Sector-wide bargaining could lead to more strikes, business closures

would likely lead to a significant increase in strikes and could force businesses to move offshore, automate more roles or close altogether, a leading employment lawyer has warned.

But Mr Doyle said this would create “immense” industrial pressure on employers and would have “the capacity to bring some employers and supply chains to breaking point”. “Some will look to automation, partial divestment or offshoring [and] some business models might simply become unsustainable, or might need to find a new wages equilibrium that is lower than current rates.”He said sector-wide bargaining would also make clarity over what rights employers have to apply to terminate industrial action – currently a hot topic that Prime Minister Anthony Albanese says will be discussed at the jobs summit – “even more critical”.

Ashurst employment partner Jon Lovell said the current “better off overall test” – which means employees’ conditions must be “better off” under an EBA than they would be under the relevant award – needed “some tweaks”, although it did not need to be abolished. “That could open up the discussion to having EBAs which are broader, create more flexibility and create incentives to improve productivity,” he said.“At the moment we have barriers to negotiations and a disincentive to negotiate in many industries,” he said, urging a return to the “Paul Keating vision for enterprise bargaining” where there were fewer awards and fewer clauses.

“A lot of our clients would like to see a mechanism for there to be a way of coming to a resolution, be it through arbitration or another mechanism, before negotiations get to that extent,” he said.

we have the battery materials n we need the manufacturing but unions are being bloody minded It has to be their way or the highway It is not conducive to efficient manuf as unions would dictate conditions Labor should dump union funding n go indep

Typical FR fear campaign. Their only interest is in promoting big business and couldn't give a bugger about social issues and worker quality of life. Just Money, Money, Money

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