Failed Bill hits small business hardest

The decision by the Australian Senate to reject the Ensuring Integrity Bill will suffocate small businesses who don’t have the money or muscle to withstand repeated attacks from lawless unions.

“This is terrible news for small businesses and small sub-contractors,” ACCI CEO James Pearson said.

“Union exaggerations and misinformation have trumped the real concerns of not only thousands of small businesses but also a succession of judges who have repeatedly implored the Government to update the current workplace laws.

“Small businesses don’t stand a chance against pressure from the worst fringes of the union movement.  Individual workers don’t stand a chance if they don’t want to join a union.

“People in small business across the country thought the Senate was going to protect them. Instead, they woke up this morning to the news that unions such as the CFMEU have been given the green light to continue their deliberate business model of threats of violence and intimidation, and other breaches of the law, to force small employers and workers who choose not join unions to roll over.”

Mr Pearson said that comparisons between corporate Australia and the worst fringes of the union movement overlooked the fact that some unions seemed to be able to break the law with impunity and some union bosses thumb their noses at the law, while CEOs and executives who do the wrong thing lose their jobs.

“When there’s a Royal Commission in other areas, Australians expect action. We expect banks to be held to account for the way they treat their customers and we expect institutions to be held to account for the people in their care.

“There have been four Royal Commissions into union behaviour and still the Parliament has refused a law that would protect people in small businesses when some unions threaten, coerce and bully them and their workers.

“ACCI applauds the Coalition’s efforts to tackle unjust elements of our workplace relations laws. They have tried, and we encourage them to continue to try, to reform Australia’s workplace relations system, and to hold wrongdoers, be they in unions or employer groups, properly to account through the Ensuring Integrity Bill.”