Labor Dumps Collective Bargaining The Rudd government will do nothing to enforce collective bargaining in its new workplace relations reforms, according to Julia Gillard, the Minister for Workplace Relations. Even if employees of an enterprise unanimously supported collective bargaining, there would be nothing in the legislation to compel an employer to agree to a collective workplace agreement, the Minister said in an interview with the Sydney Morning Herald. Ms Gillard said the government had made no promises prior to the 2007 federal election to compel employers to accept collective bargaining. "What we promised is that if a majority of workers in the enterprise decided at a workplace that they wanted a collective bargain to govern terms and conditions of their employment that their employer would be required to sit down to the bargaining table to see if that was possible," she said. "Nothing in that process makes an employer make an agreement; nothing in that process makes an employer make a concession in bargaining, but it does mean they sit round the table and see if they can get the job done." The Rudd government had previously announced that it would introduce legislation to scrap individual employment contracts and protect ten basic workplace standards, relating mainly to working hours and leave entitlements. Since the federal election the ACTU has mounted a television advertising campaign stressing the importance of collective bargaining in overturning the Howard government’s Work Choices legislation. The campaign comes at a time when trade union membership has fallen to 20% of the workforce, and just 15% of the private sector workforce. Collective bargaining is a key weapon in union strategy to revive membership levels. Published 26 June 2008. worksite home