Regards, Mike B)
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Holy day holidays no longer sacred
By Jill Murray The Age April 3, 2006
WITH Easter approaching and the WorkChoices act now in play, what is the status of the Good Friday public holiday? Senator Barnaby Joyce insisted on an amendment to the bill as it passed through Parliament and claimed he had saved Christmas Day and the other important public holidays.
Under WorkChoices, workers who cannot bargain for any better have as their only legal protection the minimum standards set by the act. Vulnerable workers entering the labour market from now on are likely to receive only these entitlements, but others may find themselves confronting these standards too. For example, enterprise agreements made under WorkChoices can be cancelled by the employer, and workers then receive only the minimum protections of the act. It appears possible for firms with up to 100 employees to sack workers for no reason and then rehire them on these low legislated standards. So, is Good Friday "protected by law", as the Government's advertising campaign suggested? I think the answer to this is that it is not.
Under the act, the employer is allowed to ask you to work on Good Friday. You may refuse only if it is reasonable for you to do so. It is the employer who is the judge of whether your refusal is reasonable. If the employer decides your reason is not good enough, you have no choice but to work on Good Friday. If you've got enough money to hire a lawyer, and you're brave enough to face the possibility of being sacked (which can be done for no reason in most firms), you can bring a case against the employer in the Federal Court. Unlike the quick, cheap and informal dispute resolution service provided to industry by the Industrial Relations Commission, the Federal Court will be sitting in judgement on these workplace matters without detailed knowledge of practical workplace dispute resolution.
In other words, if you're asked to work on Good Friday, you will need to show cause why you shouldn't do so. WorkChoices sets out 12 factors the employer must take into account in deciding whether your refusal is reasonable. Some of these factors appear to be designed to help employers use their workforce on days such as Good Friday. For example, one of the factors the employer must take into account is the operational requirements of the business.
WorkChoices also requires that your boss weigh up your reason for not agreeing to work on Good Friday, and to look into your "family responsibilities". Under the commission system, individual workers didn't have to explain to their bosses that they wanted to stay at home and watch TV, or go to church, or visit a mosque on their day off. They didn't have to defend their right to spend Good Friday away from the workplace by describing their family circumstances to their employer. WorkChoices leaves entirely to the discretion of the employer what constitutes a valid personal reason for refusal, and how to weigh this against the needs of the business. The lack of meaningful legislative instruction to employers about this powerful discretion is a recipe for the incoherent and unfair application of the law.
The reality is that vulnerable workers will have to work on Christmas Day, Good Friday, Anzac Day and all the other public holidays if their employer requires them to. WorkChoices does not include penalty payments for such days, further eroding the concept of a general community holiday on those important social occasions.
Is this what Joyce meant by saving Christmas Day?
Dr Jill Murray teaches law at La Trobe University.
--
"They are slaves who fear to speak
For the fallen and the weak;
They are slaves who will not choose
Hatred, scoffing, and abuse,
Rather than in silence shrink
>From the truth they needs must think;
They are slaves who dare not be
In the right with two or three.
J. R. Lowell
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