Unions support Australian Manufacturing

Reserve Bank governor Glenn Stevens called last week for a review of industrial relations, saying many business people felt that the government's reforms had reduced workforce flexibility.

That prompted ACTU President Ged Kearney to say the central bank chief was "captive to the big end of town".

Greens industrial relations spokesman Adam Bandt called for the Reserve Bank board to include union and community representatives, not just business leaders, to protect full employment.

Australian Manufacturing Workers Union national secretary Dave Oliver said productivity was the real issue.

"Not the Glenn Stevens Reserve Bank productivity by removing penalty rates of workers, but real productivity at a macro level to investment in infrastructure, investment in skills, investment in innovation, research and development, improved management capability and access to finance," he told reporters in Canberra.

"Clearly Glenn Stevens hasn't been looking into the industry very often because what he would have found is that since 2007 there hasn't been a single day lost in the steel industry through industrial action, unlike during the period of Work Choices."

Queensland Liberal backbencher Steve Ciobo said "As far as I am concerned the 1000 lost jobs at BlueScope last week lie right at the feet of Labor and the unions,"

Workplace Relations Minister Chris Evans said it was "disgraceful" that Mr Ciobo was blaming workers for the job losses.

"To suggest that BlueScope's redundancies were caused by the wages and conditions of the BlueScope workers flies in the face of reality," Senator Evans said.

"We know that this has been caused by the high Australian dollar ... This is about Work Choices, about returning to a system that says you should lower the wages and conditions of Australian workers."

Australian Workers Union national secretary Paul Howes said productivity in the steel industry was high and the workplace relations system was working.

"It is not the old narrative in terms of worker losing, worker winning, or boss losing or boss winning," he said.
"It's about being clever, it's being innovative, it's about appropriate levels of managerial experience in manufacturing to ensure we can innovate, can diversify and we can stay the long term."