Prepared by Tom McDonald,
former National Secretary, CFMEU (Download pdf)
The central aim of the Howard Government and the Business Council of Australia IR reforms is to destroy all institutions and systems that have in the past helped to improve and protect the wages and conditions of Australian workers, and protect their family and recreation time.
Howard’s reforms include:
* Dismantle the Industrial Relations Commission (i.e. the independent umpire);
* Destroy the Award system which was a safety net below which employers could not go;
* Reduce employees minimum legally protected conditions of employment to only five items;
* Allow employers the right to absorb into the wage rate long held conditions of employment so
that they will be lost over time;
* Replace Enterprise Bargaining Agreements (EBAs) with take-it-or-leave-it Australian
Workplaces Agreements (AWAs);
* Reduce wages below Award entitlements, by abolishing various allowances or other Award
payments such as penalty or shift work rates;
* Abolish the legal protection that has existed in Awards to limit intrusion of work into
family/recreation time;
* Abolish legal protection for about four million workers from being unfairly dismissed;
* Abolish the principles on which our IR system has been historically based -
* * A fair go for all
* * Equal pay for work of equal value
* * A living wage for all full time adult employees;
* Outlaw pattern bargaining, which was the vehicle through which all major improvements in
national conditions of employment has been achieved (see Role of Unions);
* Give employers a monopoly of power by abolishing various workplace rights and by seriously
restricting the access of unions to the workforce;
And Howard wants an IR system that will allow governments and employers to further cut wages and to further erode conditions of employment whenever the Australian economy goes into an economic recession.
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