Over the last two years, thanks to big campaigns by union members across Australia, workers have won historic new rights – rights that make it easier to get pay rises, increase job security and help with work-life balance.
These changes have helped essential workers get the pay and conditions they deserve, assisted us through the cost-of-living crisis and price-gouging by big business, and driven the gender pay-gap to its lowest level on record.
These are undoubtedly positive changes, but one group isn’t happy – Australia’s CEOs and Business Lobbyists.
These Business groups – led by the Australian Chamber of Commerce (ACCI) – are lobbying politicians to slash the rights of Australian workers.
Work rights on the line for up to a million workers and their families
In their latest demand, the ACCI wants to see a change in the definition of a small business from 15 to 25 employees. This change – just one part of a broader anti-worker pre-election agenda – would see the working rights of up to a million Australian workers go backwards.
Even worse, the Coalition’s Deputy Leader, Sussan Ley, has said she would “love the Government to look at some of these proposals”.
Workers in Australia should not have less rights simply because of the size of their employer, but that’s the reality one million workers and their families will be facing if Peter Dutton and the Coalition are elected.
Life will be more difficult for workers whose employers are re-classified as ‘small’ businesses. In simple terms, it will mean:
- It will take longer for casuals to have the opportunity to convert to permanent work
- Less options for flexible work and extended parental leave
- The recovery of unpaid wages from wage theft will be harder
- Union delegates would lose the right to training
- Employers would be allowed to cut wages using labour hire
Coalition committed to cutting workers’ pay if elected
Peter Dutton and the Coalition already have recently-won workers’ rights in their sights.
If elected, they and their donors are on record opposing casual rights, wanting to scrap the right to disconnect and cut new multi-employer bargaining and same, job same pay laws that union members are already using to win fair pay rises in key industries like Early Childhood Education and Care.
Asked about the business lobby’s demands, Coalition employment spokeswoman, Michaelia Cash, said any industrial relations change “should seek to provide simplified compliance, fairness, cost-effectiveness and support for growth and productivity”, all but confirming the party’s support for attacking workers’ rights.
If the business lobby got their way, this would act as a green light for bad bosses to return to the days when they could hire and fire when they feel like it, without having to give workers a reason for why they are working one day and gone the next.
Sally McManus
ACTU Secretary
Australian workers know all too well what has happened with previous Coalition Governments – During the past decade of the Abbott/Turnbull/Morrison Government, big business profits soared, while workers wages barely moved.
The upcoming election will be a choice between fairer rights for workers and the Coalition’s commitment to taking away every right they can.
Workers are rallying to defend their rights
The business lobby’s calls for small business re-classification is only part of a broader anti-worker campaign coordinated with Peter Dutton and the Coalition.
Over the last two years, union members have been at the forefront of winning the biggest changes to workers’ rights in generations, empowering millions of workers.
Like all the rights union members have won, they were fought for, not given, and workers will step up again to defend them no matter what.
Be part of it: the more union members across the movement, the more effectively we’ll be able to win better rights and higher pay for everyone.
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Confirmed: Your work rights are on the line this election