Federal Industrial Relations Minister Christian Porter introduced the Industrial Relations (IR) Omnibus bill just before Christmas which will clearly enhance the power of employers to hire workers on a just-in-time basis, suppress wages, and undermine terms and conditions of employment.  The Coalition Government's proposed changes will accelerate the incidence of insecure work, undermine genuine collective bargaining, and suppress wages growth.  Impacts will be felt across the entire workforce - casual and permanent workers alike.

As if workers haven’t suffered enough battling to make ends meet during Covid, this new legislative offensive is so pro-business workers could be hired on a casual basis in virtually any position that employers ‘deem’ to be casual.

We know workers sacrificed so much during this pandemic.

We cannot allow a generation of workers to be punished with lower wages and worse conditions after carrying Australia through this crisis.

The existing ‘Better Off Overall Test’ (BOOT) would be suspended, allowing enterprise agreements to avoid minimum standards of Modern Awards making enterprise agreements a mechanism for lowering wages and standards. That provision would pervert the purpose of collective bargaining and is aimed at slashing wages and resetting work conditions to boost profitability in the long term. The core objective of the Omnibus plan will grant employers the power to expand insecure work freely and to hijack enterprise bargaining.
Working people have already sacrificed so much during this pandemic.

Instead of thanking them with pay rises and better protections, this Government is proposing laws that will punish them. We need as many working people as possible to join together to oppose the Government’s Bill. actu.org.au