Our Choice: not WorkChoices

With the federal election rapidly approaching, staff from Unions NSW are touring around marginal regional seats in NSW to make sure that people have not become too complacent about the status quo of Australian industrial relations. And they’re asking federal election candidates to publicly discuss their industrial relations policies at a special forum next week.

Paul Doughty, Unions NSW campaign organsier, said he was concerned that if the Coalition wins the election, Tony Abbott would again introduce the industrial relations changes brought in with the WorkChoices legislation in 2006.

"Under WorkChoices, hundreds of thousands of regional Australians lost protection from unfair dismissal, and Australian Workplace Agreements were used to cut pay and conditions. Often isolated from a union, workers had few rights or the ability to express them," Mr Doughty said.

Maralyn Schofield, co-ordinator of the NRCLC, said that many people in low paid jobs came through the legal centre and that the youngest in society would be hardest hit by any industrial relations changes.

"Retail is the single biggest industry in this region and has predominantly young workers," Ms Schofield said. "Young people often don’t have the confidence to negotiate and under individual workplace agreements, these people will be paid lower than Award wages and can be sacked without recourse."

While Tony Abbott has said he would not reintroduce WorkChoices legislation, Mr Doughty believes that Mr Abbott could change the regulations, which would have the same effect on workers as the legislative changes.

"Tony Abbott will reintroduce WorkChoices by stealth," Mr Doughty said. "He was one of the architects of WorkChoices in 2001 and was a hard-liner on the issue. He may choose to call it another name but we know that he believes in it.

"He has already said that 'students are ready and willing to work' and will sell it as 'any wage is better than no wage'. We need to think critically before we believe what he is telling us."

Mr Doughty said that at the moment, many of the three-year AWA contracts signed when WorkChoices was introduced are due to expire.

"We saw a big rush of AWAs prior to the previous election, Mr Doughty said. “When they were introduced the last time, 75% of AWAs cut penalty rates and 80% removed annual leave loading."

Punita Boardman said that discrimination issues could become a nightmare if unfair dismissal laws were changed.

"Under WorkChoices, employers could dismiss an employee 'for operational reasons'," Ms Boardman said. "When Fair Work Australia was brought in under the Labor government, this was no longer a valid reason for dismissal and employers had to prove there was a genuine reason."