‘This isn’t a member grab’: Union wants a say on conditions for migrant recruits

The head of the Australian Workers’ Union wants employers hiring migrants to have a union agreement in place to stem exploitation and restrict bosses from avoiding local talent, sparking a fresh clash with business groups over worker protections.

As the Albanese government overhauls the migration system, AWU national secretary Paul Farrow says he wants businesses to consult unions when they start looking abroad to fill gaps.

AWA head Paul Farrow wants employers recruiting overseas workers to hash out agreements with unions.Credit: Alex Ellinghausen

“This isn’t a member grab. If you really want to be serious about a way to deal with exploitation, then data’s there now that people on union collective agreements don’t tend to be underpaid or exploited,” Farrow said.

“Whether it’s a collective agreement, whether it’s an MOU [memorandum of understanding], it’s really about employers sitting down with unions, and eyeballing them at the table and coming out with an understanding – and they tend to stick to it because it’s a bipartisan approach.”

Farrow pointed to the labour agreements piloted by the federal government to bring in aged-care workers under a lower-skilled temporary migration stream, in which providers hashed out agreements on pay and conditions with unions to boost staff numbers in the haemorrhaging industry.

Australian Industry Group chief executive Innes Willox said that while migrant workers needed to be protected, “novel proposals mandating the making of ‘agreements’ a condition of engaging migrant workers just aren’t sensible and won’t be workable”.

“We need to see the details of precisely what is being proposed, but it sounds like a thinly veiled push for employers to be dragged into union agreements,” said Willox. “Presumably the union will be of the view that it should have a role in negotiating the agreements under the plan.”

But Farrow qualified that the arrangement didn’t need to amount to a collective agreement, “it just needs to be an agreement of sorts … if they’re doing the right thing, I don’t see we’d have a problem.”

“We’re not reinventing the wheel here,” he said, stressing he wasn’t targeting small businesses in his proposal, but rather larger ones that took on multiple migrant workers. “I’m not talking about a backpacker that walks into a fish and chip shop.”

The building sector is pushing for construction workers to be fast-tracked through visa applications to deal with the soaring demand for new and renovated homes.

The building sector is pushing for construction workers to be fast-tracked through visa applications to deal with the soaring demand for homes.Credit: Jason South

Master Builders Australia chief executive Denita Wawn said the principle of freedom of association could be undermined if employers were forced into union agreements to employ migrant workers.

“Freedom of association protects the rights of workers and businesses to choose the organisations that represent them and prevents them from being forced or coerced into dealing with an organisation against their wishes,” she said.

The AWU has also renewed its call for default union membership for migrant workers as part of its submission to the government’s consultations over the permanent migration intake for 2024–25.

“What we’re proposing is not compulsory unionism; any migrant would be able to opt out. But what default union membership would do is signal loud and clear to new arrivals that joining a union and being protected at work is okay,” Farrow said.

Under the proposal, it would become a condition of employment that skilled migrants would be signed up to their relevant union as part of their workplace induction, with the right to opt out. They would be responsible for paying their own union fees.

The current number of permanent skilled places for 2023–24 is 137,100. The rest of the 190,000 places for that period go to family members of workers.

A spokesperson for Home Affairs Minister Clare O’Neil, whose department is overseeing the consultation, said the government had consulted a large range of groups to reform the migration system “and will continue to do so”.

Earlier this month, O’Neil clashed with the construction industry, which complained it had been excluded from the specialist temporary workers stream that allows employers to recruit professionals from overseas for jobs earning at least $135,000 without having to prove a skills shortage.

She warned that fast-tracking tradies under a new specialist skills visa could threaten Australian apprenticeships, but Wawn said that while she supported apprenticeships, it was a long-term solution to an immediate problem, and questioned whether union influence was behind the government’s stance.

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