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Business groups large and small have united to push back on the provisions despite a raft of government amendments.
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COSBOA joins demand for changes to IR bill
11 November 2022
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11 minute read
Businesses with fewer than 100 employees should be excluded from multi-employee bargaining provisions because they are too complex and the issue has united employer bodies large and small.
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Five associations, including the BCA, Ai Group, and COSBOA have come out against amendments to the industrial relations bill as insufficient to address concerns over single and multi-party employer bargaining.
COSBOA was the latest to join the opposition after calling on the government to “abandon or substantially amend” the bargaining provisions despite previously standing alongside the ACTU in support for multi-employer bargaining.
The organisation had concerns over the speed with which the government was trying to push the bill through parliament and the exemption criteria for small business, chief executive Alexi Boyd said.
Currently a business with fewer than 15 staff including casuals and part-timers would be exempt from multi-employer bargaining, but COSBOA has backed a BCA suggestion that limit should be raised to 100 employees.
In response to business concerns, the government drafted a number of amendments last week:
- Requiring majority support from employees of each employer for a single interest bargaining stream authorisation.
- A provision that businesses and workers cannot be compelled into an authorisation or single-interest employer agreement when they have agreed to bargain for a proposed single enterprise agreement, and a six-month grace period where there is a history of effective bargaining.
- Making further changes to the Better Off Overall Test (BOOT) to ensure new employees under an agreement are not left worse off.
- Clarifying that the Fair Work Commission must be satisfied a minimum period of good-faith bargaining has occurred before moving to arbitrate.
- Establishing the government’s promised new National Construction Industry Forum as a statutory advisory body.
- Giving business 12 months to adjust to changes to fixed-term contracts.
BCA chief executive Jennifer Westacott welcomed the amendments but said further changes were required.
“We continue to call for a longer ‘grace period’ and an even smoother pathway for those that already are bargaining that recognises that negotiations for some of the best agreements can take upwards of 18 months,” she said.
“Moves to boost the ability of workplaces that already bargain to continue doing it will help to make the government’s hard-won improvements to the BOOT worthwhile, but don’t go far enough to protect single-enterprise bargaining.”
In regard to multi-employer bargaining, the BCA said businesses remained deeply concerned that the case had not been made for the expansion of multi-employer bargaining beyond the low-paid stream.
“We welcome changes that keep bargaining democratic by ensuring every individual workplace would need to vote in favour of joining an agreement or taking industrial action,” Ms Westacott said.
“We are concerned that a proposed amendment would enable unions to veto power over employers providing their workers with a proposed multi-employer agreement to be considered for a vote.
“The ‘common interest test’ for multi-employer bargaining is too broad and does not mitigate the risk of big competitors being forced to bargain together. That’s bad for wages, bad for competition, and bad for consumers.
“This complexity will be a huge challenge for everyone in the system but particularly for small businesses, so we continue to call for businesses with fewer than 100 employees to be excluded.”
Ai Group chief executive Innes Willox said the bill remained fatally flawed.
“The breadth and significance of the changes in this bill reinforce the need for the government to slow down the passage of the bill to enable both parliament and the community to meaningfully assess its impact,” he said
“The tweaks to the bill are in response to consultations where Ai Group identified blatantly flawed and unfair aspects of the proposed legislation. Big deficiencies in the bill remain and as it stands with multi-party bargaining potentially available across broad areas of the economy it continues to be unacceptable to industry.
“Many of the amendments announced are highly technical and need to be carefully scrutinised.
“There has been an important change that ensures that the Fair Work Commission can only amend agreements to the extent necessary to ensure that they pass the Better Off Overall Test, but further amendments are still necessary to ensure that the commission has to obtain an employer’s consent to any change to the agreement that it proposes.
“While some amendments do make modest improvements to the bill, others introduce new problems.”
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