Liam Mitchell
Federal Labor Party leader Kim Beazley told the November 15 demonstrations that he would tear up the Howard government's Work Choices legislation when he became prime minister, but he hasn't indicated what industrial relations system he would seek to replace it with. How far would the ALP be prepared to go to turn back PM John Howard's attacks and bring in a fairer system for workers?
Beazley's reward for publicly opposing Howard's anti-worker legislation has been a clear lead in the opinion polls, his first since becoming federal ALP leader at the beginning of this year.
The ALP gained six percentage points in a month to sit at 58% (on a two-party preferred basis) while the Howard government plummeted six points to 42%, according to an ACNielsen poll published in November 21 Sydney Morning Herald. A Newspoll published in November 21 Australian put Labor ahead on 54% to the government's 46%.
According to ACNielsen, Howard's rating as the country's preferred prime minister also fell from 52% a month ago to 45%, Beazley's rating soared from 35% to 43%.
With around 600,000 people mobilising on November 15 for the largest single national pro-union demonstration ever and union membership beginning to grow, the federal ALP leadership has been pushed to come out firmly against the legislation. With more and more details of the attacks emerging, the ALP's new found voice of opposition could hardly have come at a better time for the federal ALP to gain a big boost among voters.
Beazley's promise to "tear up" Howard's legislation will be welcomed by all those campaigning for workers' rights, but the ALP needs to go further. Merely repealing Work Choices will not turn back all of the Howard government's attacks on workers' rights. Other legislation has passed through parliament quite recently with barely a whimper from the ALP — the police-state building and construction industry "improvement" legislation; laws to force higher education institutions to cooperate with the government's IR agenda or face withdrawal of federal funding; and the existing Workplace Relations Act, introduced in 1996.
The November 21 Sydney Daily Telegraph reported that "answering questions from talkback callers to Southern Cross Broadcasting today, [Beazley] repeated his pledge to tear up the Coalition's dramatic workplace changes under the Work Choices Bill", but he also told a caller he could not terminate AWAs if he became prime minister because they would be legally binding contracts.
"In those sorts of situations, we'd look for opportunities, or the union movement would look for opportunities, to get that person back into a better position", Beazley said.
The Murdoch tabloid interpreted Beazley's words to mean that he was promising that a future federal "Labor government would immediately look for opportunities to undo unfair workplace contracts". However, the furthest Beazley went was to promise to "restore the primacy of collective bargaining in awards".
Reducing labour costs
The primary purpose of the Work Choices legislation is to pave the way for businesses to go further in lowering labour costs by reducing or eliminating workers' rights. The main vehicle is through getting most, if not all, employees onto AWAs. Most aspects of the legislation are aimed at severely weakening the ability of the unions to maintain collective agreements and making it easier for bosses to "negotiate" AWAs or non-union enterprise agreements.
In tearing up Work Choices, Beazley would be eliminating the Australian Fair Pay Commission (and its minimum set of standards), limitations on unions organising in the work place, strike penalties and Howard's removal of access by most employees to unfair dismissal provisions. He would bring back the new non-allowable matters into awards and halt the process of rewriting awards. AWAs would once again have to be lodged with a government department for approval and testing against an award. Welfare recipients will not be forced into a job with an AWA with inferior conditions and dictatorial control will be taken away from the workplace relations minister.
But if companies are still able to force new workers to sign an AWA or able to bring in AWAs for existing workers, the main vehicle for the Work Choices legislation would remain substantially intact. Awards will likely have been decimated by the time of next federal elections (2007) and many more people will be on AWAs. Workers without the backing of a strong union in their work place will still be vulnerable to unscrupulous bosses.
Unions and workers would still face major problems resulting from the changes brought in by Howard. Construction industry workers would still be denied the right to silence before the inquisitorial Australian Building and Construction Commission. University teachers and staff, whose administrations are being pressured by the federal government to kick the National Tertiary Education Union's offices off campus, would continue to have problems with being represented. Strikes would still be illegal (except after a complicated series of hoops are jumped through).
Beazley needs to come out and say that a Labor government would repeal all of Howard's legislative and regulatory attacks on workers. This includes the attacks on building industry workers, the Workplace Relations Act and individual contracts (which the Keating Labor government was responsible for introducing into the national industrial landscape).
Defending the first victims
There are already a number of victims of Howard's new laws. From the first day of their implementation, all workers who currently have unfair dismissal cases before the Australian Industrial Relations Commission (AIRC) will have their cases terminated, at a loss to them.
In his November 21 remarks on the Southern Cross Broadcasting radio network, Beazley said a future Labor government would restore the AIRC to its present powers. But will he commit to having all the cases blocked in the AIRC by Howard's new laws resumed if he becomes prime minister?
The printing division of the Australian Manufacturing Workers Union (AMWU) currently has a case before the AIRC for a pay classification structure that would give a $20-30 wage rise to many low-paid printing workers. This case, one of several currently before the AIRC, is being stalled as the printing bosses await the introduction of the new laws. Will Beazley commit to restarting these cases?
The ALP needs to start listening to the union movement and what workers want in an industrial relations system. A new system will need to have a solid foundation in the spirit of social justice and would not contain the anti-union laws brought in by this government and previous governments, including Labor governments.
Opinion polls are notoriously bad at predicting changes in government, but the latest polls show that Howard's new attacks on workers' rights, foreshadowed in the Work Choices legislation, are being widely condemned and resulting in a surge back to Labor. How does the union movement ensure the level of support for the Coalition parties continues to decline and this campaign sees them voted out of government?
If we do nothing until the next federal elections but attempt to survive with our unions intact, Howard (or Peter Costello) will manufacture an election issue that would give the Coalition parties more voter support.
We can see that growing pressure from rank-and-file members on the union leadership can force them to organise some big protest rallies. If the unions continue to mobilise their members against the new laws as they are implemented, this could force the ALP leadership to take on the demands of the movement.
But serious resistance by the unions to the new laws can also have a profound effect on the mood of the general public. As mobilisations increase and unions develop more and more links with others in the community, support will increase for unions and those parties that support the demands of the union movement to overturn Howard's anti-worker legislation. This will be the only way we will see an end to Howard and his rotten laws.
[Liam Mitchell is a member of the AMWU and the Socialist Alliance.]
From Green Left Weekly, November 30, 2005.
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