Back

3. Workchoices and Pay Equity under review

It is not intended here to provide a full analysis or commentary of the impact of WorkChoices on Pay Equity as many of the issues have been identified in the Discussion paper and will be the subject of rigorous analysis by other submissions.

It does need to be said however, that WorkChoices, through its emphasis on individual contracts makes it impossible to compare or control wage rates based on skills or work value. Even in the collective bargaining stream, the outlawing of pattern bargaining by unions, means that attempting to establish similar rates of pay for similar work in different enterprises is simply not possible.

The ability of employers to use WorkChoices to reduce wages and conditions, even in instances where they are not a ‘constitutional corporation’ also needs to be examined. In that respect the plight of women workers at ACE is instructive.

 CASE STUDY - AUSTRALIAN COMMUNICATION EXCHANGE (ACE)

ACE is a community service organisation, with ‘relay officers’ translating information for the deaf community over the telephone. There are approximately 80 casual staff (approximately 85% who are women) who work 24 hours, 7 days per week in a call centre facility.

ACE receives around 85% of its income through tendering arrangements with the Federal Government.

The proposed non-union agreement offered incentive based pay, based on arbitrary and loose key performance indicators. The employees were threatened with ‘agency staff’ being hired to replace them if they did not sign the non-unionised agreement. They were also told that their job security was at risk if ACE’s proposed agreement did not pass, and that their jobs could be off-shored in future.

The proposed agreement eliminated rest breaks, shift and overnight allowances - all for a 1% pay increase. Further, a medical certificate was required for each sick leave absence, rosters could be altered at any time without notice, and ACE could instantly dismiss workers without notice.  The proposed agreement attempted to impose severe restrictions on this predominantly female workplace.

This agreement was wildly unpopular, and with approximately 95% union membership, it was rejected outright. 

ACE Management clearly undervalued the work these highly-skilled women were performing. This is highly skilled work requiring the interpretation and translation of language to and from the deaf community. For many of the deaf community English is a second language; their first being Auslan, or sign language. In many instances the deaf community are not as educated and have rudimentary English language skills.

The perception was that these workers’ skills were easily transferable. Overwhelmingly these mainly middle aged women were seen as replaceable.

Additionally, their loyalty was undervalued and the community service aspect of their role was ignored. There seemed to be a perception that women are carers by nature, and it was their instinct role to provide these services.

ACE started as a voluntary community service provider approximately 12 years ago. Like most charities, it was created for a specific purpose. Increasingly as demand kept growing, it became a more complicated structure. With each additional layer of management, additional complexity was added to the organisation’s structure. This resulted in the work of the relay officers being increasingly marginalised and devalued.

Whilst the ASU sought the intervention of the QIRC in this matter the employer claimed they were a ‘constitutional corporation’ covered by WorkChoices. While the ASU disputed this, the QIRC refused to intervene in the dispute indicating that it was up to the ASU to prove that ACE was not a constitutional corporation.  The ASU believes that the onus of proof to “escape” jurisdiction ought to be on the opposing party, ie. The employer.  The outcome for this workplace is that assistance cannot be pursued through the QIRC due to the QIRC’s reluctance to accept jurisdiction, and the union is now left to continue to negotiate with the (albeit new) management for a state registered certified agreement.

Government funded organisations

Increasingly, the federal government is tying funding to the implementation of industrial relations reforms, for example, in Universities. The same tied funding is also an issue across a number of sectors, most notably, the community sector which is reliant on federal government funding. 

Privatisation

The ASU is concerned about the loss of entitlements through privatisation, private public partnership arrangements and the like as evidenced in the following case studies.

 CASE STUDY – GOLDEN CASKET PRIVATISATION

Whilst opposing WorkChoices, the state government has not been averse to making decisions which result in workers being fully exposed to Workchoices.

Queensland Government Statutory Authorities and Government Owned Corporations are now covered by WorkChoices, but protected by state government policies on industrial relations with respect to their conditions of employment, as well as the manner in which they expect to be treated by their employer. However, the recent privatisation of the Golden Casket by the state government has seen those workers go from the protection of being employed by the state government party to a Workchoices Agreement to an employer which does not have the same stated commitments or industrial relations policies or practices. Other rights will clearly diminish over time by virtue of the employees’ change of status.  For example, whilst existing employees retain their access to Q-Super, the state government’s superannuation scheme, new employees will not be eligible to contribute to Q-Super and this will ultimately have an impact on their ‘whole of life’ earnings.

CASE STUDY - PRIVATE PROVISION OF PUBLIC SERVICES – MATER HEALTH SERVICES

Similarly, the Mater Health Service provides public health services on behalf of the Queensland government. Until the advent of WorkChoices, the Mater were parties to the state awards and all Certified Agreements that cover staff in Queensland Health. Since WorkChoices, the awards have become NAPSAs, the Certified Agreements Mater were a party to have become PICSAs and the Mater have refused to be a party to or codify in another form the new Certified Agreements which have been agreed to for Queensland Health since WorkChoices. The Mater have indicated that they will implement those aspects of the new Certified Agreement that they choose to implement and how they wish to implement them, and have thus far refused to enter into any proper discussions on the implementation of improvements contained in these new agreements. Queensland Health and indeed the state government have thus far failed to intervene to deal with this issue, despite the fact that staff at the Mater are now being financially disadvantaged.  The union believes that decisive action should be taken up front to make it clear that the government will be the employer in this case, and this should be the case for all future PPP’s.

 CASE STUDY – CABOOLTURE HOSPITAL EMERGENCY DEPARTMENT

Similarly, Queensland Health contracted out the management of the Caboolture Hospital Emergency Department to a private provider. Whilst there was no consultation or discussion of this action on the part of the government, we were assured that this had occurred because of the difficulties being experienced by Queensland Health in attracting and retaining medical staff. The private provider concerned has now employed administrative staff to work in the hospital’s emergency department under WorkChoices.

The Queensland government needs to take steps to protect workers in these types of situations from the worst aspects of WorkChoices and ensure that these workers do not lose conditions and rights as a result of their own decision making.

How relevant are the findings of the above mentioned inquiries and reports, with respect to the current and future impact of Work Choices on pay equity to this Inquiry?

The ASU submits that all the cited Inquiries and various recommendations as outlined in the Discussion Paper are relevant to this Inquiry. We believe the current Inquiry should examine the various recommendations of those other Inquiries.

In particular, we note that Gillian Whitehouse’s submission to the Queensland WorkChoices Inquiry that the structure of the wage setting system and its impact on the overall wage structure present as being the most important influences on gender pay equity is of critical importance. As indicated in the discussion paper, that Inquiry noted that gender pay equity is an area that would require close monitoring as a result of the introduction of WorkChoices.

Indeed, each of the Inquiries referred to in the discussion paper, found that WorkChoices would have a negative impact on pay equity. Most of the findings were for on-going monitoring of pay equity. We believe that this issue requires action beyond just monitoring and requires concerted action, rather than simply monitoring the continuing decline in pay equity.

The HREOC report It’s About Time: Women, Men, Work and Family also made recommendations about monitoring the impact of WorkChoices, however, it also made other recommendations to government which (as outlined in the discussion paper) included the introduction of a 14 week paid maternity leave scheme and initiatives to promote the numbers of girls and women in non-traditional occupations and areas of skill shortages.

Such recommendations should be considered as part of this Inquiry and as recommendations to the state government.

Should the Queensland government, as recommended in the NSW parliamentary Inquiry, consider developing a longitudinal study tracking wages and conditions of work in Queensland in consultation with other states?

Yes. This is critically important, not only to determine the continuing the impact of WorkChoices and the development of strategies to counter its negative effects, but would also be a mechanism by which state-based strategies to deal with pay equity could be monitored and assessed. In this respect, such a study should be able to de-lineate between pay equity outcomes for those covered by WorkChoices and pay equity outcomes for those workers who continue to be covered in the state jurisdictions.

What other data sources could and should the Queensland Government consider developing in order to monitor pay equity?

The Queensland government used to conduct an Industrial Relations Survey and publish the results. We believe such a survey should be reinstituted as part of the development of the longitudinal study tracking wages and conditions of work in consultation with other states.