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26 March, 2007
A report issued by the Australian Mines and Metals Association (AMMA), an employers grouping, says that reversing the Howard government’s WorkChoices law related to individual work agreements will reduce mining productivity, and cost Australia A$6 billion in exports.
But labour unions contest that assertion, claiming mining employers are “scaremongering” while anticipating that a victory by the Labour Party in federal elections this year will reverse Prime Minister John Howard’s radical changes to industrial relations law. The worst of those changes, called the Australian Workplace Agreements (AWAs), or individual work pacts that replace enterprise agreements, took effect a year ago.
The erroneous report, issued at the AMMA’s resources conference in Perth last week, states that 80% of all workers in the resource sector are on AWAs. It also falsely claims that AWAs have not been detrimental to workers’ employment conditions.
ACTU Sec. Greg Combet
“The AMMA’s arguments don’t stack up,” said Australian Council of Trade Unions Secretary Greg Combet. “The suggestion that getting rid of AWAs will hurt the economy is scaremongering, and all that we’re seeing is big business getting between the Howard’s government’s industrial relations laws.”
Combet refuted the AMMA study by stating that the coal sector, which is overwhelmingly comprised of enterprise or collective labour agreements, has far outpaced productivity in metals mining over the past ten years.
“We are opposed to AWAs for a very good reason,” said Combet. “They have been used to exclude people being represented by a union.”