New ACTU President Ged Kearney has hailed the abolition of WorkChoices and a new consensus on rights at work as paving the way for more collaboration in Australian workplaces.
Addressing the Industrial Relations Society of Queensland on Friday, Kearney said WorkChoices had been anathema to co-operation and collaboration.
But she said the Fair Work Act had turned that around, and the recent election result that entrenched rights at work should foster progress in workplaces.
Kearney said unions were ready and willing to engage constructively on collaboration not only in workplaces, but also on broader social and economic objectives.
But she said for collaboration to work, there had to be real respect, fairness and balance in workplaces.
WorkChoices, she said, created an imbalance by slashing the safety net, encouraging unfair individual contracts, undermining collective bargaining, cutting unfair dismissal rights, disadvantaging the low-paid, and stopping workers from accessing union help.
“We all want a collaborative society, where people work together for good outcomes, rather than fight over differing objectives,” Kearney told the IRSQ’s annual conference at Surfers Paradise.
“Australia’s social and economic history has great examples of change that has been achieved through collaboration. Our nation is strongest when we come together over shared values and goals . . . It is the same in the workplace. There can be no doubt that a collaborative workplace is a productive workplace. Workers collaborating with employers; unions collaborating with business.
“But over the decade of the former Coalition Government, collaboration was in short supply. And WorkChoices all but killed it off when business and industry jumped on the bandwagon.”
Kearney said the federal election had confirmed a national consensus on a fair workplace system that delivers a strong safety net, job security and good conditions.
She said while unions remained very suspicious of the Coalition, Tony Abbott’s abandonment during the campaign of his party’s previous adherence to a hardline, anti-worker approach to industrial relations was a positive sign.
With both major parties now seemingly behind the Fair Work Act, Australia was now in a “good space” to create a workplace model that favoured collaboration and partnerships.
“When there are differences about what is fair and just, about rights and responsibilities in the workplace, it’s difficult to have collaboration,” she said.
“We need to have a commonly agreed set of standards as the foundation for co-operation and collaboration in workplaces.
“For collaboration to work, we need a framework that is built on compromise, but also on a balance in the power relationship.”
But this will not mean unions foregoing their core business of putting their members’ interests first, and advocating always for better pay and conditions, she said.
And in a blunt warning to business groups, Kearney said that while employers continued to adopt “outrageous” positions such as the current campaign to eliminate minimum hours clauses in awards, collaboration would be difficult.
“For some industries to argue that workers should not have a minimum hours clause is to me an abomination,” Kearney said.
“As a nurse I know many mums who travel sometimes over an hour to work, sometimes on public transport, or indeed paying for petrol, who have had to arrange paid child care.
“It costs a fortune for some to just get to work let alone be told you can turn around be sent home in one or two hours. For rural and regional workers the situation is exacerbated by distance.
“These casual jobs can mean the difference between making the mortgage payment, or paying the electricity bill or buying necessary medication.
“To argue that kids having a paper round before school is the main reason for changing the law is simply unjust.
“Such attitudes rile myself and my colleagues.”
Mark Phillips is ACTU media co-ordinator
R@W News is a forum for news, analysis and commentary about rights at work and related issues. The opinions presented in R@W News are those of the author, and do not necessarily represent policies or views of the ACTU.