‘Right to cause misery’: Big business slams transport union’s threats to shut down Australia

Australian Industry Group chief executive Innes Willox has slammed TWU leader Michael Kaine’s threat to shut down transport during enterprise agreement bargaining.

Transport Workers’ Union national secretary Michael Kaine at the fenced Moorebank Intermodal Precinct in Sydney. Picture: John Feder/The Australian.

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Employers have accused union leader Michael Kaine of being “drunk on perceived power”, warning that his threat to “shut down Australian transport” showed militant unions believed they had a “divine right to cause chaos and misery” to the public.

Australian Industry Group chief executive Innes Willox slammed Mr Kaine’s threat, exclusively reported by The Australian on Saturday, saying that transport union leaders should remember how Sydney commuters had quickly turned on the train union during the recent round of “unnecessary strikes”.

Innes Willox in 2023. Picture: Aaron Francis / The Australian

“This sort of mindless chest-beating is the predictable nonsense we should expect from militant union leaders high on what they think is their divine right to cause chaos and misery,” Mr Willox told The Australian.

“These threats are clearly the harbinger of things to come from some unions already drunk on perceived power. Given it is their laws that have emboldened some unions, you would expect the federal government to move quickly to tell them to pull their heads in.”

Transport Workers’ Union boss Mr Kaine and ACTU secretary Sally McManus hit back at Mr Willox on Sunday, accusing him of being an ideologue and calling on him to support more industrial rights for gig workers.

“Innes Willox has a rare opportunity to step up and support some of the most exploited workers in Australia – gig workers,” Mr Kaine told The Australian.

“Maybe it can be his ‘Damascus moment’.

“All he has to do is direct his team of lawyers to stop playing interference and support the implementation of minimum pay and safety standards in the current Fair Work proceedings.

“The TWU and its many industry allies will keep fighting for change. We ask ideologues to help, or get out of the way.”

ACTU secretary Sally McManus in February. Picture: NewsWire / John Appleyard

Ms McManus said the “sooner employer lobby groups drop their ideological opposition to improving the lives of Australian workers, in particular some of the most disadvantaged, the better it will be for the country”.

“The fact that so-called gig workers have had so few rights is a disgrace and they should step up to be part of changing it,” she told The Australian.

Mr Kaine, saying the union must seize on Labor’s landslide election victory to pursue the “largest co-ordinated industrial campaign in the sector’s history”, has threatened significant disruption if employers did not bow to demands for higher pay and better conditions.

He said the TWU had spent eight years carefully orchestrating the simultaneous expiry of 200 enterprise agreements in 2026 to maximise the bargaining power of thousands of workers to take legal industrial action at the same time across the critical aviation and transport sectors.

How The Australian reported the TWU threat threat.

Business Council of Australia chief executive Bran Black on Sunday also attacked the TWU’s plans, saying the union’s “positive militancy” stance threatened to make Australia’s productivity crisis worse. “Everyone except the union has got the memo that if we want to boost living standards, we need to increase productivity,” Mr Black said.

“Our productivity growth over the last decade was the slowest it’s been in 60 years, with last year alone seeing a 1.2 per cent decline.

“Given our current circumstances, the union threat of ‘positive militancy’, if realised, would drive investment offshore and take our country backwards.”

Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry chief executive Andrew McKellar also slammed the TWU.

“It’s hubris – there’s a level of arrogance in the comments by the TWU which indicate that the union is out of touch,” he said.

“The urgent priority is to ensure that we are getting the best out of our transport system and infrastructure. To do that, we have to pay attention to productivity performance and safety.”

Companies to be targeted by the union include Qantas, Aldi, Amazon and Qube Logistics, with agreements also due to expire in mid-2026 at an array of major companies such as Linfox, Toll, Virgin Australia, Boral, K&S Freighters and national garbage collector Cleanaway.

“We are all celebrating Labor’s stunning re-election, but we must also seize the moment,” Mr Kaine said.

Asked about the threat, Murray Watt, who held the workplace relations portfolio before being moved to Environment Minister last week, said there was a long way to go before enterprise agreements expired in mid-2026.

“And I think what you see from Mr Kaine is him putting forward the interests of his members,” Senator Watt told Sky News on Sunday.

“Of course, what he wants to do is to secure higher wages and better conditions for his members, as any decent union leader would be looking for. But as I say, there’s a long way to go. And as always, we’d be encouraging the parties to talk, to negotiate and the Fair Work Commission can be involved, if needed, as well.”

Additional reporting: Richard Ferguson