tag:theconversation.com,2011:/fr/topics/enterprise-bargaining-agreements-9124/articlesEnterprise Bargaining Agreements – The Conversation2023-01-22T19:02:36Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1979922023-01-22T19:02:36Z2023-01-22T19:02:36ZIf you haven’t joined a union, it’s time you paid to benefit from union deals<p>A long overdue public debate has started in Australia about “free riding” in industrial relations – when non-union members benefit from collective agreements negotiated by union members without contributing (through membership dues or other payments) to their negotiation and administration.</p>
<p>Several union leaders <a href="https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/unions-push-for-a-wage-deal-levy-for-non-members-20230109-p5cbbv.html">want</a> rules to stop free riding. Without this, they argue, union membership will keep falling, imperilling collective bargaining.</p>
<p>The issue has been given impetus by the <a href="https://www.abs.gov.au/statistics/labour/earnings-and-working-conditions/trade-union-membership/latest-release">latest data</a> on union membership rates. The proportion of employees belonging to a union is now a record low 12.5%. In the private sector it’s <a href="https://www.afr.com/work-and-careers/workplace/union-membership-in-private-sector-shrinks-to-8-per-cent-20230112-p5cc42">just 8%</a>.</p>
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<p>In the 1980s more than half of the Australian workforce was unionised. Since then Australia has experienced the most dramatic deunionisation of any major industrial country.</p>
<p>That, at least in part, is by design. The Howard government passed laws in the late 1990s and 2000s prohibiting union preferences in hiring, bargaining fees or <a href="https://parlinfo.aph.gov.au/parlInfo/download/legislation/billsdgs/AEG86/upload_binary/aeg8610.pdf;fileType=application/pdf#search=%22O%E2%80%99Neill,%20S.%202002.%20Bills%20%20Workplace%20Relations%20Amendment%20(Prohibition%20of%20Compulsory%20Union%20Fees)Bill%202002%22">other structured supports</a> for union membership.</p>
<p>But the idea workers can get something for nothing – enjoying the benefits of collective bargaining, without contributing to its costs – ignores both economic theory and reality.</p>
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<h2>The economics of free riding</h2>
<p>Economists have <a href="https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-0-306-47828-4_214">long grappled with</a> the problem of free riders in many areas of economic life. </p>
<p>The textbook case involves “<a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/1925895">public goods</a>” – things to which access cannot be limited to paying customers. Examples are clean air and water, infrastructure, policing and national defence.</p>
<p>With public goods, conventional market mechanisms (based on “rational” individual choice) do not work. If something is “free to all”, there will be some people prepared to voluntarily contribute to its cost, and others that won’t. </p>
<p>To address this market failure, economists endorse policy interventions that deliberately interfere with individual “choice”. For government-provided public goods, this usually relies on compulsory contributions (taxes). </p>
<h2>Why pay when you get it for free?</h2>
<p>Other industries and ventures also encounter free rider problems, and laws have evolved to address them.</p>
<p>For example, unit owners in a residential strata don’t have “free choice” to refuse monthly strata fees. They are required to contribute to the collective costs of running their shared building. The power of the strata to set and collect monthly fees is provided for in Australian law. If strata fees were voluntary, the whole system of strata ownership would collapse.</p>
<p>Nor can individual shareholders in a corporation choose to withhold their share of payments approved by the corporation’s duly elected directors. These provisions are recognised and protected in law. </p>
<p>When it comes to collective bargaining, however, Australian law not only tolerates but effectively encourages free riding. </p>
<p>Under the <a href="https://www.legislation.gov.au/Details/C2021C00421">Fair Work Act</a>, any benefit or entitlement (from higher wages, to working conditions, to rostering systems) negotiated through enterprise bargaining must be equally available to all workers covered by an agreement. </p>
<p>A narrowly “rational” individual might understandably ask why they should join the union when they can get all the benefits of a union-negotiated contract anyway. </p>
<p>Left to individual “choice” in this context, it’s not surprising union membership has fallen.</p>
<h2>How other nations deal with the problem</h2>
<p>I have catalogued <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/10301763.2021.1987052?journalCode=rlab20">six distinct approaches</a> used by other nations to address this market failure and establish a viable foundation for collective bargaining. All are founded on the presumption that collective bargaining is socially beneficial and should be encouraged. </p>
<p>One approach, informed by traditional conceptions of property rights, is to “close off” access to union-negotiated wages and benefits to dues-paying members only. Varieties of this strategy have been tried <a href="https://tcf.org/content/report/members-only-unions-can-they-help-revitalize-workplace-democracy/">in the United States</a> and in New Zealand.</p>
<p>This has generally not worked, however, because employers can still undermine unions by voluntarily offering equal improvements to non-members. It also damages worker solidarity, critical to any collective organisation.</p>
<p>Britain, <a href="https://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/rand-formula#:%7E:text=The%20Rand%20Formula%20is%20a,those%20workers%20are%20union%20members.">Canada</a>, India and Japan (among others) allow “closed shop” or “agency shop” arrangements. In any workplace that has been unionised (through some kind of majority decision, like a ballot or petition), all covered workers pay dues to reflect the benefits they receive from the collective agreement. In a closed shop they must join the union. In an agency shop they don’t have to join the union but do have to pay the same fees.</p>
<p>The Philippines, South Africa and the US are among those with a modified agency shop system called “bargaining fees”. Everyone covered by an enterprise agreement (which must be ratified by affected workers) contributes something (usually less than full union dues) to the direct costs of negotiating and administering that agreement.</p>
<p>France and Brazil are among several countries that directly support collective negotiations with public subsidies. Like paying taxes for public goods, this approach directly allocates resources to fund a service (collective bargaining) deemed to be essential for a healthy labour market. New Zealand is taking a similar approach with its new <a href="https://www.employment.govt.nz/starting-employment/unions-and-bargaining/fair-pay-agreements/">Fair Pay Agreements</a> (in effect since December 2022).</p>
<p>In Germany, Italy and many other European countries, collective bargaining is mandated by law, with employers above a certain size required to establish a workers council and cover the costs. Workers don’t have to join the union but, with such a well-funded infrastructure, collective bargaining <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/10301763.2021.1901333">remains strong</a>.</p>
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<img alt="Workers gather on Place de la Republique, Paris, to demonstrate against proposed pension changes, Thursday, January 19, 2023." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/505711/original/file-20230122-22-ir3pzc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/505711/original/file-20230122-22-ir3pzc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/505711/original/file-20230122-22-ir3pzc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/505711/original/file-20230122-22-ir3pzc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/505711/original/file-20230122-22-ir3pzc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/505711/original/file-20230122-22-ir3pzc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/505711/original/file-20230122-22-ir3pzc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">More than 90% of French workers are covered by collective agreements.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Lewis Joly/AP</span></span>
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<p>In the Nordic countries and Belgium, extra support for collective bargaining is provided through <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/10301763.2021.1953223">union sponsorship</a> of income support and social programs (like unemployment insurance and pensions). Workers are attracted to join their union to get better access to these services. This provides unions with resources and leverage for collective bargaining.</p>
<h2>Developing an Australian-made fix</h2>
<p>So there is a wide choice of specific ways to fix the free rider problem in industrial relations. </p>
<p>In Australia, however, the right to free ride is fully protected, even celebrated. The result (as intended) has been the steady erosion of union membership. Australia is now quickly <a href="https://stats.oecd.org/Index.aspx?DataSetCode=TUD">converging with the US</a> as one of the least unionised nations in the <a href="https://www.oecd.org/">OECD</a>. </p>
<p>In December, the Albanese government passed its <a href="https://ministers.dewr.gov.au/anthony-albanese/delivering-secure-jobs-and-better-pay#:%7E:text=The%20Albanese%20Labor%20Government%20has,deal%20and%20a%20better%20future.">Secure Jobs, Better Pay bill</a>, aimed at strengthening collective bargaining. If these reforms succeed in broadening collective bargaining coverage, <a href="https://futurework.org.au/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2022/11/Collective_Bargaining_and_Wage_Growth_in_Australia_FINAL.pdf">the evidence suggests</a> Australia’s abysmal wage growth will pick up. </p>
<p>That alone should enhance workers’ appreciation of the value of collective action, and indirectly strengthen the incentive for union membership.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/employers-say-labors-new-industrial-relations-bill-threatens-the-economy-denmark-tells-a-different-story-193311">Employers say Labor's new industrial relations bill threatens the economy. Denmark tells a different story</a>
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<p>Eventually, however, it will need to be recognised that collective bargaining is not free, and is being undermined by a legal framework that pretends it is.
We need to develop a made-in-Australia solution to fix it.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/197992/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jim Stanford is a member of the Australian Services Union.</span></em></p>Australia’s protection, even celebration, of ‘free riders’ in industrial relations is driving union membership down to US levels.Jim Stanford, Economist and Director, Centre for Future Work, Australia Institute; Honorary Professor of Political Economy, University of SydneyLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1895482022-08-30T05:07:16Z2022-08-30T05:07:16ZWhat is productivity, and how well does it measure what we do?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/481730/original/file-20220830-14-73epxh.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=110%2C297%2C3033%2C1528&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock</span></span></figcaption></figure><p><em>This article is part of The Conversation’s series looking at Labor’s jobs summit. Read the other articles in the series <a href="https://theconversation.com/au/topics/jobssummit2022-125921">here</a>.</em></p>
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<p>One word gets mentioned more than “jobs” and more than “skills” in the briefing paper for Thursday’s <a href="https://treasury.gov.au/sites/default/files/2022-08/2022-302672-ip_0.pdf">jobs and skills summit</a>. It’s “productivity”.</p>
<p>Which is odd, because although many of us think we know what productivity is, and although many more assume productivity can be easily measured, it’s a surprisingly slippery concept.</p>
<p>In a report released earlier this month, the Productivity Commission (yes, we have an entire commission devoted to productivity) makes the idea sound simple.</p>
<p>It presents <a href="https://www.pc.gov.au/inquiries/current/productivity/interim1-key-to-prosperity/productivity-interim1-key-to-prosperity.pdf">an equation</a>:</p>
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<p>productivity = output divided by input </p>
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<p>The commission makes the reasonable point that producing more output (of anything – flowers, healthcare, food) per unit of input, so long as the quality is maintained, ought to be the goal of life.</p>
<p>Who wouldn’t want to clean a house in five hours instead of ten? Who wouldn’t want to manufacture a car in five hours instead of ten?</p>
<h2>Who wouldn’t want more for less?</h2>
<p>You could use the freed-up time to kick back or make more of what you really want. And because you were producing more per hour worked, you would be in a good position to get a pay rise.</p>
<p>The commission is careful not to say you <em>would</em> get a pay rise. Instead it says that where there <em>have</em> been sustained pay rises above inflation, they have almost always been underpinned by increased productivity.</p>
<p>How much of the pay-off from an increase in output per hour worked goes to wages depends, among other things, on <a href="https://theconversation.com/despite-record-vacancies-australians-shouldnt-expect-big-pay-rises-soon-180416">bargaining power</a>.</p>
<p>Since 1990, the share of the spoils (technically, the share of total factor income) going to profits has climbed from 24% to 31%, while the share going to wages has fallen from 55% to 50%.</p>
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<p>But it ought to be beyond doubt that the only guaranteed way to be able to lift living standards is to lift productivity. Beyond a certain point, working more hours won’t help, because, in the words of the commission, “there are only so many hours in the day to work”. </p>
<p>Nor will using more resources. They are finite. The only certain way to continue to get more of what we want is to get more from what we’ve got – which is the definition of productivity.</p>
<p>And just lately, productivity growth has slowed <a href="https://treasury.gov.au/sites/default/files/2022-08/2022-302672-ip_0.pdf">to a crawl</a>, to what the briefing paper for the summit describes as the lowest rate in half a century.</p>
<h2>Lifting productivity has become harder</h2>
<p>It’s probably not because we’ve run out of ideas, although it might be because we used up a lot of good ones. Back when <a href="https://www.fairwork.gov.au/tools-and-resources/fact-sheets/rights-and-obligations/enterprise-bargaining">enterprise bargaining</a> was introduced in the early 1990s, when we were asked to find improved ways of doing things at work in return for pay rises, we did it. But it became harder to keep finding gains as big.</p>
<p>More broadly, the extraordinary success of the productivity gains we made in manufacturing and agriculture have made them less important as employers. Now most of us (almost <a href="https://www.pc.gov.au/inquiries/current/productivity/interim1-key-to-prosperity">90%</a>) work in services. And services are hard to automate.</p>
<p>Worse still, it’s hard to tell what the output of many services is. There’s a reason the debate about the government’s commitment to defence is couched in terms of <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-end-of-2-australia-gets-serious-about-its-defence-budget-53554">spending</a>. It’s hard to tell what we get.</p>
<h2>Productivity has become harder to measure</h2>
<p>What about hairdressing? A hairdresser who trims twice as many heads per day isn’t necessarily twice as good, even if the quality of each trim remains the same. Part of a good hairdresser’s service is the quality of attention they offer each customer.</p>
<p>It’s the same for health care and education. That’s one of the reasons the Australian Bureau of Statistics doesn’t produce estimates of the productivity of the “health care and social assistance” or “education and training” industries, two of Australia’s biggest industries.</p>
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<a href="https://theconversation.com/why-productivity-growth-stalled-in-2005-and-isnt-about-to-improve-159706">Why productivity growth stalled in 2005 (and isn't about to improve)</a>
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<p>And many education and health services are provided free or subsidised, making the price charged an unhelpful measure of output.</p>
<p>(The bureau is planning to introduce “<a href="https://www.abs.gov.au/statistics/research/non-market-output-measures-australian-national-accounts-conceptual-framework-enhancements-2020">experimental</a>” estimates of the productivity of the education industry next year, but it is finding it hard. It wants to define the output as the “organised communication of knowledge from teacher to student”, which gives an idea of how murky the whole idea is.)</p>
<h2>Putting quality of work and life on the summit’s agenda</h2>
<p>Economy-wide, the Productivity Commission relies on the bureau’s rough and ready measure: <a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/481690/original/file-20220830-6748-9a8l0l.JPG">gross domestic product per hour worked</a>, but it’s misleading for the same reason.</p>
<p>Labor came to office promising every Australian living in aged care would receive an average of <a href="https://www.alp.org.au/policies/caring-for-older-australians">215 minutes of care per day</a>. </p>
<p>When that happens, it will be a drag on measured productivity – on GDP per hour worked. Yet it will hugely improve the lives of Australians.</p>
<p>It makes sense for the summit to focus on productivity, given that measured productivity growth has slowed, but it should only be part of the conversation. </p>
<p>Other more personal things matter as well, among them the quality of our lives, the quality of our care, and the quality of our jobs – something those attending would be wise not to forget.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/189548/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Peter Martin does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>How do you measure the productivity of a hairdresser, or a teacher, or an aged care worker? It’s harder than you might think.Peter Martin, Visiting Fellow, Crawford School of Public Policy, Australian National UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1893942022-08-29T20:02:37Z2022-08-29T20:02:37ZWhy unions and small business want industry bargaining from the jobs summit – and big business doesn’t<p><em>This article is part of The Conversation’s series looking at Labor’s jobs summit. Read the other articles in the series <a href="https://theconversation.com/au/topics/jobssummit2022-125921">here</a>.</em></p>
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<p>The trade union movement’s push to reform Australia’s enterprise bargaining system looks set to be a major issue at this week’s Jobs and Skills Summit.</p>
<p>The Australian Council of Trade Unions’ <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/7.30/actu%E2%80%99s-sally-mcmanus:-%E2%80%9Ccollective-bargaining-has/14031720">plan</a> for sectoral or industry-level bargaining was outlined by secretary Sally McManus last week:</p>
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<p>The way we’d see it working is that, where it makes sense to have multi-employer bargaining, both the workers’ representatives and the employers sit down and negotiate across their sector.</p>
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<p>Innes Willox, chief executive of Australian Industry Group, labelled the proposal “<a href="https://www.aigroup.com.au/news/media-centre/2022/we-need-to-work-together-on-sensible-reform-not-reimpose-union-led-industry-wide-bargaining/">seriously misguided</a>” and a “<a href="https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2022/aug/25/what-is-multi-employer-bargaining-could-it-help-lift-wages-growth-in-australia">throwback</a>” to the 1960s. He warned it “would reduce opportunities for employers and employees to negotiate genuine improvements in productivity and work conditions that suit their workplace”. </p>
<p>But employer groups’ reactions have been far from unanimous.</p>
<p>The Council of Small Business Organisations Australia has agreed to work with the ACTU on industry bargaining reforms. The council’s chief executive, Alexi Boyd, <a href="https://www.theaustralian.com.au/nation/keep-it-simple-on-pay-bargaining-deal-for-unions-firms/news-story/1ac98a70b256c4ea26e57184747d26d9">said</a>:</p>
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<p>The current bargaining system was not built for us. It is not efficient and is too complicated. We welcome the opportunity to explore new flexible single- or multi-employer options that can be customised to our circumstances. The one-size-fits-all approach doesn’t work. </p>
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<h2>What is industry bargaining?</h2>
<p>Industry bargaining is a common approach to wage negotiations in most European countries. It involves representatives of workers and employers negotiating over the pay and conditions to apply across specific sectors of the economy.</p>
<p>New Zealand is in the midst of introducing a form of industry bargaining through its <a href="https://www.parliament.nz/en/pb/bills-and-laws/bills-proposed-laws/document/BILL_121328/fair-pay-agreements-bill">Fair Pay Agreements Bill</a>, currently before the NZ parliament. </p>
<p>An industry-level approach to award wage negotiations also operated in Australia up to the early 1990s, before the Hawke-Keating government introduced enterprise bargaining (negotiating agreements by workplace). </p>
<h2>Enterprise bargaining is broken</h2>
<p>Hawke and Keating saw enterprise bargaining as the way to modernise the industrial relations system in line with their mission to make Australia globally competitive.</p>
<p>Thirty years on, though, it is not delivering for employers or workers.</p>
<p>Unions can be involved in enterprise bargaining where they are strong enough. However, in many workplaces there is no negotiation. The employer simply puts out its proposed agreement for a vote by the employees, then submits it to the industrial relations umpire (the Fair Work Commission) for approval.</p>
<p>It has become increasingly apparent over the past decade that enterprise bargaining <a href="https://theconversation.com/theres-one-big-reason-wages-are-stagnating-the-enterprise-bargaining-system-is-broken-and-in-terminal-decline-183818">is broken</a>. In 2012, 27% of employees were covered by an enterprise agreement. By 2021 it was just 15%. </p>
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<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Australia Institute, The Wages Crisis Revisited</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/4.0/">CC BY-ND</a></span>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/theres-one-big-reason-wages-are-stagnating-the-enterprise-bargaining-system-is-broken-and-in-terminal-decline-183818">There's one big reason wages are stagnating: the enterprise bargaining system is broken, and in terminal decline</a>
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<h2>Fears of militant unions</h2>
<p>A major concern of business advocates such as the Australian Industry Group is that industry bargaining – backed by the right to take industrial action – will further empower unions such as the Construction, Forestry, Maritime, Mining and Energy Union to pursue “pattern bargaining” claims – by which a union secures gains from one employer and then demands the same from others.</p>
<p>There is indeed a risk that extending the right to bargain and strike across industries will add to the potency of some already powerful unions. </p>
<p>But this cannot be the perennial excuse for doing nothing to give greater leverage to hundreds of thousands of low-paid workers, doing the vital work that keeps our economy and society functioning.</p>
<p>The ACTU’s proposal will not be a return to the 1960s or ‘70s, when union membership was more than 50% of the workforce and there were regular strikes in support of wage demands. </p>
<p>In those days, unions were able to push for better pay and conditions through adjustments to awards, overseen by the industrial relations court, the Conciliation and Arbitration Commission. Awards no longer serve that purpose, now being a “safety net” for workers on minimum wages.</p>
<h2>Why care workers would benefit</h2>
<p>Changing the Fair Work Act to enable industry bargaining would particularly benefit workers in industries such as child care, aged care and disability support.</p>
<p>These are highly feminised sectors where enterprise bargaining has not delivered for a variety of reasons – including the role of government funding in setting wages, and workers’ reluctance to take industrial action that is detrimental to their clients. This has led to care workers being stuck on award-level wages. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/wages-and-women-top-albaneses-ir-agenda-the-big-question-is-how-labor-keeps-its-promises-183527">Wages and women top Albanese's IR agenda: the big question is how Labor keeps its promises</a>
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<p>Industry bargaining would enable funding bodies to be brought into pay negotiations in these sectors. </p>
<p>It would also enable workers and unions to negotiate with other business entities beside direct employers that have influence over the wages ultimately paid to employees. </p>
<p>This is important given the use of franchising structures, labour hire arrangements and complex supply chains to obscure the employment relationship between the worker and the business employing their labour. </p>
<p>To take one example, a union representing cleaners and security guards working out of the same CBD building must currently make separate agreements with the different contracting firms that employ those workers.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Industry-level collective bargaining could improve outcomes for workers in the care sector and where labour-hire and contracting practices are common." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/481484/original/file-20220829-34035-yjor8x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/481484/original/file-20220829-34035-yjor8x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=340&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/481484/original/file-20220829-34035-yjor8x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=340&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/481484/original/file-20220829-34035-yjor8x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=340&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/481484/original/file-20220829-34035-yjor8x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=427&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/481484/original/file-20220829-34035-yjor8x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=427&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/481484/original/file-20220829-34035-yjor8x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=427&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">Industry-level collective bargaining could improve outcomes for workers in the care sector and where labour-hire and contracting practices are common.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock</span></span>
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</figure>
<p>In a system of multi-employer bargaining, the building owner or building services management company – which ultimately benefits from the workers’ labour and determines its price through the contracts it makes with the cleaning and security companies – would be brought into the equation. </p>
<p>In this way, industry or multi-employer bargaining would ensure a level playing field. </p>
<p>Businesses would not have to fear a competitive disadvantage from having to pay higher wages than rival businesses. Nor could they undercut each other by outsourcing to avoid higher wages and conditions in an agreement.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/189394/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Anthony Forsyth is affiliated with the Centre for Future Work (Australia Institute) and the Migrant Workers Centre in Victoria. He has received funding from the Australian Research Council Linkage Program (industry partners: Australian Council of Trade Unions & The Union Education Foundation).</span></em></p>The trade union movement’s proposal to allow ‘multi-employer’ collective bargaining has won crucial support from small business advocates.Anthony Forsyth, Distinguished Professor of Workplace Law, RMIT UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1876962022-07-29T02:40:12Z2022-07-29T02:40:12ZFew Australians have the right to work from home, even after COVID. Here’s how that could change<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/476601/original/file-20220728-28783-b63gwt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C495%2C5016%2C2515&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Before the pandemic, working from home was a luxury. Then it became a necessity. Since lockdowns have eased it has become a contested space between what employers and workers want. </p>
<p>Now <a href="https://www.theage.com.au/politics/federal/unions-want-the-right-to-work-from-home-included-in-enterprise-agreements-20220721-p5b3cj.html">unions</a> – including the Financial Services Union, National Tertiary Education Union (of which I am a national councillor) and the Media, Entertainment and Arts Alliance – are pushing to enshrine working from home as a right.</p>
<p>What does it mean to have a right to work from home, and why should there be one? And what conditions are needed to make such a right effective?</p>
<h2>What is the current situation?</h2>
<p>One way to make working from home a legal entitlement for all would be to change the <a href="https://www.fairwork.gov.au/employment-conditions/national-employment-standards">National Employment Standards</a>, which provide a <a href="https://www.austlii.edu.au/cgi-bin/viewdoc/au/legis/cth/consol_act/fwa2009114/s3.html">safety net</a> for all workers, whether they are on an award, enterprise agreement or individual contract.</p>
<p>The standards give workers the <a href="https://www.austlii.edu.au/cgi-bin/viewdoc/au/legis/cth/consol_act/fwa2009114/s65.html">right to request</a> flexible working arrangements but only in certain circumstances – if they have caring responsibilities, a disability, are older than 55, or are experiencing domestic violence. </p>
<p>Employers can only refuse these requests on “reasonable business grounds” such as costliness, impracticability and negative impact on productivity and customer service. This leaves a lot of room to reasonably reject a request.</p>
<h2>A right through collective agreements</h2>
<p>The unions are taking the easier step of securing these rights for their members through collective bargaining – inserting clauses into the enterprise agreements that set pay and conditions above the safety net.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="About a third of Australian workers have their pay and conditions set by a enterprise bargaining agreement" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/476614/original/file-20220729-21-504bdd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/476614/original/file-20220729-21-504bdd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=350&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/476614/original/file-20220729-21-504bdd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=350&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/476614/original/file-20220729-21-504bdd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=350&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/476614/original/file-20220729-21-504bdd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=439&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/476614/original/file-20220729-21-504bdd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=439&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/476614/original/file-20220729-21-504bdd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=439&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">About a third of Australian workers have their pay and conditions set by a enterprise bargaining agreement.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock</span></span>
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<p>What those clauses would say is indicated by the Australian Council of Trade Unions’ <a href="https://www.actu.org.au/media/1449328/d59-working-from-home-charter.pdf">Working from Home Charter</a>, which states:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Working from home should be offered to all suitable workers to accept on a voluntary basis. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>The Financial Sector Union’s “<a href="https://www.fsunion.org.au/working-from-home-guide-to-best-practice/">best-practice</a>” guide similarly advocates that:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Employees should be able to enter into and out of work from home arrangements based on their personal circumstances, responsibilities and preferences. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>Employers will still be able to refuse requests, but only with good reason. The clauses being sought by the National Tertiary Education Union, for example, will limit refusals to situations when requests cannot be accommodated. </p>
<p>In short, a right to work from home will place the onus on employers to justify why they are seeking to deny working from home arrangements.</p>
<h2>Why should there be such a right?</h2>
<p>The case for a right to work from home has been made by the <a href="https://www.abs.gov.au/media-centre/media-releases/more-40-cent-australians-worked-home">seismic shift</a> resulting from the pandemic.</p>
<p>It has shown that, in many instances, work can be performed effectively while working from home. Contrary to managerial concerns that productivity would suffer, research suggests those working from home <a href="https://theconversation.com/even-google-agrees-theres-no-going-back-to-the-old-office-life-177808">have higher productivity</a>.</p>
<p>Most workers and many businesses have embraced the change. There is a clear benefit to workers in reduced commuting time and costs (especially for those with long commutes). </p>
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<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/even-google-agrees-theres-no-going-back-to-the-old-office-life-177808">Even Google agrees there's no going back to the old office life</a>
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<h2>There are also social benefits</h2>
<p>Working from home may be “<a href="https://theconversation.com/have-we-just-stumbled-on-the-biggest-productivity-increase-of-the-century-145104">the biggest productivity increase of the century</a>”. It helps reduce greenhouse gas emissions – which is why it is part of “<a href="https://agreenment.adapt.it/wp-content/uploads/2020/11/agreenment_guidelines-1.pdf">green bargaining</a>” for European trade unions. It can also promote a more gender-balanced workforce, as the Productivity Commission’s <a href="https://www.pc.gov.au/research/completed/working-from-home/working-from-home.pdf">research</a> suggests: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>More women than men are in jobs that can be done remotely. Additionally, since women in Australia still carry most of the responsibility for raising children, and are also more likely than men to care for others, the option to work from home may allow them to access employment.</p>
</blockquote>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Working from home can particularly benefit women with caring responsibilities, though there are also risks to manage" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/476615/original/file-20220729-24-g87izk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/476615/original/file-20220729-24-g87izk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/476615/original/file-20220729-24-g87izk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/476615/original/file-20220729-24-g87izk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/476615/original/file-20220729-24-g87izk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/476615/original/file-20220729-24-g87izk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/476615/original/file-20220729-24-g87izk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">Working from home can particularly benefit women with caring responsibilities, though there are also risks to manage.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock</span></span>
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</figure>
<p>More generally, the Productivity Commission expects that reducing “cost” of working will increase the labour supply.</p>
<h2>Health is still an imperative</h2>
<p>With the COVID-19 pandemic not yet over, there are also powerful safety rationales.</p>
<p>Paul Kelly, the federal chief medical officer, <a href="https://www.health.gov.au/news/chief-medical-officer-professor-paul-kellys-interview-on-abc-radio-national-on-20-july-2022">has called</a> working from home “an important health and safety measure”. </p>
<p>As an essential control measure for workplace safety – required in certain situations under work, health and safety legislation – it can even be an act of social solidarity. </p>
<h2>5 crucial safeguards to manage risks</h2>
<p>Working from home is not without risks. </p>
<p>It may undermine workplace community, and the collaboration and innovation generated from “<a href="https://theconversation.com/the-death-of-the-open-plan-office-not-quite-but-a-revolution-is-in-the-air-140724">serendipitous interaction</a>”. But this is less an argument against a right to work from home and more one to <a href="https://www.afr.com/technology/industry-insight-hybrid-work-is-not-a-remote-future-20210708-p58836">wisely manage</a>.</p>
<p>Equally the risks to individual workers need to be managed.</p>
<p>To be effective, a right to work from home should be underpinned by provisions to safeguard five things:</p>
<ul>
<li><p><strong>Genuine choice.</strong> This including the ability to exercise the right to work from home as a group and through trade unions. </p></li>
<li><p><strong>Working hours.</strong> There is a serious risk of “<a href="https://australiainstitute.org.au/report/working-from-home-or-living-at-work/">time theft</a>” as the line between work and home life is blurred. (The “reasonable limitation of working hours” is a <a href="https://www.un.org/en/about-us/universal-declaration-of-human-rights">human right</a>.)</p></li>
<li><p><strong>Workplace safety.</strong> Employers still have work, health and safety obligations to employees working from home.</p></li>
<li><p><strong>Digital safety.</strong> This includes <a href="https://www.oaic.gov.au/privacy/guidance-and-advice/assessing-privacy-risks-in-changed-working-environments-privacy-impact-assessments">data privacy protection</a> and a <a href="https://www.australianunions.org.au/2022/02/23/the-right-to-disconnect-allowing-workers-to-properly-unplug/">right to disconnect</a> outside set working hours.</p></li>
<li><p><strong>Equity.</strong> This includes ensuring working from home does not exacerbate the <a href="https://socialeurope.eu/the-home-as-office-whats-gender-got-to-do-with-it">double burden of paid work and care</a> and distributing costs fairly. The general rule should be that employers provide work equipment and cover necessary costs such as electricity. </p></li>
</ul>
<p>Working from home is fundamentally changing where and how we work. A right to work from home with robust support will steer this transformation in a positive direction.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/working-from-home-what-are-your-employers-responsibilities-and-what-are-yours-133922">Working from home: what are your employer's responsibilities, and what are yours?</a>
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<img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/187696/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Joo-Cheong Tham has received funding from the Australian Research Council, the Australian Council of Trade Unions, European Trade Union Institute and International IDEA. He is a director of the Centre for Public Integrity; a national councillor and Victorian division assistant secretary (academic staff)-elect of the National Tertiary Education Union.</span></em></p>Who’s allowed to ask to work from home – and who isn’t? This is what unions are arguing for to extend that right to more people.Joo-Cheong Tham, Professor, Melbourne Law School, The University of MelbourneLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1842512022-06-06T20:01:26Z2022-06-06T20:01:26ZWhere has the joy of working in Australian universities gone?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/466882/original/file-20220603-183-y87wh5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C8%2C5906%2C3925&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>As universities engage in the current <a href="https://melbourne-cshe.unimelb.edu.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0006/3781941/Fork-in-the-Uni-EBA-Road-2021-04-28-Final.pdf">round of enterprise bargaining</a>, it is timely to remember the importance of joy at work. It seems everywhere you turn workers are walking away from their jobs. Industries like hospitality and health have been hit particularly hard. But no sector is exempt, including higher education.</p>
<p>What’s causing staff turnover? Long hours, low pay, negative workplace cultures, job insecurity, lack of recognition, no work-life balance and the impacts of COVID are all leading people to reassess their lives. </p>
<p>The harsh and unrelenting demands on employees have stripped away joy at work. This is also true for academics. As one told us:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>“It’s becoming more and more difficult to feel joyful in this workplace.”</p>
</blockquote>
<h2>What do academics say about their work?</h2>
<p>We interviewed 35 academic staff across the five Western Australia universities for a <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/project/Higher-education-faculty-navigating-crisis-complexity-and-change-Current-and-future-directions-for-faculty-engagement">research project</a>. We wanted to know how they experienced working in a university during pandemic lockdowns and their aftermath – a time of crisis, change and complexity. </p>
<p>Our participants represented a broad range of disciplines and levels of academic leadership. They discussed the work environment, university management during the pandemic, the challenges they and colleagues encountered, and how they coped. </p>
<p>Participants described their universities as being exploitative, oppressive, toxic and fiscally driven. They felt themselves being dehumanised and demoralised by management. Most reported experiencing feelings associated with burnout, including anxiety, cynicism, depression and exhaustion.</p>
<p>One academic observed:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>“Colleagues are tired. They are burnt-out. That’s my observation. There’s a lot of burnout. But they’re still going.”</p>
</blockquote>
<h2>So what gives them joy?</h2>
<p>Joy at work is linked with employee well-being and good mental health, and is often used as a proxy for employee engagement. We asked: “What brings you joy at work?”</p>
<p>Some find little joy at work. The “craziness of university decisions and processes”, “the absurdity”, the conflicting demands and constant institutional change have led to them losing interest, spirit and hope. </p>
<p>However, most participants said “my students”, “my teaching”, “my research” and “my colleagues” give them joy.</p>
<p>The joy-student dynamic is about a sense of purpose associated with seeing students learn, grow and succeed. It’s building the future in a deeply personal and gratifying way. One participant explained: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>“I said to my colleagues, I feel like I got my soul back because I had that exposure to the students again.” </p>
</blockquote>
<p>Our participants expressed the joy-teaching dynamic through the emphatic words of love: “I love teaching!” It’s knowing and being known by your students. It’s connection. It’s the feeling of knowing you are making a difference. Participants described this experience as “nourishing”, “rewarding” and “sustaining”.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Smiling lecturer and university students in a group chat" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/466906/original/file-20220603-183-qjb96p.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/466906/original/file-20220603-183-qjb96p.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/466906/original/file-20220603-183-qjb96p.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/466906/original/file-20220603-183-qjb96p.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/466906/original/file-20220603-183-qjb96p.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/466906/original/file-20220603-183-qjb96p.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/466906/original/file-20220603-183-qjb96p.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The joy of teaching is real, but it’s being sapped by all the other demands on academics’ time and energy.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The joy-research dynamic is expressed through the language of “passion”. It is the joy of exploration, discovery and dissemination. It’s the “agency” and satisfaction of developing research and seeing it make a difference. It’s the relationships built with doctoral students and seeing them succeed. </p>
<blockquote>
<p>“My research focuses on consumer neuroscience. That’s my passion. The joy of it is we’re actually developing new research and supervising students.”</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Participants expressed the joy-colleague dynamic through words of belonging – collegiality, solidarity and unity. </p>
<blockquote>
<p>“We cry together, we laugh together, we support and motivate each other.” </p>
</blockquote>
<h2>Why is the joy of work being lost?</h2>
<p><em>All</em> of these joys, not just one or two, have become areas of diminishing returns. Academics are working at optimum capacity but unhappily so. </p>
<p>University responses to COVID have compounded their transformation by the ideologies, policies and practices of neoliberalism, economic rationalisation and managerialism over the past two decades. Academics reported feeling alienated, disenfranchised and exploited. </p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1306464098796756992"}"></div></p>
<p>The pivot to online learning, bigger classes and increased workload demands have decreased academics’ opportunities to build connections and deliver quality in the education they provide. Research workload allocations are being cut, yet research productivity expectations have increased. Job-shedding, centralisation of services and organisational restructuring add to the burden on academics, increasing the psychological demands on them.</p>
<p>Due to greater demands on their personal resources, most participants reported they have less time to connect with colleagues and family. But they also felt increasingly disconnected from their university. The majority said they were looking to exit the sector or wanted to leave. </p>
<blockquote>
<p>“Everybody’s in the same boat. Everybody’s feeling extremely anxious, very unhappy, demoralised, stressed out. Many people are at breaking point. I don’t think many people can take much more of this. So people will, if they can, leave the profession. People with options of getting other jobs or retiring early will do so.”</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Academic staff are burnt-out. They are stoic, resilient and hopeful, but the things in their work that give them joy are ever-diminishing. </p>
<p>Our research highlights the toll on academics as they struggle to meet the increased demands and expectations imposed on them. The university structures and services that support them are being stripped away and the activities they find joy in eroded. </p>
<p>To manage, many sacrifice their work-life balance, withdraw or isolate themselves. They invest less in their students, teaching and/or research. This causes them to feel they must compromise on their personal and professional standards and values.</p>
<h2>It doesn’t have to be this way</h2>
<p>The antithesis to burnout is engagement – joy at work. Successful organisations navigate a similarly competitive landscape, but their employees feel valued and the workplace culture is positive. If universities follow these examples, their employees will stay, productivity will be high and the great resignation avoided.</p>
<p>The challenge for Australian universities in this post-COVID <a href="https://honisoit.com/2022/05/uts-and-wsu-staff-to-take-industrial-action-after-usyd-48-hour-strike/">round of enterprise bargaining</a> is to ensure their staff can still experience joy in their work. That will assure a sustainable legacy for those who follow.</p>
<hr>
<p><em>The authors would like to acknowledge the contribution of the two other members of our research team: Professor John Williams, Director, Graduate Research, Curtin School of Education, and Associate Professor Scott Fitzgerald, Curtin Business School.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/184251/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Academics described their universities as exploitative, oppressive, toxic and fiscally driven. They felt themselves being dehumanised and demoralised by management. Most reported feelings of burnout.Craig Whitsed, Discipline Lead Education and Pedagogy, Senior Lecturer, Curtin UniversityAntonia Girardi, Head of Murdoch Business School, Murdoch UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1838182022-06-01T01:11:23Z2022-06-01T01:11:23ZThere’s one big reason wages are stagnating: the enterprise bargaining system is broken, and in terminal decline<p>Real wages in Australia have been stagnating for the better part of a decade. Now, with higher inflation, they’re declining. So what can the new Albanese government, having campaigned hard on the previous government’s failures, do about it?</p>
<p>Making a submission to Australia’s industrial relations umpire, the Fair Work Commission, to lift the minimum hourly wage from A$20.33 to A$21.36, is one thing. If that push is successful, it would help the 2% of workers paid the minimum wage, as well as the 23% (about 2.2 million workers) on awards, whose rates would also lift. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/lifting-the-minimum-wage-isnt-reckless-its-what-low-earners-need-183643">Lifting the minimum wage isn't reckless – it's what low earners need</a>
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<p>But there’s a bigger systemic problem the Albanese government needs to address – a flaw designed and implemented by a previous Labor government. Enterprise bargaining, the mechanism introduced 30 years ago for workers to collectively negotiate better wages and conditions, is broken. </p>
<p>It’s failing low-paid workers lacking bargaining power in particular, and is a big part of the reason for such poor wages in female-dominated professions such as aged care and child care.</p>
<h2>Origin of enterprise bargaining agreements</h2>
<p>Enterprise bargaining was introduced during the Hawke-Keating Labor era in the early 1990s, in partnership with the Australian Council of Trade Unions and the support of employer groups.</p>
<p>The Business Council of Australia had lobbied strongly for an enterprise focus for negotiating employment conditions, on the basis it`was the best way to tie wage claims to gains in productivity.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/9d8xuDTQZ2U?wmode=transparent&start=40" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">Prime Minister Paul Keating extols enterprise bargaining in parliament on June 24 1992.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>After 30 years, though, enterprise bargaining is in terminal decline, with ten years of shrinking agreement coverage in line with stagnant wages growth. </p>
<p>Research by labour law and policy experts Andrew Stewart, Jim Stanford and Tess Hardy <a href="https://australiainstitute.org.au/report/the-wages-crisis-revisited/">published in May</a> shows the total number of enterprise agreements fell by more than half between 2013 and 2021 (from 23,500 agreements to 10,000). </p>
<p>Worse, the share of employees covered by a current enterprise agreement declined from an average of 27% in 2012 to just 15% by late 2021. This is shown in the following graph.</p>
<hr>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/466199/original/file-20220531-14-9c8cg6.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/466199/original/file-20220531-14-9c8cg6.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/466199/original/file-20220531-14-9c8cg6.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/466199/original/file-20220531-14-9c8cg6.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/466199/original/file-20220531-14-9c8cg6.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/466199/original/file-20220531-14-9c8cg6.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/466199/original/file-20220531-14-9c8cg6.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption"></span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Australia Institute, The Wages Crisis Revisited</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/4.0/">CC BY-ND</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<hr>
<p>The Australian Industry Group and other business representatives blame this on the Fair Work Commission’s strict approach to the “better off overall test” and other statutory protections of employees’ interests in agreement-making.</p>
<p>Unions see it differently. In their view, enterprise bargaining is in free-fall because of design flaws in the current laws, meaning workers have very limited negotiating power and employers can “game” the system to avoid their obligation to bargain.</p>
<p>The main problem: enterprise bargaining was designed for an economy that no longer exists. </p>
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<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/cabinet-papers-1992-93-the-rise-and-fall-of-enterprise-bargaining-agreements-70139">Cabinet papers 1992-93: the rise and fall of enterprise bargaining agreements</a>
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<h2>Workplaces have changed</h2>
<p>Allowing employees and unions to only bargain and take industrial action for an agreement with a single business, or part of a business, works fine with large worksites, such as factories, with hundreds or thousands of workers with the same employer. </p>
<p>But these types of workplaces are increasingly rare. Now, many employers in sectors such as food production, logistics, warehousing, building management and “big box” retail stores have hived off large parts of their operations, and workers, to other entities. </p>
<p>They’ve used labour hire, independent contracting and outsourcing to distance themselves from responsibility for minimum employment standards – and collective bargaining. </p>
<p>To lift wages, workers need the boost to bargaining power that comes from being able to negotiate – and strike – across entire industries. </p>
<p>Labour hire workers must be able to bargain not just with the agency that technically employs them, but with the business for whom they are working – <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2018/jan/20/amazons-labour-hire-deal-and-the-impact-on-collective-bargaining">such as Amazon</a>, which has relied heavily on outsourced labour in its Australian operations.</p>
<p>Workers who clean and provide security services in commercial buildings need to have the capacity to pursue pay increases from the lead firms that ultimately control labour’s share of profits. </p>
<h2>What Labor has promised to do</h2>
<p>Federal Labor’s 2021 <a href="https://alp.org.au/media/2594/2021-alp-national-platform-final-endorsed-platform.pdf">national policy platform</a> contains a commitment to “improve access to collective bargaining, including where appropriate through multi-employer collective bargaining”. </p>
<p>It notes this access is a particular issue for low-paid employees lacking industrial power, and that the Fair Work Act does not adequately facilitate it. </p>
<p>These points, however, were not mentioned in the run-up to the election. Nor did the Australian Council of Trade Unions make an issue of it, in contrast to its “Change the Rules” campaign <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/10301763.2021.2009628">between 2017 and 2019</a>. </p>
<p>Instead, Labor pledged to address other problems in the enterprise bargaining system: the weak requirements for employers to negotiate in “good faith”, and the ease with which employers can have agreements terminated. </p>
<p>However, the Albanese government may well be pushed to “go bolder” – not just by unions but also the Australian Greens, whose <a href="https://greens.org.au/sites/default/files/2022-01/Greens-2022-Policy-Platform--Jobs--Rights.pdf">2022 election policy</a> states: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>Workers should be free to collectively bargain at whatever level they consider appropriate and with whoever has real control over their work, whether at a workplace, industry, sector or other level. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>The Greens’ platform also states: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>Workers should have the right to engage in industrial action, including the right to strike, consistent with international law and not limited to artificially restricted bargaining periods.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>The government may not need Greens’ support to pass legislation in the House of Representatives, but it will need it in the Senate.</p>
<p>So expect the future of enterprise bargaining, along with properly tackling insecure work, to be a hot topic for the government’s planned jobs summit.</p>
<p>With employers already talking up the need for productivity gains to underpin any changes, we’ll have to wait and see how serious the new government is about fixing a broken bargaining system.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/183818/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Anthony Forsyth is affiliated with the Centre for Future Work (Australia Institute) and the Migrant Workers Centre in Victoria. He has received funding from the Australian Research Council Linkage Program (industry partners: Australian Council of Trade Unions & The Union Education Foundation). </span></em></p>Beyond arguing for an increased minimum wage, the new Albanese government needs to fix an outdated system that’s failing our lowest-paid workers – especially women.Anthony Forsyth, Distinguished Professor of Workplace Law, RMIT UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1835272022-05-24T02:38:20Z2022-05-24T02:38:20ZWages and women top Albanese’s IR agenda: the big question is how Labor keeps its promises<p>Industrial relations issues were front and centre when federal Labor last won office from opposition in 2007. The backlash against John Howard’s “Work Choices” reforms cost both his government and his own seat. Kevin Rudd and Julia Gillard’s detailed “Forward with Fairness” policy provided a blueprint for the Fair Work Act that is still in force today.</p>
<p>Workplace issues were nothing like as prominent in the 2022 election. Still, Labor campaigned on the need to address three key issues: wage stagnation, insecure jobs, and gender inequality. </p>
<p>Lifting wages will be a priority for the Albanese government, to help ease the cost of living. But it may also be pressured by both unions and the Greens to go further in addressing problems with the “Fair Work” system.</p>
<h2>Tackling the wages crisis</h2>
<p>There are many reasons for Australia’s low wage growth over the past decade, not least a <a href="https://theconversation.com/despite-record-vacancies-australians-shouldnt-expect-big-pay-rises-soon-180416">loss of bargaining power for workers</a>. Clearly though the problem is not going to fix itself. Policy action <a href="https://www.futurework.org.au/wages_crisis_will_continue_without_active_wage_boosting_policies_report">is needed</a>. The question is whether Albanese and his colleagues have the answers.</p>
<p>In the first instance, they will look for help from the Fair Work Commission in its upcoming annual wage review. Albanese has <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2022/may/12/anthony-albanese-narrows-scope-of-pledge-to-support-51-pay-rise-to-match-inflation">expressed support</a> for a minimum wage increase that at least keeps pace with inflation. That could potentially benefit everyone in the workforce whose pay is set by, or linked to, an award. </p>
<p>Beyond that, there are plans to <a href="https://www.alp.org.au/policies/closing-the-gender-pay-gap">improve pay equity for women</a>. Proposed reforms include requiring large employers to report their gender pay gap publicly, prohibiting pay secrecy clauses, and broadening the Fair Work Commission’s power to redress the undervaluation of work in female-dominated industries.</p>
<p>Labor has also undertaken to improve the enforcement of minimum wage laws. It has committed to introducing criminal penalties for “wage theft” – something the Morrison government <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-03-18/industrial-relations-changes-pass-parliament-casual-work/13259566">promised but failed to do</a> – and ensure workers have a “<a href="https://www.tonyburke.com.au/speechestranscripts/2021/11/15/speech-address-to-the-australian-labour-law-association">quick and easy way</a>” to recover underpayments.</p>
<p>What is less clear is whether the Albanese government can bring itself to set a lead for the private sector, both by paying public servants more and by supporting decent wage growth in the many sectors affected by public funding and procurement. </p>
<p>Doing so could have a rich economic and social dividend. But the cost will be a challenge, especially with Labor <a href="https://www.alp.org.au/policies/aged-care">already committed</a> to supporting and funding significant pay increases for aged-care workers.</p>
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<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/real-wages-are-shrinking-these-figures-put-it-beyond-doubt-183343">Real wages are shrinking, these figures put it beyond doubt</a>
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<h2>Enterprise bargaining</h2>
<p>Then there is the <a href="https://www.afr.com/work-and-careers/workplace/pandemic-worsens-decline-in-enterprise-bargaining-20210920-p58t4f">decline of enterprise bargaining</a>, the process supposed to be the main way of gaining wage rises under the Fair Work system. Just 11% of private-sector employees are now covered by a current (non-expired) enterprise agreement.</p>
<p>Albanese has spoken of a <a href="https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/spirit-of-consensus-albanese-holds-out-promise-of-economic-reform-to-lift-wages-20220505-p5aixx.html">business-union summit</a> – echoing the “consensus” approach taken by the Hawke Labor government in the 1980s – to discuss how to revitalise the bargaining system. </p>
<p>It could certainly be simplified, and much could be gained from a <a href="https://www.afr.com/work-and-careers/workplace/the-cure-for-workplace-strife-20191203-p53gbb">new emphasis on co-operation</a>. Yet much as the new prime minister would like to channel Bob Hawke and rediscover the virtues of <a href="https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/tripartite">tripartism</a> – with employer organisations, trade unions and governments working together – it will take a herculean effort to find consensus.</p>
<p>Many in the labour movement would like to see a reversion to industry-level bargaining, at least in sectors where enterprise negotiations are impractical, as well as a greater role for the tribunal in breaking deadlocks. It will be fascinating to see if <a href="https://australiainstitute.org.au/post/as-collective-bargaining-erodes-in-australia-solutions-from-other-countries-could-strengthen-bargaining-and-lift-wages/">those ideas</a> gain any traction over the next three years.</p>
<h2>Making work less precarious</h2>
<p>In contrast to its silence on bargaining and the role of trade unions, Labor has <a href="https://www.alp.org.au/policies/secure-australian-jobs-plan">clear plans</a> to address insecure forms of work. Among other things, it has promised to:</p>
<ul>
<li><p>limit casual and fixed-term employment to jobs that are genuinely temporary or irregular</p></li>
<li><p>ensure labour-hire workers are paid the same as those directly employed by the business to which they are assigned, and</p></li>
<li><p>empower the Fair Work Commission to set minimum wages and conditions for “employee-like” workers, including those finding work through digital labour platforms such as Uber or Deliveroo.</p></li>
</ul>
<p>The complexity of many of these issues should not be underestimated. There are many long-term casuals, for example, who prefer to take a pay loading in lieu of leave entitlements they may never use.</p>
<p>Allowing the Fair Work Commission to make an award for certain types of gig worker will not fully address the potential for “sham contracting” arrangements <a href="https://www.afr.com/work-and-careers/workplace/later-high-court-backs-freedom-to-contract-in-major-ruling-20220209-p59uyi">opened up by recent High Court decisions</a>. </p>
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<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/the-truth-about-much-casual-work-its-really-about-permanent-insecurity-151687">The truth about much 'casual' work: it's really about permanent insecurity</a>
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<p>It will be interesting to see if the new government moves on these reforms immediately, or perhaps looks for some of them to be explored in greater depth by its promised <a href="https://anthonyalbanese.com.au/media-centre/a-new-labor-playbook-for-national-productivity-reforms-acci">white paper</a> on the labour market.</p>
<h2>A focus on women at work</h2>
<p>Post-election analysis has rightly focused on the <a href="https://theconversation.com/women-stormed-the-2022-election-in-numbers-too-big-to-ignore-what-has-labor-pledged-on-gender-183369">crucial role played by female voters and candidates</a>. The new government will be doubly keen to implement the parts of its platform that address issues of particular significance to women. </p>
<p>Besides the policies already mentioned on pay equity and insecure work, there is a <a href="https://www.alp.org.au/policies/cheaper-child-care">pledge of cheaper childcare</a>, plus a new right to paid family and domestic violence leave. </p>
<p>Labor will also fully implement recommendations from the Australian Human Rights Commission’s <a href="https://humanrights.gov.au/our-work/sex-discrimination/publications/respectwork-sexual-harassment-national-inquiry-report-2020">Respect@Work report</a> on sexual harassment. That includes amending the Sex Discrimination Act to create a <a href="https://theconversation.com/explainer-what-is-a-positive-duty-to-prevent-workplace-sexual-harassment-and-why-is-it-so-important-167430">positive duty on employers</a> to take reasonable measures to eliminate sexual harassment.</p>
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<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/explainer-what-is-a-positive-duty-to-prevent-workplace-sexual-harassment-and-why-is-it-so-important-167430">Explainer: what is a 'positive duty' to prevent workplace sexual harassment and why is it so important?</a>
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<p>Possibly the greatest challenge, however, will be to make a difference in the workplace over which the government has most control – parliament house. Staffers and MPs are entitled to expect not just protection from violence and harassment but <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-jenkins-review-has-28-recommendations-to-fix-parliaments-toxic-culture-will-our-leaders-listen-172858">greater respect and accommodation</a>.</p>
<p>It will be a very public forum in which to judge the new government’s commitment to fair pay and conditions for working women.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/183527/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Andrew Stewart does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Lifting wages will be a priority for the Albanese government to ease the cost of living. But the unions and the Greens are likely to push for more changes to tackle problems with the Fair Work system.Andrew Stewart, John Bray Professor of Law, University of AdelaideLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1724802021-12-01T02:17:33Z2021-12-01T02:17:33ZLow bar for ‘genuine consultation’ set by UWA case feeds into crisis of legitimacy for Australian institutions<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/434366/original/file-20211129-13-rryg0u.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=192%2C0%2C1807%2C1195&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/99781513@N04/15554716316/in/photolist-pGvZf5">Scott Lewis/Flickr</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>When Martin Forsey was presented with a proposal for change at his workplace that lacked a logical argument and used flawed data, he brought a case to the Fair Work Commission. The associate professor at the University of Western Australia argued that such a flawed proposal could not be used as the basis of “genuine consultation” about structural reform, as required under his enterprise agreement.</p>
<p>However, the commission has ruled the university was under no obligation to provide data, let alone accurate data, to justify its proposal. Staff had been given the opportunity to respond to the proposal, the commission said in <a href="https://www.fwc.gov.au/documents/decisionssigned/html/2021fwc6285.htm">its judgment</a>. This meant UWA had clearly fulfilled its remit to provide “genuine consultation”, despite having created a proposal using <a href="https://www.watoday.com.au/national/uwa-case-tests-fair-work-commission-over-question-of-staff-consultation-relying-on-surprising-data-20211102-p5953u.html">incorrect enrolment data</a> and then ignoring the vast majority of responses.</p>
<p>The term “genuine consultation” was included in the enterprise agreement. Presumably, this was done to imply that consultation will not be based on a cursory or misleading representation of the justification for change. However, while the commission assumed the university had included data that was “proven to be incorrect” because “it believed this data was persuasive”, it did not see this as an indication that the consultation could not be genuine.</p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1461538529423466496"}"></div></p>
<p>The problem with this ruling does not sit necessarily in its adherence to the Fair Work Act. The problem is it simply doesn’t pass the pub test of common sense. In spelling out its finding, the commission outlined the dictionary definition of data “figures, statistics, etc”, but overlooked the <a href="https://www.google.com/search?channel=trow5&client=firefox-b-d&q=genuine">dictionary definition</a> of “genuine”: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>truly what something is said to be, authentic; sincere.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>In the real world, if your manager produced false data to justify the end of your career and called that “consultation”, would you understand that consultation to be authentic or sincere? </p>
<p>No, the manager wants you out, and out you’ll go – regardless of the consultation. That surely means the consultation can’t be authentic or sincere – or genuine. At least as far as the common person would understand it.</p>
<h2>Why does being genuine and authentic matter?</h2>
<p>In his vast body of work on communicative ethics, democracy and law, philosopher <a href="https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/habermas/">Jurgen Habermas</a> repeatedly states that real authenticity has its own, inherent power. If something is correct, genuine or true, it can analysed almost endlessly because that truth is inherent and can easily be explained. As Habermas <a href="https://www.google.com.au/books/edition/Between_Facts_and_Norms/zDxRDwAAQBAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1&dq=%22processes+by+employing+forms+of+communication+that+promise+that+all+outcomes+reached+in+conformity+with+the+procedure+are+reasonable%22&pg=PA304&printsec=frontcover">writes</a>:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>“The democratic procedure is institutionalised in discourses and bargaining processes by employing forms of communication that promise that all outcomes reached in conformity with the procedure are reasonable.”</p>
</blockquote>
<p>The process of questioning as a way of finding truth is how democratic systems ensure their legitimacy. According to Habermas, in a legitimate system all claims should withstand scrutiny and interrogation – because they are true! </p>
<p>Our reality is defined by what we can all agree upon by “redeeming claims to truth”, as Habermas <a href="https://books.google.com.au/books?id=OnxoDwAAQBAJ&pg=PT78&lpg=PT78&dq=%22redeeming+claims+to+truth%22&source=bl&ots=a7sSCItY65&sig=ACfU3U03ln-zZQ4XLRleHy2TNN0IDinr0A&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjjjsDl8rz0AhUgT2wGHQ5lAjwQ6AF6BAgCEAM#v=onepage&q=%22redeeming%20claims%20to%20truth%22&f=false">put it</a>. So we have courts of law organised around the principle that people will be questioned and questioned again until the truth comes out. Our government is organised around the principle that if enough people can present their arguments, with enough scrutiny of those arguments, then the outcome of those debates should be legitimate.</p>
<p>Only by opening decisions up to cross-examination is it possible to present an outcome that stands up to public scrutiny.</p>
<p>The concern for our society is that Habermas always understood that these mechanisms of democratic legitimacy were embedded in a broader democratic public that would oppose illegitimacy and understand and act upon the inherent value of broad social truths. If this weren’t the case, he <a href="https://www.google.com.au/books/edition/Between_Facts_and_Norms/zDxRDwAAQBAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1&dq=%22then+the+experts%E2%80%99+perception+of+problems+will+prevail+at+the+citizens%27+expense%22&pg=PA351&printsec=frontcover">states</a> in <a href="https://mitpress.mit.edu/books/between-facts-and-norms">Between Facts and Norms</a>, “then the experts’ perception of problems will prevail at the citizens’ expense”. </p>
<p>Habermas was an optimist in this respect. He believed democratic opinion and will formation were in some sense guaranteed in liberal democracy. Free speech, a free press and adversarial political parties should ensure some accountability in public statements. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/434360/original/file-20211129-21-188d38k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="White-haired man leans forward and gestures with his hand" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/434360/original/file-20211129-21-188d38k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/434360/original/file-20211129-21-188d38k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=416&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/434360/original/file-20211129-21-188d38k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=416&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/434360/original/file-20211129-21-188d38k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=416&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/434360/original/file-20211129-21-188d38k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=523&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/434360/original/file-20211129-21-188d38k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=523&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/434360/original/file-20211129-21-188d38k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=523&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">Jurgen Habermas may have been too optimistic in his faith in a democratic public that understands and acts upon the inherent value of broad social truths.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/europapont/14358407043">Európa Pont/Flickr</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>‘Post-truth’ world challenges that optimism</h2>
<p><a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/227666692_Keeping_Public_Officials_Accountable_through_Dialogue_Resolving_the_Accountability_Paradox">To be accountable</a> is to have to answer for one’s action and be responsible for the consequences. But as people with intimate experience of Australia’s federal politics and employment law are often finding out, this belief in a general demand for accountability seems mislaid. </p>
<p>Instead, politicians and employers bank on the notion that they won’t be asked to redeem their claims to truth and will not be held accountable if they lie or fail to deliver what they promised. This is what it means to be in a “post-truth” world. </p>
<p>The problem then is that people lose faith in democratic institutions that ought to be able to “redeem their claims to truth” but are not able to do so. In this way, our “democratic institutions” too often betray the trust citizens place in them. If enough citizens give up on believing in the legitimacy of our political and legal institutions, we end up in a vicious cycle of spin, deceit and manufactured ignorance. </p>
<p>Following this Fair Work Commission ruling on Forsey’s case, UWA has put sweeping changes in place. These changes have decimated UWA’s critical and social research capacity and ended the careers of many academics who would have legitimately criticised such decisions and their implications. A team of people who have made their careers out of questioning faulty logic have essentially had their life-long contribution to public knowledge curtailed by faulty logic. As a result, more faulty logic will go unquestioned. </p>
<p>At a time when Prime Minister Scott Morrison has <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2021/nov/24/australian-universities-to-vie-for-coalitions-200m-research-funding-boost">called on universities</a> to focus more on priorities such as the defence industry and less on critical research, Australians should not take our democracy for granted.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/172480/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Tauel Harper is an employee at UWA Social Sciences whose reserach career is also threatened as a result of the proposal for change discussed in this article.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jeannette Taylor is an employee at UWA Social Sciences whose research career is also threatened as a result of the proposal for change discussed in this article. </span></em></p>In democratic societies, truth matters and institutions are expected to be accountable when they stray from it.Tauel Harper, Senior Lecturer, Media and Communication, UWA, The University of Western AustraliaJeannette Taylor, Associate Professor, Political Science and International Relations, The University of Western AustraliaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1517542020-12-13T05:15:56Z2020-12-13T05:15:56ZChance for genuine industrial relations reform thrown under the omnibus<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/374340/original/file-20201211-20-tvd418.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption"></span> </figcaption></figure><p>When Prime Minister Scott Morrison <a href="https://www.pm.gov.au/media/address-national-press-club-260520">announced</a> the formation of <a href="https://www.attorneygeneral.gov.au/media/media-releases/memberships-ir-working-groups-announced-11-june-2020">five working groups</a> of employers, unions and government officials in June 2020, he <a href="https://theconversation.com/morrison-wants-unions-and-business-to-put-down-the-weapons-on-ir-but-real-reform-will-not-be-easy-139462">signalled an unexpected twist</a> to industrial relations reform.</p>
<p>Some observers anticipated a new politics of <a href="https://theconversation.com/grattan-on-friday-when-christian-met-sally-the-match-made-by-a-pandemic-139562">consensus</a> — or even an <a href="https://www.pm.gov.au/media/qa-national-press-club">Accord 2.0</a>. The working groups met over several months. </p>
<p>They need not have bothered. The newly-released <a href="https://www.aph.gov.au/Parliamentary_Business/Bills_Legislation/Bills_Search_Results/Result?bId=r6653">“omnibus” bill</a> was mostly as partisan as if the working parties had never existed. To some, the omnibus looks old, oddly familiar and somewhat shady. Real reform is as distant as ever.</p>
<p>When an agreement over one issue was reached between the unions and the body representing large employers, it was <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2020/sep/18/workplace-deal-between-big-business-and-unions-provokes-furious-reaction-from-employer-groups">quickly scuttled by other employers</a> and the federal government itself. </p>
<p>The bill that the government released last week was organised along the five themes of the working parties.</p>
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<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/grattan-on-friday-who-would-have-thought-john-setka-could-be-such-a-unifying-force-151852">Grattan on Friday: Who would have thought John Setka could be such a unifying force?</a>
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</p>
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<h2>Casual employment</h2>
<p>Employers wanted to overturn <a href="https://www.judgments.fedcourt.gov.au/judgments/Judgments/fca/full/2018/2018fcafc0131">two</a> Federal Court <a href="https://www.judgments.fedcourt.gov.au/judgments/Judgments/fca/full/2020/2020fcafc0084">decisions</a> that gave a legal entitlement to annual leave to many long-term leave-deprived employees. Employers wanted a definition of casuals that avoided any possibility of a leave entitlement, and retrospective voiding of any previous entitlement. </p>
<p>To unions, these court decisions had ended a long-standing rort enabling employers to avoid their legal responsibilities. Unions wanted the chronic insecurity facing casuals to be reduced.</p>
<p>The bill meets employer demands. It enables employers to define any employee as a casual, with no leave entitlements or job security, at the time employment commences, provided certain conditions were met. This is more about power than <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-truth-about-much-casual-work-its-really-about-permanent-insecurity-151687">genuine flexibility</a> in work. Existing casuals lose any previous entitlement to leave if they received the casual loading.</p>
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<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/the-truth-about-much-casual-work-its-really-about-permanent-insecurity-151687">The truth about much 'casual' work: it's really about permanent insecurity</a>
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<h2>Award flexibilities</h2>
<p>Employers’ initial agenda had been for simplification of awards, by reducing or removing penalty rates, overtime pay, or other payments. But the government was unwilling to face the political problems with this. It was <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0022185611401999">haunted</a> by the <a href="https://www.theage.com.au/politics/federal/workchoices-betrayal-pivotal-in-alp-win-20071129-ge6eyo.html">loss of</a> the 2007 <a href="http://www.australianreview.net/digest/2008/02/spies-butcher_wilson.html">“WorkChoices” election</a>. So the focus switched to award “flexibilities”. </p>
<p>The bill enables hours for part-time employees to be increased without any overtime premium. Part-time employees take on the hours flexibility that casuals currently have, but at lower pay rates. </p>
<p>The main effect, though, may be to minimise employers’ incentive to take on additional workers, as they could cheaply increase hours for existing workers. </p>
<p>The bill also allows employers to give “flexible work directions” to employees to perform new types of work, or at new locations, if it is reasonable to “assist in the revival of the employer’s enterprise”. As “revival” is not defined, there is a lot of scope for discretion by members of the Fair Work Commission to interpret this. This matters as some say that, since 2013, the notion of “balance” in appointments to the commission has “<a href="https://thenewdaily.com.au/finance/finance-news/2019/01/21/coalition-fair-work-commission/">been abandoned</a>”, with most appointments coming <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2018/dec/07/coalition-stacking-fair-work-commission-with-mates-labor-says">from the employer side</a> of the table. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/374576/original/file-20201212-23-15dzq0p.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/374576/original/file-20201212-23-15dzq0p.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/374576/original/file-20201212-23-15dzq0p.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/374576/original/file-20201212-23-15dzq0p.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/374576/original/file-20201212-23-15dzq0p.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=533&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/374576/original/file-20201212-23-15dzq0p.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=533&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/374576/original/file-20201212-23-15dzq0p.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=533&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">The Fair Work Commission will have a lot of scope for discretion.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">AAP/James Ross</span></span>
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</figure>
<h2>Enterprise bargaining</h2>
<p>Both unions and employers claimed the enterprise bargaining system was too complex, but without any agreement over how to simplify it. </p>
<p>Some employers had <a href="https://www.afr.com/work-and-careers/workplace/waste-of-time-bunnings-boss-slams-eba-system-20200319-p54bos">called for </a>the “better off overall test” (BOOT) <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-08-10/business-council-eba-changes-better-of-overall-test/11402442">to be abolished</a>. The BOOT meant an agreement had to make any worker better off compared to under their award. </p>
<p>The bill tries to override it for a specific, albeit large, group (workers in firms that could claim they were affected by COVID-19) and for a specific time (agreements must be made within two years, though their effects could last many more). It has provoked so much opposition that the minister has <a href="https://www.afr.com/politics/federal/porter-retreats-in-union-brawl-20201209-p56lvb">appeared to back away</a> from it — possibly throwing that idea under the omnibus.</p>
<p>The bill would reduce scrutiny of agreements, allowing only short periods before approval, cutting opportunities for employees to consider them and restricting the ability for unions to comment on non-union agreements. While non-union agreements cover only a small proportion of employees, they have lower average wage increases, are less likely to be genuinely negotiated. They are also more <a href="https://ses.library.usyd.edu.au/bitstream/handle/2123/13162/ADAM%20Report%2050.pdf?sequence=1&isAllowed=y">susceptible to loss of award conditions</a>. This means they are more vulnerable to exploitation. </p>
<p>The <a href="https://theconversation.com/we-should-simplify-our-industrial-relations-system-but-not-in-the-way-big-business-wants-137607">main complexity in the enterprise bargaining system</a> is the barriers put to unions seeking agreements. The bill addresses none of these, instead aiming to make non-union agreements easier to make. Nor does it address how an agreement with a few employees can deny the rights of a whole workforce, employed later. They lose all rights to negotiate through industrial action. Ironically, in other industrialised countries, non-union agreements are impossible anyway. </p>
<h2>Greenfields agreements</h2>
<p>Greenfields agreements are agreements that cover a new project, usually in construction, but also <a href="https://research-repository.griffith.edu.au/bitstream/handle/10072/365370/May_2016_01Thesis.pdf?sequence=1&isAllowed=y">(less commonly) outsourced services, new ventures and, rarely, theatrical shows</a>. The main employer objective here was to increase the duration of agreements on large construction sites. On this, the bill delivered.</p>
<p>For up to eight years, any employees recruited to a new “major” project initially approved by a chosen union will be unable to negotiate better conditions through industrial action. A major project is anything worth above $250 million that the minister declares to be “major”. That’s about the size of a motorsport <a href="https://theurbandeveloper.com/articles/wagner-holdings-toowoomba-entertainment-precinct">entertainment complex</a> in Toowoomba or a <a href="https://business.gov.au/Grants-and-Programs/Major-Project-Status/Current-Major-Projects">medicinal cannabis plant</a> in South Australia. That’s a lot of employees denied the right to negotiate over a long period.</p>
<h2>Compliance</h2>
<p>Unions have long complained about systematic underpayment and “wage theft” by many employers (heightened since the loss of union <a href="https://www.fairwork.gov.au/how-we-will-help/templates-and-guides/fact-sheets/rights-and-obligations/right-of-entry">rights of entry</a>) and about business models, such as franchising and sub-contracting, that encourage it. </p>
<p>The bill partly addresses this by criminalising certain deliberate instances of this behaviour. It would override laws some states have.</p>
<p>These provisions are uncontroversial and indeed welcomed by unions. </p>
<p>However, the biggest problem is not that the maximum penalty is too low. Already the maximum is rarely used, and <a href="https://www.griffithreview.com/articles/debt-wage-theft-peetz/">many offences are ignored</a>. Not many are caught, and <a href="https://www.crikey.com.au/2017/05/31/bosses-rip-off-workers-because-the-fwo-wont-stop-them/">punishments are light</a>.</p>
<p>True, increasing the threatened punishment for the most egregious offences might discourage wage theft. But the assertiveness of administrative action seems to be the main factor shaping employer behaviour. If you think you won’t be caught, let alone punished, you’ll keep on doing what you’re doing.</p>
<h2>Employers win … again</h2>
<p>Every industrial relations reform is proclaimed by its proponents as being “commonsense” and “practical”. <a href="https://www.attorneygeneral.gov.au/media/transcripts/sky-news-first-edition-9-december-2020">This bill</a> is <a href="https://www.attorneygeneral.gov.au/media/media-releases/industrial-relations-reform-supporting-jobs-and-our-economic-recovery-9-december-2020">no different</a>. </p>
<p>Like most industrial relations reforms, though, it is principally about affecting who gains income and power in the workplace. The wage theft provisions purport to favour the most disadvantaged, though with uncertain effects. The remainder, more simply, favour employers over employees. </p>
<p>The most important changes that could be made to simplify enterprise bargaining — removing the many obstacles facing employee representatives — have been thrown under the omnibus.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/151754/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>David Peetz receives funding from the Australian Research Council and, as a university employee, has undertaken research over many years with occasional financial support from governments in Australia and overseas from both sides of politics, from employers and from unions.</span></em></p>The government’s latest industrial relations reform does little to change the power between employers and employees - with the former still strongly advantaged.David Peetz, Professor of Employment Relations, Centre for Work, Organisation and Wellbeing, Griffith UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1516682020-12-09T08:37:28Z2020-12-09T08:37:28ZSo much for consensus: Morrison government’s industrial relations bill is a business wish list<p>“We are all in this together,” Prime Minister Scott Morrison solemnly <a href="https://www.aph.gov.au/Parliamentary_Business/Hansard/Hansard_Display?bid=chamber/hansardr/247e20e8-7bbe-4712-afcb-c8833dc6a228/&sid=0013">intoned in April</a> – and for a brief few months, in the face of the economic crisis wrought by the COVID-19 pandemic, Australia’s industrial relations protagonists agreed. </p>
<p>Business groups, unions and governments put aside their usual differences and worked together to minimise job losses. </p>
<p>They quickly negotiated <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/mar/24/union-agrees-to-alter-hospitality-award-in-bid-to-save-job-losses-due-to-coronavirus">alterations</a> to dozens of awards and enterprise agreements, adjusting rules and rosters to help keep Australians on the job.</p>
<p>Then, in late May, seeing opportunity in that spirit of cooperation, Morrison heralded a new consensus-based approach to industrial relations. </p>
<p>The federal government set aside its effort to impose more legal restrictions on unions and established new “<a href="https://www.attorneygeneral.gov.au/media/media-releases/roundtable-kicks-ir-reform-process-3-june-2020">industrial relations reform roundtables</a>” for employer groups, unions and government officials to work together on reforming workplace laws Morrison said were “not fit for purpose”.</p>
<p>“We’ve got to put down our weapons,” he declared. The change in approach was even compared to <a href="https://www.afr.com/politics/federal/morrison-s-ir-pitch-sparks-accord-comparisons-20200526-p54wl6">the historic Accords</a> of the 1980s, in which the Hawke-Keating Labor government convinced unions to accept wage freezes in return for enhanced social benefits (like Medicare and superannuation).</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/australian-politics-explainer-the-prices-and-incomes-accord-75622">Australian politics explainer: the Prices and Incomes Accord</a>
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<p>Well, the Kumbaya moment didn’t last long. </p>
<p>Within weeks the parties retreated to their corners and their standard speaking points. No meaningful consensus emerged on any issue from any table.</p>
<p>Even tentative proposals – like an idea supported by unions and the Business Council of Australia to combine fast-track approval of union-negotiated enterprise agreements with greater flexibility in determining their suitability – were <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2020/sep/18/workplace-deal-between-big-business-and-unions-provokes-furious-reaction-from-employer-groups">shot down in partisan gunfire</a> by more strident business lobbyists.</p>
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<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/morrison-government-invites-unions-to-dance-but-employer-groups-call-the-tune-139469">Morrison government invites unions to dance, but employer groups call the tune</a>
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<p>Now, in the absence of consensus, the government has picked up its traditional hymn book and is once again singing the praises of “flexibility”.</p>
<p>Today federal industrial relations minister Christian Porter revealed the rotten fruit of the roundtable process, the <a href="https://www.aph.gov.au/Parliamentary_Business/Bills_Legislation/Bills_Search_Results/Result?bId=r6653">Fair Work Amendment (Supporting Australia’s Jobs and Economic Recovery) Bill 2020</a>. </p>
<p>If passed, it will further skew the already lopsided balance of power towards employers.</p>
<p>The bill doesn’t just take the employers’ side in the five issues debated at those roundtables (award simplification, enterprise agreements, casual work, compliance and enforcement, and “greenfields agreements” for new enterprises).</p>
<p>One of its biggest changes is to suspend rules that prevent enterprise agreements from undercutting minimum award standards. This proposal wasn’t even discussed at the roundtables. </p>
<p>This confirms the gloves are off once again in Australia’s interminable IR wars. </p>
<p>Here are the most significant ways the bill will weight the scales further to the disadvantage of workers.</p>
<h2>Suspending the BOOT</h2>
<p>As the law now stands, enterprise agreements cannot undercut minimum standards in industry awards. This is known as the “better off overall test” – or BOOT. The new bill instructs the Fair Work Commission to approve agreements even if they fail this test, so long as the deal is nominally supported by affected workers (more on this below) and deemed to be in the “public interest”.</p>
<p>Australia is unique among wealthy nations in allowing employers to unilaterally implement enterprise agreements, without involvement by a union. The BOOT is thus necessary to prevent enterprise agreements from undermining award rights. </p>
<p>The bill proposes suspending BOOT for two years. But even if it were restored after that (which is uncertain), agreements approved during that window would remain in effect (enterprise agreements typically last four years). Even after they expire, under Australian law they remain in effect until replaced by a new agreement, or terminated by the FWC – neither of which is likely in a non-unionised workplace.</p>
<p>Apparently in anticipation that unions will actively oppose non-BOOT-compliant agreements, the bill also includes measures to speed their approval by the Fair Work Commission. The process must be completed within 21 days (with some exceptions). This will limit the ability of affected workers to learn about and resist their loss of benefits and conditions. Unions will be restricted from intervening around agreements they were not directly involved in negotiating (including intervening against agreements that had no union involvement at all). </p>
<h2>Broadening the definition of casual work</h2>
<p>The growing use of “casual” employment provisions was a hot topic at the IR reform tables. The new bill clarifies the definition of casual work in the most expansive way possible: a casual job is any position deemed casual by the employer, and accepted by the worker, for which there is no promise of regular continuing employment. </p>
<p>In other words, any job can be casual, so long as workers are desperate enough to accept it. This will foster the further spread of insecure employment without paid leave entitlements. Most importantly, it removes a big potential liability faced by employers as a result of <a href="https://www.cbp.com.au/insights/insights/2020/may/what-the-workpac-ruling-on-casual-employment-means">recent court decisions</a>, under which they might have owed back pay for holidays and sick leave to employees improperly treated as casual workers.</p>
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<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/what-defines-casual-work-federal-court-ruling-highlights-a-fundamental-flaw-in-australian-labour-law-139113">What defines casual work? Federal Court ruling highlights a fundamental flaw in Australian labour law</a>
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<h2>Casualising part-time workers</h2>
<p>Further casualisation will be attained through new rules regarding rosters and hours for permanent part-time workers. The bill extends flexibility provisions originally implemented earlier this year – during that brief moment of pandemic-induced cooperation. The rules allow employers to alter hours for regular part-timers without incurring overtime penalties or other costs (currently required under some awards). This will allow employers to effectively use part-time workers as yet another form of casual, just-in-time labour.</p>
<h2>Doubling new project agreement times</h2>
<p>Finally, the bill grants one more big wish from the business list.</p>
<p>It allows super-long enterprise agreements at major new projects. Agreements can last for up to eight years – double the time now allowed – and be signed, sealed and delivered before any workers start on the job (thus denying them any input into the process). </p>
<p>Under revised BOOT provisions, they could also undercut the minimum standards of any industry awards.</p>
<h2>Back to business as usual</h2>
<p>These changes are being advertised as a spur for post-pandemic job creation. But this claim is hollow. </p>
<p>In reality, the changes in part-time and casual rules will actually discourage new hiring. Since existing workers can be costlessly “flexed” in line with employer needs, there is no need to hire anyone else. </p>
<p>Weaker BOOT protections will spur a wave of new enterprise agreements, most union-free, and aimed at reducing (not raising) compensation and standards. This makes a mockery of the goals of collective bargaining, and grants employers further opportunity to suppress labour costs (already tracking at their slowest pace in postwar history).</p>
<p>So what to make of that short-lived spirit of togetherness that purportedly sparked this whole process? In retrospect, it seems to have been just an opportunity for the Coalition government to pose as visionary statesmen during a time of crisis. </p>
<p>Now, mere months later, the government is back to its old ways – and the pandemic is just another excuse to scapegoat unions, drive down wages and fatten business profits.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/151668/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jim Stanford works for the Centre for Future Work at the Australia Institute which receives funding from a range of philanthropic, individual, and organisational donors. Jim Stanford consulted as an external expert for one of the industrial relations roundtables mentioned in the article.</span></em></p>The Morrison Government has picked up its weapons again, with an industrial relations bill that will tip the scales further against employees.Jim Stanford, Economist and Director, Centre for Future Work, Australia Institute; Honorary Professor of Political Economy, University of SydneyLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1394592020-05-28T20:05:54Z2020-05-28T20:05:54ZVital Signs: Morrison’s industrial relations peace gambit is worth a shot. Even if it fails, it’s shrewd politics<p>Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison <a href="https://www.pm.gov.au/media/address-national-press-club-260520">this week announced plans</a> for a potential “grand bargain” on industrial relations.</p>
<p>Speaking at the National Press Club, he framed the issue as one of boosting economic productivity:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>We must enable our businesses to earn Australia’s way out of this crisis. And that means focusing on the things that can make their businesses go faster.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Rather than directly introducing legislation into the parliament, Morrison’s plan involves creating five “working groups” of union and business advocates to look at issues from simplifying awards and the enterprise bargaining system to the treatment of casual workers and “greenfields” agreements for new enterprises. </p>
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<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/morrison-government-invites-unions-to-dance-but-employer-groups-call-the-tune-139469">Morrison government invites unions to dance, but employer groups call the tune</a>
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<p>This is shrewd politics. If the working groups find agreement, the government can push the required legislation through parliament with a claim to a mandate. And claim the credit.</p>
<p>If it fails, Morrison can say nothing can happen without business and workers agreeing. So the government avoids blame.</p>
<p>But it may also be canny economics. </p>
<h2>Going for broker</h2>
<p>Perhaps Morrison has realised his real power is not as an advocate but a broker.</p>
<p>This process might have less in common with Australia’s prices and incomes accords of the 1980s, where unions agreed to limit wage claims, than with the Dayton Accords, the peace agreement that ended the Bosnian War in 1995.</p>
<p>The accords between the Australian Council of Trade Unions and the Hawke and Keating governments between 1983 and 1991 were a response to the wage-price spirals that plagued advanced economies in the 1970s and early 1980s. </p>
<p>High inflation led to large wage claims, which further fuelled inflation. The 1983 accord broke this spiral by guaranteeing wage increases every six months tied to the consumer price index. As I’ve <a href="https://theconversation.com/hawke-was-our-larrikin-but-also-our-reformer-117308">noted previously</a>: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>Once people knew that wages weren’t going to gallop ahead of prices, there was less of a reason to raise prices, which put less pressure on wages, and so on.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>The <a href="https://www.britannica.com/event/Dayton-Accords">Dayton Accords</a> (officially the: General Framework Agreement for Peace in Bosnia and Herzegovina) were brokered by the US administration in Dayton, Ohio, in November 1995 between the presidents of Bosnia, Croatia and Serbia.</p>
<h2>Booking a room</h2>
<p>The shadow minister for industrial relations, Tony Burke, reacted to Morrison’s announcement <a href="https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/unions-get-a-seat-at-scott-morrison-s-workplace-reform-table-20200526-p54wnw.html">by saying</a>:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Let’s be clear: all the government has done so far is book a room. This is not an IR agenda – it’s a series of meetings.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Burke meant this as a criticism, but in fact it might be a virtue. It’s hard to imagine a deal on industrial relations without representatives of employers and employees agreeing. That agreement may be better served by a government acting as a broker rather than pushing its own specific agenda.</p>
<p>There is an emerging school of thought in economics that coordinating beliefs plays a crucial role <a href="https://academic.oup.com/qje/article/131/4/1849/2468869">in reaching value-enhancing deals</a>. Having the participants believe there can be a deal might be the heart of the issue. </p>
<p>That was arguably the role US chief negotiator Richard Holbrooke played in the Dayton Accords, and the role federal industrial relations minister Christian Porter will need to play in this rather different setting.</p>
<h2>Very different starting points</h2>
<p>That said, the parties don’t agree on all that much – at least as a starting point. ACTU secretary Sally McManus <a href="https://www.theaustralian.com.au/commentary/seat-at-the-table-a-chance-to-create-stronger-economy-together/news-story/1a10e91b881ece0404c03525ae5e34aa">has emphasised</a> that:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>We can only secure a better, stronger Australia if working people have permanent, well-paid work and the entitlements that come with it.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>The head of the Business Council of Australia (BCA), <a href="https://www.afr.com/work-and-careers/workplace/later-business-council-backs-gary-banks-on-critical-ir-reform-20200504-p54pjq">Jennifer Westacott</a>, says the issue is needing:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>… a system that delivers higher productivity, letting people work more effectively, produce more and find new and innovative ways to work.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Can permanence and job security be reconciled with effectiveness and innovation in the workplace? I’m an optimist. But we shall see.</p>
<h2>Are the representatives representative?</h2>
<p>This possible grand bargain needs to be between employers and employees. Those at the table will be representatives of those groups – namely unions and employer groups such as the BCA and Ai Group.</p>
<p>A crucial question is how representative these representatives are. </p>
<p>As <a href="https://iview.abc.net.au/show/7-30/series/0/video/NC2001H083S00">Leigh Sales observed</a> on the ABC’s 7:30 program this week: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>The vast majority of Australians aren’t members of unions, only 14% of people are. In this process, shouldn’t workers be represented by other voices that more likely speak for them? </p>
</blockquote>
<p>In the private sector, union membership is even lower – about 10%.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/three-charts-on-the-changing-face-of-australian-union-members-80141">Three charts on: the changing face of Australian union members</a>
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<p>One should ask similar questions of the BCA and Ai Group. For instance, do they represent the views of smaller businesses as faithfully as they do the big ones?</p>
<p>This is crucial because it affects the credibility of any potential deal, and how any benefits are spread. A cosy deal between big business and unions on greenfield construction sites is one thing. A grand bargain that helps workers not in unions and employers across the economy is quite another.</p>
<h2>Will it work?</h2>
<p>Morrison did frame the issue adeptly in his address. He was clear about the inputs needed to increase the economic pie:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>The skilled labour businesses need to draw on, the affordable and reliable energy they need, the research and technology they can draw on and utilise, the investment capital and finance that they can access, the markets they can connect to, the economic infrastructure that supports and connects them, the amount of government regulation they must comply with, and the amount and the efficiency of the taxes they must pay.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Given all that, Australia’s industrial relations system does arguably need reform. And it won’t happen without the key players agreeing to it themselves. </p>
<p>Morrison’s gambit may not work, but it is certainly worth a shot.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/139459/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Richard Holden does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Scott Morrison may have realised his real power is not as an advocate but a broker.Richard Holden, Professor of Economics, UNSW SydneyLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1394622020-05-27T20:07:36Z2020-05-27T20:07:36ZMorrison wants unions and business to ‘put down the weapons’ on IR. But real reform will not be easy.<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/337862/original/file-20200527-141295-pjc0vc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=141%2C100%2C5359%2C3409&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Lukas Coch/AAP</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>In a bid to repair the economy, Prime Minister Scott Morrison has announced an <a href="https://theconversation.com/view-from-the-hill-can-scott-morrison-achieve-industrial-relations-disarmament-139408">industrial relations overhaul</a>. </p>
<p>Business groups and unions will be brought together to try to change a system that Morrison says is “not fit for purpose”. </p>
<p>This is a positive step after years in which industrial relations has substantially divided interested parties. As Morrison <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/radio/programs/am/weve-got-to-put-down-the-weapons:-morrison/12289830">told the ABC</a> on Wednesday, “we’ve got to put down the weapons”. </p>
<p>But reaching meaningful agreement will not be simple or straightforward. </p>
<h2>Accord 2.0?</h2>
<p>Morrison’s move has <a href="https://www.afr.com/politics/federal/morrison-s-ir-pitch-sparks-accord-comparisons-20200526-p54wl6">invited comparisons</a> with the Accord between the Labor Party and the ACTU when Bob Hawke became prime minister in 1983. </p>
<p>This was the basis for economic reform built on wide consensus between employers, unions and government. </p>
<p>However, there are many differences between the special circumstances of the Accord and now, which may indicate the chances of success for the current initiative. </p>
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<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/australian-politics-explainer-the-prices-and-incomes-accord-75622">Australian politics explainer: the Prices and Incomes Accord</a>
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<p>Hawke had the advantage of high levels of trust from both unions and employers, based on his years as a successful negotiator as ACTU president and industrial officer. </p>
<p>While Morrison talked positively about to the “<a href="https://www.pm.gov.au/media/address-national-press-club-260520">constructive approach</a>” between unions and employers during the coronavirus pandemic, he does not have any such record of trust to build on.</p>
<p>Another difference with the Accord is that in the 1980s, the industrial relations system was more centralised. So, employer organisations and the ACTU enjoyed greater coverage and authority among their own constituents to bring them to an agreement. </p>
<p>One indication of that difference now is the recent <a href="https://theconversation.com/pay-cuts-to-keep-jobs-the-tertiary-education-unions-deal-with-universities-explained-138623">Jobs Protection Framework</a> negotiated between the National Tertiary Education Union and the Australian Higher Education Industrial Association. </p>
<p>It has fallen over as a sectoral agreement because many universities have <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-05-26/uow-rejects-national-job-protection-framework/12287288">refused to participate</a> and it has attracted criticism among some union members. </p>
<h2>What needs to be fixed in 2020</h2>
<p><a href="https://thenewdaily.com.au/finance/work/2020/05/27/workplace-reforms-sally-mcmanus/">Unions</a>, <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/breakfast/business-ready-to-get-the-job-done-on-ir-reform/12289796">business</a> and government all agree that reform of the current system is needed. Finding common ground on what those changes are will be more difficult.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/337865/original/file-20200527-141303-4j0etl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/337865/original/file-20200527-141303-4j0etl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/337865/original/file-20200527-141303-4j0etl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/337865/original/file-20200527-141303-4j0etl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/337865/original/file-20200527-141303-4j0etl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/337865/original/file-20200527-141303-4j0etl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/337865/original/file-20200527-141303-4j0etl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">ACTU secretary Sally McManus says she wants to make jobs more secure for workers.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Joel Carrett/AAP</span></span>
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<p>Morrison has announced five working groups, to be chaired by Industrial Relations Minister Christian Porter. The groups will look at award simplification, casual and fixed-term employment, greenfield projects, and compliance and enforcement for wages and conditions. </p>
<p>Most of the working group topics relate to employer groups’ reform agenda.
The <a href="https://www.bca.com.au/making_the_right_choices_will_be_crucial_to_recovery">Business Council of Australia</a> has advocated for greater flexibility and simplification of the award system for the economy to successfully rebuild.</p>
<p>Employment relations professor David Peetz <a href="https://theconversation.com/we-should-simplify-our-industrial-relations-system-but-not-in-the-way-big-business-wants-137607">warns that this is code</a> for shrinking the award safety net. Unions are likely to interpret this similarly. </p>
<p>Unions may be more interested in simplification of the enterprise bargaining system to benefit workers. They are concerned with the ease with which employers have increasingly terminated agreements and moved employees onto lower paid awards. </p>
<h2>Casual workers</h2>
<p>The casual workforce is likely to be a contentious area for discussion. </p>
<p>The Australian Industry Group has called for <a href="https://www.aigroup.com.au/policy-and-research/industrynewsletter/industry-extras/qld-insights-feb19-casual-employee/">tighter legislative definition</a> of casual worker status, after recent court decisions granted leave for long-term casuals. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/337867/original/file-20200527-141283-9yjics.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/337867/original/file-20200527-141283-9yjics.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/337867/original/file-20200527-141283-9yjics.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/337867/original/file-20200527-141283-9yjics.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/337867/original/file-20200527-141283-9yjics.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/337867/original/file-20200527-141283-9yjics.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/337867/original/file-20200527-141283-9yjics.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">Ai Group chief executive Innes Willox is concerned about the definition of workers.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Lukas Coch/AAP</span></span>
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</figure>
<p>Meanwhile, the ACTU has long sought a <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-03-21/actu-pushing-for-more-rights-for-casual-workers/9570226">general right of conversion</a> to permanent employment for long-term casuals of six to 12 months standing, whom they consider to be exploited. </p>
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<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/australian-economy-must-come-out-of-icu-scott-morrison-139347">Australian economy must come 'out of ICU': Scott Morrison</a>
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<p>Notwithstanding the casual loading for casual workers, <a href="https://www.smh.com.au/business/workplace/casuals-paid-less-than-permanent-workers-despite-loadings-20181117-p50gpi.html">they earn less</a> on average than permanent employees.</p>
<p>There may be grounds for agreement on this issue. Employers would need to concede a formula for long term casuals’ easy conversion, if they choose, to permanent employment. Unions would need to concede no leave entitlements for employees who choose to remain casuals.</p>
<h2>Greenfields sites</h2>
<p>Greenfields sites - which involve a genuine new business, activity or project - have <a href="https://corrs.com.au/insights/a-fine-line-fwc-rejects-proposed-greenfields-agreements-for-west-gate-tunnel-project">been a battleground</a> in the Fair Work Commission for years. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.fwc.gov.au/enterprise-agreements-benchbook/what-is-an-enterprise-agreement/greenfields-agreement">Greenfields agreements</a> on large construction sites have enabled employers to reach enterprise bargaining agreements with a small number of employees before most workers are hired. Workers who are hired when the project gets fully underway are then bound by the agreement.</p>
<h2>Compliance and enforcement</h2>
<p>There may be more common ground over improved compliance and enforcement for wages and conditions. Employers and unions have condemned <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-12-16/woolworths-agm-underpaid-staff-backpayments-have-begun/11804692">major cases of underpayment</a> recently uncovered by the Fair Work Ombudsman. </p>
<p>However, better compliance may be difficult to reconcile with the government and employers’ desire for less regulation. </p>
<h2>Where to now?</h2>
<p>Unions and employers have indicated willingness to participate in good faith, despite the huge challenges they face. But the omens are poor.</p>
<p>There is already disagreement over the Fair Work Commission’s annual minimum wage decision, due in July. </p>
<p>The ACTU is arguing for a 4% increase, <a href="https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/look-the-word-crisis-up-in-a-dictionary-businesses-attack-union-minimum-wage-rise-calls-20200515-p54tel.html">angering business groups</a>. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/337868/original/file-20200527-141303-cpuatj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/337868/original/file-20200527-141303-cpuatj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/337868/original/file-20200527-141303-cpuatj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/337868/original/file-20200527-141303-cpuatj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/337868/original/file-20200527-141303-cpuatj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/337868/original/file-20200527-141303-cpuatj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/337868/original/file-20200527-141303-cpuatj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">Industrial Relations Minister Christian Porter will chair five working groups to try and overhaul the IR system.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Joel Carrett/AAP</span></span>
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<p>The Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry has argued the minimum wage <a href="https://www.news.com.au/national/breaking-news/business-wants-minimum-wage-frozen/news-story/0e8deee889ffca70d2ac9ae476de2180">should remain frozen</a> until at least mid-2021. It has even cited a precedent of the 10% reduction awarded on the basis of capacity to pay during the Great Depression. </p>
<p>The fact that wages growth had been at <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-03-28/why-workers-are-getting-the-smallest-pay-rises-since-wwii/10942530">record lows before the COVID-19</a> crisis will not help matters. </p>
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<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/view-from-the-hill-can-scott-morrison-achieve-industrial-relations-disarmament-139408">View from The Hill: Can Scott Morrison achieve industrial relations disarmament?</a>
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<p>There is also a serious question as to whether industrial relations reform is the right place to be looking to reboot the economy. </p>
<p>Former top public servant Michael Keating was head of the Employment, Finance and Prime Minister’s departments during the Accords era. </p>
<p>Writing <a href="https://thenewdaily.com.au/finance/finance-news/2020/04/30/coronavirus-economic-policies/">last month</a>, he said Australia’s industrial relations regulation was more flexible than that in the United States, and the reforms of the past 25 years have had little substantial impact on productivity, labour market adjustment, wages growth or industrial disputation. </p>
<p>Keating also warned that industrial relations reform is mainly “camouflage for lower wages, which is the last thing this economy needs right now”.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/139462/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Ray Markey has received funding for past projects from the Australian Research Council, Australian Government, ACTU, Unions NSW, and some businesses.
He is a life member of the National Tertiary Education Union
</span></em></p>Unions, business and government will sit down to try to overhaul our industrial relations system. Past and recent history tell us this is a tough ask.Ray Markey, Emeritus Professor, Macquarie UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1307972020-02-02T18:53:40Z2020-02-02T18:53:40ZThink superannuation comes from employers’ pockets? It comes from yours<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/313020/original/file-20200131-41541-1dsm0mq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>A key question for the government’s retirement incomes <a href="https://treasury.gov.au/review/retirement-income-review">review</a> is who ultimately pays for compulsory super contributions, especially since they are set to climb from 9.5% of wages to 12% over the next five years.</p>
<p>Legally, they come from employers, on top of wages. But employers’ contributions have to come from somewhere. Compulsory super was introduced in 1992 with the <a href="https://treasury.gov.au/sites/default/files/2019-10/afts_retirement_incomes_consultation_paper.pdf">intention</a> they would come out of funds that would otherwise have been paid out as wage increases.</p>
<p>Modelling by the <a href="https://treasury.gov.au/sites/default/files/2019-09/foi_2534_document_set_for_release_re.pdf">Treasury</a>, <a href="https://grattan.edu.au/report/money-in-retirement/">Grattan Institute</a>, and the <a href="https://www.cis.org.au/app/uploads/2016/08/32-3-potter-michael.pdf">private sector</a> has long assumed that is what has happened.</p>
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<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/productivity-commission-finds-super-a-bad-deal-and-yes-it-comes-out-of-wages-109638">Productivity Commission finds super a bad deal. And yes, it comes out of wages</a>
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<hr>
<p>But until now there has been scant empirical evidence about who actually pays, and against the backdrop of chronic low wage growth and the imminent increases, the conventional wisdom has come <a href="https://www.futurework.org.au/abandoning_super_increases_won_t_boost_wages">under attack</a>. </p>
<p>Today’s new Grattan Institute study, <a href="https://grattan.edu.au/report/no-free-lunch/">No free lunch: higher superannuation means lower wages</a> fills the gap.</p>
<p>In an Australian first, it examines detailed data on 80,000 enterprise bargaining agreements over the three decades of compulsory super and concludes that, on average, 80% of each increase in compulsory super has been taken from what would otherwise have been wage increases.</p>
<h2>Increases super comes from wages</h2>
<p>In theory, super contributions could come from three sources:</p>
<ul>
<li><p>workers, through lower wage growth</p></li>
<li><p>consumers, through higher prices</p></li>
<li><p>investors, through lower profits.</p></li>
</ul>
<p>International <a href="https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3435377">studies</a> of similar schemes find that most, if not all, of the cost is borne by workers through lower wage growth. </p>
<p>Our study examined administrative microdata on 80,000 enterprise bargaining agreements filed between 1991 and 2018 sourced from the <a href="https://www.ag.gov.au/industrial-relations/enterprise-agreements-data/Pages/workplace-agreements-database.aspx">Workplace Agreements Database</a> maintained by the attorney general’s department. </p>
<p>We compared agreements whose terms spanned leglislated increases in compulsory super with those that did not.</p>
<p>Then we estimated what the wage rise in each agreement ought to have been based on detailed information about the agreement, the employer’s industry, and economic conditions at the time it was negotiated.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/5-questions-about-superannuation-the-governments-new-inquiry-will-need-to-ask-124400">5 questions about superannuation the government's new inquiry will need to ask</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>We were able to see whether there was a systematic difference in wage rises between the agreements that spanned step-up increases in compulsory super and those that did not.</p>
<p>On average 80% of the cost of increased compulsory super contributions was passed on to workers through lower wage rises than would have been expected over the life of those agreements. The long-term impact is likely to have been higher.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/the-uncomfortable-truth-about-super-theres-no-one-size-fits-all-contribution-130193">The uncomfortable truth about super: there's no ‘one-size-fits-all’ contribution</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>The graph shows the overall finding using data from 1992 to 2018 and also the results from subsets of the including the private or public sectors, big and small firms and the period since 1997. </p>
<p>In each case somewhere between most and all of the cost of super increases was passed through to workers in the form of lower wage increases.</p>
<hr>
<p><strong>On average, 80% of super increases were at the expense of wages</strong> </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/313024/original/file-20200131-41495-1ahpb28.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/313024/original/file-20200131-41495-1ahpb28.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/313024/original/file-20200131-41495-1ahpb28.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=311&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/313024/original/file-20200131-41495-1ahpb28.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=311&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/313024/original/file-20200131-41495-1ahpb28.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=311&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/313024/original/file-20200131-41495-1ahpb28.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=390&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/313024/original/file-20200131-41495-1ahpb28.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=390&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/313024/original/file-20200131-41495-1ahpb28.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=390&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Notes: see report.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Source: No free lunch Higher superannuation means lower wages, Grattan Institute, February 2020</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<hr>
<h2>It isn’t only enterprise agreements</h2>
<p>Our study looked only at workers on federally-registered enterprise bargaining agreements, around <a href="https://www.ag.gov.au/industrial-relations/industrial-relations-publications/Documents/trends-report-june-quarter-2019.pdf">30%</a> of the workforce. Other workers are also likely to bear the cost of higher super through lower wages. </p>
<p>The Fair Work Commission – the body which sets award wages – has made the link between super increases and award wages <a href="https://www.fwc.gov.au/documents/sites/wagereview2013/decisions/2013fwcfb4000_statement.pdf">explicit</a>, saying that when super goes up, award wages grow more slowly than they otherwise would.</p>
<p>State enterprise agreements are unlikely to differ much from federal agreements, and workers covered by one-on-one arrangements are likely to experience similar trade-offs. </p>
<h2>Future super increases are unlikely to be different</h2>
<p>It is unlikely the leglislated future step ups in compulsory super contributions will be different from the earlier ones.</p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/265468/original/file-20190324-36267-olwp2z.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/265468/original/file-20190324-36267-olwp2z.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/265468/original/file-20190324-36267-olwp2z.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=962&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/265468/original/file-20190324-36267-olwp2z.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=962&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/265468/original/file-20190324-36267-olwp2z.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=962&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/265468/original/file-20190324-36267-olwp2z.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1210&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/265468/original/file-20190324-36267-olwp2z.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1210&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/265468/original/file-20190324-36267-olwp2z.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1210&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption"></span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.ato.gov.au/rates/key-superannuation-rates-and-thresholds/?anchor=Superguaranteepercentage">Source: Australian Tax Office</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Although wage growth is slower now than in the past, wages are nevertheless – by all measures – growing by more than 2% a year, offering ample room for employers to wind back wage increases in order to fund each of the five scheduled annual step ups of 0.5% in compulsory super contributions that begin on July 1, 2021.</p>
<p>In fact, if workers’ bargaining power has fallen recently - <a href="https://www.smh.com.au/business/workplace/lack-of-competition-between-employers-contributes-to-weaker-wages-20180902-p50197.html">as some suggest</a> - employers might feel they can push even more of the cost of higher super onto workers than in the past.</p>
<p>Our analysis shows previous increases in compulsory super came mainly from wages: they took money that would have been handed to workers as wage increases and handed it to fund managers to hold and invest until those workers retired. </p>
<p>The next set of legislated increases are likely to do the same.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/130797/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Grattan Institute began with contributions to its endowment of $15 million from each of the Federal and Victorian Governments, $4 million from BHP Billiton, and $1 million from NAB. In order to safeguard its independence, Grattan Institute’s board controls this endowment. The funds are invested and contribute to funding Grattan Institute's activities. Grattan Institute also receives funding from corporates, foundations, and individuals to support its general activities, as disclosed on its website. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Matthew Cowgill and Will Mackey do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>An examination of 80,000 enterprise bargaining agreements finds that on average 80% of each increase in compulsory super has been at the expense of wages.Brendan Coates, Program Director, Household Finances, Grattan InstituteMatthew Cowgill, Senior Associate, Grattan InstituteWill Mackey, Associate, Grattan InstituteLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/913152018-02-08T00:50:18Z2018-02-08T00:50:18ZUnions can’t just rely on promises of favourable laws to regain lost ground<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/205248/original/file-20180207-74512-1dtdlq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">As ACTU secretary, Sally McManus has proven effective at elevating the debate over workplace reform. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">AAP/Alex Murray</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>This year has begun with an intensification of <a href="https://theconversation.com/vital-signs-jobs-may-be-increasing-but-the-real-test-is-whether-we-get-a-pay-rise-this-year-90110">the debate</a> about wage stagnation and wage inequality in Australia.</p>
<p>Research papers published this year have <a href="http://www.futurework.org.au/decline_in_strike_frequency">linked</a> the stalling of wage increases to drastically reduced levels of industrial action (and therefore unions’ collective bargaining power), and <a href="https://percapita.org.au/research/work-australia-working/">highlighted</a> the current system of workplace regulation’s focus on outdated notions of work and the workplace.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/vital-signs-jobs-may-be-increasing-but-the-real-test-is-whether-we-get-a-pay-rise-this-year-90110">Vital Signs: jobs may be increasing but the real test is whether we get a pay rise this year</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>The Labor Party’s national president, Mark Butler, <a href="https://markbutler.net.au/news/speeches/the-future-of-unions-in-australia-and-the-implications-for-labor/">recently urged</a> the labour movement “to have a no-holds-barred debate about the place of unions in Australia”. He pointed to the problems unions faced in terms of employer hostility and unhelpful laws, but also argued:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Most people still imagine union organising against a backdrop of relatively large workplaces with a stable workforce – traditional factory organising … [However a] modern workplace is far more likely to be small and difficult to access, with a workforce that has high levels of turnover.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Unions have to persuade people of the wisdom of having a collective voice in the workplace, and find a new version of solidarity for the digital age.</p>
<h2>State of play</h2>
<p>Sally McManus has been secretary of the Australian Council of Trade Unions (ACTU) for just under a year. In that time, she has <a href="http://www.afr.com/brand/afr-magazine/actu-chief-sally-mcmanus-parlays-online-support-into-power-20170814-gxvuo2">proven effective</a> at elevating the debate over workplace reform. The <a href="https://www.australianunions.org.au/change_the_rules">union movement’s mantra</a> – “the rules are broken”, “we need to #changetherules” – is biting in the community.</p>
<p>McManus recently effectively called time on the 25-year process of enterprise bargaining. <a href="https://www.workplaceexpress.com.au/nl06_news_selected.php?act=2&selkey=56458">She argued</a> unions are confronted with “a labyrinth of regulations”, and workers now have “little to trade off”.</p>
<p>The <a href="https://www.legislation.gov.au/Details/C2017C00323">Fair Work Act</a> is a legacy of the last Labor government; it’s been the subject of minimal change by the Coalition to date. </p>
<p>Unions had significant input into drafting the act when Julia Gillard was workplace relations minister in 2007-08. They ensured it included various mechanisms to support collective bargaining, in a shift from the individualised focus of the WorkChoices era.</p>
<p>However, in the decade since then, employers have found various ways to side-step many of the Fair Work Act’s requirements. And other union or employee rights have been read down by the courts and the Fair Work Commission.</p>
<h2>Finding new ways to connect</h2>
<p>Clearly, there are changes to the law that would, <a href="https://www.actu.org.au/actu-media/speeches-and-opinion/sally-mcmanus-address-to-nexgen-2017">as McManus argues</a>, help unions in their efforts to organise and represent workers. These include:</p>
<ul>
<li><p>tackling the “free-rider” issue (where non-unionists gain the benefit of union-negotiated enterprise agreements)</p></li>
<li><p>enabling unions to bargain not just with the direct employer of their members, but across franchise networks and supply chains</p></li>
<li><p>closing down the use of outsourcing, labour hire and other business entities to avoid the application of enterprise agreements, and employers making inferior agreements with small employees that are later applied to a much larger workforce (known as “no-stake” bargaining)</p></li>
<li><p>limiting employers’ ability to seek termination of expired agreements (taking workers back to the award safety net).</p></li>
</ul>
<p>Labor has <a href="http://brendanoconnor.ml.net.au/en-au/News/Brendan-OConnor-Latest-News/Post/16230/WORK-WAGES-AND-DIVISION-CREATING-A-FAIR-AND-PRODUCTIVE-LABOUR-MARKET-NATIONAL-PRESS-CLUB-CANBERRA">already committed</a> to implement many elements of the union agenda if it wins the next election. </p>
<p>But even with the most favourable laws, unions will still need to confront the reality of a dramatic transformation in the world of work: automation, the expanding “gig economy”, and what US academic David Weil calls the <a href="http://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog.php?isbn=9780674975446&content=reviews">“fissuring” of work</a> – where business functions are split off to new entities that are forced to engage in intense competition, thus driving down labour costs. </p>
<p>Former ACTU assistant secretary Tim Lyons <a href="https://meanjin.com.au/essays/the-labour-movement-my-part-in-its-downfall/">puts it this way</a>: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>The workplaces and communities in which we organised politically and industrially have disappeared underneath us … Unions have to transform to catch up to the world as it is.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>These developments, combined with the disinclination of young workers to join unions, mean new forms of engagement have to be found outside the conventional notion of the workplace. Unions must connect with people in their communities and speak to them using technology they are familiar with.</p>
<p>Some Australian unions are taking on this challenge. They are attempting to organise workers in their homes, places of religious observance, and other focal points for community activity. For example:</p>
<ul>
<li><p>Victorian Trades Hall Council’s <a href="http://www.youngworkers.org.au/">Young Workers Centre</a> harnesses the power of social media in an effort to reach a new generation of workers in disparate, disconnected work environments. </p></li>
<li><p>The National Union of Workers has run a very effective campaign targeting exploitation of farm workers in the fresh food supply chain. It has also offered a <a href="https://www.nuw.org.au/your-fair-go-0">“FairGo” category</a> of membership, enabling non-members to participate in a class action to recover underpayments.</p></li>
</ul>
<p>However, not all union leaders are embracing these kinds of innovation. They may be at risk of placing too much faith in the capacity of legal changes to deliver a revival in membership numbers. </p>
<p>Given record-low wage increases and widespread exploitation of vulnerable workers, the value proposition of a collective voice in the workplace has rarely been stronger.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/91315/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Anthony Forsyth has received research funding from organisations including the BCA, CFMEU, Fair Work Commission and Victorian Government. He is a Consultant with Corrs Chambers Westgarth. The views expressed in this article are his own.</span></em></p>Even with the most favourable laws, unions will still need to confront the reality of a dramatic transformation in the world of work.Anthony Forsyth, Professor of Workplace Law, RMIT UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/834462017-09-08T07:04:34Z2017-09-08T07:04:34ZHow market forces and weakened institutions are keeping our wages low<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/184846/original/file-20170906-9835-e207yu.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Since the mid 1970s and especially since the 1980s the job market changed and so did how our wages are set.
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Ryan Derry/Flickr</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/">CC BY-NC-ND</a></span></figcaption></figure><p><em>Low wages growth has been a spectre hanging around the Australian economy for some time. In our series <a href="https://theconversation.com/au/topics/what-we-earn-42620">What We Earn</a> we unpick the causes for this and why some workers might be feeling it more than others.</em></p>
<hr>
<p>Within the political class there is a low level moral panic about low wages growth. The irony is that those lamenting this situation are simply witnessing the ultimate outcome of <a href="http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0022185617693875">policies they have long advocated</a>. </p>
<p>While Australia still has systems like Industrial Tribunals and Awards - given how they interact with market forces today, these institutions now work to <a href="http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0022185617693875">entrench wage inequality rather than reduce it</a>.</p>
<p>Wage rates and movements are determined by a combination of market and institutional forces. Technology, human capital, levels of labour supply and the profitability of companies in laggard and leading set the lower and upper bounds for sustainable wage levels. </p>
<p>As economist and philosopher Adam Smith noted, the income workers require to survive sets what’s called a “market floor” for wages - the lowest acceptable limit. Rates of profit in the best performing firms set the upper limit, as Australia’s executive class has shown very clearly for over three decades now.
What rates actually prevail within these very broad limits <a href="http://press.princeton.edu/TOCs/c5377.html">are determined by institutional forces</a> – in Australia, the award system of minimum wages and unions collective bargaining rights. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/the-costs-of-a-casual-job-are-now-outweighing-any-pay-benefits-82207">The costs of a casual job are now outweighing any pay benefits</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>Historically Australia has had the great benefit of having institutional arrangements that balanced these forces well. The key elements of this were a network of industrial tribunals that regularly assessed the overall economic and social situation and determined what rates and movements in pay were sustainable. </p>
<p>These rates were not set unilaterally, but in coordination with what employers and organised workers indicated was possible, in industry level collective agreements. </p>
<p>The defacto rule was that wage movements should equate to movements in productivity plus the cost of living. The standards set in the leading profitable sectors then spread to the entire workforce through the maintenance of award relativities (ie standard comparative rates of pay set by reference to benchmark occupations like metal fitter, carpenter and truck driver). During this time awards rates approximated pretty closely to going rates of pay. </p>
<p>These underlying principles were not unique to Australia. In the era following the second world war it meant that in most countries workers shared in productivity growth and wages tracked pretty closely with it. </p>
<p>Since the mid 1970s and especially since the 1980s all this has changed. </p>
<p>Australia has not seen anything like full employment since the early 1970s. While unemployment has been cyclical, it has usually been 5% or more since that time. More importantly, <a href="http://www.ausstats.abs.gov.au/ausstats/meisubs.nsf/0/389553AE1C42D239CA2580890012526F/$File/62020_nov%202016.pdf">underemployment has been on the rise</a>.</p>
<p>This has not been cyclical. It has racketed up after each recession.</p>
<p>And that is just in terms of hours worked. If we took into account workers with skills not being used, levels of labour underutilisation are much higher. Estimates of underutilisation of this nature vary <a href="http://www.oecd-ilibrary.org/docserver/download/5kg58j9d7b6d-en.pdf?expires=1504841676&id=id&accname=guest&checksum=691EE7B4D2025F7FB16DA6E529FBE74D">as being between 15 and 25%</a>.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.rba.gov.au/speeches/2017/sp-gov-2017-02-22.html">High levels of indebtedness</a> also weaken workers bargaining power. Today few can hold out for long bargaining periods – either individually or collectively. This gives employers a huge advantage in setting wages.</p>
<h2>The legacy of labour market ‘reform’</h2>
<p>In the 1970s and 1980s Australia’s wage setting institutions worked well to protect wage rates against the full force of these downward pressures. Since the early 1990s, however, those institutions have been transformed. </p>
<p>The key issue here has not just been the weakening of unions and their bargaining power. Just as significant has been the uncoupling of wage rates set by wage leaders, from the wages of the weak. Workers in benchmark setting sectors like construction used to establish wage norms. These were recognised by industrial tribunals as a community standard which they then passed on to workers in weaker sectors like retail through generalised award wage base rises. In this way the wages of the strong supported movement in the wages of the weak.</p>
<p>This was a <a href="http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1111/1472-9296.00003">key “reform” of the Keating government</a>, introduced with the active support of the ACTU. It was explicitly designed to let wages of the strong grow faster than the wages of the weak to maintain macroeconomic balance as the wages system decentralised. </p>
<p>The Howard governments’ labour law changes - first the Workplace Relations Act (1996) and then Workchoices (2006) - merely extended the logic of this reform trajectory. The current Fair Work Act merely codifies this trajectory as the law of the land today.</p>
<p>Today Austraila’s minimum wages remain among the highest in the world. The difference is they operate in relative isolation from the rest of the workforce. </p>
<p>Until the 1990s they were part of an interconnected system that ensured wages gains of the strong were widely shared. Today they provide the ultimate safety for those with the weakest levels of bargaining power – <a href="https://www.fwc.gov.au/documents/sites/wagereview2014/research/report6.pdf">currently about 15% of the workforce</a> directly and a further 15% indirectly. </p>
<p>We should also not forget the new found role of Treasury departments. Immediately after its election, the O’Farrell government in NSW legislated to cap wage rises in the NSW public sector to no more than 2.5% per annum. </p>
<p>Pubic sector teachers and nurses, especially in NSW, were emerging at the new wage leaders. This meant that their wages were now capped and this Treasury edict - and not collective bargaining and arbitration - set community wage norms.</p>
<p>Today our wages system has a different logic. The recent cut in penalty rates is a case of the wages of the weak putting pressure on the wages of the strong. While the Fair Work Commission quarantined the rest of the workforce from this cut by limiting its recent decision to low paid service workers – the precedent is there. Future movement in wage standards for anti-social hours will be down and not up. </p>
<p>Over the course of the twentieth century Australia devised a remarkable set of institutions to manage the complex problem of wages and labour standards. It’s time we built on what little remains of that legacy to remedy low wage growth. </p>
<p>Building on these institutions doesn’t mean restoring what was. New policies need to engage with new realities. Even former enthusiastic supporters for reducing labour standards and wages <a href="https://www.imf.org/external/np/g20/pdf/2017/062617.pdf">such as the IMF</a> now recognise growth needs to be inclusive if it is to sustainable. </p>
<p>It’s much easier to destroy institutions that deliver fair pay than build them. Australia <a href="http://www.ianwatson.com.au/pubs/wages%20policy.pdf">found ways of achieving fair pay</a> over the course of the twentieth century - it can to so again.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/83446/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Over a 25 year career as an academic John Buchanan received funding from over 50 different organisations. In addition to the ARC I have received millions of dollars of research funds from governments of all persuasions, unions, employers and international bodies. No funds supported the production of this article. It is based on a scholarly paper published in the peer reviewed British Journal of Industrial Relations.</span></em></p>Austraila’s minimum wages now operate in relative isolation. Until the 1990s they were part of an inter-connected system.John Buchanan, Head of the Discipline of Business Analytics, University of Sydney Business School, University of SydneyLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/701392016-12-31T20:33:43Z2016-12-31T20:33:43ZCabinet papers 1992-93: the rise and fall of enterprise bargaining agreements<p>1992 was landmark year in Australian industrial relations. The Keating government pushed for enterprise bargaining in the face of reluctance from the Industrial Relations Commission and employers’ concerns at the prospect of wage inflation. </p>
<p>The 1992-93 cabinet papers – released by the National Archives of Australia – mark this historic major reform, in the context of a set of broader economic reforms implemented by the Hawke/Keating Labor government. This all occurred when the economic outlook for growth and unemployment at the time was highly uncertain.</p>
<h2>Before the changes</h2>
<p>Up until this point, most people relied on National Wage Cases – or Living Wage Cases, as they had become known – handed down by the Industrial Relations Commission for improvements in wages. These generally happened yearly, and accounted for more than 90% of all wage movements during the period prior to enterprise bargaining. </p>
<p>Not only was bargaining a minor part of the system, but industrial awards were the primary instrument that set out, in a comprehensive way, terms and conditions of employment for most workers. </p>
<p>There were literally hundreds of awards – covering different occupations, industries, and even for some single companies, that set minimum employment conditions. </p>
<p>Australia had no formal minimum wage, unlike most other advanced industrial relations systems. And strikes remained unlawful tactics, although this was not reflective of practice. </p>
<h2>What the introduction of enterprise bargaining meant</h2>
<p>The decision to introduce enterprise bargaining was also taken in the middle of the period in which the broad elements of economic policy – including the wages system – were negotiated through the Prices and Incomes Accord. </p>
<p>The Accord was an agreement first struck between Labor and the unions in 1983 while Labor was in opposition. It formed the centrepiece of economic and industrial relations policy for the both the Hawke and Keating governments for more than a decade. </p>
<p>In many ways, the largely peaceful negotiation that enabled this shift to enterprise bargaining – or a system of “managed decentralism”, as it was often referred to – may not have happened without considerable industrial dispute if it hadn’t been negotiated as part of the Accord.</p>
<p>At the time, many unions were not convinced that enterprise bargaining was the best approach. But under Bill Kelty’s forceful leadership, the Australian Council of Trade Unions (ACTU) saw it as inevitable, and sought to ensure that it occurred in a fair and equitable manner.</p>
<p>A key feature of the reforms approved by cabinet in 1992 was the choice to include a role for awards as a safety net to protect those without bargaining power. Equally important were provisions to ensure that gains made in more productive sectors of the economy – or where unions were able to leverage greater bargaining power – did not flow to other groups through pattern bargaining. </p>
<p>While these provisions did not prove as effective as hoped, these changes formalised an end to the longstanding principle of comparative wage justice as a guiding one for determining wage outcomes. This principle dictated that individuals doing the same job in different sectors or firms should be paid the same irrespective of the profitability of the firm, or the economic state of the industry.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/151337/original/image-20161222-4056-14nbdoj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/151337/original/image-20161222-4056-14nbdoj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=603&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/151337/original/image-20161222-4056-14nbdoj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=603&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/151337/original/image-20161222-4056-14nbdoj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=603&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/151337/original/image-20161222-4056-14nbdoj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=758&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/151337/original/image-20161222-4056-14nbdoj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=758&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/151337/original/image-20161222-4056-14nbdoj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=758&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The Keating government pushed for the introduction of the enterprise bargaining agreements.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">The National Archives of Australia</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>The controversy</h2>
<p>At the time, the introduction of enterprise bargaining was not only momentous but also controversial – although you would barely be aware of these controversies based on the cabinet submission that formed the basis for this decision. </p>
<p>Perhaps surprising for many, the ACTU, not employer groups, was the strongest advocate for the introduction of statutory provisions for enterprise bargaining.
Employers were fearful that it could lead to a wage-price spiral associated with the end of wage indexation in the 1970s. </p>
<p>The national tribunal – which was then called the Industrial Relations Commission, was by and large opposed to a shift towards enterprise bargaining. It had just a year earlier, in the <a href="http://www.airc.gov.au/safetynet_review/decisions/J7400.htm">April 1991 National wage Case decision</a>, refused a request by the ACTU to enunciate principles for enterprise bargaining on the grounds that the industrial parties were not yet mature enough to engage in collective bargaining with exacting economic damage on the Australian economy. </p>
<p>By October, in a reconvened National wage case hearing, the Commission yielded to pressure form the ACTU and government and set out the first principles for enterprise bargaining. However, for government these proved too restrictive and so in 1992, changes to the legislation to create a new form of statutory agreement were introduced. These reforms also limited the ability of the Industrial relations Commission to veto enterprise agreements struck by employers and unions, but rather sought to provide a more active role in the oversight of implementation.</p>
<p>Yet, 1992 was not the end of the process of reform. In April 1993, in a speech to the Australian Institute of Company Directors, Prime Minister Keating signalled that his ambition was to further entrench enterprise bargaining and restrict the role of awards. </p>
<p>It was widely acknowledged the speech caused some rift between the ACTU and the Keating government. For many in the union movement, it was a step too far down a slippery slope towards labour market deregulation.</p>
<p>That fear has proved unfounded. After the battles around the introduction of Australian Workplace Agreements in the mid 1990s, which allowed employers to create agreements directly with individual employees, and then <a href="http://www.findlaw.com.au/faqs/1916/what-was-workchoices-and-why-was-it-so-unpopular.aspx">the Work Choices controversy in 2006</a>, the Fair Work Act first introduced under the Rudd government has proved stable. </p>
<p>It has found some common ground with the conservative side of politics, and the current government has no plans for a major haul of the system at this stage. <a href="http://www.austlii.edu.au/au/legis/cth/consol_act/fwa2009114/">The Fair Work Act</a> embeds enterprise bargaining as the primary mechanism by which wages and conditions are determined. Awards have shrunk in relevance – in the scope of issues they cover and the proportion of the workers reliant on them. </p>
<p>But will enterprise bargaining survive? If the trends reported in recent data on agreement making are any indicator, enterprise bargaining is now facing a period of decline. The <a href="https://docs.employment.gov.au/node/37341">latest release from the Commonwealth Department of Employment</a> shows the number of enterprise agreements being made is falling, and now the number of workers covered by enterprise agreements is also shrinking significantly. </p>
<p>This is of course closely related to the dramatic falls in union membership that have been occurring over several decades. This data suggests that neither the hopes and fears around the introduction of enterprise bargaining agreements have been realised. The ambitious hopes held by unions for the Fair Work Act to reverse their declining fortunes, nor the worst fears of many employer groups that the same legislation would lead to unions given a new found source of power to raise wages and reduce employment. </p>
<p>If anything, after 21 years of growth, we are now witnessing a decline of enterprise bargaining – a decline which will not be reversed without some legislative reform to support it.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/70139/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The Centre for Workplace Leadership receives funding from the Commonwealth Government. </span></em></p>Even though enterprise bargaining agreements proved controversial when introduced, their use is actually in decline today.Peter Gahan, Professor of Management + Director, Centre for Workplace Leadership, Faculty of Business and Economics, The University of MelbourneLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/456522015-08-04T19:36:56Z2015-08-04T19:36:56ZEnterprise contracts echo ‘take it or leave it’ world of WorkChoices<p>The Productivity Commission’s newly released draft report into <a href="http://www.pc.gov.au/inquiries/current/workplace-relations/draft/workplace-relations-draft-overview.pdf">Australia’s workplace relations framework</a> must be treated with great caution. </p>
<p>Prima facie, it appears supportive of “the Australian way” to developing and enforcing labour standards. </p>
<blockquote>
<p>Contrary to perceptions, Australia’s labour market performance and flexibility is relatively good by global standards, and many of the concerns that pervaded historical arrangements have now abated. Strike activity is low, wages are responsive to economic downturns and there are multiple forms of employment arrangements that offer employees and employers flexible options for working.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Closer reading reveals, however, it is committed to deepening the further erosion of Australia’s distinctive approach to achieving fairness as well as productivity at work. </p>
<p>This corrosive dynamic commenced under the Keating government in 1991. It was turbo-charged in 2006 when the Howard-era WorkChoices redefined the terms around which the debate on workplace relations reform has been couched.</p>
<p>The report makes some sensible suggestions. Prime amongst these are its proposals for a more realistic (that is, tolerant) approach to pattern bargaining and controls on non-union bargaining agents (who it suggests should gain 5% employee support to gain recognition).</p>
<p>The core recommendations, however, concern three fundamental matters.</p>
<p>First is the erosion of the independence of Australia’s labour standards setting authority.</p>
<p>The Productivity Commission report claims “several major deficiencies” must be addressed, criticising the FairWork Commission for being overly-legalistic in the way it determines awards and claiming the appointment process for FWC members leads to inconsistencies in its decisions.</p>
<p>In place of tenure, Fair Work Commissioners are to have five year contracts, be subject to performance management and be appointed by the relevant Federal minister alone. Labour standards are to be set be people with research and analytical expertise alone. </p>
<p>Those with practical experience of the operation of labour standards are to be excluded from shaping them in any way. Any notion of a quasi-judicial process to determine labour standards would be completely eradicated if these recommendations are implemented. It would mark the complete severance with Australia’s distinctive - and well respected – regime of labour standards determination.</p>
<p>The second concern is the further fragmentation of bargaining with employer driven “collective contracts”.</p>
<p>The report asserts there is “a gap in contract arrangements between individual arrangements (broadly defined) and enterprise agreements” (page 37, 57). It proposes this “gap” be filled by employer-determined collective “enterprise contracts”. There are strong echoes here of “take it or leave it” collective Australian Workplace Awards (AWAs) of WorkChoices. </p>
<p>The Commission appears to be totally unaware of decades of industrial sociology and industrial psychology on workplace dynamics. Social space of work is governed as much, if not more, by trust as well as contractual relations. Improving “trust relations”, not creating yet another form of contract is needed to fill this alleged “gap”. </p>
<p>Introducing the notion of “contract” in this context only has relevance if one is endeavouring to weaken the coherence and effectiveness of a labour standards regime.</p>
<p>The final one is further erosion of union bargaining power.</p>
<p>The final swag of recommendations have a very strong WorkChoices flavour of tilting bargaining power towards employers. The proposal that strike action can be terminated if it does “significant economic harm to the employer alone” betrays either naivety or bias of the highest order. That is the primary reason why strikes are undertaken.</p>
<p>In short, while the Commission advocates “repairing not replacing” our current system, the effects of its proposed changes would profoundly shift power in it. This would be achieved by weakening the independent standing of the Fair Work Commission as a body comprised of thoughtful practitioners and a major erosion of unions’ ability to act effectively in the labour market.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/45652/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span> John Buchanan is Director of the Workplace Research Centre. This is a self-financing research unit based in the University of Sydney Business School. The Centre is funded by end users of the research it produces. Clients are based in the government, non-government and private sectors. Between 2011 - 2013 he lead two large scale projects worth just over $2m for the Fair Work Commission that examined the reach of award across the private sector and the impact of minimum wage decisions on the incentive to bargain. These projects were awarded to the Centre after an open tender process.</span></em></p>Echoes of WorkChoices? The Coalition is keen to avoid any whiff of the failed policy, but some of the Productivity Commission’s recommendations have a strong flavour of it.John Buchanan, Director, Workplace Research Centre, University of SydneyLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/456472015-08-04T04:21:57Z2015-08-04T04:21:57ZChange penalty rates, reform work agreements, urges Productivity Commission: experts respond<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/90712/original/image-20150804-15137-19ljvdl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Cafe workers are among many that stand to lose Sunday penalty rates.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Felipe Neves/Flickr</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/">CC BY-NC-ND</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Hospitality, entertainment, retail, restaurant and cafe workers will have their Sunday penalty rates cut, while minimum wage workers can expect modest pay rises, if draft workplace reform recommendations from the Productivity Commission are accepted by the Coalition government.</p>
<p>Despite criticism from business lobby groups, the Commission has described the current system of minimum wage setting as “justified”, saying the view that existing levels are “highly prejudicial to employment is not well founded”.</p>
<p>But it says significant minimum wage increases pose a risk for employment, especially against a weakening labour market. It also says the Fair Work Commission should be allowed to make temporary variations in awards “in exceptional circumstances after an annual wage review has been completed”.</p>
<hr>
<p><a href="https://theconversation.com/sundays-are-similar-to-saturdays-for-workers-productivity-commission-45643">Michelle Grattan</a>: <em>“Nevertheless, whatever reforms the government proposes for its next term will face tough counter-attack from Labor and the unions”.</em></p>
<hr>
<p>The Commission recommends that Sunday penalty rates be removed for hospitality, retail and entertainment workers, aligning them with Saturday rates. The Commission believes lower regulated Sunday rates would increase opening hours and encourage higher staffing ratios and job opportunities.</p>
<p>Rebutting business complaints that the system needs comprehensive reform, the Commission found Australia’s labour market was performing relatively well against global standards. </p>
<p>But among other major recommendations on reforming Australia’s enterprise agreement system, the Productivity Commission has suggested the creation of an enterprise contract, a new type of enterprise agreement allowing business to negotiate individual flexibility arrangements without the need for an employee ballot. The report said the Australian Government should also replace the better off overall test for approval of enterprise agreements with a new “no-disadvantage” test.</p>
<p>The report suggests employees could only receive compensation for unfair dismissal if it was found they had been dismissed “without reasonable evidence of persistent underperformance or serious misconduct”. It also recommends the emphasis on reinstatement as the primary goal of the unfair dismissal provisions, be removed from the 2009 Fair Work Act.</p>
<p>Among recommendations that will anger unions, the Productivity Commission has said the Fair Work Commission should only grant a protected action ballot order to employees if enterprise bargaining has commenced, and suggests the Fair Work Commission be allowed suspend or terminate industrial action causing, “or threatening to cause, significant economic harm to the employer or the employees… rather than both parties (as is currently the case)”.</p>
<p>It also suggests increasing the maximum penalty for unlawful industrial action to reflect “the high costs that such actions can inflict on employers and the community”. </p>
<p>The report also addresses the potential exploitation of migrant workers by employers, suggesting penalties for underpaying staff be boosted. </p>
<hr>
<h2>Enterprise Contracts</h2>
<p><strong>David Peetz, Professor of Employment Relations at Griffith University:</strong></p>
<p>The Productivity Commission says its recommendation of an “enterprise contract” will “go a long way in allowing enterprises to negotiate with individuals without union representation if that is their wish”.</p>
<p>Unfortunately for the Productivity Commission, it would not be an “agreement”, because the Commission recommends employers be able to establish an enterprise contract “without having to negotiate” with anyone. Indeed it could be offered “to all prospective employees as a condition of employment”. </p>
<p>The EC would not be subject to the existing “better off overall test” that currently applies to enterprise agreements and individual flexibility arrangements. Instead, it would be tested against a weaker “no disadvantage” test.</p>
<p>It therefore has the key features of two previously abandoned instruments. One is “employer greenfield agreements” (EGAs), which only existed under WorkChoices. These enabled an employer to agree with itself the conditions that would apply to new employees – but only in a new establishment, whereas ECs would apply in any establishment of any size. These greenfield agreements led to frequent cuts in penalty rates and other conditions.</p>
<p>The second is Australian Workplace Agreements (AWAs), which even when they were subject to a no-disadvantage test (before WorkChoices), were shown to lead to lower pay and conditions (and/or to be used for union avoidance), and which under WorkChoices could be offered as a condition of employment. AWAs were a major factor in the defeat of the Howard government.</p>
<p>It is hard to believe that the Productivity Commission really expects that the government would agree to this recommendation, as it would form an easy basis for another political mobilisation by unions against any reform package. More likely, it would end up a sacrificial lamb, dumped by the government to protest it is only after moderate reforms.</p>
<hr>
<h2>Minimum wage</h2>
<p><strong>Rob Bray, Research Fellow at Australian National University:</strong></p>
<p>The Productivity Commission is quite cautious in its discussion, in many ways reflecting the extent to which submissions did not argue too strongly for change, and the considerable weakness of the available data. It supports the maintenance of a national minimum wage, recognising a need to “address bargaining power imbalances”, but makes <a href="http://www.pc.gov.au/inquiries/current/workplace-relations/draft/workplace-relations-draft-overview.pdf">some recommendations</a> for change in the setting of this. These are a mixed bag. </p>
<p>Responding to special pleading from the rural sector and an employer organisation, it suggests that there should be capacity to vary awards in “exceptional circumstances” (without really saying why this mechanism, rather than say drought relief is appropriate). The Productivity Commission also suggests that the Fair Work Commission “systematically considers the risks of unexpected variations in economic circumstances” – a rather challenging concept, and one that tends to ignore the extent to which changes in wages tend to be retrospective; that is, justified on the basis of what has happened.</p>
<p>While discussing the interaction with the tax and transfer system the Productivity Commission comes to no conclusion, doesn’t come to grip with family payments, and simply issues another “Information Request” for further input from participants. Tucked away in the discussion of the minimum wage is a call for a comprehensive review into apprenticeships and traineeships, and another information request about the structure of junior wages.</p>
<p>Looking at the report overall one can only get the impression that while the Productivity Commission may have taken its first wobbling step in considering these issues it has a long way to go. Given the timing it may be sensible for it to consider what it can and cannot feasibly cover in the time available to it.</p>
<hr><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/45647/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>As a university employee, David Peetz has undertaken research over many years with occasional financial support from governments from both sides of politics, employers and unions. His most recent major consultancy was for the New Zealand government. At present he is involved in several Australian Research Council-funded and approved projects which included contributions from the employer body Universities Australia, the superannuation fund Unisuper, the National Tertiary Education Union and the Construction, Forestry, Mining and Energy Union. The projects do not concern the subject matter of this article. He is a research associate of the T J Ryan Foundation in Brisbane and the New Zealand Work Research Institute in Auckland, a co-researcher of the Inter-University Centre for Research on Globalisation and Work (CRIMT) based in Quebec, and a Fellow of the Academy of the Social Sciences in Australia.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Rob Bray received funding from the HC Coombs Policy Forum in 2013 which supported his initial research on the Australian Minimum Wage.</span></em></p>Sunday penalty rates will go under Productivity Commission recommendations, but overall our workplace system was basically operating well, it found.David Peetz, Professor of Employment Relations, Griffith UniversityRob Bray, Research Fellow, Australian National UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/233532014-02-26T19:17:19Z2014-02-26T19:17:19ZEnterprise bargaining no great problem, but no panacea either<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/42300/original/tdcpk7pc-1393209624.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The 'brittle' side of industrial relations: CFMEU members in dispute with their employer, Energy Australia.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Julian Smith/AAPImage</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Over the course of the last few months, industrial relations has once again become a major issue on the national political agenda. Allegations of union corruption, uncompetitive wage deals, inflexible modern awards and unsustainable work arrangements have been blamed for a growing number of economic problems. </p>
<p>As Michelle Grattan <a href="https://theconversation.com/howes-puts-in-a-good-word-for-abbott-as-he-calls-for-a-new-industrial-relations-approach-22855">has noted recently</a>, the IR climate is now “brittle”. Tempers have flared on all sides. </p>
<p>The government is intent on taking a hard line on unlawful union behaviour and has signalled that it will intervene in the Fair Work Commission’s upcoming review of modern awards. </p>
<p>Prior to the last election a Productivity Commission review into the Fair Work Act was promised. Although the terms have yet to be announced, it will no doubt be comprehensive. Joe Hockey has already indicated that he sees further labour market deregulation as critical to boosting productivity. Senior ministers have also asked employers to toughen up when it comes to enterprise bargaining.</p>
<p>Employers have been critical of the Fair Work legislation for some time. The Australian Mines and Metals Association, for example, took <a href="http://www.amma.org.au/assets/images/stories/submissions/201202_AMMA_FairWorkSubmission2012_ShortExecutiveSummary.pdf">25 recommendations</a> for reform to the Review of the Fair Work Act in 2012.</p>
<p>The Business Council of Australia has also made clear <a href="http://www.bca.com.au/publications/action-plan-for-enduring-prosperity-full-report">its list of priorities</a> for changing IR laws, as have other employer groups. Common among all of them are concerns that the new rules for enterprise bargaining, included in the Fair Work Act, have provided unions with a “leg up” and driven up wages costs. </p>
<p>Because of the historical importance of awards and arbitration, collective bargaining has in fact been less significant in Australia than in other industrialised economies. However, since 1991 the year the first principles for enterprise bargaining were put in place by the industrial tribunal, enterprise bargaining has grown in importance. Since then, successive governments have developed increasingly elaborate rules for bargaining, taking industrial action, and making agreements.</p>
<p>The Fair Work Act represents an important stage in the development of these bargaining rules because it places the concept of “good faith” at the heart of enterprise bargaining. The idea of “good faith bargaining” has developed in many other contexts, but is most closely associated with collective bargaining systems in the US and Canada and, more recently, in the UK and NZ.</p>
<p>Under the Fair Work Act, the good faith bargaining provisions require employers, unions (and other “employee bargaining representatives”) to, for example, give genuine consideration to the other parties’ proposal. Importantly, the law does not require the parties to make concessions or reach an agreement. The guiding principle is that “good faith” should facilitate genuine bargaining, but not compel agreement.</p>
<p>Figure 1 below shows the total number of live agreements made each quarter. The growing importance of enterprise bargaining since 1991 is evident. The Figure indicates that immediately after the Fair Work Act came into force (in July 2009), there was a jump in the number of enterprise agreements made. However, many unions have clearly found it increasingly difficult to make agreements. Within just twelve months after the Act became law there has been a marked fall in the number of agreements made.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/41751/original/45hvpf7k-1392691324.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/41751/original/45hvpf7k-1392691324.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/41751/original/45hvpf7k-1392691324.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=300&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/41751/original/45hvpf7k-1392691324.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=300&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/41751/original/45hvpf7k-1392691324.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=300&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/41751/original/45hvpf7k-1392691324.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=377&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/41751/original/45hvpf7k-1392691324.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=377&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/41751/original/45hvpf7k-1392691324.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=377&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<p>Unions have also struggled to hold the line in terms of coverage as Figure 2 shows. Again, the introduction of the Fair Work Act was associated with a boost in the number of employees covered by enterprise agreements. This growth has tapered off to such an extent that the proportion of the workforce covered by enterprise agreements is now falling. This is true for both the private and public sectors.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/41757/original/4fcg89f2-1392691632.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/41757/original/4fcg89f2-1392691632.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/41757/original/4fcg89f2-1392691632.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=308&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/41757/original/4fcg89f2-1392691632.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=308&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/41757/original/4fcg89f2-1392691632.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=308&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/41757/original/4fcg89f2-1392691632.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=387&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/41757/original/4fcg89f2-1392691632.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=387&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/41757/original/4fcg89f2-1392691632.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=387&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
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<p>These figures hide a more significant trend: an increasing proportion of enterprise agreements are now made without any negotiations with unions or without unions being a party to the agreement. Indeed, our analysis of the Federal Government’s own agreement data shows there are now more non-union enterprise agreement struck directly with employees than there are agreements made with unions. </p>
<p>What conclusions can be drawn from this evidence? In short, whatever problems the Fair Work Act has caused – and there are no doubt some – in the main, the new bargaining provisions have not been as favourable to unions as many have suggested. </p>
<p>The trends indicate that many employers already appear to be toughening up – either looking to work around unions through non-union agreements, or by avoiding enterprise bargaining altogether. </p>
<p>This conclusion is consistent with the wage data. The evidence from enterprise agreements – backed up by the ABS Wage Price Index series – shows that wages growth has followed a stable pattern – and since 2010 the trend has in fact been towards lower wages growth.</p>
<p>On the productivity front, the <a href="https://theconversation.com/workplace-deregulation-wont-boost-productivity-22942">evidence is at best mixed</a>, but the most robust economic studies suggest the productivity dividend associated with enterprise bargaining is hard to find.</p>
<p>Getting workplace relations right is obviously important, but it may be that we expect too much from legislation and the formalities of enterprise agreements. If we are to improve productivity, and generate more innovation and creativity at work, better leadership and more capable management may be a better place to start.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/23353/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Peter Gahan receives funding from the Australian Research Council. He is Director of the Centre for Workplace Leadership, which is funded jointly by the Commonwealth Government and The University of Melbourne.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Andreas Pekarek does not work for, consult to, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has no relevant affiliations.</span></em></p>Over the course of the last few months, industrial relations has once again become a major issue on the national political agenda. Allegations of union corruption, uncompetitive wage deals, inflexible…Peter Gahan, Professor of Management + Director, Centre for Workplace Leadership, Faculty of Business and Economics, The University of MelbourneAndreas Pekarek, Lecturer in Management, The University of MelbourneLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.