"We'll fight you," says powerful industry group to Albanese

Employers say they’re prepared to run a multimillion-dollar campaign against Labor’s industrial relations changes unless the Albanese government scraps its plans to expand multi-employer bargaining and increase the powers of the Fair Work Commission.

The threat came as Workplace Relations Minister Tony Burke resisted calls in the Senate to delay parts of the industrial relations bill until next year, The Australian reported. Burke said he was “deeply reluctant” to delay changes that could push wages up.

According to Steve Knott, chief executive of the Australian Resources and Energy Employer Association, there was “white-hot anger” among mining, oil and gas companies about the changes. Knott said these employers had “significant capacity to fund a substantial campaign.”

“From my discussions, I have no doubt that unless the government slows down their plans to rush their initial bill through Parliament before year’s end and makes substantive changes, the broader employer community will be energised to run an anti-IR bill campaign that will dwarf the ACTU’s ‘Your Rights at Work’ campaign,” Knott told The Australian.

He said employers demanded that the government, at the very least, agree not to apply the multi-employer bargaining provisions to the resources and energy sector.

“We just think it’s barking mad,” Knott said. “If they carved our sector out then they can go and have a fight with other sectors, but our sector is not going to sit down and just allow this without a fight. They would absolutely dwarf the Work Choices campaign and they have the financial capacity to do it. It would be like the mining tax campaign, but on steroids. That campaign cost about $20 million. 

“The industry has got a history of, when they’ve been poked, they will respond – and there are enough corporate gorillas in the mining, oil and gas sector who have come to me and said this is not on,” he said.

ACTU president Michele O’Neil told The Australian it was “telling and typical that mining companies who are making record profits will spend millions of dollars to avoid giving their workers a pay rise.”

“These employers will never agree to changes that put money in the hands of working people,” O’Neil said.

ACT senator David Pocock, whose vote is critical to the passage of the bill, has said he has “serious concerns” about the government’s attempt to push all the changes through this year. Pocock said that some provisions, such as the gender-pay equity provisions and improvements to the legal test that approves pay deals, could be passed by Dec. 1, The Australian reported. However, he has suggested that the more controversial parts of the bill, including the multi-employer bargaining provisions, be delayed until 2023.

Crossbench senator Jacqui Lambie told Sky News that she doubted “very, very much” that the bill would pass before Christmas.

“Right now it seems to be suiting all the unions’ side of it,” Lambie said. “If you don’t think there is going to be more strikes then blow me over, I can tell you what, I’d put a 100% on it. It will cause more strikes. It will be more difficult for the country. We have got to find a medium here, and I’ll tell you what, unions won’t be getting it all their goddamn way. I’ve about had enough of them.”

Responding to Pocock’s hesitance, Burke said, “I respect the different concerns that senator David Pocock has raised, but I am deeply reluctant to delay any provisions which will get wages moving. People have had their wages deliberately held back for 10 years, and with inflation moving at its current rate, I don’t see how I can deliberately hold back parts of legislation that seek to get wages moving again. I’m hopeful to continue the good-faith discussions with Senator Pocock and the other crossbenchers and satisfy any concerns they have about the bill itself.”

In addition to expanding multi-employer bargaining provisions, the bill gives the FWC the ability to arbitrate disputes regarded as intractable, The Australian reported. Knott said unions would exploit that provision by making claims they know employers would never agree to, throwing decisions on pay and conditions to the FWC.

“None of the commission members, with perhaps the exception of one, has ever run a business before, and employers just don’t want to outsource that key component of their business to the Fair Work Commission,” Knott told The Australian. “In 2022, we have higher energy costs, higher inflation and commodity prices falling from peak cycle levels. Having FWC arbitrating higher costs for business without associated productivity gains will most likely lead to calls for a renaming of the jingoistic Secure Jobs, Better Pay Bill to the Fewer Jobs, No Pay Bill.”