Resolution Australian unions – working for a better life

Australian unions aim to make the future better for our children and future generations.
We are committed to the needs and interests of all working Australians and their families.
We believe in fairness, justice, and respect for the rights of all people, here and across the globe.
We seek a society that fosters community and a collective approach, in which everyone is valued and respected for their contribution. Where equality of opportunity and outcomes is achieved irrespective of gender, age, religion, race or sexual preference.
We strive for equitable access to the benefits of society and to safeguard people’s democratic right to participate and have their say.
This Congress has endorsed a new union agenda for job security, workers’ rights and a better Australia.
This agenda builds on existing policies and the six priorities previously set by ACTU Executive: a voice for working Australians; improving wages and working; creating a fairer Australia; growing union membership; organising our workplaces, industries and sectors; connecting with our communities.
It addresses the following priority areas:
A plan for the future of work that gives workers:
• Safe, secure and rewarding jobs in sustainable industries;
• The right to organise and bargain collectively;
• Fair wages, pay equity for women, and family-friendly working conditions;
• Access to training, skill development and support throughout their careers;
• A rich and rewarding life outside work, including in retirement; and
• Jobs that provide greater security for individuals and for the planet.
An organising and growth strategy that:
• Safeguards and extends the same rights for all workers;
• Builds strong, democratic and growing unions which are effective in representing their members;
• Closely involves the wider community and other organisations on shared issues of concern;
• Is able to influence and achieve lasting political and social change.
A vision for a fairer society where:
• Everyone has access to good healthcare, appropriate housing, quality education and other essential community services;
• The lives of working people are made easier and our communities are strengthened through access to transport, communications, and public services;
• The most vulnerable members of the community are supported to enable their participation in economic and social life;
• Laws are applied equally to all citizens;
• Government plays a positive role in stabilising the business cycle to secure jobs and living standards;
• The economy provides benefits to the whole community;
• There is action to end the disadvantage for Indigenous Australians;
• Australia participates in international arenas to promote peace, security, human rights, labour standards and prosperity through fair trade arrangements; and
• There is strong and urgent action to tackle climate change.
Our immediate priorities are to protect workers from effect of the global financial crisis, to create the highest standard of OHS protections, and secure one set of laws with equal rights for all workers.
To deliver these priorities unions commit to campaign and grow. Unions will campaign in the workplace, the community and politically to improve workers’ rights and achieve a fairer society.

New IR laws are a major step forward for Australian workers

New industrial relations laws passed by the Federal Parliament today are a major step forward for working Australians and the nation.

The laws will provide working families with stronger rights and protection in the economic downturn, says the ACTU.

They give employees strong collective bargaining rights and represent the beginning of a new era of industrial relations that promises to be good for both working families and the economy.

ACTU President Sharan Burrow said the passage of the Fair Work Law marks an historic moment in restoring workers’ rights.

“After a decade of attacks on working people by the Liberal and National Parties the tide has turned,” said Ms Burrow.

“While the Liberal Party remains hopelessly devoted to WorkChoices, the Australian people want workers’ rights restored.

“Everyone involved in the Your Rights at Work Campaign and all those who voted against WorkChoices will be relieved to see the laws pass through Parliament.

“We can take pride in what we have achieved.”

Ms Burrow said the new laws would deliver:

• Genuine rights for workers to collectively bargain and be represented by their union.

• Unfair dismissal protection for all workers — with workers in smaller businesses having a longer qualifying period.

• A robust new safety net of awards and national standards, along with a fair and transparent process for setting minimum wages.

• An industrial umpire with the teeth to safeguard workers’ rights.

Gillard’s last-minute deal saves Fair Work Bill

THE Deputy Prime Minister, Julia Gillard, has stared down the Opposition to secure a last-minute Senate deal that will guard the Federal Government’s industrial relations legislation and complete the dismantling of the Coalition’s Work Choices system.

In an intense Parliamentary tussle, the Family First senator Steve Fielding switched sides yesterday to back the Government’s Fair Work Bill after Ms Gillard agreed to his request to phase in new unfair dismissal laws.

The deal leaves Labor’s legislation intact, including the central sticking point, the Government’s insistence that special unfair dismissal rules for small businesses should only apply to employers with fewer than 15 employees. It clears the way for the legislation – which introduces 10 minimum employment entitlements, creates a single workplace regulator and increase legal support for unions and collective bargaining – to start coming into effect on July 1.

Ms Gillard said it showed what could be achieved when people who opposed “the disgraceful Work Choices laws” and were committed to fairness worked together.

“What has been starkly revealed in this debate is the complete political humiliation of the Liberal Party, which stood in the way of the Australian people,” Ms Gillard said. “The Liberals failed to move one constructive amendment and are now consigned to the political fringes, where their extreme workplace laws have always been.”

The Opposition Leader, Malcolm Turnbull, said he had taken “a strong and principled stand” on small business unfair dismissal rules. He said the new law would destroy jobs because small business owners would be less inclined to hire staff.

Under Labor’s bill businesses with fewer than 15 employees can sack a worker within 12 months of hiring them without redress. After 12 months they will not face redress if they follow a small business fair dismissal code.

Late on Thursday Senator Fielding, the Opposition and the South Australian independent Nick Xenophon used their Senate numbers to extend these rules to more employers by increasing the threshold to businesses with fewer than 20 employees.

But under yesterday’s deal with Senator Fielding the figure will revert to 15 employees. Until January 2011 this will be calculated in terms of full-time equivalent employees. After January 2011 it will be a headcount of employees.

Senator Fielding said the deal buried Work Choices. “Family First voted against Work Choices because it was a dog; it was a dog that bit Australians harshly,” Senator Fielding said.

Earlier yesterday Ms Gillard and Mr Turnbull traded bitter accusations in Parliament.

Mr Turnbull said she was trying to make a “pathetic political point” against the Coalition.

“We are here … because the Deputy Prime Minister is so callously stubborn, so vain, so determined to get the last bit of political value out of this,” Mr Turnbull said.

Ms Gillard said: “Yes, we are stubborn in doing what we said we would do because we believe in telling the Australian people the truth. I can’t wait to see the bumper stickers from the Liberal Party for the next election: ‘Don’t vote Labor, they are too stubborn in delivering what they promised.”‘

FEDERAL COURT TERMS OF SETTLEMENT

IN THE FEDERAL COURT OF AUSTRALIA
NEW SOUTH WALES DISTRICT REGISTRY
No: (P)NSD1480/2008

NATIONAL UNION OF WORKERS & ANOR
Applicants

COLES CDC EASTERN CREEK PTY LTD & ORS
Respondents

TERMS OF SETTLEMENT

1. That orders are made by consent in terms of Annexure A.

2. The parties shall forthwith enter into discussions in respect of a new union collective agreement for the Eastern Creek CDC site based upon the existing terms and conditions on that site, such discussions to be concluded no later than 15 February 2009.

3. The NUW and the AMIEU, NSW Branch, shall in the meantime be afforded right of entry to the Eastern Creek site in accordance with the terms of the current Act as if they were parties to a current union collective agreement.

4. The employer respondents undertake to the Court that in the meantime they will apply the current terms and conditions of employment to their employees as if the consent orders referred to in paragraph 1 hereof were not made.

5. The NUW and the AMIEW, NSW Branch, shall not in the meantime (before 15 February 2009) engage in any protected action.

6. The parties will at all times act in good faith with a view to reaching a new union collective agreement for the Eastern Creek site.
Annexure A
IN THE FEDERAL COURT OF AUSTRALIA
NEW SOUTH WALES DISTRICT REGISTRY
No: (P)NSD1480/2008

NATIONAL UNION OF WORKERS & ANOR
Applicants

COLES CDC EASTERN CREEK PTY LTD & ORS
Respondents

THE COURT NOTES:

1. The terms of settlement agreed between the parties.
2. The parties are in agreement that the requirements of s 340 (2) of the Workplace Relations Act 1996 (‘the Act’) were not fully met in relation to the approval of the collective agreement which is the subject of these proceedings, before the agreement was lodged for approval by The Workplace Authority.

BY CONSENT, THE COURT DECLARES THAT:

3. The workplace agreement lodged by the First and Third to Fifteenth Respondents with the Workplace Authority on 20 October 2008, known as the Versacold Logistics Limited (NSW) – Union Collective Agreement 2008, did not come into operation upon approval thereof by reason of s 347A (1) of the Act.
4. The said agreement has no force or effect as a workplace agreement under the Act.

BY CONSENT, THE COURT ORDERS THAT:
5. All subpoenas issued in the proceedings are set aside.
6. The applicants are given leave to discontinue the proceedings.

Introduction of the Fair Work Bill 2008

1. A new national safety net comprised:
o 10 National Employment Standards (38 hour standard week and no unreasonable overtime; parental, annual, personal, long service, and community leave; flexible work for parents; notice and redundancy pay; public holidays; and information on hiring) applicable to all employees regardless of their occupation, industry or level of seniority; and
o Modern awards that cover most (but not all) matters that have been traditionally regulated by awards in both the federal and State systems; and
o minimum wages for award free employees, set by FWA.
The laws guarantee that safety net will be regularly reviewed to ensure minimum wages and conditions are maintained and adjusted over time and adjusted having regard to economic factors, living standards and the needs of the low paid.
2. The restoration of unfair dismissal rights to employees denied them under WorkChoices, and the extension of unfair dismissal rights to other groups of employees, subject to employees having served either a 6 or 12 month qualifying period. FWA can look at the circumstances of the dismissal, including where the employer claims the dismissal was for operational reasons. In businesses employing fewer than 15 employees FWA will enquire whether the employer has complied with a new unfair dismissal code;
3. New rules regarding agreements and bargaining. The key features are:
o There will be collective agreements that cannot undercut the national employment standards and must ensure every employee covered by the agreement is better off overall that they would be on the award. There will be no new statutory individual contracts, although the phase-out rules allow existing AWAs to remain operative until replaced with a new agreement, even if they provide for conditions that do not meet the “better off overall test”. A union with a member can be bound by an agreement.
o Bargaining must occur in good faith. FWA can resolve disputes about the scope of agreements (ie who should be covered) and whether the majority of employees support bargaining for an agreement. FWA can make such orders as a necessary to ensure good faith bargaining occurs.
o Parties can bargain about a broader range of matters than under any previous laws, including matters that relate to the employer’s relationship with the employees or with a union that will be covered by the agreement, or about payroll deductions. Agreements must contain a disputes clause that provides for an independent party to settle a dispute, although the mechanism to resolve the dispute is left to the parties. There will still be restrictions on unlawful content. While the laws retain the existing uncertainty about whether a matter “pertains” to the employment relationship, FWA will not supervise this and agreements can be validly made that include (unenforceable) clauses about matters that do not pertain.
2
o FWA can facilitate multi employer bargaining for low paid employees. This includes requiring the employers, or other parties such as head contractors, who determine the employment arrangements of low paid employees to participate in multi employer bargaining. As a last resort, FWA can arbitrate wage claims in this stream.
o FWA can settle bargaining disputes where a party persistently breaches good faith orders, where low paid bargaining has failed or where harmful industrial action is occurring.
o There have been limited changes to the rules relating to industrial action, which can only be protected during bargaining, and only if authorized by a secret ballot. Secret ballots can be conducted prior to the expiry of the current agreement; and the acting in concert provisions have been removed. Pattern bargaining remains unprotected, but genuine bargaining at each enterprise for common claims is not pattern bargaining. Strike pay remains unlawful. Where the strike is unprotected employers must dock a minimum of four hours pay, where protected employers need only dock for the period of the stoppage.
4. New rights to be consulted and represented at work, and new protections against unfair treatment. Employees have a right to be represented and it will be unlawful to disadvantage an employee because they seek to be represented, to join a union, or are active in their union. Awards will provide for consultation and representation at work, and workplace agreements must provide for consultation and representation at work. Employees will have better access to advice at work as union right of entry cannot be overridden, unions regain the right to inspect non-member records to ensure the laws are not being breached and there are some new rules to prevent employers frustrating union entry
5. The establishment of a new independent industrial tribunal Fair Work Australia. FWA will: set and adjust minimum wages and awards; supervise good faith bargaining and industrial action; make workplace determinations in certain circumstances where bargaining fails; determine unfair dismissal claims and disputes regarding right of entry, stand down and transfer of business; and deal with grievances through mediation, or with the consent of the parties, through arbitration.
The new Fair Work Divisions of the Federal Court and Federal Magistrates Court will be given new powers to deal, in an informal manner, with breaches of awards, agreements and than national employment standards.

TRANSCRIPT FROM 21 NOVEMBER 2008

TRANSCRIPT OF PROCEEDINGS ON 31 OCTOBER 2008

ACTU:TIME TO DELIVER YOUR RIGHTS AT WORK

TRANSCRIPT FROM THE COMMISSION

We have again taken these matters to the federal courts. We have the transcript from this matter is listed before the Federal Courts on this Friday 24 October 2008.

 

AS YOU CAN SEE BELOW VERSACOLD ARE STILL PUSHING CRAP.