News

Australian unions have welcomed the new Labour government's first step in restoring fair labour laws and are keeping up their national campaign to help finish the job.

The Rudd government last week halted the process of individualising work contracts - a key plank in the WorkChoices programme of the Howard conservative government that was decisively rejected by the Australian electorate last November.

The ban on Australian Workplace Agreements (individual contracts that could undermine collective agreements and conditions) came into force on 28 March.





Sharan Burrow

'This is a historic day in the campaign to restore workers' rights,' said Sharan Burrow, who is President of the Australian union centre ACTU and of global union ITUC.

Consultations over building a new industrial relations architecture continue with the Labour government due to introduce its main set of labour laws in August-September. These are expected to cover union recognition and collective bargaining, extend protections against unfair dismissals, strengthen safety net awards and introduce a new industrial relations umpire.

These provisions could all become law by 1 January 2010 - helped by a new Senate from July that will reflect Australia's historic shift to Labour.





Joe de Bruyn

'This is a start in the long process to restore fairness in our labour laws,' Joe de Bruyn, of SDA Australia and President of UNI-Asia Pacific, told delegates to UNI's Professional and Managerial Staff world conference in Melbourne. 'This is a most exciting and dramatic time - rights and entitlements of workers are being restored after a period of almost 12 years of conservative government.'

Figures from the new government show that hundreds of thousands of Australian workers lost pay and conditions under the individual contract (AWA) system - particularly on shift premiums, holiday loadings and overtime premiums.

'We have re-established a concept that Australian workers have rights, including international entitlements through the International Labour Organisation,' Sharan Burrow told the P&MS conference. 'We still have work to do. We still have a campaign to run to restore workers' rights in Australia.'





Top table: Gerhard Rohde, John Vines, Sharan Burrows and Joe de Bruyn

Business is busy lobbying the Rudd government to try and water down the pre-election agreement between Australian unions and Labour to re-create fair labour laws. The opposition delayed progress of the move to halt AWAs but the conservatives chose not to re-fight the general election debate and did not use its soon-to-run-out Senate majority to block the change.

About 40% of Australian workers are currently covered by collective agreements and 20% benefit from 'safety net' awards covering particular groups of workers in various Australian states (the next raft of labour laws is due to make these awards nationwide).

Arbitration was a distinctive feature of Australian industrial relations but disappeared from most sectors of the labour force under the Howard government. So unions are keenly awaiting details from the new government for an independent workplace umpire to help resolve industrial disputes.



Key features in the Australian unions campaign to overturn the Howard laws were:

• A levy on affiliates to finance a three-year campaign (which is thought to have cost A$30m).
  
• Hard hitting TV adverts that exposed the impact of the Howard laws on working families.
  
• A negotiated pre-election platform with Labour on an industrial relations agenda.
  
• Union election campaign focused on 24 marginal seats.
  
• Use of surveys and focus groups that confirmed the working families agenda.