First published by Workforce Daily.
Employer groups are seeking to learn from union and community organising strategies to develop a ‘coalition of interests’ to push for IR change.
Aust Mines & Metals Assoc (AREEA) chief executive Steve Knott raised the new coalition at the peak body’s national conference this morning as he urged the Federal Government to implement the Productivity Commission’s (PC) recommendations during this election term.
Knott said he was “disappointed” the govt had not issued its response to the PC review before the election. But he stressed “fundamental reform of our workplace relations law cannot be put on the backburner”.
“The govt’s commitment to combating union lawlessness and corruption is positive, but to assume this should be the last word on workplace reform would do Australian employers, employees and the wider community a profound disservice.”
He said AREEA was “calling on the govt to pursue its clearly foreshadowed changes while simultaneously implementing the PC’s recommendations to improve Australia’s workplace relations framework”.
While Knott supported employment minister Senator Michaelia Cash consulting further on PC recommendations during coming months, he said 2017 “must see” problems with the workplace relations framework addressed through legislative change.
Knott said $160bn of projects had been put on hold since late 2013 – and there was a “very real risk if we don’t get our parameters right” on IR and red tape there will be hundreds of millions more.
He flagged IR reforms on right of entry, agreement-making, reforms to unfair dismissal and adverse actions, and maintained support for a “special independent IR tribunal”.
On the Aust Building & Construction Commission (ABCC), Knott noted the latest Senate counts indicated there was a “chance” the govt might get it through a joint sitting. He said the new ABCC Bill was important to the sector as it now extended into the offshore oil and gas industry, which it didn’t before.
On the registered organisations (RO) bill, Knott said AREEA supported it. He noted AREEA had always operated under the corporations code and the RO requirements weren’t much for unions to do comply with.
Business could learn from union campaigns
Knott told the conference employer groups were sometimes not very effective in organising for change when compared to unions.
“So we’ll be talking to a number of other business groups in the months ahead to try to get a coalition of interests in some key areas – red tape, company tax, industrial relations reform.”
He said to look at what unions did in the last election in terms of campaigning – “they’re very good at it and they’ve been doing it for the last 15 years”.
Knott said he was encouraging AREEA staff to read former Unions NSW official Amanda Tattersall’s influential book ‘The Power of Coalitions’ and to look at how effective certain organisations were, like GetUp that Tattersall set up.
“Have a look at how effective they were in pursuing their social change reforms.”
Knott noted Tattersall referred to business groups in the book as having a “coalition of letterheads”. “It’s not very effective,” he said.
“We need to have a coalition of groups to push on issues to make changes in the community to get the govt to make changes.”
“We call on you when you’re with these other business groups to have conversations about how we get coalitions and groups together to really push the pace of change.”
He said unless business groups got together they would be overshadowed by other interest groups who were much more effective in social media campaigns and messaging than some of the “old style messaging” happening in business.
