IR Reform Insights Series

Overview

Major Reset of Industrial Relations Landscape

In what will be the biggest reforms in more than a decade, the Federal Government has introduced into Parliament landmark IR reforms that will have an impact on all workplaces across Australia as part of its Secure Jobs and Better Pay Bill 2022.

In summary, the reforms to the Fair Work Act (FW Act) address:

• enterprise bargaining (which will be fundamentally altered)
• flexible work arrangement requests (which will now be subject to arbitration by the Fair Work Commission (FWC));
• limitations on fixed term contracting;
• prohibition of pay secrecy clauses in contracts and industrial instruments;
• changes to the rules pertaining to the taking of industrial action;
• overhaul of the Better Off Overall Test (BOOT) and Enterprise Agreement (EA) approval requirements;
• facilitation of gender-based pay equity claims;
• the introduction of new expert panels to address gender-based pay equity and the Community and Care sector;
• termination of enterprise agreements;
• expanded sexual harassment protections;
• abolition of the Australian Building & Construction Commission;
• the shift of the Registered Organisation’s Commissions powers to the General Manager of the FWC;
• advertising positions at rates that could not satisfy any underlying industrial instrument safety net; and
• expansion of the small claims process for hearing underpayment claims up to a value of $100,000.

Whilst the scope of the Bill is broad, this represents just the first tranche of the Australian Labor Party (ALP) IR Reform agenda. Still to come next year remains policy regulation for (amongst other things):

• gig workers and independent contracting;
• the characterisation of who constitutes a casual employee;
• the road transport industry (where specific regulation is being pursued by the Trade Workers Union);
• giving effect to the ALP’s ‘same job same pay’ election platform; and
• criminalisation of wage theft.

Through its representation of the Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry, ABLA has been at the forefront of these changes, giving feedback to Government, employer groups and unions over the past few months and participating in numerous consultations arising from the Jobs Summit.

With this leading level of insight, we are pleased to update clients on the specific details of the changes and the impact these changes are likely to have on businesses.

In this publication we will focus exclusively on the significant changes to the enterprise bargaining framework. Two subsequent publications will focus on:

• the remaining reforms under the broad theme of ‘gender equity’.
• the remaining reforms under the broad theme of ‘job security’.

Please get in touch with our Workplace and Employment Team at info@ablawyers.com.au to discuss the impact of these reforms on your business.

Download our IR Reform Insight publications on Enterprise Bargaining, Pay Equity and Job Security: