But Greens leader Adam Bandt has warned that his party won’t back anything that leaves young or lower-paid workers worse off.
Asked if she would support proposals to overhaul the test,which guarantees employees do not go backwards in enterprise bargaining negotiations,Cash said,“we’ll consider any proposal to make the BOOT more workable in facilitating enterprise agreements for both employers and employees”.
The test will be high on the agenda at the jobs summit on Thursday and Friday, to examine Australia’s industrial relations system,the national skills shortage,participation and skilled migration.
Labor and the Coalition fought over proposed reforms to the BOOT during the election,when then-opposition industrial relations minister Tony Burke accused the Morrison government of undermining penalties and other entitlements. That prompted.
“The suggestion that the Morrison government is trying to cut wages and conditions is completely untrue,” Cash said in April,adding the Coalition was not changing the test “full stop”.
What is the BOOT (the better off overall test)?
But reforms to the test are back on the agenda at the jobs summit,after the ACTU began negotiating directly with small businesses on ways to strip back some of the red tape that has bogged down BOOT deliberations over wage deals.
Unions fear any changes to the test that will remove safeguards for workers but want the process simplified to speed up enterprise bargaining.
Businesses have frequently pushed for the ability to trade off standard penalties for productivity incentives,as well as the ability for Fair Work to strike majority-approved deals and to ignore objections based on hypotheticals.
If the Coalition does not back the changes to the Fair Work Act that would need to be legislated,then Labor will need the Greens’ 12 votes in the Senate,and one final vote,to pass any changes.
In a speech ahead of the summit,Greens leader Adam Bandt will fire a shot across the bows of Labor,unions and business that it cannot take for granted the party’s 12 senate votes.
“Whatever deal is reached at the summit needs the Greens support or it won’t pass the parliament. The Greens hold the balance of power,and we stand ready to amend whatever comes across our desk so it lifts wages,improves rights at work,and reduces cost of living,” Bandt will say in his speech,a copy of which was shared withThe Sydney Morning Herald andThe Age.
“The Greens are also very worried about recent calls to weaken the better off overall test because this will lead to workers being worse off.
“It is deeply distressing to see even the Labor government now open to changing the Fair Work Act to endorse this illegal behaviour. The Greens cannot back the summit striking deals that leave young and low paid workers worse off.”
ACTU secretary Sally McManus wants to see the BOOT simplified,but has declined to say how. “We’re just talking about a simple and fair system. Obviously,workers need to be involved in it. Those particular details are things to discuss post-summit,” she said on Monday.
Workplace Relations Minister. He said on Monday he would not rule out a compromise after the union movement shifted its position on enterprise bargaining.
“I took the view that if I was expecting everybody else to come forward with compromises and to try to find a way together at the summit,that I should be willing to do the same,” Burke told ABC Radio National.
But Retail and Fast Food Workers Union secretary Josh Cullinan said weakening the BOOT meant “weakening the only protection against big retail and fast food businesses ripping off workers”.
“Before the election Labor promised not to weaken BOOT. They must not legalise wage theft. It will cost millions of workers,billions of dollars.”
Adelaide University workplace relations Professor Andrew Stewart said he was confident some changes to the BOOT,mooted at the end of 2020 by unions and businesses,could find favour.
“The consensus then was that the BOOT could be made a little bit more flexible. There were changes the unions were prepared to agree to as part of a package of reforms and indeed they turned up in the omnibus bill put to parliament[by the Morrison government] in December 2020,but what happened at the end of the working group process was some employment groups didn’t want any compromises,” he said.
“A number of changes to the enterprise bargaining system that could have gotten through parliament didn’t go through ... but that process gives Labor some low-hanging fruit.”
Key business associations are understood to be meeting with Burke on Wednesday for high-level talks ahead of the summit. In a joint statement,the Business Council of Australia,the Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry and the Australian Industry Group said they wanted support for the mutual and related objectives of greater employment,higher incomes and improved productivity.
The Morning Edition newsletter is our guide to the day’s most important and interesting stories,analysis and insights..