Workers ”rushing to sign AWAs”, says MP

Hamish Heard
GEELONG workers are falling over themselves in a rush to sign Australian Workplace Agreements, according to federal Member for Corangamite Stewart McArthur.
Mr McArthur claimed a 23 per cent jump in workers signing AWAs demonstrated a lack of confidence in federal opposition leader Kevin Rudd’s industrial relations credentials.
Mr McArthur said recent figures on AWAs in the Geelong region showed that workers wanted to sign individual contracts before the federal election to protect gains won in workplace negotiations with employers.
“There are now more than 12,400 workers across Corangamite and Geelong who have signed up to Australian Workplace Agreements because of the increased job security, better pay and flexible conditions the system offers,” Mr McArthur said.
Last year’s workplace reforms had created 350,000 new jobs, he said, with 94 per cent full time.
“Labor would bring the remarkable period of jobs growth to an end by putting the unions back in the driver’s seat of national policy,” Mr McArthur said.
“Ever since Kevin Rudd and Julia Gillard announced Labor would hand workplace control back to the trade union bosses local residents have flocked to sign up to the Government’s AWAs.”
But Labor candidate for Corio Richard Marles, an Australian Council of Trade Unions assistant secretary, accused Mr McArthur of “living on another planet”.
“Any jump (in AWA signings) indicates that working people are being pushed into AWAs,” Mr Marles said.
“If Stewart McArthur thinks working people are rushing to go to AWAs he’s living on another planet.”
Mr Marles scoffed at Mr McArthur’s claim that a Labor federal government would become a union puppet.
“Labor will have a fair approach to workplace relations which involves a fair approach to unions,” he said.
The Government’s IR reforms had failed to deliver productivity increases and any job growth was the result of a global resources boom, he said.
“Work Choices has delivered zero productivity growth and you have to contrast that to when Labor left government in the ’90s when productivity growth was running at 3.2 per cent per annum,” he said.
Opposition Leader Kevin Rudd was this week attacked over a confidential briefing paper advising him to ignore figures showing productivity had turned around in the past two quarters and concentrate on ones showing a longterm decline.