Its submission argues the stream will pressure sectors to make deals with “high watermark terms and conditions that will inevitably test the financial viability of many enterprises”.
Even Labor Senator Tony Sheldon, a former TWU leader, described Qantas as a “textbook case” for multi-employer bargaining ahead of last month’s Jobs and Skills Summit. Supply chains could also be targeted. The union that is one of the bill’s biggest supporters is the United Workers Union, one of the largest unions in the country. The UWU represents all the key low-paid workers who will use multi-employer bargaining, such as cleaners, security guards, caterers, childcare and aged care workers and even horticulture workers.
The ACTU’s McManus has been emphatic that “nothing will happen” to small business because unions have never had high membership in small businesses, even when they had 60 per cent union membership. Some academics also note that multi-employer bargaining already exists in other countries, such as Denmark, where there is 65 per cent union membership but where there has been fewer days lost to industrial disputes than Australia.
Means fairness and equity for employee’s at long last. Shit picture of Joyce, but I guess that goes with the territory.