Rural workers will cheer the end of AWAs

Low-paid workers in the rural sector will be cheering today when Parliament finally ends the most hated symbol of the WorkChoices era – the individual contract Australian Workplace Agreements (AWA).

" Rural workers had no choice when they were handed these AWAs as a condition of getting seasonal jobs in the agricultural sector.Thousands of rural and regional families found their wages and conditions severely cut by AWAs," Paul Howes, AWU National Secretary, said.

" The AWU now awaits the Fair Pay Commission's minimum wages decision. Unscrupulous bosses won't have AWAs as an excuse to avoid the sometimes measly pay increases awarded by the Commission to low paid workers.

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" The workers had been forced out of an Award paying $17 an hour onto AWAs which provided piece rate wage payments of between $8 and $11 an hour.

"Even though the previous Government claimed AWA workers could not be paid below the safety net this $8 figure clearly undercut the minimum wage," Paul Howes said.

"The employer continued to insist on these AWA contracts. The AWU has been forced into lengthy litigation to win wage justice. Low-paid workers, on their own, would have found the legal costs and time involved prohibitive. Without a union the employer may have got away with this injustice."

A ban on new Australian Workplace Agreements will begin to restore the rights of Australian workers taken away by the former Liberal Government's WorkChoices IR laws.

The law to ban new AWAs is part of the first stage of the Rudd Government's bid to overturn Work Choices IR laws say unions.

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