Industry unhappy with Fair Work Act review

The Fair Work Act Review Panel’s final report has been released, and the industry doesn’t seem to be happy. The industry associations such as The Housing Industry Association (HIA), the National Electrical and Communications Association (NECA), AMMA and the NSW Business Chamber have issued statements expressing concerns about the report.

“It does little to help the Australian electrical industry, which is primarily made up of small to medium-sized businesses. To succeed in today’s challenging economic climate these companies need to be highly flexible and mobile and they require a high skills base,” said NECA CEO James Tinslay.

“There is nothing in the review which helps smaller businesses grow and tackle the problem of higher labour costs,” said Tinslay.

The small business sector, which makes up over 85% of the residential building industry, has been left underwhelmed by the release of findings of the review into the Fair Work Act, said The Housing Industry Association.

“The Productivity Commission should have carried out the review rather than using a panel. The panel’s ability to review the Fair Work Act was fairly constricted whereas if the review had been carried out by the Productivity Commission it would have led to greater opportunities to review core elements of the Act,” said Tinslay.

“We urgently need better workplace regulation to improve productivity and competitiveness and to tackle union problems experienced by employers. We disagree with the claim that productivity has not been badly affected by the Fair Work Act. Our members are telling us that higher labour costs and speculative union activity have taken their toll, especially given the general downturn in the construction industry.

“The government needs to act now to tackle these problems. Doing nothing is not an option and will lead to a further downturn in productivity and more business failures in this tough economic climate.”

Over the past 18 months, the legitimate right for small businesses to operate as independent contractors has come under sustained attack, said HIA Industrial Relations spokesman David Humphrey.

The electrical and construction industries aren’t the only two industries that are unhappy. The resource industry employer group AMMA said the Fair Work Act review has failed to address major issues within the greenfield agreement framework that is seeing one in five new resources projects put at serious risk due to ongoing union stalling tactics.

Research conducted by resource industry employer group AMMA and RMIT University recently found that 19% of employers had experienced unions refusing to make agreements on new mining, oil and gas projects - many worth billions of dollars to the economy.

“The recommendation to extend the existing good faith bargaining provisions to greenfield negotiations will see no practical improvements and is a waste of time, but the most concerning proposals are around the compulsory involvement of Fair Work Australia on these matters. The proposal is that when negotiations for a greenfield agreement reach an impasse, Fair Work Australia may on its own motion, or by application from one of the parties, conduct a limited form of arbitration called ‘last offer’ arbitration to determine the content of an agreement.”

AMMA opposes changes that would result in a situation where employers would be forced to agree or concede to more union claims or risk being forced to include the full ambit of claims of unions by the tribunal.