Sue Bolton, Melbourne
At the 1800-strong Victorian union delegates' meeting on March 29, Australian Council of Trade Unions secretary Greg Combet talked about what sort of industrial relations policy the trade union movement should ask the Labor Party to implement when it next wins government.
He told the delegates there would be a "wide debate" and the ACTU would decide on a policy at its congress in Melbourne in October. "We'll be pushing for as much of it to be adopted [by the ALP] as we can possibly anticipate", he said.
In an interview in the March 29 Australian Financial Review, Combet said it is "necessary to strike an alternative industrial relations policy [that has] regard to the open-trading nature of the economy but also the fundamental rights that are important for workers". The policy should be focused around a "central set of basic rights, rather than jurisdictions".
The five basic rights Combet listed are: an effective and strong safety net; protection against unfair treatment; the right to collectively bargain; the proper enshrinement of the right to union representation in the law; and access to an independent umpire to establish minimum wages and a safety net. Absent from the list are the right to strike and a commitment to an award-based structure or other forms of collective agreements.
The middle road
According to the March 30 AFR, Labor leader Kim Beazley will release the ALP's IR policy in April. Beazley told the AFR that he agreed with Combet's views, adding that Labor would take an IR policy to the next election that involves "both ripping up" the Work Choices legislation and taking a "new path".
Beazley used the example of the ALP's new unfair dismissal policy, released on March 24, to explain what he meant by a new, fair system of industrial relations. He described the policy to the media on March 2 as: "The creation of a new tribunal which deals specifically with unfair dismissals on a basis that was friendly both to the complainants and to the employer, and with mechanisms in it to get rid of rogue claims."
The new ALP policy restores only some of the rights to challenge unfair dismissal that Howard has abolished. Sacked workers would go to a tribunal similar to the state small claims and residential tenancy tribunals, cutting the industrial relations commission out of the picture. It would focus on mediation at the workplace, without lawyers.
According to an ALP media release, the system will "balance the interests of employers and employees". The plan will "allow both parties to be heard, discouraging expensive lawyers, prohibiting contingency fees and filtering out ambit claims". The plan will also "allow costs to be ordered against applicants who pursue speculative or vexatious claims".
Geelong Trades Hall secretary Tim Gooden told Green Left Weekly he was outraged that the ALP didn't have the gumption to produce an unfair dismissal policy clearly on the side of workers. He condemned Labor's attempt to steer a "middle path" between bosses and workers, explaining that a tribunal along the lines the ALP has described won't have the power to order employers to reinstate sacked workers or order compensation.
"The ALP's new unfair dismissal policy doesn't restore all of what the Howard government has taken away", Gooden said. He added that the focus on getting rid of "vexatious claims" leans more towards the interests of employers than workers. "What constitutes a vexatious claim? Employers often view good union delegates as being vexatious for standing up for the rights of their fellow union members."
Most people would have interpreted Beazley's repeated promises to "rip up" Work Choices if Labor wins the next election to mean that the party would reinstate the old system, or at least restore all rights that have been abolished or watered down by successive anti-union and anti-worker laws under Howard. But if the ALP's new unfair dismissal policy is any guide, the party, with Combet's support, will adopt a policy that restores only some rights.
What does Combet mean when he says that an IR policy must have "regard to the open-trading nature of the economy"? Does he accept that an ALP government should implement a policy that is even-handed to bosses and workers, despite the immense power that corporations have over workers?
Already, federal workplace relations minister Kevin Andrews is crowing: "The ACTU, and presumably the Labor Party ... are going to say that what we've been going on about — that is modernising the industrial relations system in Australia — is appropriate."
Individual contracts
The ALP's approach to Australian Workplace Agreements (individual contracts) is indicative. The party copped a lot of flak from big business when former leader Mark Latham promised to abolish AWAs during the 2004 election campaign. Beazley responded by stating repeatedly during 2005 that a Labor government would enforce minimum standards on AWAs but not abolish them.
The National Tertiary Education Union's University of Ballarat branch has waged a two-year battle with management to prevent the rampant introduction of AWAs. This year, the university, which is the biggest employer in Ballarat, made it compulsory to sign an AWA before you can get a job at the university.
NTEU Ballarat branch president Jeremy Smith told GLW that when Beazley visited the campus earlier this year, "he didn't make a single comment in support of our campaign against AWAs. I think his silence about our dispute portrayed his real attitude to AWAs. The ALP is very comfortable with AWAs and this is the most problematic aspect of their policy."
Smith said there's no reason why the ALP could not legislate to phase out AWAs as part of a policy that ensured that collective agreements are the only form of agreement. "Even if an ALP government established minimum standards for AWAs, they still break down collectivity. AWAs are an anti-union tool."
Construction, Forestry, Mining and Energy Union Victorian secretary Martin Kingham agrees. "There's nothing good about AWAs", he told GLW. "They are based on breaking the union's collective [power] and allowing employers to impose worse conditions on individual workers. My union will campaign to make sure there's no support for the continuation of AWAs."
Kingham is worried by the prospect of a Labor government restoring only some of the rights that have been lost. "One of the problems with the conservative reforms is when the Labor Party is trying to win government you can get this progressive thing where you never win back all that you have lost." He said the union protests "have a dual purpose of putting the heat on the government but also reminding the ALP opposition of what we expect them to provide in return for our support".
Gooden believes that the union movement should campaign for an industrial system that abolishes individual contracts and brings back a system of industry-wide bargaining as the fairest system and one that builds strong solidarity between workers across workplaces. But, he added, "the ALP tends to side with the bosses so will not bring back industry-wide bargaining unless the union movement is prepared to fight for it".
"Giving unions full right of access to workplaces and guaranteeing the right to strike whenever workers feel the need to strike should be the bedrock of any industrial system that is fair to workers", Gooden said.
Australian Manufacturing Workers Union Victorian president Chris Spindler told GLW: "There are some in the union movement who are happy with a campaign strategy that is linked to the re-election of Labor with a blank cheque, but that's a chequebook to disaster. We need to find a way of making sure that the Labor Party sticks to its promise to repeal the legislation and consults with the movement itself in terms of the sort of IR system that is necessary to defend workers."
From Green Left Weekly, April 5, 2006.
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