ACTU's Reasons for Current Rules Failure in Australia

Employee relation
Employee relation Issue
Laws and regulatory requirement
Name of the Author
Student ID-

Table of Contents
What reasons have been put forward by the ACTU to justify its belief that the current ‘rules’ are
failing Australian workers?....................................................................................................................1
In what ways does the ACTU believe the ‘rules’ should be changed?...................................................2
What has been the business response to the union campaign, and what reasons has it relied upon to
justify this response?.............................................................................................................................4
What has been the Federal Government’s response to the union campaign, and what reasons has it
relied upon to justify this response?.......................................................................................................5
Which of these players provides the most compelling evidence to support their reasoning that the rules
need changing or otherwise?.................................................................................................................6
References.............................................................................................................................................8

What reasons have been put forward by the ACTU to justify its belief
that the current ‘rules’ are failing Australian workers?
Sally McManus is the secretary of Australian Council of Trade Unions. This council is the
main organisation that represents all the workers of Australia. This council is also a member
of International Trade Union Confederation. Sally McManus gave a speech at National Press
Club in the end of March 2018 (Bainbridge, 2018). The speech specifically highlighted
certain issues related to the conditions of employment in Australia. The various reasons that
have been put forward by the secretary of Australian Council of Trade Unions have been
mentioned herein. There are several reasons which have been put forward by the ACTU to
justify the current of the Australian Workers. It is further analyzed that Strong political,
industrial and community campaigns need to be raised to write up a whole set of new rules
that can end the exploitation of working class.
This speech had been specifically presented by him for all the members of the union. The
main reason that has been put forward by him behind every other cause is the breakdown of
the Australian workplace laws and the fair system that was followed earlier (Boyd, 2018).
The minimum wage criteria that is inevitable for any organisation’s satisfied workforce has
fallen down to the lowest and worst possible. The employees who are not even satisfied with
the minimum wage levels have started to adopt the practices of wage theft which involves
denial by the employers to pay the employees their share of wages or other employee benefits
(including pay overtime, illegal deductions in pay, etc.) (Gao, 2018). Even in the education
sector, the teachers face serious issues. The share of temporary workforce is highest in
Australia because of the number of teachers on temporary contracts (Ryan, et al. 2013). Fifty
percentages of people do not have a full-time permanent job. This present example has shown
that company needs to mitigate these employee related issues to strengthen the applicable
rules and increasing the overall outcomes in effective manner.
There has been inequality when it comes to payment of tax and that have been prevailing for
about 70 years. The biggest corporate houses of the country do not pay taxes of even one
percentage. The strike laws maintained in the country are not in line with the norms followed
worldwide (Blair, 2018). The whole bargaining power lies in the hands of the business houses
and employers. They are highly inadequate and difficult to deal at the end of the employees.

Even the laws lack behind the need of new and changing times. The amount of wages that the
workers are getting in the current scenario cannot cope up with the raising prices and the
basic living standard is nowhere to be maintained. The inequality is so high that all the power
and autonomy lies in the hands of the people who are rich and wealthy. The people of
working class do not have enough power to take a stand for themselves even (Boyd, 2018).
The rate of unemployment is pretty high in the country with nearly 745,000 people having no
jobs. Even the people who are working are doing it overtime and around 40% of the working
class have no access to such thing like paid leave. There is a record of lowest wage growth on
which even Reserve Bank is continued to express is concerns. In fact there is no safety
offered to the employees at the workplaces being the industries like mining, construction,
truck driving, etc. These are some of the absolute reasons that prove that the current laws are
already unjust and failing the Australian workers to a great extent. The reason is simple that
these laws are degrading the employees’ personality and anything that does the same is unjust
and unacceptable. It has shown that these issues have proved to be the biggest reason of the
dissatisfaction among employees which may negatively impact their working and efficiency
of the business. However, every organization must comply with the all the employee
regulatory requirement which needs to be complied. Employers are required to pay at least
minimum wages to its employees and below that level the wages will not be accepted
(Lemaire, 2018).
In what ways does the ACTU believe the ‘rules’ should be changed?
Rules are made with a view to strengthen the applicable work program and implement the
effective work approach in organization. It is observed that proper growth of the organisation
is totally dependent upon the set policies, rules and standards complied in the organization.
As per the views of Australian Council of Trade Unions, the current rules are failing the
Australian workers and that is stagnant for their growth. The secretary of the Union states not
to accept the current rules and wants to bring a change (Freeze, 2018). As earlier discussed,
the whole power in Australia lies in the hands of rich and this system is a result of complete
imbalance of power. First of all this imbalance needs to be balanced out by shifting a part of
it to the working class. The problem that has created the most of working poor in Australia is
the shrinking rate of minimum wages. The employers are trying to harness the employees
fully even with the lowest wages (Bainbridge, 2018). The main objective of the organization
is to implement the effective strategic program which could increase the overall outcomes