Employer groups have welcomed “emergency” provisions that will allow businesses to cut workers’ pay and conditions for at least the next two years.
The Australian Industry Group and Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry praised the Coalition for suspending the better off overall test on workplace pay deals, a move that has already prompted fierce backlash from unions.
On Wednesday the attorney general, Christian Porter, will release the full industrial relations omnibus bill – saving the most contentious proposal until last after a week of announcements including removing rights to backpay from misclassified casual workers and changes to increase the flexibility of part-time work.
Among the changes is a 21-day timeline for the Fair Work Commission to approve workplace pay deals and clarification of the better off overall test.
Under the new test designed to override a strict and impractical interpretation that has contributed to the decline of collective bargaining, hypothetical examples of disadvantaged employees will not be enough to block an agreement.
The Boot is meant to ensure workers can’t be disadvantaged under an enterprise agreement compared with the relevant award.
On Tuesday Guardian Australia revealed the Boot test will be suspended for two years to allow the industrial umpire to consider the impact of Covid-19 on businesses to cut workers’ pay and conditions.
Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry chief executive, James Pearson, told Guardian Australia the provisions are an extension of existing “emergency” provisions legislated by Labor, and “businesses in distress because of Covid-19” should be able to access an easier path to register workplace pay deals.
“This is critical to keeping businesses trading rather than insolvent and keep people in work and off the unemployment queues,” he said.
The Australian Industry Group chief executive, Innes Willox, agreed that “during the recovery from the pandemic, it is important that [the FWC] has increased discretion to approve enterprise agreements which do not pass the Boot, in genuine and limited circumstances where approval of the agreement is in the interests of all parties”.
The Australian Council of Trade Unions has warned that the provisions will bite for many years to come, in an “unconscionable” cut to workers’ take-home pay.
ACTU secretary, Sally McManus, said the changes “are dangerous and extreme”.
“Workchoices allowed employers to cut wages, and this proposal will do that as well,” she said. “The union movement will fight these proposals which will leave working people worse off.”
Employers did not have it all their own way on changes to bargaining. Pearson criticised the Coalition for proposing to automatically terminate longstanding agreements and “restricting when expired agreements can be brought to an end”.
“Although those looking for dramatic or structural changes will be disappointed, the package should deliver some critical changes which will make the system more predictable, reliable and better suited to the current challenges of Covid-19.”
The Coalition is also proposing to extend powers to change employees’ duties and location of work for a period of two years.
Originally linked to the jobkeeper wage subsidy, the powers will now be granted to employers covered by 12 modern awards in the sectors hit hardest by Covid-19.
On Tuesday, the shadow industrial relations minister, Tony Burke, suggested Labor could support that element of the package, as it only allowed changes to duties and location and not hours of work.
