Australia's resources sector employers have backed a move by the nation's upper house of parliament, the Senate, to block passage of a package of labour law changes advocated by the ruling Labor party.
Key independent senators sided with Australia's opposition Liberal-National coalition to split the Fair Work Act amendments, known as the Closing Loopholes bill, to remove sections regarding casual and labour hire employment that employers says will harm productivity and reduce labour sector flexibility.
Australian resources firm BHP has been especially critical of the laws as it employs around 4,500 of its Australian staff through its wholly-owned Operations Services division. Unions characterise this as an in-house labour hire firm, undermining union-brokered workplace agreements and underpaying staff.
BHP has rejected the claims and said it provides security of work and pay to miners previously working for independent contractors, while enabling it to boost production to take advantage of demand changes. It projected a financial impact of up to A$1.3bn ($830mn) annually if the laws pass.
BHP said the bill will "arbitrarily drive up wages in a sector which is already Australia's highest paid, creating further drag on productivity and harming Australia's global competitiveness", in a submission to a parliamentary inquiry dated 6 October
The opposition bloc in the Senate on 9 November passed four separate bills that provide simpler compensation for first responders suffering mental distress, expands the Asbestos Safety and Eradication Agency to recognise diseases from silica dust, increases workplace protections for victims of family and domestic violence and changes rules around small business insolvencies. These bills now return to the lower house of parliament the House of Representatives where the Labor-led government controls a majority of seats.
The senators argued these non-contentious changes should not form part of the omnibus bill. But Labor has slammed the Senate's actions and argued that "cherry-picking" of certain measures ignores the original bill's actions on wage theft and industrial manslaughter.
The government is now likely to reassess and redraft its original bill in consultation with the independents before reintroducing it to parliament next year.
