IR reform a ‘danger’ to workers, says Sally McManus

ACTU secretary Sally McManus says employers are trying to convince the government to back ‘dangerous’ changes to pay and ­conditions.

ACTU secretary Sally McManus. Picture: AAP

ACTU secretary Sally McManus has broken her silence over the Coalition’s proposed industrial relations changes, expressing alarm that employers are trying to convince the government to back “dangerous” changes that would cut workers’ pay and ­conditions.

Speaking publicly for the first time about the government’s working group process, Ms McManus said employers were pushing changes to cut pay and conditions of part-time workers, strip award conditions, undermine bargaining rules and impose eight-year, no-strike agreements on major projects.

“I would give it in a traffic light way an amber alert in terms of being dangerous for working people,” she told The Australian. “The government is going to now have to make decisions about what they do and don’t do and I’m concerned about that ­because I know some of those ­employer lobbyists are busy lobbying the government to adopt some of the more extreme ideas they had that they couldn’t progress through the working groups because the evidence didn’t back it up.”

Ms McManus said the working groups had reached broad agreement about allowing casuals to request permanency after nine months, small businesses being subsidised to install payroll software to prevent wage underpayments, and employers getting immunity from penalties where underpayments were inadvertent and employers quickly backpay workers. But she said unions were ­extremely concerned that ­employers were lobbying for award changes that would introduce a new category of part-time worker, where employees could be forced to work more hours without extra pay, including overtime or penalty rates.

“The proposal that the employers have around part-time workers will lead to a whole lot of workers receiving less pay for the same hours,” she said.

“Employers will be able to say to workers, this week, it’s these hours and it’s 38 hours a week (but) this week it’s back to 15 hours. This week you’ll work on Wednesdays. This week on ­another day. It’s basically casual work without the casual loading.”

She said employers were pushing for “loaded rates”, an all-in single rate of pay that she said would not adequately compensate workers.

She also said she was uncertain the government would support changes proposed by the ACTU and the Business Council of Australia to the Fair Work Act’s better-off-overall test given opposition from some groups.

She said resource employers wanted eight-year enterprise agreements on projects but were not prepared to support the Fair Work Commission having a role in resolving any disputes. “It’s an extraordinary power grab by mining employers,” she said.

On wage theft, there was no agreement on where the bar for criminalisation would be set.

She said it was too early for ­unions to know if there would be any gains for workers from the changes. “We are in a waiting phase which is a dangerous time really for working people about whether or not the government is going to adopt the more extreme proposals or not.”

Attorney-General Christian Porter said he was considering outcomes from the working groups and working towards a package of changes to put in an omnibus bill. “Until the bill is released all matters considered by the working groups remain under active consideration,” he said.