Bill Shorten promises workers a bigger share in IR overhaul
13 October 2018
Sydney Morning Herald
Labor is preparing at least four reforms to workplace laws to promise better pay for workers and tougher rules to stop insecure employment as Opposition Leader Bill Shorten lays out an ambitious agenda to take power at the next election.
Mr Shorten told Fairfax Media he would consult employers and unions on the reform plan but insisted on the need to overhaul the law to give workers a bigger share of the nation’s economic growth.
The industrial agenda is alarming employers who worry that a Labor government will cave in to demands from ACTU boss Sally McManus, who wants sweeping rights to strike wage deals across industries in a way that is fiercely opposed by business.
Labor Party leader Bill Shorten on Friday.
In an interview to mark five years as Opposition Leader, Mr Shorten ruled out giving in to union pressure on the Trans Pacific Partnership trade deal and promised to pursue a "consensus" on workplace reform.
"This country is not big enough that we can all afford to be at each other’s throats. I’ll build consensus," he said.
Mr Shorten said he would listen to "all points of view" and acknowledged a Senate review of the workplace plan would give unions and employers input into the changes if Labor won the next election.
"But what I won’t do is apply the lowest common denominator," he said.
"There is a problem with wages in this country, there’s a problem with penalty rates, there’s a problem with the gender pay gap, there’s a problem with insecure employment."
Mr Shorten nominated four reforms including changes to the Fair Work Act to reverse "arbitrary" cuts to penalty rates made last year, tackle the gender pay gap, stop insecure work and guarantee the same rate of pay for workers doing the same job whether they are full-time employees or contractors.
"We’re going to introduce the principle of 'same job, same pay' so if you’ve got two people in the same business doing the same job with the same skills and wearing the same uniform, but one of them is employed directly and the other is employed through a labour hire company, they shouldn't be paid different rates of pay for doing the same work," he said.
"We want to look at how we give greater rights to people who are casuals in name but in reality are permanent workers. We also want to look at various measures to close the gender pay gap because we think women in Australia don't get an equal go."
The ACTU has mobilised union volunteers in a "change the rules" campaign to seek greater right of entry for union officials, more power in wage negotiations as well as industry-wide bargaining that would apply a common agreement across sectors – a huge change from the enterprise bargaining system in place since the Keating government.
Mr Shorten did not rule out any of these options but said he would listen to all sides.
"We'll work through their issues. Unions aren't going to get everything they want. We'll govern for all, not just for some sections," he told Fairfax Media.
"Having said that there is a real problem with wages policy in this country – everything’s going up except peoples' wages.
"The bargaining system isn’t working the way it should and we want to put the bargain back into bargaining."
Mr Shorten said it was unfair for companies to be able to "kick everyone off" an enterprise agreement and go back to the award while imposing wage cuts.
The Labor policy pledges and the willingness to consider the ACTU policy demands are likely to intensify business concerns and heighten the clash over industrial relations reform at the election due by May next year.
Prime Minister Scott Morrison has attacked Mr Shorten as being "union-led" in a repeat of the claims made by his predecessors, Malcolm Turnbull and Tony Abbott.
Mr Shorten noted that he was now facing his third Liberal prime minister since he became Opposition Leader in October 2013.
The latest flashpoint with the union movement is the government’s move to ratify the Trans Pacific Partnership trade agreement, igniting protests from union leaders, who are putting pressure on Labor caucus members to vote against the deal.
The TPP bill goes to the Senate next week and Mr Shorten said Labor would stick to its policy of approving the bill while modifying the deal if it won the election.
"We’re not going to change the vote we took in the House of Representatives," he said.
"That doesn’t mean I don’t see the points the unions are making. This is not an agreement we would have signed and there are weaknesses in it, but I also accept that our farmers in particular and our steel industry and higher education get benefits in this agreement, so what we’ll do is be as constructive as we can."
Labor is promising that if it takes government it would prohibit trade deals that waive labour market testing rules for foreign workers.
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