As the Federal election approaches, industry players are closely examining the Closing Loopholes ‘same job, same pay’ legislation and whether there will be room to budge post-election.
The legislation, which was introduced in 2022, changed industrial relations laws to contain mechanisms whereby employee representatives like unions can force mining companies into bargaining.
Significantly, the changes allow for multi-employer bargaining, meaning mine workers from different sites can band together to negotiate as a collective.
This is of particular concern in Western Australia, where historic interventions from unions were accused of extreme overreach.
According to Australian Resources and Energy Employer Association (AREEA) director of industry and advocacy Tom Reid, the changes were “designed to re-insert unions into workplaces that have left them behind”.
“Why should highly productive iron ore mines be possibly threatened with the prospect of multi-employer bargaining?” Reid told the ABC.
“Employees in the Pilbara are at the centre of some of the highest paid arrangements in any industry in the country – any assertion that this wave of industrial relations changes is truly about protecting workers, it just doesn’t fly.”
Conversely, Federal Industrial Relations Minister Murray Watt said the changes empower employees with the choice of how they negotiated.
“We’ve made it easier for workers on some sites to collectively bargain, to be able to enter into agreements with their colleagues,” he said.
Mining and Energy Union WA branch state secretary Greg Busson said the union and its members are backing the government’s changes to industrial relations legislation, but said multi-employer bargaining specifically isn’t likely to have an impact WA mine workers.
“I don’t know if it will work in the Pilbara at this stage,” he said. “If the company sits down with the proper intention to negotiate a fair and just agreement, I don’t think there’s any need to enter into that.”
No matter the outcome of the election, the current legislation has been confirmed to stay the same. Industry majors have been vocal in their concern.
“We are concerned with the development in the [industrial relations] legislation in Australia because the history scares us,” Rio Tinto chief executive Jakob Stausholm said, according to the Australian Financial Review.
“We had a situation in the early 80s where we had 100 strikes a year.
“We have very good co-operation with our staff, we don’t have that environment today, but we are concerned, and we are doing everything we can to try and protect that co-operative environment.”
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