Proposed changes to union site entry laws will create safety risks and lead to increased conflict in the workplace, a federal Senate Committee was told at a hearing on Tuesday.
Resource industry employer group, AMMA, told the Committee that expanding union access to Australian workplaces is unjustifiable and would present significant risks to productivity, safety, and industrial harmony.
Detailing AMMA’s objections to the Fair Work Amendment Bill 2013, executive director industry Scott Barklamb said the Bill ‘comprehensively fails to respond to Australia’s workplace relations challenges’.
“Australia needs a reliable, stable, genuinely balanced workplace relations system that acts as a solid foundation for investment, productivity and competitiveness,” Mr Barklamb said.
“These amendments will create more litigation, more disputation and more confusion; moving us even further away from co-operative and productive workplace relations.”
A major concern for the AMMA in the Amendment Bill is the proposal to extend trade union access to remote resource sites, including offshore oil and gas platforms. Mr Barklamb said such a proposal is ‘completely impractical’ and has ‘enormous safety, productivity and cost impacts’.
“The Bill fails to respond to existing problems with union access to worksites. In fact, it will cause more problems,” he said.
“Imposing greater requirements to open up worksites to unions is a recipe for significant compliance and safety risks. It will also encourage increased union militancy and industrial disputation.
“A particularly concern for our industry are the impractical and unrealistic union entry arrangements proposed for remote and offshore facilities.
“Whether they are complex oil and gas platforms 100 kilometres offshore and remote mining sites in the middle of the desert, these highly specialised operational activities cannot safely or practically accommodate union sightseers or salespeople.”
“A new role for the Fair Work Commission is likely to overlap and undermine employers’ own investigations and actions on any allegations of bullying. The Bill also fails to address the very real problem of bullying by trade union officials and delegates.”
Overall, Mr Barklamb said: “There is no evidence to support the choice of prescriptions being pursued, and no justification for imposing additional costs on Australian businesses.
“The vast majority of the Bill’s proposals were not recommended by the Government’s own hand-picked Fair Work Review Panel and appear set to reduce the competitiveness of business.”
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