Federal Government's Industrial Relations reforms – summary

1. Force workers, under threat of unemployment,  to sign individual contracts (AWAs).   
     By this means, achieve the following:
            - bypass existing awards and collective agreements
            - remove penalty rates, long service leave, redundancy pay, casual loadings, 
                public holiday and shift loadings, overtime rates, allowances.
- increase casualisation and more "flexible" hours
- reduce all working conditions to a minimum of only five: 8 days sick leave, 2 weeks holiday pay ( plus 2 weeks which can be traded in), unpaid parental leave, a maximum number of working hours, and a minimum hourly rate (currently $12.75)
2. Introduce secret ballots before industrial action
3. End collective industry-wide bargaining by unions
4. Restrict unions' right of entry to workplaces
5. Reduce the powers of the Industrial Relations Commission
6. Lower minimum pay rates further
7. Single out construction workers and their unions for lower rights
8. Abolish unfair dismissal provisions for 4 million small business employees
9. Introduce harsh new penal clauses for unions and workers who contravene these laws

            The inevitable result of these reforms will be to lower the living standards of millions of Australian people, and reduce to poverty those who are currently just keeping their heads above water.
            In their resistance to these reforms, which Red Star Australia naturally supports, the Australian trade union movement is hamstrung by earlier laws which forbid secondary boycotts, picket lines etc. The unions are pinning their hopes on an election victory of the ALP, which has promised to "rip up" some (but not all) of these laws. But in the meantime more and more workers are feeling the impact of these reforms…
            Taken together with the Welfare to Work changes, these IR reforms constitute an immediate threat to millions of Australian who live on or below the poverty line. Those who feel they cannot afford to wait for the next election, and what might or might not follow it, are encouraged to join a union which is taking definite action, and participate in the effective campaigns of the Union Solidarity organisation; see: [http://www.unionsolidarity.org/]