Just because the title of the bill claims to support Australia's jobs and economic recovery doesn't make it so. Over 2 million people are unemployed or underemployed, with women, young people and migrant workers bearing the brunt. Instead of improving job security and lifting wages, the government is pushing through a Bill that will further entrench insecure work, suppress wages, give more power to businesses at workers' expense and undermine the role of unions.
The government has attempted to sell this bill as reasonable and practical, however this greatly downplays the proposed changes which would result in the most drastic changes to our industrial relations in over a decade.
The pandemic has highlighted the inequality that has been allowed to flourish as a result of insecure work in Australia. Casual workers were hit hardest during the pandemic, accounting for approximately two-thirds of people who lost their job in early 2020. Those casuals who still had a job were amongst the lowest paid and insecure workers with no access to paid leave entitlements. And we must not forget the role insecure work played in spreading COVID-19 across the country as workers without paid sick leave were faced to choose between their health or losing their income. Many employers have built insecure work into their business models and while they turn a profit, workers have not had job or income security. The changes in this bill will further entrench insecure work in Australia and exacerbate the existing inequality in our industrial relations system.
Evidence given to the Committee demonstrates the prevalence of insecure work in Australia. Ms Alison Pennington, Senior Economist for the Centre for Future Work at the Australia Institute said:
Casual work has dominated employment growth in our post-COVID recovery. Between May and November, 62 per cent of all jobs created were casual. That's 400 000 in six months, or 2 200 every day. It's the fastest growth in casual work in our history. What that shows is, first of all, that claims that there is a lack of confidence among employers to engage in hiring casual work is not credible. It also shows that the pandemic is intensifying and entrenching the use of insecure and casual work in the economy.
Despite this, instead of supporting secure, well paid jobs, the government is introducing a new definition of casual that will further entrench the insecure work crisis we face. The new definition will give employers all the power to determine whether a worker is casual and will allow businesses to classify workers as casual at the start of their employment, regardless of the hours they actually end up working. Not only does this new definition do nothing to prevent the continued abuse of casual work, it actually facilitates it by allowing businesses to hire workers as casual and give them full-time hours without requiring them to pay entitlements or provide any job security. This view is reinforced by Per Capita who in reference to the provisions in the bill relating to casual employment stated in their submission:
...the provisions contained in the Bill to this end are likely to favour employers over workers, and to entrench in law the means by which some employers have excessively casualised their workforces over recent decades, without agreement from their workers and with scant regard for workers' wellbeing.
The bill will rob part-time workers of hours and income security by allowing businesses to effectively treat them like casuals, with the power to increase and decrease workers' hours. Part-time workers in industries that have been hardest hit by the pandemic, such as hospitality and retail, can now be employed on contracts that only offer a guarantee of 16 hours a week with their employer able to increase their hours without paying overtime. Workers will be forced into a false choice: accept a contract with minimal guaranteed hours and agree to additional hours at lower pay, or risk losing the job offer or additional hours to one of the over 2 million people who are currently unemployed or underemployed. This push from the government turns what should be secure, well-paid jobs into insecure work with no guarantee of regular hours or take home pay.
In a recent speech to the Australian Financial Review's business summit, Reserve Bank Governor Philip Lowe outlined the need for wage growth to support the Australian economy and stated that one of the major structural barriers is the growing share of national income going to profits rather than wages. What is needed and what economists, unions and workers are calling for are policies that will increase wages. However, this government is pursuing a bill that will suppress wages, not only by giving employers greater power to casualise the workforce and reduce the pay of part-time workers, but by further tilting the process of bargaining for better pay and conditions in employers' favour.
There are a suite of changes proposed in this bill that significantly erode workers' rights and undermine the role of unions in the enterprise bargaining process. Despite the removal of the changes to the better off overall test, the government has snuck in changes that could have the same effect. The Fair Work Commission (FWC) is no longer required to satisfy itself that an agreement doesn't exclude the minimum National Employment Standards (NES) set out in the Fair Work Act 2009. Instead, the bill replaces this safety net with a yet to be seen regulation that will allow employers to provide a 'model NES interaction term' which will supposedly assure the FWC that minimum standards are not excluded.
Additionally, employer obligations to provide workers with important information and all documents relating to the agreement are significantly weakened and employers are no longer required to notify workers they have a right to be represented by their union in negotiations until a month after they begin. This means workers may not have all the information necessary to make a decision about an agreement and might not even know they have access to support until it's too late.
The bill also requires the FWC to approve agreements within 21 days, a provision which has raised significant concerns about pressure to approve or reject agreements without proper scrutiny, resulting in low-quality agreements. As if this series of permanent changes were not enough, the government has included provisions that prevent unions who haven't been involved in negotiations from making submissions to the FWC. This means that unions, experts in industrial relations, will not be able to scrutinise non-union agreements and work towards improving them. Time and time again we have seen big businesses act in their own self interest at the expense of workers' wages and conditions, however the government is removing the safety net, checks and balances that are designed to protect workers and asking them to trust big businesses to do the right thing.
Instead of passing a bill that will entrench insecure work, reduce wages and increase the power of employers we need to outlaw insecure work and ensure the right of all workers to a safe, meaningful, secure job with good wages and good conditions.
Recommendation
The Senate oppose the bill.
Recommendation
The Senate pass the Australian Greens' bill, Fair Work Amendment (Tackling Job Insecurity) Bill 2018.
Recommendation
The Senate pass the Australian Greens' bill, Fair Work Amendment (Making Australia More Equal) Bill 2018.
Senator Mehreen Faruqi
Member