Business Spectator 8 hours ago
Complaining that the Labor government is “moving further to the left” on industrial relations, the mining sector has declared the coalition as the business community's “last hope” to achieve its goal on workplace reforms, according to The Australian.
The Australian Mines and Metals Association (AMMA) has called on coalition leader Tony Abbott to commit to reforms to the Fair Work Act that would allow employers to reach four-year non-union deals with employees that ban strikes.
The organisation has written a letter to both Prime Minister Julia Gillard and Mr Abbott calling on both parties to support AMMA's agenda for workplace reforms.
The letter said existing legislation will not allow Australia to remain a “competitive destination for investment and job creation”, and AMMA chief executive Steve Knott went further in suggesting that the mining sector has given up on Ms Gillard and turned their focus instead to the Coalition to achieve their workplace law reform goals.
“The coalition is business's last hope to start to restore some balance,” he told The Australian.
Mr Knott said that the coalition should allow individual flexibility agreements to run for up to four years and be a condition of a worker accepting a job, while abolishing the provision that allows such arrangements to be terminated with 28 days' notice.