Significant changes to Australia’s workplace relations system have been announced by the Employment Minister Tony Burke as part of the Jobs and Skills Summit.
The changes are set out in more detail below but include changes to enterprise bargaining (including opening up the opportunity for multi-employer bargaining), increasing the protections around flexible work arrangements, adverse action, discrimination and harassment, and extending unpaid parental leave entitlements. The response from business groups was mixed, with strong concerns expressed around the proposal to open up multi-employer bargaining and the potential for industry wide industrial action.
Work will begin in respect of some of the changes immediately, while other areas flagged during the summit will be the subject of further consultation.
The Jobs and Skill Summit
The summit has the stated aim of finding common ground on how Australia can build a bigger, better trained and more productive workforce, boost real wages and living standards, and create more opportunities for more Australians, noting the current economic and labour market challenges.
The five broad topics of the summit are:
- maintaining full employment and growing productivity,
- boosting job security and wages,
- lifting participation and reducing barriers to employment,
- delivering a high-quality labour force through skills, training and migration, and
- maximising opportunities in the industries of the future.
Those topics have been at the forefront of discussion at the summit, with the Prime Minister noting the intention was not to fix every issue but to try and reach points of consensus.
Invitees to the summit included prominent business and industry groups, unions, community groups and government and academics.
Participants have spoken to current challenges, including staff and skill shortages, barriers denying women equality in the workforce, stagnant and rising living costs, and rising inflation. They have also spoken to the need for increased productivity, stronger wages, and getting staff ready with the right skills to operate in the workforce.
Employment Minister Tony Burke also spoke to the need to have a workable industrial relations system and to provide employees with wage rises and fair conditions.
There was consensus that enterprise bargaining was not working, noting that the Australian Council of Trade Unions (ACTU) and Business Council of Australia (BCA) had already agreed in principle going into the summit that the Better Off Overall Test (BOOT) under the Fair Work Act 2009 (Cth) needed simplifying. However, there were some clear differences in terms of how enterprise bargaining might be addressed with certain groups (mainly unions) demonstrating a clear preference for multi-employer bargaining, whereas business representatives argued for bargaining to remain at the enterprise level.
There appeared to be a consensus view that statutory tools for industrial bargaining were complex and unworkable. There was an emphasis on the need to simplify and reduce complexity in the system, not just for enterprise bargaining, but also in respect of awards, with the President of the BCA noting awards needed to be reviewed and updated and presented in a way that everyday people could understand. The imposition of penalty rates and inflexibilities in the working environment created by penalty rates was also raised.
Other participants spoke of industrial laws being weak in addressing discrimination and wage theft and the need for respect, including workers having a voice and a right to be represented by elected delegates supported by paid training.
There was also a strong focus on the challenges faced by women, Indigenous Australians, older workers and people with disabilities in accessing and participating in the workforce and the need to (among other things) improve safety and respect in the workplace. Potential ideas canvassed included expanding the presence of technology into female dominated industries, increasing the availability of childcare, ‘roster justice’ (with more certainty around rostered hours), strengthening flexible working arrangements, improving unpaid parental leave to make it more flexible and shareable, funding apprenticeships in female dominated industries, addressing the pay gap, increasing the skilled migration intake, and building accountability with gender outcomes in Key Performance Indicators.
Industry leaders also spoke of the challenges facing their particular industries and proposed ideas for improvement for further job growth. The discussion around investing in energy renewables featured prominently.
Upcoming changes to workplace relations
Employment Minister Tony Burke announced a number of key areas for further work and consultation, as well as items for immediate action.
Items for immediate action include the following:
- Fair Work Act 2009 (Cth) – the proposed changes are as follows:
- improve access to flexible work arrangements and the ability to share unpaid parental leave,
- embed stronger protections against adverse action, discrimination and harassment at work,
- support industry wide bargaining and flexible options for reaching agreement, including removing unnecessary limitations on access to single and multi-employer agreements,
- remove complexity around the BOOT,
- ensure workers and businesses can negotiate in good faith for agreements that benefit them, including small business, women and First Nation people,
- provide greater support and training for bargaining representatives,
- provide the Fair Work Commission with the capacity to proactively help parties reach agreements that benefit them, particularly new entrants, and small and medium businesses, and
- ensure the termination process for industrial agreements is fit and fair and sunset zombie agreements from the WorkChoices era.
- Initiatives to improve safety, fairness and productivity in the workplace were also flagged, including the establishment of a national construction industry forum to address mental health, safety, culture and diversity in that industry.
Other areas flagged for further consultation included:
- the operation of the award system, with possible improvement of awards and the NES,
- introducing a living wage,
- giving workers the right to amend unfair contractual terms. This will require careful consideration to avoid a repeat on the former unfair contracts regime in NSW which created significant uncertainty for employers and frequent litigation,
- initiating a research process considering the impact of certain workplace relations settings (including childcare),
- the setting of minimum standards for the road transport industry to ensure it is safe and viable, and
- ensuring workers have access to representation to address genuine workplace safety and compliance issues.
As another initiative to address the current skills shortage, the Labor government also announced an agreement between the Commonwealth and State and Territory Governments to fund an extra 180,000 fee free TAFE places in 2023.
