Susan Price
Seventeen of Australia's leading academic researchers in industrial relations and labour-market issues have released a series of papers analysing the federal Coalition government's proposed changes to Australia's industrial relations laws and their likely effects.
The group, convened by University of Sydney school of business professor Russell Lansbury, has "pooled almost a decade of research on the impact of industrial relations policy changes thus far" to present a "report card" on PM John Howard's IR agenda.
According to the summary report, the government's proposals will: "undermine people's rights at work; deliver a flexibility that in most cases is one way, favouring employers; do — at best — nothing to address work-family issues; have no direct impact on productivity; and disadvantage the individuals and groups already most marginalised in Australian society."
According to research by academics Peter Waring and Mark Bray from Newcastle University, "contrary to the claims by the federal government, employees will not have 'freedom of choice'. Most employees will be either forced to accept new employment rules dictated to them by employers or give up their jobs."
Tackling the uses of the corporations power by the federal government, Ron McCallum, dean of law at Sydney University, predicts the "corporatisation of our labour laws", where labour laws "relying upon the corporations power could not for long maintain [the] balance between employers and employees", and will "inevitably fasten upon the economic needs of corporations".
According to the paper by RMIT's Iain Campbell, "The government's plans will effectively abolish the award system. While the reforms may preserve the 'shell' of an award system, they are likely to eliminate the last remnants of their substance."
Peter Saunders, director of the Social Policy Research Centre at the University of New South Wales, found that according to ABS data, "All full-time workers, except those under 25 years of age, have experienced growing inequality. Those at the top have enjoyed spectacular increases in income while many at the bottom of the scale have gone backwards."
According to the paper by Griffith University professor of industrial relations Peter Brosnan, "There is no guarantee that the new national minimum wage proposal by the federal government will be an effective minimum, especially since the government's package of reforms will reduce the effectiveness of awards."
Robyn May from RMIT, John Burgess from Newcastle University and Campbell found that Australia has very high levels of casual work compared to other OECD countries. "The proposed changes will not address these problems, in fact they will further expand the gaps in the system that have allowed the rapid expansion of casual work."
"Many workers hired as independent contractors will find that their incomes are more uncertain, their hours of work less predictable, access to paid annual leave non-existent and the threat of dismissal ever present", according to Elsa Underhill from the Deakin University business school. "Increasingly workers will have little choice except to accept these forms of employment."
One of the key items in the government's IR "reforms" is the exemption of companies with 100 or fewer employees from the unfair dismissal provisions of the Workplace Relations Act. According to research by Rowena Barrett from Monash University, "There is no convincing evidence that this measure will generate new jobs. Rather, the exemption is likely to cause the quality of jobs in small to medium sized enterprises to decline and make it difficult for such employers to recruit high quality workers."
Negative impacts on work and family life are also a feature of the research findings. According to Marian Baird from Sydney University and Patricia Todd from the University of Western Australia, the changes "will exacerbate problems of lower pay, fewer entitlements and job insecurity" and will "contradict the government's professed commitment to better work/family practices".
Drawing on the experience of the New Zealand Employment Contracts Act in 1991, Griffith University's David Peetz found no evidence to support the government's claim that individual contracts deliver higher productivity. Peetz examined the period when Australia had a "collectivist national government" and New Zealand an "individualistic one" (exemplified by the Employment Contracts Act, 1991). He found that productivity growth was substantially higher in Australia — and this was after the two countries had experienced similar rates of productivity for the previous 14 years.
Robyn May, in an article published in the May 24 Melbourne Age, wrote that during the 1990s in New Zealand, the male full-time participation rate in employment fell 11%, inflation rose dramatically and productivity flat-lined. Workers received individual contracts that did away with many long-held entitlements, such as overtime and penalty rates, and that often contained pay-cuts as well. New Zealand experienced a deepening of income inequality and a big growth in the number of families with no adult in work.
Bradon Ellem from Sydney University reveals the way in which the language of the government obscures the realities of policy change. "It speaks of 'deregulation' but all markets need to be regulated. The question is how are labour markets regulated. The government speaks of a 'unitary system', but what would emerge from these proposals would be greater fragmentation, leading to greater, not less, uncertainty."
[To download the complete collection of papers, visit <http://www.econ.usyd.edu.au/content.php?pageid=14896>.]
From Green Left Weekly, July 13, 2005.
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