Aussie unions promise retribution at the ballot box

The Australian Council of Trade Unions has vowed to spend up to AUS$8 million in the next general election, targeting 33 electorates of MPs who voted for the controversial "Work Choice" industrial relations legislation.

The new law has been passed by the Australian Senate and the changes will come in force in phases from the beginning of next year.

The Howard Government successfully passed its "Workhouse" legislation through the Australian Senate by 35 votes to 33, after Australian National Party Senator Barnaby Joyce secured what he claimed were significant concessions in the legislation over employers’ powers to sack workers who refused to work "iconic public holidays" like Christmas Day. "I think the National Party saved Christmas," Joyce told the Herald Sun newspaper. However Australian Labor Party leader Kim Beazley replied that the only thing Joyce had achieved was, "running hard for the role of Christmas turkey".

That change was one of 337 changes made to the Bill as is passed through the House of Representatives and the Senate.

In another change, workers currently covered by an award would initially keep 12 rather than just 5 minimum conditions. While employers will no longer be allowed to unilaterally remove the conditions, they can "negotiate" with employees to exclude them. The extra seven conditions cover public holidays, overtime, penalty rates, shift loadings, rest breaks, annual leave loadings and bonuses.

A number of Labor party-controlled states are also mounting a legal challenge to the law in the Australian High Court, on the grounds that the new federal system unjustifiably overrides the current state industrial relations systems.