THE FEDERAL ELECTION IS AN OPPORTUNITY TO PROTECT OUR RIGHTS AT WORK AND VOTE AGAINST THE LIBERALS' AND NATIONALS' UNFAIR WORKCHOICES IR LAWS The Howard Government's WorkChoices laws have taken away important rights and conditions such as public holiday pay, penalty rates, redundancy pay, overtime pay and protection from unfair dismissal. At the last election, the Liberals and Nationals did not tell the public about their plan to introduce WorkChoices and strip away workers’ rights but went ahead and did it anyway.
This election is the first chance for the Australian public to tell John Howard and Peter Costello what they think about their unfair WorkChoices IR laws. WorkChoices has already hurt hundreds of thousands of working families. Should the coalition be re-elected, the damage will almost certainly spread to Victorian health workers through the imposition of AWAs as a condition of the Medicare funding agreement due for re-negotiation next year. To date the effect of Workchoices has been: - Workers in small and medium sized businesses have lost protection from being sacked unfairly (nearly 4 million workers).
- A recent government-funded study by Sydney University found workers on the Howard Government’s AWA individual contracts earn on average $106 a week less than workers on collective agreements.
- Workers in cafes, shops and restaurants including large numbers of young workers have been hit hardest by WorkChoices and have lost up to a third of their take home pay (1.7 million workers).
- Low paid workers have experienced a cut in real terms to their minimum award wages under the Howard Government’s new pay commission (1.5 million workers).
- Women now earn less, on average, compared to men than they did when John Howard was elected eleven years ago.
This election is a very important opportunity to stop the Coalition from going further on industrial relations.
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MSAV + VPA +AHP News
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