IR experts push for strikes, union role in multi-employer wage deals

Industrial action should be allowed in multi-employer bargaining, say academics consulting on the government’s promised legislation who also suggest union involvement in enterprise agreements be made compulsory.

University of Sydney professor Shae McCrystal and RMIT professor Anthony Forsyth, who both spoke at the government’s jobs summit this month, said “any functional model of industry-level bargaining requires union involvement, with agreement outcomes covering all workers unionised or not”.

Experts consulting with the government on its industrial reforms say industrial action should be allowed in multi-employer bargaining.Credit: Paul Jones

Unionisation of workplaces across industries has been vehemently opposed by the Council of Small Business Organisations Australia, the first peak industry body to sign a memorandum of understanding with the ACTU supporting the concept of multi-employer wage deals.

While ACTU secretary Sally McManus celebrated the controversial deal as a win for unions, small business council board member Jos de Bruin, who also runs the industry group that looks after IGA supermarkets and Mitre 10 hardware stores, said after the summit that unions “should have nothing to do with” any deals between employers and staff.

The federal government has pledged to boost access to multi-employer bargaining – particularly for people in childcare and aged care. Workplace Relations Minister Tony Burke argues it would be an effective tool to increase wages.

McCrystal, whose paper was published last week by Melbourne Law School’s Centre for Employment and Labour Relations Law, said negotiating wage deals across several businesses at once “returns us to an understanding that unions are not just agents to individual members, they are also pursuing a wider social agenda of the rights of working people”.

While the academics advocate for industry-wide strikes as a useful bargaining tool, the government tabled departmental advice in the Senate last week noting it did not intend to allow action that widespread when overhauling workplace legislation.

A spokesperson for the Department of Employment and Workplace Relations, which is consulting business groups, unions and academics on the proposed laws, said McCrystal and Forsyth had not been engaged by the government “but have been included in the consultation process, along with other academics”.

The paper also suggested employers should have no say in whether industrial action was green-lit and that the requirement for Fair Work Commission approval on industrial action should be abolished along with its ability to scrap enterprise agreements during negotiations.

Small business council chief executive Alexi Boyd said the group was “carefully considering” the paper and any potential impact on small businesses.

An Australian Industry Group spokesperson said the paper’s proposals “justify industry alarm that what is being called for by some is the implementation of a system that would promote engagement in crippling sector-wide strikes”.

“Calls to mandate union involvement in agreement making in all circumstances couldn’t be sensibly entertained. Of course, unions should have a legitimate role to play in bargaining, but the idea that unions would need to be a party to all bargaining agreements disrespects the preferences of the vast majority of employees that do not want to join a union,” the spokesperson said.

Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry head Andrew McKellar said it remained open to considering “sensible” changes to multi-employer bargaining as it already existed in the Fair Work Act, “but this shouldn’t be the first priority”.

“The focus on multi-employer agreements cannot be used as a guise to redesign our industrial relations system to the benefit of the trade union movement, rather than low-paid workers,” McKellar said.

“ACCI does not support a model for collective bargaining that puts the interests of unions above the rights of individual employees.”

While neither the government nor the union movement has indicated its preferred scope for multi-employer bargaining, the paper said it could be done industry-wide, within a particular supply chain, or as part of a franchise.

“There is ample evidence of the power exerted over the businesses directly employing workers by lead firms and other contracting parties throughout complex supply chains in sectors like cleaning, road transport, clothing production and fresh food production,” the paper said. “It should be enough that the workers and their union want to bargain with multiple businesses to counter that power.”

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