John Durie: COSBOA IR reform debate intervention too little too late

The Council of Small Business Organisations Australia (COSBOA) has made a late entry into the industrial relations reform debate today, calling for more time and expressing concern at the bill’s increased complexity and multi-employer bargaining.

The call came as some members have asked where COSBOA’s stance on the issues were.

COSBOA belatedly released a statement on Thursday noting “small businesses are against being forced into multi-employer bargaining, especially where they are backed by strike action or union involvement”.

Member questions about the organisation’s involvement in the debate come after a controversy back in August when many felt that the small business member association had been used by the ACTU and the government to apparently support the proposed reforms.

The facts are the level of COSBOA support was overplayed and its public statements at the time before the job summit stopped well short of backing multi-employer agreements.

COSBOA chair Matthew Addison told Smart Company on Thursday “we just agreed to more open discussion on the issues”.

COSBOA has been making its views known via statements and press commentary, so the issue is one of perception more than fact.

In politics perception counts and being seen is as important as being able to get the job done.

As a representative body comprised of smaller industry groups COSBOA has to take a macro view – leaving the individual organisations to tackle the fine details.

“Too little too late”

Increased questions about its lack of visibility on IR reforms prompted the release of a statement on Thursday that said all the right things but smacked as being too little too late.

It comes ahead of the meeting on Friday of key member the Master Grocers Association which will be Jos de Bruin’s last as boss.

If COSBOA is restricted to the big-picture debate there is still plenty to say about the IR bill.

Questions include the impact on competition of multi-employee bargaining, which means deals with big companies are imposed on small companies that do not have the same ability to withstand the costs. Inevitably the small company gets hurt.

The government has promoted the bill as helping workers to better wages without saying a word about productivity.

If companies can be more productive they can pay higher wages but nothing from the government has gone close to arguing this case.

The IR debate is being led on the business side by the Australian Industry Group and ACCI which are the traditional workhorses in the field — part of the IR club.

Other organisations like the Minerals Council and BCA have sought a united business front against the bill but from COSBOA there is some reluctance to join forces with big business.

This is a pity because a united business front is key for an issue that some argue threatens the economy.

COSBOA chief Alexi Boyd said in a statement today that “the true implications of this bill are not known. We call on the government to allow the time and process for the impact to be discussed and understood”.

She is correct but perhaps should have called this out earlier ahead of a raft of others saying the same thing.

An industry group needs to represent the membership and, having effectively opened the door on the bill before the Jobs Summit, COSBOA needs to be on the front foot.

Perhaps criticism of the pre-Summit deal has left the organisation gun-shy even after laying down its IR charter in October.

Thursday’s statement noted: “Whilst we are supportive of some aspects of the proposed bill, we need to address the wall of complexity small businesses face when employing people. They compete with the large businesses for talent in an already tight workforce, they don’t need more hurdles to jump through.”