Simple, fair and accessible to all: ACTU says Summit is a chance to affect real change

The Australian Council of Trade Unions (ACTU) has said the Jobs and Skills Summit, to be held from 1-2 September, represents an opportunity to review a bargaining system which has not been updated to reflect changes in Australian workplaces and is no longer delivering the wage growth that working people need.

 

“Our bargaining system is overly and unnecessarily complicated,” ACTU Secretary Sally McManus said, calling for more options for collective bargaining, including multi-employer or sector bargaining, which would allow multiple workplaces to make an agreement together.

 

This, she continued, would improve access to bargaining for large sections of the workforce, including in sectors which are female dominated and focus on providing care, such as early childhood education and care (ECEC). 

 

“Our current system was designed 30 years ago where we had a completely different economy with many more large workplaces,” Ms McManus said. 

 

“Our economy is now dominated by services and care industries. As the economy has changed, our bargaining system needs to as well. People in smaller workplaces and care sectors which are often dominated by women also need access to the collective bargaining system.”

 

The current system, from the Union’s perspective, no longer provides an even playing field for workers, and has become inaccessible, with huge parts of the economy – especially those industries dominated by women and small workplaces – effectively locked out of bargaining.

 

“We cannot fix wages growth without fixing collective bargaining. It is absolutely necessary for it to be modernised so that it delivers sustainable wages growth for today’s workforce,” she continued.

 

“Allowing workers to band together across workplaces to bargain is an essential way of getting wages moving again after a lost decade of flatlining wages and real wage cuts. It should be unacceptable to all of us that real wage cuts are projected year upon year.”