Sydney Morning Herald Article - St Vincent De Paul Society

[Conveners]

Dear Supporter,

I thought this article may be of interest to you. Your comments are
most welcome.

Kind regards,

Julia Armitt
North Sydney Your Rights at Work Group

'Workers are in trouble when the rot sets in at Vinnies'
By Adele Horin
Sydney Morning Herald, July 28, 2007
http://www.smh.com.au/news/opinion/rot-sets-in-at-vinnies/2007/07/27/1185339252798.html

The St Vincent de Paul Society is an honourable charity that is
unafraid to confront the Federal Government on welfare policy. It
stands close to the marginalised and poor and speaks up for their
interests. But even this venerable organisation has caught the Work
Choices bug characterised by Rambo-like staff relations.

This week it was ordered by the NSW Industrial Relations Commission to
reinstate two charity workers sacked in circumstances the commission
found were harsh, unreasonable and unjust. When invited by their
manager in a team meeting to speak frankly, the two workers offered
criticisms the manager found malicious and unacceptable. And when the
two were told to express their complaints in writing as individuals,
they refused and insisted on putting their grievances collectively on
behalf of their team. They were sacked for disobeying a lawful and
reasonable direction.

With Work Choices a major factor in the Federal Government's
unpopularity, the St Vincent de Paul case highlights what average
workers stand to lose. The charity workers, with union help, were able
to appeal against their sacking under old industrial laws because Work
Choices in law, if not spirit, does not apply to St Vincent de Paul
(it is not a constitutional corporation).

But average workers in most small or medium enterprises have lost
their right to appeal against unfair dismissals; and workers who have
signed an Australian Workplace Agreement have lost the right to
bargain or put their grievances collectively. Even if the majority of
workers in a firm wants to bargain collectively, it is illegal under
Work Choices unless the boss agrees, a veto absent even in the US.

The Government is fighting a rearguard action on Work Choices, which
remains the policy that most distinguishes it from Labor. The law
concentrated power in the hands of employers, and alienated the
battlers. It smashed the consensus that governments must maintain a
balance between protecting workers' rights and bosses' rights. And now
the Government is trying to convince the battlers they are better off
on individual agreements than on collective agreements.

While it has tried to kill off collective bargaining for workers, the
Government has been running an extraordinary series of advertisements
extolling the benefits of collective bargaining for small businesses.
Under the provocative headline "Collective bargaining - making it
easier to do business" it highlights the benefits to small businesses
of banding together to gain "greater equality" in their negotiations
with larger businesses. It says "collective bargaining" would enable
small businesses to be on "a more equal footing" with larger firms.
All too true.

Yet workers have been cast adrift. At the proverbial bargaining table,
they are on their own regardless of age, skills or English
proficiency. If job applicants are presented with an employer-dictated
agreement, they must sign it or walk away (and if unemployed they risk
losing their Newstart Allowance for eight weeks for refusing a job
offer).

Many bosses have behaved reasonably and maintained collective
bargaining arrangements, and most workers have resisted any inducement
to switch to agreements (it is illegal to force existing workers to
switch).

But a new report shows that for the increasing number of job
applicants who signed agreements, the outlook is gloomy.
Overwhelmingly, these agreements have either abolished or reduced
overtime rates, penalty rates, shift allowances and public holiday pay
- and to a greater extent than previously thought. The report by
professors David Peetz, at Griffith University, and Alison Preston, at
Curtin University, for the Victorian Government, reveals 90 per cent
of agreements from May to September 2006 abolished or "modified"
penalty rates, 88 per cent abolished or "modified" overtime rates, 89
per cent did the same for shiftwork loading, and 82 per cent for
holiday pay. Many employers were all too happy to grab the powers the
Government had handed them.

As well, the hourly pay difference between a typical worker on an
agreement and one on a collective agreement turns out to be worse than
was previously calculated. Using new data on median earnings (as
distinct from average, which can be distorted by a small number of
high earners), the researchers show typical workers on agreements in
2006 earned 16.3 per cent, or $4 an hour, less than typical workers on
collective agreements. The worst affected were unsurprisingly those
with the least skills and low bargaining power in small enterprises.

In organisations with fewer than 500 employees, agreements pay less
than collective agreements, and the wage shortfall widens as firms get
smaller. For women the gap is even worse.

Some workers do better on agreements, especially those in
communication services, government administration, and finance/
insurance especially - areas prepared to pay premiums to keep unions
out. Ironically, miners on collective agreements are doing better than
those on agreements because of strong unions in coal. In nine of 16
industries examined, workers on agreements did worse than counterparts
on collective agreements.

Overall, the battlers can derive no comfort from Work Choices, and the
Government's new "fairness test" testifies to its desperation. But the
test, which is weaker than the earlier "no disadvantage" test it
scrapped, has come too late to regain trust. Work Choices worked as
the Government intended. Why ever did it think the battlers would buy
it?

[END]