Education and Employment Legislation Committee Inquiry into the Fair Work Legislation Amendment (Secure Jobs, Better Pay) Bill 2022

Submissions | 3 November 2022

MA’s member companies provide direct and indirect employment to more than 100,000 Australians, operate more than 500 manufacturing plants or smaller facilities around Australia and support more than 25,000 downstream suppliers.

Relevant to this consultation, MA members have a strong track record of successful bargaining at the enterprise level. This track record of successful enterprise bargaining has typically delivered:

• wages growth over the decade to 2022 above consumer price index and wage price index.
• high levels of full-time employment, with 84% of manufacturing employees employed on a full time basis (69% higher than the national average).
• Employment tenures and retention significantly higher than the national average.

We welcome and support Minister Burke’s statement that: “bargaining at the enterprise level delivers strong productivity benefits and is intended to remain the primary and preferred type of agreement making’’.

However, we are concerned that the bill, as drafted, will have the reverse effect and lead to the unintended consequence of undermining the status of enterprise level bargaining as the primary and preferred type of agreement making.

Read the full submission here.