Unfair dismissal applications to the Fair Work Commission (FWC) have tripled in the last decade according to a new report Fair Work and the Right to Work released this week by the Institute of Public Affairs.

Fewer than 6000 applications were made to the FWC in 2005-06, however a sharp increase to more than 18,000 was recorded in 2015-16, according to the report which is the first major project to be released by the IPA in its Dignity of Work Project.

IPA research fellow and the report’s author, Gideon Rozner, described Fair Work as a “disaster for our economy, for businesses and, importantly, for thousands of Australian workers”.

“The regulatory nightmare created by Fair Work has become an albatross around the neck of Australian businesses, locking thousands of Australians out of the work force,” Mr Rozner said.

“Enterprise bargaining is also being used by trade unions to influence operational and management decisions that they were not able to prior to Fair Work, which removed the limits on what an EBA could contain.”

He said unions were increasingly limiting businesses’ ability to use independent contractors and labour hire companies, creating a ‘closed shop’ dynamic in many industries.

“Fair Work has reinstated the role of trade unions at the heart of Australia’s industrial relations system,” he said.

“The unions have, in turn, been the juice in the machine that has made Fair Work so insidiously bad for the right to work.”

Mr Rozner said unions were driving pay and conditions of awards up via the modernisation and review process.

He said this was holding businesses to ransom through enterprise bargaining laws, dragging employers to the FWC over frivolous unfair dismissal claims for which the union bares no cost and, therefore, no risk.

“For the sake of the more than 700,000 Australians currently looking for work, the Australian government must remove the regulatory and economic barriers that stop businesses hiring,” he said.

AREEA is calling for reform of Australia’s unfair dismissal laws as part of its Five Urgent Reforms campaign.