The Albanese government has introduced its closing loopholes industrial relations bill, estimated to provide labour hire workers up to $511m a year more pay and gig economy workers up to $404m.
Unions welcomed the bill but oppose concessions watering down its promise of same job same pay in the labour hire industry, including the blanket exemption for small businesses.
With employer backlash brewing over those provisions, the workplace relations minister, Tony Burke, opened up a new front by revealing truck owner-drivers could be awarded minimum rates of pay by the industrial umpire.
Big business labelled that a repeat of the “disaster” of the Road Safety Remuneration Tribunal, an industrial umpire that was controversially abolished by the Coalition in 2016.
On Monday Burke introduced the closing loopholes bill to the House of Representatives, confirming Labor would seek to revive minimum conditions in the road transport industry.
Burke said the bill was needed “to close loopholes that have undercut secure jobs, better pay and safe workplaces”.
If passed, the Fair Work Commission would gain the power to set minimum standards for the road transport industry and hear disputes about unfair contract terminations. The commission would have discretion on what those minimum standards would cover, but must be satisfied that its orders would not adversely affect the viability or competitiveness of road transport contractor drivers.
The power to set conditions in the road transport industry is one plank of a bill that includes provisions to criminalise wage theft, improve the right to secure jobs for permanent casuals, provide equal pay for labour hire workers and give minimum conditions to gig economy workers.
According to regulatory impact statements accompanying the bill, the requirement to pay labour hire workers the same rates of pay as those who are directly employed on enterprise agreements could add $511m to businesses costs, transferred to workers in the form of higher pay.
A departmental analysis of the gig economy reforms, outlined by Burke at the National Press Club on Thursday, found the changes were “estimated to deliver $4.0 billion dollars in increased wages for workers over 10 years”, or $404m a year.
The bill has already provoked a fierce reaction from employer groups which have warned it will increase complexity and costs for consumers.
The Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry chief executive, Andrew McKellar, said “the only winners in this are union chiefs”.
“The only loophole this bad legislation is looking to close is that of plummeting union membership,” he said. “If you’re in labour hire or want a casual job, prepare for unemployment.”
But on Monday the Australian Council of Trade Unions revealed it opposed exemptions for businesses with 15 or fewer employees.
“The union movement doesn’t support two sets of laws for people who happen to work for a place that has fewer employees compared to those who happen to work in large businesses,” the ACTU secretary, Sally McManus, told reporters.
“We don’t support the small business exemptions or the different rules that are applying to small business.”
Ahead of the bill’s introduction the influential crossbench senator Jacqui Lambie warned that “if we haven’t had the time, certainly from the Jacqui Lambie Network[’s perspective], it won’t be going through this year”.
The Greens leader, Adam Bandt, noted that if the Coalition opposed the bill Labor would need his party’s 11 Senate votes. The minor party has called for the government to add provisions guaranteeing workers a “right to disconnect” from work by refusing to answer work phone calls and emails in their leisure time.
The manager of opposition business, Paul Fletcher, proposed to delay the bill until October. Coalition support is considered extremely unlikely given it opposed the secure jobs, better pay bill last year.
The opposition leader, Peter Dutton, has criticised many elements of the closing loopholes bill, including Labor’s “same job same pay” policy, and accused the government of pursuing a union agenda.
The September 2022 jobs and skills summit called for further consideration of minimum standards for the road transport industry, a key demand of the Labor-affiliated Transport Workers Union.
The Road Safety Remuneration Tribunal was established by the Gillard government to set minimum charge-out and pay rates, due to concerns that drivers competing on price was encouraging unsafe practices including poor maintenance and driving while fatigued.
But when the laws came into effect, many owner-drivers complained that inability to set prices left them unable to compete with big trucking companies.
The RSRT was repealed ahead of the 2016 election amid claims backed by the then employment minister, Michaelia Cash, that setting minimum charge-out rates for independent contractors had driven them to financial hardship and even suicide.
Burke said despite the sector being “racked with conflict” when the issue was considered by the previous Liberal-National government, Labor had “brought people together” including at the jobs and skills summit.
“There is now a broad consensus that we need minimum standards in this sector to protect lives and ensure a sustainable and viable trucking industry.”
The AiGroup chief executive, Innes Willox, said the reform “clearly amounts to an attempt to revive the disaster that was the Road Safety Remuneration Tribunal in all but name only”.
“The measures in the bill that are purportedly directed at avoiding a repeat of past mistakes are wholly inadequate and any contention that there is broad industry support for the kind of change proposed is simply inaccurate.”
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