By Ged Kearney
President of the ACTU
Thursday, 04 February 2016
DESPITE public fury over local workers being locked out by the China Free Trade Agreement (ChAFTA), the Government is pushing the same tactics in other trade negotiations.
Today, the China-Australia Free Trade Agreement (ChAFTA) comes into force.
This means from now on, employers can hire temporary workers from China across a range of jobs, without bothering to advertise the work locally.
As well as our own workforce losing out, it’s likely overseas workers will continue to fall victim to unscrupulous bosses, as illustrated by the recent wave of scandals — from the 7-Eleven franchise ripping of its workers, to the underpayment and exploitation of contract cleaners.
However, the union-led campaign on ChAFTA has achieved some important concessions. One key benefit is the promise for local workers to get a look-in on all major projects (not just with Chinese investors).
As well, migrant visa workers will get at least the same rate of pay in the prevailing workplace agreement. Trade licensing standards — at risk of being scrapped — have been improved– although how to enforce them remains a worry.
But while public concern and debate about the ChAFTA controversy raged, it emerged our Trade Minister, Andrew Robb, was busy making almost identical concessions in the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) a huge 12-country trade deal.
As if that wasn’t galling enough, he signed up to the worst deal for protecting local jobs out of any of the TPP countries. Here’s why: Firstly, Australia will let in workers from TPP countries for all 651 occupations under the 457 visa program. This includes a range of jobs from nurses to chefs. This makes Australia different as other countries have limited their commitments to cover highly specialised roles in particular sectors.
Secondly, we’ll let any employer take on a worker from a TPP country. Other countries restrict this instead to “employers with no commercial presence in the country”.
Thirdly, Robb has signed away “labour market testing” for an additional six TPP countries: Canada, Mexico, Malaysia, Peru, Brunei and Vietnam. Australia had already waived that requirement for most other TPP countries under earlier trade deals.
This means that an employer can take on a worker from a TPP country without having to advertise the job locally first. That’s a real kick-in-the-teeth for locals struggling to find work.
To be sure, some of these commitments are already Turnbull Government policy, but sticking them in a legally binding treaty will lock them in for years and years to come, no matter how bad unemployment gets.
What if we wanted to improve Australia’s labour laws to make sure visa workers got respect they deserve?
Not likely, as Robb is letting multinational companies sue the Australian Government for measures that affect their profits, under so-called “Investor State Dispute Settlement” provisions.
These are the same provisions that Phillip Morris is using to sue the Government for introducing plain cigarette packaging laws.
That case is being heard in a secretive international tribunal, with no independent judiciary and no right of appeal. And it’s already cost the Australian taxpayer $50 million to defend the claim.
So what did we get in return for making such one-sided and sweeping concessions?
Not much, according to Fairfax journalist Peter Martin: “Our manufacturing and mining industries shrink as a result of the deal and our agricultural and service industries grow. The net effect isn’t big.”
It’s a similar story when it comes to ChAFTA. The government’s own research pointed out our trade deals with North Asia will create just 5,343 jobs by 2035 – about as many as the Australia economy creates in a few of weeks.
But the sacrifice for this is huge. As we learned last week, Australia is losing $4.15bn in tariff revenue in the next four years from ChAFTA. So that’s about $750,000 lost for every job ChAFTA is supposed to create.
Despite the problems with ChAFTA and the TPP, 2015 showed that campaigning on trade can deliver results, and we have a real chance in 2016.
While the TPP text has been released, the deal hasn’t been agreed by Cabinet, nor formally signed by all parties.
And the US Congress is busy grumbling about it. So its fate is far from certain. This fight is far from over.
We need to draw a line in the sand: – especially to stop similar sell-outs with other trade agreements just around the corner.
A high quality trade deal can help take us along the high road to quality, high skilled jobs and industries. But deals like the TPP and ChAFTA threaten to take us down the low road of cuts to jobs, wages and conditions, which do nothing to improve our prospects as a country.
I know what road we’ll be campaigning for Australia to take in 2016.
President of the ACTU
Thursday, 04 February 2016
DESPITE public fury over local workers being locked out by the China Free Trade Agreement (ChAFTA), the Government is pushing the same tactics in other trade negotiations.
Today, the China-Australia Free Trade Agreement (ChAFTA) comes into force.
This means from now on, employers can hire temporary workers from China across a range of jobs, without bothering to advertise the work locally.
As well as our own workforce losing out, it’s likely overseas workers will continue to fall victim to unscrupulous bosses, as illustrated by the recent wave of scandals — from the 7-Eleven franchise ripping of its workers, to the underpayment and exploitation of contract cleaners.
However, the union-led campaign on ChAFTA has achieved some important concessions. One key benefit is the promise for local workers to get a look-in on all major projects (not just with Chinese investors).
As well, migrant visa workers will get at least the same rate of pay in the prevailing workplace agreement. Trade licensing standards — at risk of being scrapped — have been improved– although how to enforce them remains a worry.
But while public concern and debate about the ChAFTA controversy raged, it emerged our Trade Minister, Andrew Robb, was busy making almost identical concessions in the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) a huge 12-country trade deal.
As if that wasn’t galling enough, he signed up to the worst deal for protecting local jobs out of any of the TPP countries. Here’s why: Firstly, Australia will let in workers from TPP countries for all 651 occupations under the 457 visa program. This includes a range of jobs from nurses to chefs. This makes Australia different as other countries have limited their commitments to cover highly specialised roles in particular sectors.
Secondly, we’ll let any employer take on a worker from a TPP country. Other countries restrict this instead to “employers with no commercial presence in the country”.
Thirdly, Robb has signed away “labour market testing” for an additional six TPP countries: Canada, Mexico, Malaysia, Peru, Brunei and Vietnam. Australia had already waived that requirement for most other TPP countries under earlier trade deals.
This means that an employer can take on a worker from a TPP country without having to advertise the job locally first. That’s a real kick-in-the-teeth for locals struggling to find work.
To be sure, some of these commitments are already Turnbull Government policy, but sticking them in a legally binding treaty will lock them in for years and years to come, no matter how bad unemployment gets.
What if we wanted to improve Australia’s labour laws to make sure visa workers got respect they deserve?
Not likely, as Robb is letting multinational companies sue the Australian Government for measures that affect their profits, under so-called “Investor State Dispute Settlement” provisions.
These are the same provisions that Phillip Morris is using to sue the Government for introducing plain cigarette packaging laws.
That case is being heard in a secretive international tribunal, with no independent judiciary and no right of appeal. And it’s already cost the Australian taxpayer $50 million to defend the claim.
So what did we get in return for making such one-sided and sweeping concessions?
Not much, according to Fairfax journalist Peter Martin: “Our manufacturing and mining industries shrink as a result of the deal and our agricultural and service industries grow. The net effect isn’t big.”
It’s a similar story when it comes to ChAFTA. The government’s own research pointed out our trade deals with North Asia will create just 5,343 jobs by 2035 – about as many as the Australia economy creates in a few of weeks.
But the sacrifice for this is huge. As we learned last week, Australia is losing $4.15bn in tariff revenue in the next four years from ChAFTA. So that’s about $750,000 lost for every job ChAFTA is supposed to create.
Despite the problems with ChAFTA and the TPP, 2015 showed that campaigning on trade can deliver results, and we have a real chance in 2016.
While the TPP text has been released, the deal hasn’t been agreed by Cabinet, nor formally signed by all parties.
And the US Congress is busy grumbling about it. So its fate is far from certain. This fight is far from over.
We need to draw a line in the sand: – especially to stop similar sell-outs with other trade agreements just around the corner.
A high quality trade deal can help take us along the high road to quality, high skilled jobs and industries. But deals like the TPP and ChAFTA threaten to take us down the low road of cuts to jobs, wages and conditions, which do nothing to improve our prospects as a country.
I know what road we’ll be campaigning for Australia to take in 2016.
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