The Australian government has just introduced its second wave of industrial relations 'reform' legislation into federal parliament, which is designed to finish off what is left of the country's ever-weakening trade union movement.

This new round of reform follows on from the first wave ushered in by the 1996 Workplace Relations Act, the most draconian anti-labour legislation seen in Australia in decades, which had one purpose: to wipe out the institution of trade unionism. The Act enshrined individual contracts to replace union-negotiated award agreements, and made effective industrial action much more difficult by outlawing secondary boycotts, which prompted the International Labour Organisation (ILO) to denounce it as a violation of workers' human rights.

Despite all this, the WRA pales in comparison to Workplace Relations Minister Peter Reith's planned 'second wave' of reform. According to Jennie George, the President of the Australian Council of Trade Unions (ACTU), the nation's peak union body: "The legislation is the most draconian, anti-worker, anti-union legislation that I think I have seen in my career in the union movement."

Reith"s second wave legislation, introduced into the Senate on June 31st, seeks to break the back of trade union culture: it institutes secret ballots before unions can strike; extends the strike warning period from 3 to 5 days; introduces a user-pays system of mediation as an alternative to the Australian Industrial Relations Commission (AIRC), the traditional judicial umpire in industrial disputes; makes it easier for employers to introduce individual contracts, and harder for employees to initiate unfair dismissal action; and requires employers to act to reduce union power in their workplaces, so that no more than 60 per cent of any workforce is represented by the same union. This latter point is a byproduct of Reith's personal frustration at his inability to whip up widespread enthusiasm for his union-busting agenda among employers generally, the great majority of whom enjoy satisfactory relations with the unions representing their workforce. In fact, the main support for Reith's agenda among employers has come from the British multinational mining giant, Rio Tinto, which has taken the lead in applying it at their minesites in New South Wales and Queensland. A Rio Tinto executive wrote the 1996 Workplace Relations Act, and the mining giant has financed a series of fanatically anti-labour think tanks in Australia, all of which are spin-offs of the London-based Mont Pelerin Society, the economic warfare unit of the British Crown. The most notorious of these, the HR Nicholls counts a half-dozen members of the Cabinet, including Reith and Prime Minister Howard, among its members or close supporters. For his part, Reith makes no secret that Margaret Thatcher and Tony Blair's Britain is his model for industrial relations: He told Channel 9's June 27 Sunday program, "It is true, industrial action in Australia is at the lowest its been since 1913, so that's a fantastic improvement, but it's still much higher than places like the U.K."

Thanks to the zealotry of Reith and Howard, the second wave has caused consternation on all sides, not just among trade unions. Employer groups are up in arms about being legislatively forced to become union-busters by attacking 'closed shops' (sites where over 60% of workers belong to the same union). According to Roger Boland of the Australian Industry Group (AIG), which represents metals and manufacturing companies, many employers know they have closed shops but, he told the June 28 Sydney Morning Herald, they would be reluctant to 'light a fire' under the issue because completely unionised sites 'did not necessarily impede business', while other employers have stressed that they actually facilitate labour relations. On another front, a group of 80 industrial relations lawyers on July 2nd attacked the legislation as 'fundamentally unbalanced in favour of employers'. Group spokesman, Kevin Bell QC, warned that, "The Australian community must realise that the Reith proposals are not merely evolutionary change but would, if implemented, attack several fundamental features of our industrial system, and most particularly its fairness and balance."

To get his legislation through, Reith has appealed to the party which made his first wave possible, the Australian Democrats. Reith is confident that the Democrats will, once again, stab their working class supporters in the back, particularly under the leadership of party leader Meg Lees, who just enabled the once politically-dead goods and services tax (GST) to be passed in the Senate the day before the second wave legislation was tabled. The GST is a highly regressive attack on working people and low-income earners, and so is entirely consistent with the objective of the second-wave industrial relations reforms.

Reith is already planning a 'third wave' of reforms around completely revolutionising the award system and making it 'corporation-based', i.e. making award decisions only applicable to the individual corporations in which they are made. In anticipation, Reith's second wave legislation includes a name change for the AIRC to the Australian Workplace Relations Commission, denoting the brave new world of industrial relations being workplace centred, rather than industry-oriented.