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Labor to introduce workplace bill to wages and address gender inequity
The government is set to introduce the Secure Jobs, Better Pay Bill into Federal Parliament this week.
Jess Feyder
The legislation is the first tranche of the Albanese Labor government’s workplace relations reforms and seeks to deliver on commitments Labor made at the 2022 election and at the Jobs and Skills Summit in September.
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Ending wage stagnation was a primary commitment from Labor ahead of the election, a task that has been made harder by rapid rises in living costs.
Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations Tony Burke will introduce the bill to Parliament after completing final consultation sessions.
Mr Burke argued that for a decade, the government has deliberately kept wages low, doing nothing to close the loopholes that have made Australian jobs less secure.
“That has left people struggling to make ends meet as the cost of living has gone up,” he stated. “We want to give workers a better deal and a brighter future.
“These changes will bring the laws up to date with the needs of the modern workplace.”
Mr Burke outlined a key objective of the bill — helping close the gender pay gap; he explained that gender pay equity would be at the centre of workplace reforms.
“We have made a deliberate decision to support workers in female-dominated professions who have been underpaid and undervalued for too long,” he said.
The government defined several aspects that will be included in the bill:
- Banning pay secrecy clauses that prohibit staff from talking about their pay, something that has been used to conceal gender pay discrepancies;
- Making gender equity a central objective of the Fair Work Act;
- Establishing two new Fair Work Commission expert panels, one on pay equity and one on the care and community sector;
- Making it easier for the Fair Work Commission to order pay increases for workers in low-paid, female-dominated industries by putting in place a statutory Equal Remuneration Principle.
Absent from the first stage of reforms was a proposal for multi-employer bargaining, which the federal government committed to during the Jobs and Skills Summit — and which unions have been campaigning for.
Multi-employer bargaining would allow employers from different businesses to pool resources to advocate for pay increases, giving low-paid workers more power (particularly those in female-dominated professions).
Some business and industry groups have expressed concern, fearing it could lead to spikes in industrial action.
“There appears to be an undue haste in relation to pushing forward proposals for multi-employer bargaining,” said the Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry’s Andrew McKellar.
“Certainly, this isn’t the top priority to address the collapse in enterprise agreement making over the past decade.
“The process for consultation … still has some way to run. Any proposals at this stage are, at best, half-cooked.”
Mr Burke has mentioned he would like the laws to be passed before the end of the year, an idea that has been criticised by some business lobby groups, considering the minister may need to make concessions to get the bill through the Senate.
