Enemy at the Gate

By Trevor Dobbyn, National President, RTBU

Trevor Dobbyn

First: The government will make it easier for employers to force a majority of people on to AWAs, even if there is a collective agreement in place. AWAs take away your ability to negotiate collectively with your company. They're often used to make it easier for employers to have more control over working hours and to get rid of payments like overtime and weekend penalty rates. AWAs will be used to lock workers in for up to five years (currently it's 3 years).

Penalties, limits on unions

Second: They want to keep unions out of workplaces and reduce negotiating and bargaining rights. Union members still get the best deal - they earn an average of $125 a week more than non-union workers. So the government and big business want to make it harder for unions to do their job. The government wants to make it more difficult to legally take industrial action, like strikes, if negotiations aren't giving workers a decent outcome.

They also want to introduce complicated secret ballots before all strikes, limits on how long you can be on strike and what you can be on strike for, and laws to make it much easier to stop industrial action.

All this will make it harder to stand up for your rights when you really need to.

The government wants to increase penalties for unions and workers for breaking these complex new laws. The Howard Government says that it doesn't want unions 'interfering' in workplaces - but this means that they don't want unions 'interfering' with employers demands on you.

Reduce working conditions

Third: They want to remove important conditions from all awards.

Around 1.6 million Australians rely on awards for all their wages and working conditions.

For millions of others who have some sort of Enterprise Agreement, awards still underpin important rights like annual leave, parental leave, overtime and redundancy.

For those workers who are now in State systems, even more things will be lost when they are dumped into the stripped-back federal awards.

Business wants the government to get rid of award conditions like extra pay for weekends and public holidays, overtime pay, and limits on when you can be asked to work. With lower award conditions, it will be even harder to negotiate a decent agreement with your employer. This is a big step backwards for Australian workers.

Fourth: They want to reduce the powers of the independent umpire - the Industrial Relations Commission - to settle disputes and set minimum work standards.

Limit the Industrial Commission

For over a hundred years, State and Federal Industrial Relations Commissions have been able to settle disputes, and to make awards to set decent workplace rights for all Australians.

Industrial Relations Commissions have provided an independent forum where working people can take disputes if things go wrong.

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

Reduce minimum wage

Finally, they want to change the way that minimum wages are set to make them lower.

For more than a century, minimum wages in Australia have been set and regularly increased by the independent umpire, the Industrial Relations Commission.

The minimum wage in Australia is currently $12.30 an hour, or $467 a week (full time).

The Howard Government has opposed every application by unions to increase minimum wage rates. If the government had its way, minimum wages would be $44 a week lower than they are now.

Just how much the RTBU will be effected by this union bashing agenda is hard to say, particularly as the government has control of the Senate until at least 2011 and could try anything between now and then. But we can be sure that we will not be immune from the effects of these changes.

The impacts may vary from state to state, and from public sector entity to private company, but impacts there will be. Our union needs to get behind the campaign to fight for the rights of working people, to let the Howard Government know that we will oppose its plans to reduce living standards.

Union campaign

The ACTU is kicking off with a $6.5 million advertising campaign, which is supported by the RTBU. We should be there for rallies, meetings and solidarity actions with other unions when needed.

But probably the most important things you can do are in your own workplace. Not all employers will use the new laws that the Government will give them.

Workers who stick together and make sure their employer keeps dealing with them as a group, will be in the best position to resist these changes. Our commitment to sticking together and bargaining together has to stay strong.

You need to make sure that your workplace is fully organised and able to defend itself against any new laws. You and your workmates can also sign a workplace petition and ask your employer to sign the Rights at Work Charter (see page 13). You can get these on the ACTU website on www.actu.asn.au.

If your workplace has strong union membership then you might be able to help others to organise their workplaces. We have to try to protect as many workers as possible from having their basic rights taken away. Not just ourselves - also other workers, who might be our kids, our wives, husbands, or friends.

This is one of the toughest challenges the Australian union movement has ever faced. We will need to have a disciplined, focused and well-resourced campaign to make sure we get the best possible outcome for working Australians.

Our campaign won't end when the laws are passed. We will make sure that people know that their workplaces are changing for the worse because of the Howard Government's decision to support big business demands.

We will do everything we can to campaign against these laws. Your rights at work are worth fighting for. It's a fight we have to win.