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Costello plans new AWA pushDate: 17 September 2007
Peter Costello has confirmed that he would go further on industrial relations and that he fully supports a recently leaked secret Government plan to push 1.5 million more workers onto its unfair Australian Workplace Agreement (AWA) individual contracts. Already, Government figures show there are more than 1,000 workers a day being put onto AWA individual contracts - many of which remove penalty rates, overtime pay, shift allowance, public holiday rates, rest breaks and redundancy pay.
Increase workers on AWAs from from around 500,000 to up to 2 millionSunday's comments by Peter Costello clearly confirm that the Liberals plan to stick by their unpopular WorkChoices IR laws and will push millions more workers onto AWAs if they are re-elected says the ACTU.A secret Department of Employment and Workplace Relations plan that was recently leaked to the media showed the Coalition Government planned to increase the number of workers on AWAs from around 500,000 to up to 2 million. "Peter Costello is out of touch with working families," ACTU President Sharan Burrow said commenting on Mr Costello's statements on the Sunday program . " He is a hardline industrial relations extremist who is ignoring community opposition to WorkChoices. " Peter Costello has today confirmed that he would go further on IR if he became Prime Minister. " In particular, he has confirmed that he would like to see even more Australians pushed onto AWA individual contracts. He has previously said: 'We should be trying to move to an industrial relations system where the predominant instrument is the individual contract'... (The Age, 19/2/05)" He has also said he would agree with further cuts to unfair dismissal protections for workers: 'You could have an exemption [from unfair dismissal protections] for everyone... I can't tell you there is any magic in the number 100. If this were to work well people were to say well in the years to come it should be extended to all companies I would be very open to the idea.' (ABL Insight Magazine, 26/7/05)"Working Australians should be left in no doubt that Peter Costello will go further on WorkChoices and take away more of their rights at work if the Liberals win the next election," said Ms Burrow. Mr Costello was a founding member of the secretive free market fundamentalist ginger group the HR Nicholls Society. Peter Costello began his career in the 1980s as a barrister in high-profile anti-worker legal fights such as the Dollar Sweets case in which low paid factory workers who had already been sacked were sued by the company and stood to lose their family homes.
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