Future of WorkChoices (1 Viewer)

[ari89]

THE Coalition has capitulated to the Rudd Government's workplace agenda, junking a decade of reforms and giving up the fight to save Australian Workplace Agreements.

The Opposition yesterday ended two days of tumultuous internal debate by signalling itwould not oppose the Government's plan to wind back Work Choices.


The result is a significant win for Labor and the union movement, which has fought against statutory individual contracts since John Howard and Peter Reith introduced AWAs in 1996.


The Coalition will develop new policies for the long term to encourage individual employment arrangements using common law contracts.


In the short term, it will seek an amendment to Labor's legislation to extend the life of the Government's proposed temporary employment contracts - part of its plan to manage the phasing out of Work Choices and AWAs - from two years to five years.
....

http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,,23243927-2702,00.html

..."We've embraced Labor's new form of agreement, with the Labor no-disadvantage test, and I believe that should meet the needs of employers and employees."


Although there is now bipartisan support for the Federal Government's first round of IR changes, there is still some way to go before the Bill is passed.
Ms Bishop will today propose an amendment to the Bill and the Opposition is intent on proceeding with a Senate inquiry that will not be completed until late April.


She says yesterday's decision to dump Australian Workplace Agreements and back the transition Bill does not guarantee Opposition support for further changes proposed by Labor.


"We have always said that we would consider our options once we had seen their legislation," she said.


"Once we see the legislation we can consult, we can discuss it with employees and employers, and then come to a final position on it and that will continue to be the case with whatever legislation the Government puts up."


Ms Bishop denies that senior Liberal colleagues forced her to abandon support for AWAs and has rejected the Government's claim she performed a policy backflip.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2008/02/20/2167246.htm

 

[god's pie]

I'm gonna miss workchoices.

 

[boris]

I can honestly say that I, nor anybody in my family was affected by or had anything to do with a workplace agreement.
What'd I miss out on

 

[Trampoline Man]

It says something about the real purpose of AWAs and Workchoices that they have so easily abandoned most of eleven years of Industrial Relations reforms. Attempts to portray their changes as balancing IR failed utterly because they knew that wasn't their purpose.

 

[god's pie]

DEPUTY Prime Minister Julia Gillard has pledged the aim of award modernisation is not to disadvantage workers but has failed to give a guarantee workers will not be worse off.


With employees in different states paid different rates for the same job, the next phase of the Rudd government’s workplace reform agenda poses the real risk that some workers could lose conditions.

But Ms Gillard was today laying the responsibility for the problem at the feet of the Australian Industrial Relations Commission, the body that has been tasked by the government to conduct the process.

Releasing details today of a new business advisory group to advise the government as it prepares the next wave of legislation to enshrine 10 minimum conditions of employment, Ms Gillard also confirmed Labor would not support the Coalition’s planned amendments to new laws to ban Australian Workplace Agreements in Australia.

The advisory body would include Corrs Chambers Westgarth CEO John Denton, the Australian Industry Group’s Heather Ridout and News Ltd’s chief executive John Hartigan.

But asked whether the government's plan to consolidate and modernise industrial awards across the country would leave any workers worse off.

"We've said to the Australian Industrial Relations Commission that amongst the aims of this process, the aim is to not disadvantage employees," she said.

"So that is clear on the face of the award modernisation request."

As a result, the Coalition’s proposed reforms to extend the life of Labor’s proposed Interim Transitional Employment Agreements (ITEAs) from two years to five years will now fail in the House of Representatives.

"That amendment is unacceptable to Labor and will be opposed," Ms Gillard said.

Opposition Workplace Relations spokeswoman Julie Bishop has previously confirmed the Coalition will not insist on the amendment – and it does not have the numbers to do so in the House of Representatives – assuring the passage of the legislation without amendment.

Ms Gillard said today there were now no excuses for the Coalition not to pass the legislation to ban new Australian Workplace Agreements by Easter.

Under the laws existing AWAs could run for up to five years but now new agreements could be signed from the date of the passage of the legislation.

Businesses already offering AWAs would be offered the alternative ITEAs as a transitional arrangement but the new form of statutory agreement would have to pass a no disadvantage test and could only last for two years before all forms of statutory individual agreements in Australia were banned.

However, Deputy Prime Minister Julia Gillard told reporters today the opposition now appeared to have backed away from its delaying tactics in the Senate.

"It appears from today's Senate committee that the opposition is now prepared ... to agree with the government that the transition bill should be dealt with by this parliament before Easter," Ms Gillard said.

Ms Gillard said the Senate committee had met this morning and she had been advised that opposition senators had abstained from voting on a Labor resolution bringing back the report date to its original March 17 deadline.

"I have been advised by the committee chairman, Senator Gavin Marshall, that a resolution was passed - and the opposition senators did not vote on this resolution," she said.

Submissions will go to the committee by February 29 and there will be public hearings on March 6 and 7.

Late today, Ms Gillard revealed that The Workplace Authority had provided the Government with data compiled and analysed from a sample of over 1700 Australian Workplace Agreements lodged between April and October 2006 under the previous Howard Government.

The analysis of the 1748 AWAs shows that 89 per cent removed at least one so-called protected award condition.

"These are the statistics the former Liberal government didn’t want to tell the Australian people about. These are the individual statutory agreements that the Liberal Party brought to Australian working families," she said in a statement last night.

The analysis also revealed the so-called protected award conditions that were most frequently removed were shift work loadings, annual leave loadings and penality rates.


http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,23245926-601,00.html

I think it's gonna end up being similar to Workchoices, except more communist like legislation coming from Labor

 

[ZabZu]

It says something about the real purpose of AWAs and Workchoices that they have so easily abandoned most of eleven years of Industrial Relations reforms.

I reckon the Coalition changed its position on AWAs because of the opinion polls. Kevin Rudd's approval rating is 70% while Brendan Nelson's is only 9%.

Individual contracts are core to Liberal party policy at both the federal level and state level. The Liberal govts in both WA and Vic introduced similar contracts in the early 1990s. The Libs love AWAs because unions cant represent a groups of workers. We all know how much the Libs love unions. The former Workplace Relations minister, Joe Hockey, said before the election that unions are irrelevant.

 

[withoutaface]

The Libs love AWAs because unions cant represent a groups of workers.

You're an idiot.

 

[incentivation]

The turning of their backs on Workchoices is of course due to political expediency. I vehmently disagree however, with te rejection of the 1996 reforms (including AWA's) which operated successfully for 10 years prior to the Workchoices debate. All that was needed was the reintroduction of the no-disadvantage test, with the current workplace agreements.

Since the election, the Opposition has become far too scared of being different to the ALP on points of policy, and all it will do (and is doing) is further drive the popularity of the government.