Employers urge Labor to resist unions on industry bargaining

Employers have urged federal Labor to resist union calls to commit to legislating the return of industry-wide bargaining.

Australian Industry Group chief executive Innes Willox says the ACTU’s “self-serving demands” for an industry bargaining system needed to be emphatically rejected by all political parties. Picture: Kym Smith

Employers have urged federal Labor to resist union calls to commit to legislating the return of industry-wide bargaining, claiming sector-wide industrial action would cripple the economy.

ACTU secretary Sally McManus is pressuring the ALP to back industry-wide bargaining, declaring it was impossible to work with the Morrison government while it vilified unions.

Unions have highlighted aged care, childcare and universities as sectors where workers should have the legal power to conduct multi-employer bargaining.

Federal Labor has left open legislating to allow workers to strike in support of sector-wide pay claims, and Ms McManus insists industrial action in support of sector-wide pay claims would be a “last resort”.

Australian Industry Group chief executive Innes Willox said the ACTU’s “self-serving demands” for an industry bargaining system needed to be emphatically rejected by all political parties.

ACTU Secretary Sally McManus insists industrial action in support of sector-wide pay claims would be a “last resort”. Picture: Glenn Hunt

“The ACTU is making no secret of the fact that it wants the right to organise industrial action at the industry level, as part of its proposed industry bargaining system,’’ he said.

“If such a system was ever implemented, it would not be long before the Australian economy was crippled by strikes across the construction, maritime, mining, manufacturing, transport and other industries. These strikes would inflict widespread hardship on businesses, workers and the broader community.”

He said unions would use industry agreements to deliver lucrative financial rewards to them.

“These days militant unions derive many millions of dollars a year from products and services that employers are forced to purchase through the terms of industry pattern agreements that the unions coerce employers to sign,’’ he said.

“For example, employers are often forced to purchase grossly over-priced and sub-standard income protection insurance products from insurance companies that pay huge commissions to unions. Undoubtedly, the unions would use industry agreements in the same inappropriate way to enrich themselves.”

Mr Willox said the enterprise bargaining system was not broken.

“The enterprise agreement process has become a minefield due to the drafting of a few provisions of the Fair Work Act that have proved to be very problematic, and due to the excessively technical approach of the Fair Work Commission when assessing enterprise agreements at the approval stage,’’ he said.

“These problems can be readily addressed through a few relatively minor changes to the Fair Work Act.”

Labor says low-paid bargaining laws allowing claims on multiple employers have been an “abject failure” and will be rewritten. While Labor has not ruled out allowing wider industry bargaining, it says the ALP’s “priority” is the low-paid bargaining stream.

Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry chief executive James Pearson said the ACTU wanted to expose Australia to rolling, industry-wide strikes.

“Claims of stagnant wages and job insecurity simply don’t reflect the facts. There is only one explanation for the ACTU’s grievances: they are struggling to be relevant,” Mr Pearson said.

“The union movement wants there to be conflict in the workplace because they believe it will help them to recruit members, regardless of whether that conflict is warranted.”