INDUSTRIAL relations would be a major political battleground in the New Year as the union movement ramped up its fight against the Morrison government's proposed new IR laws, the new secretary of Hunter Workers, Leigh Shears, said yesterday.
Mr Shears took over after six years as campaign organiser for Hunter Workers when the organisation's secretary of six years, Daniel Wallace, resigned in October. Hunter Workers became the trading name of Newcastle Trades Hall Council in 2015.
Mr Shears is a boilermaker and metalworkers' union member who moved to the Hunter from the Illawarra.
He said the legislation proposed by Attorney General and Minister for Industrial Relations, Christian Porter, was a "gift to big business at the expense of ordinary workers".
Hunter Workers president Stephen Kelly, from the teachers' federation, said the government had used the COVID-19 pandemic as an excuse to push for IR law changes that only added to the uncertainty facing millions of Australians employed in vulnerable casual positions with little or no job protection.
"Unions have said from the outset that we will not accept workers being worse off," Mr Kelly said.
"Changes to legislation must address the biggest problem facing working people exposed by the pandemic: the unacceptably high number of casual, insecure jobs," Mr Kelly said.
"More than half a million casual workers lost their jobs in the first wave of the pandemic. The vulnerability of casual workers was the weakest link in our battle to stop the spread of the virus."
The IR bill - known formally as the Fair Work Amendment (Supporting Australia's Jobs and Economic Recovery) Bill 2020 - was introduced to parliament on the second-last sitting day of the year, last Wednesday.
Mr Shears said the government wanted the laws passed this year, but "lobbying and activism" helped send the bill to a Senate committee for review, meaning it was unlikely to return parliament before "the end of March".
The parliamentary calendar shows 11 sitting days in February and another eight from March 15, although the final four days in March are for the House of Representatives only.
"One reason the bill went the committee was the government not wanting to lose a vote at the end of the year," Mr Shears said.
"We've to until March to stop this. There'll be campaigns over Christmas and the New Year to push back against laws that, however you look at them, swing the pendulum even further away from workers. The bill is the opposite of what Australia needs."
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