Vic: 36 hour week deal is only a promise

AAP General News (Australia)
04-04-2000
Vic: 36 hour week deal is only a promise

By Heather Gallagher, Industrial Correspondent

MELBOURNE, April 4 AAP - Union leaders and major builders signed a so-called historic
deal on working hours today, but there was little mention of the magic phrase "36-hour
week".

The truth, overlooked by both employers and unionists at the public signing of the
deal, was that the deal did not include a 36-hour week.

At least not in the short term.

The Construction, Forestry, Mining and Energy Union (CFMEU) and Electrical Trades Union
had hit employers with crippling work bans over the past two months as they pursued their
claim for shorter hours.

The Master Builders' Association (MBA) of Victoria retaliated, with its members locking
out workers and refusing to pay them.

Then Multiplex Constructions, closely followed by the other players that make up the
"big four", Bovis Lend Lease, Walter Construction Group and Probuild Constructions, began
separate negotiations with the unions.

"What we broke away from was the position put forward by the MBA that they would not
negotiate," Multiplex managing director Noel Henderson said today.

"They wanted to take legal action. They wanted to pursue lock-outs. We felt that was
not in the long-term interests of this industry."

So, after weeks of intense negotiation, a deal was arrived at today. It includes nine
extra rostered days off next year and in 2002, and will deliver a wage rise totalling
15 per cent wage over the next three years.

The parties made a "mutual promise" to include 13 rostered days off, giving effect
to the 36-hour week, in their next agreement in 2003.

So what strength can be placed on such a promise?

Last week, as Multiplex inched towards a deal, members of the CFMEU walked off the
job, stopping construction on major apartment buildings and other sites of the big four.

The union's critics, such as MBA executive director Brian Welch, would argue it was
a prime example of unions bringing employers to their knees.

When Victorian builder Bruno Grollo recently signed a 36-hour week deal, Mr Welch said
he had been "coerced" by unions.

Prime Minister John Howard waded into the dispute, accusing Mr Grollo of "caving in".

And what of a 36-hour week?

Will today's deal, while not providing the shorter hours immediately, still set a precedent?

John Buchanan, the deputy director of the Australian Centre for Industrial Relations
Research and Training, said the 36-hour week was likely to flow on within the construction
and electrical industries.

"I think it'll be looked on as a favorable precedent by other unions but how effective
a precedent remains to be seen - I don't think it'll be a powerful precedent," he said.

Whether investment would go interstate, as claimed today by federal Workplace Relations
Minister Peter Reith, would depend on the conditions under which the 36-hour week was
implemented.

Multiplex's Mr Henderson said the deal had been audited by KPMG and would increase
the cost of construction by only about 3 per cent.

Mr Buchanan said the most creative employers in Europe had used shorter hours to their
advantage by obtaining commitments for greater productivity.

Professor of Industrial Relations at Monash University, Gerry Griffin, said there was
no doubt the 36-hour week deal would spread across the country. It was just a matter of
time.

"Twenty years ago it might have flowed (automatically) through the rest of the economy
- it's a long, long way from that now," Professor Griffin told AAP.

"Like most innovations it'll be a small area initially ... and a couple of years before
it goes nationally."

He said building workers in New South Wales, where the CFMEU has just done a 38-hour
deal over two years, would be bound to demand 36 hours at the end of their agreement.

AAP hmg/er/ps/br

KEYWORD: BUILDING (NEWS ANALYSIS)

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