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IR laws ‘contrary to Catholic doctrine’
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| By Brian Davies
22 April, 2007 |
The Federal Government’s Workplace Relations Amendment Act contravenes Catholic social doctrine, according to an Australian Catholic Social Justice Council discussion paper that examines the nation’s industrial relations laws.
It argues that the central claims made by supporters of the Act and the changes it introduced are either based on false choices or else just plain wrong.
The paper was prepared for the Australian Catholic Social Justice Council by Dr Tim Battin, senior lecturer in political economy and political science at the University of New England.
The chairman of the council, Bishop Christopher Saunders of Broome, says Dr Battin’s perspective was that of a political economist analysing the practical effects of the IR legislation and the theories underpinning it, but also measuring them against the precepts of Catholic social teaching.
Dr Battin was concerned with its moral dimensions, the bishop said.
On the concept that the Act ‘deregulates’ the ‘labor market’, Dr Battin says there is no such thing as ‘de-regulation’; there is only re-regulation.
“In fact,” he says, “the Workplace Relations Amendment Act runs to 675 pages, plus additional pages of regulations.
“To bring about change in one direction or another, all governments engage in re-regulation, bringing about different sets of winners and losers.
“In short, the supposed dichotomy between regulation and de-regulation is a red herring. The debate is about the kinds of regulations, institutions and markets we are to have.
Whichever government regulation is being analysed, the questions to be asked include: who is better off and who worse off, and what is the effect on equity?
Other questions listed by Dr Battin ask what moral or ethical basis there is for favouring some groups over others, whether the regulations are intrusive or authoritarian and whether they will achieve their stated goals.
Dr Battin reminds readers that in 1891 Pope Leo XIII declared there were higher laws than economic liberalism and rejected the idea that fixing a just wage could be left to “market forces”; instead, to be just it had to be based on a family’s needs – as in 1907 when Justice Higgins in the Australian Court of Conciliation and Arbitration set a ‘basic’ wage to keep a man, his wife and three children in “frugal comfort.”
Justice Higgins even drew on Leo XIII’s encyclical.
The discussion paper, inter alia, scrutinises key details in the setting of minimum wages and new conditions, protection against unfair dismissal, individualisation of the workplace and what it calls “the further shift of power to capital”.
In none of these does the discussion paper regard the Act as offering employees any advantages; instead only red herrings, unjust dismissal laws, double standards so as to protect employers, manipulation of agreement-making, with collective bargaining (becoming) a hollow exercise.
“Trade unions are rendered powerless and formal assurances of the right to join a union are made meaningless,” Dr Battin says.
“For example, one aspect of the unfair dismissal laws is revealing – we seem to be meant to be grateful that we’re allowed to take legal action against illegal activities.
“The Government’s claim that 77,000 new jobs will be created from reduced business costs is grossly unsubstantiated; recourse to arbitration is all but closed off.
“The minister of the day has unprecedented powers to halt a strike if he or she so wishes – a breach of international principles and likely to play a role in greater civil unrest.
“Earlier last year Bishop Kevin Manning suggested that in certain situations police officers would have a moral obligation not to break up an industrial protest.”
Dr Battin says that what is required is that argument for change be couched in terms of what society at large or the individual stands to gain.
“The political implications would be too great to bear if a political party made a public announcement that a new law was designed to give more power to the already powerful.
“Appeals by government to embrace ‘what is good for the economy’ have become increasingly rarified.
“Considering the appeal for change ‘for the sake of the economy’ we should recall that tailoring human activity to the needs of an abstract entity is contrary to Catholic social teaching.
“Christian social thought, expressed in Catholic social teaching, holds that ‘human rights are to be protected not only individually but also as a whole … the integral promotion of every category of human rights is the true guarantee of full respect for each individual right’.
“The importance of this principle cannot be overstated.”
Dr Battin also quotes John Paul II’s statement that the poor and vulnerable need to be protected in the market system and that human beings should be valued above the market and not regarded as a commodity.
Dr Batting says there are many grounds for challending a statement by the Prime Minister, Mr Howard, in May 2005 that Australia needed a workplace system geared to the present and the future, not the past and that the “the world of work has changed. The aspirations of working men and women are high and rising. Our institutional structures must reflect these realities”.
“The aspirations of working
men and women have always been
rising, not only for themselves but more so for their children,” Dr Battin says.
“It is self-evident that ‘the world of work has changed’ – but for the most marginalised, if not for workers overall, that change has been for the worse
“A case for change can be mounted,” he says, “but to be worthy of support it ought to be based on principles that are just and fair.
“As the vast bulk of industrial, legal, economic and political experts have declared, the current legislation cannot in any way be so described.”
The paper specifies Australian society’s alternative work-related needs, skills and strategies, concerned that in 1988 74 per cent of all employees had permanent full-time jobs, whereas today only 60 per cent do.
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