Protests 'biggest in Australian history'

CANBERRA - The Australian Council of Trade Unions (ACTU) says today's mass protests against the Government's controversial workplace overhaul are the start of a long campaign to fight the proposed changes.

Unions expect the biggest political protest in Australian history, with hundreds of thousands of workers set to walk off the job in a national day of action.

Some businesses have warned employees they could face legal action if they ditch work to join the union-organised protest.

The protest is being supported in New Zealand, with similar rallies organised in Auckland, Wellington and Christchurch this afternoon.

New Zealand Council of Trade Unions president Ross Wilson said the Australian proposals would allow employers in worksites with less than 100 employees to fire people for no reason.

It would allow employers to force workers onto individual contracts, even if a majority wanted a collective, and was a "thinly veiled attempt to silence the rights of workers to organise collectively in unions".

"This sort of approach to workplace relations is what New Zealand narrowly avoided in the form of a Don Brash led government," Mr Wilson said this morning.

ACTU secretary Greg Combet said workers would not be intimidated by employer threats in regard to the protest.

"People understand what's at stake here, it's the biggest attack on workers' rights for generations," Mr Combet told the Nine Network.

"The big business community and the commonwealth government are perpetrating that attack and people are not going to be intimidated from having a chance to protest against what's being done."

He said today's protest action was just the start of a long campaign.

"We're going to campaign for as long as it takes to overturn these laws and put in place decent rights for working people," Mr Combet said.

"The laws are not based on some reasoned or proper economic analysis, this is the ideology of the Liberal Party we're dealing with here, the prejudices of the Prime Minister that he's had for many years.

He said threats from businesses to take legal action against protesting workers were a sign of what to expect under the laws.

"I think that, more than anything else, clearly states what these laws are about," Mr Combet said.

He said workers had every right to protest at the changes, which would impose draconian sanctions against union activity.

"A lot of intimidation is being applied by the government, but we are not going to back down, we're going to stand up for people's rights, we'll do it in a responsible and disciplined way and that's what people will be doing today."

Mr Wilson said New Zealand unions would be getting organised politically and campaigning over the next three years to ensure a similar situation didn't occur here.

- AAP