard legislation," Sharan Burrow said.

"They tell me they are amazed that these new laws will make Australian conditions for organising working people even worse than thestate-of-play in their country - and that is saying a lot."

The e-mail protest campaign run in alliance with the global trade union website LabourStart has seen thousands of individuals and organisations sending protests to John Howard and copies to ALP Leader Kim Beazley.

You can help send an email by visiting the ACTU's Your Rights at Work website at: http://www.rightsatwork.com.au

<>This article can be found on the Web at:
http://www.actu.asn.au/work_rights/news/1129783046_31925.html

Editorial: Howard's Secret War
There are two wars being waged against Australian workers right now.The first one is the blatant assault on the rights at work - it is being played out on the national political stage between the Howard Government with the backing of the big business lobby and the Australian community. It is rightly dominating the news as the government ducks and weaves around its economic agenda - to drive Australian wages down.

But in the shadow is a separate, more insidious attack - on an institution that has been integral to Australian way of life for thepast 120 years - the trade union movement.

There have been whispers in the press - 'crackdown on union power' was one headline in the Murdoch press, using all the subtleties of language that have given us 'tax relief'' and 'the war on terror '. But the
violence in the attack on unions is only becoming apparent as the detail of the government proposals come to light.

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http://workers.labor.net.au/285/editorial_editorial.html

Editorial: Age of Consent
After more than five years of debating, cajoling and at times pleading,NSW workers have secured a set of cyber work rights worth celebrating.

From today you have a legal right to access your union's website, receive union emails - including in the middle of industrial action - and even, read Workers Online! And your boss is now required to set out a clear policy on email usage before being able to monitor your webusage - not revolutionary, but a small step forward for privacy.

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http://workers.labor.net.au/284/editorial_editorial.html