Home
| News
| Investors
| Aurion
| About us
|
Home
| News
| Investors
| Aurion
| About us
|
|
|
Monday, 10 October, 2005 12:30:00 ELEANOR HALL: A key plank in the Federal Government's workplace changes is for more direct negotiating between employers and their workers over pay and conditions. As we heard, the Government is proposing that employees appoint a bargaining agent to help in such discussions. But it's a move that's attracting controversy from those who fear it will mean added costs and bureaucracy, as Karen Percy reports. KAREN PERCY: The Government says WorkChoices will make it easier for employees and their bosses to talk directly about workplace issues, especially when it comes to pay and conditions. Julia Ross, from Julia Ross Recruitment, says workers are ready for the challenge. JULIA ROSS: I think people are quite happy to say this is the rate I'm looking for and get the response from the employer. I don't find that reluctance that there used to been. You know, I've been in the industry 25 years, so, you know, it's changed significantly over that time, the balance between the employee and employer. But I think people are a lot more, you know, comfortable with it now. KAREN PERCY: Julia Ross Recruitment is one of the country's leading work placement firms. It has offices overseas as well, and currently has 60,000 candidates ready to take up work, whether it's part time or full time, permanent or contract. Ms Ross says Australia needs more workers who are more flexible. JULIA ROSS: It may open up people to be able to work who perhaps can't work at the moment, I think people who want to do flexible hours or want to do a few hours, you know, lots of working mums and different people that are caught in strange legislation, I think it may open up opportunities for them to work. So, hopefully this is an ability for us to get a freer workforce that can open up some people to us. KAREN PERCY: Julia Ross says the current shortage of workers means potential employees are in a strong bargaining position. But there are some concerns about the practicalities of pitting workers against their bosses in these kinds of negotiations. ANNE O'ROURKE: It's just a nonsense to say that two people come to the negotiating table, two people of equal bargaining power. KAREN PERCY: Anne O'Rourke is a research fellow from the Business and Economics Faculty at Monash University. She says studies have been done on how particular groups of people deal with negotiating, particularly low-skilled workers, women and those whose first language is not English. ANNE O'ROURKE: A lot research shows that people with… white-collar workers with high-level skills are actually able to bargain better for what they want than people with low skills. KAREN PERCY: Under the Government's plan, unions will be allowed to negotiate on behalf of workers, but the Government is also advocating bargaining agents, likely to be lawyers, who can represent workers directly. There's little detail about exactly what the rights and responsibilities of agents might be, and researcher Anne O'Rourke says they'll need to have a clearly defined role and structure to work within. ANNE O'ROURKE: Without sort of seeing more detail, it's difficult to say just what the agent will, what the requirements of the agent will be. KAREN PERCY: Presumably too, this agent, be they a lawyer or another kind of officer or person, is going to expect some kind of payment or remuneration for this? ANNE O'ROURKE: Well, one would think so. Unless it's actually an office that the Commonwealth itself plans to set up, in some sense an extension of the office of the employment advocates. KAREN PERCY: The Faculty of Business and Economics at Monash University will continue to research the workplace changes as further details are released. Anne O'Rourke says, from what she's seen, those who are worried about Australia moving the way of the United States have reason for concern, because she says Australia is going even further. ANNE O'ROURKE: Our legislation will be even more extreme than that in America, because America hasn't put the privileging of individual contracts over collective bargaining into legislation, whereas we'll be actually putting into legislation, which makes us one of the most extreme in the world. ELEANOR HALL: Anne O'Rourke, from Monash University, ending that report by Karen Percy. This is a transcript from The World Today. The program is broadcast around Australia at 12:10pm on ABC Local Radio. You can also listen to the story in REAL AUDIO and WINDOWS MEDIA and MP3 formats. Source: http://www.abc.net.au |
|
