Coronavirus: Unions and bosses to give industrial relations peace a chance

Unions and employers have backed a proposed compact by the Morrison government to negotiate major changes to the industrial relations system.

Secretary of the ACTU Sally McManus. Picture: AAP

Unions and employers have backed a proposed compact by the Morrison government to negotiate major changes to the industrial relations system, as the Coalition seeks to build on the unprecedented consensus between business and workers during the COVID-19 crisis.

Union leaders described Scott Morrison’s decision to drop the Ensuring Integrity Bill as an olive branch ahead of three months of government-initiated talks with employers to try to break a long-running political and policy deadlock on workplace relations.

Business Council of Australia chief executive Jennifer Westacott said employers would seize the opportunity to try to reduce the complexity of enterprise bargaining laws and bring them back into line with the historic changes introduced by the Keating government.

“The significance of this opportunity cannot be understated,” she said. “The Prime Minister’s way forward by setting up problem-solving working groups gives business, unions and workers a rare chance to once and for all reform the system so that it benefits the entire community.”

ACTU secretary Sally McManus nominated policy changes to address low wages growth and the “failing” enterprise bargaining system as areas to be addressed. But unions will also push to extend the JobKeeper scheme beyond September and oppose the reinstatement of Newstart, declaring the government must act beyond industrial relations reform to create jobs as the economy recovers.

Industrial Relations Minister Christian Porter said the government would seek to use the negotiations to resolve uncertainty over casual employment after Federal Court rulings left employers ­exposed to billions of dollars of ­potential backpay claims. “Let’s sit down and fix it,” he said

Mr Porter said the government reserved the right to propose new workplace bills to parliament if employers and unions could not reach agreement on the areas identified by Mr Morrison.

Ms McManus welcomed Mr Morrison’s announcement that the government would convene working groups of employers and unions to discuss key areas of workplace relations, including the award system, enterprise bargaining and casual employment. She was also supportive of the government’s confirmation — first flagged by The Australian in March — that the Ensuring Integrity Bill would be withdrawn.

She said talks should result in increased legal rights for workers, making clear the ACTU would resist radical proposals by some employer groups to wind back key aspects of the Fair Work Act. “Attacks on working people, whether from business lobbyists or governments, are not compatible with a co-operative approach to rebuilding Australia,” she said.

But Ms McManus said the “creation of jobs is going to take a lot more than industrial relations reform”. “It’s going to mean the government is going to lead, as the Prime Minister said today, but that leading can’t be short-term. We have got to consider the effect of stopping JobKeeper if they persist on wanting to stop it at the end of September. That will be just disastrous for so many working people.”

Labor industrial relations spokesman Tony Burke said the ALP had an open mind about IR changes that helped create jobs in the post-COVID world.

“But let’s be clear: all the government has done so far is book a room. This is not an IR agenda – it’s a series of meetings,” he said.