Corporate Culture: War on Workers' Rights

BHP Billiton is apparently leading a business attack on the Labor government’s second round of changes to industrial relations laws, which the mining giant says will force it to respond to countless requests for flexible working hours and consult every time it wants to change rosters. Indeed how demeaning it must be for the "Big Australian" to have to consult! Who's the boss anyway?

Australia’s largest overseas owned company said changes to the Fair Work Act designed to increase flexible working arrangements, additional rostering consultation, new anti-bullying provisions and right of entry changes were unfair on businesses.

Predictably the Australian Industry Group, the Australian Mines and Metals Association, the Master Builders, the National Farmers Federation and the Australian Chamber of Commerce, all began singing the same song.

Family friendly changes to parental leave arrangements, additional protections for pregnant workers and increased unpaid leave entitlements, changes necessary to stamp out workplace bullying, guarantee access to union representatives are all anathema to the representatives of greed.

BHP head of human resources Gary Brown said in a submission the changes would "add unnecessary regulatory burden and cost, and will not assist the industry’s productivity agenda at a critical time".

The expansion of the right to request flexible working arrangements was "an unreasonable and unnecessary incursion into the operations of an employer's business" that would “radically expand the number of requests required to be considered by an employer" over the course of a worker’s career. This from the geniuses who brought us the global finical crisis.

"It will be unmanageable, even chaotic, if an employer is obliged to consult employees every time it contemplates a possible roster change," the submission stated. Bullying in particular should not be categorised as an industrial matter, BHP said.

Joining the wingeing chorus, the Australian Industry Group said the changes were "extremely lopsided" and did not deliver a “more productive, flexible and fair workplace relations system". "Employers' issues of concern are not addressed in the bill, and the absence of any attempt to do what we demand is glaring," the AiG submission said.

Striving for brevity the ACCI said the current legislation was "simply unbalanced".

The  fount of original thought, the National Farmers Federation, said the changes were unbalanced and could have a significant impact on jobs, AMMA called for the bill to be withdrawn, and ye olde world Master Builders Association said it strengthened the power of unions and did not "provide any measures which enhanced productivity".

There can be no doubt that "Class War" is alive and well among such unrepresentative male dominated self serving lobbyists.