Grim warning that Australia is being 'hijacked' by union bosses - as a national strike now looms that will bring the country to a grinding halt

Daily Mail​

a day ago

Australians are being warned unions will use crippling national strikes next year to hijack supply chains which could stoke inflation under Labor's new workplace laws.
Anthony Albanese 's Secure Jobs Better Pay Act, introduced in 2022 during Labor's first term, has revived multi-employer bargaining, handing power back to unions.
It allows wage rises in one workplace to be replicated across an industry without the need for separate enterprise negotiations.
But unions are already warning of potential coordinated strike action at 200 firms including airlines, supermarkets and haulage companies to leverage big pay deals.
Analysts fear it could result in inflation-busting wage rises, which could result in soaring costs for consumers if productivity fails to keep pace with the increases.
Treasurer Jim Chalmers is now planning to host a Productivity Summit at Parliament House in Canberra later this year in a bid to avoid an economic output crisis.
But new Opposition workplace relations spokesman Tim Wilson has warned union chiefs will use multi-employer bargaining to bring industrial chaos to Australia.
'The Transport Workers Union will use multi-employer bargaining to hijack supply chains, squeeze businesses and pass on higher costs to customers,' he told Daily Mail Australia.
'So long as Albanese's multi-employer bargaining remains in place, Australian customers will continue to pay more so unions can leverage their power.'
Wilson last month narrowly won back the Melbourne bayside electorate of Goldstein from former Teal MP Zoe Daniel and was parachuted back onto the Opposition frontbench by Coalition leader, Sussan Ley.
But he warned Labor's landslide re-election will now embolden unions to cripple Australia economically for the next three years.
'The only solution to stop unions pushing up costs on Australians is to find a better balance at the election,' he said.
'But now the Albanese government has been re-elected, Australians should expect more industrial action and higher costs until we see a change of government.'
TWU national secretary Michael Kaine last month predicted that 200 enterprise agreements expiring in 2026 will be an opportunity to launch widespread strikes.
'Make no mistake – this will be the largest co-ordinated industrial campaign in Australian transport history,' Kaine told the TWU's national conference in Brisbane in May.
'This alignment of agreements isn't accidental. It's been carefully orchestrated to maximise our collective bargaining power.'
Workers are allowed to strike without fear of being sacked during enterprise bargaining negotiations, under provisions of the Fair Work Act of 2009 introduced by a Labor government.
Enterprise agreements expire next year at airlines Qantas and Virgin Australia, logistics companies Linfox and Toll, Amazon, supermarket chain Aldi, construction materials company Boral, waste disposal chain Cleanaway and airport ground handling firm Swissport.
Kaine, whose union is affiliated with the Labor Party, had vowed to shut down Australia's transport sector.
'We are prepared to shut down Australian transport,' he said. 'There will be disruption. It will be significant. It will be coordinated. And it will be effective.'
Albanese tried to sound conciliatory on Tuesday, emphasising that unions only thrived when private-sector employers were successful.
'Well, we're a Labor government, we support unions existing and some of the commentators prefer that unions didn't exist,' he told the National Press Club on Tuesday.
'That's the truth. But we will always respect both the role of business and the role of unions.
'And one of the things that I say is that there are common interests that – I say this to unions as well: you don't get union members unless you've got successful employers. It's the private sector that drives an economy.'
Output at Australian workplaces is going backwards with productivity plunging by one per cent in the year to March.
Gross domestic product per capita shrunk in the March quarter, threatening to revive a per capita recession that had persisted from early 2023 until the September quarter of 2024.