IR changes debated
The Federal Government is willing to tweak its industrial relations bill in the hope of passing it by the end of the year.
Workplace Relations Minister Tony Burke says he is prepared to modify the 249-page Secure Jobs, Better Pay bill following a parliamentary inquiry into the legislation.
“We’ve been showing good faith in terms of the consultation, and, yeah, there’ll be further work that’s done as a result of the Senate inquiry,” Mr Burke told reporters this week.
“You always end up with amendments on this sort of legislation after the Senate inquiry, so I suspect there’ll be more to come, but that’s pretty standard with the legislative process.”
The comments came after the minister had already announced changes in response to the urging of the business sector and the crossbench, including setting up a new body to oversee the construction industry’s culture.
Some want the bill to be split so its less controversial elements can be debated and passed this year, while elements such as multi-employer bargaining are left until next year.
But the government says the entire bill’s passage is necessary to deliver important changes, including making it easier for workers to negotiate better pay.
Australian Council of Trade Unions secretary Sally McManus says the government has already made significant compromises on the legislation, and any further changes would render the bill ineffective.
“We are focused on doing what is needed to get wages moving, and we don’t want further changes that are going to make that harder, and I know that some in the business lobby are pushing for changes that will make it totally inoperable,” Ms McManus said.
“This idea that we can just give multi-employer bargaining or [other] options for the very low paid will not fix the problems we’ve got with wages in our country,” she said.
She said that if only the low-paid multi-employer bargaining stream was passed this year “it would take a very long time to get wages moving”.
Much of the contention around the bill relates to multi-employer bargaining provisions, which would allow the majority of workers across multiple businesses to jointly force their employers to the bargaining table.
Businesses fear this new regime will expose them to unworkable deals and widespread industrial action.
“Multi-employer bargaining allows the different competitors to have an agreement where they’re not competing on a race for the bottom on wages, where people aren’t just undercutting each other,” Mr Burke said in his defence of the provision this week.