‘Not interested’: Business head in union pact wants them out of future pay deals

A director of the small business group that pioneered a controversial agreement with the ACTU on the eve of the jobs summit to explore multi-employer wage deals does not want unions involved in brokering agreements.

Council of Small Business Organisations Australia board member Jos de Bruin, who also runs the industry group that looks after IGA supermarkets and Mitre 10 hardware stores, said unions “should have nothing to do with” any deals between employers and staff as a result of a push to allow bargaining across different workplaces.

Jos de Bruin, COSBOA director, said unions shouldn’t be involved in any multi-employer deals struck by small businesses.Credit: James Alcock

“The union should have nothing to do with it, nothing. It’s none of their business, really, when and how we should employ people,” he said.

The government’s promise to legislate greater access to multi-employer bargaining became the flashpoint of the jobs summit, prompting the Coalition to vow to fight the changes it believes will lead to widespread strikes and an inflation spiral.

COSBOA chief executive Alexi Boyd stood with Australian Council of Trade Unions Sally McManus last week to announce the agreement to develop a simpler industrial relations system, including “new options around collective bargaining which include multi-employer agreements.”

On Monday, Boyd met with Coalition members in Parliament to discuss the group’s negotiations. She has stressed her industry group is against the unionisation of small businesses, saying any agreements struck should be opt-in, and the aim was to empower her members to more simply and effectively navigate the bargaining system.

COSBOA CEO Alexi Boyd and ACTU Secretary Sally McManus, who struck an agreement over workplace bargaining ahead of the jobs summit.Credit: Alex Ellinghausen

De Bruin said suggestions the organisation was “sidling up to union movement” were folly.

“All we did was talk to the ACTU about the possibilities of making it [the bargaining system] easier, more flexible and less complex,” said de Bruin, who also runs Master Grocers Australia. “We’re not interested in any union involvement with any of those agreements.”

Opposition is mounting among potential gatekeepers to the government’s proposed industrial reforms after Tasmanian senator Jacqui Lambie said Labor was “bloody dreaming” if it planned to drive through legislation before Christmas.

Australian Retailers Association head Paul Zahra, whose organisation is a member of COSBOA, said adding multi-employer bargaining to the industrial relations system without other reforms “will not address the issues that were well documented at the jobs and skills summit”.

The government last week unveiled plans to make it easier for businesses and workers to use multi-employer bargaining as part of changes to the Fair Work Act.

Asked on ABC radio whether the system would be opt-in or compulsory, Albanese said the government would consult before drawing up the new laws. “We don’t seek to impose changes, what we seek to do is to have discussions,” he said.

Tasmanian Senator Jacqui Lambie says the government is “bloody dreaming” over the proposed pace of its industrial reforms.Credit: Alex Ellinghausen

Workplace Relations Minister Tony Burke is seeking to introduce legislation by the end of the year, a tight timeframe when parliament sits for only four weeks after the October 25 budget.

Lambie, who, with new Senate colleague Tammy Tyrrell makes up two crucial crossbench votes in the upper house, said many of the proposed workplace reforms would have to go to inquiries before being put to parliament.

“We’re going to have to listen to the [arguments] for and against, but if they think they’re just going to rush legislation through, I’ve got news for them, and it’s all bad, and it’s not going to happen,” Lambie said.

“And if they think they’re going to rush it through before Christmas-time, they’ve got to be bloody dreaming,” she said.

United Australia Party senator Ralph Babet accused the government of living in “fantasy land” and said the time needed to consider the proposed changes would be lengthy.

“More importantly, this appears to be a cash cow for the unions in union membership revenue,” he said, echoing business groups who said multi-employer deals could lead to wide-spread industrial action.