Work Choices regulations: green light to bosses to slash pay
Graham Matthews
Under regulations that will give effect to the Work Choices legislation, employers will be able to pay wages below the
minimum wage, so long as the workers’ average wage over the year reaches the minimum. This provision, along with a
similar proviso allowing employers to average normal working hours over the year, are just two of the nasties that the
federal government snuck into the regulations in the week before Work Choices came into effect.
The Workplace Relations Regulations 2006 are required to implement the Workplace Relations Amendment (Work Choices) Act
2005. The regulations were posted onto a federal government website on March 17, and workplace relations minister Kevin
Andrews launched the regulations at a media conference on March 19, in the midst of Commonwealth Games hysteria.
The promulgation of the regulations is the last step needed to make the Work Choices legislation, hurriedly passed by
the Senate in December, become law. The legislation will come into effect on March 27.
Prohibited content
The regulations provide the detail of how the government wants to tighten the screws on unions and attack workplace
rights. They massively expand the powers of the workplace relations minister, and precisely regulate what unions may
(legally) do and how they are to do it. The regulations have been universally condemned by the labour movement as
further evidence of the government’s attempt to outlaw union activity and erase long-held rights at work.
The Howard government prides itself on deregulation, yet the Work Choices legislation and regulations introduce strict
procedures that must be followed before unions can legally fight for their members’ interests. The government is aiming
to have unions so tied up in legal red tape that they become ineffective defenders of workers’ rights. No such
restrictions are placed on employers’ ability to intimidate, sack or lock out their employees.
The regulations spell out the details of “prohibited content” — items that cannot be included in certified enterprise
agreements, regardless of whether bosses and unions agree to their inclusion. Simply asking for the inclusion of
provisions such as payroll deduction of union dues, trade union training leave or protection against unfair dismissals
subjects individual workers to a $6000 fine and unions to a $33,000 fine.
Also prohibited are: any provisions that allow for the renegotiation of an enterprise agreement during its lifetime; any
restrictions on bosses’ freedom to offer individual contracts (Australian Workplace Agreements) to any employees at any
time; and bans on the use of labour-hire or contract workers.
Certified agreements will also be prohibited from enshrining union officials’ right of entry to workplaces. They may not
contain any provision that does not relate directly to the employer/employee relationship, or that does not apply to all
workers covered by the agreement.
It will also be illegal to incorporate in a certified agreement any restrictions on the “cashing-out” of up to two
weeks’ annual leave a year, making a mockery of the government’s claim that it has “protected” leave provisions.
'Big Brother’ minister
The regulations also give new powers to the workplace relations minister.
The Australian Industrial Relations Commission (AIRC) must inform the minister of the details of industrial disputes
within a week of the lodging of applications for protected industrial action. The minister must be informed of
applications for secret ballots (necessary before taking legal strike action), when applications are received for the
commencement or termination of a bargaining period and applications for right of entry. The Office of the Employment
Advocate must send the minister every workplace agreement lodged with it within three weeks of its registration.
In a blatant attack on democratic rights, the Work Choices legislation and regulations together give the minister
virtually unlimited power to interfere in industrial disputes and agreement negotiations. Without recourse to
parliament, the minister may change the regulations at any time and make other items “prohibited content”
retrospectively. The minister may also declare any industry an essential service at any time, to prevent protected
industrial action from occurring.
Under the amended Workplace Relations Act, the minister has the power to intervene in the establishment of any award or
certified agreement if she or he believes it is not in the public interest. or if she or he feels that the agreement may
seriously harm the economy or part of it. The minister may order a full review of any decision of the AIRC.
The regulations also specify, in minute detail, the procedures that unions must follow to hold a secret ballot —
required for the authorisation of protected industrial action. A union’s failure to adhere to each and every requirement
will make the process void and render the resulting industrial action illegal.
Under the regulations, workers paid $95,000 or more a year will be barred from accessing unfair dismissals provisions,
an exclusion that the Australian Workers Union Queensland secretary told the Courier Mail was aimed at thousands of
high-earning workers in mines and on construction sites.
Speaking to the March 21 Sydney Morning Herald, John Buchanan, deputy director of Sydney University’s Industrial
Relations Research Centre, said: “If the unions play by the new rules, every single thing they try to do will be on the
minister’s desk within 24 hours on some issues and one week for the others ... The new role of the [IR] Commission and
the Employer Advocate is essentially to be the eyes and ears of the [federal government].”
Dean Mighell, Victorian Electrical Trades Union secretary, told Green Left Weekly, “I think that you cannot observe
these laws and operate as a union that protects your members. They’re designed so that you can’t do it.”
The fear and loathing that working people have for the new workplace legislation was evident in the results of the
Tasmanian and South Australian state elections on March 18, both of which returned Labor majorities.
Despite this, the Howard government’s determination to eliminate the role of unions, abolish awards and the AIRC, and
force workers onto individual contracts means that it will press ahead. The only thing that can stop — and reverse —
these attacks is a concerted, nationwide industrial and political campaign.
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