Farm workers could be part-paid with fruit, vegetables and other produce as the agriculture sector seeks to lower the bar for the “better off overall test” for pay.
The National Farmers Federation (NFF) has proposed changes to take “non-monetary benefits” into account when registering workplace pay deals, echoing calls from the fast-food sector during the last round of industrial relations reforms.
The NFF is releasing its position paper on Wednesday ahead of September’s jobs and skills summit, calling to “streamline” workplace pay deals.
The Albanese government has signalled it wants to use the summit to boost productivity and pay, with most union and employer groups proposing changes to shorten the time taken to register pay deals and prevent hypothetical scenarios being used by the Fair Work Commission to reject deals.
The NFF president, Fiona Simson, said considering benefits including food in approving workplace pay deals would be “transparent” and ensure “they are considered upfront, and everybody is very clear about the intention of that arrangement”.
Simson told Guardian Australia that farm employers offer a range of non-monetary benefits to workers including accommodation, electricity, food and fuel.
“It just makes sense to be making sure you can contemplate the particular nature of the farming business and the benefits that are provided to the workforce [in bargaining].
“There’s a lot of opportunities there, particularly with the cost of living at the moment, those sorts of expenses can be very high for people.
“Providing those things as benefits or part of salaries is something that makes sense to consider for people working in rural and regional Australia.”
Simson said the NFF had “zero tolerance” for worker exploitation, such as upfront deduction of accommodation costs. The NFF also backed criminal penalties for “wage theft”, defined as “intentional, recurring underpayments”.
The Australian Workers Union national secretary, Daniel Walton, said “the days of vulnerable workers being ‘paid’ with food instead of money should be long behind us … if you work in Australia you deserve the Australian minimum wage and not a cent less”.
Walton acknowledged some jobs in remote locations required employers to provide accommodation and other essentials but “at no point” should these “be considered some kind of ‘service’ for which workers are expected to forgo pay”.
The Coalition’s omnibus industrial relations bill proposed that the Fair Work Commission may have regard to non-monetary benefits when deciding whether to approve a pay deal.
The proposal prompted backlash from unions – which have long argued against “non-monetary” benefits, derided by the former opposition leader Bill Shorten as “pizza for penalty rates”.
In 2021, McDonald’s called on the government to go further by requiring the commission to take non-monetary benefits into account.
The University of Adelaide professor Andrew Stewart told the ABC that would make it “easier for employers … to get agreements in place which undercut award entitlements”.
“The changes would open the way up for … employers to propose enterprise agreements in the future which perhaps take away some of your award pay and conditions … but say in return … ‘you’re still better off overall … because we’re giving you non-monetary benefits’.”
The NFF also proposed “returning to the ‘no-disadvantage’ test”, a lower standard for pay deals that existed before Labor introduced the “better off overall test” in the Fair Work Act in 2009.
It also wants to give greater scope for the operation of individual flexibility arrangements, which allow employers and employees to depart from award terms by agreement.
The NFF called to “fast track the introduction of a truly national system of labour-hire regulation”, including national licensing.
Simson said labour hire companies were “highly represented” in workplace compliance problems in the agricultural sector, but well-functioning labour hire companies were needed to supply workers for short-term, casual and seasonal jobs.
The NFF is part of the food supply chain alliance, which estimates that at least 172,000 more workers will be needed to avoid prolonged higher food prices for consumers and reduced food availability.
The alliance has called for better pathways for overseas workers, and lifting restrictions on work rights for temporary migrants and seniors.
