[Muanet] IR laws face first test on WA site

[Chris Latham]

Hi All

Not sure if members have seen this, but it looks like the first big
dispute under WorkChoices may have already begun, with John Holland
pushing for AWA's on a Port Hedland construction site. Link below to the
article in todays west.

IR laws face first test on WA site

KIM MACDONALD

The first big test of Australia's new industrial laws is set to play out
on a Port Hedland building site, with construction giant John Holland
abandoning negotiations with unions and instead offering its own
employment contracts directly to 180 individual workers.

John Holland's move, which emerges just three days after the Federal
Government's controversial industrial laws came into force, ends a
decades-old convention under which pay and conditions for new projects
are negotiated with a union and then offered to potential workers.

The decision to employ workers on the new contracts rather than under an
enterprise bargaining agreement negotiated with the union came after
John Holland failed to reach a deal with two unions over a $160 million
jetty the company is building for BHP in the North-West town.


http://www.thewest.com.au/20060330/news/general/tw-news-general-home-sto
133813.html

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