Employer lockouts: bosses resist ban

Employers say companies rarely use lockout provisions as it ultimately hurt the business and penalised the workforce.

Australian Resources and Energy Employer Association chief executive Steve Knott.

Resource sector employers have urged Labor not to agree to an ACTU call to ban companies locking out workers in response to industrial action.

As 300 employees remain locked out indefinitely without pay by one of the nation’s largest paper and packaging companies, ACTU secretary Sally McManus says unions want government changes to stop employers “abusing their power”.

She said the ability of employers to lock out workers during industrial disputes should be removed or at least restricted to a proportional response to industrial action by workers.

But the Australian Resources and Energy Employer Association said companies were “still reeling from three substantial packages of egregiously pro-union changes” introduced by the Albanese government, and any weakening of the lockout provisions would be opposed.

AREEA chief executive Steve Knott said employers rarely used the lockout provisions as they ultimately hurt the business as well as penalising the workforce.

“But when faced with extreme demands and damaging strikes, it may be the last-­response action available to employers within Australia’s IR system,” he said.

Mr Knott said employers were facing greater employment costs and complexity than ever and unprecedented third-party interference in the management of their workforces.

“Should the government cede to ACTU demands to limit or reduce lockouts … it may as well ask businesses to hand over a blank cheque to militant unions to write their own terms and conditions,” he said.

Despite government assurances of no further substantial legislative industrial relations changes, Mr Knott said employers suspected a pipeline of further union demands, should the ALP win a second term.

Asked this week to respond to the ACTU call to ban employer lockouts, Workplace Relations Minister Murray Watt confined his comments to the Opal dispute where 300 Maryvale mill workers in Victoria have been locked out for two weeks.

“It’s important big businesses offer their workers a decent pay rise, to help with life’s essentials,” Senator Watt said.

“I encourage Opal to negotiate with its workforce to find a resolution.”

Mr Knott said it was curious the ACTU would go public with its demand just days before the government was handed its report on the impacts of its first IR legislation amendment package.

“These developments have employers very nervous about what the ACTU is planning for a potential second term of the ­Albanese government,” he said.