Councils Targeted in Contracting Campaign
Local councils would force all private contractors doing work for them
to commit to ethical employment practices under a contractors code being
developed by NSW unions.
The code is the latest weapon in the push to stop private contractors
undermining the wages and conditions of full-time workers in the local
government area.
With many councils embracing competitive tendering, unions believe a
statewide code is the only way of stopping the under-cutting of full-time jobs.
The CFMEU raised the code in the wake of a dispute with Burwood Council where
a private contractor doing pacing work was found to be using illegal immigrants,
via a labour hire company.
The workers were being paid cash at rates less than 50 percent those in union
agreements, had no access to workers compensation or superannuation.
Labor Council secretary John Robertson says the code is a positive step and
that pressure should be applied to ALP- controlled councils to sign up to it.
Opposition to Sartor's Power Grab
Meanwhile, the Municipal Employees' Union is opposing plans to extend the
reach of Frank Sartor's Sydney City Council until he renounces competitive
tendering.
The MEU and Sartor have been at loggerheads since October 2000 when the
council moved to open up competitive tendering for core Council services.
In recent weeks Sartor unsuccessfully tried to force a non-union enterprise
agreement through the federal Industrial Relations Commission.
MEU state secretary Brian Harris says there's no way the union will support
boundary changes that reduce employment conditions for members in South Sydney
and Leichhardt who would be bought under Sartor's control.
The Labor Council is seeking an urgent meeting with the Premier over the
issue.
Right Wing Unions Sell out Members and Workers.....
Unions gun for labour hire ring-ins
Date: 22/05/99
By HELEN TRINCA
The Australian Services Union is trying to strike agreements with labour hire
firms for members it doesn't yet have.
It is an alternative approach forced on unions in an age when they are
struggling to recruit members from an increasingly fragmented labour market.
"We're trying to organise, but you strike problems in this area for obvious
reasons," Mr Brian Sullivan, the union's national executive president, said
yesterday. "People are scattered all over the city and there is no consolidated
workplace. For some unions it goes against the grain dealing with the employer
ahead of the employees, but we believe we have to do it."
The union is trying to recruit members in one of the fastest growing areas of
labour hire - the phone call centres - where about 30 per cent of workers are
employed via labour hire firms.
The Recruitment and Consulting Services Association, which has 300 member
companies in NSW, has been unmoved by the pressure. Instead, the association
wants the union to negotiate directly with the hire companies.
Labour hire companies estimate they employ fewer than 2 per cent of Australian
workers but the sector has been growing at 16 per cent each year since 1980.
The number of agency workers doubled in Australia between 1990 and 1995.
The labour hire firms now cover the so-called blue, white, pink and gold collar
workers - everything from manufacturing workers in blue to to managing directors
in gold class. Pink is for the clerical area dominated by women and white covers
professionals like information technology workers. The industry has an annual
turnover nationally of $4.5 billion with about 40 per cent of that in NSW. The
big unions, such as the Construction Forestry Mining and Energy Union, are
dismissive of the "body hire companies" and the CFMEU is pushing for clauses in
enterprise agreements to limit the use of these workers. Mr John Buchanan, a
researcher with Sydney University's Australian Centre for Industrial Relations
Research and Training, says the labour market is being reconfigured by
outsourcing. Between 1990 and 1995, 35 per cent of employers had outsourced at
least one function.
In the early 1980s, about two-thirds of workers were in companies of 100 workers
or more, whereas a decade later this had dropped to about 50 per cent. The NSW
Labor Council is campaigning to regulate contractors and is behind a push to
change laws so the State Industrial Commission sets minimum rates for
contractors and to ensure that labour hire firms do not undercut other site
workers. The ideas are in a discussion paper from the NSW Industrial Relations
Department. The Premier, Mr Carr, dumped on the paper after it was leaked to the
Herald but this week, his office said he was ruling nothing in or out. He just
wants normal consultation to be followed.
The Labor Council secretary, Mr Michael Costa, says: "We're concerned at the
undermining of the notion of full-time employment. All of the statistics show
very clearly that full-time employment is declining and one of the reasons is
the artificial contracting to avoid the employer-employee relationship." The NSW
Employers Federation accused the council of trying to turn back the clock but
the labour hire companies say they have no problem with paying the same money
paid to unionists on site, arguing they sometimes pay more already. The real
issue in this style of work is not so much money but job security.
But the trend is likely to be hard to break. Mr Jim Dingwall, a management
consultant with PA Consulting Group, said the European experience showed that
forcing labour hire firms to maintain parity with site wages did not dampen the
enthusiasm for outsourcing. Employers were using contract workers for
flexibility and to implement cultural change in the workplace, not as a way of
cutting wages, he said.
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