EDITORIAL: Albanese’s IR changes take us back to bad old days
This is a disastrous time to allow unions to apply a handbrake in the engine room of the national economy. The Albanese Government has built the union handbrake into the system. It must act to release it.
It seems like we are trapped in a time warp.
Already this week we had warnings that the oil crisis flowing from war in the Middle East is delivering a bigger oil shock than we experienced in the 1970s.
And now we seem headed back to the bad old days of industrial relations in the 1970s and 1980s, when union militancy in the mining sector smashed productivity and our reputation as a stable and reliable trading partner.
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By continuing you agree to our Terms and Privacy Policy.Such was the might of union muscle in the Wild West then that tales circulated — whether true or mythical — about a strike because there were not enough flavours of ice cream in the canteen.
And now comes news that unions have stormed the gates of WA’s mining industry after workers voted to go on strike for the first time this century.
About 60 employees across BHP’s high-voltage network at its Pilbara iron ore mines have taken the historic step of voting for protected industrial action, according to the Electrical Trades Union.
Work stoppages “lasting between 15 minutes and 48 hours” are being threatened unless BHP caves in to the demands. Such a stoppage would be the first on a WA mine in more than three decades.
The ETU is demanding significant pay rises and a large catalogue of extra allowances.
These proposed annual allowances include $20,000 for nightshift, $7000 for working in hot weather and a $6240 BHP contribution for private health insurance.
They also want 200 per cent penalty rates for overtime and 300 per cent for public holiday work.
The Chamber of Minerals and Energy WA has estimated it would lead to salaries of about $400,000 per worker.
This is madness.
But the ETU’s move is just the latest escalation of a broader union campaign to re-gain a foothold in the Pilbara’s iron ore mines after decades of dormancy.
Unions have been increasingly emboldened by the Albanese Government’s changes to industrial relations laws.
The impacts have been felt through an explosion of union right-of-entry requests, “same job, same pay” orders that require companies to pay labour-hire workers the same rate as direct employees performing the same work, and multi-employer bargaining that miners claim strip them of the ability to negotiate site-specific conditions that suit productivity.
And yet the Albanese Government did not take significant industrial relations reform to the 2022 Federal election.
So as noted in 2024 by shadow minister for employment and workplace relations, Michaelia Cash, “the Federal Government’s explicit promise that its industrial relations changes would not give unions increased powers in the Pilbara has proven to be hollow”.
The bottom line is that if companies believe they can do better investing elsewhere, they will do so, and we will all be the losers.
This is a disastrous time to allow unions to apply a productivity-smashing handbrake to slow the engine room of the national economy.
The Albanese Government has built the union handbrake into the system. It must act to release it.
