OBJECTIVES

• To ensure that all people working in Australia are able to freely and fairly enjoy secure and just working conditions, remuneration and entitlements and a productive and rewarding work-life which integrates well with their personal, family and community obligations, and which is underpinned by adequate legislative protection and assistance.

1. The Australian Democrats will:
2. Workplace democracy
   foster and enhance industrial democracy and greater cooperation between owners, management and employees through principles of transparency, open management and communication, and support for participation in decision-making, reward and ownership.
3. Trade Unions and Employer Groups
   encourage Employers, employees and their unions to set conditions of employment through collective bargaining, at whatever level, with access to arbitration where necessary to prevent unfair outcomes.
4. encourage the legitimate role of trade unions, employees elected representatives and employer organisations in legislation and workplace culture. All representative organisations should be open, independent, democratic and fully accountable to their members.
5. protect freedom of association and the right to join a particular union or employers organisation. Membership of unions and/or employer organisations should be encouraged and non-members who benefit from negotiations obliged to contribute a fee-for-service.
6. The Role of Governments and the Industrial Relations Commission
   underpin Australian working conditions and entitlements by a national award system providing a liveable minimum wage and high minimum conditions consistent with community expectations and standards, and ensuring adequate protection for disadvantaged or underprivileged employees.
7. encourage mediation and non-litigious, speedy resolution of industrial disputes.
8. where non-litigious resolution fails, support resolution through an independent Industrial Relations Commission as the sole arbiter, the members of which are selected on merit, and whose orders are respected by law.
9. abolish the Office of the Employment Advocate and have its powers reconstituted in the Australian Industrial Relations Commission.
10. include, but not being limited to, the following powers for the Australian Industrial Relations Commission:
    a. the power to require an employer to collectively bargain where a significant group of employees request this option;
    b. the legislated power to arbitrate in regard to the establishment of certified agreements if bargaining and conciliation has failed to reach an agreement.
11. Working Hours/Job Sharing/Part-time Work
    encourage a variety of flexible working structures to accommodate the diversity of individual employees’ personal, family and community obligations.
12. reduce the standard working week (number of hours) through the promotion of incentives to foster greater employment rather than use of excessive overtime whether paid or unpaid.
13. support and formally legislate paid parenting leave funded by the State.
14. Discrimination
    oppose all forms of discrimination in employment.
15. support the principle of merit based selection as the sole criterion for determination of employment.
16. Continuous Education
    support access to continuous education for employees to be able to constantly upgrade and diversify their knowledge and skills.
17. support the right of access for all employees to continuous education pertinent to their employment and facilitated by their employer.
18. Equal pay
    support and uphold the principle of equal remuneration for work of equal value.
19. Industrial Action
    make industrial action legal in the pursuit or protection of pay and conditions, but prohibited where contrary to the orders of the Commission.
20. Make industrial action particularly the right to strike legal in defined circumstances.
21. Support secondary boycott action in support of human rights, environmental protection and consumer protection issues.
22. Dismissals
    make claims of unfair dismissals subject to legal review that provides a fair go for both employers and employees.
23. Make redundancies and retrenchments also subject to review and appropriate compensation once appropriate training, re-deployment and re-employment options have been explored and exhausted.
24. Allow regular casual, fixed term contract and probationary employees access to unfair dismissal processes.
25. waive – in cases of financial hardship, and refund if the claim is found to be valid, any lodgement fees for unfair dismissal.
26. Employee Entitlements
    Protect all employee entitlements in law, by whatever mechanism gives workers best protection.
27. Support and implement the following mechanisms to provide for employee entitlements in order of priority:
    a. an employer established trust fund in which all entitlements are held until they become due and which is protected under the ‘trust’ legislation from use for any purpose other than the payment of the entitlements
28. b. a national employee insurance scheme established to assist employees who lose entitlements and funded by employer premiums
29. International obligations
    give effect to Australia’s signed international conventions, treaties and agreements as they apply to Workplace Relations and Australian industrial and workplace legislation, and be pro-active in pursuing improved labour standards in international treaties.
30. Those not covered
    Develop new institutional arrangements to protect the interests of workers not represented by unions.
31. Develop new arrangements to provide small business employers not represented by employer organisations with access to advice on and support in relation to workplace relations issues.
32. Workplace Health and Safety (formerly Working Environment policy)
    maintain and contribute to the health and safety of all workers in Australian workplaces.
33. Develop national minimum workplace health and safety standards for each industry.
34. Support shared responsibility between workers and employers in monitoring and maintaining a safe and healthy work environment.
35. Legislate and adequately fund a system of monitoring and advice on health and safety issues.
36. Make readily available, access to training on Workplace Health and Safety best practices for both employers and employees.