By Melanie Sjoberg
ADELAIDE — "Freedom, fairness and flexibility" proclaims the South Australian government's January 23 announcement of its proposed changes to the state's industrial legislation. Acting minister for government enterprises and treasurer Rob Lucas stated: "This government believes that employers and employees should have the primary responsibility for determining matters affecting their relationship".
The statement declared that the new legislation will allow the "intervention of third parties" only when it is sought by the employer or employees.
The SA Industrial and Employee Relations Act 1994 will become the Workplace Relations Act 1999. More than the title resembles the Howard government's draconian legislation of the same name.
In early 1996, at an Industrial Relations Society seminar, the Chamber of Commerce's Adrian Dangerfield discussed the need for South Australia to "harmonise" with the new federal system. Dangerfield sang the familiar refrain of individual workplace agreements, "simplified" awards, a more "balanced" unfair dismissal system and restricted rights for trade unions.
The background paper to the proposed law changes implies that trade unions are external to the workplace and therefore "interventionist bodies" that do not represent workers. Recent experiences in the state public sector and education system contradict this. When the government attempted to bypass the relevant unions, members rejected government wage offers in secret ballots and took industrial action.
The SA government offers statistics to demonstrate that workers want individual agreements (Australian Workplace Agreements). In the federal sphere, 10,790 AWAs involving 428 employers were made in the first 12 months of the Workplace Relations Act. The report argues that 60% of businesses in South Australia are denied access to AWAs.
The proposed legislation sets down that the employer and employees must "appear" to understand their rights and obligations under an agreement. What it will take for an employee to "appear" to understand their rights is not clear.
The government says that no employer or employee can be forced, threatened or intimidated into signing an agreement. (That will be a relief to bosses who fear the standover tactics of their teenage recruits escaping the state's 38% youth unemployment rate!). It is proposed that the "safety net" awards will have junior rates inserted.
The federal system will be the model for simplified awards. Awards will contain a minimum hourly rate of pay, four weeks' annual leave, 10 days' sick leave for each year of continuous service, bereavement leave, up to 12 months' unpaid parental leave and 13 weeks' long service leave after 10 years.
As in the federal award-stripping process, all references to overtime, penalty rates, allowances and discrimination — among many other things — will be removed.
The proposals include mediation by a "neutral and independent" person as an alternative to referring disputes to the Industrial Relations Commission. This allows the parties to "own the process in a non-threatening, less stressful environment". The IRC is described as adversarial and formal.
The government's current legislation already states that an enterprise agreement cannot be approved without a clause setting out a dispute-settling process which requires matters to be dealt with in the workplace before more formal processes can be instigated.
As well, the legislation will allow a union official to enter a workplace only when there is a "reasonable suspicion" of an award breach, and after advance notice has been served on the employer.
Union officials will be allowed to inspect the records of members only. This denies confidentiality to unionists, who will have to be identified if the union is to check their records.
The picture would not be complete without changes to unfair dismissal laws, which the government and bosses characterise as disadvantaging small business and hindering job creation. Casuals and employees with less than six months' service will be excluded from claiming an unfair dismissal. Sacked workers who are eligible to make a claim will have to cough up $100 to lodge the paperwork.
The SA United Trades and Labor Council will coordinate meetings of unions to discuss a response to the proposed laws.
The federal act, and subsequent versions in WA and Victoria, show what is in store for SA workers. A serious campaign of education, workplace meetings and broad-based action will be needed to defeat the tough new laws.
[Melanie Sjoberg is an industrial officer with the Public Service Association of SA and a member of the Democratic Socialist Party.]