ACTU summit outcome has been hiding in plain sight

Had Bob Hawke been in command of Anthony Albanese’s Jobs and Skills Summit, no doubt he would have seized the opportunity to make the biggest possible statement on consensus. Hawke would have pulled aside the warring parties that have seen rail transport thrown into chaos by ongoing industrial action in Sydney, Australia’s biggest city, and demanded an immediate fix. Rail union delegates who attended the summit would have been pressed to demonstrate they cared about the impact of their actions on ordinary people. Had he truly followed Hawke’s example, the Prime Minister could have shown himself alive to the biggest concern that came from the way in which the jobs summit was conducted. That concern was that the get-together was a choreographed pantomime with a pre-determined outcome to deliver power back to the union movement. This perception was magnified by the union-heavy guest list that denied a seat to the chief executives of Australia’s biggest banks in favour of their industry body representative, Anna Bligh, a former Labor premier of Queensland. Business generally, and small business in particular, was blindsided by the way in which the government and ACTU were able to split off representative bodies to claim overall sector agreement. As Judith Sloan has argued, very few of the attendees had real skin in the game or were responsible for actually employing people. But it is real businesses, both big and small, that will be called to navigate the transformed industrial relations landscape that Labor clearly is getting ready to legislate.

There were some positives from the summit. Agreement to lift permanent migration by 35,000 to 195,000 is welcome. We firmly support a big Australia with the caution that more must be done to guard against the development and infrastructure pressures that population growth necessarily entails. Also positive is the pledge to give more flexibility to how the better-off-overall test is determined. But this could have been addressed had Mr Albanese shown a commitment to the sort of co-operative approach he now professes when the Morrison government sought to make the same change. Wrapping up the summit, Jim Chalmers said there had been 36 concrete outcomes including fee-free TAFE places, a relaxed worker test for older Australians, more flexible parental leave, better training for women and regional workers, and 1000 digital apprenticeships in the public service. The big shift, however, has been the speed with which the government has seized the opportunity to reintroduce a system of industry-wide bargaining that, at its worst, could signal a return to the strike chaos of the pre-Hawke 1970s. Qantas chief Alan Joyce said industry-wide bargaining is something Australia left behind a long time ago “and there were good reasons why”. The Australian Industry Group says multi-employer bargaining could signal a return to “disruptive and costly industrial action” across broad parts of the economy. The Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry has warned the move could be a push to unionise small business, leading to increased industrial ­action. The Business Council of Australia said it could have a potential negative impact on innovation, supply chains and industrial action.

Mr Albanese has been blatant about what is going on. He said differences within the business community had allowed the ACTU to reach separate agreements with the Council of Small Business Organisations Australia on multi-party bargaining and with the BCA on enterprise bargaining. Through this lens it is possible to conclude that business has been outplayed by organised labour and that the genuine small business sector stands to be the biggest loser. Employment and Workplace Relations Minister Tony Burke has moved with haste to confirm the government will legislate to widen access to multi-employer bargaining and called on the Fair Work Commission to strengthen the hand of unions by stopping employers cancelling enterprise agreements. Shell-shocked business groups should not be surprised. As we editorialised in November last year: “The union movement is calling for a root-and-branch reform of the Fair Work Commission, including a return to a pattern-bargaining style of wage setting across industry, something that is consistent with the ALP national platform.” At that time, Mr Burke did not answer directly questions from this newspaper on whether Labor would commit to changing the bargaining laws; if it would implement the platform commitment on multi-employer bargaining; or if it would support the capacity of workers to engage in industry-wide bargaining. Now we know the answers. Peter Dutton was right to stay away from the summit, just as the Opposition Leader must resist the siren song of faux consensus as Labor and the union movement set about implementing their agenda to transform the nation’s workplace and economy.