Peter Strong: Discussion on collective bargaining is great, but small business needs protection against union intimidation

Ahead of this week’s Jobs Summit, there is a lot of cooperation and seeking of agreement between the Australian Council of Trade Unions (ACTU) and industry groups, including the Business Council of Australia (BCA) and Council of Small Business Organisations Australia (COSBOA), on the complicated issues of workplace relations. This includes discussion on collective bargaining, which is excellent. We go nowhere without dialogue. 

But, and it is a big and important ‘but’, will some unions force small business owners to ‘volunteer’ to join collective agreements via social media intimidation, or by withholding deliveries of goods and services, or even violence?

As extreme as it sounds, it has happened before. And it will happen again unless safeguards are put in place to protect small business owners. 

While most unions and union people do not engage in abusive and threatening behaviour, it is not a thing of the past.

There are numerous modern-day examples of coercive action by unions in the construction sector as well as hospitality, retail and transport.

When Sunday penalty rates were increased by some states to double time, as part of the Fair Work system, some small business people commented in the media that they might not be able to open on Sundays due to the increased cost.

Some of those businesses reported that, as a result of their comments, regular deliveries of stock and essential goods stopped soon after.

One of these business people, a friend of mine who was also a strong supporter of Labor, had to go cap in hand to the local Transport Workers’ Union (TWU) branch to apologise and say it would never happen again before her deliveries would be restored.

She would have lost her business and probably her health if deliveries to her shop had been permanently suspended and her workers would have lost their jobs, simply because she uttered a truth that the TWU did not want to hear. This is despite the TWU and the union movement turning a ‘blind eye’ to big businesses paying much less than double time on Sundays due to enterprise agreements negotiated with the retail union — the SDA.

Later, when various small businesses started a campaign around paying the same Sunday penalty rate as big businesses they found threatening behaviour from big boofy blokes hanging around their doorways and menacing their customers. They found in some cases their employees were also abused.

In 2021 I wrote an article about the safety of women in their interaction with unions. In that article I mentioned that Ged Kearney, who is currently MP for the federal electorate of Cooper and a former president of the ACTU, refused to condemn the harassment of women by union people,  saying ‘community will respond in any way they like’. 

More alarmingly, my article referenced the verbal abuse and physical intimidation that former Australian small business ombudsman Kate Carnell received from the then-head of the NSW branch of the TWU. Carnell also mentioned this incident on an episode of the ABC program The Drum. Not one feminist expressed anger or shock at these comments and events. 

Apparently, it is okay for women in business to be abused if they disagree with big unions and the political left. Why are these women not protected by the very same government that has seen fit to recently introduce domestic violence leave for all female workers?

In spite of these events, what we are not seeing from the government is any mention of how small business owners and their employees will be protected from a likely growing incidence of aggressive coercion by union representatives in relation to the new collective bargaining proposals.

And that is a very real issue. Union members and branches will definitely target small business people who say things they don’t like or fail to engage in ‘voluntary’ multi-employer agreements. Surely this ‘dark side’ risk for small business is something that should be talked about now?

We are likely to soon have new legislation on wage underpayment by employers. Will there also be legislation around “coercive behaviour’ of unions or their members to protect small business people, especially women?

There must be better protection of business people and their employees if any discussion around multi-employer agreements is to be entertained. Will, for instance, a business owner get a call or a knock on the business door from a union rep ‘asking’ if they would like to join a collective bargaining process being undertaken by a larger group of businesses in their sector? 

If a business is threatened by a union or deliveries ‘gets lost’ (or are damaged) they have no recourse. They will not be able to prove the intimidation and threats unless they are wearing a wire when it happens. If they complain they will be further targeted with more threats and illegal actions.

What is worrying is that we very rarely hear from the Prime Minister about small business. The Minister for Small Business seems to be there merely to shut down any negative comments from business associations.

If there is any return to the use of ‘collective’ agreements then we should similarly outlaw union coercion. The government should make it a criminal offence for a union person to contact a small business about collective agreements — ever. That should only be the role of industry associations. It should also be a criminal offence to contact employees in small business to force them to join a union.