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28 March 2008

One of the greatest atrocities delivered by the Howard Government to Australian workers has been eliminated. The dreaded Australian Workplace Agreements (AWAs) that has slashed workers pay and removed conditions is finally gone.

Russ Collison, NSW AWU Secretary said "farewell and good riddance to the scourge of the workplace. AWAs will not be missed."

Russ Collison, as the State Secreatry to one of the largest and broadest based Unions in NSW has seen first hand what AWAs can do to the most vulnerable workers.

Workers ability to negotiate was greatly reduced; workers working side-by-side, doing the same job were getting different rates of pay.

AWAs effectively created a worker against worker mentality in the workforce. Trust and cooperation went out the window compared to Collective Agreements, where all workers benefit from the goodwill and productivity gains in the workplace.

Russ said, “Many workers lost penalty rates, meal allowances, site allowances, over time rates all for 2 cents an hour, if you were lucky. We even had hairdressers having penalty rates reduced and being compensated by having part of their pay in shampoo products.”

Russ believes there is still a long way to go before there is a fair industrial relations system. Many parts of WorkChoices are still in place.

The Australian Workers' Union believes as a very minimum the following changes need to take place:

• Protection from unfair dismissals;

• Improved OHS laws to protect workers in the federal system so they can stand up for safety standards to be maintained in the workplace;

• The right to collectively bargain in the workplace, whatever the workers want without artificial government restrictions;

• A strong arbitration system based on the principles of fairness and ability to enforce their decisions; and,

• Protection of the Award system.

Russ said, "Even though the tyranny of the Howard Government is slowly being reduced, Howard has cast a long shadow over our industrial relations system."

"This cannot be allowed to happen again and all political parties are on notice that they need to deliver a fair workable industrial relations system or face themselves being sacked!"