United Voice News
Barnett's plans to resurrect WorkChoices are outdated and dangerous for workers
All the worst aspects of WorkChoices will be back for Western Australian workers if Colin Barnett goes ahead with his plans to implement the recommendations of the hugely expensive Amendola Report.
The review into WA’s industrial relations system, which cost $850,000, proposes stripping away important protection for more than 300,000 workers, including thousands of LHMU members.
Individual contracts, feeble unfair dismissal laws and an independent umpire with less power are among the Draconian changes that Colin Barnett wants to impose on workers covered by the state-based IR system.
Carolyn Smith, assistant secretary of the LHMU said: “Many of the people affected by these changes work in low paid industries covered by the LHMU. They will be dismayed to hear that the rights they fought so hard for could be stripped away by Colin Barnett, who is as anti-worker as they get.
“These are workers who have enough trouble as it is fighting for decent pay and conditions from a government which massively under-values the important work they do in our hospitals and schools, and which keeps on attacking their wage packets with power bill hikes.
“Our members will fight the Barnett government all the way on any plans which diminish their rights at work and which could see them forced into sub-standard individual contracts.
“If this government is as forward-thinking as it says it is, it would realise that WorkChoices should remain ‘dead and buried’ forever, and not just during a federal election campaign.”
