New Delegate Rights Clause in Awards - A Small but Significant Win By Workers

Written by: Ned K. on 22 July 2024

 

 

From 1 July 2024 a standard Delegates Rights clause was included in Awards which provide the minimum wages and conditions for workers in most industries and sectors.

The new clause was one of the changes to the Fair Work Act that workers in unions had demanded the Albanese Government support through legislation prior to its election in 2022.

When the Fair Work Act 2009 replaced the Howard Government's industrial laws, it was called by many workers "Work Choices Lite" as it unsurprisingly still favored the capitalists, not the workers, reflecting the reality of capitalism.

One example of this was that the Gillard and Rudd Government's Fair Work Act did not even mention the word "Delegate" in the whole Act! Yet Gillard said the new Act had "got the balance right" regarding the competing interests of capitalists and workers!

The new clauses in Awards from 1 July 2024 about Delegate Rights provide workers in any workplace or employed by any employer with the entitlement to elect Union Delegates to represent their interests regarding any issues that need to be taken up with the boss.

The wording of the new clause in Awards is such that it enables workers who are members of a Union to elect Delegates provided the Delegate works for the same employer as the Union members. In practice this means that workers who work for one employer but in different locations such as Road Traffic workers or contract cleaners who work in several workplaces in the same day, are still entitled to elect their own Union Delegate. This is important for workers in industries where mobility is par for the course.

In the early to mid-2000s a progressive researcher David Peetz did a study of the impact of the employer and Howard Government attack on workers’ capacity to act collectively in their own interests. He found that where there were active elected Union Delegates representing and uniting workers around issues, the impact of the hostile employer and Government attacks on workers was much less effective.

Peetz found this was even more the case when the Delegates were elected rather than appointed by the (sometimes) more remote Union Organizer or Union Executive or Secretary.

Interestingly, the new Delegate clause in Awards says that a Delegate can be "elected" or "appointed" by higher levels of the Union!

Progressive union leaderships will surely ensure that ALL Delegates are elected by members and endorsed by relevant Councils or Executive Committees of their Union.

The only reason a Delegate elected by members they work with is NOT endorsed by higher bodies of their Union would be that the elected Delegate had a history of behaviour and values unacceptable to members of the Union as a whole. For example, proof of criminal activities, racist towards certain workers, evidence of being a boss's stooge!

Now that the Delegate clauses are law, it raises the question of whether an appointed administrator of a Union by a Government or Fair Work Commission had the capitalist legal system power to declare any Delegate elected by members to no longer be a Delegate!