Page 2556 - Week 08 - Wednesday, 23 August 2006
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mortality trends in New Zealand 1981-1999, which examined a period during New Zealand’s history in which similar industrial relations changes were made. That report found that inequality increased in the New Zealand community because of that legislation, leading to rising mortality rates and a gap in life expectancy between low and high income groups. If such impacts are repeated here they are likely to place a greater strain on the public health system, with lower income earners unable to afford private health insurance.
Dr Don Edgar completed a family impact statement on the WorkChoices legislation for Unions ACT after the Prime Minister failed to live up to his election commitment to prepare such statements for the legislation. Dr Edgar found:
My main concern about the proposed industrial relations regime is that it will pit worker against worker, family against family, region against region, rather than seeing how closely and positively connected are the three elements of a good society—healthy families, healthy workplaces and healthy communities.
Dr Edgar also listed potential damage to the mental health of workers and their families as a key problem in the legislation. That is no surprise, as several studies have found a connection between working conditions and workers’ mental health. Forget about the information-rich and the information-poor. WorkChoices will return Australia to a time of the haves and the have-nots—those that have robust, healthy lives and those that struggle with poor health outcomes because of poor occupational health and safety and stress over job security.
New Zealand is not the only country to have completed comparative studies on these issues. The Whitehall study, which examined workers’ health in Britain over 20 years, also found that workers there who feared for their job security were more likely to be ill and/or absent from work. Those that were most worried about their employment also suffered a greater incidence of coronary heart disease. With WorkChoices effectively scrapping unfair dismissal and workers already being openly sacked for operational reasons, there is no doubt that WorkChoices will have an impact on how workers feel about their jobs.
One of the more frustrating aspects of this legislation is that it simply does not achieve its stated aim of improved productivity. The World Health Organisation suggests that Canada lost $8.8 billion in lost productivity in 1998 due to mental illness, while the United Kingdom loses an estimated $14 billion a year. Beyondblue suggests that six million working days are lost to depression alone each year and that depression costs the Australian economy $3.3 billion a year in lost productivity. The research is clear. Taking away jobs, reducing a living wage to a minimum wage and placing all power in the hands of business helps no-one in our economy. Instead it reduces productivity and places a greater strain on the health system.
WorkChoices also cannot be separated from its ugly twin sister, the draconian welfare-to-work changes. Together they strip low-income earners of their bargaining power and force those once on disability support and single parent payments to choose work with poor pay and conditions or the loss of their social security payments. This too is likely to have an effect on mental health in the community. In a bitter irony, those who are on a DSP due to mental illness will not be spared from the welfare-to-work changes
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