Industrial Relations

Let’s add some truth to the debate on the Fair Work Act: Here are the facts on labour market productivity, lost time from industrial disputes, real wage growth and profits from Australian corporations.

This year will be a big year for the Government and for Australia. One of our challenges will be the review of our Fair Work Act. This will be an examination of whether the Act is operating as intended and whether the legislation could be improved in order to achieve its objective. 

The Opposition will no doubt be using this opportunity to soften the ground for a return to WorkChoices. The Liberal backbench are falling over each other to force Tony Abbott to move closer to the policy of the Howard government. The sensible question that people should be asking in this debate is – what makes an effective modern workplace relations system?

Continue reading "Just the facts on Labor’s workplace reforms" »

While the rest of the world is throwing off the shackles of authoritarian regimes and taking the first steps towards democracy, one country is slipping further into military rule.

Fiji is not on the other side of the world, it’s in Australia’s neighbourhood. Many of us have visited as tourists and it’s a place where our Government has real influence.

Behind the smiles of the tourist industry it’s a place where citizens have few human rights, where the media are oppressed and where trade unions are targeted. Its economy is stagnating and Fijians are leaving in droves.

Continue reading "A gorgeous tropical paradise ruined by a cruel regime" »

When Tony Abbott last month stomped around a military base in Afghanistan in bomb disposal kit he looked more like an over-cautious beekeeper than a man of daring deeds.

But Abbott cannot be underrated for political boldness and dismissal of caution. His Action Man style has for the past 12 months allowed the Gillard government little time for rest or applause.

But now Tony Abbott is foreshadowing a switch from the relentless and restless tactics to a more settled period of policy creation. Twice in the past seven days he has pointed to extra effort in the contest of policy ideas, while still harassing the Government.

Continue reading "Action Man Tony’s best weapons need to be big ideas" »

Until the dramatic events of Friday night, the Baiada Poultry dispute in suburban Melbourne had not had the publicity of Qantas. That’s a shame because the gutsy fight by low-paid Baiada workers is just as important in the fight for fair treatment at work.

Media coverage has focused on the clashes between police and workers, but has ignored the basic issues at stake. A couple of hundred low-paid workers have been forced to take legal industrial action because their employer has refused to bargain with them.

They are taking collective action in an attempt to stop the spread of insecure work – and ensure that Baiada workers on low wages have some certainty around their jobs and basic rights to sick leave and holiday pay.

Continue reading "Baiada is playing chicken with livelihoods and lives" »

How would you feel if you were the Qantas CEO and people were telling you loudly that they loved Virgin Australia as you were walking through the airport? For some, Alan Joyce is a hero for taking on the unions, but for others he is a person who should hear firsthand the distress suffered by those Qantas passengers stranded during the shutdown he ordered.

Sadly, the debate for many has become centred on a particular individual. The CEO of a company should command wide ranging respect from all the company’s stakeholders. It’s certainly not enough to be loved by your management peers at other companies. They’re only good for giving you a new job if you leave the old one because you have lost the moral authority to succeed in your current position.

History will judge Alan Joyce as a CEO, but in the meantime Qantas management must stand collectively in being fully accountable for their recent decisions and for presenting a vision to get Qantas back on track as the great iconic company that it has been.

Continue reading "Here’s how Qantas can win back customers" »

It was an extraordinary complaint from Tony Abbott. “It’s very difficult to have a sensible debate,” he said, “when you are confronted with a feral government”.

Politicians don’t come any more ferocious and brutal than Abbott. He reverted to the wild the moment he got his paws on the Liberal leadership. His style is pure attack dog, as feral as you’d get. Everything, irrespective of merit, has to be opposed and torn to pieces.

The mining tax is a case in point. It is now glaringly obvious that the benefits of the mining boom should be shared around so that the overall economy benefits rather than just a small and privileged section. Opposition to the tax is shrinking.

Continue reading "Who’s feral now, Tony?" »

Contempt ran deep for the old IR club with its protected unions and compulsory arbitration, spawning the short-lived “new right”, animating the HR Nicholls Society, and stiffening the resolve of a new wave of Liberals intent on dismantling a century of state-controlled employment relations and labour market rigidity.

The anti-club’s high water mark was, however, its ultimate undoing: John Howard’s WorkChoices and the removal of the no-disadvantage test from individual work contracts.

This over-reach led to the 2007 defeat by Kevin Rudd and to the current Opposition Leader, Tony Abbott declaring at the 2010 poll that WorkChoices was: “dead, buried, cremated” - in that order! It wasn’t the end of the Liberal recant.

Continue reading "Qantas turbulence reveals IR policy vacuum" »

An industrial dispute has two sides – employer and employee. The Qantas dispute had a very important third side – the innocent travelling public. How they see the dispute, and which side they blame, will be important in the backwash.

If they blame Qantas, the airline will have problems regaining, let alone improving, its share of the market. If they blame the unions, Qantas will have a strengthened bargaining position.

Did Qantas have any alternative to the extraordinary decision to ground the fleet? It was facing continuous scattergun strikes, and the unions involved were not showing any intention to try to come to a compromise. The grounding tactic was clever, in that it forced the government to bring Fair Work Australia into the game, with the result that the guerilla strikes were ended.

Continue reading "Qantas standoff has cleared the air for real reform" »

“Dead, buried, cremated,” Tony Abbott decreed theatrically of WorkChoices amid a shaky start to his 2010 election campaign.

It turned out it was a mere hiccup compared to the spectacular Cabinet leaks on the Government side which scuttled Julia Gillard’s credibility. She has never really recovered.

But the mere fact that a resurgent IR debate scared him witless says much about the history of this issue and the scars the 2007 defeat left.

Continue reading "Abbott may need to revive dead, buried IR policy" »

It is not fashionable for a member of Gen Y like myself to care about equal pay for women. So the Australian Services Union equal remuneration case currently before Fair Work Australia should perhaps hold no great interest for me. Equal pay was won in 1969 and equal pay for work of equal value in 1972, long before I was born.

I am apparently of the post-feminist era, and most of my friends have been to university, perhaps even more of the women than the men. At 26, I have watched the boys I went to school with complete engineering and IT degrees and the girls finish teaching, social work or arts.

Perhaps this observation should not bother me. I do not doubt that my friends are excellent at their chosen professions. The problem I have with this scenario is the gap in their respective salaries.

Continue reading "The equal pay case will affect all our interests" »

In any dispute involving the NSW Government, the temptation is to assume that the NSW Government is 100 per cent in the wrong. It just saves time.

The stand-off between Premier Kristina Keneally and Prime Minister Julia Gillard over industrial relations reform is a bit more complicated than that.

Keneally might be out of step with other Labor Governments and the Commonwealth in refusing to accept what are modest and sensible reforms to work safety laws. But Gillard has been found wanting both in terms of her capacity for effective and sincere negotiation. She also looks like she tricked the voters by claiming during the federal election campaign that a deal had been done with the states to wind back the excesses of work safety laws, saving business millions of dollars, when it is now quite obvious that no such deal had been done.

Continue reading "IR: Gillard fails on process, Keneally on policy" »

Note: Labor MP Richard Marles and Liberal MP Sophie Mirabella are among our favourite contributors to The Punch, and we have asked them to write a piece every Friday during this five-week election campaign giving their take on events.

On Tony Abbott’s ascension to the Liberal Party leadership, conservatives across the country breathed a sigh of relief that their Party had been returned having been on loan for two years to two leaders who’d grown up wanting to be Labor politicians.

Tony Abbott has always wanted to be seen as a conviction politician.

And he’s delighted in putting his beliefs on show. He has told us that workplace reform was one of the greatest achievements of the Howard Government and only the phrase workchoices is dead not its intent. He has reassured us that a bad boss is a bit like a bad husband – he tends to do more good than harm. And he has emphatically declared that climate change is crap.

Continue reading "Labor diary: Tony’s brutal battle with his own brain" »

On the basis of his first two days, it is hard to avoid the conclusion that Tony Abbott is up against himself in this election.

If he had faltered under pressure, that would be one thing, but his early stumbles on industrial relations have come before the real pressure is even on.

Late on Friday when it became clear that an election would be called the next day, he moved to close off an inevitable attack angle on him. An Abbott government would not touch Labor’s Fair Work IR laws during its whole first term and then, only after an explicit mandate from voters obtained at the subsequent election.

Continue reading "Tony Abbott still has his work (choices) cut out" »

Union secretary Sally McManus urged women to do starjumps, take a nap, phone their mother and undertake various other activities to show their employers and fellow sisters and brothers that they really are serious about wanting equal pay.

The thing is though, we’ve had equal pay for years!

Yes, women on average tend to earn 18% (almost a million dollars) less than men over the course of their lifetime. That 18% figure comes from an AMP.NATSEM report done a couple of years ago.

Continue reading "Counterpunch: Practical ways to raise women’s wages" »

Today rallies for Equal Pay will be held around Australia and all working women are being asked to down tools for ten minutes in support of the protest.

Why ten minutes? Well women earn on average 18 per cent less than men ­so ten minutes is the amount of time women work for free every hour.
The big question is ­ what would we do with those extra ten minutes? After extensive consultation with women workers, here are ten ideas for those wanting to join our protest today.

Continue reading "10 things women can do while dreaming of equal pay" »

When I read Jamie Briggs’ most recent contribution to The Punch on industrial relations I wasn’t in the least bit surprised.

It was a predictable salvo in the hundred year war on industrial relations in this country. This war is the battle line between the two major political parties, driving the partisanship and iron discipline of our respective parties.

Labor has always believed that a fair go should apply, that workers need protection and that everybody deserves dignity at work. This belief is not driven by theories or politics but by more practical issues – of making sure a worker can live off their wages, that they have job security if they do a good job and that there’s an umpire to ensure fairness.

Continue reading "Workchoices architect needs some real life experience" »

During the 2007 election campaign, voters were led to believe via a massive scare campaign that Labor would provide wage protection.

The cruel irony is that whilst the Howard Government achieved real wage increases of over 19%, Labor’s new laws are actually leading to wage decreases.

Continue reading "No reward from the new Government’s new Award" »

Kevin Rudd has a big political problem.  Tony Abbott has thrown him off balance with a couple of short jabs and he is struggling to regain its composure. 

Tony Abbott has achieved this by punching at the key failures of the Rudd Government. It has changed the dynamic on the ground all of a sudden.

Labor’s marginal seat holders who just months ago were dreaming of an easy victory in the campaign this year are now talking darkly about the PM’s performance and wondering whether Julia just might be better. They are demanding some action to turn this around. They want something done to stop Tony Abbott and his momentum.

Continue reading "Labor’s IR scare campaign: can the souffle rise twice?" »

This week heralds another parliamentary bout of Senate Estimates.  Government ministers see estimates as a necessary evil that comes with ministerial territory. Some opposition members rub their hands in glee as estimates approach.  Others probably reckon they should get a life.  But tragic as it may seem, estimates can be about as good as life gets in opposition.

The quaint title comes from ‘estimates’ of government expenditure being referred to Senate committees in the annual budget cycle, for opposition parties to examine the operations of government.  Some public servants relish the approaching prospect of being grilled by the Senate; some see it as grist for the mill; others barely tolerate it.  And some just don’t show.

This bout of Senate estimates is no different from many before – but for one thing. For the first time ever, the boss of the nation’s workplace umpire Fair Work Australia will show.

(Geoffrey Giudice is due to face Senate Estimates from approximately 10.30am today)

Continue reading "It’s a big day for Senate Estimates - seriously" »

Over the last couple of weeks the Deputy Prime Minister has been plugging two developing holes in a massive dam wall.

The first has been caused by the waste and mismanagement associated with the Julia Gillard memorial halls debacle. A programme wasting so much money that a school in Sydney is going to refuse free money.

The second hole in the dam wall is growing quickly and relates to her changes to the industrial award system and her promise that neither workers nor small business would be worse off with her changes to the industrial award system.  A promise she knew couldn’t be kept.

Continue reading "Julia: full-time worker or part time spinner?" »

The Australian system of industrial awards and related legislation (the documents that set minimum conditions of employment) are perhaps the most complex in the world. Only the most dedicated students of industrial relations could possibly cope with trawling through these insanely confusing documents day after day.

The former Howard Coalition government knew that this was a problem for business, in particular small business. The confusing red tape that stops enterprise and workers from getting on with the job simply had to be cut back.

The Coalition decided that we would overhaul the complex system of awards, to reduce complexities and make things simple – we called it “award rationalisation”. Unsurprisingly, given Kevin Rudd’s “me too” agenda in the 2007 election, a similar proposal came from Labor – except they called it “award modernisation.”

Continue reading "No award for Gillard on her overhaul of awards" »

There’s been a lot of talk recently about so-called “green shoots” springing up in our ravaged economy.

Some commentators have grasped a recent bounce in the stock market, a few surprisingly strong profit results overseas, and a benign sense of business confidence as evidence that the economy is on the path to recovery.

Well, it is time for a reality check.

Continue reading "Why unions will remain the voice of workers in Labor" »