Howard’s Fourth Term Industrial Relations Agenda

By Anthony Forsyth

The re-election of the Howard government sets the stage for a dramatic transformation of the legal framework for workplace relations.

The government will have the opportunity to pass the rejected bills that have accumulated since 1996 and to go further than even those laws allow. Business groups are already urging the government to create even greater "flexibility".

Forsyth outlines what he thinks will be the priority areas for the government including:

· the building industry: establishment of a Building and Construction Commission, limits on pattern bargaining and strike action and substantial constraints on union organising rights

· Bargaining generally: they will address the uncertainty created by the Electrolux decision and give the Commission the right to terminarte bargaining periods

· Small Business laws: unfair dismissal exemptions ar a high priority as they still claim it is a constrain on employment (total lack of evidence for this as argued by the federal Court in the Hamzy case http://council.labor.net.au/labor_review/94/update943.html

· Undermine state systems

· favour individual contracts and independent contractors

(CCH Industrial Law News, issue 10, 28th October 2004)