FED: Hostile reaction to Labor's new awards regime
By Kate Hannon, National Political Editor19 Dec 2008 5:49 PM
CANBERRA, Dec 19 AAP - A nine month effort to reduce 500 industrial awards to just 17 covering key industries has been met with hostile reaction from employers and unions alike.
The mammoth award modernisation task set for the Australian Industrial Relations Commission (AIRC) by Workplace Relations Minister Julia Gillard in March has produced its first results, which were released on Friday.
Major awards covering the retail, liquor and hospitality, mining, manufacturing, clerical, education, fashion, security, racing, rail and pharmacy areas have been simplified and modernised.
But employers said they were concerned the new awards would increase costs and red tape, particularly in the retail and hospitality sectors, while the ACTU said low paid workers would suffer wage cuts.
Australian Retailers Association (ARA) executive director Richard Evans said their new award would raise wages by between 11 and 22 per cent and lead to job losses.
Mr Evans said the new retail award was not modern but "arcane" and still stuck in the 1980s.
"ARA costings indicate an increased wage bill of up to $28,500 to an average Australian retail business, with the financial impact of the new award hitting retailers' bottom line like a Mack truck driving through their shop window," Mr Evans said in a statement.
ACTU secretary Jeff Lawrence said the first batch of modernised awards failed the test of ensuring no workers are left worse off.
"Work Choices took away workers' rights to redundancy pay and these proposed new modern awards only partially give back that right," Mr Lawrence said in a statement.
The commission has another three batches of federal and state awards totalling nearly 2,500 to modernise and simplify before the come into effect at the start of 2010.
A full bench of the commission handed down the 17 priority awards on Friday, saying it had been a task of "truly historic proportions" whittling down employment provisions built up over a century of industrial relations practice.
Despite the effort, the Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry chief executive Peter Anderson called on the commission to rethink the new awards "in the face of business unrest in the retail and hospitality sectors".
"In the name of a regulatory clean-up, the process is leading to more employment regulation and higher employment costs in some areas, especially in service industries," Mr Anderson said.
"The government risks losing the confidence of those employers in its plan to reactivate the award system."
Australian Industry Group chief executive Heather Ridout said they would closely examine the new awards and acknowledged the changes made by the commission since it released its draft awards in September.
"This is a very ambitious task with huge implications for employers and involves both cost and risk for business," Ms Ridout said.
"These risks are exacerbated by the current and prospective economic environment."
Opposition workplace relations spokesman Michael Keenan said the new awards were a failure that would lead to job losses in the retail and hospitality industries.
"The AIRC was acting on minister Gillard's instructions. Any Australian who loses their job as a result of these flawed instructions should place responsibility squarely with minister Gillard," Mr Keenan said.
About the only employer group happy with the announcement was the Australian Mines and Metals Association, whose chief executive Steve Knott praised the new mining industry award as a workable alternative to Australian Workplace Agreements.
