“We’ve gone from a situation where everybody’s in their corners throwing rocks to a situation where people are making a genuine effort to see how we can work together,” Burke told media after the announcement in Canberra.
“The changes that have been worked through right now will make a real difference to business being able to employ people and people being able to make ends meet with decent pay rises into the future.”
The ACTU and the Council of Small Business Organisations reached a deal this week to allowmulti-employer bargaining,giving unions the ability to strike agreements for workers across a number of employers in the same industry.
But other business heads have raised concerns it would limit workplace flexibility.
Australian Industry Group head Innes Willox said Burke’s announcement represented “a fundamental shift” in how bargaining operated and raised concerns for employers over the prospect of industrial action across broad parts of the economy.
“There is no detail around either the ACTU’s proposals or the government’s thinking on how multi-employer bargaining would operate in practice,” he said.