Employers want to undermine workers' basic rights

They hanker after the WorkChoices era where there was no real safety net of wages and conditions for workers and where employers could push workers onto Australian Workplace Agreement (AWA) individual contracts that removed penalty payments, public holiday pay and other basic award conditions.

The Australian public rejected this. They voted against WorkChoices and in favour of basic protections for workers.

It is clear there is strong public support for the robust safety net that awards provide. Australians know that without awards, many young, low paid and vulnerable workers will be ripped off by unscrupulous employers.

The current process of award modernisation has not met all the objectives that unions would have liked. We do remain concerned that workers in some industries risk losing take home pay and conditions.

We acknowledge that the government has established a process for hearing claims of disadvantage and can make “take home pay orders” if necessary.

Unions will pursue this avenue and will continue to work hard to represent workers and prevent them from being disadvantaged.

However the fundamental point is that award modernisation will breathe new life into Australia’s unique industrial relations system.

It ensures that awards will provide a minimum safety net of wages and conditions that is simpler and more effective for both employers and employees and that they continue to play a unique role in delivering fairness in our economy and society more broadly.

Awards will protect important matters like minimum wages and penalties for working unsociable hours, overtime for working past normal working hours and so on. They also enable bargaining at the enterprise level for employers, workers and unions to develop conditions above this safety net that meet the specific needs of the business.

It is time for the employer lobby groups to move on and accept the new ground rules of the Federal Government’s “Fair Work” industrial relations system. Either that or be honest about their real intentions - to continue to undermine basic rights and protections for workers and bring back WorkChoices.