What will a Dutton Government mean for workers?

Lower wages

Thanks to Liberal wage-cutting loopholes that made it easier for big business to exploit workers, wages didn’t grow for ten years when the Coalition was in power.

Less rights

Peter Dutton is already promising business groups he will take away rights from workers. Job security, penalty rates, the minimum wage – nothing is off the table with the Liberals in charge.

Liberal cuts

As well as your wages and rights at work, the Liberals love to cut services. When Peter Dutton was Health Minister, he tried to introduce a tax to visit the GP.

“I was very proud to be at Gina Rinehart’s 70th birthday. I consider her to be a dear friend.”

Peter Dutton on his relationship with Gina Rinehart – the billionaire who once said that Australian workers should be willing to work for $2 per day.
gina

Don’t risk Dutton with your work rights

Union members have won significant workplace rights over the last two years, that have improved job security, made work safer, delivered wage rises and led to meaningful progress in closing the gender pay gap. Peter Dutton is on record promising to rip away these rights. Let’s take a closer look.

 

Multi-employer bargaining allows workers working for similar employers to come together and negotiate across multiple employers.

These changes bring outdated bargaining laws into line to reflect modern workplaces.

These changes have already supported workers in female-dominated industries like Early Childhood Education and Care to win long-overdue pay rises.

Sham contracting is where employers try to hide the true nature of an employment contract. They do this by claiming employees are contractors to avoid legal obligations they should make to that employee. Workers on sham contracting arrangements earn $242.80 per week less than genuinely independent contractors; over a year, that’s over $12k. ACTU research shows that around 565,000 Aussie workers are on these sham contracts. This unethical loophole has now been closed.

Owner drivers in the transport industry work on razor-thin margins and often have to wait up to 120 days to be paid. New laws mean they should…

Labour hire workers could see significant pay rises, thanks to Same Job, Same Pay laws.

Labour hire started as a last resort option for employers but has since exploded, with unscrupulous employers – like Qantas and big mining companies – gaming the system and underpaying workers on labour hire contracts who are doing the same job as their directly employed workmates.

The new rights mean that labour hire workers are entitled to at least the same pay, and big wage increases and secure jobs have already been won off the back of the new laws.

Dutton and the Coalition voted against these new rights. Big business wants workers’ rights to be cut and Dutton has promised to do this.

A new common-sense definition of casual work has been introduced. This overturns the Coalition Government’s approach of letting an employer call anyone a casual and getting away with it.

Dutton voted against this new job security for casuals and he’s committed to take these rights away should he win Government.

Gig economy workers on digital platforms will finally get some of the basic rights and pay the rest of us take for granted, thanks to world-first new laws that enforce minimum standards. Until now, workers such as rideshare drivers and food delivery workers often worked for below minimum wage.

If these new standards lift their pay just up to the minimum award wage, they’d be earning over $400 million more each year, according to the Government’s analysis.

Peter Dutton voted against these standards for gig workers. Big business wants workers’ rights to be cut and Dutton has promised to do this.

Wage theft is rife across Australia: workers are losing up to $1.35 billion dollars to wage theft every year. Wage theft robs workers of what they are rightfully owed and denies them the ability to buy the necessities they need to live.

Wage theft was previously only a criminal offence in some states in Australia. But now, deliberate wage theft is a criminal offence at the Commonwealth level.

Penalties have increased up to five times to deter employers, as well as possible prison time for the worst offenders. Unions have also been given better rights to stop this in the workplace. Superannuation theft has also been included, which will help workers retire with dignity.

Dutton and the Coalition voted against these new rights. Big business wants workers’ rights to be cut and Dutton has promised to do this.

Life’s stressful enough without being expected to work outside your paid hours, but with technological advances, people can now be contacted outside of traditional working hours.

It is worth remembering that workers had the right to disconnect before using smartphones. This new law restores this work-life balance by letting an employee reasonably refuse to monitor or respond to out-of-hours work contact.

Dutton and the Coalition however want to remove this right, effectively expecting you to work for free outside of your contracted hours.

All employees, including full-time, part-time, and casual employees, are entitled to 10 days of paid family and domestic violence leave each year. The Albanese Government made this their first change in workplace laws.

This will mean that a woman escaping a violent relationship does not have to choose between her job and her safety.

For the first time in Australia, workplaces with over 100 employees must publish their gender pay gap. Publicising the gender pay gap is a tool that works – it shines a light on entrenched practices and structural inequalities that see women in the lowest-paid positions.

Pay secrecy can lead to serious inequality at work and is a big contribution to Australia’s gender pay gap. But the new laws mean that pay secrecy clauses have now been banned, meaning workers can talk with each other about how much they earn. Pay transparency empowers workers to challenge pay discrimination and wage inequality in their workplaces.

We’ve also seen tougher laws on sexual harassment and discrimination in the workplace, as well as fairer access to justice for victim-survivors of workplace sexual harassment, who no longer face the risk of being burdened with the other side’s legal costs in court.

Dutton and the Coalition voted against protections against sexual harassment and new rights to deliver respect at work.

 

Are you ready to be part of it?

Peter Dutton and his mates in big business will do whatever they can to take away your rights and wages.

Stopping them will take every one of us.

Join the campaign today