Twice as many voters in marginal seats think big business has too much power compared with unions, with most supporting Labor initiatives to boost workers’ pay.
Those are the key findings of a new Essential poll of 1,207 people conducted for the Australian Council of Trade Unions, which unions have seized on to warn employer campaigns against changes to lift wages will fall flat.
The poll was released on Wednesday ahead of a speech by the Australian Industry Group chief executive, Innes Willox, arguing that industrial relations reforms proposed by the Albanese government are “anti-productivity”.
Employers have been lobbying against changes including Labor’s proposal to require that labour hire employees receive the same pay as workers doing the same job who are directly employed in the same company.
The Essential poll of voters in 12 marginal seats in Queensland and Western Australia found majority support for a range of measures to boost pay.
Most respondents said the following were “something that would make a difference to workers and the government should do”:
Change workplace laws to better protect workers from wage theft (70%).
Increase the minimum wage (65%).
Change workplace laws to close labour hire loopholes that allow employers to keep wages low through outsourcing (56%).
However, support was lower for regulating the gig economy (51%) and changing workplace laws to “enable unions to negotiate higher wages” (47%).
Some 30% of respondents said unions had “too much power”, while 38% said they had “about the right amount”, 19% “not enough power” and 13% were unsure.
But respondents were much more wary of big business, with 59% saying they had “too much power”, 27% “about the right amount”, 6% not enough and 8% unsure.
Asked if people “working in the same role, doing the same job as a co-worker … should expect to be paid the same wage, regardless of if you are a full-time employee or a labour hire worker”, 26% agreed strongly, with a further 29% agreeing.
Just 14% somewhat disagreed and 8% strongly disagreed with the statement, which is a core component of Labor’s loopholes bill to be introduced in the second half of the year. About a quarter (24%) neither agreed nor disagreed.
The ACTU president, Michele O’Neil, said: “This research shows that the big money spent by the business lobby across TV, radio and print trying to discredit government plans to improve workers’ job security and wages is failing and a waste.
“Australians do not trust big business, and will not accept being harangued by the business lobby about what is good for the nation.”
In his speech to the National Press Club on Wednesday, Willox argues that “workplace laws need to be based on facts and research, not on political slogans and union claims”.
“All we hear as a rationale are slogans – ‘Get wages moving’, ‘Same job, same pay’, ‘Close the loopholes’. We all deserve better,” he says in advance excerpts of the speech seen by Guardian Australia.
Willox argues “the recent erosion of real wage rates driven by inflation is not due, as some would argue, to the systematic failure of our labour arrangements”.
“Wage rates have recently lagged the sudden and unexpected price increases because of the inherent inertia in annual wage setting and multiyear agreements.
“We all hope the recent signs of abating inflation are real but sadly it needs to be reiterated that driving wages up with no productivity trade-offs will only increase all our pain.”
Willox called on the government to address the “sustained drop in productivity growth” to fix the “associated slowdown in the growth of real wages”.
“Spending time talking about what is at its heart a misguided workplace agenda … driven by outdated union fixations … threatens to make achieving the vital productivity growth we need even harder.
“We fear that much of what is on the table is actually anti-productivity.”
