Award stripping: the impact on future EB negotiations

We all know that the state government is currently trying to remove a number of working conditions through the award stripping process it refers to as “award modernisation”.
This process requires the Queensland Industrial Relations Commission (QIRC) to review awards, add required content (i.e. dispute resolution, individual flexibility and consultation clauses written by the government and contained in regulations so they cannot be amended) and remove non-allowable matters.

However, what you may not know is that the description of non-allowable matters will also apply to certified agreements and EB claims.

It is clear from the legislation that in the next round of EB negotiations the government intends to remove those matters that it refers to as “non-allowable”.

These matters are:

• “contracting provisions” that restrict or set conditions on contracting out of services
• employment security provisions
• union encouragement provisions
• policy incorporation
• training arrangements
• workload management
• delivery of services
• workforce planning.

You need only think back to the EB campaign in 2012 to realise what the government would seek to remove through the next round of bargaining. In fact, it is clear in letters from the Minister to teachers that he continues to view matters such as class sizes as government policy.

It is obvious that the government has no interest in history or precedence in other bargains when it comes to what constitutes a working condition. By making the matters listed above non-allowable, it seeks to remove from future certified agreements and EB claims those things identified in the Costello Commission of Audit and those matters that provide workers with a fair go.

Additionally, the requirement to include a provision with respect to individual flexibility arrangements in the award is a precursor to the introduction of individual contracts. While the Minister currently states that contracts for school leaders would be voluntary, it is not missed by the QTU that, according to the government’s GT=GR plan, all school leaders will be on contracts by 2016.

We should continue to be wary of a government that does not respect well-established industrial processes, that does not understand that our working lives should provide us with protections and that good faith bargaining means that when an agreement is reached, no further claims can be made on the members.

While the awards for which the QTU has responsibility are not due to be modernised before mid-2015, we need to be conscious that we must have a modern award in place to negotiate a new agreement. We also need to be conscious of the new parameters for EB negotiations established by the legislation.

If an EB claim contains matters determined as “non-allowable”, members will not be able to take protected industrial action in support of these claims, neither can these claims be arbitrated.

It is time for members to take stock of just what is at risk through the award stripping process. While amendments to the award may appear minor in the first instance, the real impact of the process will be felt by members in the next round of EB, when the government will push its agenda, claiming that our conditions are really policy provisions which can be changed at the government’s whim, and the Union will need to fight to protect them from these attacks.

Kate Ruttiman
Deputy General Secretary

Queensland Teachers' Journal, Vol 119 No 4, 23 May 2014, p10