"The new proposals to enshrine penalty rates in legislation are a job killer that do not represent a serious plan to revitalise our struggling businesses and economy," said Innes Willox, chief executive of the national employer association The Australian Industry Group.
"The dust still hasn't settled on the recent waves of radical IR laws and Labor are unfortunately already rushing to announce further unbalanced and unnecessary changes in response to union thought bubbles.
"Our workplace laws are already ludicrously complex, outdated and restrictive and actively discourage business investment and employment, especially of young Australians who will be the main victims of this proposal.
"If Labor genuinely wants to assist with the cost of living pressures it needs to spell out a pathway to addressing our failure to lift productivity so that businesses can afford to deliver the sustainable wage rises everyone wants to see.
"We are now suffering the lowest economic growth outside of Covid since 1991. We saw a 9.2 per cent increase last year in closure of businesses that had been operating for over five years – that is the shuttering of 151,000 businesses. This proposal, if enacted, will signal the death knell for many more.
"Simplistically supporting higher wages without any mention of lifting productivity, recognition of the impost on business or the lack of flexibility it imposes for both employers and employees might be seen to be a popular play in the context of an election but it isn't a responsible or considered plan.
"The proposal to tie the hands of what is supposed to be the independent umpire when it comes to determining appropriate penalty rates or wage structures is a sadly predicable sop to unions who remain stuck in a time warp.
"All this will do is further discourage businesses from opening on weekends and employing young Australians, and will further drive up the costs both for businesses who must open on weekends and their consumers.
"As an independent umpire, the Fair Work Commission has set the current penalty rates in awards and is already required by law ensure to that awards remain fair to employees.
"Nobody is planning to reduce penalty rates and it is plainly misleading to characterise employer proposals in this way.
"Past changes to penalty rates have only been modest and carefully made to reflect changing realities of work and employee preferences.
"The employer groups have asked the Fair Work Commission in a small number of awards to consider implementing alternate methods of remuneration for some high paid employees, including for managerial or semi-professional staff and other senior employees. Under current laws the Commission could only grant a variation if it decided it was fair and included appropriate safeguards.
"Labor in government had trusted the Fair Work Commission with a raft of radical powers to regulate our workplaces and economy during the current term. Now not trusting the Commission to continue to decide when and what penalty rates should apply shows not only blatant hypocrisy but a lack of respect for the judgment of the independent umpire.
"Labor should trust the independent umpire it empowered to set fair terms for Awards, not simply change the rules to ensure unions get their way.
"Separately, the ACTU is demanding a new jurisdiction to bypass the courts and our legal process for dealing with underpayments. Quite simply, this would be another stick to beat employers with.
"We already have new wage theft laws and a dramatically expanded 'small claims' jurisdiction that enables workers to simply and efficiently recover underpayments of up to $100,000. This is underpinned by a well resourced Fair Work Ombudsman as well as radical new powers and rights for unions that were supposed to help them enforce the laws.
"We don't need another avenue for unions to drag employers into costly litigation. We need to see if the recently introduced legislative changes work. We also need to urgently clarify the complex and confusing award system which regulates pay rates for the benefit of all parties.
"In recent years we have seen a parade of employers ranging from universities and law firms to the ABC as well as the Department of Employment and Workplace Relations inadvertently misapply our laws.
"Frankly, many small employers have no realistic prospect of properly understanding our system let alone keeping up with the swathe of changes recently introduced," Mr Willox said.
