Source document: https://docs-lawep.s3.us-east-2.amazonaws.com/1697632127720.pdf (Australia)
COMMONWEALTH OF AUSTRALIA SENATE ECONOMICS REFERENCES COMMITTEE Reference: Workplace Relations and Other Legislation Amendment Bill 1996 BRISBANE Wednesday, 17 July 1996 (OFFICIAL HANSARD REPORT) CANBERRA SENATE ECONOMICS REFERENCES COMMITTEE Members: Senator Jacinta Collins (Chair) Senator Ferguson (Deputy Chair) Senator Bishop Senator Chapman Senator Childs Senator Mackay Senator Murray Senator Panizza Substitute Members 1.

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Senator Sherry to substitute for Senator Bishop except for: 9-16 July when Senator Forshaw will substitute for Senator Bishop; 17-25 July when Senator Murphy will substitute for Senator Bishop.

Senator Cooney to substitute for Senator Mackay for the period 29 and 30 July.

Senator Crane to substitute for Senator Panizza.
Participating Members Senator Abetz Senator Allison Senator Bourne Senator Brown Senator Brownhill Senator Calvert Senator Campbell Senator Carr Senator Colston Senator Cook Senator Cooney Senator Ellison Senator Chris Evans Senator Forshaw Senator Kemp Senator Ian Macdonald Senator Sandy Macdonald Senator MacGibbon Senator Margetts Senator McGauran Senator McKiernan Senator Minchin Senator Murphy Senator Neal Senator O’Chee Senator Panizza Senator Schacht Senator Sherry Senator Stott Despoja Senator Tambling Senator Troeth Senator Watson Senator Woods Matters referred by the Senate for inquiry into and report on: The Workplace Relations and Other Legislation Amendment Bill 1996 stand (1) referred to the Economics References Committee for inquiry and report by 22 August 1996, with particular reference to the following matters: (a) whether the various State industrial jurisdictions can or will provide adequate protection for workers employed under state agreements; (b) the implications for the Australian economy; (c) whether the provisions of the bill will fulfil Australia’s international obligations and whether the provisions of the bill will affect Australia’s international relations; (d) the effects of similar provisions in other countries; (e) the extent to which the proposed legislation impacts on the national skills accreditation, traineeships, apprenticeship system and vocational education systems, and whether State legislation will be complementary to the Federal Act; (f) whether any proposed powers
 exercised by the Australian Industrial Relations Commission would be better exercised by another federal government body, and whether further consequential amendments will be needed to other acts to achieve this; (g) whether any proposed powers exercised by another Federal Government body would be better exercised by the Australian Industrial Relations Commission, and whether further consequential amendments will be needed to other acts to achieve this; (h) the impact on small business of the proposed legislation and the extent to which the proposed institutional arrangements provide adequate support for small business in dealing with industrial matters; (i) the extent to which proposed Budget cuts will reduce the capacity of the AIRC to perform its role; (j) whether the bill as a whole or in part is constitutional; (k) the extent to which state legislation on unfair dismissals complements or will complement the proposed federal act; (l) whether the provisions of the bill provide a fair balance between the rights of employers and organisations of employers, and the rights of workers and unions; (m) whether reporting mechanisms on the progress of enterprise bargaining are adequate and might need to be improved in light of the bill; (n) the impact of the proposed legislation on the balance between work and family responsibilities; (o) the impact of the proposed bill on youth employment and training.
WITNESSES BEHRENS, Mr Vernon Edmund, 32 O’Connor Drive, Bray Park, New South Wales 2484 .

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1058 BRITON, Mr John William, Commissioner, Queensland Anti-Discrimination Commission, PO Box 5363, West End, Queensland 4101 .

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1035 COULDREY, Ms Margo Ann, Senior Adviser, Policy and Community Liaison, Queensland Anti-Discrimination Commission, PO Box 5363, West End, Queensland 4101 .

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1035 DOUGHERTY, Mr Mark, Industrial Officer, Queensland Nurses Union, 56 Boundary Street, West End, Queensland 4101 .

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1064 FLINN, Mr Michael James, Victorian Branch Secretary, Independent Educa- tion Union of Australia, PO Box 1320, South Melbourne, Victoria 3205 .

1026 HILL, Mr Jeremy, Member, Australian Services Union, 32 Peel Street, South Brisbane, Queensland .

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1073 HUGHES, Ms Colleen Alana, Westpac Delegate, Vice President, Finance Sector Union, 6/341 Queen Street, Melbourne, Victoria .

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985 HUTCHINSON, Ms Sharon Lee-Ann, National Womens Officer, Finance Sector Union, 6/341 Queen Street, Melbourne, Victoria .

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985 JAMES, Ms Debra, Assistant Federal Secretary, Independent Education Union of Australia, 120 Clarendon Street, South Melbourne, Victoria 3205 .

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1026 KELLY, Mr Paul, Job Delegate, Transport Workers Union, 92 Commercial Road, Newstead, Queensland 4006 .

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1048 LARAGY, Mr David John, Industrial Officer, Finance Sector Union, 341 Queen Street, Melbourne, Victoria .

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985 MAYES, Ms Janice, Branch President, Central and Southern Queensland, Clerical and Administrative Division, Australian Services Union, 29 Amelia Street, Fortitude Valley, Queensland .

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1073 McSHANE, Mrs Joy, Honorary President, New South Wales Bank Employees Section, Finance Sector Union of Australia, 340 Queen Street, Mel- bourne, Victoria .

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985 MOHLE, Ms Elizabeth Ruth, Project Officer, Queensland Nurses Union, GPO Box 1289, Brisbane, Queensland 4001 .

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1064 MUIR, Mr Gil, Manager, Industrial Relations Division, Queensland Chamber of Commerce and Industry, Industry House, 375 Wickham Terrace, Brisbane, Queensland 4000 .

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1005 O’BRIEN, Mr Christopher, Legal Officer, Industrial Relations Division, Queensland Chamber of Commerce and Industry, Industry House, 375 Wickham Terrace, Brisbane, Queensland 4000 .

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1005 RALSTON, Ms Deborah, Industrial Officer, Australian Council of Trade Unions, Queensland Branch, Level 5, 16 Peel Street, South Brisbane, Queensland 4101 .

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1048 RIORDAN, Mr Peter Joseph, Joint National Assistant Secretary, Finance Sector Union, 341 Queen Street, Melbourne, Victoria .

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985 ROBERTSON, Ms Michele, Industrial Officer, Queensland Services Branch, Australian Services Union, 32 Peel Street, South Brisbane, Queensland .
1073 ROLLEY, Ms Lynne Margaret, Federal Secretary, Independent Education Union of Australia, 120 Clarendon Street, South Melbourne, Victoria 3205 .

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1026 ROSS, Mr Steven Maxwell, Industrial Officer, Queensland Nurses Union, 56 Boundary Street, West End, Queensland 4101 .

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1064 ROTHERA, Mrs Miriam, Westpac Delegate, Finance Sector Union, 6/341 Queen Street, Melbourne, Victoria .

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985 SMITH, Ms Anne, Apprentice Boilermaker, Department of Transport, 190 Melton Road, Nundah, Queensland 4012 .

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1048 SMITH, Ms Susan, Branch Counsellor, Australian Services Union, 32 Peel Street, South Brisbane, Queensland .

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1073 SPRIGGS, Mr John Wesley, Senior Industrial Officer, Queensland Branch, Independent Education Union of Australia, 120 Clarendon Street, South Melbourne, Victoria 3205 .

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1026 SYMONDS, Mr Terence, Delegate, Australian Services Union, University of Queensland, St Lucia, Queensland .

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1073 THOMPSON, Mr John Murray, General Secretary, Australian Council of Trade Unions, Queensland Branch, 16 Peel Street, South Brisbane, Queensland 4101 .

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1048 TIMO, Mr Nils, Lecturer in Industrial Relations and Enterprise Bargaining, Griffith University, Gold Coast Campus, Private Mailbag 50, Gold Coast Mail Centre, Queensland 4217 .

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1080 SENATE ECONOMICS REFERENCES COMMITTEE Workplace Relations and Other Legislation Amendment Bill 1996 BRISBANE Wednesday, 17 July 1996 Present Committee members Senator Jacinta Collins (Chair) Senator Chapman Senator Childs Senator Crane Senator Ferguson Senator Mackay Senator Murray Participating member Senator Murphy The committee met at 9.46 a.m.

Senator Jacinta Collins took the chair.


983 E 984 SENATE—References Wednesday, 17 July 1996 CHAIR—I declare open this public meeting of the committee.

Today the refer- ences committee holds its ninth public hearing in its inquiry into the Workplace Relations and Other Legislation Amendment Bill 1996.

This matter was referred to the committee by the Senate on 23 May 1996 and the committee is due to report back to the Senate by 22 August.
The committee’s terms of reference are wide ranging and require a consideration of both the detail of the bill and the broader impact that the legislation will have on Australia.

So far the committee has held public hearings in Sydney, Melbourne, Hobart, Launceston, Bendigo and Cessnock.

Tomorrow the committee will meet in Townsville and on Friday in Cairns.

Further hearings are planned for Darwin, Perth, Karratha, Adelaide and Canberra.

The committee has now received over 1,300 submissions.
While a considerable number of these are from large organisations such as employer groups and unions, many are from individuals expressing their views about the way in which the legislation will change relations between employers and employees.

The committee has also received quite a number of form letters and petitions.

For the record, this is a public hearing and, as such, members of the public are welcome to attend.
However, I should point out that only the witnesses at the table are able to speak to committee members during the formal part of the proceedings.

Before we commence taking evidence, let me also place on record that all witnesses are protected by parliamentary privilege with respect to submissions made to the committee and evidence given before it.
Parliamentary privilege means special rights and immunities attach to parliament, or its members and others, which are necessary for the discharge of the functions of the parliament without obstruction or without fear of prosecution.

Any act by a person which operates to the disadvantage of a witness on account of evidence given by him or her before the Senate or any committee of the Senate is treated as a breach of privilege.

The committee has before it a set of submissions.


If it is the wish of the commit- tee, I propose that all submissions to be heard today be released now and incorporated as a separate volume.

There being no objection, it is so ordered.
ECONOMICS Wednesday, 17 July 1996 SENATE—References E 985 [9.48 a.m.] HUGHES, Ms Colleen Alana, Westpac Delegate, Vice President, Finance Sector Union, 6/341 Queen Street, Melbourne, Victoria HUTCHINSON, Ms Sharon Lee-Ann, National Womens Officer, Finance Sector Union, 6/341 Queen Street, Melbourne, Victoria LARAGY, Mr David John, Industrial Officer, Finance Sector Union, 341 Queen Street, Melbourne, Victoria McSHANE, Mrs Joy, Honorary President, New South Wales Bank Employees Section, Finance Sector Union of Australia, 340 Queen Street, Melbourne, Victoria RIORDAN, Mr Peter Joseph, Joint National Assistant Secretary, Finance Sector Union, 341 Queen Street, Melbourne, Victoria ROTHERA, Mrs Miriam, Westpac Delegate, Finance Sector Union, 6/341 Queen Street, Melbourne, Victoria CHAIR—I welcome our first witnesses today who represent the Finance Sector Union national office and Queensland and New South Wales branches.
Before I invite you to give the committee an overview of your submission, I would like to remind you that the time allocated for your submission is up until 10.30 a.m. We need to allow sufficient time also for questions from committee members.

Would you please take that into account in terms of the overall presentation.

Mr Riordan—Let me start by making a number of corrections to the written submission that was tabled.

On page 5 of the FSU submission there is an error in the second last paragraph.
In the second line of that paragraph, I would ask you to delete the words ‘at least two’ and replace them with the word ‘an’.

In the next sentence, after the words ‘that written invitation’ insert the words ‘or a certificate issued by the registrar’.

The other correction to the submission is on page 7 in the first paragraph under the heading of ‘Impact on new employees’.

In the first line of that paragraph, delete the last word, which is ‘no’, and insert the word ‘limited’.

I apologise for those errors.


It is not my intention today to give you a union official’s perspective of the workplace relations bill.

The FSU supports the submissions of the ACTU, and our written submissions are before you.

It is our view that to gauge the true impact of the bill it is far better for the committee to hear from employees we represent in the industry.

That industry is perhaps one of the most competitive in the Australian economy today.
In particular, the banking ECONOMICS E 986 SENATE—References Wednesday, 17 July 1996 sector in the past few years has seen unprecedented competition, with benefits flowing to both shareholders and customers but in our view precious little to the employees.

One of the major concerns of the union is that a large proportion of our members are female.

In the four major banks some 60 per cent of the work force are women.
Of that 60 per cent, the vast majority are contained in the lower clerical grades of each of the banks in both part-time and full-time employment.

By comparison, a little over five per cent of the senior executives of the four major banks are women.

In respect of part-time employment, 96 per cent of part-time employees in the four major banks are women.

What we are talking about here are perhaps the least strategic employees in the banking sector—again, largely occupied by female members.
It is the union’s view that the shift towards a deregulated bargaining individual contract environment proposed by the bill will have profound effects on these workers if their ability to collectively bargain and to access an independent umpire is restricted.
As I have said, our written submission covers the issues and the points we wish to make as an organisation, but it is our view that the committee will gain more from hearing about the impact on individual members rather than hearing me or others from the union talk about the bill in some detail.

I would like to call on Joy McShane, who is an employee of the ANZ Bank, to give you her perceptions of what the impact of the bill would mean to her.
Mrs McShane—I appreciate the opportunity to speak here today and I would like to speak from my personal point of view.

As a representative of other bank employees, often I speak from the point of view of my peers.

So, when I speak of myself, I do speak of what will happen to my peers.

I certainly believe that I will be disadvantaged under the new bill for various reasons.

Firstly, I think the reduction of award entitlements will disadvantage me.
Currently I have at least 40 award entitlements and I would hate to see those reduced to 18—or even less, eight.

I believe my bank would pursue this avenue because, during recent enterprise bargaining negotiations, they did try to introduce changes and reduce entitlements to new recruits.

That would be significant because we do have a high turnover in the banking sector.
Certainly in the greater metropolitan area of Sydney there is a 20 per cent turnover of full-time employees and up to 56 per cent turnover in part- time employment which is a concern to the bank and to the stability of my workplace.

I would see that the reduction of these award entitlements would create two levels of employees.

As a manager of a suburban banking branch, I have to manage staff and I have concerns about the changes that will occur to my managing activities.
Currently there are difficulties within the management of part-time employment because of the turnover and because of the lack of stability.

I believe that I will be part of forcing people to reduce their hours.

It was not so very long ago that this actually happened to employees in my workplace.

Prior to my arrival, one worker, Christine, was working 29 hours per week.
ECONOMICS Wednesday, 17 July 1996 SENATE—References E 987 She was coerced into signing a document which made her reduce her hours to 12 hours a week.

She is still very bitter about that and, whilst she now works 18 hours a week, I think I will lose her soon because she will leave for more hours.

My bank has done exit interviews for the last six months of this year and has found that the first reason part-time employees leave the industry is to get more hours.

That is their number one reason for leaving.


So I would see that is going to affect the stability.

There is a juggling act involved in managing people.

I have concerns about the bill for personal reasons and for family responsibilities.

I am expecting my first child in November and I am uncertain and unclear about what environment I will be moving back into when I return from maternity leave.

At the moment we have had to fight with the bank for them to consider our family responsibili- ties.
I am really not too sure what is going to happen.

Will I be asked to work hours that do not suit my personal needs?

I also study and that would impinge on that as well.

I have a concern about the lessening of the powers of the Australian Industrial Relations Commission.

I do not believe, if I were asked to negotiate an individual agreement, that I could effectively do that without my union.
They offer me, at a very reasonable rate, a professional negotiating activity, advice and support when I need it industrially.

I am also concerned about the limitations to unions being able to enter my workplace.
Many workers actually phone me rather than the union and say, ‘I don’t want to be identified; I’m really concerned about something that is happening in my workplace.’ Whilst it is there written in the award or our enterprise agreement, they do not know their rights and they are afraid to speak up.

They are coerced and pressure is placed upon them.

Then we have the situation where the staff turnover issue comes into play.

I believe there will be a power imbalance by many of the changes being introduced.
It is well document- ed that worker participation in the activities in their working lives is very positive to the way they feel at work.

Recently we had an enterprise agreement and we had a very high participation rate.

In New South Wales, which was very similar to the rest of Australia, 84 per cent of eligible voters actually voted, and we have more than 70 per cent membership in ANZ in New South Wales.

So people are participating.


We have seen consultation, we have seen people become part of their working conditions, and I can only see them being treated as valued employees.

As I said, it is well documented that that participation, the improved democracy and having autonomy increases morale, innovation and productivity which is what my bank, my peers and my country need.

So I would like you to consider my contribution today.

Thank you.

CHAIR—Thank you, Mrs McShane.


ECONOMICS E 988 SENATE—References Wednesday, 17 July 1996 Mr Riordan—Our next witness is Colleen Hughes, a part-time employee with Westpac.

Ms Hughes—I am here today to convey my thoughts and that of my peers in the banking industry regarding the workplace relations bill which was presented to the Senate on 23 May.

Most of my fellow workers have indicated to me that, while they voted Liberal, they are confused by the election promises of John Howard.
‘The workers will not be disadvantaged,’ he said.

Their concerns are rightly justified.

They are confused, feel betrayed and now believe that they will be worse off.

I would like to focus on my fellow part-time workers in the industry.

The bank and the union have consulted on providing and maintaining in the award a ratio of full-time to part-time employees in order to ensure that those women who wish to pursue a full-time career, and that it be a rewarding career, may do so.
Most awards currently set out a minium number of hours for part-timers in order to ensure that they are given reasonable work opportunities and income.

Removal of this provision for part-timers to be given a minimum number of hours would allow employers to have part-timers rostered on for as little as one hour per week.

Hours could vary from week to week so that income stability is lost, while the weekly child-care costs remain the same.
Part-time employees need consistency on rostering so that the balance between work and family responsibilities is maintained.

If the removal of a set number of hours and notice in advance is to be changed, this will have a disastrous impact on those that are currently jiggling work and creche and school hours.

Whilst part-time employees are happy to be working part-time, many wish to work more hours, and I speak from my own experience here.
Recently circumstances have occurred in my personal life which have decreased my weekly income from the bank.

On speaking with my human resource area just a few days ago in relation to obtaining more hours and maybe looking at full-time work with the organisation, I was very disappointed to hear that my chances of receiving full-time employment with the organisation are very slim.
The person concerned referred to the industrial relations bill that is currently in the Senate and stated that, if the legislation is to be passed, it would be highly likely that my services as a part-timer would further deteriorate due to the fact that the bank would be looking at only having me in, working at my workplace, as and when required.

This would mean that I would only be required at a peak time, which is usually lunchtime.
I would not be guaranteed any stability in my working environment, which will impact on my family responsibilities.

My child care would vary but, even though my income would be decreased, I would still have to maintain that child-care responsibility that I have been locked into.

As to Australian workers’ agreements, the employees will be expected to negotiate ECONOMICS Wednesday, 17 July 1996 SENATE—References E 989 their own individual agreements.
They will have to have a detailed knowledge of award entitlements from ordinary hours to overtime, to penalty rates, to allowances, to leave loading and casual rates.

The reality is that many employees would sign an agreement through fear of losing their job if they did not.
Unions would be unable to assist or take up complaints covered by the Australian workers’ agreements, and unions would only be invited to the workplace at the employees’ or members’ invitation, and this invitation or request would have to be in writing to the employer stating full particulars of what would transpire once the union entered a workplace.

This is a major deterrent for members.

If employees had to be concerned with negotiating their own contracts, this would be an added stress factor.
Employees would not have their minds on their job.

A major distraction from their job could lead to a decrease of productivity, impacting greatly on the business.

The removal of the independent umpire, the Australian Industrial Relations Commission, will mean that workers will not have access to the democratic process.

That is my case for my fellow peers in the industry.
Mr Riordan—Choice, increased productivity and higher wages become the catchwords of those seeking the substantial deregulation of the Australian industrial relations system.

We have to ask what the reality will be.

Perhaps the only benchmark we have at this time is the United States, where the same catchwords have been used for decades.

The United States arguably has the most deregulated labour market of any developed country together with one of the lowest rates of unionisation.
It can also lay claim to having one of the largest gaps between rich and poor, with over eight million workers living in poverty.

Last week, the US Congress agreed to phase in over two years an increase in the minimum wage from $US4.25 per hour to $US5.15 per hour.

This is the first adjustment since 1989.


Tens of thousands of workers have been displaced as companies have sought to escape collective contracts by closing factories in the north of the United States and moving to non-union lower wage sites in the south.

This trend has been exacerbated by the North American Free Trade Agreement.

Many auto and electronic companies have chased low wage outcomes into Mexico, where the minimum wage rate is around $US2.40 per day.
The products they manufacture are produced for the US domestic market.

Higher productivity?

Maybe.

Lower cost?

Yes.

Higher wages?

No.

Choice?

Where can they go?

I have with me a photograph that was taken from the Mexican side of the border overlooking El Paso which highlights the differences between what domestic Americans enjoy as opposed to the people manufacturing many of their whitegoods and electronic goods.

I would like to table that for the committee’s information.
ECONOMICS E 990 SENATE—References Wednesday, 17 July 1996 That photograph came from an issue of the National Geographic in 1992, which was a special edition based on water in North America.

That photograph highlights the living conditions of those Mexicans working in the maquiladoras on the Mexican border with the United States and it graphically illustrates the standard of living enjoyed across the border.
I am not suggesting that similar outcomes will immediately occur in Australia if the bill is passed in its current form.

However, we should all be aware of the dangers and not be fooled by the rhetoric.

It has always been true that a single employee is at a disadvantage in dealing with an employer.

If an employee refuses to pay her fair wages, she is often unable to exercise choice and leave that employer or resist arbitrary and unfair treatment.
It is our submission that workers need independent unions, collective bargaining and a strong arbitration system in order to deal on the basis of equality with employers thereby ensuring a degree of equity in outcomes.

The interaction between legislation, collective bargaining and arbitration empowers workers to have a voice in the workplace and to negotiate improved wages and conditions.
The union believes the bill will create a significant imbalance in favour of employers which will eventually erode the notions of equity which have been the cornerstone of Australian society.

CHAIR—With the limited time frame we have overall for questioning, there is one issue that I would like to follow through on that we have not addressed in detail yet in our hearings, and that is the issue raised by Ms Hughes relating to part-time work and permanency.
I am interested in hearing more with respect to your comment.

I was not listening completely at the time, but I caught part of what you said about a discussion that occurred in your workplace about the potential for your ongoing employment, if this bill becomes law, in relation to permanency of hours regarding part-time work.
A suggestion that has already been discussed in terms of this bill relates to how permanency is ensured in the actual framing of the bill and how permanency is potentially open to interpretation.

Permanency could be a permanent number of hours—for instance, 12 hours per week—which could end up being worked at any time over 12 hours per week.

Could you elaborate a bit further on the information that was discussed with you about how part-time work might be used under this bill?
Ms Hughes—Using your scenario of the number of hours per week, it would not be viable for me as a single parent to attend a workplace.

So my alternatives would be to maybe look at resigning from my organisation and being a statistic on the welfare budget.

To try to enable me to best provide for my family, I would be looking for more perma- nency in a substantial number of hours per week which I could be guaranteed of locking into.
Working anything less than 20 hours is probably not financially viable for me at this stage.

Being a single parent with three children to raise, it would certainly create, I suppose, havoc in my life.

My children are currently in before and after school care.

At ECONOMICS Wednesday, 17 July 1996 SENATE—References E 991 the moment I am going through a process of being assessed for assistance in that area.
CHAIR—Ms Hughes, the issue that I was attempting to get at was I had the impression, and you can correct me if I am wrong, that you were relaying that a discus- sion had occurred in your workplace— Ms Hughes—That is right.

CHAIR—with respect to your potential future employment under this bill and that there was an interpretation that this bill would allow part-timers to work for other than nominated hours each week.
Ms Hughes—Basically, the human resource manager stated to me that, if this legislation were passed, it would basically deregulate the part-time industry in the banking sector and, as such, the bank would be able to call upon me to work as and when they chose in a particular workplace and I may not necessarily work in the same workplace every day.

There is no consistency there.


The number of hours per week would not be guaranteed, and I may on some occasions not be required to work at all in a particular week.

The organisation, while it does not retrench people or make people redundant without going through a process, will have excess staff.

To accommodate those staff, they will have to reduce the number of hours that part-timers are currently working.
While the industry was deregulated back in the 1980s, part-time employment was an option that was very viable in the banking industry, and most part-timers worked a maximum of 29 hours.

It was very rare that you would come across a part-timer working less than that.

Now it is quite normal for you to come across part-time staff working only maybe 20 hours per week.

They are often required every day, which impacts greatly on your child care.
If you could work 20 hours in three days, it would be much more viable for you.

But you are often called upon to work in only peak periods, which are lunchtimes or, say, from 3 o’clock of an afternoon, when it is a peak time for the bank.

These circum- stances may not suit part-timers.

CHAIR—Ms Hughes, Mr Reith has indicated that his view is that this bill will allow permanent part-time work on a more flexible basis.
Are you suggesting that your employer’s view of permanency is something which would allow workers to be on call and nominated as part-time?

Ms Hughes—Yes, basically we would be on call.

There would be no permanency about it at all.

It was indicated to me that such options that may be considered would be that, if the banking organisation that I work for chose to continue with its extended hours program, I may be called to work, say, after 4 o’clock or 5 o’clock, which are normal banking hours.
ECONOMICS E 992 SENATE—References Wednesday, 17 July 1996 That also impacts on my family responsibilities.

Child care is often not available after, say, 6 o’clock at night.

If I had to work until 9 o’clock, which most of the branches that are participating in the program at the moment do, where would I get child care from?

I do not have the backup of family living here in Queensland.

I am, as I said, a sole parent.


I would maybe have to rely on neighbours to look after my children after hours, which is not a very stable environment for them either.

Senator FERGUSON—Mr Riordan, you choose to use the United States as an example of the disparity between rich and poor and in relation to non-unionisation.
I am sorry to rustle the paper this morning, but I cannot help bringing to your attention the fact that the United Nations human development report has said that Australia, after 13 years of Labor government, of wages accords and strong union involvement, has the world’s biggest disparity between the rich and the poor.

Mr Riordan—I have not seen that report yet.

I have been to the United States recently.

When I have seen the poverty in the streets, I find that difficult to believe.
But, if that is the report, then I cannot— Senator FERGUSON—It is the United Nations human development report, which also said that economic growth and development no longer guaranteed bringing success to a nation.

A United Nations body, which I know your unions and the former government placed a lot of store in, has said that Australia, after all of the wages accords and strong union involvement, has the world’s biggest disparity between rich and poor.

Mr Riordan—That may be the case.


It can be explained on the basis that the restraints of the accord which were based on pursuing some economic benefits to the country were not necessarily followed by executives in this country.

The same explosion in executive remuneration that occurred in the United States was obviously mirrored in the Australian economy.

We do not shy away from the fact that during the 1980s and early 1990s the trade union movement showed restraint in terms of pursuing wages outcomes.
In our own industry, when Westpac Banking Corporation and the ANZ recorded losses for the first time in their history, the FSU responded by ameliorating its wage claims during those periods to ensure the ongoing employment of our members and the ongoing viability of those banks.

So in our judgment the trade union movement, in particular the FSU, responded to the economic challenges facing the country and ameliorated our wage claims.
Senator FERGUSON—Can I say that it also suggests that the non-unionisation of the work force is not necessarily the reason for disparity between the rich and the poor.

Apparently, according to the United Nations, the disparity in the United States, where there is a very low rate of unionisation, is not as great as it is in Australia.

I move to one other comment that you made.

You said that you support the ECONOMICS Wednesday, 17 July 1996 SENATE—References E 993 submission of the ACTU.
Have you read the ACTU’s submission?

Mr Riordan—Yes, I have.

Senator FERGUSON—In detail?

Mr Riordan—Not in detail but I have read it, yes.

I have not got it with me today.

Senator FERGUSON—It is just that I did notice that in support of the ACTU’s submission, which has about 160 pages, you have repeated many relevant matters in your own submission.

Mr Riordan—That is correct.

Senator CHILDS—You are a significant white-collar union employing women.

At page 10 you refer to dual commitment.


How does dual commitment impact on your female members?

Do you believe that there is an advantage to the employer?

Mr Riordan—The question of dual commitment is one that has been tested.

We have conducted a survey through the University of Melbourne in relation to the National Australia Bank to try to ascertain precisely what dual commitment in the banking sector means.
What we found in the National Australia Bank, which is arguably Australia’s most successful bank at the moment in terms of profitability and performance and since national expansion, is that the employees of that bank do have a commitment to the bank and have a commitment to the union and that the two are not mutually exclusive—you can be loyal to the employer, but also rely on the union to give you support as and when necessary.
There are large numbers of female employees in the National Australia Bank, as there are in each of the banks.

The question of dual commitment in our understanding of the research was that female employees felt equally committed as male employees did to the National Australia Bank but also equally committed to the union as their male counterparts did.

There was no great variation in terms of that feeling either towards the employer or towards the union.
In the other three major banks the question of dual commitment does not seem to be as evident as it is in the National Australia Bank.

Perhaps that is because of the treatment handed out by the Commonwealth Bank, ANZ and Westpac over the past few years to its employees, particularly to its female employees, with adjustments to part-time hours unilaterally forcing them to work on additional days or fewer days as the case may be.

That dual commitment is not present.


We have very high levels of unionisation in the Commonwealth Bank, running at some 90 per cent of the work force.

That unionisation is around 70 per cent in ANZ and Westpac.

It is extremely high amongst women and the lower clerical grades.

On our ECONOMICS E 994 SENATE—References Wednesday, 17 July 1996 judgment, members tend to support the union and rely upon the union as their bargaining agent.

So the question of dual commitment is an interesting one.
It seems to be present in the National Australia Bank, arguably the most successful and profitable bank in the country.

It is not present in the other three banks, which are at the moment trailing NAB.

Senator CHAPMAN—You have expressed concern about the vulnerability of people in terms of wage disparities, economic wellbeing and so.

Would you accept that the most economically vulnerable are those without a job, the unemployed?

Mr Riordan—Yes, I would.


Senator CHAPMAN—Are you aware that in New Zealand, for instance, as a result of the reform process that has occurred there—most importantly the industrial relations reform process—that, while by and large wage rates in real terms have been maintained and in some areas there have been increases in real terms, there has been a substantial fall in unemployment from about 12 per cent down to six per cent?

Mr Riordan—I am aware that there has been a substantial decline in employment.
The direct correlation I am not so certain of.

I am not so certain whether the change in legislation has a direct impact on the level of unemployment.

I have not seen evidence to that effect.

Senator CHAPMAN—Certainly there has been a lot of research that attributes it significantly to that effect.
Mr Riordan—I can talk about our counterpart union in New Zealand, FINSEC, which encountered extreme difficulty in negotiating even maintenance of real wages over that period since 1990 when the Employment Contracts Act was introduced.

Again, the New Zealand bank industry is dominated by females in the lower classification of the banks and their strategic value to the banks is less than, say, the executives or senior management of those banks.
The unions have had a very difficult time in ensuring protection for those mem- bers.

The wage increases have been of the order of two per cent per annum over the six years since 1990.

By any standards that is a fairly low level of wage increase.

I am aware that New Zealand’s economic activity has improved since 1990, but the share of that increase in GDP going to labour has not been of a similar proportion as that going to profit.
Senator CHAPMAN—If you take into account the substantial fall in unemploy- ment, you would have to accept that a significant proportion of the improved activity has in fact gone to labour in the form of additional jobs that have been created.

ECONOMICS Wednesday, 17 July 1996 SENATE—References E 995 Mr Riordan—Again, I have not seen evidence to substantiate that position.

Senator CHAPMAN—Unemployment has gone from 12 per cent down to six per cent.

You would surely be aware of that evidence.


Mr Riordan—Absolutely, but unemployment in Australia also fell from a high of one million people a few years ago to something less than that today.

Senator CHAPMAN—What—10 per cent to eight?

Mr Riordan—But it is still a fall, isn’t it?

Senator CHAPMAN—A fall, but by no means comparable.

Mr Riordan—Can you directly attribute it to a particular circumstance in the labour market environment?
It may be more appropriate to economic policy, government strategy in terms of macro-economic policy, the use of monetary policy and so on.

Those issues are all of direct relevance.

The labour market reform is only one element.

Senator CHAPMAN—Of a total package of reform which is similarly needed in this country, including industrial relations reform.

Mr Riordan—At what cost?

That is the answer to that.


If I could talk about the bank employees in New Zealand, they have paid what they would say is a heavy price for the deregulation that occurred there.

Senator CHAPMAN—This photograph that you presented to us: can you clarify what the intent of the photograph is?

What is your purpose in tabling it?

Mr Riordan—The purpose in tabling it was to highlight the fact that employers will chase low wage rates.
The situation in North America with the free trade agreement, and even before that, was that many large employers—General Electric, Honeywell, Samsung, Sony—set up factories on the border which were known as ‘maquiladoras’.

They used Mexican labour to construct those goods for the pure export back to the United States: not to sell in Mexico, not for export around the world, but to service the domestic market.
These are companies that had union agreements in the north of America and union contracts paying some $16 to $18 per hour.

When the opportunity presented itself they chased not high productivity, but low wage cost—low wage cost in the form of Mexican workers, some working for as little as 70c an hour or $2.68 per day in US dollar terms.
What I was seeking to highlight there was the living standards between those Mexican workers working for US companies as opposed to the Americans consuming those goods across the border.

ECONOMICS E 996 SENATE—References Wednesday, 17 July 1996 Senator CHAPMAN—Do you know what wage rates the Mexicans were receiving prior to working in these particular occupations when these factories were set up?
Have their circumstances improved as a result of the factories being set up, to some degree, compared with what they were prior to that?

Mr Riordan—The evidence that I have seen presented by the AFLCIO—which is the only evidence I have seen to date—is that, again, the disparity between rich and poor has increased in Mexico.

It is complicated by the fact there was a substantial devaluation in the peso—I think that was during last year—so the comparison is different.
If you say it is better to have a job than no job at all, I would agree with you.

If you are a Mexican worker earning 70c an hour, that is better than being a Mexican non-worker earning nothing per hour; that has to be better.

But is it morally right that US companies set themselves up in this place and that American workers move into these zones and effectively work these people at much lower wage rates?
Whether that is morally justified, whether that is a fair outcome or a reasonable outcome or an equitable outcome I would say is highly questionable.

Senator CHAPMAN—But hasn’t that happened in relation to certain sectors of Australian industry over the last decade?

It has moved offshore, perhaps not in terms of such a dramatic contrast, but certainly significant sectors of Australian manufacturing have moved offshore because they could not sustain the wage rates in Australia.
They have moved to various Asian countries.

Mr Riordan—We look at the internal equity in the Australian labour market.

You cannot always control where foreign investment will lie, and we do not have that control.

The parliament of Australia, the trade union movement or the Reserve Bank has no real impact on where foreign investment will go either into Australia or from Australia.

The question that we are confronting is the question of equity within Australia.
If we do not have an equitable system within Australia, then we may well at some stage in the future end up in a Mexico-United States scenario.

I suppose the question from us is: how far do you cut wages to compete?

If we are trying to compete against Malaysia or China, do we compete on wages or do we compete on skill and quality of product?
What we would argue is that we compete on skill and quality of product because we cannot hope to reduce Australian wages to US70c an hour in order to compete with so many manufacturing products in that market.

Senator CHAPMAN—Exactly, we compete in areas where we are productive.
Senator MACKAY—Lest you leave this place with an unrealistic picture of the New Zealand economy, I just wanted to point out that in the period ranging from 1984 to 1995, Australia’s employment rate has been double that of New Zealand.

The only reason New Zealand’s unemployment rate is lower than Australia’s is because of a considerably lower participation rate.

I have evidence and charts to back this up.


ECONOMICS Wednesday, 17 July 1996 SENATE—References E 997 The second point I would like make is that New Zealand abolished its award system in 1991.

Real average weekly earnings have stagnated in New Zealand, whereas the Australian average weekly earnings have progressively increased.

Wages in New Zealand in 1995 were lower than in 1984, whereas Australia’s real wages were higher.
So, lest you go away with an unrealistic picture of the New Zealand economy, I would like to point that out to you in relation to Senator Chapman’s comments.

Mr Riordan—Thank you, Senator.

Senator MACKAY—In the second and third paragraphs on page 8 of your submission, you talk about your union’s involvement in recovery plans, particularly in relation to Westpac, and then you go on to talk about recovery plans in relation to ANZ and FAI.
What is the attitude of Westpac particularly and, to a lesser extent, ANZ and FAI to this bill?

Mr Riordan—I will ask David Laragy to comment on that?

Mr Laragy—We have received some indications from the ANZ Bank, in particu- lar, that they would be prepared to continue with the types of arrangements that we have enjoyed so far that have enabled us to have a relatively constructive relationship in relation to the matters that come between the parties.
The fact that they will not be looking to what we see as some of the very damaging aspects of this bill to attempt to undermine the sorts of arrangements that we have in place and have developed over recent years is something which does give us a degree of confidence.

Similar discussions, I believe, are occurring with Westpac.

It is yet to be deter- mined what its attitude to the bill and to those making similar types of commitments might be.
But we are certainly hopeful that it will see that it is more rational and more beneficial to its own interests to continue in a way which does not make use of a range of the elements within this bill which could be damaging to both its staff and, we believe, to itself.

Senator MACKAY—Would it be fair to say that the majority of employers you deal with are supportive of this bill or are concerned about the bill?
Mr Laragy—I believe that there is certainly some division within the industry in terms of the attitudes to the bill.

Certainly, there would be a range who, I would speculate, would not be supportive of the bill.

On the other hand— Senator CRANE—Do you believe or know?

Senator MACKAY—Excuse me, I am asking the questions.

This is my question time.

ECONOMICS SENATE—References Wednesday, 17 July 1996 Senator CRANE—There is a big difference.

I want to take the speculation out of E 998 it.


CHAIR—Senator Crane, I will be coming to you.

Senator CRANE—Yes, I know, but I just want to take the speculation out of it.

CHAIR—I am sorry, but it is Senator Mackay’s opportunity at the moment.

We did not intrude on yours.

Mr Laragy—To the extent that I am in a position to comment on the attitudes of those employers, as I have been requested by the senator to do, I am outlining what I believe to be the case.
At the same time as receiving an indication that there would be that attitude from a range of employers, we are concerned that possibly a substantial number of more renegade companies within the industry would be seeking to utilise those more damaging aspects of the bill, seeking to undermine conditions that have been put in place through individual contracts, through AWAs.
One of our fears and, I would presume, one held by some of those other companies that may not be as supportive, is that if those low conditions are established there would be pressure from the stock market and elsewhere to move to the lowest common denominator, which is not beneficial to a company which is looking at having a high skill and high commitment type work force.

So there is quite a division.


Senator MACKAY—The reason I asked the question is that, to my knowledge, not one single bank has put a submission into this committee.

So, short of asking the Finance Sector Union, it is a bit hard to know what the attitude of employers in your industry is.

Thank you for that.

In the third last dot point on the final page of your submission, you say: .
the Bill’s thrust towards non-union agreements concerns FSU, particularly in light of some of our experience with a staff association established under Queensland legislation in the late 1980s; the manipulation and control of the association by the Bank for its own purposes was blatant What happened there?
Mr Laragy—As is described a little earlier in our submission, a process was put in place by Metway Bank to deliberately undermine the union, to undermine the role that the union had played in attempting to represent workers within that bank.
There are a number of descriptions within our submission which quote Deputy President MacBean, or one of the other commissioners, indicating that it was the view of the commission that the company had gone through a process of deliberately establishing a staff association, and of attempting to manipulate the staff to have a view that the staff association would provide a preferable form of representation to the union.
With some of the changes proposed in the bill in relation to organisations, we would be concerned that employers would seek to ECONOMICS Wednesday, 17 July 1996 SENATE—References E 999 utilise a process of deliberately setting up staff associations which do not truly represent the interests of the employees of those organisations.
Those associations are heavily dependent upon those organisations for funding and other things, as we experienced with the Metway case, and we think it would be a major setback within the industry if that were to occur again.

Senator MACKAY—So it was the Metway Bank employees association?

Mr Laragy—The staff association, yes.

Senator MACKAY—I wonder if there was any duress applied to join it?
Mr Laragy—I would not speculate as to notions of direct duress, but certainly a range of processes were put in place which made it clear that that was the company’s preference.
As is reflected in some of the comments in the submission, we believe that quite a deliberate and manipulative strategy was put in place to establish an association which we do not believe—this is also represented in some of the comments from the commission—was in a position to competently or faithfully represent the employees of that bank.

Senator MACKAY—So it is not just the union, the AIRC had the same view.

Thank you.

Senator MURRAY—What percentage of your industry in total is unionised?
Mr Riordan—Across the industry, it would be around 70 per cent.

Senator MURRAY—So you are a very powerful union vis-a-vis the employer?

Mr Riordan—I am not sure about powerful, but we have a strong representation.

Senator MURRAY—Yes.

Enterprise bargaining can, in theory, increase the number of award provisions, if you want to call it that.

Eighteen is the minimum, and I heard you say that you currently enjoy 40 with the ANZ.
But there is nothing to stop a strong union negotiating with a strong employer for 100 provisions or more.

Isn’t that the opportunity that this bill faces you with?

Mr Riordan—I think there is an opportunity there.

Perhaps if we look at union strength.

The old Commonwealth Bank Officers Association, which was the trade union representing employees in the Commonwealth Bank, has around 90 per cent union density.
In 1993 on Christmas Eve the managing director of that bank issued a circular to all staff advising that he had unilaterally abolished appeal board rights—that is for promotion appeals—which was a system that had been in place since the Second World War.

Despite having 90 per cent union density, and despite the support of the Australian Industrial ECONOMICS E 1000 SENATE—References Wednesday, 17 July 1996 Relations Commission, those appeal board rights are gone.
In 1995 the managing director of the Commonwealth Bank again acted unilaterally to withdraw a subsidy that was to the Commonwealth Bank’s health insurance scheme.

Today that health subsidy no longer exists for all employees; it is only for some.

So, in terms of being able to bargain from a position of strength, the reduction of awards to 18 minima means that everything else is up for grabs.

Some we may retain, others we may not.

It will depend on the circumstances at the time.


But union density of itself does not necessarily mean that you will always win.
Senator MURRAY—Some employees and employee organisations would argue that, when you have such strength and given the past accord and industrial relations environment, actually your failure in those circumstances to use that strength has meant that you have not lifted your game sufficiently, you have not been aggressive enough on behalf of your workers and that the new act will in fact force you to become far more aggressive and far more competitive for your workers.

Mr Riordan—I think that may be true.


I think that may well be true—that the measure of a union’s capacity to represent its members may well shift from one of cooperative working through work organisation issues to one of defending the immediate interests of employees.

The Finance Sector Union is a union that has taken a medium- to long-term perspective.

Over the last five years some 30,000-odd jobs have been shed from the industry.
In the Commonwealth Bank alone in the last two years, as the bank moved from a wholly- owned government authority into a privatised organisation, 10,000 jobs disappeared—from 45,000 to 35,000.

Not one day’s work was lost as a consequence of that reduction, because the union took a medium- to long-term perspective about the ongoing viability of the organisation.
If we had taken a short-term view and merely waded in there to defend members’ jobs, quite obviously there would have been much more industrial action and much more activity.

If we are forced to operate much as the share market does today and adopt a very short-term focus in the face of attacks from employers, then quite obviously in our judgment the level of industrial activity in this country will increase.

Senator MURRAY—The bill is meant, I believe, to introduce a market orientated approach.
If employers try to enforce part-time work changes such that it is an hour here and an hour there, won’t they find it impossible to get workers, therefore the supply would dry up and they would be forced to change their work practices?

In Australia, in contrast to, say, places such as Mexico, workers at least do have a safety net—there is an underpinning.

I would suggest to you that Mexican workers have no choice but to accept their circumstances.

There is some choice in Australia.


Won’t people simply refuse to ECONOMICS Wednesday, 17 July 1996 SENATE—References E 1001 work on an uneconomic basis of an hour here and an hour there and employers will not be able to impose unrealistic work conditions?

Mr Riordan—I do not know.

The answer to your question is that I do not know what the future holds.
We have found, with the use of casual labour for example, that people are prepared to work for very short periods of time if that is the only employment they can get.

It may not be there preference to work in that way but, if that is the only employment they can get, quite often they will take it.

Again if I can give you an illustration.


Some years ago one of the banks sought to employ casual labour, did so without consultation with the union and sought to undercut the going award rate at the time by some numbers of dollars.

It was about $3 an hour.

At the time there were a million unemployed in Australia, so I am going back into the early 1990s.

They had many people come forward seeking that employment, even though it was not stable and even though it was below the appropriate award rate.
Following the union’s intervention in that, those people who were employed as casual employees—and we did not oppose casual labour—were paid an appropriate pro-rata rate to the full-time people they were working besides.

But there are people, for whatever circumstances, who are prepared to take any work they can get.

If that is right or wrong, that is a judgment that people have to make individually.

Senator MURRAY—I understand that there will be some people who will do that.
But the question is in the marketplace will large numbers of people be prepared to do that?

My assumption is probably not, but I would be interested if you have any experience to show that in Australia large numbers of workers will take uneconomic work conditions, such as just working for meal breaks or working for odd hours in the day.

I cannot see how a worker, once they factor in paying for child care and catching the bus to get to work and back, would ever dream of working on that basis.
Therefore the employers will not be able to get the labour they want.

Mr Laragy—I think perhaps you overestimate the choices available to many groups of people in our society.
What we have found with an organisation that I have dealt very closely with over a number of years—one of the major banks—is that, despite turnover rates as we have mentioned before of something over 50 per cent in some of their areas in Sydney, Melbourne and elsewhere, and an average of something like 25 per cent on staff who work very few numbers of hours per week, there are people who are obligated to take whatever is available.
Certainly our very extensive surveying and feedback from those members is that those circumstances do not suit them.

They do not find that a livable wage and many get into difficulty in terms of being able to support their commitments and themselves.

Yet, despite that and despite the fact that it is quite uneconomic in terms of the turnover costs incurred by a range of those companies, companies continue to offer employment on that basis until such time as we are in a position to persuade them otherwise.
They also rely ECONOMICS E 1002 SENATE—References Wednesday, 17 July 1996 upon the appropriate minima that we had in the award and, on the basis of those award arrangements, further minima that we have negotiated through enterprise agreements.

So, despite your views about the choices that are available to people, unfortunately there are organisations that will pursue that course and unfortunately people who may be in circumstances where they feel they need to accept that employment.
Senator MURRAY—Including in your sector which requires a high level of probity and honesty because of the kind of things you deal with?

Mr Laragy—The organisation to which I am referring is one of the largest corporations in this country and is one of the major four banks.

The answer to your question is it is in our industry.

Senator CRANE—I would like to raise a couple of matters.
In doing so, I would like to make reference to a comment made yesterday by Steve Harrison or one of the senior union people to this committee.

When Mr Keating deregulated the financial system in Australia they changed the face of Australia forever.

I think you people have been at the forefront of that and I am sure you understand that.

Senator Chapman and Senator Mackay have both raised the New Zealand experience in terms of what has occurred there.
I just wanted to follow up on a couple of points there because I think it is very important for people like yourself to understand how important it is when people come into the bank that they are able to pay their bills.

It is a pretty simple equation.

It is absolutely true that wages in New Zealand from 1994 until now are less, but that drop occurred between 1984 and 1991.

That is the equation you have got to get.


I prefer to use not stagnated but stabilised in terms of that drop in unemployment from 12 to six per cent.

I do not think the participation rate is relevant to that, but the important thing is that during that particular time New Zealand has got on top of its current account problem—which I am sure you people would understand very clearly.
What I want to raise here is that we cannot continue as a nation to look with rose- coloured glasses at our current account problem.

When we talk about New Zealand we must also take that into account.

When we say it has not gone to work as it has gone into profits, it has gone into balancing the budget in New Zealand, and that is incredibly important to us all.
I just wanted to raise with you the fact that the issues of overtime, over-award payments and what have you have been raised with us on a number of occasions.

What I wanted to know is this: as far as over-award payments in the banking sector are con- cerned, are men and women treated differently?

Ms Hutchinson—Some of our surveying in the industry has shown that women ECONOMICS Wednesday, 17 July 1996 SENATE—References E 1003 and men are treated differently in relation to over-award payments.
It is particularly reflective of the fact that women are in a less powerful position in our industry; they are not in the management positions that have access to those payments, and once they are in those positions they have less access to over-award payments.

Senator CRANE—In this particular bill we have put particular emphasis on the objects and what have you, although we have not got time to go into that now.
But if that is the case, under the current legislation—I think the 1987, 1991 and 1994 legislation which was passed through the federal parliament in fact had some very stringent provi- sions in terms of not meeting obligations, for not paying over-award payments or discriminating between people on the basis of a number of things, one of them being sex—following Senator Murray’s line, and his comments about being one of the more powerful or more unionised things, why have you not been able to address that particular aspect through your union structure?
Ms Hutchinson—I think because the difficulty is that there are so few women in those positions where over-award payments are made—and I am talking about managerial perks—that they are very reluctant to speak out.

That would be the first point.

What we have tried to do in working cooperatively with the major employers in this industry is address some of the structural problems and the attitudinal problems that restrict women from having access to those managerial positions.
So within our industry we see the problems in terms of access to over-award payments as the position of women, because they are mainly in the lower grades that have less access to them.

Once they get to the senior positions or the managerial positions they are so few in number that even though they are union members predominantly they are very reluctant to put their heads up.
Senator CRANE—These ones who get what you refer to as managerial perks, would they be actually working under an award or under a staff contract?

Ms Hutchinson—No, they are under an award, they are under enterprise agree- ments.
It may be that the managers in those areas have access to incentive bonuses because they are managers, whereas if you are in a supervisory or clerical grade, whilst you too contribute to increased sales, say, in a branch environment or in banking products, you do not have as much access to generating that type of over-award incentive or bonus.

Senator CRANE—I think Mr Riordan said that 96 per cent of the part-time employees in the banking sector were women.

Could that be part of the problem?


Ms Hutchinson—It is in that 96 per cent are women.

Ninety-five to 98 per cent of part-time employees in the finance sector are in the clerical grades; that is, the two lowest clerical grades in the industry.

Senator CRANE—I note that Mr Riordan made a correction to page 5.

I am glad you picked up the point of a certificate.
Reference was made verbally by one of the ECONOMICS E 1004 SENATE—References Wednesday, 17 July 1996 witnesses, and also in the submission before us, to the exposure of the employee to the employer.

I cannot find reference in either section 286 or 286A to the employee’s name having to be given to the employer.

In fact, the application by letter is to the organisation.
In particular section 291A, which is the point you brought today, specifically states that the certificate must not identify any of the employees concerned.

Mr Riordan—In terms of the bill, we acknowledge that that is correct.

In terms of workplace reality, let us look at a bank branch which may have a manager and five or six other staff working in that location.
If the union turns up and goes straight to Susie Smith the teller, it is going to be pretty obvious who has requested the union to come onto the place.

Whilst, in terms of the formal process envisaged by the bill, there are protections in place for individual employees, the reality is that if we turn up on the doorstep and say, ‘We have a certificate,’ and go and speak to Susie Smith, the employer will very quickly know who the complainant is.
Senator CRANE—The other reality is that there are very strict rules in this bill if there is discrimination against an employee by the employer on a huge range of grounds.

CHAIR—Thank you for your presentation.


ECONOMICS Wednesday, 17 July 1996 SENATE—References E 1005 [11.06 a.m.] MUIR, Mr Gil, Manager, Industrial Relations Division, Queensland Chamber of Commerce and Industry, Industry House, 375 Wickham Terrace, Brisbane, Queens- land 4000 O’BRIEN, Mr Christopher, Legal Officer, Industrial Relations Division, Queensland Chamber of Commerce and Industry, Industry House, 375 Wickham Terrace, Brisbane, Queensland 4000 CHAIR—I call the committee to order.
I welcome the witnesses from the Queensland Chamber of Commerce and Industry.

I invite you to give an overview of your submission, and then senators will ask you questions.

Mr Muir—We have distributed a summary of our written submission which was faxed through to Robert Diamond, hopefully, in time to make the deadline.

We thank you for allowing us to appear today.


This issue is clearly dear to the heart of business in Queensland, and I can say that business is looking eagerly to the passage of the Reith legislation and its subsequent replication in the Queensland industrial relations system.

We strongly support the bill as a significant improvement to the current industrial relations legislation.

We believe that the bill moves towards remedying the imbalances which presently exist.
As you are all no doubt aware, the QCCI has made that written submission.

The submission accords with the chamber’s policy and position in relation to industrial relations.

The policy was not created in a vacuum—it was created with the views of business in mind.

QCCI operates across the state of Queensland.

We have a strong regional network.

We also have a committee known as the employment labour relations council committee, and it is reflective of business.
That committee determined our policy and it was approved by our executive board.

That is our authority to speak.

As the policy position is relevant to our submission, we seek leave to table that document—I understand that has already been tabled.

On the enterprise focus, QCCI for many years has had a strong enterprise focus.

Most of the work that we do reflects that enterprise focus.
On page 3 of our submission under the heading (d) ‘the effects of similar provisions in other countries’, the chamber has referred to the enterprise bargaining models in overseas countries.

We encourage the principles of enterprise bargaining.

That is a strong fundamental position of the chamber and has been so for many years.
QCCI fully supports the move to an industrial relations system based substantially upon an enterprise focus with the outcomes respected by all parties to the arrangement and enforceable by an independent industrial tribunal.Furthermore, the QCCI believes that ECONOMICS E 1006 SENATE—References Wednesday, 17 July 1996 employers and employees have a fundamental right to choose whether or not a body or organisation bargains on their behalf, and their decision should be free of duress and recognised and support by industrial legislation.
In our view, frankly, the system to date and currently in place is not free of duress, and most businesses have been put off by it.

The chamber recognises and supports legislated minimum standards to protect employees.

I will refer the committee to the final paragraph bullet point on page 5 of our submission under heading (l) in that regard.
Our policy says that enterprise bargaining must be underpinned by legislated minimum standards such as a minimum hourly rate initially drawn from the parent award, sick leave of 8 days per annum, long service leave of 13 weeks after 15 years service, annual leave, parental leave and special family leave as per the 1995 standards.

We recognise that the AIRC has changed the rules somewhat but our policy reflects the position in place in 1995.
It is a matter of record that when the matter was heard in the Queensland commission it flowed by general ruling and the QCCI supported the flow on of those standards into the Queensland industrial system.

We also say that enterprise agreements are to be judged against the above minimum standards by an independent industrial tribunal.

You will note that the minimum standards that we promote are far less than what are in the Reith legislation.
The minimum standards are to be proscribed in industrial laws and subject to periodic review by an independent tribunal.

We note there that the awards continue under the Reith model.

The independent industrial tribunal should ensure that, in approving an agreement, the parties to that agreement have entered into such agreement willingly, and that such agreement does not discriminate against particular groups nor the public at large.
Under heading (f) on page 3 of our submission, the chamber acknowledges that a role such as the independent industrial tribunal can be undertaken through the Office of the Employment Advocate.

It could put forward agreements reached between small business and their employees and carry out the scrutiny referred to in the second last paragraph on page 1 of the chamber’s policy document.

We see that the role of the Employment Advocate is one for small business.
To summarise our views on the enterprise focus, the QCCI strongly affirms that increased productivity should be the cornerstone of enterprise agreements with fair outcomes for individual employees.

Any system in place must continue the devolution of Australian industrial relations to the enterprise.

In reality, it is only those at the enterprise who can effectively implement the changes and the initiatives to make the enterprise viable.
As to state jurisdictions, for the record, QCCI is a union of employers registered with the Queensland Industrial Relations Commission.

We operate and must comply with the rules, as registered unions of employees are required to do.

The majority of Queens- land workers are subject to the Queensland system, and QCCI has a record, and this is of long standing, of opposing the infiltration of the Australian industrial relations system.
I ECONOMICS Wednesday, 17 July 1996 SENATE—References E 1007 will come to that.

That is also covered in our submission at large.

Going back to the written summary, as indicated on page 1 of the chamber’s submission, the federal bill seeks to allow employers under federal awards to be regulated through the workplace agreement streams under state law which provides for state employment agreements.
The chamber would like to emphasise that the former Goss Labor government substantially replicated aspects of the federal legislation, and both the Queensland industrial relations legislation and the federal industrial relations legislation are very complementary in terms of many aspects of enterprise bargaining, for example.

Industrial laws must provide for dispute resolution mechanisms and every effort must be made to ensure its adherence to such systems.
Where threats to public health, safety and wellbeing are probable, pending or occurring, industrial laws to protect the public interest must be effective and enforceable.

We believe the Reith legislation will protect the public.

It is the chamber’s view that the bill will provide full and adequate protection against secondary boycotts.

To many businesses, that is a very encouraging move.
Our policy with regard to international conventions and standards, whilst acknow- ledging today the ILO influence, does call for the basing of industrial standards and minimums upon international conventions to cease, and industrial laws to recognise the unique character of Australia’s industrial relations needs to be introduced.

It is difficult to convince business that international standards are relevant to their local needs.
However, QCCI strongly believes that employees should be able to work in an environment free of discrimination and harassment and the principle of equal pay for equal work whether performed by male or female employees should apply.
Advice received from the ACCI, of which we are a foundation and significant member—it was formerly the Confederation of Australian Industry—is that the bill will fulfil Australia’s international obligations and that it is in compliance with ILO conven- tions 87 and 98 on freedom of association and promotion of collective bargaining.

One of the areas that most affects small business has been the unfair dismissal laws.

If anything has galvanised business resistance to the Brereton laws, it has been that.
For some time we have argued strongly—and ACCI was able to have change made through Minister Brereton—but it has not gone far enough.

I can say categorically that business is looking for substantial change in the area of unfair dismissal laws.

Getting back to the submission, QCCI believes that the unfair dismissal laws since March 1994 have resulted in unwieldy and confusing systems which have caused great anxiety in the business community.
We know that such laws have been a disincentive to permanent job placement.

Changes in late 1995 were not expected to reduce the number of claims.

QCCI strongly argues that unfair dismissal laws should place the onus on the applicant and provide for either reinstatement, re-employment or limited compensation up ECONOMICS E 1008 SENATE—References Wednesday, 17 July 1996 to a certain number of weeks per year of service.

The law should focus upon the appropri- ateness of the dismissal, not the process.
I can say that prior to the reform legislation in Queensland in March 1994, following the Brereton model, that was the position in place and there was not the angst or the number of unfair dismissal cases around that there are now.

In fact, there has been an explosion since March 1994.
The attempt by individuals to use the industrial tribunals to secure damages or to force financial settlements from employers must be strongly discouraged and business confidence in its capacity to employ and discipline restored as a matter of urgency.

I can say that in many cases the confidence has been lost.

Our submission refers to unfair dismissal at headings (h) on page four and (k) on page five.
In essence, the QCCI supports changes in the bill which provide for less emphasis on strict compliance with formal procedural fairness, the discouragement of speculative claims through an emphasis on settlement and conciliation, a filing fee and provision of costs where a party should have settled.

Turning to unions, I want to emphasise that the QCCI works in close cooperation with a large number of unions in Queensland.
Not in every area is our relationship close, and in some areas we would be deemed combative.

But we do operate in conjunction with the ACTU and the AWU, Sunsuper, which has proven to be a highly successful and one of the largest occupational based schemes in Australia.

We have the Small Business Training Company, which is federally funded, of which we are joint directors with the unions, and that has proven to be one of the most successful small business training companies in Australia.
We also work collectively with unions in enterprise bargaining and we are a union of employers ourselves.

Getting to page six of our submission again, the QCCI supports the areas of the bill dealing with compulsory unionism and the removal of preference clauses and closed shops in the federal system.
As alluded to on page six of our submission heading (l), trade unions have relied upon compulsory unionism and inflexibilities in awards to grow and retain large parcels of membership without any real provision of service.

The changes in the Reith bill will see benefits to employees through unions providing a greater standard of service and at the end of the day that will only be for the betterment of the community at large.
In conclusion, the QCCI—and more importantly our members in small business— support the change to industrial legislation contained in the Workplace Relations Bill.

Queensland business urgently needs the greater decentralisation, flexibility and freedom of choice which the legislation will bring.

The sooner these changes are passed, the better.

Therefore, we would encourage the Senate committee to take all the necessary steps to have the bill passed as quickly as possible without substantial amendments.
ECONOMICS Wednesday, 17 July 1996 SENATE—References E 1009 CHAIR—The area of questioning that I would like to go to relates to your expressed concerns for the need for further devolution.

One of the elements of your submission which I am still not clear on is the problems with the current mechanisms for devolution with respect to awards.

For instance, are you aware of the federal commission’s section 150A review process and the guidelines that they have produced with respect to reviewing awards?
Mr Muir—Yes, I am.

I am not necessarily certain how that found its way into the legislation.

The process—with the greatest respect to the Australian commission—is clouded in a great deal of administration.

The Queensland legislation has an equivalent provision.

Whether anything will really come out of that to the betterment of industrial relations or an understanding of awards, I think is highly questionable.

CHAIR—Can you explain why you think that?


Mr Muir—I guess I am rather cynical of the process and the cost implications associated with that.

Industrial relations is not necessarily made better by having awards in a standardised format.

Industrial relations is a question of culture and the other rules that surround it.
CHAIR—On the question of awards and culture, I notice for instance in your submission you say that: It is important that there be sufficient flexibility for business to adjust or abandon completely the forms of work organisation which may be established by the relevant award.

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.

For the benefit of other committee members, I would like to table these Australian Industrial Relations Commission guidelines because I want to refer to one section in particular with respect to facilitative provisions.
The commission’s process of developing facilitative provisions has essentially gone down the phase of allowing facilitation in awards.

Originally it happened to the extent where agreement was reached between an employer and a group of employees.
I will read tag 7 in this document which states: A facilitative provision normally provides that the standard approach in an award provision may be departed from by agreement between an individual employer and an employee or the majority of employees in the enterprise or part of the enterprise concerned.
If the current federal legislation and the operations of the commission allow devolution to the stage that, where there is agreement between an employer and an individual employee in a part of an enterprise, what is the problem with flexibility?

Mr Muir—On that premise, there probably is no problem at all and many awards contain that.

What goes with that, of course, is the insistence by many unions to be part of that process and to frustrate that.
Also one has to take the awards as a whole and to many businesses they are highly confusing and highly complex documents which do not ECONOMICS E 1010 SENATE—References Wednesday, 17 July 1996 necessarily do much to enhance the operation.

In our experience—and I speak as a practising advocate and negotiator—there are cases, although not in all cases, where unions insist that they be part of the process whether they have members there or not.

There is a resentment by business to having that intrusion.
What we talk about is unnecessary intrusion into the workplace and fundamen- tally that drives us.

CHAIR—With respect, so far the committee has visited two workplaces who have demonstrated that they have been able to introduce a fair extent of flexibility under the current arrangements.

That was ICI Botany and Cadbury Schweppes.

My reading of your submission does not provide us with any evidence of the frustration you are referring to.

Mr Muir—I guess we speak in an anecdotal sense.


I can say that I speak as a practitioner, but I would suggest that in Queensland alone there are probably 130,000 workplaces.

I think ICI Botany underwent very fundamental change through enterprise bargaining.

In fact, I think they were one of the leading edge organisations that people refer to.

But we have to look across the spectrum of business and industry and not everybody is of the scale of ICI Botany or has the necessary resources to do that.
CHAIR—Which is precisely my point.

The point I am making is that the evidence that has been put to this committee to date from employers—including the submission that you have made—has not demonstrated those areas of frustration with the process.

You have indicated that there is anecdotal evidence, but we still see no clear evidence to that point.

Mr Muir—QCCI policy says that we— CHAIR—No, I am not asking about QCCI policy, I am asking what the experi- ence is in industry.
What is the evidence of that experience?

Mr Muir—One of the experiences in industry can be illustrated by the fact that, in some areas, it is impossible to work shift work without an agreement between the union and the employer concerned providing for compulsory unionism.

If there was flexibility there, that would not be necessary.
Senator CRANE—If I could bring you to a couple of points from the summary of your submission, you say on page 3 that the chamber acknowledges that a role such as the independent industrial tribunal can be undertaken through the office of the employment advocate.
Could you expand on that particular statement and give us some feel about how you would see it working in regard to the legislation of the— Mr Muir—Yes, what QCCI policy says—I am sorry if I have got to keep coming back to that, but that is the policy authority that I operate under— ECONOMICS Wednesday, 17 July 1996 SENATE—References E 1011 Senator CRANE—No, there is no problem in coming back to it.

You are coming from a solid base.


Mr Muir—We do not believe that, when you have got an award structure in place, agreements should simply just be recorded without any degree of official overview or sanction at all.

We are not saying that the agreement should simply be scribbled on a piece of paper and left within the workplace; what we say is that, particularly in Queens- land, we have always respected the role of the Queensland Industrial Relations Commis- sion.
I suppose there is a degree of parochialism which goes with that, which we do not apologise for.

That is not to be taken as an attack upon the Australian system, but we are more heavily orientated to the Queensland jurisdiction.

Our policy is an attempt to also protect those businesses who are about acting responsibly and, therefore, to allow a system to evolve for which there is no overall scrutiny in any form at all is not a system that QCCI favours.
Therefore, our policy of course was established, and we have not gone back and revisited that in the light of the Reith legislation.

But it has been examined by our council and their view is that the office of the employment advocate will undertake the role that we see of independence and scrutiny, so I guess it is coming to that position.

Senator CRANE—So your organisation would see the role of the employment advocate as being essential to the fundamentals of this legislation?
Mr Muir—Yes, we are not advocating a free-for-all system; we do not do that.

I must say that there have been some concerns raised with us that the office of the employment advocate might actually devolute some of its functions to lawyers and accountants, particularly in regional areas.

I would like to say for the record that is not a process that we endorse, but we do endorse officers of the office of the employment advocate operating in accordance with their charter.
Senator CRANE—You made some comments on page 4 of your summary regarding international conventions and standards.

In particular, you say that it is difficult to convince business that international standards are relevant to their local needs.

Could you just expand on that statement, please.

Mr Muir—Mainly that comes from the convention on termination.

Since March of 1994, when the Brereton legislation came in, there has been this enormous explosion in unfair dismissal cases.
Some people got very adventurous in their promotion of them.

We justified to business why they must change their processes—and many did not have processes in place to comply with the laws of procedural fairness—in the seminar series that we run, in the regular contacts that we have and in the training courses that are run on the basis that this is an international convention, therefore, you must comply.

That is the basis of it.


ECONOMICS E 1012 SENATE—References Wednesday, 17 July 1996 I am speaking once again, even though I might be torn down for this, anecdotally.

The hundreds of businesses of all kinds that I deal with every year find it mysterious as to why somebody in Geneva should make some determination which affects the way they employ people.

It might be simply a cry in the wilderness.

There are other aspects of Australia’s laws which come out of international conventions.
I am talking here mainly about small to medium enterprises.

The larger organisa- tions operate at a greater level of sophistication, and that is understandable because of the scale.

It is an important policy position of our organisation that we should move away from that.

We understand that it is difficult for government to do that.
Maybe it is just a cry in the wilderness or we are just saying to government, ‘Let’s not get too heavily meshed into international standards.’ If we are going to do things in Australia, let us do them based upon Australian needs and circumstances not upon something somebody from Senegal or Ghana might have voted on.

Senator CHILDS—You have said a lot of complimentary things about trade unions in Queensland.
Could you indicate which unions you refer to when you said on page 6: .. trade unions have relied upon antiquated provisions of awards involving inflexibilities, intimidation and black banning to force compulsory unionism .

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without any real provision of service .

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Mr Muir—I think we are joined today by the CFMEU and the BLF.

Members of the audience interjecting— ACTING CHAIR (Senator Ferguson)—Can I just remind those people that this is a meeting of the Senate.
It is a public inquiry, not a public meeting.

The only people allowed to speak are those at the witness table.

I ask you for your cooperation, please.

Mr Muir—That union, in particular, and the other ones that happen to name themselves—even though I would not have thought the ETU fitted into that camp—the Transport Workers Union and the Maritime Union of Australia.
Even though we deal with these unions and on numerous occasions enter into agreements with them, there are many businesses out there, particularly in the building industry, that are intimidated by the behaviour of these unions.

Quite frankly, it is very difficult under existing law to offer any protection at all.
As the laws currently stand, there is probably very little that we can do other than to make a martyr of a company and destroy their business because the laws do not allow any real challenge against these tactics which are, in my view, grossly intimidatory.

I suppose members of the CFMEU would say, ‘Yes, we get very good service from ECONOMICS Wednesday, 17 July 1996 SENATE—References E 1013 our union.’ I suppose from their point of view they do.
But I am speaking about employ- ers who are entirely compromised in the way they do things.

They are forced into certified agreements which all read the same.

In fact, it is a standing joke that the only difference between the agreements are the signatures at the end and probably the different shades of white-out that have been put across the names.

I know that— Senator CHILDS—Mr Muir, you have strayed from the question I asked you.

I do not want to inhibit you, but I was asking about the union.
You are actually against awards, are you, because surely what you are describing is the ability of an industry to have an industry standard?

Mr Muir—The QCCI is not against awards; we have never been against awards.

QCCI is a regular applicant in the Queensland commission and in the federal jurisdiction.

That is a matter of record.


We recently applied to continue on the wage fixing principles in Queensland—I might add that we were the only ones to do so—and on 5 July the Queensland commission endorsed that.

So we are proactive in the field.

It is not correct to assume—with the greatest respect, Senator—that we are against awards.

What we are against is intimidatory tactics and no real ability for business to fight against those tactics.
They are forced into situations which are against their will—and in many cases are against the will of their own employees—simply to maintain their own viability.

Senator CHILDS—How do you reconcile your view with ACCI’s view, which I believe was to be against awards and to prefer not to have awards at all?

Mr Muir—That was a view I think that was around about 1992.

It is probably not surprising that QCCI might share a different view.
In fact, if you compare our policy on industrial relations reform, you will see that it is different from ACCI’s.

ACCI’s calls for a unitary system of Australian industrial relations; we call for the maintenance of the Queensland system, and that is the jurisdiction in which we operate.

Senator CHILDS—I am concerned about those employers you describe you represent who are threatened by these unionists or the unions.
Don’t you provide advice to your employers to use the penal provisions of the arbitration acts, federal and state, if they are under any attack at all?

Mr Muir—We do give advice to our members, and I think we represent them very well, but there is a certain reality that there are enormous costs associated with this.

There is no use running a case and making a martyr of a business to see that business destroyed, and that is the environment in which people find themselves.
If you have a bottomless pit of money, perhaps the Supreme Court may be the more appropriate area, but these people have to go on from that job to another job and to another job.

ECONOMICS E 1014 SENATE—References Wednesday, 17 July 1996 Senator CHILDS—You refer to the Supreme Court.

Surely that would mean that the unionists involved would have to have a bottomless pit of money to take an action in that jurisdiction, a legalistic jurisdiction?
Mr Muir—I would think it is a proven fact that the funds available to employer organisations in Queensland are far below those taken in by trade unions.

Senator MURRAY—You have mentioned that there are 130,000 workplaces in Queensland.

Does that equate to the number of businesses and employers?

Mr Muir—Not all of them would be.

I am talking about figures that the Workers Compensation Board put out about people who pay into the fund.

Not everybody would employ somebody; these would be sole proprietors.
Senator MURRAY—I am given to understand that over 100,000 small businesses are in Queensland.

Is that right?

Mr Muir—I think it would be in the order of that number.

I could not be precise.

Senator MURRAY—So with 3,500 members you do not represent them, do you?

Mr Muir—We represent more than any other employer organisation.

I would like to point out that we are affiliated with a large number of local chambers of commerce and, through that affiliation, we say that we can speak for a lot more.
When I say 3,500, these are ones who pay fees direct to me within the full scope of QCCI’s membership.

But we do have about 40 trade associations which we provide services for.

Some of their members are members directly; some are not.

But when we speak we say we speak for those and the level of dissent that we hear largely is nil.
I have not had one business ring me and say we disagree with your directions in industrial relations and that policy was disseminated very widely through the business community.

Senator MURRAY—I heard you give support to the secondary boycotts provi- sions in this legislation.

I understand the arguments that you put.


Our advice is that that secondary boycotts provision, the reinstatement into the Trade Practices Act and so on, would entail such undesirable outcomes as the possible prosecution of people advocating boycotts of French goods as a result of testing in the Pacific and of consumer and conservation groups choosing to use a mechanism of consumer action against companies which pursue unacceptable outcomes.

Do you have any view on that?


Mr Muir—Could I ask our legal officer to comment on that.

Mr O’Brien—From an industrial relations point of view, we certainly see the secondary boycott provisions as advantageous to employees but, from the perspective of other matters, we really do not have a broad based comment for that at all.

ECONOMICS Wednesday, 17 July 1996 SENATE—References E 1015 Senator MURRAY—So you think you live apart from the community?
You do not have to concern yourself with consumers, with environmental issues?

Mr O’Brien—They certainly are issues which do affect our members and our members are concerned about, but it is yet to be seen whether the remedy in the Trade Practices Act would be sought by those groups.

Senator MURRAY—So your answer means that you have taken a very selfish view of just your employers’ interests and not those of the wider community at large on this issue of secondary boycotts?
Mr O’Brien—The employers do represent the wider community at large through the mere fact that they employ people and provide employment.

Senator MURRAY—I am particularly interested in remarks you made about employers being forced to operate under duress.

One of the advantages put to this bill is that it evens up the balance, that unions have had all the strength in negotiation and employers have not.
The problem we face is that two-thirds of employees are not unionised and two-thirds, we suspect, of employers are not unionised in employers unions, which means that those two large sectors of people are those that may be most affected by a bill and have least mechanisms for dealing with its outcomes.
If you believe that numbers of employers have been operating under duress from union organisations, have you a percentage of your 3,500 members that would say that they have experienced tough times from an unequal industrial relations environment?

Mr Muir—As to the percentage, I could not give you the figures.

I know from first-hand involvement in these issues, I know from what my staff are involved in first- hand, that these issues regularly confront business.
I would think that if members of the HIA were asked, for instance, I am sure their sentiments would echo ours.

But it does not happen in every area.

There are numerous areas where union involvement is actively sought.

I can say that— Senator MURRAY—Mr Muir, my impression is that you are an efficient and capable organisation.

This issue is particularly important for advocates of the bill.
I would appreciate it—and I am sure the committee would—if you were able to conduct a survey of your members and respond for us so that we are able to put into our documentation just what percentage of your members do say that they have operated under duress in the current environment.

Mr Muir—I do not have any difficulty in doing that, Senator.

One thing that I would ask is that the names of the particular businesses that respond remain anonymous.
I would not like the document falling into the wrong hands.

ECONOMICS E 1016 SENATE—References Wednesday, 17 July 1996 Senator MURRAY—I am not suggesting them by name; I am suggesting just a percentage.

But we would ask that it would be independent and objectively questioned because, as you appreciate, you can load questions.

So we would need to see the question you asked.

Mr Muir—Yes, we would ask our economist to undertake that.

We regularly run surveys.


The QCCI has one called ‘The Poll Survey’, which was used by both the Goss Labor government and the current Queensland government as the basis of many of its economic forecasts.

So we speak with a degree of credibility there.

We are prepared to do that, yes, if I could be given some signal as to what time lines are involved—that is all.

Senator MURRAY—About three weeks, I think, Madam Chair?

CHAIR—We report on the 22 August, subject to the Senate being non- obstructionist.
Senator CRANE—Is it possible to do it in that time?

Mr Muir—I believe so, Senator, yes.

Senator MACKAY—Mr Muir, since this committee has been meeting, we have had representations from a number of employer organisations, and I will just go through them very briefly.

ACCI obviously signed up pretty much wholeheartedly to the bill; the Tasmanian Chamber of Commerce and Industry similarly; and Australian Business Ltd, whom we heard evidence from in Brisbane, similarly.
Then we heard from the MTIA, who expressed major concerns with two aspects of the bill.

We then heard from the Australian Road Transport Industry Association, who expressed concerns with almost every aspect of the bill.

We then heard from Company Directors Ltd, who expressed concern with some of the procedural matters of the bill.

We have also heard from the Victorian Automobile Chamber of Commerce and Industry, who has also expressed concerns with the bill, and the H.R.
Nicolls Society, who did not think the bill went far enough.

Can you explain to me why there is this division amongst employers in relation to this bill?

Mr Muir—I am surprised about the Road Transport Federation, because they are members of the QCCI.

Senator MACKAY—No, it was not them; it was a different organisation.

Senator CRANE—It was the Road Transport Industry Association.

Senator MACKAY—That is it, yes.

Mr Muir—Yes, I am not familiar with it, Senator; I do not know.
I make the point ECONOMICS Wednesday, 17 July 1996 SENATE—References E 1017 that not everybody is affiliated with ACCI.

MTIA certainly is not, and there would be times when QCCI would disagree with the MTIA position.

In fact, that would be a regular feature of life, particularly in this state.

As to the others, I am not really certain what they said, so I guess I would have to be briefed, with the greatest of respect, as to where the variations are.
Senator MACKAY—The primary one was freedom of association.

They were concerned about the plethora of small employers’ organisations and how they would in fact deal with them, particularly from the small business sector.

Mr Muir—Yes, I think the Reith legislation brings in a number of elements, particularly from overseas, I think, and it is a matter of record that we disagreed with the wholesale opening up of the industrial system to any union, any place, any time.
We have run demarcation cases, particularly in the Queensland jurisdiction—and other members of QCCI have, and there have been some notable ones, MIM being a case in point.

So we see the Reith legislation in the form introduced in the bill as maintaining existing demarcation orders and allowing the arbitration commission to make further orders.

I think the terms are: where there is effect upon the business with industrial disputes and that type of thing.

We do not have a problem with that.


We did have a problem with the initial understanding that it would be a free-for-all for all unions.

But it is really a policy for big business.

Small to medium enterprises in this state are largely non-unionised and do not really get involved in union demarcation issues or union membership issues.

In fact, I think a lot of union membership crystallises around the larger organisations.

So we are comfortable now with the terms of the Reith legislation.
We were not comfortable in our initial briefing of it—I will be honest there.

Senator MACKAY—On page 7 of your submission, in the second last paragraph you state: This is overwhelming evidence of the importance that a lower wage for juniors plays in securing the entry of young people into the work force.

I assume you are saying that a lower wage for juniors would encourage the growth of employment by ensuring that more jobs were available for young people.
Mr Muir—Yes, that would be fair comment, Senator.

We draw upon the ACCI submissions largely in this respect, and we also draw upon the fact that the former Queensland Labor government did not move along the path of the Brereton model by seeking to put a sunset provision on junior rates of pay.

We are not necessarily saying that that is the best model for kids.

A lot of people have tried, but we do not seem to have been able to find, necessarily, the best model.
It ECONOMICS E 1018 SENATE—References Wednesday, 17 July 1996 talks about competency based training, a concept which is poorly understood and almost incapable of any real application in the business community for a whole range of reasons.

We implore the Senate not to move against the employment of young people by disagreeing with what Peter Reith intends doing.
We draw upon support there from what the Goss government did, which we, publicly on the record, have strongly supported and we believe was an eminently sensible provision.

Senator MACKAY—If you contend that lower wages for juniors would increase the amount of jobs available for young people, why would lower wages for adults not result in more jobs?

Mr Muir—More jobs for young people?

Senator MACKAY—No, more jobs per se.


Mr Muir—There is a maturity aspect that business does not expect to pay more for young people—a system that has built up in Australia for the best part of this century.

As to lower rates for adults, I am not sure where that comes from.

Senator MACKAY—If your logic is that lower rates for young people would create more jobs for young people, why is it not your contention that lower rates for adults would create more jobs for adults?
That is part of the government’s key factor in putting this bill forward.

Mr Muir—Lower rates for adults?

Senator MACKAY—No, they do not talk about lower rates; they talk about more jobs.

Mr Muir—From what I could hear of the earlier submissions by the Finance Sector Union, there seemed to be a lot about massive exploitation because of the Reith legislation coming into being.

I disagree with that.

Employers will not embark on that process.


Some may, and there will always be those who do that, we are not denying that.

But the vast majority of employers out there want the best people they can get and they are not going to make any progress on retention if they are going to start shafting people’s wages.

It is quite that stark.

Senator MACKAY—So you are saying that this bill will not result in lower wages for workers?

Mr Muir—I do not believe it will.

I am not certain how it can be seen to do so.


Senator MACKAY—So you would agree with the Prime Minister’s statement that ECONOMICS Wednesday, 17 July 1996 SENATE—References E 1019 no worker will be worse off in their take-home pay as a result of this bill.

Do you agree with that statement?

Mr Muir—Do I agree with that statement?

I will put it to you from a QCCI position.

CHAIR—Order!

I remind the people in attendance that only the witnesses at the table can address the committee.
Mr Muir—One thing is that QCCI is not intimidated by officials of the CFMEU; I will put that on the record.

QCCI policy is not to advocate a course—and I would doubt if the union officials who work with us here would know that—of reducing people’s wages.

We are not into that.

Senator MACKAY—Do you agree with the Prime Minister’s statement that no worker will be worse off in their take-home pay as a result of this bill?
Mr Muir—All I can say to that is that the Reith legislation is a reflection of the Prime Minister’s statement, therefore, we can assume that they go hand in hand.

Senator MACKAY—So do you agree or not?

Mr Muir—Do I agree or not?

I would not take it upon myself to agree with the Prime Minister; that is his prerogative.

All I am saying to you is that the legislation, as we see it, will not lead to that outcome.
Senator MACKAY—I put to you that your peak organisation said, ‘Yes, we agree.’ Do you agree with your peak organisation’s view of the Prime Minister’s commit- ment?

Senator CRANE—Madam Chair, this is not an inquisition.

The witness has answered the question with the information that he has.

Senator MACKAY—With respect, I do not think he has, Senator.

Mr Muir—I am not aware of what ACCI said or in what context.
If I am shown the transcript or given the ability to respond after examining what ACCI said, I would welcome the opportunity to make a comment, Senator.

Senator MACKAY—So the answer is maybe.

CHAIR—We will move on now.

Senator Chapman.

Senator MACKAY—Madam Chair, I have one final question.

It is very short.
It is very short.

As ECONOMICS E 1020 SENATE—References Wednesday, 17 July 1996 to whether the bill as a whole or in part is constitutional, you say on page 5: Our advice provided by the ACCI is that the Bill will survive a constitutional challenge.

Could you please table that advice to this Senate committee.

Mr Muir—That is verbal advice.

I am not certain whether that would be subject to privilege or not, Senator.

Senator MACKAY—Is it verbal advice from ACCI?

Mr Muir—Yes.
Mr Muir—Yes.

Senator MACKAY—Could you ask ACCI to provide us with that information in writing?

Mr Muir—I would have to have advice on that, as to whether I am obliged to do so or not.

Senator MACKAY—You have mentioned it in your submission.

Perhaps you could look into that.

Mr Muir—All right.

I will do that.


Senator CHAPMAN—A lot of the evidence that we have heard from various trade union representatives during this inquiry objects to this legislation on the basis that there is an inequality of bargaining power between employees and employers, with the bargaining power being heavily weighted in favour of employers.
Therefore, they argue that limiting the determination of awards to 18 matters and removing the privileged positions that unions currently enjoy under the existing legislation will lead to exploitation of employees because of that inequality of bargaining power.
From the evidence you have presented to the committee, there certainly seems to be an inequality of bargaining power, but it is on the other foot, from the examples you gave earlier, particularly in response to Senator Murray and some of the earlier questions.

Could you enlarge further on this issue of bargaining power and how you see it, and how this legislation will impact on that.
Mr Muir—We see that, in particular, the Brereton legislation is unbalanced and certainly favouring the trade union movement.

The removal of the secondary boycott provisions is key evidence of that.

In the past, when the legislation was there, we actually never had to take an action against anybody who did something, but the fact that the legislation was there was sufficient weight in itself to remove disputation, black bans in particular.
ECONOMICS Wednesday, 17 July 1996 SENATE—References E 1021 Senator CHAPMAN—As a deterrent effect?

Mr Muir—It was a deterrent and, I might add, a brilliant deterrent effect too.

The inequality comes about because of the lack of protection—we do not believe it is perceived; we believe it is real—in the current laws.

Because industrial relations is driven by many factors, the power that one holds over the other side—whether that be employer or union or employee—will always play a large part in that.
The Reith legislation pulls that back.

I can say that, in our experience, employers do not feel that they are equal in this situation under the laws that currently exist.

In Queensland, the Goss government replicated nearly all of the initiatives of the Brereton legislation.

It does not happen everywhere because there are some very good relationships and some very good enterprise agreements.
In fact, I would have to say that, in the agreements that have been registered which the QCCI has been involved in—and there have been many hundreds—I can only recall one instance where somebody walked away from it and broke what we believed was the trust that was implicit in them.

There is this perception that it is not fair.

That is why we say that business wants and expects this legislation to go through to even it up, but not in every case.
If one examined it, it might be fair to say that the employer holds the upper hand, but there is a perception across the business community that they got the short end of the stick and they want it redressed.
Senator CHAPMAN—You also indicated that, in your belief and from your experience, by and large, the majority of employers—perhaps we might say the main- stream employers—would not use this legislation to exploit employees or to treat them unfairly or unreasonably but that there may be a small minority of unscrupulous employers who would do that.
If legislation is framed in a very prescriptive manner to take account of the minority of unscrupulous employers, does that have a detrimental effect on the capacity of the mainstream to reach employment arrangements at the enterprise level that are beneficial not only to them but to the overall circumstances of the Australian econ- omy?

Mr Muir—I think so.
Mr Muir—I think so.

If we finetune everything to cater for the minority who will always do the wrong thing, the majority are put off because the laws are not flexible enough for them.

There is an element of trust here.

There is significant protection built into the Reith legislation and—I would be certain—into the Queensland laws that will give people who feel they have been the subject of discrimination or prejudice an opportunity to be heard.
Queensland has the anti-discrimination laws which, at the time of their implementation, were probably the most powerful in Australia; I am not sure where they sit now.

But there is protection which sits outside the industrial system for people who feel that they have received a bad deal.

But we do not think that the laws need to be so prescriptive as to cater for the minority.
ECONOMICS E 1022 SENATE—References Wednesday, 17 July 1996 Senator MURPHY—Mr Muir, I am just curious about your view on the intimidatory capacity of unions.

What part of the new legislation or the proposed legisla- tion do you see as fixing that up, ‘as evening it up’, in your words?

Mr Muir—Certainly, Australian workplace agreements will give people the ability to enter into agreements.
Anybody who wanted to undertake an EFA knew full well of Martin Ferguson’s direction to unions that EFAs were anathema and were to be targeted and, wherever possible, destroyed.

I am not necessarily quoting Martin word for word, but there was a public statement to that effect.

Also, the reintroduction of the secondary boycott laws will give people protection.

They might not necessarily utilise them but, believe me, Senator, they are a very powerful tool for getting the heat pulled off you.
Senator MURPHY—I can assure you, Mr Muir, I am well aware of secondary boycott legislation.

Secondary boycott legislation—I think this was raised earlier—has a far greater application than just to workers.

I would suggest to you that it turns the tables in exactly the opposite direction.

Mr Muir—I guess we think in a model of not necessarily workers but union officials that have gone over the top, Senator.
In many cases, the workers at the particular enterprise may not have had any involvement in it at all.

That has been my experience.

Senator MURPHY—But what if workers do choose to be involved in protest action?

What protection should they have?

In the case of workers who are in the midst of a struggle, who think they are quite often in very difficult circumstances, what level of protection do you think they should have?

Mr Muir—They will have the ability, I believe, to address the commission.
They will have protected action once the agreement has expired— Senator MURPHY—You say they can address the commission.

Say a worker currently works on a paid rates award and gets supplementary payment or an overaward payment.

It is my understanding that, under new legislation, after 18 months, if the parties cannot reach agreement, say, for the inclusion of an overaward payment or other pay- ments—be they supplementary or otherwise—to be included in the award, the commission cannot arbitrate.
What is your view about those circumstances?

Mr Muir—From the workers’ point of view, I guess they would see that as unfair.

I thought that there had been— Senator MURPHY—What is your view of that?

Mr Muir—What is my view of it?

A lot has been said about paid rates awards.

From a personal point of view, I do not necessarily advocate their abandonment, to be quite frank.

I am not entirely certain as to why this particular issue is being pushed.
But I ECONOMICS Wednesday, 17 July 1996 SENATE—References E 1023 thought that Minister Reith had addressed that, and there was a moving away from what might have been initially a more absolute position.

In a Queensland context, particularly with most of the awards—I suppose from a purely selfish point of view—it probably does not pose too great an issue for us, because most of the awards are minimum rate awards.

So paid rates does not loom that large in our environment.
Senator MURPHY—Yes, I understand that.

So you do not really agree with what is proposed in respect of paid rates awards?

Mr Muir—Perhaps I do not understand it well enough, but I thought that the initial position of the government had been stepped back from and it was not as dramatic as— Senator MURPHY—It is certainly not information they have bestowed upon any of us, certainly not me.

It is certainly not in the proposed legislation.


Mr Muir—I am only referring to a press release or some media comment that I saw.

Looking at this from an employee’s point of view, I can understand it.

But, once again, I think it is a bit like the notion that is promoted that ‘Every employer out there is a crook’.

Perhaps it is not as big an issue as some people are making it out to be.

Senator MURPHY—With respect, Mr Muir, I think it is a big issue.
I am not sure how many paid rates awards there are in Queensland, but there are a huge number.

This bill is not going to have application just in Queensland, if it ever gets up.

Mr Muir—I appreciate that.

Senator MURPHY—So we are dealing with it in a national sense.

Mr Muir—Yes, I understand that.

Senator MURPHY—It is important to get the views of employer organisations on all of the issues in the bill.
In particular, I would be interested in QCCI’s view with regard to paid rates awards and whether or not you believe paid rates awards have a place and should continue.

I would also be interested in how you would see that problem of agreement not being reached with some employers after 18 months for paid rates awards, supplementary payments and/or overaward payments or payments of some other kind being incorporated into a workplace agreement.

Mr Muir—I will just make a point about overaward payments.
Our policy is that we do not advocate that there should be or that there should not be overaward payments.

ECONOMICS E 1024 SENATE—References Wednesday, 17 July 1996 Senator MURPHY—I am not asking you whether you advocate them.

Let’s just deal with supplementary payments that are incorporated in an award as it stands.
Under this new legislation, what happens if, at the expiration of 18 months—which is referred to in the proposed bill—there is no agreement to incorporate into a workplace agreement the supplementary payments as part of a minimum rates award?

Mr Muir—Is it possible to give you a response to that in writing?

Senator MURPHY—Do you believe that all current award provisions in paid rates awards should be incorporated into new minimum rates awards at the end of the day?
Mr Muir—As I see the structure that currently exists, that is the rate that is going, that is the award rate.

Senator MURPHY—No— Senator CRANE—The witness has asked whether or not he could give a written response to that aspect of the bill because he is not totally familiar with it.

That is a normal procedure of this committee.

I think we should indicate to the witness that he is entitled to give that answer in a written response.
CHAIR—Certainly the witness is welcome to provide the committee with a written response.

Senator Murphy, are you still on the same issues?

I had an impression that you had actually moved on from the matters that you were discussing in relation to a response in writing.
Senator MURPHY—I am happy for the witness to provide a written response to this committee with regard to the overall question, but my question was initially about a range of payments that may well have included overaward payments which may not be incorporated in a current paid rates award.
What I am now asking the witness, in so far as all payments that may be included in the paid rates award, is whether his view is that all of those payments ought to be included in any new minimum rates award that is made to replace the paid rates award.

Mr Muir—From that point of view, that would have to be a policy decision, and I will have to get some authority for that.

If you can leave it on the undertaking that I will respond in writing, I am quite happy to do so.
Senator MURPHY—Mr Muir, the reason I asked you that is that you say: Enterprise Bargaining must be underpinned by legislated minimum standards such as— and you list there a range of things— ECONOMICS Wednesday, 17 July 1996 SENATE—References E 1025 Minimum hourly rate(s) initially drawn from the parent award .

.

.

I am curious about the word ‘initially’.

Mr Muir—What we say is that enterprise agreements are an evolving document.
It is fact that businesses which have their first agreement move into their second agreements.

We are negotiating agreements now which are the third, perhaps the fourth, for the enterprise.

So when we say ‘initially’ we say that the award is that base for the start, and everything from that point forward is built upon what goes before.

Does that answer your question?

Senator MURPHY—No, it does not, but I look forward to your written answer with regard to that question.
I would just like to refer you back to a question from Senator Mackay with regard to the Prime Minister’s statement of no worker being worse off under this legislation.

I would like you to take account of that when you do provide your written response.

Mr Muir—Yes.

Senator MURPHY—Madam Chair, can I just ask one further question with regard to QCCI’s view on the setting of hours of work for part-time employees.

Do you believe that there ought to be set minimum hours of work?
Mr Muir—For part-time workers?

Senator MURPHY—Yes.

Mr Muir—Yes, I do.

Senator MURPHY—Thank you.
ECONOMICS E 1026 SENATE—References Wednesday, 17 July 1996 [12.11 p.m.] FLINN, Mr Michael James, Victorian Branch Secretary, Independent Education Union of Australia, PO Box 1320, South Melbourne, Victoria 3205 JAMES, Ms Debra, Assistant Federal Secretary, Independent Education Union of Australia, 120 Clarendon Street, South Melbourne, Victoria 3205 ROLLEY, Ms Lynne Margaret, Federal Secretary, Independent Education Union of Australia, 120 Clarendon Street, South Melbourne, Victoria 3205 SPRIGGS, Mr John Wesley, Senior Industrial Officer, Queensland Branch, Inde- pendent Education Union of Australia, 120 Clarendon Street, South Melbourne, Victoria 3205 ACTING CHAIR—We have your submission before us.
I now invite you to speak to that submission.

Ms Rolley—The Independent Education Union of Australia is a registered organisation representing over 40,000 members employed in non-government schools in Australia.

The Senate has received a submission by the IEUA.


The IEUA is of the view that the provisions of the bill, if enacted in law, will introduce a system of industrial relations that further entrenches the inequality of the bargaining process and effectively removes the role of the Australian Industrial Relations Commission as the independent umpire in a whole range of areas where the commission currently exercises an important role in the resolution of disputes.
With me, Mr Flinn, the secretary of our Victorian branch, will highlight the major concerns of the IEUA in regard to the bill and the way it would operate in Victoria, where we operate in the federal jurisdiction.

As well, Debra James, who is the assistant federal secretary, will read a short statement prepared by Mrs Hanan Khreish, a member of the union employed at the Noble Park Islamic School.
Mr Flinn—The main concerns of the union are outlined in paragraph 27 of the submission that has been prepared for senators.

I would go simply to those because the rest of the submission teases out practical examples of the experiences of the union, which we say lend support to those fundamental contentions.
We believe that the schema of the bill is contrary to the public interest, will facilitate discrimination against women and will result in a reduction over time of workers’ entitlements and enable the exploitation of employees in non-government schools.
The restriction of awards to basic minima—that is, allowable award matters—will, ECONOMICS Wednesday, 17 July 1996 SENATE—References E 1027 in our submission, result in significant dislocation in the education industry, will increase those matters that will be the subject of annual bargaining and will in many instances see the abolition of current entitlements.
The limitations of the jurisdiction of the Australian Industrial Relations Commis- sion to arbitrate only in regard to the 18 allowable award matters will remove the important role that the commission has played in recent years in resolving numbers of industrial disputes.

The failure of the bill to ensure that awards are maintained as relevant will over time make the award irrelevant and render useless the proposed ‘no disadvantage’ test.
The introduction of contracts will result in exploitation of employees in the non- government education sector, a reduction in their entitlements, and will seriously under- mine the collegiate, collective nature of schools necessary for the equitable provision of quality education.

The failure of the bill to ensure that agreements are tested by the commission prior to operation will facilitate the exploitation of workers, a reduction in entitlements and render the ‘no disadvantage’ test useless.
The new streams of certified agreements is a re- creation, in our submissions, of enterprise flexibility agreements.

In our submission, these provisions, without the rights of eligible unions to be heard upon an application being filed with the commission, are contrary to the public interest.

The removal of the ‘conveniently belong’ provisions from the act will result in unwanted competition between unions.

This competition will hinder productive activity in the workplace.
The provisions of the bill which require workers to specifically and individually nominate their bargaining agent, which restricts union right of entry, will result in a climate of fear and intimidation hitherto unknown in Australia’s non- government schools.

The proposed bill will in our submission ensure that agreements entered into under state law will prevail over federal awards.
The effect of this is to render inoperative even the minimum protections afforded by the ‘no disadvantage’ test proposed in the bill.

They are, in summary, the broad contentions that we make in regard to the bill, and the submission that is before you then goes on to give some practical examples of how we say that the act has operated currently so as to ensure that those concerns do not exist in the present circumstances.
In particular, there is an example that Ms Deborah James, the assistant federal secretary, will go to now of a worker in a Victorian Islamic school.

That worker is not here today despite the fact that she wishes to be here.

She has operated—and so have the workers in that workplace—in a climate of extreme fear.

She is not here today because she even fears to approach her employer for leave to appear before the Senate inquiry.

The assistant secretary is going to read a statement from her.
ECONOMICS E 1028 SENATE—References Wednesday, 17 July 1996 Ms James—This is a statement from Mrs Hanan Khreish, who is a member of the Victorian branch of the Independent Education Union and she states: I am a teacher at an Islamic school in Melbourne.

I have taught at this school since 1993, and regard myself as committed and loyal.

Although I am a Christian, not a Muslim, I have always respected the Islamic ethos of the school, such as wearing a headcover, respecting prayer and Islamic beliefs.
Before I migrated to Australia, I lived in an Arabic Islamic society, and Islamic values are part of my cultural heritage.

In 1994, my employer wanted us, the staff, to enter into an Enterprise Flexibility Agreement, and he drafted what this agreement would look like.

It had clauses in it that meant we could be dismissed on the spot, without any appeal or proper process.

Our salaries were written in this agreement, and they were all below what the Award contained.
As well as this, the agreement stated that he would decide when we got a pay increase.

We asked to vote for a certified agreement, rather than an EFA, and when the vote was taken, we all voted for a certified agreement, but he got angry and told us to put in writing why we wanted a certified agreement.

We did this, but he lied and said that we had voted for an EFA.

We were all very concerned about this, and we tried to find out what we could do.
About this time, I joined the union as a silent member because I was afraid of what he would say or do if he found out.

A couple of others also joined, but everyone was afraid of what his reaction would be, because he had said on many occasions that we don’t need the union, we are all one family, and we can look after each other.

He made it clear that he doesn’t allow the union to visit this college.
The union officer came out and visited our school, and for the first time, we understood what we were really entitled to, and what he could or couldn’t do to us.

The union investigated our conditions, and we found out that many of us were underpaid.

After a long time, we were paid what was owed to us.
The only way the matter could be handled was by the union coming to our school, and looking at every person’s records, because we were all silent members, and if the union had just brought up one person’s case, that person would have been exposed to our employer’s anger and intimidation.

One of the reasons I am writing to you is to try to make you understand that if the laws change, and unions can only visit a school with a written invitation, then everyone here would be too frightened to do so.
I will tell you why this is true.

I stood up to our employer and told him I was in the union, and since then he has tried to intimidate me, and he has alleged that I am "not committed to the College".

He has made it very clear that being in the union is being disloyal to him.

I believe I am a strong person, but his attitude has worn me down over time, and my health has suffered.
The only protection, apart from the support of my family, has come from the union, because he has slandered my reputation without evidence, and without allowing me my say.

If the laws change to allow employers to have their own agreements, you can not say that it will be a fair process.

We have so much less power than he does, and would be at the mercy of whatever he decided to do.
The only times he has changed his threats to other people here at the college, is when he has been made to go to the Commission.

Our only protection has been the Award, and if that is changed, our conditions will be what he wanted us to do in 1994.

I know that people say that you can negotiate with an employer, but this has never happened here.

People are too frightened of what the consequences might be to them if they stood up and said No.

I have stood up, but it is a very difficult thing to do.
ECONOMICS Wednesday, 17 July 1996 SENATE—References E 1029 I urge you to-day to listen to my story—it would take pages to describe the reality of my working life, the fight for resources, the long hours, the lack of any fair process for staff to be listened to as professionals.

I stay because I am committed to the children and to my job, and I will continue to stand up.
If you take away my right to have the union there any time someone needs them, without my employer knowing who called them, we have lost the people who can stand up to him without fear of losing their jobs.

Yours sincerely Mrs. Hanan Khreish We have copies of that letter if the senators would like them.

ACTING CHAIR—You would like to have this letter tabled?

Ms Rolley—Yes, I am happy to do that.

ACTING CHAIR—We can table that.

I want to ask a couple of questions about your submission.
I notice that at the very first part of the introduction you said that you wished to place on record your endorsement of the submission made by the ACTU.

When did you read the ACTU submission?

Ms Rolley—We received the actual submission on the first days of the hearing, but we have a number of officers who have been part of a working party that was contributing to the preparation of that submission at the ACTU.

ACTING CHAIR—We received your submission on 28 June.
At that stage you had already said that you had endorsed the ACTU’s submission, although we as a committee had certainly not received it.

Had you read all of the ACTU’s submission at that stage?

Ms Rolley—No.

At that time, we had not read it all but we had certainly contri- buted to a range of the debate and the input with officers of the ACTU.

ACTING CHAIR—So you were quite happy to endorse something that you had not read completely?
Ms Rolley—We were happy to endorse the major principles that had been advocated by the ACTU at the time.

I am a member of the executive of the ACTU, and I certainly had been part of those deliberations.

ACTING CHAIR—I just wondered whether it had anything to do with the circular that obviously was sent to you as a union by Tim Pallas, the Assistant Secretary to the ACTU.
The circular sent on 7 June said that union submissions should be short, ECONOMICS E 1030 SENATE—References Wednesday, 17 July 1996 address issues of major concern to members and endorse the ACTU’s submission.

Ms Rolley—The union has no problem at all in endorsing the key principles of the ACTU’s submission.

I was certainly party to discussions around that as were members of the industrial committee from our union who are members of the ACTU legislative committee.

There was no problem in doing that.


In actually putting together a short submission, there was an understanding on our part that there would be lengthy submissions made by a very large range of people.

We wanted to go to the particularities of industrial relations within the non-government education sector rather than address all of the broad matters that the ACTU would.

ACTING CHAIR—I noticed that you represent approximately 42,500 members in states and territories?

Ms Rolley—That is correct.


ACTING CHAIR—Have those members been sent a copy of your submission?

Ms Rolley—No, they have not.

ACTING CHAIR—So you do not know whether you are actually putting the view of all the members of your union or not?

Ms Rolley—We are putting the viewpoint of the national union and its branches about the key issues that go to matters concerned with this bill.

But the actual publishing of this submission for all the 42,500 members across the nation has not occurred yet.
ACTING CHAIR—What sort of consultation took place with the actual members of your union?

Ms Rolley—There was no actual consultation with members in schools.

There was consultation with the federal executive of the union and the secretaries of the branches of the union about the particular issues we wished to place in our submission before the Senate committee.

ACTING CHAIR—What about consultation with the teachers?

You gave us the example of someone in a Muslim school.
There are seven Muslim schools out of about 2,500 independent schools in Australia.

I am just wondering what other teachers you have spoken to.

Mr Flinn—It is an example of what has happened in that particular school.

ACTING CHAIR—Under existing legislation?

ECONOMICS Wednesday, 17 July 1996 SENATE—References E 1031 Senator CHAPMAN—It has nothing to do with this legislation at all.

Mr Flinn—What it shows is exactly why your legislation would be very poor legislation.
What it shows is that, if we enact the provisions contained within the bill, people like this particular woman will be in a position where they have no capacity whatsoever to stand up, to be counted and to ensure that fair and proper processes are put in place.

What we know is that any agreement drawn up by the employer will not be the subject of scrutiny by the commission.

What we know is that this employer has a history of attempting to reduce the entitlements of staff.
What we know is that the employer intimidates individual staff members because of their involvement in the union.

Those will be the direct consequences of the types of provisions that you want to enact through this bill.

ACTING CHAIR—Is it fair to say that you have made representations on behalf of your union and you have made the decisions on their behalf without consultation with them?
Mr Flinn—What is true to say is that we are elected by our members to represent them and we do the very best we can to put the views that we believe represent the particular positions that they have.

I can be sure that I represent every one of their views as any senator can believe that they represent every individual person in the state that they come from.
Ms Rolley—I should say as well, Senator, that in a number of states and in particular Queensland—the union industrial officer has just reminded me—the document before you has been before the council of that branch.

That council is made up of practising teachers from schools in the non-government sector in Queensland and that was unanimously endorsed by that council.
So, as far as the issue of those councillors being elected by the members of the union in Queensland is concerned, it has been endorsed and that is what is I guess a normal way of ensuring that ordinary members in the community, whether it be voters or it be teachers in schools, actually exercise their opinion via their elected representatives.

Senator CHILDS—Is there a relationship between the salaries of state school teachers and non-government school teachers?

Mr Flinn—There is.
Mr Flinn—There is.

There is an historical nexus which has operated in all of the states and territories in regard to those wages.

In the period of 1989 through to 1992 the Australian Industrial Relations Commission established a national benchmark rate for teachers and that benchmark was implemented across sectors.
However, since the introduction of enterprise bargaining at the workplace level, the maintenance of those benchmark rates and the ensuring that the rates of pay for teachers in non-government schools are maintained at the same rate as teachers in government schools have in some states—and in my own state in particular, Victoria—been particularly difficult to imple- ECONOMICS E 1032 ment.
SENATE—References Wednesday, 17 July 1996 Senator CHILDS—Would you see the passage of this legislation making that relationship even more difficult to maintain?

Mr Flinn—It seems to me that, if the role of the commission is removed in terms of its capacity to scrutinise Australian workplace agreements and if it is restricted to the 18 bare minima, then there would appear little opportunity to ensure that the maintenance of the consistency of rates is achieved.
The consistency of rates across the sectors, in our view, is a public interest issue.

It goes to the ability of the nation to be able to ensure equitable quality education, whether it is provided in government or non-government schools.

Senator CHILDS—Education is a significant opportunity for women to have a career.

What would be the effect of what you have just described as far as women’s ability to negotiate for wage increases?
Mr Flinn—We represent not only teachers and principals in schools but also people employed to assist in the delivery of education, predominantly teacher aides and school secretaries.

The vast majority of people such as library aides, library technicians and laboratory technicians will be women.

What we believe will happen is that, as the bargaining process is decentralised onto a one-by-one basis, there will be significant discrimination against women.
We would rely in part upon the example of the teachers at the Islamic College to show how that would actually be teased out in practice.

Senator CHILDS—I am concerned that the one Islamic example you have given might bias people listening to the evidence.

Would it be true that there is a danger that any religious or ethnic school could have a bias or could be keen to reduce rates of pay under this legislation?
Mr Flinn—There is a fine balance that has to be played out, particularly in this sector, between the rights of religious organisations to conduct schools consistent with the tenets of faith and the rights of workers to be able to ensure that they are treated fairly and equitably.

The vast majority of our members are employed in Catholic schools.
I would not want anyone to think that Catholic school employers were any more virtuous than employers generally, but I think that it is fair to say that those possibilities exist across sectors and that what we have to do is to ensure that there are fair processes to check that equitable outcomes are achieved.
That is not to say that discrimination occurs because these schools are run by particular religious groups and it is not to say that discrimination occurs because there is a high level of employment of women in the industry, but more to say that in such industries it is important in the public interest that there be proper processes to test and to check that equity is maintained.
Senator CHAPMAN—I just wanted to briefly question you about this case that ECONOMICS Wednesday, 17 July 1996 SENATE—References E 1033 you have brought to our attention.

You talk about the employer wanting the staff member to enter into an EFA and you say that he drafted what this agreement would look like.

I would have thought that the school was the employer rather than an individual.

Is this not a typical school?

Mr Flinn—Not at all.


At law one would assume that an incorporated body is the employer; but, for all practical purposes, in non-government schools the employer is the principal—where they are independent schools as distinct from Catholic schools.

Under the current legislation the bill actually says that, in regard to enterprise flexibility agreements, ‘the employer shall draw up’, and it goes on to talk about the agreement.

So, this is not my statement, it is the statement of the person concerned.
But, for all practical purposes, the principal acts in the place of the employer.
Senator CHAPMAN—But, in an issue like this where a school was adopting a policy of, for example, moving to enterprise agreements rather than the award, wouldn’t it be normal practice for the school council or whatever body that oversees the school operation to have input and to make the final decision—leave the headmaster or the principal to maybe implement it, but the actual decision of that significance, I would have thought, be made by a school council?
Mr Flinn—In the vast majority of cases I think that is the case.

But that will depend on the particular school.

There are some schools where the principal is the law and there are other schools where school boards take a much more interventionist attitude and would indeed reserve to themselves the right to make that decision.

Senator MURRAY—Time constrains me to just one question.
Generally speaking, highly unionised workplaces have an opportunity to negotiate very aggressively with their employers, and you are a highly unionised workplace.

However in the services sector teachers, nurses and the police in particular have, generally speaking, not exercised the right to strike because of the nature and the ethos of their industry.
Do you believe that the services sector, such as teachers, nurses and policemen, should be subject to greater protection in the legislation than those industries which can exercise the right to strike freely?

Mr Flinn—In short: no, we do not believe that.

What we believe is that the current provisions of the legislation provide the commission with the capacity to make decisions appropriate on a case-by-case basis as to the protection that should be afforded and the types of awards that should be struck.
We say that it would not be good for that capacity to be constrained by a legislative process; rather it should remain with the commission to make those decisions, because there may be circumstances in which those needs extend beyond the three areas that you have just referred to.
Senator MACKAY—We have had evidence now from approximately nine employer organisations and only three of those employer organisations have totally agreed ECONOMICS E 1034 SENATE—References Wednesday, 17 July 1996 with the peak organisation which is ACCI.

I note that even the Queensland Chamber of Commerce and Industry this morning had some disagreement with ACCI.
I also note that we have not had any submissions from any of your branches contrary to your submission, nor have we had any branch of the ACTU putting forward submissions that contradict the ACTU’s submission.

So I would like to congratulate you and the ACTU for having superior consultative procedures in relation to this matter.

Senator CHAPMAN—You are following the script.

Senator MACKAY—Senator, I wish more people had put submissions in.
Because we have not had any submissions from non-government schools, as far as I am aware—the secretariat could correct me—in your experience in dealing with non-government schools what is the attitude of the employers towards this bill?

Are they supportive of the bill or are they concerned about certain aspects of it?

The reason I have to ask you is because we have not received submissions from any of them.

I would prefer to ask them, but they are not here.


Ms Rolley—The majority of employers in our sector are from the Catholic sector.

Catholic employers have expressed the view to our union branches that the current legislation, under which they operate, provides them with the kinds of flexibilities that they need in order to advance negotiations with the union in relation to salaries and wages.
In relation to questions from the union as to whether or not they would continue to deal with the union and recognise the union as a legitimate representative of employees in their schools, they have answered in the affirmative to that and are not seeking any kind of undermining of current legislation or to see the new legislation in place.
Mr Flinn—In regard to Victoria, it has been expressed to me by the employers there that they do not wish to enter into individual arrangements with employees, that they want a centralised system in regard to their schools.

Senator CHAPMAN—What do they fear in the legislation?

Mr Flinn—Senator, the provisions of your bill in Victoria will preclude Catholic school employers from operating their system in the way in which they wish to.
Specifi- cally, your bill says that it will not be possible to enter into agreements that go beyond one enterprise, and in the state of Victoria there are 507 employers in Catholic education.

It seems that we will be forced to replicate the model that Mr Gil Muir was so opposed to, which is certified agreements that are only different in name.
That seems to be administratively cumbersome and quite contrary to the productive conduct of enterprise bargaining and industrial relations in non-government schools.

Senator MACKAY—Thank you, Mr Flinn.

ACTING CHAIR—Thank you for attending the inquiry today.
ECONOMICS Wednesday, 17 July 1996 SENATE—References E 1035 [12.40 p.m.] BRITON, Mr John William, Commissioner, Queensland Anti-Discrimination Commission, PO Box 5363, West End, Queensland 4101 COULDREY, Ms Margo Ann, Senior Adviser, Policy and Community Liaison, Queensland Anti-Discrimination Commission, PO Box 5363, West End, Queensland 4101 ACTING CHAIR—Welcome.

Do you have any comments to make on the capacity in which you appear?
Mr Briton—I am the State Director of the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission and, by virtue of a cooperative agreement between the Commonwealth and state Attorneys-General, I am also Queensland Anti-Discrimination Commissioner.

ACTING CHAIR—I invite you to speak to your submission before we ask you questions.

Mr Briton—I do not think you have a submission from us.

ACTING CHAIR—I am sorry; we have a letter.


Mr Briton—What you do have is a lengthy, detailed submission from the Commonwealth Sex Discrimination Commissioner on behalf of the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission.

I have had the opportunity to read that in detail and I fully concur with those recommendations in particular.
Today I want to reiterate some key themes from that document, in particular to draw attention to issues in Queensland—in particular, the application to the Queensland anti-discrimination legislation.

The relevant sections of the Queensland Anti-discrimination Act, which was proclaimed in 1992, prohibit discrimination in work and the pre-work area.
Work is defined extremely broadly to include full-time, part-time, permanent, temporary and casual employment, work done on a contract or commission basis, voluntary work, unpaid work of other kinds, work training and work experience arrangements, and so on.
Within that definition of work, a person is prohibited from discriminating by treating a worker unfavourably in any way in connection with work, including by any variation in the terms of work, in denying or limiting access to opportunities for promotion, transfer, training or other benefits significantly, or in dismissing a worker.

All Queensland workers, with the exception of those directly employed by the Commonwealth, are covered by the provisions of the Queensland anti-discrimination legislation.
The comments I make begin with the fact that, whatever their other perceived strengths or weaknesses, the current industrial relations arrangements have delivered ECONOMICS E 1036 SENATE—References Wednesday, 17 July 1996 significant gains in redressing discrimination in employment, particularly discrimination based on sex but not only that form of discrimination.
My concern in a general proposition is that the human rights of all people, including those sorts of rights protected under anti-discrimination legislation, are best advanced and protected by ensuring their integration in the obligations and functions of all major institutions in our community.
The question in this case, given that the WR bill envisages arrangements which prevent and eliminate discrimination and in particular balance work and family responsibilities, is how effective the arrangements in that legislation would be in achieving those ends.
I ask that question in particular, given the very significantly reduced role of the Industrial Commission in the pro-active monitoring of discrimination in employment and the fact that the anti-discrimination concerns will be very significantly transferred from the specialist industrial relations jurisdiction to the generalist anti-discrimination jurisdiction, such as that that I administer in Queensland.
The particular areas I want to draw attention to are worrisome areas for us and on reading the bill I see that the anti-discrimination compliance, if you like, will transfer from the Industrial Relations Commission to the anti-discrimination commissions.

The first area is—and it is particularly important—that consideration of equal remuneration is replaced by consideration of equal pay.
We know that significantly greater progress has been made towards equitable outcomes in the paid rates area of employment than the over-award area or other areas where there are various discretionary components.

The reduction of equal remuneration to equal pay will remove the right of women in particular to challenge discrimination in the area in which the biggest pay inequalities occur.
For example—and there are detailed figures in HREOC’s submission to you— women earn only 35 per cent of the over-award payments made.

If you exclude manager- ial employees, adult women still earn only 50 per cent of the over-award payments that are paid.

The second issue that is of great concern to us is the effective exclusion of regulation of part-time and casual work.
This will have particularly serious ramifications for women, but other groups as well who make up the large part of the part-time work force are particularly vulnerable to discrimination.

Particularly in the case of women, it is precisely because it offers them better hope of managing work and family responsibilities.

The third issue that really worries us is the requirement that groups of people especially vulnerable to discrimination must be consulted in work arrangements.
This is now removed with the requirement that only a valid majority of the employees approve the agreement.

At our commission there have been significant problems of discrimination drawn to our attention out of the operation of majority clauses in circumstances where women or other vulnerable groups, including people from ethnic communities and others, ECONOMICS Wednesday, 17 July 1996 SENATE—References E 1037 make up a minority of the employees.
In particular, these forms of indirect discrimination tend to relate to spread of hours, overtime arrangements and arrangements with respect to annual leave.

So that is a concern.

We have a particular concern as well that the Employment Advocate excludes from the industrial relations arrangements a role that is there now in vetting and scrutinising Australian workplace agreements for discrimination.
The effect of that is that employees who believe that they have been discriminated against have to prove discrimination after the event, and that places disadvantaged groups in a much more vulnerable position than the current arrangements, which require that equity issues be included in the processes of bargaining rather than dealt with as a matter of proof after the event.

The other issues of concern are the exclusion of comparisons with men and women employed by other than the same employer.
Comparison to cross enterprises is particularly important where there is a sex segregated work force and, as you know, there are whole industries that are dominated by women.

Women, in particular, in those industries will have particular difficulties accessing provisions for equal pay for work of equal value.
The last issue that is of particular concern to us is the opportunity that the bill provides under regulation to exclude categories of employees from the unfair dismissal arrangements and which allow limited redress for unfair dismissal on the basis of the size and nature of the enterprise in which they were working.
Experience in our jurisdiction shows that a significant proportion of unfair dismissals based on discriminatory grounds come from the small business sector where you might expect those exclusions to apply.

In particular, the sorts of complaints we are getting from the small business sector are complaints on the basis of pregnancy, sexual harassment and direct sex discrimination.
The question for us, given the transfer of responsibilities from a specialist IR jurisdiction to a generalist anti-discrimination jurisdiction, is how effective those generalist anti-discrimination provisions are going to be in protecting workers from discrimination in employment.

There are a range of real concerns.

I draw your attention to section 170VR—this may be a drafting error in the bill—which is headed ‘Effect of AWA on other laws’.
As that is currently written, it would appear that AWAs override the state anti-discrimination legislation altogether.

Certainly, the anti-discrimination legislation does cover conditions of employment.

So while on the one hand it would look as if there is a significant transfer of jurisdiction from industrial relations jurisdiction to anti-discrimination jurisdiction, perhaps it is not a transfer at all because it might not exist, certainly under state law.
The second issue of concern to us is the confidential nature of Australian work- place agreements.

The particular difficulty is that workers who suspect they have been discriminated against might find it very difficult to even get past the legislative threshold requirements applying to anti-discrimination complaints.
As a discrimination commissioner ECONOMICS E 1038 SENATE—References Wednesday, 17 July 1996 in Queensland, I can only accept a complaint if it sets out reasonably sufficient details to indicate comparatively unfavourable treatment on the basis of sex, race or some other relevant attribute.
The confidentiality of the Australian workplace agreements would make that comparison very difficult for a complainant to establish, even at the level of getting a complaint accepted in an anti-discrimination jurisdiction.

Even if it is accepted and that threshold is satisfied, the comparison has to be investigated as the only way to determine whether or not discrimination or less favourable treatment has occurred.
To do that, the Australian workplace agreements of all or most employees in the enterprise would have to be available to the commission if a complaint is to be progressed.

There are currently no provisions in the bill which would ensure the anti-discrimination jurisdictions have access to those workplace agreements, which are protected by confidentiality provisions, and, even if the access was provided, there would be one heck of a workload problem, particularly in large enterprises.
The third point is that, even if those problems are overcome and the complaint can be progressed, there is the issue of the appropriateness of remedies.

Anti-discrimination jurisdictions provide redress for harm suffered to date by a complainant.
They may include lost wages and damages for humiliation and distress, but they do not provide the remedies currently available in the industrial relations jurisdiction and, in particular, the remedy to a systemic problem rather than just redress for a harm experienced by an individual complainant.

Anti-discrimination jurisdiction, certainly in employment areas, very rarely delivers pre-emptive solutions to systemic problems.
So an individual might get sorted out, but the problem will remain and many other people will continue to suffer that discrimina- tion unaddressed.

There is a further problem about remedies which is of great concern to us.

The bill precludes a person who has commenced proceedings in respect to termination of employ- ment under the bill from pursuing an alternative remedy, including a remedy in the anti- discrimination jurisdictions and vice versa.
In other words, a complainant will have to choose the jurisdiction and the effect of this will undermine their rights significantly from seeking effective and adequate redress.

The fact is that concurrent or sequenced access to both jurisdictions is necessary because of the different remedies that are provided.
There are some specific examples, for example, where a worker might seek immediate reinstate- ment through the industrial relations jurisdiction, but want to pursue a claim for damages, hurt or humiliation through the anti-discrimination jurisdiction.

That is a remedy that is generally not available in the industrial relations jurisdiction.
So it is particularly important in the cases of discriminatory terminations of employment, particularly those involving sexual harassment, that both those remedies are available to people.

Finally, let me just make this observation.


The transfer of rights protection work from the industrial relations jurisdiction to the anti-discrimination jurisdiction is effectively a transfer of responsibility from a jurisdiction that is very much at the heart of national priorities to one that is much more in the fringes.
One would have to say that it is not one ECONOMICS Wednesday, 17 July 1996 SENATE—References E 1039 regarded as a necessary of life but something of a luxury and an optional extra for good times.

To that effect, the Workplace Relations Bill will have the effect of marginalising concerns for discrimination in employment.

In support of that proposition, let me tell you that there is not one anti- discrimination jurisdiction in Australia that I know of that is adequately resourced to do its job.
Large numbers of complainants with legitimate concerns are sitting on long backlogs and face lengthening delays to have their grievance heard.

Certainly that is the case in this state.

It always has been and currently is and is getting worse.

The question facing government in this state over coming months is whether it is going to find the funds to persevere with anti-discrimination law and practice in some appropriate form, or whether it will in fact persevere with it at all.
My submission therefore would be that, for a range of these reasons, the Workplace Relations Bill—whatever its other merits or demerits might be—will not be effective in respecting anti-discrimination principles.

Senator MACKAY—Before somebody at the other end of the table does this, I would like to draw you to the objects of this act.
One of the objects of the act is stated in 3(j) as follows: (j) respecting and valuing the diversity of the work force by helping to prevent and eliminate discrimination on the basis of race, colour, sex, sexual preference, age, physical or mental disability.

.

.

Based on that, from what you are saying that is an object that is not actually backed up in any way.
What you are saying is that that object really is not worth very much in terms of the actual outcome of the object, if you read it in conjunction with the rest of the act.

Mr Briton—I think the object is very worth while, but the issue is one of whether the framework will deliver those outcomes.

My concerns are, for the reasons I have outlined, that it is most unlikely, and in fact I cannot see it, delivering those outcomes at all.
Senator MACKAY—My second question is, in relation to the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission, you would be aware of the Brandy case.

Mr Briton—Yes.

Senator MACKAY—This means essentially that HREOC cannot give a determina- tive decision in relation to changing the instrument for a person who puts a claim in for discrimination on the basis of equal remuneration.

If that is the case and there is no determinative capacity, where would somebody go in order to get the instrument changed?
Mr Briton—At this point in time in Queensland, because the Queensland anti- discrimination legislation is actually broader in its grounds than the federal legislations ECONOMICS E 1040 SENATE—References Wednesday, 17 July 1996 combined, most people wherever possible will bring their complaint under Queensland legislation, which does not suffer from that Brandy problem.

The only people who are essentially going to be excluded from that are people who are direct employees of the Commonwealth.
So that anti-discrimination matters in Queensland are by and large brought under the Queensland act and if they cannot be conciliated are determined by the Queensland tribunal.

It does not face that constitutional problem.

So people would come to the Queensland anti-discrimination commission and have their complaints dealt with that way.

Senator MACKAY—Would the state act have the impact of, for example, affecting an AWA that is discriminatory or disadvantages women in relation to equal remuneration?
Mr Briton—The problem is section 170VR.

That is just a puzzle.

I said it looked like it might be a drafting error.

Perhaps it is not, I do not know.

But, given the stated purposes of the act and given what I understand the minister’s stated views are, there are and will be adequate remedies available under anti-discrimination legislation.

For those matters now transferred out of the industrial relations jurisdiction, at it were, I would assume that was a drafting error.
Senator MACKAY—No, it is not a drafting error.

AWAs have primacy.

Mr Briton—If that is the case, then the anti-discrimination legislation in Queens- land provides— Senator Chapman interjecting— Senator MACKAY—I am sorry; could you finish the answer to my question, please?

Mr Briton—If it is not a drafting error and it— Senator Chapman interjecting— Senator MACKAY—Just keep going, please.

I would like to hear the answer.

CHAIR—Order, please.

We will finish the question and then move on.


Mr Briton—My reading of it would be, and it may well need to be clarified, that the AWA would prevail over the Queensland anti-discrimination legislation.
Senator MACKAY—That may be a matter of debate in a minute from the other side of the table but, just taking that to its logical conclusion, if primacy were and is awarded to AWAs under this legislation, where would somebody go in order to get ECONOMICS Wednesday, 17 July 1996 SENATE—References E 1041 redress?
Mr Briton—Someone would have to use the federal legislation—the sex, race and disability discrimination legislation, which suffers from a number of problems, including one you have alluded to, which is that you cannot at this point in time easily, and in a cheap and effective way at any rate, get a determinative outcome if conciliation fails.

It also created particular problems for discrimination based on reasons other than sex, race or disability.
Senator MACKAY—So effectively there are very limited areas where somebody could go if they thought they were suffering from a lack of equal remuneration?

Mr Briton—Yes.

Senator MACKAY—The final thing is that, in terms of the secrecy of AWAs, in your view would somebody actually be able to find out at the beginning whether they were suffering from discrimination with regard to equal remuneration, given that AWAs are in fact secret between the parties?
Mr Briton—That is the real problem, and that is why I say that even the threshold requirements under our legislation might make it very difficult for someone to bring a complaint in any event.

There has to be reasonably sufficient grounds to indicate that discrimination has occurred.

Generally, when we administer that section of the act, what we say is mere suspicion, mere allegation, is not enough.

Just a belief that I have been discriminated against is not enough.
There has to be at least something which, if substanti- ated, would prove discrimination.

If a person is saying that their remuneration, for example, is less than that of a fellow worker doing similar work and they believe that is because of their sex, race, disability or some other factor of that sort, they will have a hard time getting their complaint up unless they have got access to those other agree- ments.
Senator MACKAY—And this legislation specifically prohibits that—unless the employee can actually give a fellow employee a copy of it, but I think that would be fairly unlikely in the circumstances that I described.

Mr Briton—That is a real possibility and a major problem.
For the anti- discrimination jurisdiction to provide the remedies that ought to be available if they are transferred out of the IR jurisdiction, very clearly there would need to be provisions in the workplace relations act that would make those AWAs available for certain specific purposes, at any rate, of investigation of discrimination complaints.

Senator MACKAY—Which there are.

Thank you.


Senator CRANE—The first matter I want to deal with very quickly relates to the ECONOMICS E 1042 SENATE—References Wednesday, 17 July 1996 answer you gave to Senator Mackay with regard to the objects.

She is certainly correct when she said she beat me to quoting them to you.

Those objects apply to every clause in the bill, so I find it hard to agree with you when you say that they preclude or do not apply to particular clauses.
Where in the bill does it exclude that from applying to particular clauses in the legislation?

Mr Briton—I gave a list of examples of matters that I think specifically are removed out of the industrial relations jurisdiction and its current obligations to take anti- discrimination principles in the international conventions into account.

For example, the first one I mentioned was that the word that is being used currently of equal ‘remuneration’ is to be replaced with equal ‘pay’.
One assumes that is deliberate and, between what is pay, which is wages, and what is remuneration, which would include a lot of other benefits, there is significant room and scope for potential discrimination.

But as I read the legislation, there would not be scope for the bodies set up under the Workplace Relations Bill to take those into account because they are limited to looking at matters of equal pay.
So equal pay discrimination could be dealt with through the frameworks available in the bill, but the gap between pay and remuneration and allegations or perceptions that there is discriminatory treatment there would have to be dealt with elsewhere.

Senator CRANE—That is correct.

The other one I want to raise with you is where you say that 170VR would effectively exclude it from state anti-discrimination legislation.
Are you telling us there that the Queensland anti-discrimination legislation is that narrow that it applies only to conditions of employment?

Mr Briton—No, it extends well beyond conditions of employment.

As I read 170VR(1), it says: Subject to this section, an AWA prevails over conditions of employment specified in a State law .

.

.

Senator CRANE—Employment.

Mr Briton—Of employment.


What I said about the Queensland anti-discrimination act is that it says lots of things about the conditions of employment.

It says, for example, that it is prohibited to treat a worker unfavourably in any way, including by any variation in the terms of works and denying or limiting access to opportunities for promotion, transfer, training, in dismissing a worker, in relation to any benefits of employment which would be benefits over and above pay.
It includes, as I said, full-time, part-time, casual, temporary employment and so on.

So, certainly on the most obvious construal of this 170VR, an AWA would prevail over those provisions of the ADA, the Queensland anti- discrimination legislation, that would prescribe unlawful conduct in relation to discrimina- tion in employment.

And there are exceptions, may I say, in section 2.

ECONOMICS Wednesday, 17 July 1996 SENATE—References E 1043 Senator CRANE—It is not obvious to me.
Certainly, that is something that we will check out but I do not believe you are correct.

Mr Briton—As I said, I did not assert that; I said it would seem to be a drafting error or a lack of clarity.

But, certainly, the advice that I have from our legal people who have looked at that is that that is the most plausible construal of it in its current form.
Senator CRANE—You said that you had a concern that, in the regulations under the unfair dismissal provisions, certain classes of employees could be excluded.

Mr Briton—Yes.

Senator CRANE—I put it to you that it could not happen because that would become ultra vires to the act.

Mr Briton—I would have to find the particular section.

Senator CRANE—Regulations must comply with what is in the act; they cannot be ultra vires or opposite to it.
Mr Briton—There were two things I was referring to there, and I would have to check the particular section.

There are various sections that talk about certain categories of employees not being subject to that, and there are certain types of casual employment arrangements, for example.
But the other issue I was drawing attention to was that, if someone brings a complaint of discriminatory dismissal, one of the things that must be taken into account in determining a remedy is the size and nature of the business and the impact on the business of giving a remedy that might otherwise be appropriate.

So what that seems to envisage is that, if your circumstances are otherwise identical— Senator CRANE—Which clause is it?

Mr Briton—It is 170CK, Senator Murphy says.

Senator CRANE—Which page?


CHAIR—Which version?

Senator CRANE—There is not much difference between the versions.

It is just updated.

Ms Couldrey—Section 170CK is referred to in our documents.
Senator CRANE—The point I would make in terms of 170CK— ECONOMICS E 1044 SENATE—References Wednesday, 17 July 1996 Senator MURPHY—Section 170CH(7) on page 50 states: Subject to subsection (8), in determining an amount for the purposes of an order under subsection (6), the Commission must have regard to: (a) the effect of the order on the viability of the employer’s undertaking .

.

.

Mr Briton—That is one of the sections I was drawing your attention to.
Senator CRANE—The point I am making is that they are spelt out explicitly in the act.

There is no room in the regulations to do things that are ultra vires to the act.

You cannot do it.

It is breaking your own laws.

Ms Couldrey—I am unclear of the question.

Senator CRANE—I thought Mr Briton said that, further to what exists under the unfair dismissal provisions, you could go on in the regulations and exclude other classes of employees from being covered by the unfair dismissal provisions.
The point I am making is that you cannot do that because you would be breaking your own law which is in the act.

Regulations have to be consistent with an act.

Mr Briton—I would have to get back to you on that.

Senator CRANE—Can you come to us on that?

Mr Briton—I am most happy to come back to you on that.

I have about 50 or 60 pages of material.

I have to find the particular bit that raises that as an issue.

There are two issues.


There is the issue relating to the categories of employees that I took, when putting this together, to be potentially excluded by regulation.

There is the separate issue of the remedies available to those people that are covered.

There could be a difference between people whose circumstances are essentially the same.

The only difference between their circumstances would be the size, nature and viability of the workplace.

Senator CRANE—I understood that.


CHAIR—Mr Briton you will be provided with the transcript so you can refer to that issue.
Senator MURRAY—If anti-discrimination legislation primacy over employment agreements was sorted out satisfactorily in terms of some of the issues we have already been discussing; and if the anti-discrimination agencies were beefed up with sufficient resources and the right kind of legislation, would it be far more acceptable for you to find that the proper place for work of this kind is in specific agencies rather than the industrial relations environment as a whole, given that they are putting an object in the act which gives you broad protection?
Can an individual agency like yours do far better on anti- ECONOMICS Wednesday, 17 July 1996 SENATE—References E 1045 discrimination issues than employer and employee groups in a general sense?

Mr Briton—I do not think so in terms of the sorts of issues in industrial relations.

The jurisdictions have different purposes.


The complaint jurisdiction under the anti- discrimination legislation is designed to, and is extremely effective at, provide a remedy to an individual person who has suffered some harm as a result of discriminatory treatment.

The complaint provisions under discrimination legislation enable that person hopefully to negotiate some resolution to their grievance with whoever it is that has done them wrong.
What it is not necessarily good at, and certainly in terms of employment matters is not good at, is delivering systemic outcomes that impact on whole classes of people who might be subject to the same discriminatory behaviour.

So, for example, if under an AWA, to come to that particular point, a particular person came to us and we had the resources and the legislative role to deal with a discrimination matter we could deal with it and that person’s situation might be remedied.
We would not know whether there are any number of other people in that workplace who had equally suffered discrimination.

Their circum- stances would not be rectified by that.

The current arrangements in industrial relations legislation would provide a much better outcome because they provide for a systemic solution to issues of equity in the workplace to classes and categories of people who might be vulnerable.
There are specific functions in the current industrial relations framework which require the Industrial Relations Commission—and at state level as well—to pay particular attention to and to report on those sorts of issues and get them to public attention.

So the problem really is a problem of remedies.

In work related matters, anti- discrimination legislation does not provide the sort of systemic solution to problems that the current arrangements in industrial relations do.
Senator MURRAY—The opportunity for Minister Reith in these circumstances is to simultaneously run amendments to anti-discrimination legislation to rectify these matters.

Would you then be content or you would still prefer it back in the— Mr Briton—That is getting pretty speculative, is it not?

Senator MURRAY—Not really, because the opportunity for him, if he responds to your concerns, is to leave his principles alone in the IR bill and in fact beef up the anti- discrimination legislation.
Mr Briton—That might be a way to go and I could not comment without looking at exactly the nature of those propositions.

I would still have some general concerns.
I did express the view, for example—and I believe it to be true—about human rights legislation generally, that to imagine that there can be effective proactive respect for human rights when the institution in our community that is there to drive that is a specialist agency, as ECONOMICS E 1046 SENATE—References Wednesday, 17 July 1996 opposed to that obligation being one that is upon all the major institutions in our com- munity, is generally allowing people to duck their responsibilities—to go ahead and do what they do and then be caught up in some process of complaint resolution which sometimes has atmospherics of adversarialism and so on about it.
Senator MURRAY—The coalition argues that they have catered for a general proviso that anti-discrimination should apply.
Mr Briton—They have said that it should, and what I am saying back to you is that, as I read the implementation of the provisions in the legislation and certainly as is presented in great detail in the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission’s submission, it will not be effective in doing so because ultimately the sorts of solutions that anti-discrimination legislation can provide are individual rather than systemic in nature and the problems are systemic in nature.
Senator MURRAY—So in summary you are saying to me that, if anti- discrimination legislation is improved, this is still a backward step for— Mr Briton—If anti-discrimination legislation were modified in the ways you are envisaging, then that would be a giant step forward in terms of overcoming some of the problems.
But it would still create a situation where the key players, going about their ordinary business, would not have to have ownership for respecting anti-discrimination principles in the way that they would if the responsibility were placed squarely on their shoulders in the first instance.

Senator MURRAY—But it is still a backward step, you are saying?

Mr Briton—It would still be a backward step.

Ms Couldrey—May I add to that, Senator.


The nature of anti-discrimination legislation around the world is one of redress of harm and it is actually reactive rather than pre-emptive.

The industrial relations jurisdiction has built into it a pre-emptive nature which can actually address discrimination at the outset versus the framework of anti- discrimination legislation, which would be very difficult to change.

Senator MURRAY—That was the answer I was looking for.

Thank you.
Thank you.

Senator MURPHY—With regard to 170CK in subsection (2), where it says that ‘an employer must not terminate an employee’s employment for any one or more of the following reasons’ in paragraph (f), it lists: ‘race, colour, sex, sexual preference’ et cetera.

Over the page at subsection (4), it reads: Subsection (2) does not prevent a matter referred to in paragraph (2)(f) from being a reason for terminating a person’s employment .

.

.
.

.

ECONOMICS Wednesday, 17 July 1996 SENATE—References E 1047 And it goes on to say: .

.

.

if the employer terminates the employment in good faith to avoid injury to the religious susceptibilities of adherents of that religion or creed.

I think that is really the point that you are arguing.

Mr Briton—Yes.

CHAIR—Thank you very much, Mr Briton and Ms Couldrey.
Luncheon adjournment ECONOMICS E 1048 SENATE—References Wednesday, 17 July 1996 [1.53 p.m.] KELLY, Mr Paul, Job Delegate, Transport Workers Union, 92 Commercial Road, Newstead, Queensland 4006 RALSTON, Ms Deborah, Industrial Officer, Australian Council of Trade Unions, Queensland Branch, Level 5, 16 Peel Street, South Brisbane, Queensland 4101 SMITH, Ms Anne, Apprentice Boilermaker, Department of Transport, 190 Melton Road, Nundah, Queensland 4012 THOMPSON, Mr John Murray, General Secretary, Australian Council of Trade Unions, Queensland Branch, 16 Peel Street, South Brisbane, Queensland 4101 CHAIR—I offer you now the opportunity to give an overview of your submission.
If you could please outline how you plan to proceed.

I should indicate that you should attempt to cover all that you need in about 20 minutes or so to allow sufficient time for questions to conclude this session.

Mr Thompson—Firstly, on behalf of the ACTUQ we welcome the opportunity to appear before the committee.

We wish initially to tender some additional material.
Ms Ralston—For the committee’s information, there are a number of references throughout our written submission where we have identified some decisions that have been generated either within the federal or state industrial relations commissions.

This addition- al material is simply those particular decisions.

CHAIR—Thank you.

Mr Thompson—Our written submission to the inquiry is certainly of a technical nature.
Deborah Ralston, an industrial officer with the ACTU, was the principal architect of that submission.

We suggest that the contents of that submission would be similar to— not the same as—many others that you have received from similar organisations in other states and from the ACTU at a national level.

Today we are prepared to answer questions on it but we basically do not wish to base all of our comments around that particular document.

CHAIR—We welcome that, Mr Thompson.


Mr Thompson—We believe it is very important that the people who are going to be affected directly—that is, people out there in the work force such as Mr Kelly and Ms Smith—have an opportunity to make comments.

To that extent, we have limited our own time before the inquiry to enable those contributions to take place.
ECONOMICS Wednesday, 17 July 1996 SENATE—References E 1049 In Queensland, as I understand it, a limited number of submissions were made by working people—somewhere in the vicinity of 70.

There is a reason for that: in Queens- land we have enjoyed a very good industrial relations system, unlike the ones that have gone through significant change in Victoria and Western Australia, for example.
It would be, I suppose, unrealistic to expect that there would be a lot of working people complain- ing about a system that has been good to them.

The system that we are now faced with is a bit unknown to a lot of working people.

If this hearing were to take place in a year or two, depending upon what legisla- tion goes through the Senate, you may well receive far more than the 70 or so submissions that you have received to date.
However, I would like to touch briefly on a couple of areas that we think are worth raising, particularly in relation to the Queensland system and the impact that the proposed federal legislation would have on that system.

In Queensland, as I understand it, somewhere in excess of 60 per cent of the work force is currently covered under the state industrial system.

It is a system that has provided for many years a fair go for people involved in the system.

It has provided equity.


It has an ability to deliver outcomes that were acceptable to all of the parties involved.

I think a very important part in terms of the credibility of the system is when you can find, in the main, that the outcomes are accepted by the parties—win, lose or draw.

The Queensland Industrial Relations Commission has for a long time been regarded within the community as a very good independent body.
Again, that has been an important aspect of the Queensland legislation and the enforcement of it.

Under the proposals currently being looked at by the Senate committee, we would believe that that ability may well be under question.

The Queensland system itself is, as a direct result of the proposed changes at a federal level, under threat.
In Queensland the current government have indicated their intent to introduce complementary legislation and that that legislation will in most cases mirror the federal legislation.

So from our point of view it is very important that the Senate look very closely at the impacts of the changes that are being made because of their direct impact on Queensland workers through the state system.
Overall, in respect of the federal system—we have set out quite clearly in our submission all of the technical information—we would indicate that in our view the award system will be the worse for the changes.

In fact, a number of conditions of employment that workers have been able to count on and to have had the protection of will no longer be there.

The powers of the commission will be dramatically reduced.
The introduction of Australian workplace agreements with the secrecy involved in negotiations, the outcomes of those, and also the inability of workers to negotiate on an equitable basis with their employer, are things that should be viewed by the committee with concern.

ECONOMICS E 1050 SENATE—References Wednesday, 17 July 1996 To give you a brief example, last night I was in Mackay and I spoke to a journalist from the Mackay Mercury.
We were talking about AWAs, and he said, ‘Well, what’s the big deal about being able to negotiate a wage with your employer?’ I said, ‘Well, look; fine.
I don’t know what your role is with the paper, but’—the question I asked was—‘do you think the person who is on the front counter of that newspaper would be able to go in and sit down with the editor and negotiate in a fair and equitable way and bargain to the extent that they got a fair go?’ He said,‘Well, I hadn’t thought of it from that point of view.’ But there are a lot of workers out there—particularly women, part-time, casual and young people—who in our view under this current legislation will be greatly disadvan- taged.
In particular, the young people that are currently in apprenticeships or in training will potentially be disadvantaged by the fact that they will no longer be paid during the course of work that is regarded as non-productive and at times spent off the work in training.
In finishing up, I think the comment I would like to make is that the Australian electorate this year made a choice on government, and they made it on the basis of a rock solid guarantee that was given by the then opposition leader, Mr John Howard, and also Mr Peter Reith, that no working person would be worse off.
Now as a worker that is not a bad bet; you can change government and you can still maintain the level of wages and the conditions of employment, and I am certain that would have had an impact and an influence on what a lot of people did in the course of that election.

In our view, of course, the gutting of the commission, the gutting of awards and, quite clearly, the reduction of conditions within those awards down to a major core number of 18 certainly will disadvantage people.
On that basis we believe that the Senate now has an opportunity and also a responsibility to see that commitments that are given in the course of election campaigns are honoured, particularly when they impact on the wage brackets and the potential job opportunities for people out there in the work force because there are a very few things more important to workers than their jobs and the remunera- tion that they get from those jobs because it determines their quality of life.
So I would be suggesting that, when the Senate does in effect give consideration to this, that is a very important factor, as well as all the other information that has been contained within our submission.

Thank you.

CHAIR—Thank you, Mr Thompson.

Who is to follow you in your submission?

Mr Thompson—Mr Paul Kelly.

Mr Kelly—My history is that I was a boilermaker by trade.

I have worked in various areas around the country in shipyards, construction and mining, and I have been labouring.
In that period of time I have been a union delegate for over 20 years.

I have had close contact with the migrant community in that time, as well as with young workers in various workshops and on construction jobs.
What I have found in that time frame is ECONOMICS Wednesday, 17 July 1996 SENATE—References E 1051 that a lot of these migrant workers, whether they have a command of English as we know it in this country or they have on-the-job survival skills, still have a problem trying to understand awards and their pay slips.

I reflect back many years when Evans Deakin shipyard was operating in Brisbane.
Australia allowed in, through its migrant scheme, quite a number of people from Chile, as a result of a war over there.

Those people in those days—and I was a young person at that time—were covered by an industrial award.

They did not have to look for anything.

It was given to them by an industrial award that was looked after by the unions and governments.

I now work for Qantas Airways Ltd.

I am a delegate there.

I have been a delegate for eight years.

There we have a number of people.


One in particular comes to mind.

He is a Vietnamese person.

He has been in this country for a number of years.

Again, he was a refugee from the war.

When I talk to him—I get on quite well with him—it is apparent that he has not got a command of English as we would know it, where we can converse with each other here, but he is quite a bright person.

He was a biology or chemistry teacher in Vietnam.


He constantly comes to me with his pay slips, trying to convert what he has got on his pay slip to his roster.

When he gets the gist of it, he then has a pretty good understanding.

He knows where there has been a shortfall in his pay or whatever.

That person, I feel, would not be able to go in with the management at Qantas and negotiate a contract, a workplace agreement or whatever you want to call it.
I have another person there, a Filipino with a very good command of English.

Still, he has problems trying to interpret award conditions with allowances, et cetera, which are applicable to his fortnightly pay.

Just recently, in the last week, he came to me with a problem with his holiday pay and I had to give him some tuition—for want of a better term—as to how shift workers’ rates of pay converted to holiday pay with leave loadings, et cetera.

I had to sit down and give him an equation.


He went away, came back the next day and he said, ‘Yes, I’m still out of pocket.’ We have other people there that are Australians.

This is no slur upon them at all, but they tend to be slow in picking things up that are applicable to awards and allowan- ces, and there are quite a number of them.

A lot of these people pick up their pay slips, look at them and say, ‘Sounds good,’ and throw them away.
Then in conversations on the job in the next fortnight or something they find out that one of their mates missed out on a couple of allowances and they go searching then to try and find out if they have missed out.

They have the coverage of an award there.

They have the coverage of a union delegate and a union structure that can back them up and recover money that has been lost to them.
I feel, having looked after these people for about eight years, that if they had to go and bargain on their own they would have problems.

They would have problems negotiating and understanding and they would have problems trying to redress anomalies that may occur down the track.

ECONOMICS E 1052 SENATE—References Wednesday, 17 July 1996 Currently, Qantas is negotiating their Mark 3 EBA.
As has been made known in the Financial Review by the managing director, Qantas are looking to try and streamline their operations.

They are trying to compete with the Asian countries.

They are trying to compete with the world market to make them a more viable concern where they do not have government subsidies anymore, where they have to answer to shareholders.

They have started to become a business identity, in the true sense of the word, where they have to compete.
Our conditions under the Transport Workers Award (Airlines) are under attack.

Currently the Transport Workers Award (Airlines) could be penned as an over-award payment award.

I think the correct terminology would be that it is a paid rates award.

Under the proposed legislation, as I understand it, we could convert to a minimum rates award where you would have to go and start negotiating again basic allowances and conditions that individual workers take for granted because it is there in the awards.
It has been negotiated over the years and it has been handed down from one worker to an- other.When these people have got to go in without the experience and the support of a union they are at a direct disadvantage.
Hopefully, in the negotiations with Qantas we can maintain a standard of living to give back to Qantas what they require in conditions and payment, et cetera, to compete on the world market—and in the Australian market—as it would appear that other foreign airlines wish to start operating in this country.

To sum up, basically my experience with the workers in various areas and with various nationalities is that they would be at a direct disadvantage trying to negotiate on their own.
I also make the submission here today that I am not being paid by Qantas to come here.

I have been allowed time off, but I am not being paid at all.

I was at work this morning and they have allowed me to come here today.

I do this as a community effort to try to help workers in general.

I would just like to put to you that I am doing it for nothing.

CHAIR—Thank you, Mr Kelly.

Ms Smith?


Ms Smith—If this legislation comes in it will affect me directly by virtue of the fact that I am a first-year apprentice boilermaker.

I am of a mature age.

I have two teenage children who are independent of me.

This will affect me greatly because for seven weeks, while I am on my training block, I will have no income.

I do not know how I am expected to survive.


I will have the normal registrations of vehicles and I will have the normal rents—the normal fees that everybody has.

I think it would be a great tragedy.

That is basically all I can say.I have a few signatures of support from fellow workers and I have copies if you would like to see them.

CHAIR—Yes.

We will now move into questions.


Senator FERGUSON—Mr Thompson, I was very interested to hear your comment that the committee would have received a lot of similar submissions.

We ECONOMICS Wednesday, 17 July 1996 SENATE—References E 1053 received your submission, which is dated 27 June 1996, and we also received another submission dated 27 June 1996 from the AWU in Queensland.
I have to tell you that they are not similar; they are absolutely identical in the table of contents and in the words that are used in the introduction.

Almost word for word it is identical.

Was it a joint submis- sion that has now been split into two?

Who prepared the document?

Mr Thompson—There is a bit of history to this.

The chances of the ACTU and the AWU sitting down and working a submission out— Senator FERGUSON—That is what I thought.
Mr Thompson—In respect to this, it is about the same as the Liberal Party and the Labor Party working out a submission on industrial relations.

I do not say that disrespect- fully, but we are that far apart.

Senator FERGUSON—Why are they identical?

Mr Thompson—I would not have a clue.

All I know is that the ACTU prepared its own submission and we forwarded it off.
My comments in respect of similar submis- sions were based, as I understand it, on the submissions that were made by the trades and labour councils in each of the states.

We have been able to receive some of those copies.

What I am saying is that each of the labour councils would have addressed what they saw as the problem parts of the legislation and they would have made comments.

I doubt very much that the comments would be identical, but they would be very similar.
In terms of the AWU one, I am afraid that I cannot answer that question because, as I understand it, we had no discussions with the AWU at all.

I am not on very good terms with the AWU.

Senator FERGUSON—I understand, that is why I was a little bit surprised.

They are dated the same day—both 27 June—the table of contents is identical to the word and almost to the page numbering, and the introduction is identical in every way.

I am just wondering did you have another basis to form your submission?
I find it difficult to think that the AWU could have copied your submission if they are dated the same day.

I am a bit concerned about whether we should treat them as one submission.

Mr Thompson—I say treat them as two submissions.

I am more concerned than you are about it.

I will be quite frank with you.

My understanding is that you will be having the AWU before you either today or tomorrow.

Senator FERGUSON—Perhaps I should ask Mr Ludwig tomorrow.
Mr Thompson—I think that would be the first question you should ask him.

Senator FERGUSON—I would have thought that, if it were to be an original submission, not one that is plagiarised from another submission without any input ECONOMICS E 1054 SENATE—References Wednesday, 17 July 1996 personally—I am talking about from them, not you—then at least they would have altered a couple of words in it.

I have been reading and reading, but I cannot find one word different.
Mr Thompson—As I said, it probably concerns me more than it concerns you.

Maybe they have got it right for once.

Senator CHILDS—Can I ask you a question regarding box three on page 12 of your submission.

I appreciate that Ms Smith said she is a first-year apprentice, but I was interested in just which industry you have taken that apprentice training wage from.

Ms Ralston—That has been taken from the federal metal industry award.
Senator CHILDS—Does that mean that a first-year apprentice gets less than the $3 that became so famous in 1993?

Ms Ralston—That would only occur if the outcome of the bill was an enactment and there was capacity for the unproductive time aspect of the bill to apply.

Senator CHILDS—If that were to happen, then we would get below the $3 that was attempted in 1993?

Ms Ralston—Yes.

Senator MURRAY—What percentage of employees are unionised in Queensland?
Mr Thompson—I could not answer that with any accuracy.

It would be some- where near the national average of around about 35 per cent.

Somewhere in that vicinity.

Senator MURRAY—Have you made any effort to find out what non-union employees think of this legislation?

Mr Thompson—I think unions are doing what they can to make non-union employees members of unions and in doing that they are discussing with them the contents of the legislation and how it will impact on them.
To be quite honest, we see this as an opportunity to recruit.

The real difficulty for a lot of people is that they do not understand legislation and they certainly do not understand what the impact of the outcomes of this legislation will be.
For example, it is very difficult for a person in part-time employment to envisage having to go to their employer and negotiate their level of wages and the conditions of employment, which may have been for all of the time that they have been in the work- place and within the work force governed by an award.
ECONOMICS Wednesday, 17 July 1996 SENATE—References E 1055 Senator MURRAY—But it is true to say that there has been no qualitative and objective survey of non-unionised employees’ opinions on this legislation?

Mr Thompson—Yes, and it would possibly be true to say that there has been none of the same for those that are unionised either.

Senator MURRAY—I see.


One of the problems we have had in this set of hearings is that we have heard a great deal from union organisations, sufficient from employer organisations and insufficient from either non-unionised or non-employer organisations.

You made the remark that Queensland workers by and large had been happy with the IR system here because of the synergy between federal and Queensland legislation.
But I would suggest to you that a good IR system is one which delivers contentment to both employers and employees.

Unfortunately, we have only had one employer before us today and they represent only three per cent of employers, so they are not exactly representative of all employers.

Nevertheless, they expressed a strong dislike for existing legislation.

Is it a fair system in which employers may feel very hard done by and employees do not?
Mr Thompson—I cannot talk for employers, but with the changes that have taken place in the industrial relations system in Queensland, certainly over the last six years, the employers have had the same opportunity as the unions and other groups to have input into those changes.

There was never very much said in the media or publicly by those employer associations on dissatisfaction overall with the legislation.
My comments were along the lines that in Queensland workers had not been subjected to the sorts of changes that have happened in Victoria and in Western Australia.

For example, in Victoria, as you are well aware, the award system was abolished overnight and workers were virtually put into a situation of negotiating contracts.

They would then, by experience, as I understand it, have suffered a lot of the problems that we think this legislation will bring in reduced wages.
Turning the question back, to an extent, if so many employers were unhappy with the legislation in Queensland and the way it has operated, then they would have made an effort to come before the Senate inquiry; they would have made an effort to put submis- sions in to point out just how bad that legislation had been for them; how it had been so difficult for them to operate within that legislation and the fact that it is not there could have as much on it as reversing it.
Senator MURRAY—The reverse side of your argument, of course, is that if employers, by and large, are happy with the system here—which they may well be because we do not know whether they are or are not—it would serve your interest well, would it not, to survey employers independently and objectively, and put those findings ECONOMICS E 1056 SENATE—References Wednesday, 17 July 1996 before the committee.
Because if you were able to prove that employers are happy with the existing system, then you would have a much stronger argument.

Mr Thompson—Unions often do qualitative research amongst their own member- ship.

They send surveys out and it is quite difficult sometimes to get enough responses to form an overall view.

If the unions were to survey employers, we would get nothing back.

Senator MACKAY—This morning we heard evidence from the QCCI on a number of matters.
On junior rates they say: There is overwhelming evidence of the importance that a lower wage for juniors plays in securing the entry of young people into the work force.

They then went on to explain they meant that lower wages for young people would mean more jobs for young people.

I then went on to ask them whether, under their logic, in order to secure increased employment, you would have to have lower wages for adults, otherwise the first part of their argument was simply nonsense.
They refuted that and said the reality is, in this day and age, employers will not do that, that we would not see a diminution in wages as a result of this legislation, et cetera.

There seemed a logical inconsistency there.

Would you comment on that?

Mr Thompson—I might take on board the comments you have made and probably use them at a later date when they are about trying to reduce wages for adults.

Senator MACKAY—It is on Hansard so you will be able to get hold of it.
Mr Thompson—It is reasonable for people to consider that, if you lower wages for young people, then they may be more attractive to an employer.

If there is some basis to that, then when those people get to 18 or 19, it becomes just as beneficial to dispense with their services and to bring some more 16 and 17-year-olds in, because we are talking about payment now for age, not for the level of productivity or for the skills that those people have.
At the end of the day, in some cases there will be people that are currently adults, that are currently employed that will be displaced from their employment by the fact that employers can actually get people in some particular areas where a limited level of skill is required.They could actually use young people to displace those people.

So they may not necessarily want to lower wages, but they will replace those people with people who receive less.

Senator MACKAY—Perhaps that is what they meant.


Mr Thompson—Yes.

Senator MACKAY—My second question relates to page 10 of your submission: apprentices and trainees.

The other day we heard evidence from the MTIA which ECONOMICS Wednesday, 17 July 1996 SENATE—References E 1057 expressed grave concern about the provisions of the bill relating to payment for appren- tices and trainees when they are off the job, as it were.
Their view was that it would result in a deskilling of the areas that the MTIA covers, which I thought was a very interesting comment by a major employer group.

Incidentally, they are not the only employer group to make that comment.

Do you have any views on that?

Mr Thompson—I know this is on Hansard, but I have to say that I support the comments by the MTIA as an organisation very committed to training.
I am a plumber by trade and I have gone through an apprenticeship course and I understand the impact that this proposal will have on training.

In fact, in many of the areas now that have had good and proud histories of turning young people into tradespeople, I am sure a lot of that is under threat as a result of this.

The MTIA’s comments were very close to the mark.


Senator MACKAY—The QCCI in their submission this morning said, and I quote, in case you have not seen it: For too long trade unions have relied upon antiquated provisions of awards involving inflexibilities, intimidation and black-banning to force compulsory unionism and have, as a consequence, grown and retained large parcels of membership without any real provision of service.
When pressed, they actually cited a number of the unions that were actually in the room, which went down very well, as you can imagine; I think they mentioned the CFMEU and maybe the ETU or whatever it is now.

This is a very grave statement by the major employer organisation in this state.

Is this the case or not?

Mr Thompson—I certainly take note of what they say, particularly when it comes to intimidation because the people they represent are experts at it.
We have workers who have been intimidated with or without awards, but for many years by members that the QCCI represent.

But, to be quite open with you, there is very little in awards now because of the way awards have been restructured, particularly over the last 10 years.

That has enabled unions, to intimidate, for want of a better word, people and to intimidate employers into different circumstances.
If people were to look at an award that existed in the mid-1970s and take that same award that exists now, they would see that so many changes have been made and flexibilities provided under the act or under that award, that that is a bit of a nonsense really.

Some unions here possibly have not serviced their membership as well as they should have and some employer organisations have not serviced their constituency as well as they should have either.
But to suggest that that is simply on the basis of an award position, particularly when we have had enterprise bargaining as a way of gaining wage increases over the last four or five years in particular, just does not stand up.

CHAIR—Thank you, Mr Thompson, Ms Ralston, Mr Kelly and Ms Smith.

ECONOMICS E 1058 SENATE—References Wednesday, 17 July 1996 [2.27 p.m.] BEHRENS, Mr Vernon Edmund, 32 O’Connor Drive, Bray Park, New South Wales 2484 CHAIR—Mr Behrens, I welcome you to the hearing.
Could you advise the committee whether a written submission has been put forward to the committee, to your knowledge?

Mr Behrens—I wrote one, but whether you have it or not— CHAIR—Was one forwarded on your behalf to this inquiry?

Mr Behrens—It should have been.

CHAIR—Unfortunately, it has not been put before committee members so, in dealing with your submission to us, could you please cover the issues that you wanted to raise comprehensively.

Mr Behrens—Okay.
Mr Behrens—Okay.

CHAIR—And then, after you have presented your submission, we will ask you questions.

Thank you.

Mr Behrens—Basically, I was asked to come and talk about the company attitude towards the workers there.

I am the union representative there.

I have only been the union representative for a couple of years so I am not really experienced at it.

We have about 17 that are members out of about 28 employees.
What I really wanted to bring up was the fact that under EFAs and private enterprise agreements with our employer, he is very overbearing and would really put pressure on private enterprise dealings.

I really would not like to have to make one out myself.

I only got my thing last night and I have been through it.

Do you want some papers to work on?

CHAIR—Certainly you can table any papers that you refer to and then we will include that in our deliberations.
Mr Behrens—I have got one here where a chap by the name of Mr Shepherd said he believes he is worse off under the EFA than he would be under the award, and the company said in spite of such assertions the company is convinced that the adult perma- nent employees were better off under the EFA and job security was certainly enhanced.
ECONOMICS Wednesday, 17 July 1996 SENATE—References E 1059 The company believes that the working conditions of its permanent adult employ- ees are now worse than they were under the EFA and they have fought long and hard to prevent this happening, which I believe most of you support.

Now that the award applies, the company will work under conditions and check with the Federal Department of Industrial Relations on issues where some doubt exists.
This is the authority that ensures the award conditions are maintained, and is a properly constituted legal entity to do so.

If any employees wish to check on anything to do with the award, they are quite free to ring the federal department which has an office at Coffs Harbour.

One thing that was checked with the department was unpaid smoko breaks, and this is the basis upon which we are now working.
Our employer has said: The employer that ran to the union as a result of our notice should do some investigating on their own behalf before involving some uninvolved third party with whom this company has no contract.

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Thus one of our employees has wilfully gone around the properly constituted process established on this site to some outside third party.

I regard this as serious misconduct and an aberration of that employees responsibilities to his employer and to his fellow employees.
As such this, in my view, fits squarely in the definition of serious and wilful misconduct and should it occur in future such employees can expect the results of such misconduct.

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So our employer is dead set against employees being union members.

CHAIR—Mr Behrens, could you just clarify for me what the gross misconduct being referred to was?

What is the actual conduct that they are referring to?

Mr Behrens—We had a bit of a disagreement over the times that were allowed for our smoko breaks.
When we went through the award, the award actually stated that we take smoko breaks only if it did not interfere with our work—that is, if we can have someone take our place we can have a smoko break.

But because we go for just 10 minutes, we just leave the job and go.

The award does not cover us in that way.

But because someone went and checked up with the union on their own behalf—I do not know who it was; it was not me—our employer has taken it as wilful misconduct.
He thinks it is serious misconduct and anyone continuing this practice is eligible to be sacked.

In another statement our employer said: I have no issue in employees belonging to the union, but meetings must be off the site.

I am a great believer in freedom of association.

If employees choose to belong to any organisation then it is up to them.

However, the company has no interest in providing facilities for an organisation that has acted against the interests of this site.
The union has tried to force its way into this site six times since the beginning of last November.

On two occasions police were involved in their removal.

They are obviously well aware of our requirements, yet they continue to distract us from our purpose.

So he has no objection to us being in the union, but when it comes to using the union to our benefit we are not able to do it—he considers it to be serious misconduct.
Another thing I would like to comment on is the role of the IRC in industrial relationships.

This is ECONOMICS E 1060 SENATE—References Wednesday, 17 July 1996 my personal belief.

I do not want the power of that group to be weakened.

If we do not have an independent umpire, who do we turn to as an employee?

I am speaking just as an employee now.

Without the role of the union and without the role of the IRC, we come to the mercy of the employer.
In our case, I have documents here—you can read them if you want to—where we have been picked on and coerced and all sorts of different things.

CHAIR—Thank you, Mr Behrens.
My understanding of some of the issues which transpired at Tweed Valley Fruits—and I am in no way an expert and certainly have not looked through the proceedings that occurred in that matter—was that there were two issues in principle: one was whether sick leave could be cashed out through an EFA, and the other issue was that it had been claimed that workers had been intimidated into accepting an arrangement that they might not otherwise accept and that that was an issue that came to the concern of the commission in dealing with the matter.
Do you have any comments to make on the issue of sick leave?

Mr Behrens—With the issue of sick leave, I was paid out under section 32 clause A, which deals with sick leave being paid out within one month of the implementation of the agreement.

This is what happened and I was paid $1,332.63.

That was under the agreement.

Now that the agreement has been squashed by the people that dealt with it, my employer is asking for that money back.

That EFA had a lifetime from July 27 to October 26.
Anything that happened during that period was a legal thing.

I personally do not feel it is fair that we should be asked to pay this money back.

Is there anything else you want to know about that?

CHAIR—No, I will move to my other colleagues.

Mr Behrens—Sick leave was actually totally wiped off that slate when that EFA came into being.

The people that had worked there and had a log of sick leave were the only ones to get money.

Any new employees were not covered by sick leave whatsoever.
There was nothing.

If you had a week off, you did not get paid for a week.

Senator CRANE—In terms of that, under the EFA, it was cashed out in terms of the payment received, was it not?

Mr Behrens—Yes.

Senator CRANE—And that applied to old employees and new employees?

Mr Behrens—Yes.

Senator CRANE—They were treated the same in the EFA?

Mr Behrens—That is right.

They got pro-rata of what they were entitled to, yes.
ECONOMICS Wednesday, 17 July 1996 SENATE—References E 1061 Senator CRANE—The agreement that you had at Tweed Valley was done under an EFA and was initially a registered agreement.

Mr Behrens—Yes, it was actually funded by the federal government at that time.

I think they got a grant of between $10,000 and $12,000 to assist in setting up that EFA.

Senator CRANE—So the company got that grant?

Mr Behrens—Yes.

Senator CRANE—And then it was negotiated between the company and the union there, was it?
Mr Behrens—No, the union was not allowed on the site.

Senator CRANE—Sorry.

The company and the employees, I should have said.

Mr Behrens—The company and the employees.

As I was on a consultative committee I was allowed, as the union rep, to fax away minutes of each meeting to the union.

So the union did have knowledge of what was going on through the process.
Senator CRANE—What you have just told us is, in fact, that it was an EFA set up under the existing legislation and that funding assistance was given by the previous Labor government.

Is that correct?

Mr Behrens—Yes.

Senator MURPHY—The situation that you experienced at Tweed Valley with regard to the EFA and the sick leave was done, as Senator Crane pointed out, under existing legislation and yet, at the end of the day, it was overturned.
I am not saying that you have to have a great knowledge of the proposed legislation, but what the proposed legislation does is to actually legislate for workplace agreements that will be individual agreements.

Do you think that, under the new legislation or the proposed legislation, there would be the same outcome in terms of getting it overturned—in getting the duress removed?

Mr Behrens—I am not quite sure of your question there, but I still think that— Senator MURPHY—I will explain.
What is proposed in this workplace relations bill is to enact legislation to enable workplace agreements to be put in place.

The big difference between what is proposed and the current situation is, I think, in your experi- ence, that the Australian Industrial Relations Commission overturned the EFAs on the basis of duress.

Is that true?

ECONOMICS E 1062 SENATE—References Wednesday, 17 July 1996 Mr Behrens—That is true.
Senator MURPHY—Under the new proposed legislation, the commission would not have that capacity.

Mr Behrens—No.

Senator MURPHY—Do you think that the workers like yourselves—albeit if you have some workplaces with some union members and some with none, as was or is the case at Tweed Valley—would be put in a more difficult situation under the proposed legislation than they found themselves under the existing legislation?

Mr Behrens—I understand your question now.


I feel that they would be because some of the workers have already expressed concerns to me that they do not want to enter into private agreements or private contracts because they are scared of the boss.

The unemployment there is very high—possibly around 30 per cent.
But, on the other side of the coin, the factory has got that much of a reputation: I have been there 14 years and I can remember when we used to have two or three people a week coming to the door and asking if there was work.

Now we would be lucky to have one person in three weeks coming to see if there is any work.

Senator MURPHY—Do you think your employer would use any of the facilities available to him, such as the lock-out provisions, to force workers at the Tweed Valley site?
Mr Behrens—I am not sure what you mean by the lock out.

Senator MURPHY—If this proposed bill becomes law, during or after a negotia- tion period, when the employer seeks to enter into negotiations—as he previously has done with you and your fellow workers; to establish an EFA in that case, I would assume—I would imagine he would endeavour to go down that same path again.

Within the provi- sions of the proposed legislation there is a capacity for the employer to lock employees out.
Do you think that your employer, given his nature, would avail himself of or use those provisions if he thought that that was what was needed to get his employees to sign an AWA?

Mr Behrens—To be quite honest with you—and I do not want to put anybody down—I think my employer would turn to any length to get the employees to sign what he wanted.

Senator MURPHY—Do you think there could be any competitive advantage between employers in the same industry, say in the canning industry?
If one employer has the ability to negotiate workplace agreements that allows that employer to pay lower ECONOMICS Wednesday, 17 July 1996 SENATE—References E 1063 wages and lessen conditions, do you think that that would have an impact on other manufacturers in the same industry in terms of what they might need to do to be competitive?

Mr Behrens—I would say it would, yes.

Senator FERGUSON—How long have you been employed there?

Mr Behrens—Fourteen years.


Senator FERGUSON—Have you worked for other canneries or any other like industries in the same area?

Mr Behrens—No.

The nearest one would be Brisbane, probably.

Senator FERGUSON—I was wondering what your work involved prior to working with this employer.

Mr Behrens—Prior to that I was in the education department as a technical worker, and then in the timber industry until that was closed down by the green people.
Senator CRANE—I wish to follow up on Senator Murphy’s question when he raised a couple of issues.

My question goes to two points.

You also understand with regard to the ability of an employer to lock people out that, during the bargaining period, employees can also take strike action.

While we talk about AWAs, it does not preclude you from having a certified agreement—the legislation.

Mr Behrens—It does not exclude us, no.

Senator CRANE—No, it does not exclude you.


All I am saying is, if you wanted to have a certified agreement on your site, you could have a certified agreement.

Mr Behrens—We would be quite happy to do that if we could trust our employer to stay with his word once an agreement is formed.

CHAIR—I would particularly like to thank you under the circumstances for your appearance.

I understand that you were expecting some other people to be with you.
So thank you very much for remaining and giving us your evidence.

Mr Behrens—Do you want any of this material?

CHAIR—Yes, please table that.

The secretariat will look after it.


ECONOMICS E 1064 SENATE—References Wednesday, 17 July 1996 [2.49 p.m.] DOUGHERTY, Mr Mark, Industrial Officer, Queensland Nurses Union, 56 Boun- dary Street, West End, Queensland 4101 MOHLE, Ms Elizabeth Ruth, Project Officer, Queensland Nurses Union, GPO Box 1289, Brisbane, Queensland 4001 ROSS, Mr Steven Maxwell, Industrial Officer, Queensland Nurses Union, 56 Boundary Street, West End, Queensland 4101 CHAIR—I welcome you to the hearing.
If you could indicate how you plan to proceed at the start, that would be useful.

Thank you.

Mr Ross—I should from the start convey to the committee the apologies of the union secretary, Ms Gaye Hawksworth, who unfortunately had another arrangement this afternoon that had been put into place before we received the notification to appear.

We thought we would make a short statement outlining our submission.

Then we would be happy to answer any questions the committee may have.
The union has provided a submission on the proposed bill.

In so doing, the QNU is cognisant of the submissions of the federal body, the ANF, and supports those submis- sions.

We do not intend today to traverse the same ground.

We are also aware that they have appeared before the committee in Melbourne, as has our Victorian branch.
There is one difference between us and perhaps the Victorian branch that the committee should be aware of: the Queensland Nurses Union has coverage in Queensland of what is known as the third level of nursing.

In addition to covering registered and enrolled nurses, we cover people who work as assistant nurses or assistants in nursing.

So we incorporate issues for that group of workers in our submission.
The QNU is a registered industrial organisation of employees under the Queensland Industrial Relations Act and is also a branch of the ANF.

In Queensland, we are party to two federal awards covering nurses working in the public sector and we are also party to six state awards that cover nurses working in various occupations in the private sector.
These include private hospitals; the areas of aged care, for example nursing homes and some hostels; domiciliary nursing, which is a home care type of arrangement; the Red Cross Blood Transfusion Service; as well as nurses in doctors’ surgeries, occupational health nurses and the like.

In addition to those awards, we are also party to some 50-odd certified agreements.

The union has approximately 25,000 members, and that is an increasing member- ship.
It is a membership that has been increasing for some years.

Over 90 per cent of the union’s members are women.

I think it is possible to say that one of the defining characteristics of the union’s membership of nurses is that they have a loyalty to their ECONOMICS Wednesday, 17 July 1996 SENATE—References E 1065 profession.

That is first and foremost.

It is a profession that is dedicated to service to the people they work with.
It is a loyalty to the profession that perhaps is of a higher status than that to perhaps the enterprise in which they may work.

The submission makes reference, in seeking to define the industry, to a ‘nursing market’, which has an industry-wide impact.

That nursing market and that broader loyalty to the profession is something that we would submit is recognised by the employers as well as the nurses involved.
As an example of that, in the private sector in Queensland the various employer organisations and individual employers have sought to negotiate improvements in wages and conditions with the union as a body.

They have sought to pursue centralised agreements or framework agreements rather than individual enterprise agreements.

The union’s submission also directly addresses a number of terms of reference of the committee, and they are set out from page 3.

I intend to touch briefly on one of those.


One concern of the Queensland Nurses Union is the potential impact of the bill on small business and smaller organisations, particularly those that exist in rural and remote areas.

There is currently a shortage of nursing staff that exists, not just in Queensland but throughout the country.

Recruitment and retention are a chronic problem for organisations.
Smaller and isolated organisations have been assisted in their recruitment and retention of nurses through a centralised paid rates regime.

It provides stable and clear guidance to the terms of employment of nurses.

By removing this centralised regime, and leaving it up to individual organisations and employees to determine their wages and conditions, the smaller and remote organisa- tions will not be able to compete in the attraction of skilled staff.
Not only will this affect the quality of service delivered but, as a consequence of that, there is a flow-on effect to the broader public in respect of the types of services that are being delivered in some of these areas.

The other area of our submission which I seek to stress relates to the aged care industry.

As I indicated, the Queensland Nurses Union has assistant nurses as its members, as well as registered and enrolled nurses.
There have been a number of reports conducted into the aged care industry, and I do not propose to traverse all those.

The Queensland Nurses Union and the principal employer associations in Queens- land have recently conducted a joint survey to examine the issue of enterprise bargaining in the aged care industry.

This survey has identified some key problems in the aged care area.

There are problems that relate to workplace health and safety, as the injury rates in aged care are extremely high.
There are problems relating to the experience and under- standing of employees and employers of consultative structures, consultative processes and how those sorts of things should operate—the types of processes, structures and skills that are required to be able to negotiate wages and conditions at a local level.
ECONOMICS E 1066 SENATE—References Wednesday, 17 July 1996 The survey also highlighted—although further work is needed—the training and education needs of nurses working in the aged care industry.

In particular, there is quite extensive anecdotal evidence that there are real literacy problems in the aged care industry.

So the capacity of workers in this industry to read and understand documents that are presented to them is limited.
The industry is also characterised by an extremely high number of part-time and casual employees.

Under 2.2.2 on page 1 of our submission, we make reference to the fact that approximately 15.32 per cent of employees are full-time employees and 70.89 per cent of employees are part-time employees.
Combined with the fact that the majority of these employees are women—I am sure the committee has heard or is aware of informa- tion on the responsibilities that women take in respect of family responsibilities and the like—one of the key issues that these people seek is security in terms of hours, employ- ment, income, et cetera.

We are very concerned with the potential effect that the removal of restrictions on part-time employment will have on these workers.
In conclusion, after some 12 months of negotiations with the employer bodies had resulted in no enterprise agreements being formed in the aged care industry, the industrial commission in February this year terminated the various bargaining periods that were in place and made an award variation that resulted in wage increases of some eight per cent in two components—the first, five per cent, and the second, three per cent.
As of 1 July the federal government retrospectively changed the funding arrangements for aged care which meant that employers have not received funding for the three per cent component of that wage increase.

Understandably, the employers are now seeking to take some action in the industrial commission to have that award variation varied to sit within their funding parameters.
I make the point because in aged care as in other areas such as domiciliary nursing employers are often dependent—and in the case of aged care exclusively depend- ent—upon government funding for their ongoing operations, including the payment of wages and the employment of staff.
In an environment where that funding has been cut, or at least tightened, while demand for services is increasing, immense pressure is placed on employees, especially employees who have a dedication to the ideal of service that nurses have, to do more with less.
So we expect, in the absence of the protection of awards, that we will be having to deal with comments such as, ‘If you do not accept a reduction in shift penalties or if you do not work this unpaid overtime, then we will have to turn clients away.’ It is that type of pressure that our membership is most vulnerable to.

We see these as some of the most serious implications with this bill, should it go through as it is.
Mr Dougherty and Ms Mohle are both in a position to answer any questions that you may have on the submis- sion, depending on what the area may be.

CHAIR—Before I go to questions, perhaps Ms Mohle could inform the committee ECONOMICS Wednesday, 17 July 1996 SENATE—References E 1067 what sorts of projects she is the project officer for.

Ms Mohle—My background is that I am a registered nurse by training.
Prior to my taking up a position as a project officer, which is for industrial and professional projects on behalf of the union, I was an organiser with the union for five years.

CHAIR—Thank you very much.

Senator MURPHY—In the last part of your submission you were talking about the pressure on nurses with regards to the nature of employment because of funding cutbacks not just in the aged care area but also in hospitals.
Have you had much experi- ence with attempts to change shift rosters so that shift penalties can be avoided or at least change rosters such that it reduces the number of hours that employees actually work?

Mr Ross—One of the most frequent areas of disputation that the union is asked to assist its members in is in those sorts of areas—changes of hours, changes to rosters et cetera.

I guess there are two approaches to it.


The first is that everybody supports the idea of rostering in the most productive way and in the most efficient way.

There have been various changes and amendments to the award to assist that.

A lot of research is done, not just done by the Queensland Nurses Union but jointly with employers or by employers on their own to maximise the efficiency of organisations.
But the other side of the coin is that there is also continual pressure to alter rosters to avoid shift penalties or to try to get around the system or whatever.

I heard today a recent example—again, in the aged care area—relating to a 38-hour week which was implemented last year.

The 38-hour week had provision for an accrued day off as the principal means of implementation of that 38-hour week.
Today we heard of a nursing home where all the full-time employees were converted from 38 hours to 37½ hours per week so that the accrued day off would not be payable to them.

Senator MURPHY—You might correct me if I am wrong but with regards to shifts under, say, the health care award, or whatever your award is, you have to work so many hours in one shift to actually get a penalty.

What is the way in which the penalties are paid—in terms of afternoon shifts and night shifts?
Mr Dougherty—Most of the provisions in the nursing awards in Queensland stipulate a requirement that, if a shift starts on or after a particular time—say, 12 midday—then that is deemed to be an afternoon shift.

So where we run into problems is where employers attempt to start shifts at 11.30.

But we have been able to, to a certain extent, overcome that by putting in majority clauses—where a majority of the shift is worked beyond a particular time.

Senator MURPHY—But you have put that in the award.


ECONOMICS E 1068 SENATE—References Wednesday, 17 July 1996 Mr Dougherty—Yes.

Senator MURPHY—Would it be the case that you would not be able to achieve that under a workplace agreement system?

Mr Dougherty—Indeed, it goes worse than that.

In our view, under the proposed legislation this would be an area that is outside the provisions that are allowable or indeed arbitratable under the provisions.
Therefore, under the paring back of awards to the bare minimum, it would be removed.

Senator MURPHY—So would that mean that workers would be worse off?

Mr Dougherty—Given the difficulties we have in the rostering area, we believe most definitely.

Ms Mohle—Could I just add, Senator, that I think that the patients would be worse off as well.

If there is no actual defined break between shifts, that could translate into a very short period of time, and as a result patient care standards could actually fall.
If there is only a six-hour break between shifts, for example, you are going to have some very tired nurses.

Senator CRANE—If I could just raise with you one matter in your submission.

It relates to 3.81, 3.82 and 3.83 with regard to work and family responsibilities.
I am particularly concerned to see your comment that the QNU believes that, in relation to workers with family responsibilities, it is the intent of the bill to shift the emphasis from flexibility for the employee to flexibility for the employer.

On page 4 of the bill are its principal objects.

If we look at objects (a) through to (e), we find there is only one clause which does not deal with employers and employees together.

That clause deals precisely with employees.


It says ‘assisting employees to balance their work and family responsibilities’, as you highlighted in your submission.

I would like you to enlarge further on why you think that this bill, as against the previous legislation, does prejudice the employee when for the first time the objects of the bill go to dealing with that particular necessity for employees.
Ms Mohle—The concern that we have from our reading of the bill is that lip- service is merely being paid to workers with family responsibilities.

The concern is that there are no vehicles there to actually ensure that the rights of workers with family responsibilities are protected.

We will point to them and the setting of minimum and maximum hours of work as an example.
As Mr Ross said in the submission, a significant number of nursing employees are employed in a part-time capacity and, if there is no capacity to set minimum and maxi- mum hours of work for those employees, then they could be severely disadvantaged in relation to planning for child care, as an example.
So we are really concerned about the ECONOMICS Wednesday, 17 July 1996 SENATE—References E 1069 fact that significant contradictions are contained in the bill with respect to the matters relating to workers with family responsibilities, and that is one pretty glaring one to us.
Senator CRANE—Without going through the act clause by clause and what have you—I should have said ‘the bill’ and not ‘the act’; it is not an act yet—a number of aspects in the bill actually do deal with discrimination, fairness between the sexes and also race et cetera.

Senator MURPHY—Which one deals with that?

Senator CRANE—Let us just come to the particular point you raised about part- time employment.
What those changes do is allow that group of employees which are growing in number and are commonly now called casuals to share on a pro rata basis such entitlements as long service leave.

That is a considerable extension of existing aspects.

In terms of bringing that into there, I just feel that you may be being a little bit harsh in your judgment.
Mr Ross—The capacity for part-time employees to access on a pro rata basis various leave entitlements, including long service leave, currently exists certainly in the awards that we have for nurses.

Senator CRANE—Not for casuals.

Mr Ross—For casuals, long service leave is recognised in the Queensland Industrial Relations Act, and has been since 1990.

The other leave entitlements are compensated for by way of the casual loading that exists in the awards.
The concern that we have is that one of the things that women workers require in order to meet their child-care and other family responsibilities is a level of consistency and security in the hours of work that they are going to be forced to do, not only in the quantum but also in the actual times that workers are going to have to work.

These are areas that are currently taken care of through the award mechanism.
Where there is dispute over these matters, we have recourse to the commission to be able to address them.

The bill removes those protections and the sense of certainty and security that are so important to our membership.

That is why we feel quite justified in saying that the bill tips the balance in favour of the employers in respect of the flexibility issue.

Senator CRANE—I understand what you are saying, but I just wanted to bring those points to your attention.
Senator MURRAY—What percentage of nurses in the state are unionised?

Mr Ross—I am not quite sure of the total figure for the state, but— ECONOMICS E 1070 SENATE—References Wednesday, 17 July 1996 Ms Mohle—I can talk for the public sector because that is my area of knowledge.

It is about 65 to 75 per cent in the public sector, depending on the workplace.

Senator MURRAY—So you are a highly unionised sector.
The ACTU have made a submission to the committee in which they have indicated that the right to strike and the aggression with which unions can conduct negotiations with employers are going to be weakened by this bill.

However, traditionally the right to strike has not been used by your sector because of the palliative nature of your work.

You hold that attitude in common with policemen, teachers and others who are in the services sector.
If this bill is going to be far more market and far less employee orientated than the previous industrial relations legislation, is it the belief of your union that your sector should have special protection because you do not use aggressive and right to strike methods in your employment negotiations?

Mr Dougherty—The tradition in terms of the industrial relations culture in nursing, as you rightly say, has been that we do not resort, except under extreme provoca- tion, to strike action.
However, what we have resorted to is where, in the case of failed negotiations, we proceed to the Industrial Commission to seek relief through either conciliation or arbitration.

What we fear under the proposed legislation is that access to the Industrial Commission will be severely restricted; therefore our only option will be to exercise some form of industrial action to achieve what we previously were able to achieve by going to an umpire.
Senator MURRAY—Or the alternative is for you to campaign for special protection because of the nature of your industry.

Mr Dougherty—We are not aware of any proposal for special protection but, as I said, the protection has always been the Industrial Commission.
Mr Ross—In fact in the alternative there are various forms of essential services legislation that has been put into place to further restrict our membership’s capacity to further their industrial interests because there is a whole set of onerous measures intro- duced in that legislation in its different forms that have restricted our members in that capacity.

Senator MURRAY—You have itemised at section 3.5 of your submission, page six, the impact on small business.
Is that impact you spell out known to you?

Have you conducted surveys of small business employers, or is that merely your opinion based on anecdotal evidence?

Mr Ross—That information is known to us through the various meetings, discussions and negotiations we have had with employer representatives through award and enterprise bargaining related matters.
I refer back to my opening remarks where I indicated that the employers have sought to maintain an industry approach to negotiations through framework agreements or centralised agreements in order to protect individual ECONOMICS Wednesday, 17 July 1996 SENATE—References E 1071 employers from the adverse effects of differentials in wages and conditions and the like, and particularly the small businesses with their limited capacity to pay, especially those reliant heavily on government funding that potentially will suffer detriment in the type of deregulated environment that is proposed.
Senator MURRAY—Mr Ross, if I can interrupt, with respect, you are repeating the substance of your submission.

What I am really after is how many employers have you spoken to.

Out of every hundred, how many have expressed this view?

I ask that question because we as a committee have been put in the unfortunate situation where far too few small business representatives have appeared before us and we frankly do not know what their views are one way or the other about this legislation.
It is important for us to know that.

If you are able to separately—not now—write to the committee and say, ‘We have surveyed a hundred small businesses, or whatever, and these are their views’, that would help in this matter.

Mr Ross—I would be happy to write to the committee in those terms, but I should say that there are 47 private hospitals in Queensland.

Of those, 33 have chosen to participate in a framework agreement.
Another group of three have gone through an agreement themselves; another group of two have gone through an agreement themselves.

In respect of aged care employers, there are approaching 400 different aged care enterpris- es in Queensland.

Some employers own several, and they have all, through their associa- tions, preferred a centralised approach to agreements.
In respect of domiciliary nursing services, there are four principal employers in Queensland, and they have again approach- ed us on the basis of seeking a centralised outcome in respect of wages and conditions.

That is the information I am drawing on in that respect.
Senator MACKAY—In relation to right of entry, we heard evidence from the ANF previously that the right of entry provisions are frequently used by union members to get the union into a workplace, not necessarily to represent the concerns of the union members but to in fact police unsavoury or unfair practices by employers.

We were given evidence by the ANF earlier about nursing homes and union members being concerned about patient care.
From our perspective that was a quite interesting use of the right of entry provisions.

Can you comment in relation to that matter?

Ms Mohle—Certainly right of entry is a very important provision that we really need to maintain.

Aged care is not an area I have a lot of expertise in.

That is a very interesting scenario you place before us about residents’ care because we actually do have a lot of contact from members with concerns about standards of care.
I can see how that could be used as a mechanism for policing those sorts of concerns.

There certainly is a concern that our members feel very vulnerable in some areas like aged care.

The provisions with respect to right of entry without having to actually identify who has requested the union to come into a particular workplace would be severely detrimental to our members.

I think right of entry is very important.


In feedback we are getting from our members, from information that we put out about the proposals in ECONOMICS E 1072 SENATE—References Wednesday, 17 July 1996 the bill, that is one that keeps coming back as a concern for members again and again.

The potential curtailing of the right of entry is of great concern to our members for a myriad of reasons.

Mr Dougherty—I refer senators to attachment 1 of the QNU submission.
One of our organisers received a letter from an aged care employer dated 5 June.

Unfortunately, they seem to be of the view that the new legislation is in place.

This highlights some of the difficulties that we may be facing, particularly in that area of our membership.

Clearly, the employer is seeking to place massive restrictions on our organiser’s access to that site.
Senator MACKAY—In relation to the impact this bill will have on women, we received evidence earlier today from the Queensland Sex Discrimination Commissioner.

He expressed concern that the inevitable primacy of AWAs under this legislation will in fact mean that there is very little recourse for women who believe they are not receiving equal remuneration.

You are aware that that clause has been removed from the bill.
Because of the primacy of AWAs, they will not have access to the state legislation in that matter and therefore they will have to go to the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission which, of course, as a result of the Brandy case, does not have determinative power and cannot actually change the instrument which has caused the difficulty in relation to discrimination.

There was almost nowhere for women to go to seek redress, which seems to make a bit of a mockery, I suppose, of the objects of the bill.
Do you have any comment in relation to that?

Ms Mohle—That is certainly of concern to this union as well.

We have gone to that in the submission we have placed before the Senate inquiry.

It is also of concern because of the workload pressures that are on the state Human Rights and Equal Oppor- tunity Commission.

It takes a long time for any of their cases, even if they have no powers, to actually come into being.

There is about 12 months delay in hearing times at present.
It is not going to be a quick way to address any concerns like that.

And, as you say, they are not going to have any powers to actually change it.

Senator MACKAY—Twelve months at the moment?

Ms Mohle—Over 12 months at this time.

CHAIR—We are now out of time.

Thank you very much for your submission.
ECONOMICS Wednesday, 17 July 1996 SENATE—References E 1073 [3.38 p.m.] HILL, Mr Jeremy, Member, Australian Services Union, 32 Peel Street, South Brisbane, Queensland MAYES, Ms Janice, Branch President, Central and Southern Queensland, Clerical and Administrative Division, Australian Services Union, 29 Amelia Street, Fortitude Valley, Queensland ROBERTSON, Ms Michele, Industrial Officer, Queensland Services Branch, Austral- ian Services Union, 32 Peel Street, South Brisbane, Queensland SMITH, Ms Susan, Branch Counsellor, Australian Services Union, 32 Peel Street, South Brisbane, Queensland SYMONDS, Mr Terence, Delegate, Australian Services Union, University of Queens- land, St Lucia, Queensland ACTING CHAIR (Senator Ferguson)—We have a submission before us and I would invite you now to present an overview of that submission.
Ms Mayes—Actually, two separate organisations are involved in this and we have determined that the Queensland Services Branch will go first.

ACTING CHAIR—Could you confine your opening remarks to 15 minutes between the two of you, so it gives us 15 minutes for questions.

I invite Ms Robertson to speak first.

Ms Robertson—We have made the submission to you on the basis that within the Queensland Services Branch, we represent workers in non-government social and community services throughout this state.
Those employees work in services which range from very large organisations like the Uniting Church or St Vincent de Paul, to very small organisations where they may be the only employee and part-time at that.

For the last six years we have been attempting to regulate the industry.

The industry has never had an award in place before and on 26 June this year, we achieved award regulation for 300 organisations in the state of Queensland.
We are in the process of roping in approximately 600 other employers at this stage.

So we have real concerns that any changes to the current legislation would mean gross inequities between those workplaces where there was some form of regulation and others where there was no form of regulation at all.

When I say that it took us six years to achieve award regulation, it is fair to say that now there is a great deal of employer support for regulation in the industry.
With the exception of 15 large organisations in the state, most employing bodies are voluntary ECONOMICS E 1074 SENATE—References Wednesday, 17 July 1996 management committees made up of members of their respective communities.

Those employers are usually not professional employers, they usually employ in their spare time.

They are there not to be employers but to oversee the running of a service.
A complete award, as opposed to an award which has scanty provisions, is very important both to the employees in the industry and to the employers as well because it makes both respective parties totally aware of their responsibilities and rights.

Another real concern for us is the fact that most of the industry is non-profit and reliant on government funding, whether that is state or Commonwealth funding or a combination.
There is a real concern that funding disparities and inequities will emerge if there is disruption to the process of regulating the award so that people doing similar work are paid at similar rates.
Our industry is also made up of 80 per cent women and whilst 80 per cent of the work force and certainly 80 per cent of our membership are women, currently even where they are doing the same jobs in the award free areas, men are often paid at a higher rate or receive other benefits such as personal use of cars and so on.

So there are still big gender issues to deal with in our industry.

Keeping it award free will only continue that and make it worse.
Concerns have also been expressed over the lessening of the powers of the Industrial Relations Commission in unfair dismissals.

Our industry, traditionally, has a very high rate of disputation.

On many occasions when negotiations have broken down with employers, we have sought the assistance of the Industrial Relations Commission or the Industrial Relations Court at times to seek redress for those disputes and those have been, to all intents, quite successful.
So there is a real view that disputation and inequities will increase.

Mr Hill—I thought it might be useful to give some background on my experience as a worker in the community services industry.

I am a youth worker; I work for a organisation called the Brisbane Youth Service.

My employers are a voluntary, elected management committee of an incorporated association.

We are non-profit.

We work with young people.

We are totally reliant on government funding to provide that community service.
The majority of the employer’s time is devoted to steering the organisation in a direction to provide improved services to young people.

They welcome the new award.

Previously, no award was available in the industry that I was working in, apart from an award known as the cash award, which was primarily for people involved in crisis and supported housing.

That award did not cover pay rates; it only covered conditions.
So it is a quite difficult and volatile industry and I think there is a real need for the ECONOMICS Wednesday, 17 July 1996 SENATE—References E 1075 framework as an award to have an award.

It is also an industry where people work for a long time but not necessarily in the same job—they move around a fair bit.

There needs to be consistency there, too, in the conditions that you work under from position to position and some recognition of your skills from one organisation to the next.
An award can provide that kind of clarity as well.

So I welcome it as a worker and the organisation that I work for welcomes that as well.

Ms Mayes—We represent mostly clerical and administrative workers across both the public and the private sectors.

Our membership is approximately 78 per cent female.

There were five areas of the proposed bill that we addressed in our submission.
They include: equal pay for work of equal value; right of entry for union officials; deregulation of hours of work; abolition of paid rates awards; and introduction of Australian workplace agreements.

These issues are of particular importance to our members.

Many of them work in areas of extreme vulnerability in either small workplaces or workplaces where they are sometimes subject to quite serious intimidation and potential harassment by their employ- ers.
Our members have often expressed concern about their own bargaining power and our submission outlines their concerns.

I have with me two of our delegates who would like to take further those submissions.

Mr Symonds—I wanted to address a few points of objection to the proposed bill.

The first is the individual nature of Australian workplace agreements.
The bill talks about a level playing field and the fact that an individual employee would be able to negotiate on, allegedly, equal terms with their employer.

That is a fallacy.

Employment is very much a buyer’s market.

That certainly is the case generally, with high levels of unemploy- ment expected to continue, but it is also definitely the case in my sector.

You would be aware of the proposed cuts to higher education which has created very much a climate of restraint inside the sector.
Staffing freezes have been announced at most universities around the country.

In that particular climate, it is not at all possible, in fact it is ludicrous to suggest that an employee could hope to negotiate on equal terms with an employer as though the options open to them inside the industry were the same.

It is very much a case that if you do not like it, you will be forced to lump it or leave.

To my mind, that is not negotiation; that is an auction.
For that reason, I would support having industry awards because they mitigate the effects of that option.

They actually provide a floor upon which conditions cannot go below and I would support retaining them for that reason.

I also think it is very important to retain those elements of the act which encourage or provide for collective bargaining through trade unions because I think unions also mitigate that auction effect.
They influence the market forces, if you like, by allowing workers to combine to compare notes and to reach an agreement amongst themselves ECONOMICS E 1076 SENATE—References Wednesday, 17 July 1996 perhaps about what sort of conditions they may or may not accept and which they may not go below.

They actually provide a counterweight, I would suggest, to the effects of unemployment upon the employment market.
To perform that role, I think it is important to realise that trade unions require the right of entry.

There are numerous cases where trade union officials are required to enter a workplace and support or advise union members about what they may or may not be able to do—inspect wage records, inspect safety conditions, conditions of employment and things like that—and I do not think it is fair or appropriate to require that the person asking them in be identified to their employer as a union member.
The possibility of victimisation already exists under the current framework and, as far as I can read the legislation, it will make it very much worse when the union official is required to produce that evidence by name to the employer in order to enter.

Finally, I would say that for workers to have any hope at all of having anything approaching an equal say in the marketplace over labour, they need to be able to, as it were, compare notes about employment conditions, wage levels and things like that.
I think that that provision would be ruled out if AWAs were to be secret, as proposed by the act.

I think that makes it impossible for workers to compare notes and reach any kind of understanding of what the marketplace levels are, aside from what their employer tells them or offers them at a particular time.
If an employer offers you a particular wage level and says that this is what is going, you have got no way of knowing whether that is appropriate, whether it is of a level that is considered normal in the environment or whatever, unless you have got access to other AWAs or other contracts and are able to compare those across the industry.

For that reason, I would oppose any provisions to keep agreements secret.

That is all I have to say.


Ms S. Smith—Just by way of background, I belong to a fairly dedicated, tolerant and unseen work force.

We are the backbone of the university, although when people think of universities they just think of academics.

Traditionally, we are not vociferous and we are fairly non-militant.
We are not highly paid, by any stretch of the imagination, but over the last few years we have been prepared to tighten our belts and we recognise that we have to play our part in the harsh economic times.

However, last year senior manage- ment paid themselves a 25 per cent pay increase.

I also speak from the experience of working with an employer who sought to introduce a minimum rates award.

This award was submitted to the IRC without any consultation with us or with the unions.
To make matters worse, the deputy vice- chancellor, in writing, assured us that they were not going to change our conditions of employment.
But when we had a look at the award that they had submitted, we found amongst many other things, longer working hours, a longer span of working hours, reduced salary levels—and this impacted on our opportunity for a career path—reduced sick leave, reduced compassionate leave, reduced long service leave, no paid maternity leave, and reductions in loading for shift workers and for annual leave.
ECONOMICS Wednesday, 17 July 1996 SENATE—References E 1077 Initially, within the staff, there was a feeling of ‘They can’t do that to us.’ Many people who were two months off having long service leave awarded to them all of a sudden found that they had to work another five years before they qualified for it.

It seems to us that management perceived that we were a weak group of people and they thought they would be able to exploit us.
Morale was very low anyway last year after we gained a pitiful two per cent pay increase from enterprise bargaining and then we faced the threat of losing the conditions that we thought we already had.

Everyone in the university was scared that they would have to fight back for conditions that we thought were already granted and it was very demoralising for us and very destabilising for a group who are the backbone of the university.

It was a case of bashing those of us who are weak.


People in positions of power last year rewarded themselves quite handsomely but it is time to see some leadership by example, and exploitation is an unacceptable standard.

I would like to see management tighten their belts before they have a go at our award.

Senator MACKAY—Ms Smith, I want to clarify what you said.

So you had a commitment in writing from your employer that your wages and conditions would not be diminished?
Ms S. Smith—Yes, it was even underlined.

Senator MACKAY—When you finally got the award or agreement that was submitted, there was substantial diminution in wages and conditions, is that correct?

Ms S. Smith—Yes.

Senator MACKAY—If that is the case, then I would think you would have very little faith in some of the provisions of this bill, particularly with respect to the negotia- tions of AWAs.

Some members of this committee say, ‘Well, all you have to do is say no’, and there will be no difficulty.
I would assume that you have little faith in the Prime Minister’s commitment that no worker would be worse off in terms of their take home pay.

Frankly, I find that quite an extraordinary story.

This is the first time we have heard something quite that bad.

Ms S. Smith—Yes.

Everyone was saying, ‘But they can’t do this to us—John Howard said.’ Senator MACKAY—I think I have made my point.

Senator MURRAY—Ms Robertson, I am interested in your sector.
Do you have a feeling for the average hourly wage of workers associated with religious and other charitable organisations in the care industry?

ECONOMICS E 1078 SENATE—References Wednesday, 17 July 1996 Ms Robertson—That will vary depending on what form of work they are doing.
It is fair to say that their counterparts who are employed in similar positions in, say, the public sector, in a respite service, a disability service or a child protection area, would, on average, be earning between $8,000 and $10,000 more a year.

Within our sector there is not a flat rate, it depends on what sort of work you do.

Certainly, the introduction of the award for housing workers, for example, will see their hourly rate probably increase by about $3 an hour on average.
Senator MURRAY—I ask you that question because in Western Australia we have recently had industrial action taken in your sector because workers were being paid, I think, about half—and it is from memory I say that—the award wage.

In other words, the existing IR system was not protecting them.

The answer of the churches and other organisations involved was that they had insufficient money from the community and government was cutting their money and they could not afford to pay more.
That is an argument which was well understood by everybody.

The question I put to you is: does the existing IR system protect you anyway?

I put the same point to Ms Smith.

She is referring to negotiations under an existing system which is not protecting you.

Ms Robertson—The existing system has the potential to protect us.

There is a potential there to create industrial instruments which will dictate the wages and conditions that will be paid.
Because of the type of industry it is, workers in the industry are very susceptible to intimidation both by the community and by, particularly, their employers.

That intimidate may take a direct form— Senator MURRAY—Sorry, can I interrupt you.

Are you saying that religious and charitable organisations intimidate their employees?

Ms Robertson—I am sorry if I gave that impression, that is not what I meant to say.
I am saying that there is the potential there for that intimidation and that intimidation may be indirect.

Because of the nature of the work that people in our industry do, it is often the case that they are meant to rely on their commitment or their vocational commitment.
The fact that they are working with disadvantaged groups of people or disadvantaged individuals means that some do not see them as professional workers who should be remunerated in the same way as, say, a counterpart in another organisation.

Senator MURPHY—You said you had documentation with regard to the negotia- tions and discussions that you had with the employer, could you provide the committee with copies of that?

Senator MACKAY—The letter.

Ms S. Smith—Okay.


Senator MURPHY—The letter and any other documentation that was presented to ECONOMICS Wednesday, 17 July 1996 SENATE—References E 1079 you that would illustrate that the conditions that you were given were substantially less than those promised in the original letter.

Ms S. Smith—Certainly.

ACTING CHAIR—If there are no further questions, I thank you very much for your attendance here today.
ECONOMICS E 1080 SENATE—References Wednesday, 17 July 1996 [4.00 p.m.] TIMO, Mr Nils, Lecturer in Industrial Relations and Enterprise Bargaining, Griffith University, Gold Coast Campus, Private Mailbag 50, Gold Coast Mail Centre, Queensland 4217 ACTING CHAIR—I welcome Mr Timo to the table.

We have a submission from you, but I invite you to speak to that submission prior to us asking questions.

Mr Timo—The coalition were elected on a platform that has already been discussed earlier.
One of the platforms they were elected on was to make an IR bill comprehensible, simple and understandable by industry and those who access the bill.

Sadly to say, the bill is probably as badly drafted—if not worse—than the 1993 amend- ments that went through under Labor.

Inherent in the bill is a whole range of complex formulas as well as contradictory positions in relation to various provisions.
The unfair dismissal provisions in the draft bill are incomprehensible from a practitioner’s point of view because it is not made plain what an entitlement is for an employer and employee.

I do not mean that as a criticism; I mean it in the sense that if one is to improve on the unfair dismissal legislation then it should be simple, clear and transparent.

The current bill provisions do not seem to do that.

I think it has been a case of ‘draftertitis’ or something similar.
The objects of the act in section 3 discuss the jurisdiction of the commission.

The bill also says that the objectives are to provide a form of regulation either provided for this act or not.

It is the ‘or not’ that is somewhat conspicuous in that what forms of alternative regulation is the bill envisaging that are not already incorporated within the current framework?

The issue of individual contracts is one which has been debated by employers for some time.
The misnomer is that the current legislation does not have a bar on an employer having an individual contract.

The only bar is if that contract undercuts the award conditions that prevail for that employee.

There is some debate there as to whether or not the issue of individual contracts is already catered for by the current legislation with some fine tuning.

The other issue I raise is in relation to section 118A, the provisions whereby an applicant can have a demarcation order issued in their favour.
The current provisions under the Industrial Relations Act 1988 should not be varied.

I have done about 40 of those so far in my role with unions and they have seemed to work very well.

One of the concerns I would have is that the range of employers and unions that they negotiate with to achieve exclusive coverage will, in fact, be undermined by the bill’s removal of the ‘conveniently belong’ rule.
If that rule is removed then it is open slather and the 118A order would in fact have no effect in law against a union, because the rules of the union ECONOMICS Wednesday, 17 July 1996 SENATE—References E 1081 no longer apply.

Therefore, if they have the ability to recruit within a 118A order, they can do so.

The current orders—for example, Movieworld, Seaworld, Dreamworld and various state jurisdictions such as under section 45 of the Queensland Act—could be seriously undermined.
The other issue that is of concern is the ability for parties—particularly employ- ees—subject to a demarcation order of this style, to be persuaded after six months to get from underneath that order.

I do no think that is an appropriate issue either.

Employers seek stability in their union negotiations.

They seek stability in terms of who was representing their employees.
They do not want a plethora of unions trotting up saying, ‘We’re acting as agent on behalf of your employees.’ The nonsense would be one major resort on the Gold Coast that I am familiar with, that has 17 unions present.

If they all each had a member, you would have 17 people at the bargaining table, each with a different philosophical view about bargaining.

It would be a complete nonsense.


I do not want to sound negative, but the other issue in relation to section 111AAA is that these provisions seem to provide a safety net for safeguarding the jurisdiction of the state tribunals.

I would support that, having regard not only to my Queensland parochial- ism but also to the fact that jurisdictions such as Queensland already have well-developed mechanisms for the settlement of disputes between employers, employees and their unions.
That provision, if it is allowed to stand, will in fact strengthen certain jurisdictions like Queensland.

The downside is for those in Victoria, Western Australia and Tasmania in terms of the types of jurisdictions that are down there.

I appreciate you cannot have your cake and eat it, but from my position, working in Queensland, that provision of the bill seems to be fairly reasonable and is one which will strengthen the state jurisdiction to prevent forum shopping, which happens all the time.
When someone cannot get something from a state jurisdiction, they drop into the federal and attempt to get it that way.

It is simply creates a doubling of legal costs and a doubling of effort.

I have been involved in a number of cases like that.

That is a positive tick, I suppose, for the draft.

The other issue is in relation to the Industrial Relations Commission’s role.
I do not think limiting the role to 18 basic core award conditions and limiting the dispute settlement powers of the commission are really in the public interest.

The commission has, since 1904—whether we like it or not—been involved in establishing a level playing field so every employer knows exactly what the position is.

If they wish to improve upon that they do so through improving productivity.

They cannot do that by undercutting the award system.
The practical effect of the bill is that we have a Victorian solution and we do not have a Victorian solution.

After 18 months—when the awards are stripped back to the core conditions—those conditions that were previously in the award and that the commis- sion no longer has jurisdiction over simply cease to have effect if they are not incorporat- ECONOMICS E 1082 SENATE—References Wednesday, 17 July 1996 ed into an Australian workplace agreement or some form of certified agreement.
When you look at that impact on, for example, medium to small business—the majority are partnerships; they can be clubs, they can be unincorporated or have the individual person as a sole trader—they will have little access, if any, to a system such as AWAs, which are based on the corporation’s power.
They will have to rely predominantly on either maintaining those 18 core conditions or do what one is trying to avoid doing, and that is to fall back upon the well-worn path of having local contracts that are unenforceable at law because they are made between the individual employee and the employer.

As such, it is really doubtful as to whether they would have any legal standing.

I will just take this on a roll, and I am sorry if there is no logic to it.
The other issue is in relation to the unfair dismissal provisions.

The current provisions in the legislation have been argued to be somewhat complicated and legalistic.

The draft bill certainly does not improve upon that; it makes it worse, I think.

There is no reason why some of the benefits under the bill—for example, section 170CG, which talks about the reasons that an employee is entitled to have before they are dismissed—cannot be made much simpler and more logical for someone to access them.
I gave a copy of the bill to a friend of mine who is an employer.

He got through the first paragraph okay, but the rest of it he was in some serious doubt about.

It is quite clear that the draft legislation really will not improve whatsoever on the current unfair dismissals issue.

One of the arguments that one could put is that the current bill does not fit and does not comply with the provisions under the ILO recommendations.
I do not think they do, because the ILO recommendations say that, if there is an alternative remedy, it should not be less than what is provided for under these recommendations.

By splitting up those who are under awards as opposed to those who are not under awards, the bill does create the potential for inequity to arise.

One of the issues in the bill is that it seems that unfair power is generated through a person actually having to be dismissed from employment.
The situation which arises is what happens if a person is dismissed from their job and not from employment?

They really do not seem to have much access to any relief.

That is to say, if they have demoted unfairly or something like that, there does not seem to be anything in the bill that picks up that situation.

In relation to the 18 core conditions, as I indicated before I do not think it is in the public interest to have awards cut back to that extent.
One of the major concerns that I have is in relation to training and superannuation.

We have looked at a lot of clients in terms of training.

For one reason or another some of them feel that you can put someone on for two weeks—especially on the Gold Coast—and say, ‘If you don’t work out we won’t pay you, because you have been employed for two weeks on probation.
But because you did not work out, tough, we will go get someone else.’ ECONOMICS Wednesday, 17 July 1996 SENATE—References E 1083 The provisions that give employers discretion about whether to pay for paid training or not is like giving Dracula the keys to the blood bank.

They will not pay for the training and we will not get the sort of training incentive that we have been trying to get in Australia for the last half decade or so.

So I think that provision has a number of concerns.
The other concern is the provisions under the so-called core conditions in relation to occupational superannuation.

The superannuation industry in Australia has developed fairly rapidly and fairly equitably.

There are always problems in relation to casuals and part-time employees in terms of the amount of money that they have put aside because of their irregular hours.

By making superannuation a non-core condition, we can see the real potential for the fragmentation of industry funds.
Maybe that is the government’s objective.

The fragmentation of industry funds certainly is not in the public interest.

If there is to be a question of competition between super funds, there is nothing wrong with industry funds competing as long as they are all properly regulated and properly attuned to the needs of that industry.

I do not believe that for the 18 core conditions to exclude such an important issue as occupational superannuation could be said to be in the public interest.
There is currently about $120 billion in occupational superannuation—that is a lot of money and a lot of responsibility.

The arguments that some coalition members have put up in relation to union officials having their snouts in the trough as trustees of so-called superannuation funds is simply not true.

A recent survey conducted two months ago by one of the industry fund managers found that very few, if any, trustees are paid for their time.

I have been on two trustees.

I have never been paid.


I spent my own time on it.

The only perk I had as chair was to decide which restaurant we would go to for Christmas lunch.

That was the limitation of any lurks and perks.

Most union officials—and 50 per cent of those on trustees are also employers—do so voluntarily and do so free of charge.

I am not aware of any industry fund that pays people to attend their meetings, unless it is a very small payment.
Independent contractors being excluded from the test of unfair contracts is once again a serious issue, particularly when employers in the 1990s are moving to downsize and outsource their work.

It is not uncommon now to find that employers, including some of our clients, have sought to outsource the work that they previously had done by employees by simply converting what employees previously did as an employer-employee relationship into one of independent contractor.
Under this proposed bill, the jurisdiction of the commission is removed from the unfair contracts, which means that a person in a situation like that would probably have to spend an enormous amount of money going through the courts.

If the American model ECONOMICS E 1084 SENATE—References Wednesday, 17 July 1996 were adopted in this sort thing, it could take six years to get justice and equity once the courts become clogged with unfair contract claims.

That is an issue which should be reconsidered.


In relation to trade unions and their right of entry, I can only endorse what I said before.

The right of entry is an important area for unions to act what they do.

Unions are a safety net institution.

They have always been.

Some union officials may abuse their power of entry.

The commission has dealt with those and those people tend to find that they lose their right of entry.
But, broadly speaking, the right of a union to enter the workplace should be unfettered to the extent that they have to advise the employer that they are on site and they have to talk to the member in non-working time.

That should not change.


The ability of an employer—and I represent a lot of employers; I would not trust them—to interrogate a union official coming on site as to whom the member is and ask what the letter says— ‘Give me a copy of the letter; what are they complaining about?’—is simply saying to unions, ‘If you want to meet your members, you don’t do it on site.

You do it at the pub after work,’ which is what will happen.

I do not think that is to the benefit of the public either.
I have a couple of last things in relation to trade unions and the establishment of enterprise branches within unions.

My consultancy has always been aimed at trying to get a rationalisation of union coverage in the workplace because it is easier to negotiate.

It is easier to provide relatively equitable bargain arrangements.
Enterprise branches are going to be very difficult to police and it will be very difficult to ascertain accountability levels, particularly, for example, where a group sets themselves up as an enterprise branch without having regard whatsoever to the overall industry position or what the industry union’s attitude might be.
I can only recall that the BLF might actually see a resurgence in Victoria and New South Wales because under the proposed bill the CFMEU, or BWIU as it was known, could not legally stop these people from forming an enterprise branch.

A couple of things in relation to— ACTING CHAIR—Mr Timo, could I just ask how much longer you will be because we are on a time limit?

Mr Timo—One more minute.


In relation to the AWAs, research that has come out of Western Australia and Victoria pretty much points to the fact that for an employee saying there was not an option, if they so no to an AWA they simply do not have a job.

My work in the fast food industry leads me to suggest that that will be the first major industry to adopt AWAs.
I do not think they will be adopting AWAs because it is good for the employee’s health; I think they will be looking at AWAs to consolidate lower wages and to consolidate something that they have been looking at for some time, which is unpaid training, particularly in a low skill area like that.
So, in terms of AWAs, if they ECONOMICS Wednesday, 17 July 1996 SENATE—References E 1085 are to be provided for a vetting process by the commission perhaps they are more palatable—and the secrecy provisions removed—because you then have at least a certain amount of transparency in relation to the issue of AWAs.

The last issue is that I do not think AWAs are constitutional.
I am not a constitu- tional lawyer, but to use the corporate affairs in such a way to regulate the internal employment relations between an employer and an employee I think is fairly shaky ground when you think of what the founding parents had in mind when the constitution was drafted and what that particular head of power really meant.

That is really all I wanted to say.

ACTING CHAIR—Mr Timo, did you have any involvement in the preparation of the submission of the Queensland branch of the ACTU?
Mr Timo—No.

My involvement was with the AWU’s submission.

I have a suspicion that there was some copying or incorporation of one from the other to keep a certain level of consistency.

ACTING CHAIR—But you are not sure who copied from who.

We heard from the ACTU that they certainly did not have anything to do with the AWU’s submission, and yet they are identical.

Mr Timo—The AWU’s submission and the TLC submission?

ACTING CHAIR—Yes.

Mr Timo—I could not comment on that; I do not know.
ACTING CHAIR—But it is also interesting to note that your submission, including the order of the table of contents and the major headings, the introduction, the impact of the bill and the part of the paid rates award, is also nearly identical to the other two submissions.

Mr Timo—It is certainly based on—my covering letter says that I augmented some of the points made by the AWU.

I cannot comment on the TLC submission; I could not tell you about that.
There are some areas of the AWU submission which I wanted to augment because I felt it was important to keep a certain consistency.

ACTING CHAIR—It is more than augmented, because you actually go over exactly the same ground.

I find it very strange that you say that you had nothing to do with the ACTU Queensland branch submission, and they say that they had nothing to do with the AWU submission, and yet they both happen to be identical.

Mr Timo—I cannot answer that, Mr Chair.


ECONOMICS E 1086 SENATE—References Wednesday, 17 July 1996 Senator CHILDS—You said that there is importance in having certainty and stability in the IR framework.

Do you agree that the effect of this bill is that it will allow both state and federal agreements—and so allows business—to be exposed to changes every time there is a federal or state election as there are basic differences between the government and the opposition on industrial relations?
How do you expect a national company to deal with this complexity with seven different sets of arrangements that can be guaranteed to change quite regularly?

Mr Timo—Senator, the answer to that is that employers have probably been doing that for the last 80-odd years.

It has always been a problem in Australia where you have state jurisdictions having their own internal heads of power.
Queensland in 1993-94 attempted to mirror many of the federal provisions so that we had this interchange between provisions, and kept them very similar.

The problem that we have continuing is that Victoria has a different type of industrial system completely.

Western Australia is somewhat similar.

New South Wales may actually be going back to the form of system that they had prior to the coalition government.

So I do not know the answer.


I think if the senator is suggesting that we should have a common industrial relations field or jurisdiction across Australia, maybe that is the ultimate solution, but I am not sure how that would sit with the states.

Senator CHILDS—Would you agree that people in Queensland would face a qualitative change, as far as industrial relations is concerned, were this bill to become law?

Mr Timo—There would be a reduction in what they currently enjoy.
That is a concern that I would have.

Senator CHILDS—You made reference to the training being in the hands of the employer.

I wonder whether you would develop your ideas on that.

We have heard argument that the non-payment by employers for the training of their employees will encourage employment.

I wonder whether you have had any experience in that field of the training of staff, the development of human capital.
Mr Timo—Currently for an employer in tourism, for example, to invest in training, because of the cost of that investment the training has to be most often accredited by some training organisation and it has to be training of a certain standard, otherwise they would not provide it; it is just simply too expensive.

It is a bit like Medicare in a sense that there is a certain level that you cannot charge out of.
If the training becomes unpaid, there is no qualitative control any more in the type of training that is provided because the employer will not have to put the time and effort into it.

It could end up being some very basic training like, ‘Here’s the mop bucket.
Go off and do some training on mopping the floor.’ So the paid training is itself a filter on the ability of the employer to ensure that training meets some sorts of outcome standards, ECONOMICS Wednesday, 17 July 1996 SENATE—References E 1087 because the cost of providing that training is in itself a disincentive to providing training that does not improve the overall capital skill or human skill, if you like, of the employee.
There are employers that actually put people on for two weeks and if they do not work out they give them the sack and they do not pay them either.

They say, ‘You were on for two weeks probation but you did not work out.

Tough.’ There are some retail establishments—smaller ones—that do that.
Senator CHAPMAN—I want to relate to you an experience I had almost exactly four weeks ago when I was at the annual presentation dinner for the National Awards of Excellence, sponsored by the Australian Hotels Association, for the hotel industry, the restaurant industry—that hospitality sector.

In what was necessarily a very brief speech on my part in presenting one of the awards, I referred to this legislation and, from our perspective, the importance of it.
I had an experience that I do not think I have ever had before: in mid-sentence I was interrupted by sustained applause and ‘Hear, hear!’ from the audience—which predominantly consisted of management and staff of hotels and restau- rants, et cetera—who were obviously supportive of the legislation.

That was confirmed in conversations I had later in the evening with various people at that function—support was indicated.
Also, I understand that the Australian Hotels Association have lodged with this committee a submission supportive of the legislation.

Given that support, why is it that you as a lecturer in the Faculty of Business and Hotel Management seem to diverge so greatly from the views of hotel management?

Mr Timo—The answer is twofold.

Firstly, I do not think the AHA necessarily represents all hotel managers.

I say that bearing in mind that it has a certain view.
Senator CHAPMAN—I was not just referring to the association; I was referring to people on the ground in that industry.

Mr Timo—Sorry, Senator, I was not there; I could not tell you who was there and who was not there.

The reality is that the good hotels are providing enormous amounts of benefits in terms of training to their staff.

The good hotels will always do that.


The difficulty is where you have an award system that removes the level playing field from most employees employed across a whole range of different types of hotels.

The hotel industry is characterised by roughly 75 per cent casualisation.

Some hotels have permanently or regularly employed casuals.

Others simply come and go over a period of two to three months.
The bill will simply accelerate that situation because it will remove some of the constraints on this type of employment pattern.

I am not totally critical of the bill.

I indicated before that I think the unfair dismissal laws should be varied and should be done on a much more pragmatic and easily ECONOMICS E 1088 SENATE—References Wednesday, 17 July 1996 accessible way.
But, in terms of the hotels, the hotels for a long time have wanted to reduce the need to rely on the awards so that they can introduce their own enterprise type arrangements on an individual basis.

It is not new.

The fact that they have not been able to do that successfully nationally is probably more reflective of the fact that many of the hotels that are doing the wrong thing do not do it through the AHA.

I am thinking particularly of Daikyo, for example; I am thinking of the Sheraton.
They have gone off and done their own thing.

So I do not think I am out of step.

Most of the managers who are doing an MBA at my institution actually find it very interesting to see the history of trade unionism and the history of the industrial relations system.

Once they have sat through the course they realise that there were plenty of opportunities for them to have taken which they never seemed to have done.
One of them is that very few hotels have picked up the enterprise flexibility clauses in the federal hotels award and, similarly, in the state hotels award.

I am aware of one hotel that has done it.

Yet these clauses are, in effect, an AWA but on a collective basis.

Unions cannot oppose them, unions are not a party to them and the employer has to meet a fairly reasonable no disadvantage test.

So far these so-called enterprise flexibility clauses have not been accessed.
One can speculate as to the reasons—for political reasons, I would suggest—but there is no reason why an employer cannot access them.

We had a very interesting case in Queensland two years ago with the Unanderra Resort.

It was the first hotel type establishment to access these enterprise flexibility clauses, and they were granted.

They got their own enterprise flexibility agreement, with no union, as an appendix to the award.
Senator MURPHY—Under the existing industrial relations system, would you have ever seen companies or employers, where they are in a direct competitive situation, attempt to use employee/employer relationships to gain an advantage from a competitive point of view?

If you have, do you think that it would be worse under the proposed legislation?

Mr Timo—The answer is twofold.
The international material that is coming out, and I attached an extract from the latest issue of the Business Council bulletin on the back, suggests that those countries that have the most productive relationships with employees also have fairly highly regulated industrial relations systems—countries such as Sweden, Germany, Norway, Denmark and so on, the exclusion is New Zealand for various other reasons—because there is a recognition that an agreement by itself does not generate a particular work culture, it is what institutional arrangements and what sort of arrange- ments you have with your staff and the trade unions that are in it that are important.
Most of the companies that I have dealt with wanted to achieve this competitive- ness through a certified agreement—Daikyo, Seaworld, Movieworld, Dreamworld, and places like that.

They have seen the benefits of having a special relationship with their ECONOMICS Wednesday, 17 July 1996 SENATE—References E 1089 employees, which is consummated, if you like, by way of a certified agreement with an appropriate union.
In those cases, the union’s role has always been to actually try to sell the agreement to the employees as well as to negotiate on their behalf.

The downside to the AWAs, either collectively or individually, is that an employer will never really know what the competitor is paying and will never really know what the competitor is doing.
Senator MURPHY—You are citing to me, in some respects, larger employers, but from what I have seen circumstances sometimes develop, in sawmilling or in some small employing industries where it is very competitive, and for survival purposes, where employers may well endeavour to pay less.

I think what you just said really can be exactly the same only worse under the proposed legislation.

Mr Timo—I think so, because you would never know.


One of the outcomes of the coalition’s IR policy was to create higher wages and better paid work.

AWAs will probably rarely do that.

One last thing that I might point out on that is that if the wage limits and the wage increases under AWAs, or whatever they are, remain secret, I do not know how the government will ever know what the wages target is in any particular year.
They can use the Australian Bureau of Statistics material, but that often reflects the questionnaire rather than what is actually being paid.

Senator MURRAY—These employer clients of yours that you say you do not trust— Mr Timo—It was more of a joke, I think.

Senator MURRAY—Could you tell me what main provisions in the current federal IR legislation they would like to see changed?

Mr Timo—Basically it comes into four areas.


The unfair dismissals area is certainly a very difficult area for most employers, not because the employers—and I certainly meant no disrespect before—are inherently evil but because they are very difficult to understand and follow.

From a lay person’s point of view, it is at times a foreign language in terms of what the requirements are.
We recently ran a case for an employer who was a fairly good employer and the staff generally seemed happy with the employer but, unfortunately, they did not follow and comply with the procedures laid down and we were lucky to get them out of that situation.

Senator MURRAY—Can you itemise those four main areas?

Mr Timo—The second one is the certified agreements.
The objections to certified agreements by intervening parties should be much more strict so if an employer is doing a certified agreement with a union and another party seeks to intervene, they may have to seek leave to intervene and argue their case before they actually stop the proceedings.

The same applies to EFAs.

ECONOMICS E 1090 SENATE—References Wednesday, 17 July 1996 Senator MURPHY—I thought you had to seek leave to intervene now.

Mr Timo—Yes and no.
Mr Timo—Yes and no.

Perhaps it should be tightened up as to who has rights and who does not have rights.

Senator MURRAY—What are the third and fourth areas?

Mr Timo—The third was the EFA issue, which should be clarified, and the last one, broadly speaking, is the no disadvantage test.

The no disadvantage test in the legislation currently has been augmented by interpretations and you basically have to make sure you know what those interpretations have been in order to apply the test.
Perhaps the test itself could be more flexible in terms of current award provisions and what, as a total package, is able to be negotiated.

The reason they see that as important is that ultimately it is the commission that approves them.

So if the commission finds something faulty with them, it will not approve them.

CHAIR—Thank you.

We will now move into our open forum of individual presentations without questions from the panel.
To save time with people coming and leaving the table, I will call the first five people and we will move through each in turn.

Ms Barry—My name is Kim Barry.

I am referring to my written submission in relation to the workplace relations bill.

As stated in my submission, the effect on nurses and nursing of altering the current award from that of a paid rate to minimum rate award will, I believe, be significant.
One example is, if there is no specification or condition of number of hours break between shifts, then the potential for increased fatigue in nurses will be immense.

The area I work in is an area where we care for patients with cancer and whether that involves administering chemotherapy or caring for patients in the terminal phase of their disease, I am concerned that without that shift break condition, for example, the standard and safety of care would then be compromised.
Some of the aspects of this bill are similar to the New Zealand experience.

I had the opportunity in 1993 to speak to some New Zealand nurses who had had a similar bill enacted.

They told me that penalty rates had been eliminated.

Hourly rates were negotiated at the local level.


Essentially, my understanding of their account was that nurses were vying for positions based on the premise that those who would work for that lower rate of pay, that is, that they were prepared to accept a minimal hourly rate, were successful in tendering for the position.

My understanding, again, of that situation, talking to New Zealand nurses two years ago, was that recruitment of nurses was also extremely difficult.
In a number of hospitals, to their knowledge, they were using an increased number of agency nurses to supplement the lack of or unavailability of permanent staff.

In this type of environment, quality of care and workplace relations surely would be compromised.

Again, I am relating this to experiences.

In a recent seminar I attended, I listened to an area manager from New Zealand health discussing the current New Zealand health ECONOMICS Wednesday, 17 July 1996 SENATE—References E 1091 care system.
He briefly alluded to the current industrial environment whereby, from his perspective, management decisions are made a lot easier.

He clarified that with the example that, if cash savings had to be made and wards had to be closed, nursing staff could then be stood down with the minimum of fuss, that is, without having to go through an industrial relations process.
While I understand totally the need for and the importance of efficiencies in health care, the process of enterprise bargaining utilising a consultative and collaborative approach is, in my experience, a more effective manner in the process of managing staff and increasing productivity with true efficiencies.

I do not believe that this will be the case if this bill is enacted.

CHAIR—Thank you very much, Ms Barry.

The next witness is Graham Cotterell.

Mr Cotterell—Good afternoon, Senators.


My name is Graham Cotterell.

I am an employee of Queensland Rail and I work out at Ipswich.

I am not a very well educated type of person, but I first started to get a little worried about this new legislation when I felt it was going to affect me.

Right now, working with QR, we are under the state award and I thought we were insulated.

But reading this information, I think the Queensland government could copy this legislation and it could affect me.
I can give you an example of where I can see it is going to affect me directly.

Let us take the AWA system issue.

Let us say that a new employee comes along, he does not know anything about how QR works and he is given a basic rate of pay.

What we have done in QR over the last five years is that we have raised our base of pay.

We enjoy what I think is a 14 or 15 per cent overaward payment and that is because we, as workers, improved our productivity and changed our work practices and everything.
This new employee that is going to come along will be expected to do exactly the same thing and for a lower rate of pay.

Where does it affect me?

What is going to affect me is that it is going to start to affect the work force directly.

There is going to be disharmony in the work force.

You are going to have two workers working together with different rates of pay and that is a recipe for disaster.
If you are trying to manage something and you have this basic work force that is providing a service to the community—that is what we do, we supply transport to Queensland—it is not going to work.

You are going to get low morale and it is going to affect productivity.

If it were a small company selling fish and chips down the road at Silkstone, I would not worry.

But low productivity in the railways means to me, as a layman, that Queensland is going to be affected.

The economy is just going to collapse.


You cannot run Queensland unless the railways are working properly.

You can go all the way down to bad performance because there are different rates of pay.

Eventually we will start to talk about bad workmanship and then you are going to get some real disasters.

You have seen some disasters in the last couple of weeks when ECONOMICS E 1092 SENATE—References Wednesday, 17 July 1996 derailed trains around Wollun spilt everything.
There were a couple of derailments up north.

I will not say they are bad workmanship, but that is the type of scale you can look at when you are talking about bad workmanship.

If this comes in and you are going to have disharmony in the work force, that is what I see you are going to get.

I am sorry my presentation is not very polished, but I will answer some questions if you want me to.

CHAIR—Thank you, Mr Cotterell.


Actually, with this session, keen as we are to hear from as many individuals as we can as we travel, we have allowed questions in this session so that we can hear from as many people as possible.

I need to move on to the next person, unless there are some additional points you want to highlight.

Mr Cotterell—No, I am nervous enough now.

CHAIR—Thank you very much, Mr Cotterell.

Our next witness is Mr Keith Kermond.


Mr Kermond—I would like to thank you for the opportunity to come here and present a submission to you.

I have been in the transport industry since 1969 as a subcontractor with two national companies.

Also as a subcontractor I have been on a union committee; I have been a delegate for five years—four years as a co-delegate—and I have had a good working relationship with both these national companies.
All I would like to state are some of the bad practices going on in the company where I work now.

I do not expect you to solve these problems, but it will all add up to what I am going to say anyway.

The union was denied access to new drivers and the real number of drivers employed.

New drivers are forced to sign a drivers’ policy manual before they get a job.

There is no input by the yard drivers or the union.
What happened in that instance was that 40 out of the supposed 59 that work there would not sign.

The union is not against the idea and neither are the people that work in the yard; there is just no input from our side.

New drivers and employed drivers who were not in the union were taken into the office by management and intimidated re the joining of a union.
‘We will tell you if you have to join the union, when and if you have to.’ Management has physically tried to intimidate union officials and union representatives in the yard.

Management put their signs on union noticeboards.

They never sign any of their signs and they miraculously stay up.

When we put our signs on the union board they are pulled down and then rude photographs and sexually deviant poems and intimidating signs appear in their place.

They never fall off the board.


Management’s reply is they have got no answer to it.

They state that it is their EBA.

The EBA does not even last on the board.

No-one in management will sign what we call a ‘truck repair defect book’.

We have just got a new pay rise notice.

They put that on the board and they cannot even sign ECONOMICS Wednesday, 17 July 1996 SENATE—References E 1093 that.

Management tapes conversations.

Management singles out certain people.


If they stand up for themselves they just single them out.

They cut out their overtime.

There are certain jobs that are better paid, and everything like that, and they take them off that.We had a driver killed this year.

His log book was not written up for the last working week.

Management is supposed to keep yellow copies for a year.
We do not know if the load shifted, if he was overloaded, if he was well out of his log book hours or if it was accumulated fatigue.

The company paid for the funeral, which seems a bit odd.

There is verbal abuse of union organisers and union delegates by management in front of yard personnel.

This intimidates other drivers.

Certain drivers are prepared to work and drive excessive hours.
Management continues to exploit this practice and, in doing so, forces other drivers who do not wish to drive and work these excessive hours into a position of having to do so.

Some drivers in our yard are not able to read and write very well.

The union in this yard has been fighting these problems for years.

It has been a very up-hill battle.

Without easy access to our union these problems will never be resolved.

Most of our drivers are not even game to look at the notice board.
We are having a very hard time trying to get better working practices in this yard now.

If we have to have written permission to bring in the union for real disputes in our yard, I can only see things worsening to a degree like we have never seen before.

As I said, I have worked in other yards and have a good union relationship.

This is the worst yard I have ever seen and I think it takes us back to the dark ages.

CHAIR—Thank you, Mr Kermond.

Mr John McCallum.

Mr McCallum—Good afternoon.


My name is John McCallum.

I am the company delegate for McPhee Transport.

I am also an owner-driver with McPhee Transport.

I do not really have a great deal to say.

It is all said in the submission.

I and my fellow owner- drivers work for a very good company, a very responsible one.

We have a good union and we have good representation.
We have good management, as I said, and we also have very good owner-drivers who are very responsible and aware that they need to have a future in the company.

I am concerned at the statement of the possibility of the Transport Workers Union not being able to represent us in the commission.

I am concerned about that because most of our dealings with the company are based on relationships.

We have a very good EBA in place.


The company supports that EBA, it supports the owner-drivers and it supports its people, which is the most important thing.

I represent not only 15 owner-drivers but 70- odd other Transport Workers Union members.

I am concerned that we would be placed outside the industry.

I have been there before.

I have been outside the industry and been looked upon as a scumbag owner-driver or subcontractor and I do not want that to happen again.
I feel that we can change things ECONOMICS E 1094 SENATE—References Wednesday, 17 July 1996 more by being inside, by being considered to be part of the industry, part of the company.

Only this morning I had discussions with our owner-drivers on this meeting today, along with the management, and they all support the view that it would be divisive to move away from our present system.

I have been in divided yards and it is not productive.
It was productive probably on the basis of the management at the time, 10 years ago, finding that half the yard was able to work and the other half was not working.

So they had half the productivity there, but it did not create anything as to relationships within the company.

It caused them to deterio- rate.

I have very little to say.


All I can say to you is that we, under enterprise bargaining as owner-drivers, sit in the boardroom of McPhee Transport, we deal with the issues on enterprise bargaining, we deal with the issues on individuals, we deal with individuals as TWU members and we deal with management as individuals.

The union’s role has been an extremely positive one.
When it has not been, it has been told that it has not been positive, either by the members or the management, and we sort those things out with the union.

I know it sounds like an ideal world, but I would hope that our industry would be seeking to do that sort of thing.

In Keith’s case, they obviously have extremely poor management.

Changes start with management and then it has to follow with the union.

It has to be prepared to change.


We have basic philosophies and cultures that have to change and, in my opinion, it has to start with management.

Poor relationships start with someone, and I believe they are the people who are responsible and are paid enough to take those initiatives on board.

With regard to the role of going into other yards, we are a very profitable and productive company.

We have made it that way.

As individuals, as a group and as teams we have made our company profitable.
We look at the long-term view.

At my age, I still want to be there in 10 and 15 years down the track.

I believe we have a problem in the industry in some yards.

I speak to those drivers because I physically go out there and work.

I go out to make my deliveries, I see the drivers and I see the trucks that are absolutely disgraceful.
Some yards are disgraceful in their attitudes, they work very long hours, they work with poor conditioned vehicles and they have management, I believe, which looks at management as reducing the cost of an owner-driver rather than managing, which is the cost to their company.

I have a concern that we would not be represented in the Industrial Relations Commission by the Transport Workers Union; we would be placed outside of that.

That, to me, is a problem in the relationship with the union.
I am particularly concerned about our company where it becomes a problem in relationship with our union, our management, our employees and our owner-drivers.

I would not like to see that happen.

That is my concern.

I know I have not got any statistics to back that up; I can just tell you about an extremely successful company.

But it does relate to its people.

Thank you.

CHAIR—Thank you, Mr McCallum.

Mr Bruce Paterson.

please.


ECONOMICS Wednesday, 17 July 1996 SENATE—References E 1095 Mr Paterson—I would like to thank you for this opportunity.

What I basically would like to say is that I have been employed by National Rail since it commenced operation in 1993.

I have been employed in the rail industry for 19 years in total now, and I have seen many changes through the enterprise bargaining agreement and the different awards that I have been covered by.
At the moment within National Rail we work a five-week roster period.

During that five weeks our roster provides that we work 200 hours.

We work a 24-hour roster, seven days a week, and there is shiftwork.

Rostered length shifts up to 12 hours are included within this.

It provides flexibility for National Rail, for management and for the employees.

of benefit to the workers from the conditions are the leisure time periods built into this roster.
The award provides us with rights in respect of the rosters.

I understand that hours of work provisions for awards under the legislation would not allow for rosters to be an allowable matter.

The EBA does not seem to cover all the conditions that we enjoy at the moment.

Our award is a paid rate award which is up to date with the current work practices.
We have got to be very competitive with those at the moment, because it is not just the other companies that we work against; it is even the other rail systems that we have to compete against.

Payment is made on the basis of aggregating the rates of pay and all potential allowances into one aggregate wage.

How many shifts are worked, how many hours in a shift up to 12 hours, and what time of the day the shifts are worked: we have no restric- tions.
We can work 12-hour shifts in one night on Saturday nights or Sunday nights and receive the same earnings as for the equivalent hours worked Monday to Friday on an eight-hour shift.

That is not always popular—especially when it was first commenced.

This is because people thought that, if they worked 12 hours on a Saturday night, why should they be paid the same as working eight hours on a Monday.
But it is something that we work through with the unions and with management, and everybody is quite comfortable with that now.

It is something that we can really live with.

Our paid rates provide for additional factors such as key performance indicators.

This is one of the main parts that we have to work towards if we want to achieve National Rail saying that we have been competitive within the marketplace.

If we are not competi- tive then our jobs will go.


Quality management is a key issue, and this is also an issue that can only be worked through with management, the employers and the union.

Through the three of us we seem to be going well on the targets and, once again, this is reflected through the key performance indicators.

We have a consultation process in place which is working very well and there is a lot of harmony within the workplace.
Recruitment and promotion are major parts of ECONOMICS E 1096 SENATE—References Wednesday, 17 July 1996 National Rail and, without the union backing to get us there, I do not know where we would be.

I have read a lot in the papers about youth wages, and I have a lot of doubts about this, especially when you think that you are married and you have got teenagers approaching that age and seeking employment.

But, through this, what we have got at the moment is a proper traineeship.
We know that if people join National Rail at least they can go through the process in the proper manner.

Leading onto staff assessment and development and training and education, people can start off within National Rail at a base grade level and, going through the proper, correct training, they can reach the ultimate aim of wherever they want to go to through different branches and different lines of promotion.
We believe that all this is possible through the assistance of the union and we still maintain the right of union entry into the workplace.

We strike towards employees’ health and workplace amenities.

We have occupa- tional health and safety delegates and reps and they have all attended training courses.

One of our areas—you can’t go past it—would have to be one of the best areas around.
There are a lot of other provisions that I have had problems with when I have tried to read the new industrial relations bill.

There are things that I believe we have had for years with great benefit to society and National Rail, such as study leave, military leave and family leave—all of which would be outside the allowable matters for awards.

Another issue is the commission.


National Rail have been going for just over three years now and we have been to the commission only twice—once was about rosters and one was for driver only operations.

But the threat that the commission is there has always kept the National Rail management in line and there has been no need to take others matters to the commission.

We have a paid rates award that is a package.

The fact that we see our award as a package allows flexible working conditions to flourish.
What appears will happen if our paid rates award is withdrawn is that most of the negative aspects of the package for workers will continue to be included in the award and the most positive elements will be withdrawn.

Our union would have to renegotiate these matters in a more hostile and difficult climate, as management would already have most of the things they want to keep.
I would just like to conclude by saying that this report that I am reading out at the moment is not just from Bruce Paterson from National Rail; it is from all the people that I have worked with there.

I have the full backing of everybody from where I work.

I would like to thank you for your time.

CHAIR—Thank you Mr Paterson.

I would like to thank all the witnesses present for both their presentations and their patience.

Miss Murray, I invite you to give your presentation.
ECONOMICS Wednesday, 17 July 1996 SENATE—References E 1097 Miss Murray—My name is Kirstin Murray.

I am 15 years old and presently enrolled at the Gap State High School.

I am in Year 11 and studying mathematics, biology, economics, study of society, film and television, and English.

Although I am at school, I do have a casual job at the Coffee Club in Mitchelton.

I am employed as a waitress and, as such, I am expected to do all of the usual jobs that come under the title of waitress.
For example, I clean up, make coffees and deliver them to the tables, and ring up sales at the cash register.

I started this job when I was 14, and have been working there for approximately 18 months.

This is my first job and I enjoy it.

I work Thursday nights and Saturdays each week and during school holidays I work a part-time contract.

On Thursdays I usually work from 5.30 in the evening to 9.30 at night.

On Saturdays I work from 9.00 in the morning until about 5.30 in the afternoon.
When I first started to look for a job, I went to the Coffee Club and asked whether they would give me work experience during my holidays.

They gave me work experience for a couple of weeks before I was lucky enough to be made permanent on the Thursday night and Saturday shifts.

The matter I would like to address the committee on is a difficulty for young people in negotiating with their employers about work related issues.
As this is my first job I would find it very difficult to negotiate with my employer on matters concerning work.

This is because I do not have enough experience to know what I should or should not be negotiating for.

My knowledge of my entitlements in the workplace is little.

The only things I do know come from what I have either been told by friends from work or school or by what my employer has informed me of.

My employer had told me that I would be paid the award wage.
This is, as I know it, $5.86 per hour.

I have also been told that I am entitled to a half-hour break after each four hours of work.

I think the workplace relations bill could be a big problem for me.

As a waitress, I am not very skilled and I believe a lot of other people could come along and do the job as well as I do.

I am a bit afraid that if I had to negotiate with an employer I could easily be replaced by someone who would accept whatever the employer wanted.
My opinion of the new government’s work relations bill is that if it is enforced many employees like me could be disadvantaged and taken advantage of.
As I have made clear, with my little experience of work and young age, I would feel very apprehensive about negotiating with an employer who has a much higher status and wider knowledge than I. I believe that the Senate should not do what the government wants in introducing this bill but should keep the system as it is because the awards we have at least protect workers like me, even when I may not know what is in the award.
I would like to take the time to thank you all for allowing me to voice my opinions on this issue.

ECONOMICS E 1098 SENATE—References Wednesday, 17 July 1996 CHAIR—Thank you very much, Miss Murray.

Our next witness is Amanda Sullivan.

Ms Sullivan—My name is Amanda Sullivan.

I am 35 years of age and live in Buderim in Queensland.

I am employed in the Myer Maroochydore store in the pens, paper and presents department.

I commenced employment in November 1994 when the store first opened.
My present rostered hours are as follows: Monday 9.00 a.m. till 5.00 p.m.; Tuesday 9.00 a.m. till 5.00 p.m.; Wednesday 10.30 a.m. till 2.00 p.m. or alternately 2.00 p.m. till 5.00 p.m.

I very much depend on the regularity of my roster because I have a 4½-year-old daughter named Ruby for whom I am responsible.

There are two very important aspects to my having regular rosters.

The most important matter is that a child needs a sense of security and a set routine.
The current regulatory of my rosters provides Ruby with that routine.

Any drastic change in my rosters would destroy that.

The second aspect is that currently Ruby attends long day care on Mondays, Tuesdays and Wednesdays, and family day care on Fridays.

All child-care providers require permanent bookings and therefore it is very important for me to have a stable roster.
A few months ago I had to drop six hours a fortnight from my roster because the family day care mother who looked after Ruby could no longer do so on weekends.

It is quite conceivable that if my employer gained the right to change my roster on a frequent basis, or to employ me for as little as half an hour or an hour per engagement, I would be compelled to leave the work force and rely solely on social security benefits.
Thank you for allowing me the opportunity to speak and I sincerely hope that you do not allow this bill to remove rostering provisions from awards.

CHAIR—Thank you Ms Sullivan.

Our next witness is Ms Pat Watts.

Ms Watts—Firstly, I would like to thank you for giving me the opportunity to speak.

My name is Patricia Anne Watts and I work at Coles Myer in their K-Mart division and have done for 8½ years.
In this time I have seen many changes to the industry but none so devastating as the restructure that was put in motion three years ago by K-Mart, which wanted to eliminate full-time work and lunch breaks, to save money.

Everyone was to work a 22½-hour week—this was a take it or leave it choice.

Most people affected were the young married people and sole income earners, which is always the way.

To go from $368 to $203 before tax made a dramatic impact on their lives.
So the employers and the union took the case to the industrial commission.

Both K-Mart and us were there.

The commissioner, after hearing both sides of the problem, instructed K-Mart that more negotiations were needed.

As a result, only three out of 140 possible stores were affected.

Many jobs in the lower volume stores that would have been lost were not.

In time, thanks to union negotiation, the full-time workers who were cut to 22½ hours got their full-time hours back.
That is the power of the industrial commission— ECONOMICS Wednesday, 17 July 1996 SENATE—References E 1099 to put in motion negotiations which K-Mart would otherwise not have entered into and so change the end result where people would not have kept their jobs, their way of life and their dignity.
If the workplace relations bill goes through K-Mart will never have to restructure again; the legislation will do it for them because the benefits we will lose are so many and restructure would be unnecessary—accident pay, dress standards, family leave, first aid, meal breaks, superannuation, union notice board, protective clothing and rostering conditions are just a few.
The worst thing about the legislation is that, if a dispute did arise and we have no industrial commission that we could get a hearing from, we would have to walk out and shut the business down.

Not many employees want to close a business that employs them because the business never recovers.

This legislation gives us, as the people who work under it, no alternative.
In closing, I would just like to ask—I know you cannot answer the question, but maybe you can when you have to decide about this legislation—why does Mr Howard feel he has to fix something that is not broken and why when we are coming first in so many things does he want us to come second?

We lead the world in research, surgical technique, telecommunications and industrial relations legislation.

Why does he want us to mirror a country like the USA?

It has nothing I want from it.


What will our children think of us if we leave a work environment which offers them no security and little or no full-time work, which would mean a loss in lifestyle and dignity?

CHAIR—Thank you, Ms Watts.

Our final witness is Mr Keith Boyer.

Mr Boyer—My name is Keith Boyer.

I am 20 years old and because I have an accent I should probably explain that it is a Canadian accent.

I am an Australian citizen, however.


I have lived here for the last 12 years and Australia is now what I would consider my home.

I am currently working with a company called Toys ‘R’ Us, which is a large American company operating here in Australia.

I have been there for about eight months now.

I am employed as a store associate, which is the in-house classification for a shop assistant.
But they have also given me a fancy title and called me a multi-media adviser, which is another way of saying that I am a shop assistant who sells and advises computers on computer equipment.

Toys ‘R’ Us operates under the Queensland state award covering the retail industry.
I am aware that Toys ‘R’ Us have attempted to have a federal award made to cover the Queensland operations of Toys ‘R’ Us, and also that Toys ‘R’ Us have wanted to introduce an enterprise flexibility agreement under the federal Industrial Relations Act.

I also know that all of these moves have been defeated by a number of cases in the federal Industrial Relations Commission.
ECONOMICS E 1100 SENATE—References Wednesday, 17 July 1996 I am a member of the SDA, and I joined the union about a month after I started.

This was in November of last year.

When I first joined the union, no-one else knew that I was in the union.

The reason I did not want anyone to know that I was in the union at that stage was due to management making their stance on unions very clear and how they were trying to disrupt the process of implementing the enterprise flexibility agreement in our store.
Phillip Jefferd, the assistant store director, has approached me on numerous occasions when Ros, who is my union organiser, entered the store.

He had spent a good half hour of my time bad-mouthing the union—in particular, making references to Ros— and their attempts to come into the store, saying how destructive they are within the store and how they try to sit in our tearoom making our lives a little more difficult, thus making us uncomfortable in our own tearoom.
He felt that this intrusion by the unions was not in our best interests.

Even though Philip Jefferd made these statements about the union, I must admit that I had actually never noticed that the union, whenever it came into the store, had ever acted in any intrusive way.

Certainly, I did not even notice their presence on some occasions.
Often the only way that I or other staff members knew that the union was on the premises is that one of the management people would come around saying, ‘Don’t go into the tearoom; the union is here.’ This was generally the way we found out that maybe the union was even on the premises.

Managers generally spent a lot of time in the tearoom when Ros was there, making it very difficult for us to go in and talk to her.
Then management would ask a worker to go into the tearoom to remove any material that had been left for us to read, including things on pay rises that the STA had won for us.

On one occasion when I was asked to do this and refused, the managers then went in and removed the material themselves.
From my personal experience with how management feels about the union and how management treats people who they know to be members of the union, having then joined the union shortly after working there, I left them blissfully unaware that I was a member of the union.

Talking to people within the store, I then realised how little they knew about the union, due to the difficulty of gaining access to the material that the union was leaving.
As Toys ‘R’ Us management would remove any information left by the union, the only way this information sharing could occur was through mail sent to a worker’s home address.

At this point I decided to assist the union in compiling a list of home addresses and phone numbers to help overcome this disadvantage.

After the first mail-out, management became aware that this information was being delivered to home addresses.

A witch-hunt began in our store to find out who was responsible.
After they first suspected me, several of my friends and work associates were taken into the office and questioned about whether or not I had their phone numbers and addresses, whether they had given these to me willingly and whether they had received any information from the unions.

I was then approached in a very public manner by Philip Jefferd, the Assistant Store Director.
I was approached in the middle of the store within ECONOMICS Wednesday, 17 July 1996 SENATE—References E 1101 earshot of staff and customers.

Then a campaign of lies, in order to discredit me, was waged by Toys ‘R’ Us management, in particular by Philip Jefferd, not only to intimidate me but to make me look bad in front of other workers.

This sent a clear warning: should you follow this path, this is what can happen to you.
As a result, my hours have been cut further since it has been made public that I am a member of the union.

Every opportunity has been taken to look down at my performance at work and to make me look bad in the eyes of other employees that I may influence.

I am suffering because I am a member of the union at Toys ‘R’ Us, even under the current legislation.

I believe in unions because they are a good protection.
The union help me know my rights and they can help me out with various things in my workplace such as health and safety issues that the management at Toys ‘R’ Us cannot or will not address.

By actually having to write to the union to ask for someone to enter the store on any issue that I find to be a problem, workers would leave themselves open on a regular basis to be victimised in such witch-hunts as that which I have endured.
The bill would be a great step backwards for workers’ rights to representation without fear of recriminations.

I know it would kill any further efforts that the unionisa- tion of such a rabidly anti-union establishment as Toys ‘R’ Us because potential members would so fear reprisals from the company if they were to exercise their rights to freedom of association.

I would like to thank you for allowing me to address my opinions on these issues.

CHAIR—Thank you, Mr Boyer.


Thank you for your presentations and your patience.

I now adjourn the hearings today until we reconvene tomorrow in Townsville.

Committee adjourned at 5.09 p.m. ECONOMICS