The Minerals Council of Australia (MCA) has warned that a Federal Court ruling on union delegates will create a two-tiered class system among Australian workers.
A Federal Court decision has confirmed that the Closing Loopholes laws give workplace delegates the right to represent workers on site regardless of labour hire or employment arrangements.
MCA CEO Tania Constable said the court’s decision gives unions more power and overturns the Fair Work Commission’s orders that placed “reasonable limits on the exercise of union delegate powers”.
“As well as being an over-reach of union power, this would create a two-tiered class system among Australian workers: those who actually work for the business, and those who work for the union but get paid by the business to do so – enshrining the rights of some workers to do whatever they please, with businesses powerless to stop them.
Constable noted that the decision could significantly impact mining companies, which are already feeling cost pressures from mounting energy prices, costly project approval delays and increased royalties
“Given the serious and damaging impact of these changes on Australian mining, the MCA will work with other affected industries to closely review the decision and its implications and take further action as appropriate to defend our sector.”
The Court decision will not take full effect until the Fair Work Commission can implement a different delegates’ rights clause in the award.
The ruling follows a legal challenge brought by the Mining and Energy Union after the Fair Work Commission inserted a delegates’ rights clause into modern awards that significantly limited the scope of the rights Parliament intended to provide.
Under the Closing Loopholes legislation, workplace delegates were granted new statutory rights to represent workers, communicate with members and eligible members, and advocate on workplace issues.
However, the Fair Work Commission restricted delegates to representing only workers employed by their own employer.
In practice, this meant a delegate working alongside labour hire or contractor workers on the same site could be prevented from advocating for them, even where those workers were eligible to be union members.
MEU General Secretary Grahame Kelly said today’s decision confirms that delegates’ rights cannot be confined by artificial employment boundaries.
“The Court has confirmed that Parliament intended workplace delegates to have real, enforceable rights to represent workers they work alongside, not just those who happen to share the same employing entity.”
