Unions support Secure Work, Better Pay Bill

Urge your Senator to support the Bill: click here.

The passage of the Secure Jobs, Better Pay Bill is relevant to every Australian worker. The proposed overhaul of Industrial Relations laws, due to go before Parliament before the end of November, has the potential to restore the bargaining power of employees and improve working conditions severely damaged under nine years of conservative Governments.

The most significant change for IEU members is to multi-employer bargaining. 

Anthony Odgers, Assistant Federal Secretary of the Independent Education Union of Australia, says it’s “fair enough” that employers in Catholic education in every state want multi-employer bargaining agreements – there shouldn’t be different pay and conditions for people doing the same job.

But those agreements mean there isn’t “true bargaining” for employees.

“It’s more like begging,” he says.

“That’s because only employers can choose to have multi-employer agreements. When they do, their employees have no rights. Employees can’t take strike action unless their employer gives permission by seeking an authorisation. The employer doesn’t have to bargain and can walk away whenever they like.”

And employers do walk away.

Bargaining is currently stalled in NSW, Western Australia, Victoria, and Tasmania. In the west, negotiations have extended into a fourth year with the employer insisting that all workload measures should be removed from the Agreement, including fundamentals such as rational class sizes and manageable face-to-face teaching times.

Odgers says the changes proposed by the new Federal Labor Government will fix some of these problems.

“The IEU will be able to initiate bargaining for multi-employer agreements. We won’t see the stalling tactics and outright refusals to come to the table we have in the past because employers will be forced to bargain in good faith. Members will be able to take protected industrial action.”

He says proposed changes to rules governing flexible work will fix one of the biggest “cons” in workplace law.

“Currently employers cannot ‘unreasonably refuse’ requests for flexible work (eg part-time work) by employees with caring responsibilities. However, the Fair Work Act provides that where employees do unreasonably refuse there is nothing an employee can do to challenge that decision. In other words: it’s wrong, but tough luck.

“Hundreds of IEU members are refused part-time work every year and are forced to leave their job as a result. Some employers have never consented to a request for part-time work from any woman returning from parental leave. 

“The changes will provide a proper process for the consideration of requests at the workplace, where the employer must supply reasons in writing. Where the refusal is unreasonable or the employer doesn’t respond to the request, the Commission will have a new power to arbitrate.”

There is no magic to these proposed reforms, which could benefit thousands of our members. Member voices have had and always will have the greatest influence in bringing about (these) changes to workplace laws. Members have led our campaigns on these matters for years.

Odgers says members have written to and called parliamentarians from all parties.

The IEUA has also facilitated members joining a small group of activists from other unions who, together with the ACTU leadership, went to Canberra and spoke to every government MP and were worker ambassadors at the Job Summit.  

ACTU supports Secure Jobs, Better Pay Bill

Australian Unions is campaigning to support the bill after it became apparent the largest and most profitable corporations in Australia could run a multi-million dollar campaign against the "Secure Jobs, Better Pay" laws.

ACTU Secretary Sally McManus said the tabling of the Bill was “one of the most important days for working people in Australia’s recent history” because the proposed new laws will help ease the cost-of-living crisis by enabling workers to bargain for decent wage increases.

“Workers are currently faced with outdated, complicated workplace laws that don’t reflect our workplaces,” she said.

“Australia is in a cost-of-living crisis, and it is affecting all of us. Wages have stagnated or gone backwards for a decade and our existing workplace laws to bargain for increases are outdated and too complicated.

“Australia’s workplace bargaining laws don’t reflect the current nature of work, and are full of complicated loopholes that allow corporations to game the system and prevent workers from securing better wages.  

The proposed laws introduced by the Albanese Government provide an improved mechanism to fix the wages crisis and ease the cost-of-living burden. It will ensure bargaining is simple, accessible, and fair for all Australian workers. It will also provide real rights to improve the lives of working women, like equal pay in women-dominated industries.

Working people need to get wages moving and to have workplace laws that make sense in 2022 and the years to come. This legislation will help make this a reality.

To win these new rights we will require the legislation to pass both in the House of Representatives and the Senate. That requires the support of the Greens and at least one crossbench Senator.

There’s a petition now operating to implore politicians to pass these essential reforms. 

Tell your Senator to support the Bill: click here.