When a High Court judge warns against "industrial ayatollahs" who are out to attack the trade unions, we know something serious is afoot. Justice Michael Kirby gave this passionate, if elliptical, warning at the centenary convention of the Australian Industrial Relations Commission on October 22.
The day before, in an interview with the Australian, PM John Howard declared that his government would use its possible Senate majority (or effective control if the Christian fundamentalist Family First ends up holding the balance of power) to fully implement its anti-union agenda.
Greens and ALP senators have been able to block 28 IR bills since 1996. Big business is now pressuring Howard to push through some of these attacks, including exemption for small business from unfair dismissal laws, federal rather than state control over dismissal claims and compulsory secret ballots before strikes.
The Howard government has also drawn up bills banning industrial action during the life of enterprise agreements and giving third parties the right to ask for strikes to be suspended if they are being affected.
Former workplace relations minister Peter Reith's rejected 1999 "second wave" of changes — which mainly beefed up provisions first rejected in 1996 — could also be reconsidered from next July if the Coalition wins control of the Senate, Howard said.
In addition, some major corporate employers have been demanding more radical changes, including total federal control of industrial relations. Some companies, such as Qantas, are not even waiting for the new laws but are planning a mass strike-breaking force for a showdown with its flight attendants during the Christmas period.
Howard's threats have been met with a timid response from the Australian Council of Trade Unions so far. ACTU president Sharan Burrow made a public appeal to slow the attacks, and approached former ALP PM Bob Hawke to plead with Howard. She said that there was no plan to resist the attacks with strikes.
Other union leaders have pinned their hopes on securing protection under state industrial laws, but Victorian Premier Steve Bracks' Labor government (in the most industrial state) has refused such protection and defended the decision of his Liberal predecessor, Jeff Kennett, to hand IR powers over to the federal government.
Howard's anti-union offensive will deliver misery and insecurity to millions of workers. Minimum wages and conditions will be eroded and there will be a greater proliferation of low-paid and casual jobs.
Since the Coalition government was first elected in 1996:
* More than 50% of the 440,000 new full-time jobs created have been casual and there are now more than 2.2 million casual workers.
* Nearly two-thirds (64.8%) of these new jobs pay less than $600 a week.
* Almost one million Australians now work unpaid overtime — an increase of 24% since 1996.
Howard's anti-union agenda can be resisted — through a combination of industrial action and the organisation of broad community solidarity. We saw a fine example of this in 1998 when the Howard government backed stevedoring giant Patrick in its lockout of wharfies. It brought in strike-breakers trained overseas in secret, private goons in balaclavas, and attack dogs, but faced a massive upsurge of popular resistance that shocked the ruling elite.
It can be done again.
From Green Left Weekly, October 27, 2004.
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