Reworking Citizenship: Renewing Workplace Rights and Social Citizenship in Australia

By Mark Hearn and Russell Lansbury

Our "Fragmented Futures" are a feature of working life now. Australians face overwork and increasing inequality.

The ways of dealing with work/life interaction through part time or casual work means greater insecurity and fewer benefits, and lower status and self-esteem. Lansbury and Hearn argue that trade unions are crucial to engaging people in active citizenship and participation in the way their jobs are organised and how work interacts with the communities they live in and the family lives they lead.

These sorts of contributions are the philosophy underlying human rights declarations of the UN and the ILO standards for labour. The right to organise for work and social justice are fundamental to citizenship. . Only 5 of the top 100 Australian firms have any formal recognition of the UN declaration.

They refer to Sonnenberg's proposed Employee Bill of Rights, drafted in the US context, which outlines some crucial rights such as the right to fail, the right to be challenged and to be treated with dignity and respect.

The Australian context is increasingly moving towards a situation of total organisational control by management, where workers are to be passive instruments of managerial whim or "prerogative" as the jargon goes. The relentless attack on the union movement from media, employers and government is phrased in terms of employer rights, with no guarantee of employee rights at all. Trade unions have been central to the space for the voice of workers and citizens in public policy and this voice is being attacked by government.

AIRAANZ conference, held at Sydney University from 9-11 February 2005.