Unions, human rights and God

Indeed, Cardinal Pell - who tends more to the conservative - expressed his concerns about John Howard’s WorkChoices legislation to the National Press Club. He argued for a “modest strengthening” of the unions’ position in Australia - not a weakening.

So I’m wondering, if comparative conservatives like John Paul II and George Pell support unions, the independence of our Industrial Relations Commission and rights of working people - just where does that place the likes of John Howard and his WorkChoices laws?

The International community has also adopted fundamental principles supporting workers’ rights and the role of the union movement. In 1948, the member states of the United Nations unanimously adopted the Universal Declaration of Human Rights - there were eight abstentions.

It is clear and powerful in its simplicity. Article 23 is the second reading for us to consider. It says:

1. Everyone has the right to work, to free choice of employment, to just and favourable conditions of work and to protection against unemployment.
 
2. Everyone, without any discrimination, has the right to equal pay for equal work.

It is the union movement in Australia that has fought hard to achieve this - and still there’s a long way to go. It not only applies to women who are, on average paid less than men. For example, the Liquor Hospitality and Miscellaneous Union (LHMU) represented childcare workers in the Queensland Industrial Relations Commission (QIRC) in a pay equity case.

Pay equity cases examine the nature and value of work and whether it is equitably remunerated compared to other jobs. So underpaid were childcare workers - mostly women - that the QIRC ordered a series of substantial pay rises. They were to be phased in over a couple of years. But the Howard Government’s WorkChoices legislation came in mid-way. It overrode the state decision and childcare workers in Qld are now up to $70 a week worse off. And that was money the independent umpire had awarded these people who care for our most precious every day. Where is equal pay for equal work?

The Universal Declaration of Human Rights goes on:

3. Everyone who works has the right to just and favourable remuneration ensuring for themselves and their families an existence worthy of human dignity, and supplemented, if necessary, by other means of social protection.

4. Everyone has the right to form and to join trade unions for the protection of his interests.

Now the Howard Government has spent a fortune on advertising trying to tell us their actions and their workplace laws are not extreme - that somehow they’re fair. That somehow WorkChoices has evened up the imbalance away from so-called “powerful union thugs”. They’ve denigrated people who come from a union background in their political advertising - just because they were or are unionists.

Can you imagine the outcry if anyone launched an advertising blitz attacking political candidates in an election because 70 per cent of them were Catholic, 70 per cent were members of Rotary, 70 per cent born again Christians, 70 per cent were members of the RACQ or NRMA, or 70 per cent banked with Credit Unions?

Why is it OK to be attacked because you are a unionist? And why are unionists singled out?