Submission in response to the draft Productivity Commission report on workplace relations

The Commission’s draft report argues that ‘a sound workplace relations system must give primacy to the wellbeing of employees (and would-be employees), and take account of community norms about the fair treatment of people’(5).

While the well-being of employees is a reasonable point of departure, the Commission takes as its unit of analysis the male employee, arguing that current labour standards should not be modified to accommodate the needs of feminised ‘groups’ of workers because this may lead employers to discriminate against women (171). On this ground the Commission rejects measures to prevent discrimination against worker-carers while accepting the need for ongoing measures to address discrimination after it occurs. We refer to the Commission’s position on recommendations made by NFAW (submission 154, rec 6-10) and others to

• embrace the recommendations of the Australian Human Rights Commission in its report on pregnancy and return to work;
• include the right to return to work part-time from parental leave in the NES;
• extend the opportunity of paid annual leave to casual employees on a pro-rata basis and provide a separate allocation of carers’ leave to all employees;
• offer the opportunity to convert from casual to permanent employment after six months’ regular and systematic casual employment;
• require firm working time minima to be included in all modern awards-- including a minimum engagement of three hours for casual workers-- and written agreement to a regular pattern of hours, with adequate notice to part-time workers of changes to hours.

Further, having failed to undertake a substantive analysis of the position of women in the workplace relations system, the Commission floats a number of recommendations and information requests that would, if implemented, radically undermine ‘community norms about the fair treatment of people’, but most particularly the treatment of women, who are characteristically found in lower paid, precarious occupations with little bargaining power.

We refer to the Commission’s proposals regarding enterprise contracts, penalty rates, governance arrangements for the Fair Work Commission, and a range of practices associated with bargaining, including industrial action.

Our recommendations address both the Commission’s failure to strengthen the safety net to support worker-carers and its proposals weakening bargaining position of women.