Extreme & Radical IR Legislation

New workplace legislation introduced into Federal Parliament today will strip away one hundred years of respect for workers’ rights, remove legal protection for many employment conditions and will set a new low for the future workplace conditions of Australian workers, the ACTU said today.

ACTU Secretary, Mr Greg Combet said that the legislation confirmed everything that unions had been warning the community about, and worse.

Mr Combet said:

"Now that we know the detail, this legislation confirms all of our criticisms of the Governments plans.

"Unfair dismissal rights are gone for nearly 4 million workers, individual contracts will be able to cut take home pay and basic conditions, the award safety net is to be removed as the 'no-disadvantage test' which underpins workplace bargaining, the real value of minimum wages will be allowed to fall, and workers will have no enforceable legal right to collectively bargain.

"This legislation tears up 100 years of the social contract in Australia. Since Federation our industrial relations system has been built on the idea that ordinary hard-working Australians got to participate in the benefits of economic growth, and that there were protections there for people when times got tough. This is the system that the Federal Government's laws will attack.

"Under these laws, unions can be fined $33,000 and individual workers $6,600 for even asking for workers to be protected from unfair dismissal or individual contracts, or for clauses that protect job security."

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