SA: Beazley cheers on IR protest

AAP General News (Australia)
08-30-2006
SA: Beazley cheers on IR protest

By Tim Dornin

ADELAIDE, Aug 30 AAP - Opposition Leader Kim Beazley cheered on a group of workers
in Adelaide today as they tore up their individual contracts in protest over the federal
government's new workplace laws.

The move was described by Prime Minister John Howard as a theatrical stunt, after Mr
Beazley said he was impressed by the fight being put up by the group of technicians and
other staff employed by electrical retailer Radio Rentals.

"Their's is a small unit here, but their struggle has implications right across the
country," Mr Beazley said.

The Australian Manufacturing Workers Union (AMWU) said workers at Radio Rentals were
frustrated and angry that the company would not negotiate a new collective agreement.

"Members at this site haven't had a pay rise for three years and all they want is to
be able to stick together and get a new collective agreement," AMWU state secretary John
Camillo said.

"But the company wants them to sign Australian Workplace Agreements (AWAs) which will
strip away the award safety net and allow the company to remove and vary employment conditions
at their discretion.

"This, unfortunately, is the type of situation that the federal government's industrial
laws are delivering."

Radio Rentals chief executive Gavin Hancock said technical service staff voted in May
this year to reject a new collective agreement that had been negotiated with the union.

He said workers were still being paid above the award and in accordance with a previous
collective agreement.

"The AWA on offer to the technical service staff improves their current employment
conditions and is vastly better than those prescribed in the award," he said.

Mr Beazley said the actions of Radio Rentals were evidence that employers across the
nation were gradually becoming aware of all the tricks that the new industrial laws offered
them.

"Businesses operate in a competitive environment and if they think somebody down the
street is stealing the march on them they try to get ahead," he said.

"The point is not what businesses do, but what the government is doing.

"What I'm prepared to do in government is restore the balance.

"I'm not looking for an advantage for one side or another in industrial disputes, I'm
looking for balance."

Mr Howard said Mr Beazley's actions were "rather theatrical".

"AWAs create better wages and better conditions for people who have them," Mr Howard
said in Adelaide.

"And if Mr Beazley thinks that by the time of the next election one million people
who have got AWAs and earning higher wages and earning better conditions are going to
enjoy him ripping them up, then I think he has got another thing coming," Mr Howard said.

AAP ks/bwl

KEYWORD: WORKPLACE BEAZLEY NIGHTLEAD (WITH PIX)

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