Australian Workplace Agreements

Salvo's slam work changes

By The Salvation Army

The Salvation Army has considered the proposed industrial relations (IR) legislation from the point of view of those we represent; the young school leavers, those who are homeless, the abused and vulnerable who find it hard to get jobs because they lack skills, education or have no fixed address and those on the fringe of unemployment.

The proposed IR legislation gives the unemployed an opportunity to make themselves more attractive to an employer by committing themselves to an AWA that allows them to work 38 hours a week with no public holidays or week end loading. This allows the employer to reduce costs. However it exploits the vulnerable at the expense of the family minded employee who is not willing to trade these valuable days away without a significant financial benefit to the family.

As there are only 100,000 jobs on offer in Australia at the moment and officially 500,000 people looking for work (plus 800,000 on disability or child care pensions) there will be many people who will find these conditions attractive, even in these buoyant economic times; imagine what will happen when the unemployment situation gets worse.

For this reason the end result of these changes could be the moving of employment from those unwilling to sacrifice important time with their families to the desperate or those without family responsibilities. This is not a good move.

We would rather see the creation of more employment opportunities for unskilled and vulnerable people. This includes those who are homeless, long term unemployed or physically and mentally disabled. We have outlined these proposals in detail in our document entitled 'A Working Society'. If ever there was a time in Australia to create a new way of looking at the employment of the most vulnerable it is now while we enjoy the lowest unemployment rate in 30 years.

© 2001 Community & Public Sector Union - State Public Services Federation (CPSU-SPSF) - National Office

http://www.cpsu-spsf.asn.au/latest_news/general/20051018_work.html
Last Modified: 15 Nov 2005