Bring back Employer/Employee work place agreements/contracts. As a small business employer I have on a regular basis genuine people interested in working in my business. I would dearly love to give them a go, what stops me..... Superannuation, casual adult rates, etc. Explain this to the ever hopeful candidate and they respond with..... oh but I'd be more than happy to work for a reduced rate and no superannutaion entitlement, after all I get none of that on the dole... well yes thats exactly right, surely a bit of pie is better than no pie at all. Can the powers to be not see this?

Many workers are seeing the new ITEA’s they have signed fail the no disadvantage test.

What’s going on?

When John Howard introduced AWA’s in 1997 employers were given the greatest advantage they had seen since the federation of Australian.
They were given the ability to write individual contracts for workers without any regard to the awards that applied anywhere in Australia.
They could literally write any terms that they wanted and the government ensured that they were deemed to be acceptable, not matter how bad.
Employers in the meat industry leapt onto this arrangement like seagulls onto chips.
They wrote contracts that eliminated working conditions, making the meat industry a miserable place to work.

This had 2 major affects.

On the one hand these employers were able to make huge profits and stand over workers like never before.
On the other hand, labour turnover increased dramatically and the word got out, “don’t work in the meat industry”.
Labour turnover increased so dramatically that the industry ran out of labour and had to turn to overseas immigrant workers.

With the demise of the Howard government the new Labor government immediately moved to reintroduce a proper no disadvantage test which meant that workplace agreements could no longer be worse than the relevant award.
They also outlawed new AWA’s, but allowed a transitional arrangement for individual contracts until the 31st December 2009, called ITEA’s.
All ITEA’s are required to be assessed against the no disadvantage test and because most of them are exactly the same terms as the old AWA’s, they are failing the test.

Continued

Why? Simple. They are worse than the award.
The test applies to the whole of the agreement. It compares the whole deal to the award and determines whether or not the whole deal is as good as the award or not. If it’s not, it fails.

Some employers are telling their workers to ignore letters that they are getting from the Workplace Authority that advice the workers that their agreement has failed the test.
Some employers are telling these workers that they have “lawyers onto it”, and not to worry about it. Rubbish! What they are really saying is that they are arrogant enough to think that they can challenge the new workplace laws and keep their old shabby rip off deals in place.

We can tell you it won’t happen. These employers simply have to accept that play time is over for them and now they are just going to have to pay proper wages and conditions to their workers.
This is what we fought for in the election. It has been a long time coming but Australia has had enough of those deals and now e will return to workers being protected from rip off contracts. If your ITEA has failed the test then you are currently under the award.

If you are in this category then you should contact the union office to make sure that you are getting your award entitlements. If a company is underpaying you then we will get back pay for you. This will be a big transition for workers who have been under AWA’s for a while too, because many of them don’t even know how bad the deals are or what they have lost by not being under the award or a proper union collective agreement.

Yes...just some advice befour I hand out some tissues to our hard done by employers:)

BLUE

Of course you'd love to

Give them a go at working

For next to nothing

Bring back Work Choices

Why not go the whole hog and

Bring back slavery?

As an ex union official, in our best union, you disturb me.
I did not lay down my belief in workers rights that last day.
Can count many small business men/women as Friends.
You however are asking that we break the law.
return workers to slavery.
Superannuation is law it one day may well be the only retirement benefit we have.
Gillard is not interested in why weak agreements pass the boots test,she is not a worker friendly person.
she would be better as a night soil remover.
Unions are not being heard as clearly as the big firms are.

Why is it that we have to resort to extremes when discussing this issue, I am all for paying and operating in a fair and ethical manner, it's not about having my employees work there hearts out for little or no reward, in fact, I, where possible and funds allow, give my employees bonuses for a job well done. Why is it that my loyal employees have been with me for the past 5 years, never one of them leaving for a better offer or conditions. What I would like to do is offer more positions, but what I am saying right now, in this economic climate, is that it is difficult to employ an adult worker (casual), plus superannuation etc at the current rates. I am being told by prospective employees that they would much prefer to have employment, casual or otherwise, rather than collect money from the government. It's not about asking people to work for little or nothing, and the notion of slavery...well lets keep it a sensible discussion people. It's about offering people what they so desperately want...a job with fair wages and conditions for all concerned.