Until recently there had been no submissions of interest for the window furnishings industry. However in the other related sectors of textiles and fashion there had been a series of submissions relating to their Award, mainly due to changes in the Fair Work Act, which took effect earlier this year and essentially meant that sewing machinists, designers and pattern makers, to mention a few, could no longer work from home as independent contractors. Instead they were to be classified as "outworkers" and due to the shambolic and at times exploitative nature of business relations between companies in the textile and fashion industries and their workers, all those who worked from home in the industry had to be classified as employees and guaranteed a minimum 20 hours per week of work on an ongoing basis. While commendable in its intention of protecting vulnerable workers, this development has had the unforeseen and undesirable side-effect of crippling the sector, which is substantially comprised of independent companies who work for a suite of clients. If you imagine that each of those clients must now be considered an ‘employee’ with all of the attendant burdens that entails, it’s not hard to see the threat being posed to enterprise.

Why is all this of interest to this industry? Well just days before our deadline, we discovered that Business SA had made a late application for the manufacturing of "furnishing drapery" to move from being covered by the Manufacturing and Associated Industries and Occupations Award 2010 to the Textile Clothing and Footwear And Associated Industries Award 2010. Business SA did not give any reasons other than amending the award would "enable businesses solely engaged in the making of curtains to apply more appropriate classifications". This may well be the case in terms of worker skill level classification for award pay rates, it would however have exposed the industry to the death by a thousand cuts the local clothing industry is now experiencing, as individual contracting of those working from home is now virtually impossible for many businesses.

Ironically, the Textile and Clothing award already has blinds in its definition of work, but as far as I am aware it is not common practice to outsource blind making to someone working at home and therefore unlikely to ever have an impact. However it is quite common for workrooms to outsource drapery manufacturing to someone operating their business from home.
We contacted Business SA with a series of questions relating to their motives for making this application, and asked if they were aware of the ramifications of the award and its associated Fair Work Act legislation. We were informed that we would hear back from a spokesperson regarding our questions. We didn't hear back from them before our deadline, however less than 24 hours after we contacted the organisation, correspondence was sent to Fair Work Australia from Business SA requesting the withdrawal of their application at the instruction of their members. As I said, crisis averted.