ACTU - 2012 Summary

UNIONS have called for a mature debate about productivity and a focus by politicians on the future of manufacturing as they reflect on 2012 and look forward to next year.

ACTU Secretary Dave Oliver said the lowpoint of 2012 was “the ludicrous campaign by employers to strip workers of weekend penalty rates in the name of productivity”.

“Employer arguments that stripping workers’ pay leads to greater productivity has been rejected by Fair Work Australia. The attack on penalty rates is totally contrary to the Australian way of life,” he said.

Oliver’s 2012 highlight was the legislation to lock in the Fair Entitlements Guarantee to make sure that workers who face unemployment through the collapse of their company do not also miss out on their redundancy pay because the employer has failed to keep aside money.

Australian Manufacturing Workers Union National Secretary Paul Bastian said the productivity debate needed to focus on what was required for Australia to be trade competitive in a high cost, high skill and high wage economy.

“The real answer to lifting productivity lies in improving our management and leadership; increasing our skills; investing in research and development and plant and equipment; empowering workers and engaging them in planning, innovation and problem solving – not in attacking workers’ wages and conditions as some employer groups and the Coalition continue to advocate,” he said.

Manufacturing dominated both Bastian’s highlights and lowlights. He said the loss of manufacturing jobs in iconic companies like Qantas, Ford, Toyota, Darrell Lea, Heinz, Fairfax, HWT, Cussons and many more less known businesses was a lowpoint. But delivering a road map for the future of the industry as part of the Prime Minister’s Manufacturing Taskforce, along with the Fair Entitlements Guarantee, were highpoints.

In 2013, the AMWU will continue to campaign to ensure that the Federal Government takes up the challenge of implementing the policies necessary to keep jobs and skills in manufacturing now and to develop a national manufacturing plan for the future.

Job and income security is another area where union leaders are hoping to see action in 2013.

The National Secretary of the National Union of Workers, Charlie Donnelly, noted that he lowpoint of 2012 was too many workers had lost their jobs, and he hoped to see real change for workers who have been trapped in insecure work.

“Workers should not have to choose between paying the rent and buying food, they should be able to take sick leave and plan their future. We need structural change to put an end to worker exploitation and a new debate about productivity and flexibility that workers can actually be part of,” he said.

It is a theme that was also picked up Dave Oliver.

“There is now recognition in the broad community that something needs to be done to restore a universal right to things such as sick and annual leave that were once considered a basic part of the Australian ‘fair go’,” he said.

“In 2013, union members will be campaigning for real and lasting changes in federal laws and practices at the workplace to improve the rights of casuals, contractors and labour hire workers.”

For Paddy Crumlin, National Secretary of the Maritime Union of Australia, the highpoint of 2012 was the passage through Parliament of significant shipping reforms after a 17-year campaign.

“Already the Australian shipping sector is seeing signs of revitalisation and we are seeing more foreign ships decide to operate with full Australian crews as a result,” he said.

He predicts that productivity drivers, penalty rates, union governance, good faith bargaining, guest labour and compulsory arbitration were likely to be big issues in 2013.

“Superannuation fund investment in infrastructure through both direct investment and bonds will become a dominant feature of policy development in the area of capital productivity,” he said.

For the Australian Services Union’s National Secretary David Smith there was a clear-cut highlight in 2012: Fair Work Australia’s decision in February to award pay equity to 150,000 social and community sector workers.

Along with fighting to protect and defend members’ pay, conditions and rights, the ASU will be campaigning alongside the Finance Sector Union against offshoring.

“Through our Secure Jobs Secure Data campaign, which will be heightened in 2013, we will urge the Federal Government to act on our claims protecting jobs and sensitive personal data from being offshored, and thereby preserving Australia’s ability to remain competitive in the global marketplace,” Smith said.

“Already the Australian shipping sector is seeing signs of revitalisation,” says MUA National Secretary Paddy Crumlin.

Lee Thomas, Federal Secretary of the Australian Nursing Federation, said the highlight of her year was the successful enterprise bargaining campaign by the ANF’s Victorian branch.

“Thousands of community supporters got behind the campaign to save nurse to patient ratios in Victorian hospitals and maintain safe patient care,” she said.

Thomas’ big hope for the 2013 election year is that both the Government and Opposition will make commitments to improving health, particularly to fix the graduate nurse crisis.