19 June 2013

CALLING on the Senate to reject the Gillard Government’s latest attempt to expand the powers of unions to enter workplaces, Australia’s resource industry employer group AREEA has released a comprehensive policy research paper detailing the full productivity, cost and safety impacts of the Fair Work Act’s unbalanced union ‘right of entry’ laws.

AREEA’s Trade union access to workplaces paper outlines why the Senate must reject the government’s Fair Work Amendment Bill 2013, which would require employers to subsidise union recruitment trips to remote sites and open employee lunchrooms to union recruitment drives.

“The Senate has an opportunity to end the government’s ongoing pandering to its trade union constituents and not allow Julia Gillard to move further away from her 2007 promise to leave laws governing union access to Australian workplaces as they were,” says AREEA CEO Steve Knott.

“The laws then deputy opposition leader Julia Gillard said she wouldn’t change worked perfectly well. Her changes meant more unions, more frequently, visiting more worksites on membership fishing expeditions, adding to workplace safety and productivity challenges.

“The government has no mandate for these latest changes that include uninvited union intrusions to employee lunchrooms and employers subsidising remote site visits for union officials. It represents more efforts from this government to artificially impose unions between employers and employees.

“This overreach in the dying days of the 43rd parliament will go down as the ALP’s IR legislative WorkChoices moment. If these latest privileges for unions pass the Senate, Australia’s next government will need to restore balance and sensibility through fast and effective reform.”

AREEA’s paper recommends 18 legislative amendments to return to a fair and balanced framework regulating union access to workplaces, focusing on:

• Returning to the system that worked by reinstating to the greatest extent possible the former right of entry rules as they existed prior to the Fair Work Act being introduced on 1 July 2009;
• Implementing further essential controls and conditions to ensure a greater degree of rigour and balance in the operation of union entry rules; and
• Minimising the damage from the latest proposals in the Fair Work Amendment Bill 2013 by either not enacting them or overturning them if they are enacted.

“In 2010, resource operations that previously had no union involvement became hot targets for union recruitment fishing expeditions to the point where one project, Pluto LNG, had 217 entry requests in just four months,” Mr Knott says.

“Similarly, the Worsley aluminium plant experienced more than 180 visits in a single year. By any reasonable assessment these are examples of unions besetting and harassing employees and paying no heed at all to their wishes to remain non-union members.

“The government’s dragging of this already skewed system even further towards empowering trade unions represents the height of poor governance and reflects badly on all concerned.

“This is not an acceptable basis for policy in this critical area and is strongly opposed by the Australian resource industry. The Senate must act in the national interest and reject this bill.”

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