Australia’s IR policy favours bosses

The Office of the Employment Advocate (OEA) reveals clearly the bias towards employers inherent in an individualised IR system rather than upholding the individual's bargaining power. The advice page for employers says the following, inter alia, about AWAs:

• Give your employees a copy of the Information Statement for employees prepared by the Employment Advocate.
• Explain the effect of the AWA to your employees - ensuring that those from non-English speaking backgrounds or with other special needs have the information communicated in a way sensitive to their needs.
• Give your employees a copy of the final draft of the AWA and ensure that they have had the required amount of time to consider the AWA before signing it.

Further, when the OEA offers advice about how to reach an agreement, assumptions about the power relationship are palpable:

It may also be useful to manage employee expectations about the forthcoming agreement by providing parameters around which negotiations can take place. This may avoid an ambit log of claims (a “wish list”) when negotiation commences.

The OEA's advice is about how the employer might control whatever bargaining might occur. That this is about the business rather than individuals negotiating with employers on an equal basis is clear when the OEA's advice refers to drafting an agreement:

The draft AWA should clearly articulate the organisation’s preferred position in relation to the terms and conditions of employment, whilst taking account of the outcomes of staff consultations (emphasis added).

Of itself, that is fair enough: negotiation is about reaching a mutually satisfactory agreement and this advice addresses employers. But compare it to the detailed advice given to employees:

A bargaining agent can assist or represent you in negotiating a proposed AWA. A bargaining agent can be a friend, relative, solicitor, trade union representative or any other person whose advice you can rely on. If you appoint a bargaining agent to assist you, this person may contact the OEA regarding any issues you may have with your AWA.

That is all. The OEA offers employees little more than token recognition as a party in agreement-making for all the help it offers them in reaching agreements. Individual choice in this system is constrained by either naive idealism on behalf of its supporters or cynical, Orwellian manipulation.

The Liberal Party's IR policy promises free choice, but delivers constraint, and the OEA provides a tangible example of the Government's real orientation towards workers' choices in IR. The Prime Minister claims he has "been a better friend of the working men and women of Australia than any of (his) Labor predecessors." Workers and unions might ask, who needs friends like this?

The IR debate represents a philosophical divide underpinned by a Liberal idealisation of the individual reflecting neither the real world of working relationships, nor an understanding of power in the workplace. Democratic ethics would suggest that a government can never have a mandate to legislate an IR system that tips the balance of power one way or the other. The OEA's focus and the Coalition's failure to facilitate collective representation breach that principle, working against "mutually acceptable arrangements" and encouraging the culture of compliance of the powerless rather than the commitment of the empowered.