Tue, 04/04/2006 - 11:26am — dibo

Stoush.net noted the start-date with trepidation, Daily Flute showed Kevin Andrews saying at last what we’ve known for a while about unfair dismissal and Workers Online’s editorial ran with the first falling acorns.

Now it’s clear that for some workers, the sky has fallen in with the commencement of WorkChoices.

Cowra Abbatoir - 29 workers sacked, and invited to re-apply for the jobs they just lost at a wage cut of $180 a week. Only 20 will be rehired. Because it’s due to operational reasons, they have no recourse to unfair dismissal even though the abbatoir employs more than 100 people.

Quotes in the SMH are telling:

RON KNIGHT is one of those knockabout bush blokes who is uncomfortable about acknowledging adversity.

“I might be better off on the dole with the three kids than I’d be on the $580 [a week] they’re offering,” said the Cowra slaughterman, one of 29 at the centre of a key battleground in the early shake-out of the Federal Government’s overhaul of workplace relations.

Then the bravado drops.

“You wouldn’t want to know what the missus says. She doesn’t know if we’ll make the mortgage.

“Of course we’re worried. What really pisses me off is John Howard on the wireless telling everyone that no one will be worse off.”

This is the headline story this week. This is the big kahuna. But there are others.

The Daily Terror reported 23 year old Emily Connor being sacked and told to leave the premises of the childcare centre where she used to work on 10 minutes notice. She had worked there for five years. She was not even given the opportunity to say goodbye to the kids and parents she had worked with. Why? The boss didn’t even have to give a reason. Just pack your things and piss off sunshine.

This also demonstrates how difficult it will be to mount unlawful dismissal claims. If the boss says nothing but ‘you’re sacked’, then making the allegation will be impossible. Only an idiot boss (and there are some out there, so you’ll still see a few suits coming up) would ever put themselves in that position. Keep your motives to yourself but weed out anyone you want for whatever reason, lawful or not.

Then there’s Erin McLemon, 21. As the Terror reports, she was working as a photolab assistant for a bit over six months as a casual. She was asked to leave at the end of her shift, along with a 65 year-old colleague. Under the previous system, she could have qualified as a permanent employee. Instead she’s unemployed now. The given reason was overstaffing, though the employer had only hired someone new the previous week.

Ms McLemon said she was a Liberal voter until yesterday and felt betrayed because the Coalition had made no mention of its workplace reform agenda at the last election.

“They didn’t say they were going to do this,” she told The Daily Telegraph.

“I was already unhappy with the proposed changes and now I’ve felt the brunt of of it first hand.”

This is exactly what the Government should worry about. This was never part of the deal.

This is not a battle against of the reforming government against union ratbags. This is a battle to ensure that ordinary Australian workers like Ron Knight, Emily Connor and Erin McLemon can go to work and feel secure.

Forget terrorism, forget interest rates, the freedom and economic security of knowing that you can’t be sacked without a decent reason trumps all that. There is nothing more immediate than the threat of the loss of your job.

For Australian families, pressed up against a mounting pile of debt and relying on secure and well remunerated work to keep it from overwhelming them, this should be the last straw.

There are now Australian families on whom the sky has well and truly fallen. There will be more as the year wears on and we move towards the next election. Good people are suffering because of these laws, and Howard is going to cop a belting.