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Summer 2005

Families worse off under individual contracts

The ACTU has presented clear evidence that families have been left worse off under an assessment of existing individual contracts.

ACTU President, Sharan Burrow, says individual contracts (AWAs) lead to longer working hours according to figures released by the Government's own Department of Employment and Workplace Relations.

The 2004 DEWR report finds that of all individual contracts (AWAs):

• 92% do not provide paid maternity leave.
• 95% do not provide paid paternity leave.
• 96% do not provide unpaid 'purchased' leave, such as extra leave during school holidays.

The only widely available family-friendly provisions in individual contracts (AWAs) are for bereavement leave (49 per cent).

It must be of little comfort to employees on individual contracts (AWAs) to know that the most common family-friendly clause in their employment contract is for leave in the terrible event that a family member dies.

This report shows that working families are already worse off when they are employed on one of the Government's preferred AWA individual contracts.

And it suggests they are going to be even worse off under the new IR laws.

The Government's industrial relations plans are all about pushing workers on to individual contracts (AWAs) that can cut people's take home pay and remove conditions like overtime, shift penalty rates, meal breaks, rostering protections and public holiday penalties.

Removing these protections will lead to longer and more irregular hours as well as unsocial work at nights and on weekends.

All of this will clearly be bad for families.

It means working parents will have less time with their children and less time for leisure, friends, volunteer work and household chores.

By lifting controls on longer and irregular hours, as well as removing protections from night work and weekend work, the Government's new workplace laws will only make it harder for working parents.

"Families are already struggling to keep their heads above water and will be much worse off by the Government's changes," said Sharan Burrow.

As well, State and Territory Ministers for Women, said women were also left much worse off.

In a joint open letter, they said many basic rights at work would be removed under the planned changes.

"Under the proposed new federal system, the rights of working women to security of employment, to protection against summary dismissal and to fair procedures, will not exist," said Ms Paula Wriedt, Minister for Women.

Ministers also singled out individual contracts as particularly bad for women workers. They said the majority of women were already worse off under individual Australian Workplace Agreements (AWAs), with women on AWAs earning only 70% of the average earnings of men on the same agreements.

Comparatively, women covered by industrial awards earn 83% of men's average earnings.

Ms Wriedt also said women on individual contracts "are less likely to have access to family friendly provisions like flexible starting times or certainly of work hours".