“The details of this policy are not yet settled. That is the point of the consultation we’re doing with BHP and others.
“But as a miner said to me in the Hunter Valley this week:‘How can you have an industry where because of a labour-hire loophole,casual workers are paid less than permanent workers who do the same job?’ ”
BHP has an in-house labour-hire provider,Operations Services,which supports 4500 permanent jobs with the company. BHP said the policy undermined that unit.
Mining and Energy Union general president Tony Maher said BHP should be worried its wages bill would go up under the slated reform after replacing thousands of permanent mining jobs with insecure and lower-paid labour-hire workers.
“BHP is right to fear that same job,same pay will lift their wages bill because they have been exploiting labour-hire mine workers for years,” Maher said.
“Along with other big mining companies,they have exploited weak laws allowing them to avoid paying the wages and conditions achieved through genuine enterprise bargaining. Same job,same pay laws will close this loophole.”
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In its submission,published on Monday,BHP said the policy would compound productivity issues,particularly in mining where it said wage growth had consistently outstripped productivity growth.
“Australia already has some of the highest labour costs of any major mining nation,and within Australia,mining workers are among the nation’s highest-paid,with average wages around $148,000 a year,compared to $96,800 across all industries,” the submission said.
“SJSP will add to inflationary pressures by ratcheting up wages without any link to productivity and it will introduce economic uncertainty by interfering in the competitive labour market.”
The same job,same pay policy is part of a suite of workplace and employment reforms planned for this year,including widening the remit of the Fair Work Commission and criminalising wage theft.
Burkesaid earlier this year that legislation would be introduced in the second half of the year.
BHP said if the same work,same pay change was rushed through,it would have far-reaching economic consequences,including driving up inflation,risking productivity gains and threatening jobs.
“In the face of global economic headwinds,Australia needs an industrial relations system that delivers productivity,flexibility,and competitiveness to drive job creation and wage growth,” the submission said.
“Instead,SJSP is shaping as a policy which is driven by ideology,not economics,and a policy which has wandered well beyond the limited circumstances of the problem it was trying to solve.”
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