Secret ballot Bill unnecessary and unbalanced

The CTU has repeated its view that the Employment Relations (Workers’ Secret Ballot for Strikes) Amendment Bill is an unwarranted and unnecessary bureaucratic imposition on workers’ freedoms.

The Transport and Industrial Relations Select Committee published its report on the Bill today. CTU President Helen Kelly says it is disappointing that the Bill fails to put the same onus on employers to ratify lockout actions which have been used several times recently in attempts to force workers into accepting terms and conditions they do not want.

Helen Kelly said: “While the Bill largely only formalises what already happens as normal procedure for unions, it imposes an unnecessary layer of bureaucracy which could be used to challenge the validity of legitimate votes in favour of strike action. The CTU has no problem with secret ballots for strikes and most unions do this already but we do object to employers being able to challenge the legitimacy of strikes because of ballot procedures. Union members might challenge a ballot in breach of a union rules, but employers could use this to challenge strikes on purely procedural issues.”

“As with all of the Government’s other attacks on employment rights this Bill addresses a non-existent problem and serves only to place a greater burden of responsibility on unions than is expected of employers, further altering the balance of power in an already unequal relationship.”

ENDS

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