Public Sector Wages

Cole Royal Commission a threat to all

By Greg Combet
ACTU Secretary

Employees' rights to bargain together for better wages and conditions are threatened by the recommendations of the Cole Royal Commission into the building industry released in March.

Workers in the construction industry are not the only ones at risk from the Federal Government's response to the Cole inquiry.

The Howard Government is using Cole's report as a political tool to convince the Senate to support its industrial policies, not just for the building industry but across Australia.

Government legislation is already before Federal Parliament to change the Workplace Relations Act in many of the ways Cole has suggested for the building industry.

Bans on pattern or industry-level bargaining, increased penalties for union members and officials, and costly damages for taking industrial action are all included in Howard Government legislation intended to apply to all workers.

Federal Cabinet's quick approval for some of Cole's key recommendations highlights their political convenience for the Government's broader industrial relations agenda.

The Cole recommendations would, if implemented, make it impossible for unions in the construction sector to bargain collectively at any level.

The outlawing of pattern bargaining would result in industry standards covering wages and conditions - including critical safety and training practices - being replaced by a race to the bottom.

The new The new regulatory body - modelled on the ACCC and called the Australian Building and Construction Commission (ABCC) - would impose a competition model on the regulation of workers and their unions. A market model for employment conditions would undermine the principle that people doing work of equal value at the same worksite should receive equal wages.

Under the Cole recommendations, competition between subcontractors in the building industry would be based on who can achieve the lowest wages, with an inevitable effect on skill levels and safety.

The Cole inquiry's recommendations are a recipe for conflict. What the construction industry needs is the kind of cooperation that delivered the Sydney Olympic projects within time and within budget.

Australia's building industry is highly productive by international standards, a point conceded by Cole in material produced during the course of the inquiry. Independent studies show labour productivity levels in Australian construction are higher than in the USA, Germany, Japan or Sweden.

Australia already has the most restrictive industrial bargaining regime in the developed world. Industry-wide negotiations based on pattern bargaining in the building industry are lawful, and normal, in the US, UK and Europe. The International Labor Organisation has ruled that the restrictions on bargaining and industrial action already in the Howard Government's Workplace Relations Act contravene basic industrial rights to collective bargaining and freedom of association.

Cole's recommendations to further restrict employee rights are a result of the highly political and one-sided nature of his Royal Commission.

The Government set up the inquiry on the basis of unsubstantiated allegations against unions in the lead up to the last Federal Election. More than 90% of the Commission's hearing time was spent hearing untested allegations against unions, while only 3% of time was spent on matters reflecting badly on employers. The commission collected 663 witness statements from employers and only 36 from workers.

It is not surprising, then, that 87% of Cole's official findings are against unions or unionists, compared to only 13% against employers. The findings against union officials are based on untested allegations. Many are trivial claims about technical breaches of the Workplace Relations Act, such as holding a meeting outside official break times or failing to give sufficient notice for entering a site. A number of examples go back as far as seven years ago.

By contrast, there are only two specific findings against employers for breaches of safety laws and none in relation to tax evasion or non-payment of employee entitlements, despite extensive evidence of these types of unlawful behaviour being presented to the inquiry.

The Commission's finding of only two instances of safety breaches by employers, both relatively minor, is an insult to the families of the 50 building workers who are killed on the job each year as well as the hundreds more who are seriously injured at work.

For the $60 million spent on the Cole Royal Commission, Australian taxpayers deserved more than a prejudiced attack on unionists and their bargaining activities.

Australian unions are united in working to ensure that the Howard Government does not use the Cole inquiry's recommendations as an excuse to further erode the rights of all Australian employees.

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

http://www.cpsu-spsf.asn.au/latest_news/public_sector_wages/20030411_commission.html
Last Modified: 15 Nov 2005