PM poised to pocket pre-summit victory

Anthony Albanese is poised to bank a significant political victory on industrial relations reform before his jobs summit this week has even started.

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese. Picture: NCA NewsWire/Monique Harmer

Anthony Albanese is poised to bank a significant political victory on industrial relations reform ­before his jobs summit this week has even started.

An agreement between the ACTU and the small business lobby for multi-employer agreements on the eve of the two-day roundtable signals a landmark treaty between the small end of town and the peak union body.

For small employers, it offers hope of a simple, single agreement as an alternative to the ­bamboozlement of having to navigate the complexity of the award system.

For ACTU chief Sally McManus, who has acknowledged that the better overall test (the BOOT) and the awards are too complicated, it presents a new vehicle for membership recruitment at a time when unions represent only one in every 10 private sector workers.

It also provides a wedge for the unions in their negotiations with other employer groups.

While the big end of town may be opposed to multi-employer bargaining more broadly, for ­obvious reasons, the Business Council of Australia is quietly support­ive of the COSBOA agreement because of the trade-off that supports a simpler better off overall test across the entire workforce.

For the Albanese government, it represents significant ­industrial relations reform within a sector that is traditionally represented by the Liberal Party, and one it will claim credit for as a first demonstrable outcome of its jobs summit process.

Whether it meets the test of success for the summit, however, is questionable considering that the central theme of the two-day forum starting on Thursday is to achieve a consensus on driving wage growth.

Labor’s criticism of the Morrison government’s industrial relations roundtable in 2020 is that it didn’t bring anything to the table other than the table itself.

One of the only substantial things that survived that process to end up in legislation was a new definition of casual work.

And Labor has already vowed to revisit that.

Industrial Relations Minister Tony Burke has signalled where a Labor government might be willing to legislate reform, with a new IR bill due before the end of the year. Multi-employer bargaining is something he has leant into with in-principle support, to the alarm of big business.

But Burke is also on the record as sympathetic to the argument that the BOOT needs revision.

Sector-wide bargaining, which McManus is also pushing, holds far less appeal and is not something Burke has entertained.

Beyond the childcare and aged-care sectors that are dependent on government funding, it is unlikely Labor would go down this path.

The question is then what does success look like for the Prime Minister following the summit?

Having talked it up during the election campaign, Albanese and Jim Chalmers have been vigorously talking the summit down since.

They have been actively seeking to manage expectations of what outcomes might be achieved in the face of the opposition’s accusations that it is nothing more than a stunt.

Having put wage growth as central to the theme of the summit, despite the summit being billed with a broader agenda, ­Albanese needs a consensus that it can underwrite.

So far, there appears to be goodwill on both sides of the aisle.

McManus has made concessions on the business demands for ­migration to fill the skills gap. This is significant, considering how difficult an issue it is for the unions.

And Albanese is promising significant investment on skills and training from a government that isn’t flush with cash.

A pincer movement is now under way, with the onus clearly being put on business to come up with solutions on real wage growth in return for its other ­demands.