The government has backed down on plans to grant businesses that have returned to profitability the power to cut workers’ hours. Instead, only employers suffering revenue downturns during the Covid-19 crisis will retain those powers.
On Monday the attorney general, Christian Porter, released the bill to regulate the second phase of jobkeeper, allowing businesses which have suffered a 10% revenue downturn to retain industrial relations flexibility even if they no longer qualify for wage subsidies.
Labor’s industrial relations spokesman, Tony Burke, welcomed the government backdown on “the most extreme part of this plan” – which would have allowed companies that have returned to profitability to cut workers’ hours – but stopped short of promising to vote for it.
The stoush over wage subsidies comes as peak business groups made a joint call to replace “arbitrary” indefinite border closures with “nationally consistent principles” to allow movement of people and goods.
From 28 September, the government will cut jobkeeper rates, tapering the $1,500 fortnightly payment down to $1,200 until January, then $1,000 until March, with deeper cuts for workers with less than 20 hours of work a week.
If Porter’s bill is passed, existing employer powers to reduce hours and adjust workers’ duties and location of work will continue for those still claiming jobkeeper.
The ability for employers to use jobkeeper to pay down employees’ annual leave until they have just two weeks remaining will be phased out.
Legacy employers who previously claimed jobkeeper but no longer qualify will be subject to a new turnover test, meaning if they have suffered a 10% decline in the relevant quarters this year compared with last, they will also retain the industrial relations flexibilities.
Legacy employers cannot reduce a worker’s hours below 60% of their ordinary hours, must give workers seven days’ notice of changes and can’t ask them to work for less than two hours on a day they are called to work.
Labor has concerns that businesses no longer receiving jobkeeper will be able to cut workers’ hours by up to 40%, resulting in pay cuts compared with the fortnightly payment.
Porter said jobkeeper’s critical role of keeping employees connected with their employers during the Covid-19 recession “would not have been possible without the industrial relations flexibilities”.
“It is important that the flexibility, which has allowed many businesses to survive the crisis to date, continue to be provided to businesses which are on the road to recovery but which haven’t made it out yet” he told Guardian Australia.
“These changes are time-limited. They are not permanent changes. They are linked to the extension of jobkeeper until the end of March 2021.”
The Australian Industry Group chief executive, Innes Willox, said the bill is “very welcome and very important” and the proposed 10% downturn threshold for businesses that don’t qualify for jobkeeper 2.0 is “practical and reasonable”.
Willox warned that refusing to allow industrial relations powers to an employer that no longer qualifies for jobkeeper 2.0 “could impede its recovery and its ability to preserve jobs”.
Companies reporting season has seen a spate of companies claiming jobkeeper declare dividends for shareholders. Payments include to Nick Scali managing director, Anthony Scali, who will collect about $2.5m, and 1300 Smiles founder Daryl Holmes, who is to receive a $1.8m payout – the same amount the company received in jobkeeper.
Burke said it was “ridiculous for the government to suggest that businesses that had fully recovered – and are in some cases doing better than they were before the pandemic – should get to keep emergency powers to cut their workers’ hours, pay and rights”.
“Labor will look at the detail of the government’s legislation, but we won’t allow them to use this pandemic as an excuse to undermine workers’ pay and conditions.”
In a joint letter to national cabinet, peak business, tourism and retail groups including AiG, the Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry, and the Business Council of Australia called for more coordination on border controls.
Despite agreeing to a three-stage plan to lift economic restrictions, what has emerged is “a patchwork of inconsistent state and territory-based rules that ignore the reality of the way small and large businesses operate across borders and Australians live their lives”.
“We accept that states and territories have the right to ease – or reimpose – restrictions at a different pace based on medical advice, among other factors.
“However, many of the border measures imposed to date appear to be arbitrary and lacking timeframes and review or end dates.”
The business groups welcomed the national cabinet plan to develop a definition of “hotspots”, calling for it to be the starting point of “a national framework that clearly sets out the thresholds of when internal border controls can be implemented and how they would apply”.
The Guardian
