One purpose of labour law, here the Fair Work bill is to provide protection for the most vulnerable workers. One group are outworkers, many migrant women on exploitative piece rates and no conditions in homes making clothes for business. ANU legal academic Michael Rawling in his Senate submission deals with how the Fair Work Bill will, if enacted without the necessary amendments, abolishs legislative protections for these exploited vulnerable outworkers.
He begins with an overview of existing legal protections under State and Territory laws for independent contractor outworkers labouring in industries outside the textile clothing and footwear sector – protections which survived the Howard government’s federal takeover of labour law, mainly due to the work of the TCFU, textile clothing footwear union.
He examines how the proposed further centralization of labour law under the Rudd government may lead to the abolition of these existing legal protections. In particular, he focuses upon the threats posed by provisions of the Transition to Forward with Fairness Act 2008 and the Fair Work Bill 2008. He concludes by setting out the necessary steps to avoid the unjust obliteration of key legal protections for these exploited vulnerable workers.
The DPM should have ensured in the name of ‘fairness’ that outworkers’ protections are not removed, but enhanced! Will the DPM respond constructively or will this be yet another example of the sell-out of the Your Rights at Work campaign?
All of the Senate submissions are on the parliamentary website.
Michael Rawlins submission is number 99.
http://www.aph.gov.au/senate/committee/eet_ctte/fair_work/submissions.htm
Fair Work Bill
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