Unions and the Business Council of Australia want to use this week’s jobs summit to revive the “key principles” of a controversial deal on enterprise bargaining that was dumped two years ago.
Ahead of the summit, to be held in Canberra on Thursday and Friday, the Australian Council of Trade Unions chief executive, Sally McManus, made a pitch for the government to allow industry-wide bargaining, which would allow multiple workplaces to make an agreement together.
While the business council has pushed back against parts of that proposal, its chief executive Jennifer Westacott said she was keen to see industry and unions agree on changes to enterprise bargaining, including to the better-off-overall test, to make the system less complex for employers and ensure workers were paid more.
Westacott said she was “on a unity ticket” with McManus on wanting to see higher wages, and said the data showed enterprise agreements were the best way to achieve that.
“When done well, when you look at the data and averages on wages, people on enterprise agreements get substantially more money,” Westacott told the ABC’s Insiders program.
Westacott said she and McManus were seeking to revive key principles of an abandoned recent agreement between the two organisations on industrial relations reform, including changing the better off overall test.
“The principles that Sally and I negotiated a couple of years ago are basically the ones that we should take forward. Don’t get rid of the better-off-overall test, make it better, make it about better-off-overall, not better off in every single circumstance.
“Get rid of this idea of hypothetical workers. Make sure – and this is the crucial thing – when the parties agree, when they have negotiated in good faith, when they have followed the processes, that the Fair Work Commission does not then try to re-write and micro-manage that agreement.
“Where you’ve done all of that, that enterprise agreement should replace the award, so you get rid of this tremendous complexity within the system.”
McManus said the unions also supported making the system “simple and fair”, and that it could be improved in line with the original aims of the enterprise bargaining system.
“We should aim for simple and fair for everyone,” she said. “For us simplicity is always balanced with fairness and I think that we can achieve simplicity and then build in very easy safeguards to make sure that people don’t go backwards.”
In 2020, big business and unions struck a deal to prioritise union agreements in Australia’s workplace system, but it provoked an angry reaction from some industry groups.
Under the proposal, unions agreed to reform the better-off-overall test for registering a workplace pay deal even if not every employee was better off. The test is often strictly interpreted by the Fair Work Commission.
In return, union-negotiated and approved agreements would be fast-tracked through the commission.
However, the Australian Industry Group, the Master Builders Association, the Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry, and the Australian Mines and Metals Association all lobbying the government to reject the proposal.
McManus also outlined the unions’ case to allow industry-wide bargaining, saying the bargaining power of half the workforce had been “smashed” over the past three decades, resulting in stagnant wages growth.
“The system was never designed for people in small workplaces … and it just needs to be upgraded to suit the economy of today, not the economy of 30 years ago,” McManus said.
Westacott said the BCA would wait to see details of the proposal being put forward, but said the employer group had many concerns about the idea.
“I think across the economy this would be a very risky thing to do and have some very serious unintended consequences,” she said.
The workplace relations minister, Tony Burke, has said he is “very interested” in what the ACTU is proposing, and is keen to see the idea fleshed out at this week’s summit.
“We need to be able to get bargaining moving, and there are a few examples in different workforces where that concept of multi-employer bargaining [is working] – I’m really interested in seeing how we can flesh this out,” he told the ABC’s 730 program this week.
On Sunday, the BCA, the ACTU, the Australian Industry Group and the Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry released a joint statement on “common interests” ahead of the summit.
Their five agreed areas for reform are the establishment of Jobs and Skills Australia to provide advice to government; more investment in vocational education and training; more funding for apprenticeships; an update to the national skills strategy to focus on digital literacy; and a pledge to support lifelong learning.
The treasurer, Jim Chalmers, said he welcomed the position paper, but had “realistic” expectations about the consensus that would be reached.
“We’re realistic about what it might agree on, but we are confident that by tapping this spirit that exists in the community that we can move forward together,” he told Sky News.
