Labor and Coalition could fight the next election on workers’ rights

Labor and the Coalition are primed for a political fight over workers’ rights heading into the next election.

Peak business body – The Australian Chamber of Commerce (ACCI) – wants the definition of ‘small business’ to be expanded from 15 to 25 employees.

It comes after recent workplace reforms such as the new ‘right to disconnect’ laws, which businesses (with more than 15 staff) must comply with.

The Government and unions are against the change. However, the Coalition said it’s considering the idea.

Changes to work

The Labor Government has introducedto improve workers’ rights, e.g. criminalising wage theft and increasing protections from unfair dismissal.

Small businesses (with 15 or fewer employees) may be exempt from some requirements, or be required to follow different regulations than larger businesses.

For example, the Government introduced a pathway to allow some casual workers to transition to full-time contracts after six months. The time frame for small businesses is 12 months.

Business proposal

said some recent workplace reforms have placed a “significant” burden on small businesses.

“The level of regulation has gone up significantly in the past 12 months.”

He’s pushed the Coalition to change the legal definition of small businesses to extend to 25 employees.

If this happened, more businesses would be exempt from the Labor Government’s workplace laws.

You have read 0 articles this year.

Your contribution ensures The Daily Aus can continue doing the work you love.

Coalition

In a statement to TDA, Shadow Employment Minister Michaelia Cash said she wanted to “free up” small businesses from “red tape and regulation”.

“Labor’s new laws make an [industrial relations] system already steeped in bureaucratic complexity even more complex for small business and their employees,” Cash said.

The Opposition has already promised to remove the new “right to disconnect”, a legal right to ignore, if it wins the next election.

Reaction

Employment Minister Murray Watt said: “Workers’ pay and conditions are on the chopping block”.

Watt said that if the Coalition won the election and reversed the reforms, it would mean “a return to the lower wages and insecure work [they] delivered last time they held office”.

He said Labor “will not be making it easier for small and medium-sized businesses to unfairly sack workers.”

The Australian Council of Trade Unions (ACTU), the peak union body, has also urged the Government and Coalition to.

“If the business lobby got their way, this would act as a green light for bad bosses to return to the days when they could hire and fire when they feel like it,” ACTU Secretary Sally McManus said.

The ACTU estimates approximately one million people work for a company with between 15 and 25 employees.

“The last thing any working person needs is less rights at work, less pay and less job security.”