Launching the report and policy vision at the National Press Club today, ACTU Secretary Greg Combet said:
"Unions are about protecting and improving the livelihoods and living standards of working Australians and that is what collective bargaining does.
We want to see basic employee rights and fairness returned to Australia's industrial relations system.
A central feature of our proposal is to ensure workers have the right to bargain collectively with their employer and that workers can have a collective agreement if that is what a majority of workers in a workplace want.
We want to enshrine democracy in our workplaces and restore the balance that has been taken away by the Howard Government's IR laws.
John Howard Government's AWA individual contracts are being used to drive down the wages and conditions of working Australians and they should be abolished.
We think Australia's work laws should support collective bargaining based on an obligation on unions, workers and employers to bargain in good faith with arbitration used only as a last resort.
The union proposal would no longer allow employers to lock out workers and refuse to offer anything other than individual contracts - as is increasingly happening under the current IR laws."
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