Kobelke makes collective call

SMALL businesses need to band together to get the same deals as supermarket chains if they are to stay competitive. This will be particularly the case if retail trading hours are deregulated, according to Consumer and Employment Protection Minister John Kobelke.

With deregulated trading hours looming as a very real possibility, one of the complaints many small retailers have is that larger competitors such as Coles and Woolworths can put together an enterprise bargaining agreement with the Shop Distributive and Allied Employees Association that gives them greater wages flexibility.

Small shops without the protection of that deal would be faced with paying double time and a half to stay open on Saturday afternoons, Sundays and Monday public holidays.

Mr Kobelke said a change the Government made to the Industrial Relations Act included a provision for good faith bargaining, which would allow businesses to apply to the WA Industrial Relations Commission to get the same industrial deal as their competitors.

“If a small retailer thought the union had done a deal with Coles or Woolworths, they have a better structure to say they want the same deal,” he said.

However, the cost of doing that would probably put it out of the reach of most small businesses.

Mr Kobelke said small retailers could band together into collective associations to put a joint case to the commission if they felt they needed to secure the same wages deal as major retailers.

Town of Vincent Mayor Nick Catania, who is also the head of the WA Council of Retail Associations, attempted to create an employers’ union called the Small Business Association of WA. That application was rejected by the WAIRC.

Mr Kobelke said small retailers were used to dealing with an awards-based system be-cause the uptake of workplace agreements under the previous government had been low.

He pointed to Australian Bureau of Statistics and government figures showing that the highest take-up of workplace agreements in WA had been 9 per cent and, that within restaurants, cafes and hotels – industries that deal with seven-day trade – the take up was only 14 per cent.

Mr Kobelke said the Government had been unable to get a figure from the Federal Government on how much of the annual $70 million payments it gave would be held back if trading hours were not deregulated in WA.

“The best we could get was in a letter to Premier Geoff Gallop that says it would be ‘substantial’,” he said.

Another problem facing small retailers is unconscionable conduct from landlords.

The Government is considering changes to commercial tenancies laws that will give the State’s tribunals more power to deal with unconscionable conduct and even anti-monopolies allegations.

However, the report dealing with that has been given to Small Business Minister Clive Brown to progress.

Business groups have been critical of the Government for what they believe is a soft stand on union militancy.

At the head of the list of complaints, as it has been for most of the 750 days Mr Kobelke has been in office, has been the Government’s move to dismantle the highly regarded Building Industry Task Force and replace it with the Building Industry and Special Projects Inspectorate.

Admittedly, had the Court Government been returned for another term it was thought likely that the BITF would have been disbanded anyway.

Mr Kobelke denied that the Government was soft on unions, saying that it was governing for all Western Australians and listened to all pressure groups, including the unions.

He also refuted any suggestions that the BISPI was an ineffective group, citing its one successful prosecution of Construction Forestry Mining and Energy Union assistant secretary Joe McDonald as an example.

“The majority of the adverse findings from the Cole report [Royal Com-mission into the Building and Construction Industry] were against Commonwealth law. Only 14 per cent were against State law,” Mr Kobelke said.

“More than half of the cases considered by the commission were under the previous government.”

Mr Kobelke has also been arguing that industrial disputation has fallen since the Gallop Government came to power.

However, building industry groups such as the Master Builders Association, say that is because with no effective watchdog, builders are too scared to stand up to militant unions such as the CFMEU and just give in to their demands.

“I think that’s just a point of view,” Mr Kobelke said. “You have to keep in mind that the building industry is going pretty flat out at the moment.

“They have an issue that we have disputation on some sites but not all. The Woodside tower development had major problems but I met with the head contractors recently and they say it’s going well now.”

Mr Kobelke refused to say whether he would back the proposed Federal construction industry watchdog.

That is something the building industry lobby groups say is crucial if there is to be any cultural change within the industry.

“We’re waiting to see what the Commonwealth response is to the Cole report,” Mr Kobelke said.