UNIONS HAVE reacted angrily at attempts to curb their workplace right-of-entry laws, after the Federal Government recently introduced legislation to tighten the criteria for union right of entry permits and expand the grounds for cancelling permits
UNIONS HAVE reacted angrily at attempts to curb their workplace right-of-entry laws, after the Federal Government recently introduced legislation to tighten the criteria for union right of entry permits and expand the grounds for cancelling permits.
The ACTU said that employees faced with unsafe or unfair workplaces will find it harder to access support from unions under the legislation, while the ability of union members to advise staff of their rights and entitlements would be seriously threatened. The legislation would amend right of entry provisions in the Workplace Relations Act to exclude the operation of State right of entry laws where Federal right of entry laws also apply, require unions to provide detailed written notice and follow strict guidelines before seeking to enter workplaces and allow employers to determine where discussions between employers and employees are held.
“These unnecessary and intrusive new laws will disrupt [union’s] important role and infringe on the right of employees to be effectively represented by unions and to be free from exploitation or abusive work practices,” said ACTU president Sharan Burrow.
Employers that have nothing to hide and are happy to allow unions to enter workplaces do not need these new laws, she said, adding that blocking union visits will allow bad bosses to get away with underpaying or harassing staff and protect sweatshops that overwork people.
“This proposed new law is clearly an important part of the Howard Government’s radical agenda for workplace relations,” she said.
“It is designed to prevent unions from entering workplaces so that other aspects of their agenda such as casualisation, low pay, job insecurity and the erosion of basic entitlements can take place hidden from view.”
Burrow also expressed concerns over elements of the Bill that would introduce lifetime bans from visiting workplaces for union officers that infringe the law’s strict requirements, a limit on visiting workplaces to sign up new union members to twice a year and a ban on including right of entry provisions in Certified Agreements even when employers consent to union access.
However Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations Kevin Andrews said the Bill would restore certainty and end the loopholes and complex duplication that recent cases had created.
In the case of BGC Contracting v CFMEU, the Federal Court found unions could gain entry to sites under state right of entry law despite the fact that all workers on the site were working under federal law and the federal system denied the union right of entry.
Minister Andrews said the legislation was consistent with the Federal Government policy that workplaces operating under the Federal system should not be subject to inconsistent elements of state systems.
“This is certainly not an attempt to stop unions entering the workplace, but it will ensure that stringent criteria be satisfied before anyone is granted a right of entry permit,” he said.
The Minister acknowledged that constitutional limitations restricted how far the Federal Government could reform workplace relations, but said the Bill was another example of using the corporations provision within the constitution to bring more harmony to the industrial relations system.
Shadow Minister for Industrial Relations, Stephen Smith, dismissed the Bill as a “political stunt” and was reluctant to restrict the historic right of unions to access workplaces.
“I can’t recall in all the conversations I’ve had with industry and business the question of right of entry being raised with me,” he said.
“We’ve had right of entry so far as unions are concerned for as long as we’ve had the Commonwealth of Australia.”
