The Australian Hotels Association has today said individual flexibility arrangements being pursued by the Liberal Party would go further than Labor’s laws and would provide a mechanism to extend trading hours without paying penalty rates.
These revelations will send a shiver down the spine of every Australian hospitality worker.
This is further evidence that under the Liberal Party unfair individual contracts would be back with a bullet, putting pay and conditions under direct threat.
There are around 262,800 hospitality workers and 167,400 kitchen hands across Australia who rely on penalty rates to make ends meet.
The Liberal Party’s policy document clearly outlines their intention to detach Individual Flexibility Arrangements (IFAs) from Enterprise Agreements and undermine the Better Off Overall Test by allowing ‘non-monetary benefits’.
Page 27 of the Liberal’s policy states:
“The ability for an IFA to be restricted by the terms of an
enterprise agreement will be abolished.”
Page 36 of the Liberal’s policy supports:
“changes to improve the application of the ‘Better Off Overall Test’
to appropriately account for non-monetary benefits.”
Tony Abbott needs to come clean on secret deals he has done which will see wages and conditions stripped away, important protections undermined and parents punished if they need to care for their kids.
At its core, the Liberal Party believes in driving down wages and conditions through unfair individual contracts.
In the chapter of Tony Abbott’s policy manifesto aptly named Unfinished Business, it states:
“WorkChoices wasn’t all bad.”
BATTLE LINES
Under Work Choices, 100 per cent of Australian Workplace Agreements (AWAs) ripped away at least one so called ‘protected award condition’. Things like penalty rates, allowances, rest breaks and public holidays.
Under Work Choices, 63 per cent of AWAs ripped away penalty rates; 64 per cent ripped away leave loading and 40 per cent cut rest breaks.
Australian hospitality workers know the Liberals can’t be trusted on workplace relations.
In contrast, under the Gillard Government penalty rates cannot be stripped away by unfair individual contracts.
MEDIA CONTACT: Sam Casey 0421 697 660
