ALP national conference: Gig workers, truckie safety and industrial deaths on agenda

Labor will back national industrial manslaughter laws, revive safe rates for truck drivers and scrap the Coalition’s building code that forces employers to remove union-backed conditions if they want government work.

Labor industrial relations spokesman Tony Burke. Picture: Sean Davey

Labor will back national industrial manslaughter laws, revive safe rates for truck drivers and scrap the Coalition’s building code that forces employers to remove union-backed conditions from enterprise agreements if they want multi-million-dollar government work.

The ALP national conference backed minimum entitlements for fruit pickers as well as gig workers, but unions dropped their push for a royal commission into the horticulture industry after being told it would not be supported.

Labor affirmed its commitment to scrap the Registered Organisations Commission and the CFMEU’s bete noire, the Australian Building and Construction Commission, potentially saving the union millions of dollars each year in court-imposed penalties and legal fees.

Backing tougher measures against sham contracting, delegates supported an ALP government repealing the union demerger laws that allowed for the break-up of the CFMEU, despite Labor voting for the laws in December.

Labor industrial relations spokesman Tony Burke said the ALP would support the states and territories to implement industrial manslaughter laws and development of harmonised industrial manslaughter legislation.

State and territory ministers are due to meet with Industrial Relations Minister Michaelia Cash on April 15 to consider recommendations that include industrial manslaughter laws that introduce potential jail time for employers responsible for a worker’s death.

In a letter to Senator Cash and Scott Morrison, ACTU president Michele O’Neil said most states and territories were likely to support the recommendations.

With six out of nine governments required for a recommendation to be adopted, the commonwealth might effectively have the casting vote.

She urged the Prime Minister and Senator Cash to support the industrial manslaughter proposal and a new regulation and code of practice requiring employers to identify and eliminate risks to mental health.

A spokesman for Senator Cash said the government had not put forward a position on an industrial manslaughter offence “so as not to pre-empt discussions” with the ministers.

“It is important to understand why specific industrial manslaughter offences already in place have only resulted in one successful prosecution for industrial manslaughter, in Queensland,” he said.

“It is not clear from the data whether the laws have impacted the number of fatalities in these jurisdictions.”

Labor also said it would reintroduce a “strongly enforced national safe rates scheme for all parties in the transport supply chain”.

ACTU secretary Sally McManus backed the industrial relations policy, saying it offered solutions to job insecurity and low wages growth.