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 In late 2005, the Federal Government used its Senate majority to push the WorkChoices legislation through the Federal Parliament. The move was widely criticised by Australian churches and non-government organisations due to the legislation’s downgrading of basic conditions for vulnerable working Australians. By Alicia Pearce.
What is WorkChoices?WorkChoices was a fundamental overhaul of the Australian industrial relations sphere. It introduced a number of changes to the way the minimum wage was set, further curtailed trade union involvement in the workplace, and entrenched Australian Workplace Agreements (AWAs) as an industrial instrument. Firstly, the legislation made it easier for employers to offer employees wages and conditions that were below award minimums. It did this by replacing the award system as the absolute minimum conditions of employment, by introducing the “Fair Pay and Conditions Standard”. Despite its name, the Standard contained far less generous minimum conditions of employment. The legislation also took away the right for employees who worked for small and medium-sized businesses — businesses with up to 100 permanent employees — to take their employer to a tribunal for unfair dismissal. Instead, those workers could mount an unlawful dismissal case through the Federal Court; an expensive, lengthy procedure that does not cover most aspects of unfair dismissal. WorkChoices also changed the way the minimum wage was set, by taking that power away from the Australian Industrial Relations Commission. The new body responsible, the Fair Pay Commission, makes its decisions without reference to the needs principle — in other words, the idea that a wage must be sufficient to provide for the needs of a worker and their family. Earlier this year, in response to sustained community pressure, the Government introduced the new “Fairness Test” for AWAs, meaning that new AWAs will have to offer some kind of compensation if they remove award conditions like penalty rates. While this is a step in the right direction, the “Fairness Test” does nothing for the hundreds of thousands of employees already employed on AWAs under the new system. As well, it can be bypassed in instances of economic necessity. The combined effect of these changes means that employers are offered the opportunity to: reduce low-paid employees’ take home pay by offering employees AWAs which undercut arrangements currently in place in the workplace offer a below-award AWA as a condition of employment to a person who has no alternative but to accept require employees to work longer hours and anti-social patterns of work at ordinary hourly rates, without paying overtime or penalty rates exclude trade unions from bargaining procedures dismiss employees without giving a reason or being held accountable for the termination being “harsh, unjust or unreasonable” (in businesses that employ fewer than 100 permanent staff).
Who does WorkChoices affect?Typically, WorkChoices has the most potential to hurt people at the bottom of the labour market — low-paid, low-skilled workers, casual and underemployed workers, and people who are unemployed. This is because it targets minimum employment conditions, reducing the safety net that low-paid working people are reliant upon to earn a dignified income. The legislation also heavily restricts the involvement of trade unions in workplaces. Another important aspect of the WorkChoices legislation that is often overlooked is its interaction with other legislation affecting welfare payments which was introduced around the same time. The Welfare to Work legislation introduced a new regime whereby welfare recipients could be “breached”, or have their payments cut, if they refuse a legitimate offer of employment. If the offer of work is a below-award AWA, the unemployed person would be forced to accept these conditions in order to work, undermining any ability to negotiate more decent conditions. Importantly, WorkChoices overtook much of the States’ traditional roles in conciliation, arbitration and award-setting, by expanding the Federal system to cover all constitutional and trading corporations. In layman’s terms, this meant that most — although not all — employees who had previously been employed under the State system were now covered by the new Federal system. This had important implications for employees who were covered by minimum award wages in the old State system — it meant they could now be offered AWAs and enterprise agreements which could easily undercut their previous more generous minimum standards of employment. It also meant that employees who had previously had access to the State-based unfair dismissals procedure if their employment was ended unfairly were no longer covered under this system. All in all, employees who shifted from the State to the Federal system were very much worse off in terms of their minimum conditions. As well, employees who were already in the Federal system lost many of their protections, including their right to an unfair dismissal procedure, as outlined earlier in this article. For employees who were earning high incomes, had sought-after skills and were less dependent on the minimum wages and conditions outlined in the award system, this was not necessarily a negative transition. However, for low-waged and low-skilled employees, with little negotiating power in the workplace, moving onto the re-jigged Federal system made them more vulnerable to employer abuse. Why do Christians care?The legislation’s propensity to target the vulnerable is precisely why many Christian churches and organisations spoke out and continue to oppose these fundamental changes to the industrial relations system. The legislation went too far in removing the most basic guarantees for low-paid people, in removing transparency in the way the minimum wage is set, and in lowering the bar for what constituted decent treatment of employees. It also removed barriers that had been set in place to employees being forced to work anti-social hours. As such, it allowed work to eat into family and community time without just reparation. And although the introduction of the Fairness Test has nominally allowed employees to be compensated for the loss of penalty rates and overtime payments, this is not guaranteed. The Christian churches have long recognised that employees are not commodities or resources at the service of employers and the economy. The labour market is unlike any other market, in that labour is indivisible from the human being who performs it; unlike commodities, human beings have feelings, needs, aspirations and identities that are heavily involved in the process of working. Our working hours shape the rhythms of our lives, our interactions with our families and our communities, and our ability to engage in forms of spiritual and educative enrichment. Work is also one of the most significant ways people find meaning in their lives, and one of the most tangible ways that we live out our responsibility to the common good.
Alicia Pearce is a research officer with UnitingJustice Australia.
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