Life without unions

Master-servant relationship

Desperate workers willing to do anything for a few crumbs

Deregulated workplaces

Everything that an employer ever dreamed of

Individual contracts

Government will spend tens of millions helping bosses force workers onto Australian Workplace Agreements (AWAs) — non-union individual work contracts

Legal for employers to say "sign the AWA or no job"

Employers free to force workers to sign AWAs even where an enterprise agreement is in place covering them

Enterprise Bargaining Agreements

Five-year enterprise bargaining agreements

EBAs to be stripped

Awards stripped and overridden

Superannuation, notice of termination, jury service and long service leave — all deleted from awards

The no-disadvantage test scrubbed

No requirement that AWAs and EBAs are not inferior to award provisions

Minimum wage

Unfair Pay Commission to determine minimum wage rates

Commission members to be handpicked by the government

Decisions based on reducing cost of labour to bosses — meaning low wages

Minimum wage will be reduced in future years

Existing award rates frozen

Wages & conditions slashed

Wages & conditions of millions of workers will be slashed as bosses force them onto individual contracts

Four minimum conditions

Only four legislated legally binding minimum conditions:

annual leave

personal carer’s leave

parental leave (including maternity)

maximum ordinary hours of work

Unfair Pay and Conditions Standard

The four legislated conditions and the minimum wagerates to be determined by the Fair Pay Commission

The government calls this standard a "genuine safety net"

Workers will need a microscope to find the net

Unfair dismissal

99 per cent of companies (those with up to 100 employees) will be able to sack workers with impunity

No protection, no notice of termination (or even one week’s pay in lieu)

No redundancy payments for small businesses

Workplace relations Minister Andrews calls this "enhancement of employment laws"

Industrial Relations Commission kneecapped

IRC will have no say in determining wages and conditions

Will help strip awards

Main role will be dispute resolution

National system

Wipe state systems where in many instances superior conditions prevail

e.g. in NSW top state award rate for teacher in independent school is $16,739 more than in Victoria under a federal award!

If states refuse to surrender their industrial relations powers to Commonwealth, then Howard will use corporations law to override states

Workers subjected to corporations law

AWAs — the employment contracts between workers and employers (eg BHP, Rio Tinto, Telstra, McDonalds) treated in law as contracts between equal partners

The courts become the only redress for workers for justice, which can cost hundreds of thousands of dollars and take years

Trade union rights wiped

The very means that workers have at their disposal to resist the assault will be stripped

Will be harder for unions to have access to members, to provide them with information and assistance

Unions will be shut out of individual contracts

Compulsory secret ballots before strike action

Virtually all industrial action will be illegal

Final solution for building and construction unions

All industrial action during EBAs will be illegal

Huge fines for unions and individual workers

Pattern bargaining outlawed

Policing of building sites, workers spied on

Increased employer powers

Collective bargaining made much more difficult

Aim to pit each individual worker against the boss ontheir own

That’s not all

The government is going to pursue the many bills that it has not been able to get through the Senate once it gains control of that house next month.

Final details of its plans to encourage "independent contractors" (with no entitlements or rights whatsoever,) to undermine the apprenticeship system and remove employer obligations regarding occupational health and safety, are still to be released.

Join the workers’ campaign to defend rights at work!

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