Archived Industrial News: April 2005

What’s in a name?
'Cosy renovators delight with compact garden.'

We have all read this before on real estate boards, and we all know what it really means – pokey, falling down, with no backyard!

Estate agents are masters at using language to affect rather than to inform, by using language to mask any defects a property may have in order to persuade the buyer it is really worth purchasing.

Such ‘doublespeak’ as it is often called, was made famous in the George Orwell novel 1984, a bleak description of a totalitarian government intent on manipulating its people.

Of course, all governments package or spin their messages to the electorate, because they know the way a message is received and interpreted can disguise the content.

At its most benign, this can be achieved by substituting gentle words for harsher ones, but in its most extreme, governments can use language to cover up their real intent, and achieve outcomes they do not wish to reveal to the public.

Many of the proposals to change industrial laws (made possible by the Howard Government assuming control of the Senate in July 2005) could be seen as an example of this form of message manipulation, where the packaging and communication is designed to convince the electorate the changes are in their best interests, when often they are not.

Adjacent are some examples of proposed laws named by the Australian Government. Clearly, the names do not match the reality.

Name of proposed law	What it really does
Fair Dismissal	Unfair Dismissal Prevents employees in a business of less than 20 employees making a claim for unfair dismissal, regardless of the circumstances.
Protecting Small Business Employment	Protecting small business employers Exempts businesses with less than 15 employees from any requirement to pay redundancy payments to employees who are made redundant, regardless of how many years of service the employee has given.
Award Simplification	Award ‘minimisation’ Removes even more award conditions and entitlements including: ·  Notice of termination or payment in lieu; ·  Superannuation; ·  Paid long service leave; and ·  Access to skill based career paths. Awards have already been stripped back to 20 allowable matters, and it has been suggested the next award ‘simplification’ process will reduce them to six.
Choice in Award Coverage	Employers’ choice Allows small business employers to opt out of awards which set a minimum standard of wages and conditions.
Protecting the Low Paid	Restricting safety net increases Restricts annual safety net increases to people who are defined by the term ‘low paid’. (It has been suggested that ‘low paid’ will be defined as people earning less than $15.00 per hour).  It will also mean lower increases for people in this category, in line with other requirements set out in the legislation.
Simplifying Agreement-making	Unprotected contract-making Makes it easier for employers to implement individual contracts (Australian Workplace Agreements), and removes the vetting process currently performed by the AIRC which ensures employees are not disadvantaged.
Better Bargaining	Employer-protected bargaining Further restricts employees’ right to take industrial action during enterprise bargaining negotiations, and allows the AIRC to cancel protected industrial action – even at the request of third parties who are not involved in the dispute.
Right of Entry	Reducing right of entry Severely limits the ability of unions to enter workplaces and an employee’s right to access a union in their workplace. This will undermine unions by making it more difficult for them to service and recruit new members in the workplace.

The Howard Government has made it clear that once it gains control of the Senate, it will move quickly to pass the legislation referred to above.

Also high on the government’s agenda are employer proposals to change the way minimum wages are set. The government has indicated a preference for a USA-style system of a single minimum rate – currently $5.15 per hour.

The federal Treasurer, Peter Costello, recently stated: ‘If the government could get rid of (these) minimum rates, leaving them to the market to decide, it would be far advanced in the quest for a simple and genuine safety net’.

Given that the major employer groups have long considered minimum wages to be too high, the Treasurer’s words appear to be another example of doublespeak designed to disguise proposals to reduce and remove legal minimum wages in Australia.

So as the debate about industrial relations changes continues, don’t be fooled by the language you hear. Read between the lines, because just as we have learnt to expect the exact opposite from real estate speak, chances are you can expect the exact opposite from the new industrial relations messages.

Nick Blake
Federal Industrial Officer