AMMA Workplace Relations Policy

Efficient and productive businesses, including resource sector operations play a significant role in maintaining a strong Australian economy. Businesses create jobs and provide wages, contributing to export income and providing necessary services and infrastructure. They are a source of innovation that contributes to Australia’s prosperity and growth.

The capacity for Australian business to be efficient and productive is impacted on by the workplace relations system and the extent to which it regulates the employment relationship.

It is therefore important that Australia strikes the right balance on workplace relations regulation.

A balanced workplace relations system is one that will be sustainable over the longer term, able to ride the waves of the economy and the election of new governments. In AMMA’s view, Australia’s workplace relations system will be sustainable in the longer term if it:

1. Supports or facilitates organisational change;

2. Encourages employers to employ new employees and makes dismissal for performance, conduct or operational reasons straightforward and simple; 

3. Promotes and supports direct relationships between employers and employees;

4. Keeps unnecessary and burdensome red tape on employers to a minimum;

5. Achieves an appropriate balance in respect to union right of entry and industrial action;

6. Sets a safety net that is socially and economically responsible; and

7. Generates world competitive enterprises.

TAKE ME TO:

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KEY POINTS

§  Direct employment relationships

§  Flexible workplace arrangements

§  A national workplace relations system

§  A sustainable regulatory environment capable of withstanding changes in government

AMMA RECOMMENDATIONS

National Regulatory Framework

A single national workplace relations system, without the duplication and complexity resulting from the interaction of six states, two territories and a federal system, is a prime requirement of a modern industrial relations system. This national system should cover all employing entities including both constitutional corporations and unincorporated bodies.

Minimum Standards and Awards

There must be a set of legislated statutory core minimum standards of general application. There must also be an ability to agree to hours of work that meet operational needs having regard to OHS and fitness for work principles.

Awards should be restricted to providing a safety net of core conditions of employment in industry (and where relevant sub industry) sectors. Enterprise awards should continue to be available.

Agreement Making

There must be access to a broad range of agreement making options including collective agreements, Greenfield agreements and statutory individual agreements, with a duration of up to five years.

Agreements should be able to customise the conditions of employment to the needs of the parties and be capable of overriding awards or (in the case of individual agreements) collective agreements. Agreements should not be imposed except in limited circumstances.

Agreement Processing & Compliance

There should be a simple administrative agreement registration process, without a requirement to attend a formal hearing. Agreements should commence on signing and be required to meet a simple set of legislated minimum conditions.

Industrial Action and Compliance

The law should prohibit the taking of industrial action during the life of an agreement and provide readily accessible remedies to prevent or stop the taking of unlawful industrial action and the capacity to seek compensation.

Access to protected industrial action for employees and employers during the negotiation of an agreement should be conditional on the party taking action having genuinely attempted to reach agreement and in the case of employees, approved by a majority of employees in a secret ballot vote prior to commencement of the action.

There should be a statutory prohibition of secondary boycotts, pattern bargaining, action which impacts on to essential services and action in support of claims that do not relate to the employment relationship.

Trade Practices Act 1974 (Cth) breaches (secondary boycotts) should continue.

Unfair Dismissal

There should be a single unfair/unlawful dismissal system, with exemptions for probationary employees, and high income earners.

The primary determinant of whether a termination is unfair should be confined to the merits of the case.

Employers should be protection from vexatious and frivolous claims by providing an ability to recover costs in the case of unmeritorious claims.

Union Right of Entry

There should be a single national right of entry law for unions allowing entry to hold discussions with members or to investigate genuinely suspected breaches of an industrial instrument, but limited to those unions covered by the relevant industrial instrument that applies to a member.

Building and Construction Industry Compliance

A separate compliance regime for the building and construction industry monitored by a separate industry regulator with tough enforcement, investigatory and compliance powers to achieve lasting cultural change.

AMMA INITIATIVES

             Quarterly meetings of the AMMA Board Reference Group to identify current and emerging human resources and industrial relations issues and provide strategic input into policy development.

             Industry representation on the Federal Committee on Industrial Legislation (COIL), providing technical advice to the government on practical operation and implications of proposed industrial legislation;

             Industry representation on the National Workplace Relations Consultative Council, which consults on workplace relations and labour market matters;

             Membership of the Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry, it’s Workplace Policy Committee and various working parties, including the Construction Industry Working Party;

             Submissions to government on various matters including the Forward with Fairness industrial relations legislative reform measures, the Australian Building and Construction Commission, Employee share schemes, Superannuation and paid parental leave.

             Working parties of AMMA membership and across various sub-sectors (e.g. hydrocarbons, construction or maritime) on major policy projects, such as award modernisation.

             Research papers contributing to the national workplace relations debate, including Constructing Lawful Workplaces, the Building Industry Regulator and Workplace Relations Policy Scorecard.

             Speeches on workplace relations matters delivered to the Australian Labour Law Association, Industrial Relations Summit, state Industrial Relations Societies and Workforce Conferences.

PAPERS AND RELEASES

ENQUIRIES