FED:Critics pine for harsh IR, Labor says.

AAP General News (Australia)
08-29-2011
FED:Critics pine for harsh IR, Labor says.

By Andrea Hayward

CANBERRA, Aug 29 AAP - Labor and unionists are warding off criticism of the government's
industrial relations reforms by saying opponents want a return to the coalition's harsher
Work Choices regime.

The former head of the Australian Building and Construction Commission John Lloyd on
Monday said concerns about the state of the industrial relations system were widespread.

"Employers across the whole spectrum are expressing concern about this, and obviously
employees are becoming worried about their future job security," Mr Lloyd told Sky News
on Monday.

Jobs and productivity are subjects of rising anxiety after BlueScope Steel last week
announced it would shed 1000 jobs due to the pressures of the strong Australian dollar.

Reserve Bank governor Glenn Stevens called last week for a review of industrial relations,
saying many business people felt that the government's reforms had reduced workforce flexibility.

That prompted ACTU President Ged Kearney to say the central bank chief was "captive
to the big end of town".

Greens industrial relations spokesman Adam Bandt called for the Reserve Bank board
to include union and community representatives, not just business leaders, to protect
full employment.

Australian Manufacturing Workers Union national secretary Dave Oliver said productivity
was the real issue.

"Not the Glenn Stevens Reserve Bank productivity by removing penalty rates of workers,
but real productivity at a macro level to investment in infrastructure, investment in
skills, investment in innovation, research and development, improved management capability
and access to finance," he told reporters in Canberra.

"Clearly Glenn Stevens hasn't been looking into the (steel) industry very often because
what he would have found is that since 2007 there hasn't been a single day lost in the
steel industry through industrial action, unlike during the period of Work Choices."

Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry chief executive Peter Anderson said the
current IR system was "one size fits all" and needed and overhaul to boost productivity.

Queensland Liberal backbencher Steve Ciobo said Labor's Fair Work Act had choked labour
market flexibility.

"The re-regulation of the workforce is costing Aussie jobs.

"As far as I am concerned the 1000 lost jobs at BlueScope last week lie right at the
feet of Labor and the unions," he told The Australian.

"With the high Aussie dollar we need to be even more competitive than our trading partners."

But Workplace Relations Minister Chris Evans said it was "disgraceful" that Mr Ciobo
was blaming workers for the job losses.

"To suggest that BlueScope's redundancies were caused by the wages and conditions of
the BlueScope workers flies in the face of reality," Senator Evans said.

"We know that this has been caused by the high Australian dollar.

"This is about Work Choices, about returning to a system that says you should lower
the wages and conditions of Australian workers."

Australian Workers Union national secretary Paul Howes said productivity in the steel
industry was high and the workplace relations system was working.

"It is not the old narrative in terms of worker losing, worker winning, or boss losing
or boss winning," he said.

"It's about being clever, it's being innovative, it's about appropriate levels of managerial
experience in manufacturing to ensure we can innovate, can diversify and we can stay the
long term."

AAP ah/jl/hn/

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