Unions forced ‘to tell all on workplace deals’

A crackdown on payments to unions from employers threatens millions of dollars that flow to the ALP.

Unions will have to declare any payments from employers when they make workplace deals under changes to industrial laws foreshadowed by the Turnbull government that threaten millions of dollars that flow to the ALP.

Employment Minister Michaelia Cash yesterday criticised a deal between Coles and the shopworkers union after the industrial umpire this week said the retailer had underpaid workers.

She used the case to ­attack Bill Shorten’s record on penalty rates, stopping short of promising to ­review other deals between the Shop, Distributive and Allied Employees Association and Woolworths and Bunnings.

However, she flagged industrial relations reform that would scrutinise deals between businesses and unions, saying “workplace deals must be honest and transparent”. “Where deals are made for an employer to pay money to a union, employees have a right to know the details of such deals,” Senator Cash said.

On the Coles deal, she said: “The government is very concerned about any deals where workers lose conditions, such as penalty rates, and money also changes hands between the ­employer and union.

“The Labor Party would rather defend union bosses and secret deals rather than the workers who miss out under such deals.”

Part-time worker Duncan Hart challenged a 2015 enterprise agreement between Coles and the SDA after it was ratified by the Fair Work Commission last year.

The commission’s full bench upheld Mr Hart’s appeal this week, saying the enterprise agreement paid workers lower penalty rates than they would be entitled to under the award and left workers worse off   “overall”.

Fair Work said the deal would be invalid unless Coles undertook to fix the underpayments. Coles has yet to respond.

In his final report on the trade union royal commission, Dyson Heydon recommended the government change Fair Work laws to require unions and any “related entity” to “disclose all financial benefits, whether direct or indirect” flowing from a deal with an employer. Payments would be detailed in “a short, simple and clear disclosure document” ­issued before workers voted on union enterprise agreements.

Hundreds of millions of dollars flow into union-linked retirement, income-protection and training funds through enterprise agreements each year. Unions have donated more than $10 million to Labor in the past two years.

Senator Cash said the SDA deal was “reminiscent” of a 2004 deal between the Australian Workers Union, then headed by Mr Shorten, and Cleanevent that traded away penalty rates, as revealed by the royal commission.

A spokesman for the Opposition Leader said: “When Australians vote on July 2, they’ll do so knowing the Liberals want to cut penalty rates.”