Essay on Employment and Fair Work Act

Submitted By Soodshweta1
Words: 1968
Pages: 8

Table of Contents

Topic page no.

Background 2

Impact on Employees 2

Impact on Employer 2

Opposition of Workchoice 3

Workchoice and changes in work place relation 4

Fair work Act 2009 4

Differences between Workchoice and fair work act 5

Fair work act for Employees 6

Fair work act for Employers 6

Workchoice vs. Fair Work Act 2009 6

References 7

Background

The Workplace Relations Act 1996, as amended by the Workplace Relations Amendment Act 2005, popularly known as Work Choices that came into effect in March 2006 which involved many controversial amendments to the previous Workplace Relation Act 1996. The main federal statute which regulated employee and employer relations in Australia.

Work Choices was passed by the Liberal government in 2005 and was designed to improve employment levels and national economic performance by dispensing with unfair dismissal laws for companies under a certain size, removing the "no disadvantage test" which had sought to ensure workers were not left disadvantaged by changes in legislation, thereby promoting individual efficiency and requiring workers submit their certified agreements directly to Workplace Authority It also significantly compromised a workforce's ability to legally go on strike, requiring workers to bargain for previously guaranteed conditions without collectivised representation, and significantly restricting trade union activity and recruitment on the work site.

Impact on employee • The ability of workers to genuinely bargain, conditions and security of employment were greatly reduced. • The impact on gender equity, including pay gaps –further widened • The impact on balancing work and family responsibilities- loss of job security • Individual and collective bargaining under WorkChoices –employer became too powerful practically sack anyone without genuine reason. • Restrictions on the content of workplace agreements • The changes to the unfair dismissal laws- balance shifted toward employers • The loss of protection for employees – union became toothless tiger • The impact of WorkChoices on women- especially women with part time job became vulnerable.
Impact on employer • The Work Choices reforms substantially altered the rules for making agreements • Shift of bargaining power from employee to employer • Employers set the term and conditions of work • Take it or leave it prevailed • Unions no longer were able to force their way in • It has made it easier to make jobs redundant

Oppositions to work choice
Unions- after the passing of workchoice legislation unions practically became toothless tiger. That was the reason why unions always opposed workchioce. The passing and implementation of the new laws was strongly opposed the trade union movement. Union argued that the laws stripped away basic employee rights and were fundamentally unfair. The Australian Council of Trade Unions consistently ran television advertisements attacking the new laws.

Labour Party-Work Choices was a major issue in the 2007 federal election, as the Australian Labor Party (ALP) vowed to abolish it. Workchoice became one of