HOT on the heels of last month's Jobs and Skills Summit, the Albanese government has unveiled its proposal for detailed workplace reform, with Employment and Workplace Relations Minister Tony Burke tabling a 249-page bill in the House of Representatives yesterday.
Continuing with the trend to label legislation with a catchcry rather than a traditional title, the Labor reforms are to be known as the Secure Jobs, Better Pay Bill.
September's Jobs and Skills Summit set the scene for the sorts of changes that Labor is promoting, determined to resurrect a collective bargaining system that ACTU secretary Sally McManus described yesterday as "the engine of wage growth".
Employers, unsurprisingly, are less enthused, with the Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry describing it as a "seismic shift ... reversing decades of tripartite consensus".
The detail of the bill will be pored over during the parliamentary process but the ease with which the gig economy has upended the traditional Australian idea of "a fair day's work for a fair day's pay" shows that our workplace laws - as they stand - are lagging well behind the times.
In truth, our workplace laws have always stood one step removed from everyday reality. Union membership is a fraction of what it was historically, but the unions still represent one "side" of the workplace equation, even when they may not be physically present in the workplace.
That was always obvious in small business. But in the past decade or so the rise of the gig economy has resulted in large, multi-national companies with substantial workforces who they claim - at law - to be contractors rather than employees.
It is true that food-delivery companies, for example, have created a new industry that wasn't there before. But for those without the requisite skills or circumstances to pursue full-time work, a gig economy job may be all that's on offer.
At the top end of things, the professional classes and those with sought-after skills have always been able to name their own price, or close to it. For the great bulk of Australian workers, the ability to withdraw their labour - to strike - is the only real leverage they have. The return of the strike might cause inconvenience. It might also remind employers that profits must be shared.
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