The notion that Albanese’s modest changes will return us to anything remotely approaching the 1970s is risible.
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In those days,when inflation was far higher than it is now,our long-gone system of compulsory arbitration had the perverse effect of encouraging many quite short strikes. These days,old IR hands know that if a strike lasts more than a day or two it’s a sign the union has lost. It will then take years for whatever small pay rise the workers end up getting to make up for the many days’ pay they lost.
Ask yourself this:how are widespread strikes supposed to lead directly to widespread job losses? They don’t. They lead to some workers losing their jobs only because the majority who don’t lose their jobs are getting wage rises so big that employers genuinely can’t afford them. It’s not a reasoned argument,it’s an attempt to frighten the unthinking.
What employers really fear is a move from bargaining at the level of the individual business or enterprise to bargaining at an industry-wide level,whichwould make it easier for the unions to achieve pay rises in businesses with few union members.
Although industry-wide bargaining remains outlawed by the Fair Work Act,the employer groups have chosen to pretend that the government’s cautious extension of access to multi-enterprise bargaining is pretty much the same thing.
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Nonsense. As Adelaide University’s Professor Andrew Stewartexplains,the new provision for “single- (or common-) interest” multi-employer bargaining is hedged about with limitations and protections. Unions will not be able to rope in small businesses employing fewer than 20 workers. Larger employers can only be included without their consent if a majority of their workers wants to bargain.
Access to this form of bargaining must be approved by the Fair Work Commission,which will permit employers to participate only if they are sufficiently “comparable” to the other employers. An employer with an existing single-enterprise agreement won’t be able to switch to a multi-employer agreement.
But those employers included in such bargaining will be required to bargain in “good faith” – be genuinely committed to reaching an agreement,and unions will be permitted to strike – provided this is approved by a secret ballot of employees.
A significant change is that,when either single- or multi-enterprise bargaining becomes intractable,the commission will resolve the dispute by arbitration.
The other new provision for “supported bargaining” of multi-employer agreements is aimed at helping low-paid workers in strongly female industries such as childcare and aged care. Thisis likely to produce some significant pay rises. Why? Because the “support” will come from the third party that will end up covering the cost of the pay rise – the federal government.
Apart from that,the low union membership in most of the relevant enterprises says there’ll be few strikes and few big pay rises.
Ross Gittins isThe Sydney Morning Herald’s economics editor.
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