OPINION: Unless the jobs summit delivers an unlikely breakthrough, the government is bringing nothing to the IR table to improve output but plenty that will lift costs.
is right to observe that today’s industrial relations system is not capable of delivering the wage/price spiral of the 1970s.The reforms of the 1990s removed that inflationary bias, replacing industry-wide award wage increases with enterprise by enterprise bargaining – where wage increases are dependent on productivity improvement or cost reductions, or are conceded in exchange for changes in work practices.
The answer to that question might be provided by the industrial relations policy the new government took to the election. Sadly, it isn’t.Greater job security can potentially improve worker output by removing uncertainty in the work contract and increasing the stake workers have in their jobs. There are no big positive productivity items in Labor’s reform package. Almost all its promises amplify the need for offsetting productivity and other improvements via changes to the way work is done in a business.
The key issue at the summit will be to amend the “better off overall” test to allow change to previously settled employment conditions and work practices. This will challenge trade unions, which are deeply attached to hard-won gains.
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