December 20, 2024
While Same Job Same Pay delivers pay rises for labour hire workers, there are more ways MEU members are benefiting from Albanese Government workplace reforms including improving enterprise bargaining.
The 2022 Secure Jobs Better Pay Act introduced a wide range of measures including multi-employer bargaining and prohibiting pay secrecy. Here are four ways the Secure Jobs Better Pay Act is helping MEU members:
1. Ending the ‘small cohort agreement’ dirty trick
The Act has eradicated ‘small cohort agreements’, previously used by employers to avoid genuine bargaining. Hand-selecting a few employees to vote on an agreement intended to cover a much larger number was a classic dirty trick used by mining and energy employers to avoid genuine bargaining with the workforce. Usually the hand-selected employees would be paid above-agreement rates, so they didn’t mind voting up an agreement that locked in conditions minimally above the Award.
Small cohort agreements were a tactic to avoid bargaining with the hundreds or thousands of workers that would then become employed and work under these agreements – afterapproval by the Fair Work Commission.
The Secure Jobs Better Pay Act has brought this dirty trick to an end with new ‘genuine agreement’ requirements introduced.
2. Ending EA termination threats during bargaining
Another dirty trick used by employers to avoid genuine bargaining was seeking to unilaterally terminate an enterprise agreement. The effect of terminating the Agreement is to push workers’ wages and conditions back to Award minimum. The threat of terminating an agreement and cutting wages and conditions was routinely made by employers in the mining and energy industries to moderate employees’ claims during bargaining. Changes introduced by the Secure Jobs Better Pay Act mean that employers can no longer terminate enterprise agreements during bargaining.
3. 5-year window: overcoming employer refusal to bargain
The Secure Jobs Better Pay Act makes it harder for an employer to refuse to bargain by amending the definition of notification time in the Fair Work Act. This means that within a five-year window of the expiry date of an Enterprise Agreement, bargaining can commence upon request by a bargaining representative. This is a sensible change in the face of refusal by some employers to engage in enterprise bargaining. This amendment has been used by the Western Mine Workers Alliance (our joint venture with AWU in the Pilbara) to commence bargaining this year for a new agreement to replace the BHP Mining area C Operations Agreement 2015 which expired in 2019.
With an employer hostile to bargaining, this allows us to avoid the lengthy and complex process of a majority support determination, which would delay workers benefiting from improvements won through bargaining.
4. Greater rights to flexibility
Prior to the Secure Jobs Better Pay Act, there was little opportunity to challenge employer refusal of flexible work requests. The Fair Work Commission is now able to examine whether a refusal is based on reasonable business grounds. Several MEU members have benefited from this change to access greater flexibility, including workers returning from parental leave, with caring responsibilities or those with a disability. We have been able to assist these members implement flexible work arrangements in industries and employers not known for supporting flexibility. This would not have been possible without amendments made by the Secure Jobs Better Pay Act. Members were less likely to make flexibility requests, knowing that the employer could simply say no with little scrutiny.