Campaign aims to avert catastrophe

Campaigners have lambasted the Federal Government for ignoring the plight of TCF outworkers in its impending industrial relations (IR) reforms.
Fair Wear - the affiliate of the Textile Clothing and Footwear Union of Australia (TCFUA) that campaigns for the protection of TCF outworkers - joined with church and community members in Melbourne on October 12 to protest against the reforms. Included in the proposed reforms is a clause that will remove state "deeming provisions" ensuring outworkers are recognised as employees.
Protesters wrote messages of support on swatches of fabric, which were then sewn to garments to be presented to the Federal Government before the reforms go through parliament next month (November).
Fair Wear Victoria co-ordinator Daisy Gardener said the campaign was "deeply concerned" that the new industrial relations system would override existing state legislation designed to protect outworkers.
"If the legislation is passed the government will effectively be sanctioning the exploitation of outworkers," she said, adding that Fair Wear's petition to Employment and Workplace Relations Minister Kevin Andrews earlier this year had resulted only in "vague assurances".
Fair Wear hoped to maintain the state laws to protect outworkers and to extend them into federal legislation she said.
"Today's event has attracted office workers, church and community members and non-government organisations, which really shows the support throughout the wider community for the plight of outworkers."
TCFUA Victoria state secretary Michele O'Neil said the reforms would "further expose some of the most exploited workers in the country to exploitation".
The government's liberalisation of the workforce would not apply to outworkers, she said.
"For an outworker sitting at home with a sewing machine, it is ludicrous and obscene to suggest that she is free to negotiate and bargain with her employers."
While it was difficult to ascertain the precise number of outworkers in Australia due to the hidden nature of their work, it was estimated that for every one worker employed at a factory there were 15 working from home, she said.
"The government's industrial relations reforms will erode the rights of all workers, but outworkers represent the most extreme and vulnerable example of this."