LABOR HAS AN OPEN MIND ON IR REFORM

Labor has an open mind about industrial relations changes that help create jobs in the post-COVID world.
 
We want reforms that give workers a better deal. We want reforms that deliver more jobs, higher wages and more secure employment, after years of flatlining wages and increasing casualisation. We want reforms that give workers more rights and more bargaining power, after years of having their rights and conditions eroded and removed.
 
For years Labor has been urging the Government to bring workers and unions to the industrial relations negotiating table in a bid to deliver those sorts of reforms.
 
It’s a shame it took a global crisis for them to finally realise that workers’ voices are worth listening to.
 
But let’s be clear: all the Government has done so far is book a room. This is not an IR agenda – it’s a series of meetings.

The demands business groups have been making in recent days – including a return to WorkChoices-style individual contracts and the scrapping of awards – suggest it will be extremely difficult to forge an IR consensus. Those sorts of changes would be a disaster for workers and for the economy.

The Government’s decision to dump its anti-worker union-bashing bill is a welcome first step. But it’s not really much a concession given they did not have the numbers to pass it.
 
The Senate rejected this bill last year because it was dangerous and extreme legislation that would have left workers worse off.

We're glad the Government has finally come to its senses and conceded that defeat. They should make it official and remove the bill from the notice paper.
 
If the Government ever seeks to revisit this bill - or the attacks on workers and union that underpin it - Labor will fight it.

TUESDAY, 26 MAY 2020