Work(No)Choices

[member34258]

Isn't dead yet.
http://www.news.com.au/heraldsun/story/0,21985,22838346-662,00.html

I suppose it comes as no surprise that Telstra lead the charge.

[Culprit]

This was discussed a few weeks ago. They lost the vote with their workers and still wish to push this through. Lets put Sol on a AWA and cut his bonuses back.

[Alec. J. Hidell]

It's dead

[Proud Pies]

No! The one they lost was the non union Agreement This new one, is they are now actively trying to get all those currently on AWA's which have not expired, to enter into new 5 year AWA Contracts.

This is a new one. They started handing them out this week.

[stui magpie]

Staff on AWA's in Telstra get generally paid more than staff on the EA. They still get access to shift penalties and overtime.

It's a good business idea to try to get some sort of stability.

Like it said in the article, if people refuse, that's fine. There won't be any pressure or consequence.

They did a similar re-offer before the last election. QUite a large number of people re-signed.

[John Wren]

so, can someone point me in the direction of what was so wrong with awa's? i may be uninformed and take a simplistic view but but how is negotiating an individual agreement that may have better conditions than a collective one so wrong?

is that too simplistic and am i wrong?

[Culprit]

Jock, it depends on who your employer is from my experience. My son has just been screwed by his boss (no vas applied); no penalty rates and gets an extra 54 cents too cover that. My son has another job interview today and is leaving. Now my son is intelligent and has a chance at getting another job. There are young people he works with who have to accept it as they would struggle to be employed. AWA's were designed to be the employer’s gun and designed by Rio Tinto. WA workers are benefiting from the boom. The real test will be when the boom stops and they are spat out and people over there realise they have no rights.

AWA’s are in position to exploit the weak and vulnerable. People with high demand skills are not in that same position. The theory is if you drop the wage at the lower end, you can then drop the wage in the middle and so on. They simply cut your pay rises to the minimum to push you down. This is happening where I work now and the result is now productivity is down. We are trying to compete with Indians who will work for nothing compared to us. Then again they do not have $300k mortgages. We do the job better but that does not mean shit when you have bean counters involved.