Topic 2 - Working Conditions

Awards and Enterprise Agreements

Employment conditions vary with each job. Generally, they will fall under either:

1. an Award - State or Federal

or

2. an Enterprise Agreement

You need to understand the differences between these forms of employment.

The NSW Industrial Relations Act 1996 No 17 regulates employment in NSW by permitting the NSW Industrial Relations Commission to make awards and approve enterprise agreements.

Both the and the set out the working conditions for particular types of employment.

This unit will focus on the NSW system.

Now tryActivity F

Now tryTask 6

The Role of Unions

Unions have played an important role in the Australian workplace. They assist workers (its members) in 3 main ways:

• represent groups of workers in issues that affect all of them eg- working conditions like safety and pay;
• represent individual employees on specific issues affecting them eg- an unfair dismissal;
• become a lobby groups on social issues that affect the community eg- refugees
  

Traditionally, unions have been associated with trades. However, there are a number of unions that represent the interests of office workers.

Take a look at the box below:-

The ASU is part of the United Services Union. Who is the ASU? It is our members that make the ASU strong and united. The ASU (NSW Clerical & Administrative Branch) has approximately 15,000 members in NSW in industries ranging from breweries to call centres. Our members are: Secretaries, Accounts Clerks, Personal Assistants, Data Entry Operators, Call Centre workers, Receptionists, Telephonists, Legal Clerks, Assistant Accountants, Customer Service Officers - anyone who works in administration will benefit from belonging to the Australian Services Union.

 

Now tryTask 7

Employer Associations

Employers also realise the benefits of joining forces to be heard by the government and the public.

When you watch a news story on TV about a major industrial dispute, a new wage rise or wage claim, you will usually see: -

Now tryActivity G

 

Obligations of Staff and Management

Whilst legislation sets out the rights & responsibilities in the workplace, there are also other factors that need to be taken into consideration.

You will notice some are supported by legislation or clearly established by the business and others are implied.

Let’s take a look at some of these factors.

There must be times when employers feel they are walking on a tightrope!

They are balancing many different factors in a business- some of them compete against each other.

For example: Consider the business whose main goal is to achieve a larger profit than the previous year (and last year was a record!!). However, to keep staff working hard they need to pay them more. The managers will have to weigh up the cost of pay rises with the loss of potential profit.

An important obligation is the idea of duty of care. The Australian Government is very specific in what is means by duty of care. Read what they have to say:

Duty of Care Duty of care requires everything ‘reasonably practicable’ to be done to protect the health and safety of others at the workplace. This duty is placed on: all employers; their employees; and any others who have an influence on the hazards in a workplace. The latter includes contractors and those who design, manufacture, import, supply or install plant, equipment or materials used in the workplace. Specific rights and duties logically flow from the duty of care. These include: provision and maintenance of safe plant and systems of work; safe systems of work in connection with plant and substances; a safe working environment and adequate welfare facilities; information and instruction on workplace hazards and supervision of employees in safe work; monitoring the health of their employees and related records keeping; employment of qualified persons to provide health and safety advice; nomination of a senior employer representative; and monitoring conditions at any workplace under their control and management.

You may have noticed that the emphasis is on OH & S issues. It is interesting to note that these obligations are to be met by everyone, not just the employer.

Another aspect of business that is having a significant impact is the outsourcing of some of the functions of a business. This means a business concentrates on its core activity (its main activity) and engages other businesses to perform some of the support functions. Engaging a marketing agency, an accountant and human resource advisor from outside the business is seen as cost-effective and efficient.

The next section of the syllabus covers areas that are found elsewhere in the 240 hour course. The are mostly found in the unit:

Participate in Workplace Safety Procedures

This is a compulsory unit.

This includes ideas like: a safe workplace, standards, reporting procedures, hazards and safe workplace practices.

Now tryActivity H

Now tryTask 8

This is the end of Topic 2.  Now try Topic 3