backs government IR reform

Printing Industries claims a single national workplace relations system is preferable for many employers, as it will eliminate any instances where one workplace is regulated by overlapping State and Federal industrial laws.

The organisation points to the single federal industrial tribunal system in place in Victoria through the Commonwealth Workplace Relations Act, labelling the single tribunal system as effective, and supportive of the Government's claims that a single system will work across Australia.

“The implementation of a single workplace relations system has benefits for all employers, and Printing Industriessupports the removal of state systems,” says Greg Parkes, national director of employee relations at Printing Industries.

“By shifting many duplicated employment matters contained in numerous State Acts of Parliament into the Commonwealth Workplace Relations Act, the Government will create an overdue national standard of minimum conditions of employment,” says Parkes.

Specific aspects of the Federal Government's workplace reforms have been labelled as necessary and important by Printing Industries. It claims the proposed new Australian Fair Pay and Conditions Standard body will be used as the base for establishing new workplace agreements, and allow employers flexibility in tailoring agreements to enterprise requirements.

The elimination of the need for the AIRC to be involved in every collective workplace agreement is supported. “This involvement does, at times, result in a bureaucratic processes and potential delays which the Government seeks to replace with a simpler system of lodging and processing agreements,” says Parkes.

Printing Industries warns that changes to the unfair dismissal laws may lead trade unions to turn every termination into an unlawful dismissal claim, emphasising employers to be cautious that terminations are not related in any way to:

Temporary absence from work due to illness or injury

Trade union membership

Filing a complaint or participating in legal proceedings against an employer

Race, colour, sex, sexual preference, age, physical or mental disability, marital status, family responsibilities, pregnancy, religion, political opinion, national extraction or social origin.

Refusing to sign an Australian Workplace Agreement

Temporary absence from work to carry out voluntary emergency work