The recent two-day “Jobs Summit” held by Prime Anthony Albanese in Canberra has revealed the framework for who is now really in control our nation.
The main aim of the summit was to lift wages at a time when our economy and businesses are struggling to survive, let alone recover from a global pandemic, rising inflation, increases in interest rates, increases in fuel prices and lack of actual workers.
There are two ways to lift wages – you either jam an employer for more money, which takes capital away from investment and innovation, or you increase productivity through investment and innovation.
One of the most telling things about the Summit was not just who was in attendance but who was not.
One of the most important parties to the discussion around how we lift wages and productivity didn’t even get an invite – the Productivity Commission.
It’s that federally funded yet independent body that undertakes research and provides advice to the Government on economic, social and environmental issues affecting the welfare of all Australians. Rather than getting a front row seat, let alone a chair at the main table – they weren’t even offered a lanyard. Those lanyards were instead handed out to 33 union delegates.
It is clear that the only real winners out of the two-day talk fest have been the unions who have put their foot on the throat of the government and their legislative agenda, and they aren’t wasting any time enforcing their demands.
Before the Summit was even convened, the Australian Council of Trade Unions had already provided the Government with their list of demands.
The major one was the demand for the reincarnation of “multi-employer agreements”.
They were big in the 1960s and 70s before the reforms of Hawke and Keating in the 1980s, which led to four decades of unprecedented economic growth and investment in the Australian economy.
In the 1970s, unions would negotiate industry settlements with employer groups and then force claims on all companies in the sector, backed up with frequent strikes. Hawke and Keating ended industry wide or “multi-employer” arrangements for more efficient and effective individual enterprise bargaining arrangements.
The ACTU now claims that industry-wide deals would help women in low-paid care industries but also seek to enforce industry wide arrangements across the entire Australian economy. The United Workers Union have already confirmed that Labor’s favoured multi-employer bargaining model would assist in industry-wide strikes. Last week, United Workers Union members held a national strike to demand the federal government provides a funding boost for childcare workers.
We have also seen train strikes in NSW, which has caused chaos for commuters and is costing the NSW economy $45 million a day.
I understand that people want higher wages and with rising inflation, it is creating increased cost of living pressures.
However, we can’t have a situation where the unions can take the entire country by hostage in a system of industrial strike action which brings our economy to its knees.
We must have real and sensible discussions around how we lift productivity and wages in this country and not simply return to a failed system of the 1970s which will only achieve greater union control of our economy.
We must also have an industrial relations system which provides flexibility between industries, their location and their specific challenges.
