National retailers oppose industry-wide bargaining

The National Retail Association fears the Albanese government’s push for industry-wide bargaining will hurt small business

The National Retail Association has produced a new paper outlining its opposition to industry-wide bargaining following consultation with key members, including Kmart, Domino’s, KFC, Freedom furniture and jewellery chain Swarovski. Picture: Tertius Pickard

National retailers have expressed strong opposition to the Albanese government legalising industry-wide bargaining, declaring it would create an inequitable, ­unsuitable, and ultimately redundant system that would disadvantage small businesses.

The National Retail Association has produced a new paper outlining its opposition following consultation with key members, including Kmart, Domino’s, KFC, Freedom furniture and jewellery chain Swarovski.

NRA interim chief executive Lindsay Carroll said an opt-in ­arrangement allowing limited multi-employer bargaining would be “OK”, but companies were opposed to any compulsion.

Employment Minister Tony Burke is devising changes to repair the nation’s “broken” enterprise bargaining system, including widening access to multi-­employer agreements and making the Fair Work Act’s better-off overall test “simple, flexible and fair”.

The Council of Small Business ­Organisations Australia upset rival employer groups and the ­Coalition by reaching a landmark agreement with the Australian Council of Trade Unions supporting multi-employer bargaining.

In reference to the COSBOA position, Ms Carroll noted some COSBOA members had “flip-flopped on the issue”, and the agreement with the ACTU contrasted with the position of ­national retailers.

Mining and energy employers want unions subject to a new ­public-interest test before they can legally strike across companies, warning Labor’s proposed multi-employer bargaining ­regime could expose them to crippling industrial action throughout the supply chain.

Australian Resources and ­Energy Employer Association chief executive Steve Knott has written to ACTU president ­Michele O’Neil seeking clarity about whether unions would use the new laws to strike across industries and, if so, would unions agree to a public interest or economic harm test in relation to strikes.

Australian Industry Group chief executive Innes Willox has also written to the ACTU about the bargaining changes, and on Sunday expressed disappointment that unions had not set out the specific changes they wanted.

In its position paper, the Nat­ional Retail Association says industry-wide bargaining is not a tar­geted or means-tested ­approach, but “a one-size-fits-all view, which will see groups of employers and employees left behind”.

“Industry-wide bargaining would see small and medium-sized employers, who otherwise would rely on modern award ­entitlements, forced to engage in the time and cost of bargaining, or face being subject to agreements bargained for by other businesses, which may be prejudicial or detrimental to their business,” the paper says. “… The needs of individual businesses and their ­employees vary, and bargained terms for one business may not be appropriate, implementable, or desirable for another.”

Ms Carroll said the position from NRA members “has always been really consistent and clear – industry-wide bargaining isn’t supported by retailers”. “Our members’ primary concern with the government’s proposal is that it is really naive to assume that ­retail position is the same across different businesses,” she said.