Bogged down: Industrial relations talks struggling over old ground
Talks aimed at changing Australia's industrial relations landscape to cope with the coronavirus pandemic are bogging down as traditional enemies fight over old ground.
The industrial relations working groups, overseen by Attorney-General Christian Porter, have been asked to reach a compromise on five areas of reforms to Australia's workplace laws in a process key to the government's hopes of creating more jobs post-pandemic.
Attorney-General Christian Porter established the working groups in concert with unions and business bodies.Credit:Alex Ellinghausen
But multiple sources close to the negotiations, who spoke on condition of anonymity because the talks are confidential, said both sides were bringing their traditional positions to the process, dimming hopes of major compromises.
One source close to the negotiations said other parties had been approaching it like an enterprise agreement negotiation, the often-lengthy process workers and bosses use to work out wages and conditions in a business.
"We're sitting there and saying it's all well and good but what about jobs," the source said.
Reform proposals that both sides have pressed for years have come up again in the working group process. Among them is a call for sector-wide bargaining, which would let unions avoid the burden of negotiating agreements workplace by workplace but make Australia's industrial system more rigid.
Another idea is replacing the "better off overall" test that governs enterprise agreements with a more flexible "no disadvantage" test to let companies strike agreements with workers more easily.
"I'm working on the assumption it won't reach an agreement," one source said of a working group. "But it doesn't mean there aren't possibilities there."
Another said unions were not willing to recognise the complexity of the industrial system.
But the sources said more technical compromises on issues like the length of time enterprise agreements should run for were more likely to be reached. That issue is an important one for industries that invest in expensive infrastructure projects that can grind to a halt with strike action, because workers are allowed to down tools only once an enterprise agreement has reached the end of its nominal life.
There have been four rounds of working group meetings so far and with more scheduled. The groups, convened in June, are set to report back by September and if they cannot reach agreement, Mr Porter has said the government may try to legislate changes to the country's workplace regime regardless.
So far the groups have mainly focused on identifying the problems with Australia's industrial relations system, a political battleground littered with unsuccessful reform efforts. The next two meetings are expected to consider reform proposals in more detail.
Stopping underpayment, deciding which workers count as casuals, improving enterprise bargaining, simplifying awards and determining the length of "greenfields" agreements struck before workers are employed are the five topics being discussed.
Unions entered the negotiations vowing they would not let workers be worse off as a result of the talks.
Australian Council of Trade Unions secretary Sally McManus also dismissed suggestions there would be horse-trading to get deals done.
"We won't be engaging in trade-offs," she said in June. "It's not … 'I will take this for that'."
Business groups took a similar attitude for their members.
A spokesman for Mr Porter declined to comment.
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