Workplace News
Empowering low-paid workers
The federal Labor government is trying to pass new laws that will help low-paid workers to negotiate higher wage increases.
As The Lamp went to press, Labor’s Secure Jobs, Better Pay legislation had passed the lower house of parliament but was held up in the Senate.
Big business was threatening to run a multi-million-dollar influence campaign aimed at blocking the bill or watering it down.
Business opposition ignores the fact that while corporate profits are at record highs, workers have endured years of wage stagnation and, in many industries, real wages cuts.
A Guardian newspaper poll of 1035 voters in November found majority support for key aspects of the bill.
The Australian Nursing and Midwifery Federation (ANMF) supports the bill because it is designed to benefit employees in low-paid, female-dominated sectors such as aged care.
Other sectors likely to benefit would include childcare, disability care and cleaning.
ANMF Federal Secretary, Annie Butler, said the existing wage bargaining system is outdated and unfair.
“Many of our members have been ‘locked out’ under the existing bargaining system and haven’t had a proper wage rise in years,” she said.
Annie said aged care staff working conditions had “deteriorated to the point where more and more workers have abandoned their profession, leaving nursing homes dangerously understaffed.”
Meanwhile, inflation is racing ahead of wage rises.
The consumer price index rose 1.8 per cent in the three months to September to an annual rate of 7.7 per cent.
That means real wages fell over the year to September by an average of 4.2 per cent and even higher for public sector workers, the ACTU said.
“Rather than spending millions of dollars on a scare campaign, big business should use that money to give their workers a pay rise instead,” ACTU Secretary, Sally McManus, said.
Multi-employer bargaining
The current enterprise bargaining system requires employees to reach agreement with their employers.
Labor’s new legislation makes it possible for workers in low-paid sectors to negotiate one pay deal across multiple employers.
Flexible work
New flexible work rules will benefit many women workers in particular.
Employers will be legally required to try to reach agreement with “eligible” employees who request flexible work hours or arrangements.
Eligible employees are carers, parents with children of school age or younger, people with a disability, those aged 55 or older, and those experiencing or caring for someone experiencing domestic violence.
If the employer doesn’t bargain in good faith, unions can ask the Fair Work Commission to intervene.
Job security
The new laws will improve job security by placing new limits on rolling fixed-term contracts.
This will mean “workers can’t be effectively put on an end-less probation period,” said the Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations, Tony Burke.
Empowering women workers
Industrial relations expert Professor Shae McCrystal of the University of Sydney said the new laws are designed to empower women in the workplace.
“There’s a real engagement in the things that hold women back,” she told the Sydney Morning Herald, referring to measures to increase the bargaining power of sectors dominated by women.