Unions have slammed the mining sector for fighting against new workplace laws, saying it would only impact a minute fraction of their combined $300 billion profit last financial year.
Mining profits had jumped almost 200 per cent in the past decade while wages had gone backwards 6 per cent in real terms, Australian Council of Trade Unions research found.
Signing on to workplace law changes that are before Federal Parliament would only cost the industry 0.016 per cent of its profit, the peak union body said.
The new laws would close a loophole allowing companies to negotiate a rate of pay with workers then pay labour hire less.
ACTU secretary Sally McManus slammed mining giant BHP for claiming the labour hire crackdown would cost them $1.3 billion.
This was 26 times higher than the entire sector faced according to the government’s estimates, she said.
“The mining industry is so profitable it could give every single Australian worker a 6 per cent pay increase and still be the most profitable industry in Australia,” she said.
“It’s disgraceful they want to instead hold back all Australian workers from getting better workplace rights.”
Economy-wide, labour hire workers earned $4700 less a year than other workers, she said.
“It is being used as a scheme to drive down wages and its particularly insidious in a cost-of-living crisis.”
The measure is a part of a suite of reforms currently before the parliament.
But the Government is under pressure to pass the non-contentious elements of its own Bill.
Independent senators David Pocock and Jacqui Lambie copied provisions from the omnibus Bill that included laws to make it easier for first responders with post-traumatic stress disorder to access compensation and protections for workers facing domestic violence.
The amendments to the Fair Work Act passed the Senate against the wishes of Labor — which didn’t want the Bill split — and now sit before the Government-controlled lower house.
Employment Minister Tony Burke has not brought on the legislation for a vote and is instead pushing ahead with trying to pass the full Bill, which is currently before an inquiry due to report back in February.
If the amendments aren’t passed before Parliament rises for the year in December, first responders and people facing domestic violence will not receive added benefits on the scheduled start date of January 1.
They’ll instead need to wait months for the protections, if the full Bill passes the Senate at all, with the coalition opposed and key crossbenchers expressing concern over provisions in the full Bill.