The Howard Government’s labour market deregulation policy transfers the burden of employment risks onto workers. The key risks are, in a system designed to neuter the collective nature of Australian industrial relations, the dependence of individual employees upon managerial benevolence, job insecurity through weakened protections against unfair and arbitrary treatment within the firm, and the undermining of workers’ wages and terms and conditions of employment.

Those risks increase as individuals lose opportunities for representation and protection by independent, collective unions.

The Coalition's policy intentionally chooses the path of higher risk for employees. The Government's principal aim is not freedom of association. Rather, Coalition policy declares the Government's intention of ensuring 'that the concept of freedom to contract is protected, promoted and enhanced', both perpetuating the myth of equality in negotiation between the individual worker and an employer and switching the emphasis from employee rights to the employer. See full.

I write this at a time when there is as yet no member contributions in the Industrial Relations forum. This is to note for newcomers that IR is a specialty area of resident blogger James Woodcock.