Labor puts flexible hours in the spotlight with new workplace laws

Workers will be able to appeal to the Fair Work Commission for the right to have more flexible working hours in a dramatic expansion of the industrial umpire’s role in determining the hours people are rostered to work.

The federal government’s “Secure Jobs, Better Pay” laws will be introduced on Thursday morning, alongside changes that allow multi-employer bargaining across a range of industries – a measure opposed by business groups, but which Labor believes will put upwards pressure on wages that are expected to keep falling in real terms until 2024.

Employment Minister Tony Burke will introduce the “Secure Jobs, Better Pay Bill” on Thursday.Credit: Alex Ellinghausen

The Fair Work Act allows employees including parents with school-age children or younger, people with a disability, a carer, someone 55 years or older, or someone experiencing violence from a family member to request flexible working hours from their employer.

At present, an employer can knock back the request on “reasonable business grounds”, such as the change being too expensive, and employees have no way to appeal the decision.

But under the changes planned by Employment Minister Tony Burke, an employee would be able to appeal against the decision to the commission, and the industrial umpire will attempt to help the parties to reach a deal.

Crucially, if a deal can’t be struck, the commission can then issue a binding decision that could act as an incentive to the employer to strike a deal with the employee.

Burke said under current laws, too many women were taking lower-paid jobs or dropping out of the workforce, while too many men were not even requesting flexible hours for fear of being knocked back.

“Many requests for flexible work are granted by employers. However, some workers’ requests are unreasonably refused and under our current laws those workers have no right of review,” he said.

“The care of children and other loved ones is truly an essential job – our workplace laws must better recognise and support this work, for the benefit of us all.”

In question time on Wednesday, Burke blamed the former government for the fact real wages were lower than they were 10 years ago and lambasted shadow treasurer Angus Taylor for criticising the bargaining changes because “it pushes up wages”.

“If you’re a government that wants to get wages moving, then these are the sorts of decisions you take and we’ll be introducing [it] into the parliament tomorrow,” Burke said.

Business groups will mount a campaign against changes to bargaining, arguing it will lead to job losses and give unions the trigger to call strike action across entire sectors, which is banned under current law.

Opposition workplace relations spokeswoman Michaelia Cash said the move to multi-employer bargaining was “the most radical shake-up of Australia’s industrial relations system in decades”.

“Industry-wide bargaining will be devastating for the Australian economy, leading to widespread strike action, including sympathy strikes by those unrelated to a particular dispute. Minister Burke will become known forever more as the minister for strikes,” she said.

Business Council chief executive Jennifer Westacott said: “We all agree we want wages to go up. We all agree we want bargaining to be easier.

“What we’re concerned about is that we end up with a system that’s more complex, that’s more difficult, that delays people’s wages [rising] ... when I hear unions saying what we want is widespread industrial action, I don’t think the community wants widespread industrial action.”

But ACTU Secretary Sally McManus said the government had a mandate to fix the bargaining system and get wages rising.

“Some employer groups will never support pay rises for working people, but these [inflation] numbers show just how much workers are suffering. The Albanese government was clear during the election and has been clear since that unlike the last government, they will not suppress wages and will act to create wage growth. It is essential that this happens now.”

Other changes to be introduced in the Secure Jobs, Better Pay Bill are the abolition of the Australian Building and Construction Commission, measures to close the gender pay gap and changes to the Better Off Overall Test.

The federal budget contained $7.9 million over four years from 2022–23 for the Fair Work Commission to support the uptake of enterprise bargaining for small businesses and $20.2 million over four years for the commission to establish the Pay Equity and Care and Community Sector expert panels, and a specialised research unit.

It showed wages grew by 2.6 per cent last year and are forecast to grow by 3.75 per cent this year, but inflation was 6.1 per cent last financial year and will be 5.75 per cent this year – after peaking at an expected 7.75 per cent in December – meaning wages will continue to fall in real terms until 2023-24, when they will essentially be flat.

“The combination of high inflation and modest wage growth to date has seen real wages fall sharply, by around 3.5 per cent over 2021-22,” the budget papers read. “This followed a prolonged period of stagnant real wage growth.”

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