Business leaders slam IR reform move as an `overkill’

Business has slammed the IR reform push to enshrine employees’ right to ‘disconnect’ and make it simpler for casuals to become permanent.

Business slams IR reforms that promise to change the definition of a casual employee and enshrine the `right to disconnect’.

Business leaders have slammed potential changes to industrial relations laws including making it simpler to convert casual employees to permanent and enshrining the right for staff to “disconnect” if they feel work is creeping into their home life.

Harvey Norman Holdings executive chairman Gerry Harvey said he “can’t see the logic” in the IR changes

Taking aim at the push to make is easier for casual workers to become permanent, he said Australia was currently at or near full employment

“We don’t have an unemployment problem and businesses are looking for people but they can’t find them,” Mr Harvey said. “I don’t know why it’s an issue. I don’t get it.

“I think if you’re a business you should be able to employ permanent people and you should be able to employ casual people. But I don’t see how you can make a ruling that because you employed a casual person that after a certain period of time they have to become permanent. You may not have a position for them.”

Mr Harvey labelled the complexity of the labour laws “a joke”.

“There are too many labour laws and so many different categories. You need an army of people to go through it and try and make sense of it,” he said.

IR reform may legislate for employees to have the `right to disconnect’ from work.

Looking at the disconnect issue Flight Centre chief executive Graham Turner described it as “overkill”.

“From our point of view I can’t see why people can’t disconnect if they want to anyway. All they have to do is switch your phone off or switch your laptop off,” he said.

“It’s overkill from what I see. I can’t see the rationale behind this.

“I suppose it depends on what your position is. If you’re a senior executive you have to accept calls and you certainly would not get a promotion to that sort of level if you didn’t.

“My gut feeling is that it’s a total over-reaction on something that’s not an issue.”

Mr Turner said most people who work casually do so because they want to.

“I can’t see the rationale of making casuals who want to be casual, permanent,” he said.

“Most employers who have a good casual would want to make the permanent if they could. They seem to want to solve problems that don’t exists.

Right-wing think tank the HR Nicholls Society described the proposed amendments as “absurd” which seek to add further confusion and anxiety by altering definitions of what is a casual employee.

“It will be medium and small employers and their employees that will most suffer. Squeezing out small business in the market, will only lead to less competition and accountability for larger businesses. It will also impact upon opportunities for employment whether casual or not.,” it said.

The Society said the federal government has taking on board the “right to disconnect” to secure the Greens support, with little to no consultation with business leaders.

“In going down this path there has been little consideration how these changes affect employers and damaging effects it will have on interstate business.

“The amendments are victim of political back dealings that does not put the Australian economy and productivity at the forefront.”