Employees will soon be closer to accessing multi-employer bargaining to get higher wages, with the government’s workplace reforms set to pass the lower house.
However, large hurdles still remain for the industrial relations reform, with warnings small businesses will be impacted by the changes,
The workplace laws will likely pass the House of Representatives on Thursday, following a late-night debate on Wednesday.
The laws will enshrine multi-employer bargaining and help increase pay in feminised industries while also outlawing secrecy clauses on pay rates for employees.
It will also allow for unions to force businesses to bargain together if a majority of employees agree.
While the government has said the laws are urgently needed to increase sluggish wages, the opposition and crossbenchers have accused Labor of trying to rush through the legislation.
Attempts for a longer inquiry into the bill failed to get off the ground.
Workplace Relations Minister Tony Burke said the changes needed to be implemented straight away to get wages moving.
“Even though the argument has been put wages won’t go up immediately; therefore, we can delay, I don’t think that it appreciates what’s going on at the moment,” he told parliament.
“The fact that there is already a delay (to wages rising) doesn’t give us permission to delay any further; it means it is more important than ever to act with urgency.”
The government introduced 150 amendments to the legislation following further talks with unions, business groups and advocates.
The amendments will include measures where a majority of support will be needed of workers from each employer for a single interest bargaining stream authorisation.
Businesses and workers also won’t be forced into an authorisation when they have agreed to bargain for a single enterprise agreement.
Mr Burke said the amendments would streamline the process for single enterprise bargaining.
“Employers who have agreed with an employee organisation to start bargaining for a single enterprise agreement are exempt from the single interest stream,” he told parliament.
“These changes will allow businesses to successfully bargain at the enterprise level to continue to do so and act as a strong incentive for new single enterprise agreements to be made.”
Opposition spokesman Paul Fletcher said the amendments made a bad bill even worse.
“This is a very bad bill, taking the Australian economy and our society and our community backwards,” he told parliament.
“They further weaken the arrangements in relation to enterprise agreements because they allow an employer to a union to veto such an agreement even when there has been a vote in favour of it by employers.”
Debate on the laws is set to head to the Senate later this month, but there are just eight sitting days remaining before parliament rises for the year.
Passage of the bill through the upper house is still not assured, with the Greens and at least one crossbench senator needed for support.
Independent senator David Pocock has yet to formally outline his position.
Greens leader Adam Bandt said the party would support the bill in the lower house but was open to changes once it reached the Senate.
