CHRIS UHLMANN, PRESENTER: The hugely unpopular WorkChoices laws helped bring down the Howard Government, but now Labor's laws, billed as fairer, are under fire. Barely a day seems to go by without headlines and stories in the national newspapers attacking the laws, but how much substance is there to the criticisms? Here's Stephen Long.

STEPHEN LONG, REPORTER: On the outskirts of Melbourne, Clay Beveridge runs a business making shower screens and wardrobes. He's the kind of boss you don't often hear in the debate on workplace relations.

The press is full of stories about an industrial relations crisis and claims the federal laws are a disaster. Clay thinks that's smoke and mirrors.

How's it been for you under the Fair Work Act?

CLAY BEVERIDGE: It hasn't really made any difference to the way we operate the business. We've had no issues with unions or anything in the past And it's continued under Fair Work.

STEPHEN LONG: Are you getting good productivity?

CLAY BEVERIDGE: We are, yes, yes, we are getting very good productivity out of the staff.

STEPHEN LONG: The company employs about 150 people and the focus is on looking after them, not letting them go.

So you haven't had any unfair dismissal problems under the Fair Work Act?

CLAY BEVERIDGE: No, none at all.

STEPHEN LONG: As we'll see, there are problems for some companies who say the Fair Work Act's allowed strikes and wage claims that leave them all at sea.

JOSEPH HOMSEY, MD, FARSTAD SHIPPING: Every substantial offer we made was followed with a strike. The compounding effect over four and a quarter years was 40 per cent wage movement.

STEVE KNOTT, AUST. MINES & METALS ASSN: From a business point of view, it's been terrible.

STEPHEN LONG: And yet, though you wouldn't read about it, for many companies, perhaps most, it's business as usual.

ANDREW STEWART, ADELAIDE UNI: Anyone reading the newspapers would think we have an industrial relations system in crisis and they'd think that Labor's Fair Work laws had made massive changes to the way that management and labour deal with one another. That's simply not true.

STEPHEN LONG: Professor Andrew Stewart is an eminent labour law academic and he advises employers on workplace relations for a national law firm.

ANDREW STEWART: I think what we're seeing is a very significant element of exaggeration in the problems that the employers are identifying with the current system.

STEPHEN LONG: One of the stats cited as a sign of crisis is a surge in unfair dismissal claims, nearly double the number last financial year than in the final year of WorkChoices. But that's because the Fair Work Act doubled the number of workers eligible to claim, reinstating protection for employees at companies with 15 to 100 workers. And it created a national system, bringing in private sector workers previously under state law. There really isn't a lot of evidence that bosses can't sack people.

ANDREW STEWART: Very few workers are actually getting their jobs back from unfair dismissal claims.

STEPHEN LONG: There were about 14,900 dismissal claims in the 2010-'11 fiscal year. Just 507 of those claims under the Fair Work Act wept to arbitration. A mere 147 workers won their cases and only 25 workers were reinstated. That's less than 0.2 per cent. The vast majority of claims, 83 per cent, were settled at or before conciliation.

ANDREW STEWART: What's happening in the great majority of situations is that claims are being settled for payments of very small amounts of money, it's usually one or $2,000 for the great majority of claimants. Now there is a concern there that employers are paying money to make unfair dismissal claims go away. That always used to be the case.

STEPHEN LONG: According to the critics, the Fair Work Act's letting unions run rampant.

STEVE KNOTT: Fair Work Australia at the moment when it comes to pulling off industrial action is about as much use as an ashtray on a motorbike. The unions have been given to the key to the gate of every business in Australia. Industrial disputes are on the rise.

STEPHEN LONG: In the mine sites of the Pilbara unionism until recently was almost dead, but with profits soaring, unions have regained a foothold. In the offshore oil and gas industry they've gained the upper hand.

The global shipping company Farstad is among those to feel the impact.

JOSEPH HOMSEY: You observe in the resources sector and particularly when it comes to new projects, greenfields, where there's nothing there, the ability of the unions in those circumstances to forge wages up tremendously.

STEPHEN LONG: Farstad Shipping's vessels tow, support and supply the oil and gas platforms of Bass Strait and the North-West Shelf. Last bargaining round, it was confronted by the Maritime Union under a militant well-organised leadership.

JOSEPH HOMSEY: We had six fleet-wide stoppages, shutting down our fleet across Australia.

STEPHEN LONG: In the company's view, the laws allow for industrial action too soon and permit excessive wage claims.

JOSEPH HOMSEY: Not just the wage movement of 36 per cent over three years, but the construction allowance for construction activities in greenfields, which amounted to $73,000 in addition as an allowance. Now this is above average wages for the community.

STEPHEN LONG: Farstad wanted Fair Work Australia to suspend the industrial action and conciliate a settlement, but it couldn't unless all sides agreed.

STEVE KNOTT: We need to have a system where we don't to these drag 'em out, knock them down industrial action of strikes and lockouts. It's 2012.

STEPHEN LONG: In fact ever since the move to enterprise bargaining nearly 20 years ago, the laws have allowed unions and companies to slug it out in pursuit of a deal. It's not peculiar to WorkChoices. And in the past, resources companies have led the push to have the umpire sidelined.

ANDREW STEWART: It seems to me that what the employers want is they want the state to intervene whenever they don't have the upper hand in bargaining, and whenever they do have the upper hand, they want to be left alone to deal directly with their workers.

STEVE KNOTT: I've been in Japan twice in the last 12 months. They do look at what's going on here. And if they see a doubling in strike action, which has occurred in Australia in the last 12 months, they get concerned about that.

STEPHEN LONG: But much of the increase was due to disputes outside the scope of the Fair Work Act. Nurses, police and civil servants protesting against the policies of state Liberal governments. And it coincided with a big rise in the number of enterprise agreements expiring, the only time workers can lawfully take industrial action. There's not a lot of difference in the level of strike activity under the Fair Work Act and WorkChoices, but the trend over the long haul is down.

ANDREW STEWART: What happens today is that industrial action is so unusual, when it does happen, it gets reported. So if you simply read the newspapers, you might think that workers all over the country are stopping work. It's hardly happening at all.

CHRIS UHLMANN: Stephen Long reporting.