WORK & INDUSTRIAL RELATIONS

CDP believes that work should be seen as an expression of one’s gifts and talents to the service of God and society.  Work should not be seen primarily as hardship or exclusively as a means of accumulating wealth.  Work should be seen as a response to a particular vocation in the service of others.

The dignity or value of the individual is not dependent on the work performed and consequently people carrying out simple, menial tasks are not to be treated as if they were inferior to others who have more complex tasks to achieve.

CDP believes that different individual gifts should result into different outcomes in the workplace among different people.  These different outcomes require different levels of remuneration.

A one day period of business closure should apply to all non-essential services and businesses across Australia each week.  As Australia is predominantly a Christian country, it follows that this day of rest should be Sunday.

Government, in cooperation with business, should offer retraining facilities to workers whose jobs have become redundant due to technological change.

Work contracts should be freely negotiated without interference by third parties, however any party to a contract should be entitled to use outside assistance in negotiating a contract.

Workers should have the right to form unions provided they respect the freedom of the individual not to join, or having joined, the freedom to subsequently resign.  CDP believes that unions must act in accordance with the   democratic wishes of their members and that no coercion or undue influence should be exercised by union leaders or officials upon individual members.

Pay should reflect the quality and the quantity of the work produced.  Conditions under which the work is performed should also affect the level of pay.  .  Minimum pay levels should be applied in all occupations but these would vary from occupation to occupation reflecting the complexity of the task and the ability of the worker to perform it.

CDP supports the concept of an Australian Fair Pay Commission performing a wage-setting function and providing a safety net for the low paid.

CDP supports a review of the unfair dismissal laws in order to achieve the following outcomes:-

• the exemption threshold for unfair dismissals should be reviewed to ensure that only genuinely small businesses may  benefit from the protection of these laws;
• the legislation should set out criteria to assist with the interpretation of what is a fair dismissal.  Such criteria could require consideration to be given to the employee’s effort to date, the resources deployed by the employer to support the employee and the representations made by the employee as to his capacity to work at a set standard;
• more objective guidelines should be made to apply to dismissals by larger businesses on the grounds of “operational reasons, economic, technological and structural matters.

CDP supports an amendment to Unlawful Termination Laws making it unlawful to terminate an employee for refusing to perform an unsafe or unlawful instruction