Labor released its industrial relations policy today and I don’t think there’s any doubt it will be a key battleground of the next election barring a new unexpected threat to national security.

I’m concerned it will degenerate into a scare campaign from both sides with ideology overriding commonsense. IR is the last frontier of ideological politics in Australia. The class system as we used to know it has diminished as a social influence.

Today we have high-income earners, middle and low-incomer earners and welfare recipients. What the politicians forget is that income is relative to expenditure and that’s where policy often breaks down.

A so-called high-income for a man supporting his wife and four children (me) is largely offset by the cost of living. A single person on the same income living at home with his mum would be raking it in.

Back to the topic, Kevin Rudd’s speech today foreshadows the reinstatement of unfair dismissal rights for small business employees (workplaces of fewer than 15 people) who have worked for more than 12 months and employees who have worked for more than six months with bigger businesses.

I think it should be the other way around. A small business operator will definitely know within six months if he wants to keep the employee and if they fit the culture of the organisation.

In a bigger workplace malcontents can bluff their way through more easily and it often takes 12 months to find them out.

This policy shift basically entrenches a longer probation period, which has traditionally been three months unless extended by the employer.

As far as I can tell, Labor is still committed to tearing up Australian Workplace Agreements (AWAs) and replacing them with systems of enterprise bargaining (EBA) and common law contracts. I’m not sure of the difference between a contract and an AWA; someone might enlighten me on that.

I was trying to explain Australia’s IR system to an immigrant recently and found myself floundering because there are so many different industrial instruments.

In our case we employ people under an award which is partly overridden by an EBA; however new employees are hired under AWAs.

Elements of the award are archaic, particularly those that relate to work rosters, shift penalties and allowances.

When I was a young journalist I never worried about such things and just wanted to do my job. That’s true of young journalists today as well.

There used to be a lot of give and take in the workplace. If I worked late one day I never troubled about penalties or meal allowances; I was just happy to have some time off later in the week.

Anyone operating under that same system today would be exposing themselves to legal action even if the practice was mutually agreed at the time.

The EBA addresses this concern to a large extent. It pays people above-award rates in exchange for trading away penalties while ensuring staff can take time off in lieu. There are still some grey areas though.

As an employer I like AWAs for the flexibility they offer with time management. I don’t need to worry about someone working a short shift or going five minutes over a designated shift into a new pay bracket.

My view is that people are paid to work a 38-hour week. In a profession like journalism you need to be flexible about when you work those 38 hours.

An award that requires people to work minimum shifts of three hours takes away flexibility. An EBA gives some of it back. An AWA is unequivocal.

In offering AWAs I make sure the gross pay compensates the employee for likely lost earnings from holiday loadings and shift penalties. I suspect not all employers are as generous, especially with new workers, and that’s something Labor will probably focus on during the campaign.

Personally, I can work with AWAs or the EBA system. I think both can be improved.

WorkChoices was supposed to simplify employment arrangements; that hasn’t entirely been the case.

Is WorkChoices better than an awards-based system? On balance, probably yes. The electorate will decide later this year and, as the umpire, their decision will be right.