Major Reforms in Australian Industrial Relations and Employment Law - Essay Example

The past two decades have witnessed major reforms in Australian industrial relations and employment law. This has led the law to a focus on individual employee rights rather than collective rights." Critically assess this statement (Name) (University) (Course) (Tutor) (Date) Table of Contents Table of Contents 2 1.0Introduction 3 2.0Industrial Relations and Employment Law Reforms 3 3.0Industrial relations reforms amid hidden political interests 4 4.0Serious and Genuine Reforms 6 5.0Conclusion 9 List of References 11 1.0 Introduction The Australian government set out to reform its industrial relations and employment laws which moved it away from collective bargaining practices to individual contracts. The reform actions had a mix of both positive and negative outcomes, but the negative seemed to have a higher magnitude. The consequences that had been felt and even kicked out the Howard government, called upon the new government to change tact. Questions abound as to whether it is necessary for the State to take part in industrial relations reform and employment laws. State involvement in industrial relations actions is both interesting and questionable, especially where politics that come with it are put into consideration. This paper seeks to critically analyse the reforms in employment sector by pointing out various benefits and poor decisions that were made in Australia for the past two decades. 2.0 Industrial Relations and Employment Law Reforms The establishment of the commonwealth conciliation and arbitration commission was a major step towards bringing towards finding a peaceful resolution to industrial relations. It also did recognize trade unions and this was a major boost for collective bargaining. All the registered unions became part and parcel of institutional framework that was meant for the Australian industrial relations. However, coming into force the new laws on labour relations did erode the substance of this commission and left the employees at the mercy of their employers (Peetz, 2006, p.97). Major changes have occurred in the work place in Australia due to the reforms that have been carried out in the last two decade. Most of these changes are seen to be very innovative even though the means of introducing these changes did not follow the same pattern (Barry & Adrian, 2011, pp.45-78). In 2005, workplace choices was introduced and this market the start of the Australian workplace agreements (AWA) and this was followed by the drastic disbandment of unfair dismissal laws which was targeting the employers that have less than one hundred employees (Hyslop & Stillman, 2004, pp.2). The language of employment relations has also been adjusted to include certain terms like high involvement which do bring out the aspect of employee motivation to work. Such linguistic changes also do emphasise the critical needs for teamwork, multiskilling and general involvement of employees to ensure that high levels of performance in terms of productivity and quality standards are achieved. Generally, the feeling for employees in Australia has been the lack of inclusion or consultation when it comes to keys issues that have an impact on their work and life (Quiggan, 2005, pp.2-6). Reports of over-working, high stress levels and lack of job security seems to have been the main driving force in this approach. The national employment relations have really changed. During these changes, the industrial relations reform was a major issue on the agenda of various political parties and has continued to elicit much debate from the political seen. 3.0 Industrial relations reforms amid hidden political interests When the Australian labour part got elected in 2007, introduction of Fair Work Australia and WorkChoices came onto being. This two employment systems had a major impact on the workforce of Australia and changed the face of employment relations and how the citizens view it. They also marked the beginning of State participation in the industrial relations. The election of Liberal National Coalition party that was led by John Howard brought about major changes to the fundamentals of industrial relations as this was one of the major ambitions of the Prime Minister. This saw the Workplace Relations Act of 1996 come into force. The enactment of this law was followed by the workplace relations amendment or WorkChoices Act of 2005 formulated to help change the processes of determining the wages and conditions (Deery & Richard, 1999, pp.23-89). The WorkChoices actually remains with the employer in control since an employer has an option of choosing to offer a contract to an individual or simply give a collective offer. This is however not the case that Howard presented to the people because his approach was that of giving the workers a chance to make a choice. Also, this legislation has no enforcement to an employer in offering a prospective employee any chance of choosing between collective agreements that encompass unions and the individual one. However, the collective agreements that had been got into before the law were meant to go on and the employers are not pushed in any way to offer them nor do an update of the current ones. The fact that an employer has a choice of offering collective or individual contract; it means that the employees do not have the bargaining power and are compelled to either take the offer on the table or reject it. The WorkChoices National Work Relations model derives its architecture from the power of corporations as envisaged in the constitution used by commonwealth and was being prompted as a way of strengthening the economy of Australia, bring about efficiency, and while doing this, be able to generate additional jobs and be able to give workers a higher pay to ensure fairness for all concerned. There have been major changes in the national employment relation system of Australia in the past two decades, which could be attributed to the changes that occurred in government where each prime minister and new part in government sought to address employment issues. Much as Australians lauded the new laws, they failed to realize that if an employer exercises his or her power of choice and offers an individual contract, inferior working conditions are presented to the employee. On the other hand, AWAs did override any of the employment laws offered in the past, which offered workers with the rights and or benefits. Such an act is a dangerous precedence since in the first place, employers would not give these condition needed because judged by their past behaviours, they only offered them as a result of the push given by labour unions to do so. And thus, the most miscalculated fact is the lack of convergence between the interest of the employer and those of the employee. The two were however assumed to be having mutual interest which turns out it was not. It is actually a Unitarian approach assuming unity of interests and those relations of thee employer and employee can be non-conflicting. The idea behind the formulation of this legislation was to give the employer and his employee an opportunity to get to the negotiating table and find a consensus on conditions that do affect both of them and on wage issues by not having the labour unions involved or being forced to come to terms with rigid settlements of awards. The idea of wages being increased does not add value since statistics show that Australians are some of the best paid people in the world. The whole system seems fragmented and worse than the previous one. 4.0 Serious and Genuine Reforms In the year 2006, the Australian Fair Pay Commission got established and led to the stripping of the award system to a mere minimum. The above move involved five basic provisions. There was a major shift from collective bargaining towards an individual bargaining system where the individual did not have the backing of the union. Conditions were made necessary by the AWAs. The introduction of the WorkChoices led to huge negative impacts to what the government purported to be fighting, which was job security, uncertainty in the number of working, uncertainty in the levels of income, and did go as far as reducing the level of protection that was in place for unfair dismissal from jobs. The major impact that negative outcomes had on the workers was manifested in the sense that commitment to work by the employees reduced and the employers were in for low levels of both productivity and quality. There were isolated cases where indeed the employer used the opportunity to develop amicable relations with the employees and got an opportunity to make a bargain in the absence of labour union’s pressure. The system ended when Howard was kicked out of office (Barry & Adrian, 2011, pp.45-78). The dismantling of the WorkChoices system was followed by carrying out of the ALP’s promises in their policy of Forward with Fairness, thus leading to the Workplace Relations Amendment Act of 2008. This removed the power that employers had in making choice between two options and the no disadvantage test that demanded judgement of all agreements was put into force. The no disadvantage test checked the employers by preventing them from cutting down on wages willingly and stopped the unlawful applications of the unlawful conditions that were related to AWAs. It is true that the government of Rudd tried its best to consult extensively with all stakeholders in the industrial relations. His efforts brought about the Fair Work Act 2009 that had provisions of National Employment Standards, the responsibilities that employees were required to carry out, and rights of employees, employers and the whole organization. It was seen as a very good move which the Act dealt with unfair dismissal, set the basic rules for wages and conditions (Blanpain, et al., 2010, pp.78-107) The inauguration of FWA saw it come in as a new regulator and all states were required to take their powers of the industrial relations to the Commonwealth a situation that did expand the its systems coverage in Australia. This inauguration of FWA and subsequent actions did end up creating a genuine national employment relations system. The Fair Work Act did bring about the need for all employers to get to the bargaining table with their employees in good faith, for those employees that considered entering into a collective agreement (Barry & Adrian, 2011, pp.45-78 ). All awards were modernized into 10 minimum standards that were basic industry specific thus reducing the complexity of the previous system that had been in use. It is worth noting that the clauses on flexibility in this Act do give employers a chance of rolling up a part of or all of the conditions and put them into annual salaries that are possibly equitable to that income which is a bit higher than what was being given as the minimum. It is noted that these clauses on flexibility may end up encouraging the employers to come up with policies which are not included in the jurisdiction of industrial institutions and the enterprise agreement. These two have a greater potential of bringing about conflict within the work environment. When we look at the WorkChoices reforms, we find that the employer had so many opportunities to exploit the employee through wages and application of conditions that were unnecessary. The individual bargaining gives an employee less powers to make changes to a contract and thus the employer exploits that chance to his advantage. The collective bargaining forms have thus not been abandoned (Blanpain, et al., 2010, pp.78-107). The government, while trying to focus on the individual employee rights, it ended up doing away with the collective bargaining concept which is more beneficial to the normal worker. The voice of one employee becomes quite ineffective in changing the mind of an employer and such an employee is left with only two options to choose from and these are either he or she takes the offer or leaves it. It is a brutal way of dealing with the workforce. Failure to realize the aforementioned conflict of interests made the system fail to meet the goals. It could be compared to the offender being left to be the judge of him. The idea thus brought some form of arrogance on the side of the employer and the government had to shield the blame for bringing forth a law that worked in disfavour of the workers. At the moment, many employees have their wages set by either collective bargaining agreement which could be negotiated with labour unions or they are determined by the individual contract (Barry & Adrian, 2011, pp.45-78 ). There has been quite a change in the workplace industrial and employee relations but less collaboration has been seen between the employers and the labour unions. However, it is not possible that the country might go back to a centralized employment relations system because more approaches that seek coordination by fostering the needed flexibility in the labour market are being innovated on the basis of a strong structural or institutional framework that is currently being given by AIRC. The aforementioned approach has so far managed to give the sector an alternative to the fragmentation of flexibility. One of the biggest headaches that employers face is thee winning of truth of employees following the abolition of the WorkChoices system and is attributed to the fact that most employees still look at their workplaces as being quite insecure and increasingly full of tension rather than an encouraging working environment. Unions on the other hand have a greater challenge of trying to get enough cooperation in their relationship with the employers in their mutual representation of the interests of employees. This is because unions have been always seen through the perspective of aggressors and strikes to compel the employers to come up with deals considered unfriendly to the organizations. 5.0 Conclusion The government has tried a lot to address the industrial labour relations and the employee relations but there are still major challenges that it still faces. It therefore has the bigger challenge of coming up with a highly effective policy framework that will on a greater extent, foster efficiency by ensuring that there is workplace innovation and be able to provide an atmosphere of equity for the workers in the upcoming economic prosperity that is yet to be achieved. Finally, the industrial relations and employment law will still remain a problem to the government if party interests of every new government are not put behind the interests of the people to ensure that decisions on such major legislations are not made on the basis of who is who in government, but rather innovated and well-constructed to fall in line with new modern requirements, changing employee needs, economic conditions, and the interests of both the employer and the organization as a whole. If things are done as indicated, the approach will make sure that the decisions and legislations made are both workable and long-term besides being for the well-being of the nation (Blanpain, et al., 2010, 78-107). List of References Barry Michael, & Adrian Wilkinson (2011), Research Handbook of Comparative Employment Relations, Edward Elgar Publishing, pp.45-78 Blanpain Roger, Greg Bamber, & Philippe Pochet (2010), Regulating employment relations, work and labour laws, Kluwer Law International, 78-107 Peetz, David (2006) Brave New Work Place, Crow’s Nest, NSW: Allen & Unwin, pp.97 Hyslop Dean and Steven Stillman, (2004), Youth Minimum Wage Reform and the Labour Market, New Zealand Treasury Department, working paper 04/03, p.2 Deery Stephen & Richard Mitchell, (1999), Employment relations: individualisation and union exclusion, The Federation Press, pp.23-89 Quiggan John, (2005), IR Reforms, monograph, University of Queensland, pp.2-6 Read More