Industrial action is at near record lows but business will still blame unions

The industrial relations debate in this country usually involves business blaming labour for any problems in the economy, and using the slimmest evidence to hype suggestions that “the pendulum has swung too far in favour of the unions”. Last week, however, the Australian Bureau of Statistics revealed that the level of industrial disputes is at near record lows. And yet, despite this good news of industrial peace, rather than suggest the system is working well, we still only hear more calls from business demanding the system needs to be “reformed”.

Last Thursday, the latest figures for industrial disputes was released by the ABS. The release received little coverage – given it comes out at the same time as the monthly labour force figures that’s no real surprise.

But the figures showed the lowest level of working days lost owing to industrial action in a December quarter.

A mere 16,900 working days were lost in the quarter – a figure that sounds large, but it works out at just 1.6 days for every 1,000 employees. It’s a far, far cry from the days in the 1980s and early 1990s when as many as 106 days for every 1,000 employees a quarter were lost to strikes:

Comparing the industrial landscape now with pre-1994 is almost pointless. In December 1993 the laws regarding strikes fundamentally changed when the Keating government introduced protected industrial action.

This gave workers a legal right to strike but also narrowly defined the areas on which they could do so. For example, you could no longer strike in support of workers in another industry, enterprise or union.

The Industrial Relations Reform Act 1993 defined that a strike could take place if it was “about matters pertaining to the relationship between employers and employees”. Crucially, the strikes had to occur within the “bargaining period” of the enterprise agreement and only after certain levels of negotiation had occurred.

The laws reduced strikes almost overnight.

In the four years from 1990 to 1994, an average of 44 days for every 1,000 employees were lost to industrial action each quarter; in the four years after, this fell to an average of 22.5 days.

And yet even that level is now unbelievably high. The last time any quarter lost more than 22.5 days to strikes was December 1999.

In the past year there was just 6.8 days lost for every 1,000 employees – the second lowest level for a 12-year period:

If you had gone back to the period before the Rudd government introduced its industrial relation system in the Fair Work Act in 2009, commentary around the time would have suggested this scenario was impossible.

Back then, and in the period after the introduction of the FWA, the industrial disputes figures made the news, as media outlets were ever on the watch for a break out of industrial war that would see a return to the bad old days.

In 2011-12, when the level of days lost to strikes reached six-year highs, the knives were out for the FWA.

The Australian reported in March 2012 of the “the worsening industrial climate”, and quoted the Australian Industry Group industrial relations manager, Stephen Smith, who said “the figures painted a “very bad picture”, and that “it hasn’t been this bad for quite a few years now not since 2007.”

The Sydney Morning Herald reported the then shadow minister for workplace relations and now minister for employment, Senator Eric Abetz, as saying the figures showed that “we are seeing significant increases in industrial disputation”.

The next day the Australian followed up by reporting that the doubling of days lost to industrial disputes in the previous year was, according to business, the blame of “the bargaining provisions in Labor’s fair work laws”, which slightly broadened the reasons for which workers could take industrial action.

Business groups at the time suggested the FWA was “strangling national productivity”, and the chief executive of the Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry argued that because of the increase in the number of working days lost per strike there was a growing “severity in industrial clashes.”

So it’s a pity that now, when such good news regarding near record low levels of industrial action appears, it doesn’t get anywhere near the level of coverage.

The actual number of disputes in 2014 fell 14% below the number in 2013:

And as for “severity” of strikes, the number of days lost per industrial dispute in 2014 was just 380 – the lowest since the 368 days lost per strike in the 12 months to December 2007.

The results and coverage highlight the biggest problem with industrial relations – any suggestion of an increase in worker power through high wages or increased industrial action is immediately and widely condemned by business and conservative media. And yet, whenever data shows that wages restraint is occurring across the nation and that unions are not causing industrial war, there is little more than silence from those same groups.

Last Friday – the very day after the latest industrial disputes figures were released – the Australian reported that the Australian Mines and Metals Association was calling for the Fair Work Commission (which makes rulings on the legality of industrial action) to be disbanded and that there be a “one-year extension to workplace agreements for new projects” from four years to five “to limit industrial disputes and avoid delays”.

You would think an article which suggested the mining industry was the source of an over abundance of industrial disputes might at least make mention of the latest figures. But no.

The article quoted research undertaken by KPMG for the mines association that suggests “from 2009-13 the resources industry accounted for 28% of the working days lost due to industrial action”.

The figures by the ABS suggest otherwise:

Even by including figures not in industry breakdowns due to privacy, the mining sector from 2008 to 2013 would still only account for just 14.9% of all days lost.

Overwhelmingly, the biggest industries to be hit by industrial disputes were education & training and the health care & social assistance industry. By and large, these industries are not covered by the FWA, but involve agreements with state governments, accounting for 39.8% of days lost from 2008-2013.

And they were the major reason for the spike in industrial action that got business into such a tizz in 2012.

If we include 2013 and 2014 figures, the mining industry accounts for 13% of days lost to disputes since 2008.

Certainly on a per 1,000 employees basis, the coal industry was hit hard by industrial action in 2010-2011, when the FWA first came into effect. But it appears to have subsided greatly since then.

The Productivity Commission’s review into the workplace relations framework will examine industrial dispute provisions, and business groups will be arguing for a tightening of the reasons and timing in which employees can undertake such action.

But the data right now shows industrial relations landscape is overwhelmingly one of industrial peace.

I fully expect business groups to ignore the data – they always do.