Industrial Relations Reform

In my capacity as a spokesperson for the Hawkesbury Greens I sent a media release to the Hawkesbury Gazette outlining briefly the Greens stance against the Howard Governments radical IR agenda. To the Gazette’s credit they published my article in full (although buried in the paper past the letters section). Additionally, the editor decided to use her editorial space to argue that we must ‘look at both sides’ of the debate and in so doing referenced my media release. By looking at both sides of the argument the editor then used her entire article to argue in favour of removing the unfair dismissal laws for small businesses. Her article can be read here.

I take considerable offence to some of the comments she has made. First she implies that the mainstream media has been only printing articles that oppose Howard’s IR agenda and by using her editorial space to argue in favour of the reforms she is some how ironing out the imbalances. Perhaps the journo's opinion writers are finding it hard to justify the reforms? Nevertheless there is always a piece in favour of the IR reforms such as here, .

Indeed, this was not the only thing I had trouble with. The editor’s (lack of) understanding of the proposed changes to the unfair dismissal laws irked me so much to force me into writing (yet another) letter to the editor. The letter in full:

Editor,

I thank you for using your editorial comment to engage in the Industrial Relations debate. However, I will have to politely disagree with your comment and analysis.

It is important to note that the unfair dismissal laws are not the only aspects of the Howard Government’s radical IR agenda. The Howard Government also intends to abolish the “no disadvantage test” for AWA’s, which means agreements could eliminate guarantees to things like redundancy pay, penalty rates, overtime, and annual leave loading. The Howard Government also aims to remove the independent Australian Industrial Relations Commission who governs wage rises.

But more specifically to the comments on unfair dismissals:

The article stated, ‘there are some selfish and heartless bosses’. What was failed to be acknowledged is that if businesses (with less than 100 employees) become exempt from unfair dismissal laws then market forces will encourage all of these bosses to be ‘selfish and heartless’. For example, why would an employer declare a worker redundant and pay them a redundancy pay when they will be allowed to just sack them without giving reason or a redundancy pay?

The article also referred to onerous procedure. When asking small business employers what red tape they would consider to be the most onerous I would speculate that it would be the quarterly BAS statements for the Howard Government’s burdensome GST, and not unfair dismissal laws.

The article stated, ‘there should be a definite set of guidelines that employers have to adhere to when sacking someone’ Indeed, but what is being suggested in the article is a tinkering of the edges to make it less onerous for employers. The reform proposals do not tinker the edges, in fact the proposals are a radical change to the system and society. This is because the proposal exempts most Australian businesses from the rules we agree employers must adhere to.

The Prime Minister has stated that business prosperity and growth in real wages has been significant under his government. Doesn’t this suggest that the current IR system has been successful? If it’s not broken, why abolish it?

It is these arguments together and more that makes the Greens and many others say there is little or no positive justification for these extremist reforms. Thus, with the timing of the introduction of this legislation (when Howard gets unfettered control of both houses of parliament) I can only surmise that the government has an arrogant ‘just because the we can’ attitude.

Leading the fight against this reckless Howard agenda is Unions NSW who must be applauded for their inspiring presentation last Friday. I look forward to their next event in the campaign on August 7.

I probably have missed something in her article but perhaps someone else will fill in my gaps. Lets see if my letter gets published and aging to the Gazette’s credit they have not shied away from my more controversial letters in the past).