Lots of people know that in March this year, the federal government changed the laws relating to workplace relations (the relationships between employees, unions and employers) under a law called WorkChoices. But what I think a lot of people don’t know is:
- what the changes actually are, and that
- quite seriously, they’re probably the most dramatic changes to these kinds of laws in a hundred years.
How so? Well, take, for example, the situation relating to…
Unfair dismissal before and after WorkChoicesBefore WorkChoices, most employees could bring unfair dismissal claims. This meant that back in the old days, if you were harshly, unfairly or unreasonably dismissed, you could be awarded money as compensation or be given your job back by a tribunal (an informal and cheaper version of a court).
After WorkChoices, only some employees can still bring unfair dismissal claims. If you’re an employee in a small business (99% of Australian businesses, and about 30% of all Australian employees), you can’t. If you’re a casual employee who’s worked for your employer for less than a year, you can’t. If you’re a seasonal employee in certain industries, you can’t... and the list goes on and on.
So what? Who cares? What does this mean?Well, it’ll mean that if you’re one of the kinds of employees excluded under the laws—and at least 3 million Australians are—and you
are unfairly dismissed, you might not be able to do anything about it. The new laws will mean that a whole lot of employers will have a lot of power to sack people really easily, and a whole lot of people will be facing a career of odd jobs with little or no job security. What kinds of people are we talking about?
- Young people
- Women
- People who work in industries with lots of small businesses (like property, retail, manufacturing, wholesale trade, construction, health and community services)
- People who don’t speak English very well, and
- People on low incomes (all of the above).
In short, the people that are going to suffer under the new workplace relations laws are people like you, me, and a lot of people we know.
Are these laws awful in any other way?Yes! By cutting back on unfair dismissal for small businesses, the new laws will encourage businesses to keep being small, not spend money to provide skills training for their employees and hire and fire people regularly. In the long run, this is probably going to do a great deal of harm to Australian businesses’ efficiency and global competitiveness (the technical name for this is the “low road development path”). The laws certainly
won’t help to create 77,000 jobs as the government has always claimed—academics, judges in the federal court, and even a federal Senate committee, have shown that this claim has no factual support!
To add to all of this, instead of simplifying the dismissal situation as the federal government has promised, the new laws are going to really complicate it. How so? There might be ways around the new laws—claims under other laws (like the
Trade Practices Act and the
Sex Discrimination Act), claims in the courts under common (judge-made) law, and so on. Whether these ways will work isn’t clear at the moment, but I can promise you that they’ll be tested by angry employees and unions in the coming years.
At the end of the day, the way it currently stands, these new laws are a recipe for disaster.
What can you do about it?
- Spread the word with people you know that might be affected. Talk to them. Share this link with them. Encourage them to know more. For suggestions and support, check out the Communicate section of the ActNow Toolkit here: http://www.actnow.com.au/Toolkit/Communicate.aspx.
- MOST IMPORTANTLY, KNOW YOUR RIGHTS—especially if you’re ever in a difficult work situation! An excellent starting point for this is the “Your Rights at Work” website, which you can find here: http://www.rightsatwork.com.au.
How do I know this?Anaf, L & Kollmorgen, S, ‘Has unfair dismissal been dismissed?’,
Law Institute Journal, Vol. 79, No. 11, November, 2005, pp. 32-34.
Australian Bureau of Statistics,
2004 Year Book Australia, Australian Bureau of Statistics, Canberra, No. 86, 2004, viewed 24 May 2006,
http://www.abs.gov.au/ausstats/abs@.nsf/94713ad445...!OpenDocument.
Australian Bureau of Statistics,
Census of population and housing, Australian Bureau of Statistics, Canberra, 2002, viewed 24 May 2006,
http://www.abs.gov.au/ausstats/abs@.nsf/productsby...Australian Bureau of Statistics,
Small business in Australia, Australian Bureau of Statistics, Canberra, 2001, viewed 24 May 2006,
http://www.abs.gov.au/ausstats/abs@.nsf/productsby... Australian Council of Trade Unions,
The federal government wants to abolish protection from unfair dismissal for 3.6 million Australian workers, Australian Council of Trade Unions, Melbourne, viewed 24 May 2006, www.actu.asn.au/public/news/files/ UFDandAWAfactsheet.doc.
Australian Council of Trade Unions,
Unfair dismissal fact sheet, Australian Council of Trade Unions, Melbourne, viewed 6 June 2006,
http://www.rightsatwork.com.au/ thefacts/unfairdismissal.pdf.
Dowling, C & Howe, J, ‘Fried chicken, unfair dismissal and job creation: one of these things is not like the other’,
Australian Journal of Labour Law, Vol. 15, 2002, pp. 170-176.
Freyens, B & Oslington, P, ‘The likely impact of removing unfair dismissal protection’,
Journal of Australian Political Economy, No. 56, December, 2005, pp. 56-65, viewed 1 June 2006,
http://www.jape.org/jape_56_07_freyens.pdf. Hall, R, ‘Australian industrial relations in 2005—the WorkChoices revolution’,
Journal of Industrial Relations, Vol. 48, No. 3, 2006, pp. 291-303.
Munro, P, ‘Changes to the Australian industrial relation system: reforms or shattered icons? An insider’s assessment of the probable impact on employers, employees and unions’,
UNSW Law Journal, Vol. 9, No. 1 2006, pp. 128-165.
Riley, J, ‘The evolution of the contract of employment post WorkChoices’,
UNSW Law Journal, Vol. 29, No. 1, 2006, pp. 166-180.
Robbins, W & Voll, G, ‘The case for unfair dismissal reform: a review of the evidence’,
Australian Bulletin of Labour, Vol. 31, No. 3, 2005, pp. 237-254.
de Ruyter, A & Waring, P, ‘Propagating the unfair dismissal myth: comparative employment protection law developments in Australia, South Korea and the United Kingdom’,
International Employment Relations Review, Vol. 10, No. 1, 2004, pp. 13-33.
Senate Employment, Workplace Relations and Education References Committee,
Unfair dismissal and small business employment, SEWRERC, Canberra, 2005, viewed 1 June 2006,
http://www.aph.gov.au/senate/committee/eet_ctte/un... 
