C&A: Private Sector Clerical & Administrative

Federal Government moves to fix problems with modern Clerks Award after ASU campaign

The ASU welcomes the variation to the award modernisation request issued by Workplace Relations Minister Julia Gillard. The variation singles out the problems with the decisions of the AIRC in relation to the modern Clerks Private Sector Award. If left to continue, the AIRC decisions would have savagely reduced the safety net and take home pay of office workers around the country. The move by Minister Gillard follows a strong campaign by the ASU, which included a survey of members, public submissions and lobbying.

Minister Gillard's award modernisation request, issued on 8 May 2009 (download available below), seeks to ensure that the decisions of the Australian Industrial Relations Commission (AIRC) in relation to modern awards are consistent with the Fair Work Act and the Government's workplace relations policy.

As reported on 22 December 2009, the AIRC inserted an exemption clause into the modern Clerks Award which, if allowed to continue, would have cut basic award entitlements like overtime, rest breaks, spreads of hours, dispute settling procedures and much more from office workers earning $44,000 per year or $851 per week.

The exemption clause applied by the AIRC in the modern Clerks Award was not in any other existing Clerks Award across the country other than in NSW. The ASU estimates that over three quarters of a million office workers would have been adversely affected if the exemption level had been allowed to remain.

The ASU mounted a campaign against this injustice which culminated in our appearance at a recent Senate Inquiry hearing (29 April 2009) into the Fair Work (Transitional provisions and consequential amendments) Bill (see our article of 6 May 2009), where we spelled out yet again our concerns and the concerns of our members who had also made representations about this issue.

The Senate Report arising from the Inquiry highlighted our issues and made a recommendation as follows:

"The Committee majority recommends that the Minister amend the award modernisation request to ensure that the AIRC refrains from depriving employees of modern award protections where their salary is under the $100,000 threshold in line with government policy" (Recommendation 14)

Click here for the Senate Inquiry Report and the Senate Inquiry transcript with links to the ASU evidence.

Julia Gillard wrote to the AIRC amending the award modernisation request and in her covering letter mentioned the modern Clerks Private Sector Award highlighting the issues we had raised.

The Clerks Award will not be the only award to benefit from this variation to the award modernisation request - there are other ASU awards that were affected by exemption levels and there are other awards made by other unions like the Finance Sector Union where the variation to the request will need to be applied.

What’s next?

We expect the AIRC will call the modern Clerks Award on for further hearing so that the directions from the Federal Government can be implemented and a proper safety net for ASU members and office workers generally can be restored when the modern awards take affect on 1 January 2010.

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