The ACTU welcomes the announcement by the Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations, Tony Burke, today that the Government will remove the anti-worker elements of the Turnbull/Morrison Government’s Building Code.
This Code contains a host of anti-worker, onerous and non-sensical requirements on companies such as banning controls over casualisation, guarantees on apprenticeship numbers, the flying of union flags, and logos on notice boards.
The ABCC and the Building Code was used as a constitutional trigger to call a double dissolution election in 2016, which saw the Turnbull Government narrowly returned to power. The Code is one element of the highly divisive legislation enacted by previous Governments that were focused on wage suppression.
Quotes attributable to ACTU Secretary Sally McManus:
“We welcome the removal of the anti-worker aspects of the building code as the first and important steps to the Albanese Government implementing their election commitment to abolish the ABCC and its underpinning legislation.
“The Code was one of the ideological projects of the previous Government who spent nearly a decade attacking unions and suppressing wages.
“Instead of acting to address important issues like increasing the number of permanent jobs by stopping excessive casualisation or fixing our broken bargaining laws so workers could get pay rises, they spent their time undermining workers’ rights.
“This Code is a relic of these lost and divisive years. It stopped progress on apprenticeships and skills in the construction industry and did nothing to address safety or wage theft. Taxpayers’ money was wasted on banning the Eureka flag and policing union posters on notice boards. It’s time to move on and spend our time and effort on the things that matters like addressing the cost-of-living crisis”
