Business is pleading for urgent amendments to curb unions’ powers to bargain across employers under the Albanese government’s industrial relations overhaul, labelling the proposed laws “⁣a Trojan Horse”⁣ for more strikes.

As the big business lobby groups united to outline their preferred changes, the Council of Small Business Organisations Australia, which the government has used to prop up its expansion of multi-employer bargaining, said it did not support the change because of the potential consequences for small business.