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Biting Current Issues

By Brian Boyd, VTHC Secretary
Tuesday 19 October 2010


1. Gillard Government and a 2^nd Term IR Agenda

(Employers/Conservatives not shy – why should we be!)

No one will be surprised that working people have been monitoring the political developments nationally since the hung parliament result following the Federal election of August 2010.

The employers haven’t taken long to ratchet up their rhetoric for I.R changes, claiming unions are becoming more involved in collective enterprise bargaining, which ‘inhibits productivity’. In particular, their spokespersons are whinging about dispute resolution procedures that allow unions to have a say. These WorkChoices diehards are happy to exploit the current political environment for all its worth. This, despite post – federal election polling showing voters felt the potential of Abbott re-introducing WorkChoice style laws rated “as an extremely or very important factor” in how they voted.

But employers continue to pester the government. Another issue concerns the requirement that when transferring staff to other parts of the enterprise, these workers are entitled to carry over existing industrial entitlements.

BHP has gone so far as to complain that since the demise of WorkChoices they have experienced “low-level industry activity” in their Australian enterprises such as claims of “access” by unions!

Recently Opposition Treasury spokesperson Jo Hockey called on business to insist on more “workplace reform”, adding “industrial relations reform will never be dead” (6/10).

It is important that the national union movement also articulate key issues needed to improve the Fair Work Act during the second term of an ALP Government in Canberra.

Such a second term IR agenda should be centred around freeing - up the bargaining process and ending the remaining “WorkChoices” - type clauses in the new Fair Work Act. Unions are not looking for re-regulation as artificially claimed by the employers but less restrictions on workers ability to negotiate collectively. Employers still retain many avenues to attack organised workplaces in the 2009 Act.

2. South Australia Union movement defending hard won conditions

The Rann ALP South Australian State government has moved to end 3700 public sector jobs, cut Long Service Leave rights and abolish annual leave loadings.

The so called “hard, tough budget” supported “unanimously by cabinet” was framed “against a background of global economic turmoil”.

This reference to the Global Financial Crisis (GFC) of the 2008-2009 period, is of great concern.

To date the incoming federal government and other state governments are not saying their GFC “stimulus packages” are needing austerity cut backs, as are now occurring across Europe. Over the last two months huge trade union mobilisations have been blockading many capital cities in countries like Spain, France, Britain and Greece. All of these and other countries are imposing major spending cuts which are taking back hard-won social and work entitlements.

The SA government is in breach of EBA’s, negotiated in good faith. No wonder the unions are claiming “betrayal”. Is the South Australian government’s anti-worker stance a sign of the times?

3. The OHS “national harmonisation” process, not a done deal

The union movement has never been happy with the so called ‘harmonisation’ of the nation’s OHS laws, started by John Howard and continued on by the Rudd government. Safe Work Australia is proceeding a pace to introduce a new National OHS law framework by the beginning of 2012.

The federal government has deemed a COAG decision of December 2009 as the end of the public debate on the main ingredients of the proposed new law. The union movement has stated the new draft law as containing “watered down” elements e.g. less rights for Health and Safety Representatives’.

In mid – October, the NSW Premier Kristina Keneally re-opened the door for more improvements to be pursued. She has called for national recognition of existing NSW OHS law that allows for the reverse onus of proof on employers regarding negligence and for the ability of unions to take legal action against employers who breach OHS regulations. Unions have rarely prosecuted offences in NSW and have never abused this right.

Keneally has publicity said the proposed national OHS laws “should not occur if it lowers safety standards for workers in NSW”. She stated her cabinet had taken “a principled decision” not to enact the legislation “as it is currently proposed”.

ACTU Secretary Jeff Lawrence has backed the NSW government stance. He has called for a ‘review’ of the proposed OHS ‘national harmonisation’ law so that standards can be lifted for “all Australian workers”. He added that the Keneally stance “opens the door for a re-think” about what a national OHS system will look like. Keneally said “a harmonisation process should not be a process that lowers everyone to the lowest common denominator”.

Prime Minister Gillard has called on NSW Premier Keneally not to renege on the December 2009 COAG process. It should be recognised that Gillard’s starting point is not to create the best national OHS laws but to create uniform national OHS laws in order to assist employers in how they do business across States and Territories borders, so as to boost productivity.

Kenneally has provided an opportunity for the union movement to enhance the campaign to win an OHS legal framework that contains the best laws possible.

4. My School Website – Mark 2

The union movement hasn’t forgotten how Julia Gillard, when Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Education in the Rudd Government, treated the AEU over its concerns about her My School website. It will be remembered that the union was particularly concerned about how the media would use it to create artificial rankings i.e. “league tables” of schools. The AEU argued such outcomes would be patently unfair to the education community. Gillard used her IR laws to threaten individual teachers and the union itself with big fines if they didn’t co-operate with the introduction of the controversial website.

Last week it was announced that the My School website is to be “revamped”. It will now provide more relevant information and make it “harder” for the media to compile rankings that cause misrepresentations and confusion.

A federal ‘working party,” set up following the Gillard/AEU dispute, has come up with recommendations that the nations education ministers are expected to approve and implement.

But where is the apology to the AEU? These developments go a along way towards what the union was putting to Gillard in the lead up to the launch of the original My School website.

5. And Another Apology is due – from Jeff Kennett

Recently the media ran with the extraordinary story that former Victorian Premier Jeff Kennett (1992-1999) is claiming there had been two attempts to shoot him when he ran the State Government.

The Victoria Police said they knew nothing about it. The police officer who headed up Kennett’s personal protection detail, Inspector Jeff Mawkes, said he didn’t believe the claim. Mawkes understands the mood and politics of social protest well. He was part of the ‘riot squad’ apparatus of the Victoria Police for a long time.

Kennett didn’t give details of dates, times or locations. Amazingly he never reported the ‘incidents’. Surely attempted assassinations deserved crime scenes to be set up, bullets to be located and analysed, if not to pursue the perpetrators so they couldn’t do it again to Kennett, but also to others. It is a complete dereliction of duty by a senior politician. In fact, it could be considered a criminal offence for not reporting the alleged shootings at the time.

But what is really insulting is Kennett tried to link the alleged ‘attempted assassinations’ to two of the many controversial policy impositions he was responsible for during his term as Premier: the handing over of Albert Park to the GP race and the shutting down of schools and the sacking of thousands of teachers .

The VTHC and many of its affiliates had various levels of involvement in these issues during the 90’s. While they involved high levels of anger at times and social unrest it can be categorically stated they never, never generated a terrorist level response such as assassination attempts!

Mr Kennett owes all of those concerned citizens and unionists a public apology for even hinting their legitimate concerns at the time can be smeared by his latest outrageous claim.

6. Unions not going anywhere

As the federal ALP begins its internal inquiry into the 2010 federal election result, various commentators have come out of the woodwork to slate the union movement. Former NSW Minister Rodney Cavalier has recently written a book entitled Power Crisis. His rave includes claims unions affiliated with the ALP have ‘lost their social relevance’ and were “an anachronism by the 1970s”.

Paul Kelly of ‘The Australian’ recently promoted Cavalier's bitterness by claiming that because the NSW unions campaigned against the privatisation of the power industry it was a “contempt for Australian democracy” Other illustrations given are the union movements’ historical opposition to the proposed privatisation of Sydney’s Ferries and the ongoing and recently re-affirmed opposition to watered down national OHS laws.

Cavalier is attempting to create a false dichotomy, that the problem is unions having too much dominance over the Labor Party in government.

The real state of play is that unions have not lost their ability to contribute in a relevant way to the social issues of the day. Social relevance comes from a unions’ industrial strength in the workplace, not in surrendering it. Commentators like Paul Kelly and Rodney Cavalier try to confound this reality in a crude attempt to deny union having any rights in a democracy.

The union movement may be down to representing 20% of the workforce but their membership is far bigger then the ALP and Lib/ NP memberships combined. They see many injustices via their memberships not in spite of them and are entitled to pursue them in the public arena.