ACTU demands Labor ban employer lockouts
ACTU secretary Sally McManus is pressing the Albanese government to change the federal workplace laws to ban employers from locking out workers.
ACTU secretary Sally McManus is pressing the Albanese government to change the federal workplace laws to ban employers from locking out workers, after 300 employees were locked out indefinitely without pay by one of the nation’s largest paper and packaging companies.
After visiting the Maryvale mill workers in Victoria’s Latrobe Valley who have been locked out for 13 days by Opal, the local subsidiary of Japanese paper giant Nippon, Ms McManus told The Australian the lockout laws needed to be changed 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.
“It nearly always happens in regional communities. It has a devastating impact on people. In the rest of the OECD, lockouts are very rare. They don’t allow them or where they do, it has to be proportionate (to industrial action). In Australia, you don’t need any proportionality or anything,” she said.
“You can go and lock people out forever if you want and you can do so even if the workers haven’t taken any industrial action. It’s patently unfair, and even though they don’t happen often, when they do, it’s a devastating abuse of power and should be stopped. I think we should ban them, but at a minimum there should be a proportionality test.”
Ms McManus said the ACTU had made representations to the federal government about banning lockouts and “they’re open to hearing from us on it”.
“We’d like both political parties, given we’re moving into an election period, (to act),” she said.
“Do they think this is fair and reasonable in Australia that a multinational can treat workers like this?”
Asked to respond to the ACTU call to ban employer lockouts, Workplace Relations Minister Murray Watt confined his comments to the Opal dispute.
“It’s important that 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.”
Opposition employment spokeswoman Michaelia Cash said “(Anthony) Albanese’s union donors want to have it both ways – they want to have an unrestricted ability to undertake strike action but also want to have unrestricted access to their employer’s workplace during that action”.
“The Albanese government has changed workplace laws to encourage industrial action by their union mates; we have seen a widespread impact on public services through rail strikes, airline strikes, supermarket strikes, nurses strikes and waterfront strikes.”
Australian Industry Group chief executive Innes Willox said the government should reject the ACTU call, which he labelled an “extreme” attack on the collective bargaining rights of Australian employers.
“This is just another step towards unhinged militant extremism that the ACTU unfortunately now often advocates for,” he said.
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