"The upcoming Jobs and Skills Summit represents an opportunity to make progress on improving our workplace relations system. However, before acting on reform we need to clearly understand the risks involved in some of the more retrogressive proposals on the table,” Innes Willox, Chief Executive of the national employer association Ai Group said today.
"Employers and unions should be able to have constructive dialogue about workplace relations reform. We will achieve little by retreating to our corners. At the same time, employers still need to be forthright about their concerns.
"There is a lack of detail about how precisely the unions’ multi-employer industry-wide bargaining proposal would work. However, there is reason for extreme caution when considering it.
"Small businesses are a highly diverse and crucial part of our economy. The ACTU have made no secret about the prospect of their proposal enabling strikes and industrial action to be taken across entire sectors or against groups of employers. Small businesses will not welcome the prospect of being subject to industrial action in support of conditions or pattern agreements, negotiated by others, being imposed upon them.
"Australia already has an award system that sets industry specific terms and conditions. We are unlike any other country in the world in this respect.
"Concerns over the complexity of the award system are nonetheless valid. The award system needs to be modernised and simplified so that it works for all employers. We need to fix the award system, not just point to the problems as a justification for implementing a new bargaining system.
"In the current debate, we must also not lose sight of the fact that there is already a low paid bargaining stream in the Fair Work Act which permits multi-employer bargaining with approval of the Fair Work Commission, in certain circumstances. The reality is that unions have barely used those laws since they were implemented in 2010.
"Shared concerns over problematic elements of the system should not be misconstrued as justifying radical or even small-scale reforms that don’t stack up in terms of delivering our shared objectives.
"There is broad agreement that elements of the system introduced by Labor in 2010 are not working as envisaged. Any acknowledgement by the ACTU of problems with the way the 'Better off Overall Test' for approval of agreements is operating and willingness to discuss changes to it is therefore welcome.
"The key problem is that the bargaining system is now too complicated and operates in an impractical manner. Agreement making should be a simple process for employers and employees – not the 'minefield' that it currently is.
"We need to encourage and better empower employees and employers to set conditions that suit their genuine needs and the circumstances of individual workplaces.
"We need to remove the barriers to bargaining. With sensible reforms, rather than radical changes, the system can once again play a much greater role in delivering the objectives of higher productivity, improved remuneration to employees and more competitive businesses.
"Ai Group and other employer parties have proposed sensible changes to the Government that would make the bargaining system much easier to navigate. Many of these changes have been discussed by the parties for a long time and should be made without delay. The changes include proposals that would make enterprise bargaining dramatically simpler and much more accessible for employers, including small employers.
"The cornerstone of our system is a focus on achieving fairness and productivity through enterprise level bargaining. It is an objective that is as valid now as it was in 2010 when it was enshrined in the Fair Work Act by the then Labor Government. Real world productivity improvements will be driven by aligning workplace relations laws with the needs of employers and employees at the workplace level. We cannot lose sight of this,” Mr Willox said.
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