The ACTU will today (Tuesday 11 Oct) present a petition with around 160,000 signatures calling on Federal Parliament not to pass new workplace laws that allow workers to be pushed onto individual contracts that cut their take-home pay and remove important job conditions including overtime, meal breaks, penalty rates, redundancy pay, rostering protections and public holidays.
ACTU President Sharan Burrow said:
"The petition represents widespread public opposition to the Howard Government's extreme industrial relations agenda.
Unions collected these signatures in just a few months, but even so this could be the biggest expression of public opposition in the House of Representatives since a petition concerning beer and taxes was lodged five years ago.
The petition opposes Howard Government plans to:
* Change the way minimum wages are set to make them lower.
* Use individual contracts to undercut existing rights and conditions.
* Keep unions out of workplaces and reduce workers' negotiating and bargaining rights.
* Abolish redundancy pay and protection from unfair dismissals for the 3 million people who work in small businesses.
* Take away rights at work with laws that unilaterally override and weaken State industrial relations systems, awards and agreements.
* Reduce the powers of the independent Industrial Relations Commission to settle disputes and set fair minimum standards at work.
The petition calls for Parliament to protect the basic rights of Australian workers to decent minimum wages and awards conditions, protection from unfair dismissal and the right to reject AWA individual contracts and negotiate collectively with employers.
The Government would be wise to heed its message and back down on plans to take away many of the basic rights of working Australians."
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