Industry-wide bargaining key to ending climate wars: union head

Sector-wide bargaining throughout Australia’s “industrial revolution” of transitioning to clean energy is key to ensuring the climate wars are dead and buried, a key union figure has said in comments that have heightened suspicions from businesses and the opposition about the government’s agenda on multi-employer bargaining.

Electrical Trades Union acting national secretary Michael Wright, who represents some 60,000 members, said replacing enterprise bargaining with industry-wide deals would ensure the consistency of the rollout of major projects.

“Social licence is key to keeping the climate wars dead and buried, and that social licence can only be delivered if this quiet industrial revolution is characterised by decent and secure work,” Wright said in a speech to the Labor Environment Action Network last week.

The government estimates more than 600,000 jobs will be created by its Powering Australia policy, which includes a $20 billion loan facility to private companies investing in grid infrastructure.

Wright also said the right for sector-wide strikes should be guaranteed, and while no one “goes to work because they want to go on strike”, the right to undertake industrial action should not be stripped back for sector-wide deals.

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“There’s an artificial distinction to draw between a major employer with hundreds of thousands of workers, those workers have access to industrial action, but a few hundred or a few thousand under a sectoral approach are denied it,” Wright said in comments made separately to the speech.

LEAN national co-convenor Felicity Wade said the organisation backed the ETU “entirely” on sector-wide bargaining “because the social licence for renewables has been severely eroded in regional Australia.”

“Cheaper power, lower emissions and better jobs are the keys to Australia’s energy future. That’s why we’re backing changes to workplace laws that will allow us to achieve those three goals,” Wade said.