Droppert, Graham --- "President's page: Working for justice" [2021] PrecedentAULA 25; (2021) 164 Precedent 3

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IS THE GIG ECONOMY CHANGING THE INDUSTRIAL LANDSCAPE?

By Graham Droppert SC

Australia has a rich but chequered industrial history. One of the most shameful incidents involved the recruitment of people from the South Pacific islands to work on sugar plantations in Queensland, beginning in the 1860s. Recruitment was often carried out by force or trickery and working conditions were harsh. This practice continued until the Pacific Island Labourers Act 1901 (Cth) ordered the mass deportation of most of the imported labourers.

Even into the late 1960s, many of the First Nations people working on the vast cattle stations in Northern Australia received no or inadequate wages and were provided with inappropriate accommodation. For this and many other reasons, I acknowledge that the land I live on is and always has been the land of the First Nations peoples. I pay my respects to the Elders – past, present and emerging – throughout Australia.

The history of labour is a central and enduring theme throughout the colonial and post-colonial periods. The women who were required to resign from their employment when they became pregnant were symbols of much more than the nature of employer-employee relations. The shearer’s strike of the 1890s, the creation of the Australian Labor Party, the influence of the Communist Party in trade unions in the 1940s and 50s, the referendum to ban the Communist Party in 1951, and the resulting formation of the Democratic Labor Party have all shaped modern Australian politics and industrial laws.

Many of the features of the Australian way of life are built on the minimum wage, standard working week, penalty rates, paid leave entitlements, access to workers’ compensation, and occupational health and safety laws.

Not all advanced economies have comparable workplace entitlements. Four weeks of paid annual leave is an unachievable dream for many North American workers, even in Canada. A 20-year-old worker in the UK has a minimum wage of about $11 per hour; a 21-year-old apprentice as little as $7 per hour.^[1] However, it is not simply a question of whether a country is affluent enough to afford to provide benefits, monetary and otherwise, for its workforce. In Australia, some of the rights and standards we took for granted 15–20 years ago are being eroded – rolling contracts, internships, so-called independent contractors and casual employment lasting for years are replacing full-time permanent employment.

Fundamental questions on the provision of workers’ rights are often debated: does the concept of a minimum wage mean anything when employers can systematically underpay workers who will not report it due to fear of deportation? Has technology changed the nature of what it is to be employed vs self-employed? Is an employer responsible for safe working conditions when an employee is working from home? How can unpaid labour – primarily that of women in the home – be measured or rewarded?

As for safety – a central element of workplace relations – is the safety of women or people who identify as LGBTQI+ simply a subset of equality or are positive steps required to make it a given in all Australian workplaces? Having marked International Workers’ Memorial Day in April and acknowledging that every year, Australians will die at their workplaces through carelessness, cost-cutting, failure of authorities to inspect and enforce safety standards, or a combination of them all, it is clear that the stakes are very high.

Tribunals, courts and governments set the framework in which industrial relations takes place. As lawyers, we must understand and question what the law does or does not do to affect the wages and conditions of workers in Australia, and advocate for change where necessary. As a society, we must continually progress workers’ rights because complacency will result in history repeating itself.

The articles in this issue of Precedent both ask the big questions and provide some tools that ALA members can use when representing those who seek justice in the workplace.

Graham Droppert SC is a barrister practising from Albert Wolff Chambers, Perth, specialising in personal injury. PHONE [phone] EMAIL [e-mail].

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^[1] UK Government, National Minimum Wage and National Living Wage rates, <https://www.gov.uk/national-minimum-wage-rates>.