By Natasha Simons
Under the guise of helping more unemployed young people to find work, the Howard government's Workplace Relations Bill will seriously reduce wages and conditions. Provisions include that apprentices will not be paid for their training time; apprentices and trainees must pay fees for off the job training out of their wages; the school system will be tailored to allow on-the-job training; and the government will not top up wages with additional income support.
The minister for schools, vocational education and training, David Kemp, said at an employment conference in Sydney last week that the current system was overly restricted by the national training system and the training wage. Under the new bill, employers will have more flexibility over the number of hours apprentices and trainees could be in training and would be required to pay them only for "actual time spent in productive work".
The bill lets employers off the hook in paying to fully train their employees. Instead, training off the job, such as at TAFE, will be something employees have to do in their own time at their own expense, rather than at the expense of the company which benefits from their skills.
At present, apprentice and trainee wage rates are based on a set number of days on the job a week, usually four. Under the Coalition's plan, employers can set fewer days for work on the job, significantly decreasing trainee wages and opening the door to part-time employment for what should be full-time work. Apprentices and trainees are already paid lower wages and will now be expected to negotiate individual contracts with employers to determine pay and time spent on the job.
According to Kemp, "Schools should be able to offer courses to students that combine study in vocationally oriented subjects with work and on-the-job training at a local industry". The Workplace Relations Bill encourages young people to study years 11 and 12 part time, while training and working. This speeds up the process, begun under the ALP federal government, of schools tailoring programs to prepare the work force for big business rather than providing an education system built on the pursuit of knowledge, personal fulfilment and the benefits of an educated society.
The federal opposition said that the bill represented the reintroduction of the 1993 Fightback policy's $3.50 an hour youth wage. Yet this $3.50 an hour "slave wage" was first spearheaded by the ALP.
Groups including the Australian Youth Policy and Action Coalition, the Victorian TAFE Students and Apprentices Network and the socialist youth organisation Resistance have expressed concern the bill will increase youth poverty. Resistance organised a campaign with other groups such as the Young Christian Workers against youth unemployment and the training wage under the Keating government.
Wendy Robertson, Sydney Resistance organiser, said, "The government does not propose job creation as a solution to youth unemployment. Instead, it wants to entrench part-time work for wages below the poverty line and force young workers to foot the bill for industry training. We have to organise against what can only result in increased exploitation of young people for big business profits".
[Natasha Simons is the national coordinator of Resistance.]