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14 November, 2005
Tomorrow, the Australian labour movement will take to the streets in several cities with hundreds of thousands of protestors aimed at the Howard government’s proposed industrial relations reforms. Introduced into Parliament on 2 November, WorkChoices legislation is draconian workplace reform reminiscent of conditions that produced wholesale class warfare a century ago.
Howard’s Conservatives, now controlling both houses of Parliament, pushed the reform through the lower chamber on 10 November by initiating “gag and guillotine” rules that prevented opposing MPs from speaking.
The package of worker restrictions now goes to a Senate committee, and is expected to be brought to the full Senate chamber on 28 November. The reform will extinguish established collective enterprise agreements in favour of individual contracts; restrict trade union rights in representation matters; create unfair workplace dismissals; limit the range of issues unions can bring into bargaining; and will weaken annual leave provisions and remove the right to public holidays enjoyed by some workers, among just a few of the harsh measures.
Australian trade unions have responded in typical fighting fashion, for example, by countering the affront to the country’s lowest paid workers with introduction of 4% hikes in the minimum wage in five separate states. The proposals were made to state industrial relations commissions, agencies the Howard government want abolished in lieu of federal control over workplace laws. Tomorrow’s rallies, like ones staged 30 June just prior to Conservatives taking control of both houses of Parliament, will show Australian workers are bitterly opposed to turning the clock back on industrial relations.