Election: Your Rights at Work

By Ged Kearney

It could be two weeks before we know who will form Australia’s next government – an extraordinary situation most Australians have not experienced in their lifetime.

But regardless of which party eventually fills the Treasury benches in the House of Representatives, the major objective of the Your Rights at Work campaign has been met.

WorkChoices was one of the major issues of the election, and the YRAW campaign successfully ensured that both parties have committed to fair work laws.

In effect, we have secured the improvements to workplace rights gained since the abolition of WorkChoices.

While we believe that the interests of working people and their families would be best represented by a Labor Government, it is a significant achievement that we now have a national consensus on a fair workplace system.

Australians believe fundamentally in a system that delivers a strong workplace safety net, job security and good workplace conditions.

This campaign by our members and unions around Australia has shown that wages, conditions and respect at work are key political issues.

There is absolutely no doubt that the efforts of the thousands of Rights at Work volunteers had an impact on this election.

From day one, Tony Abbott was forced to recant on his previous adherence to hardline, WorkChoices-style policies.

Remember “WorkChoices is dead, buried and cremated”?

He was forced to abandon his previous public commitments to individual contracts, to cutting protections from unfair dismissal, and to winding back the award safety net.

The pressure never let up on Tony Abbott, and he finished the campaign as he started: rejecting the policies of deregulated labour markets that have been a central plank of Liberal philosophy since the party was founded.

The resounding message to the Liberal Party was that Australians care about a fair workplace system.