Page 13 - ETU Journal Autumn 2017

A CUB SENATE INQUIRY IS BORN
THE SENATE INQUIRY TERMS OF REFERENCE
The incidence of, and trends in, corporate avoidance of the Fair Work Act 2009, with particular reference to:
a. The use of labour hire and/or contracting arrangements to cut workers’ pay and conditions;
b. The use of artiicially small and unrepresentative voting cohorts to approve agreements with a broad scope to cut workers’ pay and conditions;
c. The use of agreement termination to cut workers’ pay and conditions;
d. The effectiveness of transfer of business provisions in protecting workers’ pay and conditions;
e. The avoidance of redundancy entitlements by labour hire companies;
f. The lack of protections afforded to labour hire employees from unfair dismissal;
g. The approval of enterprise agreements by workers not yet residing in Australia to cut workers’ pay and conditions;
h. The extent to which companies avoid Fair Work Act obligations by engaging workers on visas;
i. Whether the National Employment Standards and modern awards act as an effective ‘loor’ for wages and conditions and the extent to which companies enter into arrangements that avoid those obligations;
j. Legacy issues relating to WorkChoices and Australian Workplace Agreements;
k. The economic and iscal impact of reducing wages and conditions across the economy; and
l. Any other related matters.
CAMPAIGNS > THE CUB55
In late August, Secretary Troy Gray and a small ETU delegation went to Parliament in Canberra to speak to every available politician about ixing
the CUB dispute and the legal loopholes that let companies like CUB deny their workers their legal Aemployment entitlements.
rmed with the truth about how employers are using coercive tactics to reduce workers’ pay and
conditions and a list of how the laws need changing, a Senate Inquiry was conceived.
A Senate Inquiry into Corporate Evasion of Fair Work Laws: Short title ‘The CUB Inquiry’
The magniicent support for the CUB55 across the country and the community’s anger and fear about what employers are getting away with, made it impossible for our politicians to continue to turn a blind eye.
After securing support for the Inquiry from key crossbench allies Adam Bandt (pictured) and Jacqui Lambie (pictured), former ETU Assistant Secretary Gavin Marshall in the Senate and Opposition Employment Minister Brendan O’Conner came on board.
The ETU’s Inquiry Terms of Reference were then circulated around the parliamentarians, peak union bodies and national unions, then endorsed by ALP caucus.
On 12 October the Senate endorsed, unopposed, a Senate Inquiry into the tactics used by CUB and other grub managers to sack and slash the wages of their workers.
The Inquiry will investigate in detail the underhanded tactics used by CUB in collusion with Programmed, from using labour hire agreements to slash wages, to how agreements are created and terminated to evade meeting their legal obligations as employers.
There will be hundreds of examples in addition to CUB, and we aim to uncover them all in our unwavering pursuit to get our employment laws ixed once and for all. n
The Inquiry will investigate
in detail the underhanded tactics used by CUB in collusion with Programmed.
www.etuvic.com.au
THE ETU > SUMMER 2016
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