UnionsNSW: Dispute Orders Bill

Mark Lennon's Blog - Dispute Orders Bill
20 March, 2012

The NSW government has introduced amendments to the Industrial Relations Act increasing the fines for taking industrial action from $10,000 to $110,000 for a first breach and from $20,000 to $220,000 for a second.

The government says the changes are necessary because unions are not showing the Industrial Relations Commission respect when they breach orders not to take industrial action.

Respect! That is a bit rich coming from a government that has imposed on the Industrial Relations Commission (IRC) its own wages policy and removed its right to conduct genuine arbitration, stripped it of its ability to deal with the police death and disability scheme and has asked it to adjourn over 22 WorkCover prosecutions without giving a reason.

The union movement has always respected the IRC that is why we have campaigned so hard in recent years to retain it.

As for the government they don’t want a genuinely independent tribunal that balances competing rights of employers and employees they simply want to turn the IRC into a tool to implement and enforce their workforce policies.

The Dispute Orders Bill increasing fines under the Act eleven fold is just the latest example.

Unions have too much respect for the IRC to allow this to happen.