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Workers on AWAs miss redundancy payDate: 24 August 2007
Workers on AWA individual contracts employed at the South Burnett Meatworks in Queensland have missed out on tens of thousands of dollars in redundancy pay after the plant closed while workers on a union collective agreement will get their full redundancy entitlement, with some employees getting up to $19,000. But the collapse of the South Burnett Meatworks (Murgon, Qld) has also exposed a major new loophole in the Howard Government's WorkChoices IR laws, with redundancy pay not protected by the laws and not covered by the so-called 'Fairness Test' the ACTU said today. Over time, the lack of protection for redundancy pay in the WorkChoices IR laws is going to cause enormous hardship for thousands of working families across Australia that are affected by factory closures, company collapses and corporate restructuring says the ACTU. "The unfair situation for workers on AWAs versus workers on a collective agreement at this meatworks has exposed a ticking time bomb in the IR laws that could affect up to a million Australian workers over the next five years. "It exposes a gap in the WorkChoices IR laws with no requirement for redundancy pay to be included in a workplace agreement and no obligation for employers under the so-called 'Fairness Test' to compensate workers for the removal of redundancy entitlements. "The Federal Government's redundancy pay safety net scheme (GEERS) - introduced after the collapse of a company owned by the Prime Minister's brother, Stan Howard - also does not cover workers that have signed an AWA individual contract that has no redundancy pay entitlement. "The average period of unemployment for workers after they are made redundant is nearly six months - it is even longer for older workers. Without redundancy pay these workers will have nothing to tide them and their families over until they can find another job. "There are 230,000 workers that are made redundant each year and the increasing use of AWAs that provide no redundancy entitlement means more than a million workers over five years could be affected. "The fact is that even in a strong economy jobs are not created quickly enough to rapidly absorb all the workers who are retrenched. "Workers in industries affected by natural disasters such droughts and floods like the meat, food processing and agriculture industry will be badly affected by the lack of redundancy pay protection, as will employees in the car industry, clothing, textiles, mining and other sectors exposed to downturns in production. "It is not surprising that the lack of protection for redundancy pay under the IR laws is not mentioned in the Government's misleading advertising campaign promoting WorkChoices," said Ms Burrow.
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