Labor’s pay policy plans tackled bit by bit

Labor will delay giving unions the right to pursue multi-employer and industry-wide pay claims by at least 12 months if elected.

Labor would like to legislate changes to pay equity provisions.

Federal Labor will delay giving trade unions the legal right to pursue multi-employer and industry-wide pay claims by at least a year if it wins the election, citing the complexity involved in rewriting the nation’s bargaining rules and the need to first implement other parts of its workplace agenda.

Senior ALP sources said the multi-employer bargaining proposal, the most contentious ­element of Labor’s workplace policy agenda, had significant implications for key parts of the workplace system, including awards, enterprise bargaining and the role and powers of the Fair Work Commission.

Sources said there would be a need to get extensive legal advice and engage in wide consultation over the proposed changes, especially any right by unions and workers to take protected industrial action in support of multi-­employer claims.

Opposition employment and workplace relations spokesman Brendan O’Connor said Labor would release more details about the proposed bargaining changes before the election but he declined to nominate a timeframe for introducing the changes.

“We will consult fully on the ­detail of these matters. We will need to consult, if we are elected, as we need to get it right,” he said.

While the new bargaining system is shaping as a second wave of workplace policy changes by a Shorten government, Labor would move quickly on a series of industrial relations proposals if elected.

Along with plans to reverse penalty rates cuts, it has a suite of proposals it would seek to legislate this year, including changes to the provisions of the Fair Work Act it says have been used by employers to “game the system”.

Labor would seek to restrict the ability of employers to terminate enterprise agreements and also stop employers using a small number of workers to vote up a new agreement before applying the same agreement to hundreds of employees in another workplace.

Labor would also try to legislate changes to pay equity provisions and have its “living wage” policy made law to apply to next year’s minimum wage review by the Fair Work Commission.

University of Adelaide law professor Andrew Stewart said delaying the introduction of industry-wide bargaining would be a “smart move” by a Labor government.

“It’s clear they have got a very significant number of items on their policy agenda that will take priority if they win office,” Professor Stewart said. “That means while they are working on that, it’s unlikely they will be tackling some of these more complex issues like industry bargaining, what to do about the gig economy, what to do about the definition of casuals.

“They are all issues where taking time to work through the complex issues makes perfect sense.

“I would be far more concerned if they were promising to rush into a new industry bargaining stream in the first three months because it is going to need careful thinking. It will be a pretty important redesign of a system which for a long time has been geared towards enterprise bargaining taking primacy and awards being understood purely as a safety net.”

The ALP national conference last year cleared the way for ­unions to pursue multi-employer bargaining beyond low-paid ­industries if Labor wins, backing ­unions’ right to make wage claims on multiple employers where ­enterprise bargaining has failed.

Mr Shorten said last week he was not convinced that industry-wide bargaining should be available to unions in all industries, and Labor figures have ruled out the construction union being able to access the new provisions.

Along with the industry bargaining framework, Labor has committed to strengthening the arbitration powers of the commission, particularly for companies and workers involved in intractable disputes.