CPSU Federal Office

Reactive economic policy is no safeguard in a public health crisis.  From yawning gaps in the vaccination rollout to reactively cobbling together a below-poverty-line disaster payment during Victoria’s lockdown, the brunt of the Federal Government’s refusal to actively plan for public health during a pandemic has consistently fallen on those already hardest hit. As case numbers rise in New South Wales and other states remain on the alert, the Federal Government shows little attempt to meaningfully break this cycle.

The passage of the Your Future, Your Super Bill last month is another attack on working people and their retirement savings. The legislation schackles workers to their current funds and new workers to their first fund, introduce performance benchmarks for super funds, and impose onerous regulations on industry super funds which for-profit funds will be functionally exempt from.  The measure to schackle workers to their current fund, or first fund, upends industrial default selection.

Mark Perica (CPSU Federal Office Senior Legal Officer) is again representing Australian workers at the ILO.  His blog continues.  CAS Journal :  midnight, Friday 11 June 2021  Tonight, I had my intervention on Cambodia which is a case involving serious contraventions of the freedom of association convention C87.  A couple of days ago, we had our co-ordination meeting of the workers group  on Cambodia which ,of course, included the delegation of Cambodian workers.  We are making the case for them.  We have to be careful not to say anything that causes someon

The Federal Government’s 2021 budget decisions will not improve the central issues facing working Australians - insecure work and low wage growth. Wage growth is forecast at negative or flat, locking in declining living standards for years leaving workers with no real pay rise for the whole time this Government has been in power. The women’s budget measures are small, delayed and piecemeal, and will do very little to improve the working lives of Australian women.

We remember the workers who have died at work every April 28 and rededicate ourselves to fight like hell for the living. The Covid-19 pandemic has further highlighted the critical importance of workplace safety for the physical and mental health of workers.

The ACTU has urged the Senate crossbench to reject the Federal Government's Superannuation legislation in its entirety stating the Your Future, Your Super Bill remains fatally flawed. If Your Future, Your Super is passed the Government would staple workers to dud funds and to funds which have not been subjected to performance benchmarks from the 1st of July 2021, condemning more than 1 million workers to a poorer retirement. While default products will be benchmarked in July, the scrutiny of largely bank-owned for-profit Choice products is baselessly delayed until 2022.

After a successful campaign by the Union movement, the Federal Parliament passed a watered-down Omnibus Bill but unfortunately further entrenched Casual Employment. The Senate passed the Fair Work Amendment (Supporting Australia’s Jobs and Economic Recovery) Bill 2020 (the Omnibus Bill) with a number of significant amendments that removed Schedules 2 to 6 from the Bill.  This means that the following proposed changes did not form part of the Bill which was approved by the Senate:

Next week the Senate will vote on whether or not to pass the Morrison Government’s anti-worker laws.  These extreme laws would allow big business and employers to reduce job security and cut wages for millions of workers.  We all need to make sure that every Australian knows about this attempt to punish workers. Last year, politicians like Scott Morrison, and big business executives went around the country declaring that workers were “heroes” for saving Australia from the pandemic.

Federal Industrial Relations Minister Christian Porter introduced the Industrial Relations (IR) Omnibus bill just before Christmas which will clearly enhance the power of employers to hire workers on a just-in-time basis, suppress wages, and undermine terms and conditions of employment.  The Coalition Government's proposed changes will accelerate the incidence of insecure work, undermine genuine collective bargaining, and suppress wages growth.  Impacts will be felt across the entire workforce - casual and permanent workers alike.

The superannuation guarantee is set to increase in July this year from 9.5 per cent to 10 per cent for Australian workers however the federal government is exploring alternatives to alter or further delay the legislated increases.  The original timetable has already been delayed since July 2014 when former prime minister Tony Abbott promised at the time a freeze would produce stronger wages, but wage growth immediately slowed.  Increasing the super guarantee to 12 per cent was a Coalition and Labor election commitment in 2019 with the 9.5 per cent guarantee scheduled to rise to 12 per cent