Chris White
25 May 2007
The International Labour Organisation (ILO) could not be clearer: “The right to strike is one of the essential means available to workers and their organisations for the promotion and protection of their economic and social interests” (1983).
Yet, although claiming that it does not infringe the right to strike, Work Choices has limited legitimate strikes, almost to the point of suppression. The legislation has even abolished the individual right to strike for an individual agreement (Australian Workplace Agreement — AWA), contained in John Howard’s 1996 Workplace Relations Act.
That’s why new workers’ collective bargaining rights for enterprise agreements, with a last resort right to strike, are so important for the ALP’s industrial relations policy. It’s also why I do not support the views contained in Kevin Rudd’s April 17 National Press Club speech, in which he proposed that the right to strike be restricted to the bargaining period for a new agreement and conditional on a secret ballot run by an external agency.
An ALP leader restricting the human right to withdraw labour was certainly headline news. Rudd’s targeting of strikes, as if they are an issue in today’s low-strike era, was off the wall.
[the rest at:]
http://www.greenleft.org.au/2007/711/36927
An injury to one is an injury to all http://www.iww.org.au/
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