Read this article in:
5 June, 2000National secretary of the Australian Manufacturing Workers' Union calls for minister's resignation.
AUSTRALIA: Attempts by the Federal government and its minister for workplace relations, Peter Reith, to push through new anti-worker and anti-union laws have met with defeat. Australian Democrats' senators rejected Reith's Workplace Relations Amendment Bill 2000, which would have, in fact, outlawed industry-wide or "pattern" bargaining. These amendments were intended to obstruct the Australian Manufacturing Workers Union's Campaign 2000/2001, to win improved wages and conditions through industry-wide bargaining.
On May 26, in Canberra, a delegation from the AMWU as well as the IMF's assistant general secretary, Brian Fredricks, appeared before the Senate committee to give evidence in opposition to the Bill. The IMF assistant general secretary reminded the committee that Australia had already been found in breach of ILO Conventions on Freedom of Association and Collective Bargaining Rights (which they ratified in 1973) with its Workplace Relations Act of 1996 and that it needed to be amended. Fredricks said it was a misperception in many parts of the world that where collective bargaining was allowed it led to less competiveness. Indeed, the opposite was true in many highly industrialised countries, such as Germany, Finland and Sweden.
Asked for his reaction to the rejection of the Workplace Relations Amendment Bill 2000, the AMWU national secretary, Doug Cameron, declared that it was a major defeat for Peter Reith and that he should resign.
On May 26, in Canberra, a delegation from the AMWU as well as the IMF's assistant general secretary, Brian Fredricks, appeared before the Senate committee to give evidence in opposition to the Bill. The IMF assistant general secretary reminded the committee that Australia had already been found in breach of ILO Conventions on Freedom of Association and Collective Bargaining Rights (which they ratified in 1973) with its Workplace Relations Act of 1996 and that it needed to be amended. Fredricks said it was a misperception in many parts of the world that where collective bargaining was allowed it led to less competiveness. Indeed, the opposite was true in many highly industrialised countries, such as Germany, Finland and Sweden.
Asked for his reaction to the rejection of the Workplace Relations Amendment Bill 2000, the AMWU national secretary, Doug Cameron, declared that it was a major defeat for Peter Reith and that he should resign.