It is with great pleasure that I can inform all coal industry workers that our unique Long Service Leave scheme that the Union has fought so hard for throughout our history is here to stay.

Not only that, but it has been substantially improved and strengthened as a result of new legislation passed in late November in the Commonwealth Parliament. Taken together, the new changes represent the most significant improvements to the scheme in over 50 years.

The new legislation - for the first time since the introduction of the Long Service Leave scheme - makes the entitlement to 13 weeks of Long Service Leave after 8 years service a minimum legal entitlement, regardless of whether you are covered by an Award or Enterprise Agreement.

The new laws also introduce a number of other very important changes to make the scheme work better – including the introduction of “aggregate” rather than “continuous” service as the basis for the entitlement and the treatment of all workers equally, regardless of whether you are a casual, part-timer, employee of a labour hire company or an apprentice.

You can download an explanation of the changes, which are also printed in the December - January issue of Common Cause.

However, it is important to remember how we got to this point and how close we came to losing our unique Long Service Leave scheme.

Faced extinction under Howard Government

With the introduction of WorkChoices in 2006, our Long Service Leave scheme was facing extinction because of the decision of the then Howard Government to ban Long Service Leave from remaining as an award entitlement. This meant that if you didn’t have a Long Service Leave provision in your enterprise agreement, your only legal entitlement would be that contained in State legislation – which is basically half of the coal industry standard and not portable. Emboldened by WorkChoices a number of employers led by Rio Tinto actually sought for the whole scheme to be abolished – particularly the industry portable character of the scheme, which they despise.

With the defeat of the Howard Government and WorkChoices, the attitude of the major employers changed. Aware that our Union had secured a commitment from then Workplace Relations Minister Julia Gillard to introduce legislation preserving the scheme, the major employers approached the Union to see if we would be prepared to discuss reforms to the Long Service Leave scheme that would benefit both employees and employers. We of course agreed to the discussions and the result - after two years of hard negotiations - was a breakthrough national agreement signed by each major union and employer group in the coal mining industry.

Industry agreement translated into Commonwealth legislation

What then followed was a long and at times frustrating process of having the industry agreement translated into Commonwealth legislation. The process was not helped by the internal leadership turmoil within the Federal Government or by its ambitious legislative program. However, as the Bard once said: “all’s well that ends well”. On 22 November 2011, the legislation was guided through Parliament by the Leader of the House and Minister for Transport and Infrastructure Anthony Albanese with these words:

“I commend this bill to the House and I congratulate the CFMEU Mining and Energy Division, other unions and indeed employer groups who have been here this week to indicate the broad cross-sector support that there is for this important legislation.”