13 December 2007

Ms Julia Gillard
Deputy Prime Minister
Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations
Minister for Education
PO Box 6022
House of Representatives
Parliament House
CANBERRA ACT 2600

Dear Ms Gillard

The IEUA welcomes your comments reported in the press on Thursday 13 December in relation to AWAs and employment in Government or statutory agencies.

In particular I note your comment that : ”We don’t want people who are getting jobs with the Federal Government, or any of the statutory agencies, to be confronted with a take-it-or-leave-it AWA”.

Further, the IEUA believes that the report that “the Department of Education, Employment and Workplace Relations issued a directive to all departments last week saying that vacancies were no longer to be advertised as being dependent on the acceptance of AWAs” is a significant improvement in employment relations in this country.

As you are no doubt aware, the previous Federal Government established a number of Australian Technical Colleges (ATCs) as part of its education agenda.

That Government required that these ATCs offer AWAs under their funding contract.

While it is entirely appropriate that the funding contracts for these ATCs are honoured by your Government, it is most disappointing that our members still face hostile employment practices with some ATCs still either insisting on AWAs or offering inferior collective agreement arrangements relative to the AWA.

I draw your attention to the attached article from the Newcastle Herald, also published on Thursday 13 December, that typifies the latter point. Link to article here

The IEUA agrees with the position attributed to you in the press “that AWAs should now only be used in circumstances where there is no satisfactory alternative and employees should be given choice.”

The IEUA believes that satisfactory alternatives to AWAs do exist in the non-government education sector and that the choice offered should not be an inferior choice.

The IEUA would welcome your consideration of this matter as a priority and would be happy to further discuss this matter.

Yours sincerely

Chris Watt
Federal Secretary