The Greens have secured amendments to the government's Building Cooperative Workplaces Bill that will protect workers' pay and conditions, and empower unions during industrial relations disputes.
These changes will boost protections for workers across the country during bargaining, and in particular support educators, teachers and firefighters. They have been developed in consultation with unions and workers.
Under normal circumstances a worker can't be left worse off as a result of EBA negotiations but existing loopholes mean the Fair Work Commission (FWC) can order that to be the case. Employers have increasingly been abusing this process by tactically delaying negotiations and denying pay rises to send the negotiations to the FWC, where workers can lose out.
Our amendment limits the terms that can be wound back by the FWC, helping disincentivise bosses from holding up negotiations with workers.
The reforms strengthen protections won by Senator Barbara Pocock and former Greens Leader Adam Bandt MP in the last Parliament, and close a loophole that employers have been using to weaken agreed terms, like consultation over uniforms which can be of critical importance to some workers.
Australian Greens Industrial Relations spokesperson Senator Barbara Pocock said:
"Workers should be able to push their boss for better pay and conditions without worrying that they're going to go backwards.
"These common-sense protections stop dodgy bosses from taking pay or conditions off their workers by kicking a fight off to the Fair Work Commission, where hard-fought wins on pay, protective gear and working conditions could be undone.
"Under Labor, workers' real pay has gone backwards, and it's making the cost of living crisis bite even harder. Despite improvements, Labor is still doing too much to help out big corporations and not enough to help hard working, ordinary people.
"Bosses will attempt to exploit any loophole they can to send workers' pay and conditions backwards, and the fight for better wages is never over - but the Greens are on the workers' side and our amendments will ensure better protection."
