By Michael Want
USU Executive President
Nov 1, 2007
Before the last federal election John Howard did not mention
WorkChoices and many Australians voted for him because they thought he
would look after working families. Many families have now been let down
and so have future generations of Australians. Once the Coalition was elected it was a different story. They introduced their WorkChoices IR laws to help Big Business, even though they knew it would hurt working families.
And the Liberals want to go even further with their IR changes.
The Howard Government wants more people on AWAs, they want penalty rates to be up for grabs, they want people to be able to be sacked without rhyme or reason.
Mr Howard's Big Business friends agree that the laws need to go further - billionaire retailer Gerry Harvey said a “second tier” of foreign workers should be created in Australia, paid fifty percent less than local workers, undercutting local wages and conditions. According to Mr Harvey, Mr Howard and the Liberal Party are in total agreement with him. "You won’t get politicians saying what I’m saying, but privately they know this sort of thing is a reality in the future.”
Don't forget that in March 2006 the Minister for Finance Nick Minchin apologised to Business that the IR Laws had not gone far enough and committed to further reform when re-elected.
Under their IR laws the Liberals have already:
• Abolished unfair dismissal protections for 4 million workers.
• Allowed workers’ take-home pay and conditions like penalty rates, over-time, redundancy pay, rest breaks and public holidays to be cut by AWA individual contracts.
• Cut protections for young and vulnerable workers leaving them more exposed to exploitation.
• Made it harder for workers to gain assistance from unions.
• Increased the power of big business by allowing them to refuse to collectively bargain with workers even where there is a majority of employees who want union protection.
• Stripped the powers of the Industrial Relations Commission to protect workers’ rights and settle disputes.
