COMMENT BY ROGER RAVEN
PERTH — An election in Western Australia is certain within the next 12 months, maybe even within the next three, and another Labor loss seems likely. The release of Labor's state industrial relations policy won't delay the inevitable.
The ALP policy, "Restoring the Balance", contains very little detail, one or two paragraphs on each of its 13 points. Yet it still appears coloured by factional tensions within the WA branch.
Opposition leader Geoff Gallop sees the state's trade unions as the base of support for the party faction which opposes him, that which is loyal to former premier Brian Burke and which includes figures such as state secretary John Halden. Gallop has publicly stated that unions are irrelevant, as they cover only 26% of the working population; that attitude is notable throughout the new policy.
Restoring the Balance claims to have as its objective, "a fairer and more balanced system of labour laws and practices". The ALP clearly has a very narrow view of the rights and needs of the working class.
For example, while the policy commits Labor to repeal the "third wave" of anti-union legislation (much of which has never been enforced), it makes no mention of what it will do with the "first" or "second" waves.
As for WA's workplace agreements, which seek to bypass unions, the criticisms in "Restoring the Balance" are entirely correct as far as they go, arguing they have "been used to lower the conditions of employment and wages of those employed in the least secure and most poorly paid jobs".
Yet the real ALP aim appears to be a classic pea and thimble trick: rename organisations and instruments so that it can pretend that it will abolish workplace agreements, while actually allowing businesses to use them under another name.
The policy is to set up an agreements and contracts division in the WA Industrial Relations Commission (WA IRC), "to handle [enterprise bargaining agreements], collective contracts, and individual contracts". Employers will still be allowed to force individual contracts onto employees.
Presumably the Office of the Commissioner for Workplace Agreements will simply change its letterhead and the name on its office door.
The ALP does claim it wants the WA IRC to impose a no-disadvantage test when assessing agreements but, on the other hand, its call for "prompt resolution of disputes" implies more powers to obstruct effective unionism.
Only two other "reforms" are proposed for the body: an (unspecified) role in preventing unconscionable contracts, and for the WA IRC to "give consideration" (Laborspeak for "talk but no action") to pursuing comparative wage justice between different industries.
Similarly, the most that will happen to the Minimum Conditions of Employment Act is a "review". Employers can get around the act easily, as it doesn't require them to issue pay slips or letters of appointment or to keep time and work records. These loopholes seem likely to stay.