The long-running dispute has resulted in sporadic strikes and industrial action across Sydney’s rail network, prompting NSW Premier Dominic Perrottet earlier this month to warn he would tear up an existing enterprise agreement if any more action was taken.
Loading
McManus also backed the use of industrial action in helping workers negotiate multi-employer agreements, adding “if workers have no access to protected action, bargaining power is reduced to almost zero.”
Australian Industry Group chief executive said, “the demand today by the ACTU secretary Sally McManus that workers need the unfettered right to strike in support of new multi-employer pay claims would take Australia back to the industrial chaos of the past,” a claim McManus dismissed as a “scare campaign”.
On multi-employer bargaining, the ability for workers to negotiate across businesses, McManus said, “you want bargaining to be quick, you want it to be simple, you want it to be fair, and you want it to be accessible.”
She said parts of the better off overall test, the legal threshold to make sure workers don’t go backwards in negotiations, was in parts “too technical and time-consuming” and suggested the test was being applied too strictly.
Loading
Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry head Andrew McKellar said, “the message from Sally McManus and the ACTU today is clear. The trade union movement wants to run your business”.
“And if you don’t play by their rules, you will be hauled off to the Commission where it’s one-size-fits-all. This is not opt-in,” he said.
McManus also said she wanted a national discussion on casual workers receiving sick pay, although the movement’s priority was to ensure permanent workers mischaracterised as casuals were receiving their proper entitlements.
Isolation rules for COVID-affected Australians will be on the agenda at a national cabinet meeting on Friday after Prime Minister Anthony Albanese last fortnight confirmed workers without leave entitlements would continue to receive government payments for as long as they were required to stay home.
“The question then about, well, there’s still going to be some people left without that. I think there is a bigger discussion that we absolutely would like to have with the community on whether our current settings are correct on that,” McManus said, adding there were other entitlements that should be discussed.
“I think there’s a bigger, longer discussion to be had about the issue of so many people not having sick leave.”
Cut through the noise of federal politics with news, views and expert analysis from Jacqueline Maley. Subscribers can sign up to our weekly Inside Politics newsletter here.
Originally published at Sydney News HQ
No comments:
Post a Comment