Senator GEORGE CAMPBELL (9:54 AM) —The Workplace Relations Amendment (Prohibition of Compulsory Union Fees) Bill 2002 is another fine example of the use by this government of Orwellian doublespeak in industrial relations. We have seen a series of bills introduced into this chamber, into this parliament, all with titles that have implied one thing and with content that has implied the exact opposite. Whether the Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations, in taking this approach, thinks he can con the Australian people into believing he is trying to do rational things in the area of industrial relations is one thing but whether he thinks he can con us into supporting draconian style legislation simply because it has a high-sounding title is another. I condemn the government for the misleading title of this bill. It is not a bill about compulsory union fees. If that were the case, that phrase would be used at least once in the text. It is not referred to at all in the text of the legislation. The bill refers only to bargaining service fees, which are defined to specifically exclude union membership dues, and that is another transparent attack on unions and the millions of workers they represent.

This is an issue pursued by the current minister with all the fervour of a zealot. He has turned this into an ideological issue. He has turned every industrial relations issue this government has dealt with during his period as minister and during the period of his predecessor into an ideological issue. One has to pose the question: is this minister serious about promoting industrial relations reform in this country that will benefit the participants in the system or is he simply about putting forward legislation in this chamber to build a bank of bills that potentially can be used down the track to promote a double dissolution, to create the environment that maximises the political options available to this government? While, on the one hand, he has said a lot in the public arena about the necessity of some of this legislation, he has had an opportunity on other bills to pick up amendments that would have made those bills more rational and more able to be worked within the industrial relations community, but on all occasions he has rejected them simply because he has not been able to get his own way. One wonders in fact whether he wants the legislation to be passed by the parliament at all.

The government's rhetoric in support of this bill is intended to promote the myth that bargaining fees in enterprise agreements are being forced on employees without their consent. This is not correct and would not be possible under the relevant legal framework. The Workplace Relations Act 1996 requires that all employees who will be subject to an enterprise agreement must have ready access to a proposed agreement for at least 14 days beforehand, that employers must take reasonable steps to ensure that the terms are explained to employees and that a valid majority of employees voting have genuinely agreed to the agreement. The commission has specified that genuine agreement requires both informed consent and an absence of coercion.

The approach taken to the matter of bargaining fees in certified agreements is also inconsistent with the government's approach to negotiation of AWAs. An employee can appoint their union as their bargaining agent in relation to an AWA and nothing precludes the union from charging a fee in respect of such an arrangement. And yet the government would seek to prevent employees from agreeing by a majority vote to a collective agreement that includes such bargaining fees. The minister argues that employees should not be liable to pay a fee that they have not, individually, agreed to prior to the service being provided. This might carry some weight if employees were in a position to reject the service, with the consequence of being excluded from the benefits of a collective agreement negotiated by a union.

However, that is not the case under the current act. The government opposes unions striking agreements that restrict the benefits of their negotiated agreements to financial members of the union. In early 2002, the Employment Advocate applied to the Federal Court for the removal from several certified agreements of a clause providing insurance for union members. He argued that the clause is contrary to the act because it extends a benefit of insurance cover to employees who are union members instead of extending it to all employees.

The minister has made it clear that he expects unions to represent nonmembers, as in his criticism of unions for failing to insert a redundancy pay provision into the award covering One.Tel employees. It might surprise the minister and some people on that side of the chamber that historically, since 1905, unions have consistently represented non-union members in the industrial relations system. They have consistently argued on behalf of non-union employees. Every award struck in the federal Industrial Relations Commission since 1905 has provided not only for wages and working conditions for union members but also for the extension of those wages and working conditions to non-union members.

But we are living in a different environment in the year 2002. We have enterprise bargaining as the central focus of our industrial relations system. By its very nature, that is a system that requires considerable use of resources in order to promote the system effectively. Because the government has also tried to outlaw pattern bargaining, it requires unions to visit virtually every workshop, workplace and employer, serve logs of claims on every individual employer in this country and sit down with each individual employer and go through a process of negotiation to achieve an outcome. That consumes enormous resources from the point of view of the union, and over the period that bargaining has been in place unions have had to put additional people into the field in order to cope with the demand and the requirements of their membership. In those circumstances, why shouldn't they seek some recompense for the effort that they put into securing improved wages and working conditions for employees and workplaces? Union members pay for it by virtue of being members of the organisation, and why shouldn't those other employees in those enterprises, who get the benefit of the effort put in on their behalf by other employees, also make a contribution to the achievements that are made on their behalf?

This government, in fact, are strongly wedded to the concept of user pays and individual responsibility. If that is the case, why won't they also apply that to union members and non-union members? Why can't they see that those persons achieving a benefit as non-unionists should also make a contribution to that achievement, as is the reasoning they would apply in other areas? In his minority report resulting from the committee's inquiry into the Workplace Relations Amendment (Prohibition of Compulsory Union Fees) Bill 2001, Senator Murray, from the Democrats, stated:

It is interesting that in the inquiry held into this particular piece of legislation we had the employer unions, such as the AIG, coming along and arguing very strenuously that nothing should be put in this legislation that would prevent them from collecting their fee for service when they represent individual employers, because not every employer represented by the AIG or by other employer unions is necessarily a member of those organisations. But they all operate very substantially on charging fees for service to those employers who, from time to time, they may get a brief to represent. While on the one hand they were arguing that unions should not have access to such a provision, on the other hand they were very keen to ensure that whatever was done did not operate in such a way as to preclude them from being able to collect those fees for service.

As Senator Murray has pointed out, if the 2002 bill is intended to deal with compulsory unionism, this is already comprehensively prohibited under the act. The government argues that bargaining fees are inconsistent with freedom of association. If this were correct, bargaining fees would be prohibited by the International Labour Organisation principles and standards, which are founded core principles such as freedom of association. No such limit exists. In contrast, bargaining fees are permitted by the ILO and in countries such as the United States, Canada, Switzerland, Israel and South Africa, which are also known for their adherence to principles of freedom of association.

The ILO views bargaining fees as a valid issue for collective bargaining, with its freedom of association committee holding:

The ILO's general survey explicitly states that bargaining fee provisions, when negotiated between unions and employers, are consistent with freedom of association principles. It says:

In conclusion, the Workplace Relations Amendment (Prohibition of Compulsory Union Fees) Bill 2002 is nothing but a blatant attack on unions and their legal efforts to recover some of the costs of negotiating agreements that benefit nonmembers. Some points need to be reinforced. The behaviour this amendment seeks to outlaw is not compulsory unionism. Compulsory unionism is already outlawed under the Workplace Relations Act. Nor is the bargaining agents fee undemocratic. It requires the consent of the majority of the work force before it can be included in an enterprise agreement. If it is good enough for workers to vote before going on strike, as the minister desires, then why is it not good enough for them to vote to have a bargaining agents fee that is enforceable. It is only fair that workers who enjoy the benefits of union enterprise agreements and cannot be excluded under the Workplace Relations Act pay for some of the costs of those negotiations. The government does not support free-riders in other spheres of our society, and it should not here. Bargaining agents fees are consistent with International Labour Organisation principles and are observed by many countries with economies as advanced as ours.

The reality is that the reason the Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations has put this bill before the parliament is not, as I said initially, because he has a commitment to making the arbitration system—our industrial relations system—a fairer, more effective system operating on behalf of both employers and employees. The reason is that he is an ideological zealot when it comes to this issue. He has a passion and commitment that is focused simply on doing whatever he can to destroy the capacity of workers in this country to organise effectively and to be able to use their collective resources to promote their interests in the workplace. He has made no bones about where he stands in the industrial relations debate. He has no shame— nor, indeed, did his predecessor—about making the point that he stands foursquare in support of the employer and will do whatever he can to tip the scales on behalf of employers. For those reasons, I urge the members of this chamber to vote down this bill.