ACTU secretary Sally McManus:“We’ve got to reset the whole discussion about productivity.”Credit:Eddie Jim
Airing her frustration at shrinking incomes,McManus toldThe Sydney Morning Herald andThe Age that workers were angry at missing out on the gains enjoyed by executives and would not accept a bigger intake of foreign workers when salaries were falling in real terms.
“I can tell you that there’s a simmering anger and a growing resentment among working people that they know that they have been contributing to the success of the country and businesses as well,” she said.
The ACTU’s new plan makes it clear to Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and the political and business leaders at next week’s summit that any discussion on migration must accept that lifting wages is the priority if Australia is to fill the labour shortages.
Loading
The union movement’s workplace plan would allow unions to negotiate enterprise bargaining agreements across sectors such as aged care and childcare with employers as small as a single nursing home or early learning facility,dramatically extending the workplace regime currently dominated by big employers like Woolworths and Coles.
At stake is the relative power of employers and unions in hard-fought negotiations under a system that is crucial to getting deals that make companies more efficient and therefore boost productivity and economic growth.
With only 14 per cent of workers covered by enterprise bargaining agreements because the system is mainly used by big employers,the ACTU proposal would dramatically extend the system to smaller employers by allowing them to negotiate together as a single industry.