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OVERVIEW OF LABOR POLICY ON INDUSTRIAL
RELATIONS
The Labor Party has released
some significant detail of the policy it intends
to take to the Federal Elections this year.
The following is a brief analysis of
the main points with some comparison to the current
WorkChoices legislation:
1. Federal System
Policy
Labor will keep the Federal System
for private business and will encourage the States
to handover all of their remaining powers.
Analysis
Labor will not revert to the old system
of State and federal powers. All businesses that
are currently bound by WorkChoices will remain bound
under this policy. The States may decide to handover
their powers to a Federal Labor Government in which
case all business would be covered by federal law
2. AWAs Abolished
Policy
Labor will abolish all individual workplace
agreements (AWA’s).
Analysis
Although not stipulated, it is unlikely
that this will be retrospective. This will mean that
for award employees, they will either be covered
by the award or may bargain collectively for an enterprise
agreement.
The “common law contract” will
still be an option for business
3. Guaranteed Conditions Increased
Policy
Labor will return a number of guaranteed
award conditions including penalty rates, overtime
and public holiday pay
Analysis
There are no details of this however
it would seem that Labor will be guaranteeing various
conditions as those above. The current 5 guaranteed
conditions currently are minimum rates of pay, annual
leave, personal leave, parental leave and maximum
38 hour week.
Currently, an employer may choose not
to offer conditions such as penalty rates, overtime
and public holiday pay for new employees.(There are
others as well and more detail of what these are
will be required before we can provide a deeper analysis).
4. Unfair Dismissal
Policy
Labor will re-introduce unfair dismissal
laws for all business. However there are a number
of exemptions.
- For Business with 15 employees
or less there will be an exemption where the
employee has worked for less than 12 months.
- For all other businesses, there
will be an exemption where the employee has worked
for less than 6 months.
- A “Fair Dismissal Code” will
be introduced to assist small business to comply
with the laws.
- Where compliance occurs this would
be a valid defence to any claim.
Analysis
Labor has sought to define small business
at 15 employees or less. Whilst small business will
be subject to unfair dismissal laws it will have
some assistance by the one year service exemption
and the “Code defence”.
For employers with between 16 and 100
employees the only exemption will be where the employee
has only been employed for 6 months or less. This
is the current position for employers with more than
100 employers and these employers will continue to
get that exemption.
Labor has also indicated that measures
will be taken to ensure a speedy resolution of the
dispute.
5. Industrial Action
Policy
Labor will
- Restrict industrial action
to bargaining periods in pursuit of a collective
agreement and only after “genuine good
faith bargaining”
- Make secret ballots compulsory
before industrial action.
- Outlaw strike pay
Analysis
This policy is encouraging to business
who perhaps feared that the power of the union would
be significantly increased in this area. However
the detail of this policy will require close scrutiny
to examine how much easier industrial action will
be for employees.
Further Details
We will keep you informed as further
details of each party’s policy emerges.
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